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CNN's The Arena with Kasie Hunt
Soon: Trump Signs Sweeping Domestic Policy Bill; Lawyers For Djibouti Detainees Rush To MA Court To Stop Deportation; Numerous Fatalities In Texas Flooding With Rescues Ongoing. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired July 04, 2025 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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SARAH PANCHERI, PRESIDENT AND CEO, SUMMERFEST: Well, in Milwaukee we have an exceptional fan base. And when we -- when we think about bands like the Fray that have a two-decade relationship with us, come as baby bands and have a special -- special place to come home to at Summerfest, we couldn't be more proud of that legacy.
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Make sure to catch the Fray on their "How to Save a Life" 20th anniversary tour later this month.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And join CNN for "The Fourth in America" celebration, starting at 7:00 Eastern tonight.
"THE ARENA" starts now.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HSOT: It's Independence. Day in America.
And tonight, President Trump has extra reason to celebrate.
Let's head into THE ARENA.
Just moments from now, President Donald Trump will sign Republicans' mega bill into law. This after saying that he hates Democrats for not supporting it. Republican Representative Randy Fine is here to discuss.
Plus, you know who didn't support the bill? Elon Musk. And now, he's teasing a new move that could reshape American politics.
And then, multiple deaths reported amid catastrophic flooding in central Texas. Dozens have been rescued from rising water as the rainfall continues. We have an update from local officials in just minutes.
Hello, everyone. Kasie Hunt is off enjoying the holiday. I'm Boris Sanchez. Welcome to THE ARENA.
It is the Fourth of July. The 249th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence, a day for all Americans to come together to celebrate our founding, our history and our hard-earned freedoms. In just a few minutes, President Trump will host a picnic for military families at the White House.
But before the fireworks, he's also signing the so-called Big, Beautiful Bill into law passed by Republicans. Just last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The One Big, Beautiful Bill would deliver the strongest border on Earth, the strongest economy on Earth, the strongest military on Earth, and ensure the United States of America will remain the strongest country anywhere on this beautiful planet of ours.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: The president there celebrating at a rally in Iowa last night. This bill is the biggest win yet for Donald Trump in his second term, arguably bigger than anything he passed through Congress in his first. And it advances his agenda on multiple fronts. It extends his first term tax cuts, ends clean energy incentives, and provides billions of dollars for his mass deportation effort. Also creating work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps and cutting almost $1 trillion in funding for those programs.
It's a bill that polls say most Americans don't support, and one that passed with zero Democratic votes, a fact that prompted the president to make this striking change of tone from part -- patriotism to utter partisanship.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Not one Democrat voted for us, and I think we use it in the campaign that's coming up the midterms, because we got to beat them. But all of the -- all of the things that we've given and they wouldn't vote only because they hate Trump. But I hate them, too. You know that? So it's -- it's sort of I hate -- I really do, I hate them, I cannot stand them because I really believe they hate our country, if you want to know the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: My panel is here sharing the holiday with us, along with CNN's senior White House correspondent, Kristen Holmes.
Kristen, for as much as a win as this is for the White House, some Republicans are concerned that parts of this bill are going to be hard to defend come the midterms. What are you hearing from the White House about how they plan to sell this to voters?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's not even just the White House, Boris. It's Republicans as a whole. There are outside groups that are going to be involved as well. They have told me, Republicans have told me that they understand that they are losing the messaging war on this bill, that Democrats have been out there and they have been strong highlighting parts of the bill that are very unpopular for voters. So Republicans believe, and that includes White House officials, that
if they get out there and they start really hammering home the things that they think voters will like, that they can change the narrative of this and change it before those midterm elections, because, of course, that's really the big concern here for so many Republicans that this is going to cause a blue wave because this bill is so unpopular. So what we expect to see in the coming weeks and months is a lot of money being poured into messaging this bill in a positive way.
And that, again, is going to be from outside Republican groups as well as the White House. Youve already started seeing the White House putting out some of these videos on social media.
Now, one of the things I was told was when house lawmakers came and met with President Trump before they ultimately passed that bill, that there were conversations on how to sell this in terms of Medicaid, because that was one of their big concerns. A lot of the talk going into what happens with these hospitals that rely on Medicaid.
The White House giving talking points in the sense of saying that this wouldn't take effect for three years. So, hospitals would have a chance to reconfigure how they do their funding, not rely so much on Medicaid.
[16:05:01]
Also, telling these lawmakers at some point that the states would still be able to decide who actually got the Medicaid. Of course, that amount of money is going to change, but that the states could allocate it as they see fit. So they're working through how they're going to message some of us.
Now there is part -- there are parts of this bill that Republicans think are very sellable. They know tax on tips. They know tax on overtime. As you mentioned, this ramp up in spending that they will that they believe will help escalate the deportations. So that's what you're going to see them focusing on is -- are those things that President Trump promised on the campaign trail.
