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HHS Secretary Kennedy Testifies Before Senate Amid CDC, Vaccine Turmoil; Trump Vowed to Halve Electricity Prices, They're Rising; Weather Fueling Wildfires in California; Epstein Survivors Say They'll Compile List of His Associates. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired September 04, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

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DONNA ADELSON: This time, I don't want to testify.

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JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So that was it. She didn't testify.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: I mean, can you say how surprised were you, given everything?

CASAREZ: Shocked. I mean, I always say I've never seen anything like this, but I've never seen anything like this. Now, the last witness for the defense, it was an expert in family law who testified that the divorce between Wendy and Dan, there was nothing to it. It was simple. It was like routine. Watch this and watch the prosecutor.

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GEORGIA CAPPLEMAN, ASSISTANT STATE ATTORNEY: You would not say that divorce and child custody issues are emotionally charged.

LINDA BAILEY, ATTORNEY: They can be. But in this case, they weren't.

CAPPLEMAN: They weren't? How do you know?

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CASAREZ: And that was -- the jury can possibly relate to this because to her, it was a case. It was just another divorce case. But all the evidence in this case showed the acrimony, the bitterness, the fighting. And jurors either themselves or in their family may have had divorce. And this witness acted like it was no big deal, nothing to it.

BERMAN: All right, standing by for closing arguments in this case, which is already extraordinary. Jean Casarez, thanks so much for covering all the twists and turns.

Brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts. right now. KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Very soon, Robert Kennedy Jr. in the hot seat. Lawmakers are set to grill the HHS secretary over his vaccine policy and the major upheaval of the nation's top health agency, all while some of his own employees are calling for him to resign.

Lawmakers pushing for the complete release of the Epstein files now say they are, quote, willing to name names, as President Trump once again dismisses the entire situation as a hoax.

And a mascot in handcuffs. The body cam video of police arresting Chuck E. Cheese as kids look on.

I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman. What were you doing last weekend, Berman? Sara is out today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BERMAN: All right, all eyes on Capitol Hill this morning. Where very shortly Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. faces questions from the Senate. Kennedy, who might be the most embattled member of the Trump cabinet at the moment, is expected to be grilled on the turmoil within the CDC under his leadership. And it comes as the calls for him to resign are growing louder.

The CDC right now is mired in chaos and confusion, under Kennedy's direction. The agency's director, Susan Monarez, fired after less than a month on the job. She was Senate firm nominated by President Trump himself in January before the very same Senate committee that he will face today.

Kennedy denied that he is anti vaccine, but since his confirmation, he's overseen sweeping changes to vaccine policy that have already impacted both children and adults.

With us now, CNN chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta. And Sanjay, today's hearing comes after more than 1,000 HHS employees. And we're talking former and current signed a letter calling for him to resign.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so I mean, this is pretty significant. But at the same time, John, I think in some ways, not that surprising. Even during the confirmation hearings, there was a lot of trepidation about his confirmation. But he kind of said all the right things during that confirmation hearing, including making these assurances about vaccines. No major changes on vaccines unless he got them cleared and talked to Senator Cassidy, for example, ahead of time.

Also, keep in mind, you know, Tom Price resigned first administration over over private planes. Kathleen Sebelius resigned over a flawed rollout. So this this has happened before. But what is different is what you say. 1,000 people signing this letter and a lot of the reasons they signed the letter is because of the firing of the CDC director, who they had just nominated. Also because of the appointment of political ideologues, as they put in the letter, onto these very important advisory committees.

And also everything that's happened with vaccines, sort of rescinding the emergency use authorization. MRNA vaccines, John, at one point, I remember you and I talking about one of the greatest scientific triumphs of our lifetime, and now they basically have cut a lot of the grants to continue that funding. So you know, here we are, and I think that's probably going to be what drives a lot of this.

Keep in mind, he's also the, you know, he's essentially the CEO of the largest health enterprise in the world and close to $2 trillion in budget they have. So I think these questions are going to come up as well.

BERMAN: You know, it creates an atmosphere, I think, that permeates the entire nation and the entire national discussion about vaccines. What happened in Florida --

GUPTA: Yes.

BERMAN: -- just yesterday, Governor DeSantis, senior officials there calling for an end to all vaccine mandates in the state, including at schools.

GUPTA: That's right.

BERMAN: How significant?

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GUPTA: I think very significant. I mean, look, if you want to look at data and say, show me the context in terms of what's the impact of vaccines over the last 30 years. How many lives saved? How many hospitalizations averted? You can look at that. 508 million cases of illnesses prevented over 30 years, roughly 1.1 million deaths. That's pretty significant.

But what I think is interesting, John, is that also if you talk to parents like in Florida, they have exemption rules. You could get exemptions because of personal reasons, because of religious reasons. And you can look, the numbers have gone up a little bit, but across the nation, they're around 3.5 percent or so. It's not that high is my point. And if you ask parents a specific question, Do you think vaccines should be mandated in schools? And what you find is that close to 80 percent of parents say yes, 79 percent say yes.

