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Trump: Decision On Chicago Operation Coming In "Next Day Or Two"; Appeals Court Upholds $83M Judgment Against Pres. Trump For Defaming E. Jean Carroll; Andrew Cuomo On The Race For New York City Mayor. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired September 08, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

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[11:00:47]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, immigration raids are underway in Boston, Chicago, and other sanctuary cities now on notice that they could be next.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: We want to welcome our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown and you're in The Situation Room.

New this morning, President Trump is launching his immigration crackdown in Massachusetts. The President says the effort will target the worst criminals among immigrants and claims sanctuary cities like Boston are fueling the problem. Chicago may be the next target as far as the President is concerned.

BROWN: And over the weekend he posted this social media meme inspired by the movie "Apocalypse Now" and he also referred to his renaming of the Defense Department with the promise that Chicago is, quote, about to find out why it's called the Department of War. Either today or tomorrow, President Trump says he will make his decision on potential federal action in Chicago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Chicago is a very dangerous place and we have a governor that doesn't care about crime. I guess we could solve Chicago very quickly, but we're going to make a decision as to where we go over the next day or two.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: CNN's Kristen Holmes is at the White House. So Kristen, the White House tells CNN that immigration and Border Patrol agents are trickling into Chicago now to make arrests. Are you getting any idea of the scope and the scale that the White House is considering here?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, one of the things to keep in mind is that we know the White House wants to base what they're doing in these other sanctuary cities off of what they did in Los Angeles. Essentially, these immigration raids that then at one point escalated enough for President Trump to be able to bring in the National Guard. And that's when you start talking about the crime aspect of all of this.

And we heard from Tom Homan, the border czar over the weekend, who said that the National Guard and bringing them into Chicago was still and always on the table. But one thing to keep in mind is that the law found that it was not just for the White House to be sending in these federal resources to Los Angeles.

So this is something they're paying attention to very closely, which is why you're hearing even more ramped up pressure on the governor of Illinois. At one point, President Trump this morning talking about the people who were murdered over the weekend in Chicago. And then he wrote this. Governor Pritzker just stated that he doesn't want federal help. Why?

Well, the reason he is hoping and pushing Pritzker is because he wants to be able to say that they invited him in so that they're not facing any of this legal backlash. Of course, we have heard from these officials in Illinois who say, absolutely, they do not want federal law enforcement here, which is also why you're hearing from the White House, from the administration, saying that this is all part of a ramped up federal immigration program.

It's not about necessarily bringing in the National Guard for crime. Now, as of what to expect in coming days, this is what Homan said to Jake.

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TOM HOMAN, PRES. TRUMP'S BORDER "CZAR": You can expect action in most sanctuary cities across the country. President Trump's prioritized sanctuary cities because sanctuary cities knowingly released illegal alien public safety threats to the streets every day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So again, this is something that President Trump has been talking about since he took office. Of course, this has been kind of a slow rollout. When it came to Chicago, we had heard it was going to be ramped up last week. Instead, we're in this kind of trickle effect. We'll watch closely to see what happens in the coming days.

BROWN: All right, Kristen Holmes, thanks so much. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right, there's some breaking news that's coming into The Situation Room. And Appeals Court has just upheld the $83 million defamation judgment. E. Jean Carroll won against President Trump. Let's go live right down to CNN's Kara Scannell. Kara, the President lost the appeal. So what happens now?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the President did lose this appeal, and he already set aside money in order to pay E. Jean Carroll. But the litigation here is most likely not over. Donald Trump's lawyers and releasing a statement in which they said that they will continue to fight this and that it said the defense will be taken over by the Department of Justice.

This was a civil lawsuit that was brought against President Trump when he was out of office. It went to trial when he was out of office. But now he is saying it should be handled by the Justice Department as this moves forward. Now, the next step here would be a challenge to the U.S. Supreme Court. That is certainly something that the Trump administration can attempt to do, and it would be up to the justices to decide whether to hear this.

