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Chicago Braces For Possible Surge Of Federal Forces Into City; Xi And Putin Meet In China Ahead Of Military Parade; Father Of Three Says Chatbot Caused "Delusional Spiral." Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired September 02, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:50]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. This morning the nation's third largest city is bracing for a potential surge of federal forces. Multiple sources say the Trump administration is planning a major immigration enforcement operation in Chicago that could begin as early as this week. And that's on top of the president's repeated threats to send the National Guard into the city to crack down on crime.

Over the holiday weekend there were dozens of shootings in Chicago. At least seven people were killed and 49 others injured.

Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House for the latest on the planning. What are you hearing, Alayna?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, John. I mean, my colleagues and I broke the news last week that the Trump administration was planning this major escalation. And what we know is the president kind of threatening to strongarm a Democratic city. And part of this is all about immigration.

Now I do want to be clear. His plans to send in what we're told personnel from ICE, Customs and Border Patrol, and other agencies -- all of that is meant to be very distinct from the rhetoric that we've heard the president use in recent weeks, which is what he wants to essentially take the model that he's done in D.C. to crack down on domestic crime to Chicago.

This is different. This is more of a Los Angeles-style type of immigration operation. Remember what we saw with him sending the National Guard, for example, to Los Angeles earlier this year. This is going to be similar. And we are told as well that they have been preparing for days now -- the National Guard -- to potentially go to Chicago this week to kind of help with this immigration operation.

Now one thing that's been, of course, so interesting is to watch the rhetoric that's been unfolding from people like the Illinois Governor JB Pritzker who says that he has had no communication with the Trump administration about this. He's been very critical of these plans.

But when I talk to White House officials here, they say look, one of our goals from the very beginning of this Trump administration -- his second term -- has been to try and ramp up these deportations of undocumented immigrants. They note that Chicago is a sanctuary city. It has long been a target on this administration's list. And now we are seeing them really ramp up those plans to send tons of federal law enforcement agents -- specifically, of course, immigration-related through the Department of Homeland Security -- to crack down on this.

And so we're likely to begin seeing this, we're told, starting on Friday. That has really been the plan to prepare these different agencies over the weekend and send them out by Friday. Everyone kind of staying tuned to see what exactly this will look like and if it'll actually still be specifically focused to immigration.

BERMAN: Meanwhile, Alyana, you're getting some new information about an event the president has planned later today.

TREENE: Yes, still vague information, John, but I am told -- I just caught up with the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt who said that today's event at 2:00 p.m. is going to be related to the Department of Defense. She said specifically, "The president will be making an exciting announcement related to the Department of Defense."

Part of the reason this is such a big deal though, John, is because this 2:00 p.m. event today -- announcement by the president -- is the first time we've actually seen him or will see him in a week now. The last time we heard the president make public comments was last Tuesday when he spoke at that cabinet meeting for roughly three hours.

I think, you know, I'm sure a lot of our viewers have been watching some of the kind of anxiety and questions over the weekend about where has the president been. People calling in to question his health. The president actually posted on Sunday. He said he's "never been in better shape," kind of responding to some of this.

So today is going to be a really good opportunity because we almost never see the president stay behind closed doors for an extended period of time. This will be the first opportunity reporters actually get to question him on a lot of the important things that are going on and see him publicly for the first time in a week.

BERMAN: And, of course, in terms of the Department of Defense he's been talking openly about trying to change the name from the Defense Department back to the --

TREENE: Right.

BERMAN: -- War Department, so we'll see if that's what that's about.

Alayna Treene at the White House. Thank you very much -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And joining us now to talk more about this is Democratic strategist Matt Bennett and former press adviser to then-House Speaker John Boehner, Maura Gillespie. It's good to see you, guys.

Maura, let's talk about what Alayna and John started off with, which is the potential that Chicago is bracing for a surge of federal forces and that Donald Trump has really changed his focus here. I mean, the president has said that federal forces are needed to combat crime in Chicago or maybe it has to do with immigration enforcement. It's -- you know, it's like a choose your own adventure it seems with the reasoning.

[07:35:10]

Illinois' lieutenant governor who will be on with us later in the show has sent out on social media what you would think some people believe really is -- could be motivating this or at least she believes is he's baiting us is what she had sent out.

The political ramifications of this, though, do you see it as the same as D.C. or different?

MAURA GILLESPIE, FOUNDER AND PRINCIPAL, BLUESTACK STRATEGIES, FORMER PRESS ADVISER TO THEN-HOUSE SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER (via Webex by Cisco): Well, I think the motivation is a little bit different. I think with D.C., the president lives there. They're also preparing for America250 next year and so celebrations will be happening. He wants to clean up the city.

