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FBI Says Dallas ICE Shooting Had High Degree of Pre-attack Planning; Sources Say Bondi, Prosecutors Have Concerns About Charging Comey; Rep. Swalwell Says Bondi Hasn't Acted on Death Threats Against Him; DOJ Leaders Pushing to Charge Trump Critic John Bolton. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired September 25, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": -- in Dallas. This shooting left one detainee dead, seriously wounded two others yesterday. FBI Director Kash Patel revealing today, the shooter left a handwritten note that indicated a desire to, "Give ICE agents real terror." That is on top of the anti-ICE message. Literally, it said anti-ICE that was scrawled on unfired rounds officials say they found at the scene. Patel says, evidence suggests a high degree of pre- attack planning. DHS Secretary Kristi Noem says, the shooter fired indiscriminately across the facility while perched atop a nearby building.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is in Dallas as this investigation is unfolding. Ed, there are a lot of questions that remain. What more are you hearing?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we're hoping to hear some more clarity and context around some of the details that you're mentioning, investigators starting to share a little bit more about what might have been the motivation behind that. As you mentioned, the information coming from the FBI Director Kash Patel earlier today where he said that the handwritten notes with the words, "Hopefully, this will give ICE agents real terror" to think is there a sniper with AP rounds on that roof.

Also, the FBI director went on to say that in searches so far, evidence has turned up have information that the suspect was searching for information about the Charlie Kirk shooting in Utah several weeks ago, and also searched for documents related to Department of Homeland Security facilities here in the Dallas area. FBI director also went on to say that they believe that there was a high level of planning that went into this attack.

So we have been out at the scene where the shooting took place at the ICE facility this morning. Investigators still working through that area, the ICE facility shut down as well. But here in about 30 minutes, Brianna, federal investigators and this is an investigation led by the FBI. We are expecting a press conference where perhaps we will be able to hear more details as well as conditions of the victims. As you mentioned, one detainee was killed, two others severely wounded, and we still haven't really gotten an update since yesterday morning on the conditions of the two that survived. Brianna?

KEILAR: Yeah, we'll be looking for that. Ed, thank you so much for the very latest from Dallas. Boris?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Now to the pressure campaign to indict former FBI Director James Comey. Sources say that Attorney General Pam Bondi and top prosecutors have concerns about the case against him. We've also learned though that Comey could be indicted as soon as today over claims that he lied to Congress during his 2020 testimony. Comey for his part says that he told the truth. Bondi is under pressure from President Trump to file charges and the president weighed in earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They're going to make a determination. I'm not making that deter -- I think I'd be allowed to get involved if I want, but I don't really choose to do so. I can only say that Comey is a bad person. He's a sick person. I think he's a sick guy actually. He did terrible things at the FBI and, but I don't know. I have no idea what's going to happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Joining us standard discuss is Congressman Eric Swalwell. He's a Democrat from California. Congressman, thanks so much for sharing your afternoon with us. Do you expect that James Comey is going to be charged for lying to Congress?

REP. ERIC SWALWELL, (D-CA): I hope not. I hope that there's still people of honor and integrity at the Department of Justice who understand what it means if you do this. And by the way, the president is saying he has no control here. He has all of the control here. He's the one who has been tweeting to the Attorney General that Comey needs to be indicted. He's the one that fired the U.S. attorney who would not indict Comey. And so, this is a very corrupt, corrosive act that the president is taking.

And what I would just say to any prosecutor at the Department of Justice is it's not going away As a member of the Judiciary Committee, I promise you, when Democrats are in the majority, we are going to look at all of this and there will be accountability and bar licenses will be at stake in your local jurisdiction if you are corruptly indicting people where you cannot prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.

SANCHEZ: A number of stories are overlapping here as we await an update from officials in Dallas over what investigators have told us. Preliminary evidence shows it was a politically motivated crime. You recently posted about Attorney General Bondi, specifically that she's refused to prosecute multiple death threats against you and your family. I wonder if you could share with us who you want her to prosecute and why.

SWALWELL: Well, we get death threats every day. And I'll first say the attorney general called me after I posted that tweet and asked me which cases I was referring to. And I sent over to her two cases that had been recently been declined and she asked if she could take a moment to reexamine those.

