Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Princely Eviction; SNAP Benefits in Danger; Potential Halloween Terror Attack Foiled?. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 31, 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]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:00:40]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The FBI says it has stopped a terror attack plan for Halloween. The latest details on what several subjects in Michigan were allegedly plotting. Sources say it was ISIS-inspired.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus: a banished brother. What we're learning about the decision by King Charles to take away his brother Andrew's prince title and Windsor home. Why royal watchers say it may be too little, too late.

And a possible make-or-break moment for self-driving cars. What if a robotaxi accidentally kills someone? Waymo's CEO says this is a matter of when and not whether it'll happen.

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

We start this afternoon following breaking news on a potential terrorist attack FBI Director Kash Patel says was thwarted in Michigan this Halloween weekend. Multiple sources telling CNN the foiled plot is being described as ISIS-inspired.

KEILAR: Agents reportedly growing more concerned when online chatter they'd been secretly monitoring made a Pumpkin Day reference. Sources say earlier this week some of the members in this chat went to a shooting range with AK-47s to practice.

Authorities then moved in overnight and this morning arrested at least two people.

CNN's John Miller is standing by with the latest here.

John, tell us what you're learning.

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, what we're learning is that this is a case that's been going on for months involving an FBI undercover employee who was in these discussions and that these people were also talking to people overseas. Now, for framing purposes, this is the first ISIS-inspired plot we

have seen with a group of people in some time, meaning you will remember, New Year's Day, we had the attack in New Orleans, ISIS- inspired, but one individual who was not communicating with the organization overseas who was acting on his own.

This hearkens back to things we saw in the 2014-'15-'16 years, where groups of people were being inspired by ISIS to act as a terrorist cell on the ground. They didn't have a target, they didn't have a date, but once they went to the shooting range and once there were references made apparently to Halloween, the FBI decision was we're seeing intent rise, we're seeing capability rise, we're seeing access to weapons quite apparent here.

And they just decided, while we would like to continue the investigation to gather more evidence for more time, the exigent circumstances call for a takedown, and that's when they moved in.

SANCHEZ: And, John, what do you make of the way that information on this case is being handled? Do you think there's going to be an FBI press conference?

MILLER: Well, the tweet from the FBI director this morning saying a terrorist plot had been prevented ahead of any charging documents, a complaint, an indictment is highly unusual, but on the other hand, it's also realistic.

When you conduct multiple raids and search warrants with SWAT teams in a small community where everybody knows what's going on, that's going to come out, people are going to have questions, rumors are going to come out, so putting that foot forward may have made prosecutors uncomfortable, in that they are still drafting documents and considering whom to charge with what.

But it was a way to tell people what was going on and that there was no threat to -- no active threat to the public at this time.

KEILAR: All right, John Miller, thank you for that.

We're joined by Donell Harvin, former D.C. chief of homeland security and intel. He's also a member of the faculty at Georgetown University's Emergency and Disaster Management Program.

Donell, what do you think about what we have learned so far?

DONELL HARVIN, FORMER D.C. CHIEF OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE: What we have learned is a little scant. John's done some great reporting, but there's really not much coming out of DOJ official lines or the FBI.

And as of us going on air about a few minutes ago, I checked. There's still no planned press release. Hopefully, they will come up with some more information, but it is an unorthodox way to communicate a threat, by tweet, especially when you don't follow up with any more contextual information.

[13:05:02]

KEILAR: Yes, this unfolded in chat rooms online. And then there was this reference day, we have learned, have learned to Pumpkin Day. Tell us a little bit about how agents find these chat rooms, how they monitor and how they kind of pounce when they see something like that is so timely.

HARVIN: And this is difficult. I train my students who are going into the intelligence community to understand the threat landscape.

With the scenario that you just laid out, we don't know when the agents or the agents themselves don't know when they're entering this chat room in terms of how far along the planning and radicalization processes individuals are. We don't know if they're very preoperational, which means they're ready to go, or they're really early in there and they're at the ideation phase.

