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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Trump Insists He Can Strike Alleged Drug Traffickers Without Congress Declaring War; Rep. Dan Crenshaw, (R-TX), Is Interviewed About Trump Attack On Venezuelan Drug Traffickers, Gov't. Shutdown; Shutdown Will Extend To Next Week As Senate Leaves D. C.; NBA Coach And Player Among Those Arrested In Massive Mafia-Linked Gambling And Sports Rigging Schemes; Jack Smith Asks Congress, DOJ To Let Him Testify Publicly; White House East Wing Now Demolished For Planned Ballroom; Video Appears To Show Thieves Escaping Louvre Museum After Heist. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired October 23, 2025 - 17:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: All right. Thanks to my panel. Thanks to all of you at home for watching. Don't go anywhere. "The Lead" with Jake Tapper starts right now.

[17:00:38]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: The U.S. military has now killed at least 37 people in strikes on suspected drug boats. The Lead starts right now.

The Pentagon expands where it's targeting suspected drug boats with yet another hit in the Eastern Pacific. President Trump moments ago calling cartels the ISIS of the Western hemisphere. But now one country's leader says he's moving missiles amid growing tensions with the U.S. Plus, inside the wild, massive scandal rocking the NBA. Officials say current and former NBA players and coaches and four mafia families are involved in illegal sports gambling and poker rigging schemes.

And the new images today of the East Wing of the White House confirming it's totally gone. A whole lot of history now reduced to rubble as the White House doubles down on the donut owner list for the president's massive $300 million new ballroom.

Welcome to The Leas. I'm Jake Tapper. We start with our world lead. On the heels of a diplomatic victory in the Middle East, is the Trump administration risking an entirely new conflict even closer to home? Last night, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed a ninth U.S. Strike on an alleged drug boat.

Alleged this one was the second such strike in the Pacific after a string of strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Atlantic. Those strikes fueling a deepening public rift between President Trump and Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro and Colombian leader Gustavo Petro. This afternoon, Petro said Colombia has been incredibly effective in seizing cocaine on its own. And he accused the U.S. of carrying out extrajudicial executions, a charge repeated in the halls of Congress as well. On Wednesday, Maduro upped the ante, claiming he has 5,000 Russian missiles in, quote, "key air defense positions to guarantee peace," unquote.

Here's how President Trump put the U.S. position just moments ago. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't think we're going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we're just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: CNN's Kristen Holmes at the White House for us. Kristen Trump also suggested expanding some land operations?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jake, this is something he's been flirting with but hasn't yet actually done. One thing was very clear from this roundtable that he hosted that these strikes are not going to stop anytime soon. And in fact, they appear to just be getting started. And I do want to point out something that you noted this idea that President Trump and really many of his cabinet secretaries have been talking about these alleged drug cartels, equating them to ISIS of the Western Hemisphere. Well, there is a reason for that.

That is because administrations in the past have used a legal workaround to not have to go through Congress when you're talking about armed conflict, and particularly with terrorist organizations like ISIS, like al-Qaeda. So there's a reason that they continue to link these cartels to those specific terror groups because it's something that there's a precedent of in the United States. But of course, there are still so many questions as to what exactly is going on with these strikes, not many of which we got answers to today, other than President Trump saying he didn't believe he needed to go to Congress to continue to strike these boats and then threatening once again to strike on land.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: You know, the land is going to be next. And we may go to the Senate, we may go to the, you know, Congress and tell them about it. The sea drugs are almost dead and they can't come in that fast from the land. And the land drugs are much more dangerous for them. It's going to be much more dangerous.

You'll be seeing that soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: Well, he also speculated that if he did in fact go to Congress, he wouldn't get much pushback from Republican lawmakers, which seems about right, given what we have seen on most of the things that he has brought to Congress. And one other quick note, he did flatly deny the idea that B-1 bombers were flying off the coast of Venezuela. Of course, that is something we and other outlets have been reporting that this American B-1 Lancer bomber was flying off the coast as these escalations have increased crease between Venezuela and the United States. He said it was false, but then added that Washington is very unhappy with Venezuela.

