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Fauci Invokes Fifth Amendment 100 Plus Times At COVID Hearing; Christians Facing Open Attacks In Holy Land. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired July 30, 2026 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[04:31:18]
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR: A major showdown is currently unfolding in the U.S. Capitol. Senate Judiciary Committee has postponed a vote today on the nomination of Todd Blanche to become the next attorney general. His approval is now in jeopardy over concerns about the Justice Department's $1.8 billion so called anti weaponization fund and a deal struck in May that would give President Trump, his family and their organization immunity from IRS audits for prior tax issues. A no vote from Republican John Cornyn or Thom Tillis would keep Blanche's nomination from moving to the full Senate. Here's what the Texas senator had to say about his position.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): Maybe they think I'm just going to give up or, you know, go along, but they're mistaken.
MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Why do you think they're not getting a message from you?
CORNYN: Maybe they think they can roll me.
RAJU: Can they roll you?
CORNYN: No. No.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANDOVAL: Blanche, who previously served as Donald Trump's personal attorney, has insisted that that fund is dead, but he's refused to put that in writing. President Trump says that there may be another reason for Senator Cornyn's opposition.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Todd Blanche is outstanding. And I thought he's -- I thought it was pretty routine because he's so good. He's -- he just wouldn't find a better person. So I don't know, maybe John Cornyn's upset with me because I didn't endorse him.
I don't know what it is, but I haven't heard that there's a problem. I heard he's going through quite nicely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANDOVAL: The Federal Reserve held interest rates steady for a fifth straight meeting as new Fed chairman Kevin Warsh and political and as well as policymakers continue to grapple with the uncertainty over inflation. The central bank left its benchmark lending rate unchanged at a rate of 3.5 to 3.75 percent. But the decision was not unanimous this time as three members dissented. And before the meeting, the usual hints about the Fed's next move were noticeably absent amid a lack of guidance from Warsh.
Here's what he had to say about the decision.
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KEVIN WARSH, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIR: The patients, the impatience that households and businesses feel have been going on for 63 months. We are on the job. We will deliver. We are focused like a laser on making sure we can do it. But the suggestion that we're going to be able to do it with our magic wand is one I want to disabuse you and everyone else of. But the Discussion the last two days give me more confidence even than I had eight and a half weeks ago.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANDOVAL: Chairman Warsh's remarks stirred up volatility. The Dow tumbled more than 2 percent or more than 1,100 points, making it the worst day in more than a year. The tech heavy NASDAQ and also the S&P, they both fell more than 1.5 percent. But the question are Wednesday's negative numbers impacting the markets today?
Well, let's see how Asian markets are looking. You can see sort of a mix -- a mixed bag there as Japan's decays up slightly about 0.7 percent while South Korea's cost be also falling slightly. And across the board here in U.S. Futures up slightly as well. Of course, the market's still digesting that news from -- about the federal's -- Federal Reserve's decision.
Republican Senator Rand Paul seeking to hold Dr. Anthony Fauci in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify at a Senate hearing. Fauci took the fifth more than 100 times on Wednesday at a hearing on the COVID-19 pandemic, saying that Paul called him before the committee to get him to say something that could put him in legal jeopardy. CNN's Lauren Fox reporting.
[04:35:02]
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LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Dr. Anthony Fauci facing a barrage of attacks from Republican senators.
SEN. BERNIE MORENO (R-OH): Do you feel like you're a deep (BLEEP).
FOX (voice-over): At one point, Republican Senator Bernie Moreno lobbed an expletive at Fauci, recounting a story he said inspired him to run for office about an Ohio woman arrested at a school football game for not wearing a mask during the pandemic.
MORENO: Here I am sitting in front of you six years later saying, who the (BLEEP) do you think you were for doing that?
FOX (voice-over): The contentious hearing didn't yield many, if any, answers. But Republican Chairman Rand Paul accused Fauci of obstruction and said he'd hold a vote next week to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress.
SEN. RAND PAUL (KY): All I can do is recommend.
FOX (voice-over): Paul also took the unusual step Wednesday of kicking Fauci's lawyer out of the hearing.
PAUL: You are not recognized, sir. Security, please remove him from the room.
FOX (voice-over): Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination over 100 times.
DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, FORMER DIR. NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Given Senator Paul's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution. The sole reason he is calling me before this committee is to get me to say something, anything that could vindicate his repeated public pledges that I end up, in his words, quote, "behind bars," unquote.
SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): Well, nothing says honestly like taking the Fifth, huh, doc?
FOX (voice-over): Republican lawmakers have repeatedly accused Fauci of concealing the origins of COVID. They've blamed him for his recommendations that led to lockdowns, school closures, and mask and vaccine mandates. Paul's focus on whether Fauci should face criminal charges for his actions during the pandemic in part led to a sweeping pardon from President Joe Biden just before he left office.
PAUL: A pardon may protect a person from criminal prosecution doesn't rewrite history.
FOX (voice-over): Republican senators seized on the documents Paul released before the hearing. More than a thousand pages of Fauci's personal diary that had been found on government servers.
