Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Netanyahu Says Flydubai Co-Pilot Underwent Radical Islamist Indoctrination; Trump in Texas, Oklahoma to Rally GOP Voters; Family of Renee Good Sues U.S. Government and Trump Officials; Veterans Protest Trump's Triumphal Arch; NYT Obtains Documents From Initial Cornell Review of 2024 Alleged Fraternity House Rape; Alleged Chinese Hackers Target U.S. A.I. Company. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 01, 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]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. CATHY HOULE, FAMILY PHYSICIAN: -- We have a very large elderly population.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think it's deep and every time you use your hand, it's just going to open up. I might put one inside just to put that deep tissue together.

HOULE: We have a large agricultural population, so farmers, ranchers.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (inaudible) to do that.

HOULE: Fewer younger people, but they are here.

Knock, knock, knock, hello.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hey.

HOULE: Hello, what's going on?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: How sustainable is a hospital like this?

HOULE: It's a struggle because of recruitment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": You can watch more on "The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper" this Sunday at 8 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, right here on CNN, and the next day on the CNN app with an All Access subscription. A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Nothing short of a miracle. Experts weigh in on what happened on board that Flydubai jet that might have crashed if not for the quick actions of passengers who helped bring the plane under control.

Plus, he's all about that base. President Trump looks to reinforce Republican support in deep red states.

SANCHEZ: And an espionage campaign cracked. Chinese hackers seeking critical details about America's growing A.I. industry and the global race for superintelligence.

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

KEILAR: New details today about that apparent hijacking attempt of a Flydubai jet bound for Tel Aviv. Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu saying the co-pilot used either a knife or an axe to attack the plane's captain. And he also says the Omani national underwent Islamic radicalization.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We know that he underwent Islamist radical indoctrination. That appears to be something we're gathering from the information, his personal information. He's lying there now. He's this attacker. And he calls out to the aircrew, kill me.

Kill me. All right? So it's clear he was suicidal. That's not a question. It was clear he was going to down that plane.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Today, Netanyahu is praising the severely wounded captain and what he calls the Israeli heroism of passengers who stopped the attacker, something he says prevented a potential 9/11 disaster.

CNN Aviation Correspondent, Pete Muntean is with us now. Pete, tell us about the latest here.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, a lot has developed and a lot of new information, including the new detail about the weapon allegedly used inside the cockpit.

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu now says the copilot may have used an axe to attack the captain. There have been questions about whether or not it was the airplane's own crash axe seen here. That is emergency equipment stowed in the cockpit of a Boeing 737 behind the copilot, 2.5 pounds, more than a foot long, designed to cut through panels or other parts of the plane in an emergency, not create one like it did here.

The flight data really shows how close this came to the disaster that it could have been. That cyan line on this graph from FlightRadar24 shows the Boeing 737 Max cruising normally at 34,000 feet when it suddenly plunged, and our analysis of the granular ADS-B data shows the jet lost more than 16,000 feet in roughly 35 seconds. The data also shows a sharp climb, then another dive.

Eventually, the pilots were able to stabilize the plane around 15,000 feet of altitude. And when the plane landed, you could see this other serious problem. This is the tail of the airplane. Significant portion of the rudder missing. That's the movable control surface on the vertical tail used to control the side-to-side motion of the tail or the nose. Investigators also not saying how that damage occurred, but likely the result of the dive when the speed increased to Mach 0.98, 700 miles per hour, nearly the speed of sound.

The co-pilot, the alleged attacker, has yet to be publicly identified. We do know he was an Omani national who was working for the airline for about eight months. Israel has characterized this as an act of terror, but investigators have not publicly established a motive just yet.

Some other big developments here. Flydubai has suspended all of its flights to and from Israel. The captain who was attacked, Smit Machchhar of India, he is being treated in Saudi Arabia. The dentist who treated him on board the flight says he suffered massive blood loss. Captain Machchhar has undergone surgery, reportedly in stable condition, in a podcast that he recorded long before this flight said it was a blessing to be a captain for Flydubai Airlines. Brianna?

[14:05:00]

KEILAR: A blessing for so many people that he was the pilot on that day. Pete, thank you so much for the very latest there. Right now, President Trump is on his way to Texas. Then later today, he'll campaign in Oklahoma as he tries to boost candidates in traditionally red states.

SANCHEZ: Before departing the White House, the president was asked about comments by his daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, where she said the Iran War could cost Republicans the midterms. Watch his response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, it's possible. It should help because Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. So, when you say, is it OK for Iran to have a nuclear weapon? I would say a hundred percent of the people say no, including worldwide. So, when you say it that way, it would help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: We're joined now by a former Trump administration official, Matt Mowers, and Democratic Strategist, Sawyer Hackett.

