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The Situation Room

NASA Astronauts Speak Out From International Space Station; Texas Officials Under Fire; X CEO Steps Down. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired July 09, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

JOE HERRING JR., MAYOR OF KERRVILLE, TEXAS: That would be hearsay. And I'm not going to contradict the information you have. But I will tell you, personally, I did not receive a telephone call.

SHIMON PROKUPECZ, SENIOR CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: You weren't invited to the call?

HERRING: I did not receive a telephone call.

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

HERRING: So I wasn't invited to the call. I'm not trying to deflect. I don't...

PROKUPECZ: No, no, I understand. Do you know why that -- why -- any idea how that would have -- why that would happen or...

HERRING: Maybe I'm not a local mayor. I can't tell.

All right, thank you guys.

(CROSSTALK)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: All right, so we just heard from -- oh, let's listen in.

JONATHAN LAMB, COMMUNITY SERVICES OFFICER, KERRVILLE, TEXAS, POLICE DEPARTMENT: ... this morning. So, as you all are aware, gentlemen...

BROWN: OK.

So there you heard Texas officials just wrapped up their press conference there. And what we have learned is that the death toll has gone up to 119, more than 150 people still missing statewide. And they talked a little bit about what was happening in those overnight hours as the flooding was happening, Wolf, talking about how the sheriffs jumped into action helping people and how quickly it all happened.

And as one of the officials there said, as the situation unfolded, we properly responded. But, of course, it's the questions about what happened before in the days and the hours leading up to the moment when they needed to respond. And when pressed on that, as you heard there, officials wouldn't give any details really, only saying that they're working up an after-action report and that they're not trying to deflect, they say, but that they will get back to us at that point once they have done a more thorough after-action review.

They did say, though, that if any improvements need to be made from that review, that they will make those improvements, so a lot of questions still unanswered. One of the key ones is still about whether there was any communication between the National Weather Service as these weather alerts were ratcheting up and emergency managers here in the county in those overnight hours.

But you heard the mayor there say for himself he didn't get those alerts overnight, he wasn't aware of those. A lot of questions still remain. And that search-and-rescue effort, Wolf, still going on. They talked about how they're removing debris, still looking for bodies in that debris.

So much raw emotion still here on the ground, Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: It's so heartbreaking. You hear those numbers, Pamela, 119 confirmed dead right now and 150 missing.

And when you go deeper into those numbers, you're told that there are adults and there are children killed and missing in the situation.

BROWN: Yes. Yes.

BLITZER: And it's so painful to just think about that, to hear the stories that we have been sharing with our viewers. And you have been sharing the stories with all of our viewers. Obviously, you're on the scene for us.

BROWN: Yes.

BLITZER: But it's just so heartbreaking just to think about what's going on.

BROWN: Yes.

And I think you make a really important point that behind every number is a human being and behind that is a grieving family, a grieving community. I mean, this spreads so far and wide, Wolf, the grief that started here in Kerrville. All across the country, people feel a connection to this.

And they're not just numbers. These are human beings. These are little children. It's just heartbreaking, unbearable.

BLITZER: Yes, so unbearable, indeed, horrible, horrible situation.

All right, Pamela, stand by. We have a lot more breaking news that we're following here in THE SITUATION ROOM. The CEO of X, formerly known as Twitter, is stepping down after two years of leading Elon Musk's company. What we know about the shocking departure.

Stay with us. A lot more news coming up right here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:38:26]

BLITZER: We're following breaking news.

The CEO of Elon Musk's X social media platform, formerly known as Twitter, is stepping down.

Let's go to CNN media correspondent Hadas Gold.

What are you learning about this, Hadas?

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Wolf, this is breaking news.

Linda Yaccarino had been CEO for just about two years. She was brought on in 2023 by Elon Musk to run his social media platform. Of course, Elon Musk often does this at his companies. He is the overall, of course, owner and probably really the true CEO. But Linda Yaccarino was brought in. She had been at NBCUniversal before.

But now, in sort of a shocking moment, she announced on X that she is stepping down. I will read to you as part of her announcement.

She says: "When Elon Musk and I first spoke about his vision for X, I knew it would be the opportunity of a lifetime to carry out the extraordinary mission of this company. I'm immensely grateful to him for entrusting me with the responsibility of protecting free speech and turning the company around and transforming X into the everything app. Now the best is yet to come as X enters a new chapter with xAI."

What she's referring to is, in March, xAI, which is Elon Musk's A.I. company, bought X, the social media platform. And now they are one company together. And when that happened, that did raise questions about what would happen with Linda Yaccarino and what her role would be going forward.

But the timing of this is also really interesting, because this is happening just less than 24 hours after the A.I. chatbot that's part of xAI, Grok, came under immense fire for spreading antisemitic tropes. And this is something we have been following closely.

I want to show our viewers some of what Grok, which is the A.I. chatbot you can interact with on X, was saying. It was saying things like praise for Hitler, saying that Hitler would be able to spot the pattern of anti-white hate and handle it decisively.

