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Trump Threatens To Send National Guard Into Chicago; Republicans Evade Questions About Crime In Red State; Judge Blocks Removal Of Guatemalan Children In U.S. Custody; Ex-CDC Directors: RFK Jr. "Is Endangering Every American's Health"; CDC Leaders Who Resigned Sound Alarm Over Direction Under RFK Jr. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 01, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

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MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on Inside Politics, blue city blitz. President Trump is threatening to deploy federal forces to Chicago this week. He claims his focus is combating crime and controlling immigration. But why only in democratic zip codes?

Plus, a blistering warning. Nine former CDC directors are joining forces to sound the alarm on what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doing to the agency. They say it's, quote, endangering every American's health. And shut down rematch. Democrats are getting another chance to block President Trump's agenda. But can they agree on a playbook that also keeps the government's lights on?

I'm Manu Raju in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines in Inside Politics.

We begin with the third largest American city on high alert. As the Trump administration plans a federal law enforcement crackdown in Chicago that could begin this week. Now the operations will inflame an already bitter standoff between the White House and Democratic leaders in Illinois, who say they'll resist the president's effort, however possible.

Over the weekend, Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an order to reaffirm local control of the Chicago police force.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR BRANDON JOHNSON (D) CHICAGO: We do not want to see tanks in our streets. We do not want to see families ripped apart. We do not want grandmothers thrown into the back of unmarked vans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: But this morning, President Trump attacked the mayor and other Democrats, accusing them of justifying violent crimes. CNN's Kristen Holmes is at the White House for us now. So, Kristen, what more do we know about this planned operation in Chicago? KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Manu. This standoff between Chicago officials, Illinois officials and the White House is growing more bitter by the day. So, what we are told is that this would be a major federal immigration enforcement operation. Now the White House is the one who is trying to clarify, to draw this line between what he is doing just in D.C. in terms of fighting crime and the idea of this immigration enforcement.

Now probably that is because of the fact that there is a lot more on the line. There is a lot more rules when it comes to the federal government going into a city or a state that is not Washington, D.C. because of home rule. So, they're clearly trying to work around the system that's already in place.

And as you noted, the governor in Illinois has said he's had almost no communication that they have had no reach out from the White House to them, to anyone on the administration staff, and that essentially, they don't know exactly what's going on. And we heard the Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem talking about this plan over the weekend. Here's what she said.

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KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: We've already had ongoing operations with ICE in Chicago and throughout Illinois and other states, making sure that we're upholding our laws, but we do intend to add more resources to those operations. I won't speak to the specifics of the operations that are planned in other cities, but I do know that L.A. wouldn't be standing today. If President Trump hadn't taken action, then that city would have burned down if left to the devices of the mayor and the governor of that state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And you can hear, really, in the language that she is using there. She's saying they are already operations, this is just adding more law enforcement. Again, likely trying to find a loophole here that would make it less difficult for them to bring in these federal resources. As you noted, the Democratic mayor he -- in Chicago, he already signed an executive order.

Part of that affirmed that law enforcement in Chicago would not be working with federal agents. It also asked that federal law enforcement not wear masks. But again, that is not something that they can actually enforce on the streets of Chicago.

I do want to note President Trump sent out on Truth Social this morning, asking Democratic lawmakers to work with him the way that the D.C. governor -- excuse me, D.C. mayor, Mayor Muriel Bowser has.

But again, just to be very clear, Bowser in a very different situation here than the governors of these states. Bowser does not have a lot of options when it comes to fighting back against this kind of federal infiltration because of home rule. They are likely to face a lot more challenges when it comes to these blue states. RAJU: Yeah, no question about it. All right. Kristen Holmes, live for us at the White House. Thank you so much. And here in the room, I'm joined by terrific group of reporters, Jackie Kucinich to the Boston Globe, Burgess Everett of Semafor, Jeff Mason of Reuters, and CNN's Eva McKend. Nice to see you all. Good afternoon. Happy Labor Day. It is Labor Day, after all a holiday.

[12:05:00]

Jeff, you cover the White House. What is this going to -- what is this going to look like? Because, unlike D.C. as Kristen was saying, there's no federal control over Chicago. We're seeing the standoff with Democratic leaders and the president, but the president is forging ahead.

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: I think that's a really big distinction. The president had more flexibility to bring troops into the D.C. area, because D.C. is a district. It's not a state. I will tell you anecdotally, from walking around D.C., as a D.C. resident myself, you're seeing a lot more signs lately about the push for D.C. statehood, but that is an aside.