Matt and Sawyer, thanks for being with us. Matt, first to you. So, Trump is on his way to Texas. You heard the leaked audio of Ken Paxton suggesting that the Midterm Convention did not help his numbers. So, Trump going to Texas today, is that going to help or potentially hurt Republicans?

MATT MOWERS, FORMER TRUMP ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: It's going to help. I mean, look, Donald Trump won Texas two years ago by almost 14 points. I don't care what anyone says, Donald Trump is still going to help you in a state like Texas. The only way Republicans lose a state like Texas is if Republican voters don't show up. And if we know one thing about Donald Trump and his political skills, he can turn the base out. No one's ever doubted that.

I was in the convention hall two weeks ago or so in Dallas. I thought it was actually a very well-produced, energetic convention. A lot of Texans in there who got fired up and got involved in the campaign for Ken Paxton as a result of having it there. I think it's going to be a net benefit. President's going to definitely help in certain parts of Texas where he'll go today.

KEILAR: There's a lot of comparison, Sawyer, in this race to 2018 Beto O'Rourke versus Ted Cruz. The consensus is that Ted Cruz was a much better candidate in that midterm race than we're seeing with Ken Paxton. He just has a lot of personal headwinds, I think you could say, in addition to political ones.

Talarico is sort of a different candidate in that he's appealing to maybe less of the Democratic base, but he's appealing to Latinos. He isn't appealing, perhaps, to some black voters. He's not getting help from Jasmine Crockett. She isn't even campaigning for him. Is that enough for Talarico?

SAWYER HACKETT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think he's working towards those goals. I mean, a lot of this is fixing the coalition that we kind of left behind in 2024 that Donald Trump ended up picking up. I mean, he won 55 percent of Latinos in the 2024 election, but Donald Trump's approval rating is 12 points underwater with Republicans in Texas. That's how bad things are right now.

I mean, with 33 days left until the midterms, Donald Trump is traveling to Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama, and they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to shore up races in Texas, Ohio, and Iowa. I mean, this is not where you want to be as a party with 33 days left until the midterms.

I think James Talarico is a generational candidate who is, you know, kind of reassembling that coalition that we need to win, while also reaching into independents who are turning to him by 21-point margin right now heading into the in the final stretch here.

KEILAR: Yeah. Matt, the ICE policies in Texas have been very tough for Trump, and he really made a lot of gains in the presidential election with Latinos there, but he's really struggling now to hold on to that. Is he proving that those policies may actually have destroyed even -- I mean, there was talk of like a realignment, and now it seems that that is just completely evaporated.

MOWERS: No, I mean, I think it's too early to tell. And certainly, you know, we're going to find out in a few weeks how successful Ken Paxton can hold that coalition together. But, what I'll say is that he doesn't need to have every Trump voter. I mean, Donald Trump, like I said, won by almost 14 points. Ken Paxton has to win by one.

We saw eight, you know, eight years ago or so, when Ted Cruz beat Beto O'Rourke, he didn't win by a big margin, but he won by enough. And by the way, that's all you need -- and that's all they need. They need a one-point win, not even a one-vote win, in order to make sure Ken Paxton goes to the Senate and keeps a Republican Senate majority. That's why you're seeing the spending. That's why you see the president going. They don't care about the margin at the end of the day.

SANCHEZ: Sawyer, when it comes to South Texas in particular and districts that Republicans won that had traditionally gone blue, when you talk to Latino voters there, especially going back to 2024, their chief concerns were the economy, inflation. Deja vu today, right?

HACKETT: Right.

SANCHEZ: But the second issue was immigration. Those border communities are uniquely impacted by that issue in ways that others are not. And as you hear from Gina Hinojosa, the Democrat who's running for governor in Texas, she's making the case that President Biden hid on immigration, that he dodged the issue.

HACKETT: Yes.

SANCHEZ: I wonder whether you think that Democrats now have a unified strategy a few years later. You're laughing.

HACKETT: Yeah.

SANCHEZ: But if they win Congress, that is going to be an issue that is going to be front and center.

HACKETT: I hope the Democratic Party takes a look at the results from this election and honestly, takes a look at the results from every previous election in which immigration was front and center. When Democrats are leading on the issue, we actually compete. When we decide to completely retreat and leave the issue to Republicans, we cede that ground. They pick it up and run with it.

And that's how you saw disastrous numbers with Latinos under Joe Biden, and in the 2024 election.

[14:10:00]

You know, Donald Trump essentially put a target on the back of every person with brown skin in Texas.. I think not only is that cost of living, affordability hitting Latino voters disproportionately in states like Texas, but also these are communities that have been terrorized masked thugs who have been put on the streets to essentially abduct them with impunity and I think that that's going to have disastrous impact with Latino voters in November, and it should, really.

