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NBA Gambling Bust; Trump Ends Trade Negotiations With Canada; Inflation Rising; Letitia James Arraigned. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 24, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Real quick, "West Wing" reboot.

BRADLEY WHITFORD, ACTOR: Go ahead, yes.

BASH: If you move to the left a little bit, we can see your Josh Lyman sign there. Is that because you're getting ready to dust it off? Any chance?

WHITFORD: I don't think that -- I don't think we should do that right now. I think it would be interesting to take those characters and plop them into the current political climate, but that's totally up to Aaron Sorkin. It's not my call.

BASH: Yes. Yes. I get it.

Thank you so much for joining us. "The Diplomat" is terrific. It's streaming on Netflix now.

WHITFORD: OK, thank you, Dana.

BASH: OK, good to see you.

Thank you so much for joining INSIDE POLITICS.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Retribution campaign. Another one of the president's adversaries appearing in court, as New York Attorney General Letitia James, is arraigned on felony charges of bank fraud.

And payday panic. Federal workers are missing their first full paycheck today, as the shutdown is in its 24th day. And desperation is growing for workers who see no sign that this standoff is ending any time soon.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: And inflation. Prices rose in September, but less than expected. There may be a silver lining, though.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: The attorney general who prosecuted President Trump in New York is now defending herself in federal court, Letitia James just a short time ago pleading not guilty to felony charges that she says are merely a tool of retribution.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LETITIA JAMES, NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL: This is not about me. This is about all of us and about a justice system which has been weaponized and a weapon against those individuals who simply did their job and who stood up for the rule of law.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: So James has been charged with bank fraud and making false statements and a trial date has been set.

We have CNN's Kara Scannell, who was inside of court as all of this was going down.

Kara, what happened and what's ahead?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, as much as you saw the crowds outside for Letitia James, inside the courtroom, she did have a number of friends and family members who showed up inside the courtroom.

I spoke to one of her friends, who told me that the entire back row was family members all there to support James. When she entered into the courtroom, she looked over toward the supporters and smiled at them, and then inside, once they got down to business, the judge had her enter her plea. Her lawyer said she wanted to do it herself. She said she was not guilty to both counts that she's facing.

And then they began to address what will come up, as her lawyer, Abbe Lowell, said that these were not going to be run-of-the-mill motions, and he outlined several that he is expecting to bring to try to get this case dismissed before it even gets to the trial. And the judge set that trial date for January 26.

So Lowell said that they do intend to challenge the appointment of U.S. attorney Lindsey Halligan. She was inside the courtroom, sitting just a few feet away from Letitia James. I didn't see any interaction between the two of them, but she was at the table. The lead prosecutor is an assistant U.S. attorney from Missouri.

They're having to bring in other prosecutors from across the country to deal with some of these cases, including the case of James Comey. And in this instance, Lowell said that he intends to challenge Halligan's authority. The judge said he would move that to be heard or recommend that the judge hearing the Comey case where that similar challenge is being made to take that up as well.

Abbe Lowell also said he plans to file a motion for a vindictive prosecution. He said that is the worst kept secret around this case, that he was obviously going to file that. And he said he might also bring a selective prosecution challenge. In part, he said he was going to wait to see what the discovery in this case reveals to him about the decision-making in how these charges were decided. But he also said he was going to challenge the actual charges in this

case. He didn't think that the allegations in the indictment actually support the crimes that she's been charged with. So they're trying to knock this out before it even gets to the January trial date.

Now, the prosecutor said that he expected to call between eight and 10 witnesses in this case. He initially asked for two weeks. The judge said, that's not how we do it here. And he said he would give them five days to prove their case -- Brianna, Omar.

KEILAR: Five days. All right, Kara Scannell, thank you.

We have CNN's senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig with us here.

First off, what did we learn today?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: So, lots of news to break down here, Brianna.

So the first thing is we got a sense of what motions the defense will bring, Letitia James' motions. So, first of all, as we just heard, she will move to dismiss this case based on selective or vindictive prosecution, meaning she needs to show that the reason she's being prosecuted is because of political animus, because of negative political feelings between the president or the prosecutors and her.

[13:05:03]

To that end, count on her using as exhibit A this infamous TRUTH Social post from Donald Trump, when he calls explicitly for the prosecution of who, James Comey, who's already been indicted, Adam Schiff, pending, we don't know, and Letitia, referring here to Letitia James.

So that will be the basis of that motion to dismiss for selective or vindictive prosecution. Another motion that we learned that Letitia James' defense team will make is a challenge to the U.S. attorney. Now, the argument here, it doesn't have anything to do with whether Lindsey Halligan is a good or bad prosecutor.

