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The Situation Room

Two New Polls Show Texas Senate Race Deadlocked; Vatican Says, Pope Leo Had Quiet Night After Lung Surgery; Police, Georgia Officials and Ride Maker Investigate Six Flags Death. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired October 14, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, all eyes on Texas. It's the race that could determine who controls the Senate. But with no clear leader in the Lone Star State, is the White House worried? Vice President Vance weighs in.

Plus, A.I. warning, Anthropic says small A.I. models could soon copy themselves on smart ovens and T.V. boxes without a way to shut them off.

Plus, a new CNN investigation takes a closer look at sexual assault reports at Cornell University and the consequences.

And inflation rising faster than expected last month, what this means for you and your family's wallet.

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, they say everything is bigger in Texas, and that includes the Senate race there. With the midterms now less than three weeks away, there's probably no race with bigger implications for the balance of power in Washington. Two brand-new polls out this hour show the contest between Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton is simply too close to call.

Marist College found 47 percent of likely voters back Talarico, 45 percent back Paxton. That's within the margin of error. And a University of Texas poll shows 50 percent of likely voters support Talarico with 47 percent backing Paxton. That's also within the margin of error.

Tonight, Talarico takes his bid to primetime. CNN and Jubilee Media will host his town hall beginning at 8:00 P.M. Eastern.

CNN's Alayna Treene is over at the White House for us. Alayna, President Trump has been to Texas, get this, at least three times in the last month alone. How concerned is the White House about the Senate contest there?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think there's no question they are quite concerned about it, Wolf. I mean, look, this is Texas we are talking about. This is a state that many Republicans had no intentions of spending so many resources and time, energy, money, all of that being poured into Texas.

You mentioned this, but the president himself has been there just three times, or three times just this month alone, the vice president there twice this month alone. I think that gives you an indication of just how worried they are about this.

Now, going back to those polls that you mentioned, I mean, both of them being within the margin of error, this is a clear toss-up. And, again, a toss-up in a state like Texas is a huge deal, and I think underscores broader concerns across the country really. And a lot of these red states, many of which we've seen the president going to in recent weeks and the enthusiasm gap between Republicans and Democrats.

Now, I do want to point out, we did hear the vice president yesterday. He was in Texas yesterday speaking to Republicans, part of this broader campaign, of course, from this White House to try and boost energy among their party as much as possible.

But I want you to listen to what he said, because he took direct aim at the Senate nominee -- the Democratic Senate nominee, I should say, James Talarico. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: Now, before we get started, I love you too, sir, in a totally platonic way. To be clear, I'm the vice president, not James Talarico.

You got to wonder what the internet search history of a man like that looks like. Ladies and gentlemen, you don't want to find out. Neither do I.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So, clearly, what you hear the vice president doing there, trying to paint Talarico just being culturally out of step with Texans broadly, doing what he can to try and paint him as almost a Democratic boogeyman.

We've heard the vice president really go after Talarico a lot in the past, President Trump himself doing so as well. But, again, part of the reason they are spending so much time and energy going after Talarico is because of how close this race really is, and really in a state that shouldn't even be on the map for Republicans.

But this is also what we're seeing kind of broadly. If you look at where the president himself has been going, I do want to point to where he'll be today, Trump will be in both Arizona and Montana later this week, he'll be in Georgia over the weekend, Kentucky.

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I mean, these are red states. Yesterday, he was in Alaska, for example, earlier this week, Ohio. These are very red states where the president is being forced to play defense. States where, again, Republicans I think a couple months ago, Wolf, would argue they shouldn't be spending time in.

And so we're going to see more of this in the next week. I know the president has a lot of aggressive campaign travel still scheduled for almost every day between now and November 3rd, doing what he can to try and convince his fiercest supporters to actually show up and vote.

BLITZER: We'll see what happens. Alayna Treene at the White House for us, thank you very much.

And tonight, once again, 8:00 P.M. Eastern, catch the CNN and Jubilee town hall with Texas Democratic Senate Candidate James Talarico. We did invite his opponent Ken Paxton as well. Our colleague Erin Burnett, is the moderator. Afterwards, CNN's Kaitlan Collins will break it all down on The Source. That's right here on CNN, streaming live with an all-access subscription. We invited Ken Paxton, but we haven't heard back from him.

BROWN: All right. Happening now, Pope Leo recovering after having part of his right lung removed. He has been diagnosed with lung cancer. The Vatican says he had a quiet night in the hospital and should be there for about a week.

CNN Vatican Correspondent Christopher Lamb is in Rome. So we just got this new information about the Pope's recovery. What more are we learning about this diagnosis of lung cancer?

CHRISTOPHER LAMB, CNN VATICAN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Vatican releasing a statement today saying that the post-operative recovery for Pope Leo is going as planned. We're told that the pope has been walking around the room, he's resumed a regular diet, eating breakfast and lunch, and the recovery is proceeding as expected.

