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Inside Politics

El-Sayed Distances Himself From Left-Wing Streamer Hasan Piker; Park Service Disaster Teams Reassigned To Trump's D.C. Projects; Burgum Faces Criticism Over D.C. Beautification Focus; Actor Andrew Shue Plays United With New Civic Forums Platform. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired August 25, 2026 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D), NEW JERSEY: -- many of -- many candidate, Democratic candidates have campaigned with him, including El-Sayed, who in his, the last night before his primary, had Hasan Piker front and center with him. And his statement yesterday, instead of coming out and condemning Piker, condemning his statement, saying he refuses to ever campaign with him again, he did nothing of the sort.

And to me, the fact that he leaves the window open to do more with Hasan Piker is -- it's totally unacceptable. You saw, of course, leader Hakeem Jeffries coming out strongly against Hasan Piker. I think all of my colleagues should. There's no room anywhere in our party for a hater and a grifter like Piker, who has said some of the most awful anti-American, anti-Semitic, hate-filled comments, both blaming America for 9/11, calling Jews pig, dogs.

He has supported Hezbollah, a terrorist organization. He loves Fidel Castro and Mao Zedong. You know, this is not a kind of guy that any of us should be near.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: So what would you, if you were to get a call from Abdul El-Sayed, for example, and if he were to say, what do you want me to say and do now? What would your answer be?

GOTTHEIMER: I'd condemn Piker. I'd condemn his comments and say, clearly, I'll never go anywhere near this guy. He has no room in our public debate. We should have -- there's no room for haters. And frankly, then I think all of my colleagues, Democrat and Republican, should make it clear how they feel about Hasan Piker, right?

A refusal to condemn somebody like that, who was spreading such hatred and calling on people, calling for violence against Jews, American Jews who support the U.S.-Israeli relationship, literally calling for them to be attacked, which is a Nazi-like formula, to me is totally unacceptable. And we should make it very clear. And refusal to condemn, you're complicit if you refuse to condemn comments like that.

BASH: You mentioned Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader. I want to play for our viewers what he told Wolf Blitzer this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D), MINORITY LEADER: Those comments were dangerous, malicious, and anti-Semitic, and should not be tolerated by anyone in the public square. What we've seen is a startling rise of hate crimes all across the United States of America, but particularly in this moment directed against our Jewish brothers and sisters. And everybody, regardless of ideological perspective, should be willing to denounce this rise of anti-Semitic rhetoric, hate crimes, and bigotry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Congressman, you've written public letters. You have introduced legislation urging your own party leaders to be more forceful, calling out Jew hate in your party. Did Congressman Jeffries do just that in what you heard?

GOTTHEIMER: Yes, I commend him for his comments. We need more of that, you know, unambiguous and clear. And I hope that everyone in the Michigan congressional delegation does the same thing. Because remember, as you pointed out, this is -- the comments were made associated with state senator and future Congressman Moss, who is in Michigan, a state senator.

Hillary Scholten is the only one who has come out, along with Moss, who's strongly condemning Hasan Piker. The rest have been crickets. I hope that my entire leadership and members across Michigan and around the country make it very clear, like leader Jeffries did. There is zero place for this kind of hatred and language and vitriol in our party or in our politics.

And then let me be very clear, you know, because as Mike Lawler and I have a resolution condemning Hasan Piker. We introduced a couple of months ago, along with Candace Owens, who also peddles in hate. I think we should immediately vote on this legislation in a week or back and make it very clear on both sides that we condemn this most anti- Semitic, anti-American type of rhetoric.

And there is zero place for this kind of hatred from somebody like Hasan Piker. He's pathetic, and he should be put outside and not welcome into any kind of tent.

BASH: I know this is a hypothetical, but as obviously you're a lifelong Democrat, if you were a Michigan voter, how would you vote in the Senate race?

GOTTHEIMER: You know, there's -- I'll just make it clear, there's no way I'm ever coming out for El-Sayed right now. And like, until -- you know, this is a guy who has made it very clear his views toward -- and has refused to back off his views toward Jewish Americans. And I hope he comes out and clarifies where he is.

I also hope that he does the right thing and condemns Hasan Piker clearly and the language very clearly. You know, this is -- what I don't understand is, and I would hope if this were against anybody else or any other group in our country, and someone came out with this kind of hateful rhetoric, that people would stand up and speak out. [12:35:09]

What confounds me is why are people so silent when it comes to anti- Semitism, anti-Jewish language? And we're seeing this in New York with the mayor. You know, you've got people, this is not about Israel, when you attack synagogues and protest outside of synagogues, or say that you're not going to support a Jewish business because they're Jews, right?

