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Funding Freeze Puts Summer and After-School Programs in Jeopardy; PBS and NPR Fight to Save Federal Funding; Northeast, Mid- Atlantic Could See More Rain, Flooding; American Idol Music Supervisor Killed in Apparent Double Homicide. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired July 16, 2025 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Parents and teachers are growing increasingly desperate amid the Trump administration's funding freeze of various education department programs. Educators are now scrambling to salvage summer and after-school programs that were expected to receive the money at the beginning of this month. The Trump administration says it plans to review the programs as it works to dismantle the Department of Education, but the lack of funding is expected to affect some of the country's poorest kids.

CNN's Sunlen Serfaty is here with details on this story. What are you learning about what's happening here?

[14:35:00]

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, this was a very sudden freeze and there's very little details as to why this happened. The administration officially says that the freeze in these funds, it's $7 billion, a big bucket of funds, primarily helping school kids, after-school programs, summer camp programs. They're alleging here that some of the money was used to promote, in their words, a radical left-wing agenda, and importantly, this is a blanket freeze for all of the funding.

So what we have is a lot of after-school and summer camp programs suddenly on July 1st when they were supposed to receive the money that had already been allocated by Congress and approved by Congress, instead they get a letter from the Department of Education saying we are reviewing this program, you will not get your funds until it is approved.

So this has basically left a lot of programs scrambling very quickly, and I had the opportunity last week to spend some time at one of these programs, an after-school and summer camp program in Arlington, Virginia, just outside D.C. They are going to lose a whole classroom if the funding is not restored. One in three kids will not have access to this in just a few short months.

Other programs are questioning whether they're going to shut their doors entirely in the fall, and I spoke to one mother, and notably that this program serves primarily low-income families, and she said she works eight hours a day as a janitor. Her only access for childcare for her son, who's also learning English as a second language is this program, he would not have opportunity for this.

So it's a very desperate situation for so many, and there now is a lawsuit over a dozen states are suing the Department of Education to release those funds.

KEILAR: All right, we'll keep an eye on that lawsuit. Sunlen, thank you so much for the reporting -- Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The Trump administration is also looking to cut more than a billion dollars from public media. Congress is expected to vote on the proposal to formalize a slew of DOGE cuts in what's known as a rescission request by the end of the week. If approved, PBS and NPR stations could lose federal funding that have kept them on the air for decades.

The Senate voted by a razor-thin margin late Tuesday to advance debate on the package, with notably several Republican senators joining with Democrats in warning that zeroing out federal support could turn many communities into news deserts.

Let's get some perspective from the president and CEO of PBS, Paula Kerger. Paula, thank you so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us.

In your view, what would be the immediate impact of these cuts?

PAULA KERGER, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PBS: Yes, thank you, Boris. I appreciate the opportunity to be with you this afternoon. Actually, as we speak, the Senate has started voting on this bill. Actually, they're voting on some amendments that are being issued right now.

And these are funds that had already been appropriated for public broadcasting for this coming fiscal year and next fiscal year. So funds that would be arriving in October.

And 70 percent of the money that comes from the federal government to support public broadcasting goes directly to support stations. And for some stations in this country, that percentage of their funding is 10 or 15 percent. There are other stations that the percentage of funding they receive is closer to 40 or 50 percent.

Many of these are small stations in rural parts of the country. And for them, this very much is an existential moment as they contemplate cuts of that scale that would happen almost overnight.

SANCHEZ: I do wonder what you would say to lawmakers who make the argument that in the information age with all sorts of social media platforms and streaming and any kind of information at the tip of your fingers, that PBS is expendable. What is your counterargument?

KERGER: Yes, I mean, we were created five decades ago with the idea that the commercial marketplace was going to be able to do quite a lot in meeting the needs of the public. But there were big areas that were in the public interest that would not be taken up by commercial media. And that is still the case today. If you look at children's programming, I was just listening to the last piece and we received money out of the Department of Education that was also cut overnight. And that not only impacted funds that went into the creation of new kids programs and the research to make sure that those programs are not just fun and entertaining to watch, but also that children are gaining the curriculum that is embedded in those programs. These programs are geared for more than half the children in this country that don't --aren't enrolled in former pre-K.

And as part of that project, we do a lot of summer camps. All of those were canceled because of the money that was lost.

There are big market failures in terms of educational children's content.

[14:40:00]

There are many services that are stations that provide, including a lot of local content, some in rural parts of the country do farm reports. Many of these stations serve populations that do not get broadband. And so for them, broadcast television is important.

And then finally, I would say that part of what public television, public radio does in this country that is not as seen is all of the work we do around public safety. So not only do we broadcast alerts when storms are coming, but we use our broadcast infrastructure also deliver content to first responders. And broadcast infrastructure is important because if you've been in an emergency, you know that cell phones and cellular service often becomes overwhelmed by volume.

And it's the broadcast infrastructure that allows us to send out messages one to many. All of that would be impacted by these cuts.

SANCHEZ: Those are significant points. I do want to zero in on something that you mentioned specifically about curriculum that's geared to children, because part of the argument from the administration is that public broadcasting has become politically biased. They describe it as radical, woke propaganda disguised as news.

How do you respond to that? And that being part of the reasoning for PBS and other public media no longer deserving taxpayer support?

KERGER: I don't think that Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood is a biased program. It teaches children basic skills around letters and numbers. And when you look at the breadth of programming that we produce, we are very much committed to serving all of America.