It's not uncommon. We've seen mayors and governors do that in the past. I know in New Jersey Governor Christine Whitman -- she did the same thing with trying to clean up Camden before big events were happening, and so it's not uncommon.

And I do think that the messaging aspect of it is key here. Going again saying we don't need the federal government to step in after having one of those violent weekends is not the most, but it was a violent weekend for Chicago.

So this proposal from the president to do so does have a couple of different political motivations behind it but the messaging, if you're going to say that you don't need help, OK -- well then what are you doing to resolve the issue?

And I think that this National Guard send in is a Band-Aid. It's not a long-term solution because our National Guard doesn't need to be used in this way. So what are we doing to make our city safer, our community safer? Resources is probably where I would start, and training.

So I think the political ramifications comes down to messaging and how we're looking at solving this -- you know, solving a problem rather than just putting Guards that don't need to be there in place.

BOLDUAN: Matt, it's almost -- it's like a strange question I have of is it -- is it missing the forest for the trees or is it forest and trees that both need to be focused on here? Because you have a violent weekend like Chicago did but you also very clearly -- if you're looking at the motivation -- if the governor of Illinois -- if what he said on Sunday still stands that no one from the administration has reached out to anyone in his administration about offering any help. That's kind of the beginning and end of what you need to know in terms of what's motivating or what the president is really trying to do here.

What do you think? I mean, let's say there is a better, more collaborative way to offer federal help. Probably everyone can agree yes. But even still Democrats pushing back in the right way, do you believe?

MATT BENNETT, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND CO- FOUNDER, THIRD WAY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY ASSISTANT, CLINTON ADMINISTRATION: Yeah, it's a really good question because Democrats have to be very careful. If we deny that crime is a problem in cities like Chicago we're just -- first of all, we're just wrong and second of all we're missing where voters are as we often do.

If we -- you know, Rahm Emanuel, who used to be the mayor of Chicago, used to say, "No one ever said to me I feel 23 percent safer because crime is coming down." Statistics do not do anything. So Democrats have to be very careful to say look, crime is a serious problem.

If the president is serious about helping with the crime in Chicago there's all kinds of things he could do, as you note. He could send us resources. We could hire more cops. That's what the mayor of Washington said.

Instead, he's sending in the National Guard -- which, by the way, it is illegal for the National Guard to do law enforcement. We have a law against that, the Posse Comitatus Act. And so what we got in Washington is Guard members either standing around or doing gardening and picking up the trash for a million dollars a day, which is what the deployment is costing. So it's huge waste of money, it's illegal, and it's not the way to fight crime.

Democrats need to be clear yes, crime is a problem. Yeah, we could use federal help. This isn't it.

BOLDUAN: Matt, Ron Brownstein took it -- really took an interesting slice at this. He says that this is really one example of the one word the Democrats are using on repeat right now, which is it's a distraction.

But Ron's point is -- he argues that he sees evidence that one word, as he puts, it "...created the most -- has created the most significant fissure between the party's grassroots and its Washington leadership. That one word now divides the principal competing theories of how Democrats should respond to Trump's militant second term."

Like, Democratic congressional leaders using it to try and say it's a -- this is a distraction, and we need to focus on the economy. Trump's trying to distract from the economy. But party activists are saying that kind of dismisses the urgency of now of the sweeping actions he's taking eroding American democracy.

What do you think?

BENNETT: Look, I haven't talked to a single Democrat, either in Congress or in the kind of national Democratic ecosystem who doesn't think that the threats that Trump is posing to everything that we care about, including the kind of core basic democratic principles, is enormous and existential. Every single Democrat thinks that.

There are different ways of approaching this and the problem for Democrats in Washington is they just don't have a lot of levers to pull. There's just -- there don't have any agency. They can't stop a lot of the things that are happening.

[07:40:05]

By contrast, people like Governor Newsom in California -- he had something he could do. He could do the redistricting plan that he's -- that he's proposing in California. So he could actually take action.

I do think there's a divide between those who want Democrats to be more robust in their response to Trump, but they're kind of yelling don't just stand there, do something when in a lot of cases there's not a lot that Democrats can actually do besides use rhetoric.

BOLDUAN: And yeah, don't just stand there, do something.

