[0:00]President Trump in a big reversal agrees to send more weapons to Ukraine as long as Europe pays for them. When it rains, it pours. Conspiracy theories about
[0:11]cloud seeding. That is, we look for a silver lining of truth. Soccer is a global phenomenon. And we got a taste of next year's World Cup with Trumpian
[0:22]flourish this weekend. [Music] Hello everyone, I'm Major Garrett in
[0:34]Washington. Welcome to the takeout. Certainty for all presidents eventually yields to reality. Presidents campaign certain they can do things their way.
[0:44]That certitude is essential to the confidence that makes for a solid president. That certainty can be based on experience, analysis, hunches, or gumption. all important characteristics
[0:56]for presidents to call upon. But sometimes that certainty is less rooted, more fanciful, close to wishful thinking. Which brings us to President Trump, Russia's Vladimir Putin, and the
[1:08]war in Ukraine. You already know that Trump didn't end the war before he took office as he promised. You already know Trump disdained Ukrainian President Zullinsky. that Oval Office blow up with
[1:18]Vice President JD Vance playing Trump's tag team partner was essentially a made for TV diplomatic dumpster fire. But what has been percolating beneath the surface and came into full public view
[1:30]only today was Trump yielding to reality. The reality that Putin is unserious about peace and deadly serious about war. For the first time, Trump is
[1:42]greenlighting new weapons shipments to Ukraine through the coffers of the European nations and delivered via NATO. That's the process side. The policy side, the much more important side is
[1:53]Trump is now declaring Ukraine a courageous place that deserves protecting. Something Europeans in the Biden administration said from the start of this war, but that Trump until just
[2:03]now brushed aside. There was even today a whiff of a threat of economic war between the US and Russia. the kind of war that stalward US allies have been
[2:13]contending with for months. For more on this sea change, we turn to Nancy Cordis at the White House. Now, Nancy, you and I know there all these fussy TV rules. Don't play sound from one day and
[2:24]another. I'm going to do that anyway. I'm going to break all the conventions. Sound from our president today and sound from his ally in the Senate, Lindsey Graham, from Face the Nation yesterday. Let's listen to those both and I'll get
[2:35]your reaction. >> It wasn't my war. It was Biden's war. It's not my war. I'm trying to get you out of it. And uh we want to see it end.
[2:45]And I'm disappointed in President Putin because I thought we would have had a deal two months ago, but it doesn't seem to get there. >> A turning point regarding Russia
[2:56]invasion of Ukraine is coming. For months, President Trump has tried to entice Putin to the peace table. He's put tariffs against countries that allow fentanyl to come in in our country.
[3:07]Other bad behavior. He's left the door open regarding Russia. That door is about to close. >> Nancy, we are in a new place. It sounds
[3:17]like absolutely major. I mean, the fact that the president is now firmly in Ukraine's corner is something that was not a given
[3:28]just a few months ago when we all saw that blow up between President Trump and Ukraine's president in the Oval Office or when President Trump said that that
[3:38]both sides, Ukraine and Russia, were equally responsible for this war. That put him at odds uh not just with Democrats in Congress, but with Republicans in Congress like Lindsey
[3:48]Graham. Um, and those Republicans, especially Republican leaders, are very heartened to see that the president is now moving in their direction, both when it comes to sending weapons to Ukraine
[4:00]and establishing a more permanent mechanism for those weapons to be paid for via Europe, but also the fact that he is open now to tariffs and sanctions
[4:10]on countries that buy Russian oil and gas because that oil and gas money is used to fund Russia's war. There's a 50-day timetable on that
[4:21]second part of what you just outlined so well for us, Nancy. So, 50 days for the Russians to quote unquote come around and if not, those secondary sanctions may become real,
[4:33]right? Uh because the president does still want to see some kind of peace deal. He does still want to, if he can, entice Russia to the negotiating table.
[4:43]He still believes, as many do, that that's the only way out of this war is some kind of negotiated settlement. And so now, uh, the clock begins to tick on
[4:52]those 50 days. And basically, what the White House is trying to do here is to make it more financially unpalatable for countries like China and India and
[5:02]Brazil to purchase oil and gas from Russia. uh to make them understand that they're going to pay a heavy price for that because if they stop purchasing that energy, the White House believes
[5:13]that will uh uh be a powerful enticement for Russia to come back to the negotiating table because one of its most reliable sources of funding will dry up.