But it's going to be an uphill battle because they really haven't been out there pushing the positives of this bill. And we've heard a lot from the Democrats.
SANCHEZ: Kristen Holmes, live for us at the White House. Thank you so much.
Our panel joins us now in THE ARENA. Akayla Gardner, White House correspondent for "Bloomberg News"; David Weigel, politics reporter for "Semafor"; Meghan Hays, former director of message planning for the Biden White House; and Ashley Davis, former White House official for President George W. Bush.
Thank you all for being here on the holiday.
Dave, the passage of the so-called Big, Beautiful Bill has a lot to do with President Trump's power over his party. And some would argue, not quite as much on the specifics of the policy that's in it.
I want to show you what Jonathan Martin wrote in "Politico", quote, "The underlying legislation was no bill at all, but a referendum on Trump. And that left congressional Republicans a binary choice that also had nothing to do with the policy they're in. They could salute the president and vote yes, or vote no and risk their careers in a primary."
Do you agree?
DAVID WEIGEL, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: In large part. Also, what did the president offer in order to get this over the finish line? One part of it was just personal attention from him, a promise that he's not going to work against him in the primaries, which is very effective in Republican primaries. And also, Mike Johnson offering that, well, they later were going to cut spending. If you came to Congress to cut spending, we're going to do that later. In the meantime, Trump for the -- for the very first time, is taking a benefit away from people.
He didn't do this in the first term. He tried with Obamacare and couldn't. And they Republicans dropped that premise and that promise. He did the opposite during COVID because Democrats and Trump worked together on COVID funding, expanded health insurance.
So that was part of the offer too, is yes, this might be politically difficult. Maybe it's not what you promise your voters. We're going to help you out later. And for the rump of really not that many. We're talking about 12, 13 Republicans who were holdouts on this.
That was enough. It's been enough. There have been very few -- this new Congress, the one that where Paul Ryan has long gone, the critics he had in their old Republican Party are long gone, new and very easy for him to make these promises to on the premise that he'll surprise us in the polls again and will win.
SANCHEZ: You see how Thom Tillis has decided he's going to retire. We'll see what Thomas Massie does. The one of the only two Republicans that voted against this bill.
Meghan, I'm curious from the Democratic perspective, a lot of soul searching after the last election, but it doesn't seem like there's a lot of confusion about how this is going to get messaged. Jared golden, a congressman that represents a district which Trump won by nine points, told "Politico" this. There's almost nothing about this bill that I'm going to have a hard time explaining to the district, this is a giant tax giveaway to wealthy people, everyone effing knows it.
Some parts of this bill -- no tax on tips, for example, are popular though. So how do you --
MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING, BIDEN WHITE HOUSE: But that also expires in a few years. But I think that the best thing that Democrats have is they have Republicans out there saying how terrible this bill is. They have the Republicans out there doing their messaging game for them. So, in all of these swing districts, the Democrats who are going to be challenging these Republicans will have them, in their own words, doing the messaging for them. It's sort of easy for Democrats to sit back and be like, they said it was bad and they still voted for it. They're just in the pocket of Donald Trump.
And Republicans also know how bad they do when Donald Trump is not at the top of the ticket. And so they don't have that in 26 to fall back on. So, it will be very interesting going in. But Democrats are definitely coalesced behind. They're very united behind this. And they are winning the messaging war with the American people. They do not think this was a good bill.
SANCHEZ: Midterms generally difficult for the incumbent party.
Ashley, I want to play another moment from President Trump's rally in Iowa last night. Let's listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Think of that: no death tax, no estate tax, no going to the banks and borrowing some from in some cases, a fine banker and in some cases, shylocks and bad people. But they took away a lot of -- lot of families. They destroyed a lot of families. But we did the opposite.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: That specific term Shylocks, one whose origins have antisemitic connotations. It's based on a Shakespeare character that was a caricature of a Jewish person. The president was asked about that, and he didn't come out and totally apologize. He said that he didn't really know that term to mean that.
Do you buy that? Should the president change his tune on this?
ASHLEY DAVIS, FORMER GEORGE W. BUSH WHITE HOUSE OFFICIAL: Well, I was actually figuring that this was going to be a topic today, and I was talking to the congressman who you're going to have on next, who will be a very good to question him because he felt that not everyone would definitely think it was antisemitic.
What I think about Donald Trump, I have no idea if he was really thinking that or not.
[16:10:00]
No one does. But there's no other president that to -- first of all, he has grandchildren that are Jewish. He has a Jewish son in law, and he's one of the strongest presidents ever supporting Israel. So, I just I don't believe in the bottom of my heart that that's what he meant at all.
