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Erin Burnett Outfront
Trump's Attorney General Repeatedly Dodges Questions About Comey; Trump's Border Agent Mocks Chicago Mayor's Threat: "Pipe Dream"; Toxins In Our Bodies. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired October 07, 2025 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:23]
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:
The breaking news, James Comey about to make a court appearance as the attorney general dodges questions tonight about her case against him. A career prosecutor who resigned and protests from Trump's DOJ is our guest.
Plus, breaking news, an exclusive interview with Trump's border patrol chief now in charge of the crackdown in Chicago. Why he's calling the city's mayor's orders a, quote, pipe dream.
And an OUTFRONT investigation tonight, our Bill Weir, along with two other CNN reporters from around the world, track just how many chemicals they are exposed to every day, where they live. And what they found is stunning and alarming. You'll see it all here.
Let's go OUTFRONT.
(MUSIC)
BURNETT: And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.
And OUTFRONT tonight, we begin with this breaking news, James Comey's court appearance. In just hours, the former FBI director will appear in court after the Trump administration charged him with lying to Congress and obstruction.
Just to emphasize, we have never seen anything like this before in America. A former head of the FBI has never been charged with a crime. Comey was charged only days after Trump posted a message telling his attorney general to do it.
And today, in a blockbuster hearing, Attorney General Pam Bondi repeatedly dodged questions about the investigation into Comey.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): Is it true that the career prosecutors in the Eastern District of Virginia found that there was insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against former Director Comey?
PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I am not going to discuss pending cases. SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): Did you discuss James Comey with the
president of United States?
BONDI: I am not going to discuss any conversations I had or not have with the president of the United States.
BLUMENTHAL: Let me take that as a yes because the American public is entitled to know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: The non-answers do speak volumes, because those are pretty basic questions. She should be able to say no, she didn't discuss Comey with Trump. That question, of course, is only hard if something inappropriate happened.
And given that Trump posted on social media and I quote, "Pam: I have reviewed over 30 statements and posts saying that essentially same old stories last time, all talk, no action, nothing is being done. What about Comey?" The answer seems pretty obvious.
And Bondi should answer these basic questions given the unprecedented charges and the fact that the charges themselves bring a possible sentence of up to five years in prison for Comey. There are real questions about the Justice Department's case here.
ABC News is reporting that John Durham, the name may sound familiar. He's a former special counsel, did a lot of investigations into the origin of the Russia investigation. He was appointed under Trump in his first term. He originally told prosecutors that he found no evidence to support charging Comey. Yet Bondi is going ahead and pursuing the case anyway, while at the same time brushing aside another high-profile situation involving bribery and a top Trump official. Trump's Border Czar Tom Homan, reportedly accepted $50,000 in cash inside a restaurant takeout bag and took this bag, apparently from undercover agents who were posing as businessmen.
The money apparently was in exchange for agreeing to help with federal contracts in the second Trump administration. Now, this reporting all comes from "The New York Times". Yet there's been no investigation. It's been dropped.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. PETER WELCH (D-VT): Is there a tape that has audio and video of the transfer of the $50,000?
BONDI: You would have to talk to Director Patel about that.
WELCH: No, I'm talking to you.
BONDI: I don't know the answer, Senator.
WELCH: Yet, you do know the answer --
BONDI: Don't call me a liar. SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-RI): What became of the $50,000? Did the
FBI get it back?
BONDI: Mr. Whitehouse -- excuse me, Senator Whitehouse, you're welcome to talk to the FBI.
WHITEHOUSE: They report to you. Can't you answer this question.
BONDI: Senator Whitehouse, you're welcome to discuss this with Director Patel.
WHITEHOUSE: Did Homan keep the $50,000?
BONDI: As Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche recently stated, the investigation --
WHITEHOUSE: Never mind, never mind. I can see I'm not going to get a straight answer from you to a very simple question.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURENTT: Well, the nation's top law enforcement officer answered many questions in this manner, but she was ready for each Democratic senator who questioned her.
I mean, take a look at this. We have an image of this. This is Bondi's folder for Senator Whitehouse, who is asking the question there. You just saw one of his tweets in there, and the talking points for what she was going to say to him. And that's just a sampling of what she had ready, because when Democrats asked her questions, this is how she responded:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): I think it's been confirmed by the White House, they are going to transfer Texas National Guard units to the state of Illinois. What's the rationale for that?
BONDI: Yeah, Chairman, as you shut down the government, you voted to shut down the government, and you're sitting here, our law enforcement officers aren't being paid.
[19:05:06]
They're out there working to protect you. I wish you love Chicago as much as you hate President Trump.
SEN. ALEX PADILLA (D-CA): Do you believe that government officials like Greg Bovino are obligated to follow applicable court orders, whether they agree with them or not? Yes or no?
