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Russia & Israel: Trump Faces High-Stakes Decisions On World Stage; Israel Security Cabinet Approves Plan To Take Over Gaza City; White House Preps For Possible Putin Summit; Trump Nominating Tariff Architect To Fill Vacancy At The Fed; New Series Shows Impact Left By Hurricane Katrina. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired August 08, 2025 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:00]

NICK VIALL, HOST, THE VIALL FILES PODCAST: What these people are doing in the villa and I think it's just very this cool for people to see and then obviously I think when we watch reality TV, it's a kind of a lens into our own lives. I think a lot of people will either watch themselves. They, you know, they get reminded themselves. It reminds them and act. Sometimes we get triggered by people we see and we think, oh, that reminds me of someone I dated.

So I think it's it connects with people on a bunch of different levels, but it's all just very much kind of just a reflection of like today's society. A little heightened, obviously a little messy, but I think --

MJ LEE, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

VIALL: -- that's why a lot of people love it. It creates a lot of like water cooler talk, a lot of people going to work and just saying, (INAUDIBLE).

LEE: All right. Nick.

VIALL: We would happen as I'm discussing it and that's a lot of --

LEE: Nick, we are out of time, so we'll talk more about this later, but thank you so much for joining us and thank you all for joining us here on "Early Start."

"CNN THIS MORNING," starts right now.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: High stakes decisions for President Trump on the world stage as a Russia ceasefire deadline expires and Israel moves forward with a plan to occupy Gaza City.

"CNN This Morning," starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: We're going to we're going to see what he has to say. It's going to be up to him. Very disappointed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, will President Trump stick to his sanctions threat or save face ahead of a meeting with Vladimir Putin?

Israel confirms a plan to fully take over Gaza City now they're facing sharp criticism from the world and also from some Israelis.

And the Texas governor says it's time for those Democratic lawmakers to come home.

The feds say they'll make it happen. Do they even have that power?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, weapons down, weapons down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Nearly 20 years later, but it feels like yesterday. A new documentary looks at the manmade disaster after Hurricane Katrina.

And President Trump threatens to federalize D.C. after an attack on an ex-DOGE staffer. Can he do that?

And an offensive foul on the WNBA court. Now we know a bit about who's behind the sex toys being thrown during the game

It's 6:00 a.m. here on the East Coast. There's a live look at the sunrise in New York City.

Want to say good morning to everyone in the Big Apple. Also, good morning to you. It's Friday, August 8th. I want to thank you for joining us.

This is "CNN This Morning."

We're going to start with President Trump because he's facing two enormous global challenges. How to stop deadly wars in Gaza and Ukraine. These are wars he vowed to end on day one of his presidency.

Now his deadline for the Russians to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine or face sanctions? Well, that deadline is now Trump and Putin are supposed to meet next week.

And this morning, Israel facing backlash from its people after making its goal for Gaza clear a takeover of Gaza City.

The Prime Minister doesn't want to stop there.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Will Israel take control of all of Gaza?

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We intend to in order to assure our security, remove Hamas there, enable the population to be free of Gaza and to pass it to civilian governance. That is not Hamas and not anyone advocating the destruction of Israel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: We're going to bring in CNN's Oren Liebermann. He's live in Jerusalem. Good morning, Oren.

Can you tell us a little more about this plan? Is there any kind of timeline?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF (on-camera): There is. The plan overall is expected to take up to five months, although it can certainly take longer than that, Audie. And it could go into effect or begin very soon here.

The first phase, according to Israeli officials, is to force the evacuation of Gaza City and push the Palestinians there, up to one million Palestinians, south in the besieged territory. That would go along with Israel and potentially the U.S. building up the humanitarian effort there, including more aid distribution sites.

But crucially, Israel has made it clear those sites will not be in Gaza City itself. That means Palestinians will be forced out of the city if they're trying to get some of the little food available in Gaza. Then the military operation would proceed in Gaza City itself, and that would be what was approved early this morning, a takeover of Gaza City, again with up to a million Palestinians, as Israel tries to push forward, tries to destroy Hamas. These are now stated goals. We have already seen some of the backlash

As the Security Cabinet was meeting in Jerusalem, there were protests across the country, including major protests in Tel Aviv and others just outside the Security Cabinet meeting that went on for hours. So you see, and we have seen in repeated polls, that a majority of the country supports a comprehensive deal to end the war, as well as in exchange for the return of the hostages.

But that now seems a very distant goal, and President Donald Trump's promises to bring this war to a close seem very far off indeed.

