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Trump Signs Exec. Orders Expanding Law Enforcement Crackdown; Trump To Create Specialized Guard Unit For "Public Order Issues"; Trump Escalates Feud With Blue Cities And States Over Crime; Noem: Abrego Garcia In Custody, Being Processed For Deportation; ICE Gets More Aggressive In Arresting Undocumented Immigrants. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired August 25, 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]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, do you plan to investigate Chris Christie?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: You said, what?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you plan to investigate Chris Christie?

TRUMP: Look, Chris is a slob, everybody knows it. I know Chris better than anybody in the room. I always felt he was guilty. But what he did is he took the George Washington Bridge, which is very serious. He closed down the George Washington Bridge. And you had medical people. You had ambulances caught up. You know, this thing was closed down. And obviously, he knew about it, but he had -- he blamed the young lady that worked for him and another person, and they got into a lot of trouble.

She ultimately was, I don't know, exonerated, but she got out of it a little bit, but she went through hell. She was a young mother, a nice person. I knew her a little bit. And another man went to jail, and Chris got off. And so, when I listened to Chris speak his hate, I say, oh, what about the George Washington Bridge?

You know, tell me about the George Washington Bridge. He blamed other people, but he knew all about it. So, no -- I don't know if they want to look at it. Not for me. If they want to look at it, they can. You can ask Pam. I think we have other things to do, but I always thought he got away with murder.

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, do you plan to make an endorsement in the Texas Senate race between Ken Paxton and John Cornyn?

TRUMP: Well, I'll make up my mind. I like them both. The worst situation I have is when I have two people that I get along with. Well, I hate it, and they all want the endorsement. You know, I'm almost -- 100 percent of the people I endorse with. It's a great honor. And I got -- as you know, I got the largest vote in the history of Texas by far. Nobody's ever gotten more votes in the last election, I think, in all the elections, the three elections, but they like me in Texas. So, people are waiting for me. But I just -- I'd rather not comment on it right now. I like both guys. They're both friends of mine and they're both good and very different.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There's some talk among congressional Republicans about another reconciliation bill. Where do you fall on that? And what would you like to prioritize?

TRUMP: Well, I don't want to do cutting. I want to save all the different things. I'm going to cut things that are unnecessary. But the one thing I said, and I gave my word, we're not going to hurt anybody on Medicaid, Medicare or social security. And in fact, we're doing great on Social Security. We found 300,000 illegals on Social Security. We got them out.

And you know, things like that make Social Security very, very strong. So no, we're -- I am very big into certain things. And one of those three, you could say three of those things are Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, we're going to protect it. And so, we'll see how everything works out.

If we're talking about rescissions on other things, I'm always open to cost cutting. If we can cost cut, I like it, but nothing's going to happen to medical. We have something coming up favored nations, where I'm going to be reducing drug prices by 14, 15, 100 percent, where a pill that sells in Germany for $10 costs $150 here because of the bad press. And I was all set to do it, and then we had the covid come up, and I had to focus on that because we had the greatest economy in history in my first term.

I will tell you that we are going to be doing numbers on the cost of drugs in this country, that it's -- I'm not talking about a 20 percent decrease, which would be good. I'm talking about 1000 percent decrease. We're talking about where a product would sell for $80 in Germany, and $1,300 here, and we're not going to do that. We were subsidizing the entire world, and we're not doing it anymore.

I informed the drug companies. I informed the world. And if the world wants to -- if countries in the world don't want to go along, then I'm going to put tariffs on those countries and I'll make -- we'll make more money, but they have to go along with it.

So, this is moving along rapidly. Dr. Oz is in charge Bobby's group, and they're doing very well, and we're getting great cooperation from the drug because the drug companies know it's unfair. You know, for years that say, well, we had to do research, and we had to. I said, I don't care. You had to do research for these other countries also. They are ready to go and I'm ready to go. And you know, if I pull that off, there's no way a Republican will lose an election. There's no way. One more question.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Watch this guy. He's the nicest guy I know, and he asked the most vicious questions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why do you think President Putin is so reluctant to meet with President Zelenskyy?

