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Interview with Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH): Trump Authorizes CIA Action in Venezuela, Threatens Land Strikes; Trump Plans IRS Changes to Target Left-Leaning Groups; Authorities Using Rapid DNA Technology to ID Victims of Plant Blast; South Carolina Expands Access to Measles Vaccine as Outbreak Grows. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 16, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

KILIAN JORNET, MOUNTAIN ATHLETE: In longer time, I think everybody can do in its way. And it's not about like going faster, but it's about like the experiences that you live. So it don't need to be like something extraordinary.

It needs to be just like to go out and start exploring and that we can do everyone from our homes.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: I was going to ask you, what is the lesson in it? In a world that is more disconnected, more virtual, people think they can climb these peaks thanks to VR these days or AI, they don't need to actually do. What is the lesson in it that you hope people take?

JORNET: One thing that they really realize doing this project is like how lucky you are here to have these wild spaces like all the national parks and all these preserve areas that they are big and they host a unique biodiversity and unique ecosystems. And I think like to be able to access them as humans, like we need this connection at the end, like we are not robots. Like we are another animal and we to survive, we need this connection with all the bacteria that are outside, all the plants, all the food that we eat, it comes from nature. So like this connection to nature, it's important both for our physical health and also for our mental health.

So like, I believe that we need to stay in touch and stay connected to nature and having these national parks, national forests, wilderness areas that they are accessible and close to where people live, it's very important. And I think just to go there, don't need to be to climb a 14er, but it can be just to take a walk or to have a night on a campground, it really gives that this connection that we are losing with our lifestyles, that they are more and more like sedentary and more and more like digital and not like connected to nature.

BOLDUAN: I have to say, I've learned from many and amazing professional and Olympic athletes to never ask when someone's celebrating a win, what comes next? So I won't ask that, but I will say, I cannot wait to see what you do next and watch you all along the way. Kilian, it's a delight to meet you. Thank you so much.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Covert CIA action, potential U.S. strikes inside Venezuela. The major escalation that the Trump administration's war on drugs and on the ruling party in Venezuela. The president confirming he has now authorized that covert CIA action.

Sixteen days into the shutdown, Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doubling down on using government funding as a leverage in their healthcare fights.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): I think we need to see ink on paper. I think we need to see legislation. I think we need to see votes.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): We're going to do everything that we can to bring an end to this terrible shutdown.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: In other important news, a legal fight over PB&J sandwiches. Smucker's accusing Trader Joe's of copying its Uncrustables.

I'm Sara Sidner with John Berman and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, covert CIA operations inside Venezuela, though they may not be so covert anymore. President Trump has taken the rare and unusual step of acknowledging that he secretly authorized the CIA to take action in the South American nation, citing the illegal flow of migrants and drugs from there. It comes on the heels of the fifth known U.S. airstrike on alleged drug boat off Venezuela's coast.

And now the president says he's considering expanding those strikes to land targets in Venezuela. That would be a major escalation. The president declined to say whether he'd given the CIA the OK to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power.

Maduro hit back at the president's comments, calling them discriminatory and xenophobic. The U.S. airstrikes on alleged drug boats have killed at least 27 people.

With us now is Congressman Warren Davidson, a Republican from Ohio. He's on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Congressman Davidson, it's always great talking to you. And in our discussions, you know, I've learned that you are reluctant or careful about committing U.S. forces almost anywhere overseas.

So with the president talking about the possible expansion to land targets in Venezuela, how do you feel about committing US forces to that effort?

REP. WARREN DAVIDSON (R-OH), HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: Well, look, I'm a former army ranger. I enlisted in the army, in the infantry. I served as an officer in the infantry and I know who fights our nation's wars.

[08:05:00]

You know, the point of America first is to prioritize defending our own country. And one of the ways that our country has been under attack that we haven't defended against, not only with an invasion of migration into our country, it's with drugs. So, look, drugs are bad for you, but these drugs are being laced with fentanyl.

They're killing tens of thousands of Americans every year. And President Trump has rightly called these cartels enemies of our country. So I support that.

When you look at Venezuela, that's a nation state, and the power of making war is reserved for the legislative branch. And it's important to have all components of our country united when we do decide to go to war, because you don't want just a caste where you've got a warrior caste that's at war and the nation really isn't. And we've had a lot of that for a long time.

We need to be united so that we win decisive, swift victories. And when we are, that's what happens. We win decisive, swift victories.

BERMAN: So I'm hearing you right. You say you do support military action on Venezuela, possible, but you do think you should have a vote on it.

DAVIDSON: Well, I think we should vote. And whether we go to war with Venezuela or not is a separate question from whether or not target cartels as enemies of our country. They clearly are enemies of our country.

They should be an intelligence priority on par with Iran or North Korea. And we should be completely disrupting the operation of the cartels. They're killing, you know, thousands of Ohioans --

BERMAN: Look, Congressman --

DAVIDSON: -- tens of thousands of Americans every year.

BERMAN: I just, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I just want to make a distinction. So you are OK with that, but if you were to take military action against Venezuela, not necessarily cartels in Venezuela, that's a different story?

