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News Helicopter Crashes in Los Angeles, Killing 3 People; Federal Reserve Expected to Raise Interest Rate Despite Pressure from Trump; Interview with Representative Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ); Kennedy Center Board Votes to Close After Tense Trump Call. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 16, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CHANG, CELEBRITY CHEF: Allow Momofuku to be Momofuku. It was like a huge unlock. It was so critical to our early success because I just wanted to do things that weren't necessarily Asian. I wanted to do something that was like a rediscovery of what American food could be.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: What are we looking at here? This is your joint.

CHANG: This was a steamed pork bun. And we have some spicy cucumbers, daikon and jalapeno and some kimchi.

SIDNER: Oh, good. You then take a trip with a buddy named Corey Jefferson. And you two dudes go from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. You made a statement that Las Vegas may be the best food city in America.

CHANG: Yes, maybe. Well, listen.

SIDNER: Why?

CHANG: Las Vegas is an amazing place. So you have, like, two million people that are locals, and then you have who knows how many people coming in every day that are transient. They're looking to have a good time. Like when people want to spend money and have a good time, like that's good for restaurant business. And over the years, casinos have had to attract people. One of the ways that is now the case is food.

SIDNER: You have every kind of food as well.

CHANG: It's also a slice of America.

SIDNER: This is amazing.

CHANG: Thank you.

SIDNER: And congratulations.

CHANG: Appreciate it. (END VIDEOTAPE)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: We are standing by for the Fed and a key decision. Is a rate hike coming? It would be the first in years and definitely not what President Trump wants to see happen right now.

A tragedy in Los Angeles and a lot of questions remaining. A news helicopter crashes while covering a story. The crew is killed. A person on the ground is killed as well. Investigators are now trying to figure out what went so horribly wrong.

And a man runs from police straight into a gator-infested swamp. And police say, get this, he was carrying a 2-year-old and a 10-month-old child while trying to get away.

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

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, NTSB investigators at the scene of the deadly crash of a news helicopter in Los Angeles. Three people were killed, including the pilot, a journalist on board, and a person on the ground. The crew was working for NBC4 and Telemundo 52. NBC4's anchor team announced it was their team that went down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We can now confirm that the chopper that went down in Chatsworth tonight, about two hours ago, was, in fact, NewsChopper 4. We've been telling you that we've been piecing it together here. We knew it was a news chopper. We knew we'd lost contact with our people out there. And we've just received the confirmation that, in fact, NewsChopper 4 went down just before 7:00 tonight in Chatsworth. And we are going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, to process and to regroup.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Let's get right to our CNN aviation correspondent, Pete Muntean.

Pete, what's the latest on this investigation?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: John, here's what we know right now about what L.A. Mayor Karen Bass called a heartbreaking night for Angelenos. This helicopter from KNBC was covering a fatal collision of an SUV with a city bus, and witnesses nearby said it was clear that something was wrong with the helicopter as it came crashing down not far away.

The helicopter was destroyed to the point that LAFD firefighters said they could not make out the tail number of the helicopter. NBC4 identified the two people killed on board as reporter Eliana Moreno and George Marciniw, both employees of contract helicopter operator Angel City Air. Moreno had been reporting for the -- over the air in Southern California since about 2010. She and Marciniw had flown together since about 2023. Third person on the ground also killed. Now, the flight tracking shows this helicopter departed from Van Nuys

Airport and was airborne for about an hour and 15 minutes, mostly orbiting around the scene at a slow airspeed. This is over a very populated area, so not a lot of clear areas to put down in case there was a problem. And the video from on board this helicopter, it's hard to watch, we'll warn you, but it will contain some major clues for investigators. And I want you to pay close attention to the sounds here as we play this video. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you -- you can't pull up?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: Hard to watch, but the sounds are very telling. You can hear the turbine engine of this single engine helicopter, an AS350, AStar, begin to roll back as that horn is sounding in the cockpit. That's an aural warning for the low main rotor RPM, a critical problem in a single engine helicopter like this. The main rotor, if it's not spinning fast enough, then there's not enough lift to keep the air flying, the helicopter flying in the air.

[09:05:06]

Usually pilots follow a procedure. It's called a controlled emergency descent, in helicopter parlance called an autorotation. NTSB investigators will, of course, want to look at that video and the maintenance history of the helicopter. These are so very complex machines, and at low altitude, there's not much margin for error -- John.

