Return to Transcripts main page

The Situation Room

Amazon Says, Mayor Website Restored After Global Internet Outage; Manhunt for Thieves Who Stole Priceless Jewels from Louvre; Gaza Ceasefire Holding After Israel and Hamas Exchange Deadly Attacks. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 20, 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, a massive global internet outage. AT&T, Delta Airlines, Hulu, McDonald's, among the dozens of companies whose websites went offline overnight. What we're learning this morning.

And brazen heist, and now a massive manhunt. The hunt for thieves right now who broke into the iconic Louvre Museum in broad daylight, stealing priceless crown jewels in just seven minutes.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Plus testing the ceasefire Israel and Hamas exchanging attacks with each side accusing the other of breaking the truce. Will the president's fragile Mideast deal survive?

And a war of words over drugs, President Trump threatening tariffs on Colombia after its president accused him of murder following a strike on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean.

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

Happening now, a major internet outage that many Americans woke up to, and it is sputtering back online this morning slowly but surely while most of the nation was still asleep. Amazon Web Services reported a technical issue that took down all these websites, including a lot of apps. The company provides cloud services for all of these households, names including more, AT&T, Delta, McDonald's, Snapchat, even your Ring camera doorbells. Amazon says it's identified and fixed the problem.

CNN Tech Reporter Clare Duffy has been following all of these develop early this morning. And now, Clare, tell us the latest, what are you learning?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: Well, Wolf, to understand why this happened, it's helpful to understand what exactly Amazon Web Services is because it really sits at the heart of so much of the internet. So, whereas businesses used to run their online services by having their own computers, their own server, now millions of businesses rent that server space from Amazon's Cloud computing unit, Amazon Web Services. And this is cheaper, it's easier for businesses as long as Amazon doesn't have an outage like it did today. This has now taken down so many services, as you said there.

Now, Amazon does say that it has identified the issue here and it has fixed it. It says it has fully mitigated this problem. But as you see, this is really the linchpin of so much of the internet operating, and you see how just fragile the internet can be when there is one outage. You've got United Airlines, Snapchat, Facebook, Fortnite, the A.I. firm, Perplexity, Coinbase, U.K. government and banking websites all were affected by this outage.

Now, Amazon says everything should be basically back up and running. In a statement, the company said most AWS service operations are succeeding normally now. Some requests may be throttled while we work toward full resolution. Additionally, some services are continuing to work through a backlog of events. The company also encouraging customers to clear their cash to try to get these websites back up and running. But consumers should be able to use the internet mostly normally as of this morning.

BLITZER: All right, let's hope. Clare Duffy in New York for us, Clare, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: It caused a lot of issues.

All right, happening now, police in France are racing to track down priceless jewels stolen in this brazen weekend heist at the Louvre. So many of us have been talking about this story. And right now, police are focusing on a blow torch and angle grinder, as the world's most visited museum remains closed more than 24 hours after that robbery. The pieces stolen include necklaces, earrings, and a tiara worn by French royals in the 19th century.

BLITZER: Let's go live right now to CNN's Senior International Correspondent Melissa Bell. She's on the scene for us in Paris. Melissa, I take it the time is of the essence right now for police to find these crown jewels with so much historical value to France.

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. Really, Wolf, time is of the essence. That's what investigators keep saying. You've got 48 hours after a heist like this one when the robbers are vulnerable and it is easiest to catch them. After that, there are fears, and I've just been speaking to a senator out here outside the Louvre who've said, look, at this stage, it's unclear whether the jewels or the robbers are even still inside France, given how quickly you can drive out of this country into neighboring European countries.

I'd just like to show you, Wolf, that is the window through which the four men, we understand, four suspects that are on the loose, made their brazen entry into the museum yesterday morning, 9:30 A.M.

[10:05:08]

They used that truck like a moving truck with that mechanical ladder, got up there with that axle grinder that you mentioned a moment ago. A blowtorch, the most rudimentary of tools, really, managing to get inside that Apollo Gallery as it's known where so many of France's crown jewels were held. As they made their escape the entire thing lasting to seven minutes, they dropped the crown of Princess Eugenie, the wife of Napoleon III, making off though that way down this bank of Seine River with eight pieces of jewelry of inestimable cultural historical value. These were after all the brooches, the earrings, the necklaces, tiaras worn by the queens of France in the 19th century.

So, there's right now this manhunt continuing, no sign of the jewels, but a couple of theories that have emerged. Either this was a commission and it was that these jewels someone was after for their own private collection, or these jewels will be melted down as quickly as possible in order that the gems of considerable value within them, thousands of diamonds, there were rubies, emeralds as well, these could then be sold on the open market and the gold as well with fetching extremely high price.

This second scenario, by the way, is the worst case scenario for French authorities who really just want to get these national treasures back. Wolf?

