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Trump Again Calls Epstein Case A Hoax; Some GOP Senators Grow Weary Of RFK Jr. As Trump Stands By Him; Unarmed North Koreans Killed In Unsuccessful Navy SEAL Mission; RFK Jr. Expected to Link Tylenol Use During Pregnancy To Autism. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 05, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

GERALDO RIVERA, FORMER FOX NEWS HOST: Obviously, by huge measure, less more significant than Epstein, I believe. But it's one of those things that will be enduring. It will stay forever. The conspiracy theorists will bring it up a century from now, it seems to me. Epstein's Island, who took his money, what did they do? Who were the victims? What did the, you know, people in power do to these poor young girls?

You know, it's one of those things where, as long as there is a driver in the House of Representatives like Nancy Mace, for instance, of South Carolina, you're going to have this issue around. It's going to haunt, I think, it's going to haunt Republicans. It's something that the president will be increasingly frustrated by, not that he can get much more frustrated than he is already. But it's an issue that, you know, he calls it a hoax. The women in Congress say, hey, yes, let's see who's involved, if anyone.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Right, well, and certainly for the survivors, that was very real, what they endured. And in an interesting way, Geraldo, I'm sitting here thinking about, back on the campaign trail, people who are now in big positions of power, like Kash Patel, Dan Bongino, they were the ones that were pushing a lot of these conspiracy theories, in a way, is this kind of their own making?

RIVERA: Well, I agree with you. I mean, Dan Bongino particularly, you know, you're someone I had a, you know, a pretty close, although antagonistic relationship with during the Fox years when he appeared, you know, almost nightly on Hannity and I was often his foil. It seems, you know, he did build a career and other conspiracy theorists with their radio programs and podcasts. That there was this deep, dark, you know, history that needed to be, you know, unearthed.

Now, however, where the Republicans are in power and President Trump himself has a relationship of -- had a relationship of some sort with Epstein. We've seen the photographs. We've seen the president quoted on Epstein liking, you know, women, some of them quite young, you know, right, right to the point, right to the heart of what the Epstein scandal is out. And ironically, the bitter irony from the point of view of the Republicans is that Donald Trump has more connection to Jeffrey Epstein than virtually any other known person, you know, certainly any other known person of power. So I think that it will be very difficult for the president to shake

it. It's going to be very frustrating for him. Maybe the House will see it his way, you know, and end this investigation. Or maybe the women will prevail and, you know, the whole 100,000 pages of documents will be released. There's already been a document dump, 30,000 plus, much of it already in the public record. But, you know, it's still more to go. And who knows, given the history with conspiracies past, how long this thing will run.

DEAN: I want to ask you about something else in the headlines. That was HHS Secretary RFK Jr.'s testimony in front of Congress yesterday. President Trump praised him, saying that he likes the fact that he's different. Of course, bringing RFK into the MAGA fold was a big, you know, point in the 20 -- turning point in the 2024 election.

There is the medical piece of this that I think is really worth talking about, but for our purposes, let's put that to the side and talk about the political piece of this. Do you think that RFK is a political winner for Donald Trump, that he's politically good, his good is outweighing his negativity at this point.

RIVERA: I do. I believe that RFK Jr., he may be unpopular, and I've seen your polls from today showing 45-55 disapproval. What needs to be added to that, parenthetically, is he's the most popular, you know, Trumpian cabinet member. Yes, so he does bring the MAHA crew, Make America Healthy Again, the naturalists, the people against the red dye number two, the people who believe that the vaccines cause autism. He brings that crowd in to buttress the president and his various political pursuits.

He's got the Kennedy demeanor, the the Kennedy swagger accent. He's a Kennedy. Whether or not the Kennedy clan seeks to embrace him, he is a Kennedy and I believe that you know this is what the president wanted. He wanted a disruptor. He wanted someone who, you know, put politics aside.

[15:35:00]

He may have gotten a lot more than he bargained for, but it just seems to me that RFK has survived the first, you know, world war with Congress.

I think particularly, for example, when he pointed out that Senator Elizabeth Warren had taken over $800,000 from pharmaceutical companies, you know, I think that he scored a big point against a very prominent Democrat, and he totally, I believe, deflated Senator Warren's attack on him. And, of course, with their Massachusetts kind of, you know, background, they have a bitterness that goes back decades.

DEAN: Yes, and the Democrats. And then, obviously, the question, too, how long will the Republicans on that committee hang with him as well? Geraldo Rivera, always great to see you. Thanks so much. We appreciate it.