[5:23]>> Even so, today in Moscow, those I saw quoted shrugged this off because they heard, as we all did, a major announcement. That's what President Trump said on this question. Moscow didn't seem to take it all that
[5:35]seriously, >> right? Because uh by every indication, President Putin is um determined to continue to um to carry out this
[5:46]invasion of Ukraine. Um Trump has not been able to entice him to the negotiating table so far. And um as one
[5:56]insider described it to me today, um you know, Putin could pay a heavy price if he does now uh look like he is comp capitulating to the United States. But
[6:07]the news was very wellreceived in Ukraine where they were worried that um perhaps US interest in continuing to provide military aid was going to dry up
[6:17]after the US has spent some 130 billion dollars uh for weaponry and humanitarian aid over the past three and a half years. That is not an unfounded concern. As you well know, there are a lot of
[6:28]conservatives in particular who question the price tag. And what this arrangement means is that European countries that have a a vested interest in protecting
[6:39]Ukraine, they're much closer to that Russian border. They will now be the ones paying for US weaponry to get into Ukraine. >> Nancy Cordis, thank you so very much. Always a pleasure. Appreciate it. From
[6:49]the North Lawn, earlier today, I spoke to former US Ambassador to Russia, John Sullivan. Here's that conversation. President Trump said today there will be
[6:59]secondary sanctions biting economic secondary sanctions against Russia in 50 days if something isn't resolved. How does that strike you?
[7:10]>> Uh that strikes me as a fairly leisurely schedule given that the reason that the president is so concerned is that there's a brutal war ongoing with people being innocent people being killed every
[7:22]day. The better news I think today is this uh the United States uh supplying weapons to Ukraine paid for by European
[7:32]countries. Uh that's the good part. The 50-day delay it just it's it just strikes me as more of what the pres President Trump himself said a few months ago. Is this Putin tapping me
[7:44]along? He's tapping himself along now. 50 days. Why? >> What does it mean to you? And what should it mean to the Ukrainians fighting the Russians that the president
[7:55]has switched on this whole question of US armaments flowing to the battlefield? >> Yeah, I mean it's a uh it's it's a good and hopeful uh sign for the Ukrainians
[8:06]who could use it. It's a pretty grim time in Ukraine now after three and a half years of at this point the statistics are uh you know there 15
[8:17]million people at this point killed wounded internally displaced international refugees the country's just been brutalized by by the Russians. So, the Ukrainians could use some some
[8:28]good news. Uh, there just has to be followup by the United States continuing to support Ukraine and most importantly, keep the pressure on Russia and oppose
[8:38]Russian aggression. When you hear the president, as he did in a cabinet meeting last week, saying what he gets from Vladimir Putin is, and I will use the terminology briefly, I
[8:49]will shorten it, give it initials as opposed to the fullthroated way the president said it in the cabinet room, BS from Putin. Do you really think that
[9:00]President Trump has come to a new conclusion about who Vladimir Putin is and how Vladimir Putin goes about his business? >> I don't know. The way I'd characterize
[9:11]it is I think the president has finally realized that he is not going to get anything that he can take to the American people and say I solve this
[9:20]problem in Ukraine. The war is going to continue on Putin's terms and Putin is not going to compromise. So uh I think the president may
[9:32]>> in other words he misread it with all the campaign rhetoric on end it before he takes office second term. Yeah, I think he thought that he he given his relationship with Putin could have made
[9:42]a difference. Uh it didn't make a difference to Putin. It that would for people who have served in Moscow, dealt with the Russians a lot, dealt with
[9:51]Putin, it's not a surprise. But for the president of the United States to put his credibility on the line and say, "I'm going to end this war and have
[10:01]Putin basically tell him politely, indirectly, go jump in a lake." >> That's that's a big deal. >> There is a secondary war going on here
[10:12]between the Secret Services, if you will, or the intelligence services, Russian and Ukraine. >> Two high-profile killings of Russians and Ukrainians within the last week.
[10:23]>> Yeah. What does that mean? >> Boy, uh this is it's not something new. This has been going on uh for a long time. Uh it and it will continue to go
[10:35]on even if what I've the point I've made in the past is even if major combat operations and if there's a ceasefire, I think Ukrainians and Russians are going
[10:45]to be whacking each other these types of assassinations into the future. the the the parallel draw would be with my grandparents uh are from Ireland. If you think about Olster and Catholics and
[10:56]Protestants, the IRA has, you know, stopped after 9/11 major terrorist attacks, but there's still people getting uh getting bumped off and there
[11:06]are still walls up with bob wire in uh in Olter. It's going to be that way in in Ukraine. And it's uh it's it's the way Russians fight and Ukrainians
[11:17]ultimately trace their their lineage, their security services back to the KGB, the Red Army, etc. So, uh the Russians picked on a smaller clone of themselves.
[11:29]>> You know the Russian psyche pretty well. You know the economy pretty well. You know the politics dictatorial as it currently is in Russia. Can the Russians
[11:39]go on and on and on and on? Definitely. No. >> No. Uh the Russian economy is going to pay the Russian people will pay a price.
