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Outrage over a Charlotte Train Murder; Letter Released from Epstein Book; Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) is Interviewed about the Epstein Letter and the Immigration Crackdown; Israel Attacks Hamas Leadership in Qatar. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 09, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And rising absenteeism. But stressed that this slide in academic performance began long before Covid-19. Other potential factors attributing to this trend that they pointed out in this report are increased screen time, shorter attention spans, and also fewer students reading those full books, like you mentioned, Kate, at the beginning there, from start to the end. Three books a year. Not what we want to hear.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Isabel Rosales, thank you so much for the reporting. A lot to learn from this, no pun intended there.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking this morning, the transportation secretary threatens to pull federal funding from Charlotte's transit system after a woman is stabbed to death on a train there.

We're standing by for reaction from President Trump after a House committee released a photo of a birthday letter sent to Jeffrey Epstein that bears what looks like Donald Trump's signature.

And the baseball team that is bigger than the Beatles. The Savannah Bananas. And the triumphant return of one of our most famous guests ever.

Sara is out. I'm John Berman, with Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BOLDUAN: This morning, in the wake of the deadly train attack in Charlotte, North Carolina, the transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, and the FBI director are now saying that they are investigating. The case has quickly become a political flashpoint, at the same time as the Trump administration vowing to crack down on crime in largely predominantly democratically led cities, Secretary Duffy is now threatening to pull federal funding over this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN DUFFY, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: I can't pull money today from their transit system. I actually have to do an investigation. That's what the law requires.

I guarantee all your viewers that if I find what I think I'm going to find, they are not going to have your federal tax dollars going to their public transportation system. Zero. None. Nada.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: It was a horrific, unprovoked stabbing attack and it was caught on security camera. And the video you will find disturbing. What you see there is 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska. See -- she's a Ukrainian refugee who fled the Russian war to find safety here. She boarded that train on August 22nd. She sat down, as you see. Just four minutes later, that man sitting behind her, out of nowhere, with no warning, gets up and stabs her in the neck. Zarutska died on that train from her injuries.

CNN's Dianne Gallagher on top of this for us from Charlotte.

Dianne, what else is being learned now about the suspect? What are we hearing now from his family?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate, CNN spoke with the suspect, 34-year-old DeCarlos Brown's mother and sister. They say that for the past few years they've been trying to get him treatment for mental health issues. And, at this point, he is homeless. That's also according to court records.

Now, he was charged with first degree murder. He was hospitalized for treatment of a laceration. And a judge ordered a 60-day psychiatric evaluation.

Brown has a lengthy criminal record, including convictions for armed robbery, felony larceny, and breaking and entering. State records show that he spent just over five years in prison for robbery with a dangerous weapon and was released in 2020. His mother and sister told my colleague, Jeff Winter, that his mental health seemed to deteriorate quite a bit after getting out of prison. His sister said he became aggressive. She said he was diagnosed as schizophrenic and also suffered from hallucinations and paranoia.

In January of this year, at a hospital, actually, he began calling 911, claiming that a manmade body -- a manmade substance had been put in his body and it was controlling him. Police told him to stop doing that. He continued. He was arrested. A judge let him go on a promise to appear.

The Trump White House and the president himself have focused on that, releasing a statement saying that that move left him, quote, "free to slaughter an innocent woman just months later."

They have talked about the city of Charlotte and its leadership much in the way they've talked about other cities, trying to crack down on Democrats they say are soft on crime.

Now, the Charlotte mayor, Vi Lyles, releasing another statement on Monday, this one much tougher in nature, saying, "what we know is this was a tragic failure by the courts and magistrates. Our police officers arrest people only to have them quickly released. We need a bipartisan solution to address repeat offenders who do not face consequences for their actions, and those who cannot get treatment for their mental illness and are allowed to be on the streets."

Now, you highlighted the statement from the secretary of transportation. The FBI director has said that they are looking into this as well. And look, also, Kate, it is primary election day here in Charlotte.

