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The Lead with Jake Tapper

White House Growing Criticism Over Handling of Epstein Case; Democrats Walk Out as Ex-Trump Lawyer's Nomination Advances; Former Hamas Hostage Says, No Human Should Live Like That. Flash Flooding Swamps New Mexico Town For Second Time In Two Weeks; Trump Admin Cuts Weather Research, Disaster Response. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired July 17, 2025 - 18:00   ET

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

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[18:00:00]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper.

This hour, the White House is fiercely pushing back against calls from even some Republicans to appoint a special counsel to investigate the Jeffrey Epstein case. How long can President Trump continue to dismiss concerns from in his own party and his own base when frustrations over the case are now delaying the Republican agenda on Capitol Hill?

Plus, millions of Americans at risk tonight for flash flooding as dangerous storms move in, threatening to drop up to a foot of rain. Amid these new threats tonight, we're going to take a closer look at how staffing and budget cuts might be affecting forecasting at the National Weather Service.

Also after being kidnapped near the site of the Nova Music Festival, he spent nearly 500 days as a hostage of the terrorist group, Hamas. And now, Or Levy is sitting down with CNN's Jeremy Diamond for his very first international interview, detailing his time in captivity, talking about how he learned his wife had been killed on October 7th, and what life has been like ever since he was reunited with his young son.

Our Lead tonight, the White House is digging in despite growing criticism from Democrats and even some Republicans over the administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. As the growing controversy risks delaying an unrelated vote on President Trump's DOGE budget cuts in the house.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is live outside the White House for us. Kristen?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake. I mean, the real news out of this press conference or press briefing we just saw with the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, was the fact that she said President Trump would not recommend a special prosecutor or special counsel when it comes reviewing the Epstein case.

Of course, this is now raising more questions. One of the things that Trump had said was that it was not something he would've anything to do with in terms of appointment. But we know one thing, even though this would fall on Attorney General Pam Bondi, it's very clear that President Trump would have a say in this as Bondi has operated the Department of Justice as almost an extension of the White House.

Now, I also followed up with Leavitt about a few other things, including what exactly President Trump knows about those files.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Does he have knowledge or an understanding of what is in the files related to Epstein that have not been released?

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Not to my knowledge and that's a question for the attorney general, as I said. And the president has told the attorney general, if they have any more credible evidence, they should release it.

HOLMES: Is that evidence, would she have to run that by the president before she released it?

LEAVITT: I don't think so. He said if she has any more credible evidence, she should release it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Now, I was trying to follow up there with who gets to decide, what's credible, what is deemed credible, she was -- had moved on to another report.

You know, these were not the only questions that she got, particularly on this case as it continues to really plague the White House. They have tried to do everything they possibly can to change the subject here. She defended President Trump. She defended the attorney general. At multiple times, she deferred to the attorney general saying that's something you'd have to ask her.

But one quick note here. You know, she says to me, you'd have to ask the attorney general. I don't know what President Trump knows. Well, the president was briefed, so that would be something that we would ask the White House about. It's not just a question about something the Department of Justice did. The president himself would have knowledge of this if he had been briefed and he has admitted that he's been briefed on this. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Kristen Holmes at the White House, thanks so much.

Let's go to CNN Congressional Correspondent Lauren Fox live on Capitol Hill. Lauren, this drama around the Epstein controversy appears to be delaying the Republican agenda in some ways. We heard from Manu earlier when it comes to the vote on the rules committee. Has this been figured out yet?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the rules committee is just getting underway right now, Jake. And I talked to Representative Ralph Norman, a conservative who's on the Rules Committee, who has been arguing all week that he wants more transparency related to the Epstein case. And he said that, yes, they are on a good path with leadership, that he was willing to move forward with this Rules Committee happening at 6:00 tonight.

But he didn't say what the deal was, what was agreed to with leadership. And he has so far still declined to say what exactly leadership did in order to convince some of these holdouts to move forward with this Rules Committee meeting.

So, that's still really a mystery right now on Capitol Hill. But there is really this sense that more transparency is needed from many conservatives. And some of these folks are really close to Donald Trump. They are people who have been stalwarts, who have been supportive of him on almost every issue. But they are saying they're hearing from their constituents.

