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Inside Politics

NASA Astronauts Visit The Situation Room From ISS; At Least 119 Dead, 160+ Missing In Catastrophic Texas Flooding; Urgent Search Effort In Texas For 160+ Missing After Floods; Ukraine Faces Down Largest Drones Strikes Of 3-Year War; Trump: Putin's "Nice" Talk To Me "Turns Out To Be Meaningless". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired July 09, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Inside Politics with Dana Bash starts right now.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Today, on Inside Politics, fury in Texas. First responders are searching for at least 160 people still missing since Friday's flood. And new details about the real time response to the disaster, and lots of questions, including, where is the federal government?

Plus, all politics is personal. Russia unleashes on Ukraine after President Trump explained why he restarted weapon shipments to Kyiv. And the Science Guy, Bill Nye, will be here. He's spending the day lobbying on the Hill, warning about funding cuts to NASA and real-life consequences of climate change.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

We begin the hour on the ground in Texas, where officials just concluded a news conference. Again, the death toll has gone up. It is now 119 people, including 36 children, who have died. 160 plus people remain missing. Among them, five campers and one counselor from Camp Mystic.

And again today, officials defended the emergency response to flooding, describing the toll sorting through the wreckage is taking on the first responders themselves, crediting men and women with the actions that they took in those first few hours, and promising answers are coming.

I want to bring in CNN's Shimon Prokupecz, who was once again at that Kerr County news conference. Shimon, what more did we learn today at that press conference, the kinds of questions that you and our colleagues have been asking?

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME & JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the first thing, Dana, I think it's important to note, they did something a little differently today, in that, they brought forward the sergeant of the Carville police department. And he spoke about just the horrific and the events of that morning and the heroic efforts of some of the officers to try and save many of the people when the flood waters were starting to rise.

And just a description of some of this is so striking. You're talking about officers that are off duty that notice the flooding. They're living in these communities. By this point, it's really getting too late, and they're going fast into action to try and save people whose homes are being flooded, and people are on the roofs and are in trees near their homes.

And then at one point, officers tying a garden hose around an officer to try and pull someone to safety. That person grabbing the hose, one officer tying the garden hose around them, another officer holding that officer and them trying to rescue people. And these are all very important stories.

And what -- but also what they highlight is how, by the time, by the time law enforcement, by the time the emergency responders went into action, it was too late. People were already in danger. And that's why there are all these questions about how prepared was this county?

How prepared was the city? And what steps did they take to alert people of what was potentially going to happen here? What could happen here? What resources and assets were in place in case it got very bad? And what were they doing in the hours leading up to this? What information were they given? What were they asking? Were they talking to meteorologists? We don't know any of that.

In fact, I asked the mayor, the mayor of this city, whether or not, he was on a call with state officials on July 3. And I was kind of shocked to hear his answer. Take a listen.

[12:05:00]

PROKUPECZ: I'm Shimon Prokupecz from CNN. The lieutenant governor said that on July 3 that the county judges and city mayors were invited on a daily call Thursday to discuss weather forecasts. Were you on that call? Were you invited to that call? Do you know if the county judge was also on that call?

MAYOR JOE HERRING JR., KERRVILLE, TEXAS: I can't speak for the county judge, that would be hearsay. And I'm not going to contradict the information you have. But I will tell you personally, I did not receive a telephone bill.

PROKUPECZ: You weren't invited to the call.

HERRING JR.: I did not receive a telephone.

PROKUPECZ: And you were never given any information about what assets were brought into the area.

HERRING JR.: So, I wasn't invited to call. I'm not trying to deflect, but I don't --

PROKUPECZ: No, no. I just said, but do you know why that -- and do you know why that would happen.

HERRING JR.: Maybe I'm not a local mayor, I can't tell. All right, thank you guys.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: So certainly, Dana, that part very confusing there. The reason why all this is very important is obviously it's just how prepared the city officials here were, how county officials how prepared they were. The state clearly was trying to alert the folks here that something, you know, they should be worried about this, and they were already moving assets into this direction.

One reporter even asked the mayor if he was aware that these assets were coming here. And he seemed to not be even aware of that. But again, all of this is so important because it speaks to the preparedness and whether or not officials had enough information in anticipation of what happens here.

BASH: Yeah. I mean, obviously that was sarcasm from the mayor there. Thank you so much, Shimon, for giving us all those new details, and of course, the things that we don't yet know. Appreciate it.

I want to now turn to Texas Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett, who is obviously somebody who represents the state of Texas, and specifically the city of Austin. Thank you so much for being here. I know, just like so many people in your great state of Texas, this hits home. Two Austin girls are among the victims, one who attended the same elementary school as your daughters. You attended a vigil on Sunday. How is your community doing?

REP. LLOYD DOGGETT (D-TX): Well, Dana, the pain is really far reaching, and it affects most deeply, of course, the families of these two beautiful little girls. But it spreads through their classmates and through the community as a whole. I just view this loss of life in such a mass way as being totally inexcusable.

