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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

At Least 111 Dead, 170+ Missing In Texas Flash Floods; U.S. President To Impose 50 Percent Tariff On Copper Imports; Trump Vents Anger Toward Putin Amid Stalled Peace Efforts. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired July 09, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:25]

MIN JUNG LEE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to our viewers, joining us from the United States and all around the world. I'm MJ Lee. Rahel Solomon is off.

It's Wednesday, July 9th, 5:00 a.m. here in Washington, D.C.

And straight ahead on EARLY START.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The dramatic jump from 18 to over 170 known to be missing in Kerr County alone, came as a total shock.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The more time that passes, it becomes harder and harder to become optimistic. But we're not stopping.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: President Trump's comments about his Russian counterpart at that cabinet meeting on Tuesday were really so striking.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not happy with Putin. I can tell you that much right now.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Donald Trump, sitting down for a second meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

TRUMP: I think we're going to have it solved pretty soon, hopefully, with a real solution.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: More than five days after flash floods swept through central Texas, search and rescue operations are still underway, despite fading hopes of finding anyone still alive. It was the deadliest U.S. freshwater flood in nearly 50 years. At least 111 people have died. More than 170 people are still missing, and police say no one in hard- hit Kerr County has been found alive since Friday.

But teams on the ground are not giving up and neither is Texas Governor Greg Abbott.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R), TEXAS: Know this: we will not stop until every missing person is accounted for. Know this also: there very likely could be more added to that list.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Abbott surveyed the damage at camp mystic, the all girls camp where at least 27 people were killed, including young campers and counselors. The governor says state lawmakers will address the emergency alert system in the coming session. State officials are facing questions about why evacuation orders were not issued ahead of the floods and about the overall breakdown in communication. CNN has learned that Texas officials twice rejected funding applications from Kerr County for a flood warning system. The county applied in 2016 and 2017, but was not granted the money.

Here's the mayor of Kerrville.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE HERRING, JR., KERRVILLE, TEXAS MAYOR: We've lost precious families, precious children. I wish to God there was a way we could have rewarded them. And that's the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: CNN's Isabel Rosales brings us the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That dramatic jump from 18 to over 170 known to be missing in Kerr County alone came as a total shock to first responders and volunteers that I spoke to here on the ground in Center Point, also in Kerr County.

This is what they have been working toward trying to give families here answers as to what happened to their loved ones. In this site that you're looking at right now, they're draining this lake trying to get access, they tell me, to a vehicle that is submerged to make sure there's no one inside.

Meanwhile, questions are being raised if Kerr County officials gave residents enough warning.

Officials during a press conference wouldn't commit to a timeline of when they knew the floods posed a deadly threat and avoided repeated questions as to who knew what and when.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott, he was asked, too, during a press conference who was to blame, and in his response, he used a football metaphor. Listen.

ABBOTT: I'm going to use your words. Who's to blame? Know this, that's the word choice of losers. Every football team makes mistakes. The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who's to blame. The way winners talk is not to point fingers. They talk about solutions.

ROSALES: And CNN obtained new records showing that two days before the deadly flash floodings, there was actually a state inspector on the ground in Camp Mystic that certified that the camp had an emergency plan in place, and that the cabins and other buildings, they were safe.

Now, Camp Mystic, he confirmed, this state inspector confirmed that it had a state mandated plan for, quote, "emergency shelter and for evacuation in case of an emergency." This plan would have also, the state tells us, had information on what to do in case of flooding.

[05:05:02]

Of course, this report is raising all sorts of new questions about whether the plan in place there at Camp Mystic, whether it was adequate and whether it was actually followed during the emergency.

Isabel Rosales, CNN, Center Point, Texas.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: Scottie Stice is the director of disaster relief for the Southern Baptists of Texas convention. He joins me now from Waxahachie, Texas.

Scottie, I am really grateful for your time this morning. I understand your teams have been on the ground in Kerrville since July 4th.

Tell us about the relief work that they've been doing these past few days.

SCOTTIE TICE, DIRECTOR OF DISASTER RELIEF, SOUTHERN BAPTISTS OF TEXAS CONVENTION: Thank you for inviting me. And our team did hit the ground on the Fourth of the afternoon there, after getting the calls that morning that just horrified us as we began to see how this was rolling out and the tremendous loss of life, as well as property damage.

