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Jury Finds Meta and Google Liable in Social Media Addiction Trial; White House Holds Briefing Amid War With Iran. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 25, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:33:44]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Breaking News to CNN. These are live images outside the courthouse in Los Angeles where a verdict has been reached in a potentially landmark social media addiction trial. Meta and YouTube essentially on trial.

CNN's Clare Duffy has the latest. And Clare, what is the verdict? I understand you've got the news.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS REPORTER: Well, Boris Brianna, Meta and YouTube have both been found liable in this case for negligence and how they've operated their platforms, building these features that have been called addictive of young people.

And also, you know, found liable of failing to warn users of the risks of their platforms. So, really a significant moment here. The jurors have decided that Meta bears a 70 percent sort of responsibility for what happened to this 20-year-old plaintiff.

YouTube bears 30 percent responsibility. But they have found that these companies were responsible for addicting her and causing harm to her mental health. And of course, this does set the stage for potentially similar verdicts in hundreds of similar cases.

So, massive moment here. We are awaiting more information about what exactly the financial damages could look like in this case. But this is, again, a landmark moment where both Meta and YouTube are being found responsible, being found liable for building addictive features that have harmed the mental health of young people.

[13:35:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": All right, Clare. Huge news. Stay with us. Let's bring in former State Attorney, Dave Aronberg to talk about the legal implications here. Hundreds more cases, Dave. Walk us through this. As you mentioned, this is a bellwether case, so explain to us what that means for these other cases.

DAVE ARONBERG, FORMER STATE ATTORNEY, PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA: Right, Brianna, so there's about 10,000 similar lawsuits. They're bundled into multi-district litigation across the country. So you have all these groups, parents, school districts, attorneys general, they're all over the country. They're putting their cases together to consolidate them, so they could follow with this lawsuit. But this is the bellwether.

This will serve as a real tough point for Facebook and Google. They're going to have to live with this because the outcome and the damages will serve as the template for how the rest of these thousands of cases are litigated or settled, and I suspect they will settle. Remember, it was TikTok and Snapchat that settled with these plaintiffs before trial, and Facebook and Google said, nah, we're going to take our chances, roll the dice.

Well, they rolled the dice and it came up snake eyes.

SANCHEZ: Snake eyes, indeed. We just got a statement from Meta saying, quote, "We respectfully disagree with the verdict and are evaluating our legal options." To what Dave said just a moment ago, they are likely to appeal this decision.

Let's bring in Brian Stelter, who's been tracking the latest on this news. Brian, what's your reaction?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: That's right, and that statement from Meta coming moments ago from the company. This is the second verdict in a case against Meta in as many days. There was that New Mexico case yesterday, that jury finding Meta liable as well. That dollar figure, $375 million, Meta said it would appeal.

Now you have Meta reacting again today, and the company have been waiting, of course, for more than a week as these jury deliberations were going on in LA. The company reacting to this case, saying yes, it's evaluating its legal options, not immediately saying it will appeal. It is notable, we're going to read about, we're going to hear about the compensation, the compensatory damages in this case.

You know, it looks like it's probably the $3 million. $3 million for a single plaintiff is significant, but for Meta that is, of course, a very, very small amount of money. We're talking about some of the biggest companies on the planet here, worth trillions.

So Meta has weighed in so far. I suspect we will hear something similar from Google, the owner of the parent company of YouTube as well. A couple of other social media players, they actually settled right on the eve of trial to avoid going through this trial process, to avoid facing a jury, and that spoke volumes in and of itself.

But Meta and Google went forward, and now we have this really significant ruling. I feel like in America and around the world, we're at the beginning of a conversation about what smartphones and social media companies have done to our society. Both the positives, yes, but also the negatives.

We're only at the beginning of that conversation, even though it's been many years, and even though we are now at the point where trials are taking place over the addictive nature of these technologies. We all feel the addictive pull of these tools, we all feel the consequences in our own lives, but to see it displayed on trial, to see the effects on one person brought up in front of a jury in this way, it is a monumental situation.

It's a really important moment to take stock of what these tools, that have both in some ways transformed our culture in good ways, have also had very harmful effects in other ways.

KEILAR: So true. Brian, thank you so much. Stand by for us.

I want to bring in Jacob Ward, technology journalist, who is the Host of "The Rip Current" podcast. Wow, Jacob. And to Brian's point, yeah, this is a small amount of money, but there are a lot more cases, and this also speaks to how these companies do business.

There is a conversation going on, right, about how social media companies are operating and the influence they have, but I think at a time where there's a feeling that social media companies maybe have been patronizing some of the users of social media, and the people who have been complaining about the effects of them, perhaps they have to listen a little bit more, and this could really affect their bottom line, and how they do business.

