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Laura Coates Live

Top Trump Officials To Meet On Epstein Strategy; Texas Senator Asks FBI To Bring Back Democrats Who Fled; CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister Interviews Diddy's Attorney. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired August 05, 2025 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: That's not exactly a good position to be in.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Harry sweet cheeks Enten (ph), great to see you tonight. Thanks so much for being with us. Thank you all for watching "NewsNight." "Laura Coates Live" starts right now.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN HOST: Tonight, President Trump's team prepares to huddle over their Epstein strategy, but will it be enough to contain the fallout over their biggest political crisis yet? Plus, a Texas senator pushes for the FBI to round up Democrats who fled the state as the redistricting war escalates nationwide. And one of Diddy's attorneys sits down for a CNN exclusive and delivers a big reveal about what they've asked Trump. Tonight on "Laura Coates Live."

Welcome to the show. I'm Victor Blackwell, in for Laura. If the fallout over Jeffrey Epstein is casting a shadow the White House cannot escape, then that shadow is getting a whole lot bigger. Tonight, three huge developments. Here's the newest. Sources tell CNN top Trump officials plan to meet at the vice president's residence tomorrow night. The mission is to come up with a unified response over the Epstein case. At the meeting, Vice President J.D. Vance, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, and FBI Director Kash Patel.

The second revelation tonight is tied to the first, because of a topic they plan to talk about at tomorrow's meeting. Remember that highly unusual Justice Department interview with Epstein's accomplice? Well, turns out it was recorded, nearly 10 hours of conversation over two days between Blanche and convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell, all un-taped.

Now, it doesn't end there. We're learning that the Trump administration is considering publicly releasing a transcript of it. What Maxwell revealed is still a mystery. And when President Trump was pressed, he claimed he hasn't even spoken with Blanche about it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: She's a very legitimate person, very high. Uh, I -- just a very highly thought of person, respected by everybody. And I didn't talk to him about it, but I will tell you that whatever he has would be totally appropriate and it's not an uncommon thing to do that. And I think he probably wants to make sure that, you know, people that should not be involved or aren't involved or not hurt by something, that would be very, very unfortunate, very unfair to a lot of people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: The question now is not just whether the transcript gets released, it's who decides what you see and what gets blacked out or, as the president put it, who defines who would be hurt? We'll get into that tonight. Trump was also asked about Ghislaine Maxwell's move to a lower security prison just weeks after talking with Blanche.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Were you aware of and did you personally approve the prison transfer for Ghislaine Maxwell that your Justice Department --

TRUMP: I didn't know about it at all. No. I read about it just like you did.

COLLINS: And do you believe that she is --

TRUMP: It's not a very uncommon thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: But it is uncommon, extremely uncommon. People convicted of sex crimes almost never end up in prison camps like the one that Maxwell is in now. She would have needed a special waiver to be moved there.

Now, the third Epstein revelation tonight is happening on Capitol Hill. The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed the DOJ for the Epstein files. It also sent subpoenas to 10 former government officials. This is an attempt to drag them in for questioning. You can see them here, see their names. They're big ones. Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Robert Mueller, six former U.S. attorneys general.

But the list is just as notable as for the names that are not on it. The most glaring is President Trump himself. He was Epstein's close friend for years, and we know his name is mentioned in the files.

The House also did not subpoena Alex Acosta, the former prosecutor who negotiated Epstein's 2008 sweetheart deal. Important note here, Acosta also served as Trump's labor secretary in that first term.

Let's begin with former state attorney for Palm Beach County, Dave Aronberg, and editor-in-chief and owner of All Rise News, Adam Klasfeld. Gentlemen, welcome to the show tonight.

Dave, let me start with you and -- and the meeting. What do you make of this meeting where you've got the vice president, you've got the A.G., you've got the director of the FBI together on messaging? What happened to the independence of the DOJ? Is that out the window?

DAVE ARONBERG, FORMER STATE ATTORNEY, PALM BEACH COUNTY: Oh, that has been out the window a long time ago. Uh, I think it's telling who's not at the meeting, Dan Bongino, the number two at the FBI. He is the one who promoted a lot of these conspiracy theories involving Jeffrey Epstein. He is the one who is ready to quit after the DOJ released its memo. He's not at the meeting. He needs to get on the reservation, too.

