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Trump Rolls Back Some Tariffs On Coffee, Beef, Bananas; Trump Suggests He's Decided A Path Forward In Venezuela; Immigration Enforcement Operations Begin In Charlotte; Evacuations Underway As Storm Slams California; U.N. Orders Investigation Of Atrocities Committed in El Fasher, Trump Says He Will Sue BBC Despite Apology Over DOC Edit; Texas State Trooper "Sent Home" After Altercation With University Of South Carolina Football Player; U.N. Orders Investigation of Atrocities Committed in El Fasher. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired November 15, 2025 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:14]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jessica Dean here in New York.

We are following breaking news out of Charlotte, North Carolina, where border agents have begun an immigration enforcement operation. CNN just getting this video. A man inside that truck says border agents smashed his window, you'll see that happen in just a minute, and pulled him out of the car, even though he says he's an American citizen and was carrying a real I.D..

We're going to have much more on this in just a few minutes. But first, tonight, President Trump is also rolling back some of his tariffs as Americans continue to grow even more concerned about higher prices. A new executive order backdated to Thursday lowering tariffs on some foods including beef, tomatoes, coffee and bananas, and dozens more items.

Let's bring in CNN's Betsy Klein for more on this. She is traveling with the president in Florida this weekend.

Betsy, the administration doing this on a Friday night where you kind of dump news and don't make a huge deal about it. But what are they saying about this rollback?

BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: But you and I were paying attention, Jessica.

DEAN: Yes, we were.

KLEIN: But this is a clear -- a clear sign that the White House is starting to heed some of those warnings that voters in key races in New Jersey and Virginia and New York City and California earlier this month are sending to the administration, telling them essentially to put the focus back on affordability. And we saw President Trump really reimagine the global economic order and reshape relationships abroad with his tariff policy. But that policy has also led to some rising prices for certain goods

here at home. And according to CNN exit polls, economic issues were one of the major issues animating voters when they turned out to the polls earlier this month. Top concern consistently there. And one of the criticisms from top economic officials of the president's tariff policies is that even though the president's stated goal here is to ramp up domestic demand and production, that that might not necessarily be possible for certain goods.

They point to things like coffee. The president on Friday signing an executive order that reverses course and retroactively lowers some of those tariffs on goods, agricultural imports, including beef, tomatoes, coffee, bananas, all things that the U.S. just as we grow some of those things, but not enough to sustain domestic purchases. And these goods are going to be exempt from reciprocal tariff rates. They still will be subject to some tariffs.

So it's not immediately clear how much of an impact this is going to have on Americans' wallets. But President Trump laying out his thinking on Air Force One last night. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Look, for the most part, the foods where we cut back a little bit on those tariffs we'll get the price down, but they're not competitive in this country like tomatoes and bananas and things. We don't make them in this country. So there's no protection of our industries or our food products. So what we're going to do is we cut back, you'll see prices come down even lower.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KLEIN: We are now just under one year away from those midterm elections that could reshape the balance of power in Congress. And it is clear that the White House is looking for some ways to alleviate pressure on Americans wallets -- Jessica.

DEAN: As you mentioned, a key issue and what drove him to be elected by the American people and something they're still very worried about.

Betsy Klein, thank you so much.

Let's bring in professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan, Justin Wolfers.

Justin, good to see you on this Saturday evening. How do these tariffs play a role in the prices we see at the grocery store?

JUSTIN WOLFERS, ECONOMIST: It's really simple. A tariff is a price that you have to pay to release the goods once they come into customs, once they come across the border. So they're good -- they're prices being paid often by your grocery store. And what they're doing is when they have to pay more for these goods, they're jacking up the price. So somewhere between your grocery store and you, one of you is paying for this. And so the elimination of these tariffs, of course, should set this in

reverse, which means these pressures that have been raising the cost of living will hopefully they'll abate a little bit.

DEAN: Yes. And look, we noted this concern from Americans about the cost of living and just how expensive everything is really drove the 2024 election, sending President Trump, in part, back to the White House. Like then he puts these tariffs in. They're a key part, obviously, of his economic agenda. But knowing all of that and knowing where we -- the economy sits today when it comes to cost of living, were you surprised to see the president take this step?

