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Jimmy Kimmel Makes Emotional Return To ABC, Defends Free Speech; Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) On Trump's Sudden Shift That Ukraine Can Take Back Land From Russia; Deadly Typhoon Ragasa Batters Hong Kong, Southern China. Aired 7:30-8a ET
Aired September 24, 2025 - 07:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:32:15]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!": A lot of people have been asking me if there are conditions for my return to the air, and there is one. Disney has asked me to read the following statement, and I have agreed to do it. All right, here we go, um -- "To reactivate your Disney+ and Hulu account, open the Disney+ app on your smart TV or TV- connected device."
(END VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Breaking overnight Jimmy Kimmel there returning to ABC nearly a week after he was suspended after pressure from the Trump administration. And in his first public comments about the uproar he really didn't hold back on the president or FCC chair Brendan Carr.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KIMMEL: Brendan Carr is the most embarrassing car Republicans have embraced since this one, and that's saying something.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: All right, joining us now is Paul Mecurio. He's an Emmy- winning comedian and host of the online show "Permission to Speak," and also an attorney, which is now a very useful skill when it comes to being a comedian.
PAUL MECURIO, COMEDIAN, HOST OF "PERMISSION TO SPEAK", ATTORNEY: Exactly.
BERMAN: How'd he do? What did you think?
MECURIO: I thought he hit all the right notes. I thought he did well. I thought he was contrite and didn't come out and apologize. I didn't think he should because in this country if you say something people don't like that doesn't mean you're wrong. I think on the other hand Trump just handled it poorly -- petty bully. And they're like -- the two of them are like this dysfunctional married couple that just argue, argue, argue, and then one of them goes you know what, I'm going to take it down a lot. I'm going to just -- Jimmy is like I'm going to take it down.
But then the other one just gets set off, right? Jimmy is like I'm going to calm down. And like, OK, honey, we're done fighting. Let's go out to dinner. What? You don't like my cooking? Like, that's kind of the vibe with Trump. It's like never enough.
And so I feel like here we have him threatening people again and that's not what we do in this country. And so I thought it was good night for Jimmy. I thought that Trump should just like sort of back off a little bit. And I think we're going to see what happens next, but I don't think it's over. Like, that's the thing to me. And so conservatives, it's not over for you.
And I did want to point something out. So Jimmy made reference to Cruz's comment, right?
BERMAN: Ted Cruz -- Sen. Cruz from Texas.
MECURIO: Ted Cruz. And the quote that he said when this was all happening was "Going down this road there will become a time when Democrats win the White House, and they will silence us. They will use this power, and they will use it ruthlessly."
That missed the mark. It's wrong because it's wrong. It's not wrong because they could do it to us. And that's the wrong message to send to somebody. That's like saying you see that bank? Don't rob it. Not because it's wrong but because I've got $383 of savings in the bank and I want to keep it.
[07:35:07]
And so I feel like the conservatives are going to be backed into a corner by Trump on this.
SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: I do want to ask you because you talked about oh, they're like a married couple but this isn't over. And you see President Trump threatening to sue.
MECURIO: Right.
SIDNER: Is this going to chill other comedians or just generally Americans in general about what they say, for example, on social media or publicly, or in their sets?
MECURIO: I can't say I'm too nervous to answer that. I might get sued, right?
I don't know. I hope not. But I will say that you do think twice a little bit when you're coming up with a joke. It's like well, is this going to push the boundaries? Is this going to offend? I mean, you know, we're in a very political environment. Everything is political now -- news, sports, transgender issues,
ordering ice cream. I'm not sure if I -- what I can say even when I order ice cream. Black and white milkshake, (INAUDIBLE) milkshake. I don't even know.
So it's like it could, and I think that's the plan for the Trump administration. Just put the seed out there. Just for a split second hold you back. Do I want to say that? And I -- it could be a cancer that could grow, I think.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: But maybe -- OK, just the other side of this. You have people like Joe Rogan coming out yesterday --
MECURIO: Right.
BOLDUAN: -- and saying very clearly, like, one, this is going to only help Jimmy Kimmel. But also, he said in his very Joe Rogan, like, this is absolutely insane that a president would even take time to go tweeting at a comedian and it's completely un-American to be going after someone that you don't like to hear what they have to say.