[23:04:59]

You need to have a combined effort to get ahead of the story. But it doesn't help that the base has been built up with all these lies and conspiracy theories and now are told nothing to see here. So, this is a problem of their own making.

BLACKWELL: And Dave, what do you make of the reporting that the deputy attorney general, Todd Blanche, is taking the driver's seat here and not the attorney general, Pam Bondi?

ARONBERG: Well, I'm not surprised because blanche is Donald Trump's former defense lawyer. And as bizarre as it is for the number two person in the Department of Justice to interview a convicted, uh, felon who committed these horrendous crimes of sex trafficking, it would be even more bizarre for the attorney general herself to do it. So, I'm not surprised that they gave this to Todd Blanche, someone that Trump can trust. Plus, it gets it out of the attorney general's hands and puts it in someone who's relatively unknown to the MAGA base.

But in the end, it still Trump's issue. He's the one who led the discussion of how this is all a big conspiracy, and he was going to release all the files. And now that he and his people are in power, they are trying to convince their base that there's nothing here. But this is the problem. You create the monster and, eventually, Frankenstein turns on his creator.

BLACKWELL: Adam, let's talk about this list, the subpoenas that have been sent out, and we can put those names and faces up again. Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, recipients as well. What's the likelihood that these people go in for interviews and what will that fight look like if they don't go in willingly?

ADAM KLASFELD, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF AND CO-FOUNDER, ALL RISE NEWS: Well, one of the categories here, we're talking about a former president of the United States. And this has never occurred, that a former president of the United States has been compelled to testify, this former president has voluntarily testified.

I -- what I find as a more interesting subpoena is the one to the DOJ for this broad category of documents because if they did -- if they didn't fight it tooth and nail and they supplied some of this information, it would be the biggest flip-flop in the history of DOJ flip-flops, from just a few weeks ago, the 'nothing to see here' memo, vowing not to release any information, and now being hit with a broad subpoena seeking all of this information that -- that could really bring some real transparency if complied with.

BLACKWELL: And if the -- the hope is to get to some answers, how could you leave, and I'm going to stick with you, Adam, for this, um, Alex Acosta off the list?

KLASFELD: Right, you hit the nail on the head with that one because, as you said, he was the guy who authorized the sweetheart deal. As a matter of fact, today, there was -- today was the victim's day to speak in federal court, in the whole -- the corrective for the Trump administration and the Trump DOJ. Today, they were going to unseal the grand jury records.

Well, the victims spoke and they talked about -- their attorneys spoke about how this is history all over again, this sweetheart deal in 2008 where Alex Acosta was sweeping things under the rug. They feel left out once again because the DOJ is making critical decisions without their involvement.

BLACKWELL: Uh, Dave, back to you. Ghislaine Maxwell, what are you expecting from this transcript if it's released?

ARONBERG: It shows that they're not going to prosecute anyone relating to anything she says because that's not what you do as a prosecutor. You don't release the transcript for the world to see and tip off all the potential targets of an investigation. So, this is about the show, not the go. This is about getting information out there that is redacted and edited so that it can exonerate President Trump to show that he did nothing wrong here. At the same time, point the finger at prominent Democrats.

That's what they want with Ghislaine Maxwell. That is, in my mind, the reason why she was transferred to a better facility in Texas and that's why the pardon is still being dangled out there, because it looks like she's playing ball.

BLACKWELL: All right, Dave, Adam, thank you very much.

With me now, former senior adviser for the Trump-Vance campaign, Bryan Lanza, and senior advisor of Our Republican Legacy initiative, Rina Shah. Welcome to you both.

Rina, you're up first. This meeting that's happening at the vice president's residence, and we've gone through the list of the attendees there, there may be going be a press conference interview on Joe Rogan with Todd Blanche, as being discussed. What do you think? Does this quell the criticism from MAGA world?

RINA SHAH, CEO OF RILAX STRATEGIES, GEOPOLITICAL ADVISER, POLITICAL STRATEGIST: Absolutely not. Just to be very frank about where we're at in this timeline, we -- fresh subpoenas, victim statements, and a deepening political divide between the American public and this White House. Something like 90% of Americans, if you're looking at any polling on this, want these files released.