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

Let's get right to Stefano Pozzebon. He's now in Venezuela's capital of Caracas.

[17:05:03]

So Maduro's provocative military moves did not stop at the missile announcement. Tell us more about that.

STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, Jake. Well, we're actually been tracking these movements from Venezuelan troops for the past few weeks. And for example, Maduro had called for a mobilization of the militia and the reserves before it was here in Caracas. And then he called it last week in the western -- in the western regions of Venezuela. But even today we reports on social media and in groups of sightings of air defense mobile units mobilized around the main airport that serves Caracas, which is about 30 miles from where I am.

It's a sign, I think, Jake, of how seriously the Maduro government is taking these threat from the White House. And in particular you see that by the constant and incessant presence that military is on the Venezuelan television. Even today, the Venezuelan Defense Minister, Vladimir Padrino Lopez was once again on television holding a speech and saying that they're ready for whatever should come from the north. Jake.

TAPPER: And Stefano, you're talking to Venezuelans who are not only concerned about the U.S. military being used this way, but also the domestic political climate. How are they feeling about Maduro these days?

POZZEBON: Yes. Well, let's, you know, make no mistake that this remains an authoritarian government that is controlling -- ruling this country with an iron fist. We spoke with several of relatives of people who are saying are political prisoners. According to human rights organizations, there are about 750 of them and also, Jake, about 100 of them are actually foreigners. We know that there are no longer U.S. citizens detained behind bars in Venezuela.

But at the same time, you have Europeans, Colombians, Brazilians, Ecuadorians who are being used here in this tactic that the Maduro regime has employed in the past to use them as pawns, these foreign nationals, as pawns in negotiations with the -- with other countries, with the international community. If you speak to their relatives and in particular if you speak to the relatives of those Venezuelans who are behind bar for political reasons, well, they tell you that they can't wait any longer for this U.S. intervention. They're really welcoming open arms and they're really hoping that these could be the end of this government as it is right now.

Of course, there is a lot of speculation, Jake. If you go around Caracas, it's very hard to have any real feeling of what could happen. There is, of course, a lot of swirling rumors on the streets of Caracas and not many people are actually willing to go on the record and share their remarks on that because of this climate of fear and intimidation that is coming down from the government. But all of this is also mounting to the expectation, Jake, that something will might happen between now and perhaps Christmas, perhaps the end of the year or much sooner, as Donald Trump seemed to suggest earlier today. Jake.

TAPPER: Stefano Pozzebon in Venezuela, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Joining us now, Republican from Texas, Congressman Dan Crenshaw. He's a former Navy Seal, He serves on the House Intelligence Committee.

And Congressman, obviously you're very familiar with Venezuela. You lived in Colombia. In 2019 you told CBS News that Congress should have buy in if there was any consideration of U.S. boots on the ground in Venezuela. And even then you said it in an extreme reason, genocide. And you said you preferred other countries in the region to take the lead militarily.

So President Trump said he doesn't need to ask Congress to strike alleged drug traffickers as he's been doing. Do you agree?

REP. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TX): Yes, I agree. I mean that's been upheld many times from the Barbary Pirates under Jefferson to Ronald Reagan in Libya to Barack Obama in Libya. It has been upheld that War Powers Act allows the president to engage in that kind of self-defense and that a war would be defined as a prolonged occupation of that country. So, you know, that's quite a big difference from what's happening now. Striking known designated terrorists carrying drugs. And we do have -- we do have 100 percent certainty that that -- that that intelligence is correct, striking those international waters.

We're a very far cry from going beyond the legal ability of the president.

TAPPER: There are critics, of course, who say that President Trump is taking powers to combat terrorists and using them to address drug traffickers, which in their view is a criminal matter. Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, he has issues with the legality of the strikes. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): I really think that you cannot have a policy where you just allege that someone is guilty of something and then kill them. We interdict ships all the time off the coast of Miami, off the coast of California. And the Coast Guard statistics say that about 25 percent of the boats that we stopped to search don't have any drugs. So if one out of four of the boats don't have drugs on them, you know, what kind of person would justify blowing up people when one out of four boats may well not have drugs on them? (END VIDEO CLIP)

[17:10:16]

TAPPER: What's your response, sir?