BERMAN: I think we have a little bit of sound of Joe Rogan --
BOLDUAN: Oh, we do?
BERMAN: -- if we want to hear that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE ROGAN, HOST, "THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE": First of all, I definitely don't think that the government should be involved ever in dictating what a comedian can or cannot say in a monologue. That's (bleep) crazy.
Now, if the -- the problem is the companies -- if they're being pressured by the government -- so that's real. And if people on the right are like yeah, go get 'em -- oh my God, you're crazy. You're crazy for supporting this because this will be used on you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Kate.
BOLDUAN: Think of who Joe Rogan is and who Joe Rogan's base is and how many people listen to him.
MECURIO: No, and I'm glad he -- I'm glad he did it and I hope those on the right -- because I'm not left or right. This is not a --
BOLDUAN: Right, exactly. No, you're not.
MECURIO: I'm not -- that's not what I'm here for.
What I'm here for is he mentioned the companies and I'm glad he did, right? ABC made a mess of this because they listened to the loudest voice in the room instead of the right voice, and that's where we are now, right?
Why did one group of citizens have a right -- people who don't like him -- to decide what two million other citizens like and watch? Aren't I living in America? Isn't that what Trump ran on, right? Cancel the cancel culture. Well now, they're it.
And so what ends up happening is we're in this place where ABC has everybody mad at them. How did they -- how? Like, what -- that's like your only assignment for Thanksgiving is to bring dessert, and what do you do? You bring a Jell-O mold and fruitcake and everybody's mad at.
SIDNER: Everyone's pissed.
MECURIO: Everybody.
Now this crew will eat anything.
BERMAN: That's right.
SIDNER: That is true.
BOLDUAN: You've clearly worked in television.
SIDNER: They were hoping you brought some of that.
MECURIO: Could you put the hoagie away? We're doing a show.
BERMAN: Paul, it's great to see you. Listen, thank you very much for this. I've got to say I'm very curious to see what comedians do now. There is the possibility that the president has opened up Pandora's box here --
MECURIO: Right.
BERMAN: -- and that -- and that you're asking comedians to push the edge and push the envelope.
MECURIO: Well, I also hope that comedians don't just go crazy for the sake of going crazy like 12-year-olds either. You know what I mean?
BOLDUAN: Yeah.
MECURIO: Like, if you're saying something that's a point of view and it matters, then say it. But don't just say let's see how many buttons I can push or try to get people to be so provocative so that they get bigger hits on social media by saying crazy things.
BERMAN: No one does that --
MECURIO: No, not at all. No, no.
BERMAN: -- in comedy or TV news.
MECURIO: I've got to go juggle chainsaws for TikTok.
BERMAN: Exactly. Paul, great to see you.
SIDNER: Thank you.
MECURIO: Nice to see you. Thank you.
BOLDUAN: Thank you so much.
MECURIO: Go, Red Sox!
BERMAN: Damn straight. They won last night, brother.
MECURIO: Come on. (High five).
BERMAN: All right.
BOLDUAN: That's -- I mean, that was just like --
MECURIO: Why is that guy wearing a Yankee jacket?
BOLDUAN: That was, like, working the room here anyway.
SIDNER: You know, you tried to work the room. It did not work.
BOLDUAN: The loudest voice in the room.
SIDNER: Right there.
BOLDUAN: OK, let turn to -- thank you, Paul. Let's turn to this right now.
In just hours, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is set to make a pivotal address to the United States General Assembly. He'll do so with some unexpected new support, you could say, from President Trump. The president making an extraordinary 180 when it comes to Russia and Ukraine, now saying that he thinks Ukraine can win back all of the land Russia seized.
The president saying this. "I think Ukraine, with the support of the European Union, is in a position to fight and win all of Ukraine back in its original form." Adding also that the war was making Russia look like a "paper tiger."
Zelenskyy spoke about President Trump -- President Trump's newfound support and optimism last night on Fox.
[07:40:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS HOST, "SPECIAL REPORT WITH BRET BAIER": Are you surprised to hear that?
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: A little bit. I was very positive signals --
BAIER: So --
ZELENSKYY: -- from the side that Trump and America will be with us to the end of the war. I think he understands for today that we can't just swap territories. It's not fair. It's not --
BAIER: So you think his position has changed.
