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ABC Facing Growing Backlash Over Jimmy Kimmel Suspension; Trump to Impose $100K Fee on H-1B Visas; NATO Intercepts Three Russian Jets Over Estonia's Airspace; Intel Officials Agree Putin is Getting More Aggressive; Remains Found in Search for Man Accused of Killing Three Daughters. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 19, 2025 - 15:00   ET

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

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: ... once their coffee trees came to harvest, that's when the money started coming in.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Tune in for "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper: The Simrills: A Family in Black and White." One whole story, one whole hour, Sunday at 10:00 P.M. Eastern only on CNN.

The next hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: About face. The FCC commissioner once slammed government pressure on the media, but now is the face of the campaign to pressure companies over what the White House sees as unfair criticism, as late night hosts support Jimmy Kimmel after he was suspended by ABC.

He said, Xi said: President Trump and China's leader talk about the future of TikTok. An hours long call between the two could pave the way for a sale to keep the app alive in the U.S.

And the blob is back. A heat wave in the Pacific Ocean is worrying forecasters and climate change experts. We see potentially dangerous ripple effects in the future.

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

Today, blowback is building over Jimmy Kimmel suspension. In just the last hour, explosive new reactions, including from the man who used to run ABC. Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner, asking, quote, "Where has all the leadership gone?" Adding: "'The suspending indefinitely' of Jimmy Kimmel immediately after the chairman of the FCC's aggressive yet hollow threatening of the Disney company is yet another example of out-of-control intimidation."

Comedian Conan O'Brien saying all of this "should disturb everyone on the Right, Left and Center. It's wrong and anyone with a conscience knows it's wrong."

And listen to what actor and director Rob Reiner just told me. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROB REINER, ACTOR & DIRECTOR: This may be the last time you ever see me because, you know, I'm -- there's only a couple of us that are speaking out in this hard way. I mean, if I'm Jimmy Kimmel, I'm suing the Trump administration. I'm suing them for abandoning my first right -- my First Amendment of rights.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: And with us now is CNN Media Analyst and Media Correspondent at Axios, Sara Fischer.

And Sara, the Kimmel suspension follows the Colbert cancellation announcement at CBS. You interviewed former Paramount owner of CBS chairwoman Shari Redstone at an Axios Media Trends live event. Tell us about what she told you.

SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST: I mean, she defended the company for the firing or for the sort of suspending canceling of Stephen Colbert's show, saying that it was a financial decision. And that seems to mirror what we're hearing from a lot of network executives these days. They're not saying that they're caving to political pressure. They're saying that these were all business decisions.

In the case of ABC and Disney, they've been relatively quiet. But what reporting suggests is that they see themselves as responding to advertiser concerns, as responding to affiliate concerns. They don't see this as a capitulation necessarily to Chairman Carr, but no one's really buying that. If you think about Michael Eisner's reaction that you just read out loud, I think that's what generally the industry sees is happening right now.

KEILAR: He does say that the threat -- he sort of talked about a hollow threat from the FCC chairman. I wonder if media executives feel that way. Like, talk about this more broadly, how they're feeling about the FCC.

FISCHER: Such a good point on the hollow threat, because I also interviewed the Democratic FCC commissioner Anna Gomez about this. First of all, you can't just unilaterally revoke broadcast licenses. These licenses are renewed on eight-year terms. It would have to go through a very serious legal scrutinization process to be able to just revoke a license.

And so, the fact that media companies are reacting this way suggests that they think that this isn't hollow, but policymakers and lawmakers think it is. So, there's a clear disconnect. What I think is the real issue, Brianna, is that the FCC has all of these sort of rules, things like public interest, things like news fairness. And all of these things are things that they do have jurisdiction to go after media companies for.

So, even -- and through things like investigations and fines, things are just cumbersome and annoying. So, even if the license pulling isn't the true core issue, I do think that the networks feel intimidated because there's other vectors that the FCC could use to go after them.

KEILAR: They see it as a sign that there's trouble brewing, right?

FISCHER: Yes.

KEILAR: Even if it's not going to be a suspension of a license, they're going to have something coming their way. Is that the sense?

