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State of the Union
Interview With Rep. Kim Schrier (D-WA); Interview With White House Border Czar Tom Homan; Interview With Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo. Aired 9-10a ET
Aired September 07, 2025 - 09:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST (voice-over): Health reckoning. Florida's surgeon general takes an unprecedented step...
DR. JOSEPH LADAPO, FLORIDA SURGEON GENERAL: End all vaccine mandates.
TAPPER: ... as President Trump signals some concern.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, you have vaccines that work.
TAPPER: What does all this mean for America's public health? Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo joins me live exclusively, and Dr. Paul Offit responds.
Plus: bracing for impact. As tensions rise after the largest sweep in his immigration crackdown, President Trump threatens to go to war with Chicago.
TRUMP: We could straighten out Chicago.
TAPPER: What is his plan for going into America's third largest city? Border czar Tom Homan joins me ahead.
And soul-searching.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): The essence of Trumpism is dividing us up.
TAPPER: Democrats split over their party's future ahead of a contentious race. Who is emerging as the new leaders of the party? Our panel breaks it all down.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
TAPPER: Hello. I'm Jake Tapper in Washington, where the state of our union is recalling how General George Washington imposed a smallpox vaccine mandate on his troops.
This week, a political earthquake is rocking America's public health. As HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced a bipartisan beating in the Senate hearing for his positions and actions regarding vaccine safety and scientific experts, the country's third most populous state, meanwhile, Florida, announced a plan to ban all state vaccine mandates.
This followed declining vaccination rates across America and a return of measles, a disease that had been 25 years ago declared eliminated. But the continued use of vaccines did get a healthy boost from none other than President Trump, who seems to accept the overwhelming consensus of the medical community, which is that vaccines are safe and effective.
Here is how President Trump responded to Florida's decision on Friday:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You have some vaccines that are so amazing. The polio vaccine, I happen to think is amazing. A lot of people think that COVID is amazing. I think you have to be very careful when you say that some people don't have to be vaccinated.
Look, you have vaccines that work. They just pure and simple work. They're not controversial at all. And I think those vaccines should be used. Otherwise, some people are going to catch it and they endanger other people. And when you don't have controversy at all, I think people should take it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Joining us now is the surgeon general of the state of Florida, Dr. Joseph Ladapo.
Dr. Ladapo, thank you so much for joining us.
You just heard President Trump say that, if a state were to remove vaccine mandates -- quote -- "that other people will catch it, and they endanger other people" -- unquote.
So, obviously, you think that President Trump is wrong?
LADAPO: I'm not sure that I agree with you. Actually, I'm sure I don't agree with you in terms of what President Trump said.
I want to clarify, first of all, and I haven't had a chance to speak with President Trump, but there's some confusion about what we said. We didn't -- we're not taking vaccines away from anyone. What we said was that, if you want them, God bless, you can have as many as you want.
And if you don't want them, parents should have the ability and the power to decide what goes into their children's bodies. It's that simple. It's a position that I think respects the fact that it's much more important that parents be able to dictate the health of their children than anyone else.
And anyone else includes the government or any other entity.
TAPPER: Yes, and President Trump had been specifically asked about the vaccine mandates in Florida, and he said: "We have to be very careful. You have some vaccines that are so amazing. I think you have to be very careful when you say that some people don't have to be vaccinated."
And he's specifically saying that he's not sure that vaccine mandate -- removing the vaccine mandate is a good idea. I mean, that's -- those are his own words.
LADAPO: Well, I think -- again, I think it's more nuanced.
But for President Trump, first of all, I have tremendous respect for who he is. And a lot of people have tried to really, really make life very difficult for him. And he's emerged and he's been a terrific leader and a terrific symbol for many, many Americans.
[09:05:08]
Ultimately this issue -- first of all, my job is to take care of people in Florida. And my assessment is that, when you look at these things and the balance of, well, do parents have the ability, should parents have the ability to determine what goes into their children's bodies, should parents have the ability to determine what goes into their own bodies versus can a government authority or some other -- any other body decide what people can and cannot put in their bodies, ultimately, I think that it's just -- it's more important that parents -- I think it's much more important that parents have the right and the ability to decide what enters their children's bodies.
I mean, I think if I -- what -- in terms of President Trump -- again, he obviously is entitled to any perspective that he wants, but in terms of my perspective, that's absolutely how I feel about it.
