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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Hurricane Melissa Makes Landfall In Jamaica As Monster Cat 5; GOP-led Oversight Committee Says Biden Pardons Signed By Autopen Are "Void"; Israel Strikes Gaza After Accusing Hamas Of Violating US- Brokered Ceasefire; CNN Tracks Down The People Involved In Austin Tice's 2012 Disappearance In Syria; Texas Sues Tylenol Makers, Claiming Links To Autism. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired October 28, 2025 - 17:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Well, I guess we are about to find out. And Jake Tapper is standing by for The Lead. We should note that it is he who obtained this letter that shows what Ed Martin has been doing here. I'm sure, Jake, you're going to have much more coverage on The Lead.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: We're going to have Chairman Comer come on and then we'll have another Democratic congressman come on and discuss her side as well. Thanks so much, Kasie. We'll see you back.

HUNT: Have a great show.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

TAPPER: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. We begin with the breaking news in our World Lead. Hurricane Melissa, history's second strongest hurricane in the Atlantic is currently unleashing hell on the island of Jamaica. Melissa made landfall near Hope, near New Hope, Jamaica as a monster Category 5 hurricane. Wind speeding 185 miles per hour. That's nearly 30 miles per hour above what it takes to be classified as a Category 5.

It's now still powerful dangerous Category 4 hammering popular resort areas on the northern coast including Montego Bay. Listen from inside a bed and breakfast from that area.

You can hear the wrath as Melissa's moving in. Video just shared with The Lead shows the view from Gayles Landing in Treasure Beach on Jamaica's south coast as Melissa roared ashore. A restaurant owner on the southwest coast told CNN the whole coastline is gone.

The storm is causing widespread internet outages. Flooded roads, flooded ridges kicked up life threatening storm surge with catastrophic winds and of course, flooding. Now before Melissa completely passes Jamaica, it could drop as much as 30 inches of rain on Jamaica alone. And authorities are warning people to watch out for crocodiles that may be displaced in the floods.

CNN has live team coverage as only CNN's Derek Van Dam is on the ground in Jamaica, but we're going to start with meteorologist Chris Warren. Chris, the National Weather Service just released an update. What's the latest? CHRIS WARREN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: The latest, it is still a strong and

powerful Category 4 Hurricane, Jake. 145-mile per hour sustained winds associated with the most dangerous part of the storm. Gusts still possibly around 175 miles an hour. Losing that eye and that is where the most dangerous winds are the strongest winds right there. But this is still a beast of a storm that is working across Jamaica. Montego Bay still with the threat of surge, flooding, strong, powerful winds.

Meaning meanwhile, we'll hear from Derek in a moment in Kingston with sustained winds at 28, gusting to 48. But it's over here where it made landfall, where we did see that inundation of water. We did hear about a lot of the strong winds, the howling winds and the damaging winds. That's where the catastrophic winds came through. There's New hope right there.

Now, if the storm would have came onshore near Kingston, we'd be talking about a massive humanitarian disaster here. We're still watching, though. Montego Bay, much more populated than the south coast where it did come on shore. It is moving off to the north now, but still wrapping around. Surge and heavy rain still a threat.

But fortunately here the heaviest of rain has since passed. But it's going to take a while for all that water to drain out to sea.

Next up, Jake, we're going to be watching for Cuba. It does look like we are going to be seeing a major hurricane, Category 3 or 4, looks like a 4 making landfall here tonight into tomorrow.

TAPPER: Derek, you're in Kingston. If you can hear me, it looks like you can maybe. What sort of conditions have you been experiencing there in Kingston.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Jake, a tremendous increase in wind speeds in the nation's capital of Kingston, regardless of being well over 100 miles from the center of this storm. That just shows you the breadth of this wind, the field wind that has expanded in size and ferocity.

Kingston, were able to move from our sheltered area of the hotel and that kind of valley were reporting from over the past 24 hours to get a better picture of how the city fared once the storm has, you know, moved far enough where we felt comfortable enough to get down to the coastline.

And Jake, we are happy to report that we believe that Kingston, even talking to local police officials here, has been spared the worst of the catastrophic damage that is unfolding across the western parts of the country. But that does not mean that we are out of the woods just yet.

