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The Situation Room

Outrage Grows Over Planned Live Pentagon Execution; Kimberly Guilfoyle Asked to Resign. Aired 10:30a-11a ET

Aired October 13, 2026 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

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[10:33:39]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: All right, we are rejoined now by Eric Deters. He is the donor who said that Kimberly Guilfoyle asked him for money in exchange for access to administration figures.

And now we know from the White House that she has been asked to resign from her post as U.N. ambassador to Greece.

So, thanks for coming back on. We have reestablished your audio.

What is your reaction to what we just heard from the White House, Eric?

ERIC DETERS, FORMER TRUMP DONOR: Well, I think it's a good move. I did not think she would be able to survive it. I think she could have survived what was going on in Greece, because it was over in Greece, but I don't think she could have survived my allegation.

BROWN: We still haven't heard anything from her side in terms of what her response is to this request to resign, but are you surprised at all that Trump didn't just outright fire her?

DETERS: No, because of the long-term relationship, I think he was trying to give her a little bit of grace.

And I would like to stress this, and this is really important for me to stress, that I had been a great supporter of Trump world and Kimberly Guilfoyle, had paid her $300,000. And Kimberly Guilfoyle claimed to be my friend.

And all I wanted Kimberly Guilfoyle to do is to help me help the Dr. Durrani victims, 580 people who had unnecessary spine surgeries. And I wanted him to get extradited, and I wanted an investigation of how he fled.

[10:35:05]

And she couldn't even do that for me. And it's tragic. And I also want to say this. I'm going to be suing them for defamation. They first said the text messages were fake. "The Wall Street Journal" established they were not fake. They're still on my phone, by the way.

Then they claimed I was a known blackmailer, more defamation. Then they are claiming with their statement that, oh, this is for services rendered, when the text messages clearly show that she says, we need to paper this. And the papering was me -- I was willing to do it because I didn't care -- claiming that it was for her prior consulting, which is a complete lie, and she knows it.

So she is a liar. She's a manipulator. She's not a very good person, to be very candid with you. She thought she was playing me. Well, she found out different.

BROWN: And, as you know, her lawyers are denying these accusations.

They do say that she was asking money from you for consulting and speeches.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: Is there any truth to that at all? We have the statement up on the screen here from her lawyers. Go ahead.

DETERS: Absolutely not. That is a complete lie. And she knows it. I owed her nothing.

And, again, I am going to be filing a lawsuit this week or next against the lawyers, against Kimberly Guilfoyle for defamation. I'm going to get to take their deposition. They won't be able to produce any proof. It's going to be fun.

So this is far from over. I am going to make her pay for what she said about me.

BROWN: Did you ever do any business with her?

DETERS: No, I paid her three times, three times to show up and speak at Patriots Day Freedom Fest. That was it.

Now, I did also tell her that if she would help me with The Medical Protective, Dr. Durrani situation, then, when the case settled, I'd give her a million dollars. Guess what she did? Zero. Zilch.

And here's the other thing I want everybody to know too. Everything I did with her was aboveboard, until the $100,000 American Express that she was desperate for me to pay before her confirmation hearing. There was no issues. There was no illegality or unethical conduct by her up until then, but that was unethical as hell.

And she knew it because she wanted to cover it up. She wanted to hide it.

BROWN: Why did you wait so long to come out and talk to "The Wall Street Journal" and put this out there? I'm just curious.

DETERS: Very simple. Very simple. I'm very candid. I'm very honest about this. I decided -- when I canceled Patriots Day Freedom Fest, it made national news. I was like, wow.

So what I decided to do was to nail Kimberly Guilfoyle with all of this information in order to bring attention to the cause she refused to help me on, which is the Dr. Durrani; 580 people had unnecessary spine surgeries.

And this guy fled the country. He needs to be extradited back here, and there needs to be a federal investigation, not only into how he left, why he left, and Medical Protective's roll in it. The entire Ohio court system is corrupt as hell in this matter.

BROWN: OK.

DETERS: These people have waited 14 years for their trial, and some of them are going to have to wait 20 more years for their trial. It is the biggest medical legal court corruption scandal in American history, and nobody will report about it.