CRENSHAW: The senator just, you know, hasn't gotten the briefings that he probably needs to get. One, you know, you're never going to interdict your way out of -- out of the drug trafficking coming out of the Caribbean. And we're losing tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Americans to fentanyl deaths, even if it's just cocaine or marijuana that enriches the Mexican cartels that really control over -- all of this, so that they can continue pushing fentanyl into our streets.

The second thing is we don't make mistakes. We don't make mistakes one out of four. We just don't. Not in this case. We do have 100 percent certainty of each of these strikes, that I can tell you.

So, look, you're never going to interdict your way out. That's extremely expensive and resource intensive and it hasn't worked for decades. So the idea of trying something new, and yes, it is against a terrorist organization, they act like terrorists, that's for sure. And you can quibble about whether it's criminal or terroristic activity. In the end, we have all the authority we need to strike them.

TAPPER: So if they're terrorists and the Trump administration intelligence that they're using is 100 percent accurate, why were two of the survivors of a recent strike returned to their home countries of, I believe, Ecuador and Colombia?

CRENSHAW: I don't know. You're going to have to ask the administration what the -- what the thought process is there, but it doesn't --

TAPPER: So the fentanyl --

CRENSHAW: -- that doesn't mean they weren't doing what we think they were doing.

TAPPER: The fentanyl is obviously a serious issue, but the fentanyl is not coming from Venezuela and Colombia. The fentanyl is coming from China via Mexico, as you know better than I do. So how is striking cocaine dealers or cocaine narco terrorists, assuming that's who these people are, related to the fentanyl and opioid deaths in the U.S. which are obviously tragic? CRENSHAW: Yes. Well, I thought -- I thought I explained that in my

earlier comment. So it's all connected. The people who control all of this, this entire system, are the heads of the Mexican drug cartels, right? They're the ones who go down to Colombia, they make those contracts, they make sure it's shipped up.

They're the ones making all the money in the end. The old days of Pablo Escobar running the Medellin Cartel in -- that's all over, right? So only the suppliers and, you know, just poor farmers are the ones making the cocaine and then sending it out. So, whether cocaine is killing people or not, the fact is it's enriching the cartels. And the cartels, of course, enrich themselves to wreak havoc on Mexico, which happens to be our biggest trading partner and neighbor.

So I think we have an interest in ensuring that Mexico does not devolve into a narco terrorist state the way Colombia was back in the '80s and '90s. So it's a -- it's a -- it's a little bit more intricate than you might suggest. All of these things are connected.

TAPPER: Moving to the government shutdown. Today's day 23. Texas has thousands of federal workers. What are you telling Texans calling your office, worried about putting food on their tables, paying their mortgage and all the other -- all the other expenses?

CRENSHAW: Yes, and it's heartbreaking fielding those calls because I don't have any control over Democrat votes. You know, I mean, just to refresh everyone's memory, the House voted weeks ago to pass a clean CR. Clean CR plus health care provisions, like extending community health centers, extending funding for low income hospitals, extending funding for telehealth. And it was a clean CR, no strings attached, seven weeks. Why, why is it short like that? Because we want to negotiate in good faith while keeping the government open.

And now, what is it, 12 times Senate Democrats have voted to shut down the government. And then somehow, somehow have the audacity to call this a GOP shutdown, which is just insane. And I, you know, I agree with Senator Chris Murphy from way back in the day when he said, look, the time to debate health care issues is not when government funding is on the line. Now, of course, he said that when it was convenient for him. And I can point to -- we have like 20 other examples of Democrats doing that.

But I wish I -- look, I tell my constituents I wish I could control Democrat votes, but I can't. So we've got to keep public messaging on this and be rational, open up the government. Happy to -- happy to debate this health care issue. It's complex. It should happen in our committees, it should happen in a calm environment, but you can't do with the government shut down and Democrats are just putting pain on people.

