Return to Transcripts main page

CNN This Morning

Arizona A.G. To Sue Mike Johnson For Failure To Swear-in Rep.- Elect; Trump "Permanently" Cutting Programs Amid Shutdown; Thieves Steal "Priceless" Jewels From The Louvre; Multiple Online Services Hit By Major Tech Outage. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired October 20, 2025 - 06:30   ET

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

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: -- Attorney General Kris Mayes tells CNN affiliate 12 News Arizona she's going to sue Johnson potentially as early as today over the issue.

[06:30:08]

The speaker, for his part, continuing to point the fingers at Democrats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I would say to Rep. Grijalva if her Democrat colleagues and leadership have not informed her, you can be serving your constituents right now. You have an office. She's hired 16 employees.

They keep going by and knocking on the door and pretending it's locked. If it's locked is because Rep Grijalva is choosing not to represent her constituents. She can be handling their calls, directing them appropriately, and doing lots of important work right now.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Joining me now to discuss Congressman Johnny Olszewski of Maryland. It's nice to have you with us in the studio. I know you've -- you've weighed in a lot about the issue and where it stands in terms of the congresswoman not yet being sworn in. And you said recently that the speaker would have failed your government class because you're a former government teacher.

REP. JOHNNY OLSZEWSKI (D-MD): That's right.

HILL: Where would he fail this?

OLSZEWSKI: Well, I mean, everyone deserves representation. It is the basic tenet of our democracy. And, you know, Representative Grijalva cannot represent her constituents because she doesn't have that access as a member of Congress to the agencies. They're not going to respond in the same way. She also doesn't have access to the passcodes to those computers that are in her office.

She can't print, she can't access her email, and I have to say, the speaker keeps moving the goalposts here. First, it was -- she deserves pomp and circumstance. Then it was, well, I'm going to pursue the Pelosi standard.

I mean, the speaker can't even honor his own standard of swearing in members the day after they were they were elected. It's now been almost 30 days. The election has been certified. This has gotten out of hand, and it's absolutely ridiculous at this point.

HILL: So, it's continuing. He's continuing to face questions about it, as we just saw yesterday on the Sunday shows, the fact that you now have the state A.G. threatening to sue and this continued pressure, is it your sense that any of it is having an impact because he does not seem to be inclined to change his mind right now?

OLSZEWSKI: Well, it's incredibly undemocratic, but also this is you know, you have to ask why, right? I mean, we should be in session. The American people are facing an absolute crisis. They're being crushed by a cost-of-living crisis. And the speaker is refusing to bring us back because he knows that Representative Grijalva represents the last signature to force a vote on the Epstein files.

She said as much, we know as much. And I'm a father. I know the speaker is a father. And you have to ask, why are we protecting child sexual predators? And that's what we're doing by not allowing Representative Grijalva to be sworn in to sign the discharge petition and to have a vote on this issue.

HILL: As you know, the speaker says he's pointing the finger clearly at Democrats, saying it is your fault. We will see. We'll continue to follow those developments as it plays out.

I was struck by some comments the president made over the weekend about the shutdown, specifically, and the power he finds in it. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think they should just stay out forever. I mean, to be honest with you. Now, what we're doing is we're cutting Democrat programs that we didn't want because -- I mean, they made one mistake. They didn't realize that that gives me the right to cut programs that Republicans never wanted. You know, giveaways, welfare programs, et cetera. And we're doing that and were cutting them permanently.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: There's been a lot of reaction to that idea from the beginning of the shutdown, and some concern that maybe Democrats were, in fact, enabling the president in a way that the party would not like to in giving him a little bit of runway to enact, I guess, retribution over what he deems Democrat programs. Are you concerned about that?

OLSZEWSKI: Deeply. But this is a president who's been doing that since the very beginning. Maryland has been at the forefront of cuts. 15,000 federal employees have been let go before the shutdown. We've seen programs slashed, USAID, public broadcasting. $9 billion of cuts in rescissions. The pocket rescission that I think is illegal and unconstitutional.

