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Emergency Court Hearing on Media White House Ban; Rep. Madeleine Dean (D-PA) is Interviewed about a Diesel Export Ban; ICE Mistakenly Targeted U.S. Citizen In Illinois; Investigations into Deaths of Two University of Mississippi Students. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 23, 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]

CHRISTOPHER BULONE, ATTORNEY FOR RIDERS' FAMILIES: Permanent brain damage.

KYUNG LAH, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Wilk stood next to Pam Guillen and Naomi Greer-Wilkinson's parents at the news conference filled with regret. He was hurt just months before Naomi and Pam.

MICHAEL WILK, INJURED ROLLERCOASTER RIDER: I cannot help but feel, if I had reported it, maybe, maybe something would have happened. Maybe Magic Mountain would have taken it more seriously and they would not have been injured.

LAH: We did reach out to Six Flags, but the company says it will not comment about pending litigation. It does say that the X2 is no longer running, but Six Flags did not say why it has stopped running.

The lawyers representing all of these clients say they will file about 100 lawsuits, and it will be in the coming weeks.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: ICE officers target a U.S. citizen in Chicago by mistake, leaving him injured and lying on the ground. This as new details are coming out about the DoorDash driver in Texas who was shot by ICE officers there.

And breaking overnight, there are new CNN polling numbers out this morning painting a grim midterm picture for President Trump in a whole new way, with some Republican candidates now distancing themselves from the president in a whole new way.

And new body camera video of the moment an officer saved a man from a burning car after a violent crash. We've got more on how they're doing now.

Sara was on the night shift. I'm Kate Bolduan, with John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: In just a few hours, an emergency hearing

could decide if President Trump's White House ban on CNN, MS Now and "Politico" will stand. The hearing, a critical test for the First Amendment protections and press freedom.

Overnight, the Trump administration filed a response to a lawsuit from the networks, arguing that the president has a right to restrict reporters, quote, "even for viewpoint discriminatory reasons." Now, in the filing, the Justice Department says CNN reporting was a threat to national security. And in a letter to CNN, the Department of Justice listed specific reporting over the past year they believe was a big enough risk to warrant the ban.

Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene for the latest on this.

Good morning, Alayna.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, John. And as you can see, I am reporting from our D.C. bureau, not the White House, as someone who is part of this band.

But look, we should get more answers today from the judge who is assigned to this case. I should note, a Trump appointed judge who was assigned to this case. The hearing will be at 3:30 p.m. Eastern.

But this new court filing from the Justice Department is giving us more details into what we can see the Trump administration's argument to look like. One, they did lay out a number of different stories that they believed support the justification, in their eyes, for this ban. They said that White House access specifically is, quote, "a privilege and not a right," citing stories around the Iran War, the ballroom coverage, and others saying that that amounted to a national security risk.

And I do think this is the key point here, because this is different from what we've heard the president say initially when he announced this ban. The Justice Department is really going to be leaning into this idea that the ban is because they believe these outlets are a national security risk, with the reporting that they've been doing.

And I want to read for you what they put out in this Justice Department -- this Justice Department response. They said, quote, "the president has found that plaintiffs have engaged in a number of reporting incidents that have threatened national security. Such reporting directly raises national security concerns." So again, I think what you can hear in the argument, particularly in court, when the Trump administration comes up, will be this idea around national security.

But again, I think this is a big distinction from what we've heard from the president when he first announced this, and he actually answered reporters' questions later that day, this ban was put in place on Friday, he said that there was no specific story or specific reasoning for wanting to ban CNN, MS Now and "Politico." He said it was a cumulative decision. It was based on cumulative reporting that he has felt about. This, though, making very clear that this is a national security issue and that is the legal argument they will be going with.

I'd remind you as well, whenever the president wants to actually kind of push through things, whether it be policy or, for example, things we've seen him building around D.C. with the arch or the helipad and other changes to the ballroom, he's insisted it is because of national security. That is often a justification for the president to use when he has some controversial things.

I would note, though, that not all Republicans are on the president's side here. CNN has actually interviewed a number of different Republican lawmakers who argued that, sure, maybe the president doesn't like or agree with some of the reporting, but they argue that it's not the right approach to try and ban them.

[09:05:00]

Listen to what they said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): I think it's a mistake. The better approach to tough questions is a good answer.

SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): I agree with the diagnosis. I don't agree with the cure.

