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Unarmed North Koreans Killed in Unsuccessful Navy SEAL Mission; NRA Opposes idea of Banning Transgender Americans from Owning Guns; Records Show School Doors Weren't Closing Before Uvalde Massacre; Meditation, Diet Could be a Drug-Free Method for Easing Pain. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired September 05, 2025 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: ... killed those on board. Evidence later suggested the boat was actually carrying North Korean civilians who were diving for shellfish. That Times piece goes on to say that quote, officials familiar with the mission said the SEALs pulled the bodies into the water to hide them from the North Korean authorities. Adding that the SEALs punctured the boat crew's lungs with knives to make sure their bodies would sink.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: The report also says President Trump directly signed off on the mission, but key members of Congress were not notified. The White House and Pentagon have declined to comment. CNN has also reached out to the U.S. Special Operations Command and North Korea's permanent mission to the United Nations for comment.

Joining us now to discuss CNN national security analyst and former deputy director of National Intelligence, Beth Sanner. Beth, thank you so much for being here with us. It is -- it is a crazy thing to kind of go through all the details of this. You were briefing the president at the time of this operation. Were you aware of it at the time?

BETH SANNER, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: I was actually not briefing him, but I was in charge of the president's daily brief, putting that material together and I wasn't aware, but I wouldn't think I would be or should be aware such an operation would be really tightly held by a handful of people. And that's how it should be.

HILL: So you're saying would be really tightly held. Understandable, right? We're talking about SEAL Team 6, and yet I would say the underlying current of this reporting in The Times is about. Making sure that even missions that are not successful are shared, and the case is basically made that it was not shared because it wasn't a success, and that by holding back on that information -- by holding back on notifying Congress of failed missions as opposed to just the successes that this actually gives lawmakers an inaccurate view or assessment of the capabilities of the U.S. military. Does that concern you? And would you agree, actually?

SANNER: So, first, I'm primarily concerned that this is in the press. I think that this is -- this is a leak. It is illegal and unconscionable. Those people who were aware of such a sensitive operation should not have leaked it. That said, I think absolutely Congress should be made aware because the American people elected their officials and they count on them to be aware of this kind of very sensitive and to to think through and to work with the administration on such things. As Senator Warner, longtime member of the Intelligence Committee, said recently in response to this, you know, this is the role of oversight. And I will note that the article says that in 2021, the Biden administration was alarmed by this and they did brief Congress about this operation.

HILL: Right.

SANNER: So the fact that it's in the press. Didn't solve anything right? It was already briefed.

HILL: So they I will say in terms of the reporting, the sources were anonymous because of concerns, but several people said the reason again that they were speaking out now is because they were worried that this information was not getting out there. So what I'm hearing from you is I understand your frustration with the fact that this was being leaked. But are you saying that that 2021 briefing basically clears that all up? So this isn't still a concern if there is?

SANNER: No.

HILL: OK.

SANNER: So I think what these people are saying to agree with you, and sorry, I digressed on that, but I think it's important to say. But the point, I think the reason is probably that there are people who are worried that this administration is going to do something like this again, right? They look at what happened with the Venezuelan. operation and they -- and the warnings by the administration that there's more to come on such kind of operations against cartels.

And The Hill is largely out of the loop is the implication of that. I don't know if that's true or not, but I think that that's really what is behind the timing of this. It's not about the 2019 operation, but as you said, it's concerned about what's next and and the role of Congress to be monitoring those things, which I think is fair.

DEAN: Yes, and Beth to that point --

SANNER: That's really important.

DEAN: Yes, the the the role of Congress, it does seem like there's always this push and pull between the executive and the legislative branch. Obviously the federal law is what it is. They are supposed to be notified about these things, but it doesn't always happen. What do you think about that? And is this just something we're going to continue to see happen?

SANNER: Well, OK, I'm not a lawyer here, so I hate to use --

DEAN: Fair enough. SANNER: -- those kind of mea culpa excuses. But in the intelligence world, the notification of Congress is a little bit more straightforward, and it's required in the statute. I'm not as familiar with a military operation and how and what the requirements are, but certainly they should be. I mean, I think that that would be the expectation of anyone involved in this, and that's probably why the Biden administration went forward and did that notification after the fact, right? And I do think it's a concern.

HILL: Beth, before we let you go, the timeline here is really interesting. So this apparently happened right before that February 2019 meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong-un in Vietnam. Of course, then they walked into the DMZ in June. After that, it's unclear whether North Korea actually knew about this, but we do know that after that June meeting that they fired more missiles than ever before. What does that tell you about what North Korea may or may not know and the potential reaction even just to this report today?

