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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Trump Claims "No Classified Information" Was Shared On Signal Chain And Praises Waltz; Interview Of Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN); GOP Cuts Funding For Pentagon Medical Research Programs By More Than Half; Trump Strips Security Clearances From Another Top Law Firm; Crime Ring Targets Southern California Surfers. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired March 25, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: It's unclear whether he will lead or be present at Holy Week and easter celebrations, the high point of the Christian year. But given what he's been through, the Pope is lucky to be alive. Christopher Lamb, CNN, London.
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ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Truly a miracle. And thank you all so much for being with truly a miracle. And thank you all so much for being with us, AC360 with Anderson begins right now.
[20:00:22]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, security breach -- what security breach? The President's National Security team aggressively downplays sending critical military strike plans to a journalist.
And vital cancer research in jeopardy after defunding cuts to a Pentagon program that focuses on cures for some of the most deadly cancers.
Also tonight, we'll take you inside a Southern California crime ring and their elaborate scheme targeting surfers. How the accused criminals were finally taken down.
Good evening. We begin tonight with breaking news in a breach of National Security by the Trump administration. That's stunning and reaction to it by the President and his top advisers that's shocking, but not surprising. The President in seemingly cavalier attitude towards the use of a commercial communication platform, Signal, to discuss highly confidential military and political discussions and his publicly cavalier attitude about his National Security officials, accidentally including a reporter, Jeffrey Goldberg of "The Atlantic" on the group chat.
It's not surprising because it follows a very well-worn playbook by President Trump to downplay, disparage and deny. First, the downplay.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The main thing was nothing happened. The attack was totally successful. It was, I guess, from what I understand, took place during and it wasn't classified information. So this was not classified.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The President saying this took place during the attack. Goldberg reports that Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense and former weekend Fox News host, posted the war plan about two hours before the attack began on Houthi targets in Yemen. According to Goldberg, the post included operational details of forthcoming strikes on Yemen, including information about targets, weapons the U.S. would be deploying and attack sequencing.
As for the President saying it wasn't' classified information, we don't know because Goldberg hasn't divulged details yet. Out of concern, he says it could give away secrets, but keeping them honest, multiple current and former defense officials CNN spoke to said any discussions of the timing targets or weapons systems to be used in an attack is always classified because of the potential risk to U.S. service members' lives if those plans are revealed prematurely and secrecy was on the mind of Pete Hegseth, according to Goldberg. "All along, members of the Signal group were aware of the need for secrecy and operation security. In this text detailing aspects of the forthcoming attack on Houthi targets, Hegseth wrote to the group, which at the time included me we are currently clean on OPSEC."
Clean, meaning on operation security, but obviously not clean because he's sending this message to a reporter. So that was step one in the President's well-worn playbook, downplaying the breach. Then, of course, he disparages the reporter.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The man that we're talking about who's not somebody that I don't think most people have ever heard of. He left -- he found it very boring, and he left early. He got off the line very early. So, I can't speak to it other than that. So he's made up a lot of stories. And, you know, I think he's basically bad for the country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Classic, the reporter isn't famous enough. Found this extraordinary breach of National Security boring and is bad for the country. Goldberg reports he removed himself from the Signal chat the day after the U.S. military strikes, not out of boredom, but, "the Signal chat group, I concluded, was almost certainly real. Having come to this realization, one that seemed nearly impossible only hours before I removed myself from the Signal group. Understanding that this would trigger an automatic notification to the groups creator, Michael Waltz, that I had left, no one in the chat had seemed to notice that i was there, and I received no subsequent questions about why I left, or more to the point, who I was.
Finally, from the Presidents playbook, as always, there's the denial. Yesterday was the President saying he knew nothing about this? Today he handed off the denial to Mike Waltz, the President's National Security Adviser.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Mike is here. Do you want to respond to that, please?
MICHAEL WALTZ, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Yes, Mr. President, you asked about lessons. I think there's a lot of the lessons. There's a lot of journalists in this city who have made big names for themselves, making up lies about this President, whether it's the Russia hoax or making up lies about gold star families and this one in particular I've never met, don't know, never communicated with, and we are looking into and reviewing how the heck he got into this room.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Gosh, how the heck did he get in that room? What's interesting about that is, according to Goldberg, if he wants to know who let him into the online room, he could look in the mirror, Goldberg says, it was that guy, the National Security Adviser, who handed him to the Signal chat in the first place, and none of the high level officials in the chat seem to notice someone with the initials JG was in that chat room, not Waltz, not Vice-President JD Vance Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Tulsi Gabbard, John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, the White House's Stephen Miller. No one. The highest echelons of our nation's government short of President Trump himself. -- downplay, disparage and deny.