So you know exactly who this is appeasing. I'm not entirely sure. Obviously, 20 percent is not a small number, but the vast majority of Americans are not getting those exemptions, even though they've been available. And the vast majority think, hey, look, this makes sense to us because we realize not only does this protect our child, but the two components of our immunity are personal immunity and herd immunity, or community immunity.

BERMAN: You talked about the ousting of Susan Monarez as head of the CDC. You also talked about there actually will be a very crucial meeting on vaccines coming up, maybe on the precipice of major changes on vaccine policy. But what has the tangible impact been already for Secretary Kennedy?

GUPTA: What has he done?

BERMAN: Yes.

GUPTA: I mean, it's interesting because there were a lot of these promises, but if you look specifically, I mean, one of the things you and I talked about was food dyes, for example. That was a thing, a voluntary sort of phasing out of food dyes. So I'm not mocking that, but I'm just saying that that's one of the most tangible things that he's done.

A lot of it has been about restructuring COVID-19 vaccines, rescinding the emergency use authorization, talking about the fact that there may be new dietary plans in place this fall, but it's really been this sort of restructuring of the entire agency. Lots of people fired, 20,000 people or so let go of the agency. Again, largest health enterprise in the world.

But to point to specific things other than to say, hey, look, we're going to release new food dietary guidelines in the fall. We're going to talk about the causes of autism in the fall. The biggest thing really has been food dies and, frankly, the firing of a lot of people at HHS.

BERMAN: OK, we will see what questions he faces. Really, that will be telling in and of itself to see if it sort of --

GUPTA: And the follow-up questions.

BERMAN: Yes.

GUPTA: Because he says things that, you have to sort of fact check and it can take a while to go back and find that information. So hopefully they are ready with the facts to check at the time.

BERMAN: See if they have the will. Sanjay, great to see you. Thank you very much -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: A federal judge has issued a big ruling in the president's fight with Harvard handing the school a big victory. Ruling in favor of Harvard University over the billions and billions of dollars of research funding that the Trump administration froze. Judge Allison Burroughs finds that the administration broke the law when it locked up that more than $2 billion. She said the administration, quote -- and I will read it -- used antisemitism as a smokescreen for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault on this country's premier universities.

Judge Burroughs also ruled that the government cannot withhold any additional funds now from Harvard going forward in retaliation. The Trump administration wasted no time in responding, saying that it will immediately appeal the decision and calls the ruling egregious.

And speaking of legal battles, President Trump is taking his global trade war to the Supreme Court now, urging the justices to overturn a lower court ruling that found his administration acted unlawfully in imposing many of his tariffs. The tariffs that issue are all the big ones, guys. It's about these Liberation Day tariffs that Trump announced in April and tariffs imposed this year against China, Mexico, and Canada that he claimed were imposed to combat the flow of fentanyl to the United States.

The lower court said that Trump overstepped his authority there by leaning on a 1970s era and old -- an old emergency powers law to do this. Trump says if the high court rules against his tariffs, it would mean devastation for the United States. He's asking that they take up the case very quickly. If the justices don't take it up or they decide to uphold the lower court ruling, the administration may have to refund billions of dollars that it took in from tariffs paid by American importers.

Coming up for us, survivors of Jeffrey Epstein's abuse are now vowing to name names, saying that they may now need to put together their own list of Epstein's inner circle that they have encountered, and lawmakers are promising to read those names aloud. How President Trump is now responding.

And the death toll was rising after a streetcar derails during the evening rush in Portugal.

And if your electric bill through the summer, was it through the roof? Because if it was, you are not alone. President Trump vowed to slash electricity costs in half, but they are now rising twice as fast. We have new data in.

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BOLDUAN: New this morning, President Trump promised to cut electricity prices in half within 12 months of getting back in office. New data, though, is showing that prices are actually surging. Matt Egan joining us now with all the details. A lot of people are feeling this already. Why? What's going on?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Kate, yes, it's getting increasingly expensive just to keep the lights on. Looking at electricity prices over the last year, up 5.5 percent. That's basically double the overall inflation rate. And as you mentioned, this is the exact opposite of what the president had argued would happen if he got elected, right? He actually said he thought that energy and electricity prices would get cut at least in half within 12 to 18 months. That is not happening.

Now energy prices overall, when you look at gasoline, gasoline is cheap.

BOLDUAN: Right.

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EGAN: We covered that on Friday. Lowest Labor Day gas prices since 2020, but not when it comes to electricity. In fact, some states, including Maine and New Jersey, are having increases of more than 20 percent year over year when it comes to electricity prices. But it's not just the Northeast. Look at this. Wyoming, Utah, Illinois, all of them double digit percentage increases. Only a few states are getting cheaper when it comes to electricity. North Carolina, Rhode Island, Idaho, Hawaii, and Nevada. But overall -- is that number right?

BOLDUAN: Is that number right, Nevada?

EGAN: Yes, that is a significant drop there.

BOLDUAN: Oh, wow, OK.

EGAN: But overall, most people are not experiencing that. In fact, I talked to a woman in Arizona who told me that her electricity prices have basically doubled over the past year. And she said it's really stressful because she can't afford it all. She's got to break it all up into installments and she's not alone. There's research out there that shows that about one in six us households are behind on their utility bills.