The argument is there already was a prior interim, temporary U.S. attorney. The law says you can do that, but for 120 days. And the argument that Letitia James is going to make is, you can't do it twice. They got rid of the last guy, Erik Siebert, and now Lindsey Halligan's the second one. And so that will be the argument there.

The other thing we learned, very important, as Kara just said, this trial is happening soon, three months from now. That's no time at all for a federal trial to get in front of a jury in three months, January 26, 2026, and it should take about a week. That's about right I think for a mortgage fraud case, which is fairly discrete like this one.

KEILAR: And the charges here.

HONIG: Yes, so this is a mortgage fraud case, two counts. There's a count of bank fraud and a count of making false statements to a financial institution, to a bank.

This all stems from a 2020 purchase of this House in Norfolk, Virginia, by Letitia James. Now, here's the alleged fraud, according to the indictment. The indictment charges that Letitia James claimed this would be a secondary residence, meaning she lived there sometimes.

But, in fact, according to the indictment, she used it as an investment or rental property. She had a tenant. She occasionally collected some rent. Why does that matter? Because, according to the indictment, that would have given her a different interest rate. She would have paid about 3 percent if it was that, but 3.8 percent if it was an investment or rental property.

The allegation here, Brianna, is that she saved herself a grand total of about $18,000. Let me tell you, that is extraordinarily low for a federal mortgage fraud case. So that's the core of the allegation and the fraud here.

KEILAR: Yes. And you got to dig into the details too of the housing situation.

HONIG: Yes.

KEILAR: I think people should really take a look at that. It's very interesting.

So talk us through the players here.

HONIG: Yes.

KEILAR: And I always think, because then we can have an idea of who's going to play them in the made-for-TV movie, which no doubt will come our way at some point.

(LAUGHTER)

HONIG: I'm going to leave all casting to you, but one of the lead roles will be Letitia James. Of course, she's the defendant. It's remarkable. I mean, here you have the sitting attorney general in the state of New York also a critical defendant in federal court in Virginia, bad blood between her and Trump.

Look, she brought a civil lawsuit against Trump, originally got a huge verdict, but that was cut down to zero by the Court of Appeals just last month. Her defense lawyer, Abbe Lowell, he's a famous defense lawyer. He's very well known, very well respected in the law. He's been practicing for 40 years.

Not only does he represent Letitia James, also John Bolton in another high-profile case. He's going to be a busy guy. Lindsey Halligan, now this is the prosecutor we were talking about before. She came in about a month ago because the original prosecutor did not want to charge this case, and apparently the Comey case as well.

And then, finally, the judge, he has been on the bench since 2023, a Biden appointee. He was a prosecutor actually in this same office before he became a judge.

KEILAR: I do have some ideas on the casting, not fully baked. When they are, I will let you in on that.

HONIG: I want to hear. Who's going to play who? Yes.

KEILAR: That's in the commercial break. That's commercial break content.

Thank you so much, Elie.

HONIG: Thanks, Bri.

KEILAR: Really, really appreciate it -- Omar.

JIMENEZ: You all seem to have gotten a good start on the casting, so I'm going to leave it to you all, just passing the buck.

Meanwhile, we need to talk about the government shutdown, because today hundreds of thousands of federal workers are missing their very first full paychecks as the government shutdown hits day 24. And on top of that, we're also monitoring some concerning economic news.

A new report shows annual inflation at its highest level since January at 3 percent. That means a typical American household is spending about $200 more on the same goods and services as they were a year ago.

I want to bring in CNN's Matt Egan, who joins us now.

So, Matt, can you just put this all in perspective for us right now?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, Omar, look, the cost of living remains the number one economic issue in the United States.

And this report really confirms that, yes, the cost of living remains way too high. So, this report today shows that consumer prices, they were up by 0.3 percent between August and September. Now, this was actually better than expected and a step in the right direction.

Still, though, the annual inflation rate, as you mentioned, moving up to 3 percent. That's the highest level since January. And when you look at the trend, this shows annual inflation going back to last fall. And over here is where candidate Trump was crisscrossing the country, and he was saying inflation was out of control at the time.

But, look, we are way higher now in terms of inflation than we were back then, and significantly higher than the low of 2.3 percent inflation back in April. And, of course, April is when many of the tariffs kicked in.

[13:10:00]

Now, when we look at where prices are heating up, one of the big drivers in this report was gas. Gasoline prices went significantly higher during the month of September, although they do remain pretty low. This is not just about gas, though, because some items that are exposed to tariffs went up significantly in price.