FISCHER: Yes. And also, bullying and intimidation is a challenge within itself because suddenly you have people looking at what a government official is saying. They're calling these journalists, they're harassing the journalists, the people at the networks. This is another type of headache that they have to deal with.

And again, even when we've seen this before, an administration or figure goes after a media company, whether it's defamation or it's libel or it's misuse of public interest for spectrum airwaves.

[15:05:03]

Even if the legal experts say that these cases are frivolous, it still costs the media companies so much time, effort and energy to litigate them. They don't want to have to deal with that.

KEILAR: Yes. And that really brings us to the question here, right, is the Trump administration is very comfortable applying the pressure. Is there an ability for these media companies to resist it even a little bit more?

FISCHER: Oh, yes. A lot of ability. So, the first step and the most serious step you could take is you yourself could sue or counter sue or appeal. We saw this with the AP. Remember when the White House said that AP reporters were barred from the Oval Office and Air Force One? The AP sued Trump and sued the White House and an initial judge ruling was in their favor. Of course, the White House is trying to appeal it.

The problem, Brianna, is that with that most serious step, a lot of smaller newsrooms don't have the bandwidth. They don't have the budget to launch their own lawsuits. So, that's where these threats come in. They know smaller entities can't handle this.

The other thing you could do is public pressure campaigns. You know, it's interesting to see so many Republicans coming out against Chairman Carr right now. Senator Ted Cruz essentially equivalent Brendan Carr's actions being mob-like.

KEILAR: "Goodfellas," he said was like "Goodfellas."

FISCHER: Yes. And the reason is like he doesn't want this to come back to bite the conservatives if there's a Democratic administration that uses the same tactics Carr is taking to silence their voices. And so, I think what networks can be wise to do is find conservatives, ally with them and start to put a public pressure campaign on the administration. I think that actually could be effective because remember, the White House actually does need Congress. Like they do need Congress to get along with them to pass things. It's not a good look when your own party is battling you on the Hill.

KEILAR: Yes, it's really interesting. Sara, thank you so much. And really interesting interview with Shari Redstone as well. Thanks for chatting with us about that.

FISCHER: Thank you.

KEILAR: Boris.

SANCHEZ: We're following breaking news. CNN is learning that President Trump is expected to impose a hundred-thousand-dollar application fee for H-1B visas. CNN's Kristen Holmes is at the White House right now.

So, Kristen, who could this impact?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right. So, this is part of an executive order. And essentially who would be impacted is these employers. The H-1B visa allows them to hire specialty employers from -- that are foreign nationals. So, essentially it's temporary. These would be people who possess a special skill set, a skill set that's harder to find in the United States.

And one of the things to keep in mind here is that we've heard from a number of companies who said in recent years, it's been harder and harder to get these H-1B visas, something that we know Elon Musk, for example, has spoken out in positive ways supporting these visas. So, this is likely to make that even harder.

But when you look at the companies that generally are the ones who request these types of visas, they're usually technology companies. So, this is clearly taking a gamble or a bet here that they could afford that hundred thousand dollars.

SANCHEZ: And Kristen, this is all in part because the President thinks the system is being abused right now, right?

HOLMES: Right. So, again, a hundred thousand dollars is a lot of money. It's far more than any of these other visa applications. So, essentially the President is saying to these companies, you have to really want this foreign employee to come in and work for your company, because you're going to have to pay this huge amount of money for them. Because the alternative is you look and find something within or a person within the United States who has a similar skill set. And there have been concerns in recent years that the abuse of this is that these companies just automatically look for foreign employees instead of looking at a U.S. job pool first for various number of reasons, whether it's new technology skill set or just the fact that they believe they could possibly pay those employees less money coming from another country.

SANCHEZ: Kristen Holmes live for us at the White House, thank you so much.

We have more news to get to, including saving TikTok. A deal between President Trump and China's Xi Jinping could keep the app operating in the United States. But of course, the devil, as always, is in the details.

Plus, accused of killing his three young daughters, Travis Decker vanished months ago. And now officials believe they've solved the mystery of his disappearance.

