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CNN News Central

Dolly Parton's Estate Requests Restraining Order Against Nephew; Trump Greets Chinese President Xi Jinping for State Visit; Top A.I. CEOs to Address U.N. Security Council; Iranian President Says Tehran is Ready for Negotiations Without Accepting the Language of Force; ICE Agents Mistakenly Detain an U.S. Citizen in Evanston; CNN Poll Shows Two-thirds Think Trump Has Worsened the Economy. Aired 2- 2:30p ET

Aired September 23, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

LISA RESPERS FRANCE, CNN SENIOR ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: -- So it's just gotten very messy, and I guess we'll just have to wait and see how it all shakes out in the court, Brianna.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Yeah, we'll be looking for that. Lisa Respers France, thank you so much for the report.

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

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": The world's biggest economic and military superpowers sitting face-to-face. President Trump set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House, hanging over their sit-down trade, the A.I. arms race and of course, the war with Iran.

Plus, a hero pilots new journey. Captain Sully Sullenberger opening up about his Alzheimer's diagnosis. See what he wants people to know about the early warning signs.

Plus, ICE agents detaining a U.S. citizen near Chicago by mistake, leaving him on the ground with multiple injuries. Ahead, how the Department of Homeland Security is now responding.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

Happening now, President Trump hitting halftime on a critical week of diplomacy. After a whirlwind trip to the U.N., the president is about to welcome China's Xi Jinping to Washington. A.I., Taiwan and the U.S. war with Iran, all major issues ahead of this summit.

Earlier today, Iran's president delivering a defiant message at the U.N. General Assembly after President Trump threatened to annihilate his nation. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MASOUD PEZESHKIAN, PRESIDENT OF IRAN: Iran must be understood by Mr. Trump, and those who seek to bully us, that we are ready for a dialogue and diplomacy and negotiations without accepting the language of force.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN's Kylie Atwood is live at the U.N. with more. Kylie, what's the latest?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you heard from the Iranian president earlier today saying that the country is not going to bow its head or bend its knee in the face of that bullying that he said is coming now on the global stage. Calling for collaboration in the face of that bullying and saying that the Iranian resistance is only going to increase as there's more international pressure on them, including those sanctions that we have seen increasingly from the United States and their allies.

However, of course, the backdrop here being that U.S. and Iranian officials did have a three-hour conversation yesterday. We heard from President Trump calling that a productive meeting. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio earlier this morning, telling reporters that it was a continuation of the conversations that the U.S. has had with Iran in the past, not wanting to characterize the U.S. demands of Iran that were made during that meeting, but making the indication that the memorandum of understanding that was agreed to between the U.S. and Iran over the summer that then was violated by Iran is no longer the starting point for the United States because he said they killed the MOU. They strangled it.

They of course being Iran, because it was their strikes that that put that temporary ceasefire off for many months and still remains off. But U.S. delegations are trying to see what they can do with the Iranians. It's clear, however, that the Trump administration is focused on nuclear conversations with the Iranians. We'll have to watch and see if they have any productive further conversations following that dialogue here in New York yesterday.

SANCHEZ: And Kylie, as we await the arrival of Xi Jinping, there are indications that the Chinese delegation is not eager to discuss Taiwan. But Secretary of State, Marco Rubio has delivered a message when it comes to U.S. arms sales to the island.

ATWOOD: Yeah, so I asked the Secretary of State this morning, when he was speaking with reporters, if the Trump administration remains committed to regular and increased weapons sales to the self-governing island of Taiwan. He said, yes, that they do. He went on to say that, effectively, all U.S. arms sales have to be considered against the backdrop of what the United States needs in its own stockpiles, not speaking to Taiwan arms sales directly, saying that the U.S. and Taiwan did sign a major arms agreement, major arms deal late last year.

