Millions of People Under Flood Risk as Storm Strengthens; Speaker Nancy Pelosi Speaks Amid Democratic Party Infighting.
BOLDUAN: Welcome back, everybody. Four million people under flash flood threat right now as the first tropical system of the year starts to bear down on the gulf coast. Barry was officially named a tropical storm a few minutes ago. It could make land fall as a hurricane this weekend in Louisiana. But even ahead of that, it's already showing its strength with damaging wind and rain in parts of the region. At least two parishes in Louisiana are already under mandatory evacuation orders. And dozens of flood gates have been closed in the New Orleans area. To give you an idea of how big and nasty the system is looking to be right now, check this out. What it did to a play set. And this is hundreds of miles inland near Ft. Worth, Texas. CNN's Chad Myers is watching the forecast in the CNN Severe Weather Center. Natasha Chen is on the ground in New Orleans. Natasha, first to you. What are you seeing and hearing there right now?</s>NATACHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're just hearing from city officials in New Orleans just a few minutes ago talking about the pumps in the city. They said all but two of them are working. So they have 120 total, so 118 of them are fully functional right now. They said the two that are down are smaller and are in places are other pumps are functioning. So they're fueled up, ready to go for this We also know that the flood gates are being closed, dozens of them, in preparation for the weather to come in. The worst of it, of course, being Saturday. Flood gates, including this one at the port of New Orleans, where we're standing. This one will be closed by 5:00 p.m. Eastern time today. They've been closing pedestrian gates as well by the Spanish Plaza and the River Walk and the Hilton Hotel area, places that tourists like to come here. The city hall in New Orleans was closed yesterday and will remain closed for the next couple of days. As you mentioned, there are mandatory evacuations in certain cities and neighborhoods of two parishes in the more low-lying areas. There are another two parishes that are preparing people for voluntary evacuations. So everyone is really tracking the system and keeping a watchful eye. There's a storm surge watch, as well as a flash flood watch. It's hard to tell from the sunny weather we're having right at this moment, but yesterday there was a torrential downpour. And we're expecting more of that to come in later today and possibly tomorrow as well -- Kate?</s>BOLDUAN: Natasha, we're going to stick close to you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Let's go over to Chad now. Chad, you've been watching it. What can we expect from the storm? What is it looking like right now?</s>CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's looking bad. I mean, like not organized bad. Good for us and bad for it. I'll show you that in a second. Barry looks very disorganized. I have a friend named Barry in Houston and we don't appreciate that. Anyway, here is the tropical storm warning that was just posted. That's the blue area. Watch the still in yellow and pink. Otherwise, though, this is the storm. There's the low. Where are the storms? Not near the center.</s>BOLDUAN: Chad, can I cut you off? We need to jump over the Capitol Hill. Nancy Pelosi is speaking right now.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): I've said what I'm going to say in the caucus. That's where this is appropriate. And I said what I'm going to say in the caucus. They took offense because I addressed, at the request of my members, an offensive tweet that came out of one of the member's offices that referenced our blue dolls and our new Dems, essentially as segregationists. Our members took offense at that. I addressed that. How they're interpreting and carrying it to another place is up to them. But I'm not going to be discussing it any further.</s>PELOSI: Yes, ma'am?</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: If I could just follow up briefly, you talk a lot about civility in the caucus. Is this the message that you preached yesterday.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: But many of those freshmen members, who have taken offense to your comment, have found it --</s>PELOSI: I've said what I'm going to say. With all due respect, maybe you didn't hear what I said. I said what I'm going to say on the subject. What I said in the caucus yesterday had an overwhelming response from my members, because they know what the facts are and what we're responding to. We respect the value of every member of our caucus. The diversity of it is a wonderful thing. Diversity is our strength. Unity is our power. And we have a big fight and we're in the arena. And that's all I'm going to say on the subject. If you want to waste your question, you can waste your question. Yes?