SANCHEZ: I do wonder, Akayla, not only about this remark coming from a president that to Ashley's point, has made tremendous efforts threatening to cut funding, in some cases cutting funding from universities that he felt didn't properly address antisemitism what this means for him? AKAYLA GARDNER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Well, the
universities have really said that some of the overtures that we've seen from the administration seem to be beyond antisemitism. It also is going into issues of free speech or academic freedom, viewpoint diversity. So they're saying they're kind of turning the coin on them as well and saying, how can you police sort of who we hire, the students that we admit.
So really the war against antisemitism that we're seeing President Trump and his administration take on universities has really expanded, really beyond antisemitism in many cases.
SANCHEZ: What did you make of the fact that he held this rally in Iowa, known as a big primary state? I can assume Donald Trump is not going to position himself to run in a primary in 2028, but who knows?
GARDNER: Yeah. Well, for now, the president said he is not running, even though we know he's flirted with it many times. But that was certainly on my mind. I was there yesterday in Iowa. And, of course, there's going to be a caucus in just very few short amount of years.
But we don't know exactly who is going to be the president's successor. It could be, of course, Vice President J.D. Vance, who leads in a lot of polls. But there's also the question of whether the president's sons will get in the race. And I talked to a voter yesterday who said they don't know who they could choose between Vance or the president's sons. And I think we all know that if one of the president's family members were to jump into this race, he probably would endorse them first.
DAVIS: The person to watch in Iowa yesterday was Ashley Hinson, in my opinion. I mean, I don't -- I'm one of the believers that definitely do not think the presidents going to run for a third term because we'd have to change the constitution. But Ashley Hinson, setting herself up for Senate run.
SANCHEZ: Meghan, any thoughts on the president doing this in Iowa? It's a kickoff toward the 250th birthday of the United States, something that he's obviously going to use for maximum broadcast opportunities, let's say.
HAYS: Well, he was going into this whole fair. And Iowa does have an amazing state fair, as all of us have been there for politics, have known we all have to do the state fair. I mean, I think it just goes it's where most of his support is. Theres a lot of support for him in Iowa. So, it makes sense for him to go into the heartland. He has not been there.
He does not actually do a lot of travel to go out and to talk about his policies. So, I think that it made sense to go into the Midwest.
SANCHEZ: What about quickly, his comments about hating Democrats?
HAYS: I mean, I don't think that anyone's surprised. I mean, it doesn't surprise anyone that he hates Democrats. I mean, that's clear because we're not puppets for him and his party, is. SANCHEZ: It certainly a quite a rhetorical moment for the president of
the United States to say that he hates the opposing party on the eve of the nation's birthday, Dave.
WEIGEL: He is. But there were different rules for him. And I'm not trying to be super passive about this. I didn't write them just -- I think it's a decade of him talking like this and getting very differently. It was a multi-day scandal when Hillary Clinton referred to Republicans as enemies back in 2016. This will not be a multi-day, not because just because holiday weekend, this is not going to become a multi-day scandal, but it is a different -- a difference in how he has governed versus other presidents.
Other presidents would have tried to find some Democrat on some part of this legislation. I'm not saying they should have. They passed it so they got what they wanted.
But even in 2020, when Democrats were voting for some of his proposals, he wasn't bringing them to the White House. He has not tried to bring them. In part, he's -- unless a Democrat, seems gettable as a party switcher like Jeff Van Drew years ago. He doesn't incorporate them. He makes fun of them, even if they vote for his nominees like Chuck Schumer has. He makes fun of him by calling him Palestinian, for example.
So, this is how he's going to govern this term with a hope of no -- with an expectation and a hope that there's not going to be any backlash. There's going to be a voter who says, I'm offended. This is not how a president should talk, because he won and he won. And assuming he doesn't run again as the Constitution dictates, what is the downside for him in talking like this?
SANCHEZ: He recently has had some kind words for Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. But I don't know if that eclipses --
WEIGEL: But not really an effort to get him to vote for the bill.
SANCHEZ: Right, right, 100 percent.
Panel, please stand by. We have plenty more to come as we await the president's remarks at the signing ceremony for his sweeping domestic policy bill. We will talk to one lawmaker who supports the measure, one of the newest members of Congress. Florida Republican Congressman Randy Fine, will be here, live in THE ARENA.
Plus, we're standing by for an update from officials in Texas, where numerous people are dead following extreme flooding there and the threat of rain is not yet over.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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SANCHEZ: Welcome back. Joining us now to discuss President Trump's sweeping domestic policy
agenda just before it officially gets signed into law is Republican Congressman Randy Fine of Florida. He voted for the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act and is headed to the White House for President Trump's signing event this evening.
Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. Congratulations on the legislative win. And happy Fourth of July as well. Thanks for joining us on the holiday.
REP. RANDY FINE (R-FL): Thanks for having me.
SANCHEZ: Once this legislation gets signed into law, what do you anticipate the impact -- the immediate impact is going to be on your constituents?