ZELENSKYY: Yes, I think so, and God bless.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: Oh, and that paper tiger comment from President Trump clearly not sitting well with the Kremlin this morning pushing back on this, and here is the quote. "Russia is not a tiger. After all, Russia is associated with a bear. There are no paper bears. Russia is a real bear."
And joining me right now is Congressman Greg Meeks of New York. He's the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.
For some reason I just can't get enough of that real bear quote, but I digress, Congressman.
This is extraordinary -- this 180 from President Trump on Russia and Ukraine because I mean, for months and months he had said very clearly that the end result, no matter what, to end this war Ukraine is going to have to deal with giving up some of the land that Russia has taken, and then he started talking about land swaps and that they were already being negotiated.
Are you applauding the president with this move this morning?
REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D-NY): Well, no. Look, it's to me a lot of empty words. The key thing, it seemed to me, he's throwing his hands up. He's saying that Ukraine can win with our European allies.
He's not saying that the United States is going to stand with Ukraine. He's not saying that he's going to come to Congress and ask Congress for the appropriate appropriations so that we can give Ukraine what it needs and make sure that we're giving them the weapons that they need so that they can retain their -- get their property back and push back Putin as they were doing when the United States was giving them what they needed. Was giving them the armament. Was training their people themselves.
So it wasn't just the European Union; it was the United States' leadership that caused all of that to occur. And it still seems to me he's giving us empty words because he's said words and he seems to have changed, but when you look for action or, as they said when I was a kid, put your money where your mouth is and that will show how serious you are about supporting Ukraine.
BOLDUAN: So this -- that's quite interesting. You think that this is not a show of support of Ukraine. You think that from the president this is him throwing his hands up in the air and trying to shirk responsibility on the outcome there? MEEKS: Yeah. Look, if -- in this scenario if the president has said many things before. He's given deadlines and he's made it seem as though that he was moving from where he was. The way that we know that he's moving from where he was is if he comes to Congress and says we now have to give Ukraine what it needs so that it can beat Russia. We -- you've got to put your money where your mouth is.
When we previously -- in the past administration, et cetera, we were starting to give Russia ATACMS so that they could go -- I mean, giving Ukraine ATACMS so that they could go after the Russian ammunition that was striking Ukrainians. And he was -- and we were leading. We wasn't falling behind the European nations; we were leading the European nations bringing that coalition together and showing that we collectively through strength. But the words that I heard -- I'm waiting to hear that the United States and what we're going to do and how we're going to lead.
You know, this is really important, I think. He did not say that. He said the -- with the Europeans' help. What about with the United States? We're supposed to be leaders. We're supposed to be having the strength.
BOLDUAN: A little bit along the same vein the president also suggested yesterday that he thinks that NATO members should start shooting down Russian aircraft if Russian aircraft enter their airspace. This is after several instances of incursions just in the past weeks. But he says he thinks that NATO members should shoot down those aircraft.
Do you think they should?
MEEKS: No. Look, I think those are -- again, that's not the best policy to use is to say that you're going to shoot down aircraft.
I think that what it is is that we're going to be together. And I think that as the NATO allies had a meeting yesterday about Article 4, we should be a part of those meetings. We should be talking and strategizing and collectively together with our NATO allies in that regards.
We should be supporting and making sure that Russia knows that we are serious. That they -- if they flew over territories of our NATO allies that we will be together. That's the message that I think that is strong and is serious about a policy. So we should be all a part of that. We are a part of NATO.
[07:45:00]
And so I would hope -- as NATO did after 9/11, they came together with Article 5 for the first time -- that we are now sitting down so it is NATO along with the United States. And it sounds to me too often that it is NATO at one place and the United States now not as a strong partner but watching NATO and pushing NATO to do something while the United States stay on the sideline.
BOLDUAN: Hmm.
Congressman, thank you so much for coming in. I appreciate your time -- John.
BERMAN: All right. New this morning, some of the facts about autism. President Trump made a claim about autism in Cuba.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And there's a rumor, and I don't know if it's so or not, that Cuba -- they don't have Tylenol because they don't have the money for Tylenol. And they have virtually no autism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: So rates there are lower but it's now true that there are no cases -- .36 cases to every 10,000 people. Health professionals think that stems from a lack of resources they need to widely diagnose it.
