Return to Transcripts main page

Early Start with Rahel Solomon

U.S. National Guard Troops in Washington to Begin Carrying Weapons; Redistricting Battle Heats Up in California and Texas; Emotional Tommy Fleetwood Wins His First PGA Tour Championship. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired August 25, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:00]

MIN JUNG LEE, ANCHOR, EARLY START: Good morning and welcome to our viewers joining us from the United States and all around the world, thanks so much for being here, I'm MJ Lee, Rahel Solomon is off. It is Monday, August 25th, 5:00 a.m. here in Washington D.C., and straight ahead on EARLY START.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: U.S. National Guard currently deployed in Washington D.C. are now carrying weapons.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Trump has made it clear that he plans to expand his anti-crime agenda outside of Washington D.C.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: A redistricting war is escalating.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is kind of a balance at the national level. This could actually throw that balance out of whack.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's your quest for your first PGA Tour win, it felt more like an odyssey at times.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not really sunk in yet. A lot has gone into the story that has been me chasing that first PGA Tour win.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

LEE: Those stories in a moment. But first, we are following breaking news out of Gaza, where a pair of Israeli strikes have hit Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. Health officials there report more than a dozen people have been killed, including several journalists. CNN's Paula Hancocks is following developments and joins us with the latest. Paula, this is all just breaking. What do you know right now?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, MJ, what we know is that there was two strikes on the Nasser Medical Complex just recently. We also know at least, 14 have been killed, that's according to two officials at Nasser itself. Among them, four journalists. Now, we do have footage or images, I should say, that have come in to us.

I must warn our viewers, though, that they are graphic in nature, but they show the aftermath of the strike itself. Now, we know that the four journalists who have been killed were all working for international broadcasters. We know that they were working one for "AP", one for "Reuters", one for "Al Jazeera", and one for "NBC".

Now, Israel has not allowed international journalists into Gaza since the beginning of this conflict on October 7th. And we have been relying heavily on Palestinian journalists within Gaza itself to show exactly what has been happening. So, this is another very deadly day for journalists in Gaza.

Just earlier this month, we saw that some five "Al Jazeera" journalists were killed as well. At that point, the committee to protect journalists said, quote, "Israel is murdering the messengers." Now, we have reached out to the Israeli military asking about these two strikes. We have not yet heard back.

But what we do know is that there was one strike on the Nasser Medical Complex, and we also saw on live television some civil defense workers, some emergency workers on a damaged staircase trying to retrieve some of the casualties from the first strike. When a second strike took place. Now, we've heard from the civil defense as well that one of their members was killed and seven others have been injured.

Now, we also did speak just last year to one of those that has been killed, Mariam Abu Daqqa, and she spoke about the dangers of being a journalist in Gaza at that time. I want to read one quote from her. "Whenever a journalist is targeted, we ask ourselves, who among us will get their turn of being targeted tomorrow?"

Mariam, one of those who has been killed this Monday. Now, it comes as we see many journalists being killed in Gaza. The latest figures from CPJ as some 186 have been killed since October 7th. They say 178 of those are Palestinians that have been killed by Israel. Now, it's worth pointing out as well that this area of the Nasser Medical Complex is in Khan Younis, it's in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

[05:05:00]

It is part of the area where Israel will be evacuating hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza city to -- now, they have said that they are still determined to go ahead with taking over Gaza city, but it shows that, with those evacuation orders that are expected imminently for many of those in Gaza city, these are the sorts of areas that they will be forced to move to. And these are the areas that are still being targeted as well. MJ.

LEE: Paula Hancocks, another deadly day as you said, with those breaking news updates. Thank you so much. And turning now to the U.S., President Trump's crackdown on crime could soon spread from the nation's capital to other cities across the country. Here in Washington D.C., members of the National Guard are now carrying weapons.

A spokesperson for the mission told CNN, that troop started carrying side-arms on Sunday, and a CNN reporter saw two guard members carrying rifles in the city. This is a drastic shift in the guard's presence since the President deployed them. Crime rates have dropped, given increased law enforcement, but the number of immigration arrests has spiked according to a CNN analysis.

