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Jury Selection Begins in Trial for Man Accused of Murdering 2Pac; Powerful Earthquake Hits Colombia; Tupac Shakur Murder Case Reaches Trial 30 Years After His Death; Trump Swears in Todd Blanche as Attorney General; Passenger Threats on Two Flights Trigger Emergency Responses; Meta Launches Open-weight Model for Customized A.I. Experience. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 10, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:00]

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (on camera): -- evidence. 30 years later, there's not much other evidence left. The book is called "Compton Street Legend." And what we're probably going to see in court is going to be strange. It's going to be Keffe D in his defense saying, don't believe what I said. And the prosecution saying, do believe. They are interviewing jurors right now.

Latest we hear is they'll probably have them seated by Thursday lunchtime, the trial itself. Best estimate, four to five weeks. Boris?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Yeah, fascinating legal case aside from the hip-hop history at hand. Nick Watt, thank you so much for that reporting.

A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Making it official. Any minute, the president's former personal attorney, Todd Blanche, will be sworn in as the next Attorney General. Ahead, the major challenges Blanche is now facing.

Plus, security scares. Here in the last 24 hours, two separate flights were forced to execute emergency protocols after threats from passengers. What happened on board each plane?

And dramatic scenes playing out in western Colombia after a powerful earthquake that has killed dozens of people. Rescue crews are now racing to find people trapped underneath collapsed buildings.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

The Breaking News this hour, any moment, President Trump is expected to swear in Todd Blanche as Attorney General. He'll be doing that from the White House. The president's personal lawyer narrowly confirmed by the Senate on Saturday after he spent weeks trying to win support from several key Republicans.

Blanche has come under fire for a host of controversial moves during his tenure in the Trump administration. That includes his role in creating the so-called anti-weaponization fund, the tax immunity deal between the president and the IRS, and his handling of the Epstein files release.

We're joined now by CNN Senior Legal Analyst, Elie Honig. All right, Elie, what's the first order of business for Blanche now that he's Attorney General?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it depends, Brianna. I think Todd Blanche thus far has shown us he's going to be an Attorney General that is fundamentally different from any who have come before him. Ordinarily, the first order of business would be restoring DOJ's political independence and restoring DOJ's credibility in the courts. But it doesn't seem that Blanche is super interested in either of those.

Those are the two biggest issues facing the department right now. The fact that they have undertaken and are still in the midst of several prosecutions aimed at people in large part or entirely because they are political enemies of the president. That's something we've never seen before.

I don't expect Blanche to change that because he's been one of the drivers of it. The other big issue, Brianna, is that DOJ has a credibility crisis right now in the courts. We have seen federal judges across this country say, essentially, I can no longer trust DOJ, take what they tell me as a given, as I have for the past several decades, because DOJ has made several false representations in court.

So those, to me, are the two biggest crises facing the department right now. But Blanche has really been more contributor to those problems than solution. We'll see if that changes when he gets the official title. But his history does not suggest he will.

KEILAR: I wonder how you think he's going to leave his mark here. What could his tenure mean for the limits of presidential power? And do you think it's going to be much different from Pam Bondi's?

HONIG: Well, you know, Blanche sees the attorney general job differently than I think any of his immediate predecessors. There's a moment that sticks in my mind where Blanche is being interviewed. I think it's by CBS News. And the reporter asks Todd Blanche, will you be independent of the president? And Blanche reaches into his jacket pocket, takes out a mini constitution, and he says to the reporter, essentially, show me here where it says that the attorney general is on an island.

Show me here where it says that the attorney general is separate from the executive branch. So I think given what we've seen so far, and Blanche has had a year and a half in high office within the Justice Department, I think his legacy will be that he moved the attorney general off of that island and much closer to the White House.

KEILAR: DOJ, of course, is in this legal battle with dozens of states over the Justice Department's effort to try to get these unredacted voter rolls, which is all part of this administration's focus on claims of non-citizen voting.

The Justice Department has faced some appeals court setbacks, but I wonder what you're watching for with Blanche ahead of the November midterms.

HONIG: Well, so the thing is, if you're going to subpoena or request documents as the Department of Justice, you have to have some good faith basis to do that. You have to be able to show not much, but you have to be able to show we are doing this in an attempt to counteract some potential crime or some actual crime.

And the fact that DOJ has largely failed to do that, I think, tells you a lot. I think Blanche is ready and able and willing to assist in Donald Trump's efforts to try to influence the 2026 midterms.

Now, there are some things that DOJ can and should do that are normal. It's not abnormal, actually, for DOJ to send out monitors, usually attorneys, unarmed attorneys, to be at polling stations.

[14:05:00]

But if we see other, more aggressive steps being taken, I think that's a real warning sign.

