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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Texas Governor Orders Arrest Of Democrats Who Fled State; Israeli Media: Netanyahu To Urge "Full Conquest" Of Gaza; U.S. Special Envoy to Visit Moscow Wednesday. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired August 05, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:25]

MIN JUNG LEE, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to our viewers, joining us from the United States and all around the world. Thanks so much for being with us. I'm MJ Lee. Rahel Solomon is off.

It's Tuesday, August 5th, 5:00 a.m. here in Washington.

And straight ahead on EARLY START.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): Don't mess with Texas. You cannot intimidate them. Don't mess with democracy. Don't do it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are ready to fight fire with fire.

PROTESTERS: Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Trump and Abbott got to go!

GOV. KATHY HOCHUL (D), NEW YORK: We are at war. And that's why the gloves are off. And I say bring it on.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Anytime you got an active shooter still on the loose, it's going to be dangerous.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This man could easily hide for multiple, multiple weeks.

This individual is armed and dangerous. We know he's violent.

(MUSIC)

DOLLY PARTON, MUSICIAN: I take a lot of pride in it. And I'm very humbled by it. I just keep thinking. Well, I must have done something right. Praise the Lord.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: A political showdown is underway in Texas with nationwide ramifications. The Texas House is set to reconvene in about nine hours from now and will once again try to vote on a contentious Republican plan to redraw the state's congressional map.

But the vote seems unlikely to happen. Dozens of Democratic lawmakers have not just skipped work, but skipped town altogether. They fled the state to block the crucial and deliberately timed vote on redistricting, which would allow Republicans to gain as many as five U.S. house seats in next year's midterm elections. A vote couldn't be held on Monday because not enough lawmakers were present.

Angry Republican leaders are now threatening to arrest, investigate and find those Democrats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DUSTIN BURROWS, TEXAS HOUSE SPEAKER: I have signed the civil arrest warrants. We will work with DPS to locate members.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: It's not clear how long those Democrats can hold out. The Texas governor lashed out at them earlier, threatening to remove them from the state legislature.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R), TEXAS: They're leaving and they've left because they're very un-Texan. Texans don't run from a fight. I believe they have forfeited their seats in the state legislature because they're not doing the job they were elected to do.

PROTESTERS: Whose house? Our house! Whose state? Our state!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: Republicans are being accused of a blatant attempt at gerrymandering or redrawing the voting lines to give themselves a political advantage. Lots of people are angry over the potential power grab from the Texas state capitol all the way to the U.S. Capitol.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): A governor of Texas is out of his mind. There is no basis to charge these House Texas Democrats who have refused righteously to -- at the moment vote on an extraordinary map that would hurt their constituents that they are privileged and sworn to represent right now. Governor Abbott is making idle threats. He is all hat, no cattle.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: And this is all happening with the blessing, and at the encouragement of President Trump, who hasn't even tried to hide his intentions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think we get five, and there could be some other states. We're going to get another three or four or five. In addition, Texas would be the biggest one, and that'll be fine. REPORTER: Are you calling for a complete redrawing of the

congressional map ahead of next year?

TRUMP: No, no, I, just a very simple redrawing we pick up five seats. We have a couple of other states where we'll pick up seats also.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: The stakes are extremely high. Republicans currently hold a very slim majority in the U.S. House, and a blue wave in the midterms could stymie President Trump's agenda.

CNN's Reid Binion has our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Don't mess with Texas.

(APPLAUSE)

REID BINION, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Democratic officials and lawmakers across the nation warning that Republicans effort to redraw congressional districts in Texas will be met by comparable changes in blue states.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Don't mess with democracy. You can gerrymander the hell out of that map. Guess what? Two can play that game.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's right.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Other states will do exactly the same thing and neutralize what you're trying to do in Texas.

[05:05:02]

BINION: The redistricting effort could deliver Republicans five more seats in the U.S. Congress ahead of the midterm elections. But Democrats are threatening to fight back in kind.

KEN MARTIN, CHAIR, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: We're going to fight fire with fire, and we're going to do everything we can right now to stand up against this unconstitutional power grab.

