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Asheville, North Carolina To Rebuild After Helene Devastation; Trump Steps Up Attacks On Comey After Historic Indictment; Trump Says There Will Be Others Prosecuted Besides Comey; Sinclair To End Its Boycott of Jimmy Kimmel's Show; Jeffries Says The Trump Administration Is Weaponizing The Justice Department; Trump Again Advises Against Tylenol Use For Pregnant Women And Kids. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired September 26, 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]

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And what that survey found is that 90 percent of the businesses project revenue loss, 45 percent report a moderate to extreme risk of closure. So they're saying, hey, Asheville is open, please show up and support Asheville. Jessica?

JESSICA DEAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": All right. Isabel Rosales there, one year later, thank you so much. A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

Indicted and defiant, James Comey says bring on the trial as he insists he's innocent. Trump hinting this could be just the beginning for his perceived enemies. And a prescription from the president, Donald Trump posting new advice on Tylenol. How that's adding to the confusion surrounding who is safe to use that pain reliever. And it is the survival of the fattest, how the Brown Bears of Alaska are competing to be the most rotund of them all. We are following all these major developing stories and many more coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": President Trump is ramping up his rhetoric against James Comey after last night's historic indictment of the former FBI chief. Here's how the president described the charges against Comey this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: It's about justice, really. It's not revenge. It's about justice. It's also -- it's also about the fact that you can't let this go on. They are sick, radical left people, and they can't get away with it. And Comey, Comey was one of the people. He wasn't the biggest, but he's a dirty cop. He's always been a dirty cop. Everybody knew it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Comey is defiant and vowing to fight the allegations against him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: Somebody that I love dearly recently said that fear is the tool of a tyrant. And she's right, but I'm not afraid and I'm innocent. So let's have the trial.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Evan Perez is here with more on this. All right, walk us through these charges and how soon we could see that trial that Comey is sort of saying bring it on to?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Right. Well, the president keeps making comments and that is -- that makes it more likely that it'll be some time before we get to trial because his legal team is certainly going to be able to spend a lot of time trying to examine the influence that the president has had in making this case, in forcing the Justice Department to bring a case that we know some of the career prosecutors had some problems with. And the question will be, whether this was -- there's enough here or whether they were forced to bring this case.

They appointed a new U.S. attorney on Monday specifically to bring this case. That's going to be the allegation. Now look, if you look at the facts here, there is a makeable case here for prosecutors. They accuse Comey of authorizing someone at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports regarding an FBI investigation of person one. That person one is Hillary Clinton. And if you remember, there was an investigation into her use of a private email server. And this is around the period where these alleged leaks occurred.

So, one of the things that's going to happen now is the FBI and the Justice Department are going to have to detail exactly how they know Comey was part of those leaks and how he authorized it, and why they believe he made a false statement. Now, there's great irony, Brianna, that this is about the Clinton email investigation. Have you heard the president and his obsession with the Russia investigation, they keep referring to it as the Russia hoax, right? And he has long wanted justice, he believes, for what was done to him in his first term.

And so, the great irony here is that the Trump Justice Department is charging Jim Comey with essentially, lying about making leaks about the Hillary Clinton email investigation, not necessarily about Donald Trump. That is, I think, going to be a bigger part of this story as we get forward. The next time we're going to see Comey in court, or the first time we're going to see him in court is on October 9th, which is when he has his arraignment.

KEILAR: Yeah, it is interesting that's not getting in the way of an indictment here.

PEREZ: That's right.

KEILAR: Evan, thank you for that. Jessica?

DEAN: President Trump has been very outspoken in recent days, urging the Justice Department to get more aggressive in going after his political adversaries. Let's chat now with CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House. Alayna, what more is the president saying about who else could potentially be targeted?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, Jessica, the president, spoke with reporters this morning before he left for the Ryder Cup in New York. And he said, essentially, that one, he thought that it would be pretty easy to try and bring these -- not only bring these charges against Comey, but to have him -- the case against him will be pretty easy is how the president framed it because he argues that Comey lied during a 2020 Senate hearing on all of this.