BONDI: First, Senator Padilla, you have gone on for over five minutes and I wish that you loved your state of California as much as you hate President Trump.
SEN. MAZIE HIRONO (D-HI): It's highly likely, Ms. Bondi, that the same lobbyists who met with your people and basically got rid of the antitrust case.
BONDI: Senator, I don't think a lot of people like that you were out protesting with antifa.
SEN. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): This is supposed to be an oversight hearing when dozens of prosecutors have been fired simply because they worked on cases investigating the former president. This is -- and now the current president --
(CROSSTALK)
BONDI: What about the fires in California? Do you care about that, Senator Schiff?
SCHIFF: This is supposed to be --
(CROSSTALK)
SCHIFF: Excuse me.
BONDI: Can and cannot answer your question.
SCHIFF: Refuse to accept --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: All right. Let's begin our coverage with Evan Perez. He is in Washington tonight.
And, Evan, I know you're learning new information about Comey's court appearance, and there's been a lot of speculation about what could happen here, whether a perp walk, whether an arrest.
Now, he's going to show up tomorrow. What is going to happen?
EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we know right now that Lindsey Halligan, who is the new acting U.S. attorney, has already gotten a couple of new lawyers to come in from North Carolina to essentially be part of this team. It's not clear why she needed to bring in lawyers from North Carolina to do this case. It appears, though, that, you know, career lawyers in that office had raised concerns about the strength of this case. So it's possible that she couldn't get anybody from the eastern District of Virginia to handle this case, Erin.
And what we expect tomorrow to go down, it should be perfunctory, but one of the things we expect Judge Nachmanoff to do is to ask the question to the lawyers. You know, what motions do you expect to raise before the court? Obviously, you know that this district is known as the rocket docket. They will try to set a trial, possibly within the year, which is very quick for federal court, as you know.
But one of the things that we will be watching for is what those motions are. One of them is likely to be the -- an allegation certainly from the defense that the that the case being brought against Comey is an example of selective and vindictive prosecution, right, because we've seen the president be so active in calling for this, these charges against Comey.
There's also another question of whether Lindsey Halligan is actually legally, appointed as the U.S. attorney, which is a big problem if she isn't. This is a problem that we've seen arise in New Jersey with Alina Habba. You know that in a number of cases there, they've actually had to use the deputy attorney general's name along with hers to protect the cases that are being brought in that state.
So, the question is, you know, Lindsey Halligan is the only signature on this indictment against James Comey. If this becomes a legal fight, which some Republican and conservative scholars have raised as an issue, we will see how this plays out in the next few months.
BURNETT: Wow. All right, all right. Thank you very much, Evan.
And I want to go now, as promised to Ryan Croswell, he is a former federal prosecutor who resigned after the DOJ decided to drop corruption cases -- charges, I'm sorry, against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Ryan is now running as a Democrat for a U.S. House seat in the state of Pennsylvania.
So, Ryan, I appreciate your time in the context of the fact that you resigned after the DOJ decided to drop those charges.
As you watched Pam Bondi, the attorney general today, and you have had a chance to see her. I played some of the clips there, but you were able to watch it in full. You worked in the DOJ under her leadership. What was your reaction to what you saw today?
RYAN CROSSWELL, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Thanks for having me, Erin.
It is so hard to watch. And I would ask the American people, does that look like an attorney general or does it look like a spokesperson for the president? Those were fair questions she was being asked by those senators about Tom Homan, about Jeff Epstein, about the National Guard being deployed into our cities. And she stonewalled them. And I guess we shouldn't expect anything better from a Department of Justice that's instructed attorneys to stonewall judges.
But I just think it's so sad because the mission of the Department of Justice is so important, and that's their leader.
BURNETT: So, on the issue of Comey, right. As we pointed out days before, the actual charges came down, Trump is posting, "Pam:, time for action," right? That -- that we know happened. And I played some of her exchanges with Senator Klobuchar and Senator Blumenthal.
Let me play a little bit more with Senator Blumenthal. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): The night before James Comey's indictment, you had dinner with the president of the United States.
[19:10:01]
Pretty intimate group.
BONDI: Actually, there were a lot of people there that night. That's a great picture.
BLUMENTHAL: Was James Comey -- was James Comey discussed at that dinner?
BONDI: I love that picture. That's a great picture.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: I mean, she's making a mockery of it.
CROSSWELL: Completely. And just to go back to what happened there, President Trump essentially posted an enemies list in that tweet. Then he appointed his personal attorney to indict the case, because nobody else in that office would do so, which she did. And then they promised more prosecutions. And I -- I believe that Mr. Comey will ultimately be vindicated. I think there's going to be strong grand jury misconduct motions, vindictive prosecution motions, and selective prosecution motions, but it's going to come after the American taxpayers have wasted a bunch of money on this prosecution.