TAPPER: So, as you know, you are an outlier in terms of state attorneys general -- I mean, state surgeon generals, and the medical community really disagrees with your position in general. Your predecessor, former Florida Surgeon General Scott Rivkees, criticized your plan.
He warned that -- quote -- "Children in Florida will now be more at risk of vaccine-preventable illnesses that at any time in recent history." And he also says it's not just Florida children that you are putting at risk, but you're also putting at risk the entire broader U.S. population.
What's your response to him?
LADAPO: Yes, so Dr. Rivkees was my predecessor here at the Department of Health, and it's a great -- there's a lot there.
And I think, first of all, it's important to remember that we're -- we're -- there are countries out there that don't have vaccine mandates for school. Sweden is an example of a country like that. The United Kingdom, I believe, is another example, I think Denmark also.
And, guys, the sky is not falling over there. So these -- these pronouncements that, oh, everything's going to -- there are going to be outbreaks everywhere and there are going to be all these problems, well, we have heard that -- not only have we heard that before.
I mean, how many times did so many people in the media and public health officials take positions like that during the COVID-19 pandemic, basically to get people's compliance with policies that were terrible policies? And there's broad recognition of that, including the media participate in that also.
But you have some countries that don't -- that don't -- that don't require -- that don't mandate vaccines for their children. So the whole idea, I mean, do you not believe that parents cannot -- can't -- are incapable of making decisions with the information that they receive from their pediatricians?
Because either you don't believe that parents can make good decisions for their children, or -- or your -- or the position just doesn't make sense.
TAPPER: So...
LADAPO: So, I would say that, yes, I trust parents. I believe parents can make good decisions for their children. They get good information.
And, Jake, I'm sorry to interrupt you. I have one more thing, which is this idea of informed consent. So you can't -- you may have -- I'm not sure if you have a legal background, but, in medical ethics, you cannot obtain informed consent for a medical treatment if there's coercion.
And a mandate is coercion, because a mandate indicates that, if you don't comply, there is a -- there's a punishment or some negative adverse effect.
TAPPER: Doc, I want to...
LADAPO: So, that you cannot obtain informed consent, which means you cannot provide ethical practice.
So the vaccine mandates absolutely, positively should not be something that is part of our society.
TAPPER: So, I'm looking at this report from your department from April showing that more people in Florida are seeking religious exemptions for vaccines. And, at the same time, Florida is seeing rising cases of hepatitis A and whooping cough and chicken pox.
This is in your own report, your own department's report. Before you made this decision to try to lift vaccine mandates for Florida, which include obviously public schools, did your department do any data analysis? Did you do any data projection of how many new cases of these diseases there will be in Florida once you remove vaccine mandates? LADAPO: Absolutely.
So, absolutely not, because it's not a -- you mentioned whooping cough there. So there's this conflation of the science and sort of what is the right and wrong thing to do?
So, scientifically, you mentioned whooping cough. So that's an example. This is part of the issue with informed consent. That's an example of a vaccine that is ineffective. The data show that it's ineffective at preventing transmission. So, sort of mandates with that really don't have anything to do with the notion of transmission.
[09:10:02]
And then in terms of, like, analysis, well, ultimately, this is an issue very clearly of parents' rights. So do I need to analyze whether it's appropriate for parents to be able to decide what goes into their children's bodies?
TAPPER: Wait. Let me just -- I'm just trying...
LADAPO: I don't need to do an analysis on that.
TAPPER: So you -- you're lifting -- you're trying to lift the vaccine mandate in Florida, and your department and you did not even do a projection as to how this could impact public health?
So you have not prepared hospitals in the Florida counties most at risk with the best treatments for any outbreaks of measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough, polio, and you have not looked into how many kids might now get these preventable diseases? That's what you're saying?
LADAPO: No, that's what you said.
What I'm saying is that it's an issue of right and wrong in terms of whether parents should be able to control, have ultimate authority over what happens to their kids' bodies.
In terms of outbreaks, we do have outbreaks in Florida, just like every state. And we manage those. So there are no new special -- special procedures that need to be made.
TAPPER: Right, but you're talking about doing something that no other state has done.
LADAPO: When we have outbreaks in different diseases, we manage them just as always.
TAPPER: But you're talking about doing something that no other state in the United States has done in removing the vaccine mandate for public schools.
You're making a decision that no other surgeon general in the United States has done. It goes against what's recommended by every top medical organization... LADAPO: Yes.
