Return to Transcripts main page

The Lead with Jake Tapper

Now: Awaiting Judge's Ruling After Hearing On Trump's W.H. Press Ban; State Attorney's General Agree To Settle Paramount Merger Lawsuit; British Amb Reacts To Trump's First Meeting With Pm Burnham; Navy Secy: Eight Sailors With Lincoln Carrier Strike Group Attempted Suicide During Iran War Operations; FDA Panel Votes To Back Blood Test That Can Find 50 Plus Cancers. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired September 23, 2026 - 17:00   ET

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

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: -- is going to be unhappy and going to appeal to then the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. You're automatically allowed to appeal to that D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Whoever loses there is then going to very quickly ask the U.S. Supreme Court to take the case. But you're not automatically entitled to have the Supreme Court hear your case. They may well decline it.

So this is all going to move very quickly, Kasie. This is the first step of what's going to surely be a multistep legal process.

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: And we will be here covering it all. Thanks to my panel. Thanks to you at home for watching. "The Lead with Jake Tapper" starts right now.

[17:00:36]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Hello First Amendment lovers. Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. We're going to start with breaking news in our Law and Justice Lead. Moments ago, the judge overseeing the White House press ban case wrapped up its emergency hearing with no ruling, not yet.

That judge, a Trump appointee saying that he aims to rule, quote, "as soon as I can." CNN, MS NOW and Politico, which have filed a First Amendment lawsuit, are asking the court to immediately restore their, our, journalists' access to the White House after President Trump announced that he was banning us from the White House last Friday. Federal Judge Timothy Kelly in Washington, D.C. has the case. As I said, he's a Trump appointee. He ruled against Trump in 2018 when Trump revoked White House access for then CNN White House Correspondent Jim Acosta.

Judge Kelly began this hearing today by telling attorneys that the Trump administration did not give reporters appropriate due process before revoking their access to the building. Running against previous court decisions, the U.S. Justice Department today in court argued that it's case for the ban by saying that coverage of stories by these media outlets, such as the Iran war and the White House ballroom project, could amount to a national security risk. Here's how they put it in last night's court filing, quote, "Access to the White House is a privilege, not a right. The president has found that plaintiffs have engaged in a number of reporting incidents that have threatened national security. Such reporting directly raises national security concerns," unquote.

A reminder, though, when President Trump first announced the ban, he said nothing about national security. It was entirely because he does not like negative stories or to be precise, he doesn't like the fact that the United States of America allows negative stories.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There's something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Again, there's nothing wrong with a country that allows that. There's everything great with it. And yet the Justice Department filing cited national security 32 times. Plus informal letters sent to the three banned news outlets. Last night, the White House cited, quote, "reporting incidents," unquote, that supposedly justify the ban.

One example doesn't even have anything to do with national security. The White House letter to Politico complains that a recent edition of Politico Playbook, quote, "relied on unnamed sources to paint the Republican midterm convention in Dallas as a disaster. Media reporting showed that the Convention had over 100 million livestream views," unquote.

The crowd size obsession knows no bounds. And so today in court, the attorney for the banned media outlets, including CNN, said that the Justice Department's national security argument came after the initial ban and argued the revocation of press passes over alleged national security fears goes against, quote, "the very essence" of the First Amendment.

Ultimately, Donald Trump is doing what he often does when there is news he does not like. He is shooting the messengers. Especially now as there's a lot of news he doesn't like. Things are going historically poorly for him politically. A brand new CNN poll shows only 27 percent of the American people approve of the president's handling of the economy.

That's down 3 percent from July. Trump's approval on the economy was 49 percent at this same point in his first term. Affordability concerns among Americans are only getting deeper with high gas prices and diesel at a record as the president seems to be trapped in his highly unpopular Iran war with no obvious way out.

Let's go to CNN Crime and Justice Correspondent Katelyn Polantz. Katelyn, walk us through the big takeaways from today's hearing. Do we have any sense of how the judge might rule or when?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Jake, he didn't say much, tip his hand, although Judge Timothy Kelly, he did acknowledge that there's a lot of case law here that he has to follow. That case law dates back 50 years and it is binding on him. He can't deviate. What that said at the time was that the White House, if they wanted to revoke someone's press pass, they had to give them fair notice and they had to go through a process discussing with the news organization, giving them a chance to respond if that White House was -- if that White House press pass was going to be dropped.