And I believe that there were failures at every level of government, and no one wants to be held accountable for it. It is a time to recognize the heroism, of course, of the first responders who got there, as your report indicated, after the damage that had already been done. And to welcome all the volunteer support and the pulling together now of all levels of government, that's important.

But if we're to avoid another tragedy like this, we have to have accountability. And I think we have to have accountability at the county, state and federal level. My focus has been federal, but I'm greatly concerned about the failures at the county and the state level.

BASH: Well, let's talk about that. You know what we are hearing from local officials, state officials is, they insist that they're not trying to deflect. They're trying to defer the answers to those questions. It sounds like that's not satisfactory to you.

DOGGETT: Well, I think we have to begin right now, looking, for example, at the alerts that happen locally I've represented in the past, neighboring community of San Marcos, which has also had some terrible floods. They have 14 sirens up. Even the volunteer fire department near Kerr County has a siren up in a different county.

Why a county would invite people from all over the state and the country to come there to camp along the river and not have an alert system in place to protect those people is difficult for me to understand. And the admission was pretty clear from the county officials about the decision to not do that.

On the other hand, the state of Texas had the opportunity to pass legislation on this previously. It basically, usually prefers to distribute federal dollars and never to appropriate state dollars. I hope now belatedly, a special session will address this. But for the governor to treat this as if it were a football game, this is not a game. People's lives are at stake, and there's so much more that should have been done.

BASH: Congressman, that's precisely what I was going to ask you about, because it was striking to hear the governor kind of try to connect with people in Texas using the football analogy because obviously everybody in the world knows how much Texans love football. Listen to a little bit of what he was saying.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): 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)

BASH: He said, we got this. We're going to make sure that we go score again and we're going to win this game.

DOGGETT: Well, as I said, this is not a game. People's lives are at stake. And the losers are the ones that don't learn from the mistakes, that don't hold people accountable. In this case, I think there are accountable issues at every level of government. And as I mentioned, I think the impact of the Trump administration has to be considered.

I haven't accused them of anything I've asked for a thorough investigation. And the outrageous responses of the White House press secretary and the Homeland Security Department attacking the press for raising the questions, makes me all the more confident that we need to have a thorough investigation and ask, what effect did it have to not have the meteorologist in charge of coordination and warnings that person was not in place that night.

Why did they not have all of their hydrologists who are responsible for rainfall and runoff calculations? What contacts did they really have there with the local level when the first flood warning came at 1:14 in the morning, when all of Kerr County was asleep. And the eventual flood emergency announcement was after much of Camp Mystic was already floating down the river. That may have been the best that could be done. They had dedicated employees out there that night, I'm sure. But I want the facts, and the fact that they would not give me that information when I ask about it six weeks before this happened, gives me cause for concern, and they need to provide an immediate answer to all of these questions.

Of course, Dana, this is all against the background of the fact that President Trump has led the effort to deny climate crisis. And we know that every time that the Fahrenheit weather gage goes up by one degree, the ability of the atmosphere to become more absorbent of water goes up about 4 percent. The climate crisis is real. We feel it in Texas. And we need to plan for it in the future, instead of denying it, which is what happens at the state and the federal level under these administrations.

BASH: Congressman, if you get any of the answers to the questions that you're raising here. And I know that you also raised in a lengthy letter to the National Weather Service and others. Let us know. Thank you for your time. And again, I'm so sorry for the loss in your community and the broader state of Texas.

DOGGETT: Thank you very much.

BASH: And coming up. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed off on a pause in military aid to Ukraine. But did the commander in chief, his boss know about it? CNN has new reporting when we come back.

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[12:15:00]

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BASH: Overnight, Russia launched the largest drone strike of its years' long conflict against Ukraine, launching more than hundred drones, more than it ever had before. And beleaguered Ukrainian air defenses were able to limit the casualties to one death and some injuries. The sheer scale though of the strike begs a question. Was this a message from Vladimir Putin to President Trump after yesterday's cabinet meeting, which happened during the show. Here's a reminder of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We get a lot of bullshit 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.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I'm joined here by a terrific group of reporters, CNN's David Chalian, Laura Barron-Lopez of PBS NewsHour and CNN's Kristen Holmes. Kristen, what do you -- what are you hearing from the White House about whether or not -- let's just start with the most recent situation on the battlefield, about whether they think that Putin is trying to send him a message. KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right now, they don't know if Putin is trying to send him a message, but what they do know is that President Trump is pretty fed up with the situation. Really, when you look back on the campaign, now President Trump says that he said this tongue in cheek, that he could solve the situation Ukraine in 24, 48 hours.

It wasn't tongue in cheek at the time. He truly believed that he had a relationship with Vladimir Putin, that Putin would listen to him. And he's coming to find out what many presidents before him have, which is that, as he's getting these platitudes from Vladimir Putin, it's not actually turning into the results that he wants.

And so, what you're seeing from President Trump is one an actual real frustration that is behind the scenes as well. And one thing I'll point to, we talked to him, we asked him questions after his last call with Putin. Here's why that was so remarkable.