[14:05:00]

But what I found more notable about that exchange, Jessica, was when he said that Comey is likely not the only one to face potential prosecution from the Justice Department. He was asked by CNN's Kevin Liptak, essentially, who was next on your list for retribution? This was his response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It's not a list, but I think there'll be others. I mean, they're corrupt. These were corrupt, radical left Democrats. Comey essentially was a -- he's worse than a Democrat. I would say the Democrats are better than Comey, but no, they'll be others. Look, it was -- that's my opinion. He lied. That was a very important question that he was asked, and he wanted to be specific, but he didn't. The only thing that happened to him, he didn't think he'd get caught.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So as you heard there, Jessica, the president is essentially saying that he thinks others will be next to face potential indictments. He did not go into specifics over who that could be. But I can tell you from my conversations with people at the White House, it's all the names that we've heard the president mention before, that he wants to see charges be brought against. People like the New York Attorney General Letitia James, people like Senator of California Adam Schiff. Of course, both of those people being some of the president's firmest political opponents.

And one thing that I think is really important to keep in mind here is some of the context around all of this. I know from my conversations with people in this building behind me that the president has lamented for months that essentially, he believes he was prosecuted, he faced indictments when he was out of office, and that these people deserve that type of treatment. It's just as Evan was laying out, he does see this as a sense of retribution of sorts.

Now, I do know my -- in my conversations with people at the White House, they argue that it's not just personal for that president, that he does firmly believe in their opinion, that they were either making illegal acts. They have done wrongdoing that deserves to be brought to justice. But again, this could mean that this isn't the only type of indictment we'll see. If anything, we know that the president himself and people here in the White House are saying more is to come. DEAN: Alayna Treene, at the White House. Thank you so much for that reporting. Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill have long had an opinion about James Comey, what they're saying about his indictment, that's next. Plus, President Trump bluntly says, do not give your young children Tylenol after linking acetaminophen to autism. But we are going to take a look at what the science says about that. And a little bit later, brown bears in Alaska are stuffing themselves to bulk up for winter. And you get a chance to pick the top bear, that and much more coming up here on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:12:21]

KEILAR: We have Breaking News. TV conglomerate Sinclair says it will end its boycott of "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" and the show will return this evening on its ABC affiliate stations. We have CNN's Brian Stelter with us now on this story. This is a big development. Brian. Tell us what you know.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yeah, we've been talking about free speech all week long. Kimmel has been celebrating his return to air in the past few days, but he has been blacked out across markets, representing about almost a quarter of American households. Two big station groups, Nexstar and Sinclair were preempting the show and now the blackout is halfway over. Sinclair has announced in the past few minutes, it's going to bring Kimmel's show back on the airwaves tonight.

We have reached out to Nexstar. We've not heard back from Nexstar yet. But CNN's Elizabeth Wagmeister and I have been saying all along that ABC held most of the cards in this standoff. These companies, these local station owners, they were going to be at risk of breaching their affiliate contracts. And frankly, this is an example of marketplace pressures coming to bear. So we talked about free speech with Kimmel. Now we're talking about the free market. Kimmel's show is popular and now newly popular with lots of people curious to hear what he has to say. And that might have been one of the factors driving Sinclair to bring the show back tonight.

And here's a part of the statement from the company that's come in just the past few minutes. The company says, Sinclair, as a company rooted in local stations, Sinclair remains committed to serving our communities with program that reflects their priorities, earns their trust, and promotes constructive dialog. We look forward to continuing to work with ABC and deliver content for our communities. So, Sinclair is acknowledging that it wanted and made demands from Disney and it's not getting them.

Remember last week, Sinclair insisted that Jimmy Kimmel apologize for his offending comments from about 10 days ago at this point. That never happened. Sinclair also said that it told ABC, it wanted to have a network-wide ombudsman. ABC hasn't agreed to that either. So essentially, Sinclair is folding in this situation, bringing Jimmy Kimmel's show back and we'll see what Nexstar decides to do. Meantime, one more interesting detail about how this has all gone down. I mentioned Kimmel newfound popularity. On YouTube, his monologues continue to get record numbers of views. That's in part because people who couldn't watch him in Sinclair markets have flocked to YouTube to watch the show instead.

KEILAR: Yeah, very interesting. Brian Stelter, thank you for the latest there. Big news. Jessica?

DEAN: We are hearing new reaction to the indictment against former FBI Director James Comey. Just a few moments ago, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, weighed in condemning those charges. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES, (D-NY) HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: Donald Trump and the administration continues to weaponize the Department of Justice. What James Comey did 11 days before the election in 2016 had something to do with the fact that Donald Trump got elected the first time around.