[23:10:03] That includes 83% of Republicans. How this chorus doesn't continue to get louder? I don't know. And it's all about what's at the core of the matter here. And this fallout really has stemmed from the Trump administration's real crazy reversal on releasing these so-called files. Right? This was about them saying, we want transparency, we want accountability on the campaign trail. But hey, when you're sitting there in a position to do it, what's -- what's with the silence? What's with the I don't know? And what's -- what's sort of the slow pace to get to a solution?

I -- I say this: This is about victim centered justice over political gamesmanship. In recent weeks, I've heard Trump talk about wanting to protect innocents. He has a chance to do that right now. Victims aren't pawns in a political chess game, Victor. They're just not. They're the reason we fight for sunlight. And that's why we try to ensure in this country, no one is above the law.

BLACKWELL: Bryan, I was going to ask you a question. I'm just watching your facial expression as you listen to this. What are you thinking?

BRYAN LANZA, FORMER DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR TRUMP 2016 CAMPAIGN: Listen, I think we're going into six weeks about this. I think the MAGA base probably cared about it up until week number two. And then by week number three, the MAGA base sort of moved on.

My phones were blowing up the first two weeks. What's going to happen? How can the president do this? And then the issue kind of got co-opted by the never Trumpers in the media. And that sort of turned off the MAGA base actually caring about this as much.

Now, the administration has a problem. They've made commitments. There's a calendar. There's going to be a timeline of information. That has to come out. That's what I suspect the meeting is at the vice president's office. You have to talk about timeline because there's going to be release valves along the way.

BLACKWELL: More than timeline. Is the meeting not an acknowledgement that they are bungling the messaging here, that they need all these people in the same room?

LANZA: I think the fact that we're --

BLACKWELL: Six weeks in, as you said.

LANZA: I think the fact that we're six weeks into this shows that they have not moved sort of beyond, you know, their initial response and that they need something, they need release valves. The audio --

(TECHNICAL ISSUE)

BLACKWELL: -- people have moved on. A new University of Massachusetts Amherst poll shows that 63% of Americans strongly or somewhat agree that the Trump administration is hiding important information about the Epstein case. That doesn't sound like people have moved on.

LANZA: Well, listen, I think, you know, hiding and people putting the number one focus of their -- of their radar are two different things. You know, from what I hear, what I've seen in polls and open-ended questions, nobody brings up Epstein anymore as opposed to three weeks ago, four weeks ago they're bringing up Epstein.

BLACKWELL: We just watched video of a Republican congressman who shut down -- shouted down, I should say, at his town hall.

LANZA: And listen, I'm a Republican political operative. We've always had -- you know, we've always had members in the audience of Democratic town halls shouting them down. That's the theater of politics. But if you look at polling and open-ended questions and when you ask a voter what they care about, nobody is bringing up Epstein.

SHAH: I am struck. I am struck by your comments on this because everybody cares about this. This is the most salacious story of a dead pedophile who did the most nasty things you can do with other humans, with the wealthy and elite, names ranging in -- my gosh!

LANZA: Bill Clinton.

SHAH: Woody Allen, Ehud Barak. My gosh! Global figures. Okay? This is not a joke when we talk about how this White House has really fumbled the ball on the messaging on this.

And let's be honest, President Trump for months and months has talked about bringing sunlight here. Those promises of sunlight have given way to shadows now. And transparency cannot be a campaign slogan. It's absolutely the bedrock of trust in our institutions. The MAGA base doesn't trust him anymore. And to say it has changed just because some never Trumpers in the mainstream media is talking about it is absolutely tone-deaf.

BLACKWELL: Rina, you say this is about a dead pedophile. There is a surviving co-conspirator, a co-sex trafficker here, Ghislaine Maxwell. The president is not shy about handing out nicknames to people he calls bad people. But he has this soft touch when it comes to Ghislaine Maxwell. Let's play what he said after she was convicted in 2020.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I just wish her well. Frankly, I've met her numerous times over the years, especially since I lived in Palm Beach. I guess they lived in Palm Beach. But I wish her well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: It hasn't changed significantly since then. What -- what is this approach to Ghislaine Maxwell where he can be so hard on Rosie O'Donnell and the cast of Hamilton and anybody on this network or others, but when it comes to her, and we know what she has done, that he takes this approach?

