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Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) is Interviewed about Congressional Maps; Jessica Grose is Interviewed about the MAHA Movement; Israel Hits Gaza Hospital; Vance Says Russia has Made Significant Concessions. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired August 25, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:30:14]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, this morning, the new Texas congressional map is headed to Governor Greg Abbott's desk to be signed into law. The map was drawn to help Republicans win as many as five more House seats in next year's midterm elections, setting off what could be a nationwide gerrymandering arms race.

With us is Congressman Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Texas, whose district has been redrawn. And Congressman Doggett, I know you've been speaking about your plans. Tell our audience today what you are going to do or not do in terms of running again.

REP. LLOYD DOGGETT (D-TX): Well, thank you, John.

My plan is to continue fighting Trump. And he has taken a big step here in Texas toward his goal of one man authoritarian rule with a totally compliant Congress that lets him do whatever he pleases.

My colleague next door got one of the districts that was really mangled by the Trump effort. My district was left largely intact. But instead of defending his district, he's decided to come and run in mine. And faced with that possibility, tough decision because I've represented this community, the only town I've ever called home for a long time. But I decided it's more important to unite the fight against Trump and try to stop him from getting all five seats than to fight a colleague and divide my community. And so, if the courts choose to impose these Trump extreme gerrymandered districts in place, I'll step aside. But I wont step aside from the battle against Trump, because our nation has never been in greater peril concerning its democracy than we are right now.

BERMAN: So, you will not run in the district that will be drawn around where you currently live. Just for my friends in Texas who live there and are wondering, is there any possibility you might seek out a different district?

DOGGETT: Not really. You know, the advantage that is being lost in Congressman Gosar surrendering his district to Trump, where he has a larger Hispanic majority than he does today in his district, is the power of incumbency there and the power of motivating disaffected Hispanics, a growing population in Texas that we are not winning at the rate we should. And so we need a strong Hispanic candidate in that district to appeal to people of all ethnicities, but particularly the Hispanic majority.

I'm familiar with the area, but the idea that I would abandon my district, where I have more than two-thirds of the people I represent today and go to his just does not make any sense.

BERMAN: Congressman, how far -- in California we've seen Governor Gavin Newsom push through this effort that could redraw the districts there and benefit Democrats. How far should Democrats take this now, in your mind, in other states?

DOGGETT: Well, if we want to save democracy in America and not let Trump do whatever he pleases, perhaps even postponing future elections, we have to do all that we can. And I commend, in the strongest terms, Governor Newsom, my colleague Zoe Lofgren, who's the dean of the California delegation, and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi. We have to get those five seats because the path forward out of Texas is not a happy path.

In Missouri, we could lose one or two people. In Indiana, Vice President Vance has been demanding that both Democrats, so that there'll be no Democratic representation in the state of Indiana. In Ohio, we're under court order. I would see two, maybe three people there. And then in Florida, always competing with Texas to be the worst, and often winning, we could lose three to five seats there. That's why it's so important that we contest these seats in Texas. Just because they're nominally plus ten Trump districts, that's the high-water mark. That doesn't mean that a strong Democratic candidate can't compete. And that's what I'm about, is working with other people to try to narrow the number of seats he goes out of Texas with.

BERMAN: Congressman, I want to read you a new threat from President Trump against someone who has been publicly critical of him. Late yesterday, President Trump, on social media, basically threatened an investigation of former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie over the 2013 so-called Bridge-gate scandal, when lanes were closed on the George Washington Bridge, increasing traffic there. 2013 mind you. President Trump wrote, "Chris refused to take responsibility for these criminal acts. For the sake of justice, perhaps we should start looking at the very serious situation again? No one is above the law."

Now, that phrase, "no one is above the law," is the very same phrase that FBI Director Kash Patel used, posted on social media, during the FBI search of John Bolton's home.

[08:35:06]

The similarity here is that Chris Christie, like John Bolton, just publicly criticized President Trump.

Listen to what Chris Christie said yesterday, just a few hours before President Trump threatened this investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: Donald Trump sees himself as the person who gets to decide everything. And he doesn't care about any separation. In fact, he absolutely rejects the idea that there should be separation between criminal investigations and the politically elected leader of the United States.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What's your view of these threats of investigations and the very real, actually, you know, fully active investigations?

