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Trump Warns Hamas Must Disarm; Bolton Probe Focuses on Email Account; Battle for House Control; Storm Batters Western Alaska; Scammers Stealing Millions. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 15, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's controlled. There has been many reports of violent clashes that have taken place in the enclave. But I want to point out one incident which was shared on a Hamas affiliated social media channel. It purports to show masked gunmen, some of them with Hamas headbands, killing eight blindfolded individuals. Now, several rights groups have condemned this, calling it a violation of human rights. It is deeply concerning, but it seems that it is only the beginning because Hamas has now issued a statement to residents in Gaza saying that they should hand over what they call collaborators, or those who they perceive as enemies, or face, quote, "the swift hand of justice." There's also been clashes, running gun battles in parts of Gaza between Hamas and rival clans, or those it perceives as enemies.

Look, for Palestinian families in Gaza, this is absolutely terrifying right now. They have just endured two years of war. They are now looking at the near collapse of their society and Hamas trying to reassert control in this very violent and direct manner. And it is also concerning, of course, because of the ceasefire agreement. The ceasefire agreement envisions that Hamas will lay down its arms, give up governance and that Gaza would be governed in the future by some other body. But that ceasefire plan has been extremely vague on detail. And Hamas has shown no commitment, no willingness to lay down those arms.

So, a couple of questions. How will Israel respond if Hamas doesn't lay down arms? Will the ceasefire agreement fall apart? You've already heard from President Trump, who seems to indicate that he could respond violently, or that there would be a violent response if Hamas does not lay down its weapons.

So, again, you have just days after this ceasefire agreement is in place, Hamas, which is showing its strength on the streets, putting its police forces back among the local population, hitting back at anyone it sees as enemies in. As a result, it puts serious question marks over the viability of Trump's peace plan.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, you're laying out the key critical and huge questions that now are before them in real time. This is not in the future. This needs to be answered in the now.

It's great to see you, Salma. Thank you so much for tracking all of that for us.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, let's continue this discussion. Joining me now is CNN military analyst Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Thank you for being here.

I am curious about what we heard from Donald Trump saying the word we will disarm Hamas if no one else does. I mean, are we talking about sending in U.S. troops? Is that how you read that? How would the United States do that without sending in U.S. troops?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, that would be very difficult.

Sara, good morning to you.

I think one of the key things that Donald Trump is thinking about here is possibly using a standoff. Weapons like drones and weapons that we can fire off of aircraft, such as standoff missiles. That would be the kind of thing that would probably -- that he'd want to use.

The problem with that, though, is the efficacy of something like that when you're dealing with a foe like Hamas. And when you are looking at, you know, these -- these groups that are going out as police forces, basically, and rounding up people that they allege are collaborators, it's going to be very difficult to disarm those people unless you're physically present on the ground in Gaza. He's said -- President Trump has said before that we are not going to put U.S. boots on the ground in Gaza. This is going to be a real test of that, because if we're not doing it, then the only other force that's capable of doing that right now is the Israeli military. And, of course, that brings up a whole nother set of issues at this point.

SIDNER: Should there be real worry here when -- when you hear that statement and then you also see that Hamas has failed so far to turn over all of the bodies of hostages. There were 28 in total. Four bodies were returned. Only three of those ended up being, you know, the DNA check and matching the hostages.

At this point, Hamas has said that they, you know, aren't sure they're going to be able to find them all, but to find most of them. Could this end up being the catalyst for Israel to return to -- to war?

LEIGHTON: Yes, it very well could be. In fact, Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel has indicated that if things don't go according to the provisions of the peace plan, then they will reserve the right, Israel will reserve the right to resume the war. And in some ways, some people believe that Netanyahu is actually kind of relishing the idea of going back toward kind of finishing the job, if you will.

Of course, that job seems to be one that is a -- kind of a moving target. And that's going to be a problem. It's going to be a problem for Israel. It's going to be a problem for all the parties involved. But the risk is really high that this ceasefire is going to collapse if things aren't taken into -- into account like this and Hamas doesn't provide the rest of the bodies.

[08:35:10]

SIDNER: There is the other -- the other question. Israel is responding already to -- to this by reducing aid to desperate people that are in Gaza who have been dealing with this really what the U.N. special report said was a famine. I mean, is that the right response as you're looking at what has been happening to -- to civilians?

