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Attorney General Bondi Caught Off Guard by Letitia James Indictment; Staff Shortages Reported at Three More Air Traffic Control Towers; Trump Leaves Walter Reed After Semi-Annual Physical. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired October 10, 2025 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: ... leadership at the DOJ off guard.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Some new details about the Justice Department's indictment of New York Attorney General Letitia James. Sources now telling CNN that Attorney General Pam Bondi was caught off guard by the charges after President Trump's hand-picked prosecutor, Lindsey Halligan, did not coordinate with senior DOJ leadership before presenting the case to the grand jury.

HILL: So James was indicted yesterday, of course, for alleged bank fraud and making false statements to a financial institution.

[14:35:00]

This coming just weeks after President Trump very publicly called on Bondi to pursue charges against his perceived political rivals. Now, sources say that statement, which, of course, was posted on social media, was actually intended as a private message, but it was, of course, public.

Joining us now, CNN anchor and chief Washington correspondent Jake Tapper. So, Jake, this is an interesting development.

As Harry Litman told us earlier, it's also potentially interesting deniability, which I thought was quite the take. But the fact that she may not have been -- was not, apparently not aware that this was happening.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's certainly odd, and it certainly goes to, I think it's fair to say, how inexperienced Lindsey Halligan is in the role of prosecutor. Whatever skills she has as an attorney, and she was primarily an insurance attorney, she's not used to this.

The larger issue, though, is obviously, one, that you have President Trump publicly declaring, even if it's mistakenly, that he wants these political foes prosecuted.

And two, Letitia James, it's interesting, I went back and I adjusted the Google, so I was only looking within the year 2018, and if you read what she said when she was running for attorney general in 2018, she was so out there in terms of saying, I am going to go after Donald Trump. So much so, that Dan Goldman, who is now a congressman, but at the time, I think was with a think tank or something, was even quoted in the New York Times saying that this might be something that Trump could use if she actually does bring charges against him in his defense that this is a political prosecution, because she is basically saying, I'm going to go after him. And now people are saying the same thing about Letitia James being able to use that Truth Social post in her defense.

So it's kind of interesting.

KEILAR: Yes, it's dramatic. And I do want to seg to another legal drama --

TAPPER: Let's do it.

KEILAR: This is actually -- so this is the new book.

TAPPER: It's about -- it's a true crime thriller about a terrorist.

KEILAR: Yes, Race Against Terror, Chasing an Al Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War. Tell us about this. The controversial trial of Spin Ghoul, which I think a lot of people, they won't know about it.

TAPPER: Yes.

KEILAR: But it's fascinating.

TAPPER: Well, so it's about the only you -- the only foreign terrorist ever tried in a U.S. criminal court for killing servicemembers in a war zone. He killed servicemembers in 2003 in Afghanistan. And it's really about the sleuthing.

The Italians pick this guy up and the Americans have to prove a case against him and then extradite him. Or the Italians are basically just going to let him go free. But what's interesting about it for today's world is President Trump is trying to do the same thing.

He is trying to try a foreign terrorist, this guy, Jafar, who was behind the Abbey Gate bombing in a criminal court, the Eastern District of Virginia, for killing servicemembers in a war zone. The 13 servicemembers killed during that Abbey Gate bombing. So Obama kind of carved the way here for President Trump to also try to try a foreign terrorist in a criminal court, which is unusual.

HILL: So I'm at the beginning of the book, right? But part of it is that, as you pointed out, they have to prove this case so they basically get him back to the U.S. -- TAPPER: Yes.

HILL: -- to do this. So that's what should be happening now as well with this other case that you just mentioned.

TAPPER: Yes.

HILL: But given what we're seeing in the Eastern District in Virginia, is that going to limit their ability?

TAPPER: I don't know. And I have to say, you know, having dived into the world of national security prosecutions to write this book, I've been working on it for the last three years, I am concerned. One of the guys in the book who was a real expert, a guy named George Toscas, he was at the Justice Department, did not cooperate with me for the book at all.

So this is not like me being nice to a source. In fact, I wish you had answered my question, sir. But in any case, like he was the expert at the Justice Department.

All the prosecutors had to get through him to get anything permitted -- approved for extradition, indictments, etc. The attorney general and the president was cake after that. Toscas was the tough one.

Toscas is no longer doing this work at the Justice Department because he approved the Mar-a-Lago search warrants for the classified documents. And so he got sidelined. And similarly, the guy at the Eastern District of Virginia who was prosecuting Jafar, who had had almost 20 years experience, a guy named Michael Ben-Ary, he was fired 10 days ago because some MAGA person said, oh, he probably was against the Comey prosecution, which he wasn't.

He didn't have any role to do with it at all. He was fired. He posted a letter in his office saying, this hurts the case against Jafar. And our leaders in the Justice Department are more focused on pursuing Trump's political enemies than they are on protecting the American people.

So I am concerned that all this expertise is being dismissed because these cases are not easy. There's a reason there's only been one foreign terrorist tried for killing service members in a criminal court. The guy in my book. Because it's not easy to do.

