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State of the Union

Interview With Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN); Interview With Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA); Interview With Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO); Interview With White House Senior Director For Counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka; Interview With World Food Program Executive Director Cindy McCain. Aired 9-10a ET

Aired August 31, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:00:36]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST (voice-over): American tragedy, children killed in another mass shooting.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The shooter expressed hate towards almost every group.

KEILAR: What drove the Minneapolis school shooter? And what can be done to stop the next attack?

White House counterterrorism director Sebastian Gorka next, and then Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar responds.

Plus: roadblocks. A defeat for President Trump that could cost hundreds of billions of dollars as he tries to sideline any dissent from within, including over public health.

DR. DEBRA HOURY, FORMER CDC CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER: We're not prepared for that next outbreak. We were, but we're not right now.

KEILAR: How will it affect you? Two Democrats and two Republicans face off.

And desperation. Israel cuts back on Gaza aid ahead of a major offensive. What will happen to the people there? The World Food Program's Cindy McCain shares what she saw in Gaza this week and reflects on her husband's legacy seven years after his death.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Hello. I'm Brianna Keilar in Washington, where the state of our union is wishing you a happy Labor Day weekend.

Another week, another long list of head-spinning changes by the Trump administration, as the president reaches deep to overhaul the economy, American culture, even public health. But as he muscles it all through, new questions this week about whether his approach could backfire.

An appeals court ruled Friday that many of Trump's tariffs are illegal, raising concerns the U.S. could have to pay back the billions taken in from other countries, while there are more questions about the Trump administration's changes to public health, disaster relief and a planned expansion of the president's crackdown on blue cities.

We're going to talk about all that, but I do want to begin with something that stopped us all in our tracks this week, the horrible mass shooting of children praying at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis.

Local authorities are still looking for the shooter's motive, in the hopes that information like that could help prevent another attack. But the process has been complicated by a suspect who posted about hating Christians, Jews, black people, Hispanic people, President Trump, and more.

Joining us now to talk more about this investigation is White House Senior Director for Counterterrorism Sebastian Gorka.

Sir, thank you so much for being with us.

We're hearing the Minneapolis Police Department saying Friday that authorities have been in contact with the shooter's parents. What are they telling them? What is being learned from the parents?

SEBASTIAN GORKA, WHITE HOUSE SENIOR DIRECTOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM: Well, it's -- would not be responsible of me to reveal what is happening in an ongoing investigation.

But we have to put this incident into the broader context of what we have witnessed in just the last few years, more than half-a-dozen attacks of a similar variety involving individuals who are confused about their gender, to put it mildly.

And then, as you mentioned at the top of your monologue, we have the videos, we have the statements from the dead shooter that were clearly anti-Christian. Just as with the transgender attack on the Nashville Christian school in which more children were killed, there is an ideological connection to multiple of these attacks, where innocent children, especially Christians and Catholics, are targeted.

And that is very, very disturbing.

KEILAR: You have focused very much on the shooter being trans, and I do want to speak with you about that.

But while I respect that you cannot reveal specifics about what the parents may be saying, can you characterize whether what they're saying is helpful?

GORKA: No, I cannot do that. That would be utterly inappropriate from a policy position in the White House. We leave that to the local police authorities and to the FBI.

KEILAR: OK, so let me ask you about this.

You know, 96 percent of attackers in -- when you're looking at the U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center, looking at 172 mass attacks in the U.S. between 2016 and 2020, 96 percent were non- trans men.

So I know you're focusing on the shooter being trans. The shooter was trans, and that is certainly of note. But are you missing the bigger picture here when you zero in on that, instead of more broadly these school shooters as an epidemic, and you perhaps miss the through line that connects them all?

[09:05:11]

GORKA: Well, no, because your facts obfuscate two things.

You are using data based upon the predominant gun violence, which is gang-on-gang violence with zero ideological content. If you remove all of that, the gang violence on the streets of Chicago, L.A., Detroit, then you come down to a much smaller data set.

So it's like those who say gun violence in America causes so many deaths and then fail to note that the majority of the stats they are using refer to also suicides by gun, which, of course, is not what we are talking about here today.

So let's concentrate on mass shootings at schools, specifically Christian or Catholic schools. Then the data set is wholly different. So don't conflate different data sets just to make a political point.