[06:05:05]

We are, of course, also seeing anger from the hostage families who, frankly, have been waiting now for more than a year and a half, nearly two years at this point, to see their loved ones again. In fact, Yehuda Cohen, the father of hostage Nimrod Cohen, told the BBC this morning, quote, Netanyahu prefers the hostages dead because it's going to make it easier for him.

So, you get a sense of the frustration and the anger of these family members that have been waiting so long to see their loved ones in captivity, and that's not to mention the risk of the worsening humanitarian and starvation crisis that we have seen play out in Gaza over the course of the past several weeks and months. Audie.

CORNISH: It's Oren Liebermann giving us a state of play from Jerusalem. Oren, thank you.

Now I want to bring in the conversation about Russia, where Trump's ceasefire deadline comes ahead of a potential summit with Putin. Could the Ukrainian president also become involved? Well, Trump has told European leaders there is a good chance, but he told CNN's Kaitlan Collins something else.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So for you to meet with him, he doesn't have to agree to meet with Zelensky. Is that what you're saying?

TRUMP: No, he doesn't. No, no.

COLLINS: So, when do you think that meeting will happen?

TRUMP: They would like to meet with me, and I'll do whatever I can to stop the killing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: But is Putin on board?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translation): I have been repeatedly saying that I, in general, have nothing against it. This is possible.

But before that, certain conditions should be created. And unfortunately, we are still far from creating such conditions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now in the group chat, Betsy Klein, CNN senior White House reporter, Lulu Garcia-Navarro, CNN contributor and New York Times journalist, she's also podcast host of The Interview, and Virginia Allen, writer and producer for The Daily Signal.

Thank you all for being here.

Betsy, I want to start with you for two reasons. When it comes to Netanyahu and Putin, those seem like immovable objects for Trump. And I don't know if I'm misreading that, but very much Trump and Witkoff have always talked about the hostage families in Israel. Their priority is hostages first.

When I look at Israel's five principles for ending the war in Gaza, hostages is not first. It's disarming Hamas, which they've been unable to do. What is the White House saying about all this?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER (on-camera): That's right. I mean, these have been the two most intractable conflicts for President Trump since he's taken office. It's been a source of enormous frustration that it hasn't been something that he's easily been able to resolve.

But on the question of Russia, I think this is the moment of extreme uncertainty for the future of this conflict. Today is that deadline for Putin to end the war that Trump imposed just a few weeks ago. It's also a time that he's been threatening these secondary sanctions on other countries that work with Russia.

At the same time, he's expressed openness to this potential summit with Vladimir Putin. Summits like this take a significant amount of legwork to plan, both from a logistical and security perspective, as well as from a deliverable, what can they get done perspective.

CORNISH: So, we shouldn't make this too high stakes. It sounds like the White House wants to say, look, we're just getting this thing going. That's the progress so far.

KLEIN (on-camera): Certainly.

CORNISH: Yes. You guys, I don't know which of these you want to tackle, but Lulu, you've done a lot of international reporting. What do you see in this?

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR (on-camera): I was based in the Middle East for a long time. You know, there's a reason why Bibi Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin have been in power as long as they have. They've dealt with many, many, many U.S. administrations. And what you can see is the result of that.

This administration came in with a lot of promises. They haven't been able to move what are admittedly really difficult conflicts. But the improvisational way in which Donald Trump deals with this, setting deadlines and laying the deadlines move, saying maybe, maybe not, you know, in regards to Ukraine, talking about, you know, the same situation in Gaza, actually there has to be a humanitarian aid. Oh, you know, well, maybe not.

You know, all these things lend and give, provide opportunity for two very savvy political operators to push in and do what they want to do --

CORNISH: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO (on-camera): -- do what they want to do that's best for, they believe, their country.

CORNISH: You're just saying you hear people saying that Trump's getting played by Putin, basically.

I don't know, Virginia, how you're --

GARCIA-NAVARRO (on-camera): I mean, he's getting strung along. I mean, he's getting, I mean, that is clear.

CORNISH: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO (on-camera): He came in very clearly saying he wanted an end to both of these conflicts, and that has not happened.

CORNISH: Yes.

VIRGINIA ALLEN, PODCAST HOST, THE DAILY SIGNAL: Well, and I think that the President has expressed so much frustration because of that, because I think he's felt that. I mean, he went in and he's had multiple conversations, these two leaders, Putin and Trump haven't met since 2018, but they've had multiple phone calls since Trump returned to the White House.

And the President was obviously optimistic at the beginning of, I can go in, I can get a deal, we can negotiate this out. But he said, you know, Putin will say one thing, but then his actions are completely different.

