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ABC Pulls Jimmy Kimmel's Show Off Air Over Charlie Kirks Comments; Trump Says He's Designating Antifa as a Terrorist Organization; Stock Futures Higher After Fed Cuts Interest Rate. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired September 18, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And this abrupt decision came after FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened to pull affiliate licensing over Kimmel's remarks about Charlie Kirk's alleged killer, also about the MAGA movement's reaction to it. Overnight, President Trump suggested more could be coming. This is what he wrote online. Congratulations to ABC for finally having the courage to do what had to be done. Kimmel has zero talent and worse ratings than even Colbert, if that's possible. That leaves Jimmy and Seth to total losers on fake news NBC. Their ratings are also horrible. Do it, NBC.

With us now, CNN Political Commentators Scott Jennings and Bakari Sellers.

Bakari, I want to read you something that Brit Hume, who's an analyst, and informed White House reporter over a Fox News what he wrote. Overnight, Brit wrote the First Amendment does not protect performers like Jimmy Kimmel from being canceled by their private sector employers, but I would've liked the outcome a lot better if the chairman of the FCC had not involved himself in it.

What do you think of that, Bakari?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I mean, that's what we're seeing. We're seeing that fascism, we're seeing that forceful suppression of the opposition led by the FCC chairman. This is what happened. This is not a decision or a business decision that was about Disney's bottom line. People who were saying that are just lying. This is the FCC chairman at the behest of the president of the United States putting pressure on individuals to remove dissenters and voices they don't like.

Now, on a very fundamental level, watching all of my friends on the right become snowflakes, because all of a sudden they don't appreciate what people are saying is probably the most damning critique I could give this morning. If Americans, when they wake up this morning at 7:30 aren't outraged, simply outraged by the pure callousness, authoritarianism, fascism is being displayed by those individuals on the right, particularly the president of the United States and the FCC, then they're being blind to what is happening in this country right now. BERMAN: And Brendan Carr, one of the things he said yesterday before the Disney decision, these companies can find ways to change, conduct and take action frankly on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. Look, he has a point of view about the Communications Act of 1934, the public interest issues. The Supreme Court has long held that Congress and the FCC have to regulate that. You know, there are statutory issues at play here. I personally think that this was a long time coming, frankly, that, these affiliates, Nexstar Sinclair, they own all these stations. We're hearing about it from their stations, from the people who watch their affiliates.

And so, you know, at some juncture, business decisions get made. And Jimmy Kimmel is not personally canceled. He can start a podcast or go work for a cable channel anytime he wants, and ABC is perfectly welcome to put any other comedian on the air they want. But he had gone down a path that obviously was causing major business trouble for the people who actually put the show on the air.

BERMAN: But it was causing business trouble largely, or at least partially, perhaps due to what Brendan Carr said. Nexstar has got a merger in front of him with Tegna, another affiliate group here. And the FCC chair said this out loud before Disney made the decision.

I just want to read you one other thing that Brendan Car has said. This was in May, May 2nd, 2022. Brendan Carr put out a statement that said, President Biden is right. I'm not sure exactly what he was talking about there, but he said political satire is one of the oldest and most important forms of free speech. It challenges those in power while using humor to draw more people into the discussion. That's why people in influential positions have always targeted it for censorship.

Bakari, a change from Brendan Carr, do you see there?

SELLERS: Yes. I mean, I don't know what it is. It's hypocrisy. I mean, the fact is, look, let's just be extremely clear, you can talk about how you condemn the violence that we have in this country, the political violence. You can actually abhor and feel really bad, like I do. I went on here and talked about, I was on here talking about it the other day about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. You can say those things and then also be very critical of the things he said while he was alive, the things he said about, specifically about Joy Reid or Michelle Obama or Ketanji Brown Jackson, the things he said about black pilots, the things he said about Martin Luther King Jr., the fact that he wanted to repeal the Civil Rights Act.

We can actually have a conversation about how deplorable those things are without fear of repercussion. I mean, if CNN wants to now fire me because of the simple fact that I can speak freely about saying that I abhor assassinations or violence, but, yes, be very critical of a man who I felt as if his words were bigotry, then that is a fundamental problem. And that's what we're seeing around the country, whether or not it's on college campuses or whether or not it's on T.V., you're seeing individuals on the right cherry-pick free speech and cancel people. And I know they hated it when we were in love with it five years ago, but watching it right now and watching people refuse to speak out against it is the definition of hypocrisy and cowardice.

And Chairman Carr, I don't know if it's hypocrisy, cowardice, or he's just very forgetful but that's not who he was just three years ago.