BURNETT: So, what do you think about as Evan was laying out, Lindsey Halligan adding, these two new lawyers from North Carolina to prosecutors, not from the actual office where this is coming from?
CROSSWELL: It's so telling. The Eastern District of Virginia is one of the most prestigious U.S. attorney's offices in the country. And that, to me, says they can't find a single federal prosecutor in that office that's willing to do the case and that she needs help. I think it's very telling.
BURNETT: When you talk to your former colleagues, are people feeling are -- do you think more people are going to leave, or are people saying that they -- they feel they need to stay?
CROSSWELL: I think morale is way down. I've heard a statistic today that maybe 5000 people have left the Department of Justice since inauguration, and I think what American people need to understand is how dangerous that is. The Department of Justice protects us from terrorists, from drug dealers, from violent criminals, from child predators, and competent federal prosecutors are being driven out and being replaced by hacks that are more concerned with protecting the president, the American people. And that's why I'm running for Congress and Senate.
BURNETT: All right. So Tom Homan.
CROSSWELL: Sure.
BURNETT: Tom Homan has not been indicted, right? There were reports that there's this video of the bag of cash changing hands, and it was an undercover businessman. This is all from "New York Times" reporting. Bondi deflected the question and said, go to -- go to Kash Patel, the FBI director, who, by the way, does -- does report into to her.
But what -- what do you think is going on here? I mean, it obviously, it obviously is -- defies credulity to imagine that she would not know about the existence of a videotape in this case, given all the coverage that's come with it.
CROSSWELL: I think it's a continuation of what I witnessed firsthand, the Justice Department. Eric Adams case. It is the Trump administration protecting his friends and pursuing its opponents. It's the same thing. I've prosecuted bribery cases where a bag of cash was handed over. It's a solid case, as you can possibly have.
And the most galling part about it is the Pam Bondi has the audacity to say that nobody is above the law. But we know that's not true. Eric Adams is above the law. Tom Homan is above the law, and apparently, anyone containing the Epstein files is above the law.
BURNETT: All right. Ryan, thank you very much. I appreciate it. Ryan Crosswell, as we said, as a resigned over the lack of an Adams -- what happened with Adams.
And now I want to bring in Ty Cobb, former Trump White House lawyer. And Ty is here with me, which is wonderful. And obviously the circumstances are not, which is that we're in this unprecedented moment that we are in.
Can I just start with Lindsey Halligan and hiring those --
TY COBB, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: Sure.
BURNETT: -- those two prosecutors from North Carolina who are not part of the Eastern District of Virginia, which is Ryan just pointed out, is one of the prestigious districts in the -- in the U.S. system. What does that say to you?
COBB: I agree with Ryan. It says that they couldn't find anybody within 500 miles to show up in court and choke down the humiliation of trying to defend the United States in that case.
BURNETT: So what happens here? Then comes arraignment tomorrow. What do you expect? As I said, the reporting has been wide, right, that they wanted the big spectacle, that there was a discussion about whether an arrest. But then maybe now -- no, no, no, they're just going to let him quietly turn himself in. What happens?
COBB: So the reporting is now that, you know, things should go you know, civilly and with ordinary propriety that these events are afforded, but I don't -- I don't put anything past them. You know, I think we saw today from the attorney general how low the representatives of the Department of Justice are willing to go.
I hope that it goes normally. And I suspect, certainly, once it gets to the judge, it will. The judge is very serious, man. Very experienced. You know, not remotely political or showman. And he'll try to ensure the sanctity of those proceedings. BURNETT: What did you make of Pam Bondi today? Right? I mean, the
point of her presentation clearly was to show, you know, disgust and disregard, right? That is what she wanted to convey. That is what she conveyed.
Have you seen something like that before?
COBB: Never. I think today she achieved one thing. She knocked John Mitchell off the perch of reprehensible attorney generals as number one, despite his guilty plea and time in jail.
[19:15:02]
BURNETT: So today, the issue of the cash. I want to ask you about that. Right. You just heard what Ryan said about it. So, the FBI, the Trump appointees at the DOJ. So, let's just be clear.
Trump appointees at the DOJ looked at this and said, there's nothing to see. Don't worry about it. We're done with the Homan thing.
I just wanted to play another exchange. This was with Adam Schiff and the attorney general. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCHIFF: Did he take the money?
BONDI: Senator Schiff, that happened prior to my confirmation, as attorney general.
SCHIFF: I understand. But do you know --
BONDI: I said that.
SCHIFF: Do you know, sitting here whether he took the money?
BONDI: All I know is that Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Patel said there was no case. And Karoline Leavitt is one of the most trustworthy human beings I know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Have you ever seen a case where $50,000 in cash exchanges hands in a bag where there's no case?
