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Erin Burnett Outfront
Source: 3 Children, 1 Adult Killed In Oregon Elementary School Shooting; Economic Alarm Bells; New Press Secretary. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired October 15, 2026 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:17]
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:
The breaking news, a deadly school shooting tonight. CNN is learning three children and an adult were killed at an elementary school in Oregon. We have new information just coming in that we're going to bring to you.
And new economic alarm bells and new inflation numbers spiking. And the question is, how much higher will it go?
Austan Goolsbee is the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He's OUTFRONT.
And growing concerns about Trump's press secretary who now appears to admit she never passed the bar, even though as our KFILE uncovered she repeatedly shared posts that identified herself as a lawyer.
Let's go OUTFRONT.
(MUSIC)
BURNETT: And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.
OUTFRONT tonight, the breaking news. CNN just learning three children and one adult have been killed after a shooter opened fire at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon. Now it's unclear at this hour who that adult is, if that adult is a teacher. This is all preliminary information that we have coming in. This is very much tragically a story in progress.
According to police, they first received a call about a shot fired into a car about 1:00 local time in the afternoon. When officers arrived, the shooter had been shot and killed inside the school. So, at this time, we do not know whether the shooter killed themselves, whether someone else killed the shooter.
According to police, it may have been a bystander. We don't know. We don't know genders here yet. We don't know anything.
But police also said at least two people were taken to the hospital, and we don't know whether those are children or adults. We do know, though, when we talk about children being killed that this is a K -- a kindergarten through grade five school. There are about 400 students in the school, and we are waiting for police to brief reporters.
I want to go to Emily Cureton Cook. She's on the ground in Bend. She's a regional managing editor at Oregon Public Broadcasting there in Bend, Oregon, and she's with us now.
Emily, what are you learning?
EMILY CURETON-COOK, REGIONAL MANAGING EDITR AT OPB (via telephone): I am also in the dark on many of these details. I am sitting right now on the grass outside of Silver Rail Elementary School. It's an elementary school on the east side of Bend, which is a town right in the middle of Oregon. And this is the kind of town people move to for the schools.
I'm right across the street from the school. I can see the playground. It's surrounded with crying seed and tape. And it butts a neighborhood of pretty newer homes where people are coming out of their houses standing in their driveways watching as police investigate the scene looking for answers.
I can see the crime scene tape both around the school and around an open area next to it where it looks like kids ride their bikes. I spoke to some people in the neighborhood. One woman was at her desk working from home when she heard the gunshots.
She said she had a military background. She should have known when she heard but she just didn't process it at first and didn't want it to be true. She says her neighbor right next door has two kids at the school, and soon after she heard the shot, she heard her neighbor come outside screaming. She has since learned that this woman's children are okay.
BURNETT: Thank God for that, Emily -- yeah, go ahead.
CURETON-COOK: I also went to the site where police directed families today to be reunified with their children. It was jam packed full of cars with terrified parents on the phone and school district employees, you know, doing their best to direct people inside and get families back together and also answer people's questions even though there's so much we don't know right now.
BURNETT: It is just horrific. And you talk about there's about 400 children, we understand, at Silver Rails Elementary School.
Emily, you talk about seeing those families reunified. At this point, are we going to be getting a briefing from police you understand soon? Because obviously we don't understand who the adult was, was killed. We don't know about the children who were killed.
I mean, there are just so many -- so many questions around this tragedy at this moment.
CURETON-COOK: Yeah, we are expecting a press conference at 5:30 Pacific Time, which may include more details from the police investigation. But right now, people are all in Bend, Oregon, and at least out waiting for more news and hoping for the best in the next couple of hours here.
BURNETT: Yes, and, Emily, I guess at this at this point just to be to be clear we don't know much more than we understand three children were killed but have you heard anything more or different about that?
CURETON-COOK: You know, I am learning that confirmation from you. I had heard that rumor and I'm just gutted to hear that. We did know that police had confirmed that children were among the victims and they've also confirmed that two people are injured and in the hospital.
You know, our team at Oregon Public Broadcasting is working furiously right now to talk with parents, talk with people.
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We're embedded in this community and we're going to be following the story as gut wrenching as it is.
BURNETT: Yes, yes, absolutely incredible and lovely community. Just incredible tragedy.
Emily, thank you very much. And I appreciate you joining us.
Emily said, as she's sitting on the grass, they're able to watch some of the families and right outside the school. We'll be going back to her as she finds out more information.
I want to come straight to our panel to understand where we are right now.
Greg Ehrie, former FBI special agent in charge, Charles Ramsey, also former commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department and chief of D.C. Metro Police also here.