DOGGETT: Well, our president is the intimidator in chief, and he keeps intimidating and pushing the limits of the law because he's getting away with it. He has successfully intimidated some of the nation's most powerful law firms, some of the most powerful television networks and he's continually trying to intimidate the judicial system. He doesn't have to worry about intimidating Congress because he already intimidated Republican colleagues so that they do whatever he wants. That's why this redistricting battle is not just an academic matter or a battle between political elites. It is about the future of our country. It is whether we have reproductive freedom, whether we have public schools, whether we have our freedoms or we have him dispatching military to one city after another. And if he can control the Congress in the future, the way he controls it today, he will achieve unlimited power, the kind of tyranny that we have seen in too many other countries.

Now is the time to push back while we still have the power. And why, if you live in Indiana or Missouri or Ohio or Florida, do all you can to try to stop this. And if you live in California, let's get this November referendum passed so that we have a chance to restrain him. A Congress with subpoena power and some appropriations power, a true check and balance, rather than a total concession to a wannabe tyrant.

BERMAN: I will say, you're talking about plans that have to do with the 2026 midterms. In the short term, the phrase you used was, he will do it until he can't get away with it. What's to keep him, in your mind, from, quote, "getting away with it" until 2026?

DOGGETT: Well, number one is courage. The fact that some people do have the courage to stand up and fight. And some of the law firms, for example, including one here in Texas, were successful in pushing back.

I hope former Governor Christie, with whom I have seldom agreed politically, or John Bolton, the same thing, will stand firm. It is also an indication in his attacks on them that this has nothing to do with philosophy, Republican or Democrat, just as when he did nothing to the crowds that said hang Mike Pence. He is about Donald Trump, the party of one, the power of one, pushing back right now, insisting in legal action that our courts honor our rule of law is so very important. And in Congress, all of us have the responsibility on the Democratic side to keep speaking out as unified as possible with the message that there is an alternative that we want to address, the kitchen table issues that Americans face. And the way to do that is to have a congress that's responsive to them, not one that is simply obedient to a tyrant like Donald Trump.

BERMAN: Congressman Lloyd Doggett, from Texas, we do appreciate your time this morning.

DOGGETT: Thank you.

BERMAN: Omar.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR: The MAHA or Make America Healthy Again phenomenon is rooted in part in vaccine skepticism and questioning some common public health practices, like fluoride in water for example. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is also focused on eliminating ultra processed foods. He has said he's a fan of raw milk, for example, which recently, though, was responsible for nearly two dozen food poisoning cases in Florida. And while some moms are buying into the MAHA movement, a new piece in "The New York Times" titled "Moms Need to Give MAHA a Taste of Its Own Medicine," encourages them to question it.

Here, now, author of that piece, Jessica Gross. She's an opinion writer for "The New York Times."

So, Jessica, I'm just going to start on the title of it. What do you mean that moms need to give MAHA a taste of their own medicine?

JESSICA GROSE, OPINION WRITER, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": So, I think there's this idea that the moms of MAHA are the only moms who care about their children's public health. I think all moms in this country care deeply about the health of their own children, and the health of other people's children.

And for decades one of the best ways to keep kids healthy is to have vaccines for the most perilous vaccine preventable diseases. So, that includes measles, polio, diphtheria. Those are basic vaccines that are incredibly safe, and we need to start fighting for them.

JIMENEZ: You know, one of the -- that is a big category here in terms of what moms -- or I guess what moms are considering. Let's talk about just vaccinating children for example.

GROSE: Yes.

[08:40:01]

JIMENEZ: We've already seen, you know, breaks with the CDC when it comes to the Covid-19 shots, for example, for infants and young children, in this case from the American Academy of Pediatrics. How big of a frontier do you anticipate, or do you believe that vaccinating children is going to be with this particular group? And do you think they will be influential when it comes to policy at the HHS?

GROSE: So, getting exact numbers is really difficult.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

GROSE: Because when you look at the whole country, 92 percent of parents are still getting their kids vaccinated for these older diseases, polio, again, MMR, all of these things. Still, can you get 92 percent of Americans to agree about anything?

