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Trump Appears To Threaten Strikes On Colombia & Venezuela; Former Pentagon Press Secretary On New, Restrictive Press Rules; Organizers Say Nearly 7M Came Out For "No Kings" Rally; Jake Tapper New Book Follows Unprecedented Terrorism Case. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired October 20, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

JOHN KIRBY, U.S. NAVY REAR ADMIRAL (RET.): -- are other regional challenges that they -- that Mr. Petro poses. So again, I favor --

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

KIRBY: -- a muscular approach by President Trump. I'm a little concerned about these boat strikes, but that's a --

BASH: Well, that's exactly what I was going to get to, which is there's muscular and then there's actually, you know, rhetorical muscular, and then there's muscular using the might of the --

KIRBY: Yes.

BASH: -- U.S. military, you know, a little bit different here. I don't want to mix apples and oranges too much, but let's move on to what's happening with regard to Venezuela. And the question about -- I think there are about seven now, and that according to the --

KIRBY: Yes.

BASH: -- Trump administration. How do you explain this moment?

KIRBY: It's difficult to explain it, Dana, because the administration hasn't been very transparent about what they're doing, other than to say, you know, they're putting out the video and saying that these are narcoterrorists. But I think there are real legitimate questions that people ought to be asking about the legality of this.

Look, I'm not shedding any tears over drug traffickers that are no more. They do incredible damage to people inside and outside the United States. But I do think there are legitimate questions about whether, you know, the legality of these, and whether they're extrajudicial or not. They certainly appear to be on the face of it, just by the manner in which they're being conducted.

The Trump administration went ahead and repatriated two survivors --

BASH: What does that tell you?

KIRBY: -- of a recent boat attack, which tells you, it tells me, that even they have questions about the legality of what they're doing. If these individuals were in fact really enemy combatants, legally so, then you'd have no reason, nor would you have any really incentive, to repatriate them.

You'd want to bring them back and put them through the court system here in the United States, and have due process visited upon them if they are in fact enemy combatants, and you could keep -- you could hold them captive as well. They didn't do that. Sort of makes me wonder whether they think they've got much of a case, whether they don't want this to happen inside the U.S. court system.

BASH: While I have you, you of course were spokesman for President Biden's National Security Council, but before that you were spokesman for the Pentagon. And I do want to ask about what's going on there. There is a lot of major news, we were just discussing just a little bit of it, coming out of the Pentagon.

But CNN and most news outlets, including Fox and Newsmax, are no longer there because they refused to sign --

KIRBY: Yes.

BASH: -- things that would make it so that they weren't independent, as the media is supposed to be.

KIRBY: Yes.

BASH: What do you make of that? What is your biggest concern about that? What's the danger of this new reality?

KIRBY: Man, I'll tell you, Dana, there's no winners here. Everybody loses. Obviously the Pentagon press will lose their ability to have access and proximity to people that are making key decisions on behalf of the American people about national security. It certainly is going to -- it's not going to stop their coverage, it'll make it a little bit more difficult.

But you know what, the administration and Mr. Hegseth and his leadership, they lose too because that access and proximity to the press actually helps make the policy process better. I can't tell you how valuable it was for me to be able to just walk down the hall and talk to the press about what they're reporting, what they're hearing, what they're thinking about.

I could shape that coverage a little bit, didn't mean I stopped everything or I liked everything, but I could shape it. But I also was able to go back to Pentagon leadership and say, hey, here's how it's playing, here's how it's going to be affected, and here's what we can learn from that. So they're going to lose that tactile feel.

And then of course the American people, they'll miss out on potentially better contextual coverage about the way their sons and daughters are being deployed in their behalf and about how nearly $1 trillion is going to be spent. So, look, I don't think either side, Dana, really wanted to get to this level of brinksmanship. I really don't believe that. And I hope that they'll be able to continue discussions and try to get to a better place because having the Pentagon in the building, I'm sorry, having the press in the Pentagon building actually makes really for better contextual, more thoughtful coverage of the way the U.S. military is being used.