COBB: Absolutely not. That's as believable as Karoline Leavitt being credible. The fact that she said she didn't know, and that can't possibly be true. I mean, she's either seen the tape or people have described that to her. There's no question about that.
You know, Tom Homan, for all we know and for all America knows today, bought his egg McMuffin with cash from the bank. There's no doubt that he had the money based on the reporting, which was that he received the bag on videotape wearing -- with people in the room wearing audio wires that recorded it. So, you know, this is silly, and it's reminiscent of the game she
played where she tried to mislead the MAGA faithful with regard to Epstein by saying, well, we'll try to get the grand jury minutes knowing that there was nothing in the grand jury minutes that would shed any light on.
This is just all a deception game. This is basically designed to affect the credibility of various institutions. The Justice Department the Congress today, the lack of respect that's being shown for the institutions that have driven America to the leadership of the world is shocking, but it is right out of the authoritarian handbook.
BURNETT: Ty, thank you very much. Ty will be with us tomorrow, of course, as we see that arraignment for former FBI Director Comey.
And next, Ty mentioned Epstein. Pam Bondi did refuse to answer questions about the convicted sex offender. Instead, she did this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BONDI: You know, Senator Whitehouse, you sit here and make salacious remarks once again trying to slander President Trump, left and right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Senator Whitehouse is next.
And Trump's border patrol chief facing off with Chicago's mayor as troops descend on the nation's third largest city. But do the claims about violence in Chicago add up? We've got that exclusive interview this hour.
And gold smashing new records tonight, now on track for its best year since 1979, hitting a price it has never hit before. But is that actually an ominous sign for the U.S.?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:22:33]
BURNETT: Breaking news, stonewalling on Epstein Attorney General Pam Bondi ignoring and attacking senators who asked questions about the Jeffrey Epstein investigation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DURBIN: Who gave the order to flag records related to President Trump?
BONDI: To flag records for President Trump?
DURBIN: To flag any records which included his name.
BONDI: I'm not going to discuss anything about that with you, Senator.
WHITEHOUSE: There's been public reporting that Jeffrey Epstein showed people photos of President Trump with half naked young women. Do you know if the FBI found those photographs in their search of Jeffrey Epstein's safe or premises or otherwise? Have you seen any such thing?
BONDI: You know, Senator Whitehouse, you sit here and make salacious remarks once again trying to slander President Trump, left and right, when you're the one who was taking money from one of Epstein's closest confidantes, I believe -- I could be wrong. Correct me -- Reid Hoffman.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, the Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. Senator, what does Bondi's response to your question? Of course, to durbins and others about the Epstein case, what did it reveal to you? What did it tell you.
WHITEHOUSE: That the cover up continues and that they're willing to lie to continue the cover up? Her suggestion that I had received campaign contributions from this alleged Epstein close confidante simply isn't true. All they had to do was go and look at my public campaign finance reports and see that this individual appears on them nowhere.
So, she went off into the salacious discussion. She went off into the false accusations about campaign contributions. She went on, and with that question really demanded as an answer was a very simple one-word answer -- no. She couldn't say no, that the FBI does not have those photos. They were not obtained from Epstein's safe or premises, and she has not seen them. It was a super easy question to answer. And so, this long prevarication, full of falsehoods is I think what you'd call in poker a tell.
[19:25:02]
BURNETT: So -- and I suppose, you know, answers to those questions. If the answer is no or Durbin's question, right? I mean, who made -- who flagged, who instructed people to flag that Trump's name was in the files, and who made the decision to tell him?
We know that he was told in the late spring that his name appeared in the files by the DOJ. There was another exchange that stood out to me, Senator, and I mean, there were many, but this one was connected to some specific comments that Howard Lutnick, the commerce secretary, recently made about Epstein.
And no one had any idea he was going to comment on it. And he did an interview with the New York post and a podcast, and he started talking about it, and specifically about a tour that Epstein gave Lutnick and his wife years ago, when their townhouses were side by side in Manhattan. Here is what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD LUTNICK, COMMERCE SECRETARY: I say to him, massage table in the middle of your house? How often do you have a massage? And he says, every day. And then he like, gets like weirdly close to me. And he says, and the right kind of massage. And what happened in that massage room, I assume, was on video. This
guy was the greatest blackmailer ever, blackmailed people. That's how he had money.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Okay, as I said, no one expected Howard Lutnick to weigh in on this. And he weighed in with a specific, detailed, and awful story. Which comment -- which prompted an exchange today between the attorney general and Republican Senator John Kennedy.
Let me play that for you, Senator.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): Have you interviewed Secretary Lutnick?
BONDI: No, Senator.
KENNEDY: Do you plan to?
BONDI: If he wants to talk to the FBI or the FBI wants to talk to him, that is more than --
KENNEDY: Don't you think you ought to talk to him after this interview?