[09:05:04]

It is still to be determined on whether what happened on the light rail here to Iryna Zarutska will impact any of those lawmakers as they go for re-election here in their primary battle today.

BOLDUAN: Dianne Gallagher, thank you for your reporting.

John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, will President Trump respond to the new twist in the Jeffrey Epstein case after the House Oversight Committee released a trove of documents, including a letter included in a book for Epstein's 50th birthday in 2003. The note is outlined by a suggestive drawing of a woman. At the bottom it bears a signature that reads, "Donald." The president has previously denied writing it. In fact, he's suing "The Wall Street Journal" for $10 billion for first reporting on it back in July. But that was before we all got a look at it.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt issued a new denial saying the president did not draw it and he did not sign it.

Now, at the top is the signature in the Epstein book. At the bottom left are signatures released by the White House that it says do not match. But the thing is, there are even more examples, like the one on the bottom right from the 1996 letter he wrote to Rudy Giuliani, and House Democrats are also highlighting another alleged page from the birthday book showing Epstein and a longtime Mar-a-Lago member joking about selling a woman to Donald Trump with a giant mocked up check.

Let's get right to CNN's Kevin Liptak from the White House with the latest.

Kevin.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's really a deny, deny, deny approach that you're seeing from the White House. And they really seized on it almost immediately after Democrats on the House Oversight Committee released this letter. You saw the deputy chief of staff saying it's not his signature. Karoline Leavitt saying he did not sign the letter.

But I think when you look at these comparisons, what the White House is pointing to are more recent signatures of the president when he signed both his first name and his last name. When you look at instances of when the president just signed his first name, when he just signed "Donald," it does look pretty similar. And so, how much weight, I think, that those denials will carry with the American people remains to be seen.

Certainly one place where it is resonating is in the MAGA echo chamber. You hear conservative influencers like Charlie Kirk, like Benny Johnson all backing up the presidents' denials here, which I think underscores just how much the president and his allies had been hoping to move on from this whole matter. And, in fact, in this building, there had been a real belief that they were successful in trying to tamp down on some of this fear. They weren't necessarily feeling the same heat that they were feeling over the summer in releasing more information about Jeffrey Epstein, but also releasing more information about the president's relationship with him.

Now, seeing this letter in black and white, I think serves to rekindle some of those questions, even if it doesn't necessarily provide all the answers. It also raises some questions about the White House's credibility here. Remember back when "The Wall Street Journal" first reported on this letter, the vice president, J.D. Vance, said it was "complete and utter B.S." Now, last night, the vice president stopping short of saying that the letter doesn't exist, but he does say that it's another fake scandal designed to smear Trump.

Remember, in his lawsuit against "The Wall Street Journal," he's suing them for $10 billion. The president and his lawyers said in court filings that the letter was non-existent, that no authentic letter or drawing exists.

Now, that lawsuit will proceed. Karoline Leavitt says that the president will continue to aggressively pursue litigation.

We will hear from Karoline Leavitt at 1:00 p.m. today. We'll hear from President Trump himself a few hours after that. He'll be in the Oval Office around 4:30 signing a proclamation. That will be his first chance to say, in his own words, how, in his view, this whole letter came about.

John.

BERMAN: Well, the letter was turned over by the Epstein estate to the House Oversight Committee. Something clearly exists there.

Kevin Liptak, at the White House, thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Joining us right now is Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois. He sits on that House Oversight Committee that released these documents.

Congressman, thanks for the time.

The White House reaction. Kevin Liptak just laid it out. Karoline Leavitt saying clearly after this release, "it's very clear President Trump did not draw this picture and he did not sign it. President Trump's legal team will continue to aggressively pursue litigation."

Among -- you could describe it as kind of like more head scratching aspects of this is that the existence of this, even if it was allegedly the president of the United States who -- who signed this, it doesn't show or prove wrongdoing because of its existence, but its existence is getting harder to deny. Why do you think the president is fighting -- pushing back and fighting this so hard?