SANNER: Who knows if they knew or not, but I suspect that we are going to have some kind of reaction, obviously, from Kim Jong-un. In 2014, he reacted to the release of a comedy, a comedy that was about a potential assassination of him -- that's what the movie was about -- with a huge hack on Sony Pictures. That was a comedy. This is real life and the real life infiltration of North Korean sovereign territory. That is not going to be a comedy for Kim Jong-un.

And I don't know how he will react, but I will say that coming out of the the presence that he just had with President Xi and with President Putin in China, he's certainly feeling emboldened and feels that those countries have his back in terms of the North Korea's development, very significant development of nuclear weapons and their ability to deliver those weapons. And so, you know, we should be concerned about the implications of setting off Kim in this way. It's not the way I would choose.

DEAN: All right, Beth Sanner, always good to see you. Really great context around what is a very interesting story. Thank you so much.

SANNER: Thank you.

HILL: Still ahead here, CNN has obtained years of complaints about malfunctioning doors at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, including the one a shooter would ultimately enter. It is reporting you will only see right here after this quick break.

[08:10:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: This just into CNN. The National Rifle Association is now responding to reports that the Justice Department is weighing the idea of banning transgender people from owning firearms. You remember we brought you that reporting yesterday afternoon, a move in response to last month's mass shooting at a Catholic church, a school in Minneapolis. CNN's Evan Perez joining me now with this. So what are we hearing from the NRA? Are they actually in favor of this proposal?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: No, they're not. They are responding very strongly as we thought they would. They said the Second Amendment isn't up for debate. And the big concern here, as you and I were talking about yesterday, is a slippery slope, right? The idea that the Justice Department can just pass a rule, do use administrative rulemaking, not go to Congress or whatever, and use the process to declare people who have gender dysphoria to be mentally ill and then take away their Second Amendment rights.

And the NRA, in a statement that they posted on social media in response to our reporting, said the following. They said, The NRA supports the Second Amendment rights of all law-abiding Americans to purchase, possess, and use firearms. And they said the NRA does not and will not support any policy proposals that implement sweeping gun bans that arbitrarily strip law-abiding citizens of their Second Amendment rights without due process.

And that is the key part right here, Erica, because in talking to, you know, senior justice officials yesterday, one of the things we heard was, you know, look, we often think that, you know, you need a judge to adjudicate someone under the federal law to be mentally quote- unquote defective, right? But there is another part of the law which basically says that the, you know, you can essentially have a government agency, for instance, declare this to be a mental illness, and that that is enough reason. And so that's where I think the NRA is very concerned.

As you and I were speaking about this yesterday, you know, you could easily see someone use this to say, members of the military, former, you know, veterans who have come back with PTS who are struggling with mental health issues that they should have their rights taken away from them. And of course, that's a big no for a lot of conservatives.

HILL: Yes, absolutely. Certainly an important and interesting development. Evan, appreciate it. Thank you -- Jessica.

DEAN: Now to a CNN exclusive. CNN has obtained unreleased maintenance records from Rob Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that show the school's entry doors had numerous problems prior to the 2022 shooting. In April of that year, a complaint was submitted that stated, quote, West Door not closing right. That complaint is part of public documents requested by CNN, and one month later, that complaint was submitted. After that complaint was submitted, a teenager armed with an assault rifle opened that very door and walked into the school where he killed 19 fourth graders and two teachers.

Let's bring in CNN's Leigh Waldman, who has more on our exclusive reporting. Leigh, what more can you tell us about these issues that were known about with doors on that campus?

LEIGH WALDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jessica, these were long-standing issues that CNN now has the records for, but not through a lawsuit and not through a judge in the appellate court ordering these documents to be released, through our own sources. So we've dug through these maintenance records and found that that west door was having issues closing and latching and staying closed.

In the work order, it was marked complete the next day, but we now know a month after that work order was filed, a gunman entered through that very same door with no issues to carry out his horrible attack that left 19 kids and two teachers dead.

[08:15:00]

Law enforcement entered that same door, but these issues with the doors at Robb Elementary School were not limited just to those exterior doors. There was issues with classroom doors as well, including classroom 111, which is one of the classrooms where this attack happened. We spoke with the former teacher of that classroom, Arne Reyes, who was injured in this attack on May 24th in 2022. He said for three or four years, he reported issues with his classroom doors. These maintenance reports that we've obtained, they back up those claims -- Jessica.

DEAN: And, Leigh, there are still records that are missing that haven't been turned over. What more do you know about those?

WALDMAN: Right, so we had the initial document released last month. 3,500 documents were released. Our sources were telling us this isn't everything, and that includes the phone records for the former UCISD police chief, Pete Arredondo, who was fired and is now facing criminal charges in relation to his response that day.

We know he was using his cell phone that day. He abandoned his police radio outside of the school. We know that he had reached out to the district's chief communications officer and asked her to held the principals to stop calling him. That's part of the records that we're still waiting to get our hands on.