The President's comments followed a contentious hearing on Capitol Hill, where other members of that Signal chat group were grilled by senators on the Select Committee on Intelligence. Ranking Democrat Senator Mark Warner tried to pin down Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on if classified information had been shared. Here's how that went.
[20:05:23]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TULSI GABBARD, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Senator, I don't want to get into the specifics.
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): Ma'am, did you -- were you on -- you're not going to be willing to address -- so, you're not -- are you denying -- answer my question, Ma'am, you were not TG on this group chat?
GABBARD: I'm not going to get into the specifics of the delivery.
WARNER: So you refuse to acknowledge whether you were on this group chat?
GABBARD: Senator, I'm not going to get into the specifics --
WARNER: Why are you going into specifics, is this -- is it because it's all classified? GABBARD: Because this is currently under review by the National Security --
WARNER: Because it's all classified? If it is not classified, share the text now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Senator Angus King also questioned DNI Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe about classified material.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GABBARD: And I defer --
SEN. ANGUS KING (I-ME): So the attack sequencing and timing and weapons and targets you don't consider to should have been classified or worthless.
GABBARD: I defer to the Secretary of Defense and the National Security council on that question.
The secretary of defense is the original classification authority for determining whether something is classified or not. And as I've understood from media reports, the secretary of defense has said the information was not classified.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That's the CIA director and the director of national intelligence saying it was Hegseth's call. Late tonight, Mike Waltz the National Security Adviser, he's over on Fox News disparaging Jeffrey Goldberg yet again.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALTZ: You know, Laura, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. But of all the people out there, somehow this guy who has lied about the President, who has lied to Gold Star families, lied to their attorneys and gone to Russia, hoax, gone to just all kinds of lengths to lie and smear the President of the united states. And he's the one that somehow gets on somebody's contact and then gets sucked into this group.
It's embarrassing, yes, we're going to get to the bottom of it. We have -- I just talked to Elon on the way here. We got the best technical minds looking at how this happened, but I can tell you -- I can tell you for 100 percent, I don't know this guy. I know him by his horrible reputation and he really is a bottom scum of journalists. And I know him, in the sense that he hates the President, but I don't text him. He wasn't on my phone and were going to figure out how this happened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins joins me. Her show, "The Source" starts at the top of the next hour. So you spoke with Goldberg last night? Caitlin, the President said nothing was classified. I mean, if that's true, Goldberg could just release the text exchange. Any cracks yet of the white house in this downplayed, denigrate, deny strategy?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I mean, Mike Waltz tonight was arguing two things, saying essentially one, that he takes full responsibility for adding Jeffrey Goldberg to this message, but then also implying that somehow Jeffrey Goldberg was added in a nefarious way to this message that was not his doing. And so, it's not totally clear on that. But what is clear is this defensive strategy coming out of the White House, where the President scheduled this event at the White House today. It was not initially on the schedule -the public schedule, at least those were his ambassadors to be who were also around the table earlier.
But as soon as we walked in the room, I spotted the National Security Adviser, Mike Waltz at the table, and there were a few questions that the President took, and then once I asked him about this scandal that has been unfolding and kind of engulfing the administration for the last 24 hours, he would then turn to mike Waltz and essentially was asking him to speak to the matter of what happened here.
But I also asked the President himself about conducting an investigation into this, and this is what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: But you will conduct an investigation is what you're saying?
TRUMP: We'll look into it, sure. I would look into it, I want to look into --
COLLINS: -- is that the FBI?
TRUMP: Anything like that, I would ask them, it's not really an FBI thing, it's really something having to do with security -- security like -- will somebody be able to break it up -- people able to break in to conversations, and if that's true, we're going to have to find some other form of device. And I think that's something that we may have to do.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: He then turned to Mike Waltz and asked him how the investigation was going and essentially what they're doing here. Waltz referenced the technical and legal experts who are handling this. But I also asked the President, Anderson, about that key assertion that he made that there was no classified information in this group text about imminent military strikes and deliberations over whether or not those strikes should happen and also, as Jeffrey Goldberg told me last night, that it included information he felt was too sensitive to publish.
I asked the President, who told him that, he clearly heard the question, Anderson, but declined to answer it.
COOPER: All right, Kaitlan, we'll see you at the top of the hour. We're going to -- I know you have Senator Angus King.
Joining me right now is Democratic Senator from Minnesota, Amy Klobuchar, who is the third ranking Democrat in the Senate leadership. Senator Klobuchar, anytime someone says I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but my ears perk up.
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): Unbelievable.
