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Judge Orders Trump to Restore White House Access to CNN, MS NOW, Politico; CNN Poll Shows 75 Percent of Americans Feel Fear, Concern About A.I.; Caleb Flynn's Ex-Mistress to Resume Testifying in His Murder Trial. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired September 24, 2026 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The breaking news this morning, back at work or trying to be, that's our Betsy Klein on her way back to the White House because a judge ordered them to let reporters from CNN and other outlets back in to do their jobs, just one of the major setbacks for the president's battle against the free press.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Also breaking overnight, the first known A.I. hack into a government system, how Australia's responding after learning OpenAI agent infiltrated its national healthcare system. This is happening as a new poll is revealing an overwhelming number of Americans are expressing fear and concern about A.I.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Also developing right now, a nor'easter gaining strength, threatening much of the East Coast with flooding, strong winds, and rain. The next few hours here are going to determine just how impactful the storm's going to be.

I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman and Sara Sidner. This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: All right. The breaking news this morning, a live look at the White House, where any moment now CNN should be allowed back in because a federal judge ordered the White House to let us in. Specifically, the judge ordered the Trump administration to restore White House access to CNN, MS NOW, and Politico after the president abruptly banned them last week.

A few hours ago, Judge Timothy Kelly found the ban was without due process. He had a lot more to say as well. The order remains in effect for 14 days. A lawyer representing the outlets said in a statement, quote, this is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process, and the rule of law. We greatly appreciate the court's swift action.

Our Betsy Klein is on her way back into the White House this morning, joins us now from outside. Betsy, this is a major ruling, and I know you will be back at work soon.

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That is the goal, John, but as of right now, some members of CNN staff have been unable to return to the White House. You may recall on Saturday, the U.S. Secret Service seized my badge after President Trump had announced that his ban was going to be going into effect.

So, around 6:10 this morning, I arrived at this intersection. I went to the Secret Service checkpoint, provided my information, my photo I.D., and press credential, and was told that I was not in the system. A few moments later, one of our producers was able to access the White House. She is now on campus. However, our photojournalist went a few moments after that, and his badge was then seized by the White House.

Now, this is all very fluid, and that is because this ruling came in overnight, around 12:58 this morning. So, it is not yet normal business hours. This may take a little bit of time to process. We have reached out to the White House to check to see if they are able to submit my information to help me get back in, as well as my photojournalist here.

But the judge ordered overnight that CNN must be reinstated in this ruling. I want to read to you a little bit from that decision. He says, quote, the court is skeptical, at least on this record, that defendant's interest in safeguarding national security is the actual motivation for or is even advanced by the revocation of plaintiffs' hard passes.

That is according to Judge Kelly in that ruling overnight. So, again, we are waiting to see if we can get in here.

The other thing I would just note is that this is a very busy and important day for White House press coverage. It is a state visit, very rare. President Trump is welcoming China's leader, Xi Jinping, here to the White House. There's going to be an arrival ceremony, meetings, a state dinner later tonight, so there's a lot to cover.

And very interestingly, Deputy White House Press Secretary Taylor Rogers was asked by Spectrum News yesterday what the symbolism of President Trump's ban on the press meant. Again, this was prior to this ruling.

Rogers telling Spectrum there is no comparison between the U.S. and China on press freedom. She went on to say that the president, in her words, is holding the fake news accountable. But, again, we are going to continue to stand by, wait, and hopefully our press badges will be reinstated today.

BERMAN: Just to be clear, this mostly seems bureaucratic at this point, not so much a deliberate decision to exclude you.

[07:05:00]

This is just a process of getting you through the system?

KLEIN: That is the hope, John. We have submitted all of my information through what is known as the WAVES process, my full name, Social Security number, all of that information. I followed up with the press office in light of the judge's order, as well as higher levels of the White House Communications Office waiting to hear back. But, again, it's still very early in the morning. It's 7:04 right now, so we will give it a little bit more time.

