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Erin Burnett Outfront
Trump Says He's Banning CNN, Politico, MS NOW From White House; Now: Protest Growing Outside Of Kennedy Center Amid Trump Threat; Report: F-35 Parts Bound For U.S. Misrouted, Unclear Who Has Them. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired September 18, 2026 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:26]
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:
The breaking news, banning CNN. The president making that surprise announcement this afternoon. Even conservative legal experts say it's unconstitutional. So, what happens now? The very latest this hour.
And growing protests right now tonight outside the Kennedy Center. We'll go there live.
Plus, did China get sensitive American military technology? Sensitive as it gets. "Politico" tonight reporting a shipment of F-35 fighter jet parts bound for the United States was diverted, and they're missing now. Who has them?
Let's go OUTFRONT.
(MUSIC)
BURNETT: And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett on this Friday.
And we begin tonight with the breaking news, the unprecedented move in which the president of the United States, Donald Trump, has announced he is banning CNN and two other news organizations from the White House, quote, "effective immediately".
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I mean, there's something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories. Now, if they want to write them, that's fine. But I don't have to let them into my -- into the people's house.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Well, you heard a couple things there. One, the obvious. The president of the United States caught himself saying, My house. Maybe he realized he had already so clearly said it that he could emphasize, no, the people's house.
That slip of the tongue says so much because the White House, of course, is not his house. It is the people's house and this great democracy, a democracy that tonight, with this unprecedented move, we are reminded, relies upon a free press to remain this great democracy. It relies on the First Amendment. It relies on the press.
CNN responding tonight, quote, "CNN stands fully behind our White House team in their fair and accurate reporting. We have a right under the U.S. Constitution to do that reporting without hindrance or interference from the government. Should the ban which President Trump threatened go ahead, it would be an illegal assault on that fundamental and constitutionally protected right."
Well, let's bring Jonathan Turley into the conversation. He is, of course, widely respected conservative constitutional law expert. You may remember him because he testified against impeaching Trump in 2019. Well, he's speaking out tonight, Turley saying, quote, "Such a move would be an assault on long-honored principles of a free press. A court injunction on such reporting would constitute either prior restraint or censorship or both. It would be viewed as a fundamental violation of the First Amendment."
He could have gone ahead and written the CNN statement, right? I mean, right in line.
Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume responded to Turley. He posted, "100 percent. And if he thinks this will lead to more favorable coverage, I think he's dreaming."
And all of this boils down to Trump comes out and says this, but it is unclear what the ban is actually going to mean in practice.
Our Kristen Holmes, you see her here on this show every single night. She is going to be with us in a moment. She's still, at least as I'm speaking now, on White House grounds, unless that changes in the next few seconds, Trump is suggesting that this is just a being. There could be more. Here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: There's a lot of news, and there may be others to join them. "The New York Times" is fake news. "The Washington Post" is fake news. The crummy papers, both doing very poorly, by the way. But we'll see. We're probably not going to display the paper anymore in the White House.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Now, this is not the first time that Trump has tried to restrict reporters from the White House in specific cases. Right after he took office, he banned "The Associated Press" from the Oval Office and Air Force One, those two specific places, not from the whole White House, but those two places. That was in retaliation for the "A.P." refusing to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America in their style book. Now the "A.P." sued, that lawsuit is still ongoing.
And you may remember this, we do here at CNN, of course. Our then White House correspondent Jim Acosta had his press credentials revoked after a combative exchange with Trump at a news conference. CNN sued, defended Acosta, a federal judge restored Acosta's press pass within days.
Kristen Holmes is OUTFRONT. She is live from the White House, as of now.
And, Kristen, for now, you are still there. But what is your understanding of what this ban means, how long it lasts, any details here?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We really don't have any idea, Erin, what this is going to look like in practice.
And, in fact, President Trump was asked the specifics because there are different layers of covering the White House.
[19:05:03]
It is having a very specific badge. You have a background check. You also have the pool.
The pool is a rotation of all of the TV networks. That's why sometimes you see us in there asking questions of the president. Sometimes you see other networks in there asking questions. We all share that footage.
So, he was asked specifically what are the logistics of this and he didn't really have any sort of answer on that. In fact, he just said I don't want them here. I don't want them in my office. He said if they straighten out that he would love that, said he would take the ban as far as it would go.
But he also seemed to acknowledge or not care if this ban was legally sound because he was asked specifically about what he's done in the past and having it be turned over those decisions on a legal basis. He said whether it survives or not, he essentially was going to try to go through with it.
He is obviously trying to send a message here. It is unclear what this is going to look like in the future. I do just want to be clear. We were not pooled today. We were not pooled over the weekend. That is the way that it was on the schedule. That is nothing new.
So, we don't really have any clarity now on what happens next.