BASH: I could not agree more. Before I let you go, we are out of time, but you've worn many hats over your impressive career. You are about to become --

KIRBY: Thank you.

BASH: -- the director of the University of Chicago's Institute of Politics. You excited?

KIRBY: I am thrilled. I can't believe that I have this opportunity. It's just -- I'm still pinching myself. I mean, to be a part of such a world-class organization and a team that really values bipartisan dialogue and discussion at a time when civic discourse is so challenged in our country (technical difficulty).

BASH: -- "No Kings" day protest was, well, you have to see it to believe it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:39:38]

BASH: House Speaker Mike Johnson this morning brushed off criticism of President Donald Trump after the President shared an AI-generated video of himself wearing a crown, flying a fighter jet, and dropping fake feces on "No Kings" day protesters.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: The President uses social media to make a point. You can argue he's probably the most effective person who's ever used social media for that. He is using satire to make a point.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

[12:40:11]

BASH: Democratic organizers say over 7 million Americans participated in those almost entirely peaceful protests on Saturday across nearly 3,000 events.

My panel is here. Let's start with that gathering, all of those gatherings across the country, Jasmine. And, you know, I know something from -- I know that Republicans ahead of time were trying to paint it as Antifa and Hamas. And --

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Right.

BASH: -- you know, putting that aside, let's just talk about it from the political point of view because I saw somebody say, and I don't remember who it was, that, boy, like a month before, or I guess now two, almost two weeks before Election Day, it's a pretty good get-out- the-vote event.

WRIGHT: Yes, I mean, it was probably one of their best, if that's what they're using that for, right? Something that we noted in the Notice newsletter was that we had kind of two takeaways from it. One is that the Democratic Party for the last few months has not really been an optimistic place to be. And I think from talking to lawmakers since Saturday, they feel a lot more optimism going into, obviously, these kind of special elections in a month or so, and, you know, obviously they're a Congress shutdown fight.

And then, additionally, that the folks on the ground, even though they were being painted as Hamas supporters or that it could get violent, I talked to one White House official who said that we have something ready for them should it go to the other side, the folks on the ground stayed really disciplined in that there wasn't mass amounts of violence or looting or anything --

BASH: Not even close.

WRIGHT: -- like that taking place. It's not even close. Very few arrests. And so I think that the Democrats feel emboldened by this. Maybe even they feel a sense of momentum coming out of this. Now, of course, you're coming back to Congress, you're coming back to D.C., and they're going to have to answer questions about the shutdown and what their strategy is and all those things. But out in the country, I think that a lot of people felt very good about where they were or where they left things Saturday night.

BASH: And let's just look for a second at some of the way that the White House was reacting on social media. First of all, on their own -- on the White House official X channel, we're built different. Have a good night, everyone. OK. They've just totally surrendered to doing this with the sombrero despite a lot of pushback.

And the other thing that the White House is doing is they're now getting into Blue Sky, which is a social media channel that is generally, or at least mostly, filled with Democrats or at least more liberal supporters. This is JD Vance putting that up there. And then, of course, what people are talking about, which is what the House Speaker responded to, which is that AI video of the President dropping poop on people who are Americans just protesting.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, very presidential to do that. Look, their strategy has been to try to marginalize this group as a far left extremist that don't represent America. But look, when you talk about the sheer politics of it, this is ultimately, when you come down to the midterms next year, it's going to be a base election. There's energy on the left right now. There's no question about it.

Can Democrats figure out a way to actually galvanize that and turn it into votes this year? That's the big question. But, you know, you heard Republicans not just, you know, refer to these, not just with Trump's memes and with his AI video, but say these are people who hate America, sympathize with terrorists and the like.

The question I have is that who are these voters that came out there? Are they the people that would vote normally for Democrats? Are they actually independent voters? Are there people who are just upset at what Trump has been doing? That's going to be the big question in that six months (ph).