I talked to one Congressman, Representative Burlison, earlier this week, who said this is one of the top issues he's hearing on his phone calls into his office.

[18:05:06]

So, this is really something that is putting Republican members at odds between President Trump, who they're very supportive of, and their own constituents back home. And I think that is why this has continued to be a huge deal.

Now, we should note that the Rules Committee getting underway doesn't mean that they're close to a vote in that committee. Once they get through that committee, they still have to put it on the floor and then they have to have a final vote on the president's $9 billion rescissions package. All of that has to happen before midnight tomorrow.

TAPPER: And tell me about this deadline. Why is this deadline for the DOGE cuts bill so important? Why midnight tomorrow?

FOX: Yes. Basically, you only have a certain number of days to pass a rescissions bill. That is part of the Budget Act, and that is part of the way that this process works. So, if they can't get it done, they have to start this process all over again.

Certainly, they could do that. The votes were there in the Senate. We expect eventually the votes are going to be there in the House. But you can imagine what a massive waste of time that is, especially given the fact that senators didn't vote until 2:30 in the morning, this A.M., to get this passed. So, it's a really painful and excruciating process if you have to start the clock all over again.

TAPPER: All right. Lauren Fox on Capitol Hill, thanks so much.

My panel's here to discuss. Shermichael, let me start with you. So, the president campaigned on in no small part and his campaign team, including Elon Musk and others, on releasing these files. He's now refusing to release these files and it's actually having an impact on his legislative agenda with this House Rules Committee issue about the rescission, about the budget cuts. It doesn't have anything to do with Epstein, but people --

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. But a lot of these members are hearing from their constituents. Yes, I've talked to several members, to the point that you're making, and people are hearing from their constituents. You have Loomer, Bannon, Charlie, Kirk, you even have Ben Shapiro, although he's in agreement with President Trump on this issue, and Megyn Kelly had a debate several days ago that was posted on social media.

There are a lot of very influential individuals on the conservative right who aren't supporters of the president but would like to have more transparency as it pertains to Epstein. Even if there's nothing there, the ask is just release what you guys can release so that we can make our own determination. I think the quicker the president comes to a determination on this, the quicker it goes away.

TAPPER: And Brendan, let me play something for you. The Democratic senator, Ron Wyden, who's the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said today about the Epstein files. Let's roll that clip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RON WYDEN (D-OR): Somewhere in the Treasury Department, Mr. President, locked away in a cabinet drawer is a big Epstein file that's full of actionable information, follow the money details about his financing and operations that await investigation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Is that true?

BRENDAN BALLOU, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL, DOJ ANTITRUST DIVISION: Yes. Well, I can't speak to that specific information, but I can talk about the general perspective that Senator Wyden is talking about here. And it speaks to sort of a fundamental problem that this president has with its Department of Justice.

You know, DOJ only has its credibility. It doesn't have missiles, it doesn't have an army, it doesn't have money to give away. The only thing it has is its ability to convince judges, to convince juries, and to convince the public of what it's saying, because of how many people, it's fired because of the cases it's taken on. This president has burned through its credibility with the Department of Justice, and so it's hard for people to believe what he's now saying about Jeffrey Epstein.

SINGLETON: But I do wonder how much credibility the Department of Justice actually had though. Before this discussion, I was just looking up the available polling that I could find on how the general public feels about prosecutors. And overwhelming, Jake, the vast majority of American people do not like prosecutors. They believe they have too much power and too much discretion.

So, to have a president, regardless of what you may think about his views, trying to rein in some of that, I think the data would probably air more on Trump's side than it would Democrats. TAPPER: Well, let's talk about this -- continue to talk about this subject because Maurene Comey, the daughter of James Comey, who worked -- she worked on the Epstein case. She was a prosecutor. And let's remember, it was during Trump's first administration, 2019, that it looked as though there actually was going to be accountability for Geoffrey Epstein from U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Berman and, I guess, Maurene Comey, but she was fired yesterday. A spokesperson for the Southern District of New York U.S. Attorney's Office declined to comment on why she was fired.