FINE: I think it's been incredible. I mean, if you're a woman right now who's working on the Fourth of July waiting tables, you're not going to pay taxes on tips. If you're a cop. You had to work extra today and you're getting overtime. You're not going to pay taxes on that.
And if you're one of the 88 percent of seniors whose taxes on Social Security go away, these are going to have huge impacts on regular Americans. And so, I think the voters are going to reward us in huge ways next year.
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SANCHEZ: I wonder how you respond to concerns regarding health care. You and I have had conversations about this before, and I asked you sort of for some kind of estimate of how many folks might be impacted. You suggested that essentially those who have earned the right to take part in these programs wouldn't be affected.
There are some estimates that because of new Medicaid rules, because of affordable care act subsidies that will now expire at years end, some 2 million Floridians are expected to lose health care. That doesn't worry you?
FINE: No, because they're wrong. I actually have gone back and read these studies because they don't make sense to me. In Florida, we never gave illegal immigrants Medicaid, so they're not going to lose it. In Florida, we never expanded Medicaid to able bodied, childless adults, so they're not going to lose it.
The people that are going to lose Medicaid never should have had it in the first place. People who shouldn't be in our country at all, or that 30-year-old who wants to play video games all day, sitting in his moms basement. Although we don't have that many basements in Florida.
But we are not taking away Medicaid from the people who need it. A kid with special needs, a single mother. Those people will have the program protected and preserved. And so the people who actually care about the reason Medicaid was created, they should be very excited, because we\re protecting it by preserving it for those who need it. SANCHEZ: There is additional red tape in the sense that a lot of
folks, by law, will now have to prove more frequently that they have worked or volunteered a certain number of hours a month that they -- essentially, a number of requirements. That might make it more difficult for some folks who already face tough circumstances to be able to do that, especially in rural areas, maybe not necessarily in your district in Florida, I know it's a bit more populated, but there are concerns also about rural hospitals closing.
So, you don't see this necessarily as something that's going to impact enough folks that should have these benefits.
FINE: No, no, because I think it's fair if you're going to get something from the government that is supposed to be for people in need, you should have to prove that you're in need.
We have one bucket of money in this country, and every dollar we give to somebody who doesn't need it is a dollar that we take from someone who does. And this bill is going to be a huge boon for rural hospitals because in Florida, illegal immigrants can't get Medicaid. So, every time one of them goes to the hospitals, it's the taxpayer gets stuck with the bill. We're going to be deporting a lot of these people under this bill, and that's going to reduce health care costs in Florida.
SANCHEZ: On the question of folks who deserve help from the government, or at least deserve some kind of relief from the cost of everyday life, there's an analysis on this tax bill -- the tax portion of the bill that finds that 0.1 percent of earners in the United States will see an average income growth every year of nearly $300,000.
When you consider that, how can you argue that this benefits the working class versus the very, very wealthiest Americans?
FINE: Because that analysis is wrong. Those wealthy people are going to pay the same taxes next year that they pay this year. They're going to pay the same taxes after that, that they pay this year. There's no new tax cuts for rich people.
Rich people don't get tips. Rich people don't get overtime. Rich people aren't worried about their Social Security. And if Democrats wanted to raise those taxes by $300,000, they could have done that when Joe Biden was in charge and they controlled the House and the Senate.
What we are doing is we are extending the rates. So that may be the impact. And by the way, that's 1 percent for those people. Regular people are going to see a 15 percent increase in their income because of the tax cuts that we've passed.
SANCHEZ: So just to be clear, you're arguing that the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that both parties have cited when it is to their advantage, and also the Penn Wharton budget model, a completely nonpartisan entity that does economic analysis without any policy recommendations. You're arguing that their analysis completely wrong, totally skewed. FINE: I'm arguing the way you're using it is wrong.
SANCHEZ: I mean, that's what --
FINE: That is -- but that -- they got $300,000 last year. It is not a new -- what that number that you shared implies is that someone like me, who, by the way, is in that group, is going to get a $300,000 tax cut because this bill is going to pass.
Rich people will pay the same rates moving forward as they've paid since 2017. Thats not a tax cut. Now, liberals can argue that rich people's taxes should have been raised. That is a reasonable argument to make, one I don't agree with. But it is not fair to say that they're getting a new tax cut.
But people who get tips are, people who get overtime. Seniors on Social Security are. They're getting new tax cuts.
SANCHEZ: I understand your argument on that. I do want to move on to something else. I'm not sure if you want us to play the sound bite again, but I did want to ask you about, you know, I'm getting --
FINE: I do. I listen to you when I was out there.
SANCHEZ: Yeah. President Trump using the word "shylock", something that again, just to be clear for our viewers, comes from a Shakespeare play. It's a caricature of a Jewish person. It's been used as an antisemitic trope, as an attack on folks.