There was an ideological content to this attack. That's what terrorism is. It's not because somebody didn't get the drug deal they wanted. It is an ideological message, whether it was anti-Israel, as in this case, whether it targeted President Trump in its rhetoric, as we saw on one of the magazines written by the perpetrator on that YouTube video, or whether we saw the fact that it was anti-Christian and targeting children.

That has nothing to do with gang violence. Let's not mix the two things up.

KEILAR: So let's narrow it down then, because, by CNN's count, when you look at 32 school shootings since 2020 in which you have four or more people who have been killed -- so these are the larger school shootings, only three of 32 of those shootings were committed by transgender shooters.

GORKA: Yes, forgive me if I don't go with CNN's stats, OK? CNN has proven itself to be wholly inaccurate in all kinds of things for the last 10 years, perpetrators of the Russia, Russia hoax and that we didn't have an open border.

So please forgive me if I don't take your stats for granted.

KEILAR: All right, it's simple math, two of 32 shootings.

GORKA: No, it's not. It's distortions. It's -- no, you are distorting the facts.

Let me be clear. In just a couple of years, we have seen seven mass shootings involving people of transgender nature or who are confused in their gender, seven in just the last couple of years. That's inordinately high.

KEILAR: I saw what you tweeted. I see your list of seven. I see your list of seven. Two of them are -- Sebastian, Mr. Gorka...

(CROSSTALK)

GORKA: I'm going to stick with the facts, and not CNN's pseudo-facts.

KEILAR: OK. We can't stick with your facts because they're not accurate. In fact, in two of them, one of the ones you quoted...

GORKA: No, let's talk about CNN's reputation for accuracy.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: In one of the ones in which you posted, there was no evidence that he was trans.

GORKA: Right.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: In another, the individual is known within his family by male pronouns. He used anti-LGBTQ rhetoric.

GORKA: See, you have an agenda.

KEILAR: No, well, let me ask you this. You have made it clear -- and this is not going to change. You think transgender people are the problem here.

So, what specifically do you think should be done?

GORKA: No. When did I say that?

KEILAR: All right, you clearly think it's a -- you think it's a pattern.

GORKA: When did I say that, Brianna?

KEILAR: You tweeted about it.

GORKA: You just created live -- you just created live fake news. You just did it right in front of the small viewership you have, OK?

KEILAR: Mr. Gorka, what do you think should be done here? You have zeroed in on the fact -- on what you see is a problem, what you claim is a problem. What do you want to do about it? What do you want to do about this problem you see?

GORKA: I have noticed a disturbing -- do you think it's a problem that individuals are targeting little children at Catholic schools? Do you think that's something we should ignore?

KEILAR: Of course I think that's a problem.

GORKA: Thank you.

So what we should do is we should look at the early warning signals, the signs. One of these shooters at a recent school shooting had 24 interactions with the local law enforcement. Now, that beggars belief.

We should be providing off-ramps. We should be providing mental health options for these individuals. I find it hard to believe that an individual goes from getting his mother to sign a change-of-name certificate age 17 and then just a handful of years later is mowing down innocent children in a church pew during a Catholic mass, and nobody realized there was a problem.

That's what we have to address to save the next children from the next atrocity. It's not about the sexual proclivities of the individual. It's the fact that nobody seems to notice a very disturbing pattern towards violence. You don't end up -- you don't wake up one morning saying, I'm going to do a video on YouTube threatening to kill the president, targeting Jews, targeting children.

[09:10:04]

That doesn't happen overnight. Somebody saw that degradation. Somebody saw those mental issues and said nothing. That's what we have to prevent. The early warning signals must be addressed if children's lives are to be saved.

KEILAR: And what about all the non-trans school shooters?

GORKA: What about all the -- same thing happens. They have multiple interactions with authorities, with their schools, with the principals. Why is something not being done? Instead of blaming an inanimate object, which is the weapon, how about addressing the human being instead and giving them aid, giving them psychological support, giving them an off-ramp?

That's what needs to happen. We need to stop the violence before it occurs.

KEILAR: To that point, DHS cut funding to the Minnesota Department of Safety and the Hennepin County Sheriff's Office in July that is the kind of funding that's used to assess and manage mass violence threats like these.

Was that a mistake and should it be reinstated?

GORKA: The same state of Minnesota that actually enacted gun-free zones that we know this killer actually favored in his manifesto, in his videos. He studied the Aurora shooters' policy of looking for sites where individuals were not allowed to legally carry and protect themselves.

