Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Judge Orders ICE to Wear Body Cameras; Trump Speaks With Putin; Trump DOJ Targets John Bolton. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 16, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

AHMED FOUAD ALKHATIB, SENIOR FELLOW, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: You should be able to definitively distance the just and urgent Palestinian people's aspirations from Hamas. I was very disappointed, very disturbed by the rhetoric.

And, again, this is symptomatic of a larger trend within the so-called pro-Palestine movement that exists in the diaspora.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: I'm really grateful that you came on. Thank you so much.

ALKHATIB: Thank you.

BASH: Thank you.

And thank you for joining INSIDE POLITICS today. "CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: President Trump speaks to Russian leader Vladimir Putin ahead of a critical meeting on Ukraine, but that's just one crisis on the world stage demanding the president's attention.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus: Another of the president's perceived enemies is facing imminent indictment. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton could be facing criminal charges in just moments. We're going to look at what he is being accused of.

Plus, new video showing a Border Patrol agent tackling and arresting a black teenager in Chicago, and now a judge wants answers.

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

KEILAR: We are standing by to hear more from President Trump about a -- quote -- "lengthy phone call" that he says he's having right now with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the call taking place before Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits the White House tomorrow, and Trump has said he may give Ukraine long-range Tomahawk missiles.

That is what's happening around that call, the war on Ukraine just one of several foreign policy tests today. In Venezuela, tensions rising after President Trump announced another deadly strike on an alleged drug boat and then suggested land strikes may be next. And, in Gaza, the fragile cease-fire deal is up against some new hurdles.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is live for us at the White House.

Kristen, first on this Putin call, what can you share?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, we're still waiting to hear whether or not that call has wrapped up.

All we heard was from President Trump roughly an hour ago, when he posted this, saying that "I am speaking to President Putin now. The conversation is ongoing, a lengthy one, and I will report its contents, as well as will President Putin at its conclusion."

Of course, you laid out why this is so critical. Tomorrow, we know President Trump is meeting with President Zelenskyy here at the White House. There have been these conversations about air defense, with President Trump dangling this idea of potentially giving Ukraine Tomahawk missiles, which would be something that Russia has said would be an offense to them.

So, if that's part of that conversation, that's what we're waiting to hear here. But, as we know, President Trump has continued to say for the last several months that he has grown increasingly frustrated with President Putin, that he doesn't believe what he says, and he doesn't know if this situation or this war in Ukraine is going to be able to come to an end.

KEILAR: And, Kristen, the president making some big news on Venezuela, suggesting that after there have been these strikes on the sea, that next they may occur on land. What can you tell us?

HOLMES: Yes, not just that these strikes might occur on land, but he also essentially said that he had authorized the CIA to operate on land in Venezuela as part of the effort to clamp down on what he calls the illegal flux of migrants and drugs.

Here's what he said about what's going on in that country.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I authorized for two reasons, really. Number one, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America. We have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela. And a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea, so you get to see that. But we're going to stop them by land also.

I think Venezuela is feeling heat, but I think a lot of other countries are feeling heat too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So one thing to note there is President Trump talking about Venezuela feeling heat. He has still not said, and he's been asked about this, if the official goal of the White House is regime change, although it seems harder and harder to deny that that's the goal, particularly now that that the CIA is operating in Venezuela and they're considering strikes on Venezuelan territory.

But a lot of questions today for the president on what's going to happen next and whether or not some of these actions are legal. That's one of the things that we're wondering. Remember, President Trump essentially just went around legalities, giving a legal rationale to Congress that they were a domestic terrorist organization and that we were in armed conflict with these domestic terrorist organizations, which is the same rationale the U.S. used for al Qaeda and ISIS.

So it seems to be how they're getting around some of these actions, but a lot of questions, even from Republican congressmen and senators, who are wondering what exactly the endgame is here.

KEILAR: Yes, a lot of questions.

Kristen Holmes, live for us at the White House, thank you -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Let's get some analysis now on all of this with CNN national security analyst and former Deputy Director of National Intelligence Beth Sanner.

Beth, great to see you, as always.

Let's start with this call between President Trump and Vladimir Putin. How do you read what they might be talking about, what might come out of this?

[13:05:07]

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Right. Right.

I think, if we step back for a minute and we say could we have seen where we were a year ago or six months ago, so I feel like we're in a very different place in terms of where President Trump's head is at, right? I feel like he is, as Kristen was talking about, impatient, all of these things.

