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NTSB Says Engine Fan Blade Hit Plane Window, Causing Passenger to Be Partially Sucked Outside Aircraft; Mangione Pleads Guilty in Fed Case, Teeing Up Double Jeopardy Fight; Flash Floods Underway in Indian & Illinois as Storms Slam Midwest; Trump Says USS Lincoln Deployment Was Not Nearly Long Enough; Jury Seated in Trial for Man Charged in 2Pac's Killing. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired August 14, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

BRIAN ABEL, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": -- board that flight, but when you look at the damage on the outside, it seems like it could have been much worse.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, and it seems like, at least in one of those images, maybe this fan blade ricocheted off of part of the airplane at Row 8. That's interesting because in that Southwest Airlines incident back in 2018, where they had a rapid decompression and the plane had to be landed immediately by Captain Tammie Jo Shults, that is where the initial strike took place and that woman who is seated in that row was sucked out and ultimately died from those injuries.

So, very, very interesting eerie similarities here, although some pretty key differences here that investigators will need to dig into.

ABEL: All right, Pete Muntean, thank you for that reporting.

MUNTEAN: Anytime.

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

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Luigi Mangione pleading guilty, saying in court, I shot Mr. Thompson and he died, setting up a new legal showdown over whether New York State can try him on murder charges.

Plus, hacking for hire, the White House giving permission to companies to carry out their own cyber warfare on foreign criminals. Experts warn this could backfire, though, if it's not done right.

And how low will it go? Lake Mead at a record low, the West confronting an unprecedented water crisis, one that could force major changes on millions of Americans.

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

We start this hour with Breaking News. Luigi Mangione pleading guilty to federal stalking charges in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson. With Thompson's family sitting just feet away, Mangione telling the judge, I shot Mr. Thompson and he died. Right after court let out, Thompson's family calling the plea an important step toward justice. Now, Mangione's lawyers are setting the stage for a double jeopardy fight in state court.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAREN FRIEDMAN ANGIFILO, LUIGI MANGIONE'S DEFENSE LAWYER: It was a single tragic event, yet he's being prosecuted twice for the same conduct. He's been treated differently from every other defendant charged with this offense in New York. However, thankfully, New York law does not allow this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: CNN's Kara Scannell was inside court as Mangione entered the plea. Kara, walk us through how this transpired.

KARA SCANNELL, CNN REPORTER: Well, Boris, Luigi Mangione was sitting at the defense table wearing a prison outfit, a beige jumpsuit, and the judge asked him to say what it is that he did. So he said that he had a back injury. He said he broke his back. He expressed frustration with the healthcare industry.

So he said he decided to go to the UnitedHealthcare investor conference. And he said he reached out to UnitedHealthcare claiming to be the manager of $50 billion, an investor, saying he needed to know the location. He said they got back to him almost immediately, which he said was very different than his experience dealing with health insurance and the health industry for his own injuries.

So he was saying what his motive was, pointing to potential greed of the industry and the lack of care he felt he got from health insurance. But then he segued into the moment where he said that he traveled to New York. He had made a gun with a 3D printer, put a silencer on, walked to that healthcare conference, and then shot Brian Thompson in the back.

He said he shot him, he killed him, and he said that he knew what he was doing was illegal. But, Boris, he did not say he thought it was wrong. And that was notable, is that Luigi Mangione spoke in a very clear, confident voice, spoke very matter of fact. But he showed no remorse for his actions.

And just sitting behind him, one row behind, there was this family members of Brian Thompson. And they were reacting to these moments, especially when Mangione said that he shot him and he died. I saw members of the family, including Brian Thompson's widow, wipe tears from their eyes, clutch each other's arms, and look at each other as a show of support. So, a very significant moment for them.

I mean, one thing that has just followed this whole case has been the social media and some public support for Mangione. And the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jamie McDonald, addressed that after Mangione pleaded guilty. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JAMIE MCDONALD, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK: No grievance, political belief, or ideological cause can ever justify murder. There can be no celebrity in assassination. Any person who celebrates, encourages, or excuses actions like these is fundamentally wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCANNELL: Now, after the hearing, Brian Thompson's family put out a statement in which they said that they were looking forward to the court to ensure the sentence reflects the severity of the crime. And Mangione will be sentenced on December 18th.

SANCHEZ: So Kara, given that there was no deal between the prosecution and the defense, what does that mean for his sentencing? What should we expect from that hearing?

SCANNELL: Well, the sentencing decision lies entirely in the hands of the federal judge. And as you say, there was no deal, so they did not have an agreement of a potential sentencing guideline range of how much time Mangione could face.