This is a president who is already doing whatever he wanted. And so, for me, the bright line in the negotiations, I think Democrats are right. Health care is an important issue. Americans are about to be hit by thousands of dollars of tax increases. And that's what it is. But for me, it's this idea that Republicans shouldn't be able to go in and unilaterally cut what was a bipartisan deal. I have the key bridge in the Baltimore area, and the president has explicitly threatened to cut that funding.

And so, if there are no ironclad protections and if we're not as Congress protecting the power of the purse and our obligations there, I don't think there's any real reason to agree to a budget deal that doesn't have those protections. That allows the president to do exactly what he's threatening.

HILL: Now, we're also getting this word about, you know, the nation's nuclear capability. So, 1,400 workers are going to be furloughed today. What does that say to you about the safety and the security?

OLSZEWSKI: I mean, those are part -- that's part of the three things I'm worried about with the shutdown. One, are the federal employees who can't pay their mortgages or feed their kids. Two are the services that Americans rely on. The safety and security of our nuclear stockpile, our food and drug inspections, flying in the airways. That's all at risk.

And then three, we can't end the shutdown if we're not actually talking. And the president is absolutely absent, as is Speaker Johnson. No one is actually at the table to try to figure out a way forward here.

HILL: As you know, Senator, Senate Majority Leader John Thune has said, look, I am willing to talk. I'm going to paraphrase what he said here. We're willing to have a conversation. If you need a vote, we can guarantee you a vote to get -- to get a vote by a certain date.

He needs Democrats to buy in, and that is that enough of a guarantee for Democrats?

[06:35:00]

As you speak to your colleagues in the Senate, is that enough of a guarantee that we will have a conversation?

OLSZEWSKI: Not really, because I know what happens in the House of Representatives is the president says, don't do this. And Republicans march in line. It is sort of bowing at the altar of Donald Trump.

And so, we have to have some ironclad agreements and understandings, especially on issues like that. We won't have unilateral rescissions and cuts that have happened in the past.

HILL: I know we need to move on to another topic, but I'm just curious, as all this plays out right and the house is still technically out of session, are you having conversations with your Republican colleagues in this time? Are you reaching out to them because you said, we all need to work together if we're going to get anything done? Is that happening behind the scenes?

OLSZEWSKI: Unfortunately not. So, I've reached out to about a dozen --

HILL: And they're not taking your call.

OLSZEWSKI: They're not responding to my texts. They haven't returned my calls. Now, and I have a bill in that would say that federal employees cannot be fired during a government shutdown. I have emailed my Republican colleagues. I have texted several of them, and I understand that everyone's in their corners.

But that's the problem with American politics, is that no one's actually talking. I have almost 80 co-sponsors on that bill. Not a single Republican will step forward and say we should protect our federal workers in this moment.

HILL: It's a lot. Congressman, appreciate it.

OLSZEWSKI: Sure.

HILL: Thank you.

Also, we're going to take you to Paris this morning. The Louvre Museum is closed after a brazen heist that really was like something out of a movie. Aa chainsaw wielding thief, a number of thieves actually -- stealing priceless jewelry from museum. Officials believe this was a professional hit that it happened -- it happened, they say, in just seven minutes, as thousands of people were inside the museum.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTOPHER MARINELLO, LAWYER & FOUNDER, ART RECOVERY INTERNATIONAL: Well, these were very important pieces of cultural heritage. And the thieves don't really care about that. What they care about is converting this into cash as quickly as possible and hiding their crime. So, there's a race going on right now with the BRB. The French local police and the to recover these items before they get broken up because they will melt down the precious metals. They will recut the stones with no regard for the piece's integrity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: So, nine items in total were taken, among them, a tiara and a necklace. One item has been recovered.

CNN's Melissa Bell is covering all these developments for us in Paris.

So, in terms of the latest in the investigation, I know time is of the essence. Where do things stand at this hour, Melissa?

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A time of the essence, Erica, not least because investigators here in France say that the first 48 hours are crucial, because that's when the robbers are at their most vulnerable and can best be caught. And we're well past the 24-hour mark. It was yesterday morning, 9:30 a.m. people milling around, as they are today, that this heist took place just seven minutes, as you say, remarkably brazen, well-organized.

