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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Epstein Survivors to Trump and Congress: Release the Files; Epstein Survivors Calls on Lawmakers to Release the Files as GOP Leadership Faces Pressure; GOP Rep Needs Two more Republicans to Force Vote on Epstein Files. Lawmakers Edge Toward Epstein Vote, White House Backing It is a Hostile Act; HHS Employees Demand RFK Jr. Resign for Compromising the Health of This Nation; China Shows Off Massive Force at Military Parade; Putin Shows Off Alliances Amid Trump's Push to End Ukraine War; Florida Moving to End All Vaccine Mandates; $1.4 Billion Powerball Jackpot Tonight. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired September 03, 2025 - 20:00   ET

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

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: ... snapping of one of the power cords. Officials reportedly say it was traveling up that steep hill. Cable came loose, which caused the car to crash into the side of a building. And what you're looking at there is the car on its side, surrounded by debris. Unclear how many victims there will be in the building versus the cable car itself.

We do understand tourists are among the victims. It's known as the Funicular. It first opened back in 1885. Each car carries up to 42 passengers. Throughout the summer, full all day, every day. It has truly become one of the most popular attractions in Lisbon. A true tragedy as we wait for that full toll. Thanks so much for being with us. Anderson starts now.

[20:00:42]

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, Epstein survivors speak out, asking the President for help. His response? He calls it a hoax. We'll speak with one of the women who spoke out today.

Also tonight, Putin, Xi, and Kim Jong Un and the summit power play meant to send a warning to the U.S. and President Trump.

And later, with kids heading back to school, Florida plans to eliminate vaccine mandates. What it could mean for students there and the precedent this could set for kids around the country.

Good evening, thanks for joining us tonight. How Democrats and a small number of Trump supporting republicans came together today to pressure the White House for greater disclosure in the Epstein case.

Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna, sharing a platform with hard right colleagues Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie on the Capitol steps. But as remarkable as that may be, it's really just the secondary story tonight.

It was eclipsed first and foremost by the women whose presence defined the moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From 14 to 17 years old. I went and worked for Jeffrey.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was 16 years old.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was only 14 years old.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was a 16 year old.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was only 14 years old when I was introduced to Jeffrey Epstein by a 13 year old friend of mine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Fourteen years old, those are five brave women speaking out. Five of what the Justice Department has estimated could be as many as a thousand women Jeffrey Epstein victimized. Another survivor today had a message for President Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANOUSKA DE GEORGIOU, EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: President Trump, you have so much influence and power in this situation. Please use that influence and power to help us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, when we left the air last night, some survivors had just met with lawmakers and their accounts of abuse were enough to move South Carolina Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace, herself a rape survivor, to tears. On social media, afterwards, she said she had, these are her words, "a full blown panic attack, sweating, hyperventilating, shaking."

Some of the women who spoke today have been feeling what she felt for as long as three decades. Congresswoman Mace, along with Thomas Massie and two others, are among just four House Republicans so far who signed on to a discharge petition to force a vote compelling the Justice Department to hand over all Epstein related documents. House Speaker Johnson with White House help, is fighting it.

Earlier this summer, he went so far as to adjourn the House a week early to slow its momentum. And today, the President did not acknowledge what any of these women went through instead, and this is not new for him, he turned their suffering into his inconvenience.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: So this is a Democrat hoax that never ends. So, what they're trying to do with the Epstein hoax is get people to talk about that instead of speaking about the tremendous success, like ending seven wars. I ended seven wars. Nobody's going to talk about this because they're going to talk about the Epstein whatever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, he said nothing today about anything. The survivors actually said only that the Epstein saga was a hoax and a distraction from his accomplishments -- certainly wasn't a distraction for him or hoax when he was running for President and his supporters insisted that Mr. Trump would blow the lid off Epstein's crimes as President. Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, they're now running the FBI and suddenly you're singing a very different tune.

The President's remarks came within minutes of the survivors. Here's actually how they sounded side by side with the timestamps added.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALEY ROBSON, EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: I would like Donald J. Trump and every person in America and around the world to humanize us, to see us for who we are and to hear us for what we have to say. There is no hoax.

TRUMP: This is a Democrat hoax that never ends.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Listen to us. This is not a hoax.

TRUMP: It's really a Democrat hoax.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are tired of looking at the news and seeing Jeffrey Epstein's name and saying that this is a hoax.

