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King Charles Hosts Trump & First Lady Melania at Windsor Castle; Large Crowds Protest in London as Royal Family Host Trumps; Fed Expected to Cut Interest Rates Soon; Job Data Shows Black Unemployment Surges to Highest Level Since COVID; Possible Deal in the Works as Trump Again Delays TikTok Ban. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired September 17, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ROYAL CORRESPONDENT: It was super size on every level. Wherever they could make it bigger, they made it bigger. The guard of honor, usually one company, three companies. So three times as many soldiers as they could fit into that little square there. They just rammed as many as they could in to make -- to give I think, Charles, things to point to for the president, say this has never been done before in the history of this thousand-year-old castle.

The beating retreat, which Alayna was talking about there, has never been done for a state visits. It's normally reserved for the King's birthday up in London. So there's so much to point to, to say this is an unprecedented second state visit. But also in terms of scale, this is the biggest event we could possibly lay on for you. And we're about to see the state banquet. I think it's going to be extraordinary on a different level, really, in many ways, and woven into it will be as many elements, not just of American life woven into it in terms of the drinks and the food and the music, but also specifically Donald Trump.

I think there'll be tributes to him, his mother, to Melania everywhere, so they can keep pointing things out, saying this is the most special visit you could possibly have got.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": And talk to us, Max, about the protests that I mentioned.

FOSTER: Well, the protests are there. They're quite obvious in London, but the protests can't get anywhere near Donald Trump. He's been flown into protected safe zones in a helicopter. I think the most extraordinary moment, really early in the day, was the procession. So, you have the carriage procession with the cavalry out front. Normally it's going through crowds of people and that's part of the moment. But this was in Windsor Great Park with no public allowed anywhere near it.

Yes, there's a big security concern here, but other presidents have been in front of the public in the carriages before. I think a lot of this was on the British side actually, trying to protect the president from any sort of embarrassment to make sure he felt really, really special. And that the, the relationship with America was kept intact in long term. And despite the fact that so many members of the public have a complete distaste, frankly, for the U.S. president in this country, as we saw in the demos last night.

KEILAR: Max and Alayna, it is quite the spectacle to behold and we appreciate you reporting on it for us. Still ahead, another warning sign for the health of the U.S. economy. Recent data showing unemployment rising among black workers to its highest since COVID. CNN speaks to some of those job seekers, seeing what they had to say about the current labor market.

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[13:36:48]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Minutes from now, the Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates to help bolster the stalling labor market. And the data shows that black workers in particular are hard hit. Last month's jobs report showed unemployment rate surging for black workers. It could be pointing to an economic slump. CNN's Ryan Young is following the latest on this. And Ryan, you recently went to a job fair in Atlanta. What did you see there?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, talk about a lot of despair, Boris. When you talk to people who've been looking for jobs for months, really a lot of them feel like they have no place to go with the way the market is being squeezed. And of course now, there's all this conversation about the new way to apply for jobs in this country. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BRITTANI TONDEREAU, JOB SEEKER: It's a hard time right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's very frustrating.

YOUNG (voice-over): Black unemployment hit its highest level since the COVID pandemic last month.

YOUNG: How long have you been looking for a job?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Since September last year.

YOUNG (voice-over): And inside an Atlanta veterans job fair.

DONALD HUDSON, VETERAN SEEKING A JOB: I'm Donald. Nice to meet you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald.

YOUNG (voice-over): We found hundreds of highly skilled veterans struggling to land a new gig in this current economy, including Donald Hudson. We followed him around as he searched for a new job.

HUDSON: I'm looking for something either in the tech field or back in engineering again. Previously, I worked for Boeing and the engineering section for NASA.

YOUNG (voice-over): The latest employment snapshot from the Bureau of Labor Statistics paints a bleak picture. Only 22,000 jobs were added in August and black unemployment reached 7.5 percent, its highest level since October of 2021. The slowdown is due in part to President Donald Trump's economic policies, which include cuts to the federal workforce, of which black workers make up 18.7 percent.

ANTHONY WAGNER, RECRUITMILITARY: You know, if you want to talk political landscape, there's a lot of things that go and combine. And this year has just been a perfect storm, if you will,

YOUNG (voice-over): A drop in black Americans in the workforce can have a crippling effect on the U.S. economy. That's because black Americans are expected to have buying power of $2 trillion by 2026, according to a 2024 Nielsen report. Black Americans are slower to recover from job losses, which means it can be a long road to recovery.

HUDSON: And there's still some biases, I would say. Unless you have a special set of skills right now, it's kind of hard.

BRENDA OUTLAW, JOB SEEKER: Even when you have the degrees, you got the experience, you got the clearance, it is still not enough.

YOUNG: Yeah, the real reality here is the more people we talk to, the more people say they're dealing with A.I. in a way that they never anticipated. It's become a difficult hurdle that they can't seem to get past.

TONDEREAU: I have found is the A.I. blocking, they're looking for specific descriptive words that you might not be thinking about.