LEIGHTON: No, I think it's actually the -- the wrong response. I think the response should be the opposite, because what is really needed is, we need to flood the zone with as much aid as possible and give these people a chance to survive. The last thing the Israelis should want is a massive famine, massive, large-scale famine in Gaza. That would be a disaster of epic proportions. It's already a major disaster, and this would just compound that.

SIDNER: Colonel Cedric Leighton, when you look at what's happened in Gaza and the amount of destruction there, and the fact that at this point in time Trump says, look, we are -- we have allowed Hamas to be the police force at this time.

How does this phase two even begin when you're considering the enormity of the suffering and damage that exists there in Gaza?

LEIGHTON: Yes, that' s -- that's really a major question here. And, in fact, there's an inherent contradiction, Sara, in the peace plan itself, because on the one hand you're giving Hamas the guns, allowing them to keep their guns so that they can go ahead and enforce their version of the law. The problem is, is once you give them the right to do that and allow them to -- to go out there, they are going to be far more reluctant to turn over their guns. They were already reluctant to do that in the first place. This just means that they are going to try to hold on to power, and they're going to do so no matter what the cost. So, that's the kind of issues that we're dealing with here and those inherent contradictions in this peace plan are really going to be something that either need to be resolved or we're going to see the peace plan collapse.

SIDNER: Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you so much for your analysis this morning. Appreciate you.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, new details this morning in the federal investigation into former National Security Advisor John Bolton. Sources tell CNN part of this probe centers around diary-like notes that he took into an AOL email account.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz has all the details here.

So, AOL, Katelyn.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: AOL. Still something that John Bolton had, at least when he was the national security adviser in the first Trump administration. We got a hint of this after the searches of his home and his office in

August, John. After those searches took place, there were some court documents that mentioned this email account, but sources are now telling me that the reason that investigators were focused on that and looking at that when they went into his home and his office to try and seize documents and electronics he would have, the reason was because he had been making notes to himself, essentially, inside this AOL email account. One person described it to me as sort of like diary- like entries at times. Even if they weren't every day, it was summaries of what he was doing when he was working in the Trump White House.

Now, this is something, John, that the Justice Department is now looking at as they consider possible mishandling of classified information charges. Was there information that would have been classified that Bolton would have been writing in that email account? That is something that is driving this possible case that we know is being investigated, that led to those searches.

But there are still a lot of other questions. Is there also going to be elements that the Justice Department is looking at related to John Bolton and work on his book manuscript in 2020, a tell-all he wrote about his time in the Trump White House. Much of this also, I should note, John, this is one of those things where it could be that the Justice Department is not interested in looking at the intent of Bolton sharing anything with other people. That is a different sort of thing than just the idea that keeping classified information in an unsecured way, that also can be enough for the Justice Department to look at a criminal charge.

BERMAN: So, he hasn't been charged yet, at least. What do we know about the status of the investigation and if it may happen?

POLANTZ: Well, John, this is a long running investigation into John Bolton. And it is not the sort of investigation that is in line with the others of recent days where there were pretty dramatic splits within the Justice Department on whether to charge people, like James Comey, Letitia James, John Bolton.

[08:40:05]

This is a case that investigators have worked on for a very long time. And the split, as far as I have been told over the past couple days it had been between political leadership at the Justice Department and line prosecutors on timing after that search in August, how soon was too soon to potentially try and bring a charge and go to a grand jury? Now we are hearing that any sort of hesitation, those line prosecutors were having in the district of Maryland of charging Bolton right around now, they've withdrawn that and they were at work on Saturday preparing or finalizing a potential indictment.

Of course, John, we'd have to see exactly what happens in court and if a grand jury would approve something that's presented to them.

BERMAN: But working over the weekend does tell you something.

Katelyn Polantz, thank you so much for this update. We will stand by for more possibly.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thank you, JB.

New this morning, the race to control the House in the 2026 midterms has taken a turn and possibly brings with it a new warning sign for Democrats.

Harry Enten running the numbers on this one and sneaking in at the last minute, just as usual.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: I've learned that way around. I've learned that.

BOLDUAN: That was good. That was a good maneuver.

ENTEN: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: People should -- I wish people could see it.

ENTEN: I have -- I have fantastic moves. It's the new shoes, as we spoke about yesterday.

BOLDUAN: OK. Moving on.

And you're -- OK, you're tracking the odds. What is the change that you're seeing?