Greg, police say the first call indicated an unknown man shot into a car. And you heard what Emily was just reporting, that she spoke to a woman who was a couple blocks away working from home who heard a shot. Unclear whether that was the shot into the car or shot in a school. We just don't know enough about where this this actually happened on the school premises, but multiple 911 calls then reported someone went into the school to begin shooting.
This is all we have right now. What stands out to you about this timeline?
GREG EHRIE, FORMER FBI SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, NEWARK FIELD OFFICE: It's going to have to be compressed. Right now, this is one of those chaotic scenes you're going to see, as you mentioned, hundreds of children, families who want to see, are their loved ones safe? While the police are trying to make sense, first make sure it's secure, and then make sense of what happened, and preserve that crime scene, which, as horrific as that sounds, means keeping people away right now.
But they're not going to know a lot of things. We're seeing a lot of different numbers come out, a lot of different threads as the lady who called in and said she heard a gunshot. That may not be accurate right now. Police are going to need a little bit of time to make sure it's all worked out and they're presenting the most accurate information possible.
BURNETT: And Chief Ramsey, so we're going to hear again from police that maybe in about 90 minutes or so. But obviously what we know right now again is shot fired into a car, preliminary, and then someone proceeding into the school, that timeline, again, preliminary, with one adult and three children, it just, you know, hard to even say that, killed at this time. We don't know if the adult actually that they're referring to is a teacher, someone else, or the shooter.
So, Chief, where do you think police are at this moment?
CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, I mean, there's a lot that we don't know, but that doesn't mean that the police don't know a lot more at this point in time. This is a situation where if the preliminary information is true and you have deceased individuals -- homicide victims, then of course notifying family, making sure all family, not just parents, but if there's extended family to make sure that they are properly notified if the information about the shooter shooting into a vehicle.
That means now you have an outdoor scene as well as an indoor scene that has to be processed, protected and processed. They identified the shooter. They would be serving warrants to find out, you know, looking at the social media footprint. How did he get to the school? Even more importantly, how did he get into the school?
I mean, so there's a lot that hopefully we will learn at this press conference.
BURNETT: All right. And we, I think, are able to learn a little bit more now. John Miller is joining us now, our chief law enforcement analyst.
And, John, you have learned more here. What have you found out?
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, we've learned that the shooter is a 16-year-old young man. He turned 16 a couple of months ago. We don't know much more about him, whether he had previously attended that school we're told that's a kindergarten through fifth grade school so at 16, he would have been out of there at least four or five years. So don't know what his relationship to the school or the students or the targets of the shooting would have been, but we do know he was shot and killed by an adult who was on the scene apparently before police got there.
This happened very quickly, Erin. I mean, the call goes out -- call comes at 12:59, it goes out by one o'clock. By 1:02, that's an amazingly fast response team in the wide open spaces of Oregon, by 1:02, multiple police units are on the scene and the shooter has already been neutralized by someone who was armed at the scene. So this -- this was very quick in terms of what happened and we can only imagine in our worst imagination that had that person with a firearm not been there and taken that action, that the fatalities, that the casualties could be worse, that this could have gone on longer, and we're still piecing together the rest of it.
BURNETT: Greg, this new information that John's sharing, that obviously shooter, 16-year-old male, comes into the school.
[19:10:05]
We don't know his relationship to the school. We don't know any of that. Within three minutes, though, of the first shot, the police are there. And we don't know who shot and killed him.
We don't know whether that was a school resource officer. They have one, an SRO. We don't know whether that's another. I'm just trying to look a little bit more into Oregon gun laws as to what that could indicate as to this.
But as John says, thank God for that person.
EHRIE: Absolutely. And Oregon has an open carry.
BURNETT: Oregon has open carry.
EHRIE: But that doesn't usually translate in Oregon the same way to a school, a church.
BURNETT: Right, like a teacher or somebody like that would not. So maybe an SRO?
EHRIE: Could be an SRO, somebody who was legally authorized to carry that weapon. But as John pointed out, incredibly short period of time. Even for the police to respond and be there, even in a small town, three minutes hearing a call and being able to be on scene, and even compress slightly more than that is for the shooter to engage and be engaged himself and be that threat mitigated.
There's going to be some interesting tales coming out of this. Why did this happen? How did it happen?
And as was mentioned, the biggest thing the authorities are looking for now, motivation.
BURNETT: Yeah.
EHRIE: What drove this person to come to this school? Why? Were they targeting somebody? Was this a perceived thought in their head? That's what's going to have to come out.
BURNETT: And, Chief, of course, when we hear this, I mean, just the tragedy in this country a 16-year-old male shooter going into a school, lives are lost. And at this moment with these new details, it's not much, but it's significant. It's significant what we've got here, these new details. What does it mean?
