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Shutdown Enters Day 15; NATO Ministers Meet in Brussels; Ross Smith is Interviewed about Aid for Gaza; Tara Hopkins is Interviewed about Teens on Instagram. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired October 15, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): 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 no longer with Bitcoin Depot."

LAH: What do you think, Gus, that everybody seemed to get money but you, who saved that money?

GUS CASON, SCAM VICTIM: You know, Bitcoin had no business getting that money at all. I mean, really, when -- especially when it's a scam.

LAH: Do you think that's fair?

CASON: Well, hell no.

LAH (voice over): Lawsuits from attorneys general accused the top three crypto ATM firms of profiting from scams and not protecting customers. Iowa's AG, more than half of all money taken in by Bitcoin Depot in Iowa over three years came from scams. Washington, D.C.'s AG, at least 93 percent of deposits over several months from Athena Bitcoin machines came from scams. Athena Bitcoin tells CNN it "strongly disputes the allegations in the complaint," and says it has strong safeguards against fraud. Bitcoin Depot tells us, "we do not profit from scams," and "the vast majority of our customers use our kiosks for lawful purposes." The company adds, "if it can't stop the transaction, it reviews every potential scam case individually for possible fee relief or refunds.

But we spoke to nearly a dozen victims who were tricked by scammers while using Bitcoin Depot machines, and only one said she got a fee refund.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are standing by to hear from House Speaker Mike Johnson this morning. Why won't he bring Republicans back to Washington to try to end the government shutdown?

Ukrainian Leader Volodymyr Zelensky on his way to Washington to ask for new, long range weapons to hit deep inside Russia. New signs he might get some of what he wants.

And new accusations of excessive force. A mother arrested outside her daughter's school.

I'm John Berman, with Sara Sidner and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, as the government shutdown enters day 15, there is no end in sight. Just an hour from now, House Speaker Mike Johnson is set to speak alongside other Republican leaders. We're also expecting to hear from Democratic leaders today. But we -- what we are not hearing or expecting really at all is anything about those leaders talking to each other at all. And as a result, more than a million federal employees are furloughed or working without a paycheck. And military families who were bracing for their first missed paycheck today will, in fact, see the money come in after the Pentagon's research and development funds were rerouted in order to fill that gap. Fill that gap for now I guess we can say.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is on Capitol Hill tracking all the latest here.

And, Arlette, where are we?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, this government shutdown is officially in week three and there is not any clear resolution to this impasse. In fact, Republican and Democratic leaders have shown signs that they are bracing for a prolonged shutdown. The White House has warned that they are preparing for potentially more layoffs in addition to the 4,000 federal workers who were laid off on Friday, an unprecedented move in the shutdown. And Democrats continue to insist that Republicans need to come to the negotiating table on health care. But neither side is showing any signs of budging.

And as all of this talk about not talking plays out on Capitol Hill, there is a real-world impact being felt across the country. As you mentioned, military members will receive a bit of a reprieve after President Trump was able to shift around some funds from the Pentagon's research and development budget to ensure that they got their paychecks today. But it's unclear how long that money might last and whether he fully has the legal authority to repurpose those funds for paychecks.

And there are thousands of federal workers who are grappling with the uncertainty of how long this shutdown will last. Here is an owner of a food pantry that has serviced military families across 17 states, who said that this is really presenting a strain for military families.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MONICA BASSETT, FOUNDER AND CEO, STRONGHOLD FOOD PANTRY: It's heartbreaking. It is absolutely devastating that undue burden, that mental stress of, can I pay my bills come October 15th? Can I put nutritious food on the table?

The morale has been low. I think that our military community has taken a very big emotional hit. And I just want our community to stay very vigilant.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SAENZ: So that really speaks to some of the frustration that people are feeling at home as this shutdown continues. I can tell you, we have heard from various members of the military, even Capitol Police up here, wondering when their next paychecks might be coming.

[09:05:02]

This all comes as President Trump has also warned that they will soon announce cuts that they will make to programs that he says are backed by Democrats.

Now, a bit later today, we are expecting the Senate likely to vote again on that House-passed Republican plan to fund the government through November 21st. But right now there are really no signs of movements, as both Republicans and Democrats are digging in on their positions.

BOLDUAN: Yes, something's going to give at some point. The big unknown right now is what and when.

Arlette, thank you so much.

John.

BERMAN: All right, happening today, NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels to talk about collective defense against Russia. The meeting comes ahead of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy heading to the White House, where he's expected to push for longer range weapons, Tomahawk missiles, that could hit deep inside Russia.

CNN senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen is with us this morning.

That would give Ukraine this whole new capability that certainly Zelenskyy thinks could change the situation there.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a whole new capability to strike deep into Russian territory, possibly even hitting as far as Moscow, but certainly also hitting military and other infrastructure well beyond the line of contact right now and really very deep into Russian territory as well. You're absolutely right, John.