And then you have Pete Hegseth going to meet with all the NATO defense ministers to talk about Ukraine assistance. He had blown off those meetings that literally were created under U.S. auspices under the last administration. And Hegseth is saying, we're sending lethality to Ukraine, all of these things.

SANCHEZ: Right.

SANNER: So, to me, this is President Trump feeling like this is the last big thing he has to do in solving these wars, and he's going for it.

SANCHEZ: Right.

SANNER: So I think we should expect him to be putting the pressure on. But how far will he go?

SANCHEZ: That's the big question, right? I should note, I believe that it's been two months to the day since their summit in Alaska. SANNER: Yes.

SANCHEZ: And we were supposed to see a bilateral, trilateral meeting within two weeks, and it never sort of came.

SANNER: Right.

SANCHEZ: If Trump provides Tomahawk cruise missiles, long-range capabilities, to Ukraine, do you anticipate an aggressive Russian response?

Because that was the argument from the previous administration and critics of the idea. They thought that providing Ukraine with certain arms would embolden Russia and there would be an inevitable path to war.

SANNER: So I think we should be clear that this would be a major escalation in terms of U.S. involvement, right? And there is discussion that the U.S. would have to be more involved in terms of maybe even having contractors or something on the ground in Ukraine.

I mean, it involves the United States more. It is a big step up.

SANCHEZ: To operate those missiles, yes.

SANNER: To operate those missiles, right?

So it is a big escalation, and what you just said is exactly what President Putin will say to President Trump on the phone today. He will say, you know, this is a huge escalation, and it could lead to World War III, and neither of us would like that.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

SANNER: Maybe he will say it subtly. Maybe he will say it directly. So the question is whether President Trump will believe him or not.

And Putin's counting on that he will be able to convince President Trump that it's too dangerous.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

SANNER: Now, I personally don't believe that we are -- it would lead to that, but at the same time, I also don't believe that the threat of this or even the delivery of these Tomahawks will change Putin's mind- set, which is against a negotiated solution at this moment.

SANCHEZ: Right. Yes.

SANNER: It may over time, but at this moment.

SANCHEZ: Yes. I guess it's -- in a way, it's like a game of poker, right?

And I was interested to hear in -- what you thought of President Trump's remarks recently that he convinced Indian Prime Minister Modi to not buy any more Russian oil. He says that it's a process. It won't immediately happen.

SANNER: Yes. Yes.

SANCHEZ: But the idea that India is going to stop, with its growing population, its growing economy...

SANNER: Right.

SANCHEZ: ... is going to stop taking imports of Russian oil, its biggest supplier, do you believe that? And if it's true, it could be a game changer, right?

SANNER: I don't think it's necessarily a game changer unless you go after China...

SANCHEZ: Ah.

SANNER: ... and all the support that China gives, which is exponentially at a different level. There would be no war that Putin could fight without the support that China provides.

So that's the lynchpin. I think that President Modi is feeling the 50 percent tariffs in September. Year on year, imports to the United States from India dropped 21 percent. So he wants to have some kind of truce. This pressure is working. And Modi does have the ability to get some of those state-run oil firms to end contracts.

But I have a feeling that this will be -- as you said, because the dependence on the economy, the cheap price that Modi will slow-roll this, and it won't be quite as satisfying or as impactful immediately.

SANCHEZ: Well, not to mention, we should note, some of the largest consumers of that refined oil that goes through India from Russia is actually our European partners, right?

SANNER: There is a global oil market.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

SANNER: We can't get around that.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

Beth, before we go -- we're actually short on time, but, before we go, I have to get your thoughts on President Trump acknowledging to the world that he authorized CIA work in Venezuela. Is that typical?

SANNER: Right.

That would be the opposite of typical, right?

(LAUGHTER)

SANNER: Because covert definitionally means that it's secret.

SANCHEZ: Right. Yes. SANNER: And the reason it's secret, Boris, is because it allows the CIA to conduct operations where the military can't or where international law might make this a little bit more of a challenge.

[13:10:03]

So it is supposed to be covert because it provides a level, sometimes quite light, of deniability. But now that it's out there, what is the difference between CIA taking a strike and the military taking a strike? So it's a little confusing to me and I would say not the best play, but here we are.

SANCHEZ: Yes, limits plausible deniability, right?

SANNER: Quite.

SANCHEZ: Beth Sanner, thank you so much. Appreciate the analysis.

SANNER: Thanks, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Thanks so much.

Still ahead: President Trump's Justice Department has set its sights on John Bolton. We're learning the former national security adviser could be indicted imminently.

Plus, a federal judge demanding answers from the Trump administration after a series of violent encounters in Chicago. This is new video showing a Border Patrol agent tackling and arresting a black teenager.