What authorities are saying is that these were very well prepared and professional robbers. A couple of theories now are being studied by French authorities. We've been hearing from the Paris prosecutor. One is, as you just heard, that this could have been a robbery to try and get their hands on so many of those precious stones that were involved in those pieces of some of France's crown jewels.

These were, Erica, of course, pieces of jewelry, whether they're brooches, tiaras, necklaces, earrings that were worn by the queens of France in the 19th century. So you're talking about diamonds and rubies and emeralds, very precious stones in themselves.

One theory is that the robbers could be wanting to melt that down as quickly as they can to sell on the open market. These pieces of jewelry and the gold involved in the pieces, as well.

Another that they're investigating, says Paris prosecutor, is that this could have been done on commission. So again, a very well- organized operation that would have been very meticulously planned, but that may have been done on commission. So, someone looking to acquire these pieces for a private collection.

Either way, time is of the essence. And for now, no sign either of the eight pieces of missing jewelry, Erica, nor the four robbers that continue to be the subject of this manhunt.

BELL: It is wild, and it really is like something out of a movie. Melissa, appreciate it. Thank you.

Still ahead here on CNN this morning, the A.I. boom could be a bust for workers. What CEOs are telling our next guest about just how many employees they plan to replace with A.I.

Plus, George Santos now a free man, and he says he's also a changed man after spending less than three months in prison.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:43:45]

HILL: We're continuing to follow the breaking news this morning. Error messages greeting people. More than a dozen websites and services offline at this hour because of a major tech outage, according to downdetector.com, which tracks Internet disruptions.

So, among the services, Venmo, Snapchat, Fortnite, Facebook, Prime Video and Amazon's cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services, and that's really the key here. Amazon says the potential root cause has now been identified.

Sara Fischer joining us for the group chat today, but also doing working the phone in the break here.

So, I know you have some more information coming in about this attack. What more do we know? What's Amazon saying right now?

SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST: So mostly, it's impacting the eastern region of the United States. They're working very hard to get those sites up and running. But one thing that they are warning people is that as they continue to try to access these sites, when they come back online, there might be latency, which means that they might be working slower than they typically do. Things might take longer to load.

One of the things that's notable, you listed a bunch of websites here that are consumer facing. What you don't see is that there's a ton of back end sites, things that help websites manage their cybersecurity, manage payment processing, et cetera. That are also likely to be impacted by this outage.

So even if you as a consumer are able to get access to your site up and running, there's a ton of back-end functions that are likely going to also need to be revived in the wake of this.

[06:45:03]

HILL: Which is important. I was struck by some of. So Venmo, I think about all the things I need to pay on a daily basis, but also Snapchat.

FISCHER: Yes.

HILL: In the way that it is such a communication tool, especially for a certain generation. All of these, as you point out, consumer-facing in terms of what's happening on the back end, how many major businesses or can you give me a sense of just how widespread the usage is for Amazon Web Services?

FISCHER: Oh my gosh. So there's three major cloud computers in the U.S. You've got Microsoft, you have Azure with their cloud. Youve got Googles Cloud Services and Amazon.

So, roughly a third of the U.S. Internet and a large parts of the global Internet are reliant on this cloud service. The other thing I want to mention, Erica, typically when something like this happens, you have huge Internet outages. You're going to have one of two responses from the get go, which is we believe that this is something kind of human error or this was some sort of cyberattack.

Amazon has said that they've identified the root cause of this, but they have not said that it was some sort of a malicious attack, which leads me to believe that it was either a bad hardware update, software update that happened last year with CrowdStrike, when a bunch of the Internet came down, or it was some sort of human malfunction.

Either way, though, the fact that they've identified it is very good news.

HILL: Yes.

FISCHER: That means that hopefully a lot of the customers that are impacted, particularly here on the East Coast, should start to get their services up and running, hopefully, by the end of the day.

HILL: And we're just -- I'm just hearing in my ear both Delta, you said both Delta and United impacted. Do we know specifically how or they're just saying that they're impacted.

