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Inside Politics

Trump's Deadline Arrives For Putin To Make Deal With Ukraine; Vance Spells Out Goals In Gaza: End Hamas, End Starvation; Cartoon Mocks ICE, Kristi Noem, Trump & JD Vance; Secy. Noem Claims South Park Episode Is "Lazy"; Software Company Palantir Expands Reach In Federal Government. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired August 08, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:30:23]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Today, a deadline expires, but what happens now remains as clear as the fog of war. Russia has run out of time to meet the Trump-imposed deadline to end its years-long fight in Ukraine. Bombs are still flying, but the economic sanctions President Trump promised to punish Moscow may still be in the holster. And a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy, that's no longer a precondition to a meeting with the American president.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR, THE SOURCE: President Putin said this morning he was pretty dismissive of this idea of meeting with President Zelenskyy.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Who was?

COLLINS: President Putin was.

TRUMP: I don't know. I didn't hear them.

COLLINS: So for you to meet with him, he doesn't have to agree to meet with Zelenskyy. 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 TAPE)

BASH: CNN's Kylie Atwood is now joining the panel, and it's your birthday. Happy birthday.

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Thank you. BASH: Thank you for joining us on this big day. Can you just put into perspective, just we're going to look at the broader globe right now, but on what's happening right now in Russia?

ATWOOD: Over the last few days, the stories on whether or not these sanctions on Russia were going to go into place has changed. And so initially, after Trump's special envoy met with President Putin, White House officials were still saying these sanctions that the president promised on Friday are still going to affect.

Well, then they slowly started to shift what they were saying on that. The Secretary of State said that that's going to be up to the president. The president himself yesterday said it's going to be up to Putin. So at this moment, I just talked to a senior administration official in the last hour, they still don't know if those sanctions are going to go into effect.

It's clear that they are putting a lot of emphasis on this potential Trump-Putin meeting. And so maybe putting sanctions into place could make that not happen. But I've also talked to folks today who say, listen, put those sanctions into place because that gives Trump leverage at the negotiating table with Putin if they do actually have a conversation to try and drive an end to this war.

We have to watch and wait to see. But the administration doesn't seem like it is eager right now to actually follow through on that sanctions deadline.

BASH: OK, so put an end to this war. It's maybe a good time to reminisce about the Trump 2024 campaign, where he said, OK, maybe he didn't really mean that he would end the war on day one, but he certainly suggested that he had the relationships not just with Vladimir Putin, but also in the Middle East and the wherewithal and the know-how as a negotiator his whole life to end those wars.

What's happening in the Middle East is Benjamin Netanyahu is, with the blessing of and the approval of his Cabinet, is being even more aggressive in Gaza. The vice president talked about that this morning. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

JD VANCE (R), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The number one is we want to make it so that Hamas cannot attack innocent Israeli civilians ever again. And we think that has to come through the eradication of Hamas. Second, the president has been very moved by these terrible images of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. So we want to make sure that we solve that problem.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: I mean, sure, we want to make sure that we solve all the problems. There shouldn't be Hamas attacking people. There shouldn't. But what problems are getting solved here? And I do think that what we see is over and over again, Donald Trump, who made a very clear case that he could solve all these things, finding that Benjamin Netanyahu and Vladimir Putin, among others, don't really care. And they don't have any real compulsion to go ahead with what he's saying.

If you're Vladimir Putin, though, and you're watching what has been going on and all of these threats of sanctions and deadlines and all that, by the way, goes back to when Joe Biden was president. And then hearing Donald Trump say everything that he was going to say. And then the last six months of Trump, why would you change what you're doing, right?

NATO was expanded under Biden. Trump said the things that -- he keeps on bombing Ukraine. There's nothing that has stopped him from doing it, including all the bluster out of Trump. But it does seem significant that here we are at another -- I mean, this is sanctions against Russia. It's a big deal.

And that if senior administration officials are telling you that they still don't know, here we are in the middle of the day, whether they're coming, that speaks to something beyond the situation, speaks to a larger dysfunction within the administration. And so much of it just is like what we, I guess, know in so many things that it is the whims of the president at every moment.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Well, I also think it gets to the fact that this isn't -- these things aren't happening in isolation, right?

BASH: Yes.

MATTINGLY: It is not just the Middle East. It is not just Russia and the U.S. A huge element of the Russian sanctions that were threatened is they would have a dramatic effect on China. A huge element of the Russian sanctions that were threatened is they would have a dramatic effect on China.

[12:35:09]

The elements of kind of the dynamics going on, on at least the econ team side, is there's significant concern that if you slap those sanctions on for the goal of trying to pressure Vladimir Putin, oh, by the way, the president hasn't yet signed off on an extension of the trade truce with China that was negotiated over the course of the last three rounds, which has been significant in terms of ensuring that the hit -- that the U.S. consumer takes from tariffs is not as dramatic as it could be.