KEILAR: It's really fascinating. And just real quick before --

TAPPER: Yes.

KEILAR: --

TAPPER: Yes.

KEILAR: -- we're out of time, but I want to ask you this. I love a good, true story. And you're so good at telling them. The Outpost.

[14:40:00]

What was it about this that you said, I need to tell this story?

TAPPER: So one of the assistant prosecutors told me the story just randomly because he's my son's friend's dad. And we were at a birthday party. And like, he just told me the story.

And it was just such a good story. It was just like, you know, when you meet somebody and they tell you a good story, maybe like once a year. And you're like, what? Tell me more. Tell me more of the story. And it was because it was all about the sleuthing, all about like finding a fingerprint and finding a witness.

All this stuff from like CSI and Cold Case and Law and Order. I love that stuff. And this was that.

And I was just like, oh, my God, please tell me nobody's written the story. So that's how it happened.

KEILAR: It's really fascinating.

HILL: So then you wrote the story.

TAPPER: Then I wrote the story.

HILL: Thankfully for the rest of us.

TAPPER: Pay attention to dads and moms at birthday parties.

HILL: There you go.

TAPPER: That's the lesson.

HILL: That's the moral.

KEILAR: You never know where you'll get your inspiration. Great, Jake. Thank you.

TAPPER: Thank you so much, guys.

KEILAR: And this is it. The Race Against Terror, Chasing an Al-Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War by our Jake Tapper.

TAPPER: Thank you, guys.

HILL: Still ahead here, airlines warning the government shutdown and air traffic control staffing issues could begin causing problems for the busy holiday weekend travel. Those details just ahead.

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KEILAR: The Trump administration begins to fire federal workers while lawmakers battle over the government shutdown and more staff shortages are being reported inside of air traffic control facilities across the country. The FAA confirms three more airports have been added to the list. Reagan National here in Washington, D.C., Orlando International, Phoenix Sky Harbor and Chicago O'Hare.

And the shortages could cause problems for travelers this holiday weekend. People are being told to, as the saying goes, pack their patience. It's our favorite phrase here at CNN NEWS CENTRAL, but I don't think it's the favorite phrase of so many people out there. With us now is Jim Krieger. He's a former air traffic controller. He was the traffic manager at Chicago O'Hare International Airport.

Jim, thank you so much for being with us. I know a lot of travelers are going to be very curious about what you have to say here. Shortages today, 12 FAA operations nationwide having staffing shortages Thursday.

What are your main concerns?

JIM KRIEGER, FORMER AIR TRAFFIC MANAGER, CHICAGO O'HARE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: Oh, my main concerns really revolve around, you know, I was in the FAA for about 33 years and we were chronically understaffed virtually the whole time I was in the FAA. And the problem with that is it doesn't take much to put you in a bad situation like we're experiencing right now. It takes a long time to also to train people.

For example, you know, we would have people that we know would have to retire at age 56. We know that that's coming. We'd have 10 people we would need to replace, let's say, in 2026 or a year from now.

And you wouldn't get any personnel to replace them until maybe a few months ahead of time, sometimes not even at that point. And it takes a year and a half to two years to train these people, especially at a large facility. Smaller facilities, not so much.

The other difficulty is if you don't have enough staffing, controllers have a medical certificate. And that means if they have a cold and they take an over-the-counter cold medication, most of those medications are going to disqualify them from work. So it's if even if they wanted to come to work, they're not going to be able to.

So we need more staffing, I think, and more people in the pipeline ready to replace others.

KEILAR: Yes, no doubt. And Chicago O'Hare, where you used to be air traffic manager, had a staffing shortage in its tower yesterday. Can you take us behind the scenes of what something like that is like from an air traffic controller's perspective?

What is -- what happens when that happens?

KRIEGER: You know, when you -- when you don't have enough personnel, generally speaking, a large facility like O'Hare is fortunate enough to have a pool of employees that's obviously much larger than a small facility. So we have traffic management specialists, for example. We have people working in offices that still maintain operational currency.

So when we would be short staffed, of course, we would pull those people off their regular duties and put them in the tower in order for them to work there. Small facility, they're not going to have a whole lot of options when they're at that point in time. And and it comes at a time where if you just don't have enough people, you're going to have to curtail services.

And that's obviously something you never want to do.

KEILAR: So I was just kind of went down a rabbit hole yesterday. I was revisiting the strike during the 80s. And one of the demands of air traffic controllers was that they wanted to go from a 40 hour workweek to a 32 hour workweek, which really puts into perspective the fact that most of them, I think, are working a 60 hour workweek right now, right?

The stress they're under, the demands are so huge. Talk to us a little bit about then when you have this added stress of a shutdown that is now expected to drag at least into next week.

What is the potential impact of that?

KRIEGER: Well, I think that mainly, you know, if you're an essential personnel, which air traffic controllers are, I experienced many shutdowns throughout my career and I never lost any pay. If you're working in an office, you might have a furlough day once in a while. And but you get paid once the government goes back to -- back into operation again, you get paid for the day that you were staying home.