TRUMP: Because he doesn't like him. He doesn't like him. You know, they don't like -- I have people I don't like. I don't like to meet with them. Sometimes they do like to meet with people I don't like. They don't like. No, they don't like each other, really. And if we had a real president, instead of a guy that got in there with a fraudulent election, we had a real president, that war would have never happened.

[12:05:00]

Putin actually said, he said, If Trump were president, it wouldn't have happened. Happened for a lot of reasons. Happened because of Afghanistan, when he saw how incompetent, Millie was, and all these guys were. I think he said, well, this might be it, because it was the apple of his eye. It would have never happened if I were president.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. President, you have built a relationship with Russian leaders and also North Korean leaders. As they are getting closer, how would that affect your diplomatic approach?

TRUMP: Well, I have a very good relationships with Kim Jong Un, North Korea. I mean, a lot of people would say, oh, that's terrible. No, it's good. In fact, someday I'll see him. I look forward to seeing him. He was very good with me. We had two meetings. We had two summits. We got along great.

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: Welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Manu Raju in today for Dana Bash. We've been listening to President Trump in the Oval Office after signing new executive orders to ban flag burning and end cashless bail. He also ordered the Pentagon to train a specialized D.C. National Guard force, that are, quote, specifically trained and equipped to deal with public order issues.

Now, he dismissed criticism that expanding his crime crackdown in D.C. to other cities is a classic strongman tactic.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: As you all know, Chicago is a killing field right now. And they don't acknowledge it, and they say we don't need them. Freedom, freedom. He's a dictator. He's a dictator. A lot of people are saying, maybe we like a dictator. I don't like a dictator. I'm not a dictator. I'm a man with great common sense and a smart person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: A lot of people are saying, maybe we like a dictator. This after President Trump spent the weekend running to investigate his political opponents and to deploy National Guard troops into cities with leaders who oppose him.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is live for us at the White House. So, Jeff, there was a common theme with these three executive orders.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Manu, there has been a common theme, really, through the month of August and that's been authoritarianism. That is what the president has really talked about and emphasized for most days of this month, certainly recently, and signing those executive orders really flexing the executive authority of the presidency.

Now it is unclear if all of these executive orders will actually be enforced, if some will be legally challenged. But the one that perhaps is the most interesting is the one you read at the beginning there, instructing his secretary of defense to create a specialized unit of the National Guard to effectively be at the ready to be deployed nationwide in the event of unrest.

Now, of course, the National Guard can already be used for that, but this is something that sounded a bit different. We'll have to wait for some of the details. But the president talking specifically there about having a new former National Guard to be able to deploy to cities across the country.

Chicago, of course, has been in his crosshairs. The president contradicted himself just through his comments in the last hour in the Oval Office. He said at once he would send troops to Chicago, and he would have the crime problem solved within a week. A few breaths later, he said he would not send troops. He likely would not send troops to Chicago.

So, we will see about all of this. But you're right, there is a common theme throughout the president's remarks. It's a to change the subject. Of course, we've barely heard him talk throughout the month of August about his legislative achievements. Of course, that One Big Beautiful Bill Act where members of Congress have been defending it, at least Republicans have. The president has talked very little about that.

But at the very end of that very lengthy Oval Office Q&A session, the president was also asked whatever became of that meeting with Vladimir Putin. President Trump, of course, now, met in Alaska with Vladimir Putin more than 10 days ago, and he said, there would be a meeting shortly with Putin and Zelenskyy.

There are no signs of that meeting. In fact, the Kremlin has indicated that a meeting is not really being planned. There's certainly no urgency for it. President Trump was asked why that was? He said, look, they don't like each other, but perhaps it's more complicated than that, or more simple, depends on your point of view. Putin wants more time here to extend the war.

So, Manu, even as there are so many issues on the president's plate, he'll be meeting with the visiting president of South Korea. Any moment here, it's authoritarianism that has really been a theme here at the White House throughout the month of August.

RAJU: Yeah. And we'll see if the president responds any questions when he meets with the South Korean president, the new South Korean president, for the first time at the White House. Jeff Zeleny, who is live for us there. Thank you so much.