[20:10:08]
COOPER: What do you make of security -- of National Security by Waltz just a short time ago, floating the idea that there's something nefarious on Jeffrey Goldberg's part, as opposed to a security failure by Waltz, Hegseth and others?
KLOBUCHAR: I think this is an unbelievable assertion to make. When you think about the fact, Jeffrey Goldberg is a really good reporter, a lot of people know that. And if Trump believes that it matters that he wasn't as famous as some other reporters, well, he sure is famous now.
And the point is, he did not get, I love this, that he somehow got sucked into this text thing. There's no big vacuum cleaner there. They put him on this text line. He then had the foresight to think, I can't put some of this out here. It looks classified to me.
And my favorite part of all this, in addition to the fact that we have to have a major investigation and they're engaging in putting key security sensitive information on a app, is that if you notice what Waltz said, he said, we've got to talk to Elon about this. Like Elon Musk is now the White House I.T. guy who is currently screwing up the entire Social Security System. So, there's five-hour waits and private information is at risk. All of that's going on and they think Elon can just fix it.
No, this is an example of incompetency. It is an example of putting people involved in National Security at risk, with targets being revealed with identities being revealed. And right now, I still cannot believe they said this wasn't classified, but they said that under oath.
COOPER: Yes, I mean, if Jeffrey Goldberg releases it and it turns out to be classified, I'm not sure what happens then. Do you think anyone is going to lose their job over this?
KLOBUCHAR: I have no idea. But someone should lose their job over this because we can't have National Security. I will tell you, today we had a briefing on Arctic affairs with Senator Lisa Murkowski, who's a good friend. She held this in a classified briefing room on Arctic, on the Arctic and the Arctic Council. A number of people were briefing us. We put our phones in a locked box. We put our watches. Fitbits in a locked box, and everyone else did the same thing.
These are security procedures that are commonplace for those that work at the State Department, Defense Department, they're well aware that there are classified video ways that you can do any kind of a video teleconference or the like, but they didn't use any of this. They're just off on their signal line like you are granted, it's better than just being on the regular, but they're all like you are with a bunch of friends wishing them a happy birthday. This is not what you do with our National Security secrets.
COOPER: Pretty much everybody, or many of the people in that chat group. I mean, there's video of them, there's text messages, there's tweets of them from the years past attacking other administrations for their handling or alleged handling of classified information or National Security issues. I mean, the hypocrisy here is, you know, not surprising.
KLOBUCHAR: Unbelievable, they're going after Hillary Clinton for years about this. And then you have the Defense Secretary, you have the Intelligence Director, you have all these people on this on this call. And I was so glad Mark Warner and a number of the other senators stood up and said, wait a minute, are you doing this? And this is what I want to know actually, Anderson. How many other things have they disclosed this way? How many other things have they put out there?
That's why I'm glad that Senator Wicker, I believe, is going to have hearings on the Armed Services Committee. A number of the Republicans have said they're troubled by this. I think John Cornyn said this was a huge screw up. So, you are starting to see pushback on both sides of the aisle. So, in addition to the investigation that must take place in the normal course of things with people that I'm not sure I trust to do this investigation anymore, we have to have further hearings in the U.S. Senate.
COOPER: Senator Amy Klobuchar, thanks for your time. Appreciate it.
KLOBUCHAR: Great to be on. Thank you.
COOPER: I'm joined now by Rahm Emanuel, who is President Obama's first chief-of-staff He's also a former U.S. Ambassador to Japan and served as mayor of Chicago.
Ambassador, if this was in the Obama White House when you were chief of staff. What -- I mean, first of all, we know what the Republicans --
RAHM EMANUEL, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO JAPAN AND SERVED AS MAYOR OF CHICAGO: You don't even have to finish the question, it would roll. I mean, let's take two examples. One, what if you were doing this during the Osama Bin Laden operation on open signal secret military operation, you're putting the men and women at risk. You have -- the Houthis are firing missiles. You think that that's how that planning was? No, it's in the Situation Room for a reason.
Second, when we used to evaluate taking action on high value targets terrorists, or we'd have a review that we would sit down with the President, we weigh the plus and minuses. It would mainly happen in situation room. Document was prepared by National Security. People got a chance to weigh in person or written.
The idea that just take any other military operation, you have a drone man unmanned, you have an operation, the Osama Bin Laden. The idea that you would be doing this on a group chat, where you're putting men and women on a military operation, that is -- never would happen.
Number two, and this to me, is quite revealing. There's a lot of different angles on this, Anderson, but the one that is, is they call the Europeans pathetic. And they said they're going to have to pay for this.