[14:15:00]

This is how Donald Trump repays James Comey? With this malicious prosecution? Like, it's all crazy to me, crazy to me. These charges are going to be dismissed. James Comey will win in court.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And joining us now is Republican Congressman Warren Davidson of Ohio. Congressman, thank you so much for your time this afternoon. It's nice to have you here with us. Before these charges were brought against Jim Comey, our reporting indicates that attorneys inside the Eastern District of Virginia wrote a memo detailing their reservations over seeking the indictment. The Attorney General herself, Pam Bondi, believed it was possible to indict Comey, but did have concerns about the case. I'm curious if any of those facts give you pause.

REP. WARREN DAVIDSON (R-OH): Well, not really. I think, look, people know that Jim -- James Comey was being dishonest in Congress. People that I served with at the time felt like James Comey was withholding information and had answered disingenuously. And other people have been held account for the same crime and James Comey celebrated that. And so I think he should be held to the same standard. And it's important, it wasn't just the U.S. District Attorney that brought the case. The case was -- he was indicted because a grand jury looked at the evidence and said, yeah, we believe he did commit this crime. So that's why James Comey is indicted, a grand jury indicted him.

DEAN: Right. And look, they were three different, indictments they tried to get. They were able to get the grand jury, to your point, to indict on two of those. On the third, they failed to get an indictment. What do you think about that?

DAVIDSON: Well, I mean, I think, maybe the effort to bring those charges wasn't -- they didn't have enough time to kind of organize the case and present the facts. Or maybe there was some deficiency in the amount of evidence that they had. I don't know. But, it certainly had a personnel change. And I think one of the things I was shocked to learn is that James Comey's son-in-law left. He was part of the investigation. Now, that should give a lot of us pause and go, well, yeah, I don't know. Maybe that's why the investigation was stalled.

DEAN: Well, he did work in that Eastern District. Now listen, you mentioned the personnel change and I did want to ask you about that because the interim U.S. attorney was pushed out because he had intense reservations about indicting or pursuing charges against Letitia James, the New York Attorney General. The president then replaced him with Lindsey Halligan, his one-time personal attorney, that's never appeared before a grand jury or prosecuted a case. Do you think that's an appropriate personnel change?

DAVIDSON: Look, I think we -- the number one question I've had since I've been in office and it's from Republicans and Democrats, Independents, everyone across the political spectrum, is when is somebody going to jail? They know that a lot of people are doing things that they disagree with, that they think are crimes, and they see the Department of Justice not bringing charges. They see Congress holding hearings, special investigations, special reports, special prosecutors, but they don't see people getting charged with crimes and getting convicted. And people are frustrated.

And I think that's across the political spectrum. So I think this indictment of James Comey does something to bring an answer to that question. When is somebody going to jail? Well, the highest level people are being held to account here.

DEAN: Yeah. And I hear you about people being frustrated. I do want to go back though to that attorney. Do you think that's the right person for the job? Somebody that was a personal attorney that prosecuted insurance cases that they should be acting as the U.S. attorney on this case?

DAVIDSON: Well, look, the U.S. attorney doesn't necessarily have to be the person litigating, the person presenting the case before a jury. But they do need to be --

(CROSSTALK)

DEAN: She did present it before the grand jury. Yes. Sorry, go ahead.

DAVIDSON: Yeah. And I think that -- I think she looks like a very competent pick and she's off to a good start. I mean, first time at the plate, she delivers and I think that's a good start.

DEAN: Yeah. All right. And getting two out of those three that she was seeking. I also want to ask you about something that the president said this morning. He told reporters that he hopes there will be others, those were his words, that will be charged. That he isn't working off a list. I hear you when you say that there are, yourself included, a lot of people that are frustrated and feel like other people should be charged. How do you kind of evaluate where this is justice and where this is political retribution?

DAVIDSON: Well, we had a committee on weaponization in the previous Congress because it was obvious that the federal law enforcement was being wielded against ordinary citizens. I mean, we had bank records seized without warrants. We had pro-life Catholics being targeted by the FBI, school board meetings targeted, ordinary citizens out there being targeted by their own government, people being de-banked.

[14:20:00]

Even Barney Frank said that Signature Bank wasn't closed because they were insolvent; they were closed because they were banking crypto. So you have a wide swath of the population that felt like the Biden administration was abusing its power and authority. And so, holding people to account that were censoring free speech, for example, as Google just acknowledged was in fact happening, that's not retribution, that's justice. These people used -- misused the offices that they held and they used it against the law and justice for the population. They should be held to account for that. That's not retribution.

