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22-Year-Old Suspect in Custody in Kirk Shooting; Suspect in Kirk Shooting Being Held Without Bail in Utah County Jail; U.N. Holds Emergency Meeting After Russian Drones Fly into Poland; Trump: Patience with Putin is "Running Out Fast". Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 12, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:00:41]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The suspect in the killing of Charlie Kirk is now in custody, but sources say he's currently not talking to investigators. We're going to break down everything we know about the suspect as the search for a motive intensifies.

Plus, expanding the crackdown. President Trump now vowing to tackle crime in Memphis, Tennessee, saying he will send in the National Guard and, quote, "anybody else we need."

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And the United Nations Security Council is holding an emergency meeting this hour to discuss the Russia drones incursion in Poland, while NATO launches an operation to reinforce the defense of Europe's eastern flank.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: We are learning more details this afternoon about the suspect in custody for allegedly murdering Charlie Kirk. According to court records, a 22-year-old man is now being held in jail on an initial charge of aggravated murder, among other felonies. (INAUDIBLE) federal charges could come as soon as later today.

And over the last several minutes, new details are emerging over how this 33-hour manhunt came to an end. Sources telling CNN's John Miller that the suspect, when confronted by his father, told his father that he would rather kill himself than turn himself in. The father, according to sources, then convinced the suspect to speak with a youth pastor who ultimately helped facilitate the arrest.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is outside the jail where the suspect is being held.

Ed, what more are you learning this hour?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, all of those details quickly emerging after that latest press conference from authorities last night, where they released the latest videos and pictures of the suspect coming about two hours after. And we do know, we have learned, that the suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, was booked into the county jail, the Utah County Jail, here just before 2 A.M. this morning and now begins the legal process.

We understand that the 22-year-old suspect will likely make an initial court appearance early next week and being held without bond. And as you mentioned, he is not talking to investigators. There's, according to two sources, he did talk for a little bit when he was first taken into custody, but that has since stopped. And a great deal of focus now on trying to piece together the timeline of the suspect's movements around the campus.

There was - investigators have talked about how he had a change of clothing multiple times as he arrived at the Utah Valley University campus several hours before Charlie Kirk was scheduled to speak and then changed into the clothing that - the dark clothing that you could see that had been released in some of the video images and the still pictures of the suspect leaving the scene.

But right now, the governor of Utah really kind of talked to, this morning, extensively about the emotion of this moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. SPENCER COX, (R) UTAH: I think we need more moral clarity right now. I hear all the time that words are violence. Words are not violence. Violence is violence. And there is one person responsible for what happened here, and that person is now in custody and will be charged soon and will be held accountable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: Boris, the investigators did talk about, you know, a possible motive, talking that they'd interviewed family members where they talked about that the suspect did not like Charlie Kirk. But there's a lot of contexts missing around that. What exactly did he not like about him? What was it specifically that drove him, if he is indeed the shooter. Right now, he's accused of it, of going to these extreme lengths. So, all of that is still kind of details we're trying to dig into.

KEILAR: All right. Ed Lavandera, live for us from Utah, thank you so much.

Let's talk more about this investigation with Joshua Skule. He's a former FBI senior executive and the CEO of Bow Wave, a National Security services company. We're also joined by criminologist and civil rights attorney Brian Levin.

[15:05:05]

He's also the founding director at the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism.

Josh, what facts stand out to you when it comes to looking at motive here, figuring out the motive and what are investigators doing now to learn more about that? JOSHUA SKULE, FORMER FBI EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR

INTELLIGENCE: So, the investigators are continuing what they were doing before. They're running down every leads. They're piecing together a comprehensive timeline to see when - first of all, when this started, how he purchased the rifle, how he got - what he - what reconnaissance brought him to that building, what he did specifically afterwards, and was there anybody out there aiding him. Further, they're going to continue to peel away by talking to friends, family, co-workers what led him to this radical posture to take this violent approach.

There's plenty of people out there that don't like other people that do not go this far. And so, what led him to that and having that information aids in public awareness and it aids investigators in other - unfortunately, determining how to solve other bad acts.