JIMENEZ: Yes, that's right.

GROSE: But that masks the fact that in parts of the country, Idaho is an example, the rates of MMR vaccines are under 80 percent. Now, herd immunity is 95 percent. And that leaves kids incredibly vulnerable for outbreaks.

We just saw the biggest measles outbreak in 30 years in the United States. Two unvaccinated children died from measles. And so, you know, the peril of all of this is incredibly serious. And basically, at this point, I think people who are pro-vaccine need to push back against incorrect information to make sure that the rates don't drop further.

Again, I don't mean to be alarmist, because 92 percent still pretty good, but my fear is that because RFK has been a vaccine skeptic for decades, people will see him as the head of HHS and say, hmm, maybe there's something to this vaccine skepticism, and those rates will fall further, putting more children in danger.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, even outside of vaccines, you wrote, one of the bitter ironies of the -- of the MAHA moms is that they champion some policies that could have broader support among people who don't necessarily support, you know, Secretary Kennedy or this administration. What do you mean by that? And why is that dynamic so significant?

GROSE: So, one of the things I care the most about is clean air and clean water. That is not just for children. That is for all of us. And the Trump administration has deregulated many laws around keeping our -- our environment clean. That doesn't -- that's not under RFK's purview, but that's something that we should all be concerned about. And there haven't really been wins on that in this administration.

So, it's really a tragedy that those issues are now more to the forefront than they have been in a very long time, and nothings being done on them.

JIMENEZ: Well, and, you know, one of the other frontiers here is about, you know, processing of foods.

GROSE: Yes.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, a draft of the Make our Children Healthy Again strategy, which is a White House report on -- on children's health that was leaked last week, it stopped short of proposing direct restrictions on ultra processed foods and pesticides. But Moms Across America, one of the highest profile MAHA groups, was essentially upset, saying that this is too vague. This doesn't go far enough.

How much influence do you anticipate an influential group like that will actually have on policy at HHS and on Secretary Kennedy, if they're upset with what is being put out, or at least something that was leaked? GROSE: I don't think we're going to see that much change at the

federal level. I think at the state level there is an opportunity for moves forward, and we're already seeing a lot of laws. "Politico" just had a piece about, you know, hundreds of laws that are being proposed in red states and blue. And I think that's a move in the right direction.

So, I don't think it's all bad, many of the issues that the MAHA movement has raised. But on these vaccines, I just feel incredibly strongly that they're one of the most important things that parents can do to keep their children and our society safe.

JIMENEZ: Jessica Grose, appreciate you being here. Thanks for taking the time.

GROSE: Thanks for having me.

JIMENEZ: Of course.

John.

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, SpaceX canceled an attempt to launch a 10th test flight of a Starship spacecraft. It was called off due to, quote, "issues with ground systems." Since its debut in January, the mega rocket has had a series of missteps, including two explosions. The Starship spacecraft has not made it through a clean test flight since November of 2024. It is unclear when SpaceX will attempt another launch.

Happening now, extreme heat fueling dangerous wildfires and forcing thousands to evacuate in the west, including a fire in central Oregon threatening about 4,000 homes, which is zero percent contained at this moment. One thousand people under mandatory evacuation orders and at least four homes have been destroyed there.

In California, a fire in Napa County is threatening about 500 structures. That fire is about 11 percent contained. Wildfire alerts are expected to remain in effect for a few more days until cooler air moves in.

Breaking overnight, nearly two dozen people dead after Israel launched back-to-back strikes on a hospital in Gaza.

And Russia launches an aerial assault on Ukraine overnight as Vice President J.D. Vance claims that Russia has made, quote, "significant concessions" toward a peace deal. Of course, not the one concession that President Trump trumpeted as the big accomplishment from his meeting with Vladimir Putin.

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[08:49:25]

JIMENEZ: Breaking overnight, Israel carrying out back-to-back strikes on a hospital in Gaza, killing more than a dozen Palestinians, including journalists from multiple outlets. That's according to Palestinian officials.

I want to bring in CNN's Paula Hancocks, who's tracking the latest here.

