Return to Transcripts main page

The Situation Room

Shooter Kills Three Children & One Teacher At Oregon School; Some Dem Lawmakers Call For Impeachment If They Win Back Congress; Fact-Checking Pres. Trump's Inflation Numbers. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired October 16, 2026 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Our meteorologist Allison Chinchar is joining us right now. So, Allison, what are the conditions that emergency crews are up against today?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right, some of the worst, and that's going to be the same way for most of the morning hours today. We're hoping to get some improvement as we go later on into Friday.

Look at some of these wind gusts, 78 miles per hour, 41, 40, again, you've had quite a few of them in that 35 to 50 mile per hour range this morning, and that's really the peak for a lot of these areas. So, you've got all of your wind warnings and wind advisories in place for much of the day today. The good news is the improvement will come once we get later on this evening.

You've got the red flag warnings mostly, in effect, north of Los Angeles, because that's where you have not only the high winds, but the ground is much drier than it is in places like San Diego, for example, which thankfully got some rain last weekend from Tropical Storm Rachel. But these areas, this is where it's that combination of dry ground and those very gusty winds that's going to fuel that fire threat for the remainder of the day today.

Here you can see, again, this morning, still looking at several of those wind gusts up around that 40 to 50 mile per hour range. Once we get to this afternoon, dropping down to about 30 to 35 in most places. And then finally, once we head into Saturday, other than a few isolated spots, most of them should calm back down to below 20 miles per hour.

BLITZER: All right, let's hope for the best. Allison Chinchar, thank you very, very much.

And the next hour of The Situation Room starts right now.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. Pamela Brown is on assignment today. You're in The Situation Room.

We begin with the urgent investigation unfolding right now in Bend, Oregon, where police are trying to determine why a 16-year-old shot his way into an elementary school and killed four people, a teacher and three children, just five, eight and 11 years old. They are now dead. A seven-year-old child and another teacher are in critical condition, still fighting to survive.

This morning, we're hearing from people who survived this massacre. Here's how a fifth grade teacher described the horror.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATHY SHEIL SMITH, SILVER RAIL ELEMENTARY TEACHER: They were so afraid. I looked at their faces. It was really hard to see. I was trying to calm them down, you know. And some kids were praying. Some kids were consoling other kids. And so what they were doing so quietly, because they know you don't want to make any noise. I just figured, OK, today is a day that I'm sure that every teacher at the school thought today is a day that I am going to die saving my kids.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Police say the 16-year-old was armed with a long gun and blasted his way through the school's locked doors. That teen was shot and killed by a community member before police arrived at the scene.

Let's go live right now to CNN national correspondent Nick Watt, who's on the ground for us in Bend, Oregon. Nick, what more are you learning about how all this unfolded?

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, we know that the horror, the terror that happened at this elementary school behind me all took place in just three minutes. That teacher you heard from, she saw the teenage gunman walking, carrying that rifle. She saw him through her classroom window, called into the office, 911 calls. Let's take a little listen to some of that dispatch audio.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are taking an active shooter, call it 61530 Southeast Stone Creek Lane. It looks like the shooter has been neutralized, possibly shot by a father at the school. Not sure about patients at this time, the police are arriving.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATT: Now, we do not know the identity of that community member who followed the gunman into the school, neutralized, killed him. We do not know the identity also yet of the 16-year-old shooter or any possible motive or any possible connection to this school.

So, three children dead, one teacher dead, another child and another teacher fighting for their lives. We are expecting to get more details from the FBI and the local police who are investigating. We're going to get more details from them later. They are keeping details pretty tight, pretty close to the vest while this investigation is ongoing.

Now, we're also hearing from community members. We hear, Wolf, that it was picture day yesterday at this elementary school. So you can imagine parents getting their kids dressed up in their finest for posterity. And of course, there were pictures taken probably of kids yesterday who then lost their lives.

[11:04:56]

Now, we hear, Wolf, that this 16-year-old gunman shot his way into the school. Now, in 2022, they had new locks put on the doors in these classrooms, so that they can be locked from the inside. There was also a vestibule system where you could come in, but then you had to be identified and buzzed into the school. We do not yet know how far into the school this gunman got.