BASH: But even if it is people who would vote normally for Democrats, that's not nothing. Getting people out to vote, never mind in two weeks, but in the 26 elections, is a huge --

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Yes, I mean --

BASH: -- part of the problem or strategy.

CHALIAN: Showing up to a rally and going to vote are two different things. So to Manu's point, like, yes, that's energy that they want to harness, but it's also interesting to think about what that energy is generated by, which is opposition to Donald Trump, which has been the lifeblood of the Democratic Party in the last decade since Trump has been on the stage.

Now, in 2017, from the day after he was inaugurated with the Women's March through the 18 midterms, through Joe Biden's '20 election in COVID, that was --

BASH: It was enough.

CHALIAN: -- enough, the opposition to Donald Trump, that galvanized force. It was not enough, necessarily, in '22. I know Democrats did better than expected, but still, obviously, the Republicans won the House. It was not enough in '24, where Donald Trump got re-elected.

So I think that remains an open question. Is that anti-Trump energy, which is what brought 7 million people out, necessary and sufficient to win? I think that is a question that will be answered at the ballot box.

[12:45:03]

RAJU: And there is a question about whether the Democratic leaders are willing to cross that base. I mean, you've heard Republicans accuse the Democrats of taking this hard line in the government shutdown fight, because they don't want to cross that base. And to some extent, they're right, because if they did do that, they're going to get the kind of backlash that Chuck Schumer did back in March when he voted with Republicans to keep the government open.

BASH: Yes.

WRIGHT: But I think this is a time, and so long, that the Democratic base hasn't been happy, right? And so I think you're seeing Democrats kind of revel in that point, in that they are satisfying their base, how long that continues, whether or not Chuck Schumer has to do something at the end to end this government shutdown. That crosses that. You know, those are questions for another day. But Democrats right now are excited about the fact that the base seems excited about where they are, even though they haven't actually identified new policy platforms that people have really asked for in the last six or eight months.

BASH: All right, everybody, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it.

Up next, a self-confessed terrorist turns himself in, and what happened next changed America's war on terror? And now that case may have major implications for one going on right now. We're talking about a book by our own Jake Tapper. He'll be here after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:50:49]

BASH: Welcome back. I am pleased to say that my colleague Jake Tapper is here. He's the author of a new book, "Race Against Terror: Chasing an Al Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War." Jake, you can tell I really hated this book.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Everyone.

BASH: Can you see?

TAPPER: Look at this, all the notes. I'm very impressed.

BASH: Yes. It's --

TAPPER: An anchor who reads the book.

BASH: It's so good.

TAPPER: Thank you.

BASH: It's so good on so many levels. Let's just kind of set the scene with what it is. It is a book that explains really the first --

TAPPER: And only.

BASH: -- and only trial against a terrorist in U.S. court.

TAPPER: For killing U.S. service members on a battlefield.

BASH: For U.S. -- yes, exactly.

TAPPER: Yes.

BASH: And the way that you tell the story of how it came to be is remarkable. Because it could have fallen through at any point --

TAPPER: Yes.

BASH: -- in a matter of years.

TAPPER: And if the bad guy, Spin Ghul, just so -- for everybody knows this is a true story.

BASH: Yes.

TAPPER: Spin Ghul, the bad guy, if he had -- if somebody had shrugged their shoulders and said, well, we can't prove it or whatever, he would have gone on and killed as many Americans and Westerners as possible. That was clearly his life's ambition. But he's picked up on a ship during the Arab Spring, a refugee boat, and the Italians listen to him and call the Americans and say, have you heard of this guy?

The Americans have. They go to Italy. They hear his story. And then there is this race to prove the case against this Al Qaeda killer before the Italians just throw up their hands and say, OK, we can't hold him any longer. We're just going to put him in a refugee camp. And then he'd obviously escape and kill as many Americans as possible.

BASH: And the fact that you tell the story here -- and again, I'm glad you said this, if it wasn't clear, this is a true story -- of the fact that he raised his hand and said, I'm not a refugee, I'm a terrorist.

TAPPER: He's proud of it.

BASH: Yes.

