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CNN Founder, Ted Turner Dies at 87; Source Says U.S. & Iran Closing in on One-page Memo to End War; Lawsuit Alleges Meta Prated Millions of Books, Journals for Its A.I. Model; Coast Guard Seeks Owners of Sailboat Near Missing Woman's Vessel; Woman Charged With DUI After Driving on Sidewalk to Chase Boy. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired May 06, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Ted Turner, the media mogul who founded CNN and revolutionized TV news, has died at the age of 87. A release from Turner Enterprises said he passed away peacefully today, surrounded by his family. The Atlanta businessman, known for being brilliant and brash, built a media empire consisting of other popular TV networks like TBS, TNT and the Cartoon Network.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": He was also a huge philanthropist. He was also the owner of several professional sports teams. Our colleague, Wolf Blitzer had a close relationship with Ted and earlier today, Wolf spoke about some of the impact that Turner had on him.

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WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: He hired me back in 1990 and I remember he told me when he hired me, remember, we're the Cable News, capital N, capital E, capital W, capital S. We're the Cable News Network. This is where the news comes first, and your vacations and everything else comes second. So he was so determined to make sure that the news was strong, was reliable, was fair and he inspired me and so many other journalists to work and report the news fairly and accurately and if possible, break those stories first.

I saw him a few months ago in Atlanta and we had lunch and it was just so painful to see how he had deteriorated, his health, over the years because a while earlier, I went out to Montana, spent some time with him in his ranch out there and it was a very different kind of Ted Turner at that time --

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah.

BLITZER: But it was just painful and we're going to miss him. I'm going to miss him a lot personally because of all the wonderful things that he did.

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KEILAR: CNN's Brian Stelter is joining us now with more on his life and legacy. And Brian, Ted meant so much to so many people. He lived such a long life. How's he being remembered?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Well, so many words come to mind, but he's remembered as a maverick, as a risk-taker, as a renegade who wanted to revolutionize the media and really truly succeeded. You know, let's try to picture the TV environment of the 1970s. You had the big three broadcast networks, NBC, ABC, CBS. You had a new premium channel called HBO, but that was about it. ESPN was just being born.

These brands that we now all know were just starting to be conceived and Turner saw this huge opening in the news space. He believed the broadcast networks were failing America by only having half-hour-long newscasts.

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He believed there was a space for 24/7 news. He looked at market research and said there was very little demand for something like CNN, and he rejected that.

He said you have to give it to people, you have to provide the supply, and then there will be the demand. And he was proven right in such an extraordinary way. And you know, he did it partly out of his own business instincts.

He wanted to grow his father's billboard business into something really huge. So he was expanding into film, into television. He was buying up old movies to show on cable.

But CNN, more than anything else, was his way of establishing himself and then eventually becoming a billionaire. You know, Turner believed in people. He believed in the citizens of the world. He believed in the United Nations. He believed in great global problem-solving. He believed that something like CNN could help connect the world.

And then, as he became ever more rich and successful, he gave away so much of that money through philanthropy to the U.N., to the Foundation, and by buying up great swaths of land in the American West. He always recalled that old line from "Gone from the Wind," you know, Scarlett O'Hara, right? "The only thing that matters is the land." He believed that as well, and that's one of his many legacies today.

SANCHEZ: And Brian, what are you learning about his final days, how he spent them?

STELTER: Well, you know, Turner's health had been declining for quite some time. I had heard in recent days that he had transitioned to hospice care. He lived for almost a decade with Lewy Body Dementia. But even as recently, the last few years, he was still fly-fishing, you know, into his 80s. He was on Zoom, on FaceTime, talking with friends as recently as a couple of weeks ago. And his large family was able to gather at his bedside in recent days.

He's survived by five children, 14 grandchildren, two great- grandchildren. There's going to be a private service, but in the future, the family says they're also going to plan a public memorial down the road.

KEILAR: And he obviously did many things, but CNN to him was very special, Brian. Tell us about his special relationship with CNN from the beginning through to recent times.

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STELTER: It was the most (inaudible) of all. You know, I think it was the fellow media mogul, John Malone, who said CNN was his most beloved property of all. And once Turner parted ways and sold CNN and the rest of his Turner assets, he regretted selling CNN.

He had lots to say about that over the years, and he was always pushing CNN to be the best version it could be with the news coming first, that old line from the '80s, the news being the star. I think we have a clip from the very first newscast. It's interesting to watch it on a day like today.

This is from June 1st, 1980.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take 11. Mike, cue him to New York.

Standby. Ready? Three. Take three.

Mike, you're free to start a slow zoom in a little bit. We're all take three. Ready? 13 full.

Ready? Camera 3, one center up.

DAVID WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: Good evening. I'm David Walker.

LOIS HART, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Lois Hart. Now, here's the news.