JACOB WARD, TECHNOLOGY JOURNALIST: I mean, yeah, from -- Brianna, from just a pure dollars and cents perspective, sure, $3 million for an individual plaintiff, maybe that's something that a company like this can afford, but there's 350 family cases in the pipeline behind this plaintiff. If you've got $3 million per, that's already over $1 billion.

Beyond that, you've got another 250 school districts lining up to sue. That's going to be, you know, thousands more kids, conceivably, per school district, and then you're getting into some very large numbers very fast.

But all of that aside, I mean, what this really says to me, what is such a big deal about this, is that we're really looking at harm in this whole new way, that the architecture of choice, the way in which these companies have built the experience of being together online, has, in this case, the jury has found, caused damage to young people.

[13:40:12]

And that idea, which is beyond the sort of the general feeling we all have that something is wrong with childhood, moves us into this legal theory that can be pursued, thinking now in very concrete terms, about a behavioral harm at scale by design. And that is an entirely new world.

We are literally sitting here, I think, at the moment when we figured out that seatbelts in cars are the difference between, you know, danger and not, right? At the moment here, I think we're figuring out that there is a causal connection between, you know, cancer and cigarettes. It's that kind of legal theory that is suddenly in place here. And we're now, I think, you know, Brian is right there, that we're at the beginning of an absolutely new era in thinking about how social media is really working on kids and the liability that companies have when they play around with kids' behavior for profit, which until now has been entirely legally acceptable. And now, we're in an entirely new world, you guys.

KEILAR: Yeah, it really is. Jacob, thank you so much. Everyone, thank you so much. What a huge moment as a jury has found Meta and Google liable in social media -- Meta and YouTube. Meta and YouTube?

SANCHEZ: Yes.

KEILAR: Meta and YouTube liable.

SANCHEZ: Google owns YouTube.

KEILAR: That's right. And Google liable in social media addiction trial. 70 percent responsible, they said, for Meta, 30 percent for YouTube. We'll continue to monitor that.

We're also monitoring the White House press briefing as we learn that around a thousand more U.S. troops are being deployed to the Middle East. We'll discuss that next.

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[13:46:24]

SANCHEZ: Let's go straight to the White House and Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, who is taking questions. Let's listen.

KAROLINE LEAVITT, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: -- find other work as the Democrat shutdown of DHS continues. This is the quote from the father and I encourage everyone to listen. "I think the hardest thing is seeing the struggle that my wife was going through and not trying to bring more stress to her," the father of three said. "But seeing her cry every night, how am I going to feed my family? How am I going to survive?" For the Democrats in Congress, the cruelty of this shutdown is the point.

Nearly 500 TSA officers have quit since the Democrat shutdown began. President Trump, to alleviate this pressure, made the decision to send some of our amazing ICE agents to help alleviate that stress and address the long wait times. And for all of the critics of this solution a few days ago when it was proposed by the president, it is yielding results.

Wait times have improved since ICE arrived and they are doing everything in their power to help their fellow federal service members. But it's important to take a step back and remember why is this even happening in the first place? For nearly six weeks, Democrats in Congress have kept DHS shut down because they care more about illegal aliens than American citizens.

You have Democrat elected representatives in states across the country who are willing to inflict massive pain on their own constituents to fight for illegal aliens who broke our nation's laws to come here. In recent days, we saw the deadly consequence of this deranged policy of Democrat open borders and an illegal alien-first agenda.

A beautiful 18-year-old girl, Sheridan Gorman, she was shot and killed in Chicago last Thursday morning while walking in a park with friends. The suspect in custody for murdering her is a Venezuelan illegal alien who was caught and released at the border by the Biden administration in May of 2023.

Why would the Biden administration catch and release a Venezuelan illegal alien? That is not happening anymore under this president. But there are still tens of thousands, if not millions of these illegal aliens in our country who seek to do harm to innocent Americans like this beautiful young woman whose family will now never be the same because of her death.

SANCHEZ: We're going to continue monitoring remarks from Karoline Leavitt from the press room at the White House. She's talking about the DHS shutdown right now, but we anticipate that she will soon be answering questions about the ongoing war between the United States, Israel and Iran.

Let's actually bring in Leon Panetta. He served as Defense Secretary and CIA Director under President Obama. He was also White House Chief of Staff for President Bill Clinton. Secretary, thank you so much for sharing part of your afternoon with us.

I want to ask you about Iran. The state media, they're citing a knowledgeable source saying that Tehran is not interested in a ceasefire, but then in the last hour, releasing a list of conditions that they would like to see met, among them reparations for war damages. How do you read the response that we've seen so far from Tehran?