TAPPER: ... including the AMA, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Boston Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases. It goes against what parents in Florida want; 82 percent of parents in Florida schools said public schools should require vaccines for measles and polio, with health and religious exemptions.
LADAPO: That's...
TAPPER: It goes against what Senator Rick Scott, a Republican from Florida, wants. He thinks sticking with a religious exemption is fine. It goes against the Florida Medical Association, which in the past has back Governor DeSantis.
So all of these people are wrong, and you are right?
LADAPO: I -- again, sort of casting it in that way is not what I would do, is not how I look at it.
TAPPER: It's a fact.
LADAPO: And if you look at the last -- I would say -- what I would -- what I would say is that my history, if you will, is, I share what I believe is the right thing to do, whether it's popular or not. I have been doing it for years.
I certainly did it during the COVID-19 pandemic. I was -- I thought that the lockdowns would be harmful. I said that as early as March 2020 after taking care of patients at UCLA Hospital, some of whom had COVID. I -- we as a state and I as an individual recommended against the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines for children, healthy children, very early, two years ago or so.
So -- and that was the correct decision there. And I have made a series of just -- and I'm not alone. It's just -- it just so happens that most of the people who have larger microphones tend to align with the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.
But we have been right over and over again, because what we have said has been based on data and common sense. In this particular area, this is really just about -- it's really about ethics. I mean, is it appropriate for a government to or any other entity to dictate to you what you should -- what you should put in your body?
No, it's actually not appropriate. You have sovereignty over your body. I mean, that's -- that is -- that's where it starts. And you should be able to decide what you put in your body. And if you can't decide what you put in your body, I mean, you know, what do you -- what do you actually -- you know, where -- what can you decide?
TAPPER: So...
LADAPO: So, it's really -- I -- it's really -- it really is an issue that is in that domain. And it's very simple. TAPPER: I have to say, just I'm very -- I'm kind of shocked that you have not done any sort of, like, projection or data analysis of what this is actually going -- to going to literally mean for kids in Florida.
LADAPO: Sure.
TAPPER: But let me just say -- let me just close by saying, I know a veteran of the war in Iraq. He has -- he's a big Trump supporter. He's a big MAGA guy.
He has a kid who is immunocompromised who cannot get vaccinated. He does not have a strong enough body to take an immunization. He is relying on the kids in his class to be vaccinated, so he doesn't get those diseases. That's what President Trump was referring to in his comments.
What is your message to the parents of immunocompromised kids who are relying on the most kids being vaccinated, so their kids are safe? You talk about liberty and freedom for parents, but it seems like you're removing liberty and freedom for the parents of kids who are immunocompromised.
LADAPO: Yes, I think that that's a -- that's -- it's an interesting way to -- to conceive that to, sort of describe that. But I don't think that's a dynamic at all.
Ultimately, obviously, we're all very sympathetic to children and families who have to deal with chronic illnesses. And as a -- I'm a parent. It's we -- care about our kids more than anything. At the same time, it's important to recognize just the difference between right and wrong.
[09:15:16]
And, ultimately, however -- whatever the challenges are -- and, by the way, the challenges for being immunocompromised, I mean, they're really significant. And they extend way beyond, way beyond just the diseases that we have vaccines for, by the way, not all of which actually prevent or effective at preventing transmission.
But even just beyond that, the issue of whether a parent should be able to decide what goes into their child's body, I mean, that's an immutable issue. And it doesn't matter if it's an emergency, as we saw during the COVID pandemic, or other issues.
So that's an issue. And parents have every ability, right? We're not taking vaccines away. They have the ability to consider those things when they make decisions about their child. But they -- their ability to consider those things cannot be usurped by someone else. They are the ultimate arbiters of what happens with their children.
That's how it should be. And that's why my position will never change, because that will always be true. It will always be true that parents should be able to decide what goes on -- what goes into their kids' bodies. I mean, it's not complex at all. TAPPER: Did you vaccinate your kids? Are your kids vaccinated?
LADAPO: And just, Jake, really briefly, I will just say one other thing.
Jake, just really briefly, one other thing. Again, this whole, oh, Florida hasn't done any analysis, that's nonsense.
TAPPER: You -- you said you hadn't done any projection.
LADAPO: So, again, we...
(CROSSTALK)
LADAPO: We don't need to do -- the way you're portraying it is nonsense. We don't need to do any projections. We handle outbreaks all the time. So there's nothing special that we would need to do.
