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President Trump To Meet With Russian President Vladimir Putin On Possible Ceasefire In Ukraine War; Police Officer And Gunman Dead After Shooter Opens Fire On Centers For Disease Control And Prevention Building In Atlanta; Demonstrators Gather In Tel Aviv To Protest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Plan To Occupy Gaza City; Justice Department Issues Subpoenas To Office Of New York Attorney General Letitia James; Immigrants Declining Farm Work Due To Fears Of Ice Raids And Detention; Retired Army Lieutenant General Russel Honore Interviewed On FEMA's Current Readiness For Hurricane Like Katrina in 2005. Aired 2-3p ET

Aired August 09, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: All right, tonight, the new CNN original series "American Prince" takes a look at the life of JFK Jr. and his lasting legacy. Tune in to the premiere tonight at 9:00 p.m. right here on CNN.

Hello again, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me from Washington, D.C. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

And we begin this hour with the White House preparing for a critical meeting with Russia's president just days from now. President Trump says he will sit down with Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, betting a face-to-face meeting could yield a breakthrough in his goal to end Russia's war on Ukraine. That meeting, however, is drawing new reaction from Ukraine's President Zelenskyy after Trump suggested, I'm quoting now, "some swapping of territories," end quote, could be needed. Earlier today, Zelenskyy said his country will reject any peace plan that involves ceding land to Russia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Ukraine is ready for real solutions that can bring peace. Any decisions that are against us, any decisions that are without Ukraine, are also decisions against peace. They will not give anything. They are dead solutions. They will never work. And we all need a real living peace that people will respect.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: CNN's Nick Paton Walsh is joining us live from Ukraine. Nick, what does it mean that Ukraine and it's president, Zelenskyy, are not likely to be included in these upcoming talks?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: It means that we might see some kind of deal hatched between the United States and Russia that is then essentially presented to Ukraine to accept. Now, there have been urgent moves by Ukraine and it's European allies to firstly understand better what the first permutations of the kind of deal that seem to have been discussed by President Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, in his visit to Moscow and appear to be part of the foundations of this Alaska summit on Friday, exactly what the details of those are, and then for the European leaders, too, to convey their sense of solidarity with Ukraine, who don't want to cede territory, obviously, politically toxic here for the military, who've lost thousands of soldiers defending the land that they still hold in the Donetsk region, too.

The permutations of the first sort of draft of this plan seem to suggest that Ukraine might be asked to cede the remainder of territory in the Donetsk region. They hold a little bit in Luhansk as well. Give those up in exchange purely for a ceasefire. But then that would suggest that Vladimir Putin has given up on his wider goal of controlling all of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, which were part of his original war plans. Is that really the case? Are there further details or permutations to properly be understood here?

That's, I think, what some of the urgent meetings we're now seeing in the United Kingdom between Vice President J.D. Vance, European national security advisers and the U.K. foreign secretary David Lammy, is about trying to spell out, to first get the chance for the European allies of Ukraine to lay out what they would indeed like to see. We've had a long-term demand from the U.S., Europe and Ukraine for an immediate, unconditional ceasefire. That's something that Trump himself has stepped back a little bit from. It's something that Putin has outright refused. He's always said that there need to be technical monitoring and preparations ahead of any ceasefire like that. But that is something clearly Ukraine would want to see first before you even start talking about territorial settlements.

President Trump's idea of a swap, hard to know what that would look like. There's not much, really, that Russia has occupied that it would seem willing to give back. Perhaps tiny parts of land to the north of Sumy or Kharkiv that they've taken as a buffer zone, in the words of Vladimir Putin, that may potentially be part of this.

But look, instead we are seeing a very advantageous series of days now in the lead up to a very advantageous summit in Alaska for Vladimir Putin. First visit to the U.S. in 10 years, a real rehabilitation on the world stage. U.S. and Russia only talking about Ukraine without Ukraine.