So I'd start not with the policies coming out of a Department of Homeland Security that gets the threat. I was with Governor Noem just a few days ago. And I concentrate on those municipalities and those governors like Tim Walz, who do what? Disarm honest citizens who could protect lives and save lives.

Let's start there.

KEILAR: But these kinds of things happen everywhere. And you're talking about giving people off-ramps, which seems like it would require assessing threats. That's funding for assessing threats. Should that have another look at it, so that it could be reinstated for assessing threats?

GORKA: I don't believe that the federal government is the answer for mental health issues, OK? The guys in Washington, D...

KEILAR: What about for assessing threats? You're in the business of assessing threats.

GORKA: Can I finish my answer, please? Can I finish my answer?

If we want to look for solutions, I believe in subsidiarity as a conservative. I believe problems should be solved at the point closest to the people affected by that problem. I would look to the town, to the city, to the county, or to the state because, they know the threats in their communities better.

Don't wag your finger at DHS. DHS is doing an incredible job right now keeping America safe by getting rid of the illegals from this country, more than 1.6 million, thanks to Governor Noem, thanks to Tom Homan, thanks to Stephen Miller.

Don't look to D.C. to solve local problems. That kid had mental issues for at least four years from 17 to 21. Why wasn't somebody in the community helping him? Because they didn't get a grant from DHS? That's risible. That's laughable.

KEILAR: Sebastian Gorka, we thank you for being with us.

GORKA: Thank you.

KEILAR: We have Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, representing the district of Minnesota where the shooting happened. She's going to respond to what you just heard there next.

And coming up: Can you trust the medical advice coming from the Trump administration? Two members of Congress face off on the vaccine debate ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:18:16]

KEILAR: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. You just heard the Trump administration's response to the Minneapolis

shooting, as residents there struggle to come to grips with what happened and the rest of us wonder if anyone has a plan to stop the next shooting.

With us now is Congresswoman Ilhan Omar. She represents the district where this shooting happened.

Congresswoman, you just heard Sebastian Gorka zeroing in on the fact that this shooter was transgender. What is your reaction to what he said and what is echoed by so many in the Trump administration?

REP. ILHAN OMAR (D-MN): I mean, it's really unfortunate that we have people like him speaking on this.

At one moment, he talks about the fact that the evil, murderous person who took two angels from us and harmed our community for a really long time, he talked about their transgenderness, and then he says that shouldn't really matter. At one moment, he attacks you for fake news in addressing actual statistics.

Another moment, he talks about needing mental health support, making sure communities have threat assessment. You point out that DHS has taken away those resources and our communities don't have that kind of support. And then he screams at you and says it's not the responsibility of the federal government to assist the states.

These people are all over the place because they want to deflect from the reality, which is that there was someone who came into that school through the window and assassinated two beautiful angels as they prayed and put two -- 14 other children in the hospital who are still fighting for their lives.

[09:20:08]

And it is important for us to make sure that we are offering a slew of solutions. One is to make sure that we are getting rid of assault weapons in our community, two, that we are addressing mental health issues if there are some.

And, yes, as a community, it is important for us to say something when we see something, when somebody is exhibiting signs that there could be a problem ahead, that we talk to them, that we get them the assistance they need, and that, yes, we do alert law enforcement.

But this is not the moment to point fingers at people. It is time for us to come together and figure out what the actual solutions are, so that there are no more dead angels in our communities.

KEILAR: You are calling for this assault weapons ban, which is something that Democrats have pushed for, for years. But even when your party has had control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, they still can't get this done.

They couldn't get it done when Barack Obama had a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Why is that? And why should voters think it would be any different if Democrats had control?

OMAR: Well, I do hope that this moment is not about Democrats or Republicans, that this is not about our political ideology, but it is about figuring out, how do we safeguard the lives of our children?

Brianna, as a mother, I know that my youngest one, who's still in public school, worries about an assailant coming in to her school and taking her life or the life of her friends and classmates.

I know that the parents that have experienced this horrific attack are never going to forget that moment. Some of the children that have been impacted have younger siblings and older siblings who will carry this moment with them. This is about us as Americans coming together, saying, this is not the kind of trauma that we want to continue to experience.

I think the problem is that we oftentimes look at this issue as a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. We ask each side to have an opinion. But this is about our children. Our children don't have a political ideology. They deserve the right to grow up, to be adults, to raise their own children and contribute to the future of this country.

