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Frontier Passenger Restrained After Trying to Open Exit Door; Study Found 1 in 5 Young People Use AI Chatbots for Mental Health Advice; Inside Look at UFC's Growing Popularity, Political Connections. Aired 9:30-10:00a ET
Aired June 03, 2026 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:30:00]
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: It's going to be especially important to keep an eye on what markets do today, as investors are expected to receive employment data ahead of Friday's release of the May jobs report. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, new video this morning of the moment passengers on a Frontier Airlines flight jumped into action to restrain a man they saw choking an off-duty flight attendant and seemingly trying to break into the cockpit. Want to get right to CNN Aviation correspondent Pete Muntean for the latest on this.
This is scary.
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Yes, bottom line here, John, the system worked. But this incident was a real doozy. Happened late Sunday.
But that new video just coming to light now, it shows 51-year-old Juan Reyes on this Frontier Airlines flight being restrained by fellow passengers. They're not only using seatbelt extenders but also flex cuffs that police records say Reyes broke out of multiple times. A few big things that the court records point out.
That Reyes tried to bash his way into the cockpit door shoulder first. He also got on top of an off-duty male flight attendant and tried to choke him. There's one more headline making the rounds here out of this story.
The charging documents say Reyes tried to open an emergency exit on this flight.
[09:35:00]
It's important to note, it's impossible at altitude while the passenger cabin is pressurized and pushing the door against the rest of the frame of the airplane. By the way, we reached out to Reyes' attorney. They have not gotten back to us yet.
This flight was on its way from San Juan, Puerto Rico to Chicago, but had to divert to Miami. It becomes a huge inconvenience for passengers. No captain wants to be the one to make the wrong call, especially after an unruly passenger incident turns into a security incident.
This comes after back-to-back passenger incidents on United Airlines flights. On Friday, a man tried to get into the locked flight deck door after what appears to be a mental health episode. No charges filed in that case.
It's also important to note here that unruly passenger incidents are way down from the highs of 2021. When mass mandates were in place, people were flying again, not used to being in close quarters after the COVID lockdowns. It was a pretty bad cocktail.
Airlines reported nearly 6,000 unruly passenger incidents that year. This year, we've seen only about 10 percent of that number. Many of these don't result in criminal charges.
But this latest case could carry up to 20 years in prison -- John.
BERMAN: Yes, if charges do come, they become very, very serious. All right. Pete Muntean, thank you for explaining all of this.
The video really is pretty.
MUNTEAN: It's crazy.
BERMAN: Thank you -- Sara
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Yikes. All right, thank you, John Berman.
All right, ahead, more and more humans are turning to AI to sort out their mental health, the benefits and huge risks of doing so beyond the obvious.
And as World Cup fever sets in, a warning against being taken for a ride on merchandise. What we know about a police investigation into FIFA fakes ahead.
[09:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIDNER: New this morning, more and more people are turning to artificial intelligence to help get answers to health questions, both physical and mental. A new study finds that one in five adolescents and young adults are turning to AI chatbots for mental health advice.
That's up 40 percent over the past year. The study found 19.2 percent of young people ages 12 to 21 say they had used AI chatbots such as ChatGPT and Gemini for advice or help when feeling sad or angry or nervous or stressed out.
Joining me now is Ryan McBain, a senior policy research at RAND and lead author of this study. I find it interesting that you've got such a high percentage of young people in particular who are reaching out using AI to try to help them with dealing with some discomfort, the mental discomfort. I mean, were you surprised at all about what you found?
RYAN MCBAIN, SENIOR POLICY RESEARCHER, RAND: You know, honestly, I wasn't that surprised. There's a huge amount of unmet need among young adults, right? So, for example, the CDC has shown that about one in 10 high schoolers self report that they have attempted suicide at some point. And about half of teens who have mental health needs are not receiving human therapy. So if you have something in your pocket that is friendly there 24-7 and provides sort of seemingly thoughtful feedback, then it's a very low friction way to get access to care.
