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Trump: Saudi Crown Prince Knew Nothing About Khashoggi's Murder, Despite CIA Assessment that He Ordered Assassination Mission; DHS: 200 Plus Arrested in Charlotte-Area Immigration Crackdown; Roblox Rolling Out AI Age Checks Amid Safety Concerns. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired November 18, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: It is a very big day here in Washington, and this is one of the reasons the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia leaving the White House after a meeting with President Trump, a visit that has all of the trappings of a state visit, although he isn't technically the head of state. This is just moments ago as he's leaving there from the West Wing.

The widow now of Jamal Khashoggi is speaking out after President Trump called the murdered Washington Post journalist extremely controversial.

That journalist murdered at the behest of the Crown Prince in 2018. That was the finding of the CIA during the first Trump administration. Here is part of that tense exchange that Trump had with reporters in the Oval Office.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As far as this gentleman is concerned, he's done a phenomenal job. You're mentioning somebody that was extremely controversial. A lot of people didn't like that gentleman that you're talking about, whether you like him or didn't like him, things happen, but he knew nothing about it, and we can leave it at that.

You don't have to embarrass our guest by asking a question like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[15:35:00]

KEILAR: In response, Khashoggi's widow says, quote, this is not justification to murder him. Her statement goes on to say, she told CNN, "The Crown Prince said he was sorry, so he should meet me, apologize and compensate me for the murder of my husband."

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Let's discuss with Washington Post opinion columnist Jason Rezaian and lead global security analyst for Washington Post Intelligence Josh Rogin. Thank you both for being with us. I do want to get your reactions to what we just heard there from President Trump. But Jason, I actually wanted to give you the opportunity to correct a

record on something that a previous guest said, Chris Matthews, when he was talking about the Washington Post, that the paper didn't address the murder of Khashoggi today with this visit of MBS to the White House.

JASON REZAIAN, WASHINGTON POST OPINION COLUMNIST: They actually addressed it beginning yesterday when I wrote a column about the visit in advance of this. Obviously, this is something that I've been aware of for several weeks that the Crown Prince was coming. But for the past seven plus years, that the Washington Post has been not only covering closely but trying to get accountability around.

Josh and I worked very closely in the same section with Jamal Khashoggi, so something that I take very personally. So thank you for the opportunity to clear the record.

SANCHEZ: Of course. And what did you make of this visit and what we heard from the President?

JOSH ROGIN, LEAD GLOBAL SECURITY ANALYST, WASHINGTON POST INTELLIGENCE: Well, it's clear that when the United States abandoned its role as the defender of human rights around the world, the bad guys expand their human rights abuses with impunity. And that's what we're seeing here. I mean, you don't have to go all the way back to 2018.

MBS killed a journalist in June, a journalist named Turki al-Jasser, who was alleged to have run a Twitter account critical of the Saudi royal's corruption, and he was executed. If there was a trial, we never saw it. So these crimes and human rights violations by MBS and his regime are ongoing.

Dissidents in jail, human rights activists in jail, women's rights activists in jail. A person that I know named Saad Almadi, who is an American citizen, 75 years old, was sentenced to 16 years for tweeting about MBS. And he's not in jail anymore, but he can't leave Saudi Arabia. He's on an exit ban.

And so the human rights abuser can come to Washington, but an American citizen who did nothing wrong cannot come home to Washington. And that's a direct result, in my view, of the U.S. government abandoning its position under the Trump administration as a defender of human rights, both in the United States and abroad.

REZAIAN: I want to remind everybody of a quote from the time. The current Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, in 2018 said, there's no amount of money that can buy back our credibility on human rights. He was vehemently opposed to the whitewashing of this crime at the time.

He was there at the White House alongside President Trump and MBS today.

KEILAR: And it was 2018, during Trump's first term, when the CIA concluded that Khashoggi's murder was done at the direction of the Crown Prince, who today called it a mistake. He didn't say he did it, right? But he did say it was a mistake.

And there was also a sort of a Saudi inquest into it as well that found a lot of details kind of about certainly the specifics of it, but that blamed a lot of other people. This was Trump's administration that had this finding of fault.

REZAIAN: It was a very strong assessment by the entire intelligence community based on investigation, based on facts. So, you know, anybody can choose to believe a report or not. But these people are paid to do this work.

They are our intelligence community. They are the best in the business. And they confirmed with high probability that Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for this murder.

ROGIN: A mistake is not a -- a murder is not a mistake. That's a murder. OK.

To call them -- nobody accidentally murders someone. You know, if I trip and fall, that's a mistake.