BERMAN: Again, so hard for that entire team out there.

Pete, thanks very much for keeping us up to speed on the investigation. Kate.

BOLDUAN: Today is a very big day for the path forward for the U.S. economy. It is decision day for the Federal Reserve on interest rates. Fed chairman Kevin Warsh is expected to announce the first rate hike in three years despite the very public pressure coming from President Trump to not do that.

CNN's Matt Egan is in Washington getting ready for the announcement today.

Matt, set us up. What's expected?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, this is a big moment for Kevin Warsh and the Fed. It's going to have a significant impact on the cost of borrowing for consumers really across the country. Now remember last year, President Trump really condemned his previously hand-picked Fed chairman, Jerome Powell, for refusing to dramatically lower interest rates. But now his newly hand-picked Fed chairman, Kevin Warsh, is expected

to do the opposite, right? Raise interest rates for the first time in three years. Everyone I talked to expects an interest rate hike today. Fed watchers, economists and investors. The market is pricing in about a 93 percent chance of a hike, just a 7 percent chance of no move and virtually no chance of an interest rate cut.

Now, if this happens, it would of course make it more expensive to borrow, especially for people who are carrying credit card debt or who have home equity lines of credit, mortgage rates, mortgage rates have already surged to almost 7 percent because of the selloff in the bond market.

So why is the Fed seriously considering a hike? Well, simply put, it's because inflation, it's just too hot right now. The estimates for the Fed's preferred inflation gauge, PCE, for August, expected to be 3.8 percent and almost 4 percent this month. That's almost twice the Fed's 2 percent goal.

And since Warsh became Fed chair earlier this year, he has stressed repeatedly that the Fed has missed its 2 percent inflation goal for more than five years running. And he said that that's just not going to stand. And so now Warsh has a chance to back up that tough talk with real action. But there is some debate on Wall Street whether or not an interest rate hike is even the right move right now.

Goldman Sachs says that the economic case for an interest rate hike is weak because they say, one, the economy is not overheating, and two, they think that a lot of the factors driving up inflation are going to go away soon. But investment bank Evercore, they say that the Fed almost has to hike now because, one, the market expects it, and two, because there's some on Wall Street that are questioning whether or not Warsh really is willing to fight inflation.

So, look, Kate, it's going to be fascinating to see how all this plays out. There's a lot at stake when it comes to Fed independence, inflation and the cost of borrowing. And obviously we're all going to be watching the president's social media feed if the Fed does in fact go forward with a rate hike today.

Back to you.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Matt, thank you very much for that. Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thanks so much.

This is not a pairing anyone saw coming but concerns about the dire consequences of A.I. brought them together. Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders and far-right political strategist and podcaster Steve Bannon both spoke at a conference dubbed the Pro-Human Assembly. They're calling for urgent action to rein in the technology.

Our Jake Tapper asked Sanders about it.

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JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: I can't imagine that you and Steve Bannon agree on much.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): That's true. Look, I think, as you just indicated, A.I. is moving at an exponential rate. Scientists who work on the technology are saying, you know what, we are losing control over a dangerous technology, that it's only a question of time when A.I. becomes smarter than human beings, and likely then becomes independent of human control.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Joining me now, Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey.

Goodness, tongue-tied this morning, Josh. Appreciate you coming on this morning.

REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ): Good morning.

SIDNER: Maybe it was that pairing that was so surprising there, seeing Bannon and Sanders in the same space. You co-chair the House A.I. Commission. I mean, when you look at this, how dangerous do you think A.I. could be if not reined in? And does Congress have a plan to deal with it fast enough before it is too late?

GOTTHEIMER: Very good questions. One, we need very strong mandatory guardrails in place for review of these models, right? Before they go out in the wild, the major labs, the ones in the most cutting edge, have to come, I believe, and go to the government and get a national security review to protect our critical infrastructure, to protect Americans, to make sure that our cybersecurity is safe.

[09:10:12]

And I believe that can't be something that's done on their own. They can't self-police. The government should have mandatory requirements for that. I also think, you know, A.I. is here, right? So the question is, how do we deal with it in a way that allows us to compete and win, but to do it in a smart, safe way, right?

