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U.S. Removes Bombers From U.K. Base; New Audio Emerges in Cornell Investigation; Trump Hits Campaign Trail. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 05, 2026 - 13:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: What a difference two years makes. The president's ruby-red road trip taking him to a state he won by 20 points in 2024. What the fact that he's stopping there says about Republicans' midterm chances now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And a researcher at a Russian plague lab dies from an unknown infection. Now dozens are in quarantine. How the U.S. is responding to this scare.

And ex-Prince Andrew taking legal action against U.K. police over his arrest linked to the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. What we know about this clash set for a court hearing this week.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: We start this afternoon with President Trump jumping back into his role as campaigner in chief. Soon, he's going to be deporting the White House for a rally in Nebraska. And, later this week, he heads to deep red Texas, where Republicans have been feeling the battleground blues when it comes to a key Senate race.

KEILAR: With control of Congress set to be decided here in just 29 days, Texas is front and center on CNN's new list of the 10 Senate seats most likely to flip in this year's midterm elections.

CNN senior political analyst Mark Preston is with us now.

Mark, Nebraska today, Texas later this week, what's your takeaway from that?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, he shouldn't be having to go to these states at this part of the campaign. He should be focusing on states where -- to go on the offense, perhaps New Hampshire, perhaps Michigan, even going to a state like Alaska, which is a Republican state, but, again, they're playing defense.

What we're seeing right now is President Trump is doing two things. One, he's going to states where he will get a favorable reception. We will see that today in, as you say, ruby-red Nebraska, although not necessarily entirely ruby-red, because we are seeing the independent Senate candidate chipping away at Pete Ricketts, the incumbent Senator, the Republican in that state.

Another thing, though, is that he is trying to shore up some of the defense in some of these states where Republicans shouldn't have to be doing so. Now, for example, we saw what happened in North Carolina, where his own RNC chairman, we're seeing money from Senate Republicans shifting out of North Carolina, shifting to a state like Kansas right now, again, another state that Republicans shouldn't be playing defense in.

SANCHEZ: A huge concern of voters is affordability. And you have this new poll from CBS News finding 70 percent of voters believe that President Trump's policies have led to higher prices for food and groceries. Of course, if you ask National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett, he says that the economy is booming.

PRESTON: Right.

SANCHEZ: A bit of deja vu from the last administration, when we heard folks within the reins of power saying that the economy is doing great, but voters aren't really feeling that way.

PRESTON: Booming for the wealthy, not booming for the middle class, for sure.

Kevin Hassett again is talking about these economic indicators that are showing that the stock market's doing very well, but there's a lot of middle-class folks who aren't even in the stock market. They're worried about having to worry about their own gasoline prices, putting food on the table, prescription drugs, whatever it may be.

So you are seeing an economy in some sectors that is doing well, but it's not doing well, and we're seeing this again polling all across the country right now that people are feeling the hurt in even these middle-class voters who tend to be Republican.

Look at truck drivers, for example. You're looking at diesel right now that is pushing $6.50 a gallon, the highest ever at this point. When you're starting to really dig into the pockets of some of your ardent supporters, that's when you're going to start to lose support, and that's what we're seeing right now.

KEILAR: Can we talk about the ads that we're seeing and what that means? Because today you have this Ken Paxton ad that is getting a lot of attention.

PRESTON: Right.

KEILAR: It features Angela Paxton, who is his estranged wife. She never says his name in the ad, which is interesting, but it's straight to camera, as you see here.

In the meantime, Democrats are releasing ads that feature family members of Jeffrey Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre. What does this tell us about what's happening?

PRESTON: All right, so first of all, let's talk about the Paxton ad put out by a super PAC run by Senate Republicans, not run by Ken Paxton. Angela Paxton has expressed her dislike, at best, for her husband, OK?

People can go back and look at what had happened to their marriage and what her anger is. But she is a conservative Republican herself, a lawmaker, somebody who wants to make sure that Democrats don't take control of the United States Senate. So you're seeing her put this ad out, not saying her husband's name, probably the closest that she could get to doing so.

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Now, you're talking about the Virginia Giuffre ad, is that there was like a lot of anger, not only on the Democratic side, but also on the Republican side, that the Epstein files were not released, that there was a lot of talk, not only from President Trump, but people in his administration, people in the Department of Justice had said that they were going to uncover the deep state and make sure that these files got out.