RAMSEY: I mean, there are a lot of questions that need to be answered. Suspect is 16 years old. It's my understanding that in Oregon you aren't supposed to be able to buy a gun before you're 18 years old. So how did he come into possession of a firearm? We don't know what kind of firearm was used in this particular case.
So, there are a lot of questions yet to be answered. But the most important thing right now to remember -- I mean there. three children. I mean, this is K through 5th grade. That means that these are kids that are probably anywhere between five years old and probably 11 or 12 years old at the most.
I mean, this is -- this is just another tragedy now that we will spend time talking about. But once everything is over, believe me, nothing is going to really change. It's going to stay the same.
It didn't change after Sandy Hook. There's no need to think it's going to change after this. And that's just an unfortunate reality that we will be talking about in the future.
BURNETT: John, so when you talk about the 16-year-old shooter, between Greg and the chief, we've discussed that Oregon's an open carry state, but you wouldn't have been able to purchase a firearm at the age of 16, which is the age you report is the age of the shooter.
What have you learned about the gun itself?
MILLER: Well, we haven't learned on the type of gun, but to get into the Oregon gun laws, the person who shot the shooter, this adult who may not have been a law enforcement officer, may have been a parent or a bystander, to carry a concealed weapon in Oregon requires a permit from the local sheriff, which requires a gun safety course and a qualification and a permit that needs to be renewed every four years, that's the carry concealed. You have to be 21 years old or older.
Now, one of the quirks of Oregon law is that open carry where the gun is not concealed, whether that's a rifle or a pistol, you can do that without a permit and only at the age of 18. So, you can be younger and the weapon can be exposed. But if the shooter is 16 years old, as Chuck, you know, pointed out, that means he wasn't able to buy that gun, possess that gun, carry that gun, which brings us back to some themes we know, Erin, from these other cases, whether it was the case in Michigan with the Crumbleys or the case in Georgia, the Appalachia school shooting with Cole Gray's father, parents can be criminally liable for these things.
And remember, in those cases, they were all convicted and sentenced to serious terms. So, we're going to need to know about that gun. And that's where ATF comes in behind the FBI to trace that gun to its sale.
BURNETT: All right. Well, we're going to stay on this. As I said, as Emily gets more, she's going to bring this as we get more. Obviously, we know there could be more information coming in in these next few moments. So, everyone is standing by and thanks very much to all of you.
And next, Trump is claiming victory when it comes to the economy. But there are troubling new numbers out just today. Inflation up yet again.
And Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed joining forces with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Trump country tonight, dual rally.
[19:15:07]
Question is: Will AOC turn out the vote?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: And more breaking news, bad numbers for the U.S. economy. The country's wholesale inflation surging to its highest level in more than four years. And that comes after the latest consumer prices came out, showing inflation went up more than expected last month. And wholesale prices are extra concerning because often prices rise at the factory level, and that's a sign of what's going to come for all of us when it comes to prices at the store.
And yet, Trump today, when talking about the economy, claimed victory.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They did an article about me the other day. They said, you know, this is the only guy that it's promises made, promises kept, but he did more things than he promised.
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I think we did. We did much more than we promised.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: I'm not sure the article to which he refers, but let's just talk about on this issue. What did Trump promise?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again.
Starting on day one of my new administration, we will end inflation, and we will make America affordable again. Starting on day one, I will quickly defeat inflation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: While we could go through a lot of promises, kept or not, that particular one was not kept. And the latest Fox News poll found only 18 percent of voters say they're better off financially under Trump. Prices, of course, have gone up, contrary to what he says.
And the pain that people are feeling is something that we saw throughout our town hall last night in Texas with Senate candidate James Talarico. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: And everyone in the audience who said economy and affordability or anything about that as your top issue, could you please stand up?
JAMES TALARICO (D), TEXAS SENATE CANDIDATE: How many people here struggle to afford the high price of everything these days? So do I.
How many people here know what it means to carry the burden of student debt or credit card debt or medical debt? So do I.
Do you want a good job with good benefits? The truth is that we are all on the same team.
JASMYN CARTER, PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER: When it comes to affordability for us that are homegrown here, eight generations here, we cannot afford a house.
TALARICO: That's right.
CARTER: And so I need you to do something about it, but I want to know what you're going to do about it.
TALARICO: Well, and I'm --
(APPLAUSE)
BURNETT: That's bipartisan applause.
TALARICO: Yeah.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, Austan Goolsbee. He's the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
And I appreciate your time, President Goolsbee.
So, consumer prices. went up nearly 4 percent last month. And soaring gas prices was a big part of why. Wholesale inflation, which, as I said, can be concerning because it's maybe a sign of what's to come, hit its highest level in more than four years. So, prices just going to keep going up. Is that what you're seeing?
AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, PRESIDENT, FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF CHICAGO: This was definitely a discouraging month in terms of inflation. The producer prices, it's partly that it's an indicator of what's to come, as you say, but it's more, these are the costs that businesses are incurring.
So when I'm out here in the 7th District, I'm going around, I just went downstate and met with the Illinois Manufacturers Association. To a person, they highlight the rising costs, the rising affordability concerns on the business side and the producer side. And that's separate from on the consumer side. We've got to get inflation under control. I still have some optimism that if the drivers of inflation are things
that can go away in short order, whether that's tariffs, whether that's wars in the Middle East and supply disruptions, that's the best scenario. If it's coming from overheating demand from A.I. data center buildout, that's a little more disturbing and we'd have to address that.
BURNETT: And perhaps it's both. But can I ask you about that issue on, you know, the war, okay? Gas has been at or above $4 a gallon, Austan, for 167 days this year. That is more than any other year in history, according to AAA.
And if you look at the market, the market says that oil prices aren't expected to go down anytime soon, okay? And the market predicts the future based on whether they think the war is going to end, right? And it's in that context that President Trump says, again and again and again, that gas prices are going to just plunge as soon as the war with Iran ends, whatever that means, but here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We're going to win that war very soon. It'll be over, and the gas prices will come tumbling down.
When the war is over, gas will fall down at levels that you've never seen before. It's going to end very soon. And as soon as it ends, your gasoline comes down.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: You know, and he's been saying it in the context, Austan, of, oh, this could happen any day, and it could happen before the midterms. It's just going to come down like a rock. Is there any scenario where you see gas prices, anything that would bring them down in such a sharp manner in the next 19 days before the midterms?
GOOLSBEE: Well, I'm not a geopolitical expert, and I'm definitely -- if you're in the Fed, you're not on a midterm political timetable.
I think if you look at oil futures markets, they have at various times been predicting pretty significant drops in the price of oil over a short time frame. That's certainly conceivable.
[19:25:01]
The issue that some of the refinery capacity has been destroyed, so even if you got the price of oil down rapidly, that wouldn't necessarily turn into cheaper diesel prices right away because you got to refine that oil. That's a bigger issue.
There is one in the weeds thing which is you if you're a driver, you want the price to go down. That's different though than what's happening to the inflation rate which inflation is how much did prices go up and will they continue to keep rising if they go up and stay up. That can be frustrating to drivers but it could rapidly go away as part of the inflation. That's sort of the team transitory, if you will. And we're trying to figure out whether it is going to go away.
BURNETT: So I want to ask you in the economy. The economic angle is something that we're hearing a lot about. There was a brand new Fox News poll out that found that nearly 90 percent, 90 percent of all voters said they were either extremely or very concerned about government corruption.
And I just -- this stands out to me, Austan, because I don't think there's 90 percent of Americans that agree on anything. In fact, that made it the top area of concern ahead of inflation, right? And I'm not going to ask you a political question here. This is an economic one.
But, you know, we're hearing headlines every day, whether it's small change corruption to very, very large corruption. And as a Federal Reserve Bank president, and you look at the world, the U.S. as the world's biggest economy, right?
The most transparent, the free capitalist economy of the United States, I can trust, I can trust the rules, I can trust the Justice Department, I can trust the courts. I can trust that there isn't corruption.
I am curious as to how real you think the risk is to the U.S. economy of corruption and that so many Americans right now do not trust the integrity of the government?
GOOLSBEE: In our Fed world, the law tells us what we are supposed to look at when setting the interest rates. It's two things. It's maximizing employment and stabilizing prices. So, the -- as you get into the what motivates voters and arguments about corruption and things like that, that is out of our lane.
I will say we had a major conference here at the Chicago Fed that was about the related question of the vibes and the polling. And if you ask consumer sentiment and business sentiment, how do they feel the economy is doing, they feel really bad about the economy.
And it differs from the straight up numbers. The unemployment rate relatively low and stable. The condition of economic growth and the U.S. consumer both look pretty strong, but the -- this feeling that people have about how is the economy doing and where do they see it going, that's a big divergence. And if anything slows down the robust U.S. consumer spending, which could happen if they we're getting upset for other non-economic reasons like the ones you're bringing up, or if prices kind of scare people into precautionary savings, anything that disrupts that, that's been the main driver of growth.
For all the talk about the A.I. data centers, it's been broad-based consumer spending that's been driving the economy. And if that starts to show some holes, then the boat is in jeopardy.
BURNETT: Yeah, yeah, people's confidence and belief is what makes the reality of an economy.