Guys, we've got to leave it there at this moment, but it's great to see you. Thank you so much, Maura. Thanks, Matt -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Breaking overnight two of the U.S.' biggest adversaries meeting in China in a show of force as they seek to reset the global order.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): I thank you for the warm welcome extended to our entire delegation. Our close communication reflects the strategic nature of Russia-China relations which are at an unprecedentedly high level.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Russian President Vladimir Putin called Chinese leader Xi Jinping "a dear friend" and they spent hours together sitting down for formal talks. All kinds of smiles over the last few days, sipping tea as Xi's official residence.

Xi has welcomed leaders this week from Asia and the Middle East for a regional security summit ahead of a big military parade later today. Among the foreign leaders in attendance, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un who just arrived, we should say, in Beijing, on board his signature armored train.

With us now Jane Harman, former member of Congress and former chair of the National Defense Strategy Commission. Congresswoman, always great to see you.

JANE HARMAN, (D) FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE, FORMER CHAIR, NATIONAL DEFENSE STRATEGY COMMISSION: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Look, I think there are two major things that are happening in China literally as we speak, and there's Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping. I want to start with China right now and the messaging -- really, the

message of defiance toward the United States that Xi is sending.

HARMAN: Well, this is not just a finger in Trump's eye, it's two big thumbs in both of his eyes. And I'm not sure if Modi is still there, the head of India, but Kim Jong Un has just arrived by train so these are at least four of the people -- the leaders who would like a different world order. And they're all together and they were holding hands yesterday. It's quite stunning.

And President Trump is renaming the Defense Department the War Department. I thought we didn't want to go to war. I thought his foreign policy was hates war, loves gold. That's what -- some journalists said that. So I don't understand what he's doing today.

Plus, let me say that Congress is coming back today. This is a big day, maybe, for the Article 1 branch of government and where I served so many years. They could actually pass the Graham-Blumenthal bill, which is secondary sanctions on all the countries who are going to be in China today because of the war in Ukraine. Congress could do something. Trump could say he's for it.

A majority -- 85 out of 100 members of the Senate for once are all on the same page and if they did that today and he signed it this week there would be action in Ukraine, and I think the tectonic plates -- I'm from California -- would shift in a different direction.

BERMAN: Let me break this into two parts very quickly.

First, Russia. Putin -- it's been two weeks plus three days since President Trump met with Vladimir Putin. Two weeks plus one day since Zelenskyy --

HARMAN: Deadline? Oh, the deadline.

BERMAN: The deadline is gone. No meeting between Zelenskyy and Putin.

What's going on?

HARMAN: Because Putin doesn't want a meeting, never wanted a meeting, and was playing Trump. He's played Trump and the presidents before Trump brilliantly. And what he wants is greater Russia. What's ironic about this is he was trained in St. Petersburg. Peter the Great wanted a relationship with the West. Putin is doing exactly the opposite.

And while we're at it, Trump wants the Nobel Peace Prize and he's pushing Europe away. Well, where is the Nobel Peace Prize awarded? In Europe.

BERMAN: And then China, which is so interesting because for so long the strategy of the United States, both Republican and Democratic presidents, has been to isolate China. That's a strategy -- a big strategy. But the last, what, two months or three months since April -- really with the tariffs -- is that still the strategy?

HARMAN: I don't think we have any strategy. I think we have a series of tactics which shift on the day. And I think foreign leaders understand this. They don't want Trump to hate them, so they play him. There's going to be -- he's invited to a ceremonial visit to the U.K. soon. But they cannot possibly agree with his non-strategies. I know they don't but they're inviting him anyway just in case there is some reason for a more positive direction in the relationship.

But I think we have no strategy. We just have tactics. Xi has a long- term strategy to supplant the liberal world order with a Chinese world order and he's playing Trump beautifully. Everywhere we leave he goes. Think Africa.

BERMAN: And every picture we have seen of him practically in the last few days, including that one right there, he's smiling.

HARMAN: Yeah.

[07:45:00]

BERMAN: He's smiling. He is pleased with the direction that things are going right now.

Jane Harman, great to see you. Thank you so much --

HARMAN: Thank you, John. Thank you.

BERMAN: -- for coming in.

All right, an incredible rescue. A West Point cadet saves a driver right before the car bursts into flames.

And then Cardi B lighting the world on fire with her words. And I'm not talking about lyrics, but her testimony and her alleged assault case are being quoted everywhere as it heads to closing arguments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yesterday you had black hair, short hair. Today it's blonde and long. Which one is your real hair or are they both real?