BERMAN: Betsy Klein, always at work, always reporting, no matter where you're standing, great to have you here. Hopefully, we'll have you on the inside shortly. I appreciate it. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Thank you so much, John.

Joining me now is Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter and CNN Crime and Justice Correspondent Katelyn Polantz. Katelyn, to you first. You're looking at how the judge kind of spelled this out, and that the government really had no basis to kick these outlets out. One of the reasons that the Trump administration used to try and stop the media from going in is national security.

What did the judge say specifically about national security and whether that was really at issue here?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Sara, that was what the Justice Department was trying to argue in court very forcefully, trying to say that that's the reason that these reporters and these media outlets couldn't be trusted to come into White House grounds, and the judge knocked down it in essentially every way that he could.

He noted that Donald Trump previously had remarked that it was negative stories that he was responding to when he first announced the ban, not a national security issue. They also -- Judge Kelly also wrote that nothing extraordinary happened here to cause the rejection of these press passes or having them pulled from these news outlets.

The stories that the White House cited as their issues, they were months old, if not years old. And on top of that these were just not stories that had much to do with the White House reporting at all.

Here's a quote from this filing from Judge Kelly, the order from Judge Kelly. Part of the way that the Justice Department explained this was saying that the -- here's the Department of Defense, here's the press secretary from the Pentagon explaining that all of this reporting these news outlets were doing about the White House, that that was a national security risk.

And Judge Kelly wrote, senior officials in the Defense Department have no -- who have no direct knowledge of how reporters operate in the White House or about any of the facts at issue here. Basically, why are they from the Pentagon coming in to talk about White House security and the reporters at the White House, not the Pentagon?

And then the judge also mentions that the reporters who authored the stories that the Trump administration took issue with did not even hold hard passes to the White House. They were not all White House reporters.

And so the judge is saying that at this time, there doesn't seem to be any national security basis, and furthermore, there's a constitutional violation here because the news outlets weren't given enough notice, process, and the constitutional protection of due process before their White House passes were revoked so abruptly last Friday night and Saturday morning. Sara?

SIDNER: That is a very clear ruling from this judge.

Brian, to you, I understand you are getting some fresh reaction this morning. What are you learning?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Here we are. The judge just reaffirmed a constitutional principle that's been settled law for a half century. That's what Will Creeley said. He's the legal director of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression one of the first press freedom groups to weigh in this morning as folks wake up and read this overnight ruling.

And here's a quote from Creeley. He said, quote, America's not better off having presidents treating press credentials as rewards for softball questions and fawning coverage. Today's decision reinforces that our free and independent press is a fundamental part of our constitutional framework. And that's part of the point here, that although this is mostly on first -- this is ruling that Katelyn's describing is on Fifth Amendment due process grounds, it is also symbolically an important victory and reaffirmation of First Amendment rights.

And Creeley's getting at, I think, the tension in this story that's well beyond CNN, MS NOW and Politico. Trump wants to pick and choose who covers him. He has brought in very friendly MAGA media outlets that don't have a lot of journalism background that are there to prop him up, and he's added them to the press pool. And that's sometimes why you hear those really ridiculous softball questions in the Oval Office.

He would like to probably fill that room just with propagandists who would ask him how -- about why he's so strong and handsome, and that idea that only propagandists would be asking him questions would be so antithetical to a democracy.

So, I like that point from FIRE, the group FIRE, saying, you know, this is ultimately about letting and ensuring that journalists are there independently able to work, and that the president doesn't get to pick and choose who asks him questions.

[07:10:00]

And more broadly, Sara, Trump keeps trying to crack down. He keeps trying to create these situations, these free speech tests in America. He threatens protesters. He sues news outlets. He arrests -- his DOJ arrests journalists like Don Lemon. His DOJ subpoenas journalists at The New York Times and other outlets.

But here's the big important part. The courts keep pushing back. America keeps pushing back. For all of the drama and all of the tension, America keeps passing these free speech tests. Yesterday, a judge in Iowa threw out one of his frivolous lawsuits against a newspaper, the Des Moines Register, and a pollster, Ann Selzer.