[14:05:00]

And as I had sent that over, a new fresh death threat with specificity toward me and my family came in, and so, we are hoping that these are taken seriously and that regardless of political affiliation, that the Attorney General looks at these. And I also just want to say, in the harshest way that I condone -- that I condemn, that I absolutely condemn what happened at Dallas yesterday, that that's awful, that that's not how we conduct ourselves in America and that political violence cannot be tolerated.

SANCHEZ: Getting back to the question of the weaponization of DOJ, what critics have described as the weaponization of DOJ, we hear that senior leadership there is pushing for charges against another Donald Trump critic in his former NSC Adviser, John Bolton. Are you concerned that down the road, you may be prosecuted for your criticisms of this White House?

SWALWELL: I'm ready for it. I fully expect it. Kash Patel wrote a book where he identified 60 individuals who are his enemies. He called them 'government gangsters.' He put me at the very top, alongside Adam Schiff, as the two worst. And so Adam Schiff is under investigation now. So I'm ready for it. I expect it. But I'm not going to flinch. I'm not hiding under the bed. I'm not going to shrink because that's the aim. That's why they do this, is they hope that dissent and oversight goes away.

And if I shrink and if Adam Schiff shrinks, then why wouldn't everyday Americans shrink? And so, I'm not going away and they can come at me, but it's not going to silence me and it's not going to stop me from working every day to put Democrats in the majority, so we can finally pump the brakes on the corruption we're seeing in this administration.

SANCHEZ: Amid all of this, Congressman, we're also watching a looming government shutdown. Democrats say that they won't vote to fund the government unless healthcare changes are included, like extending enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire. I want to play some sound for you now from Majority Leader Thune.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN THUNE, (R-SD) MAJORITY LEADER OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE: This is not the time or the place to do this. This is a program that needs reform, but I think everybody is willing to sit down and talk about how to make that happen in a context where it should be discussed, not as a hostage to keep the government open.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Congressman, what's your reaction?

SWALWELL: This is exactly the time and place to do this. I don't know if Senator Thune has to worry about his family's healthcare, but with three little kids, I do and my constituents do. And we're going into open enrollment for anyone who has private health insurance. And because of the big brutal bill and the threat of subsidies going away and Medicare funding being cut and rural hospitals being cut, insurance is expected to go up for most families. So, we have an opportunity here to cancel the cuts, to lower the cost, to save our healthcare, and that's what Democrats are asking.

I'd also just say, Boris, we're also asking to just sit down and negotiate with the president because they can't fund their government without negotiating with Democrats. And when that was scheduled, Donald Trump immediately walked away. And so, that's not serving the American people who were counting on us to look out for them, keep the government open, and protect their healthcare. So Donald Trump should come back to the negotiating table.

SANCHEZ: Congressman Eric Swalwell, we have to leave the conversation there. Please keep us updated on those potential investigations into the death threats.

SWALWELL: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Thanks so much. Still to come, President Trump set to sign an executive order that will clear the way for the completion of a TikTok deal. Ahead, what this means for users. Plus, for the first time since his high-profile trial, Sean "Diddy" Combs is back in a New York courtroom. We'll show you what his lawyers are asking for ahead of his October sentencing.

And Dr. Sanjay Gupta is going to join us to answer your questions about the Trump administration's recent announcement linking autism and Tylenol. Don't go anywhere, we're back in moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:14:05]

KEILAR: Today, one step closer to completing the TikTok deal. President Trump expected to sign an executive order this afternoon that states the deal is a qualified divestiture, which meets the requirements of the ban or sale law that passed last year. According to the White House, the deal will transfer control of TikTok's U.S. operations and a copy of that all-important algorithm to a new joint venture based in the United States.

We're joined now by Shark Tank Investor, Kevin O'Leary. He is also the Chairman of O'Leary Ventures. All right, Kevin, it is not yet public who all of these stakeholders are in the deal. We're getting some names out there. The president name dropped a few. Will you or any of your firms have a stake in it?

KEVIN O'LEARY, SHARK TANK INVESTOR: No lack of buyers, there are so many private equity people and investors that want to be part of this deal. It has so much upside. Definitely, I'd love a piece of it. There's no guarantees at all.