And I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters here at the table, CNN's David Chalian, Tia Mitchell of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Tyler Pager of The New York Times. He's also the co-author of 2024: How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America, and CNN's Edward-Isaac Dovere. Isaac, of course, is a book author himself as well, you know --

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: From the last election.

RAJU: From the last election, exactly, exactly. So, let's just talk about what Trump, you know, he's very much defending what's happening with this federal crackdown and this takeover of happening in D.C. And then he says, a lot of people are saying, maybe we like a dictator. He says he doesn't like dictators, but a lot of people are saying it.

[12:10:00]

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: Yeah. He said he doesn't like dictators, and he doesn't consider himself a dictator. Right after he said that. But you say he's defending the crackdown D.C., I would say he's sort of championing in many ways. I mean, he was repeatedly touting statistics of no murders. It sounded like he wanted to tie it up in a bow and be like problem solved.

We -- I came in here, and D.C. is the safest place in the world right now and I'm not sure that all the statistics back that up, but he clearly seems on an accelerated path to try and wrap this up and say, job done.

RAJU: Yeah, it's unclear. He's made all these claims about what's happening in D.C. He said, they're going to go in and fix the medians in D.C., beautifications in D.C. But you know, as part of this executive order, this is going to be to expand the use of the federal of the National Guard, something that had not really been done.

Federalizing the National Guard is something that, without the governor's consent, had not been done since 1965 until he did it in California. They're going to do it in Chicago, it sounds like. And he's making very clear, based on his actions today, it's going to be much broader than that, too.

TIA MITCHELL, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE ATLANTA JOURNAL- CONSTITUTION: Yeah. And the question is, how much of this is real and how much of this is performative? You know, we all frequent D.C. We're in D.C. right now. The National Guard isn't necessarily on every corner. There are parts of D.C. that haven't seen the National Guard at all.

And there's no evidence that the National Guard has actually contributed directly to whatever the crime statistics are showing right now, because they're not necessarily in the high crime areas of D.C., and the low crime areas were already pretty safe to begin with.

So, we talk about the federalization of troops in California during the immigration raids. Again, we don't really know what the impact was. It was pretty short lived. The president moved on pretty quickly.

So, the question is, how much of this is really going to have an impact on the people who live in these cities? And how much of this is just the latest shiny object that President Trump is championing as he avoids talking about other bigger issues on his place?

RAJU: How far is he willing to go here? Just look at some of the cities here with the highest homicide rates per 100,000 people. This is from 2024 data. Jackson, Mississippi at the top of the list, D.C. is number 11 there. But you have a whole bunch of other cities that he is not talking about. Memphis, among them, Dayton, Ohio, Cleveland and the like.

You cover the White House, Tyler. What is the planning right now inside the White House? And is he actually going to go after any red states? Because blue states, right now, blue cities have been at the top of his mind.

TYLER PAGER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Yeah. I think one of the most interesting things about the graphic you just showed is the highlighted yellow of those states sending their National Guard to D.C., right? I think we've seen this playbook before from the president, and it won't be the last time where he is using this issue as a political one, right?

He is trying to make the case that he needs to intervene because Democratic run cities are out of control, in his parlance. And that's clearly not the case. Backed up by data. There are a whole host of other cities, primarily in Republican led states that have higher crime rates but that's not the focus for this president.

We've seen him go after Chicago, L.A. This weekend, he was tangling with Governor Wes Moore of Maryland and talking about Baltimore. There is a playbook here that the president is using, and it's mostly driven by his politics.

And one of the things just to note about Chicago. Chicago's crime rate has actually been decreasing, and at times, has been at pre-pandemic levels. And so, this focus on is out of control crime is misplaced based on where the data is. It's not to say that there's no crime, but if you really look at the numbers, it is not the sort of picture the president --

TRUMP: You heard them signaling out, JB Pritzker, Governor Wes Moore, Gavin Newsom, three potential 2028 candidates. So that's one reason on his mind. Also, just you talked about the politics here, Tyler. The politics are very clear. The president laid it out himself on how he sees this issue playing out heading into the midterms.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I think this is another men and women's sports thing. I think this is one of those. You know, they call them 80-20 issues. I call them 97-three. I think the Democrats better get smart and, you know, politically, I hope they don't, but actually, in terms of love for the country, I hope they do. (END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: I mean, it's clear, they see this as a wedge used against Democrats. They've successfully done this in past election cycles. Trump thinks they can do it again.