And later questions at a Florida amusement park after a man dies from blunt impact injuries after riding a roller coaster there. The details coming your way in just moments.

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[16:13:45]

KEILAR: NATO is saying that it intercepted three Russian fighter jets over Estonia today after entering that country's airspace without permission. Estonian officials say the jets were in their airspace for 12 minutes. That is a long time. Its foreign minister calling the move by Moscow unprecedentedly brazen. Estonia borders Russia. It is a member of NATO.

And this incursion comes as U.S. and Western intelligence officials are still trying to figure out whether Russia accidentally or intentionally flew drones into Polish airspace last week. But they do agree that either way, the incident signals Russia's getting more aggressive in testing NATO's air defense and response.

I'm joined now by Beth Sanner, a former deputy director of National Intelligence and a CNN National Security Analyst.

Maybe testing the backbone, Beth, too, a little bit here. Do Russian jets just, oops, go into NATO airspace?

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: No, they don't oops and they do this pretty regularly. I mean, I think that they fly about 300 times a year into NATO airspace around the Baltics. They turn off their transponders. They don't file flight plans. They do all sorts of things to test.

But I think that the difference here is the length of time.

[15:15:02]

It's not just kind of an in and out. It's a 12-minute thing.

And I do think it does show this brazenness of Russia, that they're willing to test the boundaries and what are we going to do about it. And that's what they're waiting to see.

KEILAR: Because 12 minutes isn't just dipping a toe in the water.

SANNER: No.

KEILAR: Is that -- I mean, how long is that? How are -- to the uninitiated, how are national security officials looking at that?

SANNER: I think that feels like a long, long time. So, I mean, 12 minutes, just think about it. If you're sitting there by yourself, it's a long time, right? So, you've got to go pretty deep, pretty long. And considering how small these countries are, that ...

KEILAR: That's right.

SANNER: ... that's like the whole ...

KEILAR: I can get to Virginia or Maryland in 12 minutes. Okay. So, NATO and how it responds to this ...

SANNER: Yes.

KEILAR: What does Putin look at? What is he kind of testing for ...

SANNER: Right.

KEILAR: ... and depending on how the U.S. and its NATO allies react, what does that inform him about for what he might do in the future?

SANNER: Right. So, what -- they did respond, right? They scrambled jets. They do this all the time. This is the kind of way that you go. You intercept and you escort the planes out. Happens all the time. So, they see that reaction, how quick you are, what you're capable of doing.

But I also really think this is kind of like what China does with Taiwan, this development of a new normal. So, if I just keep doing this and you don't really stop me from doing it, then I'm going to do it for longer and then I'm going to do it for longer. And then it becomes very difficult to know what the difference is between just doing these incursions and actually doing something that is aggressive and a prelude to war or doing something kinetic, right?

So, there's very short amount of time that you have to react in these circumstances and they test, they wear down and they create a new situation that makes it easier in the future for them to do whatever they want, so we need to do something.

KEILAR: Next thing you know, the frog is boiled, right?

SANNER: Exactly.

KEILAR: So, let's talk -- you mentioned China. Let's talk about this call between President Trump and China's Xi Jinping. Trump says it's very productive. It reportedly includes an agreement on TikTok after years of discussion about banning it. How significant is this -- are you seeing this?

SANNER: So, I do think that TikTok is like kind of step one in addressing the much, much broader and deeper problems that we have with China. But you can really tell from the tenor of the Chinese readout that they're not ready to go very much further on these other things without kind of point pointing out that this needs to be a you meet me halfway, right? You've got to treat me with respect. This needs to be win-win. And President Trump is not known for win-win agreements. He's known

for I win, you lose agreements. And so, you know, this is an incremental progress. I think it's good that tensions are lower. But the price that China is going to demand is going to be high. They're playing hardball. They have cards to play like rare earths. And they're also playing hard to get.

KEILAR: Yes. Those rare earths, they really do have the stranglehold on them.

Okay, Trump says that he's meeting with Xi at the APEC Summit ...

SANNER: Yes.

KEILAR: ... in South Korea. What are you looking toward that?

SANNER: Right.

KEILAR: And that's probably a good sign if you're looking for a decrease (INAUDIBLE) ...