[16:25:00]
Would you be offended if someone called you that word?
FINE: It depends on what they meant.
But the fact that you had to explain it before and just now to your viewers, if someone called someone the N-word, God forbid, or they called me the K-word, which I'm not going to say on TV, you wouldn't have to explain to people why that was bad.
I read the CNN story before I came over here, and it's in the first few paragraphs. It explains to people why they should be offended. If people have to have that explained to them. It says that a lot of people don't know the negative connotations of that word.
And Donald Trump asked me to run because he wanted another conservative Jew in the legislature. This matters to me personally. I wear a kippah. And so -- but I know the man. And to say that the first Jewish -- the first president of a Jewish daughter is an antisemite, it's somewhat --
SANCHEZ: I'm not suggesting that he's an antisemite. I'm suggesting that perhaps his approach, once being confronted with the facts of what that word means to a lot of people, might change the way that he talks about it. Do you think he should come out and say, I shouldn't have used that word? FINE: No, I think he explained it. He said, I didn't know what it
meant. Look, Donald Trump has done more for American Jews to protect my kids and every Jewish kid in this country than probably any president ever has. And I believe him 100 percent when he says he didn't know what it meant.
SANCHEZ: Even if he doesn't know, does his use of it, and then saying, oh, I didn't know make it more acceptable for other people to then say it?
FINE: I honestly think what makes it more acceptable is when people go out and they try to explain what it means. Again, the fact that the media has to go tell people, here's a bad word and here's why you should be offended --
SANCHEZ: Let me give you --
FINE: -- it implies that we don't know.
SANCHEZ: Let me give you an example that applies to me. Are you familiar with what the term ref means?
FINE: No.
SANCHEZ: Ref is short --
FINE: I mean, it's a referee. That would be --
SANCHEZ: No, short --
FINE: What it means.
SANCHEZ: It's short -- it's short for refugee. It's something that people use against Cuban Americans in a derogatory way, especially when they were coming into this country in large numbers back in the '80s, when myself and my family did.
You may not know what that means, but if you used it against me, I would be offended and I would say, hey, you, you probably don't want to use that around Cuban Americans. Is that something that you would then consider and say, hey, you're right, I probably shouldn't have used that. Would you show some kind of contrition is essentially what I'm asking?
FINE: I don't think people should show contrition when they did something, they didn't know what was wrong. If I did that, I would say, well, I've learned something and I probably won't use it again. But I've never even -- I've never even heard that term. I didn't hear what the president said.
But what I know is what's in his heart. And I know there's not an antisemitic bone in his body, and I believe him 100 percent, because, again, you had to explain that term to me. I've never even heard it. So --
SANCHEZ: You express, to be fair, more contrition than the president did.
FINE: Well, I also didn't -- I didn't use that term. And I think the president said he didn't know what it meant. I don't think he needs to apologize for something that he didn't know might offend people.
And I think the fact that people don't know what the term means, why should we expect him to? He's not a walking encyclopedia.
SANCHEZ: Congressman Randy Fine, very much appreciate the conversation. Thank you so much for joining us.
FINE: Thank you.
SANCHEZ: Yeah.
We have plenty more ahead in THE ARENA. Up next, the latest on an emergency court hearing here in Washington, D.C., over the administration's effort to send immigration detainees to South Sudan.
But first, the latest on the deadly flooding in central Texas. What officials are now saying about a frantic search and rescue effort with more rain coming in the forecast. Don't go anywhere.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:32:41]
SANCHEZ: We're awaiting an update from officials in south central Texas, where multiple people are dead after historic flooding overnight. You can see some of the images here. This is from Kerr County, northwest of San Antonio. That area has taken the brunt of this storm, and local officials are still trying to figure out exactly how many people have been killed.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JUDGE ROB KELLY, KERR COUNTY, TEXAS: But in terms of how many, exactly how many are missing and unaccounted for, we're not sure about that number, but we have a bunch of them that we're trying to get back. Most of them we don't know who they are. We're having to fingerprint them at the -- at the funeral home. And one of them was completely naked. He didn't have any ID on him at all. So we're trying to get the identity of these folks but we don't have it yet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: You can hear some emotion leaking there from that mayor.
The governor says that the state is rushing all available resources to the area. Take a look at some video. We're going to show you actually from a local resident's Ring camera that CNN obtained after a police officer came to her home around six this morning, warning her that it was time to get out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're evacuating everybody. The river is already up here. There are people screaming in the river. We're evacuating everybody. Can you knock on your neighbor's door and tell them to get out now?
The people you hear screaming are in the river right now. Let's get everybody out.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANCHEZ: CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam is monitoring the situation and has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Boris, it has been a catastrophic 18 hours of flash flooding across the Hill Country of Texas. One river gauge in Comfort, Texas, recorded a rise of 26 feet in 45 minutes. Look at this. Homes swept off of their foundations. There's only the front porch left standing.