So, we continue to see examples of Trump pushing and trying to crack down, but courts pushing right back.

SIDNER: And that is the news this morning.

Thank you to both of you, Katelyn Polantz, Brian Stelter. I really appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Breaking overnight, the first known A.I. hack of a government system. Now, an OpenAI agent breaching a national healthcare database in Australia. How the prime minister is responding, and new CNN poll numbers are just out this morning showing just how afraid Americans are of A.I.

And it was shocking testimony. From the stand, the mistress of the former American Idol contestant who's on trial for killing his wife, what the woman he was having an affair with says now about him.

And millions of people are in the path of a dangerous storm, a nor'easter that's already hitting parts of the Mid-Atlantic coast. What you need to look out for today.

We'll be right back.

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[07:15:00]

BOLDUAN: So, the Australian prime minister calls it completely unacceptable, an A.I. agent slipping beyond human control again, going rogue again. This time, an OpenAI agent hacked into Australia's national healthcare system. The prime minister announcing this overnight, saying that it accessed public and non-public files of Australia's Medicare Statistics Database, and that the agent, the A.I. agent, even wrote files into it.

This is the first known case of A.I. hacking a government network, comes also at the same time as there's new CNN polling just coming out this morning, showing that the American public is resoundingly negative on A.I. at this moment. CNN poll shows an overwhelming majority of Americans, 75 percent, are fearful, are concerned about artificial intelligence.

CNN's Hadas Gold has much more on this. Hadas, first, can you start with what we're learning about what happened in Australia?

HADAS GOLD, CNN A.I. CORRESPONDENT: Yes. So, what we're learning is that during some sort of training or evaluation, an OpenAI agent that was just conducting research into healthcare spending apparently couldn't find the information that it needed or wanted, and so it went rogue. This is something we've seen before. An agent is given a task, it can't find the way to it or answer the question, and so it finds another way around.

These agents are trained to get the job done no matter what. And in this case, the agent decided to get access, circumvent blocks to areas it had absolutely no -- you know, it wasn't supposed to have access to on the Australian Healthcare website.

Now, this incident actually occurred back in June. OpenAI says it was only made aware of it in August while it was conducting really intense reviews of any misaligned agent activity, misaligned, meaning agents that took on activity they weren't supposed to be taking, and then they notified the Australian government about this in September.

Now, as far as they understand, OpenAI said they have no evidence that things like patient records were accessed at all, and that this information was just aggregate health statistics and internal file names. However, obviously Australia is not very pleased with this. The prime minister saying that he spoke with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and said that it took the company way too long to inform the government what had occurred. They found out about this in August and only informed the Australian government in September.

And Albanese, the prime minister of Australia, is saying that OpenAI needs to have better protocols in place so they can inform them sooner when things like this happen.

BOLDUAN: Which is clearly a key issue going forward, is finding it and communicating it because it's not like it's not going to happen again, it doesn't seem.

And what are you seeing in this new CNN polling out just this morning, we're just getting our hands on it, how Americans are feeling about A.I.?

GOLD: What's striking me most about this polling, it was conducted between September 16th and 17th. So, this is after the Hugging Face hack, and this is after that vile resignation from the now former Anthropic researcher, Jacob Coxon, who said that the people leading the industry honestly believe it could kill us all.

And we're seeing that reflected in the polling. Americans do not feel good about A.I. You put up that slide earlier, 75 percent of Americans expressing fear and concern over this. This is pretty bipartisan. Democrats have an 85 percent fear. Republicans less, 62 percent fear and concern over A.I., but that's still two-thirds essentially of Republicans also feeling the same way.

What's also striking is that for a long time, people have wanted the government to do something about A.I. regulation. And we were looking at our polling recently, it's showing 71 percent of Americans do not believe that the government is doing enough about regulation. And this is one of the more bipartisan findings because when you dig into the data little deeper, 85 percent of Democrats and 67 percent of Republicans both say that's not enough.