DEAN: OK. I want to play -- Ranking Judiciary Democrat, Jamie Raskin was on with our Kate Bolduan earlier, and he has a different take on this, as you might imagine, as a Democrat. I do want to listen to what he said about that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": I want to ask you really quickly, when I was asking you about James Comey, you've twice now brought up the Epstein files and Tom Homan. Why?

REP. JAMIE RASKIN, (D-MD): Because the Department of Justice is in full cover-up mode. And just like they're doing the bidding of President Trump with respect to Mr. Comey, they're doing the bidding of President Trump with respect to covering up cases. I mean, the administration started off by having Trump basically force out the U.S. attorney for New York, another Republican Danielle Sassoon, because she wouldn't quash a grand jury indictment against Mayor Adams because he had become a political friend of Donald Trump's. So what we see is the complete politicization of the Department of Justice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Congressman, I just want to get lastly, your reaction to what your colleague said there.

DAVIDSON: Well, look, I mean, Jamie Raskin has carried a lot of water for including dishonest impeachment efforts against Donald Trump. He's got a very political animus. I don't think he looks at any of this stuff objectively. And I think as respect for the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, one of the areas there that they oversee securities law. And you saw under Gary Gensler, the Securities and Exchange Commission wielded as a weapon, very selective enforcement, targeting political enemies, not a coherent approach, and it was heavily targeted against crypto. Now, we bring in Jay Clayton, who was a former SEC Commissioner, that's who went there. So I think it has a lot more to do with the jurisdiction of the Southern District of New York and making sure that people that were abusing the law and their positions of trust, like maybe Gary Gensler, like Grawal (ph), like the people at the SEC that were abusing that power being held to account there. I don't know if those cases will be brought, but I think when you look broadly, that's what we want. We want to --

DEAN: But you want to see somebody like --

(CROSSTALK)

DAVIDSON: It's about justice.

DEAN: Like Gary -- you want to see Gary Gensler indicted as well?

DAVIDSON: Well, look, I think -- look, there was a case that was thrown out where there was arbitrary and capricious enforcement. To say that the Securities and Exchange Commission was found in court to be using arbitrary and capricious judgment to target essentially political enemies list. Yeah, somebody should be held account for that. People should be disbarred over those kinds of things. And there's none of this justice that's been happening. And clearly an agency after agency under the previous administration, people were abusing their power in their position of trust. That's not retribution; that's justice for holding people to account for having done that.

DEAN: All right. And of course, Gensler and others that you named have said, they did everything just right and are innocent of any wrongdoing. Congressman Warren Davidson, thank you for your time. We appreciate it.

DAVIDSON: Thank you.

DEAN: President Trump targets Tylenol again, telling parents not to give their young children the pain relief medication. We'll have details on that, just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:28:25]

KEILAR: President Trump is again targeting Tylenol with a very questionable claim. In a Truth Social post this morning, he tells pregnant women not to use the medication unless it's absolutely necessary. He tells them also not to give it to young children for virtually any reason. This, of course, follows that press conference earlier this week where the president said that Tylenol is linked to autism, Tylenol used during early pregnancy, despite decades of evidence showing it's safe.

We have CNN's Medical Correspondent, Meg Tirrell joining us. Meg, this really requires you to talk to us about the facts here. You have the president of the United States saying these things. MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Brianna. And he really is making six claims here across both Tylenol and vaccines, which he brought up on Monday as well. So we can just go through them quickly. On the first claim, he says pregnant women don't use Tylenol unless absolutely necessary. And there he goes beyond the warning from his own FDA, which called it a possible association in a press release on Monday and said, "Acetaminophen is the only over-the-counter drug approved for use to treat fevers during pregnancy and high fevers in pregnant women can pose a risk to their children." So pediatricians and doctors emphasize there can be an important need to use Tylenol during pregnancy.

Then he says, don't give Tylenol to your young child for virtually any reason. There, that is not even in the scope of what they were looking at with this possible warning. They weren't looking at children. They were looking at use during pregnancy. And the American Academy of Pediatrics says that Tylenol is safe for kids, taken as directed, and that there's no link to autism.

Then he goes into vaccines. He says, break up the MMR shot. That's measles, mumps, rubella into three totally separate shots, not mixed, he says.