[11:50]It may not be uh right away. It's taken three and a half years. The Russian economy is under severe stress. A huge portion of the Russian government's
[12:00]budget is dedicated to the military and the security services pursuing this war in Ukraine. It can't go on indefinitely. Think about the United States experience
[12:10]in in Vietnam under President Johnson, right? Guns and butter. Johnson wants the Great Society, fund Great Society programs. But on the other hand, he's sending 500,000 US troops to Vietnam.
[12:22]When the United States has that rampant inflation in the 70s that ultimately culminates with Paul Vulkar, the Fed chairman, ringing it out. That all dates
[12:32]back to the guns and butter decisions by the >> where Russia is now >> which is where Russ the decisions he's making now are going to that he's made and will continue to make will have uh a
[12:43]uh an adverse economic impact on the Russian people well into the future. The question is uh does it become significant enough that they pressure the government which would be is is an
[12:55]unusual thing in Russia for that type of popular discontent with the war to manifest itself. We haven't reached that point yet. >> Master John Sullivan, always a pleasure, sir. >> Absolutely, Major. Always good to be
[13:06]with you. >> President Trump is standing quite publicly by Attorney General Pam Bondi over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein
[13:15]files. Trump invited her Bondi to the FIFA game yesterday and gave her a thumbs up as some in the MAGA movement have either called for her resignation or outright firing. A memo last week
[13:27]concluded Epstein died by suicide and did not did not have a client list at a conservative conference over parts of this weekend. Several Trump allies
[13:37]called out Bondi for promising about the contents of the Epstein files and in some cases overpromising. It's starting to create a real hornets's nest within the administration. And I've
[13:48]got to be honest, I blame Pam Bondi. >> Epstein is a key that picks the lock on so many things, not just individuals, but also institutions.
[14:00]Scott McFarland joins me now. Scott, where does this situation stand in terms of available information maybe still in the administration's possession to be
[14:11]released and the political fallout? Well, the week began with everybody still in their jobs. That's a good starting point. >> Deputy FBI director reported to work today. We are led to believe. >> Everybody's on the job. Nobody's quit in
[14:23]a high-profile fashion. But we'll see if the week ends that way because you have this incredibly rare, if not unprecedented thing, you know, a fracture in the impenetrable base of MAGA. And there doesn't seem to be an
[14:35]exit strategy for this. Pam Bondi went on Fox News in February and indicated that Epstein's client list is on her desk and there's been no client list released. Now, she's starting to to
[14:46]change the message on that, that there was some Epstein information on her desk, but that list in whatever form it exists, if it exists at all, has been something unequivocally she was calling for the release of last
[14:57]year. Cash Patel, Dan Bonino, were the president had said that he would support the release of the list. So, they've stoked a fire. They fan the flames and discovered when it comes to conspiracy theories, it's very difficult to
[15:08]extinguish a flame. >> And what about this tape that was released yesterday, last week rather, forgive me, about Epstein 11 hours in the jail cell while in custody awaiting trial.
[15:20]>> Yeah. So, one minute of every day in that jail, there's a glitch in the surveillance video or there's an empty calorie of of time in the surveillance video. They may want to button that up
[15:30]just for future purposes. Um but that missing minute though it may be explo >> has taken on a life of its own. >> Yeah. And it will continue to the the last thing you want to do to a
[15:39]conspiracy theory is stoke it with some other unanswered question that could you know even if it's a red herring could make people ask more questions. >> And the it feels to me Scott as if the
[15:51]the gap here is we don't know if this is the actual resolution truthful resolution. There is no client list. He died by suicide. there's nothing
[16:01]suspicious about it. Or is the gap that they kept saying when they were on the outside looking in that there was something, there had to be more. Now they're on the inside saying there is no
[16:12]more. Is it the truth or is it the allegation that is still carrying the day online? >> I think the problem politically is that they very recently were making claims
[16:22]from the outside and now they're inside and the dynamic has shifted. They they they are not delivering on a promise that Trump supporters believe they made.
[16:32]And the analogy I've used on this is if you think of the old Muppet Show, Statler and Waldorf up in the rafters, always just dunking on the people on stage telling them how terrible Beaker
[16:42]and Miss Piggy were. When you're on stage, it's a much different dynamic than when you're in the rafters calling things out. I think this new normal has um created a problem for Miss Bondi and
[16:53]Mr. Patel and Banino to adjust to. And very quickly when the White House had that event, some called it a stunt of handing off binders with Epstein information that internally with them on
[17:05]the inside seemed to stoke expectations as well. >> And it disappointed. It disappointed because the binders apparently included aggregated information that was already
[17:13]public. So there's a right now a divide, a delta between what some Trump supporters want and what these Department of Justice leaders are delivering or can deliver. And I'm not
[17:23]sure how they bridge that divide in unison. And you raise the prospect major of some internal dissension between those three and somebody being on the outside looking in. Scott McFarland.