Every member of the media should be treated the same.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, look, we'll see what happens today, John.

I will note as well that the president has said in recent days that he believes the media outlets will actually win, arguing that the judge in the case who's been appointed -- again, a Trump appointed judge, is someone who has sided with the media in the past back in the first term. This judge was the one who restored a former CNN White House reporter's access to the White House when they tried to strip him of his badge. So, just context for what we'll be watching for later today.

BERMAN: Alayna Treene, very much not at the White House this morning. Thank you for being with us.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Joining us right now is CNN's senior legal analyst Elie Honig for more on this.

This filing came kind of in the middle of the night from the Justice Department. Elie, what do you make of it?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Kate, Donald Trump's legal position has shifted dramatically overnight. And now we are seeing Trump's lawyers say very different things than Donald Trump and J.D. Vance and others have spent the last five, six days saying. So, there are two main issues in this case. The first is the First

Amendment issue. And as Alayna just laid out, the Trump administration's position now is that the ban is because of national security concerns. The problem with that is that the president himself has said repeatedly over the last five, six days that the reason for the ban is unfavorable coverage, negative coverage. I don't like the tenor or the type of coverage. Very different stories.

The second issue is due process. CNN, MS Now and "Politico" point out that they were given no notice of the ban, no opportunity to contest it. Well, now, what Trump's lawyers are saying is, we are going to give them, and I quote from the brief, "post deprivation process," meaning we've taken away the due process rights first, and then we're going to give them some process that they just invented, starting now. That's sort of the antithesis of what due process is supposed to be. It's supposed to happen before you take something away. So, we are now seeing a notable divide and split between what Trump has been saying publicly for the last several days and what his lawyers are now saying in their late night brief.

BOLDUAN: You've. Obviously, taken a very close look at what the arguments made by the outlets, CNN, MS Now, and "Politico" and their lawsuit that was first filed. When you look at that, how could the outlets respond in court to the Justice Department then today?

HONIG: So, the media outlets argument is going to be fairly straightforward. This is viewpoint-based discrimination. We are being treated differently by the government because of the substance of our reporting. And that's exactly what the First Amendment prohibits. That's, of course, the first argument.

The other argument, again, is due process, which basically says you cannot take away liberty or property, including our right to access the White House and report and make a living without giving us some chance to contest it. And that's not just a technicality, Kate. I should note that when Jim Acosta's press pass was taken away back in 2018, when he was with CNN, he actually won that case based on the due process argument. So, watch for that one in court today as well.

BOLDUAN: All right, much more to come for sure.

Elie, thank you so much.

John.

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, big oil is pushing back after President Trump floated a temporary ban on diesel exports as prices are right at an all-time high. The price today is $6.52. That's about 75 percent higher than when the war with Iran started.

This is what President Trump is saying about the potential export ban. He said, quote, "I've said, let's not send out the diesel. We make a lot of diesel. I've called for it within my people. I've been talking about it."

The American Petroleum Institute suggests that could backfire in a big way, saying it will, quote, "make the problem worse, not better, for consumers, farmers and the broader economy."

With us now, Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, a Democrat from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

How do you feel about a potential ban on diesel exports?

REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): Well, its evidence, further evidence that the president is just flailing about. He knows that his war has created the problem of pricing on gasoline, on diesel, on petroleum, on goods, and he can't seem to figure out how to get out of this war. So, to change the market in that way, I think he doesn't know what he's doing. And the problem is that it is hurting our farmers dramatically. You've seen interviews with many of them who say this could put an end to my family farm, for example, just the extraordinarily high prices of diesel.

You also see, in the numbers you've been reporting in these polls, that the president can't seem to box his way out of the failures of this administration, whether it is the war, whether it is immigration, whether it is the economy, affordability, health care and, of course, the revealed grotesque corruption by this president.

[09:10:05]

BERMAN: I'm going to be down at the Farm Aid concert this weekend in Virginia. Farmers are absolutely talking about the price of diesel. Even Chuck Grassley, the senator from Iowa, Republican, says diesel prices are killing farmers. But again, do you think a diesel export ban would help them?

DEAN: I don't know. And I will look into that.

But what I do know is that the president is just grasping at anything. The -- what the farmers need is real support. What the farmers need is an end to this war. What American people need is an end to this war. And global leadership. Instead, you see a president incoherent yesterday at the U.N., at that setting, to talk about things like total annihilation of 93 million people. So, the farmers need somebody who has some understanding of the marketplace and the impact of these prices on their work. So, the president's suggestion to me is hollow and desperate.