[14:15:00] The only person I know with certainty that -- and I'm also just assuming, but we'll see this in a couple of hours, is Larry Ellison because he is hosting in Paris, Texas, and in Virginia, the actual source code, of which there's 5 billion lines. So he's going to be part of this deal. And my guess is between he and Trump, they'll hand pick who is going to be on the cap table.

KEILAR: Yeah, they're very close. Right? And under the deal, Oracle, founded by Ellison, in cooperation with the government monitors this algorithm, the algorithm, to "Ensure content is free from improper manipulation or surveillance." That's according to a senior White House official. Doesn't that raise questions about allies of the president and his party and private industry and the government monitoring a social media tool that arguably could affect the outcome of an election?

O'LEARY: Well, there is no doubt that this is an unusual deal. There's never ever been one like it. You've got both the Supreme Court and Congress involved. But let me explain technically what's going to happen that may make people feel a little more comfortable. The concept here is called forking the code. In other words, the code exists, right now, it's running. So what Ellison gets and what the buying consortium gets is a -- basically a photocopy, a snapshot, a copy of it. And from that second on, it's no longer the same as the global ByteDance TikTok algorithm or source code because their task in order to comply with Supreme Court order and that of Congress is to rip out the spyware.

And so, think about the upside of doing that because there's a big hammer on top of them. The buying consortium, if you're lucky enough to be on the cap table, you also own the risk of not complying with this law long after Trump administration is gone. This thing lasts for years and the fine is over $800 billion. So you're going to get it right. And what you're going to do is take all of this source code, 5 billion lines, rip out the spyware, and then monitor what are called data packets. In other words, where, what IP addresses is TikTok pinging off the servers in America.

And you know the ones you don't want to give access to, those are the Chinese ones. But remember, TikTok is complicated. There's countries like Switzerland, when a hot watchmaker breaks in Switzerland, it goes on TikTok. I need to know that. That's Swiss and we're friendly with the Swiss. We're friendly with the Indians; we're friendly with the British. So you've got to mesh that together in a very delicate ballet of where you let TikTok go and get its data from in the new algorithm, the American algorithm.

But the upside of this deal is immense because think about this, that 172 million Americans that are willing to basically put spyware on their phones, how many hundreds of millions won't. So the minute you give them the green light and say, we've got your back. This is clean code. There's no spyware from China in it, boom, you're going to get another 30 percent users in a matter of months. That's one upside. And then I got to even a bigger one.

(CROSSTALK) KEILAR: Well, hold on. Why I got to ask because you didn't answer my question. Well, hold on. I want to -- because I get what you're saying. I mean, there's the China piece of this, right, which has been the whole point of the ban and everything, and that's supposed to deal with that. But the algorithm will be overseen by Oracle founded by a Trump ally, right? Another Trump ally has been running it for a decade. Why should Americans trust a company that is founded and run by people with a clear political bent to be political -- to be politically neutral in how it is administering the algorithm of such an important social media tool?

O'LEARY: Well, I don't agree with that statement. I'll tell you who's going to control this algorithm and who is going to oversee this conversion to an American version, Congress and the Supreme Court. That code, that law was written by the staffers of China hawks. Some of them are Democrats, some of them are Republicans, but they represent the people of the United States. And they will make sure, regardless of who's in the White House, long after Trump is gone that that -- this is so unusual that this platform, this media company that's ingrained in its own act of Congress and then 9-0 decision from the Supreme Court, they will abide by the law.

The oversight will come from the people, for the people. That's what's going to happen. There's never been a deal like this. And so, it's not you -- it doesn't matter who's in the White House. You break the law, you pay $800 billion. I can guarantee you --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Do you see that oversight enshrined right now? I mean, do you see experts who are dispatched by Congress who are in that? Because right now it's over -- the plan is to have it overseen by Oracle in conjunction and cooperation with the government.

[14:20:00]

O'LEARY: Right. So what you're going to get is a DOD, maybe Justice, whoever decides is going to oversee this translation and this conversion period because that's what it's going to take. There'll be an oversight committee and that'll be the people of the United States overseeing this conversion, and that's Congress.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: You're talking DOJ or the Pentagon?

