Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Late Night Hosts Defend Kimmel, Mock Trump and Defend Free Speech; Trump Suggests Revoking Broadcast Licenses Over Bad Publicity; Intel Officials Split Over Russian Drones Flown into Poland; Baseless Conspiracy Theories Surrounding Kirk's Murder Explode Online. Aired 8- 8:30a ET

Aired September 19, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

BILL WEIR, CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: It's going to be so great and these are some really outspoken voices of conscious in these perilous times would be really interesting to hear their thoughts.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So interesting. The concerts really all day long. Tomorrow we're on the air from 7 to midnight or longer, depending on how long it goes. It's just going to be so exciting and there could be some unexpected twists and turns to be sure.

WEIR: And plenty of farmers to get to know who are from around the heartland there as well,

BERMAN: Which will be the most important part of it. You're going to get to me backstage. All right. See you in Minnesota.

WEIR: I'll see you there.

BOLDUAN: All right, and the Farm Aid -- Farm Aid 40, I should say, live Saturday, September 20th at 7 p.m. Eastern on CNN, going late.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: A late night rally around free speech with a dash of humor, if you will. Comedians and fans of Jimmy Kimmel rallying around the host after he was pulled off the airwaves at ABC.

And heavy rainfall sparking devastating mudslides in Southern California, mud and debris, cutting off roads, bringing down power lines, covering homes. We've got more on that.

And James Bond, Ethan Hunt, or Jason Bourne have your pick. British intelligence -- the British intelligence agency MI6 needs foreign spies and the recruiting, but this time on the dark web.

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

BERMAN: This morning, all jokes aside, or maybe the opposite, new fallout after ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air indefinitely under public pressure from the Trump administration. Kimmel's fellow late- night host came out swinging over what they are calling an attack on free speech.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: From Comedy Central, it's the all-new government- approved Daily Show. With your patriotically obedient host, Jon Stewart.

STEPHEN COLBERT, THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT: After threats from Trump's FCC chair, ABC yanked Kimmel off the air indefinitely. That is blatant censorship. Jimmy, just let me say, I stand with you and your staff 100 percent.

SETH MEYERS. HOST LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS: It is a privilege. and an honor to call Jimmy Kimmel my friend, in the same way that it's a privilege and honor to do this show every night. I wake up every day, I count my blessings that I live in a country that at least purports to value freedom of speech, and we're going to keep doing our show the way we've always done it, with enthusiasm. and integrity.

DAVID LETTERMAN, COMEDIAN AND FORMER LATE NIGHT HOST: I feel bad about this because we all see where this is going, correct? It's managed media. And it's no good. It's silly. It's ridiculous. And you can't go around firing somebody because you're fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian criminal administration in the Oval Office. That's just not how this works.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: Right, Jimmy Kimmel has not yet publicly responded to the suspension. We are getting some new details about what's happening behind the scenes at ABC over whether to bring him back. One source tells CNN that ABC hopes, hopes that Kimmel can return, but he has to quote, Take down the temperature.

BOLDUAN: All of this came after the new chair of the FCC, Brendan Carr, threatened to revoke broadcast licenses over comments that Kimmel made about the finger pointing that occurred in the wake of Charlie Kirk's murder. And now the president is saying very clearly that he thinks any network that gives him quote, quote unquote, bad publicity and press should lose their license.

Joining us right now is comedian and host Paul Mercurio. Also, we should note he spent some of his time warming up the live audience at the Late Show with Stephen Colbert.

PAUL MERCURIO, COMEDIAN AND HOST: Where's your audience, I can do that.

BOLDUAN: Everyone will leave guys. Exactly.

MERCURIO: Come on guys, let's go.

BOLDUAN: Now we know what we've been missing. We've been missing Paul. It's great to see you. Thank you for being here MERCURIO: Great to see you.

BOLDUAN: One of the just first and foremost, just your take on what has transpired.

MERCURIO: OK, I want people watching some people on the right, especially my perspective. I'm not a Trump basher, not my guy. Didn't vote for him. Wouldn't again, OK. I'm a guy in the middle. I'm a guy believes a little bit of this little bit of that and what I believe in. I'm here for one reason. First Amendment. I'm an attorney. I'm a citizen. It's bad. And it's getting worse.

You can't use easy way, hard way, the government coursing. That's case law on that, First Amendment violation, right? And I'm on pins and needles. Is it silencing comedians? Probably, yes. Because even when I write a joke, I was like, I have a joke about a turtle. Like, the problem is, Trump is like your hangry dad. You never know when he's going to snap and lose his mind over something, right?