Let's get to CNN's Patrick Oppmann in Havana. So there is autism in Cuba. What's the reality on the ground?
PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, there is and no one's denying that. It's not a claim the Cuban government has ever made here.
As you said, the diagnosing of this because it is something the Cuban government has been working on for only really about seven years putting the scarce resources they have into understanding autism and to diagnosing it. So the numbers are much lower.
But that is not to say that there is no autism in Cuba. There are, by the government's admission, thousands of cases that they have diagnosed already and probably many, many more times than that. There are clinics across the island dedicated to autism. About 300 doctors at this point that work on treating Cubans with autism.
So when this claim was made -- two claims, really, and we'll break that down -- it really just baffled Cubans because you -- people know children with autism. People know adults here with autism. There is really less and less of a taboo about autism in Cuba.
And as well, this claim that there's no Tylenol in Cuba. Cuba has produced its own kind of Tylenol going back years. There are shortages here of every kind of medicine imaginable, but this is a common pain reliever. People bring it from outside. I do every time I travel outside of Cuba. You can get Tylenol -- either the kind that's produced here or just the regular American Tylenol that's brought in by people's families.
So the idea that we're in some kind of bubble where there's no Tylenol and there's no autism is simply flat-out false. And it sounds like an urban legend but fortunately, in this case, it's an urban legend that U.S. public health policy is being determined around. But here in Cuba doctors will say they just don't understand that because it's something that could be checked and debunked very, very quickly.
BERMAN: Patrick Oppmann in Havana. Thank you so much for the facts on this. Appreciate it, as always.
All right. The cost of coffee beans here in the United States up 20 percent over last year and maybe no done yet. A new survey of CFOs says tariffs are to blame.
And then cats and coyotes side-by-side on an evening stroll. A sign of friendship or the pending apocalypse? You make the call.
(COMMERCIAL)
[07:52:48]
SIDNER: Prices on the rise and some of the country's top business executives say President Trump's tariffs are partly to blame for that. According to the CFO survey, inflation could have been about one-third lower this year if it was not because of the tariffs.
Take coffee, for instance. Most of the coffee you drink is imported from Brazil. That country now faces 50 percent tariffs. In August, coffee beans were nearly 21 percent more expensive than the same time a year ago.
CNN's Matt Egan is here tracking all of this. Where are we getting hurt, I guess, is the issue?
MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well Sara, look, the president likes to say that there's no inflation --
SIDNER: Right.
EGAN: -- and the tariffs are not driving up prices. But financial decisionmakers in corporate America -- they say otherwise, right?
This survey from Duke University and a pair of Fed banks finds that CFOs -- they expect to increase prices this year by almost four percent. And what's notable is that they attribute about a third of those price increases to -- you guessed it -- yes, tariffs. You can see that. A 3.9 percent increase is what they're expecting in prices. A lot of that is non-tariff-driven but also a lot of it is tariff- driven.
And look, a third -- that's nothing to sneeze at. As you mentioned, that suggests that inflation could be about a third lower without tariffs. Inflation -- it's not through the roof like it was three years ago --
SIDNER: Right.
EGAN: -- but it's still uncomfortably warm. It's around three percent. You take a third away that gets you right to that two percent goal that the Fed considers healthy.
And we know that a whole bunch of companies have said they've either increased prices because of tariffs or they plan to soon, right? Everyone from Target and Walmart to toymakers like Hasbro and Mattel, toolmaker Stanley Black & Decker, stroller-maker UPPAbaby, shoemaker Nike. I could go on and on.
The other thing that really stands out though from this survey is that CFOs -- they don't say that these price increases are just going to happen this year and be done with. In fact, they expect to raise prices again next year by about four percent. And next year they blame about a quarter of the expected price increases on tariffs.
[07:55:00]
And that really undermines the argument that we often hear from the Trump administration that tariffs are just going to be a one-time price adjustment and then we kind of forget about it. And it makes sense that it's not going to be just a one-time thing because it's not like tariffs get --
SIDNER: Their prices keep going up.
EGAN: Right. And it's not like the tariffs just got announced on January 20 and kicked in a month later, right? We have tariffs that get floated. They get formally announced and then they kick in. They get dialed up, dialed back. They're paused; they're resumed. It's all over the place.