Well, it didn't happen. And we see the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene, former firebrand congresswoman from Georgia, even the likes of Tucker Carlson, who are just frustrated that the fact that the Trump administration said that they would release these files, that there would be exposure to all this, but in the end they didn't do it.

So Democrats were trying to chip away at those Republicans who they themselves are angry.

SANCHEZ: An animating issue for a lot of voters, especially in the president's camp.

Mark Preston, appreciate the perspective. Thanks for joining us.

PRESTON: Thanks, guys.

SANCHEZ: Also happening today, Russian authorities implementing anti- epidemic measures after a researcher at a lab that studies the plague and other infectious diseases died of a mysterious illness.

The 28-year-old woman had been diagnosed with pneumonia of unknown origin, according to the Russian agency that handles infectious disease. A hospital intake unit where she was treated is now under quarantine. Several departments have stopped admitting or discharging patients. Other hospitals in the region have also been closed, and unofficial reports say that some 200 people are now under observation.

Officials say there have been no reported cases of infectious disease among institute staff over the past 10 days, though.

Let's get some perspective from Dr. Tyler Evans, CEO of Wellness Equity Alliance, also the author of "Pandemics, Poverty, and Politics: Decoding the Social and Political Drivers of Pandemics from Plague to COVID-19."

Doctor, thanks so much for being with us.

First, what should we know about the pneumonic plague?

DR. TYLER EVANS, CEO, WELLNESS EQUITY ALLIANCE: Sure.

So just zooming out here, when we when we talk about plague, we often think about plague as being the sort of Victorian disease that is -- sort of no longer exists. It still very much exists. There's -- plague can be organized into three different components.

There's the bubonic plague, which most people are sort of referencing when they're thinking back to sort of the Black Death and whatnot. There's also the septicemic plague, and then there's the pneumatic plague, which what we're currently sort of referencing.

The last pandemic ended actually in 1960, so it's not that much -- not too far sort of away. I talk a lot about this in my book, "Pandemics, Poverty and Politics." And we still see an occasional outbreak taking place in the United States.

We see maybe six to seven different cases per year. Globally, we see 1,000 to 2,000 cases per year. But this one particular case, because it is the pneumatic plague, is definitely a concern.

The good news is, it is treatable. It is treatable with an antibiotic. And so, in terms of the current sort of -- the current situation right now, almost everybody that we are aware of that was exposed are currently under quarantine. So we do have confidence that this will be contained.

But this is just a reminder that we have to continue to have the proper surveillance systems in place. And the World Health Organization is really sort of instrumental in terms of keeping the world safe. And given the current sort of cuts to the WHO right now, that is a concern.

SANCHEZ: I wonder how long you think it would take for officials to determine and confirm the exact cause of death for this lab worker, because that obviously impacts the response.

EVANS: It should just probably take a few more days, based upon molecular sort of determination.

And then, once we can determine that, then we can sort of do the proper epidemiological sort of investigation for everybody else. The question is, did this -- was this the result of her exposure at the lab or somewhere else in Siberia?

So the -- this particular institute is in Irkutsk. That's in Siberia. And out there is an actual -- there are the marmots, which are basically an animal that's in the squirrel-like family, where she could have also had exposure to, unlikely, but still a possibility.

SANCHEZ: I do wonder, just given what the whole world endured only a few years ago, how strong your level of concern is that this could go beyond Siberia and that we could be facing another global pandemic?

EVANS: Sure.

On a scale from zero to ten, 10 being the highest risk, for the Russia region for Siberia, I put this maybe at a level two right now. Globally, I put this at a level one.

SANCHEZ: And give us your reasoning for putting it at a level one, with high confidence that it's not going to spread.

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EVANS: So what's important is that, when I was talking about the three different components of plague, bubonic and the septicemic cannot actually be spread person to person. The pneumatic one can be.

But given this particular situation, it was contained very quickly, so I don't think that it had the time to really be able to spread person to person.

SANCHEZ: Understood.