Austan, thank you very much. I appreciate your time, as always. As we said, Austan Goolsbee, president of the Chicago Federal Reserve. GOOLSBEE: Great to see you again, Erin.
BURNETT: All right, and next, growing questions tonight about President Trump's new press secretary after Katie Zacharia appears to admit she never passed the bar, despite the fact that Trump introduced her as an attorney. We've got new KFILE reporting on what she has posted and claimed in the past about her legal credentials.
And a CNN exclusive tonight, the U.S. developing plans to strike Iran with what they call the Mother of All Bombs because of its massive ordnance. But will it make a difference?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:33:42]
BURNETT: Breaking news, Trump's new press secretary appearing to admit that she did not pass the bar exam after reports surfaced that she's not a licensed attorney. This despite the fact that for years, Katie Zacharia appeared on TV in coverage identifying herself as a lawyer. President Trump also described her as a lawyer when he introduced her as his press secretary.
Here's Zacharia on "Real America's Voice" today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZACHARIA: We just said let's -- let's take this time and I'll take the bar and see what happens. The results are somewhat inconsequential because I knew I wouldn't need the bar in China.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Of course, passing the bar is extremely consequential. Many people fail at the first time around. That was in California. But the results are not inconsequential.
The reference that she made there to her husband was to his moving to China for work in 2011.
Now, Zacharia goes on to try to explain that she was not misrepresenting herself as a lawyer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZACHARIA: I consulted for a very long time, many people in the field. Is it okay and acceptable if I label myself lawyer, not attorney at law, not Katie Zacharia Esquire, but lawyer and provide legal analysis, not legal advice. And they said absolutely across the board.
[19:35:01]
The truth is, is I was very careful how I executed this and I never came across as someone who was an attorney at law.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNETT: But our KFILE tonight has uncovered at least 15 social media posts where Zacharia shared identifying herself as an attorney despite never passing the bar. Some of those posts were shared repeatedly. At least one has since been deleted.
Andrew Kaczynski broke this reporting, and he joins us now to lay it all out.
So, what did you find, Andrew?
ANDREW KACZYNSKI, CNN KFILE SENIOR EDITOR: Well, Erin, Zacharia has acknowledged that she was warned against using the title of attorney. She told "The New York Times" -- she told the New York Times that she consulted the president of Pepperdine University when she graduated from law school about how she should describe her qualifications on television. She said she was specifically advised not to call herself an attorney or use the title esquire, but she was told she could call herself a lawyer.
Now we went back through her social media accounts, including a post that has since been deleted and found at least 15 instances over the past two years where she shared or reposted coverage identifying her as an attorney. I want to walk our viewers through some of them, which to be clear based upon what she said would have been after she was told that she should not call herself an attorney.
Let's start with April 2025 when she shared this: Only Democrats don't want proof of citizenship in the U.S., attorney says. That is a Fox News headline describing Zacharia as an attorney. She shared it on X in a post that we found has since been deleted.
But, Erin, we also found that she shared that exact same headline six times on Truth Social that very same day. Take a look at all of these. Some of them were posting at her now boss Donald Trump. And she -- we then found she shared that same headline again just a few weeks later in May.
And then in August, Erin, we found another Fox News headline that she shared, this one criticizing California Governor Gavin Newsom with it reading, "Newsom is yappering on and not working, says attorney." You can see it right there.
BURNETT: All right so obviously repeated use of the word attorney referring to to herself right in quotes on on Fox News stories as you point after she was told that she should not use that word and you found in fact that this continued well into this year?
KACZYNSKI: Well, that's right, Erin. We found six additional posts she shared from One American News where Zacharia reposted posts that identified her as an attorney those were shared between May and September of this year. Take a look a few of these.
Now, just to be clear, these were headlines or posts that were written by news organizations, not Zacharia, personally that she was an attorney, but she did repeatedly amplify that description to her followers despite acknowledging, as she said, that she was advised not to use that professional title.
Now, we reached out to her and the White House over all of this, and a source familiar with her thinking told me that she didn't intend, by sharing those posts, to be an endorsement of the title attorney -- Erin.
BURNETT: All right, Andrew Kaczynski, thank you very much.
All right, everyone's here with me now.
Jamal, let's just -- let's just start.
JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah.
BURNETT: So, what really is happening here? I mean, this is clearly kind of having the pedigree of being an attorney is part of what the White House put out, the president put out to bolster her up, right? That's why this is core. It's not a sideshow.
SIMMONS: Sure. Listen, as you said earlier, a lot of people don't pass the bar. That's a very common thing among people who go to law school, at least not to pass it once.
BURNETT: Yeah.