[11:40:05]

It also brought up what it said was when somebody asked, who runs the government? They said that: "Based on patterns in media, finance and politics, one group's overrepresented way beyond their 2 percent population share, questioning whether it's control or just smart," referring, of course, to Jewish people who make up about 2 percent of the U.S. population.

Now, Grok actually even said that its filters had been changed and that's why it was making these remarks, spreading a lot of other antisemitic tropes as well. And in a statement, xAI did say that they were aware of some of these. They were actively working to remove the inappropriate posts, saying: "xAI is training only truth-seeking. Thanks to the millions of users on X, we were able to quickly identify and update the model where training could be improved."

Now, I have been following Grok on X and it hasn't been really posting anything publicly on its X timeline in response to users since last night. So it does seem as though they have frozen it for now -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Hadas Gold, thanks very, very much.

And we will be right back with more news.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:45:13]

BROWN: Just minutes ago, we heard from officials updating the heart- wrenching recovery efforts here where I am in Central Texas, and we have just learned the death toll has climbed to 119 people. At last check, the number of missing across Central Texas jumped dramatically overnight to more than 170.

The governor warns that number of missing people is likely to climb. The landscape is so treacherous, choked with broken trees and hazardous debris, that mules and horses are now essential in the grueling search. Officials in Ingram showed me how the animals are helping.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KOURTNEY RAND, INGRAM VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT: We're assisting with all the search-and-rescue officials here in Ingram, the volunteer fire station.

We're getting down in places that normally people can't get to by foot, more harder terrain. Our horses -- we have been going through quite a few horses. It's pretty tough, but we have been very successful so far with our assistance. We have...

BROWN: Successful in finding bodies?

RAND: Well, just with the efforts. We have teams right now currently split up from upriver all the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: These volunteers out here, like her, they're working so hard around the clock.

CNN's Shimon Prokupecz was on hand for that news conference we mentioned earlier.

And, Shimon, officials are facing serious questions over whether the public was given adequate warning of the impending disaster, given the information that was coming out from the National Weather Service, what were you able to learn?

PROKUPECZ: Yes, certainly whether the public was given enough notice. But the other part of this is whether or not the emergency responders in this town were prepared enough to respond, because, as we heard from the sergeant, Sergeant Lamb of the police department here explained that once even off-duty officers who were living in this area started to try to do some of the rescues, the water was just out of control and they were inundated with water and it made the rescues so much more difficult.

That's why the preparedness and the anticipation of this is so important and that's why those questions are being asked here. In fact, one of the things that I asked the mayor of -- he's the mayor of this town -- is whether or not he was on a call with state officials on Thursday, the day before, about the potential weather concerns.

Take a listen to what he said here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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

HERRING: I can't speak to -- for the county judge. That would be hearsay. And I'm not going to contradict the information you have. But I will tell you, personally, I did not receive a telephone call.

PROKUPECZ: You weren't invited to the call?

HERRING: I did not receive a telephone call.

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

HERRING: So I wasn't invited to the call. I'm not trying to deflect. I don't...

PROKUPECZ: No, no, I understand. Do you know why that -- why -- any idea how that would have -- why that would happen or...

HERRING: Maybe I'm not a local mayor. I can't tell.

All right, thank you guys. (END VIDEO CLIP)

PROKUPECZ: Yes, so it's a little confusing there, the answer, but very clear that he says that he was not on the call with these officials.

And the importance of that obviously is that they were talking about the anticipation of this storm, Pam. The other thing, it's not clear -- someone else had also asked if the mayor was aware, if the town officials were aware of what assets the state was bringing into this location. That's also unclear.

Obviously, there's still so many, so many questions here. Important to know just the harrowing stories that we hear from the Kerrville Police Department here really of the rescues that they were trying to do, using garden hoses to try and pull people out. It's just remarkable. And we shouldn't lose sight of that.

BROWN: Yes.

PROKUPECZ: But still many, many questions about the anticipation of this storm by these emergency officials.

BROWN: Yes, right. I mean, I think you make an important point. We can't lose sight of all the incredible, heroic efforts by those first responders and what they had to do, and they have been working around the clock, and then also those questions that you have raised about what was going on in the days ahead and why wasn't more done to prepare?

Shimon, thank you so much.

And find out how you can help Texas flood victims at CNN.com/Impact or text flood to 707070.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:53:52]

BLITZER: Happening now, you're looking at live images from the International Space Station, where seven people have been living since their mission began back in April.

The ISS crew includes NASA astronauts Nichole Ayers and Anne McClain. And they're joining me now live some 250 miles above THE SITUATION ROOM.

Nichole, where are you over Earth right now?

NICHOLE AYERS, NASA ASTRONAUT: Hey, good afternoon or good morning, depending on where you're at in the world. Welcome aboard the International Space Station. We're excited to talk to you this morning, this afternoon about all the fantastic things that we're doing up here. And it's kind of crazy. We are out over the ocean right now. We

generally fly over the ocean for the most -- majority of our time, we're actually out in the Pacific. And we will go over the southern portion of South America today. So we see a lot of the world, but mostly ocean. It's surprising, once you get up here, the point of view that we have.

We see a lot of ocean, but we do get some amazing land views. And we're going to go right over the Andes here in a few.