KEILAR: That funding that we were talking about, the DHS funding cut, was to shooting prevention programs in Minnesota ahead of this attack.

The effect may be very much more future-leaning than affecting the past here. But you were one of six Democratic lawmakers who called for that funding to be restored. On Friday, a DHS spokesperson defended the cut, saying that it was nothing more than a slush fund for left- wing ideologies.

What is your response to that? Can you explain how that money was actually used?

OMAR: Yes, I mean, that money is the kind of money that goes to fusion centers to make sure that they are identifying threats and sharing information. That's the kind of money that our county sheriff's office might utilize.

That's the kind of money that MPD, our police department, might be able to utilize to hire an analyst to look at the data, to look at where there might be vulnerabilities. We're also talking about resources that go to schools and places of worship to make sure that they have the ability to fortify, that they have the ability to look at where their vulnerabilities are, maybe have cameras around.

This is a resource that we have been fighting for a really long time to try to make sure that we up the amount of resources that are available, because we have seen a huge uptick in the last 20 years or so in attacks to our schools, to our public venues, and especially places of worship.

There are people who are talking about the fact that this is, in Minnesota, the first time that we have experienced a Catholic Church, a Catholic school being targeted. And it is important that that community now has the ability to have the kind of resources that mosques and synagogues and other places of worship over the years have been able to access.

As threats are posed on our communities, we have to be willing to say, here's some resource that you can utilize to make sure future harm doesn't come to you, and others who are afraid to go about their day know that their place of worship or their school now has future resources that they can rely on, because, as people of faith, it is really important that we do everything that we can to safeguard that ability for people to show up to worship without fearing death.

[09:25:15]

KEILAR: Congressman -- Congresswoman, we are out of time, but I just want to ask you really quickly before you go.

You hear Sebastian Gorka and others zeroing in on this transgender issue. I know Democrats look at that, they say it's not in good faith. At the same time, is it perhaps important to look at whether that was a factor in this shooter's motivation?

OMAR: I have always said it's really important for us to look at every factor, so that we can understand what happened, what signs were missed, and have the ability in the future to prevent these kind of senseless deaths.

KEILAR: Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, thank you so much for being with us.

OMAR: Thank you.

KEILAR: President Trump said he would let RFK Jr. go wild on health policy. Is he going to end up regretting that?

We will face off over the vaccine wars next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:30:21]

KEILAR: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.

Chaos at the CDC this week after the White House ousted the CDC director and four senior CDC officials quit after clashing with HHS Secretary RFK Jr.

So, what does this all mean for you? Our panel is here with us now to talk a little bit with -- a little bit about that.

So I want to listen to this. This is actually a warning from a CDC employee, high-level, who was ousted here recently. And here's what he says.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. DEMETRE DASKALAKIS, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CENTER FOR IMMUNIZATION AND RESPIRATORY DISEASES: If CDC is being characterized as troubled by Secretary Kennedy, I think we have to turn the mirror back to him.

No one from my center has ever briefed him on any of those topics. He's getting information from somewhere, but that information is not coming from CDC experts.

HOURY: If we want to say that the CDC needs an overhaul, it's because of what has happened in the past few months to it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Congressman Wesley Bell, what are your concerns here?

REP. WESLEY BELL (D-MO): This is not science.

And we know what scientists are saying. We know what the health experts are saying. And it's not what is coming out of Secretary Kennedy's policies. We're seeing anti-vax, fringe, quack medicine or theories that are now being implemented, and they're not protecting American -- the American people. This is insanity.

KEILAR: What do you think, Congressman Carter?

REP. BUDDY CARTER (R-GA): I agree. This isn't science.

This guy who resigned, he is a BDSM Satan worshiper. You look on his -- in his Facebook posts, you will see that. He does not need to be in charge of the vaccine program at CDC. He should have been fired long ago.

And let me tell you something. He cares more about trans people than he does about children. Bobby Kennedy cares about children. He wants to make sure children are protected. This guy does not care. He wants to make sure that trans are protected. We want to make sure that children are protected from trans and that we keep men out of girls' locker rooms.

That's what we want to do.

(CROSSTALK)

KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And it's -- no, go ahead, Congressman. You go ahead.

BELL: So we're going back to attacking trans folks, who are already dealing with challenges that we can't even imagine. And yet we're going to use them as a punchline again.