[17:05:05

Clearly we are getting buffeted by tropical storms, hurricane force wind gusts and heavy rain. Every once in a while we'll get a spray from the Caribbean Sea which is directly over me. And my team and I are protected behind a wall. If I was to step back a good five feet, which I won't do, but that is

just a wall of wind directly behind me caused me to not to fall over. So if you're having trouble hearing me, excuse me a little bit challenging conditions. But what I was saying is we're protected in this particular location because of the wall. You can't see over my right hand shoulder.

But if I was to step directly behind me, it's this invisible course of wind that has to be gusting over 80-90 miles per hour. We have seen tree poles that have been slanted in the city of Kingston. We've seen some billboards that were toppled over, minor stream flooding in. But just the fact that we're so far away from the center of this storm shows you the magnitude and the difficulty that the western part of the country is getting at the worst is experiencing. Jake.

TAPPER: All right, Derek Van Dam in Kingston. Please stay safe. Chris Warren in the CNN Severe Weather Center, thank you so much.

Let's go now to Andrea Lee. She's going to join us by the phone. Andrea runs the Blue Paloma Bed and Breakfast in a coastal town that's halfway between Montego Bay and Negril. Andrea, thanks for joining us.

You stayed in your B and B to ride out the storm. Tell us about the conditions that you're facing right now.

ANDREA LEE, PROPRIETOR, BLUE PALOMA HOTEL JAMAICA: I think inside we're doing very well. We still have electricity because we have a generator. We still have hot water and we haven't had a lot of breach of our systems. The shutters have held up pretty good.

So inside we're doing pretty good. We're actually making dinner right now. So we have propane. That's what we cook with. So we're doing good inside.

On the outside --

TAPPER: Yes. Tell us about --

LEE: -- that's different story.

TAPPER: Yes, tell us what you see out there.

LEE: Oh, it's devastating. I mean, most of our fruit trees are down. They're in the swimming pool. They're everywhere. All the, you know, we have some very mature trees and the majority of them are down. It's -

TAPPER: Go ahead, go ahead. No, you go ahead. I'm sorry.

LEE: Oh, it's the noise. That is, I mean, that is the tough part. You don't have to look outside, but you cannot not hear the howling and the noise and the, you know, the squealing. I mean, that's the worst part, I think.

TAPPER: So your Facebook page shows that you made breakfast for your guests this morning. How many guests are staying at your B and B right now and how long are you prepared for them to stay if it's not safe or possible to leave when they were hoping to check out?

LEE: Well, we have four guests right now. We have guests from Canada, from Liberia and from Jamaica. I think we're pretty equipped to probably host them probably for another week or two. We have enough food. We have water. We have about 12, 500 gallons of water. We have about, you know, 200 pounds of propane. We have at least 40 gallons of diesel for a generator.

So I'm hoping that you'll be able to get diesel at least in a few days or so. So I think we're good at least maybe for another week or so.

TAPPER: So many potential hazards, of course. And in addition to the wind and the flooding, authorities are actually warning folks to watch out for crocodiles that might be displaced in the flood. You're only a seven-minute walk from the water, of course. Are you worried about this storm surge? Are you worried about crocodiles?

LEE: On this end of the island crocodiles are not as common. So, you know, in St. Elizabeth where they're, you know, it's horrible for them over there from what I can see and what I've read. So that's where, you know, a lot of the crocodiles are.

Here on the west end of the island, we don't see a lot of crocodiles or alligators or snakes for that matter. So, yes, I'm not worried about that. I'm worried more about, you know, the condition of the roads, the trees, you know, the debris, those kinds of things and the water. That's what we're concerned about.

And you know, if the electricity, if the electric lines were to fall down and the water get electrified and, you know, after the wind stops, individuals go out. Those are kind -- those are more the things that I'm concerned about.

TAPPER: All right, Andrea Lee, thank you so much and stay safe. We're going to have much more from Jamaica, much more coverage of Hurricane Melissa ahead.

[17:10:03]

Also ahead, a major report today from Republicans on the House Oversight Committee who are claiming that former President Joe Biden was in such cognitive decline at the end of his presidency that the pardons he signed in office using an autopen should be voided. The chairman of the committee who put out this report will join me next. And then we'll have a Democrat later in the show to respond.