The broad challenge is going to be different, but the broad goal is exactly the same. And you were right to say in your intro that he's focusing on democratic states and democratic cities, and you heard the Secretary mention L.A. as well. They're using the language of hyperbole. They're using the language of fear to get an aim that they want, and that is to have a foothold in these democratic cities.

RAJU: Look, there has obviously been a lot of violence in Chicago. There's always been a lot of violence in Chicago just this Labor Day weekend. 52 people were shot, seven fatally in Labor Day weekend violence. That is according to the police. And the mayor, you know, as we reported here, signed this order affirming the Chicago police will not collaborate with federal agents on these law enforcement activities. Is this a risk for the Democrats in charge here of Chicago?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Mayor Johnson is in a tough position. Chicago voters did elect him, though. So previously, Mayor Lightfoot, you could argue, was to the right of Mayor Johnson, and they still made a selection for this progressive mayor.

And listen, he is being responsive to the majority of Democratic voters, at least across the country, who really have an appetite to see leadership stand up to President Trump. Now how this is all going to unfold is going to be something that we will have to watch closely. Will federal officers comply with the local law of not masking when they go into immigrant communities?

There are also other solutions where the city mayor, the mayor -- the governor of Illinois, the president, could work together, like on universal background checks and also making sure that they continue to fund intervention programs for young people to dissuade them from engaging in crime. RAJU: And there's been absolutely no discussion about any sort of bipartisan collaboration.

MCKEND: And those are the things that policy solutions that Democrats say will actually work.

RAJU: And this is what J.B. Pritzker, the Illinois governor, said about that lack of collaboration.

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GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D-IL): No one in the administration, the president or anybody under him has called anyone in my administration or -- and me have not called the city of Chicago or anyone else. So, it's clear that, in secret, they're planning this. Well, it's an invasion with U.S. troops if they, in fact, do that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And Trump had his own point to respond to J.B. Pritzker said on Truth Social. He's crazy. He better straighten it out, fast or coming MAGA. So, this is perhaps 2028, foreshadow, but Trump sees a clear winning issue for him, a wedge issue, of course, something that he believes could put Democrats like J.B. Pritzker on the defensive.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: And Democrats do have a challenge of how to position themselves on this right, crime has been an issue that they have been on the back foot because they don't know which way to go. They don't want to alienate their base, but they also don't want to alienate middle of the road voters, both, you know, in state, but also nationally.

If you're talking about a J.B. Pritzker, someone who is very much in the 2028 conversation, Gavin Newsom as well, Wes Moore as well, some of the states that Trump appears to be targeting, because Baltimore has definitely been in his sights as well.

Where they land? I think we have to wait and see because there isn't a uniform message coming from the Democrats, aside from the fact that these states are losing, could potentially lose their autonomy because of the president's actions.

RAJU: And then what about the red states? As we talked about, has yet to been a focus at all of this White House. They've indicated the administration has that perhaps that could be down the line, but it's certainly not a focus yet. So, do the Republican members who represent those red states and red districts. Do they want the National Guard coming in there?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R-OK): If the governor of Oklahoma or the mayors of these different cities were to invite him in, I would say they would cooperate with the president and say, hey, we could use the help to be able to deal with any kind of crime issues on it.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Why not Shreveport?

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): I don't know, that's not my call.

BERMAN: Would you -- would you ask him for that?

JOHNSONL: It may be necessary. Well, I don't know. Let's take one city at a time and see.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you welcome federal resources going into a part of South Carolina with a high crime rate?

REP. NANCY MACE (R-SC): Well, Congress is back in session on Tuesday, and I hear D.C. in the capital is safer than it's ever been. And I hope that President Trump has the resources to send soldiers to Chicago, if that's what it takes.

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[12:10:00]

RAJU: Didn't exactly answer the question. And there are eight out of the 10 cities with top homicide rate per capita are in red states, but Republicans are not necessarily rushing to call on the National Guard.

BURGESS EVERETT, CONGRESSIONAL BUREAU CHIEF, SEMAFOR: No. And what you're seeing here is President Trump likes to have a villain, and he's been pitting his voters against blue states and blue cities for a long time. So that would not probably involve going into places like New Orleans, which is in a red state, even though it is a democratic city.

So, I wouldn't expect him to deviate from the strategy of going after places that you can be more easily identified with Democratic voters and Democratic politicians, particularly ones, as you mentioned, who might be running for the Democratic nomination in 2028 like Pritzker and Newsom.