[07:35:02]

BERMAN: And, again, the question here, Scott, might be the differentiation between what a private company can do to any employee, to any of us, you know, who work here right now, or what the government can tell a private company to do. And that's where the laws over free speech come in.

JENNINGS: Yes. And we here in a cable channel live under a different regulatory regime than they live under on these channels that are on the public airwaves, that's number one. Number two, again, you know, Bakari mentioned, and you guys are reading the tweets about jokes and satire, where's the joke? I mean, Jimmy Kimmel went on T.V. the other night, wasn't telling any jokes. He was telling the American people a bunch of lies. I'm not -- certainly, it was in the public interest or the public good to do so. His show had largely become a political propaganda show. It's not a comedy show.

And so businesses that put things on the air have to make decisions about content all the time. And in this particular case, my view is the content had gotten to the point where the people who have to air it we're hearing from their, I'm sure, advertisers and their consumers. There are consequences to that sort of thing.

BERMAN: The joke came, I mean, it was a wind up to a joke about President Trump's reaction commenting on the construction that was going on when he was asked about Charlie Kirk. That was the actual joke in that --

JENNINGS: Was it a joke to lie about the shooter?

BERMAN: What he said -- let me just say, just let me read out loud what he said about this. He said we hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize the kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it. So, if you read that literally, he was talking about the reaction to the killing right there.

BERMAN: Actually, I can, because there is one other subject I want to get to this morning, if I can, yes? It's about I want to shift gears and talk about the new book from Vice President Harris, which the excerpts keep on coming out. And the new bit that The Atlantic excerpted overnight had to do with her selection of a running mate. And in this book, she basically says at one point that Pete Buttigieg would've been her first choice. She writes in here, Buttigieg would've been an ideal partner if I were a straight white man, but we were already asking a lot of America to accept a woman, a black woman, a black woman married to a Jewish man. Part of me wanted to say, screw it, let's just do it, but knowing what was at stake, it was too big of a risk. And I think Pete also knew that to our mutual sadness.

But the way she writes it for the fuller excerpt I saw it, it seemed like her heart really was with Pete Buttigieg.

SELLERS: Yes, I don't disagree with that sentiment from knowing people who are actually, you know, conducting these interviews and went through this process. They will probably tell you to a person that Pete Buttigieg performed the best in those interviews, particularly the settings, not only with staff, but with the vice president. I mean, he's articulate. He's one of the smartest people we have in the American political discourse, whether or not you agree with him or not. He has a little Bill Clinton in him when it comes to being able to just articulate very clearly what's going on in our country.

And, yes, but she highlighted something that's very real. You know, the fact is you weren't going to elect a black woman married to a white Jewish man and then have a gay man as vice president with two beautiful brown babies. That just wasn't going to happen. And I think anybody who says the contrary is just lying about where we are as a country.

BERMAN: Quick last word, Scott.

JENNINGS: So, you couldn't pick Pete Buttigieg because he was gay, but you could endorse taxpayer funded sex changes for minors? I mean, honestly, and then you pick Tim Walz? There is not a single political operative alive who believes that Tim Walz was a good choice or helped the ticket. Pete Buttigieg would've been a far superior choice. And the idea that you're going to go blame it on that now shows just how unfit she was for the presidency in the first place.

BERMAN: All right. Scott Jennings, Bakari Sellers, nice to see you both this morning. Thank you very much. Kate?

BOLDUAN: All right. So, overnight President Trump says that he will designate the anti-fascism movement, Antifa, as in the quote, as a major terrorist organization. Though it is not clear who or what would actually be targeted as Antifa lacks structure of an organization. He called it a, quote/unquote, sick, dangerous, radical, left disaster.

CNN's Annie Grayer is tracking this one for us from Washington, and she joins us now. What more are you learning about this? I mean, and how even they could go about this, like the mechanism here?

ANNIE GRAYER, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, the White House is saying, Kate, that this is just the first of many steps in a broader organization that the president and his closest allies want to do. But the scope and the details of it are very unclear. And there's a similar effort unfolding on Capitol Hill, some of Trump's closest allies on the Hill, a growing list of 30 Republicans are calling on House Speaker Mike Johnson to form a new committee that would specifically investigate violence on the left. And it would be looking at recent acts of violence and trying to see if any left wing groups were behind funding such an effort.

[07:45:00]

But that is a very broad mandate there. I mean, they want to look at as far back as the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. They want to look into George Soros. And this is building off of a lot of claims that have been floating around in right wing circles for years with no evidence behind any left wing organizations funding violence.