And later, never before seen video of an American journalist Austin Tice in Syria weeks just before he vanished 13 years ago. CNN's Clarissa Ward uncovered quite a bit while trying to retrace Austin Tice's last known steps.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In the Politics Lead, the Republican led House Oversight Committee deeming void President Biden's pardons and commutations signed using an auto pen towards the end of his presidency. The 93- page report that the oversight committee offered today concluded its investigation in its investigation alleging there was, quote, a cover up of the President's cognitive decline, unquote. And that there's, quote, no record demonstrating President Biden himself made all of the executive decisions that were attributed to him, unquote. It's an assertion that President Biden has disputed.

[17:15:04]

The committee also sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi asking the Justice Department to consider whether numerous pardons and commutations should now be deemed invalid and suggesting the prosecution of Biden's aides potentially.

Here with us now is the House Oversight Committee chairman, Republican Representative James Comer of Kentucky. Thanks so much for joining us, Mr. Chairman.

So your investigation talks about holes in the chain of custody of Biden's decision making process. And there's a game of telephone you describe. Some people meet with Biden and somebody says this is going to happen. Then it goes to an aide to the chief of staff and then back to the aide and then a letter to the people whoever is filling out the autopen.

Some -- there doesn't appear to be evidence that someone other than Biden was making the decisions. There's an absence of evidence that he did make the decisions. So how do you conclusively decide that they're voided as opposed to we don't know?

REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): Well, look, at the end of the day, Joe Biden himself gave an interview with the New York Times admitting that he didn't individually review all the pardons himself --

TAPPER: All the thousands of them.

COMER: -- that he delegated that. Well, that's not the way the, you know, the president is the only person that has the power to pardon. But when we met with all the inner circle, they all had differing stories on how the use of the autopen was authorized. There were lots of inconsistencies. There was no consistent chain of custody. Then you have the emails from the Merrick Garland Department of Justice that were sent to people in the Biden administration warning them about the excessive use of the autopen on legal documents.

So, you know, you could make the argument that you're not even supposed to use an autopen at all on a legal document. You could make the argument that it's OK to use it occasionally. The last three months of the Biden administration at a time when all of these inner circle people had no contact whatsoever with Joe Biden. He was not giving public appearances. He was not issuing statements as to why he made this decision to pardon these people or why he made the decision and what process on the executive order, we just would read in a, you know, a newspaper excerpt the morning of that the president had done this.

TAPPER: So, you know that the Justice Department back during the Bush administration, there's Office of Legal Counsel guidance saying that use of the autopen is perfectly acceptable.

COMER: But you know, that was you had an instance where the autopen was used when the president was out of the country or whatever. 75 percent of the time when the autopen was used, especially during the lame duck period of the White House. And this is thousands of times, 75 percent of the time, Joe Biden was in the White House.

TAPER: So you interviewed 14 former White House advisers who served in the Biden administration and quite a few of them made statements about the use of the autopen and the decision making process that might push back on your conclusion. I just want to run some of those clips.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEERA TANDEN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE STAFF SECRETARY: I will say I sometimes have a reputation for toughness and I always require my -- the signature card. You know.

RONALD KLAIN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: We used the same process that I thought prior presidents had used.

JEFF ZIENTS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: I don't want you to miss the rigor and the amount of iterations, the amount of time the president spent on pardons. He made these decisions obviously, but he also made these decisions after, in most cases, many, many meetings.

TAPPER: So you know, Biden obviously to the New York Times denied the conclusion of your report. And here are three top aides, especially Jeff Zients, the chief of staff, and Ron Klain, the former chief of staff, also pushing back. What's the response?

COMER: Yes, well, they ought to push back or else they were forging his name. But at the end of the day, look, there's no -- there are no records in the National Archives of notes. There are some pardons and some executive orders that were signed with the autopen where they claim that Biden verbally or orally gave them permission to do it. There are some that were testifying that they only used memos. They had a memo and President Biden -- some staffer would type a memo. Then Joe Biden would read the memo authorizing the use of the autopen, then sign his initial and then someone used out of it.

Why not just sign the document? It's one signature. So, you know, none of this makes sense. It all falls back also on -- did the was the president even mentally fit to make those decisions? And that's when we brought Dr. O'Connor in. And Dr. O'Connor, when the first question we asked, were you ever told to lie about Joe Biden?

TAPPER: He's the White House physician.