[19:05:03]

WOLFERS: Let me just say I'm delighted. Every economist in America has been saying, every household in America has been saying, if you put tariffs on stuff, you'll raise the cost. The president has denied it each and every day since he's been elected. And now he says he wants to get prices down and so now he admits that somehow tariffs have something to do with prices.

I'm just looking forward to the apology. If he wants to skip the apology, that's fine. I'm just happy to keep talking to him about economics and let him understand exactly what it is that tariffs do and why they're so unpopular.

DEAN: And so if you're somebody out there watching right now who maybe is, you know, a lot of people like to go to the grocery store on Sunday and get stuff for the week, this was announced Friday, so how quickly will this kick in? What should people expect when they go to the grocery store?

WOLFERS: Good luck. It's not going to happen that quickly.

DEAN: Right.

WOLFERS: So, look, what's happening here is these are particularly politically salient set of tariffs. And so he's hoping that the prices you watch most closely are the ones you see at the grocery store. It's not that they're going to come back down as of last Thursday, which is when he retroactively reduced the tariffs. But probably you'll see they're going to stop going up quite as fast. And maybe if you get a little bit lucky, someone will throw a sale in there as well.

But what's not being talked about here is we spent a lot of money beyond just groceries. For instance, if you're at a new house, you got to furnish your house. The price of couches has gone way up. The price of TVs as well, that's all still tariffed. And so a lot of the rest of the cost of living pressures, they're not going away.

DEAN: Yes. In the meantime, as we wait for that to kind of -- to see how that lands with everyone, this new economic data is out next week. We've had this few weeks since the shutdown of really operating with kind of a data blackout from the U.S. government. So again, this is kind of, we're showing people right now, the missing economic data from the from the 40 days that the government was closed. What are you expecting to see and what are you looking for when they

release this?

WOLFERS: Yes. So the government shut down right at this critical point, which is the president has been talking about tariffs all year, but he really only finally got around to launching them all a couple of months ago. And then we got a data blackout straight away. And so the question is what happened? My guess is that the economy has continued to slow. We've got a range of other indicators that suggest that's the case.

The question is, how fast did it slow? Have we slowed to the point that we're, you know, moving along, but it's OK? Or are we a little bit worried about that R-word recession? We'll have a much clearer sense of this in a week or two. But of course, nothing is ever clear because, you know, tariffs are on and they're now off again. The government is closed, now it's open again. And they don't just make the world uncertain for business. They create a lot of distortions in the way we collect some of these data and how they come through in those data.

So there's a few reasons to think this quarter might be weak, but who knows what it tells us about the future.

DEAN: Yes. And in the meantime, we're near holiday shopping season. It's kind of wild that Black Friday is about two weeks away. What should people expect from the tariff perspective on that?

WOLFERS: Well, the sorts of things that most folks buy on Black Friday, I don't know about you, I'm looking for a winter coat. I like to buy a few electronics, Christmas presents. I tend to think it's a good time to buy homewares as well. Well, they're the things where the tariffs are still on. And so you probably got a much better deal last Black Friday.

What the White House is relying on is that you may not remember the prices from last year's Black Friday, so it may hurt your family's wallet while not hurting the president's approval quite as much. So the sorts of deals that we're talking about are almost all goods. They're often from China. And that's where I think a lot of these tariffs are really going to hurt.

DEAN: All right, Justin Wolfers, always good to see you. Thanks for -- thanks for that context. We appreciate it.

WOLFERS: You too.

DEAN: U.S. forces planning to hold military drills off the coast of Venezuela as President Trump suggests he has made up his mind about what to do about a ground operation in that country. We'll discuss the implications of that. Also, President Trump has a message for the BBC, and that is, see you in court.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [19:14:01]

DEAN: President Trump is now suggesting he is closer to a decision on the path forward on Venezuela. After high level briefings this week on operations -- options for military operations, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier, is now in the region, joining a massive U.S. Military buildup. The Trump administration says it's part of a campaign to fight drug trafficking. But the show of force has raised some questions about the endgame. Trump has previously said he believes Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's days are numbered.

We're joined now by CNN global affairs analyst Kim Dozier.

Kim, great to have you here. Thanks for being here on this Saturday night. We know that the president and his team reviewed these target options in these high level meetings this week. What is your sense of what they might be looking at, what they might be hoping to achieve here?

KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, when you look at the fact that this president has promised Americans to get them out of wars, not to get them into anything costly and deadly, you're probably looking at something like the strikes on Iran, the strikes in Yemen, something that uses the U.S. Military might, the naval might, the air power to strike military targets, police, security sites, possibly drug sites, things that would cripple Maduro's regime but not embroil the United States in a ground war.

[19:15:23]

Maduro has planned for a long time for some sort of opposition, some sort of coup or even attack from the outside. And he has organizations down to the grassroots level, armed and ready to launch an insurgency should the U.S. or anyone else do some sort of invasion. And U.S. planners have to be thinking about that right now.

DEAN: Yes. And listen, the Trump administration has claimed that Maduro is a drug trafficking threat to the U.S., that that's what this is about. How much truth would you say there is to that claim? Do you feel like that's what this is really about for this administration?

DOZIER: Well, when you look at the facts on the ground of how much drug trafficking is done from South America heading north, the majority of it is happening on the Pacific Coast or through Mexico. Only a small amount of cocaine actually makes it from Venezuela to the north, something like 10 percent to 15 percent of the supplies that make it to the United States. The majority of it is coming from elsewhere, and even more so with fentanyl.

So that kind of puts paid to the argument that the Trump administration is doing this all because of trying to stop drugs. At the same time, this kind of action, if it manages to unseat Maduro and bring back an opposition government in Venezuela, that would be welcomed by many Trump supporters in places like Miami, among the Latino community. And it would also be sort of a very possibly easy win. At least that might be how the Trump White House is thinking about it.

And they have considered this before in the first Trump administration. Perhaps now they think Maduro is in a fragile enough state politically that he can be toppled.

DEAN: We also know that the U.S. Military drills in nearby Trinidad and Tobago are set to start tomorrow. What do you read into that?

DOZIER: Two things. There's a practical matter of when you've got all of these different warships, different capabilities. Plus allied ships operating in an area where they don't normally operate together. This is a chance to practice before you fight if there is fighting coming. And it's also the kind of practice hours within the U.S. Military that can help in a future conflict, say, with China in the Pacific.

The other major reason to do this, though, is to raise the pressure on the Maduro regime. Now, estimates are that something like 80 percent of the country, 70 percent to 80 percent of the country, according to trusted polls of the population, they do not support Maduro. Even those who support him apparently are very divided because of prices, lack of food, the economic situation being so bad.

So the Trump administration may be gambling that if they turn up the heat enough with saber rattling that somebody within the military or someone on the street will decide, you know, enough is enough, let's oust this leader and get our country back. Then we'll have to see. Would someone like Russia take Maduro in right now? Though Russia wants Maduro to stay right where he is as a thorn in the U.S.'s side. So there's still a lot to play in the coming weeks.

DEAN: Yes, and a lot of dynamics. As you mentioned, Russia and China. It extends far beyond.

All right. Kim Dozier, always good to see you. Thank you so much.

DOZIER: Thank you.

DEAN: And CNN is learning immigration enforcement operations are now underway in Charlotte, North Carolina. More on this when we come back.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:23:34]

DEAN: We do have some breaking news as federal agents are on the ground in Charlotte making arrests on the first day of a citywide immigration crackdown there. We have new video showing federal agents smashing the car window of a man there in Charlotte who had a real I.D. That means he is here legally. He says he's an American citizen. They detained him before letting him go a little while later.

In the last hour, I spoke with Charlotte Mayor Pro Tem Dante Anderson about the violent encounter and what her office and the city is doing to make sure its residents are safe. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANTE ANDERSON (D), CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA MAYOR PRO TEM: It is unfortunate that a situation like that, what happened with Mr. Medina even occurred. He is a U.S. citizen. He has his I.D. and yet his property was damaged. And I'm sure he's wondering what's the restitution for that? But that's -- there's fear and anxiety rampant throughout our residents and the city of Charlotte is working with other governments locally and with our governor to ensure that residents have all the resources that they need and they know how to act and navigate if something occurs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And joining us now CNN correspondent Gloria Pazmino, who has been following this for us.