TRUMP: We're having the most successful eight months of any President ever. And that's what I want to talk about. That's what we should be talking about, not the Epstein hoax.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Just to be absolutely clear here, when Jeffrey Epstein was arrested in 2019, Donald Trump was President, his appointees at the Justice Department oversaw the investigation. It wasn't a hoax back then. Yet somehow, to him, it is now.

Late today, on the network "Real America's Voice," Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene had this to say about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (D-GA): Today, he called it a hoax. While these women were speaking out and they were saying, we're not a hoax, we're human beings. And I think, I think we need to see something turn around there.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He can prove it's a hoax by releasing it. Let us decide if it's a hoax or not. I mean --

GREENE: It's not a hoax because Jeffrey Epstein is a convicted pedophile. That takes away the whole hoax thing. It's not a hoax, it's not a lie. (END VIDEO CLIP)

[20:05:21]

COOPER: And to the point about releasing the files that is entirely within the President's power if he chooses, which he has not, at least not anymore.

Back in February, the administration, to great fanfare and after much hype, released a batch of case documents. You may remember they were titled the Epstein files phase one. There never was a phase two. Several months later, when the administration tried to explicitly put a lid on any further disclosure, that's when the current uproar began.

Last night, the House Oversight Committee published the material that it managed to obtain from DOJ. Only three percent of it, according to several lawmakers, turned out to be anything new.

Now, separately, the administration put out recordings of the talks. The Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, had with Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell, in which she cleared the President of wrongdoing and would not even acknowledge her own. Shortly after, she was moved to a minimum security prison camp, where sex offenders are rarely, if ever sent, which, along with everything else, raises questions, including from Congressman Massie, who said today he does not believe the unreleased Epstein files would tarnish the President himself but perhaps others close to him in his view are.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. THOMAS MASSIE (R-KY): I don't think the President is redacted here. I don't think he's implicated in these files, but I think his donors are, I think his friends are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Whatever the President chooses to do, though, and whether or not Congressman Massie and others get the discharge petition they're seeking, the women who spoke today, including Lisa Phillips, who will talk to shortly, have an alternative.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LISA PHILLIPS, EPSTEIN SURVIVOR: I would like to announce here today, us Epstein survivors have been discussing creating our own list. We know the names. Many of us were abused by them. Now, together, survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know who regularly -- who were regularly in the Epstein world and it will be done by survivors and for survivors. No one else is involved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: More on how all of this is playing out, our chief White House correspondent, Kaitlan Collins, joins me, she anchors "The Source" at the top of the hour. So can anyone in The White House explain why the President keeps calling this a hoax? KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Basically, Anderson, what I've heard is that it's because the President views this as an attack on him. And all of this fervor over this and the demand to release more documents from his Justice Department. I mean, I was there in the Cabinet room, the first time that the President was asked about this, this outrage over how they had handled the Jeffrey Epstein investigation after that memo came out from the Justice Department.

And the President seemed shocked almost, that that this was something that people cared about. But the very people who cared the most about it have often been his supporters and his biggest allies in Congress. I mean, you heard from Marjorie Taylor Greene there refuting the President, something that often you don't -- you do not hear from her by saying that this isn't a hoax.

And obviously, they have not treated it like a hoax in years past before they came into power. The President himself has called for the release of these of these documents. His vice President has several of his top cabinet members have as well, and even since, obviously they've been in office. But the frustration from the White House comes from the fact that this is still dominating the headlines and that it has gone on for so long now. And yes, it subsided some to a degree while Congress was out on recess. But the minute they returned to Washington here yesterday, Anderson, you have seen how this is back right at the top of the agenda and the headlines and something that all of these Republicans are being asked about.

And usually the way the White House kind of determines how they're going to respond to something, or if something is actually something that is worth them responding to is whether Republicans are criticizing them over that. And this is a rare instance where that is happening -- Anderson.

COOPER: All right, Kaitlin, thanks very much. Congressman Massie and Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna is going to be on with Kaitlan at the top of the hour.

Joining me is attorney, Brad Edwards, who is representing more than 200 Epstein survivors, including Lisa Phillips, who says that she was 21 when she first met Epstein and that she endured his abuse for years. Lisa, I appreciate you being with us, both of you being with us. You heard the President call this a Democrat hoax that never ends. What did you think when you hear that?

PHILLIPS: For me personally, it was shocking and upsetting. I just -- I couldn't believe that he said that just for so many years he acknowledged that there were thousands of files, and he was going to release them. And so, hearing that today, I was just confused by it. I think he thought that we were targeting him, and we weren't. I don't believe there's any evidence that he abused any of the survivors.