Paula, what do we know about this -- these strikes?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Omar, this was on the Nasser Hospital, which is in Khan Younis, the southern part of the Gaza Strip. And now we know that there was a strike on the fourth floor of that medical complex this Monday morning.

[08:50:01]

And we have seen from footage, some of it that we're showing on live television, that emergency workers, that health workers and also journalists rushed to the scene. You see at one point one of them holding up a damaged video camera. And then you see some of them trying to look for casualties and trying to retrieve those impacted in that first strike.

But then just minutes later, there is a second strike. And we understand that this is where many of the casualties occurred.

Now, we know that at least four journalists have been killed in these two strikes this Monday morning. We know that they are the -- really the backbone of the Gaza coverage for a number of international outlets, for AP, for Reuters, for al Jazeera, one freelance as well. But, of course, international journalists are not allowed into Gaza by Israel. So, we rely heavily on these local Palestinian journalists for bringing us the story and bringing us the footage.

Now, we have asked the Israeli military for comment. They have said that they did carry out a strike in the area of Nasser Hospital. They also said that they do not target journalists as such, and they have said that -- that the chief of the general staff has said he wants an initial inquiry as soon as possible.

So, this has come under tremendous condemnation from journalist groups in Gaza, also from the Committee to Protect Journalists because it is yet another very deadly day for journalists themselves.

Now, also, the emergency crews say they lost at least one of their workers who was killed in that second strike on the -- the Nasser Hospital. In fact, there were at least 20 people overall that were killed in those strikes themselves.

Omar.

JIMENEZ: Paula Hancocks, thank you for bringing us those details.

John.

BERMAN: All right, breaking overnight, Russia launched more than 100 new drone strikes toward Ukraine, killing at least three people. That's according to Ukrainian officials. The attacks come hours after Vice President J.D. Vance said Russia had made "significant concessions" aimed at ending the war.

With us, CNN global affairs analyst Kim Dozier.

Kim, great to see you.

Let me play for you what Vice President Vance said, those -- those major concessions -- "significant concessions," let me quote, "significant concessions" were. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think the Russians have made significant concessions to President Trump for the first time in three and a half years of this conflict.

They've recognized that they're not going to be able to install a puppet regime in Kyiv. That was, of course, a major demand at the beginning. And importantly, they've acknowledged that there is going to be some security guarantee to the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So, as these drones continue to attack Ukraine, as there continues to be no meeting on the calendar between President Zelenskyy and Vladimir Putin, how significant really are those concessions?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: It doesn't sound like a lot if you're listening to that in Kyiv or European capitals. Not allowed to install a puppet regime. Great. Was that a legitimate demand in the first place? And also, the part about recognizing Ukraine's territorial integrity. And yet you've had the Russian foreign minister over the weekend say Putin won't sit down with Zelenskyy because he's publicly said he doesn't want to cede any land to Russia.

So, a lot of questions about, you know, what the White House sees as wins look very paltry and unacceptable if you're anywhere in Europe because it seems to allow Russia to walk away with territorial gains that they got by aggression. That is the subtext here.

BERMAN: The -- the so-called accomplishment that President Trump seemed most proud of following these dual meetings, first in Alaska and then at the White House, was the idea that he had set up some kind of bilateral meeting between President Zelenskyy of Ukraine and Vladimir Putin of Russia. Russia keeps saying there's nothing set up, that we're not doing this unless there are other conditions made.

DOZIER: Yes.

BERMAN: So where do you think that stands? And what does it tell you that Russia seems to be perfectly willing to be publicly defiant here?

DOZIER: Well, Russia always goes for the details. Putin and his officials always go for sort of the letter of the law explanations. And what they are saying are that, yes, we're willing to sit down once more has been decided, once more of the, quote/unquote, staff work has been done. And, basically, once they've got signals that Zelenskyy is willing to make major concessions.

[08:55:03]

You could also read that as, Zelenskyy willing to surrender on a number of key points and key territory that Russia is demanding that it hasn't yet won on the battlefield, namely key parts of eastern Ukraine, the Donbas region, including 30 percent of Donetsk that it doesn't yet occupy. That's about 3,500 square miles that it wants Ukraine just to agree to walk away from apparently before Putin is even willing to sit down with Zelenskyy according to Lavrov's interview over the weekend.

