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CNN This Morning
Emergency Diversion of Israel-Bound Flight; Trump's Chatbot Contradicts His Claims; Senator Schmitt Mixes up Sports Teams in Smith Hearing. Aired 6:30-7a ET
Aired September 30, 2026 - 06:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:30:00]
TERRY SCHILLING, PRESIDENT, AMERICAN PRINCIPLES PROJECT: And it's because he's against big ag and he's against the big pharmaceutical agenda.
ANTJUAN SEAWRIGHT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I get the fact --
ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, but -- just really quick. This is a microcosm of actually the debate that's been going on inside the Trump administration. RFK Jr. and Brooke Rollins, over at the Department of Agriculture, they and their associates have repeatedly clashed on a number of policy issues, which is why a lot of MAHA people are disappointed because the Department of Agriculture and some of their allies in the White House --
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Is winning.
THOMPSON: Have been -- have won, not every single time, but have won on a number of key issues.
SEAWRIGHT: I get, on the surface level, what the movement is supposed to be about. But I'm thinking as a logical person. If you care about the overall health of America, then all these things should be part of the conversation. And certainly we should be having a broader conversation about why we're seeing recall after recall every single day because it actually bakes into the argument they're trying to make.
SCHILLING: We're cutting fraud. We're cutting illegals.
CORNISH: Well, but can you tend (ph) to that point because that is one aspect that has surprised me. For a world of voters for whom food safety has been a singular obsession, the silence on the food recalls has been deafening. And I didn't understand why they did not feel that that was an active issue.
SCHILLING: Look, I -- it's such a politicized environment. It's hard to tell what's --
SEAWRIGHT: What does that have to do with the food recalls, Terry, because there's --
SCHILLING: Because there's food recalls all the time, Antjuan.
SEAWRIGHT: No, it's not. We have never seen -- no, no, no, no.
SCHILLING: And if there's food recalls, it says that there was some safety mechanism that was being funded to do the recall in the first place.
SEAWRIGHT: No, no, no. Terry, Terry, Terry, Terry. Terry, Terry, let's -- let -- no, let's --
SCHILLING: No, we're cutting Medicaid fraud. We're cutting (INAUDIBLE) illegals.
SEAWRIGHT: Let's bathe -- let's bathe -- let's bathe in -- let's bathe in reality on the food recalls.
SCHILLING: Let's do it.
SEAWRIGHT: No, no, let's bathe in the reality.
SCHILLING: No, there were no food recalls under Biden. Is that what you're saying?
SEAWRIGHT: There were not 200 plus.
SCHILLING: There -- I guarantee you there were -- OK, if there are food recalls, it says that we have funding mechanisms in place to keep our food safe. You know, I don't know what to tell you. Like, I don't --
SEAWRIGHT: They are happening because they cut the inspection, they cut the jobs of the people that were supposed to do that.
SCHILLING: I don't know if that's true.
SEAWRIGHT: Well, why would it not --
CORNISH: I think what I'm trying to get at is, when you have single issue constituencies, they can be disappointed. But when they are single issue constituencies, you can't pick and choose what issue they're obsessed with. And --
THOMPSON: You got to meet the voters where they are (ph).
CORNISH: Yes. They have specific things they're interested in. And I am very intrigued by the Democrats who are trying to appeal to them on those very, very narrow lanes.
Straight ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, we want to turn to this news. An Israel bound flight forced to land in Saudi Arabia after what sources say was a violent incident between two pilots.
Later on CNN, Six Flags says it will close a world-famous roller coaster after a CNN investigation.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [06:37:11]
CORNISH: I want to bring you this breaking news. We've been reporting this morning on a violent incident between two pilots, forcing a FlyDubai plane, traveling from Dubai to Tel Aviv, to actually divert to Saudi Arabia. You can see the course change on this radar image.
Now, a short time ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu actually tweeted, "the incident is under control and all measures are currently being deployed in order to return the Israeli passengers safely to Israel."
Now, an Israeli source is also telling CNN that the incident could be a terror attack attempt.
So, right now we've got Mary Schiavo, CNN transportation analyst and a former inspector general at the Transportation Department.
It is not every day that I can break in with news and say the incident with a plane is something that happened inside the plane, and possibly involving the pilots. Can you talk about what you are hearing or what you're interpreting as you see these reports?
MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Right. Well, very alarming because this will call into question a lot of assumptions that the United States and the world has made about security since September 11, 2001. Israeli security on any aircraft, not just Israeli planes coming into Israel, is usually very tight. But here we learned it was in the cockpit. And that security often excludes pilots. They get a separate lane. Flight crew have a separate lane at many international airports.
