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The Situation Room

College Football Season Kicks Off; Vladimir Putin Meets With Indian Prime Minister; Sexual Misconduct Rules Changing on College Campuses. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired September 01, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

ELIZABETH BAILEY, ATTORNEY REPRESENTING SEXUAL ASSAULT SURVIVORS: If they decided to bring a criminal complaint or they tried to -- or decided to bring a civil complaint.

And I think an unintended consequence of this may be that students think, if I'm going to go through a process that's going to be this intense with my school, what's to stop me from bringing a criminal complaint? What's to stop me from bringing a civil complaint?

And I don't know if the advocates who like these changes really anticipated that as a consequence, but I think we're going to see it more.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And, as you alluded to, under these new guidelines, there are these requirements for live hearings in these sexual assault cases on college campuses with the potential for cross- examination.

Explain more. Expand on why that's not something many survivors want to do and how it can be traumatizing for them.

BAILEY: So, what we saw with the Joe Biden administration and what they tried to do was to bring down the formality of this -- of these adjudications, the idea being that the investigation was going to be done by the school.

During COVID, things moved to more an online format and there was less confrontation between the survivor and who they were accusing of sexual assault or harassment. Here, there's no avoiding that. The Trump rules make it so that the accuser cannot escape being in a room with the person who they're alleging assaulted them.

And so what is happening for survivors, who are also going through trying to process what happened to them? They have got to then confront the person who gave -- who caused the traumatic harm to them. And a lot of survivors don't want to do that, especially in the context of an administrative adjudication at their school, because that tends to happen, though longer than it used to be, much quicker than something like the criminal process.

BROWN: OK. BAILEY: And a lot of these survivors don't have someone in their

corner to protect them from an aggressive cross-examination from an accuser's attorney.

BROWN: OK.

Stand by, Elizabeth, because we actually just connected with Katie Koestner, who was supposed to join you from the beginning.

Katie is the executive director of Take back the Night. She's also the first woman in the U.S. to speak out nationally and publicly as a survivor of campus date rape.

Katie, thank you so much for joining us.

I want to get your response to some of these free speech advocacy groups like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, who say that, for example, these policy changes are needed, that live hearings with cross-examination are essential to maintain due process for people accused of sexual assault, given how much is at stake here.

What is your response to that argument?

KATIE KOESTNER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, TAKE BACK THE NIGHT: Absolutely, Pam. And I'm delighted to contribute.

First of all, I think it's really interesting this whole conversation, because I myself back had one of the first hearings on a college campus regarding my own case. And if you all can imagine, I was seated across from my -- the person I was accusing, and he had brought two legal representatives to the hearing, and I was there all by myself.

So I'm well aware exactly front and center. And I'm also speaking as the mom of two sons. So I'm hearing all the different vantage points. And to Elizabeth's point, I would -- I would turn it in this direction. First of all, I'm concerned that there's no equity in the representation for both sides.

It'd be one thing if they both had equal opportunities and equal abilities to afford some sort of representation. The second one no one is talking about is, we have a criminal system. We have a civil system. Those systems are run by trained, certified by government agencies, people who know how to use their systems.

Now we have Title Ian, and college campuses have no government certification. They have a private for-profit company out there that set up shop about two decades ago loosely blessing those who run these hearings. And yet there's no standard really, except for what the laws say.

And I know so many Title IX's, and they're befuddled with this and that. One more point I don't think we're talking about, I was thinking Trump's daughter Ivanka. One of the rollbacks on these new regulations is if Trump's Ivanka was assaulted on a study abroad or went across the street to a campus party that was just off campus and was assaulted by another student at either of those two places, she would have no rights back on her own campus to have her case heard.

So, a lot of these rollbacks, I think to our discussion today, do harm the rights of victims to have equal opportunity and lots of opportunity to at least seek justice. And then the it used to be called a kangaroo court. And I will go back to now we have a system where there's no government certification out there to say who are these hearing officers and how well are they trained, except for by a private company that's making lots of money from it.

[11:35:03]

So those are my sentiments.

BROWN: All right, well, Katie, thank you for coming on to share your sentiments. And, Elizabeth, we appreciate your time as well. Thank you.

BAILEY: Thank you, Pamela.

KOESTNER: Thank you.

BROWN: Well, just ahead: Vladimir Putin sending a message to President Trump as he ignores international pressure to end his war on Ukraine.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: We have got breaking news this morning.

A major security summit in China is putting President Xi Jinping in the spotlight with more than 20 other world leaders. And it's also giving Vladimir Putin a chance to get closer with India's Prime Minister Modi, as the two leaders shared a warm greeting with Xi.