But of course, the question mark is around that $14 billion arms sale to Taiwan that the Trump administration hasn't signed off on. Here's what Rubio said specifically, not specifically about Taiwan, but about how the administration looks at arms sales generally.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF STATE: Any arms sales we do with anyone on the planet, here (ph) about Taiwan, with any country on the planet has to be balanced with what our combatant commanders around the world are telling us are their minimum needs in case of a conflict in their region.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ATWOOD: So we'll have to watch and see how that plays out as an issue that is expected to be at the top of the agenda for the U.S. and China in those discussions happening in Washington, D. C. starting tonight.

But it is worth noting that President Trump himself has said that U.S. arms sales to Taiwan are a very good negotiating chip in his dealings with the Chinese leader.

[14:05:00]

SANCHEZ: Kylie Atwood for us at the U.N., thank you so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: Another major topic headlining today's U.N. gathering is the explosion of artificial intelligence and also the concerns about its growing influence around the world.

Next hour, OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, and Anthropic CEO, Dario Amodei will address the U.N. Security Council about the technology's impact on international security amid these growing concerns over emerging A.I. models. Kevin Roose is a Tech Journalist who covers A.I. and he's co-host of the "Machine Gods" podcast. He's also the author of the upcoming book, " The AGI Chronicles: The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Superintelligence."

Kevin, thanks for being with us. Many of the leaders of these companies, they are on the same page about regulation and slowing down, but they aren't all, like NVIDIA's Jensen Huang. I did mention Anthropic's Amodei, OpenAI's Altman, and they'll be addressing the U.N. Security Council on A.I. today. How much does it matter who is in the room here?

KEVIN ROOSE, TECH JOURNALIST: It matters a lot. I mean, the way forward is very different depending on who you ask. The leaders of the frontier A.I. companies, Dario Amodei, Sam Altman, but also folks from Google DeepMind, they are calling for essentially a coordinated global slowdown, not just between the American companies, but also with some of the leading Chinese A.I. companies.

So I don't expect the Trump administration or President Trump to do much in that regard. He's called this a globalist scheme to slow down the American A.I. industry. But if you listen to the people at the companies and take them at their word, they are concerned about how quickly things are progressing.

They think there could be some kind of diplomatic or international incident, not in a few years, but maybe in a few months as a result of these models getting so good at things like cyber capabilities.

KEILAR: Yeah. Trump does not share these concerns, and he's going to meet with Xi Jinping today, who may not share these concerns, right? So what realistically can come out of this meeting between these two big leaders?

ROOSE: Well, there's been some reporting that they do plan to establish some kind of a sort of fast-track communication channel for critical A.I. security incidents between the two governments. I think that would be a good thing.

They should have some way to contact each other and say, hey, we're noticing this really concerning behavior, or we're worried about this thing. Because in the end, this is a global problem. This is not just going to affect American citizens or Chinese citizens.

There should be some kind of incident response fast lane for that. But as far as a lasting treaty or anything like that, I wouldn't hold my breath under this administration.

KEILAR: China's been able to develop pretty good A.I. models. I mean, the U.S. is seen as the leader here, but China is doing very well. Does the president have any leverage here as he's trying to win against China?

ROOSE: It's kind of confusing because on one hand, he is saying that he wants America to win on China. At the same time, there are some Republicans and people in his orbit who have been pushing for a loosening of the trade restrictions on advanced A.I. chips to China from companies like NVIDIA.

They have been lobbying very aggressively to get those restrictions removed. So to me, I don't quite understand how you can want America to win, but also want to sell China the ingredients to make powerful A.I. systems. But maybe someone else knows how to square that circle.

What about this idea of a hotline? You're talking about a way to kind of do some reporting if there are some of these issues. And we've been hearing lately about some pretty scary ones. But the Trump administration is exploring this idea of a hotline, like a Cold War- style line of communication. Is that something that would work?

ROOSE: It's better than nothing. But I think the question is, it's not enough to just know that an incident is ongoing. You also have to have the infrastructure in place to be able to prevent the incident from happening in the first place.

