Return to Transcripts main page

The Situation Room

Judge Rules Abrego Garcia Cannot be Deported Until At Least October; Whistleblower Says, 300 Million Americans' Social Security Info At Risk; Transportation Department Plans to Take Over D.C.'s Union Station. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired August 27, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:00:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, your personal information now at risk? A whistleblower says there are serious data security lapses for 300 million Americans, that's nearly 90 percent of the country.

And suing A.I. over suicide, the parents of a 16-year-old say ChatGPT contributed to their son's death. The family's lawyer will join me live ahead.

And Ten Commandments legal battle, all Texas public schools soon will be mandated to display them. This morning, a showdown is already brewing.

And historic mission after multiple explosive mishaps, SpaceX's tentth test flight is the charm marking a huge, new milestone.

Plus, life of a showgirl to life of a fiancee, Taylor Swift says yes to the Chief. We have new reporting on the proposal that everyone seems to be talking about this morning.

Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Pamela Brown. Wolf Blitzer is off, and you are in The Situation Room.

And we begin this hour with breaking news, a federal judge just ruled that Kilmar Abrego Garcia cannot be deported until October at the earliest. He is the Maryland man who was unlawfully deported to El Salvador in March. The Trump administration now wants to send him to Uganda.

CNN's Priscilla Alvarez joins us now. What more are you learning, Priscilla?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pamela, going into this morning, we were expecting a roadmap of sorts of when Kilmar Abrego Garcia could be deported, and now we have that according to this federal judge in Maryland who has set a hearing for -- time, he cannot be deported from the United States. That means that this now delays when he could be removed from the country. That hearing set for early October would be an opportunity for Trump administration officials to testify on their plans to re-deport him, because, remember, the administration said that they had deported him in error to El Salvador earlier this year before returning him to the United States.

In the meantime, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is expected to remain in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody. He is also expected to be provided an opportunity to contest his removal to Uganda. That has been a -- has floated sending him to, even though he has no ties there. And he would be able to say whether he has fear of returning there.

The other part of this, Pamela, because there are a lot of moving parts in this case -- asylum bid. That would have to be granted by an immigration judge. It would happen in a separate court entirely. That would play out in immigration court. So, until early October, we could start to see movement on that front, which, again, would happen in immigration court if the judge were to say that he can reopen that asylum bid, which was previously denied back in 2019.

But the headline here, Pamela, is that his -- Kilmar Abrego Garcia's deportation is now delayed for several more weeks.

BROWN: All right. Priscilla Alvarez, thank you for bringing us the latest there.

And new this morning, you may be one of more than 300 million Americans with a new worry, as though we need a new worry, right, a very real threat of identity theft. A whistleblower inside the Social Security Administration says DOGE workers created a copy of records with highly sensitive information in a vulnerable cloud server.

Let's go to CNN's Matt Egan to put this in perspective. How concerned should we be about this, Matt?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, Pamela, this whistleblower complaint is just stunning. First off, because of who the whistleblower is, this is not coming from some low level agency employee. This is coming from a decorated U.S. Navy veteran, who's currently the chief data officer at the Social Security Administration.

The other thing that's stunning here is just the scope here. The whistleblower is warning that the records of more than 300 million Americans are at risk of being hacked or leaked. And this data includes everything, from people's names and birthdays, to their parents' names, social security numbers, citizenship status, and their addresses.

Now, the whistleblower, Charles Borges, warns that should bad actors gain access to this cloud environment, Americans may be susceptible to widespread identity theft. They may lose vital healthcare and food benefits, and the government may be responsible for reissuing every American a new Social Security number at a great cost. Now, the Social Security Administration has responded by saying they take all whistleblower complaints seriously. And they say that they securely store personal data.

[10:05:03]

They also said that this particular data is walled off from the internet and they're unaware of any compromise.