BROWN: Well, you're certainly getting your message out about it here.

Just to follow up with you, the State Department watchdog, as we reported, is investigating the accusations. Have they reached out to you? You said you still have these texts on your phone. Have you handed them over to anyone yet?

DETERS: They have not reached out to me yet, but Garcia and Raskin have both reached out to me, and I will be talking to them tomorrow.

BROWN: Anything else you want to add?

DETERS: I want to thank you for covering the story. I know your focus is on the Kimberly Guilfoyle resignation, as it should be, but thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Durrani victims.

BROWN: Eric Deters, thank you for coming on the show. We appreciate it.

DETERS: Thank you.

BROWN: Wolf.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: And here to discuss, former communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris Ashley Etienne and former Republican senatorial committee aide Liam Donovan.

I want to get both of your reactions to the news about Kimberly Guilfoyle. You heard the new White House press secretary say that the president wants her to resign.

Ashley, what do you think?

ASHLEY ETIENNE, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I mean, I think this is a prime example of the culture of corruption that has consumed this White House, not just this term, but the first term we saw it happening there as well. [10:40:07]

The access to our government should not be for sale. And that's the part I find most offensive about this, having worked in two White Houses. The other thing I would say is, I'm shocked that Donald Trump has moved so swiftly. He typically digs his heels in when people come at him with allegations about his own people.

But I think he's reading the tea leaves. He knows that November is fast approaching. Democrats are going to take over. They're going to start doing some aggressive investigations of this administration. So I wouldn't be surprised if you see more administration officials that decide that they're going to step down or Trump asks them to resign to not serve as a distraction.

BLITZER: Liam, what do you think?

LIAM DONOVAN, FORMER NATIONAL REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL COMMITTEE AIDE: It's a bad look. I think it's the appropriate move to ask her to resign. You can't have these sorts of things come out, whatever the circumstances. That is not tenable.

I think you're barking up the tree if you're asking the ambassador to Greece to make an IRS problem go away, but that's kind of a side issue. But I think that there is a tendency at times to withstand some of these bad stories and bad press out of various reasons.

I think they're doing the right thing to nip this in the bud as quickly as possible.

BROWN: Why do you think they're not withstanding it, like they typically do? Like Ashley said, they typically dig in their heels.

DONOVAN: I think the president in particular really has a problem with the idea that people are making money trading off of his name. I think that is...

ETIENNE: And that he's not making any money off of it.

DONOVAN: I just think there is a nerve that is touched by this, this notion that by the perception of closeness to him is being monetized. I think he has a fundamental problem with that. And whatever the relationship is, that's a bridge too far.

ETIENNE: And I think she's also easily disposable, I mean, versus someone like Pete Hegseth, right? So I think that makes it easy for her to for them to force her.

BLITZER: Why not just fire her? Why just ask her to resign, as opposed to she's fired?

DONOVAN: That might be part of the courtesy. I don't know. I mean, there's certainly a longstanding relationship there, as the previous guest said.

But, yes, I mean, he doesn't like to fire people, right? I mean, that's a -- despite the "You're fired" tagline, that's kind of a hallmark of Donald Trump, is interpersonally, in a direct way, the actual firings tend to take longer.

BROWN: So, just taking a step back here, we learned about this from the new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia. It was a very brief press briefing. What did you think of it, Liam? And then I will go to you, Ashley.

DONOVAN: I will be honest, I didn't get a chance -- we were in the agreement. I didn't get a chance to watch it.

BROWN: Oh, OK. Did you know anything about her before she was announced?

DONOVAN: I didn't. I had to kind of look it up, but it actually -- in a weird way, it tracks.

Like, I think there's a short list of people that people might have expected, even maybe some of our CNN colleagues here. But the president really likes people who are good on TV and serve a very particular lane. And I also think that the model of Karoline Leavitt was such that somebody that is central casting in that sense makes a lot of sense.

And I think the division of labor within the Communications Department will be what I watch. Is she the one working stories with reporters, or is she just the one out to deliver the message at the podium?