ENTEN: Yes. OK. So, you know, if you go back six months ago, you go back to April, Kate Bolduan, what were we looking at? Well, we were looking at the Democrats with a very clear shot of taking control of the U.S. House of Representatives according to the Kalshi Predication Market Odds. We saw them at an 83 percent chance.

But those odds have gone plummeting down. Now we're talking about just a 63 percent chance, while the GOP's chances up like a rocket, up like gold, up from 17 percent to now a 37 percent chance. So, it will look like a pretty clear Democratic -- likely Democratic win in the House come next year has become much closer to a toss-up at this point, although still slightly leaning Democratic.

BOLDUAN: What's changed? What are you seeing?

ENTEN: OK, what has changed? Well, why don't we just take a look at the national picture first, take a look at voters and how they're feeling about things. And we can take a look at the generic congressional ballot. And I want to take a look and compare it to 2017, 2018, right, because that's sort of the baseline. That was, of course, the first Trump term. That was where Democrats were sort of keeping pace.

You go back to April, look at the generic congressional ballot. What'd you see? You see plus three Democrats in 2025 in April. You see plus three Democrats back in April of 2017. Now, jump over to this side of the screen. What happens? Well, the

Democrats are no longer keeping pace with the pace that they were setting back in 2017, 2018. You look back in 2017, you saw that the Democrats had leaped up to an eight-point advantage. I remember covering this. I remember a lot of folks, including myself, saying, you know what, Republicans look pretty decent right now in terms of the fact that they had the House, they had the Senate, they had the presidency, but things were likely going to flip. And I was looking for the same signs this year.

The bottom line is, it hasn't happened, Kate Bolduan. It hasn't happened. Democrats have stayed basically steady. They have fallen off the pace. Democrats were way out ahead back in 2017 on the generic congressional ballot. And now we're basically looking at Democrats ahead. But again, they are so far in back of the pace that they set back there. And so, I think what a lot of folks are seeing, folks like myself, are saying, wait a minute, given what we might be seeing in redistricting, is this plus three going to be enough, Kate Bolduan?

BOLDUAN: Well, that's what I was going to ask. One change from that cycle is also this mid-decade redistricting effort that we've been covering so much. Add that in and what do you get?

ENTEN: OK. So, we add that in. We take a look at the national picture. But then we, of course, taking a look at the state legislatures, right? They are potentially changing things. And there are two things that are going on here. First off, net mid-decade redistricting gains. If both sides max out at this point, there are more Republican gains possible than Democratic gains. Yes, the Democrats might try to counter a Texas and a California, but you go along in the different states and basically Democrats run out of room where Republicans are able to gain and gain and gain.

If both sides max out, we're probably looking at a GOP gain of plus seven House seats. That doesn't even take into account the potential gutting of the VRA that is right now going to be in front of the Supreme Court. If you add that in, you could be looking --

BOLDUAN: Voting Right -- the Voting Rights Act.

ENTEN: What -- yes. Exactly right.

BOLDUAN: The Voting Rights Act.

ENTEN: The Voting Rights Act. If you add that in, then you could be looking about adding ten, 12, 15, 17 on top of this seven seats. So, I think a lot of folks like myself are looking at this. We're seeing, hey, wait a minute, those national polls are -- Democrats are not gaining the way that we expected. Then you add in the fact that the state legislatures are adding potentially more GOP seats like they've already done down in Texas, like they've done in Missouri. And then you add in the potential gutting of the VRA, and all of a sudden it becomes much more difficult for democrats to gain, especially given that they are not keeping up with their 2017, 2018 pace in the generic ballot. BOLDUAN: And as you said, that also makes it difficult to compare it

to all -- past examples in history because this is such a different new landscape that we're looking at, right?

ENTEN: It's a different new landscape, and we're not quite sure how much Democrats will have to be ahead in the national House vote in order to gain control.

[08:45:00]

BOLDUAN: All right. Thank you, Harry.

ENTEN: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you, Kate.

A woman charged with ramming a Customs and Border Protection vehicle in Chicago is due for arraignment today. Mirimar Martinez and another man are indicted for allegedly boxing in the vehicle and then hitting it. The Department of Homeland Security previously said an agent fired defense shots at Martinez, but a lawyer says body camera footage, which hasn't been made public, shows an agent saying, "do something," followed by a curse word before engaging with Martinez. Mirimar's lawyer says the video also shows the CBP vehicle swerving into Martinez's vehicle.

