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Gavin Newsom Dares Joe Rogan to Have Him on His Podcast; Trump Defends East Wing Demolition as Ballroom Cost Soars to $300 Million; Trump to Send Fed Agents to San Francisco Soon; University of Virginia Reaches Federal Funding Deal with White House. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired October 23, 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]

GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): ... Invite me on anytime, Joe Rogan.

JOE ROGAN, PODCASTER: It was all that s*** before you were there! It was all that s*** forever. It's because the weather's perfect, man. It has nothing to do with you.

ELEX MICHAELSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Newsom's team posting this photo on X writing that, quote, "Little Joe is snack size because he can't handle full-size debates."

NEWSOM. I'm not afraid to go. I'm punching Joe Rogan, OK? That son of a bitch is not used to that.

And he's going to dismiss it. He's going to laugh it off. I mean, you know, tough guy, all that. But he's going to have me on.

Here's a guy who celebrated Bidenomics just this week.

MICHAELSON (voice-over): Newsom debated Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Fox News in 2023.

NEWSOM: You are making a damn dent.

MICHAELSON (voice-over): And hosted conservative guests like Charlie Kirk on his own podcast.

NEWSOM: I'm debating these sons of bitches. I'm out there on these right-wing shows, so I'm not scared to do that. Where the hell is the Democratic Party? Where's our equivalent of Turning Point USA?

MICHAELSON (voice-over): Newsom's team doubled down, repeating the snack-size slap on X.

"Joe Rogan is a snack-size podcaster who can't stop talking about me. Obsessed? Crush? No thank you. But is too scared to have me on and let his audience hear the truth.

ANDREW SCHULZ, STAND-UP COMIC, ACTOR, PODCASTER: He's talking some s*** on Twitter.

ROGAN: I know, it's like, you think that's going to work? Like, that's so stupid.

Like, this is such a bad look.

SCHULZ: Yes.

ROGAN: It's such a bad choice.

SCHULZ: There's a little desperation in it.

ROGAN: But it's just stupid. It's like, this is a bad strategy. Like, I probably would have had him on.

SCHULZ: Yes.

ROGAN: But now I'm like, what are you doing?

SCHULZ: There is a fun version where you just do it and cook him. You know?

ROGAN: He'll cook himself.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Tearing down the East Wing, Trump's massive remodeling project has hit a nerve. We're getting a closer look at the plans, the ballooning cost, and who's paying for it.

Plus, hundreds of protesters marching through New York City as ICE suddenly expands its operations and targets street vendors.

And, stranded on an island after their boat catches fire, what happened to that family on board?

I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan. John is out this morning. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So this morning, for better or worse, the People's House will never look the same. President Trump is now defending and taking pains to defend, the major renovation and changes that he is making to the White House. Those new images are coming in from overnight, showing the extent of the demolition of the East Wing.

And we're also learning the scale of the project is bigger than initially planned and announced. The president in the Oval Office was showing off his plans for the 90,000 square foot ballroom. Back in July, he had said and made clear it would cost $200 million.

Now, his estimate is it's going to cost an extra $100 million, so $300 million to complete the project. He also had said previously the construction would not interfere with or touch the existing building. Very clearly, we now see what is happening, and officials say that the entirety of the East Wing will likely be demolished by week's end.

So another question has been, who is paying for it? The White House overnight releasing a list of donors for the project, which include, you can take a look at them all there, Amazon and Apple, Comcast and Google, Meta, Microsoft, and others.

Joining me right now for what this means in the long arc of history, CNN presidential historian Tim Naftali. It's good to see you.

This has touched a nerve with a lot of people. It's getting a lot of reaction. What is your reaction to this East Wing project?

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, it should touch a nerve. The last two times there was major renovation to the White House in 1902 and in 1940, between 1948 and 1950, Congress appropriated the funds. Congress participated in looking at the plans.

Indeed, the first time President Truman wanted to add to the West Wing, Congress didn't like the plan, and it didn't happen in 1946. So Congress took an interest in it. In the 1940s, the American Institute of Architects and the Fine Arts Commission took an interest in it, provided some advice, and ultimately Congress and the President formed a commission, a bipartisan commission, to oversee the reconstruction of the White House in the late 40s.

Where is the oversight in this story? There is no precedent for the President of the United States to order the bulldozing of part of the White House without the participant, or at least the advice, of outside specialists and the participation of Congress.

[08:05:00]

This would be the first time that a major structure of the White House would be paid by private funds, and it appears that the reason for this is that the President doesn't want any oversight whatsoever.