KEILAR: I want to listen to something. You want to say something?

MOWERS: I was just going to say, you know, a lot of what we're talking about is whether this race is going to get nationalized. There's a lot of states where you want to localize the race. Texas ain't one of them right now. Nationalizing this race in Texas helps Ken Paxton. I'll tell you, just in the last few days, you had Hasan Piker come out and say that James Talarico can drop the moderate act when he wins. Statements like that are going to nationalize this race. So if you're going to talk about a lot of these issues, including immigration, it's going to help Ken Paxton.

HACKETT: Terrorizing communities and abducting people is a national issue, and Latinos see that nationally, just like they see the cost of living issue nationally. They see $3,500 in extra charges from tariffs and the Iran war nationally as an issue. And then they see the complicity of their state leaders like Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton, who have done absolutely nothing to push back on the administration. They've been a rubber stamp for him at every step of the way.

And I think that they're going to pay the price, ultimately, for Donald Trump's political --

KEILAR: Some of these --

(CROSSTALK)

MOWERS: If this becomes a red versus blue race, Ken Paxton wins.

KEILAR: Some of these issues are national and local, for sure. But let's listen real quick to something that President Trump said about the state of the country yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I've done a very bad job of explaining how good the country is doing. I'm going out because nobody's selling it. We're doing an extremely poor job of promotion and an extremely great job of running the country. So I think you're probably better off with that, but we'll get the word out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: If we just -- I've done a bad job of explaining. If we just put it up as a quote, and I said, which president said that?

(LAUGH)

KEILAR: You might not have been sure. Maybe you would have said Joe Biden.

MOWERS: Or every president.

(LAUGH)

KEILAR: Maybe you would have said Barack Obama. Can you really just say, I've done a bad job of explaining it when you're looking at mortgage rates over seven percent and you're looking at inflation where it is over three percent. I mean, is that right? I mean --

MOWERS: The challenge is we have a lot of different competing economic factors. Stock markets at all-time highs. Poverty rate is actually at near 50-year lows right now. I think the president in that same comment was talking about the current unemployment rate, which is very low. But we still have to talk about the price of gas.

We still have to talk about the price of goods. We still have to talk about a number of other issues around inflation. And so it is kind of a mixed picture on the economic factor. There's a lot of good things happening. There's a lot to talk about and sell. You've just got to do it, contextualize with the rest of it, too.

HACKETT: There's a reason he's not being able to tell this story because there is no economic story to tell. Since Donald Trump got into office, inflation is up. The job market has slowed down. The economy has shrunk.

MOWERS: Inflation actually is lower than under Biden.

(CROSSTALK)

HACKETT: No, it's not. No, it's not. The inflation is higher today than when Joe Biden left office. Is that a fact?

MOWERS: The rate is not true. (Inaudible).

HACKETT: No, it is higher today than it is when Joe Biden left office. Inflation is higher. The job market is slower. The economy has shrunk.

MOWERS: If you look at the inflation rate today, during the majority of Joe Biden's term (inaudible).

(CROSSTALK)

HACKETT: And by the way, consumer confidence is at a 12-point low.

KEILAR: When he left office is what he said.

HACKETT: When he left office, he brought inflation down to a lower point than when it is right now under Donald Trump. And I think that's also, you know, you see it in economic confidence, in consumer confidence. It's at a 12-point low.

It's lower now than it was in the pandemic and in the 2008 financial crisis. That is a recipe for disaster.

KEILAR: Sawyer and Matt, we need part two.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: (Inaudible) I want them to keep going.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: After the break.

SANCHEZ: We look forward to the next half hour. Matt and Sawyer, thank you so much.

Still to come, new details uncovered in the alleged gang rape of a woman at Cornell University. What we're learning from a Title IX investigation obtained by The New York Times, and how it raises even more questions about how the school handled this incident.

Plus, the family of Renee Good, the woman shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minnesota, now suing the U.S. government and multiple administration officials.

KEILAR: And later, we'll be joined by a veteran who is pushing back on the president's plans to build an arch in the nation's capital next to Arlington National Cemetery. We have that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:18:43]

KEILAR: Now to the latest on the alleged gang rape at Cornell University. Newly reported documents reveal how Jane Doe came to grips with what she says happened to her two years ago, this month, at a fraternity house on campus. The New York Times obtained more than a thousand pages of Cornell's official Title IX investigation on the case.

And among the new details, Jane Doe reported that two days after the alleged sexual assault, she told staff at Cornell's health clinic she had contracted a urinary tract infection in a, quote, "traumatic way," according to the Times review of her transcript with investigators.

Her attorney blames the school for failing at that point to inquire further, including seeking a rape kit, saying DNA for a criminal investigation would likely have been revealed. When CNN reached out for a response, Cornell declined to add any new information referring to past statements on the case.