In a message to her former colleagues obtained by CNN, she wrote, quote, if a career prosecutor can be fired without reason, fear may seep into the decisions of those who remain. Do not let that happen.

Now, Brendan, you were a former prosecutor with the DOJ. You resigned your post voluntarily shortly after Trump pardoned the January 6th rioters. What's your take on the firing of Maurene Comey?

BALLOU: Ms. Comey was fired under a legally ridiculous idea that the president has absolute authority to fire any person in the executive branch for any reason.

[18:10:00]

This is a theory that is discredited by anybody that takes these issues seriously, and yet this administration is pursuing this theory not to make prosecutors less powerful, but to make them more powerful and more loyal, not to the law, but to the president.

TAPPER: Let's turn to another matter in the judicial realm, which is President Trump's former personal attorney, Emil Bove, who's currently, I think, number three at the Justice Department. He's one step closer to a lifetime appointment as a federal appeals court judge.

And, Brendan, you are one of more than 900 former DOJ lawyers to sign a letter urging to Senate Judiciary Committee to not confirm him. Part of the letter says, quote, it is intolerable to us and anyone who disgraces the Justice Department would be promoted to one of the highest courts in the land as it should be intolerable to anyone committed to maintaining our ordered system of justice.

Republicans did advance his nomination today by a vote of 12 to 0. Democrats had left to protest because they weren't allowed to question Bove on some matters, including the Epstein case. Why would you say he disgraces the Justice Department?

BALLOU: Emil Bove, if he is confirmed, will be generationally dangerous for the judiciary. It's not just his hypocrisy, the fact that he worked on January 6th cases and then tried to fire January six prosecutors, that he said that he was going to procure cocaine for one of his co-workers while or then serving as coachee (ph) of the international narcotics section.

It's the fact that he suggested that this administration could ignore court orders. We have had lots of judges over the years. I don't think there's a single one in our lifetime who has said that judge's court orders could be ignored.

SINGLETON: But did he say, you can ignore the court order or did he say you can go through the appellate process quickly to try to get back to the Supreme Court to be the final arbiter? I think those two are a bit different, a little conjecture here.

That said, there was also another president who appointed someone who didn't have a judicial experience. That was Elena Kagan, who ultimately was appointed to the Supreme Court and confirmed during President Obama years.

TAPPER: He was a solicitor general.

SINGLETON: No, she was, but he also has some legal experience that I think the president would point to outside of just loyalty alone. But every single president who wants to nominate judges who they believe are sync with her ideological perspective in terms of the judiciary.

BALLOU: However, Elena Kagan did not say that she was going to procure cocaine for her co-workers.

TAPPER: All right, thanks to our panel. I really appreciate it.

Today, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called any plans to reopen Alcatraz the, quote stupidest idea Trump has had in his second term. Do Republicans support this significant costs involved in paving over this tourist site and creating a new super max? I'll ask one next.

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[18:15:00]

TAPPER: And we're back with more in our Politics Lead. The House is racing to approve $9 billion worth of cuts in foreign aid and federal funding for public broadcasting and other places by tomorrow's deadline. The partisan effort to claw back money, the Congress has already appropriated DOGE cuts passed in the early hours of this morning in the U.S. Senate by a vote of 51 to 48.

Joining us now to discuss, Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin. So, Senator, thanks for joining us.

The House is now taking up this $9 billion of spending cuts involving money Congress had previously appropriated you along with all but two Senate Republicans voted in support of the measure. Today, the White House budget chief, Russ Vought, said the White House is likely to send another round of DOGE cuts to Congress. Is that something that theoretically you would support?

SEN. RON JOHNSON (R-WI): I hope they do. I think DOGE identified something like $160 to $180 billion of waste, fraud, abuse. We're going to spend $7,000 billion this year. This will be the fifth year that we're going to have deficit about $1.9 trillion. So, $9 billion represents 0.12 percent of total federal spending.

Jake, when you've gone from $4 trillion in 2019 to over $7 trillion, I have to believe there's literally hundreds of billions of dollars and 2,600 programs, hundreds of programs that if you completely eliminated them, nobody would even notice, except for the grifters who are sucking down the waste, fraud and abuse.