If this is indeed the people's house, then the people's representatives need to play a role, and the people's experts need to at least be asked about the preservational and historical consequences of tearing down a structure.

BOLDUAN: And to that point, I think the group you're talking about, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, this non-profit that Congress put together, they actually sent a letter and put out a letter requesting to the administration, "We respectfully urge the administration and the National Park Service to pause demolition until plans for the proposed ballroom go through the legally required public review processes."

It does not sound like anything is going to be stopping this in process, and the White House reaction, Tim, has called complaints -- essentially calling complaints about what is happening manufactured outrage. Let me play what Caroline Levitt has said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Nearly every single president who has lived in this beautiful White House behind me has made modernizations and renovations of their own. And in fact, presidents for decades in the modern time have quipped about how they wish they had a larger event space here at the White House that can hold hundreds more people than the current East Room and state dining rooms can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: This gets to kind of what you were laying out before, but how do you respond to that?

NAFTALI: It's not -- well, first of all, Press Secretary Leavitt is providing a biased and very useful narrative of what has happened before. Presidents have taken advice, presidents have gone to Congress to fund these projects, and presidents have not always gotten what they wanted.

So this history she's presenting is a Trumpian view of a much more complex, much more American system that has prevailed up till now. It's really important to understand why this matters.

In 1910, the United -- the president created, then-president Taft, created a U.S. Commission on the Fine Arts. That's the Fine Arts Commission. That commission exists to this day.

It has been completely ignored by this president. I don't believe it's been asked what it considers at all about the White House. And its purview includes looking at the White House.

It's the group that, for example, that will decide whether or not there will be an arc of Trump on the Mall later on. They're the ones who work on issues of will there be -- when there would be a Martin Luther King Memorial, whether there was a FDR Memorial.

Initially, they worked on the initial plans for the Lincoln Memorial. So we actually have a system in place in our capital to ensure not only historical preservation, but the buildings that are our people's buildings reflect the majesty and style of this country. The president has ignored all of that.

This is not some kind of new criticism. This is an American tradition that the current occupant of the White House is completely ignoring. So no one's manufacturing this outrage.

There was outrage in the 1940s over what Truman was trying to do. His initial plans were not accepted. Ultimately, there's a bipartisan commission.

So this is nothing new. This president, though, is pretending that he has absolute power when it comes to the style of the capital of the United States, and that's just not true.

BOLDUAN: Historical perspective is always critical. Thanks for bringing it, Tim. It's good to see you. I really appreciate it -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right, great conversation, Kate.

Breaking overnight, Russia firing back after the U.S. hit the country's two largest oil companies with big new sanctions over the war in Ukraine. Russia's foreign ministry calling the move entirely counterproductive, and we're standing by to hear from Vladimir Putin on all this.

This morning, oil prices jumped as traders worried about the sanctions and how they'll affect the global supply. President Trump's actions showing his patience with Putin appears to be waning again. He announced yesterday he has canceled an anticipated summit with the Russian leader -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, protesters gathering on the streets of New York to rally against ICE operations just a day after agents descended and targeted street vendors -- illegal street vending in Manhattan. What happens now with this?

Plus, the University of Virginia, now the first public school to strike a deal with the Trump administration in the battle over funding and academic freedoms.

And a big change, of course, big change for the NCAA, for college athletes specifically. They can now place their bets on professional sports.

[08:10:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: Overnight, images here of several hundred people taking to the streets of New York protesting against ICE activity in the city. Now, this comes as New York Attorney General Letitia James is urging residents to share photos and videos of ICE after federal agents suddenly carried out a crackdown in Manhattan targeting illegal street vending, according to federal law enforcement officials.

Now, in California, a source tells CNN federal immigration agents are expected to arrive in the San Francisco Bay Area as early as this morning.

[08:15:00]

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is tracking all of this. What are you hearing? There's already response from, for example, Nancy Pelosi, whose district is in San Francisco, but there are a lot of raids happening in these two cities.

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Sara, this has been the plan all along among administration officials. I have been talking to them for months, and it was always clear, privately and publicly, that they were going to target Democratic-led cities and, more specifically, sanctuary cities, those cities that limit cooperation with local authorities and federal immigration enforcement authorities. That's really what we're seeing playing out.

The question, of course, was where this was going to take place and how it was going to take place. Some of that has been answered with Los Angeles, with what you saw in New York there on Canal Street, as well as in Chicago, where there have similarly been ongoing protests there, and now in San Francisco. Now I've been talking to my sources who say that there is an

expectation that there will be more federal agents that will be heading to San Francisco for immigration enforcement, but there are also other agents who continue to be on standby and have not yet been told to go to San Francisco.