And, later, House Speaker Mike Johnson defending keeping Republican lawmakers at home as the shutdown drags on. He's insisting it has nothing to do with a potential vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files.

These important stories and many more are coming your way on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:15:27]

SANCHEZ: Breaking news, John Bolton may be just hours away from being criminally charged.

Multiple sources tell CNN that, later this afternoon, the Justice Department is expected to ask a federal grand jury in Maryland to indict the former national security adviser to President Trump. Bolton has been under investigation for allegedly mishandling classified information.

KEILAR: The FBI searched Bolton's Maryland home in August, and the search warrant affidavit specifically referred to his AOL account. Sources said that federal investigators are looking into the diary- like notes that Bolton made to himself in the account while he was working for the first Trump administration from 2018 to 2019. Let's talk about this now with former federal prosecutor Brendan

Ballou.

Brendan, as you're looking at this, what do you think Bolton could be charged with?

BRENDAN BALLOU, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: The most likely charge would be disseminating or collecting classified information, which is the same charge that Donald Trump got in the documents case in Florida.

One of the things that's really important to remember about that charge, though, is that it has a very high what lawyer's call mens rea requirement, which means that John Bolton can't just have had classified information. It can't be just that he knew that he had classified information.

He needs to know that he was breaking the law or that what he was doing was wrong. So it's actually going to be a little bit tricky for them to prove this case.

SANCHEZ: The old adage is that a jury, a grand jury would indict ham sandwich, right? I wonder if that's any different with this case, given the particular charges that he might be facing.

BALLOU: Yes, well you're seeing this Department of Justice try to indict a lot of ham sandwiches and fail in the District of Columbia. They almost failed in Virginia.

I think, especially when you talk about grand juries in Virginia, D.C., Maryland, where this case is happening, you have got extremely informed grand juries who are following the news, and they're seeing this president try to indict a lot of political enemies.

And so I could expect to see some skepticism on the part of the grand jury, even if they ultimately secure an indictment.

KEILAR: Do we know where these charges are coming from, which district, and what that might tell us?

BALLOU: Yes, so this is going to be happening in the district of Maryland, which has a Trump-appointed U.S. attorney.

The public reporting right now is that career prosecutors have convinced themselves that there's an actionable case here, which, importantly, was different from what was happening in Virginia, where Lindsey Halligan, the Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, had to bring the case, bring the indictment all by herself.

You know, so at some level that brings a little bit of credibility to this case, but one of the concerning things, as a former line-level prosecutor myself, is that these prosecutors might be putting their credibility on the line for a case that, if it is in fact brought for political reasons, really doesn't deserve that credibility.

SANCHEZ: I wonder when it comes to the circumstances of what's been reported about this case. He effectively kept a diary on his AOL e- mail account, and the reporting is that a foreign power, I think it's believed to be Iran, hacked into that information.

Does that in itself constitute an illegal act? Does he have to be disseminating that himself?

BALLOU: Yes, you talk to any lawyer, the answer for any question is, it depends.

So we're going to see what the facts are, but the simple fact that he may have had classified information and then it was accidentally disseminated to a foreign power, that might cause some of the problems with that willfulness requirement that we were just talking about. So that might be a challenge for prosecutors.

KEILAR: If an official like Bolton who has an extensive history, awareness of how documents are to be treated, is keeping a diary like that and if they have any documents that are marked sensitive, classified, et cetera, is that enough that they should know what's happening?

BALLOU: Yes, that's certainly going to be...

KEILAR: That's kind of a hypothetical question, but if that is the case that we're looking at here, should they know?

BALLOU: Yes, so that's exactly the argument that the procedures are going to make, that Bolton is exactly the kind of person who would know that he would be breaking the law here.

What makes this a little different is that a variation on these facts were litigated civilly when John Bolton was publishing his book and the Trump administration and Trump lost in that case. So there's some precedent that Bolton wasn't breaking the law here.

SANCHEZ: So what comes next? If the indictment comes down today, how do you expect things to proceed?

BALLOU: So it might be a lot like what we have seen with James Comey. I would imagine that Bolton's defense attorneys would be raising a lot of the same arguments, for instance, trying to dismiss the case on selective or vindictive prosecution grounds.

That's probably going to be the opening salvo here.

KEILAR: All right, we will be looking to see if that's it.

Oh.

SANCHEZ: You guys don't keep AOL e-mail diaries?

(LAUGHTER)

BALLOU: More of a Gmail guy myself. Yes.

