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CNN This Morning

Search Continues and Answers Sought on Texas Flooding; Russia Launches Record Drone Attack on Ukraine; Former Senator Carol Mosely Braun Releases New Memoir. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired July 09, 2025 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:38]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: It is Wednesday, July 9. And here's what's happening right now on CNN THIS MORNING.

The disaster in Texas continues with more than 170 people known to be missing from the flooding disaster. We'll bring you the latest in the search.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We get a lot of that (EXPLETIVE DELETED) thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: President Trump lashes out at Russian President Putin as Russia launches its largest drone attack of the war overnight.

And just into CNN, the trash apocalypse in Philadelphia is finally over, with a deal to end the garbage strike. But the trash talk continues in other U.S. cities.

It's 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Here's a live look at San Antonio as the search continues for flood victims in Texas.

Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for waking up with me. I'm Audie Cornish, and here's where we begin.

The water levels are dropping, but the death toll and the number of missing, that keeps rising in Texas, and so does the heartbreak.

No one has been found alive since Friday in Kerr County. More than 110 people are confirmed dead. And stunningly, the number of those still unaccounted for has increased dramatically to more than 170.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): Know this: we will not stop until every missing person is accounted for. Know this also. There very likely could be more added to that list. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Texas Governor Greg Abbott says questions about the region's emergency alert system will be addressed during a special session of the state legislature later this month.

CNN has obtained records that show two days before the flooding, a state inspector visited Camp Mystic and certified that it had an emergency plan in place and that its cabins and other buildings were safe.

At least 27 people were killed at the camp. More are still missing. So many families in central Texas are now just coping with grief and uncertainty.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I mean, you're walking through this mess --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

LAVANDERA: -- hoping for a miracle.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Amen. Keep the faith. It's all we can do.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've been through a lot, but I haven't seen anything like that in my life. It's pretty bad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They were swept into a tree. Joelle (ph) held onto him and prayed over his family. And did his very best to hang on as long as he could, until the floodwaters swept him away. And sadly, he didn't resurface.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now, Dominic Walsh, reporter for Houston Public Media.

Dominic, thank you so much for taking time out from your reporting to talk to us. I know that you've been to supply depots, a reunification site, and even just visiting neighborhoods. What has struck you at those scenes?

DOMINIC WALSH, GENERAL ASSIGNMENT REPORTER, HOUSTON PUBLIC MEDIA: Yes. As you drive along the highway or the road right next to the Guadalupe River, you can see how high the water got and how much devastation it caused. It looks like a tsunami moved through the area.

I visited a neighborhood that flooded, and it feels like it's high above the riverbanks. But you can see cars on top of fences. Homes that have been completely, up to 2 or 3 feet, flooded. And folks beginning to move out everything they own, all of their possessions.

And in those neighborhoods, you hear a sense of shock, a sense of grief. People are still processing what happened. And they're also talking about how the community is coming together. Folks from out of town are coming together. So, there is a sense of gratitude on the ground amidst the grief.

And the damage, though, isn't just physical. It's also psychological. It's emotional. Like I said, you can still tell that people are very much in shock.

CORNISH: As they're dealing with all of these emotions, you have the lawmakers, leadership in Texas dealing with a lot of questions about the emergency alert systems; why so many people did not seem to have warnings.

When this was brought to Governor Abbott, here's how he responded.

[06:05:05]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBOTT: Every football team makes mistakes. The losing teams are the ones that try to point out who's to blame. The way winners talk is not to point fingers. They talk about solutions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: We know he's going to be calling this special session. Can you talk about things that the Texas press are asking about right now?

WALSH: Yes. So, there are, I would say, two levels of government that are currently being questioned. One is the local government, especially the county. The area where a lot of the devastation happened was outside the city of Kerrville in Kerr County. It's their responsibility.

And there are questions about the lack of an outdoor alarm system that sounds to warn folks about flooding. It's been discussed for years but was never installed.