But what we're hearing is the copilot slapped the pilot, that the crew was a male and female crew. We don't know which was which. And then the altercation broke out. At first the hijack code, alarm code was squawked, and then an emergency code was squawked. So, whatever it was, it was very serious.
We're hearing that the -- that the injured pilot then came out of the cockpit, and there were two other -- and here's the key word, plainclothes pilots on board, and they assisted in getting the plane back under control. It dove several thousand feet in two minutes, far beyond the rate of descent. And pilots were -- or passengers were very shaken up. So, this will call into question all kinds of security assumptions we make.
And also, I think that Netanyahu will be explaining the two plainclothes pilots on board, whether there was Israeli security on board, even though it was not an EL AL flight. So, there are a lot of questions that really will help the world understand and brace if this is or was any attempt at any kind of terrorism.
CORNISH: I want to play for you something. We're starting to hear out of the plane. Meaning, it's from some of the passengers. And I want to play for you, this is audio of a mother who is describing what her child went through, her adult child went through on this flight. [06:40:01]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
YASMIN ABUKASIS, DAUGHTER ON FLIGHT: The plane start to lose control. So, all the people, they scream, they thinks they are going.
After few minutes, two other pilots, they took the, the (INAUDIBLE), the control.
A few Israeli, they run away to the guy. He took a knife and tried to kill the pilot. They take his hand and put him on the floor. There was a (INAUDIBLE) -- a lot of blood around.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Again, she's describing pretty viscerally what may have happened there. And can you, again, talk about the security aspect of this? What is this revealing?
SCHIAVO: That's right. Well, what it's revealing is, you know, the assumptions that, you know, the crew are not going to have the same examination and security checkpoints around the world that passengers do now might be reevaluated, particularly in some parts of the -- of the world and also in the United States.
Both before and after September 11, 2001, there was a call to -- for double barring of the door, to have impenetrable bars to the door, a secondary barrier. You know, we -- when I was inspector general, we were studying EL AL security, which this was not an EL AL flight, but EL AL security as the absolute gold standard. They have much more security than we do. They might have had someone on this plane. We do not know. They do their own security often at points around the world.
But that will call that into question. Is this the best idea to let flight crew bypass security? What would have happened here with the secondary barrier? How did the -- one of the pilots get a knife on board? What was that security like? So, there's so many questions that have to be answered, and answered, you know, very quickly and very correctly, because often what we see are copycat attempts. When you have one terror attack, they will -- other terrorists might -- if this is that.
CORNISH: Yes.
SCHIAVO: Now they're saying right now it may or may not be, but we have to get an answer soon.
CORNISH: Can I ask you one more thing, Mary? For the passengers, I'm hearing all of these numbers about what it was like to drop in elevation. Can you help me understand that in layman's terms?
SCHIAVO: Yes. Well, it's a very steep rate of descent. I mean best way to describe it is a drop. They would have, at this rate, actually been pulling some g's, people not with their belts buckled would have been, you know, might have left their seats with this kind of a descent. I -- it remains to be seen if passengers were injured and went flying from their seats. But this is quite a drop and they would have been thrown about the cabin from this -- from this drop, dramatic drop.
CORNISH: OK, Mary, we'll be following up with you today, again, as we are learning more about that plane that was diverted to Saudi Arabia out of Israel.
Next on CNN THIS MORNING, apparently, super intelligence has its limits. There are questions about the president's new chat bot. Well, questions it won't answer.
Plus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ERIC SCHMITT (R-MO): I don't think you know that we have this stuff. So, I'll give you a second to process it so you don't, you know, perjure yourself.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: A gotcha moment falls flat. Now Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt is doubling down on his Jack Smith trap.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:48:02]
CORNISH: OK, there is a new chatbot that the White House has launched. Here it is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You know what? It's damn -- it's damn good. With america.gov, for the first time in history, government is offering an experience that matches and, in some ways, even exceeds the state of the art.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: So, let's say you want to use this chatbot to do a little fact checking. Our team tested some of the president's claims, starting with what he's talked about in the past, the 2020 election. So, we asked, "did Donald Trump win the 2020 election?" Well, america.gov chatbot said, "no, official electoral college votes show Joseph R. Biden Jr. won the 2020 presidential election."
So then like, look, we followed up. We said, "was there widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election?" The response from america.gov is, "official investigations and audits did not find evidence of widespread voter fraud."
The chatbot also told us, quote, "I do not give political commentary."
So, what happens when a tool built by the government keeps challenging the president's version of the facts? Group chat is back.