[17:33]Always a pleasure, sir. Thank you. >> Still to come, think you've heard or read everything about the mindbending 2024 election? Think again. The authors
[17:44]of 2024: How Trump retook the White House and the Democrats lost America join me. The artificial intelligence race pits
[17:54]the United States against China in an allout battle for hardware and energy. Chipmaker Nvidia recently valued at more than $4 trillion is at the heart of this
[18:04]struggle. We explore cloud seeding is real. Conspiracy theories about its role in natural disasters false. The recent Texas floods
[18:16]just the latest example. We filter the watery nonsense and get to the science. All that coming up on the takeout. Welcome back. Heavy rainfall is again
[18:32]battering Texas, hampering search efforts for the more than 170 people who remain missing following catastrophic July 4th flooding in the central part of
[18:41]that state. Multiple roads in Texas were closed today due to the flooding. Officials are of course urging residents to seek higher ground. Meanwhile, false
[18:51]claims are circulating and recirculating online blaming the deadly flooding seen earlier this month on a weather modification technique known as cloud
[19:01]seeding. CBS News senior national weather correspondent Rob Marciano joins me now to discuss. Rob, I'm grateful to you help us break this down. What is cloud seating?
[19:13]What is it used for? And how online does it get indicted whenever there is a catastrophic rain event?
[19:23]>> Uh, hey Major, good good to be with you. Yeah, I was shocked to to see all the fingerpointing in the hours after this catastrophe and then and then the weather modification claims a whole another thing. Let's let's let's dive
[19:35]into cloud seating. Just the basics of it or how we get a cloud. A cloud is water vapor hanging in the air that that condenses on something. It has to condense on something. And we call that condensation nuclei. And it's it's
[19:46]typically microscopic. It's dust. It's sea salt salt. It's pollen. Can be pollution. And so in drought areas and out in the west, they've tried to modify the weather, make some of those clouds
[19:58]get heavier with more condensation and and get some rain out of them. And by doing what they do is they put in a little silver iodide and they typically fly a plane up there that that shoots it into the clouds in the hopes that
[20:08]there'll be more condensation nuclei heavier heavier condensing within that cloud. Heavy enough to where it gets to rain or at least rain more. And typically what we found is that a cloud
[20:19]that can particip precipitate will will squeeze another 10 to 20% more rain out if we if we cloud seed. uh the fact that
[20:29]we got 10 20 inches of rainfall in just a matter of days, in some cases hours here, that's not a 10 or 20% increase. That's, you know, that's a year's worth of rain in some cases. And there was
[20:40]some, the reason this got all started, Major, there was some cloud seating being done about 150 miles southeast of there. San Anton's been in this horrible drought. So, a private company was doing some cloud seating two days prior to
[20:52]this. Cloud seating is has a shelf life of just really a few hours, maybe 12 hours. Once that cloud rains itself out or moves on, it's done. So there's no way that any sort of cloud seeding
[21:03]contributed to this disaster. >> And does this Rob from your vantage point fit into a kind of convenient climate change denialism? Looking for
[21:12]some other cause? I >> I suppose so, but maybe it's just a, you know, reason to put on a tinfoil hat again. I, you know, we're all looking
[21:22]for answers. And I think uh in this particular case too, you know, it was just a horrific tragedy. It still is. You know, there's still people missing. There's going to be probably 300
[21:32]fatalities at the end of the day here and so many so many kids. So that the the nation as a whole is mourning here. And and whenever something happens to your family or something close to you, like a death, you want answers. And
[21:44]people are grappling for answers other than, well, we had this freak event where two old tropical systems kind of converged on Texas and they stood over the same place and and and rain itself
[21:54]out. You know, that's I guess that that explanation is not good enough for everybody and and that's where we get people jumping in to point fingers like this. Rob, there moves at the federal level by Marjgerie Taylor Green,
[22:05]Republican Congresswoman from Georgia, and at the state level in some cases to ban this weather modification technique. that be a bad idea to actually criminalize it. >> I don't know if we should we should criminalize. There's regulations state
[22:17]by state. Noah requires that you you tell them 10 days ahead of time if you're going to do this. It's all privatized, but again, every state has its own set of regulations and in this case, it's probably best to keep it up
[22:28]to the states and uh not make it a criminal act. We, you know, it's a lot of it wouldn't be good, but we do need some of it certainly in drought areas and we still we still need to experiment with more of it to kind of see where
[22:39]this could take us in the future. But weather modification as a whole, if you do it globally, that that I think that's impossible and probably not a great thing, but in areas that maybe need a little extra rain, you know, we we need
[22:50]to look into continuing to do that at at small scales >> with the atmospheric science and all the facts behind it. Rob Marciano, I'm appreciative to you, sir. Thank you so much. >> Good to be there. European leaders
[23:02]desperate to avoid a trade war with the US try to navigate President Trump's latest tariff threat. Arch. Kellyio Grady. I return to her frequently to break it all down. Next here on the
[23:12]Takeout. [Music]
[23:23]Welcome back to the Takeout. Thanks for staying with us. Here is a look at what else we and now you are watching this evening. Supreme Court has given the Trump administration the go-ahead to start widespread education department
[23:34]layoffs. The move had been blocked earlier by a federal judge. The administration has been seeking to dismantle the department without approval from Congress. The department