They're just kind of looking for an idea to grapple on to, they're looking for some plans and looking to develop that capability. And so it seems like this group was being followed by the FBI long enough for federal agents to understand that they had the ideation, they had the plan and they had the capability to do a successful attack.

And that's why they took them down. Ideally, they'd want to wait a little bit longer to develop a stronger case, but lives come before convictions. And this is why they took this group down based on that one word, that Pumpkin Day, that we talked about.

KEILAR: What do you think about this alleged ISIS inspiration connection?

HARVIN: Yes, and I think it's really important for people who aren't in our industry to understand this. ISIS, Da'esh, as they're called universally around the world, al Qaeda, your traditional foreign terrorist organizations, are still very active.

They're still inspiring people without really much, put content out online. They have magazines, they have chat rooms, they have memes, and they're able to inspire people thousands of miles away, as John talked about, from the mid-2016s, 2015, all the way up until now. So they're just as active now as they were before.

And, unfortunately, however, we have so many threats, from the transnational criminal organizations, the Tren de Araguas, the MS-13s, we still have to keep an eye out for those traditional terrorism threats that really brought us to where we are right now post-9/11.

KEILAR: Sources are saying here two participants have been arrested. There's three others that are being questioned. The age here, what do you think of this, some as young as 16?

What does that tell you?

HARVIN: Yes, and if we had this conversation 10 years ago, that would be a nonissue, because we didn't have teenagers getting involved in this type of environment. However, what the online threat environment allows, what these chat

rooms allows is for very, very young people. I have seen FBI investigations into terrorists, ISIS, or related terrorist investigations with children as young as 14 and 13. And so what they're able to do is, they're able to radicalize and manipulate very, very young people who don't understand what's going on.

They're being in contact with the adults who are manipulating them. They're very good at doing this. And so you're going to see more and more of this, not just with ISIS or al Qaeda, but many of these other extremist groups. They're recruiting very successfully very young people online.

Their parents aren't monitoring it. There's no guardrails for a lot of these social media platforms. And this is what we have. So I'm not surprised at all.

KEILAR: All right, Donell Harvin, thank you so much, bringing us the very latest analysis on what we are learning here. We do appreciate it.

And still to come: In less than 24 hours, tens of millions of Americans will begin losing their SNAP benefits. Right now, a federal judge is deciding whether the Trump administration must dip into a contingency fund to keep the program running. We will have the latest on the emergency hearing.

Plus, King Charles banishing the royal, formerly known, formerly known as Prince Andrew. We're going to look at what that means for the monarchy.

SANCHEZ: And later: Fifteen passengers are sent to the hospital after a JetBlue plane suddenly loses altitude because of a flight control issue.

What exactly that means and much more coming your way on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:13:03]

SANCHEZ: Happening right now: an emergency court hearing that could keep government food assistance going for 42 million of the nation's most vulnerable Americans.

SNAP benefits are due to stop tomorrow over a lack of funding from the government shutdown now in its 31st day. Right now, a federal judge in Rhode Island is looking into a lawsuit that claims the USDA -- quote -- "needlessly plunged SNAP into crisis, even though there are appropriated funds available that could and must be used for those benefits."

KEILAR: The agriculture secretary denies that claim, saying those funds cannot be used. President Trump is now calling for Republican senators to end the government shutdown by getting rid of the filibuster, an idea known as the nuclear option. It allows legislation to pass with just 51 votes, instead of the current threshold of 60.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is here with more on this.

Jeff, how are Republicans responding to the president's call to end the filibuster?

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna and Boris, Republican leaders in the Senate and indeed the House are responding with a resistance to this idea to change the rules of the Senate.

And one of the reasons is, of course, for the short term, in the Trump administration, which the president is talking about, it may be seen as a good idea, but in the long term, when Republicans are not in control of the Senate in some future year, perhaps, it would not be a good idea. So leaders of Congress are taking a longer-term view at this and, again, resisting the idea of changing these Senate rules.

Just a couple examples here of the reaction, one coming from Utah Senator John Curtis, who wrote this on X earlier. He said: "The filibuster forces us to find common ground and power changes hands, but principles shouldn't. I'm firmly no on eliminating it."