RAJU: Yeah. And while all this was happening over the weekend, there was this news about these Guatemalan migrant children, unaccompanied minors who were in the United States for a variety of reasons. They were on -- you know, essentially shuttled onto a plane in Texas, and were waiting essentially removal to Guatemala, the administration said to reunite them with their family.

They all had their own reasons for leaving, and then there was an emergency order that was filed in court. A judge essentially blocked the removal from the United States. The judge wrote, the government attempting to remove minor children from the country in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend, which is surprising, but here we are. That is a federal judge who was appointed by Joe Biden.

Stephen Miller, the top White House official responded on X saying, the Biden judge is effectively kidnapping these migrant children, refusing to let them return home to their parents in their home country. Now, President Trump promised the largest deportation effort ever in American history, but this just shows you the extent of which they're going when it involves children here on a holiday weekend.

MASON: And from a political perspective, if you look back at Trump 1.0, the first term. One of the things on immigration policy that hurt him the most was the separation of children from families. So, the issue of minors, in terms of immigration broadly, that is a more sensitive one, I would say, politically, than the issue of adults, and that's something that they'll be watching, no doubt.

RAJU: And if you look at the polls, the polls do show that there's some issue, some concern among the American public about the direction where things are at 45 percent of the country, back in February said his deportation policy has gone too far, but now 55 percent least, that was in July. We'll see if it shifts even further. Now that we are on September 1 here, but it shows you the shift in the American public when they see some of these impacts, perhaps maybe involving children, involving depot and the like.

KUCINICH: Well, they were told that the worst of the worst, right, would be -- we're going to be the ones to be deported, and that hasn't been the case in part, because of this quote, this number that the administration says they want to deport.

And I think that that's and, you know, how they're doing it in the middle of the night, trying to outpace the justice system before they're able to -- have to call things back and then fighting it when they do. So, there's no reason. I think the administration, though, thinks this is good politics and hasn't really deviated in this approach.

RAJU: Yeah. I don't think, well, we'll see what happens in that case. It's still pending in court, administration indicating, it will fight it. All right, coming up next. A scathing rebuke. Nine former CDC directors say what Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is doing to the agency is putting the lives of all Americans at risk.

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RAJU: Today, former CDC directors from multiple administrations in the New York Times essay published this essay saying, quote. We ran the CDC; Kennedy is endangering every American's health. The essay warns that the firing of the former CDC director Susan Monarez is fuel on a quote, raging fire at the agency.

And warns of a stark new reality from prior administrations of both parties, writing. We are worried about the wide-ranging impact that all these decisions will have on America's health security. Residents of rural communities and people with disabilities will have even more limited access to healthcare. Families with low incomes rely most heavily on community health clinics and support from state and local health departments will have fewer resources available to them. Children risk losing access to lifesaving vaccines because of the cost. My Smart reporters are back. So, look, we often hear alarms people raise about things that Trump is doing. Oftentimes, the American public shrugs off those alarms. This -- is this different? You have administrators, former people who ran CDC under Carter, both Bushes, Clinton, Trump for a brief period in the first administration, Biden, all writing this out led to raise these serious alarms. Does that a different impact?

MCKEND: The challenge is that many voters supported President Trump this administration because they wanted our institutions completely rehauled, and so, they have to take this message directly to the voters. This is a time, actually an opportunity for public health to essentially rebrand itself with people, with American voters, to emphasize that this means global vaccination programs. This means cancer research. I think it hasn't trickled down yet to people. What eliminating these institutions would actually mean for their everyday lives.

[12:20:00]

RAJU: It meant the Trump is trying to -- you put out a post this morning, seemed to respond to this, perhaps. And look, one of the big things that Trump did, of course, that he touted back in 2020 was Operation Warp Speed. The way that they got the covid vaccine, kind of done relative very quickly, according to historical norms. But now he's seeing Bobby Kennedy essentially unraveling the covid vaccine, putting them in an unusual spot.

This is what Trump put in this Truth Social post. It is very important that drug companies justify the success of their various covid drugs. Many people think they are a miracle that saved millions of lives. Others disagree. I hope Operation Warp Speed was as quote, BRILLIANT, as many say it was. If not, we all want to know. Trump is in an awkward position here on this issue.

MASON: He's in an awkward position because a lot of his voters are skeptical of vaccines and skeptical of the covid vaccines. But let's be clear about the facts and the science. Number one, the covid vaccines absolutely did save millions of people. So, he can write on Truth Social that some people disagree, but the facts are, this vaccine saved lives and lots of lives.