[11:05:11]

But you'll remember this was the big judgment against Donald Trump as he was a candidate brought by E. Jean Carroll, the magazine columnist, who said that he had sexually assaulted her in a New York department store in the mid-1990s, and she went on trial twice.

The first time a jury found that Trump had sexually abused her, and had defamed her when he denied the assault when he said that she wasn't his type. And when he said that she made up the claim to boost sales of her book, that jury awarded her $5 million. Then they also had a second lawsuit that went to trial that was just focused on the defamation.

And it's that decision that is this $83.3 million verdict that the jury had awarded Carroll. Now, in this, the judges here pointing out that even though the big chunk of that $65 million was for punitive damages, that means to punish Trump, the judges saying that they were upholding this, even though it was very high compared to a ratio of compensatory damages because it was so extraordinary and unprecedented because Trump had continued to repeat the statements that a jury had already found to be defamatory within 48 hours after the verdict at a CNN town hall and then during the trial itself.

So that is the basis for which this appellate panel is saying that they are upholding this verdict. Next steps will be to see if the Supreme Court is asked to take up the case and if they do. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right. We'll see what happens. Kara Scannell reporting for us. Kara, thank you very much.

And there's also major breaking news this morning out of Jerusalem, where at least six people were killed in a shooting attack over at a bus stop.

Israeli police say this all started with two gunmen opening fire just after the morning rush hour. Joining us now to discuss CNN political and global affairs analyst, Barak Ravid. He's also global affairs correspondent for Axios. Barak, what -- first of all, what more could you tell us about this attack right in Jerusalem?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL & GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Wolf, this attack that happened this morning in Jerusalem was conducted by two Palestinians. One of them is 20 years old. The other one is 21 years old. They're from a village near Ramallah in the West Bank, and they were driven into Jerusalem illegally because they did not have permit to enter Israel.

Although the Israeli intelligence service, the Shin Bet says they did not have any prior intelligence about those two gunmen, and they were not arrested in the past or were -- or were known to be involved in any terrorist activity.

BLITZER: What else have you learned, Barak, about the -- the gunmen? And has anyone claimed direct responsibility for this terror attack?

RAVID: So at least at the moment, it's not clear if those two gunmen were directly affiliated with any terror organization or militant faction. Hamas obviously put out the statement praising this attack, but it's not clear if there was any direct Hamas involvement at the moment at least, we just don't know. But it seems that at the moment that those two gunmen were not affiliated with any organization but acted out of some sort of a radical ideology.

BLITZER: This is the deadliest gun attack in Jerusalem, Barak, in more than two years. How do you think Israel is likely to respond?

RAVID: So what we heard so far from the Israeli government is the Israeli Minister of Defense and other officials that, you know, said that Israel is going to conduct a harsh response against the village where those two Palestinian gunmen came out from. But I think that if we look at the moment at the bigger picture here, this is a phenomenon of the destabilization in the West Bank that has been taking place over the last two years because we were all focused mostly on Gaza and then on Lebanon and then on Iran and the Houthis in Yemen, the West Bank was sort of the crisis that nobody talked about and then still nobody talks about.

But over the last two years, there have been, on the one hand, Israel took steps to choke the Palestinian authority economically. That led to the Palestinian security forces dramatically weakening and being able to stop less attacks. On the other hand, more and more young Palestinians in the West Bank look at what's going on in Gaza and wanted to take -- wanted to conduct attacks in revenge. Hamas also incited violence in the West Bank.

[11:10:17]

Iran incited violence in the West Bank. I think that this is one of those things that the Trump administration hasn't put enough attention into. And the West Bank, anybody you ask in the Israeli security services will tell you that the West Bank could be the next big explosion in the region. And this is something that I hope people in the White House are looking at what happened today in Jerusalem and are going to actually take action and have a policy to deal with such an explosion and to stop it before it happens.

BLITZER: Well, good point. Let's see if that happens. Barak Ravid, as always, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

RAVID: Thank you.