So I would feel much better and I think A.I. companies and the leaders in the space would feel much better if it was not only a commitment to keep each other informed, but actually to coordinate the kind of slowdown, the kind of pacing mechanism that people like Dario Amodei and Sam Altman are asking for.

KEILAR: Kevin, how much does an A.I. hotline or a congressional regulation or really any guard rail assume that humans ultimately retain control over A.I. systems? Is that even realistic? ROOSE: I don't think it's realistic, in part because all of the A.I. companies are now trying to explicitly hand over control of their own research and development process to these A.I. systems. We've already seen the Hugging Face hack that was a major security incident that no human was involved in or directing. So we've already seen these systems being able to take more autonomous actions.

[14:10:00]

And we expect that to continue absent some kind of a global regulatory or slowdown push.

KEILAR: All right, Kevin, thank you so much for being with us. Really appreciate it, Kevin Roose.

And still to come, some brand new polling revealing how Americans really feel about President Trump and his agenda with just six weeks to go until Election Day.

Plus, ICE agents mistakenly target a U.S. citizen, this time in Chicago. And it is on video.

And later, miracle on the Hudson pilot, Sully Sullenberger opening up on the early symptoms that led to his Alzheimer's diagnosis. We'll have that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:15:23]

SANCHEZ: We're now just 41 days out from the midterm elections. And exclusive news, CNN polling out today shows President Trump's support eroding to record low levels, putting members of his Republican Party at a major disadvantage. CNN Washington Bureau Chief and Political Director, David Chalian is here to break down the numbers.

So David, just how bad is it right now for President Trump?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR & WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: It's pretty bad, as you noted. I mean, this is a historic low approval rating in our brand new poll conducted by SSRS. 33 percent approval. And when I say historic, I mean across both of his terms, this is his low point, 67 percent disapprove.

Take a look at his approval rating among Republicans, Boris. 75 percent, now you would say 75 percent? That's a lot. Yes.

SANCHEZ: Sure.

CHALIAN: But look at this trend in his term. I mean, in February '25, he was 88 percent approval with Republicans. That has gone nothing but down, and that is a record low. Look at Independents. This is just a disaster right now. He is at 25 percent approval among Independents. That is why you're starting to see so many Republicans starting to find a way to get beyond him or separate themselves from him. And this is another going in the wrong direction. We asked, does Trump have the right priorities? In February of this year, about a third, 32 percent said yes. Look at this number keep going down. We're now at only 24 percent. A quarter of Americans think Donald Trump has the right priorities. Three quarters say he does not.

SANCHEZ: What is driving these trends?

CHALIAN: Definitely the economy. I mean, look at the issue set here. So, by the way, he doesn't crack 40 percent approval on any of the issues we tested, but we know what the most important issues are. The economy, and they're all the way down here. Inflation, he's at 20 percent approval. The economy, 27 percent. Helping the middle class, 28 percent.

And this, to me, is the biggest takeaway of our poll. The comparison from now to the midterms in his first term in 2018. Now, his party still lost 40 seats then.

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

CHALIAN: But look at this. His approval on the economy today is only at 27 percent. That's down 22 points from what it was. Look at this. In 2018, he was plus five on the economy, even though he wasn't very popular. But the economy was a strong suit. He's now minus 22. That is a very bad sign for him, as is this. Current economic conditions are good. Today, only 28 percent say so.

69 percent of Americans said economic conditions were good in his first term midterm. It is a dramatically different environment for him when it comes to issue number one.

SANCHEZ: You spoke about Republicans trying to sort of distance themselves from the president. They're obviously going up against history and historic trends when it comes to the incumbent party and midterms. How much is Trump and these numbers, these approval numbers, a drag on them right now?

CHALIAN: Well, it's pretty clear. It's a significant drag, because if we just do that generic congressional ballot, if the election were today, who would you vote for? For the House, a Democratic or a Republican? 49 percent of poll respondents are saying they'd go for the Democrats, 41 percent for Republicans.