DOVERE: Yeah. And like, we can talk about the politics of it. We're sitting here on a show called Inside Politics. It is, though, pretty significant that we're talking about a situation where American troops are being deployed onto American soil, where people who are showing up with weapons, without any identification, without any explanation of who they're grabbing and why they're grabbing, who they're grabbing, put them in the back of the cars.

They're not saying where they're taking these people to. We don't really know what's going on with a lot of this. And so, maybe people will respond to the talk of crime in the ways that they have traditionally in years past. But it's also -- and to David's point. If you walk around D.C. right now, you will see national guardsmen around the Lincoln Memorial, around the Washington Monument.

[12:15:00]

When the vice president and secretary of defense and Stephen Miller went to Union Station last week, that is not really where the crime rate has been exploding in the past in Washington. And there's a real question of how much is being done to address even the crime rate that the president says, his goal is to address here.

RAJU: Yeah. And we'll see ultimately what his next step is going to be. The president made pretty clear, they're going to expand this crackdown and also continue to investigate some of his political opponents. That's something to watch as well.

All right, another twist. In a month's long saga, centering a one man and President Trump's immigration policy, where Kilmar Abrego Garcia is now and where he might be headed next. That's ahead. Plus, a live look at the White House. The president of South Korea is due to arrive to meet with the President Trump any moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: That was Kilmar Abrego Garcia, turning himself into immigration officials at an ICE field office in Baltimore just a few hours ago. He and his wife shared a tear-filled goodbye, and then Abrego Garcia was quickly taken into ICE custody. The Department of Homeland Security says, he's being processed for deportation. He spoke to the crowd of supporters and protesters beforehand, through an interpreter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: To all the families who have been separated, or to all the families who have been threatened with family separation. This administration has hit us hard. But I want to tell you by something. God is with us and God will never leave us. God will bring justice to all of the injustice that we are suffering.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: CNN's Priscilla Alvarez is following Abrego Garcia's case. Priscilla, Garcia's attorney suggested this morning that they did not know he was going to be arrested this morning. And they were told he was just actually going to be interviewed by ICE officials when they went there. So, what happened?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the intention was that it was a mandatory check in where an interview would happen, but his attorney did expect that it was possible that he would be detained. That is something that Trump administration officials have repeated (Audio Gap) if and when he was released from criminal custody, which happened last Friday in -- on the ground. And it all happened, really within an hour.

Abrego Garcia, as you see there, spoke to the crowd. Thanked his family and community organizers as well as religious leaders. And then embracing his wife went up to the federal building along with his attorney, where (Audio Gap) immigration and customs enforcement. About 45 minutes later, his (Audio Gap) and Abrego Garcia had been taken into custody.

Now the big question is, where will he be deported? Well, in addition to announcing to reporters that he had been in maintained in custody. His attorney also said that they filed a new lawsuit, challenging his detainment and his detention -- I'm sorry, and his deportation, specifically where?

So, the Trump administration had offered a plea deal for a Abrego Garcia to plea to federal charges, carry out his criminal sentence in the U.S. and then be deported to Costa Rica (Audio Gap) deported to Uganda, a country with which he has no ties. But an approach administration has been taking (Audio Gap) far flung countries.

Now, the administration similarly went on to say that if he didn't again, Uganda would be the option. Now the (Audio Gap) this potential deportation, and this is how his attorney described the predicament as it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIMON SANDOVAL-MOSHENBERG, ATTORNEY FOR KILMAR ABREGO GARCIA: The fact that they're holding Costa Rica as a carrot and using Uganda as a stick to try to coerce him to plead guilty to a crime is such clear evidence that they're weaponizing the immigration system in a matter that is completely unconstitutional.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right. Priscilla Alvarez, thank you so much for that report. My excellent panels -- reporters are back here at the table. So, why is this, you know, so -- why is the administration so gung-ho on this case? I mean, the way they've handled this has really been something to see, right? Back in March, they admitted in court that he was mistakenly deported.