Footwear. This is a 1.5 percent increase for men's and boys apparel, watches 3 percent. This is all stuff that is largely imported into the United States, and so, yes, exposed to tariffs. And then, in the grocery store, a 4 percent increase for lunch meat, that's the biggest monthly increase on record, and doughnuts 6 percent higher nearly. That's the biggest monthly increase since 1999 -- Omar.

JIMENEZ: Well, doughnuts being higher is probably a good thing for me personally, but obviously not a good thing for many doughnut fans out there.

Matt, I want to ask you too, because, look, we're watching these economic indicators. Yes, prices are up, but also it doesn't seem to be really affecting the stock market, reading actually a little bit higher today. What are you seeing on that front?

EGAN: Yes, a lot higher, Omar. This is a live look at markets. You see the Dow is up almost 500 points, around 1 percent, S&P, Nasdaq significantly higher as well, all three on track to close at all-time highs. This would be the first time with the Dow closing above 47000.

This is because it's more important from investors' perspective that inflation was a little bit lighter than expected, that monthly increase, right, because that likely clears the way for more interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve, 97 percent chance of a cut in October next week, 100 percent chance priced in to the market for December.

But the last thing I just want to leave you with is, that's Wall Street perspective. Just the Main Street perspective, this is from Moody's. As you mentioned, because of higher prices, consumers are spending on average $200 more per month. They're not necessarily buying more. They're just paying more than they were a year earlier, all because of higher prices, and $1,000 more per month than early 2021,again, all because of higher prices -- back to you.

JIMENEZ: That's the big number that puts a lot of that pain that people have been feeling into perspective.

Matt Egan, appreciate the reporting, as always.

EGAN: Thanks, Omar.

JIMENEZ: We have still got a lot to come.

Trade talks terminated. We're going to show you how the TV ad caused -- this TV ad that we will show you soon caused President Trump to cancel tariff negotiations with Canada.

Plus: Now you see it, now you don't. We have new details about the East Wing demolition, including why contractors are being asked to sign NDAs.

And, later, Kim Kardashian reveals she has a brain aneurysm. And it turns out the condition is a lot more common than you might think. We will tell you the symptoms you should know.

These stories, important, and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:17:15]

JIMENEZ: We are just hours away from President Trump embarking on an important trip to Asia, where trade will be a major topic of discussion.

But, before he leaves, he's stoking the fires a little of his trade war with one of America's biggest allies. In a late-night post, the president announced he has terminated all trade negotiations with Canada. And it's all over an ad produced by the provincial government of Ontario using an excerpt from a 1987 Ronald Reagan speech.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: High tariffs inevitably lead to retaliation by foreign countries and the triggering of fierce trade wars. Then the worst happens. Markets shrink and collapse, businesses and industries shut down, and millions of people lose their jobs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Now, the Trump administration and the Ronald Reagan foundation are blasting the ad, saying the former president was taken out of context.

But despite this latest flare-up in trade tensions, today, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said this:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK CARNEY, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: We can't control the trade policy of the United States. We recognize that that policy has fundamentally changed from the policy in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s. And it's a situation where the United States has tariffs against every one of their trading partners to different degrees.

And it's in that context that our officials, my colleagues have been working with their American colleagues on detailed, constructive negotiations, discussions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: I want to bring in Roben Farzad. He is a business journalist and host of the "Full Disclosure" podcast.

Good to see you, Roben.

I want to pick up where -- with what we just heard from Prime Minister Mark Carney there, because he seemed pretty calm about this, but also part of his rise to office was talking about how the relationship between Canada and the United States needed to fundamentally change economically.

What do you anticipate the impact the pausing trade tax talks between the U.S. and Canada will be?

ROBEN FARZAD, HOST, "FULL DISCLOSURE": Meanwhile, the United States plays Canada tonight in the first game of the World Series up in Canada. So I find that it's all an interesting backdrop.

JIMENEZ: That is true. A lot at stake.

(LAUGHTER)

FARZAD: Look, a lot at stake. And I am a Dodgers fan, in full disclosure, as you can see.

But, look, time was markets would freak out at something like this. You have, what, $770 billion of trade between the United States and Canada. But the fact that it's yawning this off today, right, six months after, what was it called, liberation day, emancipation day, tells you that everybody's just inured to kind of how fickle the president is.

He just might wake up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and say, I'm shocked at this ad and try to weaponize the Reagan Library and try to feign this indignation. You have to imagine what a Ronald Reagan, a fully cogent Ronald Reagan would say about this trade war right now.

[13:20:11]

He would on balance be really against it, but he took something slightly out of context from April 1987 and he's making it relevant to the 2025 trade war. So, go figure.

