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Secret Service Uncovers 300 Servers While Tracing Swatting Threats; Trump Links Tylenol with Autism Despite Evidence It's Safe; Scientists Debate Blowing Up Asteroid Before Possible Moon Collison. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired September 23, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN HOST: All right coming up, the Secret Service uncovering a massive network of more than 300 servers capable of crippling New York City's cell system. Forensic analysis suggests it was being used by foreign government and organized criminals. We have those details ahead.

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: CNN has learned that the Secret Service has foiled a plot that could have overwhelmed New York City's cell service, including at a very busy time, when the U.N. General Assembly is taking place.

[15:35:00]

The initial goal of this investigation was actually finding the source of swatting threats made against multiple politicians, including some former and current Trump administration officials, but then it ended up so much bigger than that.

John Miller, CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst, is with us now. John, how did the Secret Service uncover this gigantic network?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, after the swatting attacks against people like White House Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, the CIA director, the defense secretary, the Secret Service put together a special unit called the Advanced Threat Interdiction Unit. And they began digging, where are the signals coming from? Where are these numbers coming from? And they found their way to abandoned apartments, storage areas, empty offices, all rented in a circle around New York City.

And found machinery, servers, SIM cards that were able to crank out 100,000 SIM cards, 300 servers, and that could generate almost 300 million phone calls within just a few minutes. And the question behind this is, who built this, but also who was using it? Listen to Secret Service New York Specialty Agent in Charge, Matt McCool, who explains who they think was using it?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MATT MCCOOL, SECRET SERVICE SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: So what we do know is that foreign governments and criminals located in the United States are using this network to run their organizations. That includes cartels, that includes human traffickers, that includes terrorists, are on this network.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MILLER: So a black network with the power to generate enormous power, according to the experts, had they unleashed the power of this network on New York's cellular telephone infrastructure, they could have collapsed it. Think about that, either during a terrorist attack of a different form, or during the UN General Assembly.

The question is, who built it, who paid for it, who's in charge of it, and what was its ultimate purpose? And Brianna, right now the Secret Service still investigating no arrests at this point, but they're determined with a number of other agencies, including the Director of National Intelligence, Homeland Security, to find out.

KEILAR: It was also really interesting to hear that special agent talk about how, you know, don't assume this is the only one, right? That would actually sort of be foolish, and I'm paraphrasing. But the idea that we see this happening in New York, we should assume this is happening in multiple other places.

MILLER: I mean, you would have to say, if they set up this infrastructure in New York, unless it was for a very specific purpose, if there's a foreign power behind this, why wouldn't they have one in Washington, D.C., or L.A., or Chicago? In other words, if you're going to launch a denial of service attack to collapse communications, you would want to do it on a nationwide scale. So they'll be hunting for those places, too. It'll be interesting to see if they find them.

KEILAR: Yes, really interesting. John Miller, thank you so much for taking us through that -- Danny.

FREEMAN: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour.

The Trump administration has suffered another setback in court as a judge orders the government to restore $500 million in federal grant funding to UCLA. Now, back in August, the university announced that the Trump administration had suspended $584 million of its federal grants over allegations of civil rights violations related to anti- Semitism and affirmative action.

But on Monday, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction, saying the government likely violated a rule which requires officials to follow certain procedures when they cut funding.

Plus this, Major League Baseball has approved robot umpires for the 2026 season. The new automated ball strike system uses high-tech cameras and computer graphics to frame the strike zone. Human umpires will of course still call balls and strikes, but teams can challenge two calls per game and get additional appeals in extra innings. The robo-umpire was tested at this year's All-Star game in Atlanta, in which four of the five challenges of the plate were -- of the plate umpire should say -- were successful. Feel like we're going to see ejections after this.

All right, and America has a new top selling beer. Michelob Ultra has overtaken Modelo Especial in U.S. retail sales by volume. In a press release, Anheuser-Busch attributed the momentum partly to the successful launch of Michelob Ultra Zero, a non-alcoholic version of the beer.

Now, Modelo's fall from the top spot could be traced partly to President Trump's immigration crackdown. Its parent company warned earlier this year that sales were slumping because many Hispanic customers are no longer going out to restaurants or gathering in large groups.

[15:40:00]

Still ahead, new pushback to President Trump linking Tylenol to autism. We'll discuss with one of the stars on the Netflix show, Love on the Spectrum. Stay with us.