[17:05:00]

Now, this was largely what Ted Boutrous was arguing about today, that any other reasons that the White House may give for why they have cut off CNN, MS NOW and Politico from accessing the White House grounds and being around the president. All of it, Boutrous said, is post hoc. It's pretextual. The due process, that's a constitutional protection as well. And it just hasn't been met here.

There hasn't been any due process for any of these news organizations. Judge Kelly acknowledged that passed precedent. We're going to see exactly what he says when he rules. That could happen at any time here.

The Justice Department, though, they wanted to change this conversation entirely and make it about national security, saying that the press, if they even are not White House pass holders, publishing national security information, potentially classified information, that's enough to make them untrustworthy enough and for them to potentially lose their access around the president.

TAPPER: Katelyn, how does today fit into other arguments the Trump administration has made against the news media?

POLANTZ: Yes, Jake, there has been a increasingly astonishing amount of First Amendment arguments that have happened in court over the past year since Trump took office for the second time. The Pentagon press corps was essentially booted out of that building. And the New York Times sued for some sort of access there, the ability to question people in the halls of the Pentagon. The Associated Press, they also lost access to the private spaces around the president, Air Force One and the Oval Office because they would not call the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America in their official style and in their reporting, as Donald Trump wanted. That has been on appeal.

The courts are still looking at that. But there are other issues, too, that has changed the behavior across the country of, say, law firms, law firms where the Justice Department has not wanted them to take on certain types of cases. There's a First Amendment argument there. Those law firms initially lost access to federal buildings. Also Harvard University, there was a major ruling from a judge in Boston that the administration retaliated against Harvard in violation of the federal -- of the First Amendment because they dropped federal grants to the school.

Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Katelyn Polantz, thanks so much. We're going to come back to you as soon as there is a ruling.

Let's discuss all this with former federal prosecutor Alyse Adamson and Kevin Goldberg. He's the vice president of Freedom Forum, where he works to educate the public about the importance of the First Amendment and its protections for religion, speech, press, assembly and the right to petition.

Alyse, the attorney for the banned media outlets, including us at CNN, notes that the Justice Department's national security argument came well after the initial ban. How much do you think that will play a role in Judge Kelly's decision?

ALYSE ADAMSON, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Yes, Jake, I think that's incredibly significant and I think the chronology here really matters. The president made clear on Friday that the ban was because of what he perceived as fake news or negative reporting. Never once was there a message -- a message of national security or even this lack of professional decorum, which was another argument that was advanced in DOJ's subsequent briefing. It wasn't until Tuesday that we first started hearing about this national security concern.

Now a national security concern will strengthen DOJ's case, certainly because the government does have national security interests. However, it does appear to be pretextual and a kind of a post hoc rationale when the chronology makes clear that the original rationale was the First Amendment concerns, which is viewpoint discrimination and retaliation. And I think that the judge is going to take that chronology into account when looking at these facts and making a determination.

TAPPER: And Kevin, based on what we know about this hearing and this judge, do you have any concerns that the judge will not rule in favor of the banned media outlets?

KEVIN GOLDBERG, VP & FIRST AMENDMENT EXPERT, FREEDOM FORUM: I really think he will ultimately rule in front in favor of these media outlets. They have a very strong due process claim. They were not given a notice, an opportunity to be heard before they were -- they lost their credentials and access to the White House. And I think they have very strong First Amendment arguments. The only thing that even gives me a minor pause is that he didn't rule quickly from the bench today and I understand why.

Certainly the White House has indicated they will appeal this if they don't win. I would obviously think the media outlets will as well. And I'm pretty sure this judge anticipating an appeal wants to think this out, be certain in the ruling and have something down on paper that is not going to be overturned.

TAPPER: Yes, stress test to make sure that it can't be --

GOLDBERG: Right.

TAPPER: -- easily appealed. At least the judge, Judge Kelly, today asked if there could ever be a scenario where the substance of a story could justify a media ban on national security grounds. The attorney for the media who represents CNN again, Ted Boutrous, said no and quote, "once you go down that road, it is blatant viewpoint discrimination," unquote. Do you agree? Is there any exception for that, you think?

[17:10:06]

ADAMSON: You know, that's a very interesting question, Jake, because what we do know is that the president has wide discretion when it comes to national security. We've seen time and time again that the courts do afford deference to national security. However, when we talk about a fundamental First Amendment right, and especially the way these stories are covered, nobody is -- at least the allegations haven't seemed to be given out completely sensitive information, anything that could harm troops, for instance. And so I think under the narrow circumstances that are before the court, I don't think so.