So it's like, I have a joke about a turtle. Maybe he had a pet turtle growing up. Speed racer. He loved his little turtle. Now I say something about a turtle. I'm a turtle hater. He gets all the turtle lobbyists out. They move slowly because they're turtle lobbyists, but they are lobbyists and the next thing I know -- thank you camera guy -- and then right, and but eventually I get cancelled.

[08:05:04]

Now I know this sounds crazy, but we're not too far off and one of my big points here is Everybody watching at home, this is your problem, too.

BERMAN: Why?

MERCURIO: Because it's not just about comedians. You have a daughter. She's 16. She goes to a public school funded by the federal government. She's on the debate team. She chooses a side that something's wrong with Trump or the Trump administration. A Trumper in the class tells the parent, the parent tells the school board, the school board tells the Department of Education. They call Trump. Their administration says, We'll cut your funding. Suspend that girl, make an example of her, and that hurts her chances.

Does this sound crazy to you? Not to me right now. That's plausible, and that's where he is, and that's why everybody watching should be invested in this.

BERMAN: And you brought up very early in what you were just saying there. I think the key ingredient that we keep on needing to address and highlight here, which is the government's role in this, with Brendan Carr, the chair of the FCC, did and said. Jimmy Kimmel made the joke. You could think it's funny or you could think it's not funny.

MERCURIO: Right.

BERMAN: It was what Brendan Carr then threatened. He said to ABC, You can do this the easy way.

MERCURIO: Or the hard way, yes.

BERMAN: This is not subtle.

MERCURIO: I've been hearing for three days pundits on all the networks saying it was a business decision. Hey, listen, it was a business decision the way the bandleader and The Godfather made a business decision to let Johnny Fontaine out of his contract. Remember? Again, thank you, camera guy. Right?

Can we stop and just be honest? It's a guy got mad. He called this guy. He said, you know, look, somebody asked me is late night becoming too political. The entire world is too political news, sports, now transgender. My wife and I are in Central Park. We don't have time for it. I got a story about a guy accused us of being politically incorrect about pit bulls, about pit bulls. This is where we are, OK.

So why don't we let the viewer decide if things are too political? Walk with your feet. If you stop watching the shows because they're too political, they go away. Instead of the government telling the citizens, you don't need to be watching this. We're going to tell you what to think and do.

BOLDUAN: The thing, also what you said, and Brian Stelter was talking about this earlier, that what this is -- no matter if this runs up against the Constitution, and it does, and the law, which it does, the outcome being self-censorship is the scariest thing.

MERCURIO: Yes, and I think that's -- listen, I know comics that'll go to -- and I'm not going to make this conservative versus liberal. It happens both sides.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

MERCURIO: Conservative will go into a liberal area, city, whatever. Might walk some people in the room because he's saying something. against Trump and vice versa. That's not good. Political commentary comes in different forms, and there's a great history in this country of satire, going back to Mark Twain, OK, Ambrose Bierce, et cetera, et cetera. That needs to stay. And what needs to change is that the people running the country need to treat citizens like adults. Let us decide what we like, what we don't like, what goes too far.

BERMAN: What do you think Jimmy Kimmel should do now? I don't know if I have the language exactly. What do we say? That Jimmy Kimmel, the ABC, hopes he comes back but --

BOLDUAN: But has to turn the temperature down.

BERMAN: Turn the temperature down.

MERCURIO: I think he should open a Dunkin' Donuts franchise. They're very lucrative. I think what he should do is I hope he comes back, and I hope he explains the joke to people but doesn't apologize. Because the joke wasn't about Charlie Kirk. It was about the supporters and about Trump's reaction. Now, this is what -- you can explain but not apologize. And the other thing is I keep hearing, he misleads people. He's not a journalist.

BOLDUAN: That's what I was going to ask you, because this is kind of part of it, but maybe not, because it still gets down to free expression no matter what.

MERCURIO: Right.

BOLDUAN: And people are saying, when it comes to the difference between a journalist, a comedian, a commentator, the accuracy, the truth, not, it kind of matters and doesn't.

MERCURIO: I used to write on the Daily Show, we get this all the time, and John's reaction was, we're not journalists. I can make up a premise. I can say I saw flying pigs on Fifth Avenue. You can't like lock me up because there aren't flying. Jimmy is not a journalist, OK? It's the viewer's responsibility to be well-educated enough and well- read and informed to know what he's telling them is just a setup for a joke.