WAGNER: So this year, I think everybody is aware that the employment landscape has definitely been rocked.

YOUNG (voice-over): Despite that, many still have hope for a new chance.

HUDSON: I got a company that wants me to go home and fill out the application and submit it online, and then they said they're going to contact me. So --

YOUNG: So it's worth it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

YOUNG (on camera): Yeah. So this was worth it for him, Boris. We wanted to go out and talk to people who had a certain, certain skills. You think about veterans who serve in this country, they come out of the military with such an array of talents.

[13:40:00]

And it's also interesting to hear from them as they try to make bills work, that it's also hard for them to get back into the job force when you think about, like that one young lady said, she had clearance. She had all these parts of her resume that should stand out and it didn't work so far. SANCHEZ: Yeah. We also heard you mention some of the new challenges when it comes to A.I. and, and specifically the way that A.I. processes applications. I wonder what you heard about the broader implications of A.I.

YOUNG: Yeah, we've heard a lot. People even talking about hiring someone to do their resume over so that the key words could show up in the A.I. analysis. Back in the day, they would say they would know somebody in command who could kind of walk their application to the next process. That's going away now because A.I. is scanning through these resumes and if you don't hit certain of the keywords or in the search, you just sort of disappear. And that's been hard. I talked to one person who applied for over 500 jobs and so far, they hadn't heard anything and they thought with their resume, they would've at least gotten an interview by now.

SANCHEZ: 500 applications, wow. Ryan Young, thanks so much for the reporting.

YOUNG: Yeah.

SANCHEZ: Brianna?

KEILAR: For the first time, we are hearing from the government's chief collector of jobs data fired by President Trump. Erika McEntarfer, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, until she was forced out in early August after it revised down the number of jobs created in May and June by more than a quarter of a million jobs. In a speech, McEntarfer said, "Firing your chief statistician is a dangerous step. It has serious economic consequences. But that they would do this with no warning, it made no sense."

Let's turn to CNN Senior White House Correspondent Kristen Holmes on this. These are the comments kind of looming over this Fed rate decision today as well.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I mean we cannot stress just how political all of this has become. Remember, this is generally the Central Bank that operates independently. But what we have seen in the last several months is a complete politicalization of this entity by President Trump. Starting with, as you mentioned, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Now President Trump, his team, they were the ones saying that because of this revision, it showed that McEntarfer wasn't good at her job.

We have talked to a number of statisticians who have said that this is just part of the process, that there's always new data that comes, there's always revisions. But then there's this larger elephant in the room that when the Fed meets, Donald Trump is essentially looming over all of this. Of course, we've seen President Trump four months now insult the Fed Chair Jerome Powell, call him too late, post about how he should step down.

But we've also seen a more concerted effort to try and reshape the leadership of the Fed and what it looks like as a whole. Again, this is typically an independent entity and that includes the fact that as we heard Matt notice, one of the people who is going to be on the board voting is a Governor Lisa Cook, who President Trump fired. And then an Appeals Court said, actually no, she's had every right to vote here, so she's going to be there.

And then also Stephen Miran, who is another governor that just got approved, that President Trump put forward, who has indicated that he will likely be more political. He's even said that he believes the Fed should cut interest rates at various times. So there is so much politics looming over all of this, a process that generally does not feel like this.

KEILAR: And the White House must be watching this so closely.

HOLMES: Of course they are. I mean this is something that they have been working towards. I mean, remember one of the things we said was that when we saw this revision back a couple months ago, about the March revision job numbers that show that the economy had far less development than had been originally thought, was that this was really bad for the White House.

But, the one silver lining for the White House is that this likely did push the Fed to the limit that they would have to cut those interest rates. And that's something that they have been essentially begging them both publicly and putting a pressure campaign privately behind the scenes on Jerome Powell, on members of the board to try and get done.

KEILAR: All right. It is -- it's the politicization of all of these different things and I think we see that on the Hill. We're seeing that with this Fed rate meeting. We're hearing from Erika McEntarfer. It's from all of these different spheres and it's fascinating and alarming all at once. Kristen, thank you so much for that.

Still to come. TikTok deja vu. President Trump says he's reached a deal to save TikTok from being banned in the U.S. but the story is far from over on this. We'll show you next.

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[13:49:06]

SANCHEZ: We're learning more about who's in the running to take over TikTok in the United States. Sources familiar with the plan, say a deal appears to be close and could be finalized during President Trump's call with China's Xi Jinping on Friday. The talks are happening amid a fourth extension to prevent the app from going dark for U.S. users. CNN Media Correspondent Hadas Gold joins us now live. So Hadas, what is the latest?

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Boris. So according to what the sources are telling our colleagues is that this new TikTok would be owned 80 percent by American companies and 20 percent by Chinese companies because part of the deal of that National Security Law was that TikTok could not be owned by Chinese companies. It needs to be in the hands of American companies, majority owned by American companies. According to these sources, they also tell CNN this will -- there will be a U.S. majority board and one of those members will actually be appointed by the Trump administration themselves.