BONDI: Senator, if Howard Lutnick wants to speak to the FBI, and if Director Patel wants to speak to Howard Lutnick? Absolutely.
KENNEDY: Okay. Maybe we ought to get Mr. Lutnick in here, too, Mr. Chairman.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Do you agree with him, to get Mr. Lutnick in there? Do you think he should -- your committee needs to hear from him.
WHITEHOUSE: I think we should do the investigative work first before you just bring him in and ask cold questions. That's just basic, you know, proper procedure.
But clearly, he knows something about what went on in that House next to his. He had suspicions about Jeffrey Epstein and these massages. But there are other things that we should be looking into also. Remember the hundreds of transactions that went through Jeffrey Epsteins accounts in the matter of billion dollars?
And these transactions went to the DOJ from the Treasury. The reports about them --
BURNETT: Yeah.
WHITEHOUSE: -- with the cover, suspicious activity reports.
BURNETT: Yeah. WHITEHOUSE: How could you get more obvious that there's suspicious
activity? And another question Bondi refused to answer was, did you investigate even one of those?
So, there's a lot to look into still. And the cover up continues.
BURNETT: Well, there's a lot to look into. And of course, the files still aren't out there. And Republican Congressman Thomas Massie, as you know, has put his career on the line saying that the Epstein files need to be out there. And he has not wavered.
He says that the house speaker, Mike Johnson, is refusing to have the House go back into session, specifically because of Epstein. And I saw this post, senator, and it really stood out to me, he said. Massie posted, "Contrary to what he says, Speaker Johnson is doing everything he can, including delaying the swearing in of the most recently elected member of Congress and spreading misinformation about the legislation to block a vote in Congress on legislation to release the Epstein files."
Do you think Massie is right about what Speaker Johnson is doing?
WHITEHOUSE: I have absolutely no reason to disbelieve him, and I think there's a strong case to be made that we are stuck in this Republican driven shutdown, in large part because the speaker doesn't want to bring the House back and end the shutdown, because that brings the house back to have the Epstein vote.
BURNETT: It's pretty incredible thing to actually say, and, you know, hear it so clearly.
Thank you so much, Senator. I appreciate your time.
WHITEHOUSE: Thank you.
BURNETT: And next, Trump's controversial border patrol chief is now in Chicago, speaking to CNN in an exclusive interview. You're going to see that after this, how he describes what's going on there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GREGORY BOVINO, CBP CHIEF PATROL AGENT, EL CENTRO SECTOR: I believe what the president says is absolutely true. I think it's chaos, catastrophe.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Does that match the reality?
Plus, the price of gold surging to a new record? So, who is doing the buying and does political affiliation have anything to do with it? Harry Enten here to tell us something we don't know.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:34:07] BURNETT: Breaking news U.S. border patrol chief, Greg Bovino, the controversial official who led the immigration crackdown in L.A. and is now in command of the Chicago takeover, facing off tonight with the city's mayor outwardly defying Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's threat to arrest any federal agents who use city property to carry out Trump's immigration operations. He calls the mayors warning a, quote, "pipe dream".
Now, this is in the context of what we're seeing on the ground, 200 Texas National Guard troops have been brought. Governor Abbott said, fine. So they're now outside Chicago awaiting orders.
In a dramatic and unusual move, the FBI director, Kash Patel also was on the ground in Chicago today briefly, vowing to, quote, save the city and also quoting crush violent crime. Patel spent three hours on the ground there.
Priscilla Alvarez is OUTFRONT now with her exclusive interview.
[19:35:01]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BOVINO: There is no sanctuary here in Chicago.
PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is the man at the center of Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's move him out!
ALVAREZ (voice-over): Gregory Bovino, a 29-year veteran of the U.S. Border Patrol and sector chief, has taken on a new job leading federal immigration enforcement in Chicago. He's leaning on the aggressive playbook he used in the administration's immigration crackdown in Los Angeles. That will now also include National Guard troops.
Protesters and federal agents have repeatedly clashed outside the Broadview ICE facility. Federal agents were recently boxed in during routine patrols, and an individual was arrested this week after allegedly placing a hit on Bovino, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
Now you've called Chicago a war zone. The president has used the word insurrection. Do you think the protests and the threats against immigration enforcement personnel are an insurrection against the United States.
BOVINO: Here in Chicago, those threats against agents are manifesting in bounties to be paid out by transnational gangs here on American soil. I believe what the president says is absolutely true. I think it's chaos, catastrophe.
ALVAREZ (voice-over): The Illinois governor accuses Bovino of inflaming tensions.
GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D), ILLINOIS: Donald Trump, Kristi Noem and Gregory Bovino have brought their militarized CBP and ICE agents to the streets of Chicago to cause violence and chaos.
ALVAREZ (voice-over): Bovino maintains he's enforcing immigration law and pushed back against critics that argue agents are racially profiling.