My colleagues in NPR's Texas newsroom have reported on issues with a text-based alert system that the county operates: some residents not receiving alerts until as late as 10 a.m., so significantly after when the flooding happened.

At the state level, they have defended their actions. The Texas Division of Emergency Management had resources in the field as early as Wednesday.

But as you reported earlier, there are questions about the state inspections that signed off on the -- Camp Mystic's emergency plan just two days before the flooding hit.

So, all of these issues are likely to come up at the special legislative session. Governor Abbott said that those investigations and hearings could start as early as this week.

CORNISH: Dominic Walsh, reporter with Houston Public Media, thank you so much.

WALSH: Thank you, Audie.

CORNISH: Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, overnight, Russia launching its largest drone attack against Ukraine since the start of the war. And it comes as tensions rise between President Trump and Putin.

Plus, she's been a trailblazer all her life. Carol Moseley Braun joins us ahead as she debuts her new book about her history-making career.

And we'll continue to cover the top story. The search for flood victims continues in Texas.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a combat vet. I was deployed to Iraq. And that -- it looks like a war zone, in a sense.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:12:05]

CORNISH: We've had some breaking developments overnight. Russia has now launched its largest wave of drone attacks against Ukraine since the start of the war.

Ukrainian officials say the attack included more than 700 drones, eclipsing the record previously set on July 4th of 539.

The attack comes just hours after President Trump pledged to send more military aid to Ukraine and said this about Russian President Putin.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We get a lot of bull-(EXPLETIVE DELETED) thrown at us by Putin, for -- you want to know the truth. He's very nice all the time, but it turns out to be meaningless.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you want to say anything to him?

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR/CORRESPONDENT: Do you want to get behind a sanctions bill on Russia? Do you want them to approve that?

TRUMP: I'm looking at it. Yes. No, I'm looking. The Senate is passing and passed a very -- very tough sanctions. Yes, I'm looking at it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: The shipment of weapons to Ukraine has been contested over the last week. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized a pause on weapons shipments to Ukraine just last Wednesday, apparently without telling the White House. That's according to five sources familiar with the matter.

Hegseth's decision created chaos in the administration as officials tried to figure out why the halt was implemented.

Listen to this exchange between President Trump and CNN's Kaitlan Collins about who is responsible.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Putin is not -- is not treating human beings right. He's killing too many people. So, we're sending some defensive weapons to Ukraine, and I've approved that.

COLLINS: So, who ordered the pause last week?

TRUMP: I don't know. What didn't you tell me?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now to discuss Margaret Talev, senior contributor at Axios; Hyma Moore, former chief of staff to DNC chair Jaime Harrison; and Doug Heye, former RNC communications director.

Doug, I'm actually going to start with you, because this feels like it's also about communication and maybe lack thereof. What do you -- what do you see in this moment? Because he is totally had Hegseth's back throughout all the last couple of months. And what do you think happened here?

DOUG HEYE, FORMER RNC COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: I'm reminded of what Yogi Berra said. It's deja vu all over again.

And when we've seen problems within the administration from the cabinet, it always comes from DOD. We don't have these conversations about the Department of Labor, the Department of Transportation. It's always DOD.

And so, we've seen Hegseth cause political headaches for Donald Trump. And in any administration, this kind of lack of communication with the president, who values communication, maybe in a different way than his predecessors, but also more than all of his predecessors. We know that that's a firable offense.

And when Donald Trump is your firer in chief, we all know him because he said that phrase, "You're fired." At some point, we have to wonder if the branch is going to break there. Because this is just absolutely out of bounds for what a DOD secretary should do to make sure that his president does not know when something this major is happening.

CORNISH: Yes.

HYMA MOORE, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO DNC CHAIR JAIME HARRISON: Look, if this was -- if this was the Democrats and Joe Biden was president, I think the Republicans in the Senate would have a huge fit.