The President says Chicago could be next, but Chicago's mayor is pushing back, threatening legal action for what he calls unlawful actions. And a "Washington Post" poll shows 69 percent of residents strongly oppose the President taking control of D.C.'s police and deploying the National Guard. CNN's Julia Benbrook has more details on talks of sending federal troops to more cities.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JULIA BENBROOK, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): President Donald Trump has made it clear that he plans to expand these efforts outside of Washington D.C. This is a part of his anti-crime agenda and his immigration crackdown. Here in the nation's capital city in recent weeks, Trump has temporarily taken control of the D.C. metropolitan police.

And then there's this constant, visible National Guard presence. While he does have more authority here in the district to implement these changes, he says that he plans to expand this further. In fact, on Friday, he was speaking in the Oval Office, and he said that he's looking at Chicago next. Take a listen.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Chicago is a mess. You have an incompetent mayor. Grossly incompetent. And we'll straighten that one out probably next. And the people in Chicago, Mr. Vice President, are screaming for us to come. They're wearing red hats just like this one, but they're wearing red hats.

BENBROOK: Officials who spoke with CNN said that the plans to send troops there have been in the works for weeks. It's still unclear how many would be sent and when those deployments would start. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has said that the Trump administration has not been in direct contact with his team or the governor. He has accused the President of, quote, "stoking fear", and says this is not the way to bring down crime in his city.

MAYOR BRANDON JOHNSON, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: What he is proposing at this point would be the most flagrant violation of our constitution in the 21st century. The city of Chicago does not need a military occupation. That's not what we need. In fact, we've been very clear about what we need. We need to invest in people to ensure that we can build safe and affordable communities.

BENBROOK: In a statement, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said this. He said the safety of the people of Illinois is always my top priority. There is no emergency that warrants the President of the United States federalizing the Illinois National Guard, deploying the National Guard from other states or sending active duty military within our own borders.

While it is not uncommon for federal authorities like the National Guard to help out across the country in times of emergency like natural disasters or civil unrest, experts say that sending in the National Guard in a blanket order to combat crime and implement the President's immigration policies is unprecedented.

So, we've seen this start here in Washington. He says that Chicago's next, then he says he's taking a look at New York. In recent weeks, he has also criticized other major cities, calling them, quote, "very bad, including Los Angeles and Baltimore".

(END VIDEOTAPE)

LEE: And Larry Sabato is the director of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. And on Sunday, he told CNN, that the real test of the President's program will be sending the National Guard to states that have a Republican majority.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR POLITICS, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Chicago is a big blue Democratic city. But if you go into the rural areas, even in a Democratic state like Illinois, you will find they're primarily Republican, and you're going to have a lot of them cheering. I'm going to believe this is a broad-based and more permanent when I see Trump taking those troops and sending them into red states, even if they're -- he's sending them into blue cities in the red states.

They might not be as in favor of this once they have it in their own state. If he ever does it, why would he change? He's getting great publicity out of this in D.C. that affects his base positively. He'll probably get good press out of Chicago, though, we can't do as much in Chicago as he's done in D.C. because D.C. is essentially a federal province. Chicago is not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:10:00]

LEE: Meanwhile, President Trump is fueling a fight with Maryland's Governor Wes Moore. Moore invited the President to walk the streets of Baltimore with him after the President attacked his record on crime. The President seemingly took offense to that invitation, posting online that he may have to rethink approving federal funds to fix Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed last year.

On Sunday, Moore spoke with "CBS", asking the President to keep his focus, quote, "on the things that actually matter right now." And the next U.S. midterm elections are more than a year away, but lawmakers are already trying to come up with ways to secure a majority in Congress. House Majority leader Hakeem Jeffries tells CNN that House Democrats are ready to act to prevent the U.S. President from trying to quote, "steal the midterm elections".

