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Jimmy Kimmel Defends Free Speech in Emotional Return to Late Night; Threat of Government Shutdown Looms with One Week Left; Trump Cancels Meeting with Dems Ahead of Funding Deadline; Powell Pushes Back Against Accusations the Fed Plays Politics. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired September 24, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And John as you said the typhoon has moved on from Hong Kong. It's also moved on from Macau. It is making landfall in China right now but the Hong Kong city government has advised people to continue staying in, to continue to hunker down. Because clearly the weather has not cleared up yet it's still pretty adverse. Winds are fairly powerful and we are experiencing some rain that could potentially lead to flooding and landslides -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Going to be a heck of a cleanup there. Hanako Montgomery, great to see you this morning. Thank you very much.

Brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Jimmy Kimmel is back, and the president is posting a new threat. The late night host, close to tears while addressing the controversy that almost got his show canceled. Why he says this whole thing exposed something far, far bigger than any joke.

Plus, Tylenol and autism. President Trump's answer to this only sparking more questions, many more questions. Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here to answer some of them.

And a massive sinkhole opening up and swallowing up a road near a hospital. What caused this collapse?

I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman and Sara Sidner. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BERMAN: All right, breaking overnight, Jimmy Kimmel is back on ABC. President Trump back to threatening ABC. After nearly a week-long suspension, Kimmel delivered a monologue filled with emotion and the defense of free speech.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!: I do want to make something clear because it's important to me as a human, and that is, you understand that it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man.

(APPLAUSE)

KIMMEL: I don't think there's anything funny about it. I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed sending love to his family and asking for compassion, and I meant it. I still do.

I don't think the murderer who shot Charlie Kirk represents anyone. This was a sick person who believed violence was a solution, and it isn't, ever. And also, selfishly --

(CHEERING)

I am ...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Kimmel slammed what he called the president's un-American attempts to silence free speech, and he criticized FCC Chair Brendan Carr, comparing him to a mob boss and calling his actions a direct violation of the First Amendment.

CNN media correspondent Hadas Gold is with us now. This was a TV event, I have to say.

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: But definitely TV event. Kimmel was defiant, but also emotional. Emotional not just about what the saga means for the country and forced free speech, but I was really struck by his emotion over Charlie Kirk, over his murder, and over the message that he had for Charlie Kirk's wife, her message of forgiveness. And I don't think most people connect Jimmy Kimmel with being Christian, but he specifically talked about Christianity and the values of Jesus and forgiveness, talking about Erika Kirk. So I did think That was very notable in this entire very notable moment.

But if people thought Jimmy Kimmel was going to come back after these few days off and somehow toned down his attacks on this Trump administration, they were obviously very mistaken because he came back quite strongly. Take a listen to somebody had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIMMEL: The president of the United States made it very clear he wants to see me and the hundreds of people who work here fired from our jobs. Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can't take a joke.

(CHEERING)

KIMMEL: He was -- somehow able to squeeze Colbert out of CBS, then he turned his sights on me, and now he's openly rooting for NBC to fire Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers and the hundreds of Americans who work for their shows who don't make millions of dollars. And I hope that if that happens, or if there's even any hint of that happening, you will be 10 times as loud as you were this week.

(END VIDEO CLIP) GOLD: And he's talking there not just about the outrage, you know, from politicians, but also the number of people who were canceling their Disney Plus subscriptions. And this timing was terrible for ABC and Disney because this came, of course, the same week that Disney was raising its prices. If you're already unhappy with Jimmy Kimmel being potentially pulled off air, then you were then going to be even more unhappy with the fact that they were raising your prices at the same time.

I also thought it was very notable that Jimmy Kimmel specifically spoke out and thanked the people who were supporting him who don't like him, and he specifically listed out their games going one by one down the list of all these people from Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens to Ted Cruz, who is often, you know, fought with and made a lot of fun of. But Ted Cruz came out specifically and said that Brendan Carr, the FCC chair, sounds like a mob boss.

[08:05:00]

And then of course, Jimmy Kimmel brought on Robert De Niro. Very, you know, to make fun of Brendan Carr.

Now I think the most important quote from everything that Jimmy Kimmel said was this. He said, This show is not important. What's important is that we live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.

But President Trump, of course, he did speak out and he sounds like he doesn't want this show or shows like it to continue.

He posted on Truth Social just before Jimmy Kimmel show was about to air saying, I can't believe ABC fake news gave Jimmy Kimmel his job back. The White House was told by ABC that his show was cancelled. He went on to say that it would be a potentially major illegal campaign contribution and they're going to test ABC out on this. Let's see how we do.

And you know that last time they went after them, they gave them $16 million. This one sounds even more lucrative. We've asked ABC about what he's talking when he's saying that ABC told them they were canceled. They have made no comment because ABC and Disney never said that Jimmy Kimmel was canceled. They said they were just going to be pulled off the air indefinitely.

