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Sen. Cassidy Supports Blanche For AG, Clearing Path To Approval; Appeals Court Halts WH Ballroom Project, Says It's Unlawful; Trump Tries New Exec. Order To Limit Birthright Citizenship. Aired 11- 11:30a ET

Aired August 07, 2026 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: With Anthony Fauci and this criminal referral that would go to DOJ, specifically Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for D.C. Anthony Fauci was also an advisor for the President and for governors, but ultimately it was the President and these governors who made the decisions.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: On whether to close schools.

BROWN: On whether to close schools and so forth. And so it's just interesting that that was a point that the senator wanted to make.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean I don't know if those would be the ones that are no longer being pursued. There have been a whole laundry list. I have a large list in my office of all of the things we've heard about over the course of since the beginning of the presidency that the Justice Department may want to be prosecuting that would be qualified as retribution cases perhaps or people that are political enemies.

But those cases in particular, Anthony Fauci, which just yesterday we saw that he being held in contempt of Congress, that being sent to the U.S. Attorney to be looked at, that was for congressional testimony and so there's a big question of will there be people who served in Democratic administrations like Jack Smith or Anthony Fauci prosecuted for that. If we recall, there were two Republican advisors that were prosecuted and convicted and served prison time for contempt of Congress because of their testimony. That was Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon.

Peter Navarro continues to appeal, but there's a question of is that part of the never-ending cycle of prosecuting enemies that Senator Cassidy is referring to.

BLITZER: Senator Cassidy was talking about his opposition to what's called lawfare in his remarks right there and made it clear that he didn't think that Todd Blanche was going to pursue lawfare, right?

POLANTZ: That seems correct. One of the other points that Senator Cassidy made that you are hearing more and more right now as the talk of the anti-weaponization fund has happened is that Senator Cassidy spoke about how he has been unhappy with the pardons of January 6th rioters and there is more and more discussion of the role of the Justice Department when there is something like that.

The Justice Department has asked to dismiss many cases against January 6th rioters, including ones who were convicted of violence or leading violence in some way. However, drawing that distinction between this is a power of the presidency that Donald Trump would pardon January 6th rioters and that is not something to land at Blanche's feet, that is technically correct. The thing is, one of the hallmarks of Todd Blanche at the Justice Department as Deputy Attorney General, as Acting Attorney General, as a former personal lawyer to Donald Trump is the expansion of the powers of the presidency, defending the idea that the President can do whatever he wants without any sort of checks and balances.

We hear that argument in court constantly. And so he is, Senator Cassidy is making a distinction there between Blanche and Trump and what they do. But the Justice Department is still fully supportive of a policy that the President can do a vast amount of things including pardon all the January 6th rioters and potentially restore restitution to them.

BLITZER: So except for Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, it looks like all the Republicans are going to vote for a confirmation, right?

POLANTZ: We don't have any other indication that anyone would vote no on Blanche. And our understanding was that Senator Cassidy was the swing vote here, that with Thom Tillis and Senator John Cornyn, Senator Tillis and Senator Cornyn both voted yes on Blanche in committee, they required him to do a number of things, he had to meet with the Epstein survivors, he had to rescind in writing the anti- weaponization fund, but Senator Cassidy was the last person we were waiting to see.

BLITZER: And all 47 Democratic senators including the two independents who caucused with the Democrats will vote against the confirmation.

POLANTZ: One would assume although there are some that sometimes don't, so we will see.

BLITZER: We could be surprised.

BROWN: We could be surprised. It's just emphasizing again that Cassidy made this decision about Blanche even though President Trump effectively ended his political career. And you kind of felt that emotion at the end, right? And Cassidy has not been afraid to go against other Trump picks. Casey Means for example, Trump said that Cassidy basically upended that. So this is a notable moment and I want to go to Kevin Liptak at the White House because it's a big one for President Trump, Kevin.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, and White House officials had obviously been watching this very, very closely. It's already now going to be a tighter vote than I think that they had hoped and expected it to be. And they were concerned because the Republicans who are now had been coming out against Blanche had been those who the President has opposed in the past. And that obviously now includes Cassidy as well. The President endorsing a rival in his primary that, as you said, effectively ended Cassidy's career. But it was, I think, important that at the very beginning of his speech, Cassidy tried to put all of that behind him, saying that, yes, he does have a history with Trump, but that it doesn't matter one bit.