And, secondly, again, there are countries that don't have vaccine mandates, and the sky isn't falling over there. So this notion, this thing that you're doing that -- and I'm not angry at you or anything for doing it, but the thing that you're doing is a pattern that we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic, oh, my gosh, if people don't wear masks, oh, my gosh, if people don't take the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.
It's a terrible strategy. The right position is that parents should control -- absolutely, they should be the final say on what happens in terms of any vaccines that they choose to take or not take. It's very simple.
TAPPER: All right, Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo, thank you so much for your time, sir. Appreciate it.
LADAPO: Thanks. Thanks.
TAPPER: Let's bring in Dr. Paul Offit. He's a virologist and a pediatrician who was a member of the CDC vaccine advisory committee and has fiercely disagreed with HHS Secretary RFK Jr.'s criticisms of vaccines.
Dr. Offit, what's your reaction to what you just heard from the Florida surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo?
DR. PAUL OFFIT, CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA: He's confusing two things.
First of all, Florida has a religious exemption to vaccination. If you don't want to be vaccinated in Florida, all you have to do is fill out a one-page form. When he's talking about eliminating mandates, he's talking about eliminating one of the two most important weapons he has during an outbreak, which is mandates and quarantine.
If there was an outbreak in the school, as there was last year in a Catholic school in Florida, if you're not going to mandate vaccines, if you're going to say, you can -- you can come into this school even if you're not vaccinated, he is going to have a very hard time controlling those outbreaks.
I mean, school entrance requirements have been on the books for decades, but, in the 1970s, they weren't enforced. And so you had these massive outbreaks in Los Angeles, Detroit, Alaska. And it wasn't until you had school entry requirements, mandates, before you got on top of that.
And, as you know, as a Philadelphian, in 1990 to 1991, we had a massive outbreak in Philadelphia, 1,400 cases, nine deaths. It wasn't until we mandated vaccines for school entry, until we -- which allowed us to stop those epidemics.
TAPPER: So many of the decisions when it comes to vaccines, when it comes to mandates have to do with data, cost/benefit analysis, if there's a medicine that hurts one out of every two million people, but helps everyone else, just that kind of comparison.
Were you surprised when he admitted that he had not done any sort of data projection as to what this -- the results of this vaccine mandate could be?
OFFIT: Yes, here's here's what upsets me the most.
You have this tension between, on the one hand, public health and medical freedom. He is representing the medical freedom movement, which is to say, I'm going to do what's best for my child. I don't care about how that affects somebody else, whereas, in public health, you do care about the person next to you.
And I think President Trump alluded to that. He has just seriously crippled his ability to get on top of epidemics should they occur. And given that -- that attitude, I have no doubt they will occur.
TAPPER: All right, Dr. Paul Offit, it's always good to have you on. Thank you so much, sir.
OFFIT: Thank you.
TAPPER: A massive immigration raid in Georgia sparks an international incident. Is there more to come?
[09:20:00]
And President Trump says he wants to go to war with Chicago. The man in charge of immigration enforcement, Tom Homan, is here next.
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TAPPER: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.
President Trump is escalating his threats against the city of Chicago. Yesterday, he posted this meme that says: "I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago is about to find out why it's called the Department of War" -- unquote, the image based on the film "Apocalypse Now," which -- with Trump as the character from the movie Lieutenant Kilgore. In the movie, he had just napalmed a Vietnamese village.
Joining us now to discuss is the president's border czar, Tom Homan.
Mr. Homan, always good to have you.
So, the governor of Illinois responded to President Trump's post. He wrote -- quote -- "The president of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal. Donald Trump isn't a strongman. He's a scared man. Illinois won't be intimidated by a wannabe dictator" -- unquote.
[09:25:04]
Is President Trump planning to go to war in Chicago?
TOM HOMAN, WHITE HOUSE BORDER CZAR: Look, I think his words are being taken out of context.
If I said we're going to war, we're going to war with the criminal cartels. We're going to war with illegal aliens, public safety threats that rape children, that raped citizens, that committed armed robberies, that distribute narcotics that kill Americans. We're at war with the criminal cartels.
And Governor Pritzker protects criminal illegal aliens, public safety threats every day in that state, along with Mayor Johnson. We proved that. The first week of the administration, I went to Chicago. I started an operation there. The first day, we arrested nine sexual predators, most of them child rapists. We arrested nine members of the TDA. Several of those TDA members had a pistol, an illegal pistol with a switch on it, which makes that pistol fully automatic.