So, listen, this is the least we can do. It's a little depressing that it was difficult to get the $9 billion, but, no, if somebody thinks that something ought to be cut from the federal government, I'll probably support it,

TAPPER: Including money from the Pentagon?

JOHNSON: I think we should definitely take a look at how we spend, you know, our defense money. I don't think we sent spend it particularly well. We have to be far more strategic. But, listen, defense spending is a top priority. The federal government as a percentage GDP, we are way down. It's a dangerous world. I would say certainly made more dangerous by the feckless administration, the Biden administration. So, no, we've got a probably plus up defense, which means we need to find a savings in other areas.

And, by the way, there's plenty of savings to be had. If you look -- go back to 2019, exclude Medicare, Medicaid. Social Security and interest and plus up all those other total expenditures, actual expenditures by population inflation, we're spending $384 billion more than we spent in 2019. Completely unjustified, that's how I would target it, and that's what we're going to do, I think, with our budget review panel, go line by line, program by program, and ask these agencies to justify why are you spending so much more than you did from fully inflated 2019 spending?

TAPPER: So, with this bill passed and the rescissions with the One, Big Beautiful Bill Act becoming a law, and the rescissions, I assume you know what the projection for the national debt will be in ten years, even with those cuts, right? It's $36 trillion that the U.S. owes right now. You know what it's going to be in ten years.

JOHNSON: Yes. Right now, we're on projection of $26 trillion of additional deficits over the next --

TAPPER: Additional.

JOHNSON: Additional. So, yes, we're going to be up over $60 trillion. I realized that. You know, but the last thing we wanted to do was increase taxes.

By the way, Democrats, when they were in the similar position, they could have repealed the Tax Cut and Jobs act. They could have increased taxes on the wealthy. They didn't do that because they realized that'd be harmful to our economy as well.

So, I've been railing about spending. We have a spending problem. Again, it's difficult. We're doing the hard thing.

[18:20:00]

It's easy to cut taxes. I understand that. It's easy to spend money. It's very difficult to dial it back. Again, we went from $4.4 trillion to $7 trillion. You know for the last six months I've been railing about how much we spend, how we need to dial that back. I was disappointed that we weren't able to do more of it.

TAPPER: Yes.

JOHNSON: I'm disappointed that $9 trillion or $9 billion was hard to do. But I'm going to be -- I'll be beating this drumbeat as long as I'm in Congress. We have to reduce spending. We have to reduce the size, scope, and cost of government.

TAPPER: So, as you know, there are a lot of questions about the way in which this rescission package, these budget cuts were brought in. I want to play something that your colleague, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, said before this package of cuts passed. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): It will become hard, maybe even impossible, and Senator Tillis laid this out very well, to write a bipartisan budget ever again because the minority party now knows that they can get double crossed. And believe me, if Republicans do this now, Democrats are going to do it when they're in charge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What's your response to that, the whole idea that this rescissions package, again, you know, clawing back money that Congress had already appropriated is essentially a double cross and this is going to come back and haunt you?

JOHNSON: Well, again, when Democrats were in charge, they used budget reconciliation to blow a massive hole in our budget. Again, they averaged $1.9 trillion deficits in their four years in office. Prior to the pandemic, we averaged $660 billion. So, they had no problem spending. That's our problem. We don't have bipartisan support for spending reduction to return to a reasonable pre-pandemic level spending. And the bipartisan appropriation process, again, for the 25 percent of the budget that we actually do appropriate, it's $145 billion over what we spent in 2019, fully inflated, fully plused up for inflation population. So, the bipartisan appropriation process is the reason we are $37 trillion in debt.

TAPPER: So, in the House Rules Committee today, there was a rebellion among some House Republicans saying that they weren't going to let the rule go forward to pass these rescissions, these budget cuts in the House, until there was an agreement to do something about the Epstein files, releasing the Epstein files. You told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about the Epstein case that you're all for transparency and, quote, there's something in this matter that just doesn't smell right.