Now, Duke Professor John Graham, who runs this survey -- he said "This isn't a one-time thing. It is still going to be happening in 2026. This is going to be a long, drawn-out affair."
So Sara, look, the bottom line, inflation -- it's not runaway like it was a few years ago but it is still too high. It's adding to the cost of living and it's probably not going to be something that we're just dealing with this year.
SIDNER: I just want to clarify you said that next year that --
EGAN: Yeah.
SIDNER: -- these CEOs --
EGAN: Um-hum.
SIDNER: -- are saying hey, it's going to be four percent. Is that four percent more --
EGAN: Yeah, exactly.
SIDNER: -- than where we are? So that --
EGAN: Right.
SIDNER: -- would be a total of eight percent?
EGAN: Yeah, yeah. They -- they're expecting a four percent increase this year and a four percent increase next year, and they are assigning a big chunk of that to tariffs.
SIDNER: All right, Matt Egan. Thank you so much. EGAN: Thanks, Sara.
SIDNER: Appreciate it -- Kate.
BOLDUAN: The Texas camp where 27 campers and counselors were killed in those devastating floods will reopen next year. That is the new word coming from Camp Mystic. Leaders of the girls' camp first sent an email to victims' families this week saying its procedures will follow. The way they wrote it is "requirements of camp safety -- of the camp safety legislation you bravely championed." Then it sent a wide email to all families announcing the reopening. The camp also said that it will build a memorial for the victims.
Parents of these victims have been pushing, as we've been covering, for Texas lawmakers to pass new safety bills to try to prevent this tragedy from ever happening again.
A woman in Nevada -- take a look at this video -- captured -- I mean, it's like bizarre video of a housecat following a coyote around at night. While it may look innocent and kind of fun -- what could they be discussing -- experts say that the cat's actions is probably actually it being quite territorial. They say this is a good reminder to keep your pets indoors to keep them safe at night.
And this is one of those news stories that feels like it's more a movie scene than reality -- than reality. You're looking at the moment a driver of a stolen car jumps a partially open bridge in Seattle. The car had gotten stuck in traffic, as one does, during a chase with police. Instead of giving up the driver kept on going and went over that bridge. Eventually the police did find the car, but they have not caught the driver -- John.
BERMAN: Oh, wow.
BOLDUAN: Yeah.
BERMAN: All right. Breaking this morning a deadly typhoon bearing down on southern China after battering Hong Kong and forcing nearly two million people to evacuate this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(High waters smashing through hotel doors)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERMAN: Yeah. High waves from Typhoon Ragasa crashed right through hotel doors in Hong Kong.
And in Taiwan the storm has killed at least 17 people and more than a dozen are still missing this morning.
CNN international correspondent Hanako Montgomery is in Hong Kong. You had a helluva night and morning, Hanako. I've seen pictures of you just getting soaked in this storm.
HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, John, it was a very wet and windy night for us.
And right now I'm standing in one of the worst-hit areas in Hong Kong in Chongqing and I just want to show you the extent of damage that we have been seeing. We're standing outside a collection of restaurants that is facing the sea right there.
And if you take a look just here -- I mean, some of the front doors of these restaurants have completely just been blown off their hinges. Glass is shattered everywhere. You see some fallen tree branches mixed in with this debris and furniture just completely strewn about. I mean, it's a collection of debris at this point.
Now, we've spoken to some of the local business owners, and they've told us that when the typhoon was at its peak -- when it was at its worst it was causing massive sea surges and just these huge waves were coming over that concrete seawall. You can kind of see in the distance right over there. And these waves were just inundating these restaurants, inundating these establishments.
And one of the owners that we spoke to said that it almost looked like a tsunami had hit Hong Kong because these waves, again, were just so massive and they were forcing all of this furniture, all of the debris to collect over here.
Now, this businessowner that we were speaking to said that he was really concerned about his staffers and said that it would take him likely a few weeks to get back on his feet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VIVIANO ROMITO, OWNER FRITES RESTAURANTS: Across the group, we're pretty upset. We'll get -- but like I said, we'll get through it. Um, we've had damage before in other venues and we've gotten together and made sure that we get up and running as fast as possible. But, you know, everyone is devasted. It's hard to come with when you see something that you build getting destroyed overnight pretty quickly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MONTGOMERY: And John, as you said, the typhoon has moved on from Hong Kong.