The other thing I think we need to watch for is we know, in 2020, Trump tried to get his Justice Department to validate his false theories of election fraud. Bill Barr, who I wrote a book criticizing, Bill Barr refused to do that. And so we'll see if history replays itself here.

We'll see if the president turns to DOJ and says, hey, I want you to find fraud and say there's fraud in '26.

KEILAR: Elie, what do you think of this new White House Counsel that the president just announced? Will Scharf will start September 1st. For those who aren't familiar with him, he's currently the White House Staff Secretary. He was appointed by Trump last year to Chair the National Capital Planning Commission, which is the group that's greenlit some of the major renovations in D.C. What could that appointment mean? How does his role interact with the A.G.?

HONIG: You know, Will Scharf is an interesting person in this administration. He's very smart. He's very sharp. Maggie Haberman's book and Jonathan Swan's book actually talks quite a bit about Will Scharf's role in that prior job. And he actually, according to Maggie's reporting, wrote several memos urging the president not to overextend his executive power.

There are some things that the president is considering doing, invoking the Insurrection Act and others that Mr. Scharf wrote memos saying, you should not do this. This is dangerous. Now, as you say, there are other various controversies swirling around the national monuments and the rebuilding efforts in the White House and the arch and other things. Those will certainly be in the news.

And I'm sure that Will Scharf will defend the White House's litigation position there. But it appears he does have some history of exercising intellectual independence and perhaps pulling back on some of the excesses out of the White House.

KEILAR: Yeah, we'll be looking for that. Elie, thank you so much. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Now to our Breaking News on that powerful earthquake that slammed Colombia today, a major magnitude 7.4 quake at the western part of the country this morning. And since then, the death toll has continued to climb. At least 80 are now confirmed dead in the most powerful quake to hit Colombia in the last decade.

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SANCHEZ: Rescue crews and volunteers are now racing to clear debris in search of survivors. And we're getting more and more images like the ones you just saw, including video captured inside an airport showing people running for cover as it appears to start collapsing around them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

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SANCHEZ: The epicenter was located about 150 miles west of Colombia's capital city of Bogota. It was felt far and wide, too. People in other cities reported feeling the tremors as well.

Let's go to CNN Meteorologist, Derek Van Dam who has the latest for us. So, Derek, walk us through what we've learned about this powerful earthquake.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, people as far east as Bogota felt the earthquake because of the depth of the earthquake. We'll get to the details of that in just a moment. But these are very dramatic images captured on film during the most severe shaking of this very long-lasting earthquake.

It was 7.4. We know that. But this is one of six airports that sustained damage in Colombia. So you can see people running for cover, the debris falling from the ceiling, people ducking underneath cover, underneath whatever they can to find some sort of shelter.

Now, I want to give you an aerial perspective. This is Cali, Colombia, where authorities here fear that 26 buildings have completely collapsed. This is an area near the epicenter. We're very concerned about this. Notice the plumes of dust. Yeah, those are likely damaged or collapsed buildings during the most intense part of this earthquake.

Now take you to the ground in Cali, Colombia. This is what one of those buildings looks like. That is a heap of metal and concrete, first responders trying to salvage, pick through the debris to find anyone who could potentially still be buried underneath that. Now, this is the details of the earthquake. And the reason we felt this earthquake as far east as Bogota is because it was centered about 110 kilometers underneath the surface of the earth. So this is considered a moderately deep earthquake, so it allows seismic waves to propagate out in all directions and travel further as if, in comparison to if this was a shallow-based earthquake.

Regardless, the damage has been done. There have already been aftershocks, and they will likely continue for the days to come.

[14:10:00]

Look at this. According to the USGS, when it compares to other significant earthquakes of this magnitude and infrastructure similar to this, it puts a one in four chance that the fatalities from this could exceed 1,000 people. That is significant, and we already know that over a million and a half people felt very strong shaking, nearly nine million people feeling strong shaking.

So what is to come? Well, on average, with a magnitude 7.4 earthquake, we get at least one aftershock. That's one magnitude lower than that. We get several dozen earthquakes that could potentially be 4.5 or 5.5 or greater. So this is all just part of the ring of fire where 90 percent of the world's earthquake activity occurs.

Remember Venezuela earlier this year, and now we have Colombia. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Derek Van Dam, thank you so much for breaking that down for us.

Still to come on "CNN News Central," lockdown protocol. Pilots for two commercial passenger jets had to call for security backup when a couple of passengers made threats on board, you'll hear the audio from the cockpit.

Plus, RFK Jr. announcing the next step in his push to remove food additives from American diets.

And later, the newly crowned NBA champ and hero of New York, Jalen Brunson, sits down with CNN to talk about his passion project, helping to build a future for the next generation. That and much more coming your way on "News Central."