ETIENNE: I mean, for me it made a lot of sense. I have prepped a lot of press secretaries who've gone to that podium before. And what you want to do is you want to, especially on day one, position your press secretary day one, make news, and to not be -- have her back against the wall.

Had she not come out proactively and said that the ambassador is going to step down, you can imagine the flood of questions that she would have gotten and creates an environment where she could trip, stumble, not do her best performance. So I think it was smart of them to give her this news nugget. It was an obvious low-hanging fruit.

And then she's got a great, successful first day.

BLITZER: Yes, as you know, there's been a lot of confusion out there and a lot of uproar over allegations of misconduct that have been surrounding some of the president's aides. What do you think? How is this going to play out November 3 in the midterm elections?

ETIENNE: Well, I think it's going to -- well, right now, I mean, if you if you look at the polling, second to the economy, corruption is polling highest with American voters across the political spectrum from Republicans to Democrats.

So the American people are finding not just that this administration is corrupt, but they're also connecting their pocketbooks to the corruption of this administration, which is the first time we have ever seen this before. But it creates an opportunity for Democrats to do, as I mentioned earlier, aggressive investigation into not just this administration, but into corporate actors and players as well.

And we're going to see that. I ran the opposition to Trump in the first term, and we got rid of six Cabinet secretaries mired in investigation, mired in scandal. So we will expect the same to happen with this particular body of -- set of, I should say, Democratic chairmen.

BLITZER: As you know, Liam, the president right now is crisscrossing the country, campaigning for Republicans. He was in Ohio last night, his second trip to the state in nine days alone. He will head to Alaska later today, a state he won by 13 points in 2024. He will travel to Arizona and Montana, a state he won by 20 points, tomorrow.

And, on Friday, he will be in Georgia. What does this swing through a mix of reliably red and battleground states tell you right now about the Republicans' chances on November 3?

[10:45:01]

DONOVAN: I think this is his highest and best use at this point. I think you have to understand the shape of the map is such that the majority runs through states that he has differentiated popularity in relative to your average Republican.

The fact that they were in Ohio last night, in Mahoning Valley, a place that is the crack in what was once a bellwether state, turning it to a red state was going after those ancestral Dems, those white working-class voters in Youngstown.

And I think they realize that they need to send the president out, they need to send the him out to the places where he can kind of turn those guys out, because, as Ashley said, Democrats are fired up. They are ready to go, ready to vote, and it's up to Republicans to turn out and turn out their voters, particularly those low-propensity Trump voters.

I think Georgia's the one that doesn't make as much sense, but, if you mention every one of those states, those are places that Trump won by 12 to 15 points, and they're the places where he needs to pull out every voter he can.

BROWN: And you have Democrats that are also making a play for voters in deep red states. Look at this ad by former President Barack Obama for the Democrat in the Mississippi Senate race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mississippi, it's time for a change. And that's why you need to send Scott Colom to the U.S. Senate. Now he's running for Senate to raise wages, lower costs, and save your health care and hospitals. Mississippi, your vote matters.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Trump won Mississippi by over 20 points in 2024. So what do you think about the fact that Democrats are trying to pull off this upset there?

ETIENNE: Well, Scott Colom is an incredible district attorney, incredible candidate. He's -- he has a momentum behind him. He's outraged his opponent. She's running scared. She won't debate him. She won't do any interviews. And, to me, that says that he's got an upper hand.

The other thing I would point out is that primary vote turnout for Democrats has been at a record high in Mississippi. So that's also giving some level of encouragement that we could actually flip a state like Mississippi. The key is going to be black voters, which is why you saw Obama, President Obama, doing an ad there.

That's why Warnock, Senator Warnock, going to be headed to Mississippi tomorrow. And so, given all of that dynamics, I think we're feeling really good about it. But it is Mississippi, and it's going to be a hard, hard fight.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: All right, Ashley and Liam, always great to have you both on. Thanks so much -- Wolf.

BLITZER: And coming up: The archbishop assigned to serve Catholics in the U.S. military is strongly condemning the Pentagon's current plan to livestream a firing squad execution. We have details. That's next.

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[10:50:59]

BLITZER: Happening now: The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, is now raising concerns about plans for livestream the firing squad execution of the Fort Hood shooter.