[06:15:03]

So, look at this. Thom Tillis in North Carolina just decided not to run for reelection. He voted for Hegseth to become the secretary of defense. I think there are a lot of Republicans right now who are questioning that vote.

But to your point, this is just basic, on the job, being good at your job. If you can't inform your manager that you're going to do something, that's a problem.

And so, I think at some point, Donald Trump, the president is going to get really upset about having these bad headlines.

Hegseth is on TV every day. He's out there every day, and he has been a good messenger for the president on many issues. But right now, he's causing too much trouble for the president.

CORNISH: The other thing that's intriguing, of course, is this is happening in this moment where we're seeing the president really look at Vladimir Putin.

MOORE: Yes.

CORNISH: And he even said, he says flattering things.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes.

CORNISH: Which I think a lot of people assumed what was going on. And now, it seems like the president is not necessarily believing it. What else is significant about this moment to you?

TALEV: It may be a turning point. I think, like, we just don't know yet. If you're Volodymyr Zelenskyy, your thought bubble on all this is, like, "Ahh."

CORNISH: "Finally."

TALEV: Yes, but. And so, I think part of this is, like, clearly there's dysfunction in Hegseth's office. There's been a lot of departures. It's hard to know whether he's really sort of in command of his own staff or aware of his own staff.

Second sort of tiers, is certainly, like, the advisors who are still there have an agenda, and it's not a pro-Ukrainian or pro-U.S. support of -- robust support of Ukraine agenda.

So, there is a question about whether Hegseth is totally calling the policy shots in his shop.

But I think the third piece of it is that there have been mixed signals from President Trump about what his posture towards supporting Ukraine and towards drawing hard lines against Vladimir Putin is.

And if he is at a turning point now, that may change his approach going forward. But I think if you were Putin watching Trump for the last -- I don't know -- eight years, but certainly the last since he reentered office, you also are trying to figure out what the boundaries are and testing those boundaries right now.

CORNISH: Yes. OK.

HEYE: And speaking of boundaries, this isn't just about Ukraine. You know, if you talk to the countries that -- that neighbor Russia --

CORNISH: Yes.

HEYE: -- they'll tell you they're very nervous.

Every -- every fall, I speak at the Polish Economic Forum. And when you get off the plane in Poland, it is real very quickly. That's true in Latvia and Estonia and so on, as well.

MOORE: Yes.

CORNISH: All right. You guys stay with us. We've got a lot of things to talk about today.

And we've actually got this news just in. Some good news, frankly, if you're anywhere near Philly. The trash strike in Philadelphia is over.

While you were sleeping, the week-old walkout ended. The DC-33 union announcing that a settlement has been reached, with details forthcoming.

When the trash collections will resume, well, that's unclear.

Ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, the death toll and the number of missing rising in flood-ravaged Texas. We're live on the ground in Kerrville, where hope is fading in the search for survivors.

Plus, former U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun joins us to discuss her new book and her extraordinary trailblazing career.

Good morning to Chicago, Carol Moseley Braun's hometown.

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[06:22:14]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAROL MOSELEY BRAUN, FORMER U.S. SENATOR: This campaign has been a wonderful learning experience for me; one that restored my faith in the political process and renewed my belief in the goodness of the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I'm going to go off-script to talk about what it's like to be the first at something, because doing that often comes with a lot of responsibility, frankly. And sometimes there's a heavy cost to that.

Former Senator Carol Moseley Braun, for instance, was the first black woman elected to the U.S. Senate, and she fought for civil rights on the Senate floor. She later represented the U.S. on the world stage as an ambassador.

And since then, we've seen a lot of other firsts. The first black president, the first Latina nominated to the Supreme Court, et cetera. Breaking the glass ceiling is not only an honor, but it's a test. And

that's the focus of "Trailblazer: Perseverance in Life and Politics." And that comes from Carol Moseley Braun herself in a new memoir.

