Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Another Russian Violation of NATO Airspace?; Washington State Manhunt Over?; Key Epstein Prosecutor on Capitol Hill; Firestorm Grows Over Jimmy Kimmel Suspension. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired September 19, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:00:48]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The other shows must go on. Late-night hosts delivering a fierce defense of Jimmy Kimmel after ABC suspends him indefinitely and as the FCC chair says he doesn't think this is the last shoe to drop.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And he's the guy the FBI director blames for the -- quote -- "original sin" in the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. Now the prosecutor who negotiated a controversial plea deal with the convicted sex offender in Florida is facing lawmakers who want answers.

And finally answers in the search for the man suspected of killing his three young daughters. Authorities believe that they have solved the mystery of what happened to Travis Decker.

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

SANCHEZ: Demands to bring "Jimmy Kimmel Live" back are happening right now. This hour outside of ABC offices in New York, members of the Writers Guild of America are holding a rally, they say, to protect free speech as fallout builds over Kimmel's suspension.

Today, we have not heard from Jimmy Kimmel himself, but a source familiar with the matter at ABC tells CNN that the network wants him back, though Disney executives feel that he has to take the temperature down.

Overnight, late-night hosts came to Kimmel's defense.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: It's the all-new government-approved "Daily Show," with your patriotically obedient host, Jon Stewart.

JON STEWART, HOST, "THE DAILY SHOW": Are the naysayers in the critics right? Is Donald Trump stifling free speech?

CORRESPONDENTS: Of course, not, John.

(LAUGHTER)

SETH MEYERS, HOST, "LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS": A visionary, an innovator, a great president, an even better golfer.

(LAUGHTER)

MEYERS: And if you have ever seen me say anything negative about him, that's just A.I.

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": If ABC thinks this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive.

JIMMY FALLON, HOST, "THE TONIGHT SHOW": I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he's a decent, funny, and loving guy, and I hope he comes back.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter leads us off this hour.

Brian, walk us through the fallout.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: President Trump has been saying that Jimmy Kimmel has been fired, but it's more complicated than that.

Right now, Kimmel is in limbo. He is working with a high-powered Hollywood lawyer to figure out his future. We know there were meetings on Thursday between Kimmel and those lawyers and Disney executives, but so far there has not been a resolution, at least not one that's been announced publicly, and it is quite possible Kimmel's show is never coming back on the air.

That's in part because local station groups, having heard the threats and the pressure from the FCC and the Trump administration, may not ever want to air Kimmel's show again. At the same time, he may not be willing to say whatever those station groups want to hear.

And it is very notable it's not just about Kimmel. It's also about his team. He has scores of employees that depend on him, that work on his late-night show. So, this is a very difficult situation, both for ABC, but also for Kimmel personally.

A source told our colleague Elizabeth Wagmeister that there are real discussions inside ABC about hoping to find a way forward. One source saying -- quote -- "If Jimmy went on the air" and had not said the things ABC wanted to say, "there would have been no way back from that monologue for Jimmy, and we didn't want that."

So we're hearing murmurs from inside ABC about a desire to get the show back on the air, but ultimately Kimmel has to decide if he can do that and still live with himself and still feel like he has integrity. Meantime, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is continuing to express his desire to pressure stations and to pressure media companies using his bully pulpit, so to speak.

Here's a little bit of what Carr has been saying as he takes a victory lap about Kimmel's suspension.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRENDAN CARR, CHAIR, FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION: I don't think this is the last shoe to drop. This is a massive shift that's taking place in the media ecosystem, and I think the consequences are going to continue to flow.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STELTER: I said bully pulpit, and I think I should have said Carr is putting the word bully in bully pulpit. He knows his actual power at the FCC is relatively limited, but when he's speaking out in public, he can pressure media companies to silence critics, to, in this case, maybe suspend Jimmy Kimmel.

[13:05:11]

And it might not stop here.

SANCHEZ: And, Brian, in the last hour, we got breaking news on another front in the administration's efforts to remake media.

"The New York Times" lawsuit that the Trump administration filed, that's been dismissed.

