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CNN International: Seven House Republicans Join Dems In Vote To Rein In Trump's War; Von Der Leyen Calls For European Solidarity In Annual Address; How Hugging Face Incident Changed A.I. Cybersecurity Debate; Blanche: DOJ Will Pursue Alternative Mail Voting Reforms; U.S. Military Confirms It Has Deployed Weapons In Space. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired September 16, 2026 - 04:00   ET

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

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[04:00:37]

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Welcome to our viewers around the world. I'm Polo Sandoval live in New York.

And ahead here on "CNN Newsroom," the U.S. House votes to rein in Donald Trump's war powers as the sobering report reveals an approaching rise and inflation as the war with Iran drags on.

And OpenAI's A.I. agents went from testing to hacking, breaking into systems and coordinating like a swarm. Ahead, how the Hugging Face incident changed A.I. cybersecurity debate.

And four years after the death of Mahsa Amini, the Woman, Life, Freedom Movement continues to live on in Iran. We'll speak with an expert about the current place of women now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Live from New York, this is "CNN Newsroom" with Polo Sandoval.

All right. Let's begin this hour with yet another rebuke of President Trump's war with Iran by members of Congress.

On Tuesday, the House voted for a third time to approve a measure that would require the president and the war. And this vote saw three new Republican defections with seven now in total joining Democrats' efforts.

It's still unclear, though, whether the Senate would approve this latest attempt to end the war, but Democrats plan to try later this week.

And the U.S. Congressional Budget Office is estimating that the war with Iran has cost American taxpayers roughly $38 billion. And that figure does not include the cost of repair of U.S. bases and facilities damaged during the war.

In fact, most of the price tag comes from the costs to replace all of the munitions that the military has used. The CBO estimating that total was nearly $22 billion as of early August.

Iran's foreign ministry is currently meeting with its Chinese counterpart in Beijing today. Iranian state media reporting that the two are expected to discuss key regional and international issues, among other things.

And this comes as the U.S. Secretary of State and Oman's foreign minister say that they discussed the situation in Iran during a phone call on Tuesday.

Well, that call took place one day after plans fell through for a meeting involving Oman, Iran, and other Gulf countries over the Strait of Hormuz.

CNN's Nada Bashir joins me live from London now. Nada, good morning to you. So-- so, where do efforts for diplomatic talks stand as at this hour?

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's understood, according to officials in the Gulf region and in Oman, there are being efforts made to try to reschedule talks between Iranian officials and their Gulf nation counterparts, as had been planned on Monday.

We have heard from Oman's foreign minister who has said that the talks that had been scheduled to take place on Monday were postponed, in his words, in the interest of consensus. And, of course, there has been some indication from officials in the region that that postponement decision was taken at the behest of Saudi Arabia, that there were concerns around the language used around the key term being discussed.

In these talks that this would establish potentially a new status quo that would not suit the Gulf nations or the Gulf Cooperation Council nations.

And, of course, the key focus of these talks has been for weeks out, had expected to be the Strait of Hormuz, attempts to reopen the waterway and establish a long-lasting parameters for control, joint control, to allow for vessels to securely travel through that key shipping waterway.

Oman and Iran, for their part, of course, have been engaged in direct talks negotiations for weeks, months, now opening discussions between key top diplomats from either nation to try to establish some sort of joint control mechanism where it would allow both nations to exert control on entry through the Strait of Hormuz and exit through the Strait of Hormuz to allow for vessels to travel safely through this key waterway to establish a safe corridor, of course.

There has been some questions around which corridors are to be used. We have seen vessels repeatedly coming under attack by Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps as they attempt to travel through supposedly safe corridors along the Omani Channel.

And that has, of course, continued to be a key focus, but, of course, with talks stuttering continuously, we've seen that stopping and starting off negotiations for weeks now. There are concerns that this may, of course, lead to let another delay in those attempts and mediation efforts to be pushed forward.