SANCHEZ: Brian, given the somewhat limited information that we have at this point regarding the shooter, how do you see it fitting into the trends that you've noticed around young people and political violence?

BRIAN LEVIN, CRIMINOLOGIST & CIVIL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Yes, great question. What we've noted is we've seen political violence now committed by people in their teens or early 20s, talking about the attempted - I'm sorry, the attempted assassination on President Trump, El Paso, Buffalo, you name it.

What I think is so interesting here, though, is a couple of things. One is psychological distress or some kind of estrangement. Now, maybe he's still living with his family, but apparently this attempt at or ideation of suicide is something that's really interesting. And across many of the extremist attacks, homicidal ones this year, that is a common thread. That is some kind of psychological instability or distress, which may overtake a political motive.

By the way, we don't know yet. There were things that were referenced that were out of video games and youth culture, and I'd be very careful, and I'm someone who like - makes suspected piles here. I don't think we know yet, and I don't think we can definitively state a political motive right now, although we hear people talking on each side. But there were certainly things that could have referenced a hard left motive, but many of these young people are an idiosyncratic amalgam, a buffet mix of angers, and some have anger against society in general, and some are so psychologically unstable that forming a unitary or rigid political narrative is amorphous and not initially able to be ascribed.

KEILAR: And so, there must be this through point, though, of what would drive someone, right, to - instead of just being someone who might be vehemently opposed to the viewpoints of someone like Charlie Kirk or, to be honest, whomever they are opposed to, that they would actually take this to a different step. I mean, if you are talking to people on the outside, friends, family members, what would you tell them to look for, Brian, in terms of identifying something that is actually really an alarming trend?

LEVIN: Yes. Some kind of estrangement, weapon procurement, and some kind of fascination or frequent mentioning of violence. And that's what I think is so important. We'll find out what the political motivation, if it is coalesced, we'll find - we'll see. But what I think what we're also seeing are people who are experiencing psychological distress. And what we have to do is - and President Trump has rescinded regulations that limited access to people who've been adjudicated mentally ill.

So, one of the things we have to look at is - has there been a withdrawal? Has there been some kind of attempt at weapon procurement? Indeed, the El Paso shooter's family tried to prevent that and alert authorities. They said, there's nothing we can do.

So, weapon procurement, estrangement and some kind of instability or continuing or routinized mentioning of violence is important. In about 30-to 40 percent of cases, there's something called leakage, where there's some clue given to close family members, colleagues or friends.

SANCHEZ: Josh, what do you make of the family appearing to cooperate at this point? I mean, just based on John Miller's reporting that the dad was highly influential in having the suspect turn himself in. I mean, that is perhaps as good a resolution as you can imagine, given the circumstances.

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SKULE: Well, you have to attribute an incredible amount of intestinal fortitude to turn your child into what is essentially going to be, as professed by the prosecutor, a death penalty sentence now. So, you know, I think that the father probably went through a level of decision-making for which he did not want the police, which were ultimately, or the FBI, to find him in which it ended in a violent confrontation, and maybe thought that, you know, we can work our way through the courts and try to avoid the death penalty. But if there's a violent confrontation, there's no negotiation on that front.

So, I tip my hat to the dad to - for being able to do that. That's incredibly difficult as a parent to be able to be faced with something like that, but this was so egregious. And I do believe it was a matter of time before law enforcement began to circle in. So, we - and just to go back to the questions on radicalization, unfortunately, probably over the last 15-plus years post-9/11, we've seen radicalization ongoing on different facets inside of our society, and what individuals are doing is they're going with an ideology, and you can pick your bet on the ideology, and then consuming the hate online that proves their point in order to take them this way.

The tips and indicators are out there, and we need to continue to talk about that as a society to prevent violent action.

KEILAR: Yes. That's one of those through lines we see.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Joshua Skule, Brian Levin, thank you both.

Let's go to CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter now to talk more about the media's role in helping to find the suspect and propagating his image, as well as social media's role in all of this.