STELTER: That's right. This was filed by the president just a few days ago. He charged $15 billion in damages, a number so large it sounded like it was made up. It was an 85-page lawsuit that read at times more like a pro-Trump op-ed than a serious legal argument.

And that's essentially what a federal judge has said in response. This judge in Tampa, Florida, just sent out a message to the Trump lawyers, striking down the originally filed lawsuit and giving the legal team four weeks to refile. We have heard from the Trump legal team the statement indicates that they will refile following the judge's rules.

The judge basically said, you have got to cut this down. You have got to make it a lot shorter. You have got to take out all the pro-Trump messaging and just focus on the legal arguments.

So, for now, a setback in Trump's case against "The Times," but an indication that he does want to continue this legal warfare.

SANCHEZ: Brian Stelter, thank you so much for the update -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Now to Capitol Hill, where the House Oversight Committee has been questioning former Florida federal prosecutor Alex Acosta about the controversial 2008 plea deal that he arranged for the late convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Acosta voluntarily agreed to appear for today's closed-door interview

as part of a congressional investigation into the Epstein files. FBI Director Kash Patel accused Acosta earlier this week of committing the original sin in the Epstein case because of the way that he handled it.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is on the Hill for us.

Arlette, what's the committee hoping to learn from Acosta?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna Democrats and Republicans on this committee want more answers from Alex Acosta about that controversial plea deal he negotiated for Jeffrey Epstein back in 2008.

House Oversight Chair James Comer said this. They expect this to be a hard-hitting interview as they want him to answer specific questions about how the decision to not prosecute played out.

Now, just moments ago, some Democrats on the Oversight Committee actually came out and gave their version of what is happening behind closed doors in that interview with Acosta right now. They said that they believe Acosta had really conducted a flawed investigation and that so far in his testimony he has defended that plea deal.

We will work to learn more, but this all comes as Democrats and Republicans are pushing for more information and more answers about what went on around the Jeffrey Epstein case.

KEILAR: Take us through what made this plea deal so controversial.

SAENZ: Well, they negotiated this plea deal back in 2008 and, in it, they Jeffrey Epstein did not go to federal trial for this. Instead, he served about 13 months in jail on state prostitution charges for his involvement with underage girls.

Many at the time had described this as a sweetheart deal. Fast-forward to 2019, when those federal charges were brought against Epstein relating to the sex trafficking ring. That plea deal started to come under scrutiny once again. At the time, Alex Acosta, who had previously been a U.S. attorney in Southern Florida, in 2019, he was serving as the labor secretary under President Trump.

He eventually decided to resign, step down from that position amid this controversy, saying that he didn't want to be a further distraction, but he did continue to defend the deal at that time.

KEILAR: All right, Arlette Saenz live for us on the Hill, a lot going on up there.

And still to come: President Trump saying he has made progress on the deal to buy TikTok from China, but is it a good deal for Americans? We will explore that.

Plus: Conspiracy theories around Charlie Kirk's death are exploding online. How influencers are being incentivized to craft unverified and really unhinged claims.

Then later: A key vaccine advisory meeting gets off to a chaotic start just one day after the panel recommended changes to the CDC's childhood vaccination schedule.

These important stories and more all coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:13:56]

SANCHEZ: We're following breaking news on another possible Russian violation of NATO airspace. According to the country's Foreign Ministry, three Russian jets entered Estonian airspace today without permission, remaining in Estonian airspace for about 12 minutes.

Estonia, of course, borders Russia and is a member of NATO. Its foreign minister called the move by Moscow unprecedentedly brazen. This incursion comes as U.S. and Western intelligence officials are still trying to determine whether Russia intentionally flew drones into Polish airspace last week.

Let's get some perspective now with CNN global affairs analyst Brett McGurk. He's also a former Middle East and North Africa coordinator for the National Security Council.

Brett, great to see you, as always.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: What do you make of this development, this incursion into Estonian airspace, especially coming as intelligence officials are still trying to figure out whether the drones that went into Polish airspace were intentional or not?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, I'd say, Boris, there's a European proverb. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

I think you look at -- we have the incursion in Poland. Again, you look at that map...