[11:05:15]

And the argument that seemed to resonate with him, aside from the one that Bill Barr made, which was that no one else was coming along that would be a better attorney general, was that a Senate confirmed individual in this position would just have more leverage to get things done than an acting attorney general, because Todd Blanche could serve as acting, you know, for perpetuity. He had already been confirmed to the deputy role.

And the powers that were inflicted upon him as an acting attorney general would be no different. So he could have served in this job for the remainder of President Trump's term. But the White House, the Justice Department and others who are advocating for Blanche were telling senators, including Cassidy, that he wouldn't have sort of the stature or the credibility unless he was confirmed into this job. And that seemed to resonate with him very, very strongly.

And he did acknowledge at one point that he would be criticized for this vote. You know, what's new is what he said. And I'm reminded back to when he was the deciding vote for the health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Cassidy is a physician. There had been a lot of questions about whether because of what Kennedy had said in the past, some of the conspiracy theories about vaccines, namely that he would oppose that position. And he did not.

He allowed Kennedy to go through. And when he was saying that, it seemed as if it was an allusion to that past vote for which he has been very heavily criticized. But he again now coming out in favor of what was a very important nomination for President Trump and acknowledging that this would be a difficult position for him.

But of course, he is someone who is not running for reelection. He does not have a political career to speak of at the moment. He probably has in his mind the idea of legacy and what he will be leaving behind as his legacy as a senator from Louisiana.

And he is deciding to go in this direction, in his words, because he thinks it would put the Justice Department in a better position for the final two years of President Trump's term.

BLITZER: All right, Kevin, stand by. Katelyn Polantz you're getting some new information. What are you learning?

POLANTZ: Yes, we are learning that the federal appeals court in Washington says that Donald Trump is unlawfully constructing the White House ballroom. Each president is a temporary tenant, not the owner of the White House and its executive residents. That is what is written in a two to one decision today. The President has no and claims no constitutionally assigned authority over that property, which is designed and maintained for the use of all presidents. And so they're shutting down. This is the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. They are shutting down the work that Donald Trump has been doing on that ballroom. It had been off and on as a court battle was ensuing.

The White House had argued several times over that they needed to continue work on the East Wing ballroom that Trump had torn down with very --

BLITZER: That whole East Wing is basically destroyed right now.

POLANTZ: Yes, and it happened very quickly when the work began. That's when the courts then started to step in. The White House and Trump himself have been arguing that they need to continue building it for national security reasons and security around the President and all of the people that work at the White House.

But there is a recurring statement that's coming from the courts, both at the trial level and now from the D.C. Circuit, saying that it's not Donald Trump's house. It's the president's house. And even more so, it's the people's house. And thus, one president can't just decide to do this level of renovation.

BLITZER: I've walked around that East Wing that destructed -- the destruction is intense. And I spent seven years as a White House reporter, spent a lot of time in the East Wing. And it was hard for me to believe that to build this ballroom, they were destroying that whole East Wing of the White House with a lot of history unfolding at the same time.

BROWN: Yes, and it's notable. So while Trump had a win with Senator Cassidy, this is certainly a loss for the administration. Kevin, is it saying anything yet about this appeals court decision on the White House ballroom?

LIPTAK: They haven't weighed in on this specific ruling. In the past, they have suggested that these court rulings against the ballroom could damage national security because, as the President has been talking about this ballroom over the last several weeks or so, he is beginning to emphasize more the national security aspects of it. That's obviously not the reason he decided to tear down the East Wing and build the ballroom. But it has become a more and more prominent facet of it as he discusses it more.

[11:09:55]

So, for example, in Las Vegas on Wednesday, the President called this a massive military complex. And it is true that underneath the ballroom, there will be a reconstructed bunker. That's where the bunker is now. But they are rebuilding it into this major facility. It will include essentially a full hospital. It's where essentially a President would go in the case of disaster.

He's also talking more and more about what's on the ceiling of the ballroom, which is what he calls a drone port, although details of that have been somewhat scant at the moment. My question is, what happens to the giant pit that is now on the east side of the White House where this is being built? If construction is halted, I'm not sure what's going to happen to this enormous construction site that has, you know, been well underway now for months and months.