LANZA: No, listen, I don't think Donald -- Donald Trump doesn't punch everybody. He makes his choice who he wants to punch, and he just made decision he's not going to punch her. BLACKWELL: Okay.

LANZA: That's fine.

BLACKWELL: Let's shift here. Why won't he say, I will not pardon Ghislaine Maxwell?

LANZA: If you know Donald Trump and you've been there, people have asked him, reporters from this network have asked Donald Trump, you know, a very specific question, what he has always done is he always kept his options open. So, he believes in full optionality.

BLACKWELL: So, it's an option?

LANZA: Well, it's a businessman's approach, that they never eliminate anything, right? A businessman goes into a room saying, these are all my options, we're going to see what they play out.

[23:15:01]

That may not be the first option. It may not be the first hundred options. But it's hard to say it won't be an option.

BLACKWELL: All right. Bryan, Rina, thank you. Up next, Republican senator summons the FBI to round up the Democrats who left Texas to avoid redistricting. And now, President Trump is weighing in. Plus, the CNN exclusive with Diddy's attorney speaking out for the first time since the verdict.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICOLE WESTMORELAND, SEAN "DIDDY" COMBS'S DEFENSE ATTORNEY: The government's first mistake was bringing the case. Period.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: The redistricting battle that started in Texas may turn into an all-out political war across the country.

[23:19:58]

J.D. Vance, Vice President Vance, is expected to meet tomorrow with Indiana Republican Governor Mike Braun to have -- quote -- "exploratory conversations about redistricting."

Meantime, Republicans in Missouri, Democrats in Maryland are joining the growing list of states that say redistricting is on the table. And tonight, the Lone Star State is not backing down. Instead, it's ramping up efforts to force Democratic lawmakers back to the state to redraw congressional districts. Tonight, Governor Abbott suggested he may use state troopers to track down out-of-state Democrats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R-TX): The Texas Department of Public Safety is also working with officials in other states to find ways in which we can try to arrest the Texas Democrat members in other states and bring them back to the state of Texas.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: And after Texas Senator John Cornyn asked for the FBI to help find Democrats, President Trump suggested agents may have no choice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Should the FBI get involved?

TRUMP: Well, they may have to. They may have to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Those Democrats are in three blue states: New York, Massachusetts, and Illinois. Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul joins me now. Mr. Attorney General, thank you for being with me. First, Governor Abbott says that state troopers are now trying to work with law enforcement in other states to try to bring these state Democrats back home. What would you do if Texas Department of Public Safety reached out to law enforcement there in Illinois?

KWAME RAOUL, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF ILLINOIS: I make clear to law enforcement officers and agencies within the state of Illinois that a civil arrest warrant issued by a leader of the House of Representatives without a quorum has no value or no power within the state of Illinois. There's no such -- the Constitution or United States Constitution as well as the states within the laws, within the state of Illinois do not allow for any such arrest, does not allow for Texas law enforcement to have any such power within the boundaries of the state of Illinois to execute such an arrest.

BLACKWELL: Have Texas officials reached out to your office or the law enforcement in Illinois?

RAOUL: Uh, they certainly haven't reached out to my office. I haven't -- you know, we have several hundred of law enforcement, uh, agencies within the state. So, I can't speak to every -- every law enforcement agency within the state. But -- but certainly, the applies the same wherever it is throughout the state. A civil arrest warrant issued by an executive branch within another state --

BLACKWELL: Yeah.

RAOUL: -- has no power within the state.

BLACKWELL: Let's talk about the FBI because the president says the FBI may have to help locate and arrest these lawmakers. What's your response if the president does that? I mean, is that the same answer as it relates to a civil arrest? But is it a different consideration -- RAOUL: Absolutely.

BLACKWELL: -- when you're now dealing with the FBI?

RAOUL: No. I -- you know, my -- my office partners with the FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies on the regular dealing with real crime. There's enough real crime and real issues for the FBI and other -- other federal law enforcement agencies to deal with. They don't have carte blanche to just say that we're the FBI or any other law enforcement agency and just because of our existence, we can execute an arrest based on the wish of a governor in another state or a senator within another state or a House speaker with another state. It just doesn't -- the rule of law just doesn't work that way.