Politically, you're spot on to say that the president talked about the success of Operation Warp Speed. He should have. I remember being in the Cabinet Room, when he was criticizing Dr. Fauci at the time. This was early in 2020 when Dr. Fauci was talking about the fact that vaccines take a long time to get made, and he said, you need to do them faster. And they did. They got them done faster.

But then the president proceeded to not take his own vaccine on camera and proceeded to allow some of this misinformation about vaccines to bubble up within his base. And that can't be undone, and in that particular social media post that you're referencing, he's trying to walk that line between the fact that a lot of his supporters aren't fans, and the fact that the science is real and that he actually could be taking credit for that and encouraging his voters to come around if he chose to. That's not a choice he's making.

RAJU: How are Republicans who voted for RFK Jr. feeling right now. I mean, the things that he has done, whether it's these steps up vaccines, this purge at the CDC, getting rid of healthcare workers and the like these members did.

Bill Cassidy, obviously being perhaps the biggest one of them, he could have stopped this nomination in the Senate Finance Committee, got all these assurances from Kennedy that he would not roll back vaccines and the like. Voted yes. Of course, Cassidy faces a primary challenge as well. Are they having second thoughts right now?

EVERETT: I'd be interesting if they were ever to put retention votes into place for cabinet secretaries. How somebody like RFK Jr. would fair --

RAJU: Recall.

EVERETT: Yeah. Because you're hearing -- Bill Cassidy's number one, but you're also hearing from Lisa Murkowski. I bet when we're back in the Capitol tomorrow, you're going to hear some other folks who are critical of this unraveling of public health.

RAJU: Susan Collins said, she's very alarmed.

EVERETT: Yeah. And as Jeff said, this is probably one of the biggest success points for Trump in his first term, was getting this vaccine online. And that was something that Republicans praised him for, and wished he talked more about it. I think we'll learn a lot, as we see RFK Jr. before the Senate Finance Committee this week on which Bill Cassidy serves and a bunch of other interesting Republicans like Thom Tillis, who's retiring and can be as unplugged as he wants to be. I think we'll find out a lot more about this.

And I'm also just struck by this confirmation of the CDC director was about a month ago. It's crazy, how we aren't even -- this is the kind of thing that would have dominated headlines and led to a bunch of Republicans complaining about the Trump administration's lack of preparation for kind of wasting the Senate's time on a CDC nominee that they didn't intend on keeping because she didn't do exactly what they wanted. So, it's another example of the autonomy that RFK Jr. has developed within this administration.

RAJU: Yeah. And interesting to see that when he does testify Thursday, will he answer the question about, has he been briefed about vaccines by top CDC officials? This is what a former -- up until recently, the top medical officer, chief medical officer at the CDC, Debra Houry, told me yesterday about whether or not RFK Jr. has, in fact, been briefed by that on vaccines by CDC officials.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DEBRA HOURY, RESIGNED FROM CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION: I heard about it by watching Twitter. He had not worked directly with CDC on that guidance and that was restricting vaccines. He hasn't been working with CDC or listening to our scientists. None of our scientists have ever briefed the secretary about vaccines.

RAJU: None of the scientists at CDC have ever briefed him. I was just saying, not a single one.

HOURY: On vaccines. Yeah, on vaccines, on measles, on H5N1. And I can tell you, in the prior Trump administration, I regularly briefed HHS.

DR. TOM FRIEDEN, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR: I'm stunned. This is really, really unheard of.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[12:25:00]

KUCINICH: Which, I mean during his confirmation hearings. One of the things Kennedy said, I think, in response to Bill Cassidy, was that, if there is good data that on, you know, that these are safe. I want to see it. I'm willing to change my mind, impair phrasing, of course. So, I guess he's earmuffs or something. I don't know, but the fact that he wasn't -- that these experts haven't been able to brief him. I'm really curious what he says to senators, because we know that the most recent CDC director went to Cassidy.

When her job was threatened, and one of the reasons she got fired. So, I think Thursday is going to be a big day in terms of hearing. It's going to be must, must watch to see how the Senator's response. And he usually is a lot more receptive to Republican questions. If you watch some of these hearings, he's sort of dismissive of Democrats. I think a lot of these Republican senators are going to have some very pointed questions for the secretary.

RAJU: Yeah. And we'll see, they say when they come back tomorrow evening for Senate votes, I know or just be asking questions I will too. Maybe they'll answer. Maybe they won't. All right, coming up. From defunding to befriending, Zohran Mamdani, tries to make up with the police department that he once called racist.

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