BERMAN: There are some Republicans running for office who are either in Congress, or hope to be there soon, who in the last few days have come out saying that the war in Iran needs to end, that the president needs to find a way to end the war. Whether it was Ashley Hinson in Iowa, we saw Mike Rogers in Michigan. We also saw John Husted in Ohio.

So, how do you feel when you see Republicans -- what does it tell you that these Republicans are now coming forward saying this should end?

DEAN: Where were they when we were governing? Where were they on war powers resolutions, taking back our Article One responsibility to declare war? I think it's rather thin skinned. It seems like it's folks who just recognize they're about to lose elections because of their tethering to a president who has produced nothing but chaos, cruelty, corruption, and incompetence. It's very thin skinned. It's very transparent what they're doing.

BERMAN: One of the things we do hear from some Republicans, particularly non-MAGA Republicans, is say, hey, wait a minute here, to a reaction like the one you just had. Democrats attack us all the time for our positions. But then when we switch, if we, they would say, have the courage to switch positions to one they like, they still attack us anyway. So, what incentive do they have then to switch?

DEAN: I don't worry about attacking the few that you are talking about. The voters are going to see them for what they are. And much more importantly is, what are they doing in the role? Not as a politician seeking re-election, trying to hold on to that seat. What are they doing when they are voting? What are they doing around this economy and making life more affordable? They voted to make life less affordable, blowing up our deficit, giving big tax breaks to the wealthiest among us, taking away health care from those who need it, taking away nutrition, SNAP benefits from those who need it, and failing to call the president out on a war that was unplanned, very poorly partnered, incoherent, that he doesn't know how to get out of.

So, what somebody says on a stump as they try to erase Donald Trump from their website is not convincing to me that they're worthy to govern.

BERMAN: You're talking about --

DEAN: When they really want to side with Democrats, they should be doing it in their vote.

BERMAN: All right, you're talking about affordability. I'm sorry to interrupt you right there, but we have this new CNN poll out this morning. It's got a lot of rough numbers for President Trump. A lot of rough numbers for Republicans.

But when you ask voters about what would happen if Democrats were to take control of Congress, how it would change things. On the question of how would Democrats winning Congress, affect the cost of living, 35 percent say it would have a positive effect, 34 percent say it would have a negative effect, right? That's almost even there -- 30 percent -- we have a graphic, I think, for this, say it would have no effect. And on your finances, how would Democrats winning Congress affect your finances? Twenty-seven percent say it would have a positive effect, but 31 percent say it would have a negative effect.

So, as poorly as they look upon Republicans right now, there are voters saying that if Democrats take control, it wouldn't help their finances. So, why do you think they feel that way?

DEAN: Well, you've seen other polls. And I have to tell you, John, I hate really thinking about polls. I'd rather listen to people. But you've seen others, with the president's numbers plummeting into the 20s and 30s on the economy, on the war, on interest rates and inflation.

We've also seen polls that show that Congress -- congressional Democrats are up over congressional Republicans. And I think that's just a reality that congressional Republicans have had no ability to govern.

Do you know that we've lost about 25 percent of the 119th Congress due to the speaker sending us home? They're failing to govern.

[09:15:01]

And so what I hear from folks is, they're turning their anxiety into action. All over my district people are talking about voting and making sure we are watching these elections closely and making sure our voice is heard. Because they know that it isn't the Democrats who took us to war. It isn't the Democrats who drove up the gas prices. It isn't the Democrats who took away their health care and made everything more expensive.

In fact, when Democrats were in control, we did the exact opposite. And so, we'll have the chance to do that again when we go into the majority. I am knocking on wood, as I say that, when we go into the majority in the 120th Congress.

BERMAN: Congresswoman Madeleine Dean, from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, thank you for being with us this morning.

ICE agents mistakenly tackle and detain a U.S. citizen in Chicago, leaving him with multiple injuries.

New investigations after two students at the same university die in the same weekend.

And then a terminator-looking robot that is trained to fight, knocks out an influencer -- I should say, knocks him completely off his feet. That kick looked a little dirty to me, to be honest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:20:19]

BOLDUAN: This morning, there's now an investigation underway after Illinois police say that ICE mistakenly targeted a U.S. citizen. It unfolded Sunday in Evanston, a suburb of Chicago. And police say that the man was detained, that you can take -- and then left laying on the ground, injured -- injured afterward. And here's some video from a witness from the scene obtained by CNN. The man is seen struggling on the ground. ICE agents around him. He tells them repeatedly in the video that he is a U.S. citizen.