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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): The concern would be that it would create a video that would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists. We have got to think through the policy implications of all that. I wouldn't be watching it if it was aired, but there's a lot of opinions on that. I think there's still some time to talk about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: We're also hearing from the archbishop assigned to serve Catholics in the U.S. military. He has strongly condemned plans for the livestream execution.

Archbishop Timothy Broglio is also urging Catholics in the military not to participate.

Joining us now, Father Edward Beck. He's a Roman Catholic priest and a CNN contributor.

Father Beck, thanks so much for joining us.

The church traditionally opposes capital punishment. Why do you think it is important for the archbishop, Archbishop Broglio specifically, to come out and explicitly make his statement?

REV. EDWARD BECK, CNN RELIGION CONTRIBUTOR: Well, Wolf, I think he wants to speak with the rest of the universal church.

I mean, Pope Leo recently, on October 10, said -- that was the first American pope, by the way, that used the World Day Against the Death Penalty to call capital punishment inadmissible, attack on the dignity of the person. I mean, the archbishop here says the same thing.

I mean, the military's own archbishop is standing with the troops. So, as you said, Archbishop Broglio urged Catholic service members on the firing squad to ask to be excused and warned of the moral injury to those ordered to pull the trigger. I mean, his question is, do we really want to imitate the terrorists?

I mean, we have been horrified in this country when beheadings were streamed. And now suddenly we're no better than that? I think that's why he has to speak out against it, as does the church, as do many politicians.

BLITZER: In his post on X marking the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Pope Leo, the American-born pope, wrote in part these words: "The common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment" -- end quote.

Is there broad consensus right now within the Catholic Church for that point of view?

BECK: Yes, most definitely.

I think Catholics realize, I mean, this would be the first military execution since 1961, I mean, the first firing squad since 1945. I mean, we haven't had a public mass execution in 90 years in this country. I mean, countries that still put on executions are Iran, Afghanistan, and North Korea.

And now we're going to execute a man in a wheelchair. So I think that, yes, Catholics see this as a contradiction to the stance on life that Catholics have and many human beings have, and I think the majority are definitely opposed to it.

BLITZER: Some are defending the execution, citing a verse in Genesis Chapter 9, Verse 6, about God ordering capital punishment so people would remember the importance of human life. Do you think that that applies here?

BECK: No, I don't think at all.

We have to remember the importance of all human life. This is not about excusing Hasan. It's about who we are. Yes, 13 people were murdered by this man. Nobody minimizes that. But senators now from both parties, the vice president, the bishops are all recoiling. I mean, Speaker Johnson, as we just heard, even worries the video

might become a terrorist recruiting tool. I mean, I think, when that many people flinch, that's the conscience of the country talking. And I think we have to listen to it.

[10:55:04]

BLITZER: While I have you, Father Beck, I want to quickly ask you about Pope Leo undergoing surgery today to remove a small growth in his lung. How does the church prepare for an extended period of recovery for the sitting pope?

BECK: Well, they're hoping that he's only in hospital for one week. We are all hoping and praying for him.

And I think we want a speedy recovery. Knowing this man, he will continue to work, even as Pope Francis said when he was in hospital. And I think he will very much be engaged during this whole time as much as he can be. The others around him will assist.

But we're very concerned because we love this pope, as we have seen, and we want him to get well as quickly as possible. So I think we will see that happen, and we're praying for that, Wolf.

BLITZER: And we're praying for a very speedy recovery indeed.

All right, Reverend Father Edward Beck, thank you so much for joining us.

BECK: Thank you, Wolf.

BLITZER: Pamela.

BROWN: All right, Wolf, here's what's coming up all new at the top of the hour.

Examining the potential dangers of -- AI could have on a human survivor. We're going to speak to one of the authors behind a brand- new report. That's all new next hour.

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BROWN: Breaking news: The Trump administration asks Ambassador Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign, as sources tell CNN the State Department is now investigating allegations of misconduct.

BLITZER: And AI apocalypse? The shocking new warning that artificial intelligence could end the human race within the next 75 years.