So the lab where this woman worked is called the Anti-Plague Institute. It employs some 95 researchers who monitor and try to prevent outbreaks of high-risk infections across that region. Do you view facilities like that as a public health risk, especially if they're in regions where a history of -- I don't want to ascribe negligence, but they don't follow the same rigorous standards that we see everywhere else in the world.

Does that concern you at all for some of these facilities?

EVANS: No, it's a good question.

There are -- when we look at public health risk, there, unfortunately, is not really a sort of global standardization in terms of in terms of sanitation procedures.

When it does -- when it comes to biosafety labs, we do -- we do basically sort of label the labs based upon biosecurity risk. And so there are some universal guidelines when it comes to that. You know, unfortunately, we don't have a lot of control in terms of what other countries are doing.

At the end of the day, the Russian infrastructure in terms of public health has known to be quite good. Some of the most brilliant scientists have come out of Russia. When it comes to smallpox, one of the only diseases that have been truly eradicated, when we say eradicated, we kind of say it tongue-in-cheek because there technically still does exist a modicum of the smallpox virus that we were studying both in Russia and the United States, in Atlanta and Moscow.

So we have to keep these public health laboratories alive in order to study what they are and what they could potentially do. That does pose some risk, as it did here. It seems as if probably -- I'm sort of editorializing here -- that perhaps there was some breakthrough in the policies and procedures that were taking place.

But I'd like to believe that, in this particular setting, that the appropriate policies and procedures were in place. That said, it's not the same that we are following.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

Dr. Tyler Evans, appreciate the expertise. Thanks for joining us.

EVANS: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Still to come: new audio in the investigation of the alleged Cornell gang rape. Hear a phone call that Jane Doe reportedly recorded in secret.

Plus, the U.S. military is suddenly pulling all of its long-range bombers out of the U.K. We will break down the reason why.

And, later, were red flags overlooked in the Flydubai hijacking attempt? We have new details about the co-pilot accused of going after his colleague with an axe inside the cockpit.

That and much more coming your way on CNN.

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KEILAR: We are following some new details in the Cornell University fraternity gang rape investigation.

There's new audio of a phone call obtained by ABC News between the alleged victim, Jane Doe, and one of the Chi Phi fraternity members accused in the case. It reveals a conversation secretly recorded by Jane Doe that happened after the alleged assault. She was speaking to the man who allegedly invited her to the frat house.

Here's a portion of that phone call, when, according to ABC, Jane Doe asked if he could help identify all of the men in the room.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have racked my brain for this mystery. It's possible that both of us, like, remember this and it's not true.

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KEILAR: In response, Jane Doe says: "No, because I remember looking up and being like, that is too many people."

According to ABC, she also asks: "Do you remember how any of these guys walked in?"

Then the accused fraternity member says this:

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The party was sort of, like, crowded, so people

started like, filling up the balcony, just because there was nowhere else to go.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KEILAR: These recordings are coming out amid growing demands for more accountability from campus and local law enforcement.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino is outside campus there at Cornell University with Moore.

Gloria, Jane Doe's attorney says he's confident there's more evidence we haven't seen in this case.

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna.

And Jane Doe's assertion is key, because now we know not only that Jane Doe recorded these phone calls, which you just played a portion of, but we also know through documents that CNN has reviewed that the Cornell University police initially tried to gather more evidence.

And we know that because we have copies of letters that were sent to mobile carriers informing them that they were in the process of conducting an investigation involving a sexual assault. And in those letters, they also said that there were specific account numbers, AKA phone numbers, that might contain evidence that would be pertinent to this investigation.

Now, we know that the letters were drafted. What we do not know is whether these investigators actually sent the letters to the companies. We don't know whether campus police followed up with subpoenas after these letters, and we don't know whether the Tompkins County district attorney, Matthew Van Houten, actually was aware that these records had been requested by police.

And the reason this is important, Brianna, is because we have heard Jane Doe's lawyer talk about his concern that there was evidence that was out there that simply might not have gathered when investigators could have potentially had access to it. Take a listen.

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THOMAS GIUFFRA, ATTORNEY FOR JANE DOE: I'm confident, knowing this day and age and the group that we're dealing with, that there were other photos, that there were videos. And where I think those photos and videos are now? I think they're in the bottom of Lake Cuyahoga, because once they knew there was a problem, they cleared everything out and they got rid of it.

