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The Situation Room

Spy Network Discovered?; Trump Draws Criticism For Linking Autism to Tylenol; Jimmy Kimmel Set to Return; Trump Delivers Address to United Nations. Aired 11:30a-12:00p ET

Aired September 23, 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]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I ended seven wars. And in all cases, they were raging, with countless thousands of people being killed. This includes Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Congo and Rwanda, a vicious violent war that was, Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan.

It included all of them. No president or prime minister and, for that matter, no other country has ever done anything close to that. And I did it in just seven months. It's never happened before. There's never been anything like that. I'm very honored to have done it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And, of course, he said this against the backdrop that he believes he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

But give us a fact-check on what we just heard from President Trump there, Daniel.

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: There are a lot of issues there.

So, first of all, some of the conflicts he's counting as wars he resolved were not actually wars at all. For example, Egypt and Ethiopia have argued over an Ethiopian dam project on the Blue Nile, but they were not in a raging war in which thousands of people were being killed.

Similarly, he -- Trump has claimed that he prevented conflict between Serbia and Kosovo from resuming, but they were not in a raging war either. In addition, the conflict involving the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighboring Rwanda has not actually been resolved. We have good reporting from just a day ago talking about how hostilities have continued, despite the peace deal that was signed under President Trump.

And then, in addition to that, India denies that President Trump was responsible for mediating its cease-fire, its truce with neighboring Pakistan, so a whole lot of issues with just that one claim. And, Pamela, there were a whole bunch of other claims that were just

out-and-out false. So I don't even have time to run through all of them. But, on inflation, President Trump said that grocery prices are down during this presidency. They're up, and the pace of the increases is accelerating as the tariffs take effect.

He has claimed that inflation has been defeated in general. No, inflation is also accelerating. It was 2.9 percent last month, up from 2.7 percent. He said that European electricity bills are high, which is true, but that ours are coming way down. No, in the U.S., they are increasing sharply, up 6.2 percent in August compared to a year prior.

And there were a whole bunch of other topics. He claimed that he has secured $17 trillion in investment in the U.S. Well, just yesterday, his own White House press secretary said it was about $9 trillion in investment. So I don't know where the additional $8 trillion in a day has come from.

And even that initial $9 trillion the press secretary claimed is highly dubious, counting a whole bunch of things that aren't actually spending, but rather are vague commitments from various countries. You and Kylie addressed the environmental claims. I just want to address one more.

He claimed that China builds a lot of wind turbines and manufactures them for others, but refuses to use it itself, barely uses wind power. In fact, China is the world leader in the use of wind power. It is building additional wind power in China far faster than the pace at which the U.S. is building in the United States itself.

So the idea that China is just foisting this terrible source of energy on other countries while refusing to use it is a reversal of reality.

BROWN: All right, as always, thank you so much, Daniel Dale. We appreciate it.

And, coming up, we're going to discuss Jimmy Kimmel coming back on your airwaves after his suspension.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:38:17]

BROWN: Happening now, weeknight host Jimmy Kimmel is getting ready to return to the air after ABC lifted his suspension.

Fellow host Stephen Colbert wasted no time reacting to the news on his own program last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN COLBERT, HOST, "THE LATE SHOW WITH STEPHEN COLBERT": Our long national late-nightmare is over.

(CHEERING)

COLBERT: Because Disney announced that "Jimmy Kimmel Live" will return to air on ABC tomorrow Tuesday night!

(CHEERING)

COLBERT: Come on! Woo!

Once more, I am the only martyr in late night.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: ABC and its parent company, Disney, faced backlash after Kimmel was suspended last week for his comments about finger-pointing in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination.

Not everyone will get to see tonight's return, though. The conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group, along with Nexstar, will continue to preempt Kimmel for the time being at their ABC stations. So that means that many viewers like me here in the nation's capital won't see tonight's show.

Let's go live to CNN entertainment reporter Lisa Respers France.

So, Kimmel will address the suspension on the show tonight. That's the expectation. Is there any indication what his tone could be?

LISA RESPERS FRANCE, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Pamela, that's the million-dollar question so many people want to know, because Jimmy Kimmel has been completely silent through all of this.