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KEILAR: In Europe, pushback to what President Trump suggested might be an answer to autism has been fast and forceful. Trump, along with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., linked autism to the use of acetaminophen, the generic name for Tylenol, during pregnancy.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Don't take Tylenol if you're pregnant, and don't give Tylenol to your child when he's born or she's born. Don't give it. Just don't give it.

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: Today, the FDA will issue a physician's notice about the risk of acetaminophen during pregnancy and begin the process to initiate a safety label change. The FDA will issue a physician's notice about the risk of acetaminophen during pregnancy and begin the process to initiate a safety label change.

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KEILAR: The UK's health secretary is urging people to ignore what President Trump says about medicine altogether.

And the European Medicines Agency released this statement, quote, Our advice is based on a rigorous assessment of the available scientific data, and we have found no evidence that taking paracetamol during pregnancy causes autism in children.

Paracetamol being another name for acetaminophen. The pushback is in line with much of the response here in the U.S., where medical experts say decades of evidence show no clear link between Tylenol or acetaminophen and autism. My next guest says autism is not something to cure, it's something to

support. Dani Bowman is a cast member on the Netflix reality series Love on the Spectrum. She's also CEO of DaniMation, an online program that teaches animation to youth who are on the autism spectrum. She's also a national keynote speaker. Danny, thank you so much for being with us.

DANI BOWMAN, FOUNDER, DANIMATION ENTERTAINMENT: And thank you so much for having me be on, and it's such an honor to be here.

KEILAR: And you put out a very thoughtful TikTok video that responded to the announcement, which I will tell you, as the parent of an autistic child myself, I really appreciated that voice. So let's go through some of your points, starting with the Tylenol part of what the administration announced. What's your concern there?

BOWMAN: So what is my concern there with Tylenol is that I don't see any links between Tylenol and the rising prevalence of the autism rates. Like, as with Trump mentioned, that the rate of this autism prevalence increased. I don't see any link between that.

KEILAR: And then the leucovorin, or the folinic acid, is a treatment for autism. What is a concern of yours with that part of the announcement?

BOWMAN: It may help a small subset of kids with specific folate issues, but this is, again, this is not the cure for autism. When it comes to Tylenol, we just have to be very careful. Remember that associations aren't proof. Families just need clear evidence-based guidance, not fear. And what really matters the most is that the research that truly improves autistic lives. And I understand why parents hope for a cure, but autism is not something to cure. It's part of who we are.

Announcements like yesterday's risk, leading families down the wrong path. My obsession with research taught me that real science takes time, and families deserve guidance they can trust, not fear. Good science doesn't come from sound bites. It comes from evidence and replication.

KEILAR: And so, when families are not getting that. When they're not getting the replication, they're not getting the science. When autistic people and families who have autistic children hear that kind of thing, you know, what's being presented as definitive links when they are not, what's the effect on those families, Dani?

BOWMAN: What the effect on these families, as what I'm trying to incorporate down, is that so when it comes to the -- when it comes to effect, if they are misled, this could lead to further consequences. This could lead to further consequences and side effects like leucovorin, even though with leucovorin, it may help with speech for nonverbal kids, but it can also lead to increased risk of hyperactivity and also to irritability. And then again, leucovorin doesn't really cure the other diagnostics like sensory issues or with being able to daydream. It helps with speech, but nothing else. KEILAR: So we're at this time with autism where people are understanding it more. They're seeking to understand it more. There's more research, obviously, than there ever has been, even as we want there to be even more research. Do you think that this guidance, the way that autism is being discussed here in this announcement, helps people better understand autism? Or could this negatively impact how society views and understands autism?

BOWMAN: Well, this helps, but it also causes the negative views of the autism community. Yes, I understand your concern as a parent. You want the very best for your child, and headlines like yesterday's announcement can feel overwhelming. When I learned about my own autism at age 12, I turned my obsession with research into a lifelong passion.

[15:50:00]

For the past 16 years, I've studied everything I could about autism, and now I look to evidence-based programs, like the Stanford Neurodiversity Project that focuses on evidence-based ways to support our community.

What I know is this, that autism is not something to cure, it's part of who we are. I do understand the desperation of the parents of the highly impacted people on the spectrum and their wish for a magical cure. And as I've mentioned, these announcements may lead families down the wrong path. I'm not opposed to further research, but the real science takes time, and it is impossible to reach conclusions in just six months. Families deserve guidance they can trust, not fear, and that is where our focus needs to be.

KEILAR: Dani Bowman, it's so wonderful to speak with you. Thank you so much for being a voice on this, and we appreciate your time today.