BURNETT: So, you know, in terms of this just coming out of nowhere, it seemed that way. I mean, obviously, I played things he said about many reporters, which are personal and pejorative and out of line, you among them, Kristen, the people that he has targeted.
Was anyone aware, though, that this step was coming today, or was this really out of the blue?
HOLMES: I mean, we were certainly not aware of it and had no indication. I mean, we were on background calls with White House officials. We were in communication with the White House all day. We had no issues coming in this morning.
I will note that earlier today, President Trump put out one of his posts that he often does where he is angry about CNN's coverage, clearly watching the coverage.
I do want to note that a lot of what we have been discussing in terms of the administration has been polling data looking at the midterm elections, looking at how unfavorable the climate is for Republicans, looking at how unpopular the Iran war is. And that was something that he was lamenting overall when he was talking about this ban, saying he doesn't get fair coverage, saying Biden got better coverage. They don't focus on the good.
But again, we're looking at polling data heading into a midterm. And I will say, we've seen them across our air. Republicans are also saying that, that given the president's lack of popularity, given the Iran war, given what that has led to in terms of affordability, we needed Republicans are also acknowledging that there are tough political headwinds here. But that was around the time that he posted was there had been segments on the midterms and looking at that polling, but no indication he was going to try and take it as far as to say he was banning these outlets. Again, we still don't even know right now what that looks like.
BURNETT: All right, Kristen, thank you very much. I appreciate it.
And Kristen's going to keep us posted through this hour.
Everyone's here with me.
So, Brian Stelter, you've been doing a lot of reporting here on what exactly happened. Let's just start with the fact, and this is an odd situation to be in because we're talking about CNN, right, our employer.
What is CNN doing about this?
BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: But I should say these news outlets are not looking to pick a fight. Nobody at CNN or MS NOW or "Politico" woke up this morning wanting to get into a battle over press passes. These journalists, like Kristen, just want to be able to freely report like they do every day.
But to answer your question, Erin, media lawyers are certainly working past 5:00 p.m. Eastern, right? They are certainly engaged as we speak, thinking through the possibilities here, because right now, there's been no implementation, but if there is, the lawyers will be getting involved very quickly.
You mentioned the Acosta precedent from 2018 and the AP in 2025. There's a lot of media law at this point that backs up news outlets. And in the past few minutes, Erin, we've heard from the White House Correspondents Association, the group that represents scores of news outlets, big, little, everyone in between. And the association says, quote, "It stands in defense of our colleagues at CNN, MS Now, and 'Politico' who are being singled out for doing their jobs." This statement from the association cites the Constitution's protections, and here's It says, This is about more than the rights of journalists. It's about the rights of the American people to receive a full and independent account of what is going on with the president.
And I think the people are outside jogging behind me, they don't care about what the president -- whether he gets mad about a media outlet on any given day. But I think when people hear about the president wanting to kick journalists out for something, they wonder, what's he afraid of? What's he so worried about? What's really going on?
And you know how these stories often go. People end up tuning in more because they want to find out what CNN's reporting because the president seems so upset.
[19:10:04]
BURNETT: Yeah.
And, Ryan, it's interesting when Brian mentioned the White House Correspondents Association, right? Just to No, the incoming, the new president of that is Jacqui Heinrich, excellent reporter. She happens to work for Fox News.
And she's posted, "The Constitution protects the freedom of the press from government interference." That right, so this is the Fox News reporter. "This is about more than the rights of journalists. It's about the right of the American people to receive a full and independent account of everything going on."
She goes on, "White House Correspondent Association, stands in defense of our colleagues at CNN, MS NOW, and 'Politico' who are being singled out."
So, you now have the head of the White House Correspondents Association, the Fox News White House reporter, posting this.
RYAN GOODMAN, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL AT DEPARMENT OF DEFENSE: Yeah, and it's a mountain of case law that is against the president. Even his initial statement seemed very impulsive. It doesn't seem as though it had been lawyered by anybody, so I understand that it could catch everybody by surprise.
And that's because, for example, "The Associated Press", when you try to exclude "The Associated Press", the judge in that case is a Trump- appointed judge, a very conservative judge. He's actually generally favorable to the administration. He said, ruling in favor of "The Associated Press", that if the government opens its doors to journalists, it can't then shut the door to some journalists based on their viewpoints or their coverage. Very strong language from him.
And then the Trump administration has lost time and again on this. They tried to restrict the Pentagon press corps. They've lost that case. They tried to restrict law firms on the basis of the president not liking what the law firms had done and therefore restricting their contracts. And their security clearances, which is equivalent to, in some sense, media coverage and media having clearances and accreditation.
He's lost five times. There have been five cases, and he's lost all of them on the First Amendment.