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STELTER: Right to the news. No drama, no fuss, just right to the news. And I remember interviewing Dave Walker a few years ago. He said to me the major concern was about whether we could fill 24/7, whether there was going to be enough news, he said. As it turns out, we could. There was more than enough news, and this started in America, but it's also worth reflecting on how it grew all around the world.

There were so many doubts in 1978, 1979, 1980 about whether there was going to be a market for CNN and whether there's going to be enough news to fill all the time. But once it launched, it quickly caused others to try to launch rival services. It created a total disruption in the marketplace and not just in the U.S. but around the world. Yes, there are other cable news channels in America, but now there is hundreds of versions of this 24/7 news concept in various countries. And thanks to CNN International, Ted Turner and his colleagues were able to build something that is going to long outlive Ted. This is something that is his, I think, ultimate legacy that we, all of us are here, the three of us talking on his air even today.

KEILAR: Certainly, Brian, thank you so much for that. Brian Stelter, we appreciate it.

And still ahead, CNN has some new reporting about a possible agreement to end the war with Iran, even as President Trump issues a new threat against the regime. Stay with us for that.

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KEILAR: Let's go back to our Breaking News. A source familiar with negotiations says the U.S. and Iran are closing in on an agreement to end their war.

The source says a one-page memo is being discussed that would trigger a 30-day negotiation period to resolve major sticking points, including nuclear issues, unfreezing Iranian assets, and future security of the Strait of Hormuz.

We're joined now by CNN Political & National Security Analyst, David Sanger. He's the author of "New Cold Wars: China's Rise, Russia's Invasion, and America's Struggle to Defend the West."

All right, David, this is a fairly simple one-page document. How are you seeing this?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL & NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: I'm seeing it as a framework, kind of an agenda for negotiations. It's not a deal. I mean, I'm sure the president, because he keeps talking about a deal, will describe it that way. It's more like a memorandum of understanding that you'd have before you move to a deal.

And the Obama administration actually had something of a similar framework, but it took two years to actually negotiate the details of the final agreement they reached in 2015, and that was 160 pages long, and it was 160 pages long for a reason.

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This is really complicated. You need to lay out what the inspection regimes are going to be, what exactly the Iranians will do and are not allowed to do, and they're going to seek to cheat, and they're not going to believe that we're going to lift the sanctions. So they're going to want a lot of detail as well.

KEILAR: So if it is two years' worth of work, or it was before, how do you get that done in a 30-day negotiation phase? You don't, right? So what does that actually look like? SANGER: My guess is you don't. You made the excellent point that because this has been done before, there's something to work from. But remember that the deal they did before is the one that President Trump said was the worst deal in history, and he ripped it up in 2018. So he's under pressure here not only to get the Strait reopened and not only to get a deal on these issues, but to solve each one of the problems that he said that the Obama administration did not. And he was right about a few of those.

That agreement had an expiration point. It was going to expire in 2030. Well, if we're hearing right, the Iranians here would suspend their enrichment for 10 years to 15 years. Well, that's also a sunset. It would be stronger than what was in the Obama deal, because in the Obama-era deal, the Iranians were allowed to do a very small amount of enrichment just so that they could say that they were exercising their right to enrich. This would presumably stop it all. But it's going to look pretty similar.

KEILAR: So it sounds like it is inevitable that whatever they come up with is going to be compared, perhaps favorably and unfavorably, to the JCPOA --

SANGER: Right.

KEILAR: -- which they negotiated during the Obama administration. But they're dealing with so many of the same issues, and you wouldn't expect too much to change there. But how hard is it even to get to that point?

SANGER: It's going to be hard. One of the failures of the previous agreement was it didn't deal with the missile capability. They're going to have to do that, because we think that more than 50 percent of the missiles survived the past couple of months of bombing.

KEILAR: The conventional missiles.

SANGER: Conventional missiles. That's right. But you're worried about the conventional missiles because they protect the nuclear program, and because if Iran ever did build a warhead, they'd put it on one of those missiles. It's going to have to deal with their support for Hezbollah, Hamas, and other proxy forces.

And it's going to have to also deal along the way with the question of the regime itself, because the president said on the day the hostilities began that he was inviting the Iranian people to stand up and overthrow their government.

Well, if he signs a deal with them, he may be strengthening that government.

KEILAR: Yeah. Hard to see a way around it --

SANGER: Yeah.

KEILAR: -- at this point. David Sanger, thank you so much. Always helpful to have you take us through. SANGER: Great to be here.

KEILAR: We appreciate it.

Up next, why a best-selling author and five publishers are suing the tech giant, Meta, and accusing it of illegally using copyrighted works to train A.I.

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SANCHEZ: A group of major publishers are now accusing Meta of A.I. piracy, claiming the tech titan committed one of the largest copyright infringements in history. The six plaintiffs include Macmillan, Hachette, and author Scott Turow, and their lawsuit alleges Meta illegally downloaded millions of copyrighted books and articles from pirate sites to train it's A.I. system called Llama.