And that's where -- just because he's talking, he's not David Muir on ABC who has a different responsibility. So what are we doing now? What Carrot Top has to have like Edward R Morrow standards now when he does his act,

BERMAN: We might be better off if he did. I don't know. Carrot Top, you cancel me for saying that.

MERCURIO: Where does it end?

BERMAN: Really, but to that point, Paul, the the the late night host last night were all about this.

MERCURIO: Yes.

BERMAN: How long do you think this sustains? Do you think that they will keep this level of outrage up? Or do you think that a week from now, people will be saying, who's Jimmy Kimmel?

[08:10:00]

MERCURIO: I think as long as Brendan Carr and the president keep extending, and I'll call this a cancer, which is, you know, maybe I should go after some news outlets now. He stands on the lawn of the White House and says to an Australian reporter, I don't like that question. You know, your president's coming here. As long as he continues that, this will continue because part of what satire is, is pushing it back against power in a reasonable way. I think when they say that Jimmy's going to drop the temperature, so does the government.

BERMAN: Counselor Paul Mercurio.

BOLDUAN: I mean, triple, triple freaking threat.

MERCURIO: I'm sending you a bill for this.

BERMAN: That's right, billable hours right here.

BOLDUAN: I mean, you should see we don't have the budget. So thank you for your pro bono work today on this show.

MERCURIO: No, no problem. I actually had to pay for water here.

BOLDUAN: We don't have chairs.

BOLDUAN: We don't clear that.

MERCURIO: It's great to be here.

BERMAN: Thank you, Paul.

MERCURIO: I'm going down. Look, I'm doing improv.

BOLDUAN: I'm going to turn to this now. Other real news.

Heavy rains triggering severe mud mudslides in California, trapping cars. I mean, just take a look at this video. You don't need my words, you just need your eyes to see what you're looking at. Just mud everywhere, taking out cars, taking out buildings.

The town of Oak Glen was hit the hardest. It happened after some areas in the mountains they saw a burst. It wasn't a lot of rain, but it was how fast it came down, two to three inches from the tail end of what was Tropical Storm Mario.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CASEY GELB, OAK GLEM RESIDENT: It was about 15 minutes of heavy rain, and in all my time here, it was some of the heaviest rain I've ever seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: You can see the mess. Just take a look at that mess right here. Some homes and cars just buried in this deep mud. The good news is that the storms have passed -- passed on, but forecasters also say the ground is so soaked right now and saturated that the mudslide threat still remains.

Ahead for us, officials in Mississippi rule out the cause -- rule on the cause of death for the Black Delta Delta State University student who was found hanging from a tree. We're going to bring you the very latest details on this developing story.

And 11 elected officials in New York arrested after demanding access to an ICE facility in Manhattan.

A jet plane crashes into an occupied Kentucky home after running off the runway.

[08:15:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: New this morning, one week after 19 Russian drones crossed into Polish airspace, U.S. intelligence officials are split over whether it was accidental or an intentional effort to test Western air defenses. But they do agree that either way, Russian President Vladimir Putin is getting more aggressive.

CNN's Katie Bo Lillis has been part of the team reporting on this. What have you learned, Katie Bo?

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, John, here we are just a little more than a week out from this really unprecedented incursion into NATO airspace. And U.S. and Western intelligence officials have really been able to -- have been unable to reach a consensus judgment on whether or not they believe this was an accident or whether or not they believe it was intentional. I spoke to one senior U.S. military official in the region who put the odds at 50/50 either way.

So why is this so hard for them to determine? Well, part of the problem is that it's really difficult to gather intelligence, like communications information, from inside of Russia. And so Western officials have really been left with trying to parse the information that they can learn from kind of the technical specifications of the drones themselves, those that were shot down and recovered inside Polish airspace, as well as what they can glean from the flight pattern of the drones, how these drones were flying when they were in Polish airspace.

And the problem is that a lot of that information could really be interpreted either way. And I'll give you an example of this. Ukrainian officials say that they have obviously Russian drones knocked off of their planned course by Ukrainian jamming, by Ukrainian electronic warfare defenses in the past, but like in onesies and twosies. They say they've never seen a deviation of this size, 19 drones.

Now, we talked to some Western intelligence officials who say, well, look, these drones are also programmed en masse, right? And so when you have an attack of this size, hundreds of drones that were in the air at the time, it's not necessarily illogical that in an attack of that size, 20 of those drones hit some Ukrainian jamming, and they are diverted off of their intended course.