[14:05:00]

Ukraine left on the sidelines, hoping it's going to get brought into this conversation. Very much what we saw early on this year in the Gulf meetings between the U.S. and Russia, and now European allies, the French, the British, the Germans all telephoning here, Kyiv, to express solidarity with Zelenskyy, speaking amongst themselves, clearly trying to reestablish that unified front against whatever has been cooked up, it seems, in Moscow, with Steve Witkoff. Real anxieties, though, about what may emerge from Alaska. Fred?

WHITFIELD: All right, Nick Paton Walsh in Ukraine, thanks so much.

All right, let's get more analysis now. Simon Shuster is senior correspondent for "Time" magazine and author of "The Showman," a biography of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. So good to see you, Simon. So, you know, is this a chance to end war or prolong it? I mean, what is it all contingent on?

SIMON SHUSTER, AUTHOR, "THE SHOWMAN": Well, my reporting over the last couple months has really focused on the process that led up to the announcement of this summit between Putin and Trump. And that process has involved a really interesting backchannel between the White House and the Kremlin, with multiple Trump administration officials essentially having this conversation about what it would take to arrange such a summit, what it would, what it would mean.

And the main go-between there was Putin's closest ally in the world, Alexander Lukashenko, the dictator of Belarus. So through that channel, the two sides were essentially sizing each other up. And I should say, very importantly, Putin and his ally Lukashenko were trying to stall for time. All of this, these backroom negotiations were going on in the spring and summer of this year as Putin's forces were trying to move forward, a plodding advance but a significant advance, seizing more Ukrainian territory.

And through those backchannel conversations with the Trump administration, they bought themselves a lot of time. So, yes, I think there's a lot of reason to worry here that Putin could be trying to do the same thing, essentially making Trump stop threatening Russia with sanctions, tariffs, and so on, and begin a dialog that Putin can draw out and use to continue military advances.

WHITFIELD: So, in other words, Putin would be entering this summit with the American president in Alaska without genuinely wanting to end this war. I mean, it does sound like it's prolonging it. And so I wonder with this, you know, with this meeting, does -- what kind of demeanor, you know, needs to come from Trump to perhaps get the upper hand if Putin already has this kind of ulterior motive by way of, you know, assistance from Belarus?

SHUSTER: Yes, the tone that Trump takes is very important here. As we've seen in the last few months, as the buildup, the diplomatic buildup has happened toward this summit, we've seen that Trump and the Trump administration have generally taken a very kind of courteous tone toward Putin. They've offered him every manner of olive branch and offer of ceasefires, all of which Putin rejected until Trump seriously began not only to threaten economic pain through tariffs and sanctions, but to begin imposing them.

Just this week, and only then, we saw Putin say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's slow this down. Let's have Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff come to Moscow. Let's arrange a summit. And that quickly lowered the temperature and softened the tone coming from Trump. So what we saw, to summarize, is when Trump gets tough, Putin quickly backs away and begins to maneuver. But as long as Putin is treated with this kind of respect, courtesy, deference, he continues to drag things along and continue the war. WHITFIELD: But is Trump getting tough if he's already ahead of this

meeting said out loud that a swapping out of territories will have to happen, and that it would be to the betterment of both. And already Zelenskyy is saying no, they're not giving up any land. I mean, that's what this war is about in the first place. So, I mean, it doesn't sound like there is going to be any real potential coming from this meeting that would end the war. I mean, so is this a nonstarter, in other words?

SHUSTER: You're right. There was only a very brief moment when President Trump began to get tough and impose real economic consequences on Russia for this war.

[14:10:01]

And it stopped, that toughness, as soon as the talks about the summit started publicly, right. The announcement of the summit. Now it all seems hunky dory between Trump and Putin as they prepare this very public meeting, again sidelining the many of the stakeholders in this war, crucially, the Ukrainians and, of course, the European allies of Ukraine and the United States, whose security has a lot at stake in the way that this war ends. So right now, we don't see any toughness coming from Trump, because he's now preparing for this one-on-one meeting in Alaska.

All right, Simon Shuster, great to have you. Thank you so much.