So just like it feels like right now we have two Americas, we have two camps when it comes to the Jimmy Kimmel situation. So you have those who found his remarks to be egregious who are hoping that he uses tonight as an opportunity to apologize. And then you have those who are probably much like the audience in Colbert when he made the announcement, who cheered very loudly.

And they're hoping that Jimmy Kimmel sticks to his guns and, if anything, maybe posts a little fun at the situation. We have seen all the late-night hosts have a good time with it. Even Howard Stern this morning on his Sirius radio show took full credit for it, claiming that, because he threatened to cancel his Disney+ account, that ABC felt like they just had to bring Jimmy Kimmel back.

[11:40:18]

So, everybody absolutely, Pamela, wants to hear what Jimmy Kimmel has to say tonight. And for those who were saying that ABC was pulling him off the air because he doesn't have good ratings, I'm suspecting that he's going to have pretty good ratings tonight.

BROWN: Yes, a lot of people are going to be saying up a little bit later for those of us who can watch it. I'm here in the nation's capital. That's not going to be an option because Sinclair and Nexstar still haven't agreed to put it back on.

So what are the next steps for them?

RESPERS FRANCE: Yes, they say that they're going to monitor, because they have decided to continue to preempt and they want to monitor what Jimmy Kimmel says moving forward.

And so people like yourself just won't get the opportunity to see it, at least live on air. But those clips always make their way to social media. And I know that you will be able to see exactly what he said. And people, I think, are going to continue to protest, because, for some people, this is very much bigger than just late-night television.

This is about freedom of speech. This is about the First Amendment. And this is about the power of the government. So people are not going to stop talking about it. And Jimmy Kimmel weighing in, Pamela, will just give them more to talk about, so lots of people looking forward to tonight.

BROWN: Yes, that was the interesting part, I thought, of the Disney statement. It said it suspended him to sort of lower the temperature at a very sensitive time in our country.

And, in many ways, it really flared tensions on the point you just made, on the free speech and concerns about government censorship.

All right, Lisa Respers France, thank you so much.

RESPERS FRANCE: Thank you, Pamela.

BROWN: Coming up right here in THE SITUATION ROOM: A massive network for spies, hackers, and organized crime discovered in the U.S., and officials think foreign governments and criminals are using it.

We will be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:46:45]

BROWN: Well, new this morning, CNN has learned that the Secret Service foiled a plot that could have overwhelmed New York City's cell service.

What started as an investigation into fake swatting threats against some former and current Trump administration officials led to this discovery of a vast criminal network very literally.

CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller joins us this morning with your new reporting.

John, explain what they found.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, this came out of that investigation into swatting against people like White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, even the director of the CIA.

When they traced those signals -- and it took a special Secret Service unit called the Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit set up by Director Curran after these swatting calls to get to the bottom of this -- about three weeks ago, they found these servers, 300 of them, and then 100,000 of what you're looking at right now, SIM cards, plugged into these.

That means that they were capable of literally putting out 300 million calls within 12 minutes, the kind of thing that would disable cellular service, overwhelm cell towers, overwhelm the capability to carry those calls. And that is one possibility.

But, in the meantime, the other thing is, OK, where were these swatting calls against officials coming from and what other kind of elements were using this network of basically anonymous numbers, hundreds of thousands of them, to be able to deal in criminal business?

I asked Special Agent in Charge Matt McCool from the Secret Service, here's what he said. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT MCCOOL, SECRET SERVICE SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: So, what we do know is that foreign governments and criminals located in the United States are using this network to run their organizations. That includes cartels, that includes human traffickers, that includes terrorists are on this network.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MILLER: So we're looking at empty apartments, empty office spaces, empty storage spaces, all in a circle of 35 miles around New York City all positioned basically to capture different parts of the cellular network.

The question, Pam, right now is, who's behind it? Is it a foreign government? Is it a criminal organization? Is it hackers? And why did they create this massive switchboard for human traffickers, terrorists, drug cartels and spies to communicate?

BROWN: And where else do they have these networks in the U.S.? I mean, that is something I think about as I sit here in Washington, D.C.

John Miller...

MILLER: New York, L.A., Chicago?

BROWN: Yes.

MILLER: We don't know.

BROWN: We don't know.

All right, John Miller, thanks so much.

MILLER: Thanks.