The broader question is could there ever hypothetically be a story that could? I don't know. I think that it's -- once we start to go down that road, though, it is a very slippery slope.

TAPPER: Kevin there's this thing called the T.V. press pool. It's so that all five major channels, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, and Fox don't all send cameras in. We just send one and we share it. And the other members of the T.V. press pool are standing in solidarity with CNN. When Trump flew back from New York last night, Fox, to their credit, they were the scheduled T.V. pool crew, but they did not film the president's arrival.

Today, it's NBC's turn. So when Trump gives Xi Jinping a red carpet welcome, the T.V. pool will not be there. What do you say to people who think it's no big deal that one network is no longer part of the pool, that these other outlets should be going on and doing pool coverage?

GOLDBERG: I think people need to understand the importance of the solidarity in this moment. I think do -- people do understand the importance of solidarity in this moment. We at Freedom Forum talk to Americans all the time about these issues, where they are, and try to get their sense of things. And one thing we do is actually we've surveyed the public. We had our annual survey coincidentally come out yesterday that had a statistic that said only 17 percent of Americans think that the government should be able to ban a media entity from covering government events based on the media's past coverage of viewpoints.

So I think this is something that people tend to understand. What's really important that they continue to understand is the idea that once it's gone, it's probably not coming back --

TAPPER: Oh, yes. GOLDBERG: -- in terms of coverage. So this is not a Fox, CNN, MS NOW, Politico thing, it's an all of us thing. And we in the public lose out because we're not the ones getting the information we need to be a part of the government we want to have.

TAPPER: Fascinating stuff. Thanks to both of you.

There's a lot more to come from this hearing and it's fallout. We're getting unique perspective from a former White House communications director who's about to join the discussion.

We're also monitoring a major review happening right now for a blood test that can detect more than 50 different types of cancer, 50. This is a big deal. We're going to have new reporting from CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:16:43]

TAPPER: Back with the breaking news on our Law and Justice Lead. At any moment, the judge could rule on a lawsuit filed by CNN, MS NOW and Politico after President Donald Trump banned them, us, from the White House last week. An emergency hearing in that case wrapped up just moments ago.

Let's talk about this all with Anthony Scaramucci. You might remember in Trump's first term, he served as the White House communications director for 11 whole days. But who's counting? He is, more importantly perhaps, the author of a new book called "All the Wrong Moves: How Three Catastrophic Decisions Led to the Rise of Trump."

It's a fascinating thesis. We'll get to that in one second, I promise. But I do want to ask you about this first amendment lawsuit. You've said you've said -- you've changed since your time in the White House. Although I have to say, I always found you a pleasure to deal with for those 11 days, quite honestly, you were on the show.

You weren't hostile to the press. I didn't think so.

ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Well, you probably don't remember this, Jake, but I called on Sarah Murray. So you guys weren't getting called on. When I got there In July of 2017, Sean Spicer was probably three or four weeks, didn't call on CNN. Remember he was going to shut the television cameras off --

TAPPER: Yes.

SCARAMUCCI: -- at the assistance -- in the assistance of the president. I got there, gave the first press conference, and I made it a point to call on CNN.

TAPPER: Yes.

SCARAMUCCI: And then I was trying to seek a rapprochement with the White House Correspondents Association president. I took Sarah Huckabee with me to the St. Regis Hotel across from the White House at breakfast with her and a few of her colleagues.

TAPPER: So what do you think about --

SCARAMUCCI: It's actually one of your colleagues here, they ran your D.C. bureau, was at that breakfast.

TAPPER: What -- who? David Chalian or?

SCARAMUCCI: Tell me another name. Sam, maybe?

TAPPER: Sam Feist. Yes.

SCARAMUCCI: Sam Feist.

TAPPER: Sam Feist. OK.

SCARAMUCCI: Sam Feist was at that breakfast.

TAPPER: So how would you have handled this if President Trump said, I'm banning CNN?

SCARAMUCCI: Well, it's 100 percent clear to me that there is no way, and I repeat, no way anybody saying no to him about anything inside the White House. Moreover, I'll say something about Karoline Leavitt. She would have never let him do this.

TAPPER: You don't think so?