Gloria, this video is very -- just hard to watch. The window being broken and they're dragging the man out of the car. What more do you know about this operation and arrest?

[19:20:03]

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we had heard from officials in Charlotte that were preparing for the possibility that this operation was going to take place, and it seems like it is exactly underway this weekend on Saturday, after several community reports of activity in the area, as well as a statement from the Department of Homeland Security confirming that they are in fact in the area of Charlotte carrying out immigration enforcement.

They said in part, 'We are surging DHS law enforcement to Charlotte to ensure Americans are safe and public safety threats are removed." Now while they claim to be focused on public safety. You heard from the local representative there, as well as members of the community that we've been speaking with all day, that there's an incredible amount of fear and stress spreading across the community because of the enforcement that is happening.

And the video you're seeing there was taken by Willy Vendor Aceituno Medina. He's lived in Charlotte for 25 years, and he became a U.S. citizen in just a few years ago. And he told me that he was initially approached by a set of officers. He told them that he had documentation on him. They allowed him to present it, and he was able to be on his way. He walked over to his vehicle, got inside of his car.

He said that the officers were patrolling this strip mall area where he was, and then a separate group of officers approached him again and asked him to open the door. He said, I'm not going to open the door. I've already showed you my I.D. And that's when the officer proceeded to break in the window to pull him out of the vehicle, and then took him into custody.

Now, during this entire time, Medina told me that he was trying to say to them, and you can hear it in the video where he's telling them, I am a citizen, still he was put into the vehicle along with other people who had been detained, and it wasn't for several more minutes that the officer finally agreed to look into his pocket, where he had his documents, and once they were able to confirm that he was in fact a U.S. citizen, they simply took his handcuffs off, told him to get out of the car, and essentially sent him on his way, even though he was at a considerable distance from where he had been taken from.

He said the whole incident left him shaken and afraid for people who, unlike him, do not have proper documentation. He also said that he's heard from family members, friends who are essentially going into hiding. You know, people are canceling Thanksgiving celebrations and weekend events. We also heard similar examples from business owners in the area who are shutting down going into this weekend which means they won't be able to, you know, make a profit and make the usual business that they do all of it as a precautionary measure because they said they don't want to expose themselves or the community that they serve -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Gloria Pazmino, with the latest. Thanks for that reporting.

We are also following the heavy rain that's drenching Southern California right now, impacting more than 20 million people there. Los Angeles has received almost three inches of rain since Friday. That is three times the amount of rain the city usually gets in the entire month of November. Several parts of Ventura and Los Angeles counties now under a flash flood warning.

CNN's Julia Vargas Jones has the latest now from Los Angeles -- Julia.

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jessica, if the forecast is correct, this will be the wettest November since 1985 in Southern California. Here in Malibu, it's been like this the majority of the day. There's been a flash flood warning in effect here, not just here near the Palisades fire burn scar, but also in Altadena, Pasadena, near the Eaton Fire burn scars.

That is the main concern that authorities have. They're telling people, residents of those areas to leave if they can, to seek higher ground, be away from those burn scars area and not leave their houses if they don't have to.

Here in Malibu, I want to show you where we are. This is the Las Flores Creek going straight into the Pacific Ocean. This is basically a river of mud at this point. This is part of the concern. This is all the debris coming up from the canyons into the ocean, which, by the way, also has a warning for high winds and waves.

I will say that we did earlier today see at least two people with their surfboards fully looking like they were intending to surf. It is the most Southern California thing we saw today, but this is what we're talking about. Debris could be coming from up here, down all of these homes that -- where people had to evacuate for the Palisades Fire also now in jeopardy.

We saw mudslides here before after the fire earlier this year. There are sandbags around. People are concerned. It's almost like a PTSD from what Los Angeles has been through earlier. So that's why the mayor, Karen Bass, has instructed Los Angeles residents to do not travel if you don't have to. Leave those burn scar areas if you can. This will be in effect for all of today, all of Saturday, and into Sunday morning at least.

[19:30:07]

We are expecting this to intensify a little bit more before things calm down -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right, Julia, thank you for that.

A Civil War is devastating the African country of Sudan and has become a nightmare for people there, especially children.