And for what? I mean, you know, the Capitol Police are getting paid right now, but they're forced to protect these senators who are literally voting not to pay them.

[17:15:00]

TAPPER: Yes. Republican from Texas, Congressman Dan Crenshaw, thank you sir. And as always, thank you for your service.

Hidden cameras, special contact lenses that could read pre marked cards and x-ray table, the FBI says these are just a few of the tools used in a sports rigging and gambling probe. The defendants include members of the NBA and the mafia. Plus, some breaking news on former special counsel Jack Smith, who just made a pretty bold request of the Justice Department and of Congress. That's ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our law and justice lead, the scandal rocking sports fans and the NBA after federal prosecutors announced an NBA player and an NBA head coach were among at least 30 arrests today in two different mafia linked gambling and sports rigging schemes. And yes, that mafia, the Gambino and Genovese crime families, among others. Now, one scheme allegedly involved underground poker games with rampant cheating. Another used insider information to place bets on NBA games.

And among those arrested, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trailblazers head coach Chauncey Billups. FBI Director Kash Patel says victims were cheated out of tens of millions of dollars.

[17:20:06]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: There is no room for any type of criminal behavior, be it on the world's largest stage or in the back rooms of tiny parlors.

JOE NOCELLA, U.S. ATTORNEY: Your winning streak has ended. Your luck has run out. Violating the law is a losing proposition and you can bet on that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Let's go to CNN sports reporter Dana O'Neil.

Dana, what does the FBI say that these NBA stars specifically did?

DANA O'NEIL, CNN SPORTS REPORTER: Right, as you said, there are two separate cases. The first involving Portland Trailblazer head coach and hall of Famer Chauncey Billups is kind of a very complicated scheme involving rigged poker games that did include, as you mentioned, members of the Mafia. Allegedly Billups was the lure who brought wealthy betters into these poker games where things like illegal card shuffling machines were used so they could not possibly win. They took those profits and split them up and then mafia went on and did what they usually did and asked people to pay them back in ways that are not necessarily kind.

In the other, I guess more traditional case, if you will, Terry Rozier, who plays for the Miami Heat was involved in what is essentially point shaving. He would give players or give people insider information about his stuff status and in some cases remove himself from a game with an injury so that they were able to bet on his points, assists and rebounds, prop bets as they're called, and profit off of that insider information. So two very separate cases, very distinct cases, but both landing these guys in some hot water.

TAPPER: All right, Dan o', Neill, thanks so much.

Here now CNN Legal Analyst and former federal prosecutor Elliot Williams.

First Elliot, I want to get your reaction to the sprawling nature of this investigation. It spans across nine states. ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, nine states. And you're talking tens of millions of dollars, Jake. Some of these poker games, which the most mind boggling fact is poker games administered by members -- senior members of La Cosa Nostra, the four of the five families of New York organized crime, some of them defrauded people out of $7 million at a time. It's a lot of money at quite sprawling.

Now what's interesting in the indictment, Jake, is using the language of asset forfeiture and money laundering, in effect talking about the people having access to private nonpublic information and sharing it and trading it as if we're talking here about insider trading. So it is sprawling. It's a fascinating white collar case.

TAPPER: So the mafia backed poker scheme, some of the equipment used sounds really like right out of a spy novel. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NOCELLA: Defendants used other cheating technologies such as poker chip tray analyzers which is a poker chip tray that secretly reads cards using a hidden camera, special contact lenses, or eyeglasses that could read premarked cards, and an X-ray table that could read cards face down on the table.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: What was your reaction when you heard that?

WILLIAMS: Yes, James Bond. I mean, that truly was my reaction. Look, I've been a lawyer a long time, I was a prosecutor, and I'm a pretty sophisticated viewer of spy movies, Jake, I was stunned by some of these things, particularly the X-ray tables. What they also talked about were the code words for fish. You know, the little people were the fish.

And there was another name for the sophisticated folks like Chauncey Billups, the former -- the coach of the Portland Trailblazers, sending messages to people in and out of the room based on what these X-ray tables were picking up is just the stuff of novels, not the real world. It's quite fascinating.