[11:40:09]

And you can also see Modi holding Putin's hand. Hopefully, we can show some video of that, of Modi and Putin actually walking together holding hands.

CNN senior international correspondent Ivan Watson explains how the Chinese leader is using this meeting to outline his vision for a reshaped global order, with Beijing leading the way.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Pamela, I think the enduring image of this regional summit will be the leaders of three of the world's largest countries -- that's Russia, China, and India -- cordially rubbing shoulders, looking very happy together, and complaining that the world has gotten more uncertain and chaotic than ever.

This has been a forum for Russia and China, two close partners, to complain about the U.S. dominating international relations too much, in their eyes, since the end of the Cold War, and calling for the creation of a new, as they would put it, more fair system of governance.

Listen to what Russian Vladimir Putin had to say.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): A system that would replace the outdated Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models, taking into account the interests of the broadest possible range of countries, truly balanced, and therefore preventing attempts by some states to secure their own safety at the expense of others.

WATSON: Of course, it is the Russian military that has been bombing Ukrainian cities night after night. Vladimir Putin describing that as a crisis, not a war, and blaming the West for starting that terrible conflict.

Most notable, I think, at this summit was the presence of the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, who skipped last year's summit amid a real downturn in relations with his Chinese neighbor. It was about five years ago that Indian and Chinese soldiers were beating each other to death in a disputed border region in the Himalayas.

He was here in China for the first time in seven years clearly trying to mend fences with the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, and also stinging from the fact that the Trump administration imposed 50 percent tariffs on India, that seen by many in India as the U.S. are making a sharp U- turn from growing relations between Washington and New Delhi over the course of nearly 25 years, so a lot of geopolitics at work here.

And we're going to see the symbolism shift from diplomacy to Beijing in just two days' time, when China is expected to put on a major military parade and some of the guests of honor are expected to be the Russian president, as well as the leaders of Iran and North Korea -- back to you, Pam.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: All right, Ivan Watson, thank you so much for bringing us the latest there.

And let's continue the conversation. With us now, CNN military analyst and retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Hi. Good to see you.

So how is President Xi's message about a new world order being received by the likes of Putin and Modi?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, this is going to be very interesting, Pamela.

And one of the key things here is that Xi is really trying to present himself as the stabilizing force in the world, as opposed to the chaotic world, as Ivan was mentioning in his report, that they seem to be confronted with under President Trump.

So what you're seeing in this particular case is that leaders of -- Russia is very dependent on China. India has become dependent on Russia for oil, for cheap oil. That's why they got those 50 percent tariffs. And it's really a confluence of different interests that are bringing these leaders together.

They think that they can do better in this grouping. At least, for the moment, they think they can do better in this grouping that is led by China, and they think that if they change the world order to something that appears to be more favorable to them, they are going to accrue some advantages that they otherwise wouldn't accrue under a U.S.- dominated world order.

Now, in point of fact, that's going to be something that's going to be much harder for the U.S. to deal with. It will potentially result in trade imbalances that are even greater than the ones we have now. And it could also really make it difficult for us to exert influence over areas of the world. We have traditionally had some sway.

BROWN: Yes. And Vladimir Putin, for his part, has his own agenda obviously for wanting to get away from what he calls a Eurocentric model.

How does his attempts to build a stronger relationship with China and India impact the U.S. and Europe?

LEIGHTON: So what he's trying to do is really pull Russia away from everything that is happening in Europe in terms of what the E.U. is doing and, of course, his efforts in Ukraine, his war against Ukraine has already in essence set the ground for that kind of a movement.

[11:45:12]

So now what you're seeing is, Russia is actually dependent on Chinese help in order to have the economic wherewithal to continue to prosecute the war in Ukraine. So it's in Russia's interest at the moment to maintain really close ties with China.

It's almost a neocolonial relationship between the two countries. Russia is providing raw materials, in the form of oil, timber, other raw materials, while China is providing Russia with a lot of manufactured goods. In fact, a lot of the cars that you see on Russia's streets right now are actually Chinese-manufactured vehicles.

So that's an example of the kind of economic ties that are being developed between these two countries. And in many ways, it's a logical extension of what is, in essence, Putin's policy of drawing himself away from the West and moving closer to the East.

BROWN: I want to also ask you about this pretty stunning incident. This plane carrying the E.U. Commission president was apparently targeted by GPS navigation jamming yesterday.

This is according to the Commission. So the pilots had to rely on paper maps. Now they're alleging that Russia is behind this. How do you read this?