If I, you know, make an error in adding two numbers, that's a mistake. A murder is an intentional, egregious, violent act. And this murder took a lot of planning, a lot of coordination.

There was a cover up. They had a decoy Jamal walk around afterwards pretending to be Jamal. So we would think that he wasn't murdered.

And the body has never been recovered. There's been no real accountability for the people who directed the murder, including MBS. So even to call it a mistake is not only an insult to Jamal and his family, and it's an insult to all of the people who are facing the end of their lives and their livelihoods because MBS and his regime think that any criticism of them or their actions or their government can get -- is worthy of killing you.

[15:40:00]

REZAIAN: It's an important point. There's a lot of discussion about MBS's desire to modernize Saudi Arabia. And there's no doubt, you know, there have been changes in that society, perhaps some social freedoms that didn't exist before. But all the people who were driving the advocacy around women driving or, you know, other freedoms within the society, things that we've taken for granted in this country forever, end up in prison or dead.

SANCHEZ: You mentioned something a moment ago, Josh, and I just wanted to pull on that thread because it's notable that it wasn't necessarily just the Trump administration that has sort of opened the door for MBS and a positive relationship with Saudi Arabia and the United States. You had former President Joe Biden saying that Saudi Arabia would become -- or would be solidified as the pariah that it is and speaking in harsh terms about the murder of your former colleague.

And yet there was a fist bump. There was a handshake. There was sort of a seeking of solid relations between the two countries. So is it a sort of cynical view of the world that the United States has to foster this relationship in order to maintain stability in the Middle East?

Or is it just good politics?

ROGIN: You know, it was good politics when Joe Biden campaigned on making Saudi a pariah state. And then it was good practical business compromise for him and his cohort to totally reverse that position when he was in office. The bottom line is for Democrats and Republicans dealing with despotic, brutal regimes, money talks and neither party has a clean record.

But at least the Biden administration purported to stand up for human rights and didn't call murder victims controversial guys and things happen. And so, yes, the Biden administration had a lot of hypocrisy on human rights. But the Trump administration has removed that hypocrisy by just not being for human rights at all.

And meanwhile, destroying the human rights bureaus in the State Department, destroying USAID, leaving millions of people without vital assistance, abandoning Internet freedom programs for dissidents all over the world, including in Iran and Saudi Arabia, and basically taking America out of the role of being the defender of human rights abroad. So, yes, the Biden administration wasn't great on this, but this is much, much worse. And we're seeing the results in countries all over the world where, again, murderers and despots and dictators are increasing their human rights abuses with impunity, as the world watches.

KEILAR: Jason, I want to ask you, you were imprisoned for a long period of time in Evin prison by Iran. So you certainly know about the harshest treatment of journalists by -- some of the harshest treatment of journalists by a government. That's not exactly what we saw today.

But what we saw was a certainly uncharacteristic treatment of journalists for America, maybe not Trump. As Trump was threatening, was saying that he thought the license should be pulled for ABC, just for the reporter, the chief White House correspondent for ABC News doing her job and asking this important question. And I wonder what you thought of that moment.

REZAIAN: Look, I was listening to that moment. I think I applaud her for being, doing her job and not standing down. And when I hear about attempts by Saudi Arabia to potentially buy media companies in the United States and wield that kind of power, it scares the hell out of me.

We can still do our job in this country. The four of us at this table can still get out here, talk about this, criticize the U.S. government. The threats coming from this president towards journalists aren't new.

He did it throughout his first term. They're not new internationally. Many people do it.

Folks like us continue to do our jobs. But the heat behind our backs is getting higher and higher. And the concern for me is the self- censorship that's beginning to happen in our industry and really the safety of people doing this job.

SANCHEZ: Jason Rezaian, Josh Rogin, we appreciate you having the conversation. Thanks so much.

Still plenty more news to come. Immigration enforcement operations ramping up in North Carolina with federal agents on the ground in Raleigh after more than 200 people were arrested in Charlotte. We have the latest there.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: The number of arrests in an immigration crackdown in North Carolina is growing as the operation expands to the state's capital. The operation launching in Raleigh three days after Border Patrol agents arrived in Charlotte, where the Department of Homeland Security says at least 200 people have been arrested since Saturday. The Raleigh mayor says she expects agents to be active in the city today and she's urging residents to maintain peace and respect.

CNN's Dianne Gallagher is with us now. She's in Charlotte.

[15:50:00]

Dianne bring us up to speed on these crackdowns in North Carolina.