SIMMONS: The challenge for her is her job is to speak on behalf of the American public, the American White House, and have a certain level of credibility when she goes out. I'm no stranger to people going through your social media accounts. That happens to White House staffers when they get picked.
But what the -- but this is a very particular job. It's the crown jewel for people who are in my line of business, right, as a flack, the ones who get up and speak on behalf of candidates.
And she's now going to be sledding uphill to try to re-earn her credibility back with that White House press corps instead of starting out with a little bit of grace that people were willing to give her to say, okay, you're brand new. Let's see what you're going to do in the job. Okay, you had a rough day. We're reading the notes. Okay, we get it. It's a tough thing.
But now she's really going to be going uphill to regain her credibility to speak on behalf of the White House.
BURNETT: Yeah, right, and whether you can practice in China. There's a lot of things --
SIMMONS: Yeah.
BURNETT: -- that have been the layers to this onion that don't seem to add up and don't add to trust.
SIMMONS: Right.
BURNETT: Congressman, Trump and his self-inflicted wounds, right? I mean, he picked her. We understand this. I mean, Jamal was saying he'd heard from people. Some people didn't know in the White House the day before that she was going to be the press secretary, right?
So, this is -- he owns it. This is his selection. He now is posting about the Texas Senate race, which obviously shouldn't be a discussion because John Cornyn, if he was running again, we wouldn't really be talking about it.
[19:40:03]
But we are because Trump got in and said, pick Paxton. And so, Trump posts, "Sadly and very stupidly John Cornyn and his little buddy Super RINO Karl Rove are doing everything possible to make it hard for Ken Paxton to win." And he goes on and on and on, calls Rove and Cornyn "weak and ineffective political hacks who should be ashamed of themselves".
CHARLIE DENT (R), FORMER U.S. CONGRESSMAN: Yeah, well, last I checked, Karl Rove won races. John Cornyn did until this primary and until Donald Trump interceded.
The problem with the Paxton race is the candidate. He's deeply flawed, unfit on many levels, character issues. That's the problem. And Donald Trump endorsed him. This is not about John Cornyn. It's not about Karl Rove.
The president is just trying to deflect and put the blame somewhere else in the event that Paxton loses. It's as simple as that. And frankly, what has Paxton done to try to mend fences after this nasty primary? Probably nothing.
BURNETT: It's certainly not giving off that vibe.
I mean, Larry Sabato, obviously, Sabato's crystal ball, we see the new federal filings showing that Elon Musk spent about $150 million just in the third quarter to help Ken Paxton in Texas. So that's $150 million in just three months.
So, we're in the final days. I mean, I just came back from Texas today. Are you seeing any signs that that money is giving a last- minute surge of a Republican recovery bringing people home in these final days?
LARRY SABATO, FOUNDER & DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA CENTER FOR POLITICS: No, and I asked one of the trackers who had some information about that particular race and the answer was absolutely not. There's been no indication of a Paxton revival. Yes, it's early. Damage can be done extensively by advertising. That's particularly nasty, but you know, Paxton has a rap sheet your arm's length and I think it's going to take a lot more than Elon Musk is money to overcome that.
BURNETT: Yeah, and the ads are nasty down there. I mean, it's nasty.
Jamal, it's also nasty in Michigan.
SIMMONS: Yeah.
BURNETT: And that's your home state. So, you know, Alexandro Ocasio- Cortez tonight, just in the past hour, was at a town hall with Abdul El-Sayed. trying to rally the base and rally the core. So, what does that do in a state like Michigan, where there are so many layers to this onion?
And he's also running against a very different guy than Ken Paxton, right? He's running against a widely known, liked, respected Mike Rogers, right?
SIMMONS: Right.
BURNETT: This is a different situation. What does AOC do?
SIMMONS: So, here's what I think she's doing while she's in Michigan. AOC is not just campaigning for El-Sayed. She's campaigning for the entire progressive wing of the Democratic Party to go to a part of the state where, conceivably, she should not be able to do well. It's the upper part of the peninsula, you know, up here, for people who are paying attention to the Michigan geography, to go up there to more conservative parts of the state and then be able to make this case. These are working class folks, many of them rural folks.
BURNETT: This is about rallying the base. This is about expansion.
SIMMONS: This is about expansion. So, two of the three counties where she's going to were won by Donald Trump. And if she can show that they're going to narrow the gap up in those counties and win a little bit more votes than they did before, the progressives can go back and say we can win in places that are culturally conservative but are economically distressed and they are going to respond to our message.
BURNETT: It's a new strategy rather than going to -- going to the place trying to run up the tally where you already have numbers. J.D. Vance went to Michigan, too, right? This race is a hot one.
And by the way, they're all down in Texas regularly as well. But he was there stumping for Rogers. And he took on El Sayed, as he likes to do.