SHUSTER: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right, and more on our breaking story out of Atlanta, where a frenzy of gunfire left one police officer dead. The suspected gunman also dead, and the CDC on lockdown for hours on Friday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigations says the gunman, possibly motivated by a hatred of vaccines, opened fire on the country's top public health institute, terrorizing the agency and neighboring Emory University and Emory Hospital. The panic also stretched to a nearby daycare, where parents were caught in a tense lockdown as they waited to pick up their kids. The gunman was later found dead on the second floor of a CVS across the street from the CDC.

CNN correspondent Rafael Romo has more details from the scene in Atlanta. Rafael, great to see you again. So you're getting firsthand accounts from people who witnessed the shooting. And what are they saying?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SENIOR LATIN AMERICAN AFFAIRS EDITOR: Yes, that's right, Fred, as you can imagine, very scary moments for these people. And late this morning, Atlanta police removed the crime scene tape around this CVS pharmacy behind me where the shooting took place and where police say they found the body of the suspected shooter on the second floor.

Across the street from here is the CDC campus that, according to officials, the gunman, identified as 30-year-old Patrick Joseph White, was firing at. 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.

We have also heard from witnesses, including a man who was at this intersection waiting for the light to change, and told CNN affiliate WSB at first, he thought the man carrying two backpacks on the sidewalk was unloading fishing gear until he heard shots being fired.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's when I realized that they were -- I think I saw two rifles, but 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 into CDC's campus.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I get up to the top and that's where I saw a cop in the middle of the intersection. I heard the gunshots and I saw the smoke.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: Atlanta police say there was one single shooter involved who died during the incident, but it's not clear if he was struck by gunfire from responding officers or from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. 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 DeKalb County authorities.

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 VIDEO CLIP)

LORRAINE COCHRAN-JOHNSON, CEO, DEKALD COUNTY, GEORGIA: 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 VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: And CNN has also confirmed the mother of the fallen officer worked at the Emory University Hospital ICU for 17 years, the same facility where he died yesterday. She no longer worked there and was not part of the medical team trying to save his life. Emory police announced they are stepping up patrols on campus this weekend with the assistance of the Georgia Tech Police Department, but only as a precaution. Fredricka, now back to you.

WHITFIELD: Oh my gosh, so sad on so many levels. Thank you so much, Rafael Romo.

All right, still to come, Israel now facing a backlash over its plan to take over Gaza city. A live report on the message being sent to Benjamin Netanyahu. And later, the growing concern over how the Trump administration's immigration crackdown could impact the nation's food supply.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:19:43]

WHITFIELD: All right, happening right now, demonstrators take to the streets in Israel. They're protesting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plan to occupy Gaza City. Several Middle Eastern countries, as well as Germany and the U.K., are among global voices condemning the plan.

[14:20:00]

Satellite imagery shows Israel building up its military forces near 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 at the protest. And I wonder, Matthew, if this is so unpopular, we're seeing it at the demonstrations, then why in the world is Benjamin Netanyahu going forward with this?

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's a good question. And I think the answer to that, if you ask any of the thousands of people that have come here tonight on this sweltering evening in in Tel Aviv, they would say that this is a political war, that it's Benjamin Netanyahu giving the right wing in Israeli politics on which he depends for his fragile coalition what they want.

And I spoke to a guy just a minute ago before we came on the air, and he was like, look, the political constituency, the people that want a further occupation and invasion in Gaza, are basically the same people that don't send their sons and daughters to the military in Israel for the most part. And so there's a great deal of bitterness amongst the vast majority of Israelis that do send their children into the military about the fact that that's taking place.

I mean, look, there is an exhaustion across Israel. For more than two years people here have been engaged in conflicts, whether it's in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, more recently in Iran as well. And people are tired. They want conflict to end. They want the country to return to some kind of normality. There's concern about what a further military operation might do to the morale of the army, the international image of Israel, which has been highly criticized.