There is momentum in the House to vote on a bill that would force the release of Epstein documents. But today, Senate Majority Leader John Thune indicated he's not seeing that interest in the Senate. This is now impeding the ability of President Trump and Republicans like you to do budget cuts because constituents are reaching out to House Republicans and saying, this stinks, please release it. Do you not think that there should be as much release as possible?

JOHNSON: Yes, there should. But this is a point where President Trump ought to use his leadership skills and tell the House, pass the rescission package. We'll talk about Epstein later, but pass the $9 billion of, you know, let's face it, pretty meager spending reduction.

TAPPER: Yes, but why not release the Epstein files? I mean, this is something that Republicans campaigned on. You said there's something in it that doesn't smell right. It seems pretty obvious that this is causing legislative problems for the president. And him just saying -- you know, he's already said, everybody should change the subject, this is boring, people who care about this, I don't want your support anymore, you're weaklings, that's not working. Republicans are upset. The base is upset.

JOHNSON: So, again, I don't know what's in the Epstein files. You know, I do know that the Epstein files are in the custody of the Biden administration. You know, I don't know to what extent they've added or deleted things. It's kind of amazing now Democrats who did not want them released, now they want them released.

So, again, I'm a little concerned about chain of custody. I don't know anything about it. I'm as curious as anybody else. I'll let the process play out. But we should not hold $9 billion of spending reduction hostage for debate over the Epstein files.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson from Wisconsin, thanks so much. I appreciate it, sir.

JOHNSON: Have a great night.

TAPPER: After spending nearly 500 days in Hamas captivity, former hostage Or Levy is now sharing his story as he adjusts to his new reality and fights to bring the remaining hostages home. His first international interview is next,

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[18:25:00]

TAPPER: In our World Lead, quote, no human should live like that. These aren't my words. They're the words of former hostage Or Levy, describing his 491 days of captivity by the terrorists, Hamas, beginning on October 7th, 2023, when he tried to attend the Nova Music Festival.

He recently sat down with CNN's Jeremy Diamond for his very first international interview, not only to talk about what he endured, but the reason why he stayed alive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Five months ago, these images of Or Levy shocked the world. His emaciated body, a testament to the 491 days he was held hostage by Hamas.

OR LEVY, ISRAELI HOSTAGE RELEASED: And I must say after three weeks of a lot of food that got into like that we got.

DIAMOND: Meaning, had you been released three weeks earlier, you would've looked a lot worse?

LEVY: For sure.

DIAMOND: That's hard to imagine.

LEVY: It's hard to understand how difficult it is to live on one pita a day for 491 days. It's something that no human should live like that. And for the people that are still there, I know those days were even worse than what I've been through, and it's scary.

DIAMOND: Just as difficult as the physical toll was the emotional burden of captivity, being ripped away from his then two-year-old son, Almog.

[18:30:07]

LEVY: When his birthday came and I was there, it was my worst day of my life.

DIAMOND: What did you do on that day?

LEVY: So, I sing to him and crying most of the day, thinking and telling stories about him, about what we went through, promising that I will do whatever it takes to go back and doing his next birthday together.

DIAMOND: That wish came true two weeks ago, a birthday that came five months after Or was reunited with his family and with Almog.

LEVY: I remember seeing him, I hugging him, hearing his voice, crazy.

DIAMOND: But he says that day was also the hardest of his life. It was the day he learned that his wife, Einav, had been killed on October 7th.

LEVY: I met this woman from the Army and I asked her about my wife. I told her that I think I know, but I'm not 100 percent certain and that I want to know, and then she told me,

DIAMOND: Or and Einav were huddling inside this bomb shelter when Hamas militants began throwing grenades and opening fire.

LEVY: And the last picture that I remember seeing is the Hamas terrorist shooting inside the bomb shelter.

DIAMOND: Hersh Goldberg-Pollin, an American Israeli later executed by Hamas in captivity, was also kidnapped from that shelter. They would spend three defining days together in Gaza's tunnels.

LEVY: He said to me he was why (ph) can bear any harm. And for me, when I was in captivity, I understood that I have a why and this can help me survive any harm.

DIAMOND: When he got back from Gaza, he got the mantra tattooed on his arm.