BLACKWELL: And so, walk me through this practically. If you get a call from a special agent who wants to find the Texas lawmakers who are in Illinois and you know where they are, what do you do? You refuse to cooperate?

RAOUL: Yeah. I communicate -- as I communicate on the regular with federal and local and state law enforcement partners, we would discuss what is the probable cause for any such arrest, what are -- what are the good faith charges that the individuals are speculated to have committed. As I -- as I sit here and talk to you tonight, I don't know of any criminal offense in good faith that any of these individuals have committed.

I heard the Texas governor try to stretch the law and try to make a story, an application of bribery statutes --

BLACKWELL: Yeah.

RAOUL: -- to try to extend it to these individuals. But it's a stretch of the law.

[23:25:00]

You know, any lawyer and certainly any law enforcement officer or any prosecutor should know better than to allow any stretch of the law, such that the citizens who rely on the rule of law can rely on it consistently.

BLACKWELL: Mr. Attorney General, Texas Republicans have folded Illinois's gerrymandering into their defense of what they're doing in Texas and saying, well, look -- look at Illinois and how they have changed the lines there. The Brennan Center, which is left of center, pointed out that Illinois Republicans have fewer seats now than they did since before the Civil War. And so, what do you say to those who say if Democrats are complaining about Texas, where was all of this disapproval when it came to the lines in Illinois?

RAOUL: I say -- I say a couple of things. One, the Texas Constitution calls for redistricting right on the heels of the decennial, right on the heels of the census, uh, delivering data for redistricting, not in the middle of -- of -- of a decade. We in Illinois have done so consistent with that. We get the results of the census and we do so. The other thing that we observed here in the state of Illinois, and I'm very proud of it because I was in the legislature and I carried legislation for the Illinois Voting Rights Act and for voting rights being enshrined in our Constitution, you look at our legislature, you see diversity, you don't see a reduction of African- American seats like what's being proposed in Texas.

Texas, the state with the largest number of African-American citizens in the United States of America, is seeking to reduce the representation of African-Americans in Congress. That's certainly violative of the spirit of the Voting Rights Act. Tomorrow is the 60th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. It's unconscionable and abhorrent that they be trying to do something like this.

BLACKWELL: Attorney General Kwame Raoul, thank you so much for being with me tonight. Ahead, a CNN exclusive. Diddy's lawyer reveals their trial strategy and their push for potential pardon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Have people in Sean Combs's orbit, have they had conversations with the Trump administration?

WESTMORELAND: Yes. My understanding is that we have reached out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:30:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: A CNN exclusive, one of Sean "Diddy" Combs's attorneys gives her first interview since his conviction last month, and she's giving an answer to what has been largely speculated about. Will Diddy get a pardon? Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WAGMEISTER: Have people in Sean Combs's orbit, have they had conversations with the Trump administration?

WESTMORELAND: Yes. My understanding is that we have reached out.

WAGMEISTER: Reached out is one thing. Having a conversation is another. Do you know if there have been active conversations about a pardon?

WESTMORELAND: Yes. We've -- it's my understanding that we've reached out and had conversations in reference to a pardon.

WAGMEISTER: President Trump, when he was asked about this pardon, he said -- quote -- "I was very friendly with him. I got along with him great, and he seemed like a nice guy. I didn't know him well, but when I ran for office, he was very hostile." And the president indicated that a pardon is likely not on the table because of that break in his relationship with Mr. Combs years ago. How is he feeling now about the chances of a pardon given the president's commentary?

WESTMORELAND: I think that Mr. Combs is a very hopeful person, and I believe that he remains hopeful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Joining me now is the reporter who got that interview, CNN entertainment correspondent Elizabeth Wagmeister. And with the follow- up there, you know, reaching out and having a conversation are two different things. So, we now know that they are having a conversation. What other insights did you learn?

WAGMEISTER: Hey, Victor. It is so great to be with you. You know, as journalists, that we focus on the details --

BLACKWELL: Yeah.