[23:43]plans to lay off nearly 1,400 employees. The White House is studying if it can fire Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for cause. That cause being cost
[23:54]overruns and renovations of the Fed's Washington DC headquarters. Top White House Advocac says it is an option, even though firing Pal would threaten the Fed's
[24:06]independence. The renovation project is hundreds of millions of dollars over budget, but taxpayers are not on the hook for that cost. The Fed is self-funded through interest it earns on
[24:16]securities. President recently said he does not intend to fire Powell. Elmo's world just got a lot darker. Hackers took over the Sesame Street characters
[24:27]account on X using it to post racist anti-Semitic messages. One was an exploitative lace screed about President Trump Trump and the fight among some
[24:38]Trump allies over the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files. After losing the New York Democratic mayoral primary in part because he came off as too establishment
[24:48]and too cliched, Andrew Cuomo dusted off Hillary Clinton's 2016 slogan to say he's staying in the general election.
[24:58]I'm in it to win it. Cuomo announced in this social media post, one featuring things Cuomo did not do very much of in the primary, notably meeting New Yorkers
[25:07]face to face. Cuomo in that social media post apologized for his lackluster primary effort. He'll face top Democratic vote getter socialist Zoran
[25:17]Mandani and current mayor Eric Adams running as an independent in the November general election. We are also tracking President Trump's threat of a 30% tariff on the European trading
[25:29]block. Money watch correspondent Kelly O'Grady. I'm so glad you are here with me, Kelly, to break this down and give the audience a sense of how large this trading block is and what the
[25:40]ramifications for our economy could be if this goes to 30%. >> Well, alto together, I mean, the European Union is the biggest trading partner of the US when you put together
[25:52]all of these nations. And just to put a to give a number behind that, it accounts for 30% of all services and goods traded across the globe. And last
[26:02]year it was roughly just under $2 trillion. So this is really massive. And I like to think about the impacts in in terms of three different things. What it means for consumers, what it means for
[26:13]US businesses, and what it means on that global scale of trading chessboard, if you will. On the consumer's front, you think about the things that we get from the EU. Pharmaceuticals, cars, wine and
[26:24]spirits, cheese, chemicals, all of those different components, if faced with a 30% tariff, would go up. And a 30% would be a lot for a business to just completely absorb. So that means that
[26:36]things could get more expensive for you and me. We also know that the EU would likely retaliate if this goes into effect August 1st. So that makes it harder for US businesses to sell to that
[26:46]very important European market. And then finally, if let's say the EU decides to trade less with the US, what trading partner does it go towards? Do we push
[26:57]them more towards China and sort of change how this whole chessboard comes together? So certainly it's not happening yet. August 1 is a couple of weeks away, but there are some big
[27:08]ramifications if it does. And August 1st being so close, this would be a highly complex trade deal to negotiate in two weeks. I know negotiators are burning up
[27:19]the phone lines, sending text messages, emails, all sorts of rapid fire back and forth communication. It sounds like a lot. >> It does. And I mean, unlikely you'd get
[27:30]a fully negotiated deal, more of a framework. We do know though that the EU has pushed out that retaliation, which means that they are looking to negotiate Kelly O'Grady, always a pleasure. Thanks
[27:41]so very much. The CEO of the $4 trillion artificial intelligence chip manufacturer Nvidia is heading to China this week. That's important because the United States has
[27:53]a ban on sales of the company's highlevel chips to Chinese firms. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are asking CEO Jensen Wong not to meet with those companies while he is there. But
[28:04]Wong says China doesn't actually need Nvidia's chips. Steven Wit joins me now. He's the author of the book The Thinking Machine, Jensen Wong, Nvidia, and the
[28:14]world's most coveted microchip. Stephen, it's great to have you with us. Thanks so much. Why is it the most coveted microchip? And how did Nvidia become a
[28:23]$4 trillion global colossus? Anytime you make a request from ChatGpt or AI or any similar system, that request is taken to a gigantic building
[28:35]full of computing equipment called a data center. it's processed and sent back to you. That computing equipment is basically all made by Nvidia. So, every request
[28:46]you make of AI is basically processed on an NVIDIA microchip. And each of those microchips sells for about $30,000. The huge profit margin. So meeting the
[28:56]consumer demand for things like chat GPT now the fifth most popular website in the world and Meta and Twitter and all the industrial and business use for this stuff has made Nvidia the world's most
[29:07]valuable company on the back of these microchips. So Jensen Wong was on with Fared Zakaria on CNN over the weekend talked about China the Chinese military fears in the
[29:18]US that the Chinese military will start using if it isn't already Nvidia chips. Let's listen. We don't have to worry about that because the Chinese military, no no different the American military uh
[29:30]will not seek each other's technology out to be built on top of it. They simply can't rely on it. Um it could be of course limited at any time. Not to mention there's plenty of computing
[29:41]capacity in China already. >> For those of us who are not as well-versed as you are, Stephen, translate that for me. What was Jensen talking about there? Basically, what he's saying is that the Chinese won't
[29:52]use an American manufactured microchip for a sensitive national security issue for the same reason that the US military would not use a Chinese manufactured microchip for a national security issue.