Impacted will be interesting. So there you go. Yeah. Check ahead on your flight before you go to the airport, along with all the other potential issues that could be happening.

All right. So, we'll continue to stay on that. Thank you.

Also wanted to talk about A.I. this morning, and specifically, artificial intelligence and the jobs market. It has so many Americans worried and understandably, more than 70 percent say that they fear artificial intelligence could put much of the country out of work.

So, what is the best way to perhaps energize a workforce without losing the workers who fuel it? Where can they go to find a job?

Our next guest writes that many technologists are talking about a lost generation of workers, people who will not simply disappear, but many of them will become disillusioned and radicalized.

Andrew Yang is the CEO of Noble Mobile and former presidential candidate, of course.

It's nice to see you this morning.

I was struck by your words there that they could become radicalized. In what way? What's your concern there?

ANDREW YANG (D), FORMER 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Erica, men are going to be hit harder by the A.I. displacement wave. Men are, for example, the majority of truck drivers or Uber drivers, and some of those jobs are going to be displaced by A.I.

And we've already seen the trend of men staying home, and then going down an Internet rabbit hole, becoming very angry, blaming certain groups. Unfortunately, we should expect more of that as these numbers just go up.

HILL: So that is a dark picture, to put it mildly, when you talk about that potential radicalization. You also have younger workers. I mean, I've lost count of the number of stories that we've seen in just the last several months about recent college graduates having a hard time finding jobs and how quickly A.I. is replacing some of these entry level jobs, along with that also comes that important institutional knowledge that is gained when you start out early on.

So how are companies trying to address both those issues? Yes, it could be a cost saving to have A.I., but are they in some ways shooting themselves in the foot? YANG: Time will tell, Erica. The fact is it is tougher for a recent

college graduate now to get an entry level position in a lot of these corporations.

I talked to CEOs and managers, and they're cutting back. Some of them are telling me internally that they're forecasting cutting 50, even 65 percent or more of white-collar employees over the next four or five years because they see that they can replace many of these workers with A.I.

The fact that so many Americans are concerned about this is well- founded, unfortunately, based on the conversations I'm having.

HILL: That is a massive number, 50 to 60 percent in the next four to five years. Is it your sense that on a broader level, this country is even in a place where it can prepare for the potential to have so many people out of work or so many jobs become obsolete?

YANG: Well, they characterize this as a lost generation. I think it's going to be deeply painful.

I did run for president on trying to address this issue. People recall I proposed universal basic income, which I still believe would be immensely helpful, but that's the kind of swing we should be taking given the magnitude of the change.

You're looking at hundreds of billions of dollars being invested in A.I. every year, and then extrapolate what that's going to mean in terms of the 44 percent of Americans who work in either repetitive cognitive jobs or repetitive manual jobs.

HILL: What else are you hearing privately from some of the CEOs that you're speaking with?

[06:50:00]

I mean, we've heard some pretty dire predictions publicly. But privately, is there even more concern there?

YANG: Well, you know what? I'll put it this way. I was talking to the CEO of a public tech company. He has a daughter who's graduating from college, and he shrugged and said, I have no idea what her and her classmates are going to be doing because he can see that his company is not going to need 22-year-old whippersnappers in the same way.

I talked to the partner of a major law firm who said something similar about law school graduates. Why are we going to hire an associate that we're going to have to spend three years training to become productive, hundreds of thousands of dollars if you think about the way law firms operate, when we can have A.I. do that and then keep the profits ourselves, or pass it along to our clients.

So that's the kind of thing people are saying in private, some in public now, because this is becoming common knowledge.

HILL: It's depressing. I'm not going to lie, when we think about it that way. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out. And as we're talking -- it's important that we're continuing to talk about it.

I do also want to talk about, you mentioned your platform, of course, when you ran for president in New York City, when it comes to jobs. Mayoral candidates Zohran Mamdani has talked about who has a very solid lead in the polls, has made a number of different proposals. Speaking of jobs, including raising the minimum wage to $30 an hour, he's talked a lot about the cost of living, as we know, not as much about the details.

As a former candidate, what do you make of these proposals and whether or not there is enough detail behind them?