Of course, this was a big topic and it is a big topic at that NATO defense ministers meeting. They don't officially really want to talk about it. It was quite interesting to hear. I was just listening to a press conference by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. He was asked that question whether, whether or not NATO would be in favor of the Ukrainians getting those weapons. And he said, quite frankly, that is an issue between the United States and Ukraine. So, something that has to be dealt out between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, even if NATO, for instance, were to purchase these weapons from the United States to give to Ukraine, the U.S. and President Trump would have to sign off on it.

And, of course, that's sort of the new way that the European NATO partners are trying to get weapons to the Ukrainians is purchasing them from the U.S. and then further giving them to Ukraine. And that's one of the ways that secretary of war, Pete Hegseth, earlier today said more firepower is coming to Ukraine.

Let's listen in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Firepower. That's what is coming. We expect it is coming from NATO. You get peace when you are strong, not when you use strong words or wag your finger. You get it when you have strong and real capabilities that adversaries respect. And I believe that's what NATO is doing. I believe that's what the Pearl Initiative (ph) is. So, our expectation today is that more countries donate even more, that they purchase even more to provide for Ukraine to bring that conflict to a peaceful conclusion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: And, John, to a certain extent, that appears to be what is happening within NATO at that press conference by NATO secretary general that just wrapped up a couple of minutes ago. He said that the amount of countries that are purchasing or have pledged money to purchase U.S. weapons, to then give those to Ukraine, that that number has increased from six countries in the beginning, pledging about $2 billion, a little bit more than that, to now over half of NATO members pledging to buy weapons from the United States and give those weapons to Ukraine, obviously to bolster Ukraine's defenses.

The other thing, by the way, the NATO countries are also talking about is those recent alleged drone incursions by Russian drones into NATO territory and how to deal with that as well.

John.

BERMAN: Fascinating to watch this develop.

Fred Pleitgen for us. Keep your eye on those Tomahawks. If that comes up here with Zelenskyy and President Trump on Friday, it will be fascinating to see how President Trump discusses it.

Fred, thank you very much. S

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, this morning, on another war front, President Trump warns Hamas, if all else fails and the group doesn't disarm, quote, "we will disarm them." That threat coming as anger is growing in Israel over Hamas' slow release of hostage remains. So far the group has turned over eight of 28 bodies. One of the bodies wasn't actually a hostage, according to the Israeli military. Due to that delay of the hostages, the United Nations says Israel is greatly reducing the amount of aid being allowed into Gaza, where a U.N.-backed report from August found more than a half a million people are trapped by famine.

Ross Smith is the director of emergency preparedness and response at the World Food Programme, and joins me now.

Thank you for being here.

First to what has happened with Hamas giving -- not giving over hostages. The response being that less and less aid will be coming in. Initially I think there were 600 trucks a day promised by Israel. Now that has changed. What does this mean to getting food, medical supplies and shelter supplies to the desperate families there?

ROSS SMITH, DIRECTOR, EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE, WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME: Great. Thanks, Sara, and thanks for having me on.

Yes, indeed, I think this is very early days of this ceasefire. It's a very fragile and unpredictable situation on the ground.

[09:10:02]

So, we are seeing things change day by day.

Indeed, we haven't been able to get 600 trucks a day into Gaza. Over the last four days, in fact, we've had less than 200. Some of that is to be expected because -- because of the first few days of -- after the hostage release, prisoner exchange. But this is a worrying development, I would say. We desperately need law and order on the ground, and we need all sides of this agreement to -- to continue to put effort into maintaining it.

SIDNER: I'm just curious about what is happening on the ground and what, you know, people from your organization are seeing. How hard is it to distribute -- to get the aid, distribute the aid because of the desperation, because of the security issues? I mean most buildings have been blown apart and people are exhausted.

SMITH: Yes, It's an incredibly desperate situation inside Gaza. As you indicated with a report recently released of half a million people facing famine, the destruction of infrastructure, the destruction of roads, shelters. So, people are on the move. People do not -- don't have shelter and people don't have access to food. So, they're very desperate.

We've been present in Gaza throughout. We've been moving humanitarian supplies and food throughout Gaza. But it's been very, very difficult conditions. And so we're hopeful under this ceasefire that we do get more law and order and we're able to do things in a more safe and dignified way for people. And we have yet to see that, but we remain hopeful.

SIDNER: With very little infrastructure in place, I am just curious, what are you learning about how people are dealing with the aid? I mean if it's things like rice, things that need to be cooked, how is that happening with so little infrastructure available there? And is it -- are your organizations cooking the food, or is this a matter of people getting it and trying to figure out what to do with it later?