But we have a feeding team that's been there since Friday. This is a quick response feeding unit, which is like a food truck, and were able to serve small quantities of meals. So, we're there supporting first responders. Any residents that come by. And, of course, feeding our own volunteers.

We also have chaplains and assessors in the field. Chaplains will be seeking to serve any spiritual needs they come across offering encouraging word, a prayer, scripture, sharing with residents. Our assessors are out doing what we call needs assessments, looking for needs that we'd be able to respond to, to help local residents.

Of course, everything is moving kind of slow as recovery continues. LEE: So, you're talking about the efforts to make sure that people

are just being fed. What else do you think the people who were hit by these floods need most right now, as they try to just piece their lives back together? I know a lot of people are also wondering how they can help and pitch in.

STICE: Well, what we believe is that most -- need to know that the rest of the world cares. So, as a Southern Baptist organization, a faith based organization, we want to communicate that we care. We're there. We care. We'll meet any need that we can find.

They've lost property. Excuse me -- they've lost homes. They've lost possibly businesses and businesses impacted, the obvious loss of life that's happened there.

So, they're suffering. They need to know that we care and that we'll be there to serve them.

LEE: Yeah. And you know, with each passing day, I think just the sheer scale of this tragedy has really started to come into focus as we've learned more about the people, including, of course, the very young campers who didn't make it. Talk to us a little bit about all of the different emotions that your teams on the ground have encountered there the last several days across the community.

STICE: The -- I guess the single one-word answer would be that the community is in shock, tremendous loss. They're in shock. They're looking for answers. You know, they're still searching for victims. So that's got to be impacting the -- their thoughts.

I can't imagine sending my kids to camp and hearing about floods and kids not coming home from camp. They're just the not only are the -- those families in shock, but the community, the state of Texas, the whole country and the whole world. And so, we just seek to be there, seek to serve, our volunteers would tell you that they're there, and it's difficult, but it's not about them. It's about serving the survivors.

LEE: Yeah, really difficult to imagine everything that the community has to process right now.

Scottie, President Trump says that he is going to be visiting. What do you think your teams on the ground would want to hear and see the most from the president when he visits?

STICE: I think the visit of the president, any president to a site just brings that care factor in the presence that the nation cares, that he cares, that that funds or resources will be made available as communicated to the federal government.

And so, it's always a special day when the president comes. It's a moment of encouragement. We have had the president's -- President Biden last year during Hurricane Helene, came to one of our sites and visited with the volunteers. That's an encouragement to the volunteers, and it's an encouragement to the community. LEE: Scottie Stice, thanks to you and your teams for everything that

you're doing. And best of luck. Thanks again.

STICE: All right. Thank you.

LEE: And to the west of Texas, flash floods have also tormented parts of New Mexico, where at least three people are missing and nearly 100 people have been rescued.

[05:10:01]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh my god. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Those fast-rising floodwaters were powerful enough to sweep away an entire house. The deluge hit a popular mountain retreat in the southern part of the state. Authorities urged people to seek higher ground as a nearby river rose nearly 19 feet, or almost six meters, in just minutes. Theres no word yet on casualties. However, the full extent of the destruction also won't be clear until the water recedes.

President Trump is threatening to escalate his trade war. The latest tariff targets a valuable metal and economic alliance, and medicine will have those details.

Plus, President Trump says U.S. weapons shipments to Ukraine will continue. And hours later, Russia launches its largest ever drone attack on the country. We'll have the new details in a live report.

And it's been a quarter century since an American man has hoisted the Wimbledon trophy. But could the drought soon be over? We'll bring you the latest ahead of the semifinals later this hour.

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[05:15:36]

LEE: The U.S. president is unveiling plans for even more tariffs. He now says copper imports will be hit with a 50 percent levy, but didn't say when it would take effect. The threat caused prices of the metal to hit an all-time high.

Last year, the U.S. imported $17 billion worth of copper, a crucial component in electronics, machinery and cars.

President Trump also revived his plan to slap 200 percent tariffs on pharmaceuticals, saying an announcement is coming very soon. He's argued that the U.S. needs more domestic drug manufacturing, but acknowledged that could take a while. This all comes a day after the White House pushed back its so-called reciprocal tariffs against these 14 countries to next month.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: The big money will start coming in on August 1st. I think it was made clear today by the letters that were sent out yesterday and today. Go ahead please.