YANG: I examined, as you would imagine, Erica, what you could control as the mayor. And a lot of the things that Zohran is proposing are going to require the state legislature to buy in, which right now there's no sign that that's going to happen.

And so, we're in the phase of the campaign when you can have bold visions and policies, and then the rubber is going to hit the road around, let's say, spring of next year when it's time to try and implement. Right now, it does look like Zohran is on track to win.

HILL: On track to win, as you noted though. But given your deep dive in your research and just looking at the way, of course things are laid out in terms of the laws of the city and of the state of New York, what do you think, practically speaking, this means for the city of New York, if in fact, he does win?

YANG: Well, I think it's going to be tougher, because ordinarily, if you're the new mayor, you'd like a mandate. It would be crucial for Zohran, for example, to get over 50 percent of the vote. If he enters office with less than 50 percent of the vote and then goes up to Albany and says, "Hey, guys, new mayor, let's help me out with some major policy initiatives, I think there's going to be some real resistance."

So, the victory would matter, but the margin of victory may matter as well if he can stake a majority.

HILL: If he asks for your help on any of these efforts, would you be willing?

YANG: Hey, I'm willing to help anyone who wants to help people. I'm deeply concerned about the state of the economy, for sure. It's getting less and less affordable here in New York and around the country.

It's one reason I started Noble Mobile is that we're paying way too much for our cell phone bills, and if there's a way I can change that and get money into people's pockets, I think that's a fantastic place to start. But I'll help anyone who wants to help Americans.

HILL: Andrew Yang, appreciate the time this morning. Thank you.

YANG: Thank you, Erica.

HILL: Former Republican Congressman George Santos says he's changed, this after president Trump commuted his prison sentence just days ago. Santos served three months, not quite three months of a seven-year sentence for various fraud charges. President Trump announcing the commutation on Truth Social writing Santos had the courage, conviction and intelligence to always vote Republican.

Santos spoke to CNN over the weekend, defending himself against the backlash and also invoking Jesus Christ.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GEORGE SANTOS (R), FORMER CONGRESSMAN, PRISON SENTENCE COMMUTED BY TRUMP: There's always going to be critics. People are going to like me. People are going to hate me. It doesn't matter whoever gets clemency in the future or whoever that person might be, I'm pretty confident if President Trump had pardoned Jesus Christ off the -- off the cross, he would have had critics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: The group chat is back. I mean, there's a whole lot of its George Santos, and I just tee you up and let you both go on this one. We were in all seriousness, though, we were talking in the break about how surprising this was for all of us on Friday to see this come down.

Was there any inkling that George Santos was pushing for this or that the president was even considering it, that we know of.

ZACHARY WOLF, SENIOR WRITER, CNN POLITICS: Well, I mean, I'm sure he was pushing for it, but it's like, why if you're -- if you're President Trump, why pick George Santos? And why now? It's kind of a mystery if other -- other than if it's just a troll. If you're just saying to everybody, I can do whatever I want, that's fine.

But it's interesting. It comes in the midst of these very high-profile prosecutions of President Trump's perceived enemies. You know, letting his friends go, pursuing his enemies. It fits in with the narrative.

[06:55:01]

But, you know, he is maybe -- Santos is maybe the least sympathetic person you could pick to commute their sentence.

HILL: There is not a whole lot of sympathy for him, especially because of why he ended up there in the first place.

FISCHER: Yeah, and you see a bunch of New York lawmakers trying to rally cry that saying, look, this is somebody who defrauded the election, who, you know, denigrated the integrity for our state and for the country and for the U.S. House of Representatives. One thing to note on the randomness of this earlier this year myself and other reporters who covered the media industry were reporting about how Donald Trump, sort of issued clemency for a random media executive. And it turns out that one of the reasons he probably did that was to

get back at the Southern District of New York, who put him in his place there. And so when it comes to these types of efforts, you always have to consider it may not be the person that he's actually, you know, in this case, George Santos going after, it might be the person who put him in jail, might be the person who convicted him that Donald Trump wants to go after. So, you have to think of a broader picture here.