COMER: Yes, the White House physician. And he pled the Fifth Amendment so he wouldn't answer that.

TAPPER: You referred him. And then two other aides, Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini, all of whom pleaded the Fifth to the Justice Department. What are you expecting them to look into? COMER: We believe there was a cover up of Joe Biden's mental fitness.

The fact that Joe Biden met with Ian Sams, his White House spokesperson, two times in two years.

[17:20:00]

The fact that he met with Neera Tanden, who was his executive secretary, once every month or whatever, I mean, it's shocking. Every other president Obama, President Bush, President Trump, they meet with these staffers multiple times per week. And Joe Biden was clearly shielded. And I think you wrote very well and very accurately in your book that he was shielded from people. He was shielded from Pete Buttigieg. He was shielded from his inner staff.

So the question that I think the Department of Justice needs to ask these people that pled the Fifth, was there an organized cover up? Why did not -- why did you not give the President a cognitive test when even mainstream media outlets were demanding that Joe Biden take a cognitive test?

TAPPER: So I got hold a source gave me an email that Ed Martin, who's the pardons attorney, sent to you from Monday of this week saying that he can't stand by these pardons and he's going to investigate them.

I wonder if you worry at all about the precedent of undoing pardons, commutations, clemencies, because of an assessment that is not, that is disputed.

COMER: I think that the pardon process needs to be reviewed. I think the pardon process has been abused. I would like to see legislation that defines the exact proper process for how a pardon issued, regardless of who the President is.

Having said that, I think anyone that reads this report, anyone that watches the hours and hours of depositions would conclude that Joe Biden wasn't the one making those decisions. They had opportunity after opportunity to demonstrate a consistent pattern of how pardons were authorized, and they failed to do that.

And look, everyone in America saw with their own eyes a declining president of United States, and the fact that there was so much activity during the lame duck period, it seemed like from the time of the debate until the transition of power, that's when the use of the autopen greatly accelerated.

And again, 75 percent of the time that auto pin was used, they claimed Joe Biden, according to the records, was in the White House. Why wouldn't he be more involved? Why wouldn't there be notes from meetings that Joe Biden said this? There's no documentation that would suggest Joe Biden was involved in the pardon.

TAPPER: I guess the argument from Democrats would be absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But I want to ask you one more thing before you go as long as I have you, because you're head of the chairman of the Oversight Committee.

COMER: Right. Right.

TAPPER: There's a Reuters report today on the Trump family's crypto ventures. Based on the family's own financial disclosures, Reuters found the Trump Organization's income from the first half of this year shot from $51 million to $864 million. About $800 million of that is from crypto. And the story details how most of the buyers are foreign investors and how all this money is going to belong to Trump when he leaves office. Is this something that you're going to look into at all?

COMER: Well, it's something that we are like you reading about this. We're trying to digest it. The difference between the way the Trump families operate and the Biden family is they're admitting they're doing this. The president campaigned as a business guy. I'm not defending the policy. I think there needs to be ethics reforms. And I had a bill that Jamie Raskin killed last session because he thought that Kamala Harris was going to win the presidency. But it would have increased the disclosure.

So, I as long as you disclose your income and disclose the sources, I think that's acceptable. If you lie about the income, you say I never received money from China and then we subpoena your bank records and there's $5 million from China, I think that's a problem.

So, you know, I think it's a legitimate question. A lot of people are concerned, especially since the crypto industry isn't regulated. But if my position now is far, as long as the president disclosing this and they're filling out disclosures and they're answering questions, he answers questions about it. If you ask him about his crypto, he'll say, yes, they've got the best crypto country in the world.

Now do the voters like that? I think that's going to be an issue in the next presidential election. I think it's a fair question. But from an ethics standpoint and from an oversight standpoint, the president is disclosing this income. And that I think is the most important part, the transparency.

TAPPER: All right, we're out of time. House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer, Kentucky thank you, sir. The next hour we're going to hear from a Democrat on the House committee responding to this report.

