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Sen. Cassidy Supports Blanche For Attorney General, Clearing Path To Approval; New Mexico Judge Ruled That Meta Must Pay More Than $500 Million To Child Mental Health Fund; Investigation Into Deplorable Conditions At Chicago Funeral Home; Lake Mead Hits Lowest Water Level On Record; Five Teachers Dead, 30 Injured In Thailand School Shooting. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired August 07, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:33:48]

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": And some Breaking News. Republican Senator, Bill Cassidy announces he will vote to confirm Todd Blanche as Attorney General, essentially clearing the path for Blanche to secure the role. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BILL CASSIDY, (R-LA): Mr. Blanche is not perfect and he will tell you this, but the choice is not between perfection and Mr. Blanche It is between Mr. Blanche and another Acting Attorney General who may not run the department effectively under President Trump, and who indeed may not be as good as Mr. Blanche. People of Louisiana can be assured that I worked hard to understand the issue and to make the right decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Now, while serving as Acting Attorney General, Blanche has come under fire for his role in the creation of the Justice Department's so-called Anti-weaponization fund. He's also come under fire for the DOJ's handling of the Epstein files as well. We're joined now by Democratic Senator, Chris Coons of Delaware. He's also a member of the Judiciary Committee as well. Appreciate you taking the time.

Look, it seems that Senator Cassidy just cleared the way for a Blanche confirmation. What's your reaction?

SEN. CHRIS COONS, (D-DE): Look, I'm upset but not surprised that, ultimately, Senator Cassidy has decided to vote to confirm Todd Blanche.

[13:35:00]

I don't think there's any reason to expect that Todd Blanche will suddenly become more independent, more professional, that his bad mishandling of the Epstein files release or his advocating for and advancing the horrible idea of a $1.8 billion slush fund, the so- called anti-weaponization fund, his demonstrated failures of leadership as the acting attorney general and the assistant attorney general, I think will simply be compounded as attorney general.

There's other things I have worked well on with Senator Cassidy. We've been good partners on some legislation, but I think this was a decision he will regret and that the other Republicans who vote to confirm Mr. Blanche will regret.

When I sat with him before and after his confirmation hearing and pressed Todd Blanche about independence and his decision-making, there was nothing he said that suggested to me that he will think of himself as the attorney general protecting the Constitution and the American people rather than as President Trump's personal lawyer moving forward on an agenda of vengeance. I think this is a very bad day for the Department of Justice.

JIMENEZ: How do you respond to Senator Cassidy's argument, though, a similar one we heard from Senator Cornyn, that a Blanche alternative could be worse?

(LAUGH)

COONS: I mean, that's no reason to vote for someone who's bad. So I voted for Jim Mattis, a decorated four-star Marine Corps General who was the Secretary of Defense in Trump's first term. I voted against Pete Hegseth, the current Secretary of Defense.

And to say that I should have voted for him because someone else could be worse, I don't think holds water. We know who Todd Blanche is, and we know what he's going to do with a permanent role as attorney general. It won't be good.

JIMENEZ: You know, for those that were listening to Senator Cassidy's speech on the floor, I don't know if he seemed to get emotional there when he mentioned the people of Louisiana. And I know you touched on it, too. You two have known each other for a while. Did you speak at all while he weighed this decision?

COONS: I spoke to several of my colleagues, to Senators Murkowski and Cornyn and Cassidy. But, you know, look, at the end of the day, they made their own decisions, and they're going to be accountable for their decisions. And it has been encouraging to me that a few Republicans have rethought their previous bad votes to confirm folks like RFK Jr. or Pete Hegseth or Pam Bondi.

But today, this was a disappointing decision by Senator Cassidy.

JIMENEZ: I think fair to say you do not trust the signed statement by Blanche that this anti-weaponization slush fund won't be going forward.

COONS: No.

JIMENEZ: But are there any plans for the Senate to take some sort of legislative action to ensure it can't come back? COONS: We should. Frankly, Senator Cornyn, who is a talented, experienced lawyer -- he was a Supreme Court justice and attorney general in Texas -- knows well enough that to get a settlement between two parties permanently amended requires a signed document by both parties, not a unilateral declaration by the acting attorney general. And the thing that matters the most here, frankly, is that President Trump keeps insisting that he wants this weaponization fund.

And so if my principal concern and theirs was that Todd Blanche has been advancing this terrible idea of a weaponization fund, having him sign something rather than having us pass a statute blocking it doesn't accomplish the goal.

Having us take up and pass a bill to block it would accomplish that goal. But I don't think the majority -- I don't think Republicans are going to do that because that would restrain President Trump's corruption.

JIMENEZ: Well, as you know, one of the checks on power will come in these midterm elections quickly approaching. And I know you followed the many primaries, including in Michigan, where it is of note that Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's preferred primary candidate lost. I know the term being preached now is unity.