We're going to talk about this next, you're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: The United Nations has ordered an urgent, independent investigation to reports of mass killings and atrocities committed during Sudan's Civil War. The paramilitary group, RSF seizing the city of El Fasher. This was the final major barrier to the rebel groups control of Darfur.

The U.N. says more than 100,000 people fled El Fasher and the surrounding villages in the last two weeks, with families reporting what was described as unimaginable horrors, including widespread reports of rape and sexual violence and desperate searches for missing children.

[19:35:29]

We are joined now by Alex de Waal, Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University. Alex, thank you for being here with us. There is this perception that this is the forgotten war of the world. But what is happening there is truly atrocious.

What should people know about what's happening in Sudan?

ALEX DE WAAL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE WORLD PEACE FOUNDATION AT TUFTS UNIVERSITY: Well. Sudan is no stranger to war and famine. In fact, I went to El Fasher for the first time 40 years ago this month to study a famine that was unfolding at that time. And there have been many, many cases of extreme starvation atrocity over the years.

This is particularly egregious, and it is egregious not only because of the sheer scale of what is happening. Probably 2,000 people, possibly many more murdered in cold blood. And the clinics in nearby towns and villages where people can escape are saying that every single child is malnourished.

But what makes it particularly shocking is that the killers are videoing their own atrocities and you can see the relish on their faces as they torment, they torture, and then they murder their victims. These images are simply too shocking for you to show on public television.

DEAN: No, they certainly are. And they're just impossible to fathom and to understand. According to the U.N. more than 12 million people have been forcibly displaced. You mentioned all of the violence against sexual violence, murders. Children are particularly being swept up in this war. Can you talk particularly about the children there in Sudan and what they're facing? Some of the stories that are coming from these very young kids are devastating.

DE WAAL: So, for two-and-a-half years, this war has been raging, and as you said at the outset, it has really been a forgotten war. There's been very little attention. A number of journalists, I must say, have done an excellent job. But governments around the world, including, the U.S. government, have really not been paying attention to this.

So, children have been out of school. The health services have collapsed. The another piece of news that passed without comment was that last week, the U.N.'s Famine Review Committee confirmed that famine was ongoing in Sudan, especially in Darfur.

And it had been ongoing for 18 months. So, 18 months of continual malnourishment, deprivation of essential services and then exposure to this unmitigated cruelty, so, many of these children have seen siblings perish from hunger and disease, seen their mothers, their elder sisters, raped. They've seen their elder brothers, their fathers killed, and many of them are missing. We simply don't know what has happened to them.

DEAN: Yes, and just to underscore, this is -- what we're seeing there is this systemic killing by the RSF, by those forces of these people.

DE WAAL: Indeed, I would call it genocide to be quite frank, and this was a genocide that was well telegraphed in advance. We knew that this was going to happen. And the other side, it is not committing genocide, but it is also committing war crimes. It's also using hunger as a weapon. It's also utterly ruthless, and it has consistently rejected calls for a ceasefire. So, it's a very, very terrible, intractable situation.

DEAN: Secretary of State Marco Rubio was asked this week about the supply of weapons from foreign powers to this war. I want to play a clip of what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: And I think something needs to be done to cut off the weapons and the support that the RSF is getting as they continue with their advances. I can just tell you, at the highest levels of our government, that case is being made and that pressure is being applied to the relevant parties.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: So, Alex, help us understand these alleged foreign players in Sudan's war, who's influencing this? What is what exactly is the Secretary of State talking about there? DE WAAL: Well, Secretary Rubio is definitely trying to do the right thing. So, what he's done is he's convened the leaders of three neighboring countries Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates and the UAE, although it denies it all the evidence is that it is backing the RSF, whereas the other two, Egypt and Saudi Arabia and some other countries, Qatar and Turkey, are backing the other side.

[19:40:21]

And the war could not be fought with the ferocity that it is being fought with, unless those external players were backing the warring parties. So, Secretary Rubio recognizes that the first step to peace runs through the capitals of those Arab states and he is putting pressure on the Emiratis. He doesn't mention them by name. He's too polite to do so, but he's putting pressure on them to stop arming the RSF.

And very shortly, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman, will be in Washington, D.C., and we understand that he is going to be putting that pressure too on the Saudis that they must desist. And these external sponsors must come to the table, and then they must push their proxies in Sudan to negotiate a peace agreement.