BROWN: Still ahead right here in The Situation Room, President Trump is once again calling the fight over the Epstein files a hoax. But Epstein survivor Haley Robson says, quote, the abuse was real. And she joins us live.

BLITZER: And also coming up next, the former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo joins us live to speak about his run for the New York City mayor's race. Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

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[11:15:48]

BLITZER: Now to a situation room one-on-one, quote, Cuomo might have a chance of winning, end quote. That's what President Trump says about the mayoral race in his birthplace of New York City. That is, if Cuomo is the only candidate facing off against Democratic candidate, Zohran Mamdani. In November, the current mayor, Eric Adams and Republican Curtis Sliwa are also in the race.

Joining us now, New York's former Democratic governor and the current independent -- independent mayoral candidate, Andrew Cuomo. Governor, thanks so much for joining us. You argue that quote and I'm quoting you now, Trump and Mamdani share the same tactic in flame and polarize, then declare moderation betrayal, end quote.

You also caution that, quote, far left extremism is not a corrective to Trump's far right in a new opinion piece for the New York Daily News. If you believe that Mamdani is so similar to President Trump, why did Mamdani defeat you by nearly 13 percentage points in the June Democratic primary?

ANDREW CUOMO (D), FORMER NEW YORK GOVERNOR: Yes, thank you. Good to be with you, Wolf. Well, we had a Democratic primary, which, as you know, tends to be a smaller number of people who come out. And there was a very large turnout of young socialists. Mamdani is a socialist and the Democratic socialists, as they call themselves, nationwide focused on the New York City mayoral.

They sent in tens of thousands of people to work on his campaign. And you had an -- an historic turnout of young people who were socialists that distorted the normal turnout. But now you're in a general election. You'll have more moderate Democrats, also Independents, Republicans and a larger turnout. And it's going to be different because he really is an extremist. And we talk about the far right all the time.

You have a far left on the Democratic Party. It has been getting stronger. They call themselves socialists. And this is really the socialists trying to take over the Democratic Party, Wolf, that's what this is. And I'm a Democrat and he's a socialist. And the socialists believe a much different gospel than the Democrats. He's anti- business. He believes government should control the means of production.

Anti-police, the police should be disbanded. The police are racists, legalized prostitution, legalized the drug trade, abolished jails. And that's just not where New Yorkers are. We're the business capital of the nation. And we want jobs and opportunity coming to New York. So he's in the wrong place with his social doctrine.

BLITZER: As you know, Governor, there's been a lot of rampant speculation out there that the current mayor, Eric Adams, would leave the race potentially to take up a job in the Trump administration, allowing anti-Mamdani voters to unite behind you. Mayor Adams at a news conference denied he's dropping out and mentioned you by name. I want you to listen to this clip of what he said.

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MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D-NY): Andrew Cuomo is a snake and a liar. I am in this race and I'm the only one that can beat Mamdani.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: What's your response to Mayor Adams?

CUOMO: Yes. Look, desperate people say desperate things. I believe he may take a job with President Trump. He's an ally of President Trump. Trump basically kept Adams out of jail, if you remember Wolf. So might he give him a job in the administration so Adams has an honorable exit, that could happen.

I believe the Republicans though, overall, want Mamdani to win. If Mamdani wins, the Democrats will use him, I'm sorry, the Republicans will use him against the Democrats all across this country. The Republicans will say these are the Democrats. They have been taken over by socialist. They're anti-police. They're anti-public safety. They have -- Mamdani is 33 years old. He's never had a real job. His first job would be mayor of New York.

[11:20:24]

Imagine that level of inexperience as mayor of New York. And I believe the Republicans could take Mamdani and make him the poster child for what has happened to the Democratic Party they've been taken over by socialists. I believe it would be very damning to the Democrats in midterms. I think you'd lose Congress people in New York. I think you could lose the governor in New York if Mamdani is the mayor.

So I think the Republicans want Mamdani for their own political benefit. Aside from that, President Trump has an ally in Eric Adams, and he may give him a job, he may not, and I don't think it matters, because I don't think Adams is a viable candidate in this race.