SCARAMUCCI: I don't because she's -- she was tough enough to go to the president on certain things and say, hey, that's not a great idea. Let's go in a different direction. And when people say that to him in a certain way, he accepts it. But I think what happened is apparently someone gave him some of the videos that triggered him, and then he impetuously did this. It's not good for him.

And it's created this Streisand effect.

TAPPER: Yes.

SCARAMUCCI: By the fact that he did it, he's got everybody up in arms and, you know, the lights and cameras will be back on like they were last week, and nothing will have been done other than more damage to the, you know, the power structure inside the White House relative to the Constitution.

TAPPER: You just mentioned Karoline Leavitt. She's now former White House press secretary. She'd had a second baby and she wanted to spend more time with the baby. She did say something interesting when having a conversation with this with Hannity. Take a listen.

SCARAMUCCI: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) KAROLINE LEAVITT, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I've gotten on the phone with the leadership of all those stations and said, why are you not taking the president's remarks live? Like, just let your audience decide how they feel about this.

For the President of the United States to address the nation and for networks to take -- make the editorial decision them themselves that they will not cover it for their audience, that's scary stuff.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So she thinks it's scary for networks to have the right to make editorial decisions for themselves.

SCARAMUCCI: It's the pressure from the president, you know, that. I mean, he wants to be loved. He wants you to say nice things about him, Jake. You know, you did an interview with him a few weeks back or maybe it could have been two months ago. I think it was on your Sunday show.

[17:20:06]

You pushed him a little. He said, well, I don't want to talk about that --

TAPPER: Lindsey Graham had just died and he only wanted to talk about Lindsey Graham.

SCARAMUCCI: Talk about Lindsey Graham.

TAPPER: Yes.

SCARAMUCCI: And that's him, you know.

TAPPER: Yes.

SCARAMUCCI: And so he's a bristly guy and he wants to be loved. But the truth of the matter is that job is a love hate job. And the White House isn't a fishbowl, it's a full on aquarium.

TAPPER: Yes.

SCARAMUCCI: So you got to just handle it. By the way, I'm a First Amendment guy and I think I have good standing. I have had stuff said about me in the press that is literally unbelievable. And you got to take it with a grain of salt. If you're going to be in this world at this level, you got to take the heat.

TAPPER: It's the famous tax.

SCARAMUCCI: I'm a (inaudible).

TAPPER: No, I know. Believe me, I know.

Let's turn to your book. It's fascinating because you argue that Trump didn't just simply appear out of nowhere and succeed out of nowhere. Decades of economic decisions created the anger that led to his rise. These include President Clinton expanding trade with China, George W. Bush fighting wars while cutting taxes, President Obama rescuing Wall Street while Americans lost their homes. You write, quote, "Trump's not as personally important as he wants to be.

He's the result of bad decisions made by others." So that definitely makes sense when it comes to 2016. But does it still apply to 2024, you think?

SCARAMUCCI: I think it does because the situation got worse. If you looked at the median income numbers in the bottom 20 percent of the country, they've gone down, believe it or not, they're up slightly, but that's like two months worth of data. It's not a full year even. And if you go from 2016 to 2026, you have more people on SNAP benefits, you may have more people on food stamps. And I can tell you as a board member at City Harvest, we have more people that are food insecure in the country.

TAPPER: Yes.

SCARAMUCCI: This anxiety, combined with the lack of democratic leadership, if we're just going to be brutally honest, they put a benign grandfather up in 2020 and they beat the sitting president, Donald Trump. You had tremendous dysfunction, which of course you wrote about --

TAPPER: Yes.

SCARAMUCCI: -- in 2024, and you only gave Vice President Harris 107 days to run against the most, I think he was the most well-known person in the world at the time of that candidacy. And so the economic drama, plus the lack of understanding of who the other candidate was. And you remember this, the, the most searchable term on the eve of the election on Google was did Joe Biden drop out? OK, so it's a combination of economic --

TAPPER: It's crazy.

SCARAMUCCI: -- anxiety and unknown --

TAPPER: People not even knowing.

SCARAMUCCI: No, but that's what happens, you know? They're not watching your show, I can tell you that.

TAPPER: No. The book is Anthony -- the book is by Anthony Scaramucci called "All the Wrong Moves." Highly recommend. Really interesting thesis and it gives voice to a big problem that somebody is actually going to listen to at some point.