So what I'm going to be watching is, you know, is an in-person meeting, are the results different? And we know that Trump really thrives in that man-to-man, leader-to-leader dynamic.

And so is he able to really --

CORNISH: Yes.

ALLEN: -- push Putin on this and get a deal done.

[06:10:00]

CORNISH: Especially after all those phone calls usually resulted in further bombing of Ukrainian cities. So.

GARCIA-NAVARRO (on-camera): And I'll just also say, I don't hold out much hope here, and the simple reason is, you know, this is actually something that Putin himself has wanted. He wants to be able to say, I am meeting with the American leader, I am being given this imprimatur of being able to negotiate the conflict, but on the ground, there is absolutely zero sign that Vladimir Putin is interested in negotiating any kind of --

CORNISH: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO (on-camera): -- reasonable peace deal with Ukraine. What he is interested in, and has always been interested in, as actions have shown, is territorial expansion.

CORNISH: And in the meantime, Ukraine is not a part of these talks. We're going to talk about this more today. You guys, please stick around.

Coming up on CNN this morning, President Trump appoints his tariff architect to fill a job at the Fed. So, is this a tryout for a bigger role?

And she's the children's content creator of the moment, Ms. Rachel, not shying away from advocating for Gaza.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) RACHEL ANNE ACCURSO, YOUTUBER: I've worked with children my whole life, for 20 years. So, I knew that what I was seeing was wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:15:36]

CORNISH: It's 15 minutes past the hour and here's your morning roundup.

Medals for the hero soldiers who subdued a disarmed and active shooter at Fort Stewart on Wednesday.

Staff Sergeant Aaron Turner tackled the suspect who was trying to reload his weapon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STAFF SGT. AARON TURNER, U.S. ARMY: I ended up engaging him as far as talking, trying to down talk him and trying to ensure the safety of the staff that was behind me to get out and then eject the round and then by that time frame MPs ended up showing up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Army officials say they still don't know why the active duty sergeant shot five fellow service members. Three of the victims have been released from the hospital.

President Trump says he's done talking with India and will not be engaging in any more negotiations on tariffs. He's threatened India with a combined 50 percent tariff rate if it does not stop buying oil from Russia. That's set to start later this month.

The architect of the President's tariffs may soon have a job at the Fed. Stephen Miran has been nominated to temporarily fill a vacancy on the Federal Reserve's Board of Governors.

He'll need to be confirmed by the Senate and it's unclear if that will happen by the next meeting in September.

And because Betsy's here in the group chat, you're the only one who actually knows really who Stephen Miran is.

KLEIN (on-camera): Yes.

CORNISH: But people keep talking about him in relation to Jerome Powell.

KLEIN (on-camera): That's right. And he's certainly not a household name, but is widely credited as an architect of the President's tariff policies. He's been a very trusted voice for President Trump on economic issues. But we are seeing sources close to the White House starting to float him as a potential replacement for Jerome Powell.

And this really marks the first start of how President Trump could reshape the Federal Reserve.

CORNISH: Yes. And Wall Street will be watching stick with us, because straight ahead on CNN this morning, after an ex-DOGE staffer was assaulted on the streets of D.C., President Trump wants to take over the city.

Can he do that?

Plus, it's been 20 years this month since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, the lessons learned since the mega disaster.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:21:57]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There goes another house. Holy Christ. We're down (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast 20 years ago this month, leaving at least 1,200 people dead from Alabama to Louisiana. But nowhere was it more catastrophic than New Orleans, where the levees failed, putting 80 percent of the city underwater. A new docuseries from National Geographic called Hurricane Katrina, Race Against Time, is talking with those who lived through this and are still living through it two decades later.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANGELA CHALK, EMERGENCY RESPONSE VOLUNTEER: There were so many people with the same issues trapped, and the lines were furiously busy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please, please, I'm begging you, we can't stay here. I can't breathe, my God, I can't breathe up here.

CHALK: We were asking folks what their addresses were. And in finding out, it didn't matter what your address was, because the force of the water had moved homes off of their foundations.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Now, Katrina felt like a once-in-a-generation catastrophe at the time, but in the decades since, we've seen eight of the costliest hurricanes in U.S. history, from Harvey in Texas to Sandy in the Northeast.

Joining me now to discuss is the director of the new docuseries, Traci Curry. Traci, thank you so much for being with us.

TRACI CURRY, DIRECTOR, HURRICANE KATRINA: RACE AGAINST TIME: Thanks for having me, Audie.