HAWLEY: You called yourself the most famous scientist in the world. You've done more to harm science than anybody in my lifetime, and I hope you'll go home and write that in your diary.
FOX (voice-over): The diary painted a portrait of a government scientist whose overnight celebrity had caught even him by surprise. For better, for worse, I'm becoming an international celebrity. Calls from all over the world, Fauci wrote in March of 2020. He also chronicled a birthday message from the stars, an invitation to join the Kennedys at Hyannis Court for Fourth of July relationships with members of the media, including CNN journalists, and repeated calls from Barbra Streisand, who sought personal medical advice from him. It's always good to hear from her, Fauci wrote.
Democrats, meanwhile, use the hearing to celebrate Fauci's legacy and decry their GOP colleagues as having an agenda to embarrass the decade's long public servant.
SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): I think that this proceeding smacks of a show trial, a vendetta, continuing effort not only to discredit Dr. Fauci, but science and medicine generally.
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SANDOVAL: Our thanks to Lauren Fox for that report.
Now to new CNN polling that shows President Trump is losing more support. Only 34 percent of U.S. adults surveyed say that they approve of the way he's handling his job, while 66 percent disapprove. And that ties his career low approval rating from the end of his first term, right after the January 6 Capitol riot.
And only 27 percent say that the president is in touch with the problems of ordinary Americans, 73 percent saying he is not. The negative sentiment could spell some major troubles for Republicans come the midterms in November.
And the low poll numbers, they don't seem to faze Mr. Trump when it comes to his construction projects in the Washington area. And that leaves one, actually, the latest one, Dulles Airport, the region's main international gateway.
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TRUMP: This is very exciting to me as a builder, somebody that builds lots of big nice projects before I got here. And we're doing some of the best in the world right now. It's largely financed and yes, we need some approvals from Congress probably. But generally speaking, it's been very bipartisan.
Whether you're a Republican or Democrat, you don't want to go and be subjected to this airport because this airport is a -- is a terrible place to be.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SANDOVAL: President Trump unveiled a plan to spend more than $22 billion to renovate Dulles. It regularly appears on a list of the worst U.S. airports. Construction could take at least eight years to complete.
[04:39:50]
Christian in the Holy Land, they are facing increasing risks. Ahead, CNN's Clarissa Ward takes a look at how an extremist ideology and nearly three years of war reshaped Christian life there.
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SANDOVAL: From Jerusalem to the West Bank, Christian communities have been facing a surge in intimidation and violence. CNN's Clarissa Ward travels to the region exploring how these attacks are threatening the survival of these ancient communities.
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CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For 2000 years, Christians have been in the Holy Land. That presence now under mounting pressure as attacks on Christians rise. In Jerusalem, spitting at clergy, vandalizing holy sites, harassment, and intimidation are almost daily occurrences. While in the occupied West Bank, Israeli settler violence and economic pressure are pushing Palestinian Christians out.
April 2026, a nun is thrown to the pavement by an Israeli extremist just outside the site of the Last Supper. The Israeli government strongly condemns the attack and the suspect is arrested.
REV. ANTHONY GIAMBRONE, VICE DIR. ECOLE BIBLIQUE ET ARCHEOLOGIQUE FRANCAISE DE JERUSALEM: This is where two of the corridors meet, Christian and Jewish. And so it's always been a friction point.
WARD (voice-over): Father Anthony Giambroni teaches at the same school as the nun who was attacked. He has lived in Jerusalem for 10 years.
WARD: Does anyone have any sense of what the motivation was here? I've heard some speculation that maybe he was disturbed individual or --
GIAMBRONE: He could be disturbed, but he's filled with an ideology as well that I think doesn't want to accept her presence here.
WARD: Help us understand that a little bit better.
GIAMBRONE: Yes, well, I mean, it's obviously a long history. It's very important to say that -- that's, you know, that's an extreme view. I think there's increasing concern that it's an extreme view that's getting mainstreamed. It's a fundamentalist understanding of the possession of the land. The land was given to the Jews, and that's -- that needs to mean all of it.
[04:45:12]
WARD (voice-over): According to the Religious Freedom Data center, from April to June of this year, reports of incidents against Christians in Jerusalem rose by 70 percent compared to the three months before October 7. Though the spike may partly reflect more people coming forward to report.
The fallout has embarrassed the Israeli government internationally. In April, it appointed Arab-Israeli-Christian diplomat George Deek as special Envoy to the Christian world, the first such position in Israel's history. GEORGE DEEK, ISRAEL SPECIAL ENVOY TO THE CHRISTIAN WORLD: Attacks on Christians, on Jews, on Muslims, or anyone based on their faith or their ethnicity is immoral, illegal and unacceptable. We should, however, be able to distinguish between serious incidents that require serious action and the false narrative that this is somehow representative of the Israeli state, Israeli society, or Christian life in Israel. The reality in Israel is that Israel remains the only place in the region where the numbers, the Christian community in Israel is actually growing.
WARD: There is a sense that these types of incidents and this type of bigotry and this ideology has been allowed to continue with relative impunity.
DEEK: I acknowledge the fact that there is a rise in extremism in Israel, just like we see a rise in extremism, I think across the world. We can do more and we should do more. And it is my task to make sure that we will do more.