But most of all, I think particularly here on Saturday night in Tel Aviv, where there's a weekly protest, people are genuinely frightened about what might happen to the hostages still being held inside Gaza now that this decision has been taken for a military operation to take place. There are 50 hostages still being held by Hamas, Palestinian and Islamic Jihad, others potentially inside the Gaza Strip as well, these militant groups. Twenty of them are still believed to be alive. And people here want, more than anything else, the war to stop and for these people to be brought back as soon as possible. And if that means a deal with Hamas and that's the quickest way to do it, and many people here believe that it is, that's what the majority of Israels Israelis want to see happen, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: Understood. All right, Matthew Chance in Tel Aviv, thank you so much.

All right, still to come, for many it is hard to believe that in this country, hurricane Katrina made landfall 20 years ago this month. But the people who lived through it will never forget. We'll look back at the legacy and recovery efforts in New Orleans with Lieutenant General Russel Honore joining us just a few minutes from now.

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[14:27:39]

WHITFIELD: All right, right now in California, some progress being made in the fast moving Canyon fire that is burning just north of Los Angeles. Mandatory evacuations that were in place have been lifted, but residents are still being encouraged to stay alert. The wildfires started Thursday and has already burned more than 5,000 acres, with 28 percent containment at this hour. Thursday marked the hottest day of the year in much of the region as temperatures hit or exceeded 100 degrees.

The new CNN original series "American Prince, JFK Jr.," follows the story and lasting legacy of John F. Kennedy jr. From his early years that were marked by his father's assassination to his decision to create a new political magazine called "George", and his iconic love story with Carolyn Bessette. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Michael had a very commercial mind. He was more of a businessman. He understood numbers. He understood marketing. He understood how to sell a product. He brought a certain discipline to the process that John perhaps lacked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In addition to the fact that political magazines wouldn't sell, the experts early on advised us of just one other key point -- never go into business with a friend.

Well, being right one time out of two ain't bad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was a process of hashing it out. I think it was during that period when I had my first conversation with John about it, and he obviously had bought into the idea and was very excited about it. So the two of them together created "George".

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: All right, remember the remarkable life of John F. Kennedy Jr. and his lasting legacy on the new CNN original series, "American Prince, JFK Jr." It's premiering tonight at 9:00 p.m. right here on CNN. All right, still to come, as backlash grows over the Trump

administration's immigration crackdown, we'll look at the fear that is keeping farm workers out of the fields.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:34:21]

WHITFIELD: All right, the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James is now facing subpoena from the U.S. Justice Department. This after a grand jury opened a probe into James's investigations of the Trump Organization and the National Rifle Association. James is among a list of people perceived as Trump's political enemies, and last year, she won a civil fraud case against him. Her supporters say the president is trying to get retribution. CNN's Brynn Gingras reports.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sources telling CNN that two subpoenas have been issued to James, and that a grand jury has been convened in Albany.

[14:35:01]

And the nature of what this grand jury and this investigation is looking to according to sources, is whether. Or not James. Violated the. Constitutional rights of Donald Trump when investigating him and his company and his sons, which eventually led to that civil lawsuit that was filed against him in 2022 by James's office.

Remember, that lawsuit led to a civil fraud trial where James accused Trump and his sons of inflating their assets in order to have some financial gain. Well, the DOJ at this point saying that they think that there was some criminality in that, and it's being investigated. It's not the first time that James has been at the center of one of the investigations by the DOJ. We also learned in May that she, or that the FBI, rather, was looking into James and her real estate transactions.

Now, if you talk to James's office, of course, they think this is just a sign of political retribution. We did get a statement from them in regards to this news of these subpoenas being issued. And Abbe Lowell, her attorney, says "Weaponizing the Department of Justice to try to punish an elected official for doing her job is an attack on the rule of law and a dangerous escalation by this administration."

The DOJ did not want to comment on this. And it is important to note it's unclear what stage this is all in, but it's certainly something that we'll continue to keep an eye on.

Brynn Gingras CNN New York.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

WHITFIELD: All right, sources tell CNN that the IRS has started sharing sensitive taxpayer data with immigration authorities. It's all part of President Trump's massive deportation push. In April, the Treasury Department and the Department of Homeland Security signed an agreement to turn over information about undocumented immigrants who DHS says are already facing deportation orders and are under federal criminal investigation. As CNN's David Culver reports, the Trump administration's immigration crackdown is taking a significant toll on farm owners.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Are any of them still salvageable or not?