SANNER: Or a deal, right? And if you're looking for -- so, in August, they did this 30-day extension on the trade war. You know, we still have an equivalent of about 56, 57 percent tariffs on -- average tariffs on a hundred percent of Chinese goods. Okay, that expires in November.

So, they're going to really be focusing on the trade deal at that. I actually think it's good that this is at the APEC Summit on the sidelines rather than a state visit, which was definitely on the table for Trump to go from South Korea at APEC and go for a big state visit. That would have required a huge deal.

We're not ready for that, baby. And I'm glad because I want to see us consider the second and third order effects of the things that China is demanding from us and work through those things.

KEILAR: I know you say there's bigger things than TikTok, but I think the kids are caring about their TikTok, and their Sheehan and their Temu, so they're listening to you, Beth Sanner, about what all this means.

Beth Sanner, thank you so much.

SANNER: Thank you.

KEILAR: And still ahead, this is a really grisly discovery. What investigators just found in the manhunt for a father accused of killing his daughters. We'll have the very latest on that.

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[15:24:02]

SANCHEZ: Right now, officials are working to determine if newly discovered human remains are those of Travis Decker. He is the Army veteran who vanished after allegedly killing his young daughters. Officials have been searching for him since May, after he failed to return the girls from what was supposed to be a three-hour custody visit. CNN's Ryan Young just spoke with the sheriff overseeing the investigation. What did he share with you, Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, boys. After we talked to Brianna about an hour and a half ago, we've been working the phones to try to get in contact with the sheriff to figure out exactly what they know so far about this investigation. And I can tell you, they are still working through this. What they told us is this area is very thick, very dense sort of population in terms of trees, elevation. And crews had to work extremely long hours to try to find any sort of path to find this man.

In fact, talking to the sheriff, he said it took three hours for investigators to make it to the scene where they found these skeletal remains. In fact, take a listen to the sheriff talk about what his crews had to go through and how they were able to find this location where they discovered this body.

[15:25:05]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF MIKE MORRISON, CHELAN COUNTY, WASHINGTON: We're used to operating in this kind of terrain. Typically, it's for search and rescues. But to travel that 0.74 miles, we were looking at about three hours of travel time. Even coming down from the site took our detectives about an hour to get down. It is steep. It is thickly brushed. It's not populated. It is not a travel trail. It's not an area that people are typically frequent. We certainly feel for Whitney and her family. The whole entire community feels the loss of Paityn, Evelyn and Olivia. We'll miss them. We know that they're sweet little angels. And we're just doing everything we can to ensure that justice is served and the law will prevail. It's been a daunting task, but we've never given up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Yes, you can imagine how tough this was for investigators to deal with. They had more than a hundred people in terms of the resources that were involved in this case, Boris. They would have to go up there several different times. This is the fourth extensive search. They had to use drones. They had to use helicopters. They had to use canine units as well. And they finally found that area where they found these skeletal remains.

SANCHEZ: And Randy, is the suspicion that Decker was living in that area?

YOUNG: Well, that is a great question. It's one that I asked the sheriff. What they believe is -- it doesn't show any signs so far that he was living there. Once again, it was very hard to get to this point. It took a three-hour hike by foot to get to that final location. They believe what was surrounding him is what he had at that point. So, they didn't describe the exact items, but they do believe it all matched what he should have on him. I asked, did he leave a note behind or were there any food sources? It does not appear that way either.

And then I went on further to ask, Boris, did it seem like there was any foul play or any weapons. He did not want to go elaborate into that. DNA is now being pushed through the state system. So, hopefully within the next week or so, they'll have positive identification through DNA evidence. But, you know, they're trying to put the pieces together, but none of this excuses or kind of puts us past the loss of the lives of those three sweet children who obviously didn't have a chance after what happened to them. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Yeah. Ryan Young, thank you so much for that reporting.

Still ahead, Charlie Kirk's death has exposed a sharp divide in this country, and some calls for unity have fallen on deaf ears. Ahead, we're going to speak to someone who has personal experience with the struggle to bridge the divide after an assassination. Martin Luther King III joins us live next.

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