SCOTT BESSENT, TREASURY SECRETARY: Yes, sir. We will take it in about $100 billion in tariff income thus far this year. And that's with the tariffs. The major tariff not having started until the second quarter. So, we could expect that that could be well over $300 billion by the end of the year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Right now, Wall Street doesn't seem overly concerned about the growing tariff campaign. U.S. stocks were mixed on Tuesday. The Dow fell about a third of a percent. The S&P closed marginally lower, and the Nasdaq gained slightly.

Here's a look at the U.S. futures for the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq are all expected to open slightly higher as uncertainty over the tariffs continue to loom.

And Donald Trump is once again venting his anger at Russian President Vladimir Putin as the U.S. president's efforts to broker a peace deal with Ukraine continue to fall short. During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, he expressed his frustration by using an expletive. President Trump said the Russian leader throws a lot of B.S. at the United States, offering very nice words that turn out to be meaningless.

Those remarks appear to be the clearest sign yet of the U.S. presidents growing frustration with Moscow, which has shown no willingness to end its war in Ukraine. Just a short time ago, the Ukrainian government said Russia launched more than 740 drones and missiles overnight, its largest such attack since the war began.

President Trump says he plans to press U.S. defense contractors to step up their production of weapons and munitions to help Ukraine defend itself. The president, who had promised to end the war in Ukraine on day one of his second term, now admits it's tougher than he expected.

Still, he has stopped short of endorsing new sanctions on Moscow.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We're dealing with him now, too. That's -- we're not happy with Putin. I'm not happy with Putin, I can tell you that much right now, because he's killing a lot of people, and a lot of them are his soldiers, his soldiers, and their soldiers, mostly. And it's now up to 7,000 a week. And I'm not happy with Putin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: We'll go live now to London and CNN's Clare Sebastian.

Clare, tell us more about these latest drone attacks. CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. MJ, this was not only a

record, but it absolutely smashed through the previous record set just four days ago, 728 drones and 13 missiles. The injury and death toll. We've had no reports of fatalities so far. Just one injury in a suburb of Kyiv.

I think striking as well that most of these drones we're hearing were targeting an area really close to the Polish border in western Ukraine. The town of Lutsk is just over about 50 miles from the Polish border, which is a NATO country. And the attack was so intense that Poland had to scramble its fighter jets. Not, I should note, for the first time in this war.

So, a high rate of repelling the drones and missiles from the Ukrainian air force. But still, this is an exponential escalation, 728 drones is more than we would get in a single month this time last year. So, this really obviously concentrates the minds in Ukraine when it comes to what were hearing from President Trump.

Yes, we're seeing the anger and frustration consistently rising. And that has been coming over the past few weeks. And obviously, that's very welcome for Ukraine after bouts in the past, we've seen of anger directed towards Ukraine.

[05:20:00]

That along with the promise of new weapons, is very significant. But, of course, the question now for Ukraine is when this will happen. Russia clearly not waiting around to find out. And they're treading a very fine line diplomatically. We see on the one hand, you know, a hefty dose of gratitude and flattery, for example, the head of President Zelenskyy's office Andriy Yermak, his right-hand man, gave an interview to "The New York Post" on Tuesday.

And he said, look, we've seen President Trump's recent messaging on Ukraine. And frankly, we're impressed. No exaggeration, he says the clarity, the leadership, the determination. He goes on to say, we truly appreciate it, and says he's the only leader who can make Putin move not just to this imitation of the negotiations, but real negotiations.

So, this clearly playing towards the sort of the flattery that we've seen from various quarters of the U.S. President. But on the other hand, I think Ukraine has to point out that its still not enough. And we see renewed calls this morning off the back of these drone attacks from Zelenskyy for more and tougher sanctions on Russia.

LEE: All right. Clare Sebastian in London, thank you so much.

Meanwhile, were learning more about the Trump administrations decision to pause weapons shipments to Ukraine last week before the president later said that those shipments will continue. Five sources familiar with the matter tell CNN that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not inform the White House before he authorized that pause on military aid during the cabinet meeting on Tuesday, President Trump suggested he didn't know who was responsible for the decision. The White House says the Defense Department conducted a review to, quote, ensure all support going to all foreign nations aligns with America's interests.

Live now to Julia Manchester, politics reporter for "The Hill" here in Washington.

Julia, it's great to see you.

Theres a lot from yesterday's cabinet meeting that I want to dissect, but let's first talk about this new reporting that Secretary Hegseth didn't inform the White House before he authorized this pause on weapons shipments to Ukraine. This decision, that, of course, was then reversed.