[30:03]They can't be trusted, right? They could be used to spy on one another's equipment. But Jensen's being a little bit disingenuous here. In fact, a lot of his equipment has made it into China via
[30:15]smuggling. uh they sold a bunch of chips to Malaysia and in Singapore a reselling smuggling ring was busted earlier this year. So this stuff despite the sort of
[30:25]ban is in fact making its way into China and Chinese companies are training on Nvidia equipment. Probably not their military though specifically. >> Stephen, is the future of AI going to be
[30:35]determined by microchips or energy supplies? >> Uh it's it's both, but the big limiting factor right now is how much power we can supply to these microchips. You know, Jensen can make billions of these
[30:47]things and he can sell billions of these things, but they're very, very power hungry. So, if you look at companies like Meta and XAI, they're starting to colllocate their data centers with power
[30:58]plants, even with nuclear power plants or gas fired power plants. Open AAI has one in Texas that's sucking up all the wind power. So, right now, the speed with which we can build electricity for
[31:10]AI is in fact the limiting factor in its growth. And how would you evaluate what the Trump administration is trying to do on that energy creation front with permitting relaxation, trying to attract
[31:21]investment and the like? Yeah, Trump has really relaxed all of these regulations. He's also brought a lot of investment into AI. Um, so from Jensen's
[31:31]perspective, he's probably fairly happy with Trump. Now, what Jensen really wants Trump to do is lift the ban on selling microchips to China, which Trump
[31:40]has not done. Uh, and so Jensen continues to sort of follow Trump around the world and and try and get his ear. Um, Jensen historically hadn't didn't have to think much about politics.
[31:52]Politics was not really his bag. Um, but now is the single most valuable company in the world operating in a complex geopolitical environment. He's starting to have to learn the game.
[32:03]>> Steven Whit, it's been a pleasure, sir. Thank you. And congratulations on the book. >> Thank you. From a disastrous debate to a change at the top of the Democratic ticket and so much more. Donald Trump's
[32:14]return to the White House, Democrats falling apart, still looking for their way, unpacking the 2024 election with the authors of a new book right here on The Takeout. Welcome back. A new report details quote
[32:30]preventable failures surrounding the attempted assassination of President Trump, including United States Secret Services repeated denial to bolster his
[32:39]security team during the 2024 campaign. The Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs released that report yesterday, exactly one year after a gunman shot President
[32:49]Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania. Joining me now, White House correspondent for the New York Times, Tyler Pager and senior White House reporter for the Washington Post, Isaac Arndorf. They are the two of three
[32:59]journalists behind the new 20 the new book 2024: How Trump retook the White House and Democrats lost America. Gentlemen, it's great to have you here. There was eight or 10 pages from your
[33:11]publisher of notes from the book, the thickest compendium I've ever received. Compliments on that. I want to go to things that are not related to the politics but are related to the threat
[33:21]the threat environment around President Trump and how concerned his campaign was even before certainly after the attempted assassination attempt. You write that there was an unidentified
[33:33]drones in Los Angeles and rural Pennsylvania prompted panic among Trump's staff and secret service detail in September 2024. Social media threat to shoot Trump's
[33:44]motorcade at a Long Island rally prompted evasive measures. National security officials told Trump that Iran had multiple kill teams inside the US and possibly hired drug cartels to carry
[33:55]out assassinations. Trump repeatedly asked if Iran was behind the gunman in Butler in West Palm Beach. Didn't get a definitive answer. There's a lot in your eye seen before. >> Yeah. Yeah, I mean for the Trump
[34:05]campaign in that in the fall, it really felt like pol life or death, not politics day in and day out, hour to hour. >> And because they were constantly dealing with having to change events, uh extra
[34:16]logistics, they were spending more of their time on logistics surrounding security than almost anything else. And that was, you know, the very real threat from Iran trying to kill Trump, which
[34:26]was separate, as far as we know, uh from the actual two assassination attempts, >> one in West Palm and one in Butler, Pennsylvania. And so they're looking at this and saying, you know, are we crazy
[34:36]to worry about this connection? Like we've got people trying to kill him. And you're telling us Iran is trying to kill him. >> They weren't crazy, were they, Tyler? They had real reasons to be fearful. >> Yeah. I mean, there were security
[34:47]threats across the spectrum as he was trying to run for president. And I think it is an interesting moment, right? Trump is, you know, just a few weeks away from the election. He also already felt like he was running for his