The publishers say that Meta did this even after approaching them about licenses, and they're further pointing a finger at CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, saying that he, quote, "actively encouraged the infringement." Meta, in response, says, quote, "Courts have rightly found that training A.I. on copyrighted material can qualify as fair use. We will fight this lawsuit aggressively."

Joining us now is the CEO of Hachette Book Group, David Shelley. David, thank you so much for being with us. So why do you think Meta was, as the complaint describes, deliberately targeting certain books and journal articles?

DAVID SHELLEY, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, HACHETTE BOOK GROUP: Thanks, Boris. They were deliberately targeting books and journal articles because books and journal articles are of huge value in terms of training LLMs. What we know is that long form content is much more complex, is much richer, contains so much content that helps to build LLMs and helps enrich Meta effectively and helps the LLMs learn more.

So it's immensely valuable content that they basically stole using pirate sites, including one based in Russia.

SANCHEZ: So what is your response to the assertion from Meta that courts have found that training A.I. on copyrighted material is fair use?

SHELLEY: We don't agree with that. We think it's very clear in terms of U.S. copyright law that this material and the way it was used is not fair use. Obviously, we're in a completely new territory with A.I., but everything that we've seen and heard leads us to believe that this is not fair use.

This is using content that some of our authors spent decades working on, using it to feed their LLM systems and then inflate their own value.

[13:55:00] So effectively, it's taking valuable work that humans have done and our whole industry has done, and then taking it all for free and using it to enhance their own valuation.

SANCHEZ: The complaint is arguing that A.I.-generated books are flooding the market and affecting the industry of publishing. How has A.I. changed the way that you do business?

SHELLEY: So what we've seen, I think everyone, every consumer can see this, when you go out into the world, you will see some things that are written by humans and you will see some things that are written by A.I. And we can see this just in our own industry, there are a lot of people publishing books that are constructed using A.I., and that basically feed on our authors' work.

So A.I. has no sort of creative skills of its own. LLMs have no creative skills of their own. They are taking content that already exists and regurgitating that. And that is a huge issue, I mean, for the whole world. It is a huge issue for our industry because our industry is only able to give authors money to allow them to earn a living by selling our products. If we're then competing as we are with LLM created works, then that is clearly depriving our authors of an economic model that is vital to sustain them as business people.

SANCHEZ: I wonder on the question of market dilution and the idea that you just described about competing against generated content, LLMs, another case last year had a judge finding that there wasn't enough evidence that Meta's A.I. created market dilution. What is your response to that? Do you think that this case is different?

SHELLEY: Well, in the -- Judge Chhabria, in a previous case, actually said that he welcomed more evidence about the commercial impact of what Meta had done, and actually said, actually invited it and said that he would like to hear it.

I think publishers are uniquely placed to be able to give clear, granular evidence about the market dilution that takes place when authors' work is illegally fed into the market. And they're not fed into LLMs. So again, everything that we've seen shows that there is a very, very strong case to be made here and that there is the market -- the market dilution is very, very clear. And we could we can provide clear evidence of that.

SANCHEZ: David Shelley, thank you so much for joining us. We look forward to continuing the conversation as there are developments in the case.

SHELLEY: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Brianna?

KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines that we are watching this hour. The Coast Guard is seeking tips from the public in connection with the disappearance of Lynette Hooker. The Michigan woman went missing more than a month ago while sailing with her husband, Brian, in the Bahamas. The Coast Guard released these images, saying it is working to identify owners of a sailboat that was moored near the couple's vessel. Brian Hooker told investigators his wife fell overboard while they were navigating rough waters in a dinghy. The Coast Guard has not said how the nearby sailboat may be connected to the search.

Plus, some disturbing new video out of Spokane County, Washington. It shows terrifying moments when a driver apparently tries to run down a boy riding a dirt bike, even chasing the child down a sidewalk. That boy managing to escape without getting hurt, thank goodness, but police later arrested that woman at a home about a mile away. She was later charged with a DUI, attempted assault and criminal trespass.

And six people rescued from a sinking boat and the tense moments were caught on camera. This happened in Florida. The people were on a small boat in choppy waters when it started to sink about two miles offshore. Some of the passengers did not have life jackets. Others did not know how to swim. All six were brought back safely and no major injuries were reported.

A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

SANCHEZ: A new warning to Iran. President Trump saying he could bomb the country if it rejects a new peace proposal. And he's pressing pause on that new operation to guide ships through the Strait of Hormuz.

Plus, ballroom blitz. Republicans pushing a massive funding bill that includes $1 billion for security tied to President Trump's White House ballroom project. That sets up a high-stakes fight on Capitol Hill. We'll get you the details on that.

Also, a business legend and an American icon, from CNN to sailing, baseball and his passion for the environment. We examine the remarkable legacy of Ted Turner as we follow these major developing stories and many more --