The president doesn't want to mess that up at this point in time. And so these things are happening on a multilateral basis. And while the president has focused on things, can threaten things, all of a sudden there's other elements here that he's trying to weigh and consider at the same time. And I would probably make the argument, messing up the China truce is far more nerve wracking for administration officials than feeling the need to follow through here.

BASH: Everybody, we have to sneak in a quick break. Coming up, South Park is getting more and more into politics. What did Trey Stone and Matt Parker do now? We're going to show you after a break.

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(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

[12:40:45]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have no doubt that there are many, many Latinos in heaven.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Remember, only detain the brown ones. If it's brown, it goes down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jesus, look out.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: That was a clip from the most recent episode of South Park, mocking controversial ICE raids, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, JD Vance, President Trump. And this comes after South Park's 27th season premiere drew the attention of the White House. The first episode there featured pretty harsh commentary on President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not in the mood right now. Another random -- comment on my Instagram that you're on the Epstein list.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Epstein list? Are we still talking about that?

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: The White House released a statement about that, saying, quote, "This show hasn't been relevant for over 20 years and is hanging on by a thread with uninspired ideas in a desperate attempt for attention." That something Paramount's new CEO is betting is not true after a major merger that got quite political.

CNN's Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter joins me now. So, Brian, South Park's creators just signed a billion-dollar-plus deal with Paramount. They did that right before their season premiere and that episode debuted.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yes, that's absolutely right. And this might be a case of profits actually beating out over politics. There's been so much attention in recent months about what media companies are doing both on the news side and on the entertainment side to try to appease President Trump.

But in this case, South Park is so darn profitable that the creators seem to have the freedom to do and say whatever they want, at least. That was my takeaway after talking with David Ellison, who's the brand new CEO of Paramount. He's the guy, the son of Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison, who was trying to get that Paramount merger approved earlier this year.

The old owners of Paramount cut that deal with Donald Trump, settling with him for $16 million. Ellison's also made other commitments about having a CBS ombudsman and getting rid of DEI in order to get the deal through. So yesterday, the Paramount deal took effect.

Remarkably, just the night before this South Park episode aired, the second episode of the new season of South Park, which is now suddenly one of the most scathing, vicious critics of Trump anywhere on American television. You know, this show is going after not just Trump, but JD Vance, Kristi Noem and others.

And it's getting millions of views, millions of viewers for it. South Park says -- excuse me, Comedy Central says the rains are through the roof, social relevance also through the roof. And so I asked Ellison, I said, do you have a South Park problem? Is this going to be a problem for your new company? And his response was to praise the creators.

He said, quote, "Matt, Trey, they're incredibly talented. They are equal opportunity offenders and always have been." And then he went on to make the key point, Dana. He said, "The show is highly profitable and it's a huge hit on the streaming platform, Paramount Plus."

So that's an interesting contrast to the late show with Stephen Colbert, right? CBS said it was canceled for financial reasons. Lots of viewers worried it was for political reasons. But we know that show was unprofitable. South Park, on the other hand, very profitable for the parent company.

So even though it's a thorn in Trump's side, it's not going anywhere. At least that was the indication from the new CEO.

BASH: That's so fascinating. What an interesting conversation that you had with him, particularly since what it's been like barely 24 hours since he's actually been the head. We'll see what happens when these episodes continue to air. And I'm guessing he might hear from the White House once or twice after that.

Brian, thanks so much for that reporting. Appreciate it.

And when we come back, how the doging of the federal government made room for a maybe secretive tech company, but one that is pretty big and pretty intense when it comes to the access that it has of government data and growing fears about what exactly this company might do with that data. Stay with us.

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[12:49:15]

BASH: A little-known tech company with a Lord of the Rings-inspired name has quickly become an integral operator inside the U.S. government.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

TRUMP: Jim sent a car, of Palantir. We buy a lot of things from Palantir. Where are you? Are we paying our bills? I think so.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: The bills are pretty high. Palantir builds a software heavily reliant on AI that collects and analyzes vast amounts of data. It has billions of dollars' worth of contracts with the Pentagon. But its access in federal agency systems go well beyond that. And some critics fear its expanding role could be paving the way for a massive surveillance operation on Americans.

[12:50:01]

By the way, this is important, one of its co-founders is billionaire Peter Thiel. He has close ties to President Trump, and most importantly, Vice President JD Vance.

Now, Makena Kelly of Wired has done a lot of reporting on this and joins me now along with CNN's Phil Mattingly. Makena?

MAKENA KELLY, SENIOR POLITICS REPORTER, WIRED: It's great to be here.