DAVIDSON: Yes, that is. It's a nation state and you have to say, well, what is the cause for war against the regime? What is the action that that country has taken against the United States?

And does it rise to the level we should go to war with them? And, you know, those are the questions that are reserved for the legislative branch. Look, I think President Trump is a vigilant defender of the United States of America and our interests as he should be.

And it's been long neglected. If you look at the Monroe Doctrine, the idea that the United States would have a special interest in our own hemisphere, beginning at our own border, that's been abandoned really largely since the war on terror. I asked Secretary of State Antony Blinken about the Monroe Doctrine, and he said, what's that?

I'm like, how do you become Secretary of State and not know that? I don't know how you get out of high school history and not know that.

BERMAN: Let me ask you quickly, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy on his way to the United States to meet with President Trump. We believe he's going to ask for Tomahawk missiles, which would give Ukraine the ability to strike deep, very deep inside Russia with targets that include Moscow.

We have a map, I think, that shows this. There you go.

You can see the range that Tomahawks would give Ukraine. How do you feel about supplying Ukraine with Tomahawks?

DAVIDSON: Well, look, I haven't voted to supply Ukraine with anything. I'm in the deep minority in the House of Representatives on that. But, you know, I don't think Ukraine is our war to fight or our war to fund.

I wish the Ukrainian people well. Their sovereignty's been, you know, attacked by Russia, but it's also been undermined by the United States and European Union. I mean, they're being pulled in every which way and their country's being destroyed.

I hope that in their own interest, they find a way to reach a peace, much like the Korean Peninsula, where they still don't truly agree on where the border, the boundaries should be forever, but they've drawn a peace along the 38th parallel and they decide to stop killing each other or stop dying. I hope they do that in Ukraine.

BERMAN: Finally, The Wall Street Journal has a big article this morning, an investigation where they say the Trump administration is preparing sweeping changes at the Internal Revenue Service that will allow the agency to pursue criminal inquiries of left-leaning groups more easily. That's according to people familiar with the matter. A senior IRS official involved in the effort has drawn up a list of potential targets that includes major Democratic donors, some of the people said.

I want to play for you what former, well, then President Trump in 2019 said about using the IRS to investigate political opponents and then Senator J.D. Vance said about it. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, THEN FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I will never allow the IRS to be used as a political weapon.

J.D. VANCE (R), THEN OHIO SENATOR: This is about whether we have functional constitutional government in this country. If the IRS can go after you because of what you think or what you believe or what you do, we'd no longer live in a free country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So where are you on this, Congressman? Are you sort of with 2019 Donald Trump and previous J.D. Vance on the idea of using the IRS to investigate political opponents?

DAVIDSON: I'm rooting for the IRS to be closed. I've got a constitutional amendment to repeal the 16th Amendment. I think it's a massive invasion of privacy to collect all this information from citizens in the first place.

And so I hope we completely repeal the 16th Amendment and fully close the IRS.

[08:10:00]

Want to, you know, look, we've got lemons Democrats have chosen to shut the government down. The Trump administration's making lemonade. And one of the areas that we've cut is the IRS.

And so I think there's a lot of dead weight there and a lot of people involved in things that really are outside the purview of collecting the revenue for the country. We saw this going back to the Obama administration with Lois Lerner and others. So it's an agency that can be weaponized.

And I think those kinds of agencies should just go away.

BERMAN: Congressman Warren Davidson from Ohio. Appreciate your time this morning -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: This morning, investigators are using new technology now to identify the victims of that deadly blast at a Tennessee explosives plant. We have details on that for you.

And a measles outbreak in South Carolina spreading. The alarm bells it's also raising about vaccination rates in that state.

Plus, Americans falling victim to a new type of scam using crypto ATMs. Convinced to hand over thousands and thousands of dollars that they may now never get back. It is a CNN investigation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm not going to put the money into the machine.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why?

LAH: Because this is a scam. You know it and I know it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why you think like --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: Right now, authorities are still trying to remove hazardous debris from the site of that massive explosive plant blast in Tennessee. There were no survivors in the facility, authorities say. A total of 16 people were killed.

But it's been incredibly hard to identify the victims due to the power of that explosion. But there's now a special piece of tech that they are using to try to help.

CNN's Ivan Rodriguez is here with us now. Give us some sense of what this technology is and how it works.

IVAN RODRIGUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sara, unlike traditional DNA testing, rapid DNA is an automated process that develops a DNA profile in less than two hours from a mouse swab, according to the FBI. It's a quick and portable system that gives investigators the ability to do a DNA analysis anywhere without the need for a laboratory. And it's through this process authorities positively identified 14 of the 16 victims at a Tennessee explosives plant.

Investigators had already compiled a list of employees presumed to be dead. But for the victims, loved ones, this news could provide comfort. Identifying victims remains has been a slow process because bodies can only be recovered when the surrounding area is declared safe from explosives.

Part of expediting that process involves getting DNA samples from family members who lost loved ones, according to the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. Now, once remains are available, authorities are using rapid DNA technology to quickly develop a DNA profile from family members to compare to those remains, according to the TBI.