Let's talk about what's actually happening here. A person with no medical training is running our Health and Human Services Department. His top deputy also has no medical training. This is -- again, these are fringe, quack theories that are not based in science. They're not supported by scientists.

And so we -- so now they have to look for some other way to justify this ridiculousness. It's insanity.

BEDINGFIELD: An attempt to slander this doctor and suggest that he somehow doesn't care about the health of the people that he was appointed to take care of, I think, is a pretty gross distraction. I think we are talking about...

CARTER: Look at what he just said.

BEDINGFIELD: We are talking about -- we are talking about somebody who has spent his life dedicated to trying to help and keep healthy the public.

And the attempt to drive this to a place that -- this conversation to a place that I think the cohort of the MAGA base thinks is politically viable, like we can make this about the fact that he supports trans people and that will somehow make this conversation more of a political winner for us, I think is pretty -- I think that's pretty cynical.

CARTER: What did he say in his resignation? He said that he was afraid that we were going to be trying to push trans people out. Did he mention anything about children? No, he didn't mention anything about children.

KEILAR: This is about vaccines.

BEDINGFIELD: Exactly. Exactly. This is about a health and human services secretary who is pushing a theory about vaccines and autism that has been debunked for 20 years by medical science.

And having one of the lead public health officials in the country advancing that is a dangerous thing.

KEILAR: On vaccines, what are you seeing here?

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think there's actually a couple of channels of this conversation.

As it relates specifically to the COVID vaccine, which has been a flash point lately, I do think there are legitimate questions about whether it should have been mandated, and it took away the emergency designation. I think only 23 percent of American adults said they got it last year. Only 13 percent of children were given it. So the American people had started to make a decision about that.

On the larger vaccine question, I do personally have some questions about Kennedy's views on this. I don't necessarily agree with him that it is settled regarding the autism link. I'm not opposed to further exploration of it and I'm not opposed to further investigation of the safety of vaccines.

[09:35:12]

And -- but I think he has gone farther than what the current data and science might suggest. However, a lot of Americans have questions about all of this because of what happened during COVID with some of these officials that we're hearing from now.

They didn't cover themselves in glory in what they told the American people about the safety and efficacy of that particular vaccine. So the reason we're here is not because of Kennedy. The reason we're here is because the public health regime deserves to be turned inside out after COVID.

KEILAR: I do want to listen to something that RFK said. He repeatedly promised that he would not take vaccines away from people, which, effectively, in some cases, that is happening now. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY NOMINEE: If vaccines are working for somebody, I'm not going to take them away. People ought to have choice, and that choice ought to be informed.

Of course, we're not going to take vaccines away from anybody. We are going to make sure that Americans have good information right now.

I'm not going to take people's vaccines away from them. What I'm going to do is make sure that we have good science so that people can make an informed choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CVS and Walgreens are restricting booster shots in more than a dozen states due to the current regulatory environment.

It is tougher to get these.

CARTER: Look, people can get vaccines if they want to get vaccines. I'm a pharmacist. I can tell you, you get most of your vaccines in a pharmacy now, as opposed to a doctor's office.

And, yes, CVS and Walgreens have cut back on it, but that does not mean they won't be available. They will be available. To sit here and blame Bobby Kennedy for limiting vaccines, that's ridiculous. Bobby Kennedy cares about children.

Let me tell you, when my granddaughters were in Camp Mystic in Texas during the floods, Bobby Kennedy called me from halfway around the world to check on them. He cares about children. I can tell you that from a personal experience.

BEDINGFIELD: He can care about -- he can care about children and still be advancing theories that are dangerous, that erode confidence in, frankly, American medicine that has been at the forefront of global innovation and protecting children and keeping them safe. That can -- that is still dangerous.

CARTER: What eroded confidence in the CDC was the COVID vaccine. The CDC has lost their clout.

BEDINGFIELD: Well, who was president in 2020, when the COVID vaccine was initially implemented?

(CROSSTALK)

BELL: And I got to ask, Buddy, were there lawyers teaching your pharmacy classes or were there actual medical professionals teaching these classes?

We have the human and health -- the health and human services director who has no background. And you're talking about whether he cares.

(CROSSTALK)

CARTER: Are you talking about Becerra, who was a lawyer, who was in charge of HHS?

BELL: We all care about people. We all care about children. And so God bless that he cares about children.