WAGMEISTER: -- so we had to have that follow up. But look, I sat in that courtroom nearly every day for this trial along with our friend, Laura Coates. And make no mistake, this verdict was a victory for the defense. Even though Sean Combs was convicted on two counts, he was acquitted on the more serious charges. So, I asked his attorney about the legal strategy here. Take a look at what she told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WAGMEISTER: This verdict was, in no uncertain terms, a victory for the defense. Talk about that strategy from day one, to come out of the gate and say, he is a domestic abuser, but that is not what he is on trial for here.

WESTMORELAND: So, you know, the strategy was to just tell the truth. That's really what we decided, to just tell the truth. We didn't -- we didn't need a creative story. We didn't need to overreach. We knew that telling the truth meant not guilty.

[23:35:01]

We knew that he had not sex trafficked anyone. And we knew that RICO was absurd. So, we figured, hey, we'll tell the truth and that will pay off. And I believe that, for the most part, that strategy worked.

WAGMEISTER: He is still --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WAGMEISTER: Now, Victor, just yesterday, the judge actually denied the latest attempt from the defense at bail. They have been trying relentlessly to get Sean Combs released ahead of his sentencing. But, again, judge denied that and that sentencing is set for October 3rd.

BLACKWELL: Yeah. Elizabeth, we'll remind people that the defense didn't put on a single witness after the weeks of witnesses from the prosecution. Does Attorney Westmoreland believe that the prosecutors just overplayed their hand here?

WAGMEISTER: She absolutely believes that they overplayed their hand here. In fact, she does not even believe that they should have ever brought this case. And she tells me that's exactly why they didn't call any witnesses. She said that that was a risky strategy, not to call anyone, not to have Sean Combs take the stand in his own defense to testify. But take a look here at what she told me about what she thinks about the government's case.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WAGMEISTER: Was this a mistake? Should the government have never brought this case?

WESTMORELAND: Absolutely. The government's first mistake was bringing the case. Period. And the second mistake was allowing it to keep going. I think they definitely knew. Early on, you know, they knew, they knew that there was no way that Mr. Combs committed sex trafficking. They knew that, and they just continued prosecuting the case, anyway. And I think that was their second mistake. And I think the jury saw straight through it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WAGMEISTER: Now, Attorney Nicole Westmoreland, keep in mind, she is one of the few people who is actually in Sean Combs's very close inner circle. She has been visiting him in Brooklyn at the MDC. And she tells me that this would be hard for anyone but especially somebody who was Sean Combs, one of the most famous, powerful people in the world now sitting in a jail cell. She says though that he is remorseful and that she believes that he still has a lot of good to do in the world. That is what she told me, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Elizabeth Wagmeister, great get. Thank you.

WAGMEISTER: Thank you.

BLACKWELL: Ahead, the president says that undocumented workers do farm labor naturally. Here more of what he said and why some believe it is so offensive. Plus, a nuclear reactor on the moon. The Trump administration says yes. What does Neil deGrasse Tyson say? Well, he joins me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: President Trump is again promising farmers some sort of reprieve from his immigration crackdown. He says he wants to work with farmers to find a solution because, in his words, no one else can do the work.

(END VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP (voice-over): We can't let our farmers not have anybody -- you know. There are -- these people, they're -- you can't replace them very easily. You know, people that live in the inner city are not doing that work. They're just not doing that work. And they've tried. We've tried. Everybody tried. They don't do it. These people do it naturally, naturally. I said, what happens if they get it to a farmer the other day? What happens if they get a bad back? He said they don't get a bad back, sir, because if they get a bad back, they die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: The U.S. Department of Agriculture says about 40% of farm workers are undocumented. But it's Trump's choice of the word "naturally" that's drawing criticism and outrage. Famed labor leader Dolores Huerta told Axios, Trump's comments are all -- quote -- "racism and discrimination, and the comments play on stereotypical tropes about migrant workers."

With me now, Michael Eric Dyson, distinguished university professor of African American & Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University, also the co-author of " Unequal: A Story of America." Good to see you again. I want first just the history of the language here in saying that these people are just naturally better at hard labor.