[14:05:00]

The statutory maximum on each count is life in prison. So that will be up to the judge to decide. The prosecutors already indicated they expect Brian Thompson's family members to address the judge to give these victim impact statements to say what kind of sentence they hope that Mangione receives.

The judge will take all that into consideration when she hands down that sentence in December. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Kara Scannell, inside the courtroom for us in New York. Thank you so much. Brian?

ABEL: Well, right now, the flood-ravaged Midwest is being inundated by torrential rain for a sixth straight day. Entire communities are already underwater. You're seeing here images out of Indiana, a once- in-a-thousand-year rainfall has sent rivers over their banks and floodwaters pouring into homes, forcing residents to flee with just the clothes on their backs.

The owner of this home here, a father of six, describes what it was like trying to escape the rising water with his children.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIMOTHY HICKS, HOME DAMAGED BY FLOODWATERS: Started grabbing the kids who were still asleep and I just started grabbing them, running them out to the car without even getting shoes, clothes or anything like that. I just -- they still had all their pajamas on and it's just like a panic to get out of here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ABEL: Certainly scary situation there, flash floods are forcing dramatic water rescues, mandatory evacuations are also in place and the storms have knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses.

Let's bring in CNN Meteorologist, Allison Chinchar now. And Allison, what's in the forecast for this region now?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Unfortunately, the last thing these people need, which is more rain, you can already see so much of that water still just sitting in so many of these places. This video from Indiana, but it's not the only state that's been impacted by so many of these storms.

Look at this. You still have flood watches stretching from eastern Nebraska all the way down through portions of West Virginia. When you look at how much rain has already fallen, you see a lot of orange, a lot of red on the map, indicating roughly half a foot has come down the pink area here across portions of Indiana.

Now you're talking 10, 12, even 14 inches of rain. That is two to three months worth of rain in just a few short days. We've also talked about river flooding. The concern here is it's more of a delayed effect in terms of having that water finally recede. You have over 50 river gauges that are at or above flood stage, and it will likely be early next week before we start to see a lot of those come back down to normal levels.

Here's a live look at the radar. You can see still a couple of flash flood warnings across portions of Indiana and Illinois as more rain continues to slide into these areas. Through the evening, it's going to make its way across Iowa, Illinois, and then by early tomorrow morning, you're looking at some very heavy rain to return to Indiana and Ohio, some of the harder hit states.

By late Saturday, that first wave continues to slide off into areas of the Mid-Atlantic, but another wave right behind it. So again, this is going to continue through the weekend. That's why you still have the potential for all of that excessive rainfall.

The red area you see here on the map, that's a moderate risk, a Level 3 out of 4 for portions of Illinois and Iowa. But even other areas, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, also looking at that threat not only today, but they are also on the map for areas of concern even as we head into Saturday.

ABEL: Certainly a concern, Allison Chinchar. Thank you.

All right, still to come for us as worries grow about the mental health of crew members on the USS Lincoln, which has been at sea for more than 200 days. We're learning that a second sailor from the Lincoln Strike Group went overboard last spring. Plus, the jury is now seated in the trial of the man accused of killing rap icon, Tupac Shakur. We will bring you the latest as opening statements are set to begin next week. Also, Lake Mead, the nation's largest reservoir, has now fallen to a record low. That's why experts are warning that the water crisis is heading to uncharted territory. That and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

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[14:13:34]

SANCHEZ: President Trump today is issuing his first public comments after family members of sailors in the Middle East raised mental health concerns about their record-long deployment, including accounts of their loved ones wanting to jump overboard, and in some cases, trying to.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Family members of U.S. service members are concerned about the conditions on board the USS Lincoln --

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: No, no, that ship is moving -- no they're not. That ship is moving right now, or very shortly, and it's being replaced with another very similar ship.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Has the deployment gone on too long? Are you worried the mental health --

TRUMP: No, no, no. Not nearly long enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: The USS Abraham Lincoln has been at sea for more than 250 days. Their last port of call came over 200 days ago. U.S. officials recently confirmed to CNN that a sailor jumped from the Lincoln earlier this month in what the Navy called a mental health incident.

Today, officials tell CNN a second sailor went overboard from the USS Lincoln strike group back in April. Unclear, though, if that incident was intentional. Let's discuss with former Defense Secretary under President Trump, Mark Esper. He now serves as a Board Member and Partner at Red Cell venture capital.

Secretary, thank you, as always, for being with us. First, I just want to get your reaction to President Trump saying that this record-long deployment, more than 250 days, has not gone nearly long enough.

MARK ESPER, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I interpret what he meant was it not long enough in terms of the conflict and putting pressure on the Iranians, certainly not with regard to the ship.