I'm almost less worried of the answer it gave than will that answer change in two months once the White House realizes what it's saying.
THOMPSON: I don't think it would take two months for Donald Trump to find out. You know, there's some aide --
CORNISH: I was being generous. I was being generous.
THOMPSON: Running a print of this set -- or a clip of this segment showing him that, you know, his own government is contradicting himself.
But this is also, in some ways, an argument for A.I. over Truth Social in terms of where you can get some reliable facts.
SCHILLING: Look, I just find this whole thing annoying. Hey, gwok (ph), is this true? Like, it -- those are the most annoying people on Twitter.
I will say that, you know, if you're a good journalist, you -- we all know that FOIAs and talking to people in person is actually a much more verifiable way to find information. And just because it's not on the internet doesn't mean it didn't happen. And that's the shortcoming for these A.I. bots.
CORNISH: I think we're just flagging it because it's a government tool. He's saying like, look, this is something that you can trust.
[06:50:01]
This is something that I think will be helpful to you.
SCHILLING: Well, so --
CORNISH: And it is helpful to us.
SCHILLING: And I was at the event yesterday, OK.
CORNISH: OK.
SCHILLING: And what I think is missing by talking about this chatbot that, you know, is disagreeing with Trump is, this new government website seems pretty cool. You're eventually going to be able to go to america.gov and say, I need a new passport, and it's going to walk you through and actually get you all signed up. I need my baby boy son, Charlie, that was just born, I need to get a replacement Social Security card.
CORNISH: Wait, do you have another child?
SCHILLING: No, no, no, six months ago. Six months ago.
CORNISH: Oh, OK. I'm like, oh my God.
SCHILLING: I understand the misunderstanding.
CORNISH: It's like, yes, number nine, OK, the breaking news.
SCHILLING: But this is a cool website. And that is what should be advertised and told to the American people. I just think this is a cheap story.
CORNISH: OK. Well --
SEAWRIGHT: But it's not a cheap story because you have people running for office to represent the American people who are saying one thing and then this government-trusted website is saying another. And this is why people lose trust in the government.
SCHILLING: This website is saying what you believe to be true. So, what's the problem?
SEAWRIGHT: And so -- no, I know that. But what I'm saying is -- no, listen to what I'm saying. If you have the president, if you have a group of people who supported -- who voted for the first time, or just cult followers of this man saying the election was rigged, he won the election. The website saying one thing. Those people are going to fundamentally believe that somehow or another the government rigged this website and they are against Donald Trump because he's Donald Trump.
SCHILLING: You know --
CORNISH: All right, I --
SCHILLING: That's as American as apple pie is discounting what the government says. Like, I mean, it's the most American thing you can possibly do. It's not --
CORNISH: OK. Well, thanks. You've ruined my day. All right.
Let me go on to --
SEAWRIGHT: Do you believe the election -- do you believe Trump won the election?
SCHILLING: Yes, I think he probably -- I think there was some irregularities. I don't know exactly, but --
SEAWRIGHT: So, you fundamentally believe Donald Trump won the 2020 election?
SCHILLING: I don't know. I think there's a lot of questions to be had and answered.
CORNISH: Yes.
SCHILLING: And I don't think we have all the answers.
CORNISH: Well, what we do know is america.gov doesn't believe that. It is -- it's going -- if an average citizen types that in -- THOMPSON: Yes, and you said it's a great tool.
CORNISH: It's a great tool.
SCHILLING: It's a great tool. A.I.'s a great tool.
CORNISH: Everything's solved.
So, let's talk about what happens when A.I. goes wrong and you don't actually check any of your facts. Where did this come up? Jack Smith hearing, stay with me, he was back in front of Congress. And he brought, of course, two indictments against Donald Trump in 2023. And since then, Republicans have really struggled to satisfy the president's desire to have him criminally charged. To have Smith criminally charged.
So, I want you to listen to this exchange with Republican Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri, which happened during the hearing. So, he's going into it thinking that he's showing evidence that proves that Smith committed perjury. And then, like, things went sideways.
Here you go.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. ERIC SCHMITT (R-MO): What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warrior- Hawks game on February 3, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair? I don't think you know that we have this stuff, so I'll give you a second to process it so you don't, you know, perjure yourself.
JACK SMITH, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL: You just took it down really quick. If I could look at that again.
I recall going to a University of Maryland basketball game where Caitlin Clark was playing.