WARD (voice-over): But just 20 miles away, the government is enabling Israeli settler extremism.
WARD: So we're driving now to a town called Tayibe in the occupied west bank. And it's been coming under attack from settlers for some years now. But those attacks have really intensified in recent months.
WARD (voice-over): Palestinians of all faiths are struggling, but Christian-Palestinians are leaving faster than most.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): There is no work, no money. My children want to buy something for 20 shekels and I don't have any to give them. For God's sake.
WARD (voice-over): It doesn't take long for us to come across Roland Basir (ph). His cement factory has come under attack this morning by settlers, as it does most days.
ROLAND BASIR (through translator): Look, here they are running after me.
WARD (voice-over): He shows us videos he has compiled over months of settler extremists chasing him out of his factory.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Can't you understand this is our place.
WARD (through translator): Do you have any ideas why they are doing this?
BASIR (through translator): I don't know. They want to take over everything. Yesterday I told him I'm from Taybeh. He said, this settlement is mine. Taybeh is mine.
If I have the opportunity to leave, I would leave and not to stay in this town, because there is no future for me or my children. WARD (voice-over): Down at the damaged factory, the Israeli police and army finally arrive, four and a half hours after Basir says he first called them. But minutes later, without even getting out of their vehicles, they turn around and start to leave.
BASIR: See you later. Bye-bye.
WARD: So they came. They --
BASIR (through translator): And you saw it.
WARD: -- seem now to be leaving.
WARD (voice-over): As we drive out of Tayibe, we see a young settler grazing his sheep in the town's olive groves.
WARD: Hi. Hi. Excuse me. My name's Clarissa Ward. I work for CNN. Can I ask you some questions? Do you speak any English?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): Hello, do you speak English?
WARD (voice-over): He ignores our attempts to speak with him in Hebrew and begins to film us.
WARD: This is a Palestinian town, Tayibe. It's a Christian-Palestinian town. I'm just wondering if you can explain why you're here or what you're doing here. This is not your land.
So you can see he took a video of the whole thing, did not say a single word to us, and we're right here, right outside of Tayibe.
WARD (voice-over): Rev. Munther Isaac says that since October 7, the situation has become untenable.
REV. MUNTHER ISAAC, EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH: Christians are part of the Palestinian people. Whatever happened to all Palestinians happens to us. The issue with Christians is that because our numbers are small, we became a very vulnerable community. So every family that leaves, we feel its impact.
[04:50:06]
WARD: Do you feel that the church is doing enough to protect Christians here?
ISAAC: Churches around the world are saying many good things. What we need is action to put pressure on Israel to stop the settlement activities and to reach a settlement with the Palestinians.
WARD (voice-over): For now, that seems a distant prospect. Without decisive action, the erosion of Christian life in the Holy Land will continue. The question is whether there is political will to change it.
Clarissa Ward, CNN, Jerusalem.
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SANDOVAL: And stay with us. We'll be right back.
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SANDOVAL: You remember "Merlin the Duck," right? He became Mexico's unofficial mascot during the World Cup. But we have an update. The two-year-old male became so popular that he was even taken to meet the president of Mexico. As Valeria Leon reports, the feathery celebrity has now helped his struggling family find a new home.
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VALERIA LEON, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Merlin the Duck became an unlikely star after going viral during the World Cup. HIS Fame transformed the life of the Mexican family that raised him. Karla and her sons, Cristian and Carlos used to sleep inside a tiny street side shop in Mexico City where they sold bottled water.
[04:55:17]
KARLA GOMEZ, MERLIN'S OWNER (through translator): Living in a shop, working seven days a week, putting in exhausting hours and carrying heavy loads was very difficult. Sometimes I would cry at night. I was always apologizing to my sons for making them live in a shop.
LEON (voice-over): Cristian told us how they crawled inside each night and how that reality waited heavily on his mother.
CHRISTIAN GOMEZ, MERLIN'S OWNER (through translator): My mom slept up here, I slept down below and my brother slept down there.
LEON (voice-over): After their story caught the attention of local authorities, Mexico City's government gave the family a home.
With Merlin in their arms, Karla and Cristian returned to their former neighborhood, greeting the street vendors who witnessed their struggles along with their sudden race to fame.
K. GOMEZ (through translator): For the first time in many years, we were able to sleep peacefully.
LEON (voice-over): Now that the World Cup has ended, they've dropped by the old shop to pick up Merlin's favorite soccer ball.
C. GOMEZ (through translator): I'm happy. Thanks to him, we have a house now and he can sleep wherever he wants.
LEON (voice-over): For this family, their lucky duck changed everything from surviving day by day to dreaming about what comes next.
K. GOMEZ: Ghetto I want to pursue the business side of this. I want to start making clothes for ducks.
LEON (voice-over): Valeria Leon, CNN, Mexico City. (END VIDEOTAPE)
SANDOVAL: Merlin, the other winner of this year's World Cup.
Thank you so much for watching from the entire team. I'm Polo Sandoval in New York. Our coverage continues with CNN "Headline Express."
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