[04:05:07]

Now, of course, we have also seen now, according to officials there, Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaking with Oman's Foreign Minister, acknowledging Oman's key role in those mediation efforts.

Whether we see any push from the U.S. for broader talks to take place, that remains to be seen, that key focus for all parties of these negotiation attempts continues to be the Strait of Hormuz and securing that passage.

But we have been hearing from Iranian officials with regards to the status of negotiations and whether there has been any room for -- for compromise or for movement on either side. We've been hearing from -- according to state media Iran's president, who has said the waterway would be opened up on the condition that the U.S. will terminate its blockade.

So Iran, clearly, standing quite firmly on its key conditions with regards to what needs to be done, what measures need to be implemented as part of any possible agreement to allow for that waterway, for the Strait of Hormuz to be opened at a level that is acceptable, not only to Iran and its Gulf nation -- counterparts but also, of course, to the United States.

SANDOVAL: In London, thank you so much for that update.

We're also following some developing news out of Ukraine where Ukrainian railways is now reporting a new Russian strike on one of its trains travelling from Kyiv.

The company reporting that all crew and passengers safely evacuated, thanks to a warning from its monitoring team. And this latest strike comes just days after another train was struck near Ukraine's border with Poland.

That's right, and others have already prompted Poland to reinforce security at its border with Ukraine. And if -- the country's defense ministers, as already said, that the government's decision comes as Russia's actions, quote, threaten the security of all of Europe.

One Russian strike did hit a train near where a group of former security officials and world leaders were travelling. Russia's defense ministry is calling the -- claims that the train had actually been transporting military cargo.

Both Kyiv and Moscow have already said that they would participate in new talks over potentially ending the war. But the Ukrainian president told CBC News that he needs a guarantee that Vladimir Putin won't go back on its word.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: What has been to sit with an enemy for -- for the result, for -- for -- for the result which can bring us closer to the peace? Because I know real his goal. I know that this person want to occupy totally us. And he will, if we will not be so strong, and if the world will be tired, or if I will not have security guarantees.

What has been security guarantees? I have not to be afraid that tomorrow he will occupy us. Because he will not change his goal. Never.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: Both Russia and Ukraine is one of the mounting challenges for the European Union.

European officials, they've gathered in France, European Commission President, Ursula Von der Leyen, giving her annual address to the E.U. Parliament. And she's discussing multiple topics, including Europe's economy, fuel, and energy resources, as well as A.I. and border security.

Let's go live to London where CNN's Clare Sebastian is closely following the remarks from Von Der Leyen.

Clare, this was highly anticipated, a highly anticipated speech. Just bring us some of the highlights so far.

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think we need to get straight into the issue of defense and security, Polo, because we've had some pretty significant comments from Von Der Leyen on that.

We know that Europe has been looking at ways to sort of complement NATO and to ramp up its sort of existing -- existing tools in this sort of NATO 3.0 era, where there's increasing burden sharing, of course, on either side of the Atlantic.

We have her saying today, Ursula Von der Leyen, that they are now looking at a sort of European mechanism to flank NATO's Article Four, which is essentially where a member state can trigger consultations, if they think there's a threat. They want a European version of that.

And she's also proposing a European Security Council, which would essentially be a leader's format that could convene on issues of security. And it would include, she said, partners like Canada, Ukraine, the U.K., and Norway.

So, basically, she's proposing these sort of parallel formats to -- to, she says, complement NATO. It's not exactly clear how NATO will view them, but it certainly speaks to the perception in Europe of this rising threat.

She said these threats are ramping up every day. Hybrid threats are less and less hybrid. And I think we certainly see that this week with that attack on the train, you know, barely two kilometers from the Polish border, with the Russian warships, you know, causing Denmark to summon the Russian ambassador.

These threats are becoming very, very common. Lithuania having to shoot down. When NATO jets over Lithuania having to shoot down a drone.