So, it wasn't a target against him. It was just, you know, a cry for us being fed up and wanting answers.

COOPER: What is it -- I mean, what's the impact been on your life? I mean, how are you holding up through this? Not just in recent months, but, I mean, this is obviously going on for many years.

[20:10:19]

PHILLIPS: Well, it comes in waves. It's hard to deal with because we're just -- we just want some accountability and we haven't received any. The only person that's been held accountable is a woman and we were abused by a man who sex trafficked a lot of us. And so, we are aware there are many other men out there and we just don't understand. Are we nearing the end of our fight, pushing us to, you know, make other decisions to, you know, to see if we can get some accountability?

COOPER: Brad, I'm wondering what your reaction to the President calling a hoax.

BRAD EDWARDS, ATTORNEY FOR EPSTEIN SURVIVORS: Yes, thanks for having me on, Anderson. It doesn't make any sense. I don't think -- I know that he doesn't believe that it's a hoax. I'm not sure that he knows what the word hoax means to tell you the truth, because I've talked to President Trump years ago about this case on this topic. He provided information he knew back then the type of creep that Jeffrey Epstein was. I can't imagine that he's saying that these hundreds of women are lying about this. So, I'm not exactly sure what he's talking about.

COOPER: This was back in 2009 you said you talked to him?

EDWARDS: Sure, I talked to him in 2009 several times back then and at least through the years, have even asked follow-up questions through his lawyers. He's not implicated in the files that I've ever seen and like I've said, I've represented 200 women.

So, all I can think is that he has now seen the files or has been advised of things in the files that he didn't know was in the files, and that I currently don't know that are in the files, because otherwise it makes absolutely no sense, this about face that he's done. You're either on the side of the victims or you're on the side of evil. There is not another side to this, and he's choosing the side of evil, the side of Jeffrey Epstein. It really makes no sense. I can't imagine the public's going to put up with this.

COOPER: Lisa, you said this on Capitol Hill and you just sort of referenced it a moment ago. You talked about compiling a list of other abusers who were in Epstein's world among all of the women who were there today, and I assume others who weren't even there. Is that something -- can you just talk about that idea and what would you do with that list?

PHILLIPS: Well, I started a podcast about a year ago where I speak to survivors of serial predators. So, I'm aware through that and also for the last 20 years, speaking to survivors of Epstein that they were trafficked to other men. So, I think the smartest thing for us to do is to get together and start putting together the names that we know 100 percent that we were trafficked to or abused by, or friends of ours were.

COOPER: And what would you do with that? PHILLIPS: Well it's just for us to, be aware of what's going on.

COOPER: Is that something you would release publicly?

PHILLIPS: We have many people that are working with us that are allies in media and in different groups, and we're not quite sure. It's not up for us really to release those names. It's really up to the government to release those names.

COOPER: Brad, what do you think of that idea?

EDWARDS: Like I've always said, I'm an attorney. I've represented many victims. I know the list that I have been given from each one of them. The few people that were farmed out to other of Jeffrey Epstein's friends and the list of names. But the attorney-client privilege prevents me from releasing those names. And I think that it's whatever the victims want. Like they should be empowered. All that matters is what the survivors want, what it needs for them to heal. And if what they want to do is release those names, release those names.

I'm an advocate for them, if that helps them release the names. But I can tell you that many of them are very frightful of some of these individuals that have a lot of money, a lot of power. And there would be backlash. I mean, you can see, even just release of files right now is causing backlash on these victims.

Imagine if all of a sudden they're releasing names of other powerful people and the onslaught of kind of backlash that would come on them as a consequence. Either way, I'll represent them through all of it.

COOPER: And, Lisa, when you heard the interview that Ghislaine Maxwell gave to Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who used to be an attorney for President Trump, I'm wondering what you made of that?

PHILLIPS: Well, it's absolutely horrendous that Trump would even consider pardoning her. Moving her to a nicer facility, I mean, she's a known sex offender. She's a convicted sex offender, she -- a lot of people of the survivors that I've talked to, feels that she was the mastermind behind a lot of it. She helped to abuse young girls. So, it doesn't feel good to all of us, I can tell you that.

COOPER: And she denied doing anything wrong to Todd Blanche, though she's been convicted of crimes.

Brad, she mentioned you and I want to play something that Maxwell said about you in her interview with the deputy attorney general, so you can respond.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

[20:15:51]

TODD BLANCHE, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: But the list itself --

GHISLAINE MAXWELL, A CONVICTED SEX OFFENDER: Yes.