TAPPER: And let's talk about the NBA baiting allegations, because the indictment was very specific. The Department of Justice alleging that when the Charlotte Hornets played the New Orleans Pelicans in March 2023, quote, "Rozier allegedly tipped off a longtime friend that he planned to leave the game early due to supposed injury. He then left the game after nine minutes, generating tens of thousands of dollars in profits."

And also when the Orlando Magic played the Cleveland Cavaliers in April 2023, quote, "A co-conspirator allegedly leveraged a relationship with a Magic player to learn that several of the team's top players would sit out a game against the Cleveland Cavaliers." That kind of detail. What does that suggest?

WILLIAMS: Yes, and I know, Jake, you're a baseball fan as well. This is the Chicago Black Sox -- or the Black Sox scandal, but, you know, modernized. And there's even another one where they refer to, I believe it's individual number three or player number three, who is believed to be LeBron James, the most iconic player of our time, trading on information about when he was not going to be in the game. People have put together the fact that they were talking about the team, that LeBron's team was playing at the time and that he was not in the game. Well, someone treated that as a tip and made a lot of money for themselves and other people.

[17:25:11]

Now, again, all these are just allegations. None of them have been proven in court. But these are quite stunning when we talk about the kinds of money and the kinds of interactions with the NBA that we have here.

TAPPER: Elliot Williams, thanks so much.

President Trump is today warning Israel that it will lose all U.S. support if Israel goes through with one big move. We're going to have the latest on the fragile ceasefire in Gaza ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Our world lead now. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in Israel today tagging in for Vice President J.D. Vance as they both push to ensure the holding of the fragile Gaza ceasefire. Just before Vice President Vance left, he slammed Israel's Parliament or Knesset for passing two preliminary votes designed to annex the West Bank.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[17:30:08]

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If it was a political stunt, it was a very stupid political stunt, and I personally take some insult to it. The West Bank is not going to be annexed by Israel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Annexing the West Bank has been a goal of Israel's far right wing for years. More than 3 million Palestinians who lived in that occupied territory have faced increased Israeli military presence, checkpoints, and deadly attacks by zealot settlers since Israel's war on Gaza began, and long before that as well.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is in Tel Aviv, Israel. And Jeremy, President Trump just addressed this as well.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: He did, Jake. And you saw Vice President Vance's visible anger reacting to this while in Israel. And now President Trump leaving very little unsaid about what would happen and what will certainly not happen in Israel. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm not going to do anything with the West Bank, OK? Don't worry about it. Is that your question? They're not going to do anything with the West Bank. Don't worry about it. Israel's doing very well. They're not going to do anything with it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: The President also said in an interview with "Time Magazine" that Israel would lose all U.S. support if it moved forward with annexation. And this all stems from these two preliminary votes that took place in Israel's Knesset while the Vice President was on the ground. One of those votes was about a bill calling for complete annexation of all Jewish settlements in the West Bank. The other, more limited annexation.

These were the first of what would be four votes in order for these bills to actually become law. So a long ways away. But the fact that these votes happened while the Vice President was on the ground certainly did not seem like a mistake. And it triggered these reactions that we're seeing from both Vance and from President Trump. It also then cued in the Israeli prime minister himself, rushing to try and clean all of this up.

His office putting out a statement describing these votes as a, "deliberate political provocation." He blamed his opposition. But the reality is that the opposition members who brought these bills forward are members of far right parties who largely vote in line with the current Israeli governing coalition.

And 19 of the 25 votes required to pass this piece of legislation in its first reading came from members of the own prime minister's coalition. And so it's clear that this is a goal of the right wing within Netanyahu's own governing coalition. He is now trying to put this all to bed, insisting that these bills would only pass with significant support from his own Likud party.

And without that, they likely won't go anywhere. The closest signal that we've heard so far from the prime minister that this is not actually going to happen as President Trump and Vice President Vance are making that very clear themselves. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. CNN's Jeremy Diamond in Israel, thank you so much.