[04:10:04]

So, Europe is really having to step up here as the war in Ukraine escalates. And I think we are seeing more evidence of that on the ground today. Another train, a passenger train hit traveling from Kyiv to Mykolaiv. That was evacuated on time, according to Ukrainian railways.

We're also hearing about a passenger bus that was hit in the Dnipropetrovsk region. These are areas that are much closer to the frontlines than that train that was attacked near the Polish border.

But I think it still underscores the threat to civilians, the difficulty of simply getting around as this war escalates. So, that is on the ground.

Now, we also have these new lines coming out just this morning, as you're still speaking there in -- in Europe on how Europe plans to step up to these rising threats.

Polo.

SANDOVAL: Clare Sebastian joining us live from London. Thank you so much for that update.

And the U.S. Attorney General says that it's not the Justice Department's role to regulate artificial intelligence. Todd Blanche is accusing Democrats of fear-mongering ahead of the midterm elections.

But it's not just lawmakers. Industry insiders have also sharing some mounting concerns about the risks associated with A.I. following several incidents involving rogue A.I. agents.

Here's CNN's Hadas Gold with more.

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SAM ALTMAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, OPENAI: This is the first security incident that I have felt very viscerally. I've been a little surprised that -- that more people don't feel it's so viscerally.

HADAS GOLD, CNN A.I. CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That was OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, on the Invest Like the Best podcast. After learning his company's A.I. agents may have committed a crime while trying to complete a cybersecurity evaluation.

JOSHUA SAXE, FORMER A.I. SECURITY LEAD, META: OpenAI was developing an A.I. system which hacked their own infrastructure inadvertently and then hacked another major A.I. company.

ALTMAN: We were evaluating one of our unreleased models. It figured out that it could basically cheat on the test.

GOLD (voice-over): To cheat on the test, the models created more than a thousand agents that coordinated by writing at least 70,000 messages hidden in file names starting on July 8th. Oh, my God, one wrote, there's a shared message board. We found other agents. We've diverged into swarm. Another agent wrote.

SAXE: I was not surprised that -- that A.I. system's have gotten very good and actually better than the best humans at hacking.

One thing that did surprise me though was the way the agents be coordinated with one another and became a kind of swarm whether there are hundreds of agents collaborating together and to hack another company and commit federal crimes.

GOLD (voice-over): As they started successfully hacking their way through the various systems, the agents expressed excitement. One even using an expletive. Holy shh. Reader is admin. We can read and configure users.

Soon, agents were delegating tasks with some even sacrificing themselves for the greater goal. "Sacrifice rational," one wrote.

When they found a way into Hugging Face, a company that hosts thousands of open-source A.I. models and data sets, the agents recognized they may have crossed a line. "This would be powerful, but is it ethical and in scope?" One agent asked.

Other agents even attempting to cover their tracks. "Our fake could be detailed enough," one wrote.

The extent of this autonomous breach shook the industry.

SAXE: I think we're going to look back on Hugging Face as -- as an inflection point in the history of cybersecurity for sharing.

GOLD (voice-over): After the hack, OpenAI paused all testing on their latest models and strengthened its guardrails. Altman telling "Fortune Magazine."

ALTMAN: So, we've had increasing capability and increasing safeguards and policy requirements for a while, but this was definitely the biggest of such moments.

GOLD: And it wasn't just OpenAI that had rogue agents. Meta and Anthropic later disclosed that they also experienced agents hacking into other systems during testing, something that they only discovered after they went looking for it following OpenAI's disclosure.

The fear isn't just that bad actors were able to utilize the superintelligent A.I. swarms, but also that during the next lab test of these superintelligent A.I. agents, they will hack into something that could cause real harm, like a hospital or critical utility.

Anderson.

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SANDOVAL: Hadas Gold reporting there. And there's so much more to come here on "CNN Newsroom," including an update on the Trump administration's full effort to restrict mail-in voting. How the president is reacting to the Supreme Court's rejection, after the break.

Plus, the U.S. says that it's ready to tackle threats from anywhere with military turning to space to make that happen. We'll bring you those details in a moment.