BINION: Some Democratic governors are weighing options to retaliate with their own mid-decade redistricting efforts.

HOCHUL: I'm exploring with our leaders every option to redraw our state congressional lines as soon as possible.

BINION: Democratic New York Governor Kathy Hochul, promising to fight.

HOCHUL: This is a war. The gloves are off, and I say, bring it on.

BINION: In California, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom said, if Texas Republicans move forward with redistricting, he would aim to put a new congressional map before California voters in a November special election. For their part, some Republicans argue the Texas redistricting effort is a response to Democratic partisan gerrymandering.

BRIAN HARRISON, TEXAS STATE HOUSE REPUBLICAN: Quite frankly, California is more gerrymandered than the maps that we're talking about today in Texas.

All the other Democratic states are doing it. The state of Texas should as well.

REID: I'm Reid Binion, reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: Legal analyst and former prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin weighed in earlier on the redistricting battle, and he said Democrats should not expect much help from the courts.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFFREY TOOBIN, FORMER PROSECUTOR: The Supreme Court said in a decision six years ago that political gerrymandering, you know, the politicians helping their own party, that is constitutional, that is clearly still allowed. What they cannot do is discriminate against a minority group in Texas, whether it's African-Americans or Hispanics. That is the one area where they might be open to legal challenge.

But here's where things, you know, work in the Republicans favor. The current Supreme Court has limited voting rights in very dramatic ways. It is much harder to prove violation of the Voting Rights Act, the great famous law of 1965 than it used to be.

So, I think it is very unlikely that this law, even if it is very much favorable to Republicans, gets overturned by the courts. This is going to be a political fight, much more than a legal fight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: I want to bring in now, "Washington Post" reporter Mariana Alfaro.

Mariana, good morning to you.

So, the scene that has been unfolding in Texas, as we just saw, is pretty stunning. Democrats are physically fleeing the state, and Republicans are threatening that those members who left should be arrested and fined.

The Texas house is going to reconvene later this afternoon. What can we expect to see in the coming hours?

MARIANA ALFARO, POLITICS REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: I mean, I think we'll continue seeing a lot of these threats. And honestly, all of these moves that actually stand Democrats already, I think the shocking moment yesterday when they voted to issue these warrants. We heard from a lot of Texas Democrats who are currently staying in Illinois, saying that they were shocked and hurt to see their own colleagues vote against them in this way. You know, threaten all of these repercussions just for what they say is standing for their constituents beliefs and rights.

So, I think we're going to continue to see more of that debate. The speaker of the house in Texas is already, you know, issued very explicit threats towards the party members. It's, you know, it's questionable what they can do, really. I know that Governor Abbott has said that he will push for special elections to get them removed from office, but I think that's a case where the courts will have to step in because he doesn't have the power to just remove these Democrats from the state legislature.

LEE: Yeah. And what we are seeing from Democrats is basically they are trying to say, if Republicans are going to play this game, we are going to play two and try to beat them at their own game. We saw that explicit message from New York governor Kathy Hochul yesterday, who was joined, by the way, by some of those Texas state legislators, legislature Democrats who fled their state.

Listen to what she said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HOCHUL: I'm exploring with our leaders every option to redraw our state congressional lines as soon as possible. The gloves are off and I say, bring it on.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: So, Mariana, is this becoming the new national Democratic strategy?

ALFARO: Yes. I mean, it's definitely an escalation of rhetoric amongst Democrats, especially governors. I think that they are the ones who are kind of leading the charge this time around. I know that, you know, there's some conversations about it here in Congress, but what we mainly seen is a very aggressive stance from there's also Newsom saying that if Texas does this, then California will also redraw its own districts in order to favor the Democratic Party there and undo whatever gains the Texan Republicans can do.

And I know that Illinois Governor Pritzker has also said that something could happen, but hasn't explicitly said if he would support a redrawing of districts.

So we're trying -- we're starting to see a lot of Democratic governors kind of step up and lead the charge in this scenario, just mainly because they are the ones who, you know, the fight has been brought to the states rather than like a more federal level just because of this. Trump call for Texas to redraw these maps.