[17:33:02]

We have some breaking news for you. Former special counsel Jack Smith is requesting that the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Justice Department allow him to testify publicly. We'll explain what's behind this request after this quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Some breaking news in our Politics Lead. Moments ago, former special counsel, Jack Smith, who investigated President Trump when he was in between presidencies, sent a letter asking the leaders of the House and the Senate Judiciary Committees to allow him to testify before the American people.

CNN's Manu Raju is live for us on Capitol Hill. Manu, what is behind this request?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is not an unusual effort by people who simply don't want to be deposed and are pushing back against Congress to call for a public testimony. Remember, Hunter Biden did this as well when Republicans were pushing for his private deposition.

That is not an unusual thing. The question is, how will the people who are in charge of these committees ultimately respond? Will they be open to any sort of public hearing? And we're getting some early indication that the Republicans who lead the committee absolutely are not in favor of initially allowing Jack Smith to testify in public.

In fact, the Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley just put out a statement saying, Jack Smith certainly has a lot of answers to do. But first, Congress needs to have all the facts at its disposal. Hearings should follow once the investigative foundation has been firmly set, which is why I'm actually working with the DOJ and FBI to collect all relevant records that Mr. Smith had years to become familiar with.

So ultimately, the question here is, Jake, how will the Smith team respond? Will it be open to a private deposition first? Will this lead to a process fight? How far will Republicans take it? But you can probably characterize this as an opening salvo between Republicans and the special counsel who investigated the President. Jake?

TAPPER: And Manu, I want to turn to this standoff in the House about seating Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva from Arizona. She was elected 30 days ago. Speaker Johnson says he'll swear her in, she's a Democrat, when the House returns to session, full session. But he insists that that shouldn't prevent her from getting to work. It's something that Congresswoman-elect Grijalva flat out denies. Here's what they both had to say to CNN's Kaitlan Collins last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), HOUSE SPEAKER: In the meantime, she can be serving her constituents and trying to help them through this chaos, just like the House Republicans are doing. She has 16 employees. She now has her phones and computers set up.

REP. ADELITA GRIJALVA (D-AZ), REPRESENTATIVE-ELECT: He knows exactly what I can and cannot do. And I feel like he's trolling me. We don't have phones. We don't have internet. I am a tourist in D.C. who does not have an identification to get in through security.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Manu, fact check this for us. Can she or can she not get to work? Does she have working computers, phones, internet, and all the rest?

[17:39:57]

RAJU: She says she does have devices, but she can't log in to those devices, Jake. And while she is a Congresswoman-elect, she does not have the full privileges of members of Congress, meaning she can't just walk around the Capitol. In fact, she does not have a congressional pin. You see, members of Congress have pins around. They can walk around the House. They can walk onto the House floor. They can walk onto the Senate floor.

She can't even come into the Capitol building itself. And she says she is limited in her ability to respond to constituent demands, and they have a whole host of requests from constituents that they can't adequately respond to. So there is a significant limitation there. The speaker himself has had a round of shifting explanations about all this. Initially, he said that he wouldn't swear her in once Congress returned to session.

But he has canceled one week of session after another amid this government shutdown fight to pressure Senate Democrats to change course and accept their bill. And he can. He does have the power to swear her in in what's known as a pro forma session of the United States House. That is a gavel-in, gavel-out session, no businesses conducted, that is happening every few days.

He did that in similar pro forma sessions before with two Florida Republicans. I've asked him, why not do that same thing? Initially, he said, well, we'll let her be sworn in as soon as she wants. But then he has since said that he will only do it when the government reopens. He's trying to contend that it was following a precedent that then- Speaker Pelosi did when she did not swear in people who were elected during a summer recess.

But still, Jake, there are a lot of questions about why the speaker is not moving ahead. One question that Democrats have is that she would be the 218th signature on the effort to force a vote calling for the full release of all of the Jeffrey Epstein files. The speaker, of course, denies that is behind his motivation. Jake?

TAPPER: Yes, but every day he doesn't swear her in, that's another day that we mentioned the Jeffrey Epstein files on international television. Manu Raju on Capitol Hill, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

The entire East Wing of the White House, which, of course, witnessed so much history, is now history itself. So who's going to be paying for the ballroom that's replacing it? That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:46:27]

TAPPER: We're in our Politics Lead now. Let's take a look at these brand new images today of what was once the East Wing of the White House until surprisingly, some construction equipment took it down. It's basically nothing but rubble now.