This is along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County. And look at how these trees have been completely toppled over. Give's you an indication of the force of the water that swept through this region. By the way, under the darkness of night. So how terrifying it must have been for residents that were finding themselves in that flash flood situation.
Now, look, this is still an evolving situation at least, right? We've got rainfall totals at least accumulation estimates from radar that have totaled over a foot.
[16:35:01]
Here's Kerrville. You can see the San Angelo region just to the north and west. Several locations indicating 12 inches or more of water. And that water is eventually going to flow downstream, particularly along the Guadalupe River.
This is a river gauge forecast for Spring Branch. This is due north of San Antonio. Look at the flood stage that was at just over 1.5 feet at 10 a.m. local time on Friday. Look at the forecast by tomorrow morning, just shy of 35 feet. So that is a rapid rise in water. Authorities there referring to it as a wave of water.
And you can imagine as that pushes down the river how destructive it can be. You don't even have to imagine. You saw the video I showed you just a few minutes ago. So, we still have our ongoing flash flood warnings, flood watches, and alerts across the Texas Hill Country, now inclusive of San Antonio, Kerrville certainly included the high forecast radar imagery shows kind of a bit of an influx of more moisture wrapping into the same locations for early tomorrow morning. It doesn't look or appear to be as heavy as what we experienced yesterday or late last night, but certainly something to monitor.
We don't need more rain. Some of our computer models picking up an additional six inches of rainfall in some of these hard hit areas. So we'll be on the lookout for additional flash flooding, not to mention the cresting of the rivers as the water moves downstream.
And one other thing to note, Boris, is that this has some of the worst drought across the U.S. as we speak. So, the conditions here on the ground are extremely dry. And when you get that much water in this short period of time, there's nowhere else for it to go but to pull up and cause flash flooding -- Boris.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SANCHEZ: Our thanks to Derek Van Dam for that report. We're of course, going to keep an eye on conditions and the forecast and bring you any updates as we get them.
Meantime, here in the nation's capital, lawyers for eight migrants set to be flown from a naval base in Djibouti to South Sudan are rushing to federal court in Massachusetts right now to try and block the plane from taking off at 7:00 p.m. Eastern. A D.C. district court judge made the decision to move the case to the Bay State in an emergency hearing earlier today. This all comes one day after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to send immigrants to South Sudan.
As some of the Trump administrations deportation methods continue to be challenged in court, ICE is now set to become the highest funded federal law enforcement agency with the passage of President Trump's One Big, Beautiful Bill, which he's set to sign in a matter of hours.
Over the next four years, the agency will receive $45 billion for facilities that detain migrants. Some $30 billion will also be set aside to hire, train and retain ICE personnel as the White House hopes to add an additional 10,000 agents focused on removal operations.
CNN's Priscilla Alvarez now joins our panel.
So, Priscilla, talk to us about what comes next in this case.
PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, this has been a dizzying just couple of hours and a significant turn of events just from yesterday afternoon when the Supreme Court had paved the way for the administration to send these migrants who had been held in a Djibouti military base or U.S. military base in Djibouti to South Sudan.
So, the clock, it's now after 4:30, what had happened here in D.C. is the federal judge had continued his stay. So essentially saying the administration cannot transfer them anywhere until 4:30 p.m. Eastern. So, really, now, as we await for the federal judge in Massachusetts to weigh in, it is fair game. The administration could transfer them to South Sudan.
We know that there was already a flight in the books for 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Now, we are -- the attorneys for these migrants have already filed in Massachusetts. The reason that it's there is because that's where the case originated. So, they're essentially bringing it back to the original judge. So, we'll see what happens from there. The crux of this case has really been that the administration is
depriving them of their constitutional rights by living even more punishment on them, by sending them to war torn South Sudan. And that came up multiple times over the hearing this afternoon.
But if we zoom out even more, this is a critical part of the Trump administration agenda. Being able to send migrants to countries that are not their own. This has been a constant hurdle for multiple administrations when they're deporting migrants, because some countries take limited deportation flights, others have frosty relations -- relations with the U.S., and don't take any at all.
And so, the administration has been trying to look for ways to overcome those logistical hurdles. And this is an example of that. But this has been a case that has garnered national headlines because it's not only sending these nationalities, like from Cuba and Laos, but also sending them to a country that has a history of now sort of being on the brink of the civil war, and one in which these migrants likely have no ties to.
ALVAREZ: They have no ties to South Sudan.
SANCHEZ: I misspoke a moment ago when I said that Trump is signing the bill in a matter of hours, really just a matter of minutes roughly. We're anticipating the president is going to do this in about 20 minutes.
Quickly, Priscilla, how soon is that injection of cash for ICE going to have an impact?
