Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

FEMA Workers Put on Leave After Warning About Agency Overhaul; Maryland Governor Hits Back at Trump's Baltimore Hellhole Comments; Whistleblower Says, DOGE Put Americans' Social Security Records at Risk. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 27, 2025 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news, in the height of hurricane season, dozens of FEMA workers placed on leave just one day after warning the president's drastic changes to the agency could have catastrophic consequence.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Functioning exactly as designed, a new lawsuit alleges ChatGPT contributed to a teenager suicide by advising him on methods and offering to write a draft of the suicide note. The 16-year-old's parents say OpenA.I. designed it to encourage the team's most harmful thoughts.

And a horrifying attack caught on camera, a bear lunges at a Florida man, biting him and clawing at him before he manages to get away.

I'm Erica Hill with John Berman. Sara and Kate are out today. This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: And breaking overnight, multiple FEMA workers put on leave after they signed a letter warning Congress that President Trump's sweeping overhaul the agency could lead to catastrophic failures during a disaster. And if you look at the calendar, August 27th, this is right in the middle of hurricane season, right when FEMA is at its most important.

More than 180 current and form of FEMA staff were signed the letter accusing the administration of undermining its capabilities and appointing unqualified leadership. The letter is called the Katrina Declaration, 20 years since Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast.

Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House this morning. The administration moving fast here in response to this letter.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, John. And even though Elon Musk and his chainsaw are gone, we're still seeing a lot of these cuts to the federal workforce. And as you mentioned, we're now learning that FEMA has placed several employees on administrative leave, and those employees sent a letter to Congress warning of some of the devastating consequences that this could have to disaster response. The letter, as you mentioned, was titled Katrina Declaration, and it accuses the president and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, whose department overseas FEMA, of undermining the agency's capabilities of ignoring its congressionally mandated authority and appointing unqualified leadership.

And one of the overarching messages in that letter, John, is essentially they're saying, do not involve us in politically motivated decisions. We are an agency that needs to remain nonpartisan to respond to these types of disaster requests.

But we had heard as well, like this is from the email from FEMA, they say that workers would be placed on leave, quote, will conduct no business visit, no FEMA, DHS facility and contact no FEMA DHS personnel. And that is according to the email that was sent to some of these FEMA employees who were put on leave that CNN has reviewed.

Now, one of these employees who was placed on leave, her name is Virginia Case. She told CNN that she received notice Tuesday of her being placed on administrative leave. This is what she said in a statement. She said, quote, I'm disappointed but not surprised. I'm also proud of those of us who stood up regardless of what it might mean for our jobs. The public deserves to know what's happening because lives and communities will suffer if this continues.

We also are hearing pushback from FEMA itself, kind of trying to criticize the employees who are speaking out about this. They said in a statement, quote, it is not surprising that some of the bureaucrats who presided over decades of inefficiency are now objecting to reform. Our obligation is to survivors, not to protecting broken systems.

But, look, I think the context, John, of all of this is so important. This comes, of course, as we know that the president earlier this year threatened to try and phase out FEMA as really being a federal agency, wanting to put the onus on states and governors to be the ones to deal with resources and responding to natural disasters. But that was also called into question after, remember, the devastating Texas flood that hit on July 4th. It killed at least 135 people, including more than 35 children. After that, there were a lot of questions of whether or not the president was going to remain committed to that goal of trying to eliminate FEMA.

And so now we're getting more insight into seeing how that goal is still pretty much happening. Just unclear how fast it could, but clearly a lot of people upset with what is going on with a lot of these employees being placed on administrative leave, as you mentioned, at a time when we were in the middle of hurricane season.

[07:05:10]

BERMAN: Right. It hasn't been bad so far, but who knows if that that will remain the case.

Alayna Treene at the White House, thank you very much.

So, new this morning, the battle over Baltimore, Maryland's Democratic Governor Wes Moore hitting back after President Trump labeled that city a hellhole. This is what the president said during his marathon cabinet meeting when he wasn't being praised and how the governor responded on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: Wes Moore was telling me he wants -- I want to walk with the president. Well, I said, I want to walk with you too someday. But first you got to clean up your crime because I'm not walking in Baltimore right now. Baltimore is a hellhole.

GOV. WES MOORE (D-MD): The president seems to be obsessed with me. You know, today he called me a beauty. And when I first met him, he just talked about how he's a good looking guy. And now he just continues to make statements that are just flat out false about our state's largest city.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: New overnight, the president posted that Republicans in Congress are working on a new comprehensive crime bill. No further details on that. And as part of the president's crackdown on crime, he wants to bring capital punishment back to Washington, D.C. He said his administration will now seek the death penalty in all murder cases there. The city code does not authorize capital punishment, but the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. has the power to seek it at the federal level. Erica?