Of course, unclear how much common ground is actually being found here. But it was Speaker Mike Johnson, who, of course, is in the House of Representatives, that does not pertain to the filibuster rules, he said that Democrats would take advantage of this in a future administration.

[13:15:06]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): If the shoe was on the other foot, I don't think our team would like it. The Democrats, look, they have said what they would do. They would pack the Supreme Court. They would make Puerto Rico and D.C. states.

They would ban firearms. They would do all sorts of things that would be very harmful for the country. And the safeguard in the Senate has always been the filibuster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELENY: So, again, Speaker Johnson does not have a say in the Senate filibuster, but Senate Majority Leader John Thune does. He has long been opposed to changing the rules of the Senate and an aide in his office says he remains opposed to that.

So we will see how much the president actually keeps pressing on this. But that has been the one thing that really distinguishes the Senate from the House. It requires 60 votes to get major legislation through. Again, it is intended to breed consensus. We have very few recent examples of that.

SANCHEZ: Yes. And, Jeff, specifically on SNAP benefits, the White House has found

ways through the government shutdown to fund WIC benefits and services as well as payment for military members. Do we know if they're exploring an alternative specifically for SNAP?

ZELENY: It does not seem that they are. There certainly has been no indication from the White House there. President Trump actually left the White House a few hours ago. He's flying down to Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, for the weekend. The House is out for yet another week. The Senate is out.

So, essentially, here in Washington, no one is home and no one is working on this government shutdown, a way to end it. But in terms of finding other money for SNAP when those benefits expire tomorrow, it does not seem that they are looking for a pile of money.

But as you mentioned at the very beginning, there are a couple federal judges that are hearing cases on this. And there is some money available. But, again, it would not be enough to fund SNAP for the entire month of November, only for a portion of it. But, again, there is very little talk, in fact, no talk of funding it here at the White House.

It's designed to be a pressure point for Democrats to reopen the government. We will see if that happens as the weekend moves along -- Boris and Brianna.

SANCHEZ: Jeff Zeleny live for us at the White House, thank you so much.

Next: from prince to commoner. We have new details about the king's decision to strip his younger brother of his royal title and evict him from his sprawling Windsor home.

KEILAR: Plus, Amazon denies its latest round of layoffs were due to A.I., despite initially saying the very opposite. Hear why the company now claims it had to cut 14,000 jobs.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:22:03]

KEILAR: A royal source tells CNN that King Charles' younger brother Andrew, is not expected to move out of his Windsor mansion until after Christmas. The king evicted him from his royal residence and stripped away his prince title as public outrage grew over Andrew's ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

SANCHEZ: The royal family taking the extraordinary step after the release of a posthumous memoir by Virginia Giuffre, who accused the former prince of sexually abusing her as a teenager, claiming that -- or, rather, claims that Andrew has repeatedly denied.

Just days ago, King Charles was heckled about the situation during a public appearance.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How long have you known about Andrew and Epstein? Have you asked the police to cover up for Andrew? Have you asked the police to cover up for Andrew?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Joining us now to discuss the ongoing fallout and what this means for the monarchy is CNN royal historian Kate Williams.

Kate, what do you think was the final straw here?

KATE WILLIAMS, CNN ROYAL HISTORIAN: Yes, that's it, Boris.

I mean, this has been ongoing for so many years. And many people have been saying the king should act. And, finally, last night he took what we can say as the nuclear option. Andrew is going to be evicted from royal lodge, although, obviously, rather more slowly than we thought.

I think we thought it might be sooner than after Christmas. And, very significantly, he's lost the title of prince. Now, what pushed them into this? Certainly, I think there were two things. I think that just before Mrs. Giuffre's memoir was published, "Nobody's Girl," it was announced that Andrew was stepping back from his title of duke of York.

I think the royal family and the household were surprised that this didn't assuage public anger. Most people said, oh, well, he's just stepping back from his title. And also the M.P.s in Parliament who -- if the title of duke of York was to be formally taken away, it has to go through Parliament, they were saying, well, we will debate this. We want to debate this. And the royal family don't want that.