DEAN: And how realistic do you think that is? The possibility of that being successful?

DE WAAL: I think we have the best chance that there has been, let me put it that way. In two and a half years of war, in the coming weeks, the formula is right. But the challenges will then begin. One challenge is if you have a humanitarian ceasefire, you need to get humanitarian aid to the people who are starving. And the funds for that are simply not there at the moment.

Less than 30 percent of the U.N.'s overall appeal for Sudan is actually funded. So, mobilizing the food, getting the medicine, getting the supplies to the people on the ground is going to be a huge challenge. And then getting the two sides to begin to talk and given the polarization, the fear, the anger, among so many of the civilians, not to mention the soldiers, it's going to be a very difficult path to peace.

DEAN: All right, Alex de Waal, thank you for walking us through a lot of that, we really appreciate it.

DE WAAL: You're very welcome. The next time President Trump sits down with the BBC, it will likely be inside a British courtroom. We'll have the latest on that fight next in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:47:12]

DEAN: One of the world's biggest broadcasters is now bracing for a legal battle with President Trump. The BBC has apologized to the President for how they edited his January 6th speech ahead of the Capitol Riot in an October 2024 documentary but the President is ready to fight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We'll sue them for anywhere between a billion and five billion dollars probably sometime next week. So, I don't know what percentage is owned by the country, but regardless if it's small or large or nothing, I can say this. The U.K. is very, very embarrassed by BBC, what they did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: CNN chief media analyst, Brian Stelter, is joining us now. Brian, good to see you. Does the President have a case here?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Well, media lawyers are very skeptical that he does. But this year the President has gone ahead anyway and sued "The Wall Street Journal" and "The New York Times", even though those cases here in the U.S. look like legal longshots. For Trump in those cases and here now with the BBC, it might be about the P.R., it might be about perceived revenge. It might be about wanting the BBC to feel some pain. And that is certainly what is happening now.

The BBC is girding for a long and possibly expensive fight. There's lots of chatter among staffers there about how long this could drag on for, because the BBC had a choice to make in recent days. You know, this editing scandal erupted about a week ago, at first in the U.K. Then it expanded into the U.S. the BBC apologized, two top executives resigned, but it became a question for the board.

Do you fold to Trump and pay him to go away, or do you resolve to fight? And the BBC has resolved to fight by coming out and apologizing to Trump, but refusing to pay him anything without a legal battle first.

So, now it's really in Trump's court to see if he actually goes ahead and sues.

DEAN: Yes and look, this isn't certainly the first time we've seen President Trump suing a journalistic outlet. But how is this situation unique?

STELTER: I think it is unique, partly because of the President's reference there at the end to the British government. He claimed that Keir Starmer, the British Prime Minister, and aides are embarrassed by this. We don't know if that's actually the case, but the BBC is unique in British life. It is a publicly funded broadcaster.

Everybody in Britain taxpayers pay for the BBC. It doesn't just produce news around the world, it also produces entertainment. So, the BBC has a dominant place in public life. And even though it is independent of the government, it does have important relationships to the British government.

For example, members of the board are appointed by the government. So, this could be a situation where there will be back-channel negotiations between Starmer and Trump. In fact, BBC staffers are speculating that that could happen. I think that's also what makes this case unique from all the others.

We remember, Trump settled with Paramount earlier this year in the U.S., Disney last year. This is unique in part because it's a publicly funded broadcaster, and we remember earlier this year, Trump tried to defund PBS and NPR and he succeeded. He took down public broadcasting in the U.S. Of course, all the stations are still alive, but some of them are having funding struggles.

I was in Austin, Texas earlier today. I interviewed the PBS CEO, Paula Kruger, and I connected the dots between the U.S. and the U.K. Because there are connections here. publicly funded broadcasting is under threat, not just in the U.S., but in the U.K. and in other markets.

There's an effort by some political leaders to try to take away and tamp down public media. And so we might put this threat of a BBC lawsuit in that broader context. And then the other context, Jessica, is Trump trying to dominate and control the media. He wants to control news media coverage. He's not really able to do that, but he is able to cause a chill in the air and this is the most recent example, these threats against the BBC are the most recent example of a pattern that we've seen all year.