SIDNER: I'm wondering, you know, whether or not this is a good thing. You see this as a good thing that at least that there's trying to find some solutions to help them through something. Or if there are some real dangers here when just using, you know, ChatGPT or one of these chatbots to try to help them through something.
MCBAIN: Yes, I think that there's good and there's bad. Right. So you can think about mental health as a continuum.
A lot of folks that are dealing with relatively straightforward issues, anxiety, stress, interpersonal conflicts. The types of responses you get from AI chat bots are generally benign. Right. They'll make recommendations like, you know, think about exercise or getting good sleep or talking to a trusted adult, for example.
But once you start to get out towards the tail end of that spectrum, individuals who have active suicide or psychosis, suicidal ideation, these are issues that really need to be talked to with a trusted adult, a therapist, oftentimes immediately. And so it's not always the case that AI chatbots are doing that. And there are not a lot of regulations in place to make sure that they're performing at a high quality.
SIDNER: Yes, there's a lot of concern that the chatbot tries to help you do what you want to do. And so with things like suicide, it's very scary, I think, for anyone who is in that state to rely just on this.
I do want to talk to you about two thirds of these young people. This study that you did said they never told anyone they were using AI for mental health support. I mean, what does that tell you about the way young people think about mental health? Is there still a big stigma that is hanging there, kind of preventing them from talking about it?
MCBAIN: I think there's a huge amount of stigma. And I think that a lot of teens just don't feel comfortable talking to adults about these sorts of issues, especially if they're relatively smaller issues. I think that the best thing that adults can do is try to approach their teens in a way that's curious and open to ask them maybe about, you know, are young people or your friends using AI to talk about issues going on in their lives and use that as an entry point?
[09:45:00]
I think if there's feelings of judgment, then teens are going to be reticent to disclose these sorts of things going on in their lives.
SIDNER: Yes, I mean, I've got teenagers around who they don't like to talk about anything with the adults. I remember those days. I get it.
Ryan McBain, thank you so much. I do appreciate it. Really interesting study. Thank you for bringing this to us -- Kate.
BOLDUAN: All right, UFC, coming to the White House. You can see it being built. Well, can't miss it. The cage is being built at the White House right now. We're hearing from UFC CEO Dana White ahead of the big fight night.
And the moment a manhole cover collapses and a woman falls through. We'll be right back.
[09:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BERMAN: We have Stanley Cup caliber hockey finally to watch. Let's get to see it as Coy Wire for all the latest action. What happened, Coy?
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Game one, John, taught us sports fans that sleep may have to take a backseat for this series. The teams kept trading punches straight from the jump. It was tied 4-4 late in the third until Tomas Hertl delivered the knockout blow with 3:24 to go. Vegas wins 5-4. First road team ever to erase a multi-goal deficit and win game one of a Stanley Cup final.
For the first time in a decade, both the men's and women's chance at the French Open will be first-time winners in Paris. It was emotional moments yesterday when Ukraine's Marta Kostyuk defeated compatriot Elina Svitolina to reach her first Grand Slam semifinal. She spoke of the ongoing war in Ukraine after the win. She will face Mirra Andreeva next.
Tonight, basketball gets a sequel more than a quarter century in the making. The NBA Finals open in San Antonio with a rematch of the 1999 championship series between the Spurs and the Knicks.
San Antonio chasing its first title since 2014 and the Knicks' first championship since 1973, back when gas was 40 cents a gallon, John. Streaming meant hopping in a creek. The internet did not even exist.
The tickets at MSG for nosebleed seats are nearly $4,000, John. That's about four to five times as much as those get-in tickets tonight in San Antonio.
BERMAN: Great job, New York. Coy Wire, thank you very much. I do have to say, these are two great teams. This should be a great, great series -- Kate.