LEON PANETTA, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, I think you have to begin with the fact that this is hopeful, that for the first time, both parties seem to be interested in bringing this war to an end. And the United States, I think, submitted some 15 points to try to resolve the issue.

And now, Iran has come back with five conditions as well. I think that's good. I think there's progress being made here. It's a long way from settling this war. But the fact that both sides are beginning to state what the conditions are that they need in order to bring the war to an end.

[13:50:00]

I think that's a hopeful sign and hopefully, the right parties can ultimately come together to be able to bring the war to a close.

SANCHEZ: Secretary, please stand by because Leavitt just began answering questions from reporters on this. Let's listen.

LEAVITT: The administration did notify Congress, the Gang of Eight, ahead of the launch of the operation 25 days ago. And we've also had our top national security officials go to Capitol Hill to brief lawmakers, again, out of courtesy and out of respect for them.

So at this moment, it's unnecessary, but of course, the president and this administration will always abide by the law. Gabe, do you want to have a follow-up? Sure, go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, same questions. In my reporting, I speak a lot to young voters, many of whom voted for President Trump for the first time in 2024 hoping to have no more wars and to have lower prices. Now, with the war taking place and with gas prices going up, here's what President Trump's message would be to those voters who kind of swung into his coalition in 2024, but maybe don't feel the administration is going as they had expected.

LEAVITT: President Trump is doing this for you. He's doing this for young people so that we are no longer threatened by a rogue terrorist regime in the Middle East that seeks to kill the brave men and women who serve in our country in the Middle East, many of them young people themselves, young men and women who serve this country honorably in uniform and have been threatened, killed, and maimed by the rogue Iranian terrorist regime for 47 years.

President Trump finally had the courage to step up and do what's right by our national security, our homeland security. As for the temporary short-term fluctuation in gas prices, the president has said once these combat operations are over, this administration is going to continue to unleash American energy dominance. We're continuing to do that every day, and we're going to see prices at the pump go back down, just as we have over the past year because of this president.

And don't think for one second, if that the Democrats had their way, gas prices would be as they were under the previous administration, the Biden administration, record highs. This president is keeping them as low as he can during this short-term combat operation, and they're going to go right back down when this is over.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Karoline.

LEAVITT: Kate (ph)?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Karoline. Just within the past few hours, Iranian state TV has said that Iran has rejected the U.S.' 15- point plan to end the war. What's the White House's response to that, and have these talks hit a dead end?

LEAVITT: They have not. Talks continue. They are productive, as the president said on Monday, and they continue to be. However, I saw a 15-point plan that was floated in the media. I would caution reporters in this room from reporting about speculative points or speculative plans from anonymous sources.

The White House never confirmed that full plan. There are elements of truth to it, but some of the stories I read were not entirely factual. So I am not going to negotiate on behalf of the president here at the podium. What I will tell you is these talks are ongoing. We're not going to get into the nitty-gritty details that have been exchanged between the United States and Iran at this time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, yesterday, the president mentioned a very big present that the Iranians had given the U.S. He wouldn't go into detail, but was it that ship that was carrying two million barrels of oil that made it through the state of Hormuz?

LEAVITT: I'll let the president speak on that at the appropriate time.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. And then finally, Karoline, today, Iraq's government reportedly is planning to lodge a protest with the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal. There was an attack in Iraq that hit a military clinic, killing seven soldiers, reportedly. What's the U.S.'s response to that? Was the U.S. responsible for that attack?

LEAVITT: I'll have to check in with the Pentagon on that, and we'll get you an answer.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Karoline, two if I may. Speaker Johnson today described the conflict as wrapping up, but the 82nd Airborne Division, they're typically deployed at the beginning of conflicts. So does the White House consider this conflict as wrapping up, or is it changing shape?

LEAVITT: As I said at the beginning of my remarks, we are meeting our goals of Operation Epic Fury expeditiously. The president likes to maintain options at his disposal. It's the Pentagon's job to provide those options to the commander-in-chief. For any specifics on troop deployments, though, I would point you to the Pentagon.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And today, Philadelphia District Attorney, Larry Krasner, reiterated threats to potentially arrest ICE agents that were sent in to assist with these historically-long TSA lines. He said, quote, "The president cannot pardon you." Was the president seeing Krasner's comments? Does he have any response?

LEAVITT: The president cannot pardon you for what? He's talking to the ICE agents who are handing out water bottles and are helping people move through lines at airports? It's a disgraceful comment. The men and women of ICE are great people. I would encourage this lawmaker, whose name I don't know and don't care to know, to actually sit down and speak with the ICE agents who are on the ground doing this important work, not just in our nation's airports, but again, to remove violent, dangerous, illegal alien criminals from our country to protect this individual and all of us in this room and Americans across the country from murderers, pedophiles, and rapists who have been allowed into our country by Democrat politicians.

