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Captain on Flydubai Attack: I Could Not Let Everybody Else Die; Americans' Economic Blues Looming Over Midterms; Most Americans Blame Trump for High Prices; AI Ads Raise Disclosure Questions as States Take Different Approaches; St. Louis Man Discovers Biological Father is a Rock Star. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired October 02, 2026 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We have some new developments to tell you about in that midair attack on board a Flydubai plane earlier this week. Israel's prime minister now declaring that if someone sent the attacker they will, quote, pay a very heavy price. The flight's co- pilot is now in custody in the United Arab Emirates.

The attorney general there opening an investigation into whether he's linked to any terrorist activity. At the same time we're now hearing from the plane's captain who was seriously wounded during the cockpit struggle. Smit Machchhar's quick actions are being credited with saving everyone on board.

CNN international diplomatic editor Nic Robertson is live for us at Ben Gurion airport in Israel. So Nic, what is the captain saying about all of this?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, it's very interesting because you really do get a sense of just how badly injured, he was, just how much of a close run thing it was that he was able to get the cockpit door open. He was speaking in his hospital bed there in the UAE to the Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. So he's having this conversation with the biggest political figure in his country and no surprise the Indian prime minister would want to speak to the captain because he has become such a hero.

And again, when you listen to his words, you just understand how deep he had to dig in of himself to save himself and everyone on board.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SMIT MACHCHHAR, FLYDUBAI CAPTAIN (through translator): Sir, I've been flying planes for the last 17 years and I've been a captain for the last 11 years. And even if I shut my eyes, I know what is happening in the plane. And when I was on the ground, I realized that the aircraft was falling down and I knew in that moment, one last push, just do it.

The door is right there. And even at that time, he was beating me up. And then I just opened it, sir.

And then everybody came and everybody else also played an equal role in this. I was telling, sir, that I was doing this for my life. But at the same time, I knew that I cannot let everybody else die.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: So there you have it. I mean, the moment that he opens the door, that's when everyone rushes in. That's when they can bring him to safety.

That's when they can put a choke hold on the attacking pilot there, who was also trying to sort of smash the controls apparently on the aircraft. It's in a nosedive. We know that.

The pilot -- the captain there has told us that's the scenario. Aviation experts have told us how close it was to actually hitting the deck and not being able to retrieve it. So split seconds really is the picture that's emerging and somebody who throws the last of what is gone into making it safe for everyone.

SANCHEZ: An incredible story of perseverance and survival. Nic Robertson, thank you so much for that.

[14:35:00]

Still to come, 32 days left until the midterms. Americans increasingly frustrated and unhappy with the economy. So can Republicans stop the backlash at the polls? Our political panel is with us in just moments.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: A majority of Americans are frustrated with President Trump over the rising cost of living. A new Associated Press poll finds 65 percent of adults say that Trump's policies are to blame for higher than usual prices. 33 percent say those higher prices are due to factors outside the president's control.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The same poll finds just 17 percent approve of Trump's handling of the cost of living.

[14:40:00]

A vast majority, 82 percent, disapprove. That new polling comes in the final stretch before next month's midterm election.

So let's talk about this now with Doug Heye, Republican strategist and former RNC communications director, and Karen Finney, who is our political commentator and former CNN advisor to the 2016 Clinton presidential campaign. All right, so Doug, the Senate Leadership Fund is actually taking spending from North Carolina and it's putting it toward Kansas, where the Republican incumbent Roger Marshall has a pretty tough race, right? He's got a tough challenge there from Democratic Pastor Adam Hamilton.

How are Republicans seeing the Senate map shaping up here?

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, they see it constantly moving and, you know, North Carolina is my home state. I've worked three Senate races there. I've never seen one that's been sort of called this early and I don't think it's too much of a surprise.

Michael Whatley has really struggled to narrow the gap with Roy Cooper. Roy Cooper's been elected statewide repeatedly as governor and attorney general, and the attacks ultimately didn't work. You know, I've seen the ads that the Whatley campaign has used.

They call him Radical Roy. People have voted for him repeatedly and he sort of looks and sounds like Matlock. Doesn't sound radical to voters in North Carolina, regardless of where you're from.

And as we've seen really now, things in Kansas pop up, which is not a state anybody would have been talking about three months ago or a year ago. They've got to move their resources around. It's the right call.