Brian, again, the suspect's father, according to sources, recognized his son when he saw the photos and the video that the FBI released. It wound up being a critical tool in bringing a resolution to this.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yes, and it speaks to the power of that media megaphone, in this case, government officials, local authorities using both mainstream media sources, television networks and also social media networks to get those photos widely disseminated. You know, there has been a lot of nonsense on the internet in the last 48 hours, some A.I. slop, you know, bogus imagery, a lot of hateful content surrounding this murder happening in new, you know, and dark corners of the Internet.

So, it is notable that the officials were able to use old-fashioned media outlets to get those photos out and to spread the word. You know, there's also been several false claims about other people being the possible shooter in the last 48 hours. False claims that have really tarnished other identities and upended people's lives and some of that information is still circulating today. So, it does help provoke a conversation about some of the noise, and I said nonsense, that has existed online and how to separate that out from real, reliable information.

At a moment like this, the last thing we need is speculation and crazy nonsense online. And I think this is a, you know, demonstration that today - now we do know, there is an actual suspect in custody.

KEILAR: And, Brian, I do want to let our viewers know that we are just getting some news in here, which is that the Utah County Attorney's Office is carefully reviewing all the evidence in the case to determine appropriate charges to file. The county attorney planning to file formal charges this coming Tuesday, he's going to hold a press conference Tuesday in conjunction with the filing of those charges. We're still trying to figure out some of the logistics of that. He's not going to be making a public statement before that.

But that is what we're learning at this point when it comes to the charges coming out of - the charges coming out of Utah there for this suspect.

I do want to ask you, I think for some people, and we've been talking about Discord when it comes to different cases, right?

STELTER: Yes.

KEILAR: But I think a lot of people don't know what it is. So, for the uninitiated, just talk to us about what Discord is.

STELTER: Discord is whatever you want it to be. It's a messaging and group chat service where people can join all sorts of different communities. It's a little bit like a mirror of the Internet as a whole, with lots of different communities and subcultures, including a lot that appeal to young people. Discord has told CNN in a statement this afternoon, quote, "In the course of our investigation, we identified an account associated with the suspect, but we have found no evidence the suspect planned this incident or promoted violence on Discord."

You know, as we move toward a potential narrative about a young man radicalized by Internet subcultures, I think we should recognize what the Utah governor said today about social media and how we're not wired as human beings to process all of this stuff that comes at us every day. And this isn't about being anti-technology. You know, a lot of us owe many of the best parts of our lives to technology, but it's about making sure the technology is working for us rather than against us, making our lives better rather than worse.

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And we all know, we all experience this in our personal lives, ways where the algorithms warp our ideas, warp our judgment, warp our understanding of the world around us. The worst thing I've been seeing in the last 48 hours are all these, you know, random anonymous bots or random Internet commenters saying ugly things from the left or the right that are getting amplified as if they're actually important. And they're not. They're random strangers we would never meet in real life.

So, I hope that's something we can all think about as we head into the weekend, that this is about the extremes versus the middle. And almost everybody in this country is in the middle, actually, you know, as opposed to those radical extremes, posting hateful comments on the World Wide Web.

KEILAR: All right, Brian. Thank you so much, Brian Stelter.

And I think we should mention this news about what Discord is saying here ...

SANCHEZ: Yes.

KEILAR: ... because there'd been some confusion about exactly what had the suspect's roommate put on Discord.

SANCHEZ: Right.

KEILAR: He'd showed some Discord messages to investigators in this news that we're getting in kind of illuminates that.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Discord is indicating that the messages that this roommate showed investigators were actually sent from the suspect's roommate to another friend. So, it's not clear at this point that the suspect himself was propagating these messages. As you just heard there from Brian, Discord says that they have found an account associated with the suspected shooter, but it did not find any communication or evidence that the suspect promoted violence or planned the shooting and killing of Charlie Kirk.

Obviously, a lot to still piece together in the early stages of this investigation.

KEILAR: Yes. It says the roommate was recounting the contents of a note that the suspect had left elsewhere. And that in itself raises a lot of questions.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

KEILAR: What kind of note was this one? Was it left? What did the roommate know? And when did they know it? And presumably, we'll be learning that here ahead.

But still to come, the U.N. Security Council is holding an emergency meeting this hour to discuss the Russian drone incursion into Poland.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Plus, President Trump pushing forward with his crime crackdown. He revealed the next city where he plans to deploy the National Guard.