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): I don't know, but I don't think that the folks at "The Wall Street Journal" are losing sleep over the president's lawsuit.

In any case, I think that at this point, given, you know, you can't really trust Donald Trump with regard to his claims about the Epstein situation.

[09:10:09]

We need the production of the full files. We've received 33,000 pages so far, largely documents that are already in the public domain. We need the rest of those documents. As the survivors of the Epstein abuse case told us the other day, they need justice, but we also need accountability, and we need to know how to prevent this from ever happening again.

BOLDUAN: Congressman, the attorneys for the Epstein estate had said that they're going to continue to produce more documentation because of the subpoena. Is there any indication or any suggestion of what more could be produced by the Epstein estate?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I don't know. One of the things that I'm very curious about are financial records. Yesterday, Senator Wyden sent a letter to Scott Bessent of the Treasury Department saying that there were more than one billion --

BOLDUAN: Wyden's been pushing on that for years, actually, yes.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Yes. There's more than $1 billion in wire transaction activity related to this sex trafficking ring, including a highly dubious $170 million payment from Leon Black to Jeffrey Epstein for, quote/unquote, tax and estate planning advice, which seems laughable on its face.

Anyway, we need to know, as the survivors and their attorneys said the other day, how to follow the money. If we can follow the money, we'll understand who made payments and who received the payments and how this trafficking ring actually continued.

BOLDUAN: That gets to kind of the broader question of what you said, what the survivors have asked for, some level of accountability finally. The chairman of the committee had called it actually appalling, as was his words, of the Oversight Committee, that Democrats on the committee are, in his view, cherry picking documents and politicizing the information that they -- that you all received.

Do you think, in the grand scheme of searching for accountability for the survivors, that this birthday book is important?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I think so. I think that the -- any documents at this point from the Epstein estate are important. They give clues as to what might have happened with regard to the sex trafficking ring. And certainly, you know, the president not wanting to produce these documents is a head scratcher. We don't understand why. And we need to get to the bottom of exactly what's going on with these files.

BOLDUAN: The Department of Homeland Security has announced a deportation operation in Illinois that -- announced it just yesterday. Obviously, your district encompasses some of Chicago, the burbs of Chicago. Who was arrested? How big is this? Is this any different from earlier ICE operations? What are you learning?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: We don't know yet. So far they've -- they've begun their operations. We don't know the extent of it. Except that of all think tanks, the Cato Institute recently did an analysis -- it's a conservative think tank -- of ICE's arrests. And the vast majority of these arrests are of people who have not committed crimes. Instead, it appears to be an effort to meet Stephen Miller's quota of 3,000 arrests per day, which is what he expects ICE to do every day. And they're just arresting random people, separating families, disrupting communities and, of course, hurting the economy because people aren't working. They're -- they're staying home from school and they're not shopping either.

BOLDUAN: At least so far, I say that so far without a lot of information of what actually has come from these operations, it does not appear to be what's playing out in Chicago, the large scale kind of crime crackdown involving the National Guard, that the president himself had been threatening. Do you think that he is backing off plans to send the National Guard into Chicago?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: No, not necessarily. I think we have to be prepared for anything. And it's extremely important that we continue to speak out, especially about the fact that any deployment of federal troops in Chicago or any other city would be a violation of the Posse Comitatus Law, which prohibits federal troops from doing domestic law enforcement. There are no emergencies or exigencies that would apply here that would allow him to deploy the troops.

I've introduced legislation, actually as an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act prohibiting the deployment of any federal troops without the consent of the governor of the state in which they're being deployed. I hope to move that this week.

BOLDUAN: Congressman, thank you for coming on.

John.

BERMAN: All right, what would you do if you saw a turtle in the road? Potential jurors questioned by the man accused of trying to assassinate then candidate Donald Trump at his Florida golf club.

A professor found dead in a dog park. New details just coming in on the investigation. [09:15:01]

And a high stakes day for Apple. Will a new phone with reportedly a shorter battery life help them catch up?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

BERMAN: All right, we do have breaking news. We are getting reports of explosions in Doha, the capital of Qatar, and beginning to see pictures coming back from that capital city. And we are getting word that this was part of a targeted Israeli attack.