HILL: Right, that there is a little bit more happening than what we see on the surface. What we do see on the surface. I was interested by some of his comments about what he plans to do now, not just that he was going to get more Botox, which he said. So, more power to you. You do you.

But also that he said he was going to now be engaged in prison reform without giving a lot of details, which I found to be an interesting platform. He's not going to run for politics, he said.

WOLF: Well, at least for 10 years. Ten years. So, you know, in 10 years, we can -- we can come back to that. But prison reform, I mean, that was one of Donald Trump's great successes during his first term was a bipartisan prison reform. We kind of forget about that and have moved past it.

And Trump is going in the other direction now, I think. But, you know, if you're coming out of prison, that seems like kind of the obvious thing to do, frankly.

FISCHER: And also expect him to do a ton of podcasts. He's already on cable TV. I saw him do a podcast with one of my former colleagues. This is somebody who likes the limelight, so don't expect George Santos to just go away. Whatever he does, he'll stay in the public eye.

HILL: Is there any chance this backfires on the on the president or on Republicans at all?

FISCHER: I mean, if he commits another sort of very fraudulent crime, possibly. But I think this is going to be small potatoes. Most people will just probably move on, with the exception of New Yorkers. I think New Yorkers have not yet forgotten about the George Santos situation.

HILL: Yeah. I'm -- being someone who lives in New York, not in his district, obviously, but close enough. It's certainly -- certainly occupied a lot of attention and a lot of space for a long time.

Shall we shift to the group chat?

WOLF: Yeah.

HILL: Just three of us in the group chat. I'm going to tee you up first, my friend.

WOLF: We talked about it earlier, but I was really interested in the "No Kings" protest this weekend. It's not every day 7 million people. If you believe the organizers, you see a lot of them there. But that's a lot of people.

And we've often wondered what will happen in the Trump administration. Will there be a protest movement? There is, it's big.

HILL: Is it? It's big. The question is, and the pictures were really something, right? You saw the crowded streets. Also, the fact that these were largely peaceful as they were expected to be. The question is now the impact, right. What happens now? Is there a sense that this is a movement that has staying power?

FISCHER: One thing Donald Trump is so good at is making sure that he gets ahead of the digital sort of zeitgeist with all these movements. So, he immediately tweets out this A.I. generated thing of him with the crown, right? Like the king thing.

If this protest wants to have lasting impact, they've got to figure out how to make it last digitally, how they continue to have this conversation because they're not going to take to the streets every single weekend. So how do they make this a movement? And by the way, for it to be effective, it's got to be a movement all until the midterms next year.

HILL: Which is someone who I spoke to, a couple people who were at protests over the weekend just getting their assessment of what was it like, who was there. Give me -- give me an idea of the makeup. And that is one of the points that they made. This -- will this even matter if they don't see -- you know, these people who are out protesting wanted a particular change, right? If they don't see what they want come November, it's a long time until the midterms.

WOLF: Yeah, the energy is there. It's who's going to, you know, can Democrats harness it? You know, that's kind of the main question. And what is the coalition that forms out of the anti-Trump feeling that's out there? Because it's big.

HILL: And in terms of Democrats, I was also reading a fascinating piece over the weekend about, you know, we have all talked ad nauseam about Democrats and messaging, which is not always their strong suit, as we know. And it's sort of been the case for decades. But, you know, the fact that the elections were seeing coming up, this is about running against Donald Trump, whether or not that will change as they do move into the midterms and whether they can successfully make that shift.

It's interesting. I don't know if you're seeing a shift at all messaging. I have yet to see one.

FISCHER: What's really hard for Democrats right now is they're trying to hammer home a policy message on health care subsidies, and then at the same time, go into this really much broader zeitgeist message of we are the party of democracy. That is a very different. Those are two very different messages to be hammering home at the same time. It's very difficult.

HILL: Yeah, we'll watch for what they do.

So nice to see both of you this morning. Thanks for kicking off the week here.

Much more to come right here on CNN. I'm Erica Hill. Thanks for joining all of us on CNN THIS MORNING. Audie is back with you tomorrow.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

[07:00:00]