But I just wonder, from where you sit and the various races you follow, are you concerned at all about Senator Schumer's ability to unify Democrats heading into these elections? And if not, what do you think unity here will take?

COONS: What I think unifies Democrats is the increasing bad news about the economy. Just today, there were terrible Jobs Reports that show that in the retail sector, we're losing jobs, not gaining them, that wages are going down, not up. And what I find unifies Democrats in Delaware is a focus on the costs of gas and groceries, health care and housing.

[13:40:00]

Democrats have real and concrete plans for how to address these costs, how to help wages go up and to help bring prices down. And Republicans are pulling in the opposite direction. So what I think unifies us is addressing the issues that keep working families up at night and that American families are confronting as they realize they can't afford back to school, which is what's facing most families in the next couple of weeks, spending $1,000 to buy the things their kids need to get back to school. Those costs have gone up 12 percent this year.

So I do think we'll see unity to the extent Democrats are listening to our constituents and their concerns.

JIMENEZ: And you fully trust Senator Schumer to lead the Democrats in that direction?

COONS: Look, Senator Schumer, over a very long time, has shown that he is relentlessly focused on winning campaigns. I think whether he is successful this cycle will be clear from whether we retake the majority. But he works tirelessly towards that goal.

JIMENEZ: All right. Wasn't a full throat yes, Senator, but I understand that full accountability comes from the voters in November. We will see. Senator Coons, I really appreciate the time.

COONS: Yep, thank you.

JIMENEZ: All right. A landmark trial ends with Meta being forced to pay close to $1 billion dollars for harming teens. The details and the impact, right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:46:07]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": A New Mexico judge is ordering Meta, Facebook and Instagram's parent company to pay $567 million into a new fund for young people's mental health after comparing the tech giant to a factory that's creating air pollution. The judge also ordered the social media company to delete accounts for kids under 13 and tighten controls for older teens.

The judge said most of this money, $420 million of it, will go toward treatment services. The rest will fund awareness, prevention, screening and other costs. This is in addition, by the way, to the first phase of the case when a jury ruled in March that Meta has to pay $375 million in damages as well. The jury reached that decision after New Mexico's Attorney General sued Meta, claiming it created a breeding ground for child predators.

Meta says it will appeal and that the company, "We'll continue to defend ourselves against claims that misrepresent the facts."

We're joined now by CNN Contributor, Jacob Ward. He's a Technology Journalist. He's also the host of "The RIP Current" podcast. The judge was clear on the facts here, Jacob, and this is just such a big payout. Do you think it's going to actually stop Meta from what this judge said it's doing to teen mental health and in states besides New Mexico as well?

JACOB WARD, CNN CONTRIBUTOR & TECHNOLOGY JOURNALIST: Well, I mean, this is -- in the pure math of it, this is actually not such a big deal for Meta. $900-something million, close to $1 billion, sounds like an enormous amount. But, you know, Meta's annual profit last year was $60 billion.

They can afford this. And in fact, they told investors that they were anticipating something like $3.5 billion to go against them, conceivably, in this case. So they were ready for even worse. The reason this is, however, I think something of bad news for Meta is that it continues the pattern we've seen already in a few cases of establishing that that company can get into trouble in court for its design, for what it does in the experience of using the technology to children.

And that until now in the United States was really not considered something you could even go after these companies for. They have a special protection under something called Section 230. There are also some First Amendment issues here. But in this case, what we're seeing is that now, as we're facing a whole litany of thousands of cases, literally thousands of suits being brought against these companies, suddenly the precedent has been established. You can, in fact, win on the complaint that this design can be dangerous to people overall.

I mean, Brianna, you know, in this country, we think a lot about, you know, physical harm. We think about financial harm. But this is a sort of behavioral harm idea that's very new and is coalescing very quickly as these cases go forward.

KEILAR: So the judge ordered Meta to turn off push notifications during basically school hours and what are generally sleeping hours for users under 18. So like 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., and to automatically set New Mexico teen accounts to private. I think a lot of people might be surprised that's not already happening. So does the fact that Meta isn't already doing something as simple as that undercut their assertions that they're protecting kids?

WARD: I mean, I think the thing that we're seeing, you know, regardless of which way these verdicts had gone, we were seeing so much in discovery, right, in the documents that we got to see from inside these companies that show just how deeply, how granularly they understand the patterns of kids behavior, how they spend their days, how often they're picking up their phones to look at this stuff.

And so it really shows, I think, that that has, you know, trickled now into the sort of broad national understanding. And now in the case of this judge, you know, a few years ago, calling a company like this the equivalent of a polluter was something that only very sort of far-edge kind of academics were talking about, right? As a legal theory that wasn't established at all.