[13:50:00]

And we do understand that three of those companies in this American consortium would be Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz, and Silver Lake. And notably, two of those, especially Oracle and Andreessen Horowitz are owned and run by well-known Trump donors, Trump advisers, Trump supporters. One of the biggest questions though, about all of this saga is what would happen to the TikTok algorithm because all of TikTok's magic is in its for-you pages, in its algorithm. And there was a lot of reporting that the Chinese didn't want to give up that algorithm. They didn't want it to live anywhere but in China.

But now, it appears according to The Wall Street Journal which first reported this, that this new TikTok company will license the algorithm from the Chinese company. Now, everybody who has TikTok in the United States, they would need to re-download this new version of TikTok and it should still have the same algorithm. So, really sort of a question of what changed in these negotiations, what caused the Chinese potentially to soften on this? And we got a hint of that from the treasury secretary who seemed to suggest that Donald Trump threatened to, once again, just completely shut down the app. If they didn't agree. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BESSENT, (R) UNITED STATES TREASURY SECRETARY: I will tell you what turned the tide was a call that Ambassador Greer and I had with President Trump the night after the first day of negotiations. And President Trump made it clear that he would've been willing to let TikTok go dark. That we were not going to give up national security in favor of the deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLD: Now, sources have cautioned that nothing is over until, you know, it's in writing. And as you noted, President Trump and Xi Jinping are scheduled to be speaking on Friday, which could potentially cement this deal. Boris?

SANCHEZ: This is now the fourth time the ban has been extended. What would you say is different about this round?

GOLD: Well, now we are actually getting some specifics into exactly what this new company will look like, who will have a hand in it. These are names we have heard of before, but you're right. This is the fourth extension. And I should remind you that the original law only allowed one 90-day extension. There is a bit of a question of sort of legal gray area of how is the White House continuing to delay this further and further. The White House has been asked about this.

And back in June, they didn't give much details other than say that they were quite confident in the legality of extending this deadline. The new deadline is in mid-December, but it does seem as though we are closer than ever to a new actual TikTok U.S.-based company where people will still be able to access their TikTok. It's just going to be a newer version of the app.

SANCHEZ: Yeah, one of many things we're going to be watching for during that call with Xi. Hadas Gold, thank you so much for the reporting. Brianna?

KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines that we are watching this hour, we start in Minnesota where Democrat Xp Lee defeated his Republican challenger Ruth Bitner to win the State House seat that was left vacant after the death of Melissa Hortman. Hortman and her husband were shot and killed in their home in June. Lee's win means the balance of power in the Minnesota State House returns to a 67-67 tie like it was before Hortman was killed. She once described that even split as a golden opportunity for state lawmakers to show bipartisanship.

And at Boston's Logan Airport officials say a Swiss Airlines flight departing for Zurich was forced to abort takeoff. And you see why right there in this video taken by an onlooker. The plane was trying to take off, when smoke and flame started shooting out of its right engine. The crew immediately reported this incident and all passengers were escorted off the plane. The FAA then temporarily paused departures and arrivals at Logan Airport.

And Ben's ice cream? Ben & Jerry's without Jerry? After nearly 50 years at the iconic ice cream maker, Jerry Greenfield is quitting. He says the brand has been silenced on social issues by British owner, Unilever. Greenfield says he's heartbroken to leave, but then "standing up for the values of justice, equity, and our shared humanity has never been more important."

And just in, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee is asking the panel to approve a subpoena for records from banks that were connected to the late child sex abuser, Jeffrey Epstein, CNN's Katelyn Polantz is in the newsroom with this story. Katelyn, what can you tell us here?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we are seeing now is a Democrat, a top Democrat Senator, Republican Jamie Raskin of Maryland of the House Judiciary Committee pushing for more answers around Jeffrey Epstein. So we have a number of House probes that are ongoing, trying to get answers about Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and the sex trafficking ring that Maxwell was accused of taking part in and convicted of.

In this situation, this is the House Judiciary Committee asking the Republicans on that committee to subpoena the CEOs of JPMorgan, the Bank of New York, Bank of America, and Deutsche Bank for the suspicious activity reports or suspicious transactions around Epstein accounts.

[13:55:00]

That is something -- seeking that information from four banks, that is something that multiple House committees have been trying to get more answers around. We've also seen the House Oversight Committee trying to get information about suspicious activity reports related to Epstein out of the Treasury Department. And so, this is just highlighting this continued push for information about Jeffrey Epstein in this sense related to transactions, banking records, financial records related to the late high-profile criminal defendant.

KEILAR: Yeah. And so many folks on the House Oversight Committee have said, victims have said, follow the money. They say that's so important. So this is a very interesting development. Katelyn Polantz, thank you.

Minutes from now, the Federal Reserve is going to release its decision on a potential interest rate cut. Potential big news here. We're going to bring that to you. We're going to explain what it could mean for you.

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