And indeed, one senior Western intelligence official that we spoke to said that what they saw was that the way the drones were flying in the air in Poland, it looked like they were trying to reacquire a GPS signal. It looked like they were lost.

But either way, John, we hear from both Western and U.S. intelligence officials that whether this was intentional, whether it was accidental, right, it still suggests a really worrying increased tolerance for risk in Russia. It suggests that even if the attack were -- or, sorry, even if the incursion were accidental, right, through maybe shoddy targeting, Russia less concerned about accidental incursions that might be misinterpreted and could potentially spark a conflict between the West and NATO -- John.

BERMAN: Yes, I think that's the really important point here. Either way, it shows what Russia is thinking right now, that they just probably don't care. Katie Bo Lillis, thank you so much for your reporting on all of this. Appreciate it.

All right, new this morning, 11 local and state New York officials arrested after they demanded access to an ICE facility in downtown Manhattan. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander was among those taken into custody and charged with a misdemeanor. More people were arrested outside the facility at a different protest. Local officials, community leaders, and others blocked the driveway to stop ICE vehicles from entering or exiting the building. The NYPD says there was an active investigation but has no other details available, they say.

All right, new this morning, a Mississippi County coroner has ruled on the cause of death for a Black student found hanging from a tree.

[08:20:00]

They say he died by suicide. Friends and family held a candlelight vigil in memory of 21-year-old De'Martravion "Trey" Reed. His body was found close to the Delta State University pickleball courts earlier this week. Officials said their preliminary investigation showed no signs of foul play. The university president acknowledged the sensitivity of Reed's death given Mississippi's history of racial violence. The FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office continue to investigate.

New overnight, the British Spy Agency now recruiting online.

And then a visit to the amusement park ends in horror. The latest details about a man who died after riding a roller coaster at a brand new park.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: This morning, Charlie Kirk's murder is sparking a flood of baseless conspiracy theories. Baseless, though, still spreading like wildfire online. Theories from those on the left and the right. The end result likely to further divide the nation if it continues.

CNN's Marshall Cohen is tracking this one for us. Marshall, what are you seeing on this front?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Kate, we are seeing some really ugly stuff on social media. So in the week after Charlie Kirk was killed, there were more than 2 million distinct posts on X or Twitter referencing conspiracy theories. That's according to the data analytics firm PeakMetrics. They found that this was actually twice as many conspiratorial posts as there were last year after the assassination attempt against Donald Trump. Think about that, double.

One expert who tracks this information told me that this is the worst he's ever seen, and there are a few reasons for that. First, there was that extremely graphic close-up video of Kirk's death that instantly went viral, creating a visceral reaction among those who saw it. Also, this tragedy comes at a time when 71 percent of Americans think our society itself is broken, according to a Reuters poll. This all creates the opening for crazy conspiracy theories to flourish.

So some on the left, some left-wing figures have been promoting the unhinged idea that Donald Trump himself orchestrated Kirk's murder to distract from the Jeffrey Epstein scandal and The Epstein Files. Other liberal activists have tried to connect the suspect to far-right white supremacist groups that had previously clashed with Kirk, even though there is mounting evidence that the suspect disliked Kirk's conservative views.

And then on the right, some Trump allies like Steve Bannon and Laura Loomer have claimed that the suspect was part of a terror cell and that was that he was just a bit player in a national conspiracy that's being covered up. They are peddling this even as the authorities say that the suspect acted alone.

Now, other right-wing influencers are leaning heavily into anti- Semitic tropes to blame Israel. They've claimed that Israeli spies took out Kirk because he was starting to waver from his longstanding support for the Jewish state.

Now, Kate, these ideas are uncorroborated, they're totally debunked, and some of them are just flat-out crazy. But as one disinformation expert told me, they don't need to make sense, actually, because the incentives on the internet are totally backwards. The influencers, podcasters, and grifters who are pushing this stuff need to churn out inflammatory hot takes just like these so they can build their subscriber lists and keep the money flowing -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: It's like a horrendous, self-fulfilling prophecy and the internet at its absolute worst. Marshall, thank you, though, for calling it out, tracking it, and shining a light on this is what you need to do. Thank you very much.

Straight ahead for us. A months-long manhunt in Washington state may now be over. The latest on the search for a man accused of killing his three young daughters.

And new video also in this morning of a massive drug bust in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. When you see this, you will also want to see and hear how much DHS says was seized.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)