BOVINO: As per law, 287 of the Immigration and Nationality Act says that I can question anyone, anywhere in the United States as to their citizenship. Priscilla, what's your citizenship? See, I just did it now, and I can do that anywhere in the United States. Our Border Patrol agents are trained to do that.
ALVAREZ (voice-over): A recent lawsuit argued agents indiscriminately stopped individuals. A federal judge said roving patrols identifying who to stop based upon apparent ethnicity alone was illegal.
The Supreme Court put that order on hold.
BOVINO: We need reasonable suspicion to make an immigration arrest. You notice I did not say probable cause, nor did I say I need a warrant.
Perhaps you look panicked when you see a border patrol agent. Perhaps you look scared. Perhaps your demeanor changes. Perhaps you're gripping the steering wheel so tightly that I can see the whites of your knuckles.
There's a myriad of factors that we -- that we would look at to develop articulable facts for reasonable suspicion.
ALVAREZ: So, you deny racial profiling?
BOVINO: Yeah, I do, I do deny that.
ALVAREZ: One recent flashpoint was a large overnight raid at a Chicago apartment complex where adults, including U.S. citizens and children, were pulled from their homes. DHS said it led to 37 arrests.
BOVINO: When you see a lot of border patrol agents or ICE agents or CBP officers or those allied law enforcement agencies out on the streets, and there are large numbers of them, that's to keep our agents safe against a very real threat.
ALVAREZ (voice-over): Bovino's tactics are on full display on social media. Hollywood-style videos touting gun-toting patrols that have netted hundreds of arrests.
BOVINO: You think it's a Hollywood video? That's real life. So, if it looks like Hollywood, you know what? Maybe they need to pay a little more attention. Those that think it's a little over stylized and things like that, maybe they should pay a bit more attention to see what's really going on our nation's borders and in our nation's cities.
ALVAREZ (voice-over): And he's clear on his mission, regardless of the city mayor's directives. BOVINO: If they're going to create another sanctuary behind signs,
we'll go behind those signs and ensure that it's not a sanctuary. What a pipe dream that Mayor Johnson has filled the heads of some of his constituents with. What a pipe dream that is.
We're going anywhere we need to go to affect that Title VIII immigration mission.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: Priscilla, it's just such a fascinating interview and such an important one that you did. Bovino also in your conversation, I know laid out his plans for the National Guard, which, as we know have arrived, some of them right from Texas. What did he tell you about how that deployment will work and when it will begin?
ALVAREZ: That's right, Erin. He told me that he expects this to be facility protection. In other words, National Guard troops would help them release agents from having to be a perimeter around these federal buildings and federal detention facilities so that they can be making arrests in the city.
Now, this is something that Bovino is quite familiar with, because it is exactly what happened in Los Angeles several weeks ago. He also said that the national guard troops could serve as, quote, quick response if needed.
So, Bovino is focused on his operation here in Chicago, but he is someone to watch, Erin, because wherever he goes is where the administration is looking to next to for their immigration crackdown.
[19:40:12]
BURNETT: All right, Priscilla, thank you very much.
And such, such an important interview that priscilla did there.
Lulu Garcia-Navarro is with me now, "New York Times" journalist, podcast host.
So, when you watch him there, I mean, what do you take away from his answers to some of those questions?
LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I think there's a few things that are happening there.
First of all, his discussion around racial profiling, let's be clear here -- it's actually pretty hard to prove racial profiling. It takes a lot of sort of layers of evidence. You know, it takes an investigation. It's not a sort of easy thing to do.
And we also know the Supreme Court has sort of allowed, you know, a kind of racial profiling to take place.
So, the reason I think that he is pushing back on that is because of his own history. I mean, in 2023, he was relieved of command at El Centro border sector in California because of what some viewed as sort of heavy-handed tactics and also some social media posts. He was not very well-viewed during the Biden administration.
Cut to now, and he has become the poster child for this administration, and also just MAGA writ large. All those videos that we saw there, I mean, that's made for TV stuff.
BURNETT: Right. And I mean racial profiling, as you point out, it's a complicated thing. But, you know, putting a sombrero on Hakeem Jeffries head when he -- you know, I mean, whatever it all, in a sense, its rhetorical games that are being played at this point, with whether there's racial profiling going on.
When Bovino said, it's -- so we're looking at people's white knuckles or we're looking at whether they're scared, in a car. Does that sound right to you and I and I know a lot of these arrests are happening in those situations? Someone's on the road, a grocery store, things like that.
And I was actually talking to somebody who you know, they've been going after child predators, child porn predators haven't been able to do it in four months because they've been made to go in ICE raids, specifically in strawberry fields, where they're just going and rounding people up, all of whom are obviously Hispanic.