We do have some breaking news for you from the Middle East. Israel launching new strikes on Gaza, accusing Hamas of violating the ceasefire, the claims and what this might mean for the future of the peace process going forward. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:29:07]

TAPPER: We have breaking news on our World Lead. Just two and a half weeks after a diplomatic breakthrough, the Israel Defense Forces are again pounding Gaza with airstrikes. At least nine killed today, according to Gaza officials. This Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is accusing Hamas, which the U.S. labels a terrorist group, of a clear violation of the ceasefire after that terrorist group sent human remains to Israel that did not belong to any of the three unaccounted for hostages and attacked Israeli troops beyond the so called yellow line near Rafah, which celebrates Israeli which separates Israeli occupied Gaza from the rest of this trip, according to Israel.

Joining us now to discuss, David Sanger, CNN's political and national security analyst and also obviously a writer for the New York Times.

If the fire has not ceased, is the ceasefire still on?

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, the ceasefire is pretty fragile. Clearly there have been moments where it's breaking up. You heard Vice President Vance today say, no, I think it's OK.

[17:30:00]

It'll come back together. Maybe it will. We hope so. But you know, Jake, we saw the origins of this when the president was in Israel. I was on the --

-- they say, no, no, I think it's OK, it'll come back together, maybe it will, we hope so.

[17:30:04]

But you know, Jake, we saw the -- the origins of this when the President was in Israel, I was on the trip, and he would, he kept saying, this war is over, this is solved. He didn't just refer to it as a hostage release, he said the war is over. I've solved something that has taken decades, right.

TAPPER: Right.

SANGER: And Netanyahu, Prime Minister Netanyahu was very careful to say, we're grateful the hostages are back. And if the ceasefire holds, wonderful, but if it doesn't, and if they don't disarm, we will disarm them.

TAPPER: Yes, no, any skepticism is met with anger from the White House, I refer to it as a ceasefire deal, and MAGA media and the White House went bananas, it had nothing to do with Trump, it's just like, I know this area of the world.

SANGER: Yes.

TAPPER: Yes. If this stuff doesn't hold up. So Vance dodged, when asked by reporters today if the ceasefire was over, he said these were little skirmishes. But if you listen to Netanyahu, it doesn't sound like they're little skirmishes.

SANGER: So the two fundamental problems here, first of all, we'll have to get the facts on skirmishes, but there were two things that happened. They opened fire on, the Hamas opened fire on Israeli troops, or so the Israelis say. TAPPER: Yes.

SANGER: And they returned remains that weren't truly hostages, they say it's hard to find them, there was an incident that took place where it looked like maybe they buried a body and then waited.

TAPPER: But let me talk about this, because the IDF released this drone video.

SANGER: Yes.

TAPPER: They say it shows Hamas operatives burying a white cloth containing a body in Gaza City and then staging its discovery in front of the Red Cross, though the Red Cross tells us that they weren't aware it was staged.

SANGER: That's right, I mean, they all know there's going to be DNA testing here, so I'm not quite sure who they, and they know they're drones, who they think they're fooling. The bigger question, though, here is the next stage of the agreement is about disarming Hamas, and we have seen no evidence right now that Hamas has signed on to that.

TAPPER: Yes, no evidence in the last 50 years. Let's turn to a different flashpoint, because Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that the U.S. military conducted strikes against four separate boats in the eastern Pacific on Monday. That's 14 people killed, one survivor, it's the first time there have been multiple confirmed strikes in one day.

You point out, "Mr. Trump refuses to provide Congress or the public a clear statement of his goal." I think a lot of people wonder, is this even legal? Like I understand Trump's asserting the powers that Obama used against terrorists by just declaring drug dealers, narco- traffickers terrorists, but does that hold up anywhere in any court, in any legal opinion?

SANGER: Jake, you and I have been doing this for a long time. I have never seen a situation like this where, first of all, the consensus of the legal community is that it's illegal under domestic law and it's illegal under international law and laws of war, because these are civilians, they're not shooting back, even if they are drug dealers.

TAPPER: Right.

SANGER: Do this comparison. Let's say that we had found a drug network in New York or Los Angeles or something and the police or even the National Guard went after them. If they weren't actively shooting, could they just shoot them on the streets or would they have to try to arrest them? And that's the problem.

TAPPER: Yes. Not a lot of people on Capitol Hill talking about this.

SANGER: That's true.

TAPPER: But we'll continue to cover it. Either way, David Sanger, always great to have you. Thank you. SANGER: Great to be here.