So why is this happening?

BOLDUAN: Yes.

EGAN: Well, analysts say there's been this perfect storm of factors driving up prices starting with demand. Normally demand when it comes to electricity is really boring. It basically doesn't change. But it's going up rapidly, in part because of electric vehicle usage, but more so because of the artificial intelligence boom. We don't think about it, but these AI models consume --

BOLDUAN: I have not made that connection yet.

EGAN: -- incredible amounts of energy. In fact, the Berkeley National Lab is projecting that data center energy usage is going to double or triple by 2028, and that's after tripling over the previous decade. And so that's why forecasters are expecting a continuation of higher electricity bills.

Other issues on the supply side, the Trump administration is mandating that some coal-fired power plants stay online -- that's expensive. And they're removing support for clean energy. So you put it all together and this is a major issue.

BOLDUAN: Strip it all away, just taking the AI issue --

EGAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: -- just looking at that. So that is only going to get bigger. That is not something that we're going to see like regress.

EGAN: Right.

BOLDUAN: So that needs to be addressed.

EGAN: Yes, absolutely. That does speak to why analysts say you need more energy, right, overall, including, yes, wind and solar, which the administration has removed support for.

BOLDUAN: Let's see what happens.

EGAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: OK, good stuff. Thanks, Matt.

So a fire destroys the California gold rush town of Chinese camp. A lightning storm is to blame. There's more pictures coming in we want to bring to you about where that fire is now.

And here's a quote for you. We detained Chuck E. Cheese. That is a real quote from a real police officer in the real state of Florida. Because, of course, what landed this mascot in cuffs? We'll have it for you.

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BERMAN: This morning, new video shows the aftermath of a fast-moving wildfire that has burned through thousands of acres in central California. The blaze forced the evacuation of more than 300 people in and near an historic gold rush town. This is what one homeowner said.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My family's been in this county for for six generations now. So yes, we know what fire can do.

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BERMAN: Yes, the pictures from there been devastating. Weather conditions have helped fuel these fires. Now a surge of moisture does bring a new threat of flooding to the West.

Let's get ready to see CNN's Derek Van Dam tracking all of it. What are you seeing now, Derek?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, John, that man said, you know what fire could do. We also know what flooding can do, especially coming off of the summer of flooding that has just ended.

Now we have a nearby hurricane just off the Baja Peninsula that is surging moisture into the Four Corners region, Southern California into Arizona. We will see an uptick in precipitation. You factor in the fact that we also have drought conditions on the ground, very dry, won't take much to flood this area. We'll talk about that in just a second.

It's Hurricane Lorraine, a good thing is it is dissipating as it crosses the Baja Peninsula over the Gulf of California here within the next 24 hours. But there is enough moisture associated with this that it will stream in the showers into this drought stricken part of our country. So Southern California into southern portions of Arizona, even stretching into parts of New Mexico. This area doesn't take much rain to fall on this hard surface that has been stricken without precipitation for so long to produce this flash flooding risk.

That's why we already have flash flood watches or flood watches, I should say. For Southern Arizona, you could see Hwy. 17, Hwy. 10, one to two inches generally, but we know how this goes, right? One storm sits over the same location for an extended period of time, drops 3 to 4 inches out of the sky. That's when the flash flood risk increases so quickly. And we remember what happened in Ruidoso, New Mexico, earlier this summer. We don't want a repeat of that -- John.

BERMAN: All right, Derek Van Dam, for us watching all of these developing patterns. Derek, thank you very much.

Jeffrey Epstein survivors asking President Trump to stop calling their abuse a hoax and say they're putting together their own client list.

And HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr., expected to testify before the Senate this morning. We have live pictures, or we did, from the hearing. Right, there you go. Live pictures from inside the room, where it will all happen very shortly. The future of vaccine policy, children's health, all at stake. Probably the most embattled Cabinet Secretary at the moment.

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BERMAN: This morning, will two more Republicans sign on to force a vote to release all the Jeffrey Epstein files? That is what it will take, just two votes to get to the floor of the House. But President Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson, they are trying to stop it.

Epstein survivors are saying they want all the information out. This is not a hoax, they say, and they're threatening to release a list of names of people they say were close to Epstein.

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LISA PHILLIPS, SURVIVOR: We know the names. Many of us were abused by them. Now, together as survivors, we will confidentially compile the names we all know. Who regularly in -- who were regularly in the Epstein world. And it will be done by survivors and for survivors.

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BERMAN: Republican representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie have said they will read those names on the House floor where their speech is protected from prosecution.

Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House. Interesting how hard the administration is fighting along with Speaker Johnson to really stop this discharge petition, stop the idea of up or down vote in the House for releasing all the files.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Right, and look, John, I mean, there have long been concerns with people who are in this building behind me that all of the backlash that the Trump administration has been facing as it relates to the handling of the Epstein case would come back in full force when Congress returned. And it's not just, you know, these calls. From many within the president's own party, people like Thomas Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace, all of them calling for the administration to not ...

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