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON, PROFESSOR OF AFRICAN AMERICAN & DIASPORA STUDIES, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY: Well, it's good to see you, my friend. Yeah, you know, this harkens back to secessionists who were insisting that they had the magic pill, so to speak, of American agriculture. That is to work naturally gifted enslaved people because they had a natural inclination, a genetic predisposition to be able to work the fields and to do the hard labor that was demanded.

Here, now, we have a president of the United States of America proclaiming that these largely Latino brothers and sisters are naturally inclined, replicating and duplicating the very trope that has seen the kind of genetic predeterminism, which is in one sense a kind of racist belief prevail here and without any consciousness.

[23:45:06]

He's doing it without any sense of irony, and he's doing it without any sense of contradiction to his own racist beliefs.

BLACKWELL: You know, when I woke up this morning, I had in my email someone who sent me that clip. And immediately, I thought about it. And that's what we just put up on the screen, the secession declaration of 1861 in Mississippi specifically, where they write, these products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun.

Kind of this trope that people of color, then Black people, now undocumented Hispanics and Latinos, are designed by God to do this work and who are we to get in the way.

DYSON: Yeah. Well, that's the same justification that white evangelicals contended, that God sent them into the darkest of Africa to retrieve us from our natural savagery and bring us here to be saved by the grace of God. This kind of belief in divine imperial intervention in history in the name of white supremacy, it happens to coincide. God's will and white desire and white supremacy happen to coincide there. And unfortunately, this is what our president is doing yet again with this metaphor.

BLACKWELL: Speaking of white supremacy, which is a phrase I didn't expect I would be saying tonight, the Trump administration is going to reinstall two Confederate statues, a statue of Confederate military officer, Albert Pike, also a Confederate memorial that once stood at Arlington National Cemetery. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, says that they should have never come down. What do you make of the decision?

DYSON: Well, I mean, the -- speaking of white supremacy, speaking of a Confederate banner of disloyalty, these were people who disbelieved in the American union, so much so that they seceded from the union. And that Confederate flag is a banner of disloyalty dragged through the Capitol on January 6th.

And now, we have a sitting president who is justifying and legitimating, giving extraordinary validation to secessionist, to those who hated the United States of America as it was then constituted. This is yet another example of white supremacy unmasked, unvarnished, and exposed before the American public in all of its naked and raw ugliness.

BLACKWELL: "The New York Times" is reporting that Brown University is joining another Ivy League Columbia in disclosing the admissions data in their agreements with the administration. Um, is this the right decision? I mean, some of that admissions data will be the race of those who admitted to these universities. What do you think?

DYSON: Well, the attack on DEI is already as it's being framed by this administration racist. Automatically, if you're Black, you're a recipient of DEI and, therefore, you are a recipient of a kind of noblesse oblige by the white majority, that you are inferior by definition. So, already, we have racist presuppositions that inform it.

I taught it both Brown and Columbia, and it is tragic that this administration is slaughtering the notion of dissent and radical scholarly independence from the dominant society. That's what a college is for, the ability to speak the truth without fear of political reprisal.

And what this government is doing is bullying independent higher institutions of American education with their onslaught. It is a shame that they are bending the knee and capitulating with such broad acceptance of the terms of the debate that this administration has put forth. It's a racist and recalcitrant move that needs to be opposed at every turn.

BLACKWELL: Michael Eric Dyson, always good to converse with you. Thank you. DYSON: Thank you, my friend.

BLACKWELL: Next, a nuclear reactor on the moon. That's the Trump administration's latest announcement. How? Why? When? We'll try to get some answers from Neil deGrasse Tyson. He'll give us his thoughts next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: The space race of the 21st century is here and it is nuclear. Today, Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy announced plans to fast-track the United States putting a nuclear reactor on the moon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN DUFFY, ACTING ADMINISTRATOR, NASA: We're in a race to the moon, in a race with China to the moon. And to have a base on the moon, we need energy. There's a certain part of the moon that everyone knows is the best. We have ice there, we have sunlight there. We want to get there first and claim that for America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: So, why is this reactor necessary? How would it be used? Timeline cost? Here with me to try to get some answers to the burning questions, astrophysicist, the word I always have to slow down while reading, Neil deGrasse Tyson.