HILL: Also new this morning, a warning that your sensitive personal information may have been compromised. A whistleblower inside the Social Security Administration says DOGE employees created a copy of the records of more than 300 million Americans and put that data on a vulnerable server.

CNN's Matt Egan joins me now with this new reporting. So, what more is in this complaint from the whistleblower?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, Erica. We knew that DOGE was taking its move fast, break things attitude to the federal government. Now, we're learning more about some of the potential consequences there. And this stunning whistleblower complaint, it's not coming from some low level employee or some intern. This is coming from the chief data officer at the Social Security Administration, AKA someone who would know.

Now, in this 18 page complaint, he alleges that among the critical data that was stored in this vulnerable cloud server, it includes people's names, their Social Security numbers, their dates of birth, their addresses, citizenship status, even their parents' names, all of it stored in this cloud server.

Now, Charles Borges, the whistleblower here, says that the copy of the database apparently lacks any security oversight from the agency or even tracking to determine who has access. And he wrote in this complaint, should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft, may lose healthcare and food benefits.

He went on to say that the government could even be responsible for having to reissue every single American a new Social Security number at great cost. And he said, look, he did sound the alarm internally repeatedly. He said that he warned people internally that something was wrong, but he said, to his knowledge, no action was taken.

Now, CNN has reached out to the Social Security Administration, and they did say they take all of whistleblower complaints seriously. They say they do safeguard personal data. They say that, in this case, the data was walled off from the internet. It was kept in a longstanding server. And they also say they're unaware of any compromise of that data here.

But, look, Erica, we got to stay tuned, to be clear.

HILL: Yes.

EGAN: Clearly, someone very high up here in this agency is very concerned.

HILL: Right. And they say it's walled off. He says the opposite, right, that this is not secure, that it's vulnerable, and there could be cause for concern. Definitely keeping an eye on that one, Matt, I appreciate it. Thank you.

EGAN: Thanks, Erica.

HILL: Massive dust, clouds, heavy rain, severe storms sweeping across the west, including a new risk of flooding now at the Burning Man Festival.

And the mother-in-law accused of hiring a hit man to kill her daughter's ex-husband back in court today. The shocking new testimony about the night of the murder.

And the new details this morning about just how and when Taylor and Travis got engaged. The details from what is maybe an unlikely source spilling all the tea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is sort of what I've been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Yes. Plus, how about some live pictures for you this morning? It's the annual Tomatina Festival in Spain where thousands of people throw tomatoes at each other. A special year this year, it's the 80th anniversary.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:10:00] BERMAN: This morning, five states out west faced flood alerts as monsoon conditions could induce dangerous thunderstorms. These patterns can trigger dust storms like the one we just saw in Phoenix that engulfed the city and the airport there.

CNN Meteorologist Allison Chinchar joins us now with what we can expect today. Allison?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, that's right. The Burning Man Festival actually yesterday was postponed because of some of the strong storms that were moving through the area yesterday. Now, most of the focus today is going to be farther north, especially across Idaho. But we also have some concerns as we make our way into the Mississippi Valley.

[07:15:02]

Now, one thing we do want to note, we do still have a flashflood warning across portions of New Mexico right now as this line of very heavy rain continues to slide eastward over towards the Texas and the Oklahoma panhandle later on this morning.

These are the areas where we have the flood watches in effect. That does not include Northwest Nevada where the Burning Man Festival is, but a lot of the surrounding areas, including the city of Reno are under those flood watches.

Now, we are kind of in the monsoon flow right now. So, normally, you've got this very warm, very dry air that kind of flows over the desert southwest, but in the monsoon season, you end up getting a lot more moisture that surges back through thanks to this high pressure, which kind of pulls from both the Pacific and the Gulf areas of moisture, and that really allows for a lot more moisture to flow into the desert southwest.

Now, again, for today, the focus is really going to be across -- at least for the heaviest rain -- is really going to be across portions of Western Montana and Idaho. But also, take a look at this, you've got some pretty heavy showers that are going to be sliding across states like Mississippi, Arkansas, and even portions of Northern Louisiana. And that's really where you're going to pick up the highest amounts of rain.

This area right through here, that swath of two to four inches is not out of the question, but you could even get a few spots that maybe see three, four, or even five inches of rain is, especially in some of those really strong thunderstorms.