Well, right now, the Brits, the Canadians, that would be the 51st state, the Danes, the Aussies, the New Zealand, the Dutch and Bahrain are all participating in operation since January. Not this one, helping us --
[20:15:36]
COOPER: They've been working--
EMANUEL: Yes, yes -- the people that are pathetic, there's never been a Chinese ship, a Russian ship, a Belarusian ship or a North Korean ship hit. Coincidence? I think not. So, the idea is who you're calling pathetic are actually standing there, working with us, coordinating with us Intel and operations and those that are freeloaders, not the Europeans are the Russians, the Chinese, the Belarusians and the North Koreans. They all work with Khamenei.
COOPER: It's also interesting to hear them talking about how do you extract a price from the Europeans, for --
EMANUEL: They are paying a price. They're right there off the shore of Yemen with us. That is what's crazy about this. This actually, to me, captures what is so strategically sloppy about this administration. That's one piece of it, is that our allies are actually there with us. Our adversaries are the freeloaders, and they call our allies the freeloaders. It's upside down. It's totally inverted.
The second is, and I just use this, you know, many times, like take the Osama Bin Laden case or other cases. In the end of the day, the President United States doesn't really have all the information. Its judgment. So, think back about this. He fired C.Q. Brown, the head of the joint chiefs, a four star who has a spotless record.
We fired the CNO of the navy, Lisa Franchetti, spotless record, who has run a strike group. You got heads Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, who has a drinking problem, whose only thing that he's ever done is Fox and he's on this. And yet those people who've served in uniform have had spotless records, have worked their way up through every operation. They get fired by the President, and this person gets hired and Waltz gets hired, the President of the United States.
So, everybody wants to talk about I'm sorry. It's his judgment. And then to the senators who confirmed him, those timid souls, as Teddy Roosevelt said, they own this. They confirmed them. They can sit there and do all the hearings they want. They knew this. Every one of those senators know that this would not have been their nomination. They don't get a pass on this to try to clean up and airbrush out the fault that they voted for people that they know in the privacy of their room were never qualified for these jobs.
COOPER: It's also Hegseth on these messages. He's talking about OPSEC. He's talking about operational security on something which is not operationally secure.
EMANUEL: Yes and he's talking about plans that are in -- the only person that acts professional is Jeffrey Goldberg, who removes himself. Everybody else --
COOPER: And who does not, by the way, publish any of the details or the name of an undercover CIA officer?
EMANUEL: I mean, you, having worked with the Seventh Fleet in Japan, having worked with the military throughout my career, from working as the President's chief of staff in Congress and leadership. These are men and women who had incredible training. You're putting them at risk. They're already taking a risk.
Now, what you're doing, the way you're conducting yourself, you're supposed to be the leaders. You're putting their lives at risk. They have been firing missiles both at Israel and at our ships and our ally ships.
This administration doesn't know who an ally is and doesn't know who an adversary is and doesn't know who an adversary is And they better figure it out quick, because the Brits who are out there, the Canadians who are out there, the Danes who are out there, the Dutch who are out there, they're working with us. That's who you respect. You don't call them a bunch of pathetic freeloaders, because the people that are freeloaders are the ones coordinating with Ayatollah Khamenei.
COOPER: Rahm Emanuel,
EMANUEL: Thanks very much.
COOPER: Appreciate it. Yes, we're going to have more on why the National Security experts were so alarmed just ahead.
Plus, let's go for this one. Let's go for this one. It's not just the White House trying to cut cancer research budgets at the NIH. It's also Republicans in Congress cutting millions in cancer research from a Pentagon medical program. The former head of health and human services will join us.
Also, President Trump trying to target and intimidate another law firm, this time for once employing someone who had previously investigated the Presidents campaign.
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[20:23:39]
COOPER: Two of the members of the President's National Security team on that Signal chat group with "The Atlantic's" Jeffrey Goldberg, were overseas during portions of that correspondence. The Presidents special envoy, Steve Witkoff, was in Moscow meeting with Vladimir Putin at roughly the moment on Thursday, March 13th, when Goldberg reports he received a notice he would be included in the chat group. Houthi PC small group.
Now, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, was also overseas on a trip that included stops in Japan, Thailand and India.
Joining me now are our chief national security correspondent, Alex Marquardt and former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe. Andrew, when you hear Mike Waltz suggesting on Fox a short time ago that there may be something nefarious behind Goldberg's inclusion on the group chat. Do bells start going off for you that the Trump administration may seek to pin this security failure on him?
ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes, for sure, Anderson. I mean, obviously there was something nefarious going on in the inclusion of Jeff Goldberg in this small group conversation about a highly sensitive operation. The nefarious thing was Mike Waltz, including him. The fact that Mike Waltz convened this group on Signal is that's all you need to know about the sloppiness and the recklessness with which this group handles National Security information.