BURNETT: Interesting, Joe, the word Ryan used is "impulsive", which describes so much of what Trump says recently. So, it's hard to know where this came from, how much he thought about it, or whether it just popped out. You were a press secretary at the White House under Bill Clinton in your case.
And I'm sure that there were conversations that you would have with the president where you guys would say together, the two of you, some pretty nasty things about reporters you didn't like or things that they said, right? But nothing like this ever happened. It never boiled up into the public of banning an organization. We've never seen anything like this, actually. What do you make of this moment?
JOE LOCKHART, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY UNDER CLINTON: Yeah, President Clinton had a way of expressing it. He was referred to reporters as your friends in the press. And I would say to him, they're not necessarily my friends. They're people I work with.
Every president has a problem with the way they're covered. It doesn't matter whether they're Democrat or Republican. I think what's interesting here is I don't know that I -- from a practical point of view, this is going to have a huge impact if he goes through with it.
People shouldn't think, oh, CNN can't cover the White House anymore. Most of this is done through texting, through phone calls. And in fact, I think it hurts the White House equally as it hurts the press that they don't have the ability to do face to face. It goes both (AUDIO GAP) for both.
I think what's much more important here is it's a piece of a much larger threat, and I think if you watch what he said, he's talking -- he started talking about my house and then corrected himself and said the people's house. But everything he's doing, if you look across the week, indicates that he believes that the entire government is his vehicle and should be -- it should reflect him. The Kennedy Center and things and things like that.
So, if you -- if you -- if you put that into the overall possibility that he might meddle in the election. This is just one more piece where he's said that constitutional norms don't apply to him.
BURNETT: So, Ryan, what do you make of that, what Joe just mentioned? And I had highlighted it, too, when Trump slipped and said, my house. And he said it so clearly and definitively that he himself knew that he couldn't pretend he didn't say it. So then he'd say, oh, no, the people -- you know, he corrected himself very obviously.
What do those words mean for the actual legal thing that we're walking into here with the First Amendment?
GOODMAN: So, it's not his house, and if it were his house, then you'd have a First Amendment defense, that's for sure. So, the idea that he conceptualizes it as his home is the problem. So, I think what Joe said is right, that he's kind of just identifying the state as himself.
That's not how it works. He's operating as the government, and it is the people's house. That's partly why even on the appeal from the Associated Press case, the District Court of Columbia and then the Court of Appeals have also said you cannot exclude the press from the East Room, for example.
And today, he just got himself into even worse trouble by referring to the fact that his concern was negative press coverage. It's just very explicit, what he's saying. He doesn't like negative press coverage, and he's retaliating for it.
That's exactly what the lawyers will cite in their briefs, and it's what the judges say.
BURNETT: The definition of textbook.
GOODMAN: Yeah.
BURNETT: Brian Trump was asked then, you know, are you doing this to intimidate the press?
[19:15:01]
Okay, let me play the exchange here for you.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Are you trying to intimidate the press from doing that at all?
TRUMP: No, no, no, no. I dislike dishonest press, like you. I think you're terrible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: That's what he likes to do. Those are the exchanges that he thrives upon, Brian, right? Calling reporters names, denigrating them. Here is, and I want to emphasize my adjective here, a small sampling.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: What a stupid question for you to ask.
Obnoxious reporter in the whole place.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The survivors who feel like they haven't gotten justice.
TRUMP: You are the worst reporter.
Quite. Quite, piggy.
Tired of it, you dumb person. She's a horror show.
You have a lot of hate in your heart.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: As I said, a small sampling. But, Brian, you know, he thrives upon those exchanges. So, what do you make of the fact that this is happening right now, that only now he's taking this unprecedented step?
STELTER: Right, you mean weeks before the midterms heading into a possible blue wave at a time when his base might need something to get excited about, that was the first thought that crossed my mind when I saw the president's post. I thought he's trying to give the MAGA media audience something to be excited about because nothing else seems to be working for the party. That was my instant analysis.
What you're getting at is the crucial thing to understand. Trump wants attention but not accountability. He always wants to intimidate the press because he wants to get rid of that accountability function. But he also desperately wants the attention.
He wants the cameras there. And that's why I'm a little bit skeptical about a follow-through because he does deeply value CNN. He has for 40 years.
He loves it. He hates it. He obsesses about it. But he wants the cameras.
And I'm keeping that in mind as I wonder if he's actually going to follow through or not, Erin.
BURNETT: And Joe, there's another context here, which is the importance of transparency overall, but also the real truth of what's really going on in this White House and administration. This week, there was something that -- there's so many things that stand out every day.
But this one, Jonathan Swan of "The New York Times" -- he and Maggie Haberman, of course, have just written that incredible bestseller, "Regime Change".