But he has to be qualified to do the job. And then when he is then turning around and reinforcing these fringe medical quack theories, that is dangerous.

CARTER: Bobby -- Wesley, I'm sorry.

(CROSSTALK)

CARTER: With all due respect...

BELL: Hey, you crossed the line.

(LAUGHTER)

CARTER: With all due respect, look, when Becerra was chair of -- was commissioner of the HHS -- he was a lawyer. He had no business being in the chair, in charge of HHS. I didn't question that because that was the president's prerogative at that time to appoint him to that position.

The same thing goes with Donald Trump. He has that authority as president to have the person in that position that he wants in that position.

(CROSSTALK)

BELL: So, get someone that knows what they're doing and not -- and that's not...

CARTER: Are you saying that a lawyer who was in charge of HHS knew what he was doing?

BELL: Listen, I'm a lawyer, and I have no business running HHS.

CARTER: Nor did Becerra.

BELL: Nor do we have -- right? So let's -- so, then, if we're going to accept that argument, then let's talk about the fact that we have someone who's talking about anti-vaxxer and now we're seeing -- an anti-vaxxer.

And now we're seeing diseases that were cured coming back like a bad sequel.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Scott, a final thought to you.

JENNINGS: I don't think it's accurate to say he's just an anti- vaxxer. I mean, he's obviously supported vaccines.

I do think it's not inappropriate for the government to have on a rolling basis investigations of what we're doing, because sometimes we find out that what we're doing or what we told the American people turned out not to be true. So, rolling investigations of vaccines and the advice we give the American people on this, on food, which is another big part of his agenda, he has a lot of popular support for that, truthfully.

KEILAR: Thank you to all of you for a conversation with a lot of tension in it...

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: ... which I think reflects the conversation going on out there in the country.

Senator John McCain died seven years ago this week. What would he make of the world today?

His widow, Ambassador Cindy McCain, joins me next. And we are going to talk about her trip to Gaza this week amid fears that things there are about to get much worse.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:44:29]

KEILAR: Israel is cutting back on aid into Gaza this weekend as it gears up for a new assault to fully capture Gaza City.

My next guest was just there trying to help the people who are facing a famine.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Joining me now is executive director of the World Food Program Ambassador Cindy McCain.

Ambassador, thank you so much for being with us.

CINDY MCCAIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, WORLD FOOD PROGRAM: Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

KEILAR: And you just got back from a trip to the Gaza Strip. Can you tell us what you saw? [09:45:02]

C. MCCAIN: Well, I saw, as you can imagine, a lot of destruction.

I saw a lot of very evident hunger. I saw people on the move in both directions, people trying to get out of the way of what was coming next. And it was a -- I came in -- I want to specify how I came in, though. I came in through Kissufim gate, down to Deir al Balah, to Khan Yunis, and then came out through Kerem Shalom. So it was kind of an L-shaped route that we took.

It was -- I had the opportunity, I will say, to meet a family that was in Deir al Balah. And they had come from the north, and there were 11 of them. And they had -- part of their belongings that they brought with them were pictures of their family.

The family was sitting in front of me, and I couldn't even recognize the family from when they were -- the healthy pictures that they took prior to coming down and now what was evident in front of me.

There was also a small child in the group that had suffered a shrapnel hit in his head. And so they were dealing not only with hunger, but they were dealing with injuries.

KEILAR: Yes. And that's the story of so many families, as we are now aware.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: On Friday, Israel announced that it is ending its daytime pauses in fighting, which had allowed that modest increase in aid getting into Gaza City recently.

If Israel goes ahead with its planned full-scale invasion of Gaza City, how is that going to impact the flow of humanitarian aid?

C. MCCAIN: Well, it will make it a whole lot more difficult than it already is.

What we have been asking for all along is a cease-fire and allow us to get in at scale, unfettered and safely. As you know, humanitarian aid workers have been targets recently. And so, in our opinion, it's really important to keep those three things in mind. But we need to get in.

We -- if we can flood that area with food, it's a full surge of food going in there, we can really make a difference. And that's really what we need to be doing right now.

KEILAR: After you warned that Gaza is at a breaking point and that families there are starving, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office accused you of -- quote -- "blaming Israel with false accusations."