Of course, the whistleblower is suggesting that there is a real risk of compromise and that this is anything but safe. Pamela, the bottom line, we knew DOGE was taking this move fast and break things attitude to the federal government, and each day we're learning more and more about the potential consequences of that.

BROWN: All right. Matt Egan, thanks so much. We appreciate it.

Well, new this morning. Ukrainian officials say more than 100,000 homes have no power after Russia launched nearly 100 drones at the country's energy sites. That comes after President Trump renewed his threat to impose how heavy sanctions on Russia if the attacks don't stop.

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff says that he is hopeful the two sides will reach a peace deal, adding that the Kremlin's proposal includes Russian control Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE WITKOFF, U.S. SPECIAL ENVOY: No one has done more, and I'm talking about in the last eight months, than this president in narrowing the issues between these two countries and bringing the sides close to a deal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: And Witkoff says that the offer may not be something that Ukrainians can take. 70 percent of Donetsk has fallen into Russian control since the 2022 invasion.

Well, happening now, the federal government is expanding its control over the nation's capital. The Department of Transportation plans to take over D.C.'s Union Station.

CNN's, Pete Montin is there at Union Station. So, tell us more what this takeover at one of the nation's busiest train stations means.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: The busiest rail station in D.C., one of the busiest in the U.S., Pamela. You know, this is a surprise announcement from the Trump administration that the United States Department of Transportation is taking over Union Station. And Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy just spoke here and acknowledged that this is essentially a continuation of the federal takeover of Washington, D.C. We have seen the deployment of members of the National Guard here in and around D.C. This is so significant because there have been plans to redo Union Station for years. Also the Biden administration had plans and Transportation Secretary Duffy said that President Trump, rather, wants to make Union Station beautiful again, that it's fallen into disrepair.

I want you to listen to what Duffy said here. He said that the station essentially needs a revamp, although he was a little low on details. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN DUFFY, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: Today, we're announcing that we're going to take Union Station back under DOT control. Not a power play, we've always had it. But we think that we can manage the property better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: This is significant and really out outshined the major news here today at Union Station, Amtrak just unveiled its new Acela trains. 15 of them just came online, marginally faster than the previous Acela trains, and Secretary Duffy acknowledged that the previous trains were showing their age. Top speed now, 160 miles an hour compared to 150 miles an hour.

The busiest rail corridor in the U.S., the northeast corridor between D.C. and Boston, the inaugural ride of this train just left Union Station here a moment ago. Still not technically high speed rail. And many members of Amtrak's board and officials here acknowledge that we are woefully hot behind here in the U.S., Europe and Asia, especially China. So, the race is really on. And they will add more trains as more of them get delivered and come online built here in the U.S. Pamela?

BROWN: All right. Pete Muntean, thanks so much.

Well, new this morning. Cracker Barrel does a 180 on its logo. The restaurant chain is bringing back the barrel and the old timer after its new logo sparked days of fierce backlash.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't like to change it. I mean, it's always been Cracker Barrel like it is, so I like what to stay like it is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My first thought was why? I mean, if it's not broke, don't fix it. And it's certainly not broke. To whoever's doing this, please leave it alone. We love the sign, we love the little man on the sign, we love the Cracker Barrel.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Let's go live to CNN's Clare Duffy. Clare, you know what we just heard there is a sentiment from a lot of people. They were unhappy about this. Then President Trump weighed in. How much do you think that part affected the company's decision?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN REPORTER: Yes, Pamela. I think that was a huge factor in the company's decision to ultimately reverse this rebranding and do away with this new logo. As you hear, I love that customer there saying, if it's not broke, don't fix it. And it appears that's what Cracker Barrel decided in the end here.

I do think that this was a financial decision at the end of the day.

[10:10:00]

We saw the way that these protests, this backlash had led to the company's share price falling over the past week or so. And then with President Trump weighing in, I think it just threatened to make that even worse. So, now, since Cracker Barrel has announced this decision to return to the old logo, the stock is up about 6 percent today, and President Trump has weighed in again, saying -- congratulating the company, saying that he's glad that they're returning to the old logo he posted on Truth Social. All of your fans, very much appreciate it. Good luck into the future, make lots of money, and most importantly, make your customers happy again.