SANCHEZ: Kansas, of course, a state Trump carried by 16 points back in 2024. Let's actually play what Adam Hamilton said about President Trump in a recent interview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADAM HAMILTON, (D) KANSAS SENATE CANDIDATE: I agree with some of his policies, I might agree with, or at least to some degree, I appreciate.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Like what?

HAMILTON: Character matters a lot, though. Well, I would say the idea that we need to take out fraud and waste.

I think we need to be looking carefully about fraud and waste. I think we need to secure border. I think that's important.

I think we need to avoid over-regulation on things. So I think those are important. It's just that with the president, it feels like the pendulum just swings so far to the right that we lose any sense of middle ground.

And I think that's not helpful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Very tailored messaging for a state that Democrats haven't won a Senate race in in almost a century.

KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: But I think he's also articulating what a lot of voters have been saying for over a year, saying that, wait a second, even Democrats who might have said, yes, let's secure the border. But that doesn't mean we're going around crashing windows and dragging people out of their cars or putting children in cages in these decrepit private prisons or that we're going to take money away from health care to build an arch. Are you kidding me?

I mean, that so much of it is what I'm sure there's waste, fraud and abuse. But if you get rid of all the people who that's the job that they do, first thing you got to ask yourself, is that really what this -- is that what DOGE was really about? I don't think so.

So I think he's articulating that. The other thing I do want to say about Hamilton, you know, he is one of, I think, a handful of faith leaders who are running -- Democratic candidates who are running. And I think it's a real testament to the strength of the diversity of the candidates that we have running, the people who are, whether they are people of faith, whether they are many of whom, you know, again, universal health care is a goal.

How we get there. We may have some disagreements, but there's real shared values. And so I think that we are really responding to what people are feeling right now.

KEILAR: It's interesting because he's emphasizing the principles but disagreeing on the policies. Do you think he really has a shot?

FINNEY: I really do. I mean, who would have thought -- what's going on in Kansas? Here we are again talking about it. It's exciting to see.

I mean, again, I think he is resonating because -- and it's you know, it's different in different states where Cooper's doing it in North Carolina. You've got Mary Peltola in Alaska. You've got Juliana Stratton in Illinois, different candidates in different states.

They are making it hyper local. They are speaking to the issues that people are feeling in their states. Our Senate candidate in Arkansas talking about what's going on with farms, having had to sell her own family farm after 150 years.

So she really understands the pain that people are going through.

SANCHEZ: Doug, curious to get your thoughts on AI because it's being used in a way we've never seen. Obviously, the technology is getting more advanced and a CNN analysis found that in this year, $16 million in TV ads disclosed using AI generated or manipulated images. Only half of states require campaigns to actually disclose some of these ads that you're seeing, which look, many of them, pretty legit.

I wonder how you're seeing this play out in different races, especially as data centers become such a hot button topic.

HEYE: Yes, we're seeing a play out in two issues. One as content in the commercials using AI to develop commercials and then having the content be about AI. I was in Florida on a layover earlier this week and got to see a David Jolly campaign ad.

What was he talking about? Data centers. Oh, OK.

This is a big issue in Florida. Not a big surprise. We're seeing this on R and D campaigns throughout the country.

It's a very bizarre issue because it crosses party lines in every direction.

FINNEY: Yes, it's a sign people are ahead of Congress on this one, right? [14:45:00]

Because nobody had this issue really on their bingo card going into this election. And I think so many people started to hear both from the perspective of the data centers themselves, concerns about AI and its uses and abuses, from what's happening to our teenagers and all these like meta, these huge deals with these companies, data companies. So it's something that Congress is -- I mean, governors are already having to deal with it. Companies are going to have to -- and are sorry, Congress is going to have to deal with it.

And I don't think all many candidates were ready. They were sort of hearing it and then real having to respond in real time, which is why I think particularly with Republicans, you're seeing them have to switch gears midway to say, oh, no, no, maybe we need a moratorium on these.

HEYE: Well, you see that with Governor Abbott in Texas, a Republican, Governor Shapiro, a Democrat in Pennsylvania. So they were full speed ahead until they weren't.

KEILAR: Yes, that really speaks to people's economic anxieties. These AI in general, what is it going to do to their jobs, data centers? What is it doing to their communities?

And that is obviously such a big issue, this election cycle. Doug and Karen, great to have you both. Thanks.