But his thing here is talking about white knuckles on the steering wheel.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, listen, I think that's slightly beggars belief simply because, listen, if an ICE agent comes towards me and they're masked, I'm going to be scared. And I'm a U.S. citizen, so it is frightening, right? When you have people come towards you.
Also, I have to say, the tactics that you use, he calls them turn and burn. They're very rapid. They're very aggressive. Break windows, go in, grab -- grab people. And the reason he says that he does these tactics is to not put ICE agents at risk, not to allow protests to develop, but these are very, very aggressive tactics.
And so, if you know that those tactics are coming, wouldn't you be frightened?
BURNETT: People are scared.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: People are scared.
So I don't know again that that is really a sort of legitimate reason to be questioning people or trying to bring them in.
BURNETT: So, Lulu, just as you see it, I mean, you know, you look at Memphis and Baltimore and Los Angeles, right? It in many places and by the way, happening in many other places quietly across the country, as the person I point out, by the way, is in any of those metro areas. But now Chicago, I mean, obviously, it just seems it's a matter of time where it's New York. I mean, or I mean, is that -- is that the runway that you see likely? GARCIA-NAVARRO: It is clear that this administration is looking to
expand its footprint in Democratically held cities, quote/unquote, and I hate to say Democratically held cities. It makes it sound like we're in some kind of civil conflict.
BURNETT: Civil war, yeah.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: But these are places that they have targeted. And we've heard not only the president himself, but also Stephen Miller, who is the real architect of all of this talk about invoking the Insurrection Act, talking about that this is domestic terrorism and that these Democratic run cities are somehow should be the real targets of a lot of this stuff. So, I think this is only going to expand, and I think it's only going to get more tense.
BURNETT: All right. Lulu, thank you very much.
And next, gold soaring to a record today as can happen in times of distress and duress and uncertainty. So, what is this mean?
And our Bill Weir along with our reporters from around the world, this is an absolutely incredible report, actually, and it's eye-opening on top of that, on the toxic chemicals in our bodies. Where are we getting them? What are we breathing right now?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Who knows what kind of fume exposure I'm getting on a daily basis?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:48:54]
BURNETT: All right. Jim Cramer was right about gold and gold bars and going and checking them at Costco all the time. He has been saying buy, buy, buy, and today, a record for gold, $4,000 an ounce. A stunning number at the beginning of the year, after a after a big surge, and people are thinking, come on, there's no way it can keep going up.
Jim said, yes, it can, yes, it will. And here we are. And now gold is on track for its best year since 1979.
And Harry Enten is OUTFRONT to tell us something we don't know.
Okay. Gold is having an incredible year.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yeah.
BURNETT: People who are getting at the beginning of this year looked like Mickey the Dunce. Oh, you've missed the whole run. Now you're going to get in. And Jim, you know, and Jim said was fearless -- no, no, no, it's going to keep going. And now here we are. I mean, it is pretty incredible to think that that this is what we're watching. I mean, how does gold compare to crypto, which is another place people flee when they're terrified about actual paper currencies like the dollar.
ENTEN: You know, Erin, I wish one of two things. Either one, I had a time machine or two I could be Jim Cramer because gold has gone so high up over the course of this year.
[19:50:00]
We're talking about growth -- get this 50 percent growth since the beginning of the year. Compare that to bitcoin, right? You're talking crypto. Crypto is up only 31 percent since the beginning of this year. And the S&P 500, which of course the benchmark and where I tend to put all of my money up only 14 percent. You don't have to be a mathematical genius to know that 50 percent is far higher and far better growth than 14 percent. So, I wish I had a time machine. I'd be a far wealthier man.
BURNETT: I mean, it is -- it is stunning though, right?
ENTEN: Yes.
BURNETT: And obviously, when gold goes higher is often when people are scared or they're worried about inflation, which is, by the way, in every currency or runaway debt and all the reasons that people are buying gold now, right, which Jim talks about a lot. But when you look back to 1979, some of those things were in place.
ENTEN: Yes.
BURNETT: Inflation was horrific. What happened after that?
ENTEN: Yeah, I would say that this scares me a little bit because you go back, you said, you know, this is the best year for gold since 1979. And you know what happened after 1979. In 1980, there was a recession, and then there was a considerably larger one in '81, '82.
So, if this is any sign of what's going on in the past, it is not a good sign for the future.
BURNETT: No, it would not be. If past is precedent in this case. So now tell me something I don't know.
ENTEN: Okay, I'll tell you something that you don't know, Erin Burnett. And that is that gold is far more popular among Republicans than Democrats. Republicans are far more likely to believe it's a good investment.
Take a look. Gold is the best long term investment average over the last couple of years. Republicans, 30 percent, Democrats just 11 percent. That's nearly three times as much.