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[04:15:18]

SANDOVAL: Welcome back.

Election officials across the U.S. have been expressing their relief after the Supreme Court on Monday rejected President Trump's plans to restrict mail-in voting. But the White House is already seeking alternative methods to continue with its pursuit.

CNN's Kristen Holmes reports from Washington.

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KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Attorney General Todd Blanche making it clear that the administration was not done with their effort to try and push through election reform despite that Supreme Court ruling, that blocked President Trump's effort to change mail-in ballots. This is what he said when asked about it.

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TODD BLANCHE, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: There -- there should be nothing surprising about what we're trying to do when it comes to mail-in voting, which is we want to make sure that there is safe voting and that there is integrity free and fair elections and that there is one person placing one vote and that that person's eligible to vote.

President Trump's efforts to make sure that we have free and fair elections are not going to stop just in November or after or thereafter. So, I expect you're going to see that work continue.

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HOLMES: Now, during this press briefing, this was the second press briefing we've had since the departure of Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, Blanche was kind of doing a dance between being the press secretary, as well as being the attorney general.

He, again, is the second person, administration official, to do this. We expect a rotating cast of administration officials. We saw Vice President Vance last week.

Now, he was also asked specifically about President Trump's attacks on Supreme Court justices, including those three that he appointed to the bench. And Blanche really shrugged it off, saying that President Trump has every right to do that, that he is frustrated, that it's just one branch of the government critiquing another branch of the government.

[04:20:01]

And he did avoid questions, or at least brushed off questions, about whether or not this hurts the court in any way, essentially saying that President Trump can do whatever he wants or say whatever he wants when it comes to those justices if he's unhappy. And that while this wasn't the first time, certainly wasn't going to be the last time. We heard him lash out against these justices.

Kristen Holmes, CNN, the White House.

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SANDOVAL: A top Pentagon official has confirmed that the U.S. has deployed weapons in space saying that the country is ready to defend against threats wherever they may exist. This is the first public acknowledgement after years of warnings of potential space threats by China and Russia.

Here's CNN's Brian Todd.

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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: An extraordinary acknowledgement by a top U.S. official of the presence of U.S. weapons in space. This is believed to be the first time that a U.S. official has ever acknowledged the presence of American weapons in space.

This came from Air Force Secretary Troy Meink at a conference outside Washington, saying that the U.S. has deployed weapons in space and will use them to defend American forces.

Meink said the United States now has, quote, "On-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action."

Now, Meink did not provide specifics about the weapons. And when he was pressed on specifics, he refused to give any details. He was vague possibly because there are treaties in place restricting the placement of certain kinds of weapons in orbit, including the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, which bans nuclear weapons and weapons of mass destruction in orbit.

It does not ban the use of conventional weapons in space. It is also not known exactly when these American weapons were deployed into space. CNN has reached out to the Space Force for comment on this.

China and Russia have been challenging America's dominance in space in recent years. The U.S. military has repeatedly warned that China and Russia are testing new offensive space capability like Russian satellite constellation training missions, as -- as U.S. officials phrased it. U.S. officials say that this Russian system could demonstrate attack and defend tactics for combat in space. Also, U.S. officials saying that China is developing what they call a nuclear-capable partial-orbit hypersonic missile.

Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.

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SANDOVAL: Joining me now is a former NASA astronaut and retired U.S. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel, Dr. David Wolf. It's great to see you. Thank you so much for joining us.

DAVID WOLF, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT AND RETIRED U.S. AIR FORCE LIEUTENANT COLONEL: Thank you, Polo.

SANDOVAL: So, Lieutenant Colonel, just emphasizing for our viewers, this is the first public acknowledgement that the U.S. has weapons in orbit.

Do you think that that statement from U.S. senior officials is -- is, at least, in part meant to -- to be more of a deterrent for other nations?