It was Maryland playing Iowa, I think February of 2024. But again, that's -- you can check that out if that's what we're talking about.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: University of Iowa.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is it the Hawkeyes?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Could it then be that the University of Iowa is the Hawkeyes? Could that be it?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: OK, so for those of you who are not sports fanatics, I'm going to help you out. I'm going to show you an image. One is a Hawkeye. One is a Hawk. And the problem is, Jack Smith was not at the game in question or texting about it or any of the things that Schmitt was trying to imply in attempting to tie him to Fani Willis and other people in Atlanta.
THOMPSON: I mean, there's political theater, which this hearing had a lot of, and there's political amateur theater, which is what this was an example of. And, you know, if you're going to -- you also didn't even show it. He called him, I think, a dirt bag in that hearing. And there --
CORNISH: There was a lot of name calling in that hearing.
THOMPSON: There's a lot of name calling. And about something that was -- that was old.
And, you know, there was a lot of theatrics here, underlying, there are some significant questions about, you know, how far, you know, a special prosecutor can go, especially when they're investigating Congress and subpoenaing phone records and members of Congress. But that got very little play. And the only thing that will likely -- you know, and Eric Schmidt, the Republican senator there, you know, he had been talking up how close he was with Vance and, you know, maybe even, like, positioning himself with, you know, a VP candidate or, you know, in a Vance administration. But, you know, that sort of face plant moment will probably make that a little bit more difficult.
CORNISH: He was actually asked about it. Because, like I said, he didn't just say, were you here on this date? Also, you know, he like started name calling at the end of it, which was a vibe. Afterwards, people were like, should you apologize? And here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Will you admit that you just mixed up the basketball games?
SEN. ERIC SCHMITT (R-MO): Who knew Jack Smith was a Caitlin Clark fan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[06:55:01]
CORNISH: I mean, I would guess that a white man basketball fan is a fan of Caitlin Clark. I don't think that's such a stretch. But that's not an apology. And if you step on a rake, own it.
SCHILLING: Well, look, I think he's handling it just fine with humor. We make mistakes.
But here's the thing, Audie. We have a guy in Jack Smith that was spying on their political opposition. Like, this makes Watergate look like a joke.
CORNISH: Question, if you believe that, why not actually have a fact that supports that? And this is the thing that people are struggling with. Are you not able to criminally charge Jack Smith because you do not have facts to support it, and the ones that you are using are not true?
SCHILLING: Well, I -- look, part of these -- CORNISH: Is that the problem? Is that is why we're hearing this?
SCHILLING: But part of these hearings is to actually get more information.
CORNISH: Yes. And have they accomplished that?
SCHILLING: And, unfortunately, it's -- I don't -- I think so. I think we're finding out more. And I think also it's putting this stuff --
SEAWRIGHT: What?
CORNISH: What's one thing you didn't know yesterday that you know now?
SCHILLING: The severity of how deep it went. I mean there were how many senators -- U.S. senators were spied upon. And also I didn't know that there were that many Democrats that were having their text messages checked by him and investigated. So, I don't know, I think there was -- there's got to be more.
CORNISH: Well, let me let Antjuan -- OK.
SEAWRIGHT: Terry, if Jack Smith had done something wrong, Donald Trump's DOJ or FBI, whomever, would have fully prosecuted him --
SCHILLING: You think so?
SEAWRIGHT: Would have -- would have brought him to --
SCHILLING: I don't know if I believe that.
CORNISH: I mean, I don't have -- here's -- wait.
SCHILLING: Who's the --
CORNISH: Wait, wait, wait.
SCHILLING: Who's the Jack Smith of the Trump administration?
CORNISH: But you --
SEAWRIGHT: Terry, you're not being serious this morning.
CORNISH: All the indictments and attempts at indictments. So, I think what Antjuan is saying --
SCHILLING: Against Somalian fraudsters.
CORNISH: If there was actual, they would try. You're implying they wouldn't try.
SEAWRIGHT: Look at Letitia James.
SCHILLING: I'm saying --
(CROSS TALK) SCHILLING: Trump campaigned in 2016 and he campaigned on lock her up. And he gets elected and he goes, guys, you know, let's move on. Let's heal our country.
SEAWRIGHT: Terry. Terry.
SCHILLING: He doesn't go after a Hillary Clinton like they went after him.
SEAWRIGHT: Terry, you're -- Terry, Terry, you're being unserious this morning. All I'm saying to you is, in this iteration of Trump, if Jack Smith done anything close to being wrong --
SCHILLING: I disagree.
SEAWRIGHT: They would have taken him to the coals by now.
SCHILLING: OK. OK. So, why hasn't Trump taken any action on the auto pen? Look, this is one of the criticisms of the Trump administration by the base is there haven't been the prosecutions that they all expected.