[34:58]personal freedom. He tied these criminal cases to this broader idea that the best way out was to win president to win the presidency. At the same time, he's
[35:08]facing real and severe threats. They're sending decoy planes, taking different routes to the airport. There's just a lot of stress and anxiety within the Trump universe. We write descriptively
[35:19]in the book about uh just sort of the fear among the campaign staff over jokes uh in in the campaign headquarters in West Palm Beach. there's just I don't think we can overestimate how much
[35:29]concern there was because of the very real security threats facing him and his allies uh at the time of the at the end of the campaign. >> You alluded to this, but there's also something I think it's very important in
[35:40]the book that talks about what a galvanizing moment it was internally for Trump, but for the movement around him, the raid at Mara Lago, how that changed
[35:49]his approach to the campaign and it also changed how Trump supporters thought of him. It sort of reconstituted almost instantly that fervent Trump support because they thought he was being
[36:01]harassed if not worse. >> Go ahead. >> One of our big findings from the book is that it was not clear Trump had not made up his mind that he was going to run for president again until the search at Mara
[36:11]Lago that as the prosecutions got more serious that pushed him further and further toward running for that reason that he needed to stay out of out of
[36:21]jail. Um and and people who golfed with him, talked to him in that period, uh up until then were saying, you know, some days, yes, some days. >> Is that because Trump thought ultimately he could reach a resolution with the
[36:33]archives and not have the Justice Department step in or was he sloww walking them hoping they would indict him and turn that to his political advantage? Do you have a sense of that either way? >> Yeah, I don't think that was that
[36:43]strategic from Donald Trump. I don't think we see that sort of mastermind that some people prescribe to his actions. I think his lawyers adamantly wanted him to resolve the national
[36:53]archives. He wanted to blow it up. I mean, we have a a scene in the book when he finds out about the search at Mara Lago that he tells his aids, he wants to announce it on social media. He wants all of his allies out on TV talking
[37:05]about this. He he escalated the response to the Department of Justice and FBI much more so than his lawyers wanted to. And there's a lot of scenes in the book of him fighting with his lawyers about the aggressiveness of the response
[37:17]>> because his bet was that they would never do that. They would never search a former president's home and they called his bluff. >> They did. They did indeed. And as I covered that campaign and as you did and
[37:27]somebody else, somebody others did. When you talk to the other rival campaigns, they will all tell you the same thing. That's when it all turned. That's when their focus groups, their polling all collapsed and went the other direction.
[37:38]Trump was now the victim and they had no way of doing anything other than standing next to Trump up against the Biden Justice Department. And that gave them no room to politically differentiate themselves from the former
[37:48]president. And two really interesting things in the book. Trump himself in an interview with our co-author Josh Dossi said, "I was sort of surprised that all my Republican opponents came to my
[37:59]defense uh when I was first indicted in New York. And two, some of Ronda Santis's aids joke that maybe he should try getting arrested because so much of the earned media coverage was around
[38:09]Trump and they could not break through." And if that was not the mo I to me that feels like the most pivotal moment in the campaign up up against everything else because that's where it all got
[38:20]started, the raid and those decisions and the politics that flowed from it. >> Well, but I think you have to remember that's before the midterms and after the midterms, Trump was maybe even lower than after January 6th, maybe even more
[38:32]isolated because the Republicans looked at those midterms where they were expecting a red wave and that was not a red wave at all. And Trump was the guy they blamed because he looked like a
[38:42]dra. He looked like a loser. And it was only because Dantis waited a while, didn't launch his campaign until the following May, gave Trump this huge head
[38:52]start to rehabilitate himself, remind Republicans why they liked him, give them some time to get over the sting of the midterms. He really took advantage of that head start to to improve himself
[39:03]and also to demolish Dantis. One campaign adviser described it as firebombing him on the runway. >> On the runway with firebombs as only Trump could do it. Tyler Pager, Isaac
[39:15]Aronov, thanks so much. Appreciate it. Congratulations on the book. President Trump was in New Jersey yesterday to help crown Chelsea as the best soccer club on the planet. Sort of. It wasn't that big a deal, but it was big in New
[39:26]Jersey. Next, we examine his relationship with soccer's governing body, FIFA, ahead of next year's World Cup in North America. That's next here on the takeout.