RIVERA: Thank you. Thank you. Delighted. My pleasure. DEAN: Standing by for a new name. President Trump is expected to soon rebrand the Department of Defense to the Department of War. We're going to discuss with former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. That's next.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: A new report from the New York Times reveals how an unsuccessful Navy SEAL mission led to the deaths of unarmed civilians in North Korea. So this happened in 2019, during President Trump's first term. And according to the Times, the plan involved sneaking U.S. submarines into North Korean waters, planting a device to spy on the country's leader, Kim Jong-un. After the SEALs, though, encountered a North Korean boat, they opened fire, killing everyone on board.

Evidence later suggested that boat was actually carrying North Korean civilians who were diving for shellfish.

Now, as part of the reporting, the Times piece writes quote, Officials familiar with the mission said the seals pulled the bodies into the water to hide them from the North Korean authorities. One adding the SEALs punctured the boat crew's lungs with knives to make sure their bodies would sink.

According to The Times, President Trump directly signed off on that mission. Key members of Congress, however, were not notified. The White House and the Pentagon declined to comment. CNN has also reached out to the U.S. Special Operations Command, as well as North Korea's permanent mission to the United Nations for comment.

Joining us now to discuss Leon Panetta, who of course served as Defense Secretary and also CIA Director under President Obama. Mr. Secretary, always good to see you. In terms of this reporting, what stands out to me, I will say, is this underlying current, right, of the reason that this mission was not more widely shared among officials is because it was not a success. And it seems that the people who spoke on a condition of anonymity with The Times did so because they were raising concerns that it is potentially part of a pattern, warning that holding back and notifying Congress of failed missions ultimately leaves lawmakers with perhaps an artificially rosy and inaccurate assessment of the U.S. military's capabilities.

Would you agree with that assessment and what the outcome could be should this type of information be withheld?

LEON PANETTA, DEFENSE SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, look, I'm a believer that when the United States conducts a very covert, complex and highly classified mission. Like the SEALs -- the SEALs were trying to do, that that is an operation that ought to be briefed to the members, certainly of the intelligence committees, both the House and the Senate, as well as what's called the Gang of Eight, which is the leadership in the Congress. When we did the bin Laden raid, I personally went up and briefed that group with regards to what was up. What was obviously a very complex and sensitive mission because I feel it is important for them to have that knowledge to know when the United States is taking that kind of risk.

HILL: It's also, it's an interesting timeline, too, that is laid out here in the reporting that this mission happened not long before this February 2019 meeting in Vietnam between President Trump and Kim Jong- un. And then, of course, if we fast forward to June, the two were together once again. It came at that meeting, but this is when, of course, President Trump took, I believe it was 20 steps into North Korea.

What's interesting in terms of that timeline is that after that June meeting, The Times reports that is when North Korea fired more missiles than at any other point following that June meeting. It just raises all sorts of questions about timing, including the timing of this story coming out now. Do you see something in that timing?

PANETTA: Well, again, this was obviously a very classified mission, what they were trying to do. As I understand it is to be able to implant a device in North Korea that would give them access to highly sensitive information from North Korea. As CIA director, I can tell you that North Korea is a very hard target, a very tough to break into in order to really get good intelligence. So I understand why the decision was made to try to do this.

But it was risky because the president was meeting with the head of North Korea. And clearly, if this mission went bad as it did, it was going to have serious complications in terms of the relationship between the president and the North Korean leader as it did.

HILL: It'll be interesting to see if this reporting ultimately does impact that relationship in terms of where things stand today.

I do, though, want to move on because I do want to get your take on this executive order, which the president is expected to sign later today. Rebranding the Department of Defense back to the Department of War.

[15:45:00]

And it's important to note, I think, this is not an official name change because the president actually does not have that authority. That has to come from Congress. But when we look at this, what is that message to both the allies and the adversaries of the United States if this is the Department of War?

PANETTA: I, you know, I don't know why the president is doing this. You know, I guess I've read where he thinks that it makes our military look tougher. But let me tell you a name change has nothing to do with the strength of our military. Our military is strong. Because it takes the President and Secretary of Defense to focus on improving our military, investing in our military, investing in our men and women in weapon systems in technology and in capabilities. That's what makes the United States strong, and that's what people pay attention to. They are not going to pay attention to a name change.

HILL: Secretary Leon Panetta, always appreciate your time, sir, thank you.

PANETTA: Good to be with you.

