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Suspect in Brown University, MIT Shootings Found Dead; Will Trump Use Military Force on His Perceived Domestic Foes?; TikTok Agrees to Deal with U.S. Investors to Avoid Ban. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired December 19, 2025 - 06:00   ET

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

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: -- influencer Jake Paul in Miami tonight. The 36-year-old Joshua hasn't fought professionally since 2024.

[06:00:07]

The fight will consist of eight three-minute rounds. Official figures have not been released, but both men are expected to earn tens of millions of dollars.

That main event is set to air exclusively on Netflix.

Thanks so much for joining me this morning here on EARLY START. I'm Erica Hill in New York. I hope you have a great Friday and weekend. Stay tuned. CNN THIS MORNING with Audie Cornish starts right now.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: The Brown shooting suspect found dead. How a break in the case brought investigators straight to him. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF OSCAR PEREZ, PROVIDENCE POLICE: We haven't really learned the motive.

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CORNISH: This morning, the search for a motive as police investigate the connection to a homicide at MIT.

And today is the deadline. Will the DOJ actually release the Epstein files? Some survivors are doubtful.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We're under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: With the president openly discussing domestic enemies, what role will the military play here at home?

And Congress heads home for the holidays without a vote to help Americans on Obamacare. And a TikTok deal one step closer to being done. What it means for

your algorithm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ooh, look at these two.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: It was the video that shook the Internet. Now, the woman who got caught, wrapped in her married boss's arms is speaking out.

It's 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. Good morning, St. Louis, and good morning to all of you. It's Friday, y'all. It's Friday, December 19th.

I want to thank you for waking up with me. I'm Audie Cornish, and here is where we begin: that manhunt for the Brown University mass shooter.

Police say it' s over, but questions surrounding his alleged murder spree across New England still remain. Investigators say the suspect, Claudio Neves Valente, was found dead of an apparent suicide Thursday night inside a storage unit in New Hampshire. Officials say he is 100 percent their target.

Police say a key tip which helped break the case open came from this man, who had crossed paths with the gunman on the Brown campus Saturday. He was able to give police a detailed description of the car the suspect was using, which led them to a rental from Boston.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER NERONHA, RHODE ISLAND ATTORNEY GENERAL: He deserves a lot of credit, you know, recognizing there's a gunman on the loose that the gunman knows he had this interaction with him. And he didn't -- once he knew that we were looking for his help, I mean, he came forward within an hour.

And that person deserves a tremendous amount of credit. I don't know whether he's going to get the reward or not, but if I had a vote, he would.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: So, CNN's Michael Yoshida joins us now from the scene. Good morning, Michael. And I'm really looking forward to you unpacking how this unfolded, starting from a social media post and ending at a storage unit.

MICHAEL YOSHIDA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Audie.

And that manhunt ended right behind me. You can see the police tape still up. That's the storage facility where this all came to an end late last night.

But as you mentioned, quite the journey to get here, from that initial mass shooting in Providence at Brown University to MIT and eventually here.

Investigators saying this case was really blown wide open, as you heard from the attorney general there by that witness, that individual who saw this person of interest, was able to come forward and provide crucial information about a vehicle that they believed that person of interest was using.

Investigators were able to get a license plate, a Florida plate, for that vehicle and track it back to Boston to a rental company. As investigators moved from Rhode Island to Massachusetts and into the Boston area investigating that, that's when they were able to eventually identify their person of interest, identify them as the suspect.

And at that point, we're told that's when they started going through the financial history, trying to figure out who this individual was. And that's when they realized that they had ties to a storage facility -- unit at this facility.

Investigators were able to get here yesterday, and we're told that's when they actually found the vehicle they were looking for. But those Florida plates had actually been covered up by Maine license plates, as well, really showing the sophistication that this individual had gone to, to try and elude capture. Again, going through Rhode Island, Massachusetts, finally ending here.

Investigators, as you mentioned, believing 100 percent that they found the person they were looking for.

CORNISH: OK, that's CNN's Michael Yoshida. Thanks so much. We'll be hearing from you more today.

[06:05:04]

And joining me now, Charles Ramsey, CNN senior law enforcement analyst.

Good morning, Mr. Ramsey. Thanks for being with us.

CHARLES RAMSELY, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Good morning.

CORNISH: We -- this was an unusual case, in that it started out sounding like a typical sort of school shooting. But you had this manhunt. You had a suspect that they could not track down. Talk about what you see in the revelations of the last couple hours.

RAMSEY: Well, first of all, citizens of Rhode Island now can take a sigh of relief. And that's a good thing.