IAN CHANDLER, FARMER FACING WORKER SHORTAGE: No. There's not really anything you can do with them at this point.

CULVER: You've got more than 30 acres of this farm with rotting fruit. I mean, these are cherries that at one point were pretty appetizing but right now were more than two weeks past their prime.

CHANDLER: It's also lost revenue for the workers that would have been able to pick them had they been here.

CULVER (voice-over): Oregon farmer Ian Chandler says about half his usual crew didn't show up this season.

You're calling them, I assume, individually and saying, what's going on?

CHANDLER: Yes. Yes. Yes. And so --

CULVER: What are they telling you?

CHANDLER: Well, in the beginning of the season, it coincided, unfortunately, with a lot of really strong immigration enforcement down in Southern California where our workforce comes from.

CULVER (voice-over): While Ian says his workers are hired with what seemed to be a valid I.D. and work papers, fear of ICE raids kept many of them from traveling north this year. To understand why, we head south to Central California.

So we're hoping that one of those farm-working families will actually talk to us here and give us a sense of what life is like in hiding.

Thank you. I think you're good. No names or anything there.

Behind closed doors, making dinner with her mom, we meet Lisa.

LISA, MIGRANT FARMWORKER IN HIDING: Every single summer, we would go up there. My parents or myself, we will pick cherries. But this year, we decided to stay home just to be safe.

CULVER: Because you're living essentially as though you're going to be targeted at any moment?

LISA: Yes. CULVER: You've got to buy food.

LISA: Yes.

CULVER: You've got to go shopping. You do do leave for that?

LISA: Yes, I have to. I mean, someone has to in the house.

CULVER (voice-over): Lisa is here under DACA, a program that gives temporary protection to people brought to the U.S. as children. Her three young kids, all U.S. citizens.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is my new avatar.

CULVER: You can tell they get kind of bored, like cooped up inside, spending hours in front of the TV and on their phones, tossing a frisbee with himself.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It says "Life is good."

CULVER: Life is good.

Lights stay off to keep cool. Shades down for privacy. Her husband and dad undocumented but working to keep money coming in as they're out.

Is that your phone?

LISA: Yes, that's my phone.

CULVER: Go ahead if you want to get it.

Every alert from her phone sparks a brief panic.

LISA: It's OK. I'll call him back.

CULVER: But it's her mom she thinks about most. Still picking crops in her 60s.

LISA: I would like to point that out. My mom is not a criminal, and it hurts. Sorry.

Back in 2020, when the whole pandemic happened, my parents were being considered essential workers. And now they have to hide.

CULVER: Back north in Oregon, farm manager Manuel Nava also noticed several no shows this year.

MANUEL NAVA, CREW SUPERVISOR: Last year we probably had like, probably five families coming from California. They just do the picking. And this year we missed them.

[14:40:01]

CULVER: They didn't show up.

NAVA: They don't show up. CULVER: Others continue working. One woman, 75 years old, and determined to keep working even once the hour has stopped, asking, can I just collect two more buckets?

She says she doesn't find the work too difficult compared to jobs she had in Guatemala. Workers here earn about $5 a bucket and average anywhere from $15 to $35 an hour.

KATIE BOTTON, FARM OWNER: We hire them just like any other employee. We have an I-9 and W-4 filled out for every employee.

CULVER: Are they paying taxes?

BOTTON: Yes. All of that is taken out of their checks.

CULVER (voice-over): While some may be using false IDs, others here have legal status. But it doesn't matter. Fear runs deep.

Katie started to post more and more signs, making it clear this is private property. This one even requesting that anybody who comes on to property, visitors and vendors, must go through the office here to sign in. She's done this as a way to reinforce to her workforce that they're in a safe space, to try to protect them and to be a barrier of anyone who might come in and target them.

NAVA: Right now you can see there's 84 people watching what's going on.