[11:55:00]

BLITZER: Anne, walk us through what a typical day up in space looks like for you.

ANNE MCCLAIN, NASA ASTRONAUT: Yes, every day is a little bit different, but we do have some structure. The structure of our days and weeks are actually pretty important to maintain our mental health and sanity.

So it kind of sounds unexciting, but it's a little bit kind of banker's hours. We kind of do our 9:00 to 5:00, except for our 9:00 to 5:00 is (AUDIO GAP) to 7:30. So, Monday through Friday, we wake up, we have a meeting, a sync meeting with all our mission control centers around the world. We talked to not only Houston, but Huntsville, and Japan, and Munich, and Moscow.

And so we sync up in the morning, and then throughout our day, we do about six to seven hours of either space station maintenance or science. Right now, we have some visiting Axiom crews, so we are helping with the private astronaut mission. We do a couple hours of exercise, actually, as a countermeasure to bone and muscle loss during that day.

And then we definitely have a little -- some breaks in there. And then the weekends are off, except for some cleaning for the most part. And then any time we have a dynamic operation, that would be a space walk or a visiting vehicle docking, anything like that, then that kind of throws our schedule off, but we're pretty used to that.

BLITZER: Nichole, what kind of research is being conducted during this mission?

AYERS: We actually are doing a ton of research up here, especially when the Cargo Dragon was up here from SpaceX. It brings a ton of science up, and then it also takes it back down.

So, actually, Anne and I worked on some DNA research. Recently, we just concluded an Ring Sheared Drop experiment, so looking at protein structures and using computer models to figure out how they shear or break, and that actually will help inform how we build medications that can counter cancer, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

So we're doing some really important and neat research that we get to be a part of. It's a privilege to spend just a few minutes each day working on a science experiment that scientists have spent their entire lives building to learn more about the Earth, to learn more about medication, technology, all sorts of things.

At any given moment up here on the International Space Station, there are over 200 science experiments going on, both inside. Every single rack that you see here has a payload or a science experiment going on right now, and then outside the station looking out at the universe, and then also looking back at Earth.

So we're doing a ton to help inform how we do life on Earth and life out further in the universe.

BLITZER: It's very exciting for me to be speaking live with two astronauts who are on the International Space Station, first time I have done that.

And, Nichole, let me follow up. I know you both were part of one of the few all-female space walks. What was that like?

AYERS: Yes, so it was actually my first space walk. Anne is hold hat at space walking at this point.

But I think that our space walk is -- was a huge success and a huge testament to teamwork and how many different people have to work on just this one event. So we were the two that got the glory and we got to go out the door and everybody knows our names. But Tak and Jonny were our crewmates who helped suit us up.

We worked with a bunch of people on the ground. Marcos Berrios is another astronaut from my class who worked with us, and he was the communicator that talked to us. Diana Trujillo was our flight director and she led the entire ground team through a bunch of adversity and a bunch of game plan changes.

And so I think it was a true testament to teamwork, the way that we got out the door. We got all the tasks done that needed to get done, the high-priority task with the antenna. We got some game plan changes in the middle of it and we were able to problem-solve and figure out how to leave the station in a better state and then also do a little bit of maintenance on the station.

So it was pretty fantastic to see the team work together, but can't beat the view through the visor. When it's just you and a space suit and your buddy outside, it's pretty fantastic.

BLITZER: It's amazing and fantastic, what -- the work you're doing. We are so proud of both of you and the entire crew. Thanks so much for doing it.

Anne, let me follow up with this question. Why is space exploration so important and what do you think it will look like in five, 10, 20 years from now?

MCCLAIN: Yes, I think this is a really exciting time in space exploration, and we're really hitting an exponential growth and expansion.

So I think, 20 years ago, it would have been easy to project five years. I will tell you honestly, right now, I don't know what the next five years hold. There are so many new companies, new countries, new partnerships and new programs coming into play that it is an absolutely interesting time in space exploration.

And you ask why we explore space. And I honestly think that that's a different answer for each of us. We as a society explore space because, as societies, we always ask, what's next, what's around the next corner? If we go back hundreds of years, thousands of years, people said, what's across this land? What's on the other side of this ocean?

[12:00:00]

And then when we kind of filled in, we figured out our earth a little bit. We said OK, how do we take to flight? How do we go higher in flight?

And the next logical places is what else is out there. And humans have always had that propensity to explore. So, maybe why we explore is because you're one of those explorers that deep down in your heart feels a passion and wonders what else is out there. Maybe you are an engineer, and you are fascinated by the technology that it's going to take to get there. Maybe you're an artist or a storyteller and you're fascinated by the human condition and being able to be part of something like that.

And I think for each of us, why we're part of this is different. And I think another important question would be, what type of society we would be if we didn't explore. And I don't think that's a society any of us who would want to be with so -- or be in. So, I think over the next five years, I'm really thrilled and very lucky to be part of this.

BLITZER: We're thrilled to have both of you there at the International Space Station, and when you're back here on earth, I hope we get chance to meet. Thanks to both of you for all that you are doing. Please thank the entire crew as well. And to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning.

Inside Politics with Dana Bash starts right now.