As I mentioned before, he was followed in by this community member who neutralized and perhaps made this disaster a little less tragic. It's, listen, three kids dead and the teacher dead. It's terrible, but perhaps it could have been worse. We'll get details, more details later. Wolf?

BLITZER: All right, Nick Watt, on the scene for us. Thank you very, very much.

Let's discuss this with CNN's chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, John Miller. John, thanks very much for joining us. Suspect was only 16 years old. We don't know much else. When you have a suspect this young, how do police go about learning more about him and a potential motive?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, we've been looking into him as well overnight, and it's been challenging in that he doesn't appear in any of the normal social media platforms that a lot of kids appear in under his own name. So it seems that, you know, he's a little under the radar.

Now, there are other platforms, whether it's 4chan or 8chan or Twitch, where people operate under handles that are different from their names. And that is really what the FBI has been assisting local authorities with overnight, which is sure, there's the logical piece, Wolf, where you get a search warrant for the home, you lock that down so that nobody can come or go or remove anything while you're waiting for that warrant with a team of police officers. Then you execute that search, and what are you looking for there? You're looking for what's in his room. Did he leave a note or a diary, computers and phones?

But at the same time, they are executing search warrants in the virtual world. And that means they're laying subpoenas and preservation orders and search warrants on social media companies where they've detected he might have an account or communicated. What are they looking for? They're looking for, did he have a plan? Was there leakage? Meaning, was he hinting at this four days or weeks ahead of time? And more importantly, was anybody else clued in or involved in the plotting or planning?

These are, unfortunately, we've come to learn, the normal steps that we take in law enforcement and intelligence after one of these school shootings. The answers to all of those questions, as they developed overnight, some of them we may learn at the press conference that Nick mentioned that's coming up. But there are other questions. What were the dynamics of the shooting between this 16-year-old? Where did he get that weapon? Did it come from the home? Is it traceable to somewhere else? The dynamics of the shooting between the community member and the school shooter, did they exchange shots? Did they face each other? Or was he able to get the drop on him and take him by surprise? Those are details that could emerge today.

But the investigation is really in its nascent stage because they did all they could at the scene. There was teams working overnight. There were other people who were sent home to recharge who will be back at it today.

BLITZER: The district, the school district, spent millions of dollars to harden their schools, including upgrading the heavy-duty reinforced door locks, yet the gunman literally shot his way through them. He had a long gun, as they say. From a tactical standpoint, what more can schools do right now around the country to deter potential gunmen?

MILLER: Well, you know, Nick covered a little bit of this, talking about how they had the locking outside doors and then the vestibule where you're confronted by a second set of doors. That's become standard. It's considered kind of a man trap, which is if the shooter can get through the first set, the idea is to keep him or her through the second set.

But, Wolf, we also know that these shooters study each other. They study each other's TTPs, their training, their tactics, their techniques, their procedures. And, you know, if you look at the -- remember the shooting in Nashville just a couple of years back at the Covenant School. You had a former student return to that school.

She shot her way through the locked doors by blowing out the glass with her gun. And then the second set of doors the same way. She had done reconnaissance at the school by coming there and asking for a tour so she could bring back her memories. We saw the same exact dynamic in Minneapolis at the Annunciation Church shooting, where the person had asked for a tour.

[11:10:11]

One of the questions they're asking today is, was this 16-year-old ever a student at Silver Rail School, and had he been there either in the parking lot or visiting the school to try and formulate this plan? A lot of questions. We may get some answers today.

BLITZER: And as you know, in Oregon, a 16-year-old can't purchase what's described as a long gun. So they're trying -- I'm sure they're trying to figure out where did this 16-year-old get that gun?

MILLER: Well, while the FBI has been working on those electronic search warrants and preservation orders, ATF has been looking at the serial number on that gun. And what they can do is, there is no national gun registry. You can't run a serial number on a gun the way you can a license plate on a car and come to a registered owner. But what you can find is where was the last point of sale from a licensed firearm dealer. You can go to that dealer, and they can look up paper records on that sale and tell you who the purchaser was. We know statistically, in most cases where juvenile school shooters are involved, the guns come from the home. We don't know the answer to that in this case.