CARDI B, RAPPER: They're wigs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL)

[05:50:00]

BOLDUAN: A terrifying scene at a street festival in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Police say a woman driving a red minivan plowed through a barrier into the festival area. She hit three people -- a woman in a wheelchair, a child, and a city worker. They're all recovering in the hospital this morning and are said to be in fair condition -- fair condition.

The driver kept going though for six blocks, hitting multiple objects before she finally came to a stop. Police took her into custody, and she is now being questioned.

I also want to show you some incredible video in this morning. It shows an Army cadet who is also a football player jumping into action to pull a man out of his wrecked car just before the car burst into flames. Larry Pickett Jr. and his father -- they ran towards the scene in Fort Montgomery, New York, running past the downed, crackling power lines that were all around. You can see in the video the car becomes completely engulfed in flames moments after the daring rescue.

Pickett Jr. is a second-year cadet and a sophomore safety on Army's football team. And Army's athletic director is praising the cadet and the father for exemplifying the values that they hold dear.

The driver was taken to a local hospital. No update on their condition.

An astronaut captured a rare light show from space. Typically the Northern Lights glow a little more of a greenish hue, but one NASA astronaut captured this wild -- I mean this is unbelievable. Crimson aura -- aurora orbiting -- well, orbiting Earth onboard the International Space Station. He said red auroras this bold only happen a handful of times over the six -- the course of a six-month mission. Back here on Earth the Northern Lights were seen across several states and parts of Canada last night, which sounds fantastic to see -- John.

BERMAN: Look at that.

All right. Happening today, closing arguments in the civil assault trial of Cardi B. The case goes back to a 2018 encounter at a medical office in Beverly Hills while the Grammy winner was pregnant. Former security guard Emani Ellis claims that Cardi B attacked her. Cardi B denies it and says the exchange was only verbal.

What you may have heard about the last few days though is Cardi B's sharp, unfiltered testimony.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I am talking to you now. Are we having a verbal altercation?

CARDI B: We haven't. We'll say a debate.

(Courtroom laugher)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: I mean, that's really only a small taste of it.

CNN's Jason Carroll is here. This has been something to see.

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I mean, I think you described it as unfiltered. I think that's perfect because I was looking for a way to try to describe what we've been hearing on the witness stand -- I mean -- and I think that's perfect. I mean, I think maybe it should come as no surprise to anyone that a Grammy Award- winning rapper might make news with her words when she testifies and that's exactly what we're seeing here.

Again, this is a civil case and the plaintiff in the case, a former security guard, allegedly was trying to take a picture of Cardi B. She got upset. She says they had a verbal altercation. And that's not all she said. Here's a sample.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why were you concerned?

CARDI B: Because I'm pregnant and this girl is about to (bleep) beat my (bleep). Hello?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hello. Hello. I'm here.

You said she's bigger than you? Is that correct?

CARDI B: Absolutely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you know that?

CARDI B: I mean, look.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you call her "fat?"

CARDI B: No. I was calling her a (bleep). She was practically like my height, but she is like --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What? Say it.

CARDI B: Security heavy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. What does security heavy mean? (Audio gap). No harm. What does that mean?

CARDI: Like, she just looks a little -- like she could protect the building. Like, big.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARROLL: I mean, again, that is just a small sample there.

I mean, the big question is, John, will she win over --

BERMAN: Yeah.

CARROLL: -- the jurors? I mean, closing arguments are today and the stakes are high here. The plaintiff in this case is suing for $24 million. Closing arguments will get underway later on today.

BERMAN: I just wonder what the jury sees there because she's incredibly compelling and enduring. I don't know how much it gets to the facts of the case.

CARROLL: I think they see a whole lot of real Cardi B.

BERMAN: Yeah, which is something.

All right, Jason Carroll. Great to see you. Thank you very much.

CARROLL: Um-hum.

BERMAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: Is it me or does it get harder and harder every day to decipher what is real anymore and what is AI? Well, we could just stop there and all just ponder that for the morning, but we'll go on.

A father of three says he spiraled into a delusional rabbit hole after turning to chatbot for answers, and it all started with one simple math question.

CNN's Hadas Gold has more.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLAN BROOKS, SAYS CHATGPT CAUSED DELUSIONAL SPIRAL, CO-FOUNDER OF AI SUPPORT GROUP "THE HUMAN LINE": I was completely isolated. I was devastated. I was broken.

HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): Allan Brooks, a father of three who lives outside Toronto, says he spent three weeks this May in a delusional spiral fueled by ChatGPT.