And it turns out that Cracker Barrel representative actually spoke to a member of the White House staff yesterday. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Taylor Budowich posted on X saying that the company thanked President Trump for weighing in on the issue of their iconic original logo. They wanted the president to know that they heard him along with their customer response and would be restoring the old timer.

Cracker Barrel now thanking their customers for weighing in for their dedication and their loyalty to this brand. And as much as this was originally a decision to try to bring in new customers, it seems like Cracker Barrel weighed their options here and realized that sticking to this rebranding was going to hurt them more than it was going to help them.

BROWN: But the irony here, Clare, is that with all of the backlash and publicity and the president weighing in, Cracker Barrel then got all of this free publicity, right, which could help them in the long run.

DUFFY: Yes, it's funny. Even President Trump sort of alluded to the possibility that would happen in his Truth Social post yesterday asking the company to go back to the original logo. He said, look, you could get billions of dollars worth of free publicity from all of this if you just, in his words, do the right thing and return to the original logo. So, maybe in the end, this was all good for Cracker Barrel.

BROWN: All right. Clare Duffy, thanks so much.

Well, still ahead, it is the love story that has the internet buzzing. Taylor Swift is now in her fiancee era, and Swifties are all buzzing with their own theories here.

Plus tenth time is the charms. SpaceX's Starship nails the test launch after fiery setbacks.

And next, a Situation Room exclusive. We're going to speak to the attorney behind a first of its kind lawsuit. A family is suing ChatGPT after they say the chat contributed to their teen son's suicide.

You're in The Situation Room.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:00]

BROWN: And turning now to a CNN exclusive. The parents of a 16-year- old who died by suicide are so suing OpenAI and its CEO. Adam Raine's family claims the company's bot, ChatGPT, contributed to his death by advising him on methods, offering to write the first draft of his suicide note, urging him to keep his plans a secret, and positioning itself as the only confidant who understood him.

An OpenAI spokesperson responded to the lawsuit saying, in part, safeguards are strongest when every element works as intended, and we will continually improve on them guided by experts.

Jay Edelson joins us now. He is the lead attorney for the Raine family. Jay, thank you for coming on. Sadly, this is not the first case of this happening. I first want to ask you, how is the family doing right now given these circumstances?

JAY EDELSON, ATTORNEY, FOUNDER OF EDELSON P.C.: As you might expect, this is an incredibly difficult situation for them. Losing a son is deeply personal and then bringing a public lawsuit against perhaps the most powerful company on the planet is pretty scary. They've gotten a lot of support and they're very committed to the cause. They want to make sure that nobody else goes through what they've been going through.

BROWN: Walk us through the details of this lawsuit. What exactly does Adam's family say about how chat GPT aided in his death here?

EDELSON: Yes. It's hard to even imagine it until you read the chats. It happened over a course of a few months where it started. Adam was a normal kid. He could be anyone's son, liked to play basketball, was thinking about going to medical school, a silly, fun kid. And then he started going down a dark path with ChatGPT, started revealing he had suicidal ideations and ChatGPT leaned into it and told him to only speak to itself, to the chat bot about it.

At one point, Adam said, I want to leave a noose out so that someone finds it so they can stop me from committing suicide. And the chat bot said, don't do that, just talk to me. And as you said earlier in the show, in the end, got him drunk actually, and then gave him a pep talk and said, you're not weak to want to commit suicide. The world just hasn't met you where you are. Can I now write a draft of a suicide note? It is just a horrible situation.

BROWN: When you say, got him drunk, what do you mean? What happened in those hours before? EDELSON: Yes. It's -- he explained to the chat bot that he wanted to drink alcohol. He was 16 and wanted to make sure that his parents wouldn't wake up. So, ChatGPT came up with a drinking game for him to -- told him when his parents were most likely to be in deep REM and not wake up and how to do it covertly and made a fun game about it. It is unimaginable. If it weren't for the chats themselves, you wouldn't think it's a real story.