[39:35][Music] President Trump embraced the soccer spotlight. That's putting it mildly over the weekend, helping crown Chelsea's
[39:46]FIFA Club World Cup champion. If you're not really sure what that means, neither am I. Even I'm as a soccer fan. This comes as FIFA and President Trump are uniting ahead of the 2026 World Cup in
[39:57]the United States, Canada, and Mexico. of soccer's governing body even went so far as to open an office in Trump Tower. Kevin Baxter, who covers soccer for the estimable Los Angeles Times, joins me
[40:09]now. Kevin, great to have you with me. Thanks for joining us. Um, so Trump's at the FIFA World Cup club thingamajig. It's kind of a low-level tournament,
[40:19]sort of World Cup adjacent, kind of a prelude to it. How did that all play out? And he tried to steal the stage there at the end, it seemed to me. >> Yeah, he did. I mean, this is really uh
[40:30]it's kind of a madeup tournament, but I think we're going to see it uh come back around every four years. What it really was was a dress rehearsal for the 2026 World Cup, which as we know is going to be shared by the US, Mexico, and Canada
[40:41]next summer. Uh and so, you know, FIFA used this to get some of the bugs out and other things. They uh they did announce that they were going to open an office in New York City in Trump Tower uh ahead of next year's World Cup. I I
[40:53]spoke to some FIFA representatives earlier today and they promised me it's just a small representative office. Their their headquarters will remain in Zurich, their US headquarters for the World Cup. They've built uh a lot of
[41:04]infrastructure in Miami. They have uh multiple people there maybe in the and close to 100 people there if not more. They that will remain the uh the nerve
[41:14]center of the 2026 World Cup. the the office in Trump Tower. We know that that Trump is is very transactional and I think FIFA used this basically to engender goodwill. The final will be
[41:25]played at Metife Stadium which is not even in New York. It's in Ethos for New Jersey but it's in that metro market. So there is some work that that office will do there. But I mean they're going to play more World Cup games in Ar in
[41:36]Arlington, Texas than they will in metro New York. So, the office really is, I think, sort of a a gesture of goodwill toward the Trump administration, Donald Trump himself.
[41:46]>> Kevin, as you know, FIFA has a kind of casual historical attitude about things that most people view as corrupt. That's why you and I keep an eye on such
[41:56]matters as where it might have a casual office, like Trump Tower. >> Well, it's very interesting if you look back at uh at the last few World Cups. 2018 was in Putin's Russia. Then we went
[42:07]to Qar in 2022. Uh you know a lot of questions about human rights and and and worker safety and worker abuse there. And then the World Cup uh we have one after the US and then it's going back to
[42:19]the Middle East to Saudi Arabia. Um you know the the financial impact of the World Cup and and what FIFA asked countries to do has become so ownorous and so expensive. You know, we had some
[42:31]cities in the US, Chicago for one, and then Edmonton in Canada that decided they didn't want to be part of the World Cup because of of some of the the financial uh um restrictions that FIFA
[42:42]put on them as far as what they can do for fundraising and what they have to provide FIFA. Um, and I think in talking to some executives of former World Cups, they actually anticipate more World Cups
[42:52]will be will go to authoritarian regimes, uh, where they don't have to face the taxpayers and say, "Why did you spend X billion dollars on this soccer tournament when, you know, we can't afford to fund our schools."
[43:04]>> Kevin, very quickly, I got about 30 seconds. Do you think immigration is going to be a problem for next year's World Cup? >> Oh, absolutely. There's already 12 countries on the ban list that that President Trump issued. uh countries
[43:16]like Iran, which has already qualified. Haiti, which probably will qualify or could qualify. There's seven other countries where travel has been restricted, including Cuba and Venezuela. Two other teams that could be
[43:27]in the World Cup. We don't even know if their players and their coaches are going to get on the country, much less their fans. I think this is something to pay attention to over the next year. >> And we will. Kevin Ber, it's been a pleasure. We'll have you back on because
[43:37]the World Cup's coming and it's going to be an event economically, politically, culturally, and athletically. That's it for the Takeout today. Stick around. The Daily Report coming up next right here
[43:46]on CBS News 247. [Music]