[13:15:00]

SANCHEZ: Yes.

MCGURK: ... hard to see how that was accidental. Maybe it was based on Ukrainian jamming, I think most likely purposeful to test Western defenses.

And now today, I think we can really conclude Putin's testing here. I think that's clearly what's happening. These jets were in Estonia, as I understand it, all breaking news, about 12 minutes. Just an example, in 2015, a Russian jet flew into Turkish airspace, NATO ally, 17 seconds. The Turks shot it down. So that's how serious this is. And, like, I think NATO really has to

come together, think about what's happening here and start to put some more pressure on Russia.

SANCHEZ: As we take a look at the actual jets that went into Estonian airspace, these MiG-31s, I wonder whether there's anything special or significant about these jets and specifically what message you think Putin is trying to send with something like this.

MCGURK: You know, on the battlefield in Ukraine, Putin's actually not making that much progress. He thought this summer he was going to maybe have a breakthrough. It didn't happen. In fact, Ukraine really held the lines.

So I'm just -- I'm trying to think how he's calculating. I have dealt with the Russians. I have negotiated with them. I think he's now saying, OK, maybe I'm not making the progress in Ukraine, but I'm going to send a message to the other NATO allies that this can get much worse. And, like, I'm actually prepared to probe and test your defenses.

So, look, that's a powerful jet in their air force. And to penetrate NATO airspace for that period of time, that's not a mistake. That's not a mistake. It's a message.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

I also want to ask you about this phone call this morning between President Trump and China's Xi Jinping. President Trump described the call, very long call, as very productive. One note that came out of it was that there is this imminent deal for the U.S. to buy a large stake of ByteDance's TikTok, that app that there are many security concerns about.

I wonder how confident you are that, given what we know about the deal so far, and not much has been revealed, that the security concerns have been taken care of?

MCGURK: Yes, I think it's good they're talking. I think it's good they're making progress here.

Congress passed a law last year saying that ByteDance, which is the parent company, Chinese company, that owns the algorithm of TikTok, has to completely divest in order to have this app available in the United States. That's the goal.

So the question really is the algorithm. You can connect all these stories, Boris. There's something called CRINK, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea. That Beijing summit a couple of weeks ago, all those leaders together, they're joining an alliance. They're working together on Ukraine. And this advanced tech race, whether it's A.I., whether it's ByteDance, this is going to define the future.

So, look, I think it's good President Trump is talking to Xi. I think they're going to meet now towards the end of October in South Korea, he announced. But we got to really join together with our allies, our Western allies, our Pacific allies, and think about where the future is heading, because 2026 is becoming, I think, a really pivotal, historical year.

SANCHEZ: Yes. And as we watch this summit that Xi held with those leaders, it becomes clear that he is trying to project power globally.

MCGURK: Exactly.

SANCHEZ: When it comes to these potential investors in TikTok, the law stipulated that American companies would have to hold an 80 percent, at least an 80 percent stake. So we see some of them, Oracle, Andreessen Horowitz, hard time pronouncing that...

MCGURK: Yes.

SANCHEZ: ... and Silver Lake as well. What's in it for these companies? Is there some kind of foreign policy perspective that they're taking into account?

MCGURK: Look, these are great American enterprises. I think there is an American interest to try to get that algorithm out of the hands of the Chinese.

Look, it's hard to get TikTok out of the phones of Americans. I was on that people mover at Dulles Airport connecting one plane to another. I mean, everybody is just on that TikTok going through the screens. I actually don't use the app. I have never used it. But it's here to stay.

I think, if you can get the algorithm in our hands and not allow the Chinese to basically program what is being fed into the brains of Americans, that's a win for the United States. But we need more details on the deal, Boris. As you said, this is all just breaking.

SANCHEZ: A brave man riding that people mover at Dulles International.

(LAUGHTER)

SANCHEZ: Brett McGurk, thank you so much.

MCGURK: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come this hour, Washington state authorities say they have found human remains in the monthslong multiagency manhunt for a father accused of killing his three young daughters before vanishing into the wilderness. We have a live report on that.