BLITZER: All right, John Miller, lots to work on. Thank you very, very much.

Still ahead, pardon power, what President Trump is now saying about whether he would consider pardoning himself. And later, Trump's economic message. The President is touting inflation numbers while he's out there on the campaign trail. But are they accurate? We have a CNN fact check just ahead. We're live right here in The Situation Room.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:16:14]

BLITZER: Happening now, President Trump is heading to Georgia. The next stop is his midterm campaign blitz. The President has been on a cross-country swing this week, stumping for Republican candidates amid sagging popularity polls for himself and for his Republican party. The highly contested state features a critical Senate race in the battle to try to control Congress in Trump's final years in office.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is over at the White House for us. Kevin, some Democrats say if they flip the House and the Senate, they will launch impeachment proceedings against the President. How is Trump responding to that threat?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, and it's interesting. This question of impeachment and of investigations of the President and his aides are something of a subtext to this entire midterm season. It's one of the reasons that why I think the President is fighting so hard and out on the road so often to try and retain the majorities in the House and the Senate is because he and his team are very aware that if Democrats come into power, they will see a flurry of these investigations, subpoena power, all kinds of things that kind of hampered the President in the final two years of his office during his first term. And that includes impeachments.

Now, remember, the President was impeached twice during his first term. He insists and he insisted in this Newsmax interview that he did yesterday that that actually benefited from him, that he had retained what he calls this anti-impeachment authority in which he sort of saw his own political powers underscored. And there could be some truth to that. You know, the President did go on to win in 2024.

But what he isn't ruling out is this idea of pardons, that if Democrats come in and begin these investigations that see himself or his aides embroiled in any kind of legal peril, he's not ruling out using that ultimate executive power of pardons to see them, their situations eased in some ways. Listen to what he said on that particular front.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm allowed to do a pardon, a self pardon. I'm allowed to pardon. One thing, the only thing Biden did is he proved that, you know, the pardon is very powerful. I know that. They say it's the most powerful thing a president has, the power of pardon. I can tell you this. I don't want to see my people go through because these people are lunatics on the left.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: So the President not ruling out either a pardon for himself or a pardons for his team. The other interesting thing he said in that interview, and he didn't really have any evidence for this, but he said that he had his own information on Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton saying that he hadn't used that at the Justice Department just yet because of respect for the office.

But holding out the potential that he could use that if he sees his own authority coming into question in the final two years. So not clear exactly what he meant by that. But I think all suggesting that this could be a very contentious final two years in office if Democrats do take the majorities in November.

BLITZER: All right. We'll see what happens on November 3rd, the midterm elections. Kevin Liptak, thank you very, very much. Also happening now with less than a month until Election Day. President Trump is trying to sell his economic message while he's out there on the campaign trail and he's taking aim at former President Biden. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: One point seven inflation in the last three months. Think of that, 1.7. He had real inflation. He had real inflation of 19 percent, 19 percent.

[11:19:57]

Look, we're at 1.7 percent inflation for the last three months. We inherited a terrible inflation from Biden, the worst in the history of our country. And we have for the last three months 1.7, 1.8 percent. Very low. And we're doing great. We're doing great.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: All right, let's go live right now to CNN senior reporter Daniel Dale. Daniel, first of all, tell us about the facts about what we just heard from Trump.

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: The facts show, Wolf, that the President's numbers simply don't make sense. We have not had anywhere close to 1.7 or 1.8 percent inflation any time in the last three months. We had 3.4 percent in July, 3.4 percent again in August and an acceleration to 3.7 percent in September. Now, as for this so-called 19 percent figure for Biden-era inflation, I do not know where Trump is getting it. He didn't explain.

The White House refused to provide a response when I asked them for any answers about what he was talking about. But in a 2022 speech, Trump correctly noted that peak Biden-era inflation was 9.1 percent in June of that year. And then in an ad-lib, he said, it's actually not. I believe it's double that. So if you double the 9.1, you add a little bit more, you get to 19. Of course, you can't do that.