HILL: And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: Breaking news, the Wall Street Journal is reporting Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. is expected to link the use of Tylenol during pregnancy to autism.

DEAN: For months now, Kennedy has promised to reveal the cause of autism by September. CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta is joining us live. Sanjay, good to have you on this. The potential link between Tylenol and autism apparently is not a new theory. What more can you tell us about this?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so first of all, we're talking about a potential association, not a cause and effect. I'm going to say that now and then I'll explain that a little bit more later. But yes, this is something that's been looked at for close to a decade now. All sorts of studies looking at possible exposures to Tylenol in pregnant women and the increased risk of autism. Some studies, early studies showed really no association. Other studies showed a probable or possible association. Again, association, not cause and effect.

Back in 2019, there was a study that came out of Johns Hopkins that said, hey, this is a hard study to do, so let's look at cord blood because women may not always remember if they took Tylenol or how much Tylenol they took or when they took it. So let's look at cord blood and measure how much Tylenol is actually in the cord blood as sort of a way of figuring out how how much exposure these babies had.

And they did find in that study, again, about six years ago, that the highest levels of acetaminophen or Tylenol exposure were associated with a increased likelihood of developing autism. So that was a study that I think a lot of people paid attention to. And then just last month, August of this year, there was a large sort of aggregate of studies, 46 studies, looking at over 100,000 people. Looking again for any associations here and 27 of those 46 studies did find a potential association.

But again, association versus cause and effect is really important here. I think one of the study authors said, look, we know, for example, in hot weather people eat more ice cream. In hot weather, violent crime also goes up. That doesn't mean ice cream and violent crime have anything to do with each other. There's not a cause and effect there.

So this is going to require sort of digging deeper into this and bigger studies, which may be what we hear later this month coming out of HHS.

I will say there is this thing in medicine that we've referred to as sort of the paradox of ubiquity. And what that basically means is when something is really commonly used in society, it is hard to figure out if it's associated with something in particular because people who are taking Tylenol, they may have had fevers. Could the fever have something to do with this? Could there have been something else going on? There's a lot of controls that you have to do, and it's hard with something as ubiquitous or as common as Tylenol.

HILL: Yes, so really important, as you point out, it's not a direct line, a direct link to the automatic cause. Really important to go behind the headlines, which is why we're thankful that we have you, Sanjay, to help us with that.

Also, according to the Wall Street Journal, the secretary is reportedly planning to announce a potential treatment for autism. What do we know about that?

GUPTA: Yes. Well, you know, so it's folate. You guys have heard of folate. This is a B vitamin, folate, folic acid, something that's recommended for all pregnant women already. So this is something that is well known in the world of obstetrics and gynecology. So people typically take this already when they're pregnant. But again, according to the Wall Street Journal, what we may hear is that higher doses of folate or folic acid may be recommended as well for children with autism.

We'll see. I mean, these are -- I think this is pretty speculative at this point. I do want to tell you what the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology has said. They released a statement in response to this potential report coming out.

Acetaminophen has long been established as a safe pain reliever for pregnant individuals during pregnancy. There is no clear evidence that proves a direct relationship between the prudent use of acetaminophen during pregnancy and fetal developmental issues. Neurodevelopmental disorders in particular are multifactorial and very difficult to assess -- associate rather with a singular cause.

Sort of gets at the same point again, there's probably lots of different factors of which acetaminophen might be one. There's been recent evidence looking at genetics. There are autism genes that seem to put people at increased risk of autism. But I think, you know, we'll see what this report says. But again, as you pointed out the beginning, these have been long term studies, some of them over a decade ago.

[15:55:00]

And what we're talking about is an association, not a cause and effect. If we learn more about that, we'll certainly bring it to you.

HILL: Absolutely. Dr. Sanjay Gupta always appreciate it. Thank you.

Stay with us. Just up next year after the break, the closing bell on Wall Street. It's been a very busy day in terms of market reaction to that bleak jobs report. As you can see there, the Dow down more than half a point now, which is a few minutes left to go before the bell. Stay tuned. Kasie Hunt picks things up in "THE ARENA" after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Hi, everyone, I'm Kasie Hunt. Welcome to THE ARENA. Happy Friday to all of us, shall we say.

There is breaking news as we come on the air. We are just under a minute from the closing bell on Wall Street right now. The Dow down around half a point. The S&P down about four-tenths of a point. And of course, the tech-heavy Nasdaq seems to be faring a little bit better today, down just about a tenth of a point.