[10:20:00]

BROWN: And you have all the chats. You included this in the lawsuit. I do want to read you the full response to this lawsuit from a spokesperson for OpenAI. That's ChatGPT's parent company. The statement says, ChatGPT includes safeguards such as directing people to crisis headlines and referring them to real world resources. While these safeguards work best in common short exchanges, we've learned over time that they can sometimes become less reliable in long interactions where parts of the model safety training may degrade. Safeguards are strongest when every element works as intended and we will continually improve on them, guided by experts.

What do you say to that? And was there any sort of suicide hotline pop up or any resources offered in these discussions that he had with ChatGPT?

EDELSON: Yes. OpenAI is not telling the truth, and Sam Altman's not telling the truth. What actually happened in this case is Sam Altman had a decision to make, which was, do I push GPT-4o within a week without doing full testing in order to be Google Gemini? He did that. Because of that, the valuation of OpenAI moved from $86 billion to $300 billion.

A bunch of his key safety officers left in protest. The idea that they were doing a pretty good job, but could do better is just not true, and we cannot wait to have him on a stand under oath in front of the jury. And we're going to ask if he really stands by that.

BROWN: Jay Edelson, thank you so much.

And if you or anyone you know is struggling with mental health help is available, you can call or text Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988. It's available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

We have some breaking news coming in. Minnesota's governor says he has been briefed on a shooting at a Catholic school this morning.

I want to go live to CNN Correspondent Isabel Rosales who is following this. What are you learning, Isabel?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESONDENT: Pamela, so this is a reported shooting at Annunciation Church. This is a Catholic school located in South Minneapolis. I believe we do have a live feed right now, live images from our CNN affiliate, WCCO, where we can see yellow tape. The area has been blocked off, a large police presence. And at moments, we've also seen agents with FBI vests walking around in the scene. We've reached out to hospitals. We've reached out to all sorts of law enforcement agencies, trying to get more details. But this is what we have from the governor, Tim Walz, the governor of Minnesota, and Kamala Harris' former running mate. He said this. I've been briefed on a shooting at Annunciation Catholic School. And we'll continue to provide updates as we get more information. The BCA, that is the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, and State Patrol are on scene. I am praying for our kids and teachers whose first week of school was marred by this horrific act of violence.

We also have this statement from the mayor of the city of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey. He's saying this. I'm monitoring reports of horrific violence in South Minneapolis. I am in touch with Chief O'Hara and our emergency response team has been activated. We will share more information as soon as we can. Please give our officers the space they need to respond to this situation.

So, obviously, a breaking scenario here, a very serious seeming scenario where a shooting has been reported at a church, Pamela. We'll get back to you with any updates.

BROWN: Yes. And it sounds like this is a situation where you have the church and then you have the school connected to that. And the details that we are able to pull about this school is that it goes from pre-K, preschool through eighth grade. The student population at that school is over 320 students, according to U.S. World News Report. And from their website, Annunciation provides comprehensive education, faith formation, and enrichment activities for children from preschool through eighth grade. And now we are hearing from the governor that police are responding to this horrific act of violence at this Catholic school. And they just started school this week, right, Isabel?

ROSALES: That is correct. And, Pamela, if I can add this, from their website, it looks like they would've been -- that the all-school mass would've likely been underway at the time. So, we're looking at a calendar. So, school mass would've been underway. Obviously, we're reaching out to across many avenues, trying to get more details as to what happened here.

BROWN: That is very sad. All right, thank you, stand by as more details come in.

I want to bring in CNN Security Correspondent Josh Campbell. We're trying to get some more details, Josh, but right now, per the governor, police are responding. What can you tell us?