You know, there is no other group of government employees who have easier access to appropriate classified systems than this group of Cabinet level officials. They have staff. They have many of them drivers, security people, part of whose job is to constantly provide them with access to classified systems.
So, there's absolutely no reason why this should have been done on Signal. And simply the use of the term small group clearly conveys, you know, that's a code word in and around the national security council.
That's what you call assembling a small -- a group of people that's on an on an item that's so sensitive that you don't even want to share it with the other principals. So, look, there was no question that Mike Waltz knew the sensitivity and the seriousness of this conversation. And yet he convened it on an open, off the shelf product that is absolutely not qualified for the transmission of sensitive material.
[20:25:59]
COOPER: Well, also, Alex, what I don't understand is the top national security leadership of the United States, all of whom supposedly know about security and know about what devices they should be using. They're all on this thing, chatting away without. Nobody is saying, hey, why are we doing -- I mean, it seems clearly they must have done this before. This must be, I mean, is this a common thing -- do we know?
ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: It's not, the problem is that it's easy and convenient. Giving Mike Waltz the benefit of the doubt, he started this text chain in order to coordinate this conversation going forward about the strikes in Yemen. He didn't necessarily know what was going to be said at the time. But you're right, Anderson, there's nothing there's just no sense that anyone at any point said, hey, guys, maybe we shouldn't be doing this. And when you look at what Pete Hegseth is said to have put into this group, it is really hard to understand how the Trump administration is arguing that it's not classified.
I mean, he talked about operational details, targets, weapons and attack sequencing. It is easy for anyone, like Hegseth, with access to classified information to say, you know, to put it into a chat. If they're seeing classified information, they can put it there, but that doesn't make it smart. And actually, one of the most telling moments, Anderson, in this hearing today was the director of the CIA, John Ratcliffe, who said that pre-decisional deliberations. So, the debate about strikes that are to be carried out should be conducted, he said, through classified channels.
Signal is not a classified channel. It's easy and its convenient, but it's not where classified information is supposed to go.
COOPER: Andrew, are you surprised that apparently no one on the group text questioned why they were discussing war plans?
MCCABE: I'm shocked. I'm shocked. I mean, this is the senior most level of our government responsible for collecting and transacting in classified intelligence. And not one of these people thought to say, hey, guys, maybe we should switch this conversation over to the high side, which is, of course, the classified system appropriate for these, things built for these kind of conversations. That's something that happens all the time.
I mean, people will maybe use unclassified systems to set up meetings to coordinate, hey, let's all get together to talk about that thing next Tuesday, whatever. But they don't actually discuss the content, which is of course, not just sensitive, not just national defense information, but despite what the White House is saying today, this stuff is absolutely classified.
And it doesn't mean that, you know, nobody's accusing them of having included attached a classified stamped document to the text. But simply talking about this subject matter, a military strike before it happens, a strike that's going to put Americans at risk, and American servicemen and women at risk.
There is no scenario in which that is not a classified discussion. I'm sorry. That's just not a thing
COOPER: Andrew McCabe, Alex Marquardt, thanks very much.
It's not just the Trump administration trying to cut funding for cancer research at the national institutes of health Republicans in Congress We are also targeting a Pentagon program focused on life saving research into cancer and other diseases. We're going to talk to a former HHS Secretary next.
And President Trump targeting yet another law firm, trying to intimidate them or shut them down. He's now going after a law firm that employed someone who once investigated his campaign chairman back in 2016. Details ahead.
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[20:34:16]
COOPER: We've seen efforts so far by the administration to cut funding for cancer research and other medical research by the National Institutes of Health. Now, critical cancer research could also be threatened due to deep budget cuts from the Republican-led Congress.
A Defense Department program that does a lot of key research in the area of cancer saw about 57 percent or almost $860 million of its budget cut during the recent negotiations of the Stopgap Funding Bill.
Together, this money is what's known as the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, or CDMRP. According to Stat News, cancer research was particularly hard hit. Quoting now, the cut to the CDMRP leaves no funds allocated specifically to kidney, pancreatic, lung, or brain cancer and reduces funding for breast, ovarian, and prostate cancer. It also cuts specific funding for bone marrow failure disease, some of which are considered cancer.
[20:35:07]
The report also suggests a possible political motive to some of the medical research cuts across government agencies. Quote, the cancer moonshot was also flagged as a controversial term in a National Cancer Institute guidance earlier this month, raising concerns that programs related to this signature initiative of former President Biden could be at risk for cuts or cancellations.