And some people have suggested, like Bernie Sanders and others, that you just kind of make it go away, throw it in a box and chuck it into the Hudson River and hope that you never have to see it again. That's obviously not practical. It's here. And the other side is saying, hey, you know, the government shouldn't be involved in this. Let us handle this ourselves.

That's also ridiculous, right? There is a way to do this. And that's what we've been very focused on the A.I. commission and what I've been focused on over the last years is how do we find a smart way to do this with strong guardrails that protects people and protects our security.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you about some of the issues surrounding the Iran war. Republican Congressman Thomas Massie has introduced a resolution to impeach Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth over the war, accusing him of continuing to defy Congress and continuing an unlawful war. Massie can force a vote on this. Would you vote to impeach Hegseth?

GOTTHEIMER: Well, I think Massie -- there's going to be a vote today, my understanding, to return this bill to the committee to actually properly investigate this and to see, because the way it's written, Massie is not a serious member of Congress. He's leaving. He admitted to people that he just wants to burn the place down on the way out, right? There's a way to do this. So he didn't write something that was smart or sensible.

There's a way to do this that actually allows a proper investigation. And that's what I'll vote on today to send this back, have this done properly. Let's consider this. But this is, you know, what we should be focusing on right now, in my opinion, is how we're going to get costs down and that's what Congress should be voting on, what we're going to do to make life more affordable. You got gas prices nearly four and a half bucks. You've got, obviously, diesel prices up to $6.25, $6.30 nationally. It's killing people.

You've got A.I.. That's what I think we should be talking about as well this week. And actually, we've got tons of bipartisan bills to make A.I. safer, to have some of those reviews I was talking about to protect our kids and our jobs and our workers. We should be considering those this week instead of letting some of these other distractions on these procedural votes that don't really mean anything.

SIDNER: But the gas prices are linked to the Iran war and some of the other wars, and the House, with the help of now seven Republicans, who bucked the president, passed a war powers resolution to end the war with Iran at the start of the U.S. war with Iran. In February you opposed a war powers resolution, but in May you brought a resolution forth yourself to halt the war.

What has changed your stance here?

GOTTHEIMER: That's right.

SIDNER: What do you want to see done?

GOTTHEIMER: Well, and I still believe that we should crush this Iranian regime. We've seen them just in the last days, as you know, continue to attack our bases, attack Americans. They've killed Americans. Obviously support -- they're the leading state sponsor of terror in the world. These are no friends of democracy or of freedom. Right? Their lead banner is death to America.

At the same time, which is why I actually say, and I did yesterday voted to say the president has to actually come to us with what the war powers resolution is all about, for a declaration of war, or to take that next step, to explain to us what the goals are, what the objectives are, how we're going to win this conflict. Right?

And we've not heard those steps and a clear outline from the president, from the commander in chief. We've a responsibility as members of Congress to decide on that. That's all empowered in the Constitution to us to decide to move forward after a certain amount of days. Right? We're at that -- way past that moment. The president hasn't given us his strategy. That's what I continue to demand. Right? So I believe Russia is not a friend and obviously an enemy of the United States of America very clearly.

But the president of the United States as commander-in-chief has a responsibility to come to Congress to get a move forward from us about what his goals are, what the strategy is on how we win this. And clearly, right now, that's not been the case.

SIDNER: Congressman Gottheimer, it is a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on early this morning.

GOTTHEIMER: Thanks. Thanks for having me.

SIDNER: Hey, stick around maybe tonight for this.

Do you have any questions about the midterms? Join our John Berman, Abby Phillip and Harry Enten for "Office Hours" tonight. It's going to happen at 7:00 p.m.. You can ask anything and everything. You can type it in. You can come to them in any way you want.

Go to CNN.com/OfficeHours to submit your questions. John.

BERMAN: I'd like to see if Congressman Gottheimer writes in.

SIDNER: I think he might.

BERMAN: For Gottheimer write his questions there. We will be sure to answer them if he does.

SIDNER: He's got questions. You've got answers.

BERMAN: All right. No name, no dice. Not now, not ever. President Trump threatens to keep the Kennedy Center closed unless his name goes back on.

[09:15:01]

Ed Sheeran's music tour in trouble. Four opening acts quit after a political statement made on stage.