CULVER (voice-over): Manuel says WhatsApp is just one piece of a growing underground network that many migrant workers rely on.

Francisco Aguirre is one of the voices behind those warnings. From the basement of a Portland church, he's getting the word out.

FRANCISCO AGUIRRE, ACTIVIST AND ASYLUM SEEKER: We are OK with the government enforcing the law and detaining those who come and do bad in the country. But that's not what is happening. We are detaining families who sustain this country.

CULVER: I was noticing on my Ring app that there are now notifications about where ICE may or may not be. And then people on Waze, the app, will even choose icy conditions on the road to signify that there's some sort of federal operation going on.

AGUIRRE: We have our own ways to communicate that we don't disclose, sorry, you know.

CULVER: You won't tell me some of those ways.

AGUIRRE: We won't.

CULVER (voice-over): Francisco has lived in the U.S. undocumented since the mid '90s, fleeing violence in El Salvador. Despite prior arrests, he says he's not interfering with ICE, but rather trying to clarify what's really happening amid rumors and fear. And he is not hiding. AGUIRRE: I mean, I am afraid. I would lie if I say no, I'm not afraid. You know, but I'm trying to do the right thing.

CULVER: What do you say to folks who say, just by you talking about this, you're attracting potential ICE attention?

CHANDLER: Well, they are part of our community. Just like my arm is connected to my body, they are part of us. So it's not just a matter of just like cutting them off and be like, all right, see you later. If we lose them, we lose part of who we are as well.

CULVER: One of the things that stood out to us in speaking with those farmers is that they point out this could go well beyond agriculture impact. They say that these workers that follow the fields all the way north, following the crops to work throughout the season, will move from farm to farm and then into other industries -- construction, landscaping, even making Christmas wreaths for the holiday season. They say if the workers aren't going up there to pick the crops, then they're not going to be in place to then help those other businesses.

David Culver, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[14:00:00]

WHITFIELD: All right, welcome back. This summer has already brought historic flooding to the U.S., and today, parts of the Midwest are bracing for more severe weather. Catastrophic flooding in Texas last month claimed the lives of at least 135 people, with more than 35 children among the victims.

And while the rising waters this year are not the result of a hurricane, we only have to look back to 2005 as a reminder to see how quickly a hurricane can change everything. In three weeks, New Orleans and the Gulf coast will mark 20 years since hurricane Katrina made landfall. That powerful storm left nearly 1,400 people dead and caused more than $200 billion in damage in today's dollars, making it the costliest hurricane in U.S. history.

I'm joined now by retired Army Lieutenant General Russel Honore. He served as the commander of the joint task force Katrina, which was responsible for coordinating military relief efforts for that storm recovery. And General, great to see you.

LT. GEN. RUSSEL L. HONORE, COMMANDER, JOINT TASK FORCE KATRINA (RET): Good afternoon, Fred.

WHITFIELD: It's hard to believe it's been 20 years. But, you know, overall, are cities in a better position today to prepare for flooding?

HONORE: Yes, better prepared with the alert and warning systems. Some of that was deteriorated in the last six months because of the meteorologists we lost as a result of DOGE. But the infrastructure was significantly improved after Katrina. We still have some way to go, as well as the process and procedures for responding to storms have been improved significantly since Katrina because we expanded the size of FEMA, to triple the size of it was. But in the last six months, they've lost about a third of their employees.

[14:50:03]

So while the process and procedures are there, we don't have the manpower we had even six months ago to be able to deal with the alert and warning as well as the preparedness and the evacuation of people, as we saw in the July 4th flooding in Texas, Fred.

WHITFIELD: And in fact, you're going to be speaking at a Katrina anniversary event tonight, right, sponsored by the group Levees.org. Are you confident the levees that were rebuilt and strengthened following failures during hurricane Katrina can withstand another storm, I guess, as powerful or tantamount to Katrina?

HONORE: Well, the standard that the government gave the corps is build a levee protection system to a category three storm. But, Fred, once we learn since Katrina, the category of the storm does not dictate the flooding threat to New Orleans, because New Orleans levee system was originally built to deal with flooding, high water from the north coming down in the springtime and overtopping the levees like it did in 1927, that developed all this infrastructure and developed governance.