SMITH: Yes, one of the -- one of the things that we've been really advocating for is not just for food or food boxes or wheat flour to move into Gaza, but other humanitarian supplies. So, fuel, cooking gas, health, medical supplies, shelter supplies, water, sanitation. So, really, if a family has a malnourished child, they need all of these things in order to alleviate their suffering, alleviate the situation.

So, we are -- we've had some success in the last couple of weeks of scaling up our bakery program and our nutrition program, and this bakery program provides free or subsidized bread to people so that -- that's -- you know, that helps a lot where people don't have firewood or fuel to cook.

SIDNER: Can you give me some sense of how it is that you and your staff on the ground there is finding protection to be able to get this aid, desperately needed aid to people?

SMITH: Yes, I mean, we work closely with -- with all -- all stakeholders on the ground to make sure our staff and the staff of our partners are -- are safe and secure. And it has been an extreme challenge I would say. It is one of the most difficult environments in the world to work as a humanitarian right now. And we advocate, you know, with all parties involved, to -- to ensure that we're safe and secure.

But, you know, that is -- that is for our staff. Civilians, as you've seen, it is a very different situation. And what we're really pushing for, as I said, is a law and order solution so that we can do our work in a -- in a safe and dignified way for everybody.

SIDNER: Ross Smith, I do thank you for coming and explaining all that, what is happening with your organization and others on the ground there in Gaza. Appreciate it.

John.

BERMAN: All right, what you will not be able to see on Instagram today if you are of a certain age. How easy will it be to break the rules?

And what about us? The question being asked by some U.S. farmers as the Trump administration moves to prop up some of their competitors.

And new video of an arrest of a mother outside a school. Now accusations of excessive force.

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[09:18:37]

BOLDUAN: So, today, Instagram may look and feel different for millions of teenagers and kids. Meta is rolling out a new strategy tightening its teen security settings on the platform even further, now limiting what millions of young people can access on Instagram. And in the latest update, Instagram has taken a page from Hollywood, saying teen accounts will primarily see content that's similar to what they'd see in a PG-13 movie. The platform says it will not promote, may even hide, posts featuring strong language or posts that could encourage what Meta is describing as harmful behaviors. So, how is this going to work starting now? Joining us right now is

Tara Hopkins, Meta's global director of public policy at Instagram. The person that will know.

It's good to have you here. Thank you so much for being here.

TARA HOPKINS, GLOBAL DIRECTOR AND POLICY HEAD, INSTAGRAM: Thank you for having me.

BOLDUAN: It was a year ago, almost to -- on the dot that Instagram kind of launched this revamp and tightening up and a closer look at teen accounts. What have you seen in this last year that led to this new step?

HOPKINS: So, as you said, we -- we launched teen accounts on Instagram just over a year ago, and that places teens into our most restrictive settings. And we did that because we were listening to parents. We've been building safety settings and protectors, you know, for teens for a long, long time at Meta. But parents were a bit confused about it.

So, with teen accounts, what we did was we put all of our safety features, all of our safety settings for teens into one place, and we've restricted who a teen can be contacted by when they're using Instagram, the content that they see and the time that they spend.

[09:20:09]

We now have hundreds of millions of teens across the globe who are in the teen account setting, which is great. We also saw that 97 percent of those teens, those younger teens, haven't tried to change any of those settings. So, we feel like it's going pretty well.

But one of the things that we went back to parents about was around content. Parents were still a bit confused about our content controls. Some parents want more control over the amount of -- of time and content that their teen is spending on Instagram. We really wanted to speak the language of parents. So, this is why this week we've -- we've revamped teen accounts and now content settings on teen accounts are going to be guided by the PG-13 movie ratings, which we just think are a much more familiar mental model for parents.

Every teen in the U.S. under the age of 18, when we know they're under the age of 18, will be moved into this setting, this plus 13 setting, which means we are restricting them kind of even further with some of the content that they'll be able to see. We looked at our content settings, and we -- we did a review side by side with what is expected of a PG-13 movie. We made some changes to -- adaptations (ph) to our policies. So, what parents and teens will see now is a little bit more of a protective experience for them, and we're giving parents more control.

So, we have a new setting, which is called limited content. So, any parents out there who want to just limit it a bit further, throw the net a bit wider, and our enforcement will be even stronger there. That's when parents will know that their teen is in the most protective settings that we have. BOLDUAN: Everyone understands PG-13. You can understand that it's --

it's very familiar compared to maybe some of the jargon and terminology used in the tech world, right?

HOPKINS: Yes.

BOLDUAN: So, you -- I totally get that.