But big questions, of course, what do the affiliates do? At least -- almost a quarter of the country couldn't watch Jimmy Kimmel last night. His show was still preempted. What are the ratings going to look like for Jimmy Kimmel? I expect them to be very big.

What is Brendan Carr going to do next? What is Jimmy Kimmel also going to do? His contract is up in May of 2026. And I imagine that this whole event will play into those calculations for himself.

BERMAN: I think a lot of people have seen this monologue a lot. We'll get a sense of that in just about 10 seconds. Hadas Gold, thank you very much. With that -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Thank you to you both. Thank you, John.

The numbers, by the way, are huge. So far viewers numbers that is for Jimmy Kimmel, who returned to his show after being suspended for six days. As you just heard there during his monologue, Kimmel himself jokingly thanked President Trump for giving him a ratings boost.

CNN's Harry Enten is here to run the numbers for us. But at this point, I don't think we have the the the the ratings for TV numbers.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: No.

SIDNER: But you've been looking online and --

ENTEN: Huge, absolutely huge. What are we talking about here? Well, let's take a look at YouTube views. Jimmy Kimmel Live video views the six month median. The median video only gets 240,000. Look how many views Tuesday night's monologue already has 6.7 million. That's over 25 times as large as the median Jimmy Kimmel video normally gets. And I was looking. It is by far the largest video in at least six months. So if Donald Trump's side deal was to give Jimmy Kimmel more press and more viewership, he absolutely did so. Of course, I don't think that is what Donald Trump intended to do.

SIDNER: Do you have any sense beyond YouTube of just how big his appeal may have been? A lot of people wanted to clearly watch this from all facets of, not just in America, but, you know, this is from around the world.

ENTEN: That's exactly right. So we got this 6.7 million. I will note that that number is up already about 700,000 from the last time I checked, which was about an hour ago.

But take a look here. Record high Google searches last night for what time is Jimmy Kimmel on? You wouldn't have to check what time Jimmy Kimmel was on if you were a regular viewer. The reason that people were checking whether at what time Jimmy Kimmel was on because he was pulling -- potentially pulling in a lot of viewers who normally didn't watch and get this. It was up over 10,000 percent, my goodness gracious.

This, of course, dates all the way back since 2004, basically since Jimmy Kimmel was first on the air. So no, it was not just on YouTube. There was a ton of interest, what we're talking about nationwide, worldwide, in terms of what time was Jimmy Kimmel on, because I don't normally watch him, but maybe I want to take a gander because maybe I'm interested to hear what he has to say.

SIDNER: Jimmy Kimmel himself sort of said, look, when Disney did this, I went to them. I didn't like it. But he also said thank you to Disney for keeping his show on. Is there any indication that Disney has something to be happy for? He even plugged go to Disney+, here's how to, you know, as a joke, but here's how to like re up your your subscription.

ENTEN: Yes, I think there were a lot of people, especially on the left, who are upset at Disney for suspending Jimmy Kimmel. And we saw Google searches last week for boycotting Disney and canceling Disney+ the way up.

But take a look here. Google searches versus last week's peak boycotting Disney down about 75 percent as of last night. How about canceled Disney+ down about 75 percent from its peak? So the bottom line is this was great for Jimmy Kimmel in terms of what we see so far in YouTube. It's probably going to translate to the ratings and also Jimmy Kimmel's return is good for Disney because all of a sudden people aren't so interested in boycotting them or canceling their Disney+ subscription. So it ends up being pretty decent for Disney's bottom line bringing Jimmy Kimmel back to the stage.

SIDNER: We'll see how it goes throughout the many weeks that he is on. Harry Enten. It is always a pleasure to be here with you.

ENTEN: The pleasure was all my huge.

SIDNER: That's what you say now, right.

ENTEN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: here is a quote for you. Turn off the TV and do your job. That is top Democrat in the Senate calling on President Trump to do to uncancelled their canceled meeting over a path to avoid yet another government shutdown. An update on that is ahead.

[08:10:00]

And FEMA workers are under investigation now after warning the public a Katrina level disaster could happen again.

And crews rushed to save an elderly woman trapped inside a burning home. We have the details and an update on how she is doing this morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: So Congress is out this week. The federal government now has just one week also before it begins shutting down if new funding isn't agreed to.

[08:15:00]

The deadline is October 1st. Ahead of that, top Democrats in Congress had scheduled a meeting with President Trump, a meeting which he then canceled, saying that what they were asking for to keep this thing going was unserious and ridiculous. Thus sparking a new round of fears that the government is going to start shutting down as a result of, let's be honest yet again, Congress and the White House being incapable of doing their jobs.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is tracking this one back with us now. Arlette, what is next? Where are we?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, lawmakers are operating under a very short timeline as a potential government shutdown is just one week away. Democrats and Republicans right now are really engaged in this messaging war, trying to pin the blame on the other party if they cannot pass government funding by the end of Tuesday night. There was a glimmer of hope that there could be negotiations underway when President Trump and the Democratic leaders, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, were set to meet tomorrow, but then Trump canceled that meeting.