Elsewhere, especially out to the west, most of these areas likely to get maybe half an inch to up to an inch at best. Now, here's the thing. In some of these areas, especially where they've had fires and you've got those burn scar areas remaining, even a half inch to an inch is enough to trigger flooding over some of those burn scar areas. So, I know maybe on the surface, an inch of rain maybe doesn't sound like all that much, but it's the concern that's going to be for some of those areas that have had recent fires. That's where there's going to be a concern.

Again, this entire area you see here has the potential for a flooding risk today. But I want to note this doesn't mean every single area you see in green is going to flood. Basically what this means is, somewhere in this region today, you are going to have some isolated thunderstorms that can produce very high rainfall rates within them, and those are going to be the areas. We're just not entirely sure where those individual storm cells are going to set up.

The yellow shaded areas, which do include Denver, and then this large portion of Idaho, that's where you have the higher risk of those stronger thunderstorms setting up later on today.

BERMAN: They will be watching. Allison Chinchar, thank you very much for that.

All right, the Cracker Barrel backbone lasted all of, what, several hours after saying they stood by the decision on the logo change. They flipped back. Old guys in chairs around the world rejoice.

So, what's scarier than one bear on your front lawn? How about two bears? Doorbell footage captures the moment a man is confronted by two young bears and gets attacked.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

HILL: Coco Gauff survives a first round scare at the U.S. Open winning in three sets.

Joining me now, CNN's Sports Anchor Andy Scholes. We are seeing a lot of good tennis so far this year.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yes, we certainly are. Erica. It's been so good in these first few nights. But after winning the French Open, you know, Coco struggled to find her A game. She lost in the first round in Wimbledon. And then before the U.S. Open, she replaced one of her coaches. And Coco took the first set against Ajla Tomljanovic 6-4, but she was just struggling with her serve all night long. The 21-year-old double faulted ten times in the match.

Now, Coco lost the second set in the tie break and the third set was tied 5-5. Coco, though, then coming through with some big time shots to win back-to-back games to take the match. She's now onto the second round, but knows she's going to have to play better.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COCO GAUFF, TWO-TIME GRAND SLAM CHAMPION: I think that this is a match that I needed. I don't think it could get any more stressful than this, honestly. First round is more stressful than the final in my experience. So, yes, I think, for me, it was a good test.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SCHOLES: All right. Baseball, meanwhile, Mets in Phillies playing a nail-biter just down the street, top of the eighth, Harrison Bader, the clutch two-run home run to tie the game. But in the bottom of the ninth, the Mets got four straight singles off Phillies' closer Jhoan Duran. Brandon Nimmo the final one to walk it off for New York Mets win 6-5, now beat the Philly nine straight times at Citi Field, and they remain five games back to them in the N.L. East.

All right, and, finally, unless you've been under a rock, you by now know that Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift are engaged. This is going to be the most talked about wedding for the foreseeable future. And guess what? You can bet on all kinds of things related to the nuptials, like where will they get married? While the east coast is the favorite, Midwest has the second best odds, Europe three to one. Another wager, what will be the first dance song? So, Lover is the favorite on that list. But this makes no sense to me because why would Taylor want to have her first dance song one of her own songs? You can also bet on what happens during their vows, both to cry, that does not pay even money, as that seems like it is a likely scenario to happen.

Erica, when will the wedding be, Also a wager obviously doesn't seem like it's going to happen anytime in 2025 because Travis Kelce quite busy playing tight end for the Chiefs.

HILL: He is going to be a little busy. I would put money and I, I don't think you'll be offended by me saying this, probably neither one of us are going to end up on a guest list. So, sadly, that I think -- yes.

SCHOLES: That is a safe bet.

HILL: But, I mean, if you want to invite us, like Andy and I could probably find time in our schedules, I don't know, right? Yes.

SCHOLES: I would definitely make time. It seems like it's going to be the wedding of the decade.

HILL: Yes, I think so. Maybe the century. Andy, thank you.

SCHOLES: All right.

HILL: Breaking overnight, President Trump says he is working with Republicans on a new crime bill. Could it impact plans to send the National Guard to other U.S. cities?

And the parents now suing OpenA.I., saying ChatGPT helped their 16- year-old son to draft a suicide note. How the company is responding.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

BERMAN: Imaginary and unfounded accusation. Strong words this morning from former Special Counsel Jack Smith's legal team, striking back for the first time against the federal watchdog investigation in Smith's handling of the two federal criminal cases brought against Donald Trump, one for allegedly mishandling classified documents, the other for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Both cases were dropped when Trump won a new term in November.

Let's get right to CNN's Katelyn Polantz from Washington. What's Smith saying or his people? What are the people saying?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, we don't hear much from former Special Counsel Jack Smith anymore, but this is one of the first statements that we're hearing where he's defending the work he did as a prosecutor on those two Trump investigations.