Then I saw a statement from the Motion Picture Association, though, and I'll read it for everyone what they said. It says, "the Motion Picture Association was not contacted by Meta prior to the announcement of its new content moderation tool for Instagram teen accounts. We welcome efforts to protect kids from content that may not be appropriate for them, but assertions that Instagram's new tool will be guided by PG-13 movie ratings or have any connection to the film industry's rating system are inaccurate."

It seems that they're suggesting that -- that -- that the graham (ph) wants to reap the benefits of what we all know is the standard of -- of PG-13 without going through the work that we know that those councils have done for finite, you know, movies. And it's different rating a movie that has a beginning and an ending and the ever changing content that could be coming at a teen.

So, what do you say to this?

HOPKINS: So, first of all, we're not claiming that every piece of content on Instagram is -- is rated by the MPA. That's not our intention. That's not what we're doing.

But what we did do was we looked at the standards that parents are familiar with. And the MPA is -- has got -- done a huge amount of work, as you said on this, and parents are really familiar with it. And so, what we tried to do was align as much as we could, be guided by it. It's a nod towards what parents really better understand. And then what we did is we looked side by side at what's allowed and not allowed in a movie, and then we looked at our own policies to see where we needed to do some of these tweaks.

We want parents to have the same mental model. So, when their teen is in the cinema, watching a PG-13 movie, when your teen is on Instagram, we just want parents to have a sense of what kind of content that their teen will be seeing.

BOLDUAN: What could be coming at them.

HOPKINS: Exactly.

BOLDUAN: One thing is always kids trying to get around the rules, right? And I'm just curious, how do you suss out a kid who's lying about their age?

HOPKINS: It's a great question. And so we use enhanced A.I. to try to find teens who may have not told us their correct age when they first joined Instagram.

BOLDUAN: What are the clues?

HOPKINS: So, we've got a few clues and signals that we use. So, one is, we look at the profile of the teen. So, maybe a teen has told us that they're 20, but their profile picture looks like someone who's 14. They might be following a lot of friends on Instagram who are also 14. They might be following other creators who are also in and around the age that we would expect a teenager to be interested in. And we look for lots and lots of signals. And then we train our A.I. systems to be able to run those signals through the system, find teens that we think maybe didn't tell us the truth about their age, and then we put them into our restrictive settings similar to the teen account settings. And this is A.I. that's, you know, really becoming better and better, and we're feeling pretty good about it. We're rolling it out globally now, and shortly.

BOLDUAN: That seems a good use of A.I., where there are a lot of questions of where you should use it.

I know that -- that Meta has pushed back on findings of this new report that's come out from a group of child advocacy groups, but basically what time magazine was reporting on this is, less than a week ago the groups found that nearly 60 percent of teens ages 13 to 15, they reported encountering unsafe content and unwanted messages on Instagram. A majority of those received -- that received unwanted messages said they'd come from users they believed to be adults, and many of them came from someone who wanted to start a sexual or romantic relationship with this. Meta disputes these findings as biased and not really getting it.

But it -- I raise this only because this does get to the larger question of, who do we trust and how do we know our kids are safe? We know that this is a dangerous world, and social media platforms are a place that are not as regulated as other things that our children see.

[09:25:09]

We all know this.

But what do you say then to parents to convince them that Instagram is trying to protect their children, instead of just trying to push content to them to get them to spend more time on this app?

HOPKINS: So, we did refute the methodology around that particular report. And I think one of the things that was misunderstood in the report is that a lot of those settings and protective kind of settings that we have, that they spoke about in that report, we've actually put all of those into the teen account experience. So, what we tried to do was just make it easier for parents.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

HOPKINS: We defaulted all of these settings, streamline them and defaulted them all into the teen account experience. So, and that's one thing that was just a bit misunderstood about that particular report. What I would say is we have invested so heavily in this space. We

have, with teen accounts last year, but even before that, we have 40,000 people at Meta who work on safety and security, keeping young people safe who are using our platform. And this latest revamp that we're launching this week, it's another step in the direction of just really speaking the language of parents wanting parents to understand and investing really heavily in A.I. so that we can, you know, tweak and change our policies, that we're really speaking the language of parents.

BOLDUAN: It's great to have you here. Thank you so much for coming, for answering the questions. Let's see, as a mother of two, any help I can get and tracking whatever they do when I'm not around is helpful.

HOPKINS: That's great. Thanks for your time.

BOLDUAN: Thank you. Thank you very much for coming in. I appreciate it.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, coming up, $15 billion seized in the breakup of a cryptocurrency scam. Who the Justice Department says was behind the scam.

And we're just minutes away from the opening bell on Wall Street. Market futures have been up across the board all morning long despite the renewed trade tensions between the United States and China. Tech stocks have helped power the rally this year, as you well know, but they are sensitive to trade tensions. At the same time, Wall Street strategists say stocks have more room to run, with strong corporate earnings and Federal Reserve rate cuts supporting the rally.

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