BOLDUAN: A great, great series. Other news that we are still tracking, there is more turmoil and shockwaves at CBS. The network just let go its longtime 60 Minutes correspondent, Scott Pelley, after what became a stunning public clash with the show's new executive producer. It went down at a staff meeting where Pelley confronted Nick Bilton, accusing him of having no qualifications to run the storied news magazine. And then it went further to and accused the newish CBS News chief, Bari Weiss, of, quote, murdering 60 Minutes. That was Monday.
Then yesterday, Pelley was fired for cause in a statement issued overnight. Pelley said this, "The leadership of 60 Minutes is no longer recognizable. The principles I hold dear are gone, and so I must leave as well."
We're also watching this terrifying video out of Rio de Janeiro showing a moment a woman fell through a manhole after being dropped off by a taxi. You can see, obviously, the cover goes and she steps onto it. Thankfully, her driver saw it happen and ran over to help along with other people who saw it and were standing nearby.
She was pulled out and we're told is doing OK -- Sara?
SIDNER: She's OK. That's scary as heck.
BOLDUAN: Yes.
SIDNER: All right. We're giving you a live look at the White House. I think over there. There, see that thing? Wait, go wait. This side, this side.
There it is, there it is. Now I don't have to point. You can see the towering light structure being constructed to shine down on the cage for the UFC fight for America's 250th birthday.
And already there is fighting over the fight. And that structure you see there. There's some folks that look at what's being called the claw as the horrendous and others who love it.
Nevertheless, the fight is going to be epic. I had the chance to sit down with UFC president and CEO Dana White to talk about the upcoming fight and the history of sports colliding with politics. Here's a bit of our conversation.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SIDNER: If you go back in history, you see sports has in time has been used by authoritarian governments like Mussolini to show power, to show strength, to show control. Do you worry about the confluence of this sport in particular and the Trump administration sort of being intertwined?
DANA WHITE, PRESIDENT AND CEO, UFC: I don't think like that.
SIDNER: People might say, look, Trump's using the same playbook as a Mussolini or a Putin, right? Who Putin's into, intertwined.
[09:55:00]
WHITE: I don't think like that.
SIDNER: People might say, look, Trump's using the same playbook as a Mussolini or a Putin, right? Who Putin's could do judo, right? And he uses this as a way to show he's the strong man.
He's the man. Do you see Trump using that same playbook or no?
WHITE: In politics, that's the way it's always worked. It's not just Trump. It's been like that since the beginning of time and it will be till the end of time.
It's not just one guy or one administration. It's everybody. And yes, sports has been used, you know, politically forever.
SIDNER: And your mixing is pretty obvious. There is a mix there with one group of people because of your friendship.
WHITE: Well, that's not true. I've been friends with this guy for 25 years.
SIDNER: Yes.
WHITE: It's not like every election, there I am with the Republican party saying, lets -- it's not true. He was my friend when nobody thought he was going to win the election.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIDNER (on camera): You can catch more of this inside look at the UFC. We literally got into his closets. We went into Dana White's closet.
Like there's a lot going on with that particular man and the fighters. This is going to air 8 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, "THE WHOLE STORY WITH ANDERSON COOPER" and then the next day on the CNN app. I got to tell you, we had an incredible view of the UFC.
I even got in the ring with one of the fighters and he taught me a little bit about --
BERMAN: Did you win?
SIDNER: -- what they do. I did not.
BERMAN: Oh.
SIDNER: Yes, but I did do this thing.
BERMAN: Scary.
BOLDUAN: We did the face thing or whatever.
SIDNER: That's very awkward, Berman. Yes, we did the stare down and it was just, it's pretty incredible what these guys go through. It's hard.
BOLDUAN: Probably how the sport's taken off.
SIDNER: Yes, yes. It's cool. "THE SITUATION ROOM," they're not going to fight at all there, but we're going to fight here.
You're welcome. That's coming up next.