HEYE: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead, plenty more news to come, including a look at the promises made and the consequences that followed. How Mark Zuckerberg social network connected the world, while also unleashing a slew of problems.

[14:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour. Sales of hybrid cars are getting a big jolt from soaring gas prices. Kia says sales of its hybrid models jumped more than 150 percent in the third quarter, while Hyundai is reporting a 39 percent increase over the same period.

But with fewer hybrids in their lineups, American carmakers appear to be missing out. They're all electric models are not seeing the same boost in sales, which have fallen sharply over the past year since the $7,500 EV tax credit expired last September.

Also, a colossal sea arch in Hawaii has collapsed into the Pacific more than 500 years after it was formed. These are before and after pictures. The famed arch, which had been a major landmark in Hawaii's Volcanoes National Park, was roughly -- Volcano National Park.

SANCHEZ: I think that's right. KEILAR: Right. Singular. Yes.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

KEILAR: Am I wrong on that? Was roughly 90 feet tall. We don't know exactly when it collapsed, but you see the difference that it makes.

Officials say it was still standing last Wednesday when the park was temporarily closed during Tropical Storm Nolo. The collapse has long been expected, according to the park service, as the formation did have a limited lifespan.

SANCHEZ: Meantime, student protests in France intensifying the government shutting down over 400 schools today as crowds of teenagers call for educational change, saying the system is underfunded and overcrowded. They fought running battles with police and fires were set at several schools. Riot police sometimes deploying tear gas in response.

The French government is now scrambling their calm tensions. France's education minister met with representatives of students, parents and teachers today. As of Thursday, at least 2,000 people have been taken into custody over the protests.

KEILAR: Volcanoes, plural National Park.

SANCHEZ: Well, executed correction right on time.

KEILAR: Yes. Just needed to let you know that. Don't mess it up like I did.

SANCHEZ: So this story is pretty wild and it's going viral. Imagine being adopted and then decades later finding out your dad is a famous rock and roll artist, a yacht rock, rock star. That's exactly what happened to one man from St. Louis who took a DNA test to find his biological roots.

KEILAR: 58 year old Michael Goessling first found his half brother. Then he contacted their father. And when he asked him what he did for a living, the answer was not what he was expecting.

CNN affiliate KMOV has this rocking story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STEVE HARRIS, KMOV REPORTER (voice-over): Michael Goessling has quite a story to tell.

MICHAEL GOESSLING, MICHAEL MCDONALD'S SON: Always knew I was adopted.

HARRIS (voice-over): He was conceived when his biological parents were both 14 years old. They were told they were too young to get married. So Michael was adopted as an infant by Paul and Kay Goessling.

GOESSLING: Had a wonderful childhood. I couldn't not have handpicked two finer folks to raise me. HARRIS (voice-over): Still, he always wondered who his birth parents were until the half brother he didn't know he had did a 23 and me DNA test. And on his 58th birthday, Michael met his birth mother and later talked to his birth father on the phone.

GOESSLING: I said, so tell me about yourself. What do you do? And so he said, well, I'm a musician.

And he went on to tell me that in fact it looks like we'll be touring this summer and we'll be stopping into -- we'll be stopping in St. Louis.

HARRIS (voice-over): So who is Michael's birth father? Well, it's someone you might've heard of or better yet. It's someone you might've heard on the radio. Yes. He's kind of well-known.

GOESSLING: And then I finally said, are you Michael McDonald? And he said, yes, I'm afraid so.

HARRIS (voice-over): Michael McDonald of the Doobie brothers, the guy who wrote and performed songs like "What a Fool Believes" and "I Keep Forgetting." And the fact that they had the same name was a complete coincidence.

GOESSLING: I was unnamed. So it was my mom, Kay, who named me.

MICHAEL MCDONALD, SINGER AND SONGWRITER: Can you see me all right?

GOESSLING (voice-over): I can.

HARRIS: Michael FaceTime his father. So I could ask him about his journey.

MCDONALD: I always carried that guilt with me. And, but just to know that he was OK and that he had a good life and a life, certainly that I wouldn't probably have been able to afford him at that time in my life, you know, was, you know, a great reward.

[14:55:00]

GOESSLING: And I really appreciate you giving me a shot in this world. And you've always been heroes in my story.

MCDONALD: You know, the real rock stars in this story for us are his adopted parents who, you know, really gave Michael everything a child needs, you know, in terms of love and security.