We arrested two illegal aliens that had a homicide conviction. That was the first day in Chicago. So, President Trump and this administration, yes, we're at war with the criminal cartels and those who want to murder and rape American citizens. You're damn right.
TAPPER: So maybe it should say, criminal aliens in Chicago are about to find out why it's called the Department of War, not Chicago itself.
But let me ask you. We keep hearing the president's going to send National Guard troops into Chicago. It has not yet happened. Help clear this up for me. Is the president talking about sending National Guard troops and other federal troops into Chicago to handle deportations or to handle violent criminals, or both, like you just referred to violent criminals who are in this country illegally?
What is the operation going to look like? Will it happen this week?
HOMAN: Look, the National Guard are already -- always on the table. We use them in Los Angeles and we use them in Washington, D.C. They're a force multiplier.
Now, do they arrest illegal aliens? No. The ICE officers, Border Patrol agents who have Title 8 authority arrest illegal criminal aliens. The -- but the National Guard does provide protection for us. It does provide us infrastructure, provides us transportation, provides us additional processing capability that allows the ones who -- immigration authority, the badge and the guns on the street, to continue arresting the bad guy.
So yes, they're a force multiplier. They're on the table. I mean, they have been used by every administration since I have been working for the government starting in 1984. Every administration has used the Guard and the military on the border. And they have been very beneficial.
Look at the crime change in Washington, D.C. Look what they're able to do in Los Angeles. I was in Los Angeles when that all started. We were serving criminal warrants on money -- on money fraud, tax evasion, money laundering and cartel funding.
We were serving criminal search warrants, and all hell broke loose because the left said we're doing immigration raids and just arresting people that look different from us. And, for two days, ICE agents were under extreme threat, were being attacked. The facilities were being attacked.
Thank God President Trump called the National Guard in to bring peace. So, the National Guard is beneficial.
TAPPER: So should we expect action in Chicago this week?
HOMAN: Absolutely. You can expect action in most sanctuary cities across the country.
President Trump's prioritized sanctuary cities because sanctuary cities knowingly release illegal alien public safety threats to the streets every day. That's where the problem is. We don't have that problem in Florida, where every sheriff and chief works for us, right, or Texas. So we got to send additional resources to the problem areas, which are sanctuary cities.
TAPPER: Governor Pritzker says Illinois has not received any notification about any enforcement action from the White House. Will you be coordinating with them about an operation of this size in Chicago?
HOMAN: Governor Pritzker has been notified from day one. Again, I went there and started an operation right after the inauguration.
ICE agents have been flooding the zone in Chicago for a while now. So he's aware of what's going on. I mean, he knows we have been there. We were there last week. We were there the week before. Now, again, we're going to send additional resources to all sanctuary cities. But this isn't new to him. He knows we have been there. And he's failed to work with us.
The mayor, Johnson, has failed to work with us. Again, to this day, a significant public safety threat gets locked into a jail in Illinois. In Chicago, Cook County Jail, one of the most target-rich environments for criminal illegal aliens, and they -- and we drop a detainer and say, hey, this guy's illegally in the United States. You have custody of them.
And when you're done with them, call us and we will come and get them. Let us deal with our -- enforcing our law. They simply ignore it and release them to the streets. And what happens then, when you release a public safety threat back into the public, it makes the community unsafe. It makes it unsafe for our agents to have to go into a community and try to find somebody, now on his turf who has access to who knows what weapons.
It makes it unsafe for the illegal alien, because anything can happen on a street arrest. Give us a public safety threat in the safety and security of a county jail. It makes it safer for everybody. But they refuse to do that.
[09:30:00]
TAPPER: How many National Guard troops will be sent into Chicago this week, if that's what's happening this week?
HOMAN: That's law enforcement-sensitive information. I can't -- I'm not going to tell you that.
TAPPER: So there was another ICE operation, pretty sizable. ICE detained nearly 500 people in a massive raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia.
According to ICE, most of those arrested were South Korean nationals, all of them, according to ICE, living in the United States illegally. Are we going to see more large-scale raids on businesses where so many employees are not in the country illegally, even if they haven't committed violent crime?
And what more can you tell us about the Hyundai raid?
HOMAN: The answer -- the short answer is yes. We're going to do more worksite enforcement operations, because, number one, it's a crime to enter this country legally. Number two, it's a crime to knowingly hire an illegal alien.