Let's get right to CNN's Jeremy Diamond, in Jerusalem with the very latest.

Jeremy, what have you learned?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: John, this is an absolutely extraordinary moment that we are witnessing right now. A very large plume of smoke above the Qatari capital of Doha. And paired with that, an Israeli military statement saying that they have, quote, "conducted a precise strike targeting the senior leadership of the Hamas terrorist organization," end quote.

I have just gotten off the phone with an Israeli official who confirmed to me that that statement is indeed about that very same blast in Doha, meaning that the Israeli military, not even Israel's intelligence service, but its military, actually conducted a strike in Qatar targeting Hamas leadership.

[09:20:17]

And, of course, the moment in time at which this is happening, amid this renewed push to negotiate a ceasefire and hostage release deal by the United States, President Trump putting a lot of political capital behind that. And now Israel seems to have targeted the very Hamas leadership that is in the midst of those negotiations.

Doha, the Qatari capital, is where several senior Hamas leaders are currently based and have been based throughout much of this war in Gaza, namely Hamas' leader, Khalil al-Hayya. Khalil al-Hayya has been not only Hamas' leader in the wake of the killing of -- of Yahya Sinwar, but he has also been the chief negotiator engaged not only through the mediators but also at times with U.S. officials in negotiations over the future of the war in Gaza, the future of the fate of the hostages being held inside the Gaza Strip throughout these nearly two years of war.

We are also learning VR Tal Shalev (ph), that the targets do indeed include Khalil al-Hayya, who I was just talking about, and another official by the name of Jabareen. It's unclear as of now what the results of this strike were, whether or not Hamas' leadership in Doha has been killed, who has been killed, whether any of them are injured. We simply do not know at this stage. But the reporting this hour, John, is sure to be an earthquake in this

region, not only for the prospects of negotiating a ceasefire agreement to end the war in Gaza, to secure the release of the hostages, but also as it relates to Israel's relations with these gulf countries. Although Israel does not have official formal diplomatic ties with Qatar, Qatar has been the key mediator in these ceasefire negotiations throughout the war. It has been a key partner in trying to reach some kind of an agreement here. And this will certainly, certainly damage those relations as well going forward.

BERMAN: I want to put a little more context around this, Jeremy, because this is an extraordinary event. And I mean that quite literally. I don't believe there is any precedent for an Israeli military attack on Qatar, at least not that I can remember. And I think the Israelis will say it's not on Qatar, but it certainly is in Qatar. It was an air attack which had targets inside the capital city. So that in and of itself, as you say, is something we just haven't seen.

And also the targeting of Hamas leadership fits a pattern now that we have seen from Israel over the last, what, 18 months? The assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, inside Lebanon, Yahya Sinwar, the operational leader of Hamas, inside Gaza itself. But now to go after the Hamas officials who openly operate inside Qatar, a very significant development.

What might that mean for negotiations?

DIAMOND: Listen, it was in the first days of the war that Israel's security establishment and its political leadership made very clear that at the end of the day, whether it would take months, whether it would take years, they would go after every single member of Hamas whom they ultimately deemed responsible for the horrific attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. And we have watched them tick down that list over the course of nearly two years of war, both inside the Gaza Strip, where they killed Yahya Sinwar, who was Hamas' -- the primary architect of that October 7th massacre, ultimately rose to become Hamas' overall leader, both inside and outside of the Gaza Strip. Whether it was Ismail Haniyeh, whom the Israeli Mossad killed in a special operation inside the Iranian capital of Tehran. Or when you were talking about Iranian proxies outside of -- of -- of Israel, like, as you said, the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah. I mean, Israel has been going down its enemies list over the course of the last two years. And this certainly appears to be a continuation of those efforts.