The explosion at the plant was so large, Sara, that it also registered a 1.6 magnitude earthquake. Investigators say the cause of the blast may not be known for weeks or even months, in part because the impact area is so widespread. Some residents have even found debris as far as two miles from the facility, according to the Hickman County Sheriff's Office. But again, when thinking of the victim's families, as the sheriff said, quote, This is that one little piece of light that's made it through in efforts to give families the hope of having closure.

SIDNER: Yes, it's really awful just looking at just how devastating that was. At least the families know for sure that their loved ones did not make it and they can start to mourn them. Ivan Rodriguez, thank you so much for that story.

Appreciate it, John.

BERMAN: All right. More than 100 students in quarantine after a measles outbreak sweeps across several schools.

And a mass rescue operation. Hundreds of people airlifted out of their villages after an historic storm.

[08:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: So the measles outbreak in South Carolina is spreading. The state's public health department is now reporting a confirmed number of cases is up to 16 since the outbreak began back in July. Five additional cases were confirmed just on Tuesday.

On top of that right now, more than 130 unvaccinated school children there are now being forced to quarantine because of exposure to the disease. It's gone across multiple schools. And state health officials are sounding the alarm, urging people to get vaccinated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. LINDA BELL, EPIDEMIOLOGIST: We are certainly concerned about the declining vaccination coverage that would bring what we consider herd immunity to this population. When that vaccination coverage level starts to drop to about the 90 percent level, which is well below 95 percent, the level that is most effective in providing herd immunity, it does cause us great concern.

The fact that this is a large number of students among the highest enrollment in the state that has lower vaccination coverage is an additional threat to the population in general.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me right now for some more perspective is CNN medical analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner. I mean, we -- you and I have had this discussion now going on months as you look at a different part of the country and a measles outbreak spreading. I mean, the numbers are really troubling.

139 unvaccinated students exposed and quarantining. You've got more confirmed cases now being reported. What do you take from this latest update coming from South Carolina and how this outbreak is spreading?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, it's representative of what's happening across the country. Vaccination rates in the United States over the last decade have dropped substantially. And for the measles virus, which is a very efficient pathogen, you need 95 percent of the community, 95 percent of the kids to be vaccinated to provide what we call herd immunity.

In 2019, the nationwide vaccination rate for measles was over 95 percent. And last year it was 92.7 percent. Now that doesn't seem like a giant drop, but it's below that threshold for herd immunity. And in South Carolina, it's 90 percent.

So when you have so many kids who are unvaccinated, it's basically like having a lot of dry tinder around a forest fire. And what vaccines do -- and continuing the forest fire metaphor -- is it clears up the brush. It prevents the virus from continuing to spread in the community.

[08:25:00]

But when you have a lot of kids who are unvaccinated, you have a lot of opportunity for viral spread. And we've seen outbreaks now in 42 states in the United States.

This is the highest number of cases of measles since 1992. And it's going to continue because the trend in this country is less vaccination, not more.

BOLDUAN: And just off the top of my head, I definitely did not come up with 42 states. I was just thinking of the ones you and I have talked about recently. You've got South Carolina as part of this larger trend.

You've got Minnesota's reporting new cases this week. And then you had that large outbreak in West Texas earlier that I know that we talked so much about.

REINER: Right.

BOLDUAN: And what I see in this is it appears it is local health departments taking this very seriously, urging people to get vaccinated, urging people to protect themselves, talking about how serious the disease is, how easily it can spread, how easily though it can be avoided.

What do you see as a role of local health departments now in the era of Robert Kennedy's Health and Human Services compared to in the past?

REINER: You have to take the lead. I mentioned that 30 years ago, there was a rather large outbreak of measles in the United States. In 1990, there were 27,000 cases of measles.

And what the federal government did at that time was to enact the Vaccines for Children Program, which basically provided free vaccines to underinsured or uninsured families and families on Medicaid. And then through the decade of the 90s, vaccine rates soared so much that by 2000, there were only 85 cases of measles in the United States and measles was declared eradicated.

But in the last decade, we've seen exactly the opposite. We've seen the spread of misinformation about the safety of this particular vaccine, the MMR vaccine. A lot of that coming from a group founded by the current health secretary, RFK, Jr. And the net result of that has been a dramatic decline in vaccination rates.

In the West Texas outbreak, the federal government was anemic in their response and did not vigorously advocate for vaccination, instead, you know, promoted, you know, unproven treatments like vitamin A. So the states have to take the lead.

In New York in the 1990s, which was really the epicenter of the giant outbreak, there were buses converted into mobile clinics that went around through inner city communities where as many as 50 percent of kids were unvaccinated, vaccinating kids. So I think we're starting to see that some mobile vaccination centers in South Carolina tackle this.

So state health departments must take up -- take up the slack here because it's not coming from Washington.

BOLDUAN: Yes, it does seem that's where the focus definitely needs to be right now. Dr. Jonathan Reiner, it's good to see you. Thank you so much -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right, at our CNN town hall, voters going toe to toe with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders. Hear what they have to say.

And it's almost election day in America.

BOLDUAN: Yes, it is.

SIDNER: You're running, I knew she was going to do something. You knew that was coming. That's the tease, that's it, we're done.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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