And these companies that hire illegal aliens, they undercut the competition of paying U.S. citizen salaries. Look, no one hires an illegal alien out of the goodness of their heart. They hire them because they can work them harder, pay them less, and undercut the competition that hires U.S. citizen employees. They drive wages down.
And I know this for a fact, my own personal experience of having a roof replaced. I had to call five different companies before I had a company that guaranteed me a legal work force. I talked to one company, just a father and son, who laid off 20 citizen employees because they couldn't afford -- they couldn't win a bid, because the competition were bidding a lot less for a job because they were paying their employees a lot less to work because they're illegally in the United States.
The part of the reason we have the most secure border in history of the nation today is because of the great work of President Trump and his leadership, the men and women of the Border Patrol, who are doing a great job. But it's also shown the whole world that there are consequences.
What ICE is doing every day on these operations and this worksite enforcement operation also helps us give a secure border, because those who are thinking about coming to the United States illegally know that -- know that this administration is applying consequences. That's the part of the reason we had the most secure border.
So, yes, you're going to see a lot more worksite enforcement operations.
TAPPER: Republican Senator Rand Paul is criticizing a U.S. Navy strike this week on a boat that the Trump administration says was trafficking drugs for the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, who you mentioned earlier. Eleven people were killed during the strike. They were on the boat.
In an exchange with the vice president on Twitter, Senator Paul warned that the U.S. -- warned the U.S. against glorifying -- quote -- "killing someone without a trial" -- unquote.
What gives the president the authority to conduct a strike like this? And what happens if a mistake is made and people in that boat were not -- that boat, but a future boat, were not drug dealers?
HOMAN: Well, look, what gives the authority, that's a question for the Department of Justice or DOD or certainly Department the Defense -- Department of Defense.
But what -- look, I can tell you, from 40 years of doing this job, President Trump made the right decision when he classified these cartels and these gangs as terrorist organizations. They have killed more Americans with their poison than every terrorist organization in the world have killed Americans. They have killed more Americans than any war.
So, yes, it's the right thing to designate them terrorists and it's the right thing to stop the poison from coming into this country. So I support the -- President Trump and his action. Who knows how many lives were saved from that poison getting to the United States?
We had over a quarter-million illegal -- a quarter-million Americans under the Biden administration that died from fentanyl coming across the open border. President Trump's trying to save lives. A secure border does that. And I'm glad to see us playing the away game. We have played the home game too much. Let's stop it before we even get to our border. And that's going to save thousands of American lives.
So, I support the decision of President Trump. And that's my personal opinion.
TAPPER: Tom Homan, we always enjoy having you on. Thank you so much, sir. Appreciate it. Have a good Sunday.
HOMAN: Thank you. TAPPER: Coming up next -- quote -- "I don't give a bleep," a fiery
exchange between a Republican senator and the vice president, J.D. Vance, over what Trump's critics say is an illegal action overseas.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:38:24]
TAPPER: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION.
It has been a busy week with lots of news. My panel is here to discuss.
And let's start with Congresswoman Kim Schrier, because you are a pediatrician. Are you still a pediatrician? You were a pediatrician before you came to Congress.
REP. KIM SCHRIER (D-WA): Once a pediatrician, always a pediatrician.
TAPPER: So we don't have to have a whole conversation about Dr. Ladapo, but I was wondering, what do you think about the Florida decision to try to get rid of vaccine mandates, including for public school students?
SCHRIER: Well, I listened very carefully to that interview earlier. And I think he is flat wrong. Public schools should absolutely require children to be vaccinated.
TAPPER: But what about -- what do you say to his thing about, this is about parents should have a right as to what goes into their -- the bodies of their children?
SCHRIER: Parents have always had a right to make their own decisions about whether to vaccinate their children or not. And they also have a right to homeschool their children or to send their children to a private school that might not require vaccines.
But when that freedom to not vaccinate their own children and put them at risk comes up against another child's freedom to go to school, knowing that they will not get measles or polio or whooping cough, then we have a real problem.
TAPPER: All right, I want to move on to another topic.
There was a U.S. Navy strike on a boat this week. You just heard Tom Homan talking about it. The administration alleged this was trafficking drugs for the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. Eleven people on that boat were killed.
J.D. Vance tweeted: "Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military," to which a liberal commentator, Brian Krassenstein, responded: "Killing the citizens of another nation who are civilians without any due process is called a war crime." [09:40:11]
And then J.D. Vance responded -- quote -- "I don't give a shit what you call it."
Scott Jennings, thought?
SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I will give you my political view of how I think most Americans are going to view it, most Republicans certainly. And that is that societal decline is a choice.
And when you let people come into the country by the millions, when you let drugs flow over the border and you just say, well, let's just get him here and then see how the bureaucracy sorts it out, most people want a more aggressive response. Societal decline is a choice.
And they see this illegal immigration problem and this drug flow problem as part of overall societal decline. And they are hoping and looking for and happy with Trump and Vance taking a muscular response to this.
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well...
TAPPER: Well, I want to read something that Senator Rand Paul said and come right to you, because you used to work with the Justice Department under Biden.
Senator Rand Paul, Republican from Kentucky, said: "J.D. 'I Don't Give a Shit' Vance" -- that's his words, not mine -- "says killing people he accuses of a crime is the highest and best use of the military. Did he ever read 'To Kill a Mockingbird'? Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation? What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial."
HINOJOSA: Well, I will say he has a lot of fair points there. I think there are things that the administration could be doing that are unlawful and there are legal questions around it.
But what I will also say is that no administration, Republican or Democrat, has been for cartel leaders. We have -- everyone has worked to arrest and extradite cartel leaders. But the way that they have done it successfully in the last administration, they had a dozen cartel leaders from the Sinaloa cartel that they extradited or arrested, is through the help of that country.
And you have to have the intelligence from that country in order to arrest and extradite people. Once you start going around and killing people without coordination of a country, that intelligence often stops. And that is the last thing Americans want, for that to stop.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I just don't know how you get intelligence from a country like Venezuela.
JENNINGS: Yes. SINGLETON: I mean, you have to stop their operational capabilities, number one.
Number two, I would think about the '80s and the '90s and how drugs impact the black community. Think about how drugs impacted poor white communities coming from south of the border. And so if you were to ask many of those family members who saw their children die or children get strung out on drugs, many children, the children of those people have parents that were in prison as a result of that drug addiction.
So, to me, you got to do everything you possibly can to destroy these guys. And arresting the cartel leaders, that's not enough because you arrest one, then someone else rises to the top.
TAPPER: What do you think about the strike?
SCHRIER: Well, I mean, I think we all want drugs kept out of our country and we should be firm on that. I also believe that, in America, you get due process.
And just being accused -- I haven't seen any solid evidence. And I look forward to having a full confidential briefing in Congress. We deserve it.
JENNINGS: These are transnational terrorist organizations. We have to stop thinking of these people like they are just jaywalkers. They're not. They're terrorists.
If Middle Eastern terrorists were on a boat trying to come into the United States with materials that would kill hundreds of thousands or millions of people, we would bomb them into the Stone Age or to the bottom of the ocean, which is what we did with this boat. We have to think of them that way. They are terrorists. They're coming to terrorize our communities, kill our children and create societal decline in the United States.
That is what we have -- we have to reframe our thinking on them.
TAPPER: Well, let me just -- let me ask you this. There was a time during the Biden administration's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan where people thought they had intelligence on an Afghan van or truck, and Americans struck it, and it turned out it was just an innocent family.
That is the difference between summary execution by the military and extraditing and arresting. So, while there's no reason that I know of as of now to think this was anything other than what the Trump administration says it was, it is always possible that the best men and women on the job might make a mistake, and you can't take it back when it's an execution.
JENNINGS: It is possible. But, at the same time if you have faith in the military and faith in our intelligence services and faith in the people running them, and I do, then you have to trust that when they say, look, here comes a boatload of drug dealers who are coming to terrorize our communities. I mean, at some point, this is why we elect governments and this is why those governments have military intelligence structures to perform these kinds of operations. And I just -- I think the American people have been crying out for some kind of more muscular response, and they're willing to take the risk if it saves lives.
HINOJOSA: I agree on the muscular response. I think there needs to be a muscular response. And I think that every administration should have done that. And I think the last administration did that. And there was more that they could do.
With that said is, if you start going off and killing people, the intelligence stops. And it's not just from Venezuela. That's not the only place where we get our intelligence. We get our intelligence from our allies. And that is critical intelligence in arresting and extraditing people and holding people accountable at the end of the day.
[09:45:10]
SINGLETON: But you made the point that we would work with allied countries in order to arrest these individuals.
HINOJOSA: And we have.
SINGLETON: Venezuela is not an allied country at all.
HINOJOSA: I know, but we get our intelligence from other places besides Venezuela.
SINGLETON: And the reality is, Jake, the reality is, if you're going to have an unfortunate casualty, consider the fact that millions of Americans since the '80s have died as a result of drug addiction, overdosing.