O'LEARY: I don't know whether Rudy (ph) will be involved or who's going to do it.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: But they're not seen as independent arbiters by much of the country, as you're aware.

O'LEARY: Well, wait a second. Is Congress an independent arbiter, yes or no?

KEILAR: Well, it is more broadly --

O'LEARY: I think the answer yes.

KEILAR: -- more broadly represented. I mean, at this point in time, you have Republicans controlling both chambers.

O'LEARY: This is the law. This is the law. This is the law of the land. This law with the $800 billion hammer is the law of the land on a bipartisan basis. If I end up on that cap table, I'll be sweating bullets if the conversion works because I know the staffers who wrote that code. They're not stupid. When I say wrote the code, wrote the law, and then submitted that to the Supreme Court to decide on. So I'm not worried about -- this goes long past Trump, long past the midterms.

I understand your concern, but I can assure people out there that this is the law of a bipartisan Congress. And I would argue that I think people would get some comfort from that because what they have right now deemed by the Supreme Court decision is spyware on your phone. I'd suggest this solution is way better.

My version of TikTok, because all my companies use it, is on a burner. This is my burner phone. I don't put it on my real phone because I know exactly what it is. I will put it back on my real phone after Ellison is finished with it and I'll know that Congress is overseeing that. So, I'm comfortable with that. But this network is important for small business.

And here's one last point I think we should all consider. In this conversion that president is going to dictate who gets to own it or maybe some committee. Why not let the 7 million businesses that make their living, their family's living, those are my Shark Tank people out there, why can't they own a piece of this? Why don't they get to invest in it? That would help the conversion period a lot. And it would make it truly the people's platform owned by the people, overseen by their Congress. That's how this deal should go down.

KEILAR: All right, we'll see if someone is listening to that suggestion. Kevin O'Leary, thank you so much for being with us.

O'LEARY: Take care. Thank you.

KEILAR: And still ahead, President Trump demanding an investigation after what he calls triple sabotage at the U.N. General Assembly. Why the president calls the treatment that he received "a real disgrace." And pollution pledge, Beijing's latest climate commitment highlights how China and the U.S. are going in sharply different directions when it comes to tackling global warming. We'll have details next on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:27:36] SANCHEZ: One day after President Trump denied climate science at the U.N., labeling it the greatest con job, China's leader is taking the lead on efforts to reduce global warming pollutants. In a video addressed to the U.N. Climate Summit, Xi Jinping pledge to cut up to 10 percent of climate pollution in his country. That falls short of the goal other countries were seeking from the world's biggest emitter of global warming pollutants. But China's growth in renewable energy sources and other strides it's making could help it exceed its goals.

CNN Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir joins us now with the details. So Bill, what specifics are we hearing from China?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, not just China, but more than a hundred countries, Boris, around the world have renewed their pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, all the countries in Europe, African nations, island nations around the world, but this one's significant because, for the first time, China is laying out their ambitions. Up until now, they would only promise to reach peak fossil fuel emissions by 2030. Now, President Xi in this video address, saying they'll cut it by seven to 10 percent going forward, but that could happen this year.

The Chinese tend to under promise, over deliver. They beat their stated goal of renewable energy by six years. And if you just look at the numbers of solar installations, this is what's staggering. China is building 500 gigawatts more than that, which is ultimately five times more solar than the United States has in existence. They've built more in the last six months than the United States has at all time, twice as much as Germany all time. So they're adding this renewable energy.

China still burns more coal than the rest of the world combined. 1.3 billion people, so much bigger than the U.S., but their share of renewable energy is just staggering right now. And the exports of their solar panels and related technologies around the world are skyrocketing. You can see the chart is just going up. Dozens of African nations all around the world as well. And then Xi actually specifically said some country are going against decarbonization, but that is not the right direction. Obviously alluding, without calling it by name, President Trump and the United States. Boris?

KEILAR: Bill Weir, thank you so much for that reporting. President Trump is demanding an investigation into what he is calling "triple sabotage" during his visit to the United Nations. In a social media post, he wrote in part, "A real disgrace took place at the United Nations --