SCARAMUCCI: Let's understand the problem --

TAPPER: Yes.

SCARAMUCCI: so that we can fix the problem.

TAPPER: Anthony Scaramucci, thanks so much. Congrats on the book.

Coming up next year in the studio, California Attorney General Rob Bonta, he's here to explain the settlement that he led that now clears the way for Paramount's $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery. That's the parent company of CNN. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:27:30]

TAPPER: In our Law and Justice Lead, it's now up to a judge to give the final approval for Paramount's $110 billion merger with CNN's parent company Warner Bros. Discovery. That judge will oversee a hearing tomorrow over Monday's settlement between 12 state attorneys general and Paramount. Here is some of what's in the settlement. Paramount must produce 30 movies in each of the first two years of the deal, honor previously established collective bargaining agreements and bargain in good faith with unions in years to come, and establish a news editorial independence board to support CBS News and CNN's continued editorial independence to ensure independent, objective, fact based reporting. That is just some of the big settlement.

Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who led the 12 state coalition that sued to block the merger, joins us now.

Attorney General Bonta, thanks so much for joining us. So here is some of what you said back in July when you first filed this lawsuit against Paramount. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROB BONTA, (D) CALIFORNIA ATTORNEY GENERAL: David Ellison may think this is an offer we can't refuse, but I'm here to say he's wrong. This merger would snuff out competition, drive up prices, diminish content quality and produce fewer movies and shows each year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: So what changed? What caused you to settle?

BONTA: Paramount came to the table and good faith to talk and we were able to secure commitments that addressed the concerns that were in that clip. As you mentioned, they're making many more movies, releasing many more movies, 30 --

TAPPER: Thirty a year for the first two years.

BONTA: Yes. Then 32 for the next three. And --

TAPPER: But some of them can be co-produced, right? It's not all independent productions by Paramount. They could be produced with other companies too.

BONTA: They can. They can. And some could be bought and they should be bought, independent films with different voices and perspectives, different stories to tell that need to come to theaters. The market that we were interested in solving for where we saw antitrust concerns was the distribution of wide release theatrical films.

Our settlement enshrined in the consent decree filed with the court solves for that problem as well as our cable channel licensing antitrust concern. So --

TAPPER: Well, there were a lot of concerns though. And you say you got some strong remedies and commitments. Not every state attorney general agrees with you. Connecticut's attorney General William Tong said, quote, "Connecticut wanted and demanded full divestiture of CNN and CBS News. We wanted to save ethical and independent journalism and news. We fought aggressively for that remedy.

[17:30:05]

I'm deeply disappointed that we could not do more. And it looks like the settlement is based on behavioral remedies, not robust structural remedies that you yourself said was the goal. Is that not fair?

BONTA (D-CA), ATTORNEY GENERAL: Not exactly accurate. So first, I appreciate you sharing the information for my great friend A.G. William Tong. The -- this is an antitrust case. It's not a case about journalistic independence, although we do have some important contributions to make in this settlement about journalistic independence. I'll also say there were 12 attorneys general who committed to the settlement, all 12. It's unanimous. And there are what we call structural remedy backstops.

We have commitments of the number of films that need to be released each year. We have a commitment for a negotiate separately for the cable channel licensing. And if they fail to fulfill their commitments, then there's a structural remedy, a divestiture of Miramax, a divestiture of a suite of cable channels. There's also penalties of $30 million per movie not made if they're not made that go to the workers retirement and health trust funds and for out-of- work entertainment industry workers. So there are structural remedies built in as backstops to some of the other commitments in the consent decree.

TAPPER: "The New York Times" reports that you called the other 11 state attorneys general and said that it was time to settle because you were afraid that the Ellison's were going to pull Paramount out of California. That's not true?

BONTA: A.G.s always talk when it's a multi-state and we had a conversation about the settlement, curing and solving for the antitrust concern. So that is common and standard. And yes, I did have a conversation with other A.G.s about the antitrust solutions, the proposed settlement, the other domestic production commitments, as well as the editorial independence board. And we had an open discussion as we always do. They represent their own sovereign states. They're independently elected. They can agree or not agree to sign on. And it was unanimous in the end.

TAPPER: Are you convinced that CNN will be able to report the news fairly independently without any political pressure under this deal?

BONTA: I think that this deal maximizes for that possibility. And --

TAPPER: Possibility?