Are we not going to consider the realities of the impact on real families to this day?
TAPPER: Stick around, Congresswoman. I'm going to come right to you at the next block.
We're going to squeeze in a quick break. We have questions for the Democrat about who's the next leader of the Democratic Party.
Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:50:06]
TAPPER: My panel is back.
Last night, Senator Bernie Sanders rallied New Yorkers with mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
Who is the next leader of the Democratic Party? Let's go around the table. Who do you think is the next leader of the Democratic Party? And do you think it's also important for the Democratic Party to rally behind Mamdani?
SCHRIER: Well, with respect to Mamdani, this is a question for New Yorkers. I am at the opposite side of the country, in Washington state, and focused on my district.
I probably would not win in his area and he would not win in mine. I think if you want to look for the next leader, right now, our leader is Hakeem Jeffries, and I believe he represents us well. You want to look at where the Democratic Party is headed, I think you should be looking at Abigail Spanberger, who is probably the next governor in Virginia, who was part of my Democratic class in 2018.
And what I would say is that Democrats share values. We want housing to be affordable. We want people to be able to afford their groceries. We want people to have health care. And that is where the Democratic Party is.
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: We had some wincing.
SINGLETON: I'm not a...
TAPPER: First of all, I would suggest that you are probably a Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears supporter for Virginia governor.
SINGLETON: I am, of course. I'm in Virginia. I am not a big Abigail Spanberger wins this thing.
That said, Republicans also want people to have affordable groceries. But we also -- we don't want the government to run the grocery stores. We want people to have affordable housing as well. But we believe that hardworking person who owns one house shouldn't be penalized as a result because someone like Mamdani may believe that they make too much money.
So, in my opinion, I think Mamdani and Bernie Sanders and socialism and government control is the future of the Democratic Party that most Americans will absolutely reject.
HINOJOSA: How did I know you were going to say that?
(CROSSTALK)
SINGLETON: You figured.
HINOJOSA: I'm sure. I'm sure.
No, Mamdani and Bernie Sanders are not the future of the Democratic Party. And, actually, Democrats do not fall in line with Mamdani's agenda. They do care about costs. But I think largely they do not believe governments should run our grocery stores.
But, that said, I think Ruben Gallego, who is a veteran, who has talked a lot about...
TAPPER: Senator from Arizona.
HINOJOSA: Senator from Arizona, won Arizona, understands the Latino community. Latinos are, I think, a critical -- going to be critical in the midterm elections and moving forward.
And he, I think, is someone to watch. I think Cory Booker also did a really great job on the House floor talking about how people have been impacted by Trump. And so I think those are the two to watch moving forward.
TAPPER: Cory Booker recently engaged. Congratulations.
HINOJOSA: Recently engaged, Cory Booker.
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: Well, I mean, for the foreseeable future, the person who's running the Democratic Party now is going to be running it. That's Donald Trump. I mean, the only thing they know how to do is be against whatever he is for.
(LAUGHTER)
JENNINGS: And so there is no leader of the party except for Trump. The beating heart of the Democratic Party is, if Trump is for it, we're against it, and you throw a little socialism on the side. That's basically how...
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: All right, thanks, one and all. I know, let the record reflect that the two Democrats disagreed with what he had to say.
(LAUGHTER)
TAPPER: Coming up: A race against the clock to stop a terrorist from going free, it sounds more like a spy novel, but it's real life.
I will tell you the story next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:55:48]
TAPPER: I have a crazy story to tell you.
It starts on the deck of an Italian cruise ship during the Arab Spring in the summer of 2011 on a boat full of Libyan and Tunisian refugees being brought to the mainland. A man walks over to an Italian Green Beret and asks for water. The Green Beret notices that the man, this man, has a bullet wound at his arm, asks how he got it.
"I got it fighting Americans in Afghanistan," he says. "I'm in al Qaeda." From that real-life occurrence came an incredible tale, where U.S. prosecutors and FBI agents were in a race against the clock to build a case against this terrorist called Spin Ghul risk having him be set free in Europe, where he clearly intended to commit mass murder against Americans in the West.
It's a totally true story. It's in a book that I wrote. It's called "Race Against Terror." It comes out one month from today. You can preorder it at JakeTapper.com or wherever you get your books. I'm really eager to hear what you guys think about it.
Thank you for spending your Sunday morning with us.
"FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" starts next.