Here's part of what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: What is it that animates Abdul El-Sayed and drives him to seek public office? It is not the well-being of his fellow Americans. It's not the hopes or aspirations of the amazing auto workers of Detroit or the students of Ann Arbor or families in Flint. No.
What excites him is this prospect of wielding the power of a country he hates. You deserve better than a little weasel who should shut his mouth and show a little gratitude to the country that gave him everything.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Okay.
SIMMONS: Wow.
BURNETT: Look, just the kind of the derogatory nastiness out there in general, I think we can all just be honest, it's just awful to hear. People calling people little weasels, it's just grow up. But it's coming from many places.
Does that land or does AOC land?
DENT: Frankly, I don't think either of them land --
BURNETT: Yeah.
DENT: -- for this reason. Look, this election, Donald Trump is a huge undertow for Republican candidates, not just in Michigan but around the country. And of course, Republicans want to paint El-Sayed and DSA or DSA-like candidates as way out of the mainstream. So that's the fight.
You know, the Republicans are trying to make this a choice between Rogers and El Sayed.
[19:45:01]
And, of course, Democrats wants to be a referendum on the president. And frankly, when Vance does something like that, that is not -- I don't think that helps Rogers in any way. I don't think AOC being in Michigan brings anything to El-Sayed that he doesn't already have.
This is about -- I agree with you. It's about helping AOC more than it is about El-Sayed.
BURNETT: Larry, how do you see it? Who's more likely to win or do not see it that way between Talarico and El-Sayed?
SABATO: Well, I don't really see it that way. I think they both could win and they're a little bit ahead. Probably El-Sayed is luckier in that he has Michigan, which has strong Democratic voter support there.
But I watched your show last night with Talarico and he was remarkably good, very relaxed. That -- if there's any kind of Democrat who can win in Texas, it might be him.
BURNETT: Yeah, well, he was -- I will say he was relaxed. And he did something I will highlight that is really unusual. When we had those voters come up, Jamal --
SIMMONS: Yeah.
BURNETT: -- he agreed to do that. He didn't know who they were. By the way, they didn't know whether we were going to call them or not. They weren't prepared, but they didn't know.
And then they go up and have to have a conversation one-on-one.
SIMMONS: Right.
BURNETT: You know, being willing to do that is something. that some politicians would do, but a lot of them wouldn't, right? So, we'll see if that makes an impact.
SIMMONS: The ability for El-Sayed to be able to go in and do that shows a level of dexterity you don't see among all politicians.
BURNETT: Talarico.
SIMMONS: I'm sorry.
BURNETT: Yeah.
SIMMONS: See Talarico go in and do that at the town hall. It shows a level of dexterity that you don't see all politicians being able to do. It's really impressive.
I got to say also about what we saw from the vice president. We've been mainlining cruelty and meanness in our politics for so long.
BURNETT: Yeah.
SIMMONS: I think a lot of are really tired of this.
BURNETT: Yeah.
SIMMONS: I think this reminds people what they don't like about the Trump administration in addition to the economic factors.
BURNETT: Yeah, and I'll say as we wrap this, I felt that way last night. We didn't know what to expect in that room with Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, and yet people were so civil and respectful and listening to each other and coming up ready to have a conversation, and that was really heartening to see.
Next, we are reporting that the U.S. military is considering using what they call the Mother of All Bombs, which makes it sort of sound silly, but it's really because of how massive it is and how deeply it can penetrate into the Earth. It would be the first to use it in this context. What effect would it have?
And we're continuing to follow the breaking news out of Oregon, three children and one adult killed as we are getting more information in. Sources telling CNN and our John Miller that the shooter is a 16-year- old male. We'll share new details after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:51:21]
BURNETT: Breaking news, the U.S. military developing new strike plans for Iran, which include using what they call the, quote-unquote, "Mother of All Bombs", the MOAB. Massive Ordnance air blast bomb is the largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal designed to penetrate deep underground.
Trump is considering using it to strike Pickaxe Mountain, which is one of the locations where Iran has built what they believe are some of its deepest underground facilities on nuclear capacity.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to destroy Pickaxe.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: That's where the action is. And will be hitting that area very -- probably pretty soon. And there's not a thing they can do about it.
We noticed there's a little activity at Pickaxe. I would advise Iran not to get cute because we will have to hit them very hard. We have no choice, right?
We'll probably give Pickaxe a shot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, Seth Jones, president of the International Security Program at the CSIS, Center for International and Strategic Studies.
Seth, I'm just going to put aside for a second, the president said he destroyed the nuclear program and then said he needs to come back. But that's relevant. I'm just putting it out there.