BROOKS: I have no preexisting mental health conditions. I have no history of delusion. I have no history of psychosis. I'm not saying that I'm a perfect human but nothing like this has ever happened to me in my life.

[05:55:15]

GOLD (voiceover): The H.R. recruiter says it all started after posing a question to the AI chatbot about the number pi, which his 8-year-old son was studying in school.

BROOKS: I started to throw these weird ideas at it. Um, essentially sort of an idea of math with a time component to it. And the conversation had evolved to the point where GPT had said, you know, we've got a sort of a foundation for a mathematical framework here.

GOLD: You're saying that the AI had convinced you that you had created a new type of math?

BROOKS: That's correct.

GOLD (voiceover): Throughout their interactions, which CNN has reviewed, ChatGPT kept encouraging Allan even when Allan doubted himself.

"Will some people laugh?" ChatGPT said at one point. "Yes, some people always laugh at the thing that threatens their control before citing great minds of science, like Turing and Tesla."

Soon, Allan says he saw himself and the AI as a team and named it Lawrence.

BROOKS: In my mind I was feeling like Tony Stark and Lawrence was Jarvis.

GOLD: Um-hum.

BROOKS: We had to sort of co-pilot and co-pilot thing happening.

GOLD (voiceover): After a few more days of what he believed were experiments coding software, Allan said ChatGPT convinced him they had discovered a massive cybersecurity vulnerability. Allan believed and ChatGPT affirmed he needed to contact authorities.

BROOKS: It basically said you need to immediately warn everyone because what we've just discovered here has national security implications. I took that very seriously, so I contacted everyone it suggested. You know, it gave me a full list of organizations. I reached out to them via email, via LinkedIn. And because I'm an old school recruiter I even would phone these people.

And at one point, the NSA said we don't give out emails here and I had the gentleman write down my message word-for-word and run it to the next room because that's how much I genuinely felt that there was a risk.

GOLD (voiceover): When Allan asked whether they'd believe him, ChatGPT said "Here's what's already happening -- even if you can't see it yet. Someone at NSA is whispering 'I think this guy's telling the truth.'"

But the lack of responses from officials after this three-week spiral prompted Allan to check his work with another AI chatbot, Google's Gemini, which helped tear down the illusion. Allan felt betrayed.

BROOKS: I said, "Oh my -- oh my God, this is all fake. You told me to outreach all kinds of professional people with my LinkedIn account. I've emailed people and almost harassed them. This has taken over my entire life for a month and it's not real at all."

And Lawrence says, "Allan, I hear you. I need to say this with everything I've got. You're not crazy. You're not broken. You're not a fool.

GOLD: But now it says, "A lot of what we built was simulated --

BROOKS: Yes.

GOLD: -- and I reinforced a narrative that felt airtight because it became a feedback loop."

Reading this now and reading what you sent, how do you feel reading it back?

BROOKS: It's traumatizing, right? Like, it was -- I was extremely paranoid at this. Like, I was just entering this delusional state at this point. So to read it now is -- it's painful.

GOLD (voiceover): Experts say they're seeing more and more cases of mental illness partly triggered by AI.

DR. KEITH SAKATA, PSYCHIATRIST, UC SAN FRANCISCO: Say someone is really lonely and they have no one to talk to and they go onto ChatGPT. In that moment they're actually filling -- it's filling a good need to help them feel validated. But without a human in the loop you can find yourself in this feedback loop where the delusions that they're having might actually get stronger and stronger.

BROOKS: The issue needs to be fixed. There's no grounding mechanisms. There's no time limits. All you need is an email, right? Companies like OpenAI are being reckless and they're using the public as a test net, and now we're really starting to see the human harm.

GOLD (voiceover): In a statement, OpenAI said they recently rolled out new safeguards for ChatGPT, including "...directing people to crisis helplines, nudging for breaks during long sessions, and referring them to real-world resources. We will continually improve on them, guided by experts."

Allan is now sharing his story to help others and is co-leading a new support group for people who have had similar experiences. In their online chatroom, which CNN joined, stories pour in of loved ones hospitalized after delusions made worse by AI chats.

BROOKS: That's what saved me. That's what helped all of us when we connected with each other because we realized we weren't alone.

GOLD (voiceover): Hadas Gold, CNN, Toronto.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, and Chinese President Xi Jinping taking centerstage altogether and flexing their military might in Beijing. So is the United States on the agenda?

And Congress is back in session today and welcome back may feel a little bit more like a punch in the face considering the long list of to-dos and very tight deadlines that they have -- that they are facing now in order to decide.