BONTA: Yes. There's no guarantees. You know, does this antitrust consent decree in this case with these two companies solve for all the concerns we have about our information ecosystem, about our democracy, about the free and independent press? It does not.

Does it ensure without a doubt, without a shadow of a doubt, that always "CBS News" and CNN will report objectively with journalistic integrity based on facts and truth? It doesn't guarantee it. But with the editorial independence board, it creates a incredible contribution to help ensure that journalistic voices on this independent board will resolve disputes in support in favor of journalistic integrity, objective reporting, facts -- fact-based reporting, and unbiased reporting.

TAPPER: Should people who either work at CNN or watch CNN look at the Ellison's running "CBS News" and think that is what is going to happen to CNN?

BONTA: What's going to happen going forward will be different because what's happened at "CBS News" never had the editorial independence board. That's new. That'll be applied for the first time and is designed to, and I believe will deliver on, increasing journalistic integrity, fact-based reporting, objective reporting, unbiased reporting, and the same editorial independence board will sit over CNN. So I don't think what's happened at CBS is an appropriate model to project on the future of even "CBS News" because the editorial independence board will be imposed on it going forward and certainly it's not a model for it to expect at CNN.

TAPPER: Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it sir. Thank you.

The Attorney General and I spoke about more than we just ran including Paramount possibly seeking funding from Elon Musk or Saudi Arabia. You can watch the entire interview right now on CNN.com. I just shared the link on some of my social media sites. You can find that at JakeTapper.

[17:34:04]

More breaking news now, President Trump is minutes away from receiving a major state visitor. He's going to head from the White House to Joint Base Andrews for the arrival of Chinese President Xi Jinping. This big moment on the world stage for Trump as he also tries to navigate an end to the war with Iran, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: A big day of breaking news in our World Lead. We are just moments away from Chinese leader Xi Jinping landing in the United States. President Trump is expected to meet him at Joint Base Andrews and roll out a literal red carpet for him, a huge sign of respect and an otherwise competitive and at times contentious relationship. We're also following major headlines from the United Nations today. Listen to the Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MASOUD PEZESHKIAN, IRANIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The United States President described us as terrorists. We have been the victims of terrorism. They bombed a school. You see these children, these children perished under bombs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Pezeshkian referring to the Minab school strike on February 28th that killed 120 children, 26 teachers, according to Iran. But he also added that Iran is, "ready for diplomacy." Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy used his opportunity at the podium to call Russian leader Vladimir Putin patient zero in spreading evil. Ukrainian officials say Russia struck Zelenskyy party headquarters in Kyiv as he was speaking at the U.N.

On Tuesday, President Trump met with the brand new British Prime Minister Andy Burnham for the first time. While the two seem to get along just fine, the leaders did not shy away from tough topics, including trade, A.I. and sanctions on illegal Israeli settlements.

[17:40:12]

Joining us now, Sir Christian Turner, the British ambassador to the United States. As always, thank you for classing up.

CHRISTIAN TURNER, BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO THE U.S.: Good to be back Jake.

TAPPER: We appreciate having you. So much happening on the world stage, how do you think the relationship between the United States and the U.K. is right now on a scale of one to 10? It's brand new, obviously, with the new prime minister.

TURNER: So it's a new prime minister. We had a very good meeting in York yesterday. The two leaders had spoken twice over the summer, including just an hour after Prime Minister Burnham entered Downing Street. And I think that befits the history of the relationship, the challenges you're just describing the work we will be doing in New York this week with Ukraine, Iran, China. These are these are big and complex issues.

And I was struck in that room, yes, by the sense of rapport between the two leaders. The President, whatever people may say about him, he's a he's a warm and hospitable leader. The two of them --

TAPPER: Very charismatic guy, of course.

TURNER: Yes. And the two of them, you know, Burnham is a politician who's about responding to the people's needs. There's so many Western leaders are saying that sensor needs to drive growth in all parts of the country. That's very much his agenda. So the report was good, Jake. But we also had some discussion of the serious issues and a strong sense from the President that that you and I saw with his managed to the King's State visit early this year of wanting success for the U.K. and seeing the potential for the two of us to work together.

TAPPER: So let's talk about one of the tough issues. Prime Minister Burnham says he's focused on A.I. I mean, he's going to -- he's planning to develop a global A.I. safety standards. Now, President Trump said during his speech yesterday, "The U.S. totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control artificial intelligence." It sounds like President Trump is saying he's not on board with any global approach to this.