JIMENEZ: Well, and when you talk about the difference between April, for example, and now, you're just showing the stock markets don't seem to be impacted by this announcement at all, up actually the last time we checked a few minutes ago.

But, also, when you talk about President Trump's relationship with Canada, when Carney first got in, there was a lot of tension. Then it seemed to kind of go to the back burner, still there, simmering. And now here we are back in this moment here where President Trump has this lever that he can sort of pull.

I mean, is this just the relationship that countries have to get used to economically with this administration, knowing that if something is messed up diplomatically or if someone is offended, that this is a lever that could be pulled even if you're a trade ally?

FARZAD: Of course.

And that is inherent to that transactionalism. You realize that if he's hurt by this or if he's feigned -- you even saw it play in parallel with the closing of the Paramount, CBS transaction. And, yes, you might be interested in a donation to my presidential library or one of these things.

And, similarly, I imagine Carney and Ontario and all of them are going to say this too shall pass when and if he comes out on another week and he senses that there's a trophy to be had, and we can give him that trophy, so he wins a rhetorical game in this. In the end, I don't think the market is freaking out that this massive, massive trade balance is in any way going to be really jeopardized by the fact that he is shocked that Reagan was slightly misquoted.

I mean, these are just the atmospherics of the Trump administration. You see it play in parallel with Mexico. You see it with Colombia. I mean, to think that we're in a trade war and a diplomatic war and this tiff with one of our closest allies in Latin America, the markets would historically have a huge freak-out over this. Currencies would.

But I think they have learned to yawn it off, by and large. And I'm not sure that's so great.

JIMENEZ: Well, and we talk about sort of leverage and what impact it actually has.

The backdrop of this standoff is the president's weeklong trip to Asia kicks off today. And America and Chinese officials are expected to meet in Malaysia over the next three days for their latest round of trade talks. What will you be looking for in those talks and how do you view the U.S.' sort of we will call it leveraged economic relationship with China, different than maybe it would be with, say, Canada, Mexico or even Colombia?

FARZAD: Yes, I tip my hat to this great piece in "The Wall Street Journal" today on how Xi, the premier of China, maybe potentially figured Trump out, let him get some rhetorical victories, but pay attention to the big stakes. In their case, it's rare earths and rare earth magnets.

And if you withhold that, Detroit is going to cry uncle, the semiconductor industry. I mean, that's something that the United States does not have autonomy in. And as much as you want to talk about building U.S. rare earths capability, that's not going to come online any time soon.

So he can really -- especially -- you cited that inflation number earlier. If the car industry freaks out during a trade war, and then suddenly there's another supply shock in the brakes and the chips that go into these cars, in the various high-tech equipment that goes into washing machines and the others, China clearly has the advantage in that.

JIMENEZ: Roben Farzad, appreciate you, as always. Good to see you. We will make it in person next time.

FARZAD: Likewise. Thank you.

JIMENEZ: Of course, man.

All right, coming up: The two NBA teams directly affected by the FBI's big gambling bust are back in action tonight. We have got new details on the investigation involving the Portland Trail Blazers' head coach, a Miami Heat player and -- quote -- "others with league connections."

Plus, an update on the man accused of starting the deadly Palisades Fire in California. We will have all the details coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:28:30]

KEILAR: Tonight, two NBA teams will take the court missing a player or a coach after yesterday's bombshell announcement from the FBI, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups both arrested and placed on leave for their alleged roles in two separate illegal gambling schemes.

CNN correspondent Brynn Gingras is with us now.

This is going to be hanging over these games today, Brynn.

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, it's certainly hanging over the head of Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner, too, as everyone talks about how this really rocked the NBA.

Well, you know what? Those two guys are going to be headed to New York soon, Brianna. They have court dates to face, those federal indictments, later next month. But I want to get more into those schemes.

I think a lot of people who are sort of catching up on the news of what was alleged here are really fascinated in some ways of how this all went down, how authorities kind of round up not only members of the NBA, a Hall of Famer to be included in that, but also members of the mob in the New York City mafia crime families.

I mean, people are just fascinated when you look at the details of this case, when you see sort of those old-school sort of Hollywood- type things, like nicknames like Flappy and The Wrestler and Juice as being part of the roundup from these federal authorities.

And what they describe in that paperwork when it comes to this poker scheme -- remember, there was a separate indictment dealing with prop bets, but, for the poker scheme, where a lot of those cases actually happened in the state of New York, but also other places, they talk about using this high technology with the help of the mob to kind of cheat the game.

And what we're learning from this indictment is that people like Chauncey Billups, alleged in this, were sort of used as, hey, come play poker.