[05:10:11]

LEE: Yeah. And the big prize that is at stake here is, of course, control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Talk to us a little bit about what we've seen these first seven plus months of Trump's first term, where his party has had control of the House and the Senate. How big of a hit would Trump's agenda take if Democrats were to take control of the House after next year's midterms?

ALFARO: I mean, as we saw in 2018, Democrats had a blue wave. They were not able -- Republicans were not able to hold on to the chamber in Congress. And so, if right now, it's a very thinly divided house, it's been really hard for speaker Johnson to get through a lot of Trump's agenda. And, you know, a lot of negotiation, a lot of angry people in the -- in the Republican conference, a lot of last-minute votes, a lot of last-minute changing of minds.

So they're looking for that cushion, right? They're looking to have a few more votes to spare. But if Democrats do come around next year and do another blue wave like they did in 2018, a lot of those things that Trump has, you know, done this time around could either get blocked or they could just not move any much for the last two years of his term.

So, I think that that's the main concern here for Trump is that he wants to make sure that they don't have to be doing any of these last- minute negotiations or, you know, all of these things that Speaker Johnson has been forced to do for the last seven months.

LEE: And all of this comes at a moment of serious soul searching for the Democrats. The party is still reeling from Trump's return, and a recent CNN poll had Democrats favorability at its lowest point in decades. Party leaders are wondering, you know, what can we do to turn the ship around? And I wonder how much is sort of rolling up their sleeves and fighting back against GOP gerrymandering going to help their cause? Is that even an issue that is going to motivate their voters?

ALFARO: I mean, we really have to wait and see if this news even permeates nationally, right? This is a big California Texas fight. I think that that already has drawn a lot of eyeballs. But I think, I mean, polls both CNN, "Washington Post" polls have shown that people do want Democrats to have a bit more bite. They want them to continue aggressively pushing against the Trump administration, which they haven't really done that in the first seven months.

And so now, I think that this escalation of rhetoric, you know, this kind of fighting fire with some sort of other fire is something that might attract more voters and might make feel, you know, Democratic voters feel like the party is behind them.

LEE: Fighting fire with more fire.

Mariana Alfaro, thank you so much for joining us.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi is ordering federal prosecutors to start a grand jury investigation into Obama officials, claiming the administration made up intelligence about Russian interference in the 2016 election. A source tells CNN a grand jury will look into claims that Democratic officials tried to smear Donald Trump by falsely claiming that his campaign colluded with the Russian government.

Director of National Intelligence Tulsi declassified documents last month, which she claims shows a treasonous conspiracy by top Obama officials to undermine Trump.

Nearly 2,000 firefighters are battling a wildfire in the state of California that has scorched more than 72,000 acres since it started on Friday. Authorities say the Gifford Fire is the state's second largest wildfire this year, and is only 3 percent contained. It's burning through the brush covered hillsides in Los Padres national forest in southern California, and officials say the fire has prompted evacuation orders and caused injuries, including to one resident who has been hospitalized with burns.

And meanwhile, more than 700 wildfires are raging across Canada, causing thousands of residents to evacuate their homes and creating hazardous air quality for millions of people. Officials say nearly 200 blazes are considered out of control. And on Monday, the city of Toronto was deemed high risk on the air quality health index. The day after IQ air ranked Toronto third among the most polluted cities in the world. Officials say so far this year, thousands of wildfires have scorched Canadian land larger than the size of West Virginia.

And up next, Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be leaning into expanding Israel's military operations in Gaza. A closer look at that and the deepening humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

Plus, the terrifying moment when a commuter train caught fire in New Jersey. How passengers inside the train reacted.

And the cost of some popular Swiss products could soon skyrocket, if painful new U.S. tariffs take effect. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:19:21]

LEE: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to push for a, quote, full conquest of Gaza during a meeting of his security cabinet today. That's according to reporting from Israeli media that a source describes as accurate. This comes as Netanyahu faces protests and pressure to end the war, including from the families of hostages who have warned against expanding a military campaign in Gaza.