TAPPER: Coming up next, the search for journalist Austin Tice. What happened when CNN's Clarissa Ward went to Syria to try to retrace the steps of this missing American journalist?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm looking for more information about my friend Austin Tice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[17:33:39]

TAPPER: Hear what that man told Clarissa after he invited her inside. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

TAPPER: In our World Lead, an update on an enduring mystery that we've covered here on The Lead for years. Austin Tice was a Marine Corps veteran in law school at Georgetown working as a freelance journalist. In the summer of 2012, Tice was in Syria working on a piece when, his family says, he was detained at a checkpoint and then he disappeared.

Thirteen years later, CNN's Clarissa Ward went to Syria again to find out what happened to Tice. And she confronted the man who held him captive.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WARD (voice-over): These are some of the last known videos of U.S. journalist, Austin Tice, shown here for the first time.

AUSTIN TICE, JOURNALIST: It's clearly a popular revolution, right?

WARD (voice-over): They were shot in the city of Yabroud in Syria in July 2012, shortly before Austin went missing 13 years ago.

TICE: It's just, it's so moving and peaceful, and it's such like an act of community.

WARD (voice-over): Ten months after the collapse of the brutal dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, his dungeons have been emptied, but the ghosts of tens of thousands of his prisoners remain.

Among the missing, Austin Tice, journalist, U.S. Marine captain, Georgetown law student, devoted son and brother, and my friend. For me, this is personal. I've come to Syria to find out what really happened to Austin and track down the shadowy figure who knows the answer.

WARD: I'm just looking back through all of these emails that Austin and I were sending each other, and I have one from Sunday, August 12th. He was getting ready to cross into Lebanon. I was getting ready to meet him in Beirut, and he says, if I cross when I have plans to, we'll be throwing back those cocktails pretty soon. Of course, plans never really work out here.

[17:40:04]

WARD (voice-over): I never heard from him again.

TICE: (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE). Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus.

WARD (voice-over): Weeks after Austin disappeared, a video surfaced online purporting to show him held by jihadists. Former U.S. officials tell CNN they quickly determined it was a ruse, and that Austin was in the custody of the Assad regime.

Safwan Bahloul was a general in external intelligence at the time, and one of the last people to see Austin alive, summoned in by the man who was holding him.

SAFWAN BAHLOUL, FORMER SYRIAN EXTERNAL INTELLIGENCE GENERAL: I was contacted by a four-sun general at that time. He was called Bassam al- Hassan. He's very close to the president, and he told me, we have caught an American journalist. We want you to interrogate in a way or meet the guy and see the possibility if he's not a mere journalist, if he's -- if he's a spy in -- in a way. He told me that he's an ex- Marine officer. He was brave. He was not a shaky character. He wasn't shaky. He was brave enough to face his custody.

WARD: Did he ever ask you for help?

BAHLOUL: If you mean help to be freed, no, not at all. But he told me if I could obtain some -- some things to make his life easy in the cell he was kept there. I told him, like what? He told me, you know, some magazines, journals to read, and, you know, OK, and what else? And he told me soap and towel, and I told him, OK, and after that, I think the next day I was called by another guy in Bassam's office. He told me in Arabic, (SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE) which it means our pal just escaped.

They discovered that he used the soap to rub his body, their body with the soap to lubricate his body, and he put the towel on broken shattered glass, which is cemented to the external fence.

WARD (voice-over): We managed to get into the compound where Safwan says he interrogated Austin. At the time, under the control of Assad's Republican Guard. It was never a formal prison, a perfect place to hide a high-value captive.

WARD: It could be this. Look. Obviously, it's all been refurbished, so it's hard to match the descriptions exactly. But one thing particularly that Safwan talked about was this high window. You can imagine he just spent days and days in here plotting how he was going to escape.

WARD (voice-over): For more than 24 hours, we're told Austin was on the run in the upscale neighborhood of Meza, perhaps hoping to reach the many embassies and United Nations offices in the area. But he didn't get far.

BAHLOUL: Every security apparatus in Damascus, which there -- there are thousands of operatives, they started the search, and he was caught by one of them. And he was re-delivered to the National Defense Forces militia, which headed at that time Bassam al-Hassan.

WARD (voice-over): Al-Hassan brought Safwan in to see Austin one more time.

BAHLOUL: It wasn't like the previous times I saw him. He was optimistic and energetic.

WARD: But he had lost hope.