One of their attorneys did. The courts said, needing to facilitate the release of him from El Salvador back to the United States, and then, begrudgingly, to keep the administration ultimately did. Now they're threatening to send him to Uganda if he does not agree to plead guilty to crime here, they could say -- they say, you can go to Costa Rica instead, they don't want to do that.

But what is your insight, and what are you hearing from your own sources about why they have made this a centerpiece of their fight on immigration?

PAGER: I mean, if you look at Donald Trump's career in politics, there's been a few prevailing mantras, and one of them is, don't admit mistakes. Don't say you did something wrong. He has almost never done so. And so, with this case in particular, it is the centerpiece of a larger policy, a larger effort led by Stephen Miller and other hard line immigration forces within this administration that want to try to deport as many people as possible.

[12:25:00]

This was a talking point for Trump in 2015, 2016, and it has been a through line through his entire political career. And both in terms of his presidency and with this case, they do not want to show any sort of, you know, care or caution in terms of that they made a mistake. That is not the belief of this administration.

And so, they are trying to do everything they can to show that they are going to pursue the most aggressive policy as possible, in part to protect the president's own image, but also as what they believe is a deterrent to other people to try to get them not to come --

RAJU: Yeah, and the politics are very clear. This obviously been a key issue for Trump all along. They believe it's a winning issue, but it's having an impact on communities as well. This is what our reporters at CNN here reported this weekend, quoting, the headline, it's like one day everyone left.

How immigration crackdowns are reshaping America. They quoted someone who's a jewelry seller saying, people are scared of being arrested just for being outside. There is always this tension, this feeling that something could happen.

MITCHELL: Yeah. And that's the risk, in addition to all the -- what was mentioned, the risk of how it could impact communities, the economy, and the risk that it backfires. You mentioned also, for example, that this was central to Trump's campaign. The attack on Democrats as being focused on they them was also central. But both his immigration message and his anti-trans message ultimately were packaged as the economy that the Biden administration is too focused on things that are harmful to the economy. And so, the question is, could these things now backfire on him? Because people are saying, actually these crackdowns could be, you know, the opposite. They're not helping the economy. The promises that Trump made aren't coming to fruition. And by the way, I also see him in his administration taking people off the streets, and that's not what I voted for.

CHALIAN: And we've seen some evidence from voters that not all of these tactics wear well. So, when the Abrego Garcia case was prominently in the news in the spring, when, as you acknowledge, the administration acknowledged in court that they did this incorrectly, the initial deportation that, that was not wearing well. His immigration numbers started going down.

Then after the L.A. crackdown, we saw some hit on his immigration numbers as well. And I think it's interesting to tie it back to our first segment that when he talks about D.C. or taking over the city. Yes, he acknowledges getting some bad guys out, or like the attorney general did today in the Oval Office. That's not the president's focus on this. He's hammering other points.

He goes to the beautification. He goes to making sure the city is more livable. It's not just this relentless focus on an immigration crackdown, which is clearly part of what is going on with the D.C. takeover as well. And I think that's because he's aware while immigration is his life force in American politics, and it is an issue that resonates for his base. When he potentially oversteps, it doesn't necessarily serve his political interests as well. And I think you see him aware of that fact at times.

RAJU: Very quickly --

(CROSSTALK)

DOVERE: To what Jeff Zeleny was saying at the beginning, the theme of this month has been a lot of authoritarian stuff. It is a question of how much Americans are willing to tolerate in that way for all, whether it's an immigration crackdown or crime. Remember, these are authoritarian moves. There will be some appetite for it for people -- for some people, and there may be some backlash for other people. That's what we have to see.

RAJU: Yeah. As we often see, an administration comes in, they tend to overreach, but regardless of the party and the midterm elections, they tend to get blown back a bit by the voters. We'll see if that ultimately happens next year.

All right. Any moment now, President Trump will meet with the new South Korean president, an expected talk about trade and security. But following the president's comments today, could surprises be in store?

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