Totally demolished, it's going to make room for President Trump's ballroom, the plans for which are growing in both size and price, even amid outrage from preservation groups. Secret Service agents closed the park where journalists had been capturing images of the destruction for a time today. The park is now back open again.

My panel is here. So Jonah, the White House says President Trump insists he's been transparent about the fact that this ballroom would involve massive structural changes to the East Wing. I don't know that that's accurate, but now sources say the ballroom is expected to be much larger than was even originally planned.

And Trump has now said he's raised close to $350 million from private donors for the project. Democrats and preservation groups, other members of the public not happy about this. Trump, of course, does have the authority to do this because of Lyndon Johnson and assertions he made of presidential power in the 60s. Do you think the anger about this is overblown?

JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think the anger about him tearing down the East Wing and building a ballroom is overblown. It's in his authority. Harry Truman gutted the entire actual White House in the late 1940s. Presidents can do this. I think dismay over how he's bungled the messaging and the explanations of this is more warranted.

Look, he said he wasn't going to touch the facade at all. He said he loved the building. He wasn't going to damage it at all. It just wasn't true. He took everybody by surprise. Came out the sort of the same week. He was talking about cutting himself a check of like $230 million from taxpayer money to settle this other, you know, like January 6th stuff.

And it's -- it -- it's coming across that the guy who campaigned on the she's for they, them, I'm for you message is now just coming across as I'm for me, myself and I. It's just, I think it's bad messaging. I think they could have done this much more respectfully, followed a little bit of procedure and not had nearly the headaches they've created for themselves.

TAPPER: Adrienne, donors paying for the ballroom, and we should give credit to the White House for -- for providing us with this list, but they include Amazon and Apple and Meta and Google, as well as some wealthy individuals, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, the Winklevoss twins who have a lot of interest in crypto.

A lot of these companies and people are going to have businesses before the Trump administration, if they don't already. Crypto companies like Coinbase, tobacco companies like Altria, Palantir handles data software and on and on and on and on. It is obviously a charitable donation. It's philanthropy. But also in Washington is anything ever really charity?

ADRIENNE ELROD, SENIOR SPOKESPERSON, HARRIS-WALZ CAMPAIGN: Yes. Well, it certainly seems like it's not right now, Jake. I mean, look, I think Jonah's exactly right. When you were the average voter, the average swing voter, I should say, he was trying to decide what, who to vote for in this last election and ultimately came down and is on the side of Trump because you thought your grocery bills were too high. Your medicine, the cost of medicine was too high. Your gasoline was too high.

And you wanted to, you know, sort of, you know, send a sign to Washington that you wanted to shake things up. Now you're looking at this and you're saying, OK, Donald Trump asked for $260 million for the Department of Justice or pretty much demanded it because he said that the DOJ, as in the taxpayers of America, owe him this money.

[17:50:03]

He's done nothing to address the cost of -- of -- of goods and services in this country. In fact, if anything, costs have gone up. And then you also, you know, put on top of that the fact that he is going to all of these companies and saying, you know, corporations and saying, give me money to tear down and redo the East Wing so it looks like the Trump ballroom at Mar-a-Lago or whatever he wants it to look like.

If you're the average person, you're saying, you know what? One of the reasons why I voted for him is I thought he was going to help me and my family with costs. Instead, he is catering to billionaires. Billionaires are catering to him. And if there's one thing, Jake, that we know that works in messaging for either party, for just any American, is when you are, hey, you are serving an elected office and you are catering to billionaires over middle-class families, that never works.

So this is only going to make things worse for him. But also, Jake, just as a citizen of America who's had the opportunity and the privilege to work in the White House during three separate administrations, it is absolutely devastating to me to watch an area of the White House that I've spent a lot of time in and millions of Americans have to just be demolished as if it was just some crummy old building that, you know, contractors are coming in and tearing down at Trump's demands.