TURNER: So we don't think a big, globally imposed regulatory system is going to work either. As the U.K., we think we have a starting advantage with a third largest tech ecosystem, A.I. ecosystem after the U.S. and China, so some of our top universities and innovators. We're good at this stuff, and we think we can help.

We have an outfit called AISI, the Artificial Intelligence Safety Institute, which is there to try and work out how best to get a handle on these models. And the offer yesterday was to use that to have a conversation through our G-20 presidency next year about how we work on a voluntary basis with the labs to develop a set of standards on global principles for how we'll work together. So it's a pragmatic approach rather than imposing a new global system.

TAPPER: Burnham also mentioned he'd focus on the impact of the Iran war on global energy prices this week here. Here are a couple headlines from the U.K. today from "The Telegraph." "Britain risks fuel crisis as Trump threatens diesel ban." From "GB News," "Britain on notice for fuel disaster after Donald Trump threatens diesel export ban at U.N." Do you worry how much Trump's policies, including the war in Iran, including the fact that it continues with no end in sight, could worsen the affordability crisis that you face in the U.K.

TURNER: We're all worried about the global energy situation. It's clearly affecting all of our economies as we head into winter. What that does for heating bills, for households, for inflation. Everybody is talking about it. In the U.K. actually, where -- I mean, we use a lot of diesel, but we're reasonably insulated from the Gulf. We only take about 10 percent of our oil, maybe 2 percent of our gas out of the Gulf.

But these are global commodities. So obviously, the more constraint there is, the more everyone's prices go up. So you come back to the same conclusion, which is we need to get the Strait open. We need to find an end to this war, and we can't do that whilst allowing Iran to have a nuclear weapons.

So at that level, when the prime minister and the president spoke yesterday, there's a lot of commonality about what we want and needs to do and how to keep economic pressure up on Tehran. We've put something like 550 sanctions in place to try and increase pressure on them to change their behavior. TAPPER: All right, British ambassador to the U.S. Sir Christian Turner, the U.S. and U.K. do not have a special relationship, but you and I do, sir, and I appreciate that.

TURNER: We all have a good relationship. It is vital, enduring, and consequential, Jake.

TAPPER: Special is what I said, special.

In the World Lead, the Navy reveals a stunning number of attempted suicides by U.S. military members recently deployed in the Iran war. Let's bring in CNN's Zach Cohen. Zach, this news is coming from a letter CNN obtained from the Navy Secretary Hung Cao. What did you learn?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Jake, that's right. The Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao responding to written questions from Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand about the morale and the mental fitness of those service members who were on the USS Abraham Lincoln and its accompanying ships during that record breaking deployment.

And in that letter, he acknowledges that eight U.S. service members, sailors who were assigned to the USS Abraham Lincoln's carrier strike group did attempt suicide during that deployment, which stretched out almost over a year. And that ship is still making its way back to the United States. Now, in this letter, Cao does say that no service members had killed themselves during this deployment.

[17:45:10]

But the number eight, I'm told by a U.S. military official, is extremely high, even for a deployment of this length. And it goes to the broader concerns that we've heard anecdotally from families of service members who were deployed on these ships about the mental --

TAPPER: Toll, yes.

COHEN: -- the mental fitness of these sailors, particularly given the fact that they went about six months without going to port. And that's something that impacted the food rations that impacted supplies. And then putting on top of that the high rate of combat operations as they were carrying these out during the war with Iran, really adding to the mental fatigue and mental stress that these sailors were under.

Now, the U.S. Navy has made clear previously that they don't see a correlation between the length of deployments and suicidal ideations or anything related to mental health. But again, this is going to draw more concerns, more criticism from lawmakers who have been really pushing the Pentagon for more details about this carrier strike group crew and the sailors who remain deployed overseas.

TAPPER: Zach Cohen, thank you so much. Once again, you can ban people like Zach from the Pentagon, but you can't stop him from reporting.

If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please, please reach out to the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. The number is 988, 988. You can call or text at any time, day or night. There is help for you. There is love for you.