GOESSLING: And when they first met in person and he just put his arms out and just gave me a big old bear hug and told me he loved me. And, and I told him the same.

MCDONALD: It was a wonderful, wonderful, experience to see Michael and me to get to meet my son, you know, after all these years, you know, thinking about him.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SANCHEZ: It's incredible how similar they look and the way that they styled it. Like it's not just the genetics. It's also the way they style their hair and their beard.

It's so similar.

KEILAR: Yes. It's unbelievable. Our thanks to CNN affiliate KMOV for that.

So fun. So fun. The all new CNN FlashDoc "ZUCKERBERG FACEBOOK AND THE COST OF CONNECTION" explores the lasting influence of Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg, on the social media landscape and the impact of big tech on our society at large today. With testimony from reporters, former employees, and whistleblowers like Francis Hagen, who alleged that Facebook leaders prioritize profits over mental health impacts.

The documentary raises a lot of questions like has Zuckerberg really connected the world. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARK ZUCKERBERG, FACEBOOK FOUNDER: The feeling that you get from it, that it's a closed network. So if you're on the Harvard Facebook or any schools, Facebook, you're in a gated community.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People were posting everything because it felt safe.

KATIE HARBATH, FORMER, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC POLICY FOR GLOBAL ELECTIONS FACEBOOK: I don't remember what I exactly posted first. I think it was something like. I'm trying out this new Facebook thing. Is anybody out there?

EMILY DREYFUSS, CULTURE EDITOR, THE SAN FRANCISCO STANDARD: You had your Facebook status, and it actually was in the third person.

NEDRA GLOVER TAWWAB, AUTHOR AND LICENSED THERAPIST: Lisa Eadicicco is, and I could put whatever I was doing at the time.

DREYFUSS: Oh, my gosh, you made a grilled cheese for lunch. Emily is feeling sad. Emily is feeling happy. Facebook really gave you a window into people's lives.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: We're joined now by CNN tech reporter Clare Duffy. Clare, there was a time when it felt lighter and more fun, right? I remember there was that poke button at the beginning.

I don't know. Do you remember that? Where did that go?

Do you think that young people will become increasingly reliant on social media or do you envision a world where many people decide, as they have in some of these cases? No, I'm done.

I'm getting away from these social media platforms.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: Yes, Brianna, it is such a good question. I mean, in Facebook's early days, for me, it was all about posting prom photos, party photos. You got to see who was in a relationship with whom.

But then this company has undergone a series of crises around things like privacy and youth safety and election integrity. You see that play out in this documentary. And Meta has also seen its business model evolve such that it is really dependent on getting people to scroll for as much time as possible so that they can view ads.

And I think that has caused people to rethink the impact that these platforms have had in their lives. Now, to be clear, there are still three and a half billion people that use Meta's platforms every day. But I do think that we are starting to move into a period where people are trying intentionally to spend less time on social media.

We have seen this whole market of technology to help people do that emerge. And much of that logging off effort has been led by young people. And it is kind of ironic, given that Zuckerberg's goal for this company was to connect people, that you are now seeing people say, in order to connect with the people I love, I have to log off of social media.

KEILAR: How do you see advancements in AI contributing to how we interact with one another, whether it is in person or online?

DUFFY: Yes, on one hand, you have got AI leaders -- I think Mark Zuckerberg probably would fall into this camp -- who say AI should take care of menial tasks and that should free up time for you to spend time on more meaningful things like connecting with your friends and loved ones. Already, five million people have downloaded Muse, Meta's own AI agent. But as I talked to experts in the online information ecosystem and AI, they have also raised concerns about the fact that the huge amount of AI-generated content that is really convincing-looking, spreading online and on social media can make it really hard for people to tell what is real, what is not.

And that could cause people to start questioning even real things that they see on the Internet, and I think just sort of exacerbate some of the distrust that we have seen grow among people out of the social media era. That could potentially get worse because of AI-generated content online -- Brianna.

KEILAR: What do you think social media platforms are going to look like 10 years from now?

DUFFY: It is such a good question and a hard question to answer. I mean, I think on one hand, we are seeing AI-generated content start to take over social media platforms more and more. But then we are also seeing people say no and a growing number of platforms rolling out either blocking AI-generated content altogether or rolling out the ability for people to sort of filter out AI-generated content ...

END