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[14:16:04]

SANCHEZ: Threats from passengers on two flights early this week led to the execution of emergency protocols, including a lockdown.

KEILAR: Yeah. These were incidents in Milwaukee and Miami, and they're the latest in a string of unruly passenger reports. CNN's Pete Muntean is with us now. What happened here?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, these type of incidents are way, way down from the post-pandemic highs of 2021 -- KEILAR: That's good.

MUNTEAN: -- when these were happening all of the time. But this shows that these kind of incidents can still upend travel plans really, really fast. This first case happened Sunday night in Miami. Alaska Airlines says a pair of passengers became disruptive as the Seattle- bound flight was still taxiing out.

The pilots stopped the plane after flight attendants reported receiving threats, and this was the message that they gave ground controllers in the tower in Miami.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PILOT: We have set the parking brake, and we have a customer disturbance on board right now with threats coming from customers.

We want to go into a lockdown protocol. We're shutting down our engine.

CONTROLLER: OK. Do you need us to contact law enforcement?

PILOT: Absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: The flight ultimately returned to the gate, and police removed both passengers from the flight. All passengers also forced to deplane. Police said the threat later was incredible, and the flight eventually took off without the disruptive passengers on board. That's a good thing.

The latest incident, though, happened early this morning in Milwaukee. A United flight from Tampa to Chicago diverted there because of bad weather. And while the airplane was on the ground, the pilot told Air Traffic Control that a passenger in the back was demanding to get off. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PILOT: Right now, looks like we're declaring a threat level security, threat level one. I've got a passenger in the back who's saying they're going to, they need to get off the plane or they're going to commit some sort of crime. That's what they told the flight attendant, so we are working with this face right now and trying to get a gate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: We don't exactly know what led up to this incident. The flight eventually canceled because the crew ran out of legal working time. There are DOT rules against that. The larger context here, though, is that these incidents are still happening, but nowhere near the extraordinary levels we saw during the pandemic.

The FAA says airlines have reported more than 830 unruly passenger incidents so far this year. And while it sounds like a lot, the rate is down more than 80 percent from the record highs of early 2021. The serious consequences persist, though.

The FAA can seek fines of nearly $44,000, and passengers can also face criminal charges. So neither of these became a major security event, but once these threats are made on board, the crew has no choice but to take it seriously, especially the pilots who are locked behind a door. They can't really get a great view into what is happening in the passenger cabin behind them, so they have no choice but to do the right thing here.

SANCHEZ: It is annoying for everybody on board, but it is kind of fun to watch these videos online of people kind of going nuts.

MUNTEAN: And none have surfaced in this yet.

SANCHEZ: In this yet. Generally, though, I always wonder, afterward, if they face charges or not, if they have to pay fines or not. The airlines ban them altogether. They're not going to be able to fly, at least on that airline again.

MUNTEAN: Alaska says they have been temporarily banned in that case from flying on the airline, at least in the near future. And in a lot of cases, airlines do do a full outright ban for somebody who does something like this. Remember, flight attendants are the ones who have to deal with this --

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

MUNTEAN: -- primarily. They are aviation's first responders, and they're not really there to diffuse these kind of situations. They're there in case of an emergency. They're there to get you off of the plane if something really bad happens and get you off quickly and safely.

So this is something that has become really, really dynamic in a lot of different cases, and it's something that nobody really wants to deal with. And we're at the peak of summer travel. You know, I keep hearing from people over and over again who are in airports this weekend saying things were mobbed.

And so this can really make a well-intentioned good trip go really bad fast.

KEILAR: You said that there were two passengers on the first flight, right?

MUNTEAN: Yes.

KEILAR: So were they together or were they having issues with each other?

MUNTEAN: It sounds like they may have been together, although I'm being a bit speculative here.

KEILAR: OK.

MUNTEAN: Just based on the air traffic control audio, still some more needs to come out here.

[14:20:00]

And thankfully, I mean, I was doing this all of the time. I feel like --

SANCHEZ: Disrupting flights?

MUNTEAN: No, no, no, no, no.

KEILAR: What do you mean by this?

SANCHEZ: Disrupting flights?

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: What do you mean by this?

MUNTEAN: Remember back in the new day days.

KEILAR: Oh, covering.

(CROSSTALK)

MUNTEAN: We were covering these all of the time in 2021.

KEILAR: Covering this.

SANCHEZ: Fair.

MUNTEAN: Thankfully, I don't have to cover these a lot and not a lot of video in these cases.

(LAUGH)

MUNTEAN: You know, Some of them seem comical at the time. Oftentimes, though, you have to take this very seriously.

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

KEILAR: Oh, yeah. I'm so uncomfortable watching these videos. I just think like, really, this is what people have to deal with? It's the worst.