It should be unambiguous that people come out very clearly and condemn that. There should be no wishy-washiness. And we're seeing it on the right. And of course, we're seeing it on the left. And we have to be very clear.

And I hope, again, I call on everybody in the Democratic Party to do the right thing and condemn Hasan Piker and make it clear that they will never campaign with him. They will never be on a platform with him. And that to me is the least we can do, given somebody who makes comments like he has about the United States of America and about Jewish Americans and others.

BASH: Congressman Josh Gottheimer, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it.

GOTTHEIMER: Thanks for having me, Dana.

BASH: And up next, they're supposed to be fighting fires and respond to other national disasters. So why is an elite team of National Park Service workers in D.C. helping with the reflecting pool? We have some exclusive CNN reporting after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:40:53]

BASH: Today is the 110th birthday of the National Park Service. But while the Interior Department that oversees the Park Service celebrates, some key teams may be missing from those parks. CNN obtained internal documents that show emergency Park Service crews usually deployed to fight wildfires and natural disasters are reassigned to D.C. beautification projects like the reflecting pool and the Potomac golf course.

This, while severe wildfires and drought plague the West. CNN's Rene Marsh is here who broke the story. Rene, what did you uncover?

RENE MARSH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, so Dana, we spoke with more than a dozen National Park Service and Interior former and current employees and really the picture that we get not only is Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the face of many of these projects and the go-to guy for the Trump administration for these projects, but he's unusually hands-on as far as his role goes.

According to our reporting, the Secretary's office receives briefing reports, very granular details down to the staffing levels for a lot of these projects. One National Park Service employee said to me, you know, previous secretaries had bigger fish to fry, really speaking to how unusual it is for them to be involved, them being the Secretary's office, to be so involved in the granular details here.

And we also looked at many of his public statements on social media, his official accounts. We looked at more than 500 of his social media statements over the recent months starting from June to early August, and you can see the image there. We reviewed more than 500 posts, 70 percent, roughly, more than 70 percent focused on beautification and America 250.

Meanwhile, just about two mentions about the Colorado River. This is after, and many of you may know, that, you know, they've been dealing with drought issues for years out west, and we are seeing historic loads in many of the reservoirs out west. But another extraordinary measure that we looked at was staffing.

BASH: Yes.

MARSH: We found that roughly 300 personnel from other parks outside of D.C., members of incident management team, these are people who reply and respond to emergency and disasters that impact national parks, nearly 300 of them have been pulled to D.C. for these D.C. beautification projects.

BASH: Yes. And Doug Burgum obviously knows who his boss is --

MARSH: Yes.

BASH: -- and knows what Donald Trump wants, and that is the beautification. He talks about it all the time. What's the Interior Department saying?

MARSH: Well, as you would expect, they are rejecting this criticism. They say that it's commonplace to pull people from other parks for whatever the needs of the National Park Service is. But, you know, that may be true, but a lot of staffers we talk to say what is not usual is the scale of this, the nearly 300.

Compare that to roughly 60 people who were brought from other parks for the D.C.'s Cherry Blossom Festival, or even 45 people who were brought for the Indy race that we just saw this weekend. So clearly they are leaning into this priority for the President, and it reflects in their staffing.

As far as the spokesperson there at Interior, Katie Martin, she ended by saying, "Anyone critical of making our capitals safe and beautiful should have their head checked." So they are standing by this approach.

BASH: Rene, thank you so much.

MARSH: Yes.

BASH: Appreciate it.

And when we come back, you may recognize him from "Melrose Place." Andrew Shue has a new project which aims to create change that Americans actually agree on. He'll be here to tell us what it is after a break.

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[12:48:58]

BASH: He became famous as Billy Campbell looking for a home at "Melrose Place."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDREW SHUE, ACTOR: Hi.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: God, you scared me.

SHUE: Sorry. Are you Alison Parker?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, maybe. Who are you?

SHUE: I'm Billy Campbell. I'm a friend of Natalie.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Now actor and civic advocate Andrew Shue is writing himself a new role as a uniter of sorts. His nonprofit called, "The Forum" aims to bring Americans together across parties and demographics, find the issues that unite them, and create legislation to hand off to those in office. It's already at play in three early primary states, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.