You can't double economic numbers because you feel like it. Peak Biden-era inflation, again, was nowhere near 19 percent. Now, again, I have to emphasize, I'm not sure what kind of inflation numbers he was referring to for either himself or Biden, because we did not get any explanation.

So in an article on CNN.com that people can read, I walk through a couple other possibilities, like maybe he was talking about core inflation, cumulative inflation. But however you slice and dice it, it is simply not true. And I want to add, Wolf, that we keep hearing from President Trump that he inherited the worst inflation in history from President Biden. Simply not true.

The inflation rate was down to 3.0 percent in the month he returned to office, January 2025. We know there was significant, considerable inflation under Biden, again, a 40-year high of 9.1 percent in June 2022, but it then plummeted. And even that 9.1 percent rate was nowhere near the all-time high at 23.7 percent. It was nowhere near the Jimmy Carter-era high of 14.8 percent in 1980. So President Trump is entitled to talk about the fact there was significant inflation under Biden, but saying he inherited the worst ever, just not true.

BLITZER: What other claims is President Trump making, Daniel, about inflation as these midterm elections approach?

DALE: So many of them. Wolf, I think he's on a lying spree, frankly, about inflation, trying to concoct some sort of alternative reality that's much better than the reality we're actually in. So he said this month alone that we've already stopped the inflation. Obviously, you saw the numbers. He has not stopped it. He said that all of your prices, other than gas, are rapidly falling. The majority of prices continue to rise, we know.

And he's even said that overall price levels, the overall prices are now way lower than they were, than he inherited from Biden. So saying that overall prices are lower than the ones he inherited in January 2025, that is not even close to correct. Overall prices have increased on average 5.4 percent, consumer price index figures show. So no, not a decline, a 5.4 percent increase.

BLITZER: All right, Daniel Dale, with his fact checking. Thank you very, very much.

Up next, from visionary to convicted fraudster, Elizabeth Holmes is back in the headlines just ahead of a new documentary about her life. We'll have a Situation Room special report on what she told our own Dr. Sanjay Gupta a decade ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's probably the most important question I think anybody who's watching has about this. Does it work?

ELIZABETH HOLMES, CONVICTED FRAUDSTER: Yes.

GUPTA: You're confident in that?

[11:23:29]

HOLMES: I am confident in that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: Today, a new documentary about disgraced Theranos founder, Elizabeth Holmes, is hitting theaters. The film follows her as she prepared to report to federal prison back in 2023. Holmes was convicted on multiple charges, including conspiracy to defraud investors and wire fraud related to her now defunct company. Back in 2016, our own Dr. Sanjay Gupta sat down with her for an exclusive interview. He was the first journalist allowed inside Theranos to see how the blood testing hardware allegedly worked.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUPTA: It's sort of surprising to see screwdrivers and scissors and nails and screws and everything. This is a this is a literally from the ground up sort of operation here.

HOLMES: Absolutely.

GUPTA (voice-over): That's Elizabeth Holmes in 2016.

HOLMES: So this is the inside of the mini lab. We could actually run a protocol with a live blood sample.

GUPTA (voice-over): Taking me inside Theranos to reveal the device she hoped would revolutionize blood testing.

HOLMES: We, you know, wanted to realize a world in which people are determining the onset of disease in time for therapy to be effective, which is the origin of the word Theranos.

No one has ever seen this. You are the first one.

GUPTA (voice-over): She claimed that a mini lab could run a full range of tests on droplets of blood taken with the prick of a finger.

GUPTA: I'm going to do this myself. Tiffany, hello.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hello.

GUPTA (voice-over): I even went through the testing process with Holmes by my side.

GUPTA: That's still a needle in there.

HOLMES: Lancet.

GUPTA: A lancet. OK.

HOLMES: Needle has a hole.

If we can make it affordable, if we can make it accessible, they can use it to avoid having to say goodbye too soon and to be able to live better lives.

GUPTA (voice-over): Silicon Valley investors were smitten. After all, the 19-year-old who founded Theranos in 2003 then dropped out of Stanford had echoes of Steve Jobs.

[11:30:03]

GUPTA: The portrayal is, look, he was an icon for you. You even dressed like him.