BASH: You too. So your piece -- recent piece really sets up what we're talking about. Palantir is extending its reach even further into the government. It's become one of the few winners in the Trump administration's cost-cutting efforts, offering other contractors a lifeline while consolidating its own reach and power.

KELLY: Yes, I mean, if you look at what's happened over the last six months, one of the biggest goals of the administration, along with DOGE, right, Elon Musk's DOGE, was to make billions and billions of cuts across the administrative state. And it's done that largely by targeting, you know, your kind of traditional contractors, whether that is a Deloitte or an Accenture or a Booz Allen. And now we're seeing Palantir, you know, this Peter Thiel backed company sliding in where these companies are being, you know, axed out.

BASH: And it's not -- well, let me get to a follow up question on that first. But I just want to show our viewers something that I want you to comment on, Phil, which is the stock price. I mean, if you look at this, it's really mind-boggling. The Palantir stock is up 522 percent just in the past year.

MATTINGLY: Yes, doing the math, that's good. That's usually a sign --

BASH: That could be envelope (ph).

MATTINGLY: That's usually a sign of investor confidence. Look, not investment advice in any way, shape or form, and don't have any skin in this game whatsoever, but there's a reason for that. And the reason for that is twofold. One, what they've done within this administration in particular, and to be very clear about things, in the year plus heading into this administration as well, they were already integrating themselves within the federal government at a level that I think was very different from other contractors.

And I think when I've talked to officials, both in the last administration and the current administration about Palantir, one of the constant refrains is, hey, they're really good at delivering at what they say they're going to do. And that's why people start to rely on them. But the scale to which they have integrated themselves within this administration in particular, which I think is why you've seen a lot of what Makena and her team have reported so well over the course of the last couple of months, the people that are in positions within this administration that have ties to Palantir, chief information officers, yes, a number of the DOJ officials as well.

Obviously, the JD Vance connection of all those types. But the scale of the impact they're having within the government at a time when a lot of companies, particularly on the contracting side, have had a lot of difficulties, a lot of public companies are very nervous or trying to figure out how to deal with this. A lot of CEOs are coming in and just like trying to hand shiny objects to the president in the hopes of not getting hit by something like a tariff --

BASH: Right.

MATTINGLY: -- they are fully integrated and I think a really critical component of a lot of what's happening behind the scenes.

BASH: Right. So it's the connections at the tippity top of this company, but then it's also what they are actually doing. We heard from Elon Musk over and over when he was in the administration about how antiquated the systems are in the federal government. That's probably not a surprise.

But what this company does is, I mean, it's warp speed ahead of anything that was in the government, but it's also how it is acting when it comes to pulling in data that the government has of all of us. When we -- it has data of all of us. And the question is, and you can talk about what you've learned from your reporting, what Palantir is doing with that data.

KELLY: Yes. So far, I mean, what our reporting shows is that they're being brought in to completely refashion the data systems at a variety of agencies. I think the one that is the most far along right now would be a project at the IRS. And so if you look at the systems at the IRS, right, it's kind of a bunch of disparate databases that don't talk to one another.

There's, you know, certain people with certain permissions that can only access, you know, some information and other people, you know, trying to get access to other information. But what Palantir is doing now is making it so this one agency, all of the data talks to one another. Which, you know, in the name of efficiency, right, is --

BASH: It makes sense.

KELLY: It makes sense. But there are reasons why -- when I talk to my sources in the federal government, there are reasons why this data is not mixed, right. It is for privacy, safety. I mean, what if there was a rogue actor, right, in the IRS who suddenly can type in, you know, someone's name and find everything about someone, right? Because look at the data that we, you know, offer up to the government every year --

BASH: Yes.

KELLY: -- when we file our taxes. It's not just the IRS either, though. We have Palantir working with the Department of Homeland Security and ICE to create something that they're calling Immigration OS, creating what the government wants to be a real-time tracking program of folks who are self-deporting.

And so when we have these systems that are, you know, coalescing all of this data, and then these foundry instances, the technology that Palantir creates, they can talk to one another. So it's not even just inside the, you know, specific agencies, but across government if it is deployed at scale.

BASH: All right. Thank you both so much. Appreciate it. Thanks for bringing your reporting and your expertise.

[12:55:04]

Before we go, a double dose of the best kind of breaking news. Introducing Charles Jacob DePalo and Isaac Rocco DePalo, sons of our incredible producer, Melissa, and her husband, Gary. These two adorable additions to the Inside Politics family arrived on July 18th. Everyone here at CNN sends our love to this beautiful family, Melissa, Gary, Charlie, and Isaac.

Thank you so much for joining Inside Politics today. I'll be back on Sunday for State of the Union. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont will be among my guests.

CNN News Central starts after a quick break.