And interestingly enough, on Newsmax, which of course is a fairly conservative news outlet. If you look at their newsletters, look at this, ads for gold and Newsmax newsletters from October of 2020 to July 2023, nearly 25 percent of the ads were in fact, for gold.
BURNETT: Which is incredible. Usually when those things happen, that's a sign to get out of something. But that is pretty incredible. And obviously, if you bought it in 2020, you made a lot of money.
ENTEN: Yes, you did.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Harry.
And next, our Bill Weir. This is incredible. You got to stay around for it. It is a state-of-the-art piece of technology to detect how many toxins he is exposed to every single day, and you're going to need to see what he found.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:56:18]
BURNETT: Tonight, crisis. A landmark medical study has found that plastic, which of course is in just about everything, is posing a grave and growing danger, leading to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths. These findings from the Lancet Medical Journal, coming as three CNN reporters across three continents tracked how many toxic chemicals from plastics they're exposed to every single day. And what they found is alarming but really important to know.
And Bill Weir is OUTFRONT with this special report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAURA PADDISON, CNN SENIOR CLIMATE REPORTER: Just cycling to the local grocery store.
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is our colleague Laura in London.
PADDISON: It's a cold Wednesday morning.
JESSIE YEUNG, CNN SENIOR NEWS DESK REPORTER: It is hot. It's humid.
WEIR (voice-over): This is Jessie in Hong Kong.
YEUNG: It is a very busy Monday morning here in Hong Kong.
WEIR (voice-over): And that's me, Bill, on my New York City commute.
Who knows what kind of fume exposure I'm getting on a daily basis.
(voice-over): Together --
PADDISON: The response finally arrived.
WEIR (voice-over): We are guinea pigs on three continents.
YEUNG: Here's the wristband.
WEIR (voice-over): And with the help of these special wristbands and an international team of pollution experts --
YEUNG: I'm just heating up some food. I have a gas stove at home, which is quite common in Hong Kong.
WEIR (voice-over): -- we'll spend five days measuring our exposure to the dozens of different chemicals.
PADDISON: I'm just going to put a little bit of makeup on before work.
WEIR (voice-over): They come from living on a planet made of plastic.
BJOM BEELER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL POLLUTANTS ELIMINATION NETWORK: Studies have shown there's over 16,000 chemicals in plastics. Of that, 20, about 25 percent are known to be hazardous chemicals, and the vast majority of other chemicals -- there's been not enough scientific data to show if it's safe or not.
WEIR: Thanks to my better half, Kelly, we really try to avoid chemicals, all natural cleaning products if we can. We filter our water. Drink out of glass. We have an air quality monitor here as well.
And for the better part of the last five days, I've either been at home or at the office. I haven't had to get on an airplane. That's rare. So, this is somewhat of a controlled environment to just see how clean my immediate surroundings are.
PADDISON: Every time I walked into a cafe or a restaurant or down a really busy road, a grocery store, you know, got on the train to go to work. But perhaps the place that I've most thought about it is when it comes to what I'm actually putting on my body. So, you know, perfume or lotions, also cleaning products, you know what I'm using to clean the house?
YEUNG: I became quite aware when I was going through my daily life and, you know, at dinners or just walking around on the street, I'd wonder like, oh, I wonder what around me is potentially putting chemical pollutants in the air, whether that's my gas stove or things from a construction site. It made me realize how many construction sites I pass through on a daily basis.
WEIR: What do we pick up here?
BEELER: You got a lot of chemical exposure unfortunately.
WEIR: Really?
BEELER: Everything that we looked for, we found.
WEIR (voice-over): All of our samples included flame retardants and UV stabilizers, an alphabet soup of BPA, BPF, BPS, and around two dozen chemicals on each of our bands.
BEELER: And then the most important one I would say that everyone should know is called phthalates.
WEIR: Phthalates?
BEELER: Phthalates, yeah.
WEIR: It's spelled with a p-h.
BEELER: It is the worst way to spell it. It's like an alphabetical mess, but phthalates are super important because when we first looked at them, they're everywhere.
WEIR (voice-over): Phthalates are what makes plastic moldable and flexible. They're more regulated in Europe than Asia, and Jessie's levels are a bit higher than Laura's. But it is so common globally, it's long been known as the everywhere chemical.
They are also endocrine disruptors, which hack human hormones and cause problems from cradle to grave, from fertility and child behavior to depression, cancer and cardiovascular disease.
BEELER: Studies have shown about 100 percent of Americans have phthalates in their body, and it's so ubiquitous its everywhere. If you look around your room and your house, your clothes are made of plastics, your furniture is made of plastics. Everything's getting turned into plastics.
But by 2060, like about 35 years from now, we're going to have four times more plastic on the planet than we have today.
WEIR: Wow.
(voice-over): Bill Weir, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: Wow. Incredible work for all of us to know.
Thank you for joining us.
Anderson starts now.