And a jet filled with passengers begin shaking shortly after takeoff. The cabin ceiling collapses. Oh, man, that is one flight you don't want to be on. We have the latest on this nightmare for so many travelers.

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BERMAN: This morning, the new threat from President Trump, put his name back on the Kennedy Center or it will stay closed. Insiders said there was a, quote, "effing crazy call" the president had with his hand-picked board that ended with them voting to shut down for renovations. A federal judge has now blocked Trump from putting his name on the building twice. Democratic Congresswoman Joyce Beatty is behind the lawsuit blocking Trump's demands.

[09:20:03]

Sources say Trump screamed at her on the call and even threatened to hold her personally responsible if the ceiling caved in. She spoke to CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JOYCE BEATTY (D-OH): To hear a president using the language that he used, he threw a tantrum. It was like an immature child. I wouldn't even want to put this on a child. It was just being very, in my opinion, very immature. Shouting, calling names, stating facts. He doesn't really know anything about me. And I looked to the board and said, are we really going to do this? This is very unprofessional.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene at the White House for the latest on all this this morning.

Alayna, what are you hearing?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, this has really been a ugly chapter in this fight between the president and officials at the Kennedy Center and the courts over really how to solve this problem. As you mentioned, it all comes down to the president and the board of the Kennedy Center wanting to shut down the building to do renovations, but only if the president says his name is re-added back to the front of the arts institution.

And this all played out during a very tense exchange yesterday during that board meeting, when the president himself called in to berate the Democratic Congresswoman Joyce Beatty, who is behind the lawsuit that has really been tying up this entire process in the courts. Now, the president, according to our sources, screamed at the congresswoman and berated her for getting the courts involved. He also blamed her for the decline of the Kennedy Center.

We're told Beatty essentially told the president right back that he's the one who has put the Kennedy Center in to so much debt. Now, all of this came just moments after a federal judge had essentially stopped the board from moving ahead with its plans to re-add the president's name not only to the front of the edifice. It would have said -- it would have been an inscription thanking the president for renovating and restoring the institution's edifice. But it would also have moved to rename the center's campus after him.

The judge, U.S. District Judge Casey Cooper, said that that move would buck a federal court order and a statute that Congress enacted. They said, simply put, defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress's blessing."

Now, to be clear, John, as you mentioned, the board did vote yesterday to shut down the building for two years to do these renovations. But before they can actually move forward with shuttering the doors, they would need to get a reversal on Cooper's ruling here from their previous order requiring that the institution stay open while Beatty's lawsuit plays out. We're told that the Justice Department is expected to move forward with that filing to reverse Cooper's decision on Friday.

And I will say as well, we're still hearing from the president, who, again, has said that, look, unless my name is added to this building, we're not going to move forward with renovations. This is what the president posted, John, on social media. He said, "The closing will take place immediately. However, the renovation and reconstruction, which is a very large and complex job, cannot begin until such time as the D.C. Circuit rules on the board's approved name."

He also went on to criticize Judge Cooper specifically, arguing that if he continues to get in the way of these plans, that the building is, quote, "destined to doom." Meanwhile, we did hear from Beatty, she told CNN's Kaitlan Collins yesterday, essentially, that she's going to keep pushing forward with this lawsuit and going back to the courts as much as possible, arguing that what the president is trying to do here is unlawful.

All to say this is something we know Trump has been very fixated on in recent months, has been very passionate about wanting to have all of these renovations done and getting his name on the building. We'll have to see where this leads.

BERMAN: Yes. Yes. We -- indeed we will. Meanwhile, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington is closed.

Alayna Treene, at the White House this morning, thank you very much. Kate.

BOLDUAN: Joining us right now is Josh Kolb, senior counsel for Democracy Defenders Action. He's one of the attorneys representing Congresswoman Beatty in her lawsuit over the Kennedy Center's renaming and closure.

Thanks for being here, Josh.

JOSH KOLB, SENIOR COUNSEL, DEMOCRACY DEFENDERS ACTION: Thanks for having me.

BOLDUAN: What happens now?

KOLB: Well, Judge Cooper was very clear. Donald Trump's name cannot go on the Kennedy Center. And his preliminary injunction stays in effect, which means that they cannot shut down the Kennedy Center. If they do that, that will be in violation of the judge's preliminary injunction, and it will be courting contempt. We've already gone to court to enforce the judge's preliminary injunctions. That's the latest victory that we had in court.