Review is happening right now for a blood test that can detect more than 50 different types of cancer. It could be a major, major development in early detection. See exactly how it works, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:51:08]

TAPPER: Breaking news in our Health Lead, what could be potentially a major advancement in the detection of cancer early. An FDA Advisory Committee just voted in favor of a blood test that can detect more than 50 different types of cancer in your bloodstream. But there are limits to the test. To investigate, CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta bought and took the test himself.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. KATRINA FIRLIK, CANCER SURVIVOR: You automatically see this bright lump right here, kind of lighting up like a light bulb. This tumor was sitting there, not causing a problem. And what's funny is when I met my thoracic surgeon for the first time, he walked in, he shook my hand and he said, you might be the luckiest unlucky person, unlucky because I had the positive result. But lucky, he said he never sees tumors this small.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Katrina Firlik and I have been friends for years. She credits her luck to a blood test that aims to catch cancer at its earliest stages. They're known as liquid biopsies, multi cancer early detection tests that can identify 50 plus cancers by searching for DNA fragments of the disease in your blood.

FIRLIK: I didn't have to live through any cancer crisis. I was able to intercept that crisis.

GUPTA: Many doctors do preach the gospel of early screening and the numbers sort of bear this out. Between 1975 and 2020, there were almost 5 million cancer deaths that were averted due to routine prevention and standard screenings. The problem is this. Most diagnosed cancers do not have a recommended screening test. As a result, many of those cancers are caught later and they're harder to treat.

You're a friend, you're a fellow neurosurgeon as well. We're the same age. Should I get this test? Do you think?

FIRLIK: Do you like the idea of catching cancer early?

GUPTA: I do like the idea of catching cancer early. But at the same time, I'm still not sure that I really need to be doing a test like this. And here's why. These tests have what's known as a high positive predictive value. If it comes back positive, I likely have some form of cancer. But at the same time, if it comes back negative, I'm not really that confident that I don't have cancer.

DR. VERSHALEE SHUKLA, CO-FOUNDER, VINCERE CANCER CENTER: After doing this for over five years and almost 10,000 liquid biopsies, less than a dozen cancers detected.

GUPTA: So it's not picking up as many cancers as you would like.

SHUKLA: A 100 percent it's not picking up cancers.

GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Vershalee Shukla runs a cancer screening program for first responders in Arizona. Now they are often younger than the 50-year and older population that these tests are designed for. But studies also suggest firefighters have higher rates of cancers because of their jobs.

SHUKLA: We went out and one week we drew 500 firefighters. We did all of their blood and not one came back positive and no one wants to come in to get their cancer screenings because everyone had this sense of security.

GUPTA: I think the picture you're painting is someone goes, gets the grail test, comes back negative and they think, hey, I'm good to go. I don't need to get the colonoscopy or the additional screening tests.

SHUKLA: It took a lot of work on our part over the next 18 months to two years to get all those members to come in and get their colonoscopies or whole body MRIs. We ended up diagnosing another 14, 15 cancers.

DR. ALEX KRIST, FORMER CHAIR, U.S. PREVENTIVE SERVICES TASK FORCE: But that's also something we need to measure. Like how much will that happen? Will people continue with usual cancer screening?

GUPTA (voice-over): Dr. Alex Krist used to chair the federal government's advisory group on screening recommendations. I asked him how a group like that would think about these tests today.

KRIST: When we're talking about cancer screening, we're looking at, are you less likely to die from cancer? Will you live longer? But also, you know, could it improve your quality of life?

GUPTA (voice-over): It's a lot to mentally wrestle with as I take my own test. A negative finding does not mean I'm in the clear. It also doesn't mean that I should skip my routine cancer screenings. Even the test makers say that. And importantly, we don't yet have the studies to prove whether or not these tests save lives. That will need a lot more people and a lot more time. But then there is the story of Katrina.

[17:55:09]

FIRLIK: In my case, the benefit was that I needed the most minimal treatment. I found it at the earliest stage.

GUPTA: It's been pretty nerve wracking these past few weeks waiting for these results. I mean, here's the thing. There are over 600 FDA approved cancer treatments. We can't take advantage of them if we don't know that we have cancer and find those cancers early enough. In my case, came back negative. No cancer signal detected.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAPPER: Our thanks to Sanjay for that report.

We have some breaking news. Chinese President Xi Jinping just moments away from landing on U.S. soil. President Trump is going to host him tomorrow at the White House, where discussions could range from the Iran war to A.I. or super intelligence, as President Trump likes to call it. We're back with the significance of this visit, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:00:07]

TAPPER: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. This hour --