What or who was your why?

LEVY: Almog. Every rough day that, you know, you're about to crack, I was to touch here, right where I did my tattoo and talking to Almog and saying to him, yes, you are my why and I will go back for you. And I remember on rough days, I would like to do like this, feeling stronger, feeling stronger, and not wanting to die.

DIAMOND: The thought of dying crossed your mind?

LEVY: Every day, every day. But, for me, I didn't accept that because I knew that people are waiting for me. My kid is waiting for me. And I don't want him to grow up without mom and dad.

DIAMOND: Or is home, but he must now answer his son's questions alone.

LEVY: Just the other day, he asked me why I didn't take him to this far place I was in.

DIAMOND: That's how you describe it to him you were in a faraway place?

LEVY: Yes. So, yes, he asked about his mom, about what happened to her, about who caused it.

DIAMOND: What do you tell him about her and how do you carry on her memory?

LEVY: So, first of all, I explain to him every time that his mom did want to go, that his mom loved him from the bottom of her heart. I'm showing him pictures of her every day of us three, telling the story behind this photo. This is something that I promised to myself, even when it's hard to get him to know her because it's harder for him.

DIAMOND: But Or's ordeal won't be over until all the hostages are home.

LEVY: The fact that people are still there haunts me in the night for sure. I think that nothing is worth more than getting those people home.

I know that we need to push on to get a deal that gets everyone home and finish everything.

DIAMOND: Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Givatayim, Israel.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[18:35:00]

TAPPER: And our thanks to Jeremy Diamond for that report. Our small business series takes us to Illinois next for a company dedicated to helping your family enjoy your home to the fullest is struggling under the weight of Trump's tariffs. Are they passing higher costs on to consumers?

Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: It's time for our Business Leader series where we hear from small business owners coast-to-coast about President Trump's tariffs. Some are enthusiastic. Many tell us the impacts have been very difficult to deal with. American Sale is a Chicagoland retail chain for home recreation, selling anything from grills and pools, to hot tubs, to seasonal decorations, whatever you might need to create a fun backyard.

President and CEO Bob Jones joins us now. Bob, where do you source the products that you sell? How have the tariffs been impacting you and your business?

BOB JONES, PRESIDENT AND CEO, AMERICAN SALE: Well, we, you know, source products from all over the world, really, and most of our products are sourced in the United States, but we do have a significant amount of products that we do source from overseas, especially in China. So, that's where a lot of our product comes from.

[18:40:00]

TAPPER: And have the tariffs obviously from China, I would think, that would have a huge impact, have you been forced to raise prices as a result of these increased tariffs, increased tariff fees?

JONES: Not yet. A little bit so far, but for the most part, we've been able to front load our inventory. We did a lot of that in the beginning of the year. We did get hit with one group of containers that came in where we had to pay the 145 percent tariff. It was $150,000 that we had to pay for that. Unfortunately, that's going to prevent us from, you know, buying some trucks that we were going to buy. We had a forklift that we were going to buy. We got to hold off on that because of that expense.

And, you know, we were taking advantage of this reprieve that we've had over the last 90 days to get a lot of our winter product in. After that, it looks like the tariffs are going to be here to stay.

TAPPER: We're well into the season --

JONES: And we'll have to raise prices.

TAPPER: We're well into the season for summer backyard fun and pool fun. Have you seen this shift in any way in how your customers are spending money this year?

JONES: Oh, yes. There's a lot more hesitancy in customers as they -- the ones that we're talking to coming in the door. I'm sure there's a lot of conversations being had around the kitchen table, also that we don't hear those conversations. And consumers are much more hesitant right now because they just don't know what the future holds.

And I can tell you with what I call the TTT, the Trump tax or tariff tax, that hasn't really hit yet, but coming over the next six months, you're going to see a lot of price increases.

TAPPER: What do you wish that President Trump and other lawmakers understood about how tariffs are impacting businesses like yours?

JONES: Well, there's a lot of impact, and one of the impacts certainly is just the money that we've had to spend in these taxes that we're paying to the government, which impacts our landed costs and what we have to charge customers.