BLANCHE: Where is it?

MAXWELL: There is no list, but Brad Edwards said that he created the list.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: I'm wondering what does that mean? She's saying essentially that you created the list. To your knowledge, was there ever a list that that Epstein himself made?

EDWARDS: No, and I can't imagine what different things that she's conflated. There was a time when Jeffrey Epstein sued me and said that I had made up everything about him, made the whole thing up. Now, he ultimately had to apologize to me in open court in 2018. And ultimately we had him arrested shortly thereafter.

And I think what she is saying is, at some point in time, I was asked, did Epstein farm any of his victims out to other individuals and have said there was a small fraction of victims that he farmed out to a small fraction of his friends and I have created a list of those people just by the very essence of representing these clients.

But there isn't a list that Jeffrey Epstein wrote down so that he could keep track of, to my knowledge. I think that that's what she's saying. But either way, who knows? You can't put a whole lot of stake in what Ghislaine Maxwell is saying at any stage.

COOPER: And Lisa, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman, said that she urged President Trump to meet with survivors in the Oval Office. Is that something you would like, would you like to meet with the President?

PHILLIPS: I feel like if he would actually listen to us and do something about it, then yes, absolutely. But I'm scared of just going there and be retraumatized again, telling our stories. Our stories really affect people, and I would hope they would affect him and that he'd want to do the right thing for us.

COOPER: Lisa, I appreciate your time tonight, and I'm sure it's been an incredibly emotional and difficult day, and I appreciate you spending some time with us. Lisa Phillips and Brad Edwards, thank you as well.

EDWARDS: Thank you, Anderson, appreciate your time.

COOPER: Coming up next, more on the political implications for the President, the repercussions of continuing to mostly keep a lid on any new Epstein disclosures. And later tonight, the summit, that he was not invited to. And the parade he did not attend.

With this massive Chinese show of force may have said to him in the message the meeting of Russian, North Korean and Chinese leaders is meant to send to the world when we continue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:22:58]

COOPER: At the top of the broadcast, we showed you one woman's plea to the President to help her and other survivors of Jeffrey Epstein.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGIOU: President Trump, you have so much influence and power in this situation. Please use that influence and power to help us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: His answer today was to reframe what she and others went through and are still going through as a hoax, which is often defined as a humorous or malicious deception.

Now, keep that in mind as you listen to what Mr. Trump and others now in his administration said about releasing Epstein files well before his second term began.

Okay, we had a problem rolling that. Just moments ago, responding to survivor Lisa Phillips announcement about a about compiling a list of abusers and traffickers. Congressman Thomas Massie just said on social media that he and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene are willing to use Congress' speech and debate clause immunity to in his words, name, names.

Perspective now from journalist and "Lift Our Voices" co-founder Gretchen Carlson; also CNN political director David Chalian. I mean, given all the possible ways to try to move forward on from this story, does it make any sense to you for the President to be using this term hoax, which obviously is a go-to phrase he's used for other things as well?

GRETCHEN CARLSON, CO-FOUNDER, "LIFT OUR VOICES": Absolutely not. I mean, the best headline I saw today was the story Trump can't kill. I mean, he's the master marketer, the master deceptor to try and get you off on other stories, right? Yesterday we had the bombing of a drug boat, and then we had the Chicago police situation, the D.C. Police. But nothing has been able to quell this story.

And, something that really struck me today was that one of the reasons that Donald Trump was elected the first time, and the second time was because he was seen as an outsider. He was not a traditional politician. And the fascinating thing today that hit me was that if he were actually a traditional politician, he would have quelled this story a long time ago. And it's the fact that maybe he's not that this continues to brew as it is.

COOPER: Well, David, I mean, you know, he has repeatedly talked about this when he was running and certainly a lot of his supporters, you know, podcasters and the like. We're saying, well, as soon as he's elected, you know, it's draining the swamp and the, you know, the Epstein black book is going to be released, even though it was already released online years ago. How do you see the way he is responding to this?

[20:25:32]

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, and not just podcasters, right. But his now sitting Vice President, (AUDIO GAP) Director, his attorney general. I mean, the people at the helm of the administration in the campaign season, had all sort of expressed a desire to have sort of full transparency here and release this, as you know, as the President himself did.