The other day, Jonathan Swan is on a podcast, and he says that we only know five percent of what's really going on in this White House. And in that context of what's going on with self-dealing and money deals being done, corruption questions, all of that, five percent. And now you have Trump trying to ban more free press from the White House.
What does that mean in the context of the fact that we already know so little?
LOCKHART: Well, I think that's true. And I think if you went to his staff, they probably know five percent or less. I think journalists know about as much as the people who work for him. And what we're missing here is congressional oversight, because that's what brings sunlight to many of these. That's where you get to actually look at documents and hold people accountable.
And I think, you know, the midterms is a flashpoint here because that could all change. All of this could get opened up if the Democrats take control of one of the houses and Senate. And I think that that is wearing on him.
And, you know, again, I think what's missing from this conversation is a psychiatrist because it really is about his state of mind that -- I don't know that people fully understand. And you know, just when you look at the interactions with the reporters, it's just no one has ever talked as a president like that.
And I think it's interesting that in every clip that you showed, it was a woman that he was talking to. So, there are -- there's a lot going on in his. you know, pathology. And that has as much to do than any one of these acts, I think.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you all very much. I appreciate you.
And next, more on the breaking news. Senator Mark Kelly and former Trump White House layer Ty Cobb on Trump banning CNN and two other news outlets from the White House.
Plus, protesters gathering tonight outside Kennedy Center, as Trump says he will not release any of the funds to fix the center unless his name is on it, doubling down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I think the Trump administration should be recognized as having saved the Kennedy Center.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: And more breaking news, "Politico" reporting that sensitive F-35 fighter jet technology bound for the United States from Australia for repairs disappeared en route. How does that even happen? And who has it?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:23:47]
BURNETT: Breaking news, President Trump claiming the United States is, quote, "repressive" to journalists before trying to walk it back.
Here's what he said while trying to defend his announcement that he's banning CNN, Politico, and MS NOW from the White House, and he says more to come because he does not like how the news is covered.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: China is one of the most repressive countries for journalists in the world. What signal does it say?
TRUMP: Well, I don't know about that. I think we're repressive also. We get fake news. We don't repress, but they write fake news.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, Democratic Senator Mark Kelly. He's on the Senate Armed Services and Intelligence Committees.
Senator, so what do you make of what we just heard the president said right there? Well, I don't know, but I think we're repressive also. We don't repress, but they write fake news. tried to change his statement there.
SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): Well, he doesn't like bad headlines. I would suggest to him, do a better job. You do a better job, you get better press. You do a bad job, you get lousy press.
Every president before him has dealt with this. And the relationship with the press is, I think, what you make it.
I don't mind when their, you know, stories aren't exactly the way I would want them. I respect the freedom of the press.
[19:25:03]
The First Amendment is so important to our democracy. It's so important to the future of this country. The role of the media being in the White House to provide the accountability necessary. And hey, this administration has gone after my free speech rights as well.
BURNETT: I want to ask you about that because I think it's really important in this context. But I'm curious, I don't know if you saw the thing. I just mentioned it a few moments ago in our conversation. Jonathan Swan, who just wrote "Regime Change" with Maggie, said that he thinks that we only know five percent of what's actually happening in this White House. when it comes to corruption and self-dealing and all the five percent.
KELLY: Yeah.
BURNETT: And I found that to be very sobering.
KELLY: Uh-huh.
BURNETT: I'm curious what you think about that and whether you think the ban will backfire coming into the midterms. How does this percolate out across the country?
KELLY: Well, certainly we don't know everything. I mean, this is not a transparent administration. He talks to the press a lot. And I know the press often gives them credit for that. You get a lot of access, but do you really know what is going on behind the scenes? The corruption of this president and this administration is at levels we've never seen before.
So I am, you know, what's the other 95 percent? We don't know. If we win back the House and/or the Senate here in November, we can start asking -- BURNETT: Then you do investigations --
KELLY: We can do investigations. We can ask for records.
BURNETT: Yeah.
KELLY: We don't know if they're going to comply. They should.
I mean, you got to remember, this is a president who sent a mob to attack one of the other branches of government. So, when we -- when we subpoena records and we ask for people to come testify, are they going to comply? We're going to have to see. First, we got to get through November.
BURNETT: It's amazing. We know 5 percent. We know a Russian oligarch who spends a lot of time with Putin, got a war, goes to China, leaves China to go to Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding, pays hundreds of thousand dollars for it.
That's one of many things we know, and all that adds up to only 5 percent. That's what I find so stunning.
You talk about yourself being a target, okay? The Trump administration came after you for that video that you did, by the way, with other Democratic colleagues, where you reminded the armed forces that they could refuse illegal order, something that the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, has also reminded them of, in his lifetime.
KELLY: Straight to camera when he was --
BURNETT: Straight to camera.