It's been very clear repeatedly over the course of months that the Kennedy Center cannot be shut down in violation of that court order. And President Trump now has sort of given the game away. He tied the two issues together in his Truth Social posts yesterday, where he basically, and he admitted, that if he can't get his way, if he can't get his name on the Kennedy Center in violation of the law, then he will shut the Kennedy Center down in violation of a court order. That can't stand.

[09:25:04]

BOLDUAN: He said, the president said that the Kennedy Center is being closed for safety reasons. Do you believe there is a safety risk? Do you believe that is at all at play here?

KOLB: There is, and Congresswoman Beatty has advocated for this. There is a established tradition and practice amongst art centers throughout the country of the ways that you do renovations. You don't have to shut the entire thing down. There are ways to do it in phased processes so that the arts that are presented at those institutions and the service that they provide to the public don't go away.

That's certainly can happen here. There are -- there have already been hundreds of millions of dollars that have been granted for these types of renovations. As the judge indicated in his order, those are still available.

BOLDUAN: So you don't believe when he says it's for safety reasons.

KOLB: I mean, the president in his Truth Social post himself says unless the court order is overturned, specifically with respect to getting his name on the Kennedy Center to recognize him for whatever reason, then it will stay shut down.

BOLDUAN: He also -- the congresswoman said last night that Trump told her he's going to hold her personally responsible if someone is hurt after this, if someone -- I think the way she said it last night was if something fell out of the ceiling and killed someone.

You're her attorney. How do you respond to that threat?

KOLB: The president is shutting down the Kennedy Center simply out of ego and out of spite. He wants to make a monument to himself in violation of the law, which specifically indicates that this is a memorial to the slain president, President John F. Kennedy, and not to Donald Trump.

As has already been indicated, there are ways for this to be dealt with. The Kennedy Center has done renovations in the past successfully without having to shut the entire thing down years ago. So there's a long tradition of being able to deal with this. And I think it's perfectly obvious to everyone involved here that this is a gross abuse of power by the president, by his hand-picked board at the Kennedy Center in an effort to create a memorial to himself and part of his ongoing effort to really change the face of the nation's capital, to suit his own whims and his own ego.

BOLDUAN: You know more about the conversations that have been going on and the machinations of what's going on in the board than most as you're representing Congresswoman Beatty, who's the lone Democrat on that board. Why do you think the president, what insight do you have on why the president cares so much about this one issue? So much to even call in to a board meeting yesterday?

KOLB: I mean, it's quite remarkable. We're in a war in Iran. We're dealing with, I think, $6 diesel. I mean, there's a lot of issues going on in the country. And the president is spending inordinate amounts of time on Kennedy Center board meetings and getting his name on the board, getting involved in this litigation, wasting the Department of Justice's time on this type of litigation.

It's very clear that it is a top priority for him to create memorials to himself, to blast his name wherever he can, to try to instantiate himself, whether it's to create it through history, whether it's just to change the face of the nation's capital. We've seen it in the Reflecting Pool case, which we're litigating. We've seen it in the debris out of the East Room.

BOLDUAN: Josh, this is making me think there really quick. Do you get any indication that the members of the board would, other than Joyce Beatty, would act against the president's wishes on this?

KOLB: All we can say is what we've seen so far and what we've seen so far is they have gone out of their way to try to find ways to appease the president and try to find ways to evade court orders, forcing us to go back to court and forcing the court to clarify that, no, you can't do what the president wants you to do, and you can't take these actions as we will continue to do if they continue to push in this way.

BOLDUAN: Josh Kolb, thank you very much for coming in.

KOLB: My pleasure.

BOLDUAN: All right. Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Ahead, Trump's pick for surgeon general heads to Capitol Hill. She is a doctor known for being a health and wellness influencer who is both praised and criticized the Trump administration. And were just minutes away from the Opening Bell on Wall Street, where investors are watching to see if the Federal Reserve raises interest rates.

Wall Street expects the hike to happen. The move, though, would put Trump's hand-picked Fed chair, Kevin Warsh, at odds with the president's push to lower the rates. You can see what's happening right now in the futures.

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