Now, on Tuesday, the pope underwent a, an operation to remove part of his right lung that then was tested to have found that it was cancerous, and that news obviously coming as a big shock to many in the Vatican and across the Catholic Church.

But a spokesman for the Vatican saying to reporters that the operation was successful, it has removed the cancer, but there are still further tests that need to be done, and they will ensure or they will explain what the next steps will be. We're expecting the test results to be released within a week, the spokesman said.

Of course, a lot of uncertainty for the pope. He is in the Gemelli Hospital, which has a special place for the popes on the tenth floor. He has a forthcoming trip to Latin America in early November where he's due to return to Peru, a country he knows very well and lived in for many years. That trip apparently is still on schedule according to the spokesman. But, obviously, a lot depends on the pope's recovery and the results of these tests. Pamela?

BROWN: All right, Christopher Lamb, thank you so much. Wolf? BLITZER: And joining us now, Dr. Mark Awad. He's with the Memorial Sloane Kettering Cancer Center, treats people with lung cancer specifically. Dr. Awad, thanks so much for joining us.

When you hear these reports about the pope's situation, lung cancer, if you will, what, what goes through your mind?

DR. MARK AWAD, CHIEF THORACIC ONCOLOGIST, MEMORIAL SLOANE KETTERING: Thanks very much for the invitation, and we wish the pope a speedy recovery of course. We learned that the type of lung cancer that he has is called lung adenocarcinoma. This is the most common type of lung cancer. We can see this in people who have never smoked or people who have a history of tobacco use.

What we'll need to learn from the surgery is the stage of the cancer. Typically, that's determined based on the size of the tumor, as well as usually they remove a few lymph nodes in the middle of the chest during a surgery like this. And we'll have to learn whether there's, there's been any involvement of nearby lymph nodes.

But very often, if there is a small lung cancer and if it's removed by surgery, that procedure can be curative. Sometimes we do offer things like chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy after surgery in more advanced stages of disease. But for small primary tumors, sometimes surgery is the only treatment a patient might need.

BLITZER: And as you just mentioned Pope Leo is not a known smoker by any means. So, just how common is this type of cancer in non-smokers?

AWAD: Right. You know, we can see lung cancer in anyone. We do know there are certain risk factors that increase the risk of developing lung cancer, such as tobacco use, but we also know that lung cancer can form in people who don't have any known risk factors.

So, we encourage people, if you've ever smoked in the past, to talk to your doctor about lung screening, because that has been shown to catch lung cancers very early before they often present with any symptoms.

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And the earlier you catch and diagnose and treat the lung cancer, the better and better the chance of cure.

And we also tell people, if you've ever been told you have a lung nodule or a spot on the lung, a shadow on a scan, that does require follow-up and monitoring. Sometimes we might do another scan in the future or consider doing a biopsy. Not all lung nodules are cancerous, but some of them are. And, again, the earlier that we detect and diagnose these, the better.

BLITZER: If you're not a smoker and you develop this kind of lung cancer, what could potentially be the cause?

AWAD: It's a great question, Wolf, and we're trying to do a lot of work to understand the causes of lung cancer, particularly in never smokers. And right now, we don't know the cause. Similar to not knowing what causes many types of breast cancer, colon cancer, et cetera, we don't always know the cause of lung cancer.

But what's really exciting is that there have been a number of advances, both in surgical techniques as well as very specific targeted therapies that are safer, easier to tolerate, and highly effective for treating lung cancer.

So, we're very hopeful for the pope in terms of his long-term outcomes. Of course, we'll need to learn more information. We often do DNA sequencing or, or what we call a genomic or molecular profiling of lung cancers, and we can often find a mutation in the DNA that explains how the lung cancer developed. And often we have a matched, what we call targeted therapy, often in the form of pills, that can be effective at stopping that cancer from growing or spreading.

BLITZER: Well, thanks for your expertise, Dr. Mark Awad. I appreciate it very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: All right, Wolf. Still ahead, more roller coasters are closed down now as Georgia investigators try to figure out what went so horribly wrong at Six Flags.

And later, Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace joins us live right here in The Situation Room. We'll talk about her new bill to try to protect sexual assault survivors from defamation lawsuits.

Lots going on. You're in The Situation Room.

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BLITZER: This hour, a search for answers after that horrifying tragedy at Six Flags in Georgia. The man who fell from a ride to his death has now been identified as 42-year-old Hassan Kariem. He was an I.T. manager, technology teacher, and robotics coach at a charter school in Atlanta.

Officials say he was ejected from the Goliath coaster on Monday, and struck other passengers before falling. Police state officials, and the company that manufacture the ride are all investigating right now.

CNN's Isabel Rosales is joining us from Atlanta. Isabel, what more have you learned about the victim and this investigation?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Wolf, as this investigation is going on, there are 10 other similar hyper coasters, giga coasters as they're called, that have been temporarily closed across the United States and Canada out of an abundance of caution.