SEAWRIGHT: Because he's used the auto pen. Because he uses the auto pen. He can't --
SCHILLING: No.
SEAWRIGHT: Take action on something that he does himself.
SCHILLING: No, it's -- yes, exactly. Now we've created a new bad precedent.
SEAWRIGHT: You don't even make sense what you're saying, Terry. You have -- you have --
SCHILLING: I do make sense because what I'm saying is, Trump is actually pretty merciful. He doesn't actually score or settle --
SEAWRIGHT: Who believes that when he has had a revenge tour --
SCHILLING: Who's the Jack Smith from Trump? Who is the Jack Smith?
SEAWRIGHT: It doesn't matter. He has --
SCHILLING: Who's the Robert Mueller? Who's -- where's the Russia, Russia, Russia collusion hoax?
SEAWRIGHT: Do you see who's in charge of DOJ? And you see what they've done? Do you see who's a Trump --
SCHILLING: I'm telling you that Trump is not about settling political scores, for better or worse. I wish he was much more aggressive on that.
SEAWRIGHT: Well, you -- you are alone in that regard. No one believes that. CORNISH: OK, let me pause. It sounds like what you're saying is Trump is not effective at settling political scores.
SCHILLING: I know --
CORNISH: We know he is very good at them because he talks about them constantly.
SCHILLING: He keeps (INAUDIBLE).
CORNISH: The question is, what do you mean by effective? And we know there's been changes at the top of the Justice Department as a result of that definition.
We're going to start with group chats, because I got to get out of this conversation, which is about something that happened years ago.
Antjuan.
SEAWRIGHT: The president announced this week that certain degree programs would not be funded by federal loans. Here's the impact on that. The majority of those degree area programs and the jobs, the direct result of them, are jobs that women hold.
CORNISH: Yes, we've heard. Yes.
SEAWRIGHT: In real time. And a lot of --
SCHILLING: Because they don't pay (INAUDIBLE).
SEAWRIGHT: And a lot of those are jobs that people in my family hold. And so, when you think about --
CORNISH: What kind of areas? Do you remember?
SEAWRIGHT: So, there's things like cosmetology. There are things like teacher assistants. Those are -- special ed. Those are jobs that are really, really critical to the ecosystem, to the community that I think are going to have real implications on how people govern and how people live financially. I think it's sick.
CORNISH: OK. Terry.
SCHILLING: So, Derek Thompson has a great Substack out this week where he's talking about the decline of Americans hosting events at their homes.
CORNISH: I saw that.
SCHILLING: And it's down significantly. And --
CORNISH: Fewer dinner parties.
SCHILLING: Yes.
CORNISH: Big, if true. SCHILLING: And one thing that stood out -- so my goddaughter, who's
Elie (ph), she watches this show every morning -- or every Wednesday at 6 a.m.
CORNISH: Hi.
SCHILLING: And it's her -- it's her baptismal anniversary, actually. And we have these awesome parties. Obviously, the punk rock baptism. But we get together. And it's like -- so, like, the breakdown of the family is causing us to get together a lot less. And also these apps. He points out that these apps are easier to do than these family, you know, get togethers and dinners.
CORNISH: I was about to say, I think apps more than the like sentence caps breaks down of the entire family.
SCHILLING: Yes.
CORNISH: But, to your point, fewer people getting together. And we know that is surfacing in so many ways.
SCHILLING: No bueno.
CORNISH: We've heard about it in dating and meetups and things like that. So, I'm kind of not surprised. But y'all, call a friend and have dinner, OK.
THOMPSON: Guys, it is Fat Bear Week.
CORNISH: You are the second person to bring up Fat Bear.
THOMPSON: Well, and -- but there is a winner that was announced just last night. It -- his name is Backpack, up in Alaska. The Interior Department called him the lord of lard, the earl of girth, the commander in beef.
[07:00:02]
CORNISH: Yes. I mean that looks like a fanny pack, but sure.
THOMPSON: And, you know -- yes, yes. I mean, no. No, no.
CORNISH: OK. I'm glad you brought that news to me because I was wondering how it would all end.
THOMPSON: Well, there were 2.5 million votes, and he only won by 5,000.
CORNISH: OK.
SEAWRIGHT: A close election.
THOMPSON: Yes, Terry, close.
CORNISH: Yes, a close election.
THOMPSON: Yes, stop the steal.
SEAWRIGHT: Did he really win, Terry? Do you believe he won?
CORNISH: We've got very serious headlines up next. Thank you for being with us. Stay with us.