Jane Doe's lawyer corroborating the New York Times reporting on the document, his team was not behind the Times obtaining them. CNN's Brynn Gingras is with us on this story. Brynn, so much more reported context and detail from these Title IX documents.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN U.S. NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, and Jane Doe's attorney saying that, Brianna, because this is privileged information. It was part of a Title IX investigation.

[14:20:00]

It's protected. So he wanted to make it clear that he's not the one who gave this information to the Times. But, whoa, does it give us a whole lot more information.

And let me set up this context for the viewers for you. So what they have in their possession, the New York Times and at least one other news outlet to our knowledge, is this, like you said, 1,000-page Title IX document. In that is an interview that Jane Doe had with police after this alleged incident happened in 2024. And allegedly, according to the Times, it's 120 pages long. That's how detailed her interview was. It was clear she sat down with authorities for hours giving this interview. Now, what police did was they took a summary, according to the Times, six-page summary, which we were reporting on yesterday, and gave that to the district attorney, who then based his decision on whether or not he was going to file any criminal charges. At least that was part of his decision-making, right?

So let's tick through exactly what was in that broader, larger interview that New York Times says it has in its possessions. Like you said, Brianna, it talks a lot about the processing that Jane Doe says she went through after this alleged incident happened inside the Chi Phi fraternity, saying basically that at first, she was feeling very pressured to take drugs at the time. And then after the incident happened, she didn't even really believe it really happened. Even when she was talking to her roommates about it, she never really mentioned the word rape.

But she was starting to see things, according to the Times, online and online chat rooms, basically one calling her a whore. And then later, there was one in particular that is cited in these documents, according to the Times, that was talking about the Chi Phi fraternity. It said, quote, "They're terrible people. They gang-raped a sophomore."

And according to the Times, that is when she realized what really happened to her and then took steps like going to the university health system to possibly get a rape kit, which wasn't given to her. She also took pictures of her bruises. She also saved the dress that she was wearing that night. So a lot more details, a lot more context to this story.

And of course, it makes you wonder, Brianna, had all of that information been given to the district attorney, and likewise, had the district attorney asked for all that information and sought out more information, would we be in a different place today?

KEILAR: Yeah. Brynn, thank you so much for the latest there. We'll continue to follow it.

Posing as Anthropic employees, suspected Chinese hackers lead an espionage campaign to infiltrate America's growing A.I. industry. Details straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:27:12]

SANCHEZ: We're learning some alarming new details today about suspected Chinese hackers attempting to infiltrate America's A.I. ecosystem. A U.S. cybersecurity firm exposing the espionage campaign, which involved hackers posing as industry insiders. CNN's Sean Lyngaas joins us now.

So, Sean, what are you learning about this operation?

SEAN LYNGAAS, CNN CYBERSECURITY REPORTER: Yeah, Boris, this was pretty elaborate. Not surprising, but it's always interesting to read these details when you're able to get them confirmed because, OK, last month or -- yes, it was last month that we had President Xi of China and President Trump talking about A.I. in the White House.

Rewind just a couple weeks or months even, and you have these alleged Chinese hackers trying to get intelligence on what the U.S. is doing on A.I., how they're approaching it, U.S. military applications for A.I., export control policy, all these things.

And how do they do that? Well, they impersonate people that you might trust to have a conversation with. So one example is a senior employee at Anthropic, the A.I. firm that has clashed with the administration. The alleged Chinese hackers impersonated that person and said -- and targeted law firms and think tanks and said, what can you tell me about X, Y, or Z about what the U.S. is doing on A.I.? So it was very stealthy.

The company says they blocked what they saw in terms of the malicious attempts, but what we know from Chinese government hackers is that they tend to get in when they try, you know, they have the resources. I talked to one person who was impersonated, former U.S. government official, you know, civil servant for a long time, an A.I. expert. She served across Trump and Biden administrations, and she told me, I think we have the quote that we can pull up, but basically she told me that getting A.I. policy right is essential to our national security and economic competitiveness. That includes protecting the people and institutions whose expertise helps inform those decisions.

This is Dr. Lynne Parker. She's a very renowned expert on A.I., and she said she was kind of sad that she was getting impersonated. She felt sad because people were exploiting her years of contacts and that sort of thing. So this stuff does take a personal toll on people who are either impersonated or targeted, but the stakes couldn't be higher with the U.S. and China not yet agreeing to any sort of accord on A.I., but the hackers are after behind-the-scenes information, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. Fascinating story. Sean Lyngaas, thank you so much for bringing it to us.

Still to come this afternoon, veterans joining protesters in D.C. trying to stop the president's Triumphal Arch from being built. A Vietnam War vet who's fiercely against the project will join us in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)