But this is something that has really taken hold among Republicans, and this is going to be an issue that House Speaker Mike Johnson has to contend with because there are more moderate Republicans who I spoke to in my reporting who say that going down this path of retribution, of targeting left wing groups, is not going to help lower the temperature and the rhetoric in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination.

So, this is now an open debate happening in the Republican Party with the president at the top leading and demanding such an investigation. His allies on the Hill trying to carry that mantle forward, but the speaker now stuck in the middle of this dynamic.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Annie, it's great to see you. Thank you for your reporting. John?

BERMAN: All right. New this morning, we're watching Stock Futures, which have been up this morning as investors digest what Fed Reserve Chair Jerome Powell called a risk management cut, the Fed cut interest rates for the first time in nine months. Fed officials say they wanted to see how the effects of President Trump's policies, including his tariffs, played out first, but that's strategy did not necessarily sit well with the president whose urged steeper cuts.

Let's get to CNN's Matt Egan who was at the post-meeting presser with Jerome Powell. I'm sure, as always, Matt, he was happy to see you there.

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Thank you, John. Well, good morning.

Look, the Fed is still facing this two-front war, right? Stubborn inflation on one side and a weakening job market on the other. But Fed officials have finally decided what's the bigger danger, and that's unemployment. That's why the Fed delivered its first interest rate cut since December. And this is a significant move from the Fed. It's also the first cut of the second Trump administration.

Now, officials are signaling that they're likely not done. They're penciling in a total of three cuts this year, yesterday's and two more. That's up from June when fed officials were pricing in or penciling in just a total of two cuts. And investors, they are confident that this is not a one and done, right? The market is pricing in about a 90 percent chance of a cut at the next meeting, the one in October, and a 99 percent chance of a cut in December. And Goldman Sachs notes that risk management-type cuts, which is how Powell described this, they tend to come in packages.

Now, during the press conference, I had a chance to ask Powell about something, John, that you and I just spoke about earlier this week, and that's the fact that more and more Americans are falling behind on their bills and credit scores are falling. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEROME POWELL, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL RESERVE: Default rates have been kind of ticking up. And we do watch that. They're not at a level -- I don't believe they're at a level where, overall, they're, you know, terribly concerning but it is something that we watch. You know, lower rates should support economic activity. I don't know that one rate cut will have, you know, a visible effect on that. But over time, you know, a strong economy with a strong labor market is what we're aiming for and stable prices. So, that should help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

EGAN: Now, the key to me there is that Powell's acknowledging that a quarter point cut, that's not a game changer. It's not a silver bullet, but in the long run, he thinks it should help.

Now, there were a few surprises from this decision. First off, the fact that the Fed did not downgrade its economic forecast, even though the risks are rising, and then how the votes landed, right? We were bracing for a lot of dissent. It ended up being nearly unanimous, 11 to 1. The one dissenter, perhaps not shockingly, was Steven Miran who wanted a bigger cut of half a point, although not even he wanted the dramatic cuts that the president has called for.

Bottom line, John, the Fed is clearly more worried about jobs than they are about inflation, and that does mean more interest rate cuts are likely on the way.

BERMAN: That, in and of itself, is an important demarcation point here.

Matt Egan, thank you so much. Great to have you there yesterday.

EGAN: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: So, it's rare enough to have an actual discussion with a bipartisan group of lawmakers. Even more rare when they tell Kate Bolduan they have a secret weapon to end the war in Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): They kidnap children. So, my goal, working with my colleagues here, is to get the bill on the floor. And if you don't want to vote for it, I'll make you famous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Dramatic new video shows the moment alleged arsonists set a building on fire.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:45:00]

BOLDUAN: This morning, there's new research coming from Yale University revealing the extensive network that Russia is using to, quote/unquote, reeducate and militarize Ukraine's stolen children. War crimes investigators have found at least 210 sites across Russia and Russian-occupied Ukraine where children have forcibly been removed from Ukraine and from their families and are now being held.

Ukraine estimates that more than 19,000 children have been kidnapped by Russia since the start of the war.

[07:50:03]

And now a bipartisan group of senators is moving to punish Russia for abducting them. In 2023, CNN reported on some of these tragic stories. Here's part of that report.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Kassan (ph) Children's Home is now a crime scene.

They warned us to collect their clothes, says Elena (ph). The Russians and collaborators called in the evening and said to prepare the children for the morning. The buses arrived at 8:00.