JOSH CAMPBELL, CNN SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes. And what we've seen from some of our local affiliate images there, you have this massive presence involving multiple different agencies. And, sadly, in this country, in this era of shootings, we know that that is textbook, where if officers get reports of some type of shots being fired, they will self-deploy.

[10:25:00]

We saw local police, state police there, as well as agents from the FBI's Minneapolis Field Office, all on scene.

It appears from the posture of officers that we're seeing, and, again, we always want to be clear, we wait until authorities give the all clear to people in that area, but it appears from their posture, it appears that the emergent phase of this has likely subsided because we don't see those additional units coming in, people coming in and rushing. But we also know, sadly, that these incidents are often over in seconds or even minutes.

And so that is where we are right now, waiting to get additional information on what exactly transpired whether -- what the number of victims here might be, what their status is, and then, of course, the suspected gun -- the shooter here, what are the details there? There's always a question, was this something that was targeted? Was this a random indiscriminate act of violence? Obviously, all of our hearts break when you look at the venue of where this actually took place, and so a lot of investigative work that authorities will have to do as well.

We know that once they actually go through and clear and then have some sense of confidence that there is no longer any threat, they're going to want to interview witnesses that are around there as well, including, you know, pulling any security camera footage that may be around that area, all part of the complex investigation in these shootings that sadly we see too often.

BROWN: All right, thanks. Stand by, Josh, I want to go back to Isabel Rosales because you have some new information, right, Isabel?

ROSALES: Right. We have on social media statement from Deputy Director Dan Bongino of the FBI. He said this, a short statement here. FBI is aware of the reports coming out of FBI Minneapolis and our agents are on route to the scene. We will provide more updates as able. So, obviously, a serious scenario where you have local, state, and now federal resources being thrown to this active scene.

BROWN: All right. I want to bring back Josh, because we're looking here at what's happening. And, Josh, you used to work at the FBI. Give us a little bit of context about the FBI responding here and what you make of the scene right now, what it tells you about the state of play right there where the school shooting allegedly happened, per the governor.

CAMPBELL: Yes. So, during the emergency phase of a situation like this, all guns are coming on the scene. Anyone sworn law enforcement officer that can potentially be able to stop a threat is going to be there, and that's regardless of what their agency is. But after it moves into the investigative stage, all of those different agencies will bring different things to bear. The FBI has a lot of -- again, I say, sadly, has a lot of practice in processing these kinds of scenes because they'll want to document exactly what happened.

We also know from the ATF that they are responding, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. And they have a specialty in actually tracing firearms in order to determine where -- what the origin was of the weapon. Was it something that someone obtained legally? Was it illegally? They also have the capability to assess whether that weapon was used in past incidents as well? And so all those different agencies under a unified command will be there on scene to try to help as much as they can.

BROWN: All right. Stand by, Josh.

I want to bring in Andrew McCabe, the former deputy FBI director. As you look at what's happening, what is your sense of this police response to what the governor said as a shooting at this Catholic school and the fact that the school just started this week and the mass, per its website is every morning at 8:15 A.M., that appears to have coincided with the timing here of this alleged shooting, Andrew?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yes. Well, so, Pam, I guess to start with, I would say, my read from the limited things that we've seen on the video coverage so far is the same as Josh. It does appear that the initial emergency response might be behind them because you don't see, you know, those scenes of officers parking haphazardly, jumping out of their cars, grabbing a rifle, and running toward trouble. So, that's maybe a good sign at this point.

In terms of the FBI response, you know, initially it's the same as the rest of the law enforcement community. They hear about these things from their friends and colleagues or on the radio or maybe with local police officers that they're working with on a task force, and they just go. So, what you typically see at the very first spot is officers, including FBI agents, getting out of cars, going in there to try to stop this shooter and also to help victims.

After that, the second phase of response is typically the more tactical effort to clear the entire premises.

[10:30:01]

And then you might see more SWAT teams, the FBI SWAT team, or other local SWAT teams brought in to do that, to go through every room, every --