All right, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voting to declare a state of emergency in part of an effort to help residents impacted by President Trump's immigration crackdown. It allows lawmakers to provide rental assistance to tenants who are behind on rent payments due to recent immigration raids. The local state of emergency can also tap into state money for legal aid and other services. There were more than 5,000 immigration related arrests in Los Angeles in late August due to the federal crackdown.

John.

BERMAN: All right, a woman seen on a doorbell camera being taken against her own will. This morning we have new details about who she is and what happened there.

And scammers convincing Americans to feed their life savings into crypto ATM machines so they can steal it. How they manage to con their prey.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:49]

BERMAN: A powerful storm in Alaska battered communities and left at least one person dead. And now we are learning that a lack of weather data left gaps in the forecast. Alaska does not have enough weather balloon coverage.

CNN's Allison Chinchar is with us now.

This has to do with some funding that never came through because of cuts, Allison, right?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right. And I think the key thing here is that this wasn't a puny storm we were forecasting. This was a very potent storm.

You take a look at some of the images behind me of the damage that was left behind from this particular storm along the West Coast of Alaska. Again, you can see all of these -- the water that just inundated these homes here along the coastline.

So, here's the storm that we're talking about. This is the Typhoon Halong that was the remnants of it. This is five days ago. So, this is last Friday. This is where the storm was located. Then it began to spread itself into the Bering Sea. And even though it lost its tropical components, it was still a very potent, powerful storm. Very similar to say how Superstorm Sandy was. It lost its tropical aspects, but it was still a very powerful storm.

Well, then, as we make our way through the weekend, it slammed into the west coast of Alaska. And we're talking incredibly heavy rain, very gusty winds for a lot of these areas and just water inundation from all that storm surge that would come through the area. Take a look at some of these numbers, 93, 81, 78, even 100 mile per hour winds to some of these coastal communities here along western Alaska. And the water inundation, several locations picking up roughly six feet of water inundation. Again, it's incredible to think about the volume of water that would have flowed onto some of these roads, into homes, and even into some of the businesses.

But here's the thing. This is a map of all of the weather service stations that operate and do weather balloon launches. All the blue dots you see. They send out two balloon launches a day. That is standard practice for all National Weather Service offices across the country. Until earlier this year, when a lot of them had to go down to just one balloon launch, where you see the yellow dots, or none at all, which is where you see the red dots.

Now, this orange dot, which was one of the offices that was keeping a very close eye on this particular storm, did launch balloons, but due to communications and data issues, they just simply never received the information in a timely manner, which ultimately could end up impacting the forecasts that go into this. Because here's the thing, weather balloon launches are key to forecasts. They measure all of the upper level atmosphere. So, we're talking things like temperature, humidity, wind gusts. It's like baking a cake without flour when you don't have that information. So, unfortunately, not having that additional information could have potentially led to some forecasting concerns.

BERMAN: And you could have seen that map right there where they cut back on the weather forecast to one or none. That was right where the storm was. That was the path it took before it really just slammed that coast there. Allison Chinchar, thank you so much for that report.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you, John.

New this morning on our radar, police in Wichita, Kansas, say a woman being seen abducted on a home surveillance video that you see right there has been found safe. A doorbell camera recording the moment the woman was taken by force by a man over the weekend. Police then reached out to the public to try to help identify that man. Investigators say they received a call from a woman claiming to be the individual they were trying to identify. Officials say they were able to confirm her identity and that she did not have any significant injuries after that incident.

All right, a retired security guard is now in the Guinness Book of World Records. Why? For his name. I would tell you what it is, but that might take like 15 minutes. And we just don't have the time. But we're going to shorten it to Lawrence Watkins. As a kid, the 60-year- old was fascinated by world records and he wanted to join their ranks, but he said he was, quote, "a normal person with no particular talent." So, he decided to give himself the world's longest name. It contains 2,253 words. So long that the officiant at his first wedding prerecorded it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Wait, are they all -- I don't -- we haven't seen it but are they all names or just -- they just like random -- like, there's a "the" in there and a --

[08:55:04]

SIDNER: It's a long, long, long series of -- of names. It's --

BOLDUAN: Wait, I can't wait to see this.

SIDNER: It's kind of cool, actually.

BOLDUAN: It is very cool, but I like the shortened version as well. We all -- we all need a nickname.

Thanks, Sara.

OK, so, this morning, it's a scary scam and it is spreading fast. And police say that they often can't do anything about it to help the victims. Americans convinced to pour their cash into a crypto ATM. And that seems to be just the beginning.