[23:55:00]

He's the author of "Just Visiting This Planet." Out in October. Dr. Tyson, good to see you again. Can you just start by explaining to everyone with us tonight? What does this mean to put a nuclear reactor on the moon?

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, AUTHOR, ASTROPHYSICIST: It's not as bad as it sounds.

BLACKWELL: Because it sounds bad.

(LAUGHTER)

TYSON: It does. Moon nuke --

BLACKWELL: Right.

TYSON: Moon nukes is click bait to the bank on that one.

(LAUGHTER)

So, first of all, there are plans to return to the moon. This is the Artemis program of NASA. It had a timetable where when you return to the moon, you need a way to -- if you're going to stay on the moon, you need a source of energy. An obvious source of energy would be solar power because the moon has -- it's -- one day on the moon lasts a month.

(LAUGHTER)

There are two weeks of sunlight, two weeks of darkness. And so, you can put solar panels on one side and on the other, and then have continuous energy come in. But -- or you can sort of send a nuclear reactor. And we live in a time where there's sort of portable -- I shouldn't say portable -- transportable nuclear reactors that -- and they're not big. You know, they're -- you know, they're saying 100 kilowatts. So, 100 kilowatts, that'll run 100 dishwashers. Okay? That's what it will do. And -- okay, but at any time you want to stay somewhere, you need an energy source.

So, this is not weird. And that might have happened anyway. What the announcement was about today was accelerating that because there's a perceived real or imagined competition between our progress in space and that of China and other countries, especially China. But let me say --

BLACKWELL: Go ahead.

TYSON: What we're saying is that we are reacting to a perceived threat, and we're very good at that. Go back to Sputnik. Oh, my gosh, we need a satellite. There was Yuri Gagarin. Oh, we need an astronaut. John Glenn. So, this has been our M.O. for 60 years. I'm not surprised that we're reacting in this way now.

BLACKWELL: Talk to me about timeline. You mentioned Artemis. The space mission is currently planned for 2027. The acting secretary or I should say the actor and administrator of NASA says that he wants this reactor built by 2030. Is that feasible?

TYSON: Well, yeah. We have the prototypes of this kind of reactor. We have to get it to the moon and deploy it. But if you -- if you have a reactor there and nobody to use it, that's kind of a little weird. But you get bragging rights. We have the first nuclear reactor on the moon. That has some value, geopolitically, I suppose. But the point is these reactors, these portable, transportable reactors can sustain energy for years. They don't succumb to the fact that two weeks, the moon gets very cold and very dark. It will work the whole time. So, that's fine.

What is curious to me is this push to be ahead simultaneous with the reduction of scientific funding across the board and so many other sectors that they are not commensurate with one another. We were able to get ahead in the 1960s after being behind because the entire scientific enterprise was stoked by funding, flowing by members of Congress, basically the entire Congress had that foresight, the role and value of innovations in science and technology in our standing in the world, in our technological progress in the world, in our economic health in the world. These are the forces that are the engines of tomorrow's economies. So, this is a weird combination of commands coming out of the administration. We've got to be first here, but pull back over there, where so many other tangential innovations take place that cross- pollinate in the future. You don't see the cross-pollination now, but it happens. And if you don't have that capacity, other countries will. So, it's weird.

Really odd to me that they're narrowing in on the fact that we're behind China, their timeline. We want to jump ahead of it. But they're not looking at the investments in science that are happening elsewhere. That will basically sink the American economy in the coming years because that's where the growth industries are.

BLACKWELL: We've got about 15, 20 seconds left. Talk to me about risk of putting this reactor on the moon.

TYSON: These are pretty safe reactors. You know, nuke is like one of the two "N" words that you're not supposed to mention in polite company.

[00:00:03]

(LAUGHTER)

So -- so, nuclear reactors have come a long way --

(LAUGHTER)

TYSON: Go ahead. Go ahead.

TYSON: -- since Three Mile Island. So, no, these are small, they're contained, and it is nuclear fission, it's uranium fission, but that's not -- that's not the least of people's problems.

BLACKWELL: All right. Neil deGrasse Tyson, thank you very much. Good to see you.

TYSON: All right. Thank you for having me.

BLACKWELL: And thank you for watching. "Anderson Cooper 360" is next.

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