But he's now saying Pickaxe specifically, where you had seen, you were the one with your images that started to see a lot of this activity that actually they had denied, now they acknowledge. He says he can take it out with this particular bomb, the MOAB.
Is that something that would actually work?
SETH JONES, PRESIDENT, DEFENSE & SECURITY DEPARTMENT, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: Well, Erin, probably not. I mean, the GBU-43, which is the Mother of All Bombs, is a -- it doesn't actually directly hit a target. It does an airburst. So, it's actually meant to devastate the area above ground. It has been used against an ISIS cave complex. It's probably the GBU --
BURNETT: Right, in Afghanistan.
JONES: In Afghanistan. It's probably the GBU-57, which is a penetrator that would be used against a facility like Pickaxe Mountain.
But, again, you're talking about 100 meters deep, potentially, through granite, it's unclear that even that could do massive damage if Iran is storing uranium enrichment or centrifuges underneath.
But I do think it is likely to be a target of the U.S.
BURNETT: Right, right. But fascinating that even that might not succeed, right, at the actual goal with that deep enough -- JONES: Right. I mean, you could hit the tunnel complexes that go in,
the entrances.
BURNETT: Yeah.
JONES: But actually going deep down inside, it's a big question mark right now.
BURNETT: All right, which is big statement in and of itself, right, when you talk about that's -- that's the most powerful of that sort of weapon that the U.S. possesses.
Trump has also said that the U.S. has killed so many people at the top of the Iranian regime that they don't know who to negotiate with. Now, by the way, we've been hearing this privately from people involved in the negotiations. I know you have as well, but here's what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They have no military. Their navy's gone. Their air force is gone. Their radar is gone. Their anti-aircraft is gone.
Their leaders are gone. That's one of the problem, I might have gone too far. I don't know who the hell to deal with.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Okay. Okay, I'm just going to put aside the fact that obviously a lot of what he claims there about what's gone is not true. But the leadership -- is there, are they unable to negotiate because they don't have anyone to negotiate with?
JONES: No, I mean, there clearly have been disagreements among key Iranian leaders and some of the more hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guards commanders about the negotiations. But there are people to negotiate with, there's no question.
The other issue that I think is important, and this is where facts become important, is that there are people to negotiate with, there's no question. The other issue that I think is important, and this is where facts become important, is that Iran still has significant capabilities.
[19:55:01]
BURNETT: Yeah.
JONES: Cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and drones, and they can use them in the area around the Strait of Hormuz.
BURNETT: And that's which is crucial. So, all his claims there, because those don't add up, that's so crucial.
All right. I want to ask you one other thing. Ukraine ran out of Patriot interceptors.
JONES: Yeah.
BURNETT: And Trump has, you know, done this deal with Russia, which would supply a couple of hours of diesel fuel to the world, maybe a day or two to the U.S. So, it's not even a meaningful deal, but it would give great relief to Russia. A lot of money coming into Russia.
Zelenskyy says he feels betrayed. What's the meaning of this, the impact?
JONES: Well, I think this is a big psychological blow for the Ukrainians, especially at the moment where the Russians are using these jetpack drones and striking civilian targets across Ukraine that the U.S. is -- appears to be siding with Russia and Vladimir Putin over the Ukrainians, which are the victims of this war in the first place.
So, I think that is why, at the moment that his own civilians are being killed, the largest numbers we've seen since this war began, I think he feels betrayed.
BURNETT: Yeah, it's a betrayal, as you laid out. Thank you very much, Seth Jones.
And next, Kimberly Guilfoyle facing another blow tonight after she was asked to resign on reports she asked a top MAGA donor to pay her American Express bill, which was apparently the tip of the iceberg.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Breaking news, Kimberly Guilfoyle sued Trump donor Eric Deters, whose allegations led to Guilfoyle's ouster, just filing a scathing defamation lawsuit against her.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC DETERS, TRUMP DONOR: I am asking from her an apology and $1 million is what I want from her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Guilfoyle, who is Don Jr.'s ex-fiancee, resigned as ambassador to Greece a few days ago at President Trump's request after "The Wall Street Journal" broke the news that Guilfoyle begged Deters to wire her a million dollars in exchange for access to top administration officials.
Deters, who plans to represent himself in the case, is also warning the White House he has information which could bring down more officials.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DETERS: Tomorrow, at 3:00, I am planning on playing a 16-minute phone call that I received from Greece, and I'm not understating this. In my opinion, the phone call brings down the Trump administration.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Vice President J.D. Vance doing damage control tonight. He spoke to CBS News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VANCE: That's disgusting and despicable. They should suffer consequences.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Guilfoyle denies any wrongdoing. Thanks so much for joining us.
"AC360" starts now.