So you are, they've tried to take away your rank, they've tried to take away your pension. You're in the middle of fighting that right now. So, you know, what does that tell you about where, how far you think Trump will go with this threat now to evict the press?
KELLY: Well, we said something he didn't like, and he said we should be hanged, executed, then prosecuted. He tried to indict us for seditious conspiracy for something we said, which was the law. We repeated the law. He tried to send us to jail.
So, I don't think there are any limits to where this president will go if he doesn't get the response that he wants. He's doing this because he wants a different outcome. If he doesn't get a different outcome, maybe he'll take some other steps. Maybe he'll threaten the press like he did with us. If you don't write a good story about me, I don't like your story. I'll try to send you to jail.
This is like the arc of the dictator. This is what they do. Eventually with the press, it leads to, there'll be a official state press at some point and you start closing.
BURNETT: People get intimidated. You start to see less --
KELLY: You start throwing them in jail, of course, you get intimidated. It's not going to intimidate me.
BURNETT: Yeah.
KELLY: You know, I made it very clear to him. I'm not backing down. Even if you throw me in jail I'm sticking up for the rights of the rest of the country, their First Amendment rights, especially veterans.
BURNETT: So, I want to ask you about the F-35 story here. I told the viewers at the top of the program we would. I mean, it's a major story. It comes out of "Politico", which, by the way, I want to say is one of the outlets that Trump says he's banning from the White House.
And thank God for "Politico", because this is important reporting. They're reporting that sensitive F-35 fighter jet technology that was bound for the United States from Australia. So big shipment of really important stuff get -- disappeared. It's missing. OK, this is sort of hard to believe.
One of the jets canopies which contains technology that only America and its allies have access to and they were on a flight was diverted to Hong Kong. OK, SAR of China and we don't know why it was diverted, but it's -- we haven't seen it since.
I mean, this is a -- this is a stunning story. I know you're on committees where you have probably know a lot more information on this. What are you able to tell us?
KELLY: Well, just -- we don't want stuff like this to happen and there have been other supply chain issues with the F-35. I think the House Armed Services Committee especially has been looking into this publicly. So, this has been an ongoing problem. I'm not going to confirm what "Politico" is reporting.
We do not want our most advanced technologies and the F-35 is clearly one of those. It is the premier fighter in the world and should be. For the next decade or more, our adversaries can't match this technology if they were to get access to it. Take it apart, reverse engineer it. Reverse engineering is actually a really hard thing to do, but they'll do it.
BURNETT: China has done with other technologies. Drones found over Iran is one example.
KELLY: Yes, and we sometimes get our hands on other countries' technology, we reverse engineer it, but this is the best fighter in the world. and we certainly don't want the Chinese to get it. So, we have to do a better job, not just because of the possibility that this happened, but with other issues we've had with F-35 supply chains.
BURNETT: Well, all right. That's very sobering, especially other issues, which I understand you can only share what you can share, but even that existing.
Thank you very much, Senator Kelly. I appreciate your time. It's great to see you in person here in New York. And I want to go now to Ty Cobb. He's a former Trump White House
lawyer.
Ty, from a legal standpoint, does Trump have any basis to ban CNN, MS NOW, "Politico"? And he says more to come from the White House.
TY COBB, FORME TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: No, he doesn't. And he knows that because he attempted to do it with the Associated Press earlier in this administration and was enjoined. And while the Court of Appeals limited that injunction somewhat to allow the president to not invite "The Associated Press" into the Oval Office or onto Air Force One, you know, isolated areas where not everybody is allowed on a routine basis. that they do have access and that their access to, you know, public spaces and public forums like press briefings, you know, was -- was protected.
So he knows he really can't do this like he intends to do it, but that's not going to stop him. You know, this is -- you know, history is littered with -- you know, people who have attempted to do this to the press from, you know, Hitler to Stalin, to Idi Amin, to Chavez, Orban, and Trump's idol Putin.
They've all got state control. They all went for state-controlled media after they were able to delegitimize and shut out independent media. And that's his dream. I don't think it's going to come true. I think the courts will protect us. But we should not be surprised.
BURNETT: I always thought it was interesting learning from the former U.S. ambassador to Hungary, one of the things that Orban did, these end rounds to just show how sinister it can be, wasn't to actually ban the press, right? It was to make it difficult to print newspapers in certain locations, just render it so difficult that one of the only free papers left had to be printed in another country and driven over the border, making it almost impossible. So just all these insidious ways that it can happen.
Ty, Trump tried to defend his move today. Here's part of his defense. I'll play it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: There's something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negligence. Now, if they want to write them, that's fine. But I don't have to let them into my -- into the people's house.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Into my -- into the people's house. What do you say, Ty?