I'm joined now by the former health and human services director of the National Cancer Institute. Secretary Xavier Becerra. Secretary, I appreciate you being with us.
What about this research? Why would this be cut? Is it simply a budget reason?
XAVIER BECERRA, FORMER HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Anderson, I don't know if there is a good reason that's been given. Patients are not the enemy here. And punishing patients who need some of this research to provide them with the lifesaving treatments and therapies that these clinical trials are producing is simply just attacking patients.
And no one has explained why you have to cancel these research grants. All of these dedicated scientists are now trying to figure out what they do. And, of course, all these patients that are part of these experimental clinical trials are also up in the air. It's a certain way to expedite the death of all of these folks.
COOPER: I mean, the thing about research is it takes I mean, obviously, it takes time and it takes clinical trials, as you were talking about, all of which have to be done very specifically. They cost money and the results may not be seen immediately.
But the impact of something like this long term, just -- it's not just on the cancer research itself, but also even on doctors entering this field or young researchers getting funded for experimental, you know, or cutting edge medicine that has long term impacts.
BECERRA: Not just impact on those who are part of these experimental clinical trials for whom this may be their last hope of survival of their cancer, but for the future for your child or for your spouse who may contract one of these cancers and needs that research to be completed so that treatment will be available in the future for them. As you said, it doesn't happen overnight.
All of this is a great deal of painstaking homework that's done before you can launch any new prescription drug. And so to all of a sudden cancel the funding. Well, as I said, it's -- it's simply punishing patients.
COOPER: Well, also for kids with cancer, I mean, they have a difficult enough time, not just obviously with the disease itself, but a lack of funding in general for -- for lesser known cancers or more or rarer cancers. There's -- there's often not the kind of money unless it's coming from the government for research.
BECERRA: Yes, and some of the most promising results are in cancers that attack children. Think of leukemia and how many kids today are surviving their bout with leukemia. We can do a lot, but you have to have the scientists who've got the support to make the long term investments in some of this research. It takes time to do the clinical studies.
We were trying to figure out what long COVID is after we got past the crisis of the COVID pandemic. It took a lot of time to stand up the studies, the largest study in the world that's being conducted to figure out why so many people are still suffering the effects of having gone through COVID. That doesn't happen overnight. You can't just cancel.
COOPER: There's the reporting that former President Biden's cancer moonshot initiative has been flagged as controversial. We've also seen funding cuts for HIV research, for HIV vaccine research.
The idea that this could sort of be politicized in terms of where health money, where money for -- for cutting edge medicine actually goes to is kind of terrifying.
BECERRA: Yes, it's -- what's really terrifying is we've got enough to handle and to try to deal with when we've got these natural disasters, these viruses that are hitting that. We don't know where they're coming from, but we've got to try to do the best -- best we can to try to address them, whether it's the floods that caused havoc and real mayhem for a lot of folks, or whether it's a virus like COVID.
But those are natural disasters. Manmade disasters don't need to be added on top of this. And simply denying the funding for this critical research is a man-made disaster that will have consequences just the way these viruses, just the way these natural disasters are taking a toll on human life and health. There's no doubt about that.
COOPER: Secretary Xavier Becerra, I appreciate your time. Thank you.
Coming up next, the president now targeting yet another law firm that he sees as a political enemy. This one employed a lawyer who once prosecuted a former campaign chairman of President Trump and later a crime ring targeting surfers. How thieves were able to break into phones, drain bank accounts and max out credit cards and how they were caught. Ahead.
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COOPER: President Trump seems to feel his targeting of law firms in Washington is working because he's now going after another one. Previously, he signed executive orders stripping the security clearances of top law firms, banning their attorneys from federal buildings, threatening other companies that hire those firms. Today, he targeted another firm named Jenner and Block.
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They previously employed a former prosecutor, Andrew Weissmann, who led the successful prosecution of Trump's 2016 campaign chairman, Paul Manafort. He was on the Mueller investigation as well. Just to be sure, there's no ambiguity about why Jenner and Block was targeted. The executive order specifically mentions Weissmann's ties to the firm.
Joining me now is Elie Honig, former federal prosecutor for the Southern District of New York. What stands out to you about this executive order?
ELIE HONIG, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR, SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: Well, this, like the others, is just pure, uncut vengeance and payback. What's different about this one is, as you said, Donald Trump specifies one particular individual, Andrew Weissmann.
And therefore, he says, I'm now going to punish this firm that used to employ Andrew Weissmann. And what is Weissmann's great sin? He prosecuted successfully, as you said, Paul Manafort. By the way, Trump already got his revenge for that when he pardoned Paul Manafort.