MUNTEAN: Do you remember that when I was doing that like every morning, there must have been like months and months --

SANCHEZ: What was going on at the time people were acting so --

KEILAR: I don't remember much.

(CROSSTALK)

MUNTEAN: The mask bans were in place and the airlines --

(LAUGH) KEILAR: We're getting wrapped so hard.

MUNTEAN: Sorry. And the airlines really didn't know how to deal with it. And so it was really -- it put them in a (inaudible).

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: We have 10 more minutes.

SANCHEZ: We're finding out all sorts of things about Pete and the things he was doing on planes back in the day.

(LAUGH)

SANCHEZ: I think it's (inaudible).

KEILAR: I'm glad we clarified that. Like a lot of 4 a.m. calls being like, hey, can you do a live chat on this? He covers agitators.

(CROSSTALK)

MUNTEAN: I've got 4 a.m. calls being like, hey, can you do a live (ph) of this?

SANCHEZ: Yeah.

KEILAR: He covers agitators. He's (inaudible) one.

(LAUGH)

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: Going to Miami and (inaudible).

KEILAR: Pete Muntean, thank you very, very much.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: (Inaudible).

(CROSSTALK)

MUNTEAN: (Inaudible).

KEILAR: Still to come, Senator Sanders asking to press pause on A.I. development. He says, quote, "It's not too late to avoid disaster." And then later, the new warnings about a deadly flesh-eating bacteria as cases are surging along the Gulf Coast.

We'll have that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

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[14:25:52]

SANCHEZ: Senator Bernie Sanders issuing a wake-up call for top tech leaders over the rise of A.I. and what he calls potentially cataclysmic results. In a letter addressed to OpenAI's Sam Altman, Anthropic's Dario Amodei, and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg, Sanders urges them to pause A.I. development, writing, quote, "It's not too late to avoid disaster. Stop building machines that humans cannot control."

CNN A.I. Correspondent, Hadas Gold is with us now. Hadas, is this letter actually striking a chord with these A.I. leaders?

HADAS GOLD, CNN A.I. CORRESPONDENT: Well, we haven't heard a response yet from these A.I. companies, but Senator Sanders' letter reflects a growing sentiment, especially from Capitol Hill, for some sort of action. There's also a lot of noise coming from the House of Representatives trying to get hearings, you know, on-the-record, on- camera hearings, bringing all of the CEOs to testify on all of what's been happening in the A.I. industry over the last few weeks.

And Senator Sanders addresses some of that in his letter, talking about, you know, these A.I. agents that have escaped testing without the humans seemingly knowing what was going on and hacking into other companies. He talked about the news we talked about last week, about A.I. creating new viruses that didn't exist before in nature.

And he warns in this letter, if you do not take appropriate action now, my colleagues and I in the U.S. Senate will, threatening, essentially, that they will do something. There are a lot of bills being debated right now on Capitol Hill around A.I. safety and regulation. We all know how quickly sometimes things move on Capitol Hill, but the industry is also debating this, is also debating and talking about the need to potentially slow down the pace of development.

All three of those figures you have shown on the screen, they have all talked about, you know, the need to potentially pace the development so that our society and the security guidelines can sort of catch up. But at the same time, they're all looking to China and seeing what they're doing and how quickly they're developing, and there's a fear that if they slow down the development here, China's just going to keep busting along and developing, you know, super intelligence like we've never seen before.

SANCHEZ: Hadas, lately we've been talking about open and closed systems, and Mark Zuckerberg launched today what's known as an open- weight model. What does that mean?

GOLD: Yeah, so Meta was one of the pioneers of sort of the American open-weight models. And so an open model is an A.I. model that you can customize. It's something that you can download to your own servers, your own computers. You can play around with what's known as the weights.

It's kind of like being able to get a car and being able to customize everything around the car except for, you know, the specific engine. It tends to be also cheaper, and so far, China has sort of led the way on the open source models.

Closed source models are the ones that we're all familiar with. Those are from Anthropic, from Open A.I., from Google. They tend to be more advanced. They live only on those companies' servers. You cannot customize them beyond some very minor things, but open source is catching up. So it is a big moment for Meta to be launching, you know, a brand new open-weight model.

And along with this new model, Mark Zuckerberg issued a 14-page manifesto defending the need for supporting open-weight technology, saying that it helps democratize access and it promotes advancement of this technology, and also talking down against all the doomers who have talked about how A.I. is going to take jobs and ruin all of our lives, saying actually that it's the opposite, and A.I. is a very positive development for all of us.

SANCHEZ: Hadas Gold, thank you so much for that reporting.

Still to come, Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. moving closer to close a loophole letting food additives skirt FDA review, what it could mean for the products we buy at the grocery store. Stay with us.

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