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And we talked about this a little bit earlier this afternoon, Brianna, why they say that they came to Charlotte. This has been a bit of a mystery for many of the elected officials here who were kept in the dark up until Border Patrol agents arrived on Saturday morning. And still say they don't have any communication between DHS officials and the local elected officials in Charlotte.

But Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem actually spoke today, shed a little bit of light on why she says the department chose to send U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers to Charlotte. She cited a high number of child abuse, trafficking and neglect cases in Charlotte, she said.

She said that the operations are based on where they see a criminal element to the illegal alien population that's in the country and what they can do to get them off the streets and protect our children.

Now, of the 130 arrests that were made over the weekend, 44 of those are individuals who have some form of criminal background. We don't know if they were charged or convicted, and we're talking about things like assault as well as DWI. They say that two of the people who were arrested were known gang members.

The U.S. Border Patrol chief has pushed back on claims from people here in Charlotte who say that they are being racially profiled at work sites, walking down the street, that people who are Latino are just being approached by agents here. The Border Patrol chief saying that that is completely false. He says through targeted investigations, we are ensuring that we locate, arrest and deport the worst of the worst criminal aliens. The impact here in Charlotte has been especially evident here on the east side of the city. That's where most of the protesting is taking place as well.

You can see behind me, they've all been out here all day in front of these closed businesses rallying support for their community.

KEILAR: And Dianne, Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino is criticizing the state's governor. Tell us about that.

GALLAGHER: Yes, Gregory Bovino, who is the sort of top on the ground Border Patrol official both here in Charlotte and he was as well that controversial operation in Chicago. A message on X that said that the governor caused this when it was sort of a quote tweet to a threatening video that was put on social media. He said, let me say this again, Governor, when you spout lies about a lawful law enforcement operation, you spark something in weaker minded people like this who may act upon your directions.

Josh Stein, the governor here of North Carolina, has criticized the tactics used by Border Patrol here in here in North Carolina, as well as in Chicago. We've seen U.S. citizens who have been detained. Of course, there is that video of the individual whose window was smashed. Border Patrol says that they did it because the person was invasive but were not listening.

But the governor has stood by the fact that they would appreciate a targeted operation and not something that they view as a harassment campaign, targeting people by the color of their skin.

KEILAR: All right, Dianne Gallagher, thank you so much for that report. We appreciate it.

Ahead, Roblox implementing some new safety measures after lawsuits claimed the popular video game was endangering children. But are they enough?

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: A major change is coming to the popular gaming platform Roblox. If user users want to chat privately, they now have to verify their age. The platform rolling out a new AI tool as well that will analyze a selfie to estimate that age.

KEILAR: Now, this move is coming as Roblox faces a string of lawsuits alleging it enabled sexual predators to groom and abuse children. Roblox CEO David Baszucki says their priority is to make Roblox safe for everybody.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID BASZUCKI, CEO, ROBLOX: We filter all the text. We don't allow image sharing. We monitor everything for critical harms.

So we continue really to believe we want to innovate and lead into the future of safety on the Internet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Claire Duffy is with us now. Claire, parent groups have called for stronger safety measures on the Roblox platform. Tell us why the company is acting now.

CLAIRE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: Roblox has continued to face this sort of growing string of reports and lawsuits claiming that it enables adult predators to connect with children. We've seen lawsuits from state attorneys general as well as from individual families. And the stakes are especially high here because Roblox, unlike many other online platforms, allows children under the age of 13.

It actually promotes itself and markets itself as a way for children to learn how to code. The platform has around 150 million users. About a third of those are under the age of 13.

So Roblox says this new policy is intended to make it harder for adults to contact children who they don't know. So the company will be requiring all users, regardless of age, to verify their age before they can access chat features. Users over the age of 13 can do that by providing a government ID or any user can verify their age using this new AI face age estimation tool where essentially you hold up your phone and it photographs your face and puts you in an estimated age bucket.

And Roblox says that users will only be able to talk to other users in or around their age group. So, for example, a user who is estimated to be age 12 can only talk to users under the age of 15, but not over the age of 16. Now, of course, with many of these tech policies, the proof is really going to be in the pudding here in terms of how well Roblox can actually enforce this new policy.

There I think are questions about how accurate this face age estimation system is going to be.

[16:00:00]

And on top of that, we've seen some other folks find workarounds to these kinds of AI age estimation tools using selfies or video game characters. Roblox says that it has fraud prevention measures in place, but that is something we'll be watching closely here as this moves forward.

KEILAR: All right, Claire, thank you for that.

"THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

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