So that's plus eight overall. Among the Independents, it's even starker. It's plus 11, because Independents, as I showed you, are fleeing Donald Trump. So 45 percent of Independents are going for the Democrats, 34 percent for the Republicans. And Trump is the factor. You know, we asked this question, how is he -- 44 percent of people say they are voting to oppose Trump. That's their vote motivation. Only 19 percent say support him.

And Boris, compare Donald Trump to his modern-era predecessors at this time. In the autumn of the midterm year, Donald Trump right now is at the bottom of this list. He only is beating himself -- beating, in terms of the four at the bottom from 2018. But look at this. Obama, you remember, lost the House big --

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

CHALIAN: -- in 2010. He was at 42. Joe Biden lost the House in 2022. He was at 44. Clinton, that huge Republican wave in 1994, he was at 42. Donald Trump is way below that right now.

SANCHEZ: It does not portend well for Republicans. David Chalian, thanks for walking us through those numbers.

CHALIAN: Sure.

SANCHEZ: We have some new video to share with you, showing the moment that ICE agents attempted to detain a man near Chicago, leaving him injured. It turns out this man is a U.S. citizen. The details on this mix-up after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:24:05]

KEILAR: Outrage is growing in Illinois after ICE agents mistakenly target a U.S. citizen, leaving him with multiple injuries. This happened Sunday in Evanston, just north of Chicago. And in new security video obtained by CNN, the man can be seen here being pulled to the ground behind that dark colored SUV. And in a separate video that begins during the altercation, the man can be heard repeatedly telling the agents this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm a [expletive] U.S. citizen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: He's telling them he's a U.S. citizen. Moments after releasing the man, the two agents return to their vehicles and leave the scene. And that's when police say bystanders checked on the man and called an ambulance. CNN's Whitney Wild is with us now.

So, Whitney, how's DHS responding to this?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, DHS is saying that this was basically the result of a targeted operation.

[14:25:00]

So here's what they say the pattern of events is. They say that they were conducting a targeted operation in Evanston. These ICE officers saw a man who resembled their target and when they went to try to contact him, they presented themselves as law enforcement. They asked for his ID. He did not give it. He was not cooperative.

And we actually have a statement from DHS as well that I'll read to you. "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." The DHS statement and the video shows that he declined. In the video he says don't touch me to the agents.

DHS says that he declined any assistance from them after this scuffle here. DHS did not respond to any details about, you know, why he was injured or how he was injured or to the extent of the injuries. Most of the detail here, Brianna, for the aftermath is coming from witnesses and the Evanston Police Department.

Let's again watch the video that was taken in the moment as this was happening, really capturing the crux of the aftermath of this scuffle. So let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Inaudible).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: The Evanston Police Department responded, Brianna, and they were able to speak with one of those agents on the scene. And what the Evanston Police observed was that there was blood on the hands of one ICE, looks like an ERO officer, an ICE officer agent, and that person also refused any medical treatment on the scene.

What those federal officers told Evanston Police is the same as what's in the DHS report that they were looking for a certain person. This person resembled their target. When they figured out that that wasn't the person, they left. They were concerned about, you know, growing protesters and they were concerned about an ongoing issue there.

Witnesses say that after they left, the witnesses called an ambulance for that man because he's sustained injuries to his head, neck and teeth. We still are awaiting more detail on the extent of his injuries. We continue to ask questions of the Evanston Police Department. There are more details to learn here, Brianna.

The video is pretty telling, however, I mean there is a lot of video from this incident but still some key questions remain. What actually, you know, prompted this scuffle that would have resulted in injury. I think there still remain questions there and we still don't know the extent of that man's injuries, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yeah, so many questions. Whitney Wild, thank you for that report.

And for the first time, hero pilot, Captain Sully Sullenberger is speaking publicly about his Alzheimer's diagnosis. After the break, we talk with the doctor about the early symptoms that people should look for.

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