Andrew Shue is here with me now. Thank you so much for being here. This is fascinating with what you're doing. First, if you can just kind of set the stage and explain how you are finding people and how interested they are in trying to navigate around the party system and find a way to discuss issues that they think are -- and should be nonpartisan.

[12:50:06]

SHUE: Yes. We are so pleasantly surprised with the excitement level, the interest level from everyday Americans. Republicans, Democrats, Independents are all showing up. We built this platform knowing that the American people want a voice. They want agency. They feel like they lack control right now with what's happening in our country.

And so, this process and platform gives them not just a voice but a path to real change. And it starts on a web platform where you can come in and just kind of crowdsource the issues. It leads to face-to- face conversations where you start bringing forward proposals.

You get legislators involved where they're letting you know what they've done in the past. You get -- I mean, everybody's been participating. There's the media in these three states have been covering it. The governors are weighing in. We have real scale. We've had over 100,000 people in all three participate. And we are within a month of delivering supermajority- supported legislation. And it's interesting. In all three states, there are different issues.

BASH: I was going to ask.

SHUE: Yes. Yes. In Nevada, which we have a civic assembly coming up with a representative body meeting this coming weekend, it's water security.

BASH: That makes sense.

SHUE: And in South Carolina, it's the roads and the infrastructure. That actually hasn't been finalized, but that's what it looks like. And then in New Hampshire, it's most likely going to be housing. So these are issues that impact all of them.

And I will just say that the people so desperately want a way out of this divisive period. And in every major moment in our history of our country, it's always been the people who will rise up and do something that breaks us out of this kind of bad spell. And we just need this -- we need the irrigation system to take all the frustration, all the fear, and all the anger and channel it into something positive.

BASH: You know, it's so true. Every moment, including the moment that began this country. We were talking in the break about George Washington and his farewell address warning about the fact that parties will and could breed a spirit of revenge and corrode what is supposed to be sort of the purity of the constitution that they wrote and the democracy that they built.

SHUE: Yes. So we know we have a very competitive society --

BASH: Yes.

SHUE: -- and we know that the partisan game, so to speak, is stuck. And I will also say that the elected leaders who are participating in these three states, we have advisers in all three states from the legislature who are advising us on what we think would work.

We are making sure that we have co-chairs from Republicans and Democrats who are former partisans, major players, heads of the Democratic Party, head of the Republican caucus. So they know that they're stuck in this partisan fight. So they know that the American people are the only way to start reforming and fixing the system.

They have to come forward and create this new block of power, if you will, to create the guidance, but then also the pressure. So we have a kind of a citizen lobby that's also building. So it's one thing to create the renewal agenda. It's another thing to then push to make sure that our legislative leaders actually take it seriously and pass it.

BASH: I'm guessing picking South Carolina, New Hampshire and Nevada, three early primary states, was not an accident. SHUE: It was not an accident. Well, first of all, they're diverse --

BASH: Yes.

SHUE: -- obviously regionally, racially. They are small enough we can get our arms around them. They also happen to be early presidential primary states. And I think it is crucial that the next president, no matter who or she is, needs to call the American people in to a process like this.

They will decide what they want to fix first. Do they want to build a comprehensive plan for immigration? Do they want a comprehensive plan on how we're going to create guardrails for AI? They will decide. The American people need to take the reins at this moment in our country, and we need to give them the platform and the process to do it.

BASH: And how does one do that? If somebody's watching you and getting excited about the forum, how do they get engaged?

SHUE: So right now in those three states, you can go to scforum.org, nvforum.org, and actually it's nhforum.us.

BASH: OK.

SHUE: You couldn't get that org. And then there's theforum.org. So if you go to theforum.org, you can go to any of these states, and you can follow along exactly what's happening. You'll be able to see which bills are going to be presented by the assembly that's coming up. And then you can start to be part of the advocacy phase.

[12:55:06]

You could get involved with being part of the citizen lobby. But nationally, I want people to go to theforum.org and start following -- and start telling this story. The storytelling is so important here. The American people are ready for reconciliation. They are ready for decency and dignity.

And this is a moment for American people to turn toward each other and to start telling the story that we are going to work ourselves out of this divisive time.

BASH: Andrew Shue, this is fascinating. Thank you so much for coming on and talking about what you're doing. And we'll definitely keep following it to see how it goes.

SHUE: Thank you, Dana.

BASH: Thanks for being here.

And thank you for joining us on Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

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