TAPPER: Today, the President pardoned Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao. He pleaded guilty to money laundering in 2023. He spent four months in prison. Concerns have arisen because one of Trump-backed crypto ventures, World Liberty Financial, was used to complete a $2 billion investment in Binance by an Abu Dhabi investment firm earlier this year. Here's what Trump said this afternoon when Kaitlan Collins asked him about the pardon in a potential conflict of interest.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Let me just tell you that he was somebody that, as I was told, I don't know him, I don't believe I've ever met him, but I've been told a lot of support, he had a lot of support, and they said that what he did is not even a crime. It wasn't a crime, that he was persecuted by the Biden administration. And so I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Adrienne, what -- what do you think of that response? ELROD: Yes, he gave him a pardon because this guy is going to make his family rich. That's exactly why he gave him a pardon. It's very transparent. It's very obvious. You know, anyone who is going to curry favor to Donald Trump, he is going to find a way to repay them, or -- or in this case, you know, repay them before maybe they come and -- and really, you know, allow his family's crypto business to excel to the level that many analysts think it can.

So it's not surprising. It's disappointing. I think we're going to see a lot of additional pardons coming up in the Trump administration. Anyone who, you know, wants to disparage Democrats and wants to curry favor to Trump, he's probably going to get a pardon.

TAPPER: And -- and Jonah, I mean, at some point, we're going to learn all the money that the Trump family made during this era with crypto and other deals. And I have a feeling when all those facts and figures come to light, it's going to be rather shocking.

GOLDBERG: Yes, look, this is precise. Mucking around with pardons is one of the few things that the founding fathers explicitly said may not be illegal, but is impeachable, which is one of the reasons why I want to get rid of the pardon power, except for the three crimes mentioned in the Constitution, which are piracy, treason, and counterfeiting. And beyond that, all their crime when the Constitution was passed was a state issue. It should go back to that way.

TAPPER: Thanks to both of you. Appreciate it.

[17:53:41]

Brand new video appears to show the Louvre heist in action. France's Crown Jewel's being carried off with the assistance of a mechanical lift. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: Stunning new images in our World Lead. Video has emerged appearing to show the thieves who pulled off that jewelry heist at the Louvre Museum in Paris, making their escape with more than 100 million dollars-worth of loot. This comes four days after the crime, and the video could potentially shed light on how this exactly happened. CNN's Melissa Bell is in Paris with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New video appearing to show the moment robbers left the Louvre on their mechanical lift, carrying off eight pieces from France's crown jewels. It took just seven minutes from the moment a member of the public called the police on Sunday morning at 9:30 about suspicious individuals wearing motorcycle helmets outside the museum.

By 9:37 a.m., a museum alarm was triggered as the robbers wearing yellow vests broke into display cases before escaping through the window they'd used to get in. The thieves made off with jewelry worth about $102 million, but historically priceless, items worn by French queens in the 19th century.

The headpiece, necklace and one earring of Queen Marie Amelie. The large bodice, bow and tiara of Empress Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III. The Louvre has now reopened to the public with a reckoning about the security failures that allowed its Apollo Gallery to be broken into.

LAURENCE DES CARS, LOUVRE MUSEUM DIRECTOR (through translator): Unfortunately, on the Apollo Gallery side, the only camera that is installed is in the west direction and therefore does not cover the balcony affected by the break in.

BELL (voice-over): the window used by the robbers to get in and out of the Louvre, now something of a tourist attraction in its own right.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think it's like an eventful thing in Paris, and I think it's a new tourist attraction, honestly. So we're like, oh, wow, this is happening in real life. So we're like, you know what? Let's go take a picture. He just got here. So, like, it's the perfect time.

[18:00:04]

BELL: One hundred investigators are working on this case to try and figure out who was behind this most brazen of heists. They're considering not just the equipment that was used by the robbers, but some of the things they left behind, a glove, a helmet, one of the scooters they made their escape on, and of course, the truck that they're combing through for fingerprints. But for now, a big breakthrough in this case remains elusive.

Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.

(END VIDEOTAPE)