Quote: "She said that, during her recent visit to Gaza, she saw a dramatic improvement. Food was available. Prices had dropped and markets showed goods in sufficient supply and at affordable prices. It is regrettable that Mrs. McCain has since issued statements contradicting what she told us in Jerusalem. That is a misrepresentation. Israel is enabling a steady flow of aid in sufficient quantities."

What is your response to that?

C. MCCAIN: Well, I disagree. That's not what was going on there. We did talk about the markets, what was occurring on the markets, a more sufficient amount of food that was coming in, not sufficient, but a more -- a little bit better amount of food coming in.

That's a very true statement that more is coming in, but it's not nearly enough. People are hungry. There's been famine introduced in one part of the country. This is really at a critical phase right now. We need to get in. And famine -- famine and malnourishment both, it's not just about food. It's about water. It's about medicine.

It's about the steady flow of sufficient -- other kinds of foods that are the high-energy stuff for infants. I mean, this is a lot of -- it's more than just one item that needs to go in there in terms of -- food, of course, is very important. But, again, I really implore everyone, we need to get in, get in at scale and make sure that we can do it in a safe manner.

I also had the opportunity to meet with some hostage families. And what they brought up to me, I mean, aside from the obvious, the stress and the danger and everything that they are very concerned about as mothers -- and I feel the same. I mean, I'm a mother. I can't imagine having a child in that situation.

But, more importantly, the hostages aren't getting fed either. And so it's a double whammy every place you look. So it really is time for us to be able to get in. And I implore the world to help make that happen.

KEILAR: President Trump said last month that Netanyahu needs to -- quote -- "finish the job" against Hamas. And he's also talking about clearing out and developing Gaza. What would that mean for Palestinians living there?

C. MCCAIN: Well, right -- for right now -- I can only speak for right now. I mean, it's devastation. Palestinians have no place to go. There's -- you can imagine. It's a war zone.

But, again, we need to start with the basics. And that's food and water. Those are the things that need to go in now.

[09:50:00]

KEILAR: When you were speaking to Palestinians in Gaza, what did they say to you about Hamas? And do they blame Hamas for starting the war?

C. MCCAIN: You know, I -- the Palestinians that I spoke to didn't even mention Hamas, to be very honest with you. They're more concerned about food and medicine in a couple of cases. I also visited a health clinic. And in the health clinic, I saw

mothers, lactating mothers, pregnant mothers with their infants, et cetera. And there's -- as you can imagine, it's a devastating scene to watch, because they're so malnourished and so desperate that it calls for, as I keep saying, that we need to get in, we need to get in and feed.

I think the other thing to remember too is that, unless we can get to those who are the most helpless, and like that health clinic that I was in, we're not going to be able to save a lot of people if we don't. We have been able to get in a little bit, as I have said, but we still need to do it. And we need to get further in.

I need more routes to be able to go to get in, not just the same two roads that we have been able to use. We need more routes. And, of course, we need safe access.

KEILAR: I do want to end this interview on a personal note about your late husband, because this past week marked the seventh anniversary of his passing. And this is something that he said in 2017 on this show. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: How do you want the American people to remember you?

FMR. SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ): He served his country, and not always right, made a lot of mistakes, made a lot of errors, but served his country, and I hope we could add honorably.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: There is significant bipartisan agreement today, I think, that that's his legacy.

C. MCCAIN: Yes.

KEILAR: I wonder, as you think on what he said there, what you think serving honorably looks like in these times that we are in now.

C. MCCAIN: Well, I think, certainly, my husband's leadership is a good example of what serving honorably is all about.

But I think it's a call to action for all of our politicians and our civil servants, et cetera. We have to work together to make this world a better place. We can't -- the sidelines, as John used to call it at home a little bit, there's no -- we can't do this.

We need to work together in a bipartisan manner to make sure that we can make -- get the things achieved that we need achieved and also that we can, as you -- as my husband just said, serve honorably as a result.

KEILAR: Ambassador Cindy McCain, thank you so much for taking some time with us today.

C. MCCAIN: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: Could the National Guard be on the streets of Chicago this week? What we know and how Chicago officials are already responding next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:56:38]

KEILAR: President Trump could deploy National Guard troops to Chicago as soon as this week, multiple sources are telling CNN. And officials there are taking an aggressive posture.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order on Saturday affirming that police there will not collaborate with federal agents on most of their activities. He also urged federal agents to refrain from wearing masks.

Thank you so much for spending your Sunday morning with us.

"FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" starts next.