BOWMAN: Oh, no problem. Anytime. And thank you again for having me be part of CNN.

KEILAR: Yes, we love having you. Thank you for being on. And we'll be right back.

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[15:55:00]

FREEMAN: Here's your palette cleanser story for the day. A big debate is raging among scientists as an asteroid the size of a building hurdles toward the moon. The question is, do we blow it up or let it be? Well, some NASA scientists say hitting it with, let's say, a nuclear weapon could be the best option before it makes a potential strike sometime in late 2032. Now, it's an astronomically rare opportunity for scientists to test potential techniques that could one day protect planet Earth, but of course, does come with its own risks.

With us now, Paul Sutter. He's an astrophysicist and NASA advisor. He's also the author of How to Die in Space. Paul, this seems out of science fiction, but we got to take it seriously. So what are some of the potential issues of just letting an asteroid hit the moon?

PAUL SUTTER, ASTROPHYSICIST: Yes, trust me, and I've seen Armageddon too, and so I know exactly how this plot plays out. And yes, currently this asteroid, 2024 YR4, is the name of this asteroid. Like you said, it's about 200 feet across. Current calculations suggest it has essentially 0 percent chance of hitting the Earth. This does not pose a risk to us on the Earth.

But it has about a 5 percent chance of hitting the moon. And if it does hit the moon, it will leave behind a crater about one mile wide. And so just letting it hit the moon no one's going to be affected. We may not even be able to see it with the naked eye if it hits on the far side of the moon. It's generally pretty safe to just leave it alone.

But that's assuming our current calculations are correct, which we do believe they are. But the more we watch this asteroid, the more we get a better refinement of its orbit. And, you know, we could be caught, you know, getting things wrong.

FREEMAN: All right, well, so let's talk about it then, because 5 percent, you know, is still something. So what if we do decide to blow this asteroid up? I mean, what would the dangers in a mission like that be?

SUTTER: All right, so this is something we've never tried before. We have successfully done an asteroid redirect mission where we slammed a spacecraft into a small asteroid to change its trajectory, and that was a great success. That was our first attempt at planetary defense testing these kinds of strategies.

We'd like to do that again with this asteroid, but even though this asteroid won't hit for another seven years, that's already too late. We need to catch asteroids even earlier to make a little tiny change that, years later, adds up to a million miles of difference in its orbit. So it's too late for just straight deflection. So that leaves pulverizing it. That leaves destroying it.

Now, there are two ways to destroy an asteroid. One, you can slam into it and hope it breaks apart. The other is you can detonate a nuclear weapon near it, and, hopefully, the shockwave will blow it apart. With a nuclear weapon, we've kind of never launched a nuclear weapon into space before, and I imagine that would make a lot of people, including myself, a little bit twitchy.

FREEMAN: (INAUDIBLE) a try.

But even if we were to do the launch and do the explosion. Yes, you know, just a little bit like, huh, should we be doing this? And then even if it's successful, even if it gets close to the asteroid, the effects on the asteroid right now, we only understand through computer modeling and simulation, which might be wrong because we don't fully understand the interiors of these asteroids.

And so it might break apart only a little bit, or it might split into large fragments, and some of these fragments might steer towards the Earth, or we might get the calculation wrong and we steer it into orbit, that gives it an increased chance of hitting the Earth, not a decreased chance. There are a lot of unknowns and a lot of variables in this kind of scenario.

FREEMAN: All right, well, I have only about 30 seconds left, but I mean, what would you, if you had the opportunity to advise NASA, what would you advise them to do in this case?

SUTTER: You know what? I'm always on team blow it up. Sometimes you got to show the universe who's boss and we have to practice planetary defense. And even if this thing breaks up, the small fragments will not be significant enough. Even if they hit the earth, it won't be a serious problem. So let's practice planetary defense now while the stakes are low so that when the stakes are high, we know what we're doing.

FREEMAN: Well, and listen, I appreciate the enthusiasm for not only blowing up an asteroid, but I just appreciate that. Listen, right, this is all in the name of science, Paul. So if it's in the name of science, then we're totally good, right?

[16:00:00]

SUTTER: Exactly, no matter what, we will learn something about the composition of asteroids.

FREEMAN: Right.

SUTTER: We will learn about what asteroids are made of, how this all works, which is all great.

FREEMAN: Paul Sutter, thank you so much for sharing this terrifying story and the idea of blowing up an asteroid. Really appreciate your time today.

SUTTER: Sleep tight tonight.

FREEMAN: Thanks.

All right, "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

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