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ALVAREZ: Sources tell me that they are banking on this like the minute that he signs the legislation. But there are parts of this that are still going to take time. For example, the -- this is going to be a lot of funding for detention centers.
They need more detention. They are currently over capacity in ICE custody. They've been funded for around 41,000 beds. They could get with this up to 100,000. And that is what they've been looking toward.
But they're still going to have to strike those contracts. They usually depend on private contractors to do it. And they're also going to bolster personnel. But bolstering personnel and hiring of personnel takes time, but all the same, this is a game changer. This is going to supercharge their immigration agenda.
SANCHEZ: Ashley, I want to share a new poll with you that found that 54 percent of Americans believe ICE has gone too far in their actions, 18 percent say not far enough. About a quarter say that their actions are about right. What are the chances that this comes back to bite Republicans in the next election?
DAVIS: Well, a few things. So, my background is homeland security. So, I'm definitely more conservative on this issue than most. But I also want to people to remember that the people that are leaving for South Sudan potentially did break the law. And so -- and a lot of them did commit really bad crimes besides just coming into our country illegally.
So, this isn't like we're dealing with really good people here. In regards to the polling, I don't know what the crosstabs are. I don't know who they interviewed for this, but listen, the issue has been such a sticking point in this country for so long. Whether it was under President Biden with the open borders which went too far, I think most would agree. And then now I think that there's many people that maybe think that the presidents going too far.
This goes back to what I've been saying for months and years. We need some sort of policy in place to have some sort of path to immigration. And we were just talking earlier about, is it a path to citizenship or not? Doesn't matter.
But this back and forth with people's lives, like people that are here just because they want a better life. There's a lot of people like that. But we need something to change.
HAYS: And on that, you can't legislate with executive order, right? It doesn't -- it didn't work in the Biden administration. It's not going to work in the Trump administration, because the next president that comes in, if it's a Democrat, is going to have their own set of EOs.
Congress really needs to take action. They tried last Congress with the bipartisan bill. It didn't -- it didn't work much to Trump, you know, direction there. But this is -- this should be a wake-up call to Congress.
They cannot keep legislating by executive order. The American people don't want it. The polling is showing that. So, they need to take action.
SANCHEZ: There were some questions, Dave, during the last election about how Democrats should approach this issue, one that was widely seen as a weakness. I wonder if you think what they've done so far trying to appeal to human dignity and humanitarian effort to help folks, not the most violent criminals, but certainly folks that are sort of caught in the middle, do you think that lands with voters?
WEIGEL: It hasn't like it was eight years ago. Democrats have been using the same political tactics that they did in 2017. And the example of how different this was, the Trump administration did not like the optics of detention centers. It did not like when Democrats would go down in front of -- in front of caging and draw attention to it. And that's sort of where New Mexico came from.
This time, they advertised that you have Kristi Noem going to El Salvador posing with prisoners. You have multimillion dollar ad campaign with Kristi Noem saying, don't come. They want the message out there that if you are thinking of coming to the country, you should be afraid of being in the country illegally. That has reduced. And they've bragged about this.
There is a political risk that people say, all right, the problem is solved. Why is all of our money still going to this deportation system? Why are people who lived here for 40 years and didn't commit a crime, apart from crossing the border or overstaying a visa? Why are they gone?
But Democrats, you're right, they have not adapted to this, much less sympathetic attitude to the American people in Trump's second term.
SANCHEZ: Akayla, to Dave's point about a change from the first term when they -- the Trump administration, was not fond of folks getting around those cages and try to make the argument that it was former President Biden that -- rather former President Obama that was dividing families. Now they're posing in front of these structures like Alligator Alcatraz in Florida.
GARDNER: Well, the president is really talking about immigration as the thing that helped him get elected. I think you could say, arguably it was the economy, but he likes immigration because it has these hard numbers. They can point to real evidence to say that they have success, whether it was May, they had zero migrants released into the U.S. in June, they had record low arrests. So, he likes seeing those figures.
But at the same time, you do have him pointing to some kind of relief. Right now, he's talking about it for farmers. They've gone back and forth. Whether it would be farmers and hospitality workers.
So, but that again comes back to the economy as well. And I think that's really why he's been so concerned about those farmers, and them losing workers is potentially it could hurt a really crucial part of his base. And, of course, the economy as well.
ALVAREZ: To that point, as the administration sort of embarks on its mass deportation campaign, very aggressive way with this new money, there are going to be competing interests. If you have major immigration sweeps, you will inevitably pick up people who may not have criminal records that are farm workers, who he was appealing to when he was in Iowa yesterday.
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And there are competing interests there that they're going to have and they already are grappling with behind the scenes. But those are the realities. There's no nuance in the campaign message. That nuance becomes very real when they start executing on it in a big way.
SANCHEZ: Panel, please stay with us. We have to take a quick break. Don't go anywhere. We're back in just moments.