He likes to put out his own readouts of the call. The one before that was two and a half hours. This one barely lasted an hour, and there was no readout from the White House. And when he was asked specifically what happened in the call, he essentially, kind of shook his head -- at one point, he said, I made no progress at all when it came to Ukraine.

[12:20:00]

We know from the other side, from the Kremlin, that Trump had brought up stopping what was happening in Ukraine, and that Putin had said they were going to continue doing what they were doing. So now you're seeing him try to take the next step here, which in some ways does look like 180, because you're starting to see him saying he wants to support Ukraine, talking positively about Zelenskyy.

Saying that he wants to send more missiles, because these people need to defend themselves. At one point yesterday, he said the Ukrainians were brave. This is not the same tune that he had been singing for over last year.

BASH: Yeah. And let's listen to what Republican Congressman French Hill told our colleague Jim Sciutto about this Trump-Putin dynamic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. FRENCH HILL (R-AR): I think President Trump is a realist. I think he wants peace. He wants to sue for peace, but he's also willing to use sanctions, financial pressure, economic statecraft, diplomatic statecraft, and military action, as in in the case of Iran. And I think he's had six months of enough from Putin. I think he's had it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: David?

DAVID CHALIAN, POLITICAL DIRECTOR & WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: I mean, I think that that is not a lonely voice when you talk to Republicans on Capitol Hill, right? And this is why I think a lot of Republicans are looking at the comments he made yesterday about the Lindsey Graham effort, and, you know, possibly getting some sanctions in place, and him seeming open to that perhaps, although making it like that it's his call and he has full optionality on it.

But that he seemed to be moving the ball down the road that that could be a potential option he chooses to take here. And I think what you hear in, French Hill is like, that would be a welcome development by a lot of these Republicans. We shouldn't mistake Donald Trump's success on sort of -- I know he rejects the word isolationist, but sort of less active role in the world, and really trying to pull back from these things and that that has support with voters.

There's still a lot of folks in his party up on Capitol Hill who would like to see him get a lot tougher on Putin and continue to side with helping the Ukrainians here. And as Kristen was noting, that's not where he's been, but it seems like Putin may be pushing him there.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, PBS NEWSHOUR: There's still a significant number of voters that support action in Ukraine, that support the U.S. aiding Ukraine and the democracy there. I think, though, that the remarks yesterday were just so stunning to Kristen's point.

Because you heard the president say, I've tried and tried, and sometimes he feels like he gets there with Putin and then he used the word meaningless. It ends up being meaningless. And yes, that is what Republicans on the Hill have felt for a long time. And the votes are there if President Trump wants them to pass those sanctions.

BASH: So, we're all talking about the fact that there is pressure on the president still from the remaining hawks in the GOP and even a lot of Democrats to keep the pressure on Putin to help Ukraine. There is a lot of pressure, even and especially from within certain corners of the administration that he put in place, never mind the base to cut loose with regard to Ukraine.

And there is some great new reporting from our colleagues, Natasha Bertrand and Zachary Cohen, about the fact that the Pentagon, last week, or the week before, pulled back, or at least announced that they were going to pull back on Ukrainian -- weapons to Ukraine. Here's part of the reporting. Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth did not inform the White House before he authorized a pause on weapons shipments to Ukraine last week.

That's according to five sources, the U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine, retired General Keith Kellogg and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is also Trump's National Security Advisor, were also not told about the pause beforehand and learned about it from press reports. Listen to the exchange that Kaitlan Collins had with the president about this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Putin is not -- he's 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.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So, who are the cause last week?

TRUMP: I don't know, what did you tell me?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I mean, this is the commander in chief. So, what's going on where there are people at the Pentagon who just want to pull everything back, America First, who didn't think it's --

HOLMES: That is true. That exists at the Pentagon.

BASH: And did it anyway?

HOLMES: This was also the result of a review that was done in terms of what funding was going where, and what resources were going where. It was also part of an understanding that Donald Trump wanted to look into what reserves the United States had in terms of weapons, missiles in the region, in case we needed to use them again.

But what really is so striking about this is that that might have been started by President Trump, but it was finished by Secretary Hegseth in a way that the White House was not aware. And so, they were all learning about this pause in real time and saying that it was going -- that it was all about this preview that that's why he ended up signing off on this.

[12:25:00]

Now their argument now is that the pause never actually went into effect. And so --

BASH: It doesn't matter.

HOLMES: Right. Exactly. And so, but the point is that it probably would have gone into effect, had there not been reports that it was going to go into effect. Because all the paperwork had already been signed off on, and that's what sent a scramble inside of the Pentagon.

CHALIAN: But what do they say about just the process here of how could the president, the National Security Advisor, not give the final sign off. I mean to me, in any White House, so even like that is just a completely broken-down process.

BASH: OK, finish your thought, real quick.

HOLMES: No. I think that what they would argue is that by the time it was brought to President Trump, he reversed it, so it never went into a never went into effect. However, as we know, it had already been signed off on and was in the process of going into effect.

BASH: All right. Up next, the Trump administration says, Jewish groups are standing behind their controversial choice for a key government job. CNN's Kfile unit looked into it and found a pretty different story. We'll explain after the break. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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