And the other thing Andrew Weissmann has done is, he's an outspoken critic of Donald Trump. But now we have a president kneecapping a law firm in payback?
COOPER: For formerly employing this person.
HONIG: For formerly employing somebody who's exercising their First Amendment rights. It's outrageous. And we say things are unprecedented all the time. And sometimes they're somewhat precedented. We've never seen anything remotely like this.
COOPER: What's so impressive about this is, it's to intimidate firms from accepting clients who may go against the administration. And it's punishing corporations from hiring these law firms to do any business with these law firms.
HONIG: Exactly. It goes on several different levels. On the one hand, it punishes these firms. I mean, this is damaging these firms' bottom line. To the point where we saw the one firm, Paul Weiss, last week, completely cave in and buckle. It also is interfering with the rights of individuals and corporations to hire the attorney of their choosing.
COOPER: Right. If you get fired unjustly in this administration, or are trying to get your job back, and you look to go to an attorney, these law firms may say, look, no, we're not going to go up against the administration.
HONIG: And the thing that's so jarring, if you look at today's announcement, the way that it's phrased, the official presidential proclamation, it says, a proclamation to guard against the dangers posed by this firm, Jenner and Block.
The dangers. The only danger, heavy scare quotes there, that is identified is, they hired a person, Andrew Weissmann, who I really dislike.
COOPER: So what do these firms, where can they do?
HONIG: So I've talked to a lot of people, and I was in this world a long time ago. A lot of my former colleagues at DOJ now work at these firms. First of all, lawyers, the legal community, is apoplectic about this. There is no dispute.
I mean, whether people are Republican, Democrat, love Trump, hate him, everyone agrees this is completely inappropriate. One thing that multiple influential partners at multiple firms has told me is, we need to form an alliance. It's almost like a NATO of these law firms.
Not to, you know, not to trivialize what NATO is, but they are -- there are serious talks now getting underway about, we need to bind together and take a position that an attack on one of us is an attack on all. We will not buckle, we will not sort of stray, we will not undermine each other.
If they don't do this, I think they recognize they're going to get picked off one by one, because I promise you, if you look hard enough, or maybe not even that hard, you will find some lawyer, some client at every substantial firm in this country that's done something that Donald Trump objects to at some point.
COOPER: We'll see if that actually happens, Elie Honig. Thanks so much, appreciate it.
HONIG: Thank you.
COOPER: Coming up next, don't mess with surfers. Here's how one surfer became a detective to find thieves accused of stealing his and other surfers' wallets and cell phones and making a lot of money doing it. We'll be right back.
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COOPER: At several Southern California beaches, surfers have been returning to their cars to find they're locked out of their wallets and phones stolen.
According to authorities, it was all part of a sophisticated organized crime ring that targeted surfers and netted thieves a fortune over the course of years. Here's Nick Watt.
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LOGAN DULIEN, "SNAPT" SURF FILM DIRECTOR: I'm not a fighter, I'm not tough or whatever, but I wanted to draw blood as far as, like, they got me, then I wanted to get them back.
NICK WATT, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): It's August 12th, Newport Beach, California. Logan Dulien parks, stashes his car keys at his beachfront crash pad. He has no idea he's being watched.
DULIEN: I thought, I'm going to go surf 20-minute saltwater therapy.
WATT (voice-over): The guy who watched him stash those keys waits for word from an accomplice on the beach that Logan has paddled out, snatches Logan's keys, opens the car, steals wallet and phone, locks the car and leaves. Minutes later, Logan is looking in vain for those keys.Within an hour, thieves are hammering his credit cards at a bunch of high-end stores.
WATT: It would seem a bit odd, like, a surfer dude who's never shopped at Chanel suddenly dropping bank at Chanel.
DULIEN: Look at me, I mean, I got no Rolexes or any gold jewelry on or anything. They send a notification, fraud alert, was this you? And the guy's sitting there on the phone, he'd just write yes, so the charges would keep going through.
WATT (voice-over): Thieves were clearly breaking into phones. An accomplice would later flip, telling federal agents he saw the alleged ringleader with stolen phones in a Faraday bag and understood that the bag was to prevent victims from wiping or tracking their stolen cell phones.
They drained all Logan's accounts, maxed out all his cards. Total loss, more than $150,000.
DULIEN: And I'm just sitting there kind of deteriorating, like, emotionally --
WATT: Yes.
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DULIEN: -- you know? And then again, too, I'm just still, I just watched my mom die 48 hours before, and it's just been a really rough year and a half, and then this stuff's happening to me.