It comes amid a Trump-backed Republican redistricting effort in Texas to gain five more congressional seats. Jeffries says Democrats have made too much progress, and it will be difficult for Republicans to overtake them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): In Texas, this is a racial partisan gerrymander ordered by Donald Trump as part of an effort to rig the midterm elections, and we're not going to let it happen. And at the end of the day, we were 24 seats down during Donald Trump's first Midterm election in 2018. We won --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes --

JEFFRIES: Forty seats in 2018 --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well --

JEFFRIES: There's no way that Republicans can mathematically gerrymander their way to an artificial victory next year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: And over the weekend, the Texas Senate approved a new congressional map, which now heads to Governor Greg Abbott's desk for approval. California is retaliating with a plan of its own, led by Governor Gavin Newsom. That measure will go before voters in November. But California is just one of multiple states now exploring redistricting in the race for congressional power.

Earlier, CNN spoke about redistricting with Eric McGhee; Policy Director and a Senior Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. He says red states have the advantage as far as redistricting is concerned.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC MCGHEE, POLICY DIRECTOR & SENIOR FELLOW, PUBLIC POLICY INSTITUTE OF CALIFORNIA: It has to do with -- has to do with some of the constraints that Democratic states have placed on themselves. Some states have -- you know, and California is having is going to try and get five more Democratic seats, but they have to do a special process because they have a commission that draws their districts.

New York is kind of a similar situation where they have provisions in their constitution that prevent them from doing the districting. So, it really does in the end benefit Republicans more than Democrats. Kind of a funny situation where individual states often are very heavily gerrymandered.

But at the national level, we have a pretty fair balance between the two parties. In some ways, the Democrats are actually just a little bit advantaged because even though Republicans have a majority of votes and seats, they don't have quite as many seats as you might expect, given the votes that they have.

So, there is kind of a -- but overall, kind of a balance at the national level. This could actually throw that balance out of whack, but we'll just have to see what transpires.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LEE: And firefighters are continuing to battle a wildfire in California's popular wine country. So far, it has burned nearly 7,000 acres, and the blaze known as the Pickett Fire is north of San Francisco in Napa County. California's Forestry and Fire Protection officials say it's about 11 percent contained, and hundreds of people have been evacuated or are under evacuation orders in the area.

And meanwhile, 4,000 homes are under evacuation orders in Oregon. The blaze has already burned 34 square miles and officials say firefighters are facing tough conditions including low humidity and triple-digit temperatures. And still to come, a New York bus crash leaves five dead and dozens more injured.

We speak to a witness who saw it happen and rushed to help a victim. Plus, the latest on a new prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine. A live report from Moscow, that's just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:15:00]

LEE: Russia and Ukraine carried out a new prisoner exchange on Sunday, even as the effort to reach a peace agreement appears to have stalled. Moscow says the exchange included the return of at least 146 prisoners from each side. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, is responding to reports that the Pentagon is blocking Kyiv from using American-made long-range weapons to strike inside Russia.

He said he has not discussed that with the U.S. recently. Zelenskyy added that Ukraine is currently using domestically-produced long-range weapons. And meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin is preparing to visit China for four days next week. Russian state media reports that large scale talks are planned between Russia and Chinese delegations. And joining me live from Moscow is CNN's Fred Pleitgen. Fred, what's the latest?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, MJ, well, it's hard to over-emphasize just how important this visit is going to be for Vladimir Putin. Of course, him and Xi Jinping have an extremely close personal relationship with one another. And of course, in many ways, China is also an economic life-line for the Russian federation since they started what they call their special military operation in Ukraine.

And of course, are facing that international sanctions pressure, especially from western countries. If you look out on the streets of Moscow, you'll see an increasing number of Chinese cars all around, Chinese products in a lot of the shops.

[05:20:00]

So, you can really see how a lot of the things that are not available anymore from western countries have now been replaced by Chinese goods. But of course, it is more than that, and it's one of the things that the Chinese and the Russians keep talking about as well. The Chinese, of course, buy a lot of oil from Russia, and the Trump administration has been trying to counter that, has been threatening those secondary tariffs against countries that buy Russian oil in order to put pressure on the Russians to end that special military operation in Ukraine.