I think you could hear in the Oval Office today his frustration to what Gretchen just said, which is that this story, he seems to be aware and frustrated by that. He can't reprogram around it. He knows it is here. And so, I think what he's living with is a frustration that the very thing that catapulted him to the heap, top of the heap of American political life for these last (AUDIO GAP) notion of going after the Deep State and some of these conspiracy theories in support -- from supporters of his forming.

And yet, now that he's in a position of power, he looks like he's the one not perhaps covering up or not being fully transparent and protecting the powerful and the wealthy and the connected, which is exactly what he promised not to do and what gave him a connection to this very robust base of support in the country.

COOPER: Yes, if we have that montage, we'll play it when we have it. But I mean, Gretchen, Marjorie Taylor Greene talked about, you know, he should meet with a number of these women survivors in the Oval Office. Do you actually see that happening? I mean, it seems like --

CARLSON: Absolutely not, I mean, he wouldn't call it -- What would he say to those -- to their faces? You just had a survivor say how difficult this is to go through every single time. And do you think he'd actually say to their faces if he's actually a human being, that that's a hoax?

I mean, one of the most important things, and I can say this as a survivor myself, is to be believed. And I'll never forget, you know, almost nine years ago now when my story came to resolution, I got a public apology from the parent company of Fox, and that was the most meaningful thing in my life. And I remember watching you that night, and you led with that as the most important part of my story and that gave me such great satisfaction that I had been vindicated.

So, that's what these women want. The interesting thing is they're not getting it from Donald Trump. But so much progress has been made that they're actually getting it from the American public now, because 86 percent of us want to learn more about this and 86 percent of us believe these women.

COOPER: I want to play some of what the President and others around him, many of whom are in the administration, have said about this before for quite some time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RACHEL CAMPOS-DUFFY, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST, "FOX AND FRIENDS" WEEKEND: Would you declassify the Epstein files? TRUMP: Yes, yes, I would.

I'd be inclined to do the Epstein. I'd have no problem with it.

J.D. VANCE (R) VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Seriously, we need to release the Epstein list. That that is an important thing.

BENNY JOHNSON, PODCAST HOST: Why is the FBI protecting the greatest pederast -- the largest scale pederast in human history?

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: Simply because of who's on that list. Put on your big boy pants and let us know who the pedophiles are.

PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I think tomorrow, Jesse, breaking news right now. You're going to see some Epstein information being released by my office.

It's sitting on my desk right now to review.

A truckload of evidence arrived. It's now in the possession of the FBI. It's a new day. It's a new administration and everything is going to come out to the public.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Gretchen, it's crazy, they ran on this. They've been talking about this. They're the ones running the FBI now and the Justice Department. It's remarkable to see what they said and what they're saying now.

CARLSON: Exactly, and I think that this is actually political suicide, not necessarily for Donald Trump, but as this story continues to grow without more information being given out, this is political suicide for the midterm elections.

COOPER: David, I mean, they have done an effective job of trying to change the conversation. You know, there was sort of a storm about this weeks ago. And then, you know, a number of other stories, you know, as, as Gretchen said, this administration is very good at throwing out a lot of stuff that you sort of have to respond to and have to cover.

CHALIAN: There's no doubt about it. I've never seen a politician have the ability that Donald Trump has to sort of program the conversation, as you say. But listen, as soon as Congress came back, remember, this is from members of his own party inside the House of Representatives. Some of his most stalwart supporters are at odds with him now. And that until that gets resolved, this story will not go away. It will not be seen as a partisan hoax. The way he tried to portray it today, because its broader than that in terms of not just Americans looking for answers, but politically, his own party is not satisfied.

COOPER: Yes, David Chalian, Gretchen Carlson, thanks so much, appreciate it. Ahead tonight, on a day that saw more than a thousand current and former employees call on HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to resign.

And, Florida announced plans to end state vaccine mandates for kids going to school. We'll talk about it with epidemiologist, Michael Osterholm.

And next, the superpower summit minus one superpower.

A report from Beijing of what the leaders of China, Russia and Kim Jong-un have been talking about just ahead.

[20:30:50]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:35:20]

COOPER: China staged a massive military parade in Beijing today. A major showing of armored power for all the world to see, especially the U.S. and its allies. China's Leader Xi Jinping pointedly told the crowd of more than 50,000 spectators that China is a great nation that never -- that's never intimidated by bullies. But the most notable image was seeing Xi flanked on both sides at the ceremony by two other authoritarians, Russia's Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un of North Korea. President Trump was certainly paying attention to it all.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I thought it was very, very impressive. But I understood the reason they were doing it and they were hoping I was watching and I was watching.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Let's get more on the significance of the summit and (inaudible) from CNN's Ivan Watson in Beijing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Chinese soldiers on the march and then an arsenal of Chinese-made weapon systems, part of a mammoth parade held in Beijing on Wednesday to commemorate 80 years since the surrender of Japan in World War II.