LEIGHTON: Yes, I think that's very likely, Pamela. In fact, Russia has a long history of using GPS jammers to go after

both military and civilian aircraft in other countries. We saw that in the run-up to the second Gulf War. We saw Russian GPS jammers actually helping the Iraqis. And that was something that we actually targeted in the run-up to the second Gulf War.

So there's a history here. And what the Russians have done more recently is, they have used GPS jamming devices to go after commercial aircraft that are flying over the Baltic states and the Baltic Sea. They have also done similar things with aircraft in Polish airspace.

So there is an effort by the Russians to, in essence, take those kinds of technical capabilities and weaponize them. If the Europeans are going to try to find a way around this, they're going to have to develop ways to safeguard their systems from this kind of jamming.

And they're also going to have to make sure that their pilots, like those for Ursula von der Leyen...

BROWN: Yes.

LEIGHTON: ... understand how to actually go ahead and use pen and paper to circumvent these kinds of technical attacks.

BROWN: All right, thank you so much, Cedric Leighton. Always great to see you.

LEIGHTON: Great to see you too, Pamela.

BROWN: Coming up: The Powerball lottery jackpot is approaching an all-time high, a billion dollars and change still up for graphs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:52:21]

BROWN: From major upsets in college football to drama at the U.S. Open in the city that never sleeps, it was an action-packed sports weekend.

Let's go to CNN sports anchor Coy Wire.

Take us through all the action, Coy.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: We had some awesome week one college football games, including last night number six Notre Dame at number 10 Miami, a sensational Sunday night showdown. Watch this catch.

Quarterback for the hurricanes Carson Beck finding C.J. Daniels. Check that man's hands for super glue, an awe-inspiring touchdown grab. Beck went 20 for 30 with two touchdowns. This game was all the way down to the end, with about one minute to go, game tied, and Miami kicker Carter Davis becomes the Hurricanes' hero, game winner from 47 yards out.

The Canes pull off the upset when 27-24. The final game of week one tonight features Pamela Brown's University of North Carolina Tar Heels and their new coach, six-time Super Bowl champion with the Patriots Bill Belichick, his Tar Heels facing TCU in Chapel Hill.

Coach is 73 years old, created a huge buzz saying that his aim is to cultivate the same culture at UNC that he had in New England. TCU is favored by 3.5.

Aaron Judge has handed out yet another verdict and once again it reads home run, the Yankee captain cranking his 43rd homer of the season, tying legendary catcher Yogi Berra for fifth most home runs in Yankees history, 358 big flies for the big guy now. Yankees fall to the White Sox 3-2, but Judge continues his rise in Bronx Bombers lore. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AARON JUDGE, NEW YORK YANKEES: You get a chance to tie one of the greatest, if not the greatest Yankee, in homers is -- it's pretty special. The way Yogi played the game, what he meant to the pinstripes, you knew how much it meant being a New York Yankee to him.

I feel the same way. I'm honored to wear this jersey. So it's pretty cool to be on that list with him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: In U.S. Open action, holy moly; 22-year-old five-time major champ Carlos Alcaraz stunning the sporting world again. This just defies description. It's a baffling behind-the-back shot, leaving his opponent, Arthur Rinderknech, bamboozled.

Alcaraz is a magician. He's now the youngest man in the Open era to reach 13 Grand Slam quarterfinals. How did you pull that off, Carlito?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CARLOS ALCARAZ, PROFESSIONAL TENNIS PLAYER: Sometimes, I practice it. I'm not going to lie.

(LAUGHTER)

ALCARAZ: I just -- in the practice if the opportunity is there, I will try. So the people like it. I like playing tennis like this, so it just came natural.

(CHEERING)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[11:55:04]

WIRE: We have more U.S. Open action today, incredible matchup, Pamela.

We have Coco Gauff facing off against Naomi Osaka.

BROWN: Wow.

WIRE: Osaka asked how -- Coco like her little sister, so we're going to have some sibling spat going on later today.

BROWN: That will be a great match.

WIRE: Yes.

BROWN: And we got the big Tar Heels game later tonight.

WIRE: Let's go.

BROWN: So we will be watching that too.

Coy Wire, thanks so much.

WIRE: You got it.

BROWN: Finally, this hour, more than a billion bucks are up for grabs. You just need a ticket and a whole lot of luck. The Powerball jackpot went into orbit after there was no winner in Saturday's drawing. It is the fifth largest prize in the game's history.

The odds of winning the jackpot are roughly one in 292 million. So you're saying there's a chance.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: If someone does win, they can choose between the $1.1 billion annuity or a one-time payment of nearly half-a-billion, both before taxes. The next drawing is tonight.

Thank you so much for joining us this morning.

"INSIDE POLITICS" with Manu Raju is next after a short break.