So far, the Chinese have shown no signs of doing that. But the Russians, of course, understand that if the Chinese were to buy less Russian oil, it could be a real problem for their economy. One of the things that's happened before Vladimir Putin's trip, and we haven't yet gotten exact dates of when he plans to go there to China.

We believe it's going to be at the end of the week, is that the speaker of Russian parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin, he's already on his way to China or will be in the next couple of hours on his way to China to speak with senior Chinese officials there. And one of the main things has been countering that sanctions pressure from western countries, specifically from the United States.

Of course, that is something that's extremely important for the Russians and then for Vladimir Putin as well. He's going to be attending the Shanghai Corporation organization meeting, where, of course, other countries are going to be around that also face issues for purchasing Russian oil, like for instance, India as well.

And then Vladimir Putin also going to attend those celebrations to mark the end of World War II, 80 years since the end of World War II. Extremely important, though, for Xi Jinping and for Vladimir Putin to once again reiterate how important their personal relations are, how important the relations between China and Russia are, especially at a time where both countries face that pressure from the United States.

And one of the things that we've seen in the past, MJ, is that no matter what the U.S. does, that relationship between Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping is one that's been cultivated over years, if not decades, and certainly one that really shows no sign of letting up on the contrary, it really seems as though those two leaders have a stronger relationship that seems to grow by the day, as those two countries, of course, need one another more and more facing that outside pressure from the U.S. and from other countries as well. MJ.

LEE: Fred Pleitgen reporting from Moscow. Thank you. And countries around the world showed solidarity with Ukraine on its 34th Independence Day. The Eiffel Tower in Paris lit up in blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag. August 24th, 1991, was the day that Ukraine declared itself free of Soviet rule.

And this was the view in Rome on Sunday. Blue and Yellow also covering the Colosseum in a show of support. And I'm joined now by CNN's Sebastian Shukla in Berlin. Sebastian, we just heard the Russian vantage point from Fred. What is the latest coming out of Ukraine?

SEBASTIAN SHUKLA, CNN REPORTER: Well, the latest MJ is -- and good morning, is that there are discussions happening in Kyiv as I think a frantic understanding which seems to be trying to take place now about what exactly is happening with Ukraine's ability to fire long-range weapons, which was approved initially back in November 2024 under the dying days of the Biden administration to allow U.S.-made attacking missiles to be fired by the Ukrainian Armed Forces into those targets.

Deep inside Russia, ATACMS are able to fly some 190 miles and have been very effective, and something that the Ukrainians have pushed for, enabled to be able to target Ukraine -- Russian command and control centers way back from the Ukrainian battlefields, way out in the east in that Donbas area.

A report that came out from the "Wall Street Journal" over the weekend suggested that a new Pentagon system has been put in place that essentially requires an approval process to be approved by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to allow Ukraine to fire any missile that is used and provided by the Americans that it requires U.S. Intelligence to fire.

And the sophisticated long-range missiles that Ukraine is able to use, many of them do require and rely on American Intelligence. So, I want you, though, to take a listen to what President Zelenskyy had to say, because it seems, though, that decision-making process may not be totally clear.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, PRESIDENT, UKRAINE (through translator): We used to -- you remember, there were different signals about our retaliatory strikes after their strikes on our energy system. It was a long time ago. Today, we don't even remember it. So, for me, it's news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SHUKLA: So for me, it's news. That seems to suggest then that President Zelenskyy and Kyiv are maybe not totally on the same page or total clarity as to what exactly is happening about this approval process for these long-range missiles.

[05:25:00]

Now for Ukraine, though, it's not such a big deal at the moment. Ukraine has developed a very sophisticated series of attack drones and even seems to be developing its own long-range missiles to be able to attack and avoid Russian energy infrastructure targets in particular, and allows them to be able to be self-sufficient, something that the Americans have been pushing for quite some time, and which Ukraine is acknowledging that if this war is going to go longer, it will need to be able to be more sufficient in the long run. MJ.

LEE: Sebastian Shukla, thanks for bringing us that update. And it is a pivotal moment for a decade's old alliance. When we come back, I'll speak to an expert on what's at stake today ahead of the U.S.-South Korea summit. You're watching CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)