This was a complicated case, as you know, because more information is starting to come out now about what really took place.

But you're absolutely right. This was unusual in a lot of ways. It started off as a school shooting, which is an unfortunate reality in our society today. But in most instances, the individual doesn't have an escape plan. You

know, most of these things that we cover, they either kill themselves at the scene or it's suicide by cop. They allow, you know -- police wind up killing them.

This guy had an escape plan, a pretty sophisticated escape plan. And -- and executed it.

I think this case highlights a couple of things that are important. One, eyewitnesses.

CORNISH: Yes.

RAMSEY: That individual who actually interacted with him and actually saw a car was the critical link -- link to this whole thing.

But also, the use of technology: videos, being able to track and get the license number and then follow up on this individual. Otherwise, you know, this case may still be active, because it was pretty cold until they located the individual that had had this interaction with this person.

CORNISH: Yes.

RAMSEY: And then --

CORNISH: Let me --

RAMSEY: -- you've got the twist. MIT.

CORNISH: Yes, let's -- I wanted to get to that, because we are actually learning more about this suspect, including his age, around the age of 48, and the fact that he actually studied at Brown University, at least what's known.

But interestingly enough, his connection to the professor in Cambridge and MIT. They studied together in Portugal. Can you talk about what the -- what investigators are going to be looking into, now that they are understanding this person has connections, in a way, to both campuses?

RAMSEY: Well, even though this person is dead, the investigation is not over. Now, they have to go through all the evidence that they've collected, because they're trying to find the motive for all this. You know, he was a former Brown University student. He did have interaction with the professor at MIT.

So, they're putting all this together so they get a more complete picture of the why. Why did this individual do what he did?

And so, they've still got a lot of work to do, but the pieces are starting to -- to come together now. Whether or not he had somebody else that he was planning on attacking is another question that I think will be answered as they continue to sort through evidence, because he went back to the professor that he met down in Portugal, apparently still had some kind of relationship, or at least hostility towards this individual. Is there anybody else?

CORNISH: Yes.

RAMSEY: But the bottom line is, you know, he's deceased now. And so that threat is no longer there. But you've still got to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

CORNISH: Charles, I have one more question before I let you go, which is the Reddit of it all. As a reporter who covered the Boston Marathon bombings, Reddit was seen as, like, it messed up that case for a time.

In this case, it was part of the social media trail that surfaced a tip. How are you thinking about that now?

RAMSEY: Well, you know, the world we live in now, social media plays a role. And, you know, you get a lot of information, a lot of misinformation.

You go -- went back to the Boston bombing. I think what was critical there was the way to Boston -- was the way the Boston P.D. pretty much took it over, in terms of putting out information over social media to become the go-to place to get information.

And police departments have to do that. Otherwise, they rely on a lot of people who have practically no information but are not short of coming up with conspiracies that just throw everything off and cause unnecessary concern.

But it's a -- it's a tool that you have to learn how to, one, try to manage; and, two, use.

CORNISH: OK. Charles Ramsey, thanks so much for your time. Appreciate you.

RAMSEY: OK. Thank you.

CORNISH: Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, a former NASCAR driver killed in a plane crash shortly after takeoff. Today, NTSB is expected to give an update on that investigation.

Plus, looks like we're one step closer to a deal. So, who is behind the effort to buy TikTok?

And with the president openly calling for -- openly calling some Americans "enemies," is 2026 shaping up to test the limits of the military here at home? You can bet the group chat is going to have some thoughts on that, next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: America is under invasion from within. We're under invasion from within.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK) CORNISH: So, we've heard the phrase "enemy within" from President Trump before, but this year, that language is backed up by policy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: America is under invasion from within. We're under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult, in many ways, because they don't wear uniforms. At least when they're wearing a uniform, you can take them out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[06:15:06]

CORNISH: New Justice Department domestic terror directives and executive orders pull in whole categories of belief: anti-capitalism, radical gender ideology, support for mass migration, the kinds of ideas that show up on protest signs and on campus debates.

So, the fear is that, as with the Venezuelan boat strikes, expanding the list of people considered terrorists will pave the legal path to go after Americans. It's something a four-star general said he could be on board with.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JACK REED (D-RI): If the president declared an organization a terrorist organization, or a DTO, which is on a secret list, and you are ordered to attack them on U.S. soil, would you carry out that order?

GEN. GREGORY GUILLOT, U.S. NORTHERN COMMAND: If I had no concerns, and I was confident in the lawful order, I would definitely execute that order.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Joining me now in the group chat, Noel King, co-host and editorial director of the "Today, Explained" podcast; Bradley Devlin, political editor at "The Daily Signal"; and Lulu Garcia-Navarro, host of "The New York Times'" "The Interview."