COBB: Well, I say we know that he thinks it's his house. He leveled the East Wing in violation of the law and without talking to Congress. You know, he has -- he has gilded the Oval Office with so much gold you have to wear sunglasses in there just to avoid the horror house vibes.
I mean, the man is putting his stamp -- his personal stamp on any and everything he can, you know, from arches to reflecting pools to the Kennedy center and you know where he says he'll demolish it unless he can get his name on it. You know, let's -- let's -- let's not put anything past him.
BURNETT: When he was talked to, pressed on the timing of his announcement, right? Why now, Ty? I guess that's the real question. He's been calling reporters pigs and so much more for, you know, since the beginning. But this happened today, today.
So, someone asked him, why today? Is there a reason? And he says, no, no reason.
Okay, Ty, this is where a moment ago Joe Lockhart said we need a psychologist in this conversation. I know you're not that, but you worked with him. You knew him when you served in the White House.
What do you think would prompt him to do something like this today? You know, on any given day, what would it be?
COBB: It's a Friday afternoon at the end of a long week. You know, he's been exposed as having, you know, petulantly threatened to destroy the Kennedy Center if he doesn't get his name on it. His polls have hit, you know, a new low. He had to send his vice president to Kansas to campaign with a Republican sitting senator in Kansas, because Republicans are doing so badly.
He is going to become increasingly desperate as we get closer and closer to the midterms.
[19:35:01]
Keep in mind, this is a man who was willing to tolerate the hanging of his vice president on January 6, 2021, in order to prevent the peaceful transfer of power.
He wants to be a bully He is a bully and this is his chance to punch down on people at the end of a week where the courts and the facts beat him up pretty badly. I mean, it's not fake news that gas is over $5 a gallon and diesel closing in on $7.
It's not fake news that the Iran war is going badly and that the world is reeling. And it's not fake news that that, you know, Kash Patel had to eliminate bestiality as a characteristic that would have disqualified somebody from joining the FBI.
These are bad stories. These are bad people. And that news is going to keep coming whether he likes it or not.
But this -- he didn't like the way this week went and he's beating up on somebody so that it saves his narcissism going into the weekend.
BURNETT: Ty, thank you. And next, we're going to go live.
COBB: Good to be with you, Erin.
BURNETT: Ty talked about Kennedy Center to the growing protests right now. You can see it outside Kennedy Center as Trump suggests the building will need to be ripped down, ripped down the Kennedy Center if his name isn't put on it.
Plus, it, quote, "almost started a war". How a false intelligence report, created with A.I., almost triggered U.S. military action against China. The Pentagon was about to launch an operation, about to launch an operation when it realized it had been duped.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:40:39]
BURNETT: Breaking news, these are live pictures of protests outside the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. tonight where protesters formed a human chain holding hands around the building days after its Trump- appointed board voted to close it.
And after Trump said the whole thing could actually be ripped down, decimated, demolished. It comes to CNN, learns the Kennedy Center today laid off about a dozen employees gutting an already skeleton staff as Trump today tied the future of the Kennedy Center and his help raising money for it, to receiving recognition for his role in trying to save it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Have you looked at any plans to demolish the Kennedy Center? There was an image of you from Air Force One --
BURNETT: Well, look, here's the problem with the Kennedy Center. I should be very careful because Bobby's standing right behind me. As I understand it, he gave us the right to go and do the job finally after a week.
I think the Trump administration should be recognized as having saved the Kennedy Center, because nobody else can do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Sunlen Serfaty is OUTFRONT, live outside the Kennedy Center.
So, Sunlen, what have you seen there?
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erin, many hundred people here in a on a Friday night in Washington, D.C., an arts focused crowd. You have many musicians, many in the arts community coming out, keeping arts at the center and this building that is really locked in this moment hanging in the balance as the future of this building really is in limbo.
We have seen many hundred people show up tonight. You see as we walk through many people holding signs saying President Trump, you are no JFK. I saw a sign that said demolish Mar-a-Lago instead. Keep your hands off the Kennedy Center.
So many people here, of course, focusing their ire on President Trump, on the changes he has tried to make at the Kennedy Center as chairman of the board and really protesting what has happened of this arts institution.
I spoke with many employees that were among those that used to work here at the Kennedy Center. One said that she has not received back pay. She has not received her last paycheck from when she was laid off.
I spoke another woman. She said she was alive when JFK was president, when he was assassinated, of course, and she went on to become a ticket counter here at the Kennedy Center. She was laid off after 15 years and explanation given then was that this building is going to close. This building is going to change.
So, certainly, the dynamics about this building have tapped into something very clearly from in the hearts of many of these protesters. And I think you see here, this -- these tarps, Erin, still up, but we've talked over the years over the last few months, this visual reminder of the limbo that this building is in and you see these security guards here.