But that's in stark contrast to what the Trump administration is doing.

[07:20:00] What we hear from President Trump over and over again is that he does not want to get in the way of A.I. development, the speed of it, and he doesn't want to put, you know, regulations and, you know, guardrails in place that in any way could slow this a bit down.

But we are also seeing from the polling that people care about the subject, whether it's data centers or whether it's about A.I. It's, you know, climbing up the list when it comes to the issues that they will be voting on come this November for the midterms. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Quite a change. It's great to see you, Hadas. Thank you so very much.

At the top of the next hour, OpenAI will be joining us. We're going to speak with Chris Lehane, the chief global affairs officer at OpenAI about, well, all of this. Sara?

SIDNER: All right. Thank you so, Kate, looking forward to that.

Coming up, a, a stunning admission in court. Hear the bombshell testimony from the mistress of a former American Idol contestant on trial accused of murdering his wife.

And convicted health tech fraudster Elizabeth Holmes may be leaving prison early. What we're learning about the Theranos founder.

Those stories and more ahead.

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[07:25:00]

SIDNER: This morning we could hear more stunning testimony from the woman who had an affair with former American Idol contestant and worship leader Caleb Flynn. Prosecutors accuse him of killing his wife and staging the scene to look like a home invasion. On the stand yesterday, Flynn's former mistress testified he sent her text messages detailing how he hated his wife, his wife's name is Ashley, and wished she was dead.

CNN's Jean Casarez is here with me now. She said something pretty strong on the stand when she talked about what she believed he was responsible for.

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely, she did. And we're going to play that for, so for everybody to hear. But she said shocking things. I mean, you're going to hear that. But she said they met in 2022, and it was professional.

Remember, she's part of the church community. He's a worship team member. She's singing. She knew Ashley because Ashley was a big part of the church. She knew his parents from afar. She finally met his mother at one point. But she said that in 2024, it became physical. She constantly gave him deadlines. He kept saying he was going to leave his wife, and divorce was a big part of that conversation. But he constantly said and spoke about Ashley like this. Watch. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL WATKINS, MIAMI COUNTY PROSECUTING ATTORNEY: How often would he use words to the effect that he wanted her gone?

ALLEIGHA BOTNER, PROSECUTION WITNESS: Probably the same every week.

WATKINS: How often would he make statements about wanting Ashley to die?

BOTNER: That's probably at least once a month.

He said that he wishes he -- if he could kill her and not go to jail or get arrested.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: So, Ashley taught Bible camp every June, and that was when they could actually sleep over and just, you know, really do what they wanted to do. There were over 100,000 texts that they exchanged that last year, and she was very upset when in October -- August of 2025, he went on a 15-year anniversary cruise with his wife, Ashley.

When Caleb got back, he sent her a voice message. I want you to listen to this voice message right after that anniversary cruise that he had taken with Ashley.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CALEB FLYNN, DEFENDANT: I was wrong for going on a cruise. I was wrong for hurting you, and I'm literally crying in front of thousands of people, but I don't care.

I am sorry for hurting you. I'm sorry for everything. It only comes out of just sheer, absolute, massive love for you. But until I can be released from her, I know that you do not have to do anything. So, I'm sorry.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: They deleted texts constantly so Ashley would never find out, but, of course, they forgot that it went on other devices. Ashley saw texts. She contacted Alleigha Botner. She said, I want to sit down with you. We need a one-on-one to discuss some things. Alleigha Botner refused to meet with her.

SIDNER: There's a stunning testimony coming out of that trial. We will see what happens next.

CASAREZ: And this is motive evidence for the prosecution.

SIDNER: That's right. Jean Casarez, great reporting from you. Thank you. John?

BERMAN: All right, a brutal nor'easter on the move. It could deliver more than five inches of rain, 50-mile-per-hour winds. The question now is where it will land. They're on alert from Virginia until Maine.

A new investigation this morning, why three people were climbing out of a manhole right next to the New York hotel where the Israeli prime minister is staying.

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