BLITZER: Mamdani recently called you, and I'm quoting him now, Donald Trump's puppet. And here's what Trump said about the New York mayoral race. Listen to this, Governor.

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TRUMP: If you have more than one candidate running against him, it can't, you know, it can't be one. If you have one candidate, if he's the right candidate, I would say that Cuomo might have a chance of winning if it was a one-on-one. If it's not one-on-one, it's going to be a hard race. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: The President, Governor, appears to be at least passively supporting you. Do you want his support? All right, I think we've lost our connection with Governor Cuomo. Let's take a quick break, resume our conversation right after this.

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[11:26:20]

BLITZER: We're still trying to reestablish our connection with the former New York governor, Andrew Cuomo. He's running for mayor of New York right now against the Democratic candidate, Zohran Mamdani. We'll go to that interview as soon as we reestablish the connection. In the meantime, I want to go back to Pamela.

BROWN: So we can continue our series, Wolf, on why are men, American men, and -- and boys falling behind in education, in their career paths, and in mental health? It's a question that we've been examining on this show from different angles. And today, we're looking at the rise of influential figures in what's referred to as the manosphere. That's a loosely connected network of social media communities focused on men and masculinity, sometimes associated with misogyny and anti- feminism.

And it's a space that some podcasters have capitalized on, arguing to listeners that masculinity is under attack by the Democratic Party and so-called cancel culture. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JORDAN PETERSON, PSYCHOLOGIST: It's a little late in the game to be concerned about the sorts of things that I would say the progressives have actually produced. I mean, we've had four generations, say 60 years at least, of targeted demoralization of young men.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reason you're losing men is because your vision of masculinity is unattractive to men. Men do not want to be the kinds of men that you are talking about. And by the way, women don't like those kinds of men anyway. But the Democrats have to tear each other apart because, again, they're running up against reality.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: This sort of rhetoric is also being echoed by high-level members of the Trump administration, including the Vice President.

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J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think that our culture sends a message to young men that you should suppress every masculine urge. My message to young men is, don't allow this broken culture to send you a message that you're a bad person because you're a man, because you like to tell a joke, because you like to have a beer with your friends, or because you're competitive. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So I set out to figure out what makes this sort of thinking appeal to modern men. Author at American Institute for Boys and Men, President Richard Reeves, has studied this extensively, and he argues that men are looking for purpose and reason in their lives. And sometimes controversial figures, like self-proclaimed misogynist, Andrew Tate, help fill that void.

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RICHARD REEVES, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR BOYS AND MEN: There's the manosphere, which could be defined as those of the misogynists. You know, the pick-up artists, the incels, involuntary celibates, who I think, if we're defining them by a clear ideology, which is, it's misogynist. It's anti-women, clearly. But then there's a whole bro-sphere, to call it.

BROWN: And that's where you see a Joe Rogan.

REEVES: Yes. You know, Theo Von, et cetera. There's a big, even some of the fitness influencers, right? Sometimes you -- some of the fitness influencers are included as part of the manosphere, right? Because it's men and they occasionally talk about masculinity. So what I think is happening is that there's a real appetite among boys and young men to figure out how they should be in the world.

If they don't have that script about how to be in the world from say, their male teacher in front of them, or their father or the guys in the neighborhood, or their coach, or like, if there aren't enough men showing them how to be in the world as a man, they're going to go and find someone who will tell them.

BROWN: Like an Andrew Tate.

REEVES: Like an Andrew Tate. How should I be a man today? If we don't like Andrew Tate's misogynist answer to that, then we need a better answer to it. Because that is the question that a lot of boys and young men are taking now online. And someone like Andrew Tate gives him a very clear and prescriptive answer. It is also wrong and misogynist.

[11:29:56]

But if we don't want the wrong misogynist answers to the question of how should I be a man today to prevail, then we have got to come up with better answers. So Andrew Tate and his followers, our -- that's our fault. It's not -- it's not the boys and young --