Ambassador, good morning. Thanks for being here.

BRAUN: Good morning. Thank you for having me.

CORNISH: So, you've written in the book about how it's hard to be the first, but specifically, that you felt subject to a different level of inspection.

What did you take away from that period? And I don't know if that's something you've shared with the generation that came behind you.

BRAUN: I think -- I hope that that's part of the message of the book. It's about resilience. And it's about believing in yourself and staying consistent with what it is you say that you stand for. And that's what I tried to do and did.

CORNISH: At the time, you also talked about the Senate being the most difficult period of your life. You write that you were one of the most important offices in the land, but you grew increasingly miserable, "beset by critics, undermined by my friends and misunderstood by many."

And you talk about this being a period that you barely survived.

Now, I understand, and you write in the book about those kind of allegations of political campaign, kind of misspending; other kinds of scrutiny. Was it that or was it the public pressure in response? Like what was it that made it the worst period of your life?

BRAUN: Well, I have to tell you, as you know, it was found that I did nothing wrong. I followed all the rules, and I did -- been consistently above board about everything I was supposed to do. I tried to live up my responsibilities.

But sometimes people won't let you do that. And that's kind of what I ran into. And maybe that was the price to pay for being a first, for breaking a black glass ceiling. Whatever. But it happened.

[06:25:02]

And I'm just so grateful that God brought me through it. And I'm fine. I went off to New Zealand. I was ambassador to paradise following six years in the Senate, so it was wonderful.

So, you know, it's like -- it's life's journey. And we don't get a script beforehand to read. We have to just kind of go with the flow and deal with it as it comes at us.

CORNISH: You know, right now, the Democratic Party, so many people are weighing in on what it should do going forward and the mistakes it had made. So much criticism of Kamala Harris, first [SIC] black nominee. I'm wondering how you're hearing this, especially because when you won

your race, you won a lot of white voters in your state. You won this kind of vote that people are handwringing about now.

BRAUN: Well, you know, you have to -- you have to have a clear vision of who you are and what it is you want to do. You have to tell the people the truth and then do follow through on what you say you're going to do.

And I would just recommend that my party take a look at what it stands for and go with that. People will not blame you if you fail trying, but they will blame you if you won't try.

CORNISH: One of the things that's interesting about your history is kind of your civil rights activism as a young person, and I feel like so many black politicians in your generation kind of came up in that tradition.

What do you see now in these fights between the activist left of the Democratic Party, its demands, its demands on the establishment; and those kind of fights that are happening? Do they feel familiar to you at all?

BRAUN: They're very familiar. And this has been going on for a long time. I think that we just have to pay attention to the lessons of the history, what's been gone before us. And -- and if we do that, we'll be fine.

Our ancestors had to sacrifice greatly to create the world that we live in. And I think that, in homage to them and in anticipation of what we're going to give the kids coming along, we have a responsibility to step up to the plate and do the best that we can do.

CORNISH: Ambassador, before I let you go, I just want to let you know that when you were elected, I was in high school, and by the time I was a senior, I had put in my yearbook that I wanted to be a senator.

Now, luckily, I came to my senses, and -- but you were very inspiring at that time, and I'm sure you get that a lot.

BRAUN: Well, I do, and it's gratifying, I'll tell you, because -- and it's been worth every minute of it, both the joys and the pain.

Because, you know, it's the best you can do to try to help others and to make your world a better place. And that's what I've always tried to do, and that's what I continue to remain committed to.

CORNISH: Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun, thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for waking up with us.

BRAUN: Thank you.

CORNISH: And please go check out her book. "Trailblazer" is available now.

Still ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, the tragedy in Texas continues to unfold. At this point, 170 people are still listed as missing. The latest on those search efforts.

And we've also got stories of survival.

Plus, breaking overnight, Russia launches its largest drone attack of the war as the Trump administration pledges to send more weapons to Ukraine.

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