CNN's Kyung Lah dives deep into this scam, this world and the victims left in its wake.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no, no. No, no. KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): You are watching a victim get scammed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: they're scamming you.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, they're not.

LAH (voice over): One of thousands of Americans caught in a growing global crime spree that's no secret to police.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the police department.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't care.

LAH (voice over): Or even store clerks.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't do it. A lot of people have been scammed recently.

LAH (voice over): From Georgia.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody on the internet, some scam caller told her to do this.

LAH (voice over): To Massachusetts.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What did they tell you to do?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Take $31,000 out and then put it into Bitcoin?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, no.

LAH (voice over): Texas.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I noticed an elderly lady feeding thousands of dollars into the cryptocurrency machine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please, I have the bank on the phone, and I'm in danger. This is Chase Bank.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, no you're not, ma'am.

LAH (voice over): And Ohio.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How much money have you already sent to them?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: $10,700.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Jesus Christ.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, man.

LAH (voice over): I even talked to one of these scammers.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You need to withdraw $9,500 from your account.

LAH (voice over): And you'll see how he tried to steal ten grand.

LAH: This is a scam. You know it and I know it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I think like I'm talking to the reporter?

LAH (voice over): In all of these cases, these machines, called crypto ATMs, become the getaway car for the scammers who prey on victims, like Gus Cason.

GUS CASON, SCAM VICTIM: That's where I stuffed in $100 bills. It would prompt you for everything that come up. And I had him on the phone, too.

LAH: Had you ever seen this before?

CASON: Never been here before. Never been here after.

LAH (voice over): Just outside Cedar Rapids, Iowa, is where Gus Cason calls home. Age 71, a retired union worker and super fan of the band Nickelback. Two years ago, as he was recovering from a stroke --

CASON: I got a phone call. Well, he told me he was president of the bank. I said, now you tell me -- I want you to swear that you're not a scam. I swear I'm not a scam and all that. He convinced me. He was good. He was good. And I just had a stroke. I wasn't thinking right at all.

LAH (voice over): The scammer told Gus that he would be arrested unless he withdrew $15,000 in cash and deposited it in that crypto ATM. It looks like a normal ATM, but a crypto ATM is different. Put in cash and it converts it into cryptocurrency in an instant. Victims like Gus have lost about $240 million so far this year, says the FBI, double the pace of last year.

CASON: I should have known better. I should have known better. I was stupid enough. I fell for it.

LAH (voice over): The scammer took off with Gus' cash in the form of cryptocurrency. But the crypto ATM company also made money from the transaction. Our investigation found the companies that operate crypto ATMs profit off the fees and markups, often at 20 to 30 percent that they charge on transactions, scam or legit. And when police have seized the scam to cash out of the ATMs, the crypto ATM companies hit back hard in court to get that cash back, which is what happened to Gus Cason.

MAJ. CHAD COLSTON, LINN COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE, IOWA: This is our evidence processing room.

LAH (voice over): Major Chad Colston and his deputies at the Linn County Sheriff's Office managed to recover the $15,000 in cash that Gus had put into that crypto ATM as evidence in a crime.

LAH: How confident were you that the victim would get that money back after you took it out of the machine?

COLSTON: So, we were very confident.

LAH (voice over): His confidence was short lived. Bitcoin Depot, the company with the most crypto ATMs in the U.S., fought in court to get the $15,000 back. The company points out its machines, like many crypto ATMs, have multiple on screen warnings, alerts of scams and requires that customers agree that they're only sending money to their own accounts. So, in court, Bitcoin Depot won.

COLSTON: We ended up getting a communication from Bitcoin Depot. They said it was a glorious day, gentlemen. When can we come get our money? Which was our victim's money? A multi-million-dollar company is overjoyed that they get $15,000 and our victim is, you know, hurting. I mean, that's their life savings.

LAH (voice over): Bitcoin Depot has used tough tactics to stop police from seizing money for evidence, like threats to immediately litigate or suspending fee refunds in entire states if a single officer tries to seize cash. Bitcoin Depot even sent an Amazon gift to mock one police department, a copy of the U.S. Constitution, with a note calling the seizure of the scam victims' money a Fourth Amendment violation.

[09:00:02]

After we reached out to Bitcoin Depot about these messages to police, the company told us the messages were unacceptable and the employee responsible is --