And the fact is that the investigators let that happen. They let that happen. We'd have a lot more evidence. And, frankly, I don't -- I'm not even sure we have everybody who participated in this assault, because my client was blacked out during periods of time. And that's reported in these statements. We don't even know the people we have or the people we definitively know. If you ask me, I believe there were more.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAZMINO: Brianna, the police also wrote in the letter that they would follow up within 30 days with a search warrant. We have reached out to these mobile companies to see if we can get more information about whether they responded, about whether they received these letters, but we haven't heard back so far.

KEILAR: And, Gloria, there are calls for special prosecutor, Letitia James, to recuse herself from the case over a Facebook post. Tell us about this.

PAZMINO: Yes, this is coming from one of the attorneys representing one of the seven accused students.

And he's sort of raising the alarm over a social media post that the attorney general, Letitia James, posted days before it was announced by the governor that she would be appointed as special prosecutor in this case. And he's essentially suggesting that James should recuse herself from the case because she posted a social media statement that appeared to express support for the victim.

Here's what the attorney told us earlier this morning. He said -- quote -- "The issue is not her compassion towards someone alleging sexual assault. These serious allegations deserve a thorough investigation. The concern is that her statements could reasonably be understood as accepting that the alleged conduct occurred before she assumed responsibility for determining what the evidence establishes."

What he is saying there, in other words, is that Tish James' public statement has the potential to perhaps taint a future jury poll if there's going to be one. If there's going to be a grand jury that's assembled, they might see this statement from the attorney general as some sort of support for the victim and therefore conclude that she is on the side of the victim, when she is in fact supposed to be doing an independent investigation.

We have a statement in response from the attorney general, who told us -- quote -- "My office enforces our state's laws to protect all New Yorkers. I am committed to leading a comprehensive investigation they can trust guided only by the facts, the evidence, and the law."

I think it's worth highlighting, Brianna, that Tish James herself is unlikely to pore over every single fact of this investigation. We're talking about the New York state attorney general's office. This is a big office with a lot of investigators, and they will likely be assembling a team of people that will actually be overseeing this investigation.

But because this case has caused so much consternation, because so many people are demanding accountability, these details are important, especially now that it's in the political conversation, right? You have the governor making a decision to appoint a special prosecutor. That special prosecutor is the state attorney general.

And, certainly, questions about whether or not she had any sort of predisposed opinion prior to learning that she would be in charge of this are raising alarms for the attorneys representing some of these students -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes, certainly a thread in this to follow.

Gloria, thank you so much for that report from Ithaca. We appreciate it.

Next, what we know about the threat that caused the U.S. military to very suddenly pull its bombers out of the U.K.

Plus, hear why Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor is taking the U.K. police to court.

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SANCHEZ: All U.S. long-range bombers stationed at a critical air base in the U.K. have been relocated back to the United States, the sudden move in response to a new unspecified threat, according to a U.S. official, the withdrawal happening just days after the U.K. arrested several people over alleged ties to an Iranian plot targeting the base.

This base is crucial to the U.S. alliance with the British military and is also used to project power to the Middle East and Europe. It's been used to launch strikes against Iran since the beginning of that conflict.

CNN national security reporter Zach Cohen joins us now.

Zach, what are you learning about this unusual move, especially in the middle of a war?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Boris, this certainly seemed to come together quickly, and I'm told that it was in response to a -- quote -- "real-world incident," so apparently something verified enough to cause the U.S. military to make a quick decision to pull all of its long-range bombers out of this air base in the U.K. and send them back to the United States.

And that second part, sending them back to the United States, is what I'm told by sources, is the unusual piece of this. Obviously, the U.S. military has assets in various parts of Europe and in other locations in the U.K. where they could have sent these aircraft, but instead bringing them back to their home bases, rather than redeploying them elsewhere.

And we both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance were asked about this decision and what was the underlying reason for it. They offered varying explanations for it. Take a listen to what they said to reporters when asked today. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What you saw there is the secretary of war, out of an abundance of caution, trying to protect our guys.

We do feel with some confidence that the Iranians are -- they're trying to do what the Iranian state has done for 49 years, which is engage in acts of terrorism against the United States and against a lot of other people as well. So we are being extremely cautious.

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