TAPPER: He's very proud --

BASH: Totally proud of it.

TAPPER: Very proud of it, yes.

BASH: And also just, again, the fact that you tell the story of the soldiers who were killed and one in particular just going back in time to Jerod Dennis, who was one who died, and how he decided to join the Army, and a phone call in here that he makes to his father saying, I'm so bored. It's the tedium of being there. I'm so bored. I want action.

And his father says, no, you don't.

TAPPER: Yes. His dad is a Vietnam veteran. He's like, no, you don't want action.

BASH: Yes.

TAPPER: Yes.

BASH: So on to the trial. Here's what you say in the book. "It was, in fact, unprecedented for the U.S. Attorney's Office to charge Spin Ghul while engaging in a battle on a battlefield in Afghanistan. Beyond that, the U.S. government was arguing that in the global war on terrorism, the U.S. could declare someone to be a hostile force, meaning it was open season on them. American forces could kill them anywhere, anytime, anyplace. But the U.S. was also saying to them, you can't fight back. You can't defend yourself. And if you try, it's a crime."

TAPPER: Just to be clear, this is the perspective of a JAG lawyer that the defense wanted to call as a witness who was arguing that what the U.S. was doing was unfair.

BASH: Right.

TAPPER: How could they assert that this was a crime on the battlefield? And it's one of the many issues that I try to get to into the book, which is, well, why is it? And, in fact, Jerod Dennis, you talked about Jerod Dennis, the sweet 19-year-old kid from Oklahoma that was killed in this -- by Spin Ghul and Al Qaeda in 2003 in Afghanistan, Jerod Dennis' sister, when they visit her, she says, how is this a crime that -- by this Al Qaeda guy?

Like, he was, I mean, isn't all fair in war. And that's one of the debates they have in this. And it's also one of the reasons why it's so unprecedented to try a foreign terrorist in a criminal court for killing service members on a battlefield, although President Trump's about to try --

BASH: Yes.

TAPPER: -- for a second one.

BASH: And we'll see if this -- I mean, presumably what you write about here is a roadmap for prosecutors, and we'll see.

TAPPER: One would think, the one question I have is, the Eastern District of Virginia, where Jafar, the guy behind the Abbey Gate case, is being prosecuted, they are just, like, getting rid of all their experts --

BASH: Right.

TAPPER: -- in the Justice Department and the Eastern District of Virginia because they're not perceived as loyal enough.

BASH: And that's one of the things that I think is important, and I hope people take away from this book when you get it, which is that these are not people that are political appointees.

TAPPER: No.

[12:55:07]

BASH: Nobody's ever heard of them. They are civil servants. They are career prosecutors, and also at the FBI, who are just trying to find a unique way to bring justice for Americans who were murdered.

TAPPER: And they are completely dedicated, and they're experts. And the Trump administration currently is getting rid of them because they think they're not loyal enough to Trump. And it's -- I think it's dangerous.

BASH: And I just want to say, one of the things that I love about it is also how the lengths at which the American justice system goes to give a defendant rights, even if it's somebody who says that they're a terrorist. And the attorney who said -- was given -- who was given to this guy was a Jewish woman. TAPPER: Suzanne Kelman, yes.

BASH: Suzanne Kelman. And she said, I keep -- to try to connect with her client, the terrorist, "I keep a kosher kitchen," and his face lit up because he realized that they had similar dietary laws.

TAPPER: Food that is halal --

BASH: Halal.

TAPPER: -- and food that is kosher is very similar.

BASH: And so that's how she got him to trust her.

TAPPER: And also that's how he had the best meal --

BASH: Yes.

TAPPER: -- he'd had in years, when she brought him --

BASH: Yes.

TAPPER: -- a kosher Cornish game hat.

BASH: Jake, thank you so much for being here.

TAPPER: Thank you, Dana.

BASH: All right. The book is, "Race Against Terror." Go get it. It's terrific. Thank you so much.

And thank you for joining Inside Politics. CNN News Central starts after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)