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SANCHEZ: We're turning now to our breaking news. Catastrophic flooding in Texas, where the lieutenant governor is now saying there are children unaccounted for from a girl's camp in the state.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LT. GOVERNOR DAN PATRICK (R), TEXAS: For the parents who are waiting, particularly that had children in Camp Mystic. Camp Mystic is a camp that has over 750 kids.
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Right now, there are 20-some that aren't accounted for. That does not mean they've been lost. They could be in a tree. They could be out of communication we're praying for all of those missing to be found alive.
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SANCHEZ: Let's bring in CNN's Ed Lavandera, who joins us over the phone as he is on his way to one of the affected areas.
Ed, what more do we know?
ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, Boris, we know that this is unraveling to be a nightmare situation for hundreds, if not thousands of families in the Texas Hill Country, Central Texas region where rainfall has fallen. Not only has -- as what the lieutenant governor there said that there are still some 20 children believed to be missing from that Camp Mystic, which is a popular camp that children attend during the summer here in Texas.
But the sheriff is also now saying that there are at least 13 dead, and that death toll could continue to rise in the hours ahead as crews are still trying to search for survivors or any of the victims that are still in the path of the Guadalupe River there, in the Kerr County area. This is an area where rainfall has fallen for almost 24 hours, and in very intense ways. And it's not just there in Kerr County, but the rainfall areas have dramatically affected much of central Texas as well.
So, as we've been driving in, we're still about were making our way through the Texas Hill country, and there are rivers and creeks that are just, you know, kind of coming out of out of its banks. But right now, the intense focus there in Kerr County, where the sheriff confirms that there are at least 13 people dead, that death toll expected to go higher.
And obviously, a great deal of concern for many, many families who have been affected by all of this and a number of children from this popular campground area that are still missing, and a frantic search for them continues here this afternoon, Boris.
SANCHEZ: Yeah. No question. And we hope that officials find them safe.
Ed, tell us about this area of Texas, the Hill Country. Tell us about the landscape and whether these sorts of storms are typical for the region.
LAVANDERA: Well, they have had a devastating flood like this in some of the rivers in this particular area back in 1987, which is a flood event that many people remember and talk about quite a bit. But one of the authorities speaking here this afternoon in Kerr County, said that what this what is unfolding at this moment far surpasses what was experienced back in 1987.
But from time to time, there are rivers that make their way through the Texas Hill Country, where you have this intense amount of rainfall that falls in a very quick way, can cause devastating flooding like this.
But these are -- there's a -- Camp Mystic is a -- is a popular Summer Camp for -- it's an all-girls camp just up the river. Theres another camp and we're trying to still get information on that one, Camp La Junta, where it's an all-boys camp.
So, this is a region especially for this summertime time of year, where it's a very popular place for people to go hang out on, on the rivers, especially on a July 4th weekend.
SANCHEZ: And would you happen to know, Ed, what kind of warning was put out if folks on the ground were aware that something like this might be coming?
LAVANDERA: I think one of the local officials said that there isn't a very elaborate warning system in this particular area, but regardless, you know, the amount of rainfall that has fallen in the last 24 hours came rather quickly. I don't have a real gauge as to whether or not the people who were closest to all of this had a real good indication of what was unfolding or what was about to unfold. That isn't totally clear to me yet. So, we'll continue to report on that as well.
SANCHEZ: And I know you're no stranger to storms in Texas. I believe it was 2017. There was a hurricane there where you were actually on the ground as several rescues were happening. Can you give us an idea of the kind of resources that folks in the Lone Star State have on hand right now to respond to something of this scale?
LAVANDERA: Well, we do know that there -- there's air support, there's helicopters that have been brought in the state authorities and Texas emergency management officials have said, you know, they've -- they're sending in a squadron of different units that can help in this situation.
So, there are high water rescue teams. So, there's boats in the area. There's also helicopters in the area, as I've mentioned.
But what is also hampering the situation today is that the rainfall has continued. I was just looking at the radar a little while ago, and it seems like that Kerrville, Kerr County area is almost to the point where some of the heaviest rainfall has passed, and there might be a little bit of a respite here that would give those emergency crews some time to work and get into the areas most affected.
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But remember, as all this water accumulates, especially upstream, it has to flow downstream. So, this becomes a very treacherous situation for those high-water rescue teams where the water levels in these rivers will be -- will be rising for some hours, even after the storm passes.
SANCHEZ: Yeah. Especially as the ground is saturated. Hopefully some relief coming to those folks very soon. Ed Lavandera, thank you so much for the update and for joining us.
Also, thanks to our panel for joining us on the holiday. We very much appreciate it.
Speaking of the holiday, I'll be seeing you later tonight starting at 7:00 p.m. for "The Fourth in America" right here on CNN.
"THE LEAD" with Jim Sciutto starts right after a quick break.
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