The ruling today halts the -- it halts the ruling. So construction can continue until the President appeals this to the Supreme Court. But if the President loses at the Supreme Court, I don't know exactly what the plan would be to get that back into shape. You know, it's not usable in any capacity at the moment. It's a giant construction pit. And so in a lot of ways, these rulings, and you hear this from officials at the White House as well, is, you know, they came too late.

If the National Trust for Historic Preservation had real concerns about the ballroom plans, they questioned why they didn't file them in court until the east wing was torn down and there was a giant hole in the ground. So that is an argument that I think you will probably continue to hear as they dispute what the courts and what the historic trust is trying to argue in this ruling. But clearly, it is a setback for the president on what has been an enormous priority of his over the course of this term.

BROWN: All right. A lot of news today touching the White House. Kevin Liptak, Annie Grayer, Katelyn Polantz, thank you all so much.

BLITZER: And there's more breaking news, hard to believe, but there's more breaking news right now, the economy losing 23,000 jobs in July. Let's go live right now to our CNN Business senior reporter, David Goldman. David, the July jobs report is significantly worse than what economists had expected. What more can you tell us?

DAVID GOLDMAN, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR REPORTER: They had expected 90,000 jobs. And this is a huge surprise because we lost jobs in the month. And we had a pretty weak month before that, too. In fact, we lost 100,000 jobs that we thought that we had created in the previous two months. So we're really looking at some significant weakness.

This number, 4.1 percent for an unemployment rate, is pretty good. We were down from 4.2 percent the month before. But the reason this fell is because people are giving up on even looking for a job. It fell for the wrong reasons. That is a significant concern. Another concern is that paychecks grew only 3.2 percent.

Why is that a problem? Because inflation is at 3.5 percent. And so inflation ate your pay raise on average over the past year. And this is a real concern because we were losing ground to inflation over the past few months after we had been gaining ground over inflation in the previous three years. That's a reversal. We don't want to see that.

Lastly, I just wanted to look at the World Cup. What about the World Cup? Weren't we supposed to get a big boost? Nope. We had 19,000 retail jobs lost last month and 40,000 leisure and hospitality jobs. That is not the World Cup boost that we thought we were going to get. And the health care jobs that we gained, 22,000, we've been gaining a lot of health care jobs as people have gotten older in this country. But that isn't going to cut it when you're losing jobs in every other sector. Wolf, Pam, this is not a pretty report for sure.

BLITZER: Not pretty at all. All right. David Goldman, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: All right. Still ahead, New Mexico versus the DOJ suing over access to the Epstein files. Later, we'll ask the state's attorney general what he thinks the Justice Department is hiding.

[11:14:00]

BLITZER: And going rogue, A.I. models breaking their constraints during testings and trying to cause real world harm. We'll ask an A.I. expert if this will get worse before it gets better. Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Happening now. President Trump revives his campaign against birthright citizenship. Just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down his last effort as unconstitutional, the President issued two new executive orders. The first limits those who can be automatically granted citizenship by being born on U.S. soil.

And the second bans what's called birth tourism. That's despite a law already banning pregnant foreigners from coming to the United States to give birth for that U.S. citizenship. Let's bring in Cody Wofsy. He's the deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants Rights Project and was lead counsel in the ACLU's defense of birthright citizenship before the U.S. Supreme Court. Cody, thanks so much for joining us. What went through your mind when you learned about these latest two executive orders signed by President Trump yesterday?

CODY WOFSY, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, ACLU IMMIGRANTS' RIGHTS PROJECT: Thanks so much for having me, Wolf. Yes, I think, you know, the bottom line is Trump can't take no for an answer. He made his case to the Supreme Court and he lost. The court confirmed what we all know, which is if you are born in this country, you are a citizen.

[11:20:08]

So now the Trump administration is coming back with a new executive order again, trying to rewrite the Constitution. Seems like it's a desperate attempt to try and get some kind of win or the appearance of a win in the face of what was a clear loss at the Supreme Court. But this is not a game of whack-a-mole. These are people's lives. It's people's citizenship. And the President does not get to decide who is a birthright citizen, period.