</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: On the ICE raids that you mentioned in your opening statement, the president gave Congress two weeks to come to some sort of deal on immigration, especially on the asylum laws in our country. Do you see any momentum to change the asylum laws or to sit down and work towards the immigration --</s>PELOSI: Well, the asylum laws are what they are. In other words, it's important for people to understand what they are. We're part of a global society. And when someone comes to a country seeking asylum, they are not breaking the law coming into the country, and they have to prove their case, that they have a well-founded fear of persecution. So it's not a question of saying we're going to change the global human rights dynamic that exists. There are some initiatives -- Zoe Lofgren, who is masterful in all of this -- that suggests that some review of asylum seekers status could be done in-country instead of traveling here. And that's one thing that I think would be appealing to the administration. That doesn't necessarily mean you change the law. You just have to allocate resources to do it. In terms of comprehensive immigration, I think there's real need for it. My understanding is that people don't even like that term anymore. So we're talking about DREAM promise and beyond, where we go with it. And I think that is something that we have to do. It's not something you can do in two weeks.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Will you appeal to the president to put off the raids?</s>PELOSI: I'm going to appeal to the people of faith, the faith-based organizations to appeal to the president. I think that they put him in office and they have a better voice for this. I did appeal to some of them to help with the conditions for the children when we were having the back and forth before the break, but they were given the short shift by Mitch McConnell. It was just like he wasn't interested in their appeals as to what would be needed. But, yes, it's a longer thing. The possibilities are there. He sent -- you know this. I think it's in the public domain, so I'll be confirming it. He sent -- the chairman, I guess he is the chairman of the Judiciary Committee.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Graham.</s>PELOSI: Graham. To my office to talk about some things that we could do and there may be some possibilities of some things that we can do. It may not be the total comprehensive, but it would address some of the points. We have to do that. I mean, we have principles that we've always put forth. We want to secure our borders. We want to be respectful of immigration policy that is fair to the American people and to newcomers coming to our country. We want to again have a path to citizenship. And I always like quoting Ronald Reagan who said, "We cannot close the door." So recognizing that we're not deporting 11 million people because of status of their documents or lack thereof. We did have that initial conversation. And there may be some possibilities. But every time you think you've made progress, then it doesn't necessarily happen. But we are having conversations about it, yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Can the president do a census question by executive order?</s>PELOSI: Well, I don't know. He has an injunction. There's an injunction that he just has to overcome. It's an injunction against putting citizenship on the ballot. We have been printing the census forms. June 30th was the deadline. So we're printing the forms. We fully expect the census to go forward. The president's effort to put the citizenship question on the census will continue to be challenged in court. The Supreme Court destroyed the administration's argument that the question was needed to support the Voting Rights Act. Really? Including their rationale it was based on a contrived pretext. Next week, the full House will vote on a resolution of criminal contempt on Attorney General Barr and Secretary Ross so we can enforce the subpoenas and get the facts. So he'll try all kinds of things. But we'll have to get around the injunction. In the meantime, we're printing the forms. And by the way, one of our issues in lifting the caps is more money for the census. Thank you all.</s>BOLDUAN: All right, you were listening to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaking on quite a few topics. Let me bring in CNN's chief political correspondent, Dana Bash, on this. Dana, let's start with what Nancy Pelosi very clearly did not want to talk about. We talked about at the top of the show, but this is -- what is happening between leaders, moderates and the left flank of the Democratic Party after a closed-door meeting of the caucus last night, where Nancy Pelosi made this impassioned pitch for unity in the caucus. And that is not what we are seeing play out publicly when liberal members are coming out saying that it's outright disrespectful how Nancy Pelosi has been speaking about them. And she said very clearly basically I'm not going to talk about it. I said what I said in the caucus and that's it.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. And to be specific, the latest is that AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said to the "Washington Post" and then doubled down with our colleague, Manu Raju, this morning, saying that the speaker is going after members of color and that that is a pattern. She said that first to the "Washington Post" again. And this morning, when she doubled down with Manu. Manu said, are you suggesting that's racism. She said, oh, no, no, absolutely not. Look, it's getting ugly. And the fact is, the speaker, as you heard, she said she didn't want to talk about it, but then she did explain herself a little bit saying that her argument was that the progressives need to be careful in how they criticize the moderates, just as it should be considered vice-versa. It's hard to be any leader of a very diverse ideologically diverse caucus.