CORNISH: So, this documentary is incredible. It tells it from the point of view of the people who lived it. We're not hearing from a lot of institutions --

CURRY: Yes.

CORNISH: -- and things like that. And I think people forget that some of the hardest-hit communities were made up of people who couldn't afford to evacuate. But what I remember from covering the aftermath at that time, there was a kind of lack of sympathy for the victims, and in cases where they even had guns turned on them.

What did you find as you reviewed the footage?

CURRY: Yes, I think some of that lack of sympathy was coming from people wondering, well, why didn't you leave? You knew the storm was coming. It's New Orleans. Hurricanes happening, happened. The mayor issued this mandatory evacuation the day that the storm was coming, by the way.

But one of the things that we see in the film is that there were these sort of intersections of race and class that really informed the choices that people were making about whether to leave or whether or not to leave. New Orleans primarily was running on a tourism economy. Those jobs don't pay a lot of money.

And so if you remember, Katrina came at the end of August and the beginning of September. Many people had spent all of their money on school supplies, which we hear people talking about in the series. These are a lot of sort of poor and working class people.

And think about what goes into evacuating. You got to have a car. In order to make that car go, you have to have gas. You have to have a destination. Is that a hotel? How much does that cost? How much are you paying for that?

And so, there were really these sort of bigger systemic and institutional issues that dictated the choices that a lot of people made. There were a lot of disabled and elderly people who were unable to get out.

[06:25:09]

And the shocking thing that we see in the first episode is that all of this was known, that the city and state and federal officials had run sort of a simulation of sorts that eerily predicted almost exactly what happened during Katrina. And they understood that there was going to be a significant population up to 100,000 people, I believe it was, who would be unable to get out. And there were no provisions made for those people. And unfortunately, what was predicted in that simulation is exactly what happened.

CORNISH: And there were all these fears of looting afterwards, right, as the newscasters were sort of showing those images. One of the things that struck me is you talk about the ecological concerns. And --

CURRY: Yes.

CORNISH: -- you talk about the things you just mentioned here. But so much of the legacy of that was the emergency response coming from FEMA.

CURRY: Yes.

CORNISH: The head of FEMA, Michael Brown. And so while people were still fighting --

CURRY: Yes.

CORNISH: -- for their lives, you had the White House, the President, saying this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE W. BUSH, FMR PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: I want to thank you all for, and Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job. The FEMA director's working 24 hours.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Now, that was already considered, you know, kind of a political problem. People don't look at that fondly.

CURRY: Yes.

CORNISH: But then you had Russell Honore, who was the joint military commander --

CURRY: Yes.

CORNISH: -- military commander at the time --

CURRY: Yes.

CORNISH: -- who was coordinating relief efforts. And here's how he looks back on it.

CURRY: Yes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GEN. RUSSELL HONORE, U.S. ARMY (RET): I'm trying to coordinate where the buses are so I can answer the mayor's questions and deal with the press. But 72 miles away in Baton Rouge, this son of a bitch is waiting in lines to go in a restaurant. I mean, there was some stupid shit happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I feel like people never looked at FEMA the same way again. And do you -- CURRY: Yes.

CORNISH: -- agree with people who look at how President Trump talks about FEMA, right? Doing away with it, letting states take more of the disaster response. Is that a reflection of this legacy?

CURRY: Well, you know, Audie, what's really interesting is that in the film, you hear from a guy named Marty Bahamonde. And Marty was the only person with FEMA on the ground in New Orleans when the storm made landfall.

And one of the things he told me, and this isn't in the film, is that after Katrina, FEMA learned some lessons. And part of what they learned was, and it's, I guess, a bit of a dirty word these days, but that you have to take equity into how you approach these disasters on the front end and the response on the front end, which is to say that these disasters affect everyone, but they affect some people more than others.

And that the people who are most vulnerable for whatever reasons, whether class, age, disability, on the front end of the storm are the people who are going to have the hardest time recovering on the back end of the storm.

So, if you center the needs of those people in the way that you prepare and respond, it not only helps them, it helps everyone. And I'm sorry to say that it feels like that that sort of approach has fallen out of favor under the current administration and the current understanding of FEMA and what its roles and responsibilities are.

CORNISH: Traci Curry is the director of the new docuseries, Hurricane Katrina: Race Against Time. It's streaming now. Please check it out.

And Traci, thanks for being with us.

CURRY: Thank you so much.

CORNISH: After the break on CNN this morning, a wildfire in California on track to become a megafire today. The punishing heat wave fanning the flames.

Plus, why are people throwing sex toys on the court at WNBA games?

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