BAHLOUL: Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Because I was talking to him and he was not responding. He was, in a way, we could say depressed. And I never saw the guy again.

WARD: Did you understand when you left what was going to happen to him?

BAHLOUL: It's unimaginable, even. In my wildest thinking, I wouldn't suspect that he will be, let's say he will just disappear.

WARD: So let me ask you this. Who knows what happened to Austin? Who knows the truth?

BAHLOUL: Bassam.

[17:45:00]

WARD: Is this him?

BAHLOUL: Can I see him? Yes, absolutely, 100 percent, 100 percent.

WARD (voice-over): For years, Bassam al-Hassan stayed in the shadows. Now CNN has obtained new, never-before-seen images of him. Known in regime circles as Khal, or uncle, he was a top Assad advisor and founder of the Iran-backed National Defense Forces militia, blamed for brutal massacres. After the fall of the Assad regime, al-Hassan fled quickly to Iran.

Then in April of this year, he showed up in Beirut, Lebanon, and sat down with the FBI for a series of interrogations about Austin. We've been given a tip about where al-Hassan is now hiding out, an upscale apartment complex in a suburb of Beirut. One balcony and one man in particular draws our attention.

By the end of a long night of watching, we're convinced it's him. Wearing hidden cameras, producer Sarah Sirgany and I go to confront him.

WARD: Hi, how are you? My name is Clarissa Ward. I'm a journalist for CNN. Can I ask you a couple of questions? I'm looking for more information about my friend Austin Tice.

BASSAM AL-HASSAN, ADVISER TO FORMER SYRIAN PRESIDENT BASHAR AL-ASSAD: Come in.

WARD (voice-over): He invites us into the apartment, but he is clearly rattled and asks over and over again how we found him.

AL-HASSAN (through translator): I insist to know, who told you about this place? No one knows where I live.

WARD: I'm not going to tell you how we found out where you are. It's not important. We've been looking for you for a while. We know that you've given multiple different stories. Can you just tell me, because he was my friend, is Austin Tice dead?

AL-HASSAN (through translator): Of course Austin is dead. Austin is dead.

WARD (voice-over): He tells us he explained to a team from the FBI that President Assad gave him the order to execute Austin and that the order was carried out by a subordinate.

AL-HASSAN (through translator): I don't want to protect Bashar Al- Assad because he abandoned us and left us. This relates to President Bashar only.

WARD: But you sent him to his death.

AL-HASSAN (through translator): I don't want to go into any details. These are details that I told the team. I told the team that I received the order and I passed it on. That's it.

WARD: Can you just tell me one thing? Can you tell me when Austin died?

AL-HASSAN (through translator): He passed away.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: From 2012? October? 2012? 2013?

WARD: 2013

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 2013?

WARD (voice-over): He refuses to give any more information. When he asks to take a photograph of us, we decide to leave. At the door, he talks about Austin's mother, Debra Tice. His voice cracks.

AL-HASSAN (through translator): I owe her an apology and it upsets me to remember it. Truly.

WARD: Understood.

AL-HASSAN (through translator): I wish what happened hadn't happened.

WARD (voice-over): It is a gut punch to think that Austin may have been killed 12 years ago.

WARD: One thing that he was very emphatic about is that Austin is dead. Austin is dead. And he wants to pass his condolences to Debra. WARD (voice-over): CNN has confirmed that al-Hassan failed the FBI polygraph test. What is less clear is what parts of his story are a lie. In September, a U.S. delegation, including FBI investigators, came to Damascus to search for Austin's remains, based on a location given to them by al-Hassan. They came away empty-handed. The full truth of what happened to my friend may well never be known, like the fate of countless Syrians.

WARD: Everyone was keeping so many secrets.

BAHLOUL: In a way, in a way.

WARD: Everyone was lying.

BAHLOUL: It's all about loyalty and worshipping, nearly worshipping the commander. He's a supreme commander. He's a president. He's everything. So, yes, lying is widely spread in the X regime, yes. It's nothing personal. I was doing my job. That's -- that's all it is.

[17:49:59]

WARD (voice-over): Austin may simply be remembered as yet another victim of the endless lies and senseless cruelty of a ruthless regime.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WARD: Now, Jake, the Tice family has always maintained that Bassam al- Hassan is what they call a pathological liar. They did give CNN a statement with regards to this report, saying simply, Austin Tice is alive. We look forward to seeing him walk free. And I should add as well, with regards to the accusation that al-Hassan made, that President Bashar al-Assad, or former President Bashar al-Assad himself, had ordered Austin's execution.