So I don't think a shutdown is the best, best way to handle the taxpayers money. That's for sure. This doesn't make any sense, but it's demoralizing to some degree.

So I wouldn't doubt that some people are put off by that. But I think the overall overriding problem is staffing.

[14:50:00]

It's just you need more personnel. You need them right there ready to fill in the gaps.

KEILAR: Yes, you can see how those happen. They're working long hours in a stressful position. Jim Krieger, thank you so much for being with us.

KRIEGER: Sure.

KEILAR: Erica

HILL: Let's get you caught up in some of the other headlines we are following this hour. Lakers star LeBron James going to miss opening night of his record setting 23rd NBA season, according to multiple reports. It's because of sciatica.

The 40-year-old hasn't fully participated in practice since training camp opened. He also hasn't played in any preseason games. He's set to be reevaluated in the next three to four weeks.

The Lakers open the season against Steph Curry and the Golden State Warriors in Los Angeles on October 21st.

Well, if you live along the East Coast, get ready for some nasty and potentially dangerous weather this weekend. A nor'easter is expected to develop off the southeastern shore and could impact millions with fierce winds and drenching rains.

Experts say areas of New Jersey and southern New England will likely get the worst of the storm. Meantime, the Carolinas could see about six inches of rain and winds of up to 50 miles per hour. Experts say you should prepare for possible power outages and also airport delays in D.C., New York City and Boston.

And big sister to the rescue in Texas. Video from the Levant Police Department. Check this out.

So you see this little girl. Her name is Leah. She saves her younger brother when he starts choking. The two of them have been jumping on that trampoline.

And then you see her in a moment. There he goes. She's going to start to perform some abdominal thrust. Turns out she learned that from her mom, who also teaches, Heimlich another maneuvers.

Ahead here, eight Ukrainian children kidnapped by Russia reunited now with their parents, thanks to efforts by First Lady Melania Trump. That story is next.

[14:55:00]

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HILL: President Trump just wrapping up his visit to Walter Reed Medical Center for what he called a semi-annual physical. The visit comes just six months after his last reported health exam in April.

CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has a closer look now at how this follows a summer of questions about the president's overall health.

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DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it is somewhat surprising that he's getting another visit to Walter Reed so soon, just six months after the previous visit. And keep in mind that the White House medical unit is pretty well equipped. The White House itself, they can do all kinds of blood testing and exams and things like that.

What they can't do is more sophisticated imaging like CT scans and MRI scans. So if you're going to Walter Reed, you're probably trying to get something done there that you can't do at the White House.

But having said that, he has had these periods of time previously where he's had more frequent visits. You may remember back in January of 2018, we knew about his annual physical. And then about a year later, 13 months later, he had another physical. But that same year in 2019, he had that visit to Walter Reed was unannounced at that point.

We only learned about it when he was on his way to Walter Reed. This time there is, again, an earlier visit. We're told about it. So this is a pattern, a cadence that we have seen in the past. We'll obviously try and understand why exactly he had the visit today, what sort of testing was done and hopefully be able to tell you that. I think one of the couple of the areas that they're focusing on, a lot of people have seen, for example, the swelling in his ankles.

When blood is not flowing well through the body, it can start to accumulate or pool, usually in the feet and the ankles just because of gravity. Doctors have been asked about that and they said this is something known as chronic venous insufficiency, which is pretty common. About one in 20 people have it gets even more common as people get older.

With regard to his hands, again, it looks concerning. Doctors were asked about it. If you look at that image, you can see that it is right hand has more bruising than his left.

They say it's because of handshaking on top of the fact that he's on blood thinners, on top of the fact that he's probably had some damage to his hands over the years, playing golf, things like that.

So we'll see if those things come up again. Overall, what we usually get after these visits is sort of a summary of his overall visit.

His age, we know he's 79 years old. His weight, 224 pounds. This is all from the previous visit, normal blood pressure and also scored a 30 out of 30 on a screening test for dementia -- the Montreal Cognitive Assessment. He's had that test done a few times, he says, and has always had a perfect score.

A couple of things we know is he's taking statin medications, a couple of them for cholesterol. He is taking aspirin for cardiac prevention. And the numbers around his triglycerides and his cholesterol look pretty good. They have in the past.

He does have a common form of heart disease based on a cardiac calcium score back from 2018. The number was 133 at that point. People who follow these numbers will know that that's a that's an elevated number.

Be curious to know if he's had that test again. Something we will certainly ask about as well. But again, not that surprising to have another visit. It'll be important to understand why they decided to schedule it this time.

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HILL: All right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, appreciate that, thank you. And again, we'll bring you those updates as we have them.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KEILAR: An explosion at a munitions plant in Tennessee leaves multiple people dead and several others unaccounted for. We're waiting to hear more information from authorities. Any news conference is expected just minutes from now. And the White House making good on its threat to federal workers on the 10th day of the shutdown. It is carrying out layoffs ...

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