SANCHEZ: Yes, pretty good. KEILAR: Are there more -- final question on this. Are there more

secure -- if you were to keep a diary like that, more secure places to keep one than on AOL?

[13:20:02]

BALLOU: Absolutely not any publicly available e-mail system.

SANCHEZ: Good call.

KEILAR: Brendan, thank you very much, Brendan Ballou. We appreciate it.

And next: a federal judge ordering the Chicago ICE field director to appear in court after several violent interactions between federal agents and residents caught on red tape.

And a cause of death has just been released in the Diane Keaton case.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Breaking news into CNN.

[13:25:00]

President Trump says he has finished his call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the president writing -- quote -- "President Putin and I will then meet in an agreed-upon location, Budapest, Hungary, to see if we can bring this inglorious war between Russia and Ukraine to an end."

He also said that there would be a meeting of high-level advisers next week that would be led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. We will have much more on this at the top of the next hour -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: A federal judge in Chicago is now ordering federal agents to wear body cameras during immigration crackdown activity, also ordering the ICE field director to appear in court.

This follows several scenes of agents using aggressive tactics days after the judge also ordered them to avoid violent encounters with residents and reporters in the city. One of the disturbing incidents captured on video shows a masked agent tackling a black teenager. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's a citizen! He's a citizen!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Why is he running?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's a citizen! He's a citizen! That's my brother-in-law.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got to get the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) away from me. You don't know what's going on, so get the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) back. get the (EXPLETIVE DELETED) back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN law enforcement correspondent Whitney Wild is in Chicago for us.

Whitney, let's start with that disturbing takedown. What are the details there?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, that happened after there was this crash and chase involving Border Patrol agents in Chicago on Tuesday morning.

This all happened on city streets in broad daylight. DHS says that this was -- that the occupants of this red vehicle you're looking at were targets of an immigration enforcement operation. They say that they were here illegally. What they say happened was that that vehicle tried to flee this enforcement operation and before this would have been taken that red vehicle slammed into the federal vehicle here, which is -- it's that white one in the corner.

So what they say happened next was that when that red vehicle fled, the agents used -- this is -- what you're looking at is called a pit maneuver to immobilize that vehicle and then those two suspects jumped out and then they ran. As you see, the Border Patrol agents then chase them through this neighborhood.

This is where this video picks up. So these Border Patrol agents ran into Walgreens. The woman who took this video began recording and she admits that she was confrontational verbally with these Border Patrol agents. They were telling them, go home, we don't want you here.

And then, when they left Walgreens, that's when these Border Patrol agents detained the man you see in this video. The woman who took that video kept saying, he's a U.S. citizen, he's a U.S. citizen. What are you doing? He's a U.S. citizen.

That man was detained and then he was released later that day. It is a small example of a lot of things we have seen here, which is these confrontational flare-ups between members of the public and DHS agents, ICE agents, Border Patrol, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, that have caused people to go to federal court to try to curtail the federal agents' use of force.

So then we have this hearing that happened today. Let me just kind of walk you through that court case. Again, like I was saying, we have seen these flare-ups between protesters and federal agents that have resulted in them frequently using chemical munitions. They have exposed members of the Chicago Police Department to tear gas twice.

In total, they have exposed 40 officers who were there to do crowd control to help those federal agents as the crowd was compressing in. Here's more video from more confrontation that happened at the Broadview ICE facility. What you will see here is DHS agents deploying pepper balls. That's a member of the clergy who was hit in the head. That prompted this lawsuit by several organizations, including a union who represents journalists, to go to federal court to ask a judge to say to the feds, stop using these excessive force tactics on peaceful protesters and members of the press.

Last week, a judge agreed and hit the feds with a temporary restraining order. And in her order, she said, you're not to use chemical munitions. You're not to use excessive force against peaceful protesters and members of the press.

Then Tuesday happened, which was that video we were talking about that prompted -- before that Walgreens incident. So she's seeing what's going on in the news. She's very concerned that the federal agents are violating her order. And so she brought everybody in court today to say, look, this has got to stop. You need to abide by this order.

She's putting more restrictions on. She wants federal agents wearing body cameras. And then, further, she wants to see the ICE field director in her court on Monday.

Boris, just to wrap up, I think it's important to tell the DHS side of this. DHS says that this judge is micromanaging the dynamic and dangerous situation that federal officers are seeing themselves in every day. That is their rebuttal. We will see what the judge rules on Monday.

SANCHEZ: Whitney Wild, thank you so much for that update from Chicago.

So, senators tried again to reopen the federal government, but the 10th time not the charm. We have the latest on the government shutdown next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)