And also making clear, from the Israeli side, that they do not see a distinction between the political leaders of Hamas, the leaders of Hamas' political wing, and the leaders of Hamas' military wing. And this is yet another example of that in a way that the Israelis are demonstrating that not only is no one outside of their reach, but that they will, you know, go to any lengths, including striking inside of a country like Qatar, which has been a reliable mediator between the Israeli and the Palestinian side, that they will go and conduct these strikes.

[09:25:15]

And again, just to focus on the timing of this, John, it is not the first time that we have seen, at a very critical juncture in these ceasefire negotiations, that Israel has gone and killed the primary negotiator or decision maker on the other side. Again, we do not yet know whether Israel was successful in this strike in terms of eliminating Hamas' leadership, part of its leadership, the entirety of its leadership. That will remain to be seen. But regardless, this will have enormous implications for the future of the war in Gaza, for the fate of the hostages and the possibility of bringing all of this to an end.

BERMAN: You know, Jeremy Diamond, stand by for a second, if you will. Check back in with your sources if you need a second on that because the next big bit of information will be whether or not this was successful or not.

In the meantime, I want to bring in Kim Dozier, CNN global affairs analyst.

You've been listening to these reports, beginning to see some pictures trickling in. We'll get them up for you as soon as we verify the pictures that we're seeing of these explosions inside Qatar. But what do you make of the timing and the messaging here, Kim?

KIM DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, President Trump had just said something about giving the last warning in the next 48 hours. So, this could have been coordinated with Washington, but we don't know. But it is shocking that the Israelis would attack inside a gulf capital where there's -- there's no combat activity whatsoever. The last time they did something like this was an assassination that allegedly targeted a Hamas leader in the United Arab Emirates in 2010 in a hotel. And those agents were caught on camera. That's how that attack was revealed.

But to do an airstrike in the middle of a very busy capital. Doha is a very modern city. And the time of day, there would have been a lot of traffic around. So, I've been trying to reach Qatari contacts to ask if any civilians were killed or injured in this attack. I think that will depend -- that will determine what a lot of the reaction is going to be, just how precise this was.

But, you know, these were the people that Qatar was negotiating through. And historically, the Hamas officials in Doha were the ones more likely to say yes to negotiations, to compromises, than the more hardline Hamas leaders inside Gaza.

BERMAN: Yes, you just ran down a list of questions I have. You know, what does this mean --

DOZIER: Yes.

BERMAN: If it's successful for Hamas? What does it mean for Qatar and its role as an intermediary? And what does it mean for the United States as it -- as the president in the Trump administration is standing by watching and involving itself where it can in negotiations.

DOZIER: Yes. If it proves that the U.S. was informed of this ahead of time, it's really going to damage relations with Doha. And Qatar has been a key nation to do outreach, for instance, to Iran, to several different actors that the U.S. normally doesn't talk to directly.

But most importantly, with the U.N. General Assembly coming up, there was a hope that some sort of a last ditch compromise deal would be reached, that Hamas would agree to this, turning over all 48 Israeli hostages, including those deceased, in a 48 hour period in exchange for thousands of Palestinian prisoners, and that that might forestall this imminent Israel full scale invasion of Gaza City where Israeli officials have said they're going to basically hit every single building because they think Hamas has tunnels underneath and has command centers throughout the city. And that's going to be devastating to those who are refusing to leave.

I don't see how Hamas says yes to that after this strike.

BERMAN: I think we did just get some video in. I saw a flash frame go up there of smoke rising over the skyline in Doha. You can see right there a pan. Not sure I see anything in this shot, but there are others that we have in right now. Maybe smoke over that archway right there.

We're going to keep scouring, getting more video, getting reports in. Jeremy Diamond is working his sources. Kimberly Dozier, don't go far.

Much more on our breaking news just ahead. This is a significant development that may shuffle some of the diplomatic efforts going on to end the Israeli war with Hamas.

[09:30:01]

An extraordinary, unprecedented moment with Israel trying to target Hamas officials inside the gulf nation of Qatar.

Stay with us.

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