WATSON: This has been an enormous display of Chinese military strength and discipline, but perhaps the most powerful images of the day will be of the Chinese Leader Xi Jinping and his choice of foreign guests.

WATSON (voice-over): President Xi kicked off the event leading Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un up a red carpet up to Tiananmen Gate. On this day of Chinese victory, these two strongmen received top honors. DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Having this group of other leaders, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, the president of Iran all there reinforced China's role as the centerpiece of a new coalition that is basically there to challenge the West. And his message was, this is what we challenge it with.

WATSON (voice-over): Meanwhile U.S. President Donald Trump has been sending mixed messages, claiming he's not worried about China.

TRUMP: Not at all. China needs us and I have a very good relationship with President Xi, as you know.

WATSON (voice-over): And then hours later writing this to his Chinese counterpart. "Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un as you conspire against the United States of America." At the event China displayed conventional armaments, tanks, missiles, helicopters, and fighter jets flying in close formation, also paraded air and undersea drones, types of weapons that have transformed modern warfare on battlefields around Ukraine. And Beijing showed off a new intercontinental ballistic missile as well as air defense lasers. Amid these weapons of war, Xi expressed some hope for peace.

XI JINPING, PRESIDENT OF CHINA (through translator): Today, humanity once again faces the choice between peace or war, dialog or confrontation, win-win cooperation over a zero0sum game.

WATSON (voice-over): China's leadership wants to reshape the world order. So, it put on this elaborate show of force to back up this demand.

Ivan Watson, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: I'm joined by CNN Political Analyst and New York Times White House Correspondent Maggie Haberman. Obviously, the president was watching this very closely. I mean, it is -- you can't help but sort of compare the parade he put on in Washington recently with that.

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST AND NEW YORK TIMES WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And I think that he was very much doing that. Look, the president is obviously somebody who pays close attention to military parades in general. We have seen him do this over many years. This is part of why he wanted one for the U.S. He is paying close attention to what this new multilateral alliance is between China and Russia, and North Korea, and that is primarily what he is focused on. He would like to have some kind of a deal with China. I don't know that that's going to be achievable. And he obviously would like Russia to come to the table on a peace talk. All of this comes after he made a display of the U.S. military in Alaska in his meeting with President Putin. And I don't think that's a coincidence either.

COOPER: And it's interesting how -- I mean, I don't know if it's just a facade or how he seems to portray his relationships with all these people as very strong and good and nothing to be concerned about here at all. HABERMAN: Well, there -- I mean there's obviously something to be concerned about. The U.S. has been paying pretty close attention to China and possible advances on Taiwan for quite some time. This has been a focus of attention for the military and the changes in the types of warfare for a while. He's obviously concerned about Russia in terms of trying to do what he says to stop the killing.

[20:40:00]

But what is clear, Anderson, is that on both of these fronts, he has acted as if bilateral engagement, as if one-on-one engagement, as if everything is sort of a narrow deal, one country to another is the way to operate. He has always believed he can charm someone or sell someone, and that just tends not to be how foreign policy works. It is how he is approaching economics. Foreign policy is something different.

COOPER: It was also stunning to see the leader of India, I mean the world's largest democracy, which the U.S. has been working with for a long time as a bulwark against China, now part of this axis.

HABERMAN: Well, my colleagues had a story in recent days about how this falling out between Modi and President Trump took place. And it appears to be in part, I mean obviously the tariffs are the biggest piece, but it is in part because of a disagreement about President Trump taking credit for a ceasefire or an end of fighting between India and Pakistan. And to be fair, nobody agrees exactly what happened in that triad, on how it came to a stop. But President Trump wants a Nobel Peace Prize and he has made that very clear. And I don't think Modi wants to give him a ton of credit. He wants to say that this was a bilateral discussion that ended it. And so now, what you see with Trump is he takes a position, he is fighting with other world leaders and they are finding that they can form an alliance against the U.S. and that could be problematic.

COOPER: Do you see him continuing to pursue individual relationships with Kim Jong-un, with the others?

HABERMAN: I absolutely do, because I think it's just how he knows how to negotiate. He does not like multilateral agreements he does in any fashion.