The other thing is the tremendous disruption that we've had in our business with all our people trying to manage around all of these tariffs frontloading, trying to work in the reprieve and just frankly not knowing what the price of the products that we've ordered, what our landed final cost ends up being, and can we sell it for that cost? That's a big concern of ours.

TAPPER: You can find American Sale locations across the Chicago area. Bob Jones, thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it.

JONES: Oh, you're welcome, Jake. Thanks for having me.

TAPPER: How some of music's biggest stars are working to try to bring attention to the climate crisis as they perform across the country, that's next.

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[18:46:33]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Our buried lead now, that's what we call stories we feel are not getting enough attention. Another round of flash flooding hit the Ruidoso, New Mexico area, where deadly floods struck just last week. New video shows rushing waters sweeping past homes and partially submerged cars.

Last week, we also saw water gushing onto platforms in New York City's subway and flowing through subway cars and at least 135 people died in the catastrophic flooding in Central Texas. Of course, where about 100 people are still missing. While search and recovery efforts are ongoing and expected to take months, officials are still looking into a variety of things that appear to have gone wrong in those critical early morning hours.

But recent reports about how staffing and budget cuts are affecting forecasting at the National Weather Service have been out there for months, whether or not it's related to any of those stories.

In May, we reported the National Weather Service is in worse shape than previously known due to a combination of layoffs, early retirements, and preexisting vacancies. Several current and former agency meteorologists told us they were concerned that forecasts and life saving warnings were not going to be issued in time in the future. And after losing more than 560 weather service employees earlier this year, as of early June, the agency was only planning to rehire 125 meteorologists and specialists as hurricane season begins to get underway.

In April, we also reported on the Trump administrations plans to eliminate the research arm of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and to eviscerate its budget by 27 percent. That budget proposal was recently submitted to Congress.

We reported, quote, the cuts would devastate weather and climate research. As weather is becoming more erratic, extreme and costly, it would cripple the U.S. industries that depend on free, accurate weather and climate data and expert analysis. It could also halt research on deadly weather, including severe storms and tornadoes, unquote.

Now, it's not just NOAA and the national weather service. For months, President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem have declared that FEMA might be eliminated just days into his second term. President Trump said this in North Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'll also be signing an executive order to begin the process of fundamentally reforming and overhauling FEMA, or maybe getting rid of FEMA.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Maybe getting rid of FEMA.

In April, about 20 percent of FEMA staff, roughly 1,000 employees, took a voluntary buyout as part of Trump's staff reduction effort headed by Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.

Another, more than 800 employees took buyouts earlier this year. And just last month, President Trump told reporters he wants to phase out FEMA after hurricane season.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We want to wean off of FEMA and we want to bring it down to the state level. A governor -- you know, governor, should be able to handle it. And frankly, if they can't handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn't be governor.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: FEMA officials trying to pre-position search and rescue crews to respond to the disaster in Texas ran into a new spending approval requirement imposed by the Trump administration that slowed down its work, according to FEMA officials, we reported last week. Those teams were not authorized to deploy until more than 72 hours after the deadly flash floods began.

But since the devastation, President Trump has struck a different tone.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Well, FEMA is something we can talk about later, but right now, they're busy working.

[18:50:06]

So we'll leave it at that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Shortly after that, Secretary of Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said Trump wanted FEMA to be remade rather than destroyed. Probably not a bad idea.

In our "Earth Matters" series, some of music's biggest names are showing CNN's Bill Weir how they are trying to bring attention to the climate crisis and to combat it, including Grammy winner Billie Eilish. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Set out to bend the industry around her values, haters and big oil companies be damned.

BILLIE EILISH, GRAMMY WINNER: Yeah, it was funny that that video really went kind of viral in the kind of oh, my god, she's satanic world, which was really funny to me because I was like, no, no, you guys, this is a metaphor for climate change. I'm a bird falling into a thing of oil. Like, that's kind of the whole point.

I have been trying to change the way that the industry has been running for a really long time. So, for, for, like, food backstage, all of my catering is vegan. Yeah, we have like, refillable water stations. We don't sell like plastic water bottles. And I have like a no idling policy for all the trucks. You know, to save all those -- all those fossil fuels.