[13:55:00]

Mario (ph), good to see you.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Karoline, good to see you as well. Just given that the president postponed his original trip to China because of the war, should we infer that the war will be wound down and concluded by the time of that May 15th, 14th visit? LEAVITT: Again, as I've said, we've always estimated approximately four to six weeks, so you could do the math on that, Mario (ph), but we do look forward -- I know the president looks forward to going to China on May 14th and 15th. And of course, as always, we'll provide additional logistical details to all of you in the media for that trip, who I know look forward to coming with us as well.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One follow-up. Was that a precondition that the two leaders speak about the conclusion of the war? Was that a precondition for them to have this rescheduled meeting?

LEAVITT: No, there was a discussion about the rescheduling of the meeting between the President and President Xi. President Xi understood that it's very important for the president to be here throughout these combat operations right now. He understood, obviously, the request to postpone and accepted it, which is why we have new dates on the books, and I'm happy to announce those to you today.

Jennifer?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: On the negotiations with Iran, are there still face-to-face talks planned, perhaps, in Pakistan? And who do you think would probably be going?

LEAVITT: Again, I've seen a lot of speculation and reporting about potential talks that could happen later this week. Nothing should be deemed official until it is announced formally by the White House. I would not get ahead of our skis on reporting about any talks this weekend until you hear directly from us.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Does the president think that all of the allies will go along with whatever the U.S. concludes with these Iranians? Are you expecting that Israel and all the other allies will follow whatever agreement is made?

LEAVITT: I think the president has shown that he is absolutely the leader of the free world, the head of the most powerful military in the world. And in various examples, the 12-day war between Iran and Israel, the ceasefire between Israel and Gaza, the president has shown a very unique skill at getting our allies to get on board with what's in the best interest of the United States, but also the world in cases of foreign policy like this. Ed?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thanks, Karoline. So, is there a timeframe as to when the first oil tanker can go through the Strait of Hormuz freely?

LEAVITT: It's a very good question, Ed. I don't have a specific timeline for you today, but it's obviously something the administration is working towards as quickly as we can. And with respect to oil, as you know, the administration has taken a number of actions to stabilize the markets.

We directed the U.S. DFC to offer reasonably priced political risk insurance for takers through the Strait. We issued that temporary waiver to allow countries to purchase sanctioned Russian oil to alleviate global pressures. We're working with the IEA to coordinate the release of another 400 million barrels.

We issued that 60-day Jones Act waiver. And then just today, EPA Administrator, Lee Zeldin, if you missed it, in consultation with the Department of Energy, announced a temporary emergency fuel waiver to allow nationwide sales of E15, gasoline blended with 15 percent ethanol, to remove all federal impediments to selling E10 gasoline across the country.

The emergency fuel waiver will temporarily waive the summer low volatility requirements and blending limitations for gasoline to provide additional flexibility to the fuel marketplace. So as far as tankers through the Strait, something we're tracking very closely, but obviously the administration is coming up with creative new solutions by the day to keep the price of oil stable, something the president wants to see.

And I know Secretary Bessent, Secretary Wright, Secretary Burgum, EPA Administrator Zeldin are all working together closely to find ways to do that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the president gave that five-day timeline for pause in operations, would a tanker going through the Strait of Hormuz be one of the conditions that he would extend that?

LEAVITT: That's only something the president of the United States can answer. I won't get ahead of him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How about on TSA?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can I ask you about the TSA lines?

LEAVITT: Sure.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The TSA lines, we've all seen the video of that from various airports, is that going to be what ends the stalemate in Congress to get DHS funded?

LEAVITT: Well, look, it's the Democrats who have led to this stalemate over the past six weeks. The president and the Republicans' position has been very clear, fund the Department of Homeland Security. And we have attempted in good faith numerous times, both the president himself and lawmakers on the Republican side on Capitol Hill, to go to the Democrats with reasonable offers, with real solutions. They'll ask for something, we'll give them that concession, and then they say, oh, wait, that's not enough, actually. So I think that's why I said earlier, the cruelty is the point. They want this chaos.

They want to distract, I think, from the success of our military overseas right now, totally obliterating the Iranian regime. And it's very unfortunate, because there's only -- the only people that are suffering from this are the American people. And I hear that Democrats might be flying out of town tomorrow.

How convenient and lovely of them that they get to go to the airport and that they'll get to go home to their families, when you have families, TSA workers, who are suffering. You have people across the country who are missing flights for funerals and for work commitments because of Democrat politicians on Capitol Hill.

Mary (ph), in the back.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thanks, Karoline. --