BLITZER: As you well know, Cody, the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, and I'll put it up on the screen there you see it, all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens. Talk about the importance of that language, especially the clause subject to the jurisdiction thereof, and the practical impacts of these new executive orders. WOFSY: Yes, absolutely. I mean, the citizenship clause is absolutely foundational to who we are as a country. It was put into the Constitution specifically to ensure that this fundamental American principle, if you're born in this country, you're a citizen, no matter who your parents are, would remain part of our law and part of our culture, regardless of who's in Congress, regardless of who's in the White House. And that's exactly what the Supreme Court reaffirmed in the Barber decision earlier this year.

The court said the question is whether a person is subject to the jurisdiction of the government of the country in which he is physically present, even if only there temporarily. He is, unless he falls under one of the familiar exceptions, such as for ambassadors. It really could not be clearer. Nearly everyone born in this country is a citizen.

There's a few exceptions that are captured by that language, subject to the jurisdiction. Those go all the way back to the framing of the constitutional language. And the only one that's relevant today, as the court noted, is for the children ambassadors.

BLITZER: When you say ambassadors, don't you mean other diplomats as well, who are serving in the United States, not just at the ambassadorial level?

WOFSY: You know, Wolf, that seems to be part of the idea behind at least part of this executive order. The critical distinction is whether they have full ambassadorial immunity. So there's a difference between an ambassador whose children are also immune, for example, from criminal offenses and so forth, versus other people who may be working for an embassy, who may, you know, be a janitor at a foreign country's embassy.

Under this executive order, Trump is purporting to strip away that janitors children's citizenship. And that's simply not the law. That's not what the Supreme Court has ever said. To the contrary, it's a very narrow exception, really, for everybody, ambassadors, other people who may have full diplomatic immunity. That's a very short list.

BLITZER: How do you respond, Cody, to the skeptics who are out there who believe it's unfair for the children of people who come to the United States just to have their babies and promptly return home to enjoy the privileges of American citizenship?

WOFSY: Look, I think that this entire idea is basically a red herring. The idea of birth tourism, to the extent it's a problem, it's a tiny, tiny problem, which, as you noted, is already illegal under federal law. But what the administration is really trying to do here is strip away citizenship from as many people as possible to try and change the demographics of this country. The original Trump executive order signed at the beginning of the term was huge in scope.

We're talking about something like 20,000 children being born every month, 5 million additional U.S. born undocumented people projecting out 20 years. If the government had succeeded in its arguments, obviously it's failed. The Supreme Court rejected those arguments. I think the scope of this current executive order, you know, it's a little bit more open to question.

It may be significantly smaller in terms of who it's going to impact. But what I'll say is, fundamentally, for the children of the families, our class members in the Barbara litigation, we will never, ever stop fighting to ensure your child citizenship and birthright.

BLITZER: What recourse, Cody, does the ACLU have at this point to challenge these latest moves by the Trump administration? Do you anticipate all of this coming back to the U.S. Supreme Court?

WOFSY: Yes, look, we're closely examining this new executive order, obviously came out yesterday. We're looking at every single one of our legal options. The main thing I'd say at this point is just stay tuned whether it will make its way up to the Supreme Court. It might. It might not. I think at the end of the day, the bottom line is the court has already explained that the citizenship clause protects nearly every child born in the United States with only those rare exceptions, namely for diplomats today.

[11:25:18]

And so to the extent that the administration is going to keep issuing executive orders, trying to find new ways to use, you know, executive fiat to strip away constitutionally guaranteed birthright citizenship, that will fail.

BLITZER: Cody Wofsy of the ACLU, thanks so much for joining us.

WOFSY: Thank you for having me.

BLITZER: Pamela?

BROWN: All right, Wolf, up next, I undercover test models are breaking out and breaking the rules. But will this be enough to slow down the light speed advancement we're seeing with the technology? We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: All right, now to our ongoing series here in The Situation Room. Decoding A.I., we look at some of the most pressing stories on artificial intelligence. Nobel Prize winning computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton is known as the godfather of A.I. and he has a new warning out saying the smarter the technology gets, the harder it will be for humanity to control it. And this comes after a string of incidents where A.I. agents escaped their human built test environments.

[11:30:02]

BLITZER: Hinton added that this is likely just the beginning of what, what's being called rogue A.I. Rob Lee is the Chief A.I. Officer and Chief of Research at the SANS Institute for Cyber Security.