WEIR: Yeah. And save your lungs.

EILISH: Save your lungs.

WEIR: And a lot of your fans.

EILISH: Yeah, but yeah, it's --

WEIR: It's leading by example, sort of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: And CNN's Bill Weir joins us now. Bill, what did you learn from talking to Billie and other superstars?

WEIR: It's fascinating, Jake. She became a superstar at age 14, and came from a family where they would recycle wrapping paper at birthdays, had solar panels on the roof were eco conscious, and when the music industry started backing up trucks full of swag for Billie Eilish and her brother and her family, she's like, wait a minute, we don't want any of this. And then they started demanding plastic free shows and new kinds of catering and a battery powered stage at Lollapalooza.

If you're going in a couple of weeks, the fact that there's not diesel generators idling literally 24/7 for a week is thanks to Billie Eilish using her star power, but I wanted to follow sort of the legacy back to Willie Nelson and Bonnie Raitt, Jack Johnson, the Hawaiian surfer turned pop star who took their sort of environmental attitudes just about a planet and balance a better way to do this, and are having huge cultural influence.

Coldplay actually worked with MIT to measure the footprint of the whole industry, and they're not nearly on par with big industries like fashion or building any of that. But they have this such outsized influence and maybe a generation ago, they considered it a win if they could get a fan to register to vote. Now, they're trying to connect fans at shows into these grassroots networks where the people can turn their climate anxiety into action locally, work on earth repair, and everybody knows. The words to the same, same song.

So, it's a special field with ideas about hope and trying to get people to rally. In these days, as you just reported, political leadership and even corporate leadership on this is completely absent. So cultural pop and pop stars have the biggest cultural influence these days.

TAPPER: All right.

WEIR: Celebrate these ones.

TAPPER: So that's music stars and their fans outreach to try to affect climate. What has been the effect of climate on music festivals? I've got to imagine all this extreme weather that we're seeing has had an impact.

WEIR: Absolutely. Bonnaroo, the big music festival in Tennessee every year, three of the four days canceled because of flooding. The Steve Miller Band just announced he's not going to tour due to issues about weather scares, and climate doesn't want to get big crowds out in the elements given what's happening right now and organizers are paying exorbitant new insurance rates to cover this, so it's having a real effect.

TAPPER: All right. Bill Weir, thanks so much.

Don't miss, "Change Amplified: Live Music in the Climate Crisis". That's Sunday night at 8:00 Eastern and Pacific only on CNN.

Thanks so much, Bill.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:58:28]

TAPPER: In our law and justice lead today, one day in jail, one day. That's how long the Justice Department says an officer convicted in Breonna Taylor's case should serve behind bars. Brett Hankison was convicted last year of violating Breonna Taylor's civil rights by firing several shots during the house raid in 2020. The Justice Department stated yesterday that although Hankinson was present, he, they say, is not responsible for Breonna Taylor's death.

In our money lead, tariffs may be starting to take a bite, but Americans are still opening their wallets. The Commerce Department announced a 6/10 of a percent rise in sales last month compared to may, when sales declined. That increase, although modest, surprised many economists. June's numbers show people were using more of their pocket money for eating out and going to bars, but also making bigger investments such as buying automobiles.

In our sports lead, Caitlin Clark will not be playing this weekend in the WNBA all-star game after suffering a groin injury earlier this week. It was only her fourth game back after a five-game absence because of a different injury.

Some sad news. Also in our sports lead, Super Bowl winning linebacker Brian Braman of the Philadelphia Eagles has died. He was only 38 years old. Braman's agent said the linebacker died of a rare form of cancer. He was diagnosed just in February.

He started his NFL career in 2011 with the Texans. Then he played four seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, culminating in that historic sweet 2018 victory against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LII. Our thoughts are with his family and with the Eagles World. May his memory be a blessing.

You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and on TikTok @jaketapper. You can follow the show on X @TheLeadCNN.

If you ever miss an episode of THE LEAD, you can listen to the show whence you get your podcast.

"ERIN BURNETT OUTFRONT" starts now.