BROWN: And you had mentioned, Melissa, the time is of the essence because they could easily go into a nearby country. Do we know how many countries and authorities within those countries are helping with this manhunt?

BELL: Well, we understand that the French will be going with Interpol, working with European authorities as well, to try and figure out where they've gone. The pieces of evidence, though, that they have to go on are extremely thin. Essentially, what was dropped out here was that crown that I mentioned. Those tools that you showed a moment ago, the blowtorch, the axle grinder, the truck itself that they used, a yellow vest as well.

There is some video footage that's emerged, some of it CCTV footage from inside the gallery, some of it shot by people who were inside, because remember, there were people inside the museum when this happened that shows that they were wearing the kind of yellow vest that workmen used presumably to make them blend in to the decor and make it look credible that they were using this kind of equipment outside the Louvre on a Sunday morning. One of those vests was found.

We know very little about what else they have to go on, but certainly working with European authorities at this stage to try and figure out where these men might be.

BLITZER: All right. Melissa Bell on the scene for us in Paris at the Louvre, Melissa, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: Happening now, Wolf, aid trucks are rolling into Gaza once again. Israel suspended humanitarian aid yesterday and launched attacks against Hamas after two Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza. At least 44 Palestinians died when Israel retaliated with multiple strikes. That's according to Gaza hospital records.

President Trump says, despite the attacks, the U.S.-brokered ceasefire is holding.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We want to make sure that it's going to be very peaceful with Hamas. And as you know, they've been quite rambunctious. They've been doing some shooting and we think maybe the leadership isn't involved in that, you know, some rebels within. But either way, it's going to be handled properly. It's going to be handled toughly, but properly.

REPORTER: Is the ceasefire still in place?

TRUMP: Yes, it's in place (ph).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All very tenuous right now.

Let's go live now to CNN Jerusalem Correspondent Jeremy Diamond. So, Jeremy, White House negotiator Steve Witoff and Jerry Kushner in Israel ahead of this visit by Vice President Vance, and Witkoff and Kushner have already met with Prime Minister Netanyahu. What do we know about that meeting?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Pam. In just the last few hours, Kushner and Witkoff sat down with the Israeli prime minister to talk about everything, from maintaining this current ceasefire at this very fragile moment for this truce between Israel and Hamas, but also laying the groundwork for the tough negotiations that are going to have to follow in order to ensure that President Trump's vision for peace in the Middle East and the fulfillment of his 20-point plan actually results in a durable, lasting end of the war in Gaza.

There are also issues related to the recovery of the remains of deceased hostages in Gaza, many of which have still not been returned by Hamas, and, of course ensuring that humanitarian aid continues to flow into the Gaza Strip.

And their visit comes after, you know, this region just faced its biggest test yet for the ceasefire. Yesterday, nine days into the ceasefire, we saw two Israeli soldiers who were killed in what Israel says was a Hamas attack using rocket propelled grenade and sniper fire that was directed at those troops. Following that, we saw an immediate Israeli strike in that very same area of Southern Gaza. And then later in the day, after the Prime Minister held security consultations, a wave of retaliatory Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip, very deadly strikes that killed at least 45 people, according to Gaza's hospitals.

[10:10:05]

And since then, it seems like calm has returned to Gaza. Aid is flowing back in once again after a very brief pause, it would seem, in stopping the flow of humanitarian aid. There are no Israeli airstrikes that we've seen today as of yet. Hamas for its part denied any responsibility for killing those two Israeli soldiers and both sides now insisting once again that they are committed to the ceasefire remaining in place. Pam, Wolf?

BROWN: All right. Jeremy Diamond in Jerusalem, thanks so much.

BLITZER: All right, Pamela, there's more news still ahead. It's one of the most used online services, but Amazon's cloud outage shows how one hiccup can cause an avalanche of issues. Could hackers be taking notes right now?

And later, a grim discovery in the case of a missing Philadelphia woman, Kada Scott, after an anonymous tip came in over the weekend.

Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:15:00]

Back to our top story, websites and apps are coming back online after a huge chunk of the internet was taken offline overnight. A lot of us were sleeping during this, but there were some major brands that were impacted. Look at this on your screen. At the center of the outage, Amazon Web Services, the major provider of cloud services for all kinds of companies.

Joining us now to talk about this is Jordan Rae Kelly, senior managing director, head of America's cybersecurity at FTI Consulting. Jordan, good to see you.

So, wow, this is pretty significant, what happened. What could be the cause here?

JORDAN RAE KELLY, FTI CONSULTING: Well, certainly, we would always first think could it have been a cyber attack, but there aren't any indications right now that that's what happened here. This seems to have been a technical issue. The resolution is already underway. Of course, there were really significant cascading effects this morning but we're happy to hear that it doesn't appear to have been a cyber attack.

BROWN: Some of the companies had redundancies, but I think for many of us, we may have been surprised that so many companies rely on the AWS service. What more can be done to prevent an outage of this scale in the future?