I want to point out these security guards that started this week have started wearing hard hats because this is the phase that the Kennedy Center is in. They say for the next week they are closed. They say temporarily to start the first round of renovations and changes they want to make to this building -- Erin.
BURNETT: All right. Sunlen, thank you very much.
And I want to bring in now, Tim Naftali and David Axelrod.
David, let me just start with you. Trump has faced a lot of losses this week. Ty Cobb was pointing that out, right? His Supreme Court, his, as he may see it, blocked his plan to restrict mail-in voting ahead of the midterms. The House vote demanding he end the war with Iran, he lost that.
A Republican congressman introduced articles of impeachment for Trump's defense secretary. A Republican congresswoman put out an ad on the public airwaves telling Trump that he's losing Hispanics and has gone way too far on immigration. Interest rates went up, thanks to Trump's hand-picked Kevin Warsh's hand-picked Fed chair.
So, this has been a bad week. But we see him when he's on the Air Force One landing, and what's in front of him, as Sunland pointed out, are plans -- looking at plans, you know, of possibly demolishing Kennedy Center. What does this fight over Kennedy Center do for Trump?
DAVID AXELROD, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's a distraction, for one thing. You know, the ironic, the paradox of all of this, the irony of it is that he is creating fake news because the real news is so damaging to him and you know, prices going up largely because of the war that he began and can't get out of, and the trade wars that he's launched and the tariffs that are punishing people.
[19:45:22] And those are real life stories. That's real news, and he'd rather have us spend time talking about this other stuff than that. And that's his party trick here. And that's what he's always been good at, which is to sort of hijack the news cycles and get us talking about other things than the things that he doesn't want us to be talking about.
You know, on the Kennedy Center, I will say on a personal note -- I mean, I was one of those young people who was inspired by the memory of John F. Kennedy to public service. This Kennedy Center was dedicated by the United States Congress as a living memorial to John F Kennedy.
This would be like taking a wrecking ball to the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial or the Jefferson Memorial, and I don't think the courts are going to allow that to happen as surely they're not going to allow CNN and the other news organizations to be banned from the White House.
So, he is creating fake news in order to keep us or distract us from talking about the news that is really, really hurting him and his party as these midterm elections approach.
BURNETT: So, as you're speaking, I keep looking at the screen, okay, and the protesters. But what I'm looking at, Tim, is behind them is that tarp, okay? I must admit that I -- it rents space in my head every few days to wonder what it means, what it says about a person that he cares so much about his name being on that building that they're not removing the tarp so that he isn't confronted with the fact that the Trump part has to come off and Kennedy remains.
TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, Erin, there are bullies that have very thin skin, and the president is showing an intense obsession with this building, and it's not a healthy obsession. So, think about what it means here. Imagine if Franklin Roosevelt, in his second term, Franklin Roosevelt, who also survived an assassination attempt --
BURNETT: Yeah.
NAFTALI: -- if he decided, you know, I'm a popular president. I'm going to put my name on the Lincoln Memorial. I'm going to put my name on the memorial because I'm going to make it --
BURNETT: The Lincoln Roosevelt Memorial.
NAFTALI: The Lincoln Roosevelt Memorial. It is that-- that's an absurdity. That would have been an absurdity. People would have thought that he had lost his mind.
And yet in this era, people aren't questioning the president's focus when he is suggesting that his name should be on, as David mentioned, a living memorial to a martyred president.
BURNETT: Yeah.
NAFTALI: That to me --
BURNETT: And there's also the point that David makes, which is David's argument is that Trump would rather have people talk about this than the list of things we talked about, of which there were more. But I guess I'm taking a step back and saying, if you think people talking about this is a good thing for you, that is unsettling.
NAFTALI: Well, as we have seen in the polls, of course, until people vote, we don't really know what direction the country's going to go in.
BURNETT: Right.
NAFTALI: But as we see in the polls, there is some Trump fatigue. And the president -- I'll give you an example of what happened today. I think he wanted attention. I think he repeated his dislike for good news. And so, he got coverage, right?
What did he do with that coverage? He could have used that coverage to have, you know, given some arguments to help Republican candidates. But you know what? By the end, what was he doing talking about himself and his grievances?
Americans, regardless of whom they voted for in 2024, begin at a certain point to tire of that because, look, we are not a victim. We are people who are proud of ourselves. We get tired of victims.
BURNETT: So, you know, what he did today, Axe, in terms of saying he's going to ban "Politico", MS NOW, CNN, and he says more to come, as everyone in the press that has anything to do with the White House, the Fox News correspondent who leads the White House Correspondents Association has said absolutely not. I'm curious what you think about Jonathan Turley, widely respected conservative scholar who was against Trump's impeachment, he says such a move, meaning banning the news organizations, would be an assault on long-honored principles of the free press, and he said it would not withstand any First Amendment scrutiny. It would be a violation of the First Amendment.