Noel, I want to start with you, because this has been percolating every time there's a military deployment.

NOEL KING, CO-HOST/EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, "TODAY, EXPLAINED" PODCAST: Yes.

CORNISH: Every time there is a question. But I hadn't heard it put so directly --

KING: And so bluntly.

CORNISH: -- to someone in the military.

KING: Yes. Yes, it feels like a dangerous road that we're headed down. I think that's the only thing to say.

I'm glad that the question was asked in public. I'm glad that we got a chance to see how this general responded. I'm glad that it's not being hidden, but it feels like we're headed down a very dangerous road with this.

CORNISH: Yes, this sort of ties together a couple of things. The language we've heard from Pam Bondi about domestic terror threats or the FBI, and then the domestic military deployments.

So, how far should a person's -- if -- if we're reorienting away from behavior -- you commit a crime and therefore you may be a domestic terror -- to you believe this, and we think you're linked to people who are trouble. What's the danger there for regular Americans?

BRADLEY DEVLIN, POLITICAL EDITOR, "THE DAILY SIGNAL": Yes, I think the danger is that you're going to have a shutdown of the freedom of conscience in this country.

But I don't think that's going to be coming at the hands of the Trump administration. I think what the general said was, listen, if the -- if the order was lawful, I would execute it.

And we've seen this before in American history, right? We've seen the military used for domestic unrest and domestic terror issues, whether that's the Whiskey Rebellion, in which, you know, Washington calls out the militia based on 1792 militia acts. The Insurrection Act didn't exist at that point in time.

Or in 1863, when we're dealing with the Draft Riots in New York.

CORNISH: But can I bring in a little --

DEVLIN: But it matters -- but it matters --

CORNISH: Let's bring it forward a little, because --

DEVLIN: No, Union soldiers were doing that in New York state.

CORNISH: A lot of people were saying --

DEVLIN: It matters the type of activity.

CORNISH: -- look, people were going after the far right and questioning what that designation meant. This is recent history I want to use.

DEVLIN: Super wrong. Yes.

CORNISH: And so are we now hearing that -- you're saying that's super wrong. Are we now here, putting ourselves in a position where the administration is not just saying they can go after people, but the military is saying, if you call them terrorists, yes, maybe its fair game.

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Oh, me now? Yes. Bad in every single way.

And to bring up sort of very recent history, we are in a position here where the road, as Noel has said, that we are going down is that you are now going to be penalizing people for thought crime.

I mean, you know, no one's saying here that these are -- you know, to be a terrorist means that you are actually trying to take -- you know, as someone who has covered international affairs for a very long time, who has interviewed actual terrorists who have killed Americans overseas, I will tell you that that is a very specific and very important designation.

And to start using that willy-nilly against Americans, because they might have ideas that oppose this administration, puts us on a path where you have our government, potentially in opposition to their own citizens and their, you know, absolute right to dissent.

And using the United States military and our armed forces, one of the most sacred institutions in this country, against, you know, our own people.

CORNISH: Yes.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And that is very dangerous.

CORNISH: I just want to play one more thing for you guys, which is last spring when the Trump administration was arguing before the Supreme Court for presidential immunity, when that conversation was going on.

Here was an exchange with Justice Soto [SIC] -- Sotomayor asking a question of attorneys.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR, U.S. SUPREME COURT: If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts that -- for which he can get immunity?

[06:20:07]

D. JOHN SAUER, ATTORNEY FOR DONALD TRUMP: It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act.

SOTOMAYOR: It could.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Official act, meaning also immune.

KING: Yes. It's the --

CORNISH: Last word to you about what you're looking ahead, 2026. In this context, what are you watching for?

KING: I'm hoping we don't do this. It's as simple as that.

CORNISH: I like it.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's fair. Like, let's not arrest the Democratic nominees for, you know, 2028. Like, this is -- unfortunately, this is the fear; that this is political, and that this will be used against the political opposition in this country.

DEVLIN: Yes, Republicans know that fear well.

CORNISH: Did they end up getting a bunch of arrests and things like that? Like, were they worried about the military striking? Or does this language feel different?

DEVLIN: Maybe --

CORNISH: Only if Biden had said it.

DEVLIN: Perhaps -- perhaps some people feel differently about the language being used.

But I mean, I think Republicans felt that when the Democratic apparatus went after President Donald Trump. They felt that when the Biden administration went after Catholics and concerned parents going to public school meetings.