We also know that part of the records that are being withheld include correspondence in relation to his termination and the months leading up to his termination, where his former lawyer was speaking with district officials asking for a settlement offer. And we can now reveal that settlement offer ask was for $1 million. Those records still not out, despite a judge, appellate court, and the school board asking for those records to be released. Our fight for information continues on, and we know it's something that means so much to the survivors and the families who are greatly impacted by this shooting. They said they cannot fully heal until all of this information is out there -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right, Leigh Waldman with the latest on that exclusive reporting. Thank you so much for that.

And still ahead here on CNN NEWS CENTRAL. Coping with pain is part of life, but what do you do when solving that problem isn't as as he is taking some aspirin. CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta is going to tell us what he learned in researching his latest book.

[08:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) HILL: How do you cope with pain? For so many people, maybe it's taking an aspirin or acetaminophen, but that's not always enough.

DEAN: Dr. Sanjay Gupta is back to answer your questions on easing pain in today's paging Dr. Gupta.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: OK, Jessica, Erica, we got a lot of great questions about this, hundreds of questions. Karen Duke wrote in and asked, what effect does diet have on pain? Which food and drink should be limited or eliminated? Which food or drinks could be helpful?

This was fascinating. How we nourish ourselves is the only choice we make about what signals we are taking from our outside world and putting into our inside world, into our bodies, the food that we eat, the drinks that we drink. And we also know that we carry a lot of inflammation around. And if you're already inflamed and then you have an injury of some sort, that can really worsen the pain associated with that injury.

So decreasing the amount of inflammation overall in your diet, that obviously makes sense. And more plants was really the thing, the message that kept coming through when we talked to doctors all around the country.

But there was something else as well, and that is the idea that if you're in pain, keeping a food journal for a period of time, and paying attention to what sorts of foods might actually cause more pain. Because it's going to be different for different people. So try and focus on an anti-inflammatory diet as much as possible, and keep a food journal, and really try and figure out the correlation between what you're eating and the pain that you might be experiencing.

Arun Jindal in San Francisco called in and said this, I really wish there was a way to measure the pain like body temperature. How far are we from that?

Well, you know, we saw this lab in San Francisco, these researchers who are using these deep brain stimulators, and they're basically listening all over the brain to figure out when it's in pain, what do they see? And they were able to find these areas that were sort of these pain areas in the brain. They were able to see energy changes in the brain there. They were able to measure that and even interrupt that.

So there are these biomarkers that are sort of coming about. If you go to an emergency room, you'll be asked about your pain, usually asked to point to a smiley face or a frowny face, give a number of one to ten. But they're also looking at your heart rate and your blood pressure and your respiratory rate, trying to correlate that with your level of pain as well. So there are these certain biomarkers.

But one thing, Arun, I just want to point out is that ultimately the patient is the North Star. They're the ones who can really describe the pain best, how severe it is, where it is, what makes it better or worse. And that's something you have to pay attention to no matter how good we get at actually measuring these biomarkers.

Take one more question, Evelyn from Boca Raton. She writes and says she fell backwards and landed on her lower back 14 years ago. She's been doing dry needling and medications, but the pain does not go away. And she wonders if meditation or deep controlled breathing can help get control of the pain.

First of all, Evelyn, I feel for you. My mom went through something very similar to this. I wrote about this in the book, and I was amazed at how much pain like that just hijacks your whole identity. So I hear you, and I can really understand what you're saying. The answer to your question is yes. And I think anecdotally, we have known for some time that things like meditation can help with pain. I'm not saying it can cure it, but there's been a desire to get evidence behind how much meditation can really help.

[08:25:00]

And I spent time with researchers who've been looking at this in San Diego, but in clinics all around the country. And the way that they sort of framed it, was that they said that meditation, through these various protocols, can give you similar relief to five milligrams of OxyContin. That's pretty remarkable, right? Five milligrams of OxyContin, an opioid. Could you get the same sort of pain relief just through meditation? Yes. Now both have a half life. Neither is going to cure your pain, but both for at least a period of time can bring your pain scores way down.

So think about that. It's something that I talked a lot about in the book and in the documentary. Hopefully it can provide some relief for people -- Jessica, Erica.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: Sanjay, thank you so much and don't forget you can watch Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports, "IT DOESN'T HAVE TO HURT". It's this Sunday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific right here on CNN, after our show, after my show.

DEAN: After your show, yes.

HILL: Join us. Sunday night, you first join Jess, then Sanjay.

DEAN: Then you see Dr. Sanjay Gupta, that's right.

Nearly 500 people detained by ICE in a massive raid at a Hyundai plant in Georgia, the very facility the state's Republican governor had touted as a major economic boom. We've got details on this coming up.

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