The heartbreaking scenes captured for Russian propaganda shared on a Russian M.P.'s Telegram channel. The bewildered children taken from their beloved nurses in October transported to Russian-occupied Crimea or Russia itself, say Ukrainian investigators.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Infants, little babies.

CNN's Fareed Zakaria just sat down with one Ukrainian teenager who says he escaped his kidnappers in Russia, fearing though he would never see home again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLAD RUDENKO, UKRAINIAN TEEN KIDNAPPED BY RUSSA: On 8th of October, three Russian soldiers broke into my apartment with firearms and told me to pack up in 30 minutes and follow them in unknown direction to me. I didn't have a cell phone at the time. It was also early in the morning, so I couldn't even think of leaving a note for my mom. I packed up and had to follow them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: It's stories like these that is now leading Senators Lindsey Graham, Richard Blumenthal, Amy Klobuchar, and Katie Britt, to join forces and introduce a new measure that demands that Russia return all of Ukraine's children or the United States will designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism under U.S. law.

I met with a bipartisan group for an exclusive sit down about this.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: Senators, thank you so much. It is quite something to see all of you sitting here together. It's unusual, it's bipartisan and it's necessary. I think it says something about this issue and how important it is. Senator Graham, why this? Why now in this moment?

GRAHAM: Like most good ideas, they come from women around here. How did I find out about this? Katie told me about it and Amy had already had legislation to deal with it and we're going to take it and run with it. But Katie is the first one to mention it to me.

SEN. KATIE BRITT (R-AL): I saw it and took it to Senator Graham, just to say, now these kids deserve somebody to fight for them. And like I said, no matter where you sit with regards to this war, I think that's something that unifies everyone.

BOLDUAN: Countless horrific acts have been carried out in the course of this war. Why does the abduction, the kidnapping of thousands of Ukrainian children, why does this just feel somehow worse, yet somehow overlooked?

BRITT: Everybody gets that. Pulling these kids out of Ukraine and literally kidnapping 19,564 children that we know of, 19,564 children that we know of, that must end today. Who knows what's happening to these children. And when you think about this, I think this is a mechanism that brings people from across the spectrum on this together and says, we've got to force Russia to do the right thing, and we've got to give a voice to the voiceless, and that's what's happening here.

BOLDUAN: Senator Klobuchar, you've been pushing on this issue. What does this image, what does this image say about this?

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): These kids are more important than any political divides, that these over 19,000 kids are more important than what Democrats and Republicans may be fighting about that day on the social media platforms. I look at this as these kids cannot become a weapon of war, not just with Russia.

BOLDUAN: Do you think that's what this has become?

KLOBUCHAR: Yes, because, and that's why I believe they need to be released immediately. Because when these negotiations start, if they ever seriously go forward, which they must, the kids can't be a gambling chip. They can't be part of this. They have to be released now.

GRAHAM: Well, how does the war end, I think, is the question, right? We know it will not end because Russian soldiers are dying. We all know that Putin could care less about how many of his young men die in his quest to take Ukraine. The only way this war ends is when people who buy his oil and gas, who prop him up, can no longer do it without being -- having their economy affected or being shamed. So, India, you're empowering this guy, China, you're empowering this guy. If you could get the people who buy his oil and gas saying, I can't do this anymore because it hurts us too bad, you'll end this war. And one way to make that happen is to tell the world what you're doing when you buy his oil and gas, you're propping up a child kidnapper.

SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL (D-CT): We also have a secret weapon here.

BOLDUAN: What is that?

BLUMENTHAL: The president's wife.

GRAHAM: Yes,

BLUMENTHAL: Melania. She really cares about this issue.

[07:55:01]

Melania has written Putin to talk about this issue.

BOLDUAN: For people sitting out there at home and say, sanctions bill, trying to get Putin to the table, I have heard it before, I've seen seven deadlines be set by the United States and this president, seven deadlines of Vladimir Putin has blown through, you have to give people credit to be cynical that this is going to be any different, that this is going to be the agent of change. How do you convince anyone that this is different this time?

GRAHAM: This is another front. If we make Russia state sponsored terrorism under U.S. law, you do business with Russia at your own peril. You're in a group of very elite company of scumbags, and we're making you a world scumbag in American law because what do terrorists do? They kidnap children.

So, my goal working with my colleagues here is to get the bill on the floor. And if you don't want to vote for it, I'll make you famous.

KLOBUCHAR: If we let this happen and we just stand back, they're going to be capturing kids in every conflict there is in the future because it's our way to hold it over people.