KELLY: I think it's really difficult when you start to realize how many services are really reliant on these shared infrastructures. And so we realize that so much of the internet is dependent upon these single potential points of failure. In some ways, that's good. We think to the cloud as a way that it makes us more secure. But the cloud is really just someone else's computer and it can still break. And so companies and businesses really need to think about what are their backup plans and they can't really rely on us first line vendor for a backup plan. They need to be thinking about what happens if the vendor's vendor has an issue.

So, there's a lot that's going to be learned here about these dependencies. I think companies are going to be taking a really hard look at how much of this infrastructure they're relying on and what they can do to bounce back quickly.

BROWN: Yes. Because you know the threat level, you know what hackers are up to and what they're trying to do. What more can be done to fortify cybersecurity in the future?

KELLY: Well, this is a great moment for businesses to take stock of how they are set up. Are they ready to fail gracefully or are they going to fail catastrophically? Because we can't entirely avoid incidents like this, so you need to have contingency plans in place that allow you to have backups, that allow you to move to secondary infrastructure quickly. It's really difficult, but this moment when there's just been a technical issue and not an attack is really the right time to take a look and to make some changes if you need to.

BROWN: All right. Jordan, Rae Kelly, nice to see you, thank you so much. Wolf?

BLITZER: and coming up a new video now showing another deadly strike in the Caribbean, as the feud between the U.S. and Colombia escalates over suspected drug boat strikes. We'll have the latest on the in the war of words that's ongoing. That's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:20:00]

BLITZER: New this morning, President Trump says he'll impose new tariffs against Colombia, escalating a tense feud with the country's president. President Trump already announced he's cutting off all aid to the country over migration and drug trafficking issues, and calling its president an illegal drug leader, end quote. We're also seeing new video of a strike the U.S. conducted on a suspected Colombian drug boat that killed three people Friday.

CNN National Security Correspondent Kylie Atwood is here with us in The Situation Room. Kylie, can you give us a sense some context of how this feuded between the U.S. and Colombia has escalated so quickly?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, it is certainly a war of words at this moment, but is set to turn into something that could have a dramatic impact on the relations between the two countries. We saw over the weekend President Petro accused the United States of what he said was a murder of a fisherman, one of those people who was on those drug boats that the United States has been taking out since the beginning of September in the Caribbean, and he also said that the United States had violated the territorial waters of Colombia.

Now, President Trump responded dramatically on Truth Social, saying that President Petro himself is a drug trafficker, that he's encouraged the production of drugs in his country and went on to say that the United States is going to cut off all payments and subsidies to Colombia.

Then he went on to make some remarks to this effect later in the day. I want us to listen to that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They are a drug manufacturing machine, Colombia, and we're not going to be part of it. So, we're going to drop all money that we're giving to them. They have -- it has nothing to do with them stopping drug production.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ATWOOD: Now, he also went on to say that the United States is going to impose new tariffs on Columbia. So, collectively, these payments that the United States gives Colombia and these new tariffs we're watching to see what those actions actually look like in reality. Trump said that those new tariff rates are going to come out today. We'll watch for that.

But after those remarks, he also really aggressively continued to personally go after President Petro, saying that he's a lunatic and saying that the situation in Colombia when it comes to the production of drugs has gotten out of control.

[10:25:06]

Of course, this is part of the administration's ramped up effort to take on drug trafficking in the region, but also an effort when it comes to diplomatic relations in the region to go after those countries that the United States believes is keenly involved in this problem.

BLITZER: Because if the U.S. is taking these very, very dramatic steps against Colombia, other countries in the area, are going to be very, very nervous.

ATWOOD: That's right. And the U.S. and Colombia have historically actually worked together on this problem. Obviously, that hasn't been the case since President Trump came into office. But I remember 2018, traveling to Bogota with then Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the United States and Colombia at the time talking about how they could work together on driving down drug trafficking. Clearly, the United States believes this is something they need to unilaterally do right now, because Colombia, in their view, is not doing enough.

BLITZER: Kylie Atwood reporting for us, as she always does, excellent work, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: As you say, Wolf, she knows her stuff.

BLITZER: She does.

BROWN: Well, sources tell CNN affiliate PWPVI the DNA testing indicates the remains found over the weekend are those of missing 23- year-old Kada Scott. Police say they made the discovery Saturday after an anonymous tip led them to a wooded area in Germantown. 21-year-old Keon King is in custody. He is charged with kidnapping and other crimes in connection to Scott's disappearance. Police believe he was the last person seen with Scott before she vanished on October 4th after leaving work. Investigators say the medical examiner's office will make the final confirmation of Scott's identity.

BLITZER: And just ahead, President Trump posts an A.I.-generated video of him wearing a crown in response to this weekend's huge No Kings rallies around the United States. We'll get reaction from one of the organizers. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:30:00]