Katrina, on the other hand, pushed water up into Lake Pontchartrain and into a part of that flood protection system into the canals. And when the 17th Street Canal burst and the ones in the Ninth Ward, the city flooded and 80 percent of the city was underwater. So Levees.org was one of those NGOs developed after Katrina to keep the focus on the local governance of those levee boards that actually operate the levees. The corps engineers build it, and it's turned over to state appointed officials that maintain the levees. And they've been a big role in ensuring in our legislature and keeping the citizenry involved and how we can best protect the levees. And they've done a great job. And I'm speaking there tonight. This is the third event in New Orleans this week. So this is a busy time.

WHITFIELD: It is indeed. In the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, you know, it did expose a lot, you know, a lot of failures from the national government to state and local levels. President Trump is planning to phase out FEMA after this hurricane season. You already remarked on the reduction of FEMA staff thus far. And the president is hoping to shift the responsibility for response and recovery onto the states. Are you concerned about whether states can handle it?

HONORE: I'm very concerned. You know, until 1979, when President Carter established FEMA, it appears that this current administration wanted to go back to what we did in the 30s, 40s, and 50s where we had individual agencies responding to governors' requests. That will take us back into the 30s level of governance.

Things have changed since then. FEMA has evolved. We've got the flood protection system around New Orleans, but it still could flood if we had another Katrina that came in and the water came in stronger in the lake than it overtopped the levees. So it could be a repeat.

But I strongly recommend the president not to act on a whim. I think they got a heads up on July 4th that they need FEMA, that they need somebody out front to coordinate the not just the response, but the recovery. And hopefully there's some -- don't destroy FEMA, Mr. President. Make it an independent agency and take it out of Homeland Security, because right now Homeland Security is taking money out of FEMA to build detention camps. They've told FEMA employees this week, you've got to go help with deportation. If you don't go, we're going to fire you. We need to get FEMA back under the White House, under the original intent. It only went there after 9/11 under the Bush administration.

But FEMA should be a separate organization working for the executive branch, and FEMA should be neutral party. Regardless of whether you're a red state or blue state, you get the equal assistance. And right now, that's not happening, Fred. And I hope the president -- that decision.

WHITFIELD: Well, perhaps the president is listening to Lieutenant General Russel Honore. So glad to see you. Thank you so much.

HONORE: Katrina 20, be prepared to evacuate. That is the bottom line. You've got to be prepared to evacuate. Thank you. Fred.

WHITFIELD: Really powerful lesson. Thank you so much.

All right, straight ahead, new developments on the war in Ukraine as President Trump now prepares for a meeting with Vladimir Putin on U.S. soil.

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[14:59:26]

WHITFIELD: OK, ahead of National Dog Day later on this month, CNN's Harry Enten is bringing you some highly newsworthy and maybe surprising facts about man's best friend. Today he's talking about traveling with your dog.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICS WRITER AND ANALYST: If you're like me, you love your summer road trips. But you love your dogs even more, so you want to bring them along. Here's me and the Chuckster over here. Here's me, and a very young me at that, with the very young Cody over there. Of course, you want to keep your dog safe when you're on those summer road trips, so number one piece of advice, don't leave the dogs alone in the car, because outside it could be as cool as 70 degrees. Inside, the car could jump up to 110 degrees.

Of course, keeping a dog safe goes beyond just keeping them cool. Let's say the car is in motion, right? We want to buckle up that dog. We want to keep the dog secure. Less than 20 percent of us do it, but it's rather easy. You can do it in a nice secure crate over here. Or how about a special seat belt? Of course, sometimes the cars stop, right? And I can remember Chuckster when the car would be stopped, he'd try and run away. Maybe the fireworks might scare him a little bit. But here is the best way to ensure that you can get your dog back as quickly as possible. Microchip your pooch, because sometimes our friends try to run out on their own. Of course, we want to bring them back nice, safe, and secure.