And later, the Emmy Awards just a few days away and the Television Academy is reportedly adjusting security measures following the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk. We'll discuss in just moments.

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KEILAR: Happening right now, the U.N. Security Council is holding an emergency meeting after Russian drones were spotted flying into Poland's airspace on Wednesday. NATO fighter jets shot down many of the drones. It was the first time that NATO allies have fired a shot since Russia invaded Ukraine more than three years ago.

We're joined now by CNN Military Analyst and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis. He's also a partner at The Carlyle Group, an international investment firm.

Sir, thank you so much for being with us.

And first, I just want to get a sense from you about where America's leadership is on this because last night, the President suggested that the Russian drone incursion into Poland could have been a mistake. Even this morning on Fox, he said his patience with Putin is running out and running out fast. He sort of previewed the possibility of sanctions, but he often does that. How are you seeing his leadership on this?

JAMES STAVRIDIS, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: The United States needs to step up in a big way here, Brianna, because this is big casino. I mean, these are Russian war machines flying across NATO borders into a NATO nation. This is as egregious as the invasions of Georgia and Ukraine and the hybrid warfare we've seen from Russia. This is direct military action against a NATO ally.

So frankly, you mentioned a meeting at the United Nations. That's good. But, of course, Russia has veto power there. The meeting that matters is occurring in Brussels. This is the Article four discussions among the NATO members. This is where the United States needs to step up and lead the band here. And I think the U.S. would find very willing partners in the Europeans who are watching all of this unfold. KEILAR: Russia really seems to be thumbing its nose at the U.S. I

mean, the idea that an incursion of multiple drones is an accident, that's - I mean, let's be incredulous about that. I think that's the response that sort of prevails. But then you have the Kremlin saying of peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, that they are more on pause than active interaction. And Dmitry Peskov is saying, I want to remind you of President Trump's own words. At first, he thought it could be settled quickly, but later realized it would take more time.

How would you characterize how Russia is treating sort of the U.S. and the President? What are the President's options for how he can respond here?

STAVRIDIS: I think Russia is being extremely condescending to the President of the United States, who has gone the distance and then some, welcoming Vladimir Putin to Alaska, rolling out the red carpet. And I give credit for doing so if that had generated results. We've seen where it's gotten us, drones flying into NATO countries and massive attacks against Ukraine.

So, condescending is the word that comes to mind. So, I think the question, Brianna, is what should we be doing about it. And I think it's time not only for what President Trump is talking about, which I agree with, which is more sanctions, particularly encouraging secondary sanctions, because that's really what hurts Putin. I think it's time for more military activity.

[15:25:05]

I'll tell you two things I would do immediately. I would give the Ukrainians longer-range offensive weapons and targeting information to go after Russian drone-making facilities, military targets, drone staging areas. And number two, I would be planning a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

That would bring this war to the negotiating table very quickly, in my view. So, I think it's time for not only the economic sanctions, but additional military pressure.

KEILAR: That's really interesting. Those are the things that you think would really put the pressure on Putin that is needed. But I wonder, if you look back kind of historically, is there something you can point to where you say, that's the kind of thing that stops Putin? This is the kind of thing that chastens Russia? What do you think of?

STAVRIDIS: It is a combination of those two things. So, if you look back to Georgia, Russia invaded Georgia in 2008. The Western response was not overwhelming. But the economic sanctions, I believe, are what prevented him from conquering that entire small European country. If you want to go back further in history, you can certainly find examples of where, at the end of the day, with the kind of regime that Putin is putting in front of us, authoritarian desires, conquest, it's going to require some level of military action in addition to the economics, Brianna.

So, to conclude, the old Russian proverb is, probe with a bayonet. If you encounter mush, proceed on. If you hit steel, stop. It's time to show some steel with the Russians.

KEILAR: Admiral Stavridis, thank you so much for your insights. We do appreciate it.

STAVRIDIS: Thanks, Brianna.

KEILAR: Coming up, as the country grapples with the horrific killing of Charlie Kirk, one trauma surgeon and gun violence survivor says the country is moving toward a dangerous and unacceptable normalization of violence and he'll join us live next.

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