Writing on Truth Social, quote, After reviewing the details of the unserious and ridiculous demands made by the minority radical left Democrats in return for their votes to keep our thriving country open, I have decided that no meeting with their congressional leaders could possibly be productive.

A source telling CNN that that cancellation came after President Trump had spoken with GOP leaders who had really discouraged him from entering into negotiations with Democrats. Meanwhile, Schumer and Jeffries this morning in a new statement called Trump's cancellation, an unhinged temper tantrum. Here's more of what they had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY), HOUSE MINORITY LEADER: The statement that Donald Trump issued today was unhinged. And it related to issues that have nothing to do with the spending bill that is before the Congress and the need to try to avoid a government shutdown. Nothing to do.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), SENATE MINORITY LEADER: We know Donald Trump watches a lot of television. Mr. President, if you're watching television, shut it off and come sit down and negotiate with us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Now, Senate Democrats last week rejected a bill that had passed the House, a Republican LED proposal that would have kept the government open until November 21st. It included an additional $30 million in security for lawmakers, as well as more security for the executive and judicial branches, and a fix to DC funding that had been brought up in a previous continuing resolution.

But Democrats want to see changes made to the Medicaid cuts that were seen in President Trump's domestic policy agenda bill that passed this summer. And they also want there to be an extension of Obamacare subsidies that are set to expire at the end of the year.

But right now, there really appears to be no end in sight for this resolution. Lawmakers are out this week. The Senate returns on Monday. Jeffries has told his caucus to be prepared to come back to Washington on Monday. But House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he's not bringing back lawmakers until after October 1st past that deadline for the shutdown.

So as each day passes, the odds for a shutdown are really increasing as these lawmakers have no -- shown no easy resolution that they could agree to to avert a shutdown at this time.

BOLDUAN: Arlette Saenz, thank you so much -- Sara. SIDNER: All right, ahead. The Federal Reserve chair responding, going after Donald Trump because of his criticism of the Fed, calling it a cheap shot. More on that story coming up.

Plus, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, here to answer all of your questions. And I know you all have a lot of them about acetaminophen, otherwise known as the active ingredient in Tylenol and autism. Important conversation ahead.

[08:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, this morning, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell pushing back on accusations that Central Bank plays politics. Let's get right to Matt Egan for the latest on this. Welcome back.

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, John, look, this is some of the strongest language yet from the Fed chair really defending himself and the institution of the Federal Reserve against just these relentless attacks, right? I mean, the president all year has been accusing the Fed of playing politics, of just keeping interest rates too high, even though, of course, the president himself is the one who dominated Jerome Powell back in 2017, but Powell stresses they don't play politics. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEROME POWELL, FEDERAL RESERVE CHAIR: Whenever we make decisions, we're never, ever thinking about political things. And so we, you know, we're based in Washington, D.C., and many, many people, you know, in Congress, and, you know, they're -- often things are seen through a lens of, is it good for this party or bad for this party or this politician? We're just not looking at things that way. We're looking at, what's the best thing for the people that we serve in the medium term? What's the best policy? The truth is, mostly people who are calling us political, it's just a cheap shot.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

EGAN: So there you heard him say just a cheap shot. Look, that's not to say that the Fed can't be criticized. Of course it can, right? Even Powell himself has conceded they were late to fighting inflation after COVID. But today they face this almost impossible situation, right?

On the one hand, they've got weakening job market, and that's something that normally would call for pretty aggressive interest rate cuts. On the other hand, they have stubbornly high inflation. Take a look at this.

This just talks about how the fingerprints of tariffs are really all over price increases. Moody's Analytics found that if you look at tariff sensitive consumer prices, they're going up at over 5 percent on an annualized basis. That's more than twice the pace of overall inflation, and it is up dramatically from the tiny increase at the same point last year. [08:25:00]

And this is something that Powell talked about yesterday. He's talked about how they really need to still be watching out for inflation, that that's still a risk. And anyone who's been to the grocery store has seen prices go up significantly, right? Coffee prices up by 4 percent just between July and August. That is the most in 14 years, and it's coming at a time when the U.S. has massive tariffs on Brazil, the leading source of coffee that's drank in the United States.

Tomato prices up by 5 percent as well. That's the most since COVID. Again, that does look like it's linked to tariffs as well. Car repair, jewelry, those are record monthly increases. And again, those look like they're linked to tariffs.

So look, the bottom line is the Fed faces this really challenging situation. It's not going to be easy to get this right.

BERMAN: And they say, Whatever we decide, it's not politics.

EGAN: That's what they say.

BERMAN: Matt Egan, thank you very much.

EGAN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Kate.

BOLDUAN: Ahead, parents are left with many questions today about autism and Tylenol. Sanjay Gupta is here with some answers for you.

And a massive sinkhole swallows cars, a road, rescue workers even had to dodge a mudslide inside the sinkhole. Much more on this coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:00]