BROWN: Coming up right here in THE SITUATION ROOM, Dr. Sanjay Gupta joins us to break down the Trump administration's announcement linking autism to a common painkiller.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:54:28]

BROWN: Frustrated and confused, that's how many women feel after President Trump linked autism to taking acetaminophen while pregnant.

His announcement comes despite decades of research showing that the painkiller is safe for pregnant women to use, including a sibling study out of Sweden that showed no correlation between Tylenol use and autism.

So, for answers and guidance, we're paging CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

Sanjay, what do you make of this?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, I can understand why people are frustrated and confused. I mean, that was a lot to process yesterday in that news conference.

[11:55:04]

But, also, I think the guidance ultimately, Pamela, is not going to change as a result of this. I think most doctors have long said that treating a fever during pregnancy is important and that you should use the lowest dose for the shortest amount of time. That's what these organizations have been saying for some time.

See, the thing about trying to draw associations with something that is really commonly used like Tylenol means that you can draw an association with just about anything. It's called the paradox of ubiquity. It's like one of the study authors said. In the summertime, ice cream sales go up and violent crime goes up as well. Doesn't mean those two things actually are cause and effect. They're associated.

Same thing here. And it is worth pointing out that, over the last 10 years, use of Tylenol during pregnancy has actually gone down, while autism rates have gone up. So there's -- again, I can understand why people are frustrated and confused.

There was a pretty definitive study, if we can just show this real quick, Pamela. This came out of Sweden. A lot of studies are done in Scandinavia because of the national health care system. Easier to do these studies. They followed kids for 25 years, two million kids.

About 10 percent of them, 185,000, were born to mothers who used acetaminophen, and they compared autism rates to siblings who had not been exposed to acetaminophen. Bottom line, no increased risk of autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders.

The way science works is, you get signals from other studies, hey, there's something to look at there, and then you do the definitive study, which was this one, and there was really no cause and effect.

BROWN: So, what are the dangers for pregnant women to let a fever go untreated?

GUPTA: Yes, so that's a great question, because, I mean, I think, first of all, Tylenol is one of the few things that can be used to treat fever in pregnant women. We know ibuprofen and aspirin can carry some risks to the developing baby.

The big risks are, you could get congenital malformations as a result of an untreated fever, cleft lip and palate, miscarriage, and also neurodevelopmental disorders. In addition to the fever, when you're giving Tylenol, you have to presuppose that there was a fever or something that was calling for the use of Tylenol.

There may have been an infection that caused the fever, point being again that Tylenol is just one part of this equation, and untreated fever could pose a serious risk.

BROWN: So the FDA is also recommending the use of a new treatment for autism as well. What do we know about this?

GUPTA: Yes, this is pretty interesting.

You know -- Pamela, you have had three kids. You know that you probably were recommended folate as part of your prenatal vitamins. This is a form of a B vitamin. One thing that I think researchers have focused in on over the last several years is, there appears to be some folate deficiency that is somewhat common in children who are subsequently diagnosed with autism.

And giving a type of folate that can actually restore that folate deficiency can improve it and cross the blood-brain barrier is what leucovorin could potentially do. So, small trials so far have shown benefit. There are kids who have folate deficiencies that never develop autism, kids who have folate deficiency that do develop autism.

So it doesn't seem like it's the complete story, but there have been some trials where giving leucovorin, in this case, it's B vitamin, could actually -- has shown benefit in terms of restoring verbal skills, for example, so definitely worth further study.

BROWN: Very quickly, what is your message to women who have kids who have autism who might be feeling shame and guilt right now that they took Tylenol in pregnancy?

GUPTA: Fifty-eight percent of women right now take Tylenol during pregnancy. Obviously, the vast majority of those children born do not -- subsequently diagnosed with autism.

I think that Sweden study was important, Pamela. Hopefully, it quells some of that shame that they may feel, because there was no association, cause and effect found there.

BROWN: Yes, when I was pregnant last year, that's what I looked at, that Sweden study, and very, very strong evidence there.

All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much, as always.

GUPTA: Yes, thank you.

BROWN: And thank you all for joining us this morning. We're going to see you back here tomorrow morning and every weekday morning at 10:00 a.m. Eastern.

"INSIDE POLITICS," today with Manu Raju, starts after a short break.