[19:50:52]

DEAN: Certainly, I do want to ask you too, about this Disney and YouTube deal that has been struck.

STELTER: Finally resolved, yes, yes.

DEAN: Yes, it brings all of the Disney channels, including ESPN, ABC, back to YouTube T.V. how significant is this.

A big test because this went on for two weeks. This blackout was frustrating for tens of millions of households, but now it's over. And the good news for YouTube T.V. customers is that you'll get all of ESPN's channels and streaming services in your bundle.

That's the wave of the future, whether you're watching on old fashioned cable or newfangled streaming, you're getting everything all in one bundle and it seems like that's what consumers actually want.

DEAN: All right, Brian Stelter, always good to see you. Thanks so much, we appreciate it.

STELTER: Thanks.

DEAN: Up next, a confrontation during a college football game ends with a State Trooper being sent home. We'll show that to you next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:56:21]

DEAN: A Texas State Trooper was sent home and is now under investigation after an incident at a football game between the University of South Carolina and Texas A&M in the second quarter of today's game, South Carolina's wide receiver scored an 80-yard touchdown, and his momentum took him into a tunnel.

When he and his teammates returned to the field, the Texas Trooper right there bumped into two players, gave them a shove before it appears he started yelling at the player who scored.

The incident is now being reviewed by the office of the inspector general. The Texas Aggies did come from behind to win that game.

In tonight's back to back season finale of "Breaking Bread," award winning actor, Tony Shalhoub takes viewers on adventures across the globe, from baking a loaf of bread in a volcano in Iceland to enjoying milk bread in Tokyo. And I got to sit down with Tony to talk about his favorite parts of filming the episodes. As the series wraps up, here's what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Okay, this week you go to Tokyo. One of the specific things you remarked on during that episode is this cultural value of Kaizen, which is special attention to detail and the perfectionism, tell us about that.

TONY SHALHOUB, AWARD WINNING ACTOR: Right, this is something the Japanese have had for many, many, many, years. It's that pursuit of perfection on all things. We're not talking just about food or bread, but architecture or really anything. When you're talking about Kaizen in terms of bread making, they're obsessive. But they're doing it with the knowledge that there is no such thing as perfect. They're in pursuit of that, knowing that on the very off chance that they were to create a perfect loaf, they probably wouldn't be able to recreate that, it's too elusive.

But they never, ever give up. It's always about the journey there. It's a little bit of a monk like --

DEAN: Yes, it's trying to be perfect, trying to control everything.

SHALHOUB: A monk-like, yes, pursuit.

DEAN: So, finally you end up in Iceland.

SHALHOUB: Right.

DEAN: Which is a really cool spot for this last episode -- you hiked up an active volcano.

SHALHOUB: We did. I don't know how they talked me into that.

DEAN: I know, how did they talk you into that?

SHALHOUB: They said there was going to be bread at the top.

DEAN: That was enough to get you to do it. And you made a loaf of bread using the heat from the volcano?

SHALHOUB: Exactly, because it's active, its residual heat sort of roiling in there. The views from up there are just breathtaking. The remoteness and the starkness of it and how resilient these people are.

This particular volcano on this particular island exploded and an entire part of the village was buried. They have this sort of attitude where they just makes everything just that much more precious, their families and their communities.

DEAN: So, as we come to the end of the series, what is your takeaway from spending all this time with all these people -- with the through line, of course, being bread and how we make it and how we share it. But what did you what did you take away from this experience?

SHALHOUB: There's so much diversity out there. There's so much to explore, not just in the food space. For me, it became more about how people are navigating the current state of the world, how people are trying to kind of recapture keeping family close, passing on traditions, trying to keep things healthy again, sustainable again.

There's a lot of that going on out there, and I wish there were more of it going on here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Be sure to tune in. It is the finale of Tony Shalhoub "Breaking Bread" tonight at 9:00 P.M. You can watch it tomorrow on the CNN App. Thanks so much for joining me this evening, I'm Jessica Dean. And remember, if you're here in the U.S., you can now stream CNN whenever you want, wherever you want, using the CNN App. Visit cnn.com./watch for more on that. I'm going to see you again tomorrow night starting at 5:00 Eastern. "Real Time With Bill Maher" is headed your way next. Have a great night everyone.

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