So, the big question is, how in the world does a man fall from a rollercoaster? Was this a mechanical issue, a restraint issue, human error? Was he not put in there correctly? Were they not following the right protocols and procedures? All of this is under investigation.

You mentioned a couple of agencies that are investigating. The Cobb County Police Department's Major Crimes Unit. Also, we have the Insurance Commissioner's Office, which it's their role to oversee the security and safety of amusement parks, and also the coaster manufacturer.

The victim here, 42-year-old Hassan Kariem, and it does appear, Wolf, that he was ejected in the final moments of this ride. How do we know that? Because the auto camera on the rollercoaster, you know, those souvenir pictures that you take and see at the end, it appears to have captured his final moments.

Now, according to the Cobb County Police Department, Kariem was found unresponsive, not breathing below the ride. They say that he did unfortunately struck other riders before he fell. And a witness tells our CNN affiliate WXIA that she saw and felt him strike the car three different times before he fell.

Now, the Swiss manufacturer to this coaster, they have a stellar reputation. We had a rollercoaster safety expert actually take a look at the limited details of this incident, and they noted that. But they also noted, Wolf, that with this particular ride, Goliath, that you're looking at right here, they have a clamshell-like restraint bar that comes down in between the legs, but notably there's no secondary restraint system, no over-the-shoulder seatbelt system. Not to say that that's what caused Kariem's death. Again, we don't know those details, what was behind this, but that was notable.

And I'll leave you with this, Wolf. The Six Flags over Georgia, the amusement park, reopens on Friday. This ride, of course, still temporarily closed.

BLITZER: Well, maybe they should add seatbelts. That potentially could save some people. No doubt about that.

Isabel Rosales, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: Just sad story.

Coming up, Wolf, A.I. spy, what we know about the now former employee of a top A.I. company who has now been arrested and accused of trying to steal internal secrets.

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BROWN: Happening now, a former employee at OpenAI is in federal custody after he allegedly hid a sophisticated recording device in one of the company's offices when he worked there. The Justice Department says the device was found two weeks ago during a regular security sweep of a conference room. Officials say it had been stuffed into a USB port on the back of a T.V. screen and concealed in toilet paper.

CNN A.I. Correspondent Hadas Gold joins us now. What more are you learning about this, Hadas?

HADAS GOLD, CNN A.I. CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so the Department of Justice has identified this now former employee as 35-year-old Abdulrahman Alfozan.

He is a Saudi national. He had been working at OpenAI as an engineer on their product team for just over a year. And as you noted, this device was hidden in the back of a T.V. screen in the USB port of an executive conference room.

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This conference room was only used by leadership and people related to the leadership at OpenAI. This device monitored audio, it had advanced encryption, and a mechanism for transferring data designed to evade monitoring.

OpenAI says there was evidence he planned to install more of these devices throughout OpenAI offices in San Francisco. As you noted, this was found during a regular security sweep that OpenAI conducted. They reached out to the FBI and worked with them to install actually a camera to be able to spot Alfozan going back into the conference room and looking behind the T.V. screen.

OpenAI is saying that at this point they have no indications that he was able to inappropriately access or exfiltrate sensitive things, like model weight, source code, or customer data.

Alfozan had actually previously worked at Meta, but, interestingly, he also was a partner at a venture capital firm, a Saudi venture capital firm that is headquartered in the Saudi capital city. We've reached out to both that venture capital firm and the Saudi embassy for comment. We have not heard back from them yet.

But the Department of Justice is indicating that they're taking this seriously as an issue of national security. We don't know yet whether this is a case of, you know, corporate espionage or some sort of national security foreign espionage. Right now, Alfozan is in federal custody, and he is scheduled to be- to appear before a judge next week.

BROWN: I want to ask you about something else. Anthropic is now warning that small A.I. models could soon copy themselves on small devices. What does that mean, and how concerning is that?

GOLD: Yes. So, what happened here is Anthropic ran an experiment where they wanted to see if small A.I. models would be able to essentially function without, you know, having access to these giant data centers.

And what they found is, yes, a small A.I. model could use things like internet-connected devices, think of a smart fridge or your smart T.V or something like that, and essentially use those as a base, connecting multiple of them together to essentially not have to use a data center and be able to do its job.

Now, this A.I. model that they were working on was very small and not very powerful. But what is concerning about this, and what is significant about it, is not only could it show that A.I. can self- replicate across different devices, not need a data center, but also that there wasn't an easy way to turn it off.

You know, we hear a lot about a kill switch and people wanting to have the ability to just say, nope, we don't want this A.I. model working anymore. But if they're spread out across all of these devices and can self-replicate, then it makes it hard to have a central place to really turn off this A.I. model.

I will tell you though, this is theoretical. This was an experiment that Anthropic was running, but Anthropic believes that this is just months away from being able to actually take place. And they're saying this is a warning about a new class of cyber threat. Pamela?

BROWN: All right, Hadas Gold, thank you so much. Wolf?

BLITZER: And coming up, inflation rising here in the United States faster than expected last month. What this means for you and your money. We'll have details.

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