Certainly, it is the city that is viewed as next on the list for that larger enforcement operation, but that is something that agents across the country are still waiting for final word on to go there. This is something that the president has also talked about. In fact, over the weekend, he had mentioned San Francisco using language that he has used with other cities, for example, talking about crime that has happened in that city.

When he talks about these cities and starts to use that type of rhetoric, that is where we start to see federal agents turn their focus. Now the San Francisco mayor, as well as other officials, have pushed back on this. The San Francisco mayor saying in a press conference, quote, "San Francisco was truly one of -- I'm sorry -- saying in a quote that "These tactics are designed to incite backlash, chaos, and violence, which are then used as an excuse to deploy military personnel."

Now, of course, Sara, the question here is, will there be National Guard troops who are there? There have been ongoing lawsuits on this specific issue. What I've heard so far is that this is a federal agent focused immigration enforcement operation.

The way the administration has used National Guard before is to serve as a perimeter in the case of protests. So certainly, that is something that perhaps we see in San Francisco, but that too is an open-ended question. What is still very clear in all of this, though, Sara, is that the administration is continuing to pressure these cities, continuing to target them for these larger immigration enforcement operations as a sort of make a statement about their policies.

SIDNER: Yes, Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much. You've done some great reporting throughout on all of this.

All right, ahead, a final fiery debate in the New York City mayoral race, the candidates clashing over policy and expertise, the biggest takeaways ahead.

Plus, new overnight, the U.S. military conducting another deadly strike on an alleged drug trafficking boat now in the Pacific. This is now the ninth such strike since September.

More on those stories ahead.

[08:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: So the University of Virginia is the first public university now to reach a deal with the White House. The administration announcing that the school agreed to, quote, "Not engage in unlawful racial discrimination in terms of admissions or hiring." As the college tries to put an end to months of investigation scrutiny from the Trump administration, that mounting pressure even prompting the school's president to announce his resignation back in June.

Let's go to our CNN's Betsy Klein. She's tracking this one for us. And Betsy, what are you learning about this deal and what it means for other universities?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN WHITE HOUSE SENIOR REPORTER: Well, it certainly could set an important precedent. The University of Virginia has agreed to a deal with the Trump administration and significantly marking the first public university to do so. According to the Department of Justice, UVA has agreed to not engage in unlawful discrimination in admissions, hiring and programming on campus.

And notably, UVA is not going to pay a monetary settlement like agreements that we've seen with Columbia or Brown University. They have agreed not to have an outside monitor to oversee compliance. That is something that drew much scrutiny from Columbia University and concerns about government oversight there.

In return, the Trump administration is going to pause ongoing civil rights investigations into the School on Admissions and Civil Rights. And the agreement, according to interim UVA president Paul Mahoney, quote, "Does not require the university to make any monetary payments. Importantly, it preserves the academic freedom of our faculty, students and staff. We will be treated no less favorably than any other university in terms of federal research grants and funding."

But this is all part of a much broader battle that the Trump administration has waged with higher education, raising major questions and concerns about academic freedom, federal funding and campus oversight. And we saw that earlier this year as UVA president Jim Ryan resigned over mounting pressure from the Trump Department of Justice that his university was not doing enough fast enough to dismantle DEI programs.

But this is also comes as UVA was asked to be part of a nine school compact for academic excellence in higher education. UVA declined to sign on to that -- Kate.

[08:25:00]

BOLDUAN: Betsy Klein, thank you so much for that update.

Still ahead for us. He survived the U.S. military strike on an alleged drug boat. Now his family says he is not a drug dealer, that he is actually just a fisherman caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is CNN exclusive reporting we'll be bringing to you.

And we're going to show you a look at crude oil prices. They are soaring this morning after the announcement of some hard-hitting sanctions on Russian oil.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BOLDUAN: All eyes will be on the new critical inflation data coming out tomorrow. Delayed, of course, because of the ongoing government shutdown. Like so many things, they are expected to move higher, in part because of more expensive fuel and tariff impacted goods.

So, let's take a little look this with Harry Enten to run the numbers on how Americans feel about -- we'll check in on how Donald Trump is handling the economy so far. How's he doing?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATE ANALYST: Yes, my mama was a doctor, and I think she'd look at these numbers and say that Donald Trump's doing absolutely awful in the minds of the American people. What are we talking about? We're talking about new lows for Donald Trump.

He's hit new lows for himself. Trump's economic net approval rating hits lows with these pollsters ...

[08:30:00]