So I think there was the fact that actually the duke of York matter did not assuage public anger. It was rising. You played that clip there of someone heckling Charles. There were a lot of complaints. And the anger was not just rising against Andrew, but against the whole royal family.

And also we don't really know, but it may be that there are more news stories left to come. There's certainly -- a Sunday newspaper here has tracked down another woman who was trafficked for many years by Epstein and she said from her lawyers that she was sent to have dinner with Prince Andrew.

Now, that's all she's saying so far, but it may be that there are other matters that may be coming to light. We don't know.

KEILAR: My goodness.

So, practically speaking, what does this mean, Kate, for Andrew? It's not as if he becomes a pauper.

WILLIAMS: No, Andrew is not going to have to go on the London rental market. Andrew has a property. He's going to go to Sandringham. The king is

going to fund that property from the king's private money. So this is obviously causing some disquiet, because people are saying, yes, he's moving out of this gigantic, 30-room, beautiful lodge in Windsor. It -- really, it's palatial. And now he's moving to a property in Sandringham, but they are very nice properties in Sandringham.

[13:25:04]

And he's going to be living there on the king's dime really, which, essentially, when you look at the royal estate, I mean, the king's dime comes from money he rents out to many people, ordinary people across the country. So I think people are still concerned about that.

But Andrew is going to be very much excluded from royal events. I think we have already had sources saying he probably won't go to William's coronation. He may not even be invited to the -- Charles' funeral when that sad day happens.

Andrew is out of the picture, but, really, this is -- he still retains a lot. He still is eighth in line to the throne. He's still being funded by the king. And, certainly, still people are going to be saying, are you still being protected by the royal household?

SANCHEZ: Yes, that is a lingering question.

And, to that point, I wonder if you think the royal family is going to face lasting reputational damage, given some of the heckling we just saw at the king.

WILLIAMS: I think this was the problem, exactly as you say. The damage was really seeping, increasing past just Andrew. For many years, people have seen it all being Andrew's fault. And now there are wider questions about the royal family.

Mrs. Giuffre said in her memoir that she was given an NDA not to speak out during the year of queen's jubilee, and which would obviously include her funeral as well in 2022. And I think people were beginning to ask these questions about, was there silencing, was there covering up?

And in the palace statement yesterday, the king and queen said that they were thinking of victims of abuse. Now, they didn't say victims of Epstein, but they said thinking of victims of abuse. And I think many people would say it's taken too long to get to the stage of Andrew being evicted and losing the title of prince, and it's certainly taken too long for the palace and the royal household to express, sorrow and solidarity with the victims of abuse.

KEILAR: So I'm a royal-curious person, but I wouldn't say I'm an avid royal watcher. And it took this for me to learn that Sarah Ferguson, Fergie, lives in this, estate with Andrew, right? So what is going to -- since the divorce, for years. What is going to happen to her, Kate?

WILLIAMS: Well, yes. Sarah and Andrew divorced in 1992, many years ago, and they have lived together in Royal Lodge. And Sarah used to call them the happiest divorced couple.

And we saw sources saying she was now separating herself from him after the post-Mrs. Giuffre's memoir. But the king has made it very clear, we understand, that Andrew has a property in Sandringham, but Sarah will have to make her own arrangements. And one presumes that she will currently perhaps live with one of her daughters, Beatrice and Eugenie, who both have families and live with their families in properties.

But, at the moment, yes, Sarah Ferguson is no longer being funded by the royal estate. And I think, really, people were quite surprised. As you say, Brianna. People didn't realize that she was living there all these years in this palatial mansion. I mean, it's so big, you can probably live there with 50,000 people and you wouldn't see them.

KEILAR: Yes.

WILLIAMS: And that was how their lives have been since the '90s.

SANCHEZ: Wow. Kate Williams, potentially a new chapter. Certainly, the royal family would hope so. Thanks so much for the analysis.

WILLIAMS: I think they do.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

WILLIAMS: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: So federal investigators are looking into a -- quote -- "flight control issue" that caused a JetBlue plane to suddenly lose altitude, sending 15 passengers to the hospital. What exactly happened?

We will discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)