Obviously, after the fall of the Assad regime, he fled to Russia. CNN has attempted to reach out without success. The Assad regime always maintained that they never had Austin. But as you can see very clearly from our report, that is absolutely not the case, Jake.

TAPPER: Powerful and heartbreaking report. Clarissa Ward, thank you so much for that. Appreciate it.

We're also following some breaking news here in our hemisphere. Hurricane Melissa, one of the strongest on record in the Atlantic Ocean ever, slamming the island of Jamaica right now. Slamming it. We're going to go live to Jamaica, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[17:55:39]

TAPPER: Heartbreaking news. Hurricane Melissa, this is video of her ferocious winds at a gas station not far from landfall when winds hit some 185 miles per hour. Melissa is still churning north. Kareen Hunter joins us now on the phone. She's the ministry coordinator for Praying Pelican Missions in Kingston, Jamaica. Karen -- Kareen, rather, sorry, thanks for joining us. What have conditions been like where you are? Are you safe?

KAREEN HUNTER, MINISTRY COORDINATOR, PRAYING PELICANS MISSIONS: So, I mean, thank you for having me. I am in Kingston, close to the center of the island. That's the capital Aphor Tree (ph) of Kingston. And it is extremely windy. The power has been on and off for the entire day. We have extensive rainfall and a lot of swelling of wind, like violent wind where I am located.

TAPPER: Have you been able to get in touch with others in your group or family and friends? What are -- what are people experiencing outside of your immediate area?

HUNTER: So currently where my parents are located in West Rural St. Andrew. They are currently marooned for the past two days. They are currently without electricity from Sunday. And I have not been able to make contact with my sister who is over in Clarendon and other family members across the island.

Currently, the call line for straight calls are not going through for majority of the parishes. I'm not sure if it is as a result of the power outage across the island. But most of the calls are going through only on WhatsApp and not through the straight line that is provided by the network provider here on the island. That's Digicel and Flow. And for the most part, persons who I've been in communication with, they have suffered extensive damage on the hills, that's upper St. Andrew, roofs has been lost, buildings, livestock.

And so it's pretty sad here on the island for the most part. So currently we're just continuing, we just continue to pray and for the best at this time.

TAPPER: All right, Kareen Hunter, thank you so much stay safe. We'll have much more from Jamaica in just moments.

In our Health Lead, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced today that he's suing the makers of Tylenol, claiming -- claiming that the company Kenvue and Johnson & Johnson deceptively marketed the drug to pregnant mothers and say Tylenol is tied to an increased risk of autism and ADHD in children. He asserts, although many experts disagree with that.

CNN's Jacqueline Howard is with me. Jacqueline, break down the actual science of Tylenol and its safety for us, would you?

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Jake, experts say you don't have to be scared to take Tylenol during pregnancy. Now, of course, you should always discuss any medications that you take during pregnancy with your doctor. But major medical groups here in the United States like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, they say that the benefits of Tylenol to treat fever and pain in pregnancy outweigh potential risks.

Earlier this year, a review of studies on the most commonly used pain medications during pregnancy was published. It found that other medications some drugs can be risky. Using the steroid prednisone during pregnancy may cause a cleft lip or palate birth defect. And research suggests that taking ibuprofen during the first trimester can cause miscarriage. It's also been linked to multiple birth defects.

Some leaks to birth defects were also found in the third trimester, but Tylenol was considered to be generally sick, safe. And Jake, the Trump administration's own FDA commissioner, Dr. Marty McCary, wrote in a letter to physicians in September, "acetaminophen is the safest over the counter alternative in pregnancy." Acetaminophen, that's the active ingredient in Tylenol.

[18:00:08]

Another thing that is really important to know, it is important to reduce severe fevers during pregnancy. Separate research has found that a fever in the first trimester can be especially dangerous, raising the risk of congenital heart defects, neural tube defects and oral clefts. And high grade fevers during pregnancy can affect the fetus's brain development. So that's why many doctors may recommend Tylenol in these cases specifically to treat fevers in pregnancy. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Jacqueline, thank you so much.