Do you think that this will have any consequences, or given the loathing that so many Americans have for the press anyway, is this story a wash?
AXELROD: Yeah, someone said earlier that it might fire up his base, maybe.
[19:50:01]
Maybe it'll fire up his base a little, I really doubt it's going to have that big an effect. I think it's a 24-hour hijacking of the news cycle. But you know, you asked an important question before Erin and I don't think I completely answered it you said does something like the Kennedy Center escapade help him.
I think one of the things that's going on now, one of the reasons that his numbers are so bad is that people have concluded that the guy who said he was going to be focused like a laser on lowering their costs that he would never get them into one of these endless wars, senseless wars has done the opposite. And now they see him focused on things that have nothing to do with their lives and they're angry about it.
And you saw it in "The New York Times"/Siena poll the other day by a two to one margin. People said they thought he was focused on the wrong things and now he is displaying -- blatantly displaying that he's focused on the wrong things. He's in a terrible position right now and he's -- and he's in a hole and he's digging further into that hole.
BURNETT: All right, thank you both very much. I appreciate it.
And next, a CNN exclusive. This is incredible. So many people asking -- well, how could AI do horrible things? Well, there's an intelligence report that was created with A.I. It falsely warned that China was transporting nuclear materials in the Middle East. And then the U.S. almost did something.
We're going to show you exactly how far this got before the U.S. military actually realized it was wrong.
And a new deal with Greenland. What Trump is saying tonight about plans to expand American military presence on the island that he, of course, has threatened to take over.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Breaking news, duped. An entirely false A.I.-generated intelligence report, quote, "Almost started a war between the United States and China, according to sources. Stunning reporting. The intelligence report falsely concluded that a Chinese ship in the Middle East was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program. The United States military immediately made plans to intercept the ship. And it was only just before that secret operation was launched that U.S. officials figured out that they'd been duped.
OUTFRONT now is Katie Bo Lillis, who broke this exclusive reporting.
Extremely disturbing reporting, Katie Bo, in the context of all of the doom and gloom about A.I. in recent days.
What more are you learning about this?
KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN SENIOR INTELLIGENCE REPORTER: Yeah, Erin, this was an extremely close call. The U.S. military had planes in the air and armed service members preparing to board this Chinese ship to intercept what they believed were nuclear weapons program materials. And it is only at the last minute that experienced analysts with expertise at the actual subject matter here took a closer look at the underlying material behind this intelligence report and realized that the A.I. chatbot that the original analyst had relied on had queried had misidentified the cargo, effectively hallucinating nuclear weapons program materials.
[19:55:11] And of course, then quickly called off the strike. But, Erin, this is precisely the kind of strategic miscalculation that critics of A.I. adoption have warned that the technology could augur what this episode really shows is that the military and the intelligence community are still like grappling with how to ensure that the answers that they're getting from some of the A.I. tools that they are using internally is accurate, right?
So, like for weeks, as you said, Washington has been consumed with concerns that A.I. is going to jump the bounds of human control and end civilization. But for the military and intelligence community right now, the way more immediate concern is that human beings will still be in the loop, but they will be the ones making a catastrophically bad decision based on bad data provided by A.I.
BURNETT: It's just incredibly sobering, but so important, Katie Bo, to have reporting like yours and when we're all struggling to understand tangibly what the risks are, right, what the threats are to even try to understand how to address them and mitigate them in time.
Thank you so much. Amazing reporting from Katie Bo and our national security team.
And next, Trump announcing a new deal with Greenland after, of course, threatening to take it over.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Breaking news, Trump declaring victory over Greenland, the territory he's been threatening to seize. He posted on social media tonight, quote, "The United States of America has entered into an agreement with the Kingdom of Denmark and Greenland that gives the United States permanent control over security and all other needs in Greenland. From now on, no US adversary can ever have a base in Greenland, have a military presence in Greenland, or make sensitive investments in Greenland without our express written approval."
Trump says the agreement is a, quote, "infinite life agreement and the U.S. will immediately begin building a large military presence there." Now a few facts, of course, to note. This agreement bears a striking similarity to one that has already been in existence with Greenland for the US since 1951. And during that time, of course, Russia has expanded its military presence in Greenland over the past decades, and China has also deepened its presence there.
Now, meantime, as for Denmark, the prime minister there did not address any of the specifics of the agreement that Trump referred to. And just last week, Trump posted an image of the American flag over all of North America, including Greenland.
We'll obviously see how that story develops, but we wanted to make sure it didn't get lost in the maelstrom over Trump banning the press from the White House tonight.
Thanks so much for joining us on this Friday night. We hope we'll see you back here on Monday. Anderson Cooper, "AC360" begins right now.