Plus, a plane crashing into a home in Kentucky, how it happened -- right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:23:35]

KEILAR: The manhunt for a father accused of killing his three young daughters before going on the run may finally be over.

Investigators say they have found what they believe are Travis Decker's remains. Officials have been searching for him since May after he failed to return his daughters from what was supposed to be a three-day custody visit. Shortly before the girls were reported missing, Decker was spotted on doorbell video.

At the time, his ex-wife told investigators he was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and may not have taken his medicine.

CNN's Ryan Young is on this story for us.

Ryan, first off, where were these remains found?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, these remains were found some 4,000 feet up.

They had to use a helicopter to actually lower detectives down to find these remains. Just to remind our viewers, this was a gruesome scene originally. All three daughters were killed using a plastic bag. Each of them had their heads wrapped around with a plastic bag and zip ties. All three were dead.

Actually, they found his dog nearby, and they took that to the Humane Society. But when you think about this search, you had the FBI, you had the Marshals office all trying to find this man. They had to expand their zone to try to figure out exactly where he may be. They found him on Grindstone Mountain.

And, of course, right now, people are asking so many questions about how was he able to maybe get away initially? Was he somewhere else? Did he survive for quite some time? Of course, they're going to have to do some forensic evidence to, of course, use DNA to make sure this is who they think it is.

[13:25:03]

But as you understand, so many people have had questions over the last three months about where this man could be.

KEILAR: Yes, police had said that Decker had wilderness survival skills. They thought he could still be alive. Is it clear how long that he may have been dead, if these are his remains?

YOUNG: And that is a great question.

What we have learned so far is they do believe he had those survival skills. And they found some of that survival kit that he may have had near that truck initially when they found the girls' bodies near a ravine. But outside of that, they weren't sure whether or not he had stashed some of these supplies somewhere else in the wood line, so the FBI, the Marshals office, using helicopters, drones, all this to expand the search.

Now, they believe they found his body less than two miles away from that original scene, but now they have to go through the painstaking sort of process of trying to see if there's any sort of signs of food or anything that would show that he was trying to live out there in the wilderness after this horrific murder that happened there that he has been, of course, accused of.

But that's what they will have to figure out. And then they will have to do the DNA to figure out how long he might have been dead in that wood line area. But, once again, they had to use a helicopter to get up 4,000 feet to find that body, so many questions still about this case and just the timeline and putting the pieces together.

You know that's what investigators are working on right now. We actually have calls into the sheriff's office to figure out what the next process is, Brianna, but maybe just some sort of closure to this manhunt that's been going on for months.

KEILAR: All right, Ryan Young, thank you for the latest -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour.

The FAA investigating after a plane crashes into a home in Kentucky on Thursday. CNN affiliate WSIL reports the Cessna C-525 went off the runway and struck a house after landing at Mayfield Graves County Airport. The pilot, who was the only one on board the aircraft, fortunately was not injured in the collision. The sheriff's office also reports that one person was inside the home, but also was not hurt.

And an elderly British couple is now free after being held in detention by the Taliban for months; 80-year-old Peter Reynolds and his wife, Barbie, who is in her mid-70s, were flown out of Afghanistan through a Qatari-mediated agreement, according to Qatar's Foreign Ministry.

The married couple had been living there for 18 years when they were arrested at their home for reasons unknown back in February. The pair are getting medical checkups in Doha and will continue on to the United Kingdom.

The death of a black college student found hanging from a tree in Mississippi has now officially been ruled a suicide; 21-year-old Demartravion Reed's body was discovered on the campus of Delta State University on Monday.

And despite officials previously announcing that no foul play was suspected, Reed's family and members of the community demanded more transparency in the case. The family wants an independent autopsy to confirm the coroner's report. One story to keep an eye on there.

An expert who studies disinformation is telling CNN that the number of conspiracies being shared online around Charlie Kirk's death is the worst he's ever seen. We will tell you what's being said, who is sharing it, and how that kind of content is being incentivized next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)