BOLDUAN: Senator Blumenthal, nothing has stopped Russia's war machine to this point. Why does this effort have any better chance?

BLUMENTHAL: There is something so fundamentally repugnant about kidnapping and brainwashing children. And what Putin is doing here is not just ruining and potentially killing children, it's also an effort to erase a nation from the face of the Earth.

BOLDUAN: Erase their identity.

BLUMENTHAL: Erase their identity and their future. So, the kind of war crimes we see here are historic in repulsiveness. That's a different kind of dynamic that hopefully will be approved by the Congress and signed by the president. BOLDUAN: It does put President Trump on something of a collision course in a new way with Vladimir Putin with this very serious threat of designating Russia as state sponsor of terror. Why do you think the president will go along with this?

BRITT: I think President Trump wants peace. Looking at this, this, to me, is a no-brainer. And so when you have something that everybody can wrap their head around and realize is the right thing to do, those are the kinds of things that you want to elevate and want to continue to give President Trump the tools he needs to actually achieve peace in the region, and I believe he will.

BOLDUAN: Do you think you need to convince the president of this?

GRAHAM: No. I think we need to vote. I mean, Melania -- go ask the president. Are you okay with Putin kidnapping Ukrainian kids? He'll say, no.

BOLDUAN: You've got his cell phone. Have you asked him?

GRAHAM: Yes. I mean, it is not about Trump, it's about us. I have chosen my side. I'm going to be on the side of trying to get the kids back home. And if you don't send them, if you don't release them now, are you going to be a state sponsor of terrorism under U.S. law? You're going to be radioactive to the world and let's just get on with it.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BOLDUAN: Right now the White House is declining to comment on the bill. The senators want to see this on the floor for action on this, for a vote, even maybe in the coming weeks.

We're going to bring you part two of this conversation next hour, where the conversation actually turns to the question of can political leaders like them help bring the temperature in this country and today's political environment? And it surprised me where the senators think the focus to do that needs to shift. We'll bring that to you. John?

BERMAN: All right. I mean, one ways to sit down like you just were and having a conversation with a bipartisan group of senators there, which is really wonderful.

All right, new video of the moment police officers help a driver whose car caught on fire in Virginia. They initially believed that two people were trapped inside. But after putting out the flames, they only found one person near the car. That driver was not seriously hurt.

New video this morning of a building up in flames and the two people who started the fire. The images show the suspects arrive and smash a glass door before using an accelerant to start it. That's according to Canadian police. Fortunately, no one was in the building at the time. No injuries were reported. All right, new this morning, Meta has unveiled its next generation of smart glasses, powered by A.I. They say the idea with these glasses that you would spend less time looking down at the phone screen instead, looking straight ahead at the tiny display inside the lens. So, instead of looking one place, you're looking another.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, quote, they will let you stay present in the moment while getting access to all of these A.I. capabilities to make you smarter, help you communicate better, improve your memory, improve your senses.

CNN's Clare Duffy got her hands on a pair.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: Yes, this announcement came at Meta's annual Connect event where they announced a whole new slate of new A.I.-powered smart glasses. But the biggest announcement by far was the new Meta Ray-Ban displays.

So, with previous versions of the Meta Ray-Bans, you could only talk to them and hear an audio response.

[08:00:00]

But with the new displays, there's actually a tiny display screen that shows up in the lower right hand corner of the right lens that only the wearer of the glasses can see.

So, this lets you do all kinds of things that you normally do on your phone, like reading and responding to text messages, taking and looking at photos. You can navigate on a map. You can do video calls. There's also live captioning and translation, so you can see what the person you're speaking to is saying on the screen. And you can ask Meta A.I. questions and it will respond with a visual slate in addition to giving you an answer audibly.

Now, this comes with a wristband that lets you navigate the glasses, navigate that display with hand gestures like tapping or scrolling, so you don't necessarily have to talk out loud to the glasses if you don't want to, if you're in public.

These glasses are $799, so a lot more expensive than regular glasses or previous versions of the Meta Ray-Bans. But Meta is hoping that this is the next step towards a future where you can interact with A.I. and the rest of your online life without having to spend so much time looking down at your phone.

I did get to do a demo of the new Meta Ray-Ban displays, and it is interesting how quickly you get used to having that little display in the corner of your vision while still looking at and engaging with the world around you. And you can turn the display off if you're not using it.

Now, I do think it could be a bit weird if you're talking with someone who's wearing them and you don't know if they're looking at messages or photos while they're talking to you. So, this is going to be the sort of thing that people have to adjust to as they start using these glasses. Back to you.