The news programming that we do represents about 10 percent of our broadcast schedule, and that includes the NewsHour, of which I'm very proud of the excellence of the journalism of that series. So I would push back. I always ask (INAUDIBLE) if anything is biased one way or another.

I ask them for examples. People often struggle to come up with examples of what really they're talking about. So we're always interested, obviously, in making sure that we're serving a multiplicity of viewpoints.

Bill Buckley made his home on public broadcasting with a series called Firing Line, which continues today with Margaret Hoover. We are interested in having different perspectives that we bring forward. But when I look at the range of our programming on public broadcasting, I can't make any sense of an argument that we are somehow biased in any way.

SANCHEZ: Paula Kerger, we have to leave the conversation there. Very much appreciate you sharing your point of view.

KERGER: Thank you very much for having me.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

Still to come, dangerous flash flooding threatening the Northeast again. The latest on where and why there have been so many flood alerts so far this year.

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KEILAR: Parts of the rain-soaked East Coast are bracing for another hit as more precipitation could be on the way. Most of Pennsylvania, along with Washington, D.C., eastern Ohio and northern West Virginia are facing flood threats. So let's get now to CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam, who's keeping an eye on all of this.

What are you tracking there, Derek?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, Brianna, last summer was the summer of heat. This summer is the summer of flooding. And we have had many examples that unfold since the beginning of July.

As you can see with this kind of a split box of all the various flooding that we've contended with from Texas to Pennsylvania to New Jersey, the water rescues seem to be endless.

What's happening? Well, we have this juiced up, very moist, very wet atmosphere that is helping fuel these summertime thunderstorms. And unfortunately, there's more potential of flooding coming.

You can see the uptick in shower and thunderstorm activity across Ohio into western Pennsylvania. As we go through the course of the afternoon, this area here from State College to Pittsburgh, inclusive of Philadelphia, has the potential for flash flooding, rainfall rates exceeding one inch per hour in a very kind of saturated environment from the past few weeks' rainfall.

So we could get some heftier precipitation coming out of the clouds. And that could overwhelm the drainage system here -- Brianna.

KEILAR: And tell us about this potential new tropical storm system, or tropical system, I should say, that could target the Gulf Coast. Who's at risk here?

VAN DAM: OK, so Brianna, it hasn't been named as of yet. The National Hurricane Center monitoring it very closely, as are the meteorologists here at CNN. What we've noticed is that the center of the storm is still onshore.

So it's not taking advantage of the warm Gulf of Mexico waters. They're like bathwater that helps fuel developing hurricanes and tropical systems. Not the case.

But it could as it continues its westerly trajectory, regardless of its name. If it gets named, it would be Dexter. This has quite the sheared environment to deal with.

But it will produce a hefty amount of rainfall across this region over the coming days. We have flash flood watches in place for New Orleans. And the potential exists here for flash flooding through the early parts of the weekend -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, we'll be watching that. Derek, thank you.

And when we come back, the latest in the investigation into the murder of an American Idol music supervisor and her husband.

Stay with us for that.

[14:50:00]

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SANCHEZ: A recent double homicide has shaken the world of entertainment. Robin Kaye, a former music producer for the show American Idol and her husband were found dead in their Los Angeles area home on Monday. Police have now arrested a 22-year-old in connection with their deaths.

CNN's Josh Campbell joins us now with the latest. So, Josh, take us through what police think happened here.

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, such an awful story here, Boris. As you mentioned, Robin Kaye, who had been working at American Idol as a music producer for about a decade, was found on Monday deceased along with her husband. Authorities said that they were called to the residence in Encino here in L.A. after a friend had requested a welfare check. Officers arrived. They broke a window in order to make entry. Take a listen here to what authorities said about what investigators found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GUY GOLAN, LOS ANGELES POLICE: The suspect had managed to scale over one of the fences, gain access to the residence. When the homeowners returned back to their residence, a violent struggle ensued between them and the suspect, who was already inside their home, which resulted in the victims tragically losing their life.

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CAMPBELL: Now, authorities identified and arrested 22-year-old Raymond Boodarian, who they say was the alleged burglar here that they believe committed these murders. They say that was based on surveillance video from the residence, as well as other forensic evidence. We're attempting to determine whether he has an attorney.

But, Boris, there's another layer to this as well.

[14:55:00]

We're also learning that the couple may have been dead for several days, and that's because police were called last week to the home after a neighbor spotted someone jumping over the fence.

The LAPD arrived. They described this home as highly fortified, so they couldn't actually make entry. They brought in a helicopter to try to get a visual. They said that they didn't see anything unusual. The officers eventually cleared the scene.

SANCHEZ: And, Josh, how is she being remembered by her friends at American Idol?

CAMPBELL: Well, they are obviously stunned. They are grieving. We did get a statement from the American Idol team. They tell CNN that Robin has been a cornerstone of the Idol family since 2009 and was truly loved and respected by all who came in contact with her.

They said that Robin will remain in our hearts forever. We share our deepest sympathy with her family and friends during this difficult time.

And we're also hearing from neighbors as well. It's not just the American Idol community mourning, but also neighbors there obviously shaken, obviously in shock, particularly knowing that these deaths may have happened several days before they were finally discovered -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Josh Campbell, thank you so much for the reporting.

When we come back, President Trump calling some of his supporters weaklings over the backlash and handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. Stay with us.

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