What do you make of the back and forth? And should we expect real fallout for Hegseth?

JULIA MANCHESTER, POLITICS REPORTER, THE HILL: Yeah. Good morning, MJ.

Look, if you look at Pete Hegseth's tenure, very short tenure so far as secretary of defense, we've seen that it certainly has been rocky in terms of his press coverage there, of course, was signal gate, and we saw that the white house very much came out in defense of him, you know, multiple times. He's often seen with the president. I think the president likes to see Pete Hegseth on TV, very telegenic. That really fits what Trump is looking for in a position like this.

However, I think the more negative stories we see coming out about, you know, potential miscommunications between the White House and the Department of Defense, that may not bode well for Hegseth, potentially, you know, particularly when President Trump is put on the spot about it in an area such as a cabinet meeting.

And it seems that President Trump, you know, if you just look at that cabinet meeting in general, was frustrated with the situation in Ukraine, particularly with Russian President Vladimir Putin. I think President Trump obviously wants to see this conflict ended as soon as possible. You know, even though President Trump's relationship with Ukrainian leaders has certainly been or Vladimir Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, has certainly been rocky, I think he's very frustrated by this ongoing conflict.

And, you know, the administrations not being able to necessarily facilitate a ceasefire or a pause between Russia and Ukraine. So, I think going forward, I don't know if Hegseth necessarily treading on, you know, walking a very fine line at this point. But I think the more negative stories don't bode well for him.

LEE: Yeah. And another moment of frustration for President Trump in that very newsy cabinet meeting yesterday was when he was asked about Jeffrey Epstein and this new DOJ report that said that he had died by suicide and that there is no evidence of a client list.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: Are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy has been talked about for years. You're asking -- we have Texas, we have this, we have all of the things. And are people still talking about this guy, this creep? That is unbelievable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: And then right after that, Attorney General Pam Bondi, who you saw there sitting just one seat away from the president, had to do some cleanup.

Explain why there is such fury about the DOJ's Epstein report inside the MAGA world.

MANCHESTER: Well, look, I think the MAGA world was expecting more transparency. They were expecting to see more information on Jeffrey Epstein, not to see, so much redacted. I think this was played up so much that, you know, they were expecting to get more, and they simply did not.

So, you're -- this is a moment of frustration for President Trump because it's coming from his own base, his own base. That was particularly interested in finding out more about this case and getting more information. And, you know, President Trump, you know, to his point there, he'd rather be talking about the passage of the one big, beautiful bill, and you know, how that's going to be implemented. The administration's response to the flooding in Texas.

So, you know, it's for him. I think it takes the spotlight away from those issues. And he's forced to confront this divide within his own base or this frustration with within his own base about a character who simply, you know, he has past ties to, et cetera. He doesn't necessarily want to talk about.

LEE: Yeah. And you definitely wonder if there could be fallout for Pam Bondi in any way, too.

Julia, there's also just more tariffs news. Trump says he's imposing a new 50 percent tariff on copper imports. Theres going to be new tariffs coming on pharmaceuticals as well.

All of this is on top of the new tariff rates that he plans to impose on many countries starting in August. What do you think the end game is for President Trump when it comes to tariffs?

MANCHESTER: Well, the administration says they want, you know, countries to essentially pay their fair share for pharmaceuticals. They want more pharmaceuticals to be produced here in the United States. So, it's difficult, I think, for the administration right now because they want to talk this tough game on tariffs and they want to use this, you know, this tool of negotiating and leverage with a number of these countries.

The problem is right now here in the U.S., we could see, you know, continued increases in pricing, which is a big problem for President Trump and Republicans. Trump very much campaigned on this issue of lowering costs, lowering inflation. So, there is a risk with this strategy.

You know, the administration is also combating, I guess, stories, rhetoric, that the TACO, Trump always chickens out, and negotiations talk when it comes to tariffs. So, I think right now, the administration wants the U.S. to have more leverage.

When it comes to trade. The U.S. not pay as much, produce more here. But we'll see if that actually happens. We know that it's been difficult, I think, for the administration to balance lowering costs here, while at the same time dealing with tariffs abroad.

LEE: Julia Manchester, good to see you. Thank you.

MANCHESTER: Thank you.

LEE: Still ahead on EARLY START, emergency crews continue the search for the missing after flash flooding over the weekend. We're live in Kerr County with the latest.

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