I mean, this is -- this is something that I think it would be good for everybody to step away from. No -- no denying that.

CORNISH: OK, you guys. After the break on CNN THIS MORNING, we're going to be talking about whether or not to bring back Twitter. One startup wants to do just that. But can they get past Elon Musk?

Plus, the fallout from the kiss cam, the exec caught in that embrace now speaking out.

Also, good morning to Las Vegas. A live look at the Sphere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:25:49] CORNISH: TikTok one step closer to securing a deal to stay on phones in the U.S. The company signed an agreement which would give the majority of control to U.S. investors backed by the White House.

Now, under the new deal, Oracle, Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi based MGX would retain 50 percent of the company. That's at least according to a memo from the CEO.

One of the men behind the deal, Larry Ellison, is, of course, the founder of Oracle and an ally of the president.

Democrat Senator Elizabeth Warren, writing on Bluesky, "Trump wants to hand over even more control of what you watch to his billionaire buddies. Americans deserve to know if the president struck another backdoor deal for this billionaire takeover of TikTok." So, I'm bringing in CNN senior media analyst and senior media reporter

at Axios, Sara Fischer. Also, Noel King is sticking around, because she's been looking at this, as well.

I want to start with the story that you broke. What is -- what does this next move mean when we say were closer to a deal?

SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST: OK, so President Trump signed an executive order back in September, saying that if TikTok does not figure out a way to get its U.S. apps sold by January 23rd, we're going to ban it.

And he's been kicking this down the line --

CORNISH: Yes. Keep extending it.

FISCHER: -- for a long time, so they really needed to figure this out.

They hammered out a deal in principle, President Trump and Chinese president Xi in September. But there was a lot of logistics that had not been figured out. Some stuff had been leaked.

Now, we have a better sense of what this deal is actually going to look like, Audie, but it's not fully over the finish line.

CORNISH: Yes. But to give people a sense of things they could be responsible for, the U.S. investors: data protection --

FISCHER: Yes.

CORNISH: -- algorithms, security, content moderation, and also software assurance.

FISCHER: Yes.

CORNISH: I don't know what that means.

FISCHER: So, that means that, basically, any data that is stored, you need to make sure that that is secure, as well, that that's not going to get leaked. It's not going to get sent back to China.

It's worth noting, Oracle is in on this deal. They're going to be a part of ensuring that the data is protected.

One big thing to note though, Audie. ByteDance, which is the Chinese parent of TikTok, they're still going to own the algorithm. That's the most lucrative part of this whole deal. And this new U.S. investor group, they're going to have to license it from ByteDance and retrain the algorithm based on U.S. data.

Now, I don't think U.S. users should expect the experience to change, but what that means is that the most lucrative aspect of this deal remains with ByteDance. And that's why last night, I reported this deal is a fire sale. This is valuing U.S. TikTok at $14 billion. Audie, that's nothing.

CORNISH: Yes, but can I come back to something? Because all the people on the go are going to be like, what does this mean for the algo?

And back in spring, when people talked about it, here's an example of, like, kind of what the comedians of TikTok were saying this retraining by Trump-supporting U.S. investors might look like.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Initiating algorithm retraining. Yes. Yep, yep. No, no, no.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're not going to use it for government propaganda, are you? You don't say yes.

Who's enforcing that, though? All of the new owners of TikTok in America were handpicked by him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I have to say, every time there's an algorithmic change, period, people flip out.

KING: People freak out.

CORNISH: So, I don't know how this will be received. What are you seeing online?

KING: Well, I'm a TikTok lurker. I have an account, but I do not post. And when I saw your reporting, I went on. And I was like, what is everybody saying? And I saw a lot of that.

I saw a lot of people saying, like, this is Larry Ellison and Oracle having control of my data, even though I think some of these posters have no idea what Larry Ellison and Oracle are.

CORNISH: Yes.

KING: There's just a sense of paranoia that I think -- I think American users understand.

There are things that China hides on TikTok. There are things that China does not want users to see on TikTok. And I think what they're extrapolating is, oh, well, the U.S. is going to do the same thing.

CORNISH: Yes.

KING: Except if you're an American, it feels more personal.

CORNISH: And maybe because they're billionaires. I'm going to end with this.

KING: Yes.

CORNISH: This is the thing people are talking about a lot. Looking at billionaire control of the media. I want to show you some images, starting with Ellison, as people are talking about Oracle and TikTok and his other pursuits. Elon Musk at ux [SIC] -- at X. Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos at "The Post," and Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong at "The L.A. Times."

FISCHER: Yes, but in this particular instance, everybody has incentive to make sure that this app --