But senior officials close to Netanyahu are saying, quote, the die is cast and if the chief of staff doesn't agree, he should resign. A source says the defense establishment also opposes an expansion of ground operations in areas where hostages are believed to be held.

[05:20:02]

Negotiations on a hostage and ceasefire deal in Gaza have stalled, and Hamas is demanding the dire humanitarian situation in the enclave be addressed first before it returns to the talks. The Israeli leader had this message on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We must continue to stand together and fight together to achieve all our war objectives. The defeat of the enemy, the release of our hostages and the assurance that Gaza will no longer pose a threat to Israel. Later this week, I will convene the cabinet to instruct the IDF on how to achieve these three objectives, all of them, without exception.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: The former chief of Israel's internal security agency was among hundreds of retired Israeli security officials who signed a letter urging President Donald Trump to pressure Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war.

Ami Ayalon tells CNN Israel's military goals have already been achieved.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMI AYALON, FORMER DIRECTOR, SHIN BET: Our message is that this war must end. And this is the only way that we can see a better future for Israel. This war started two years ago as a just war. It was the immediate result of a massacre and horror of Hamas.

But after 12 months, we achieved all our military goals. Netanyahu is, you know, acting against the will of the Israeli people, 70 percent of the Israeli people are demanding ending the war and bringing back all our hostages. We understand today. That it is a total contradiction. You know, we understand that our hostages are dying as a result of the continuation of this war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: CNN's footage from Central Gaza has captured the desperation of hundreds of Palestinians as humanitarian aid is airdropped into the enclave. This was the scene on Monday as crowds rushed towards aid boxes that were still in mid-air. The family of a nurse critical of such airdrop says he was hit by an air pallet and then killed after being caught in a crowd crush. The scramble and fight for aid comes as Palestinians in Gaza deal with a deepening hunger crisis.

CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman has reported extensively from Gaza for decades. But right now, the Israeli government has banned international media from the territory. So Ben joins us live from Rome.

Ben, the scenes of desperation in Gaza continue, and so do the calls for Netanyahu to end the war. Are those calls having any effect?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Quite to the contrary, MJ, it appears as you were talking in the introduction, that he is hell bent on continuing and indeed expanding this war that has left at least 60,000 Palestinians dead. Gaza really looks like the surface of the moon at this point, as we're seeing from footage that's been -- that's coming out of there. And we see that, for instance, even the military establishment within

Israel, senior generals are opposed to this approach, that the fear is and the fear is of has been expressed by the relatives of hostages who say that a military operation increased military operations in Gaza will endanger those approximately 20 hostages that are still alive. We've seen in the past that in terms of the safety of the hostages, negotiations are much more effective. 140 of the hostages have been released as a result of negotiations, and eight only eight have been freed as a result of military operations.

At the same time, clearly, this 22 months of war in Gaza is having a debilitating -- debilitating impact on the Israeli army. Apparently, the troops are exhausted. Many of them are suffering from PTSD. And of course, that's not to mention the 2 million Palestinians in Gaza who have been enduring this war now for 22 months.

And we know that in the month of July alone, seven Israeli soldiers committed suicide. So clearly, Prime Minister Netanyahu is pursuing this approach, this escalatory approach in Gaza for his own political purposes and not for the benefit of most of the people of Israel -- MJ.

LEE: Ben Wedeman in Rome, thanks for that update.

A White House official says the Trump administration's foreign envoy will travel to Russia. Steve Witkoff is expected to arrive there on Wednesday. That's two days before President Trump's deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to make a peace deal with Ukraine or face more sanctions.

[05:25:09]

But Witkoff's diplomatic trip comes at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries. On Friday, President Trump said he was ordering two U.S. navy nuclear submarines to move to quote, appropriate regions. He blamed what he called foolish and inflammatory statements from former Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

Despite offering no evidence, Donald Trump is repeating claims that the latest jobs report was rigged to make him look bad. What he's saying about his plans to replace the commissioner that he blames.

Plus, more money for the richest man in the world. Tesla unveils a monster pay package for its CEO, Elon Musk.

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