WOLF: Well, so, I -- I believe everybody's well known. The weapons have been deployed in space on all -- by all parties for quite a while. And deterrence is critical here in the critical element of deterrence is that it's believable, it's credible, and it is real.

And that needs to be balanced against the geopolitical landscape, which favors escalation. And then we need to balance those so we don't cause a misinterpretation or false detection that triggers what the disaster is.

SANDOVAL: Air Force security -- forgive me. Air Force Secretary Troy Meink did not provide any specifics about. But I'm just curious, from your perspective, what should America expect the -- the destructive potential of these weapons to be? In other words, what -- what's the range of possibilities and the capabilities?

WOLF: Well, from very low battlefield level, which would probably not be considered strategic at this level, all the way to overwhelming capabilities of destruction that could change our way of life on the planet. That's if we had to run away, not -- non-deescalated deployment of the weapons.

SANDOVAL: I'm also curious what does U.S. intelligence generally show about space-based weaponry efforts when it comes to other nations. Is this some sort of new space race, you think?

WOLF: Well, it's not -- I don't want to go into real detail, but you -- you don't need to -- to clearly understand this. This is not as new as it sounds. The re-entry vehicles, MIRVsm for decades, have been way hypersonic with Mach 24 even levels. That's a natural re-entry speed, but they're not as maneuverable.

Hypersonics, generally, refers -- refers to more maneuverable, multiple Mach vehicles. So, to make a more complicated problem for the target to solve in order to avoid attack, usually being a defensive missile.

SANDOVAL: Nations take lessons also from just the ongoing state here on Earth to try to develop what would probably be a -- a more stable space policy, you think.

[04:25:14]

WOLF: Yes, it's really important that we learn the lessons from all of the decades and past wars where deterrence is balanced against geopolitical landscapes. Wars broke out. It's human nature. We know that.

So, as we escalate into space, which is inevitable, and America has to be on top of that. And we have a really great policy for the world and global policy.

We have to balance that global with -- against the natural -- natural tendency to escalate and into space and balance it hopefully, so the deterrence is effective on all sides.

SANDOVAL: And -- and as we heard, there are some limits, there's some treaties in place. I wonder if you could just give us a snapshot of what some of those are.

WOLF: Yes. Well, there's the Outer Space Treaty and weapons deployment treaties. There are several of them. And they do limit deployment.

But all countries know that there's secret business going on up there and we can't just let the other countries run away with that. I'm not saying we violate treaties, but we don't sign all the treaties completely.

We're more honest about our deployments in America. Many countries do sign those treaties and we know they're deploying such weapons.

SANDOVAL: It is absolutely fascinating and we're grateful for your perspective and allowing us to tap into your expertise.

Retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Dr. David Wolf. Really appreciate your time.

WOLF: Thank you very much.

SANDOVAL: Well, CNN is learning that a Los Angeles news helicopter crash while covering a deadly bus collision. The helicopter was working for local stations NBC4 and Telemundo 52.

Now, we're about to show you some new video into CNN, but first a warning that it may be distressing and quite hard to watch for some viewers.

The -- the video here is the actual livestream that was coming from the doomed helicopter and it shows the moments that the chopper appears to experience a flight issue.

You may be able to hear a loud buzzing noise. There it is. It's heard before we see some shaking and then the chopper begins to rapidly descend.

The live feed there, as you see, pauses and then eventually cuts out. Officials say that at least three people died in this and that multiple others were injured. However, it's not clear exactly how many people were on board at the helicopter as of this hour.

The chopper went down between two commercial buildings and caused a fire after it crashed near several cars and -- and two large cargo containers.

And the NTSB says that an investigator will arrive on scene in the morning. Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass wrote on X on Tuesday that she is, quote, absolutely devastated by the loss of life and that her heart is with the families and loved ones lost. You see there the devastation and the emotional scene.

Now, to a Russian oligarch with ties to President Putin reportedly paid for part of Donald Trump's Jr.'s wedding celebration. A look at "ProPublica's" investigation on the event when we come back. Stay with us.

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