BERMAN: Yes. And just so people know on the screen that you're looking at right there, the area of Donetsk, which Vladimir Putin still wants, is where you see Kramatorsk on the screen right there, a major Ukrainian city that is in Ukrainian hands right now. Vladimir Putin wants that.

DOZIER: Yes.

BERMAN: He wants that as part of this deal. And the people of Ukraine are saying, no, you know, we are right here.

President Trump says two weeks. Two weeks. He's going to give it another two weeks to see what happens with this meeting. If -- if it takes place. And seem to hint that maybe Zelenskyy was as culpable for the fact that there isn't a meeting as Vladimir Putin. What did you hear in that?

DOZIER: You know, what is baffling is to see the White House continue to sort of say it's powerless in this situation. For J.D. Vance, in his interview over the weekend, the vice president, saying that, you know, we see ourselves as sort of mediators.

The U.S. is not powerless in this. The U.S. has always been the peacemaker in multiple peace processes that I've covered over decades. And yet it doesn't seem to be willing to use economic power to make Moscow make the same kind of sacrifices its asking of Ukraine.

Russian newspapers in the past weeks have been filled with headlines about their welfare system nearly running out of money. Their debt -- the government debt is skyrocketing. One in two people in Russia are reportedly looking for a second job to try to make ends meet. And gas prices are higher than they've ever been. This is a country under economic strain. And the U.S., with sanctions, could really put Putin under its thumb, but for some reason chooses not to do that.

BERMAN: Well, we'll see if they end up back on the table.

Kim Dozier, great to see you. Thank you very much.

Omar.

JIMENEZ: Well, new this morning, the search for the body of seven- month-old Emmanuel Haro continues. Police arrested his parents on Friday. Both have been accused of murder after detectives say the couple's claims their son was kidnaped were not true. The mother claims she was attacked when she was changing her son's diaper in the parking lot of a store. Investigators now say they have evidence proving that the alleged kidnaping did not happen, and baby Emmanuel is likely dead. The couple is expected to appear in court this week.

Also happening, for the first time in decades, a dangerous, flesh eating parasite has been detected in the United States. It's called the New World Screwworm. The case is being investigated by the Maryland Department of Health and the CDC. It involves a person who returned to the U.S. after visiting El Salvador, according to "Axios." And officials with the Department of Agriculture say Screwworm flies lay their eggs in the wounds of any warm blooded animal -- sorry if you're eating breakfast -- but the flesh-eating worm is said to pose a serious threat to both humans and animals. Great.

Tonight's Powerball jackpot is now at an estimated $750 million, making it the tenth largest in the games history. Now, no one has matched all six numbers in Saturday's draw. This will be, though, the 37th drawing since the last jackpot win on May 31st. The winner can choose between a $750 million annuity over 30 years, or a $338.6 million lump sum before taxes.

And then finally, come a skeptic, leave a believer. That's what inspired organizers behind the annual bigfoot festival are saying. This weekend, in Marion, North Carolina, sasquatch sightings were guaranteed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I will say, my first year at a bigfoot festival in 2019, I saw a police officer that was about this tall, and we called him undercover bigfoot because I think he shaved himself down just to come to the event.

With bigfoot, the possibilities are endless.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Possibilities are endless. Write that down. Thousands of people took part in the event, which featured education panels, sasquatch-inspired dishes, and a bigfoot calling contest. No disrespect, but let me know if someone picks up that call.

John.

BERMAN: Well, I'll tell you, you actually have as much of a chance of seeing bigfoot as winning the Powerball jackpot.

JIMENEZ: Hey, that's --

BERMAN: As we played before. Honestly.

JIMENEZ: Hey, that's why the producers put them back-to-back. They know what they're doing back there.

BERMAN: Absolutely. You're not going to win Powerball. You might. You might see bigfoot if you go to North Carolina.

JIMENEZ: Yes, I think that comes with the lump sum. We'll see.

BERMAN: The best bigfoot ever, by the way, Andre The Giant. You were probably too young. The Six Million Dollar Man, Steve Austin.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

[09:00:00]

BERMAN: Andre The Giant, best bigfoot ever.

JIMENEZ: I'm going to have to take your word for it.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.