CNN's Whitney Wild is joining us now. She's got more on all of this, how it unfolded, what's known and what big questions still remain here.

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, we're still trying to piece together exactly what happened because there's some video that captures -- a surveillance video that captures this incident sort of as it happened. But the agents move a bit out of frame. And then there, as you point out, there's witness video from the aftermath. So, there's still a lot more questions to learn about what actually happened and how this man was actually injured. But this is what we're learning from witnesses on the ground, from the

Department of Homeland Security, and from the Evanston Police Department, who responded. This all happened before 10 a.m. Sunday. Again, the surveillance video that you saw just a moment ago captures some of it.

What we know now is that ICE agents detained a man who is a U.S. citizen in the Chicago suburb. According to DHS, they were conducting a targeted operation and came upon a man who resembled their target. And when that man refused to provide identification and refused to cooperate, that was a contribute -- those were two contributing factors to this incident. They said that DHS later left after the man identified himself. Their statement also says that he refused assistance from those ICE officers on the ground in that moment.

Evanston Police also responded and did contact the federal agents on the ground, who basically said the same thing, that there was a targeted operation. An Evanston Police officer witnessed a federal agent with blood on his hand. That agent also refused medical assistance.

Here's more -- I want you to listen to this video because it really captures the moment at hand here where this man is saying over and over, he is U.S. citizen.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. (INAUDIBLE) OK. I'm a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) U.S. citizen. (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's nice.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are they doing to him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They (EXPLETIVE DELETED) him up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: Now, later in this video, you can also hear the man telling the ICE officers, don't touch me. He's audibly upset. Witnesses called an ambulance because he had said that he had suffered injuries to his head, neck and teeth. Again, Evanston Police are continuing to investigate.

Here's a statement from DHS. "The individual was given lawful commands but was not cooperative and refused to identify himself. ICE officers relied on their training and later left the scene without further incident once the individual finally identified himself."

Kate, a lot more to learn here as the day goes on.

BOLDUAN: Whitney Wild, thank you for your reporting. John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, multiple agencies are investigating the deaths of two University of Mississippi students. Right now, the only thing linking both death investigations is a substance called kratom that can be found at gas stations.

Let's get right to CNN's Isabel Rosales for the very latest on this.

What are you learning, Isabel?

ISABELA ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John, good morning.

Kratom is an herbal extract that can have opioid or stimulant-like effects, but too much of it can lead to poisoning. Things like vomiting, heart attacks, strokes, hallucinations, and much more. So, you can understand why so many students and parents in the community are understandably alarmed by this news. In fact, the university has put out a note saying that there's a lot of unverified information going on, especially around social media.

So, here's what we do know based on what law enforcement is telling us. That firstly it's important to note that we don't yet know, it's unclear how exactly these students have died. They have no confirmed evidence linking these two deaths together. And they cannot say that kratom or any other substance is a contributing factor in these two student deaths at Ole Miss.

However, within both of these separate death investigation sites, they did discover packaged kratom. This is why they're warning students that, for now at least, to avoid kratom and any other substance that's not from a cleared, trusted, verified source that is prescribed.

[09:25:00]

Here's how a student is reacting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAVEN TUNSTALL, STUDENT, UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI: And we didn't think to come back to like such sad news of losing two classmates. We have so much life ahead of us. And, you know, college is supposed to be where we grow and, like, gain new experiences. It's not supposed to be where our lives end.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: Now, these students have not been identified. Again, it's two students at Ole Miss. Oxford Police have not given out details as to their age, their gender. And according to our CNN affiliate WAPT, in speaking with the coroner's office, those autopsies are scheduled to be -- are in the process of being scheduled. One student, by the way, was found on campus. A different student was found off campus.

And I'll leave you with this, John. Kratom poisoning calls have increased, spiked dramatically by 1,200 percent between 2015 and 2025. And in states where they have not been banned, they're, frankly, easy to find, over the counter at gas stations, health stores, convenience stores. So, we'll see what more information comes out of this.

BERMAN: Yes, a lot of concern at the University of Mississippi. Thank you so much, Isabel Rosales.

So, a rare and powerful category five hurricane. Where it could be headed next.

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