I was basically like, I don't give a fuck who this is. I'm going to do everything I can to make them pay.
Right there, you see that camera? I had the surveillance, and I basically became a detective of my own.
WATT (voice-over): And took it to social media. Friends warned Logan to be careful, said he didn't know who he was messing with. If anyone can help identify him or just share this so we can try to catch the thief, that would be greatly appreciated.
WATT (voice-over): Police now say that's Daniel Castillo, and he's facing over 30 charges, including grand theft and fraud. Stab, a surf publication, also posted an article.
DULIEN: It was all these surfers started DMing to me. The same thing happened to me. I'm like, this is what these guys do. They rob surfers.
WATT (voice-over): The crew that got Logan allegedly operated up and down the SoCal coast for years, stole from well over 100 surfers, including pro Tyler Gunter.
TYLER GUNTER, PRO SURFER: Went out for a quick, maybe 40-minute surf. Came back, and I'm looking through my attire. I'm like, man, where's my keys? I swear my keys should be here, because now I'm stuck in a parking lot in my wetsuit with no resources, no phone, nothing. And they're off doing whatever they were doing.
WATT (voice-over): Spending lots of his money at a mall, and liquidating his stock and crypto portfolios, according to Gunter.
GUNTER: I can't call the banks and stop what's happening.
WATT: Because?
GUNTER: Because I have no phone.
WATT: How much did you lose?
GUNTER: I think all in all, a little over 50 grand.
WATT (voice-over): That accomplice who talked told agents they focused on vehicles belonging to surfers, as the surfers would be out on the water for significant periods of time and would not be able to take their keys with them.
Logan is a well-known surf film director. He'd been working nonstop on the latest installment of his series, "Snapt5," and he'd racked up debt financing the film.
DULIEN: I had $30,000 in debt to American Express. They paid off the American Express through my online banking, so they could go shop. A detective from American Express reached out to me. That day that they got me, they got three other surfers from Huntington, and the total, he said that day, between four surfers was a quarter million dollars.
WATT: What?
DULIEN: I don't know yet, and I'm about to find out that, yes, there's these other lower-end guys, but it's really, it's one guy. It's a professional Jedi master hacker.
WATT (voice-over): According to court documents, Castillo immediately gave Logan's phone and wallet to that hacker, Moundir Kamil. Bypassing phone security and face ID is very complex. Even the FBI has to bring in outside contractors to do it.
Once in, the thieves have access to pretty much everything you have.
DULIEN: Sometimes people get their cars broken into, that's standard, right? But it's the hack.
WATT (voice-over): Thieves kept hitting this exact same street, but never leaving quite enough evidence for arrests until a neighbor of Logan's sets up cameras.
DULIEN: They got the guys, like, red-handed. It has them visually going in, it has them handing off the phone. I mean, it has everything. And the big kahuna was there a block or two away.
WATT (voice-over): Moundir Kamil, a Moroccan national in this country illegally, previously convicted of bank robbery and fraud, he served jail time here in California.
DULIEN: I don't care if you're a Republican, if you're a Democrat, how could anyone think, yes, let's keep this guy, let's -- let him hang here and keep robbing all of us.
WATT (voice-over): Kamil is now in custody awaiting trial for these alleged crimes. An attorney for Kamil declined to comment.
DULIEN: The surf community is one, like, tribe. Everyone doesn't get along, but, like, at the end of the day, if someone's drowning, we're going to do whatever we can to save them, and they would vice versa. I feel very happy to know that these guys aren't going to do this to anyone else, especially other surfers.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: This is crazy, Nick. Have any of them been able to recoup any of the money that was stolen?
WATT: They have. I mean, they've had to fight for it, you know, because the credit card companies can argue, listen, we texted your phone. You said it was you. And also the hack is just so deeply sophisticated that it's almost unbelievable.
You know, Logan fought for his money, and how we got the money, he managed to get the surveillance footage from those high-end stores, Chanel and the like, to prove to the credit card and the bank that it was not him spending 20 grand on Chanel handbags.
You know, the other issue here is there are still more surfers coming forward, Anderson.
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So the DA who's handling this case is having to add to it as more surfers come forward and say, hey, that happened to me, is having to add to it as more surfers come forward and say, hey, that happened to me, and a lot of them, as I say, are still trying to fight for their money to prove that this really did happen.
And Daniel Castillo, who was the guy who was in that surveillance video allegedly breaking --
COOPER: Yes.
WATT: -- into Logan's car, he doesn't have a lawyer and has not entered a plea. All of this is still to come to trial. Anderson.
COOPER: Nick Watt, thanks very much. The news continues. The Source with Kaitlan Collins starts now.