COOPER: It certainly seems like the reach out to Russia has pretty much failed on Ukraine.

HABERMAN: So they'll never admit that. The White House is never going to say that. But yes, we are well past the two weeks from that Alaska Summit, and there has not been any movement toward a bilat between Zelenskyy and Putin, let alone a trilat. Now, President Trump is supposed to go to Europe in the next two weeks and there is some hope by some advisers to the president -- President Trump that there could be some activity before that or maybe right after that. But hopes are understandably dimming.

COOPER: I mean, he had also talked about significant consequences if -- HABERMAN: Correct.

COOPER: -- nothing came out of the Summit and obviously, that -- there have been none.

HABERMAN: He has just been punting on this issue for some time. And I think what you are seeing is he genuinely does not know how to alter Putin's behavior.

COOPER: Maggie Haberman, thanks very much. By the way, he's not the only one.

HABERMAN: Well, correct.

COOPER: No one else has had much --

HABERMAN: But he is the only one who said only I can do it.

COOPER: Right. That is true. Maggie Haberman, thank you. Appreciate it.

Up next, Florida officials moving to scrap statewide vaccine mandates including for school kids. Question is, will it put kids in danger? I'll ask a vaccine expert. And possible strategies to winning tonight's estimated $1.4 billion Powerball jackpot. We'll see about that from Harry Enten ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:47:33]

COOPER: Major move by the state of Florida on vaccine mandates.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. JOSEPH LADAPO, FLORIDA SURGEON GENERAL: The Florida Department of Health in partnership with the governor is going to be working to end all vaccine mandates in Florida law.

(CROWD CHEERING)

LADAPO: All of them. All of them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Well, that includes for school children. All 50 states have school immunization requirements, as you probably know. So Florida would be the first not to. Dr. Mehmet Oz, the former TB (ph) doctor who now runs the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services in the Trump administration is in total agreement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. MEHMET OZ, ADMINISTRATOR, CENTER FOR MEDICARE AND MEDICAID SERVICES: I would definitely not have mandates for vaccinations. This is a decision that a physician and a patient should we making together. The parents love their kids more than anybody else. I could love that kid. So why not let the parents play an active role on this?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: On the flip side, the governors of California, Washington, and Oregon announced today that they are forming an alliance to coordinate information on vaccines. They say it's a response to, what they call, the Trump administration's destruction of the CDC. Meanwhile, more than a thousand or 1,000 current and former employees of the HHS, Health and Human Services Department, are demanding the resignation of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., claiming he's putting the health of all Americans at risk.

Certainly, a lot to talk about with Michael Osterholm, Director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. He's the author of a new book, "The Big One: How We Must Prepare for Future Deadly Pandemics." it's good to talk to you again.

MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES RESEARCH AND POLICY: Thanks.

COOPER: First of all, what Florida has done potentially ending vaccine mandates, particularly for kids going to school. What do you think of that?

OSTERHOLM: Well, to sum it up really, we're right now in free fall in this country with regard to public health and what's happening.

COOPER: Free fall?

OSTERHOLM: Free fall. We basically are losing all the safety nets that we had with the public health system and vaccines are at the heart of it. And of course, this administration is doing everything they can to limit, if not totally eliminate, vaccines for people. We're really at a point, Anderson, where we can either go with science and what we've accomplished in over a hundred years of improving public health or we can go with magic, smoke and mirrors. And that's what this is all about.

I don't see any parent coming forward and saying, you can't tell me to put my child in a car seat in the back of the car or else I get ticketed. You don't see that. So it's not a consistent message.

COOPER: And with the vaccines for children going to school, I mean, it's not just an individual child and family making that decision.

[20:50:00]

They're making a decision to expose potentially all the other kids to something.

OSTERHOLM: Exactly. And that's what we're very concerned about. I would have to tell you, as a parent or a grandparent, I wouldn't want my kids going to Florida in the years ahead to go to Walt Disney World or any place like that because Florida is going to become a hotbed of transmission by eliminating this particular mandate. And I think, unfortunately, time will prove that to be true.

COOPER: How much are you talking about damage being done, how long, I mean, is this permanent? How long -- this has been building for a long time to get to where we are from a health standpoint? How long term is this damage potentially?