Now you have a judge in a major courtroom saying, OK, this is like polluting.

[13:50:00]

You are a public nuisance. And talking now about the effects that he wants changed, specifically when it comes to the effect on kids, it just means that this stuff that had been very abstract once upon a time is now taking on real legal repercussions and a real dollar value, and that's going to be even more important, Brianna, as we look ahead to the big federal case coming here in Oakland that takes place in February.

KEILAR: Yeah, we'll be looking towards that. I mean, it's just a PR loss if you're being categorized as a polluter which is something that I think a lot of people can think of in other cases here in recent decades. You mentioned at the court ruling, it didn't go as far maybe as it could have or as some folks might have wanted it to. The judge wrote that it requests to change Meta's algorithm design would likely violate the First Amendment and Section 230, as you mentioned there.

What does that mean for balancing online child safety and mental health concerns with constitutional rights?

WARD: Well, I mean meta says it's going to appeal, right, and that I'm sure is because it firmly believes that it's in the right legally and it means that it can't afford this to continue because, as we've talked about, right, in February, you're going to have more than 2,600 cases come to Oakland, California as part of this big multi-district litigation. Just now in fact, we're seeing a jury selection begins next week in a multi-state case also here in Oakland that's going to be asking for $1.4 trillion in damages.

You know, Meta has told its investors that it expects anything, you know, it could be hundreds of billions of dollars in damages. They're trying to prepare for that. And that is in fact a very difficult amount of money for this. So they're definitely going to keep going to court because this means a lot to them, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yeah, they can't afford that. Maybe they can afford hundreds of millions, but certainly not that number. Jacob Ward, thank you so much.

WARD: Appreciate it.

KEILAR: Omar?

JIMENEZ: All right. Let's get you to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour, including a disturbing discovery at a Chicago funeral home where officials say more than 50 bodies were found inside, including some being kept in rodent and maggot infested conditions. Some of the remains weren't being refrigerated and people who live nearby say there had been really an awful odor in the neighborhood for months.

An investigation is underway as authorities are also working to identify the bodies and contact their families.

Also, Lake Mead, the largest water reservoir in the United States, has fallen to a record low with water levels dropping to 1,040.5 feet. Now, the lake is a crucial water source on the Colorado River. It supplies water to more than 20 million people and has been suffering from years of demand, climate change, and drier weather.

And then in Thailand, authorities say a teenager carried out one of the country's deadliest school shootings in years. Thailand's prime minister says five teachers are dead after a 14-year-old opened fire at a secondary school north of Bangkok. No students were killed, but some are among the more than 30 people injured. Police say the teen also killed his grandparents at their home before the attack and the gun he used had belonged to his grandfather.

The suspect later died after turning the weapon on himself. We'll continue to follow the details on that story.

We're also following multiple stories here at home, including that mosquito. The mosquitoes you're seeing all over the place, swat it at your own risk because you could actually be teaching it to better evade you. We'll talk about it, coming up. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:58:26]

KEILAR: Humans have been fighting mosquitoes for thousands of years, and research shows the insects are adapting. CNN's Meg Tirrell visited a laboratory that's looking for new ways to battle the annoying biting bugs.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So it turns out mosquitoes are a lot smarter than we've been giving them credit for.

CLEMENT VINAUGER, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, VIRGINIA TECH: There's also that notion of mosquitoes adapting their behavior in response to the things we do. After many, many years of using the bed nets, the mosquitoes started shifting the time at which they look for the humans to bite. So we saw rebounds in malaria transmission for that. So there is a lot of plasticity in their behavior.

TIRRELL: And they were also really gross.

(LAUGH)

TIRRELL: I really don't like bugs.

We've come down to the labs of a scientist here at Virginia Tech who's been studying the brains and behavior of the world's deadliest animal. Let's go check it out.

VINAUGER: When they bite you, they actually inject some saliva in your bloodstream, and that saliva might contain some pathogens.

TIRRELL (voice-over): They, of course, cause hundreds of thousands of deaths every year from malaria, spreading viruses like dengue, yellow fever, chikungunya, Zika. We're also off to an early and ominous West Nile virus season here in the United States. So the news is not good when it comes to mosquitoes.

VINAUGER: For the past 150 years, we've had tools to fight back. We had insecticides. The problem is that they've started developing some resistance.

TIRRELL (voice-over): They also will remember people who try to swat at them and potentially avoid them in the future.

TIRRELL: So they get whacked.

VINAUGER: Yeah.

TIRRELL: Swatted.

VINAUGER: Yeah, exactly.

TIRRELL: They don't like it. VINAUGER: Yeah, and we have a publication showing that they actually can learn, you know, mechanical perturbations like that that mimic swats.

TIRRELL: They're doing work here to try to get ahead of the bugs once again. They're doing this in some really incredibly fascinating ways.