OSTERHOLM: Well, until we understand whether this mandate will really be retracted and how much it will be, every year, the entire birth cohort in Florida is going to be in a situation where they may or may not get vaccinated. Now, I think many parents will still vaccinate their children, but there are going to be a growing number that are not. And if you get 20 or 30 percent of your population are not vaccinated, you can have major outbreaks of any number of different diseases. It's not just measles. We hear about that. But there's a disease called Rubella that's part of that early vaccine. Mothers who had Rubella babies will never forget the pain and suffering they went through with that. We eliminated that for sure (ph) with these vaccines.

COOPER: I want to talk to you about your book, "The Big One." You warn about the next major pandemic. I mean, the COVID was I think the worst global pandemic we have seen, but it's not the big one that so many people in your profession worry about.

OSTERHOLM: Exactly. We surely are due for another flu pandemic that could equally be as bad as 1918, which was in and of itself the other pandemic like COVID. COVID however actually offers us even greater challenges because the virus that caused COVID is actually one that's highly transmissible, but it's not one that causes high levels of death, one, one-and-a-half percent. We've had two other coronavirus tragedies in the past 25 years, is SARS in 2003 in China and then parts of the world. And we had MERS in the Middle East and in South Korea. And in those cases, that virus killed 25 to 35 percent of the people.

COOPER: Wow.

OSTERHOLM: And so, we are now worried because we're finding viruses that have the capacity to transmit like COVID and have the ability to kill like what I just talked about with SARS and MERS. We have to be prepared for that.

COOPER: You say in the book, honest evidence-based political leadership is often the only defense against mis- and disinformation in pandemic and therefore can have life and death consequences. You would hope that there would be kind of a 9/11 style commission looking at what worked, what didn't, mistakes that were made during COVID to prepare for the next thing, right?

OSTERHOLM: And that's what we try to cover in the book, is very frank discussions about what went right, what went wrong. We were not shying away from that. A lot did go wrong, that could have been improved upon. But also just talking about the future, for example, flu. Right now, if we had a flu pandemic, we have a capacity in this world to make enough vaccine for about a quarter of the world in the first 12 to 15 months. That's all. And if that happened, then there are three quarters of the world who will likely never get vaccinated. The mRNA technology that we use for the COVID vaccine would be an excellent platform for flu. There, we can make enough vaccine to have the world vaccinated within a year.

The difference between those two scenarios is millions of lives. And this administration has just pulled all the funding for mRNA vaccines and made it clear this is not something to be studied. These are the kind of counter decisions almost, they're not positive decisions that are setting us back in our preparedness and getting us closer to it. And we really hit home in this book about that.

COOPER: Yeah, the book is "The Big One." It's important. Michael Osterholm, thank you.

OSTERHOLM: Thank you very much.

COOPER: Really appreciate it. It's an honor. Coming up, Harry Enten with just the ticket for anyone looking to win $1.4 billion in tonight's Powerball drawing. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:58:29]

COOPER: Tonight's estimated $1.4 billion jackpot is the fourth biggest in Powerball history, sixth largest for any lottery. Our Chief Data Analyst and Lotto Guru, Harry Enten joins me now.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: I like the title.

COOPER: So, do more people take the annuity or the lump sum?

ENTEN: Let me tell you, this idea of $1 billion jackpot is the biggest fugazi I've ever heard because the lump sum is only a little bit more than $600 million. And when you take into account taxes, we're really talking about the $400 million mark. And I'll tell you, I looked back at all the top lottery winners of all time, all the top Powerball winners. The top 55, every single one of them took the lump sum. So when we're talking annuities, no one actually takes the annuities. They take the lump sum. And then I think it's a good idea to put it into the S&P 500, you'll run well ahead of what the annuity would get you.

COOPER: Is there a strategy to picking numbers?

ENTEN: OK, here's the key thing. If in fact somehow you manage to match all the numbers, the last thing you want to do is split that prize with somebody else, right? You want to keep those hundreds of million dollars for yourself. So here's the thing. Remember, what do people pick when in fact they pick their own numbers? They oftentimes pick birthdays.

COOPER: Right.

ENTEN: And I was looking through the calendar earlier today, and it turns out no month has more than 31 days in it. So what you want to do is you want to pick numbers above 31 because that way you can guarantee yourself, if in fact you win that you're much less likely to have to split --

(CROSSTALK)

COOPER: And what are the odds of winning?

ENTEN: What are the odds of winning? They're really bad. They're really bad, and they've gotten worse over time. Back in 1992, it was one in 55 million, then one in 195 million, and now one in 292 million. That is because they added more balls to the equation, which of course lowers the chance of winning. But then of course, also raises the jackpot because you go on and on and on with --