[14:15:00]

We know that the ship has been gone continuously now for, what, 260 days or so, and has chalked up the longest voyage without a port call. And of course, the Gerald Ford before her in the same region did the same.

So I think what you're seeing are the stresses being put on the United States Navy and on the sailors themselves as they continue to support the blockade and ongoing combat operations in the Persian Gulf.

SANCHEZ: Do you read the situation on the Lincoln as a result, perhaps, of a lack of foresight or planning by the Trump administration? Because the president predicted this conflict would only go four to six weeks. It's been over five months.

ESPER: You know, I see this first and foremost, Boris, as a Navy issue, as a service issue. You know, it begins with the captain of the ship and works it all way down, ultimately down to the non- commissioned officers.

And you know, during my time on active duty in the Army, when I deployed for the Gulf War, all the way through my time as Secretary of the Army and Secretary of Defense, this is something we always paid attention to, was morale of the force and the health and welfare of individual soldiers or sailors. So it begins there.

I think, look, the reports of not getting fresh fruit and poor food and mail being disrupted and things like that, those are command issues that tracks its way back to the Navy. So if I were in the job again, I would be asking the Navy leadership, the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations to come to my office and tell me what's really going on.

Why wasn't the ship being serviced? Because oftentimes and during my time, ships get extended. You don't want to do that because it is hard on the sailors. It's hard on the families. And frankly, it's hard on readiness, both short term and long term.

But to me, it begins at the service level with doing the basics in terms of managing the health and welfare and ultimately, the readiness of the ships.

SANCHEZ: Talk to us about managing that health and welfare perspective of these service members. It obviously has caused a great deal of mental strain, whether because of, you know, a lack of resources on board or just physically being away from home for so long for an undetermined amount of time, an open window of time that the Lincoln was going to be out there. How does someone on board the ship manage all of that?

ESPER: Look, it's demanding. I obviously never served in the Navy. I was a soldier, but I have done, you know, brief stints a day or so, two days on a carrier. They are very cramped quarters. It's non-stop work, very physical labor in very confined areas.

Sometimes depending on where you sleep, it's tough because there's ongoing aircraft operations all night long. And so it's a very demanding job. And you're at sea, you're not seeing land. You may not have a port call in this case. And look, I understand they were doing combat patrols. Maybe again, they maybe couldn't have done a port call, but for them not to get mail, to not have fresh food, there's no reason for that.

There's no excuse. That's a logistical failure. And my view would be there should be some type of inquiry, at least as a start to determine, you know, what happened. Is there truth to these reports? Because some are contesting the validity of these reports, but do an inquiry to find out what's going on. Call the Navy leadership in, find exactly what's happening and kind of take charge of the situation to find out what's going on.

If it's happening with one ship, it may be happening with others as well. And Lord knows we have, you know, a dozen or so destroyers deployed. We have other support ships and you got to make sure you can sustain the force, sustain readiness. And you do that at the lowest level possible, beginning with taking care of your service members.

SANCHEZ: And what you just said leads me to my next question, Secretary, because more broadly, the rate of U.S. shipbuilding has been reduced over the last few years. The U.S. has fewer aircraft carriers today than it did during the Gulf War. That means a smaller fleet carrying a much bigger burden.

Why did this happen? How does this change potentially?

ESPER: Yeah, it goes all the way back to the end of the Cold War when we reduced the military about by about 40 percent or so. We've reduced, you know, aircraft carriers, as you said, by from 15 to about 11. We slowed shipbuilding in a number of areas.

You know, during my tenure as Secretary of Defense, I took this on personally, meeting with industry, talking to the Navy, came up with my own shipbuilding plan in terms of modernizing the fleet with a combination of legacy ships like carriers and destroyers with automated autonomous vessels, both surface and subsurface.

But nonetheless, we still have had challenges. It begins in the building, in terms of contracting requirements, extends to Congress with regard to how money is appropriated. Industry has its own challenges with workers. Simple things like getting welders into the force in terms of building these ships are challenging.

When you layer on top of that, Boris, the fact that maintenance has kept too many ships in dry dock for too long, it's just a compounding problem. In fact, I'm on a -- I'm doing a think tank commission right now with the Atlantic Council trying to figure this out and make recommendations to the United States Navy.

[14:20:00]

It is a long-term problem, particularly one that we have to overcome quickly, because when you look at the Chinese who surpassed us in 2017 or so, 2016, by having the largest Navy in the world, we know that their shipbuilding is 230 times our capacity.

SANCHEZ: Wow.

ESPER: So we continue to fall behind. Yes, I'm glad to see that the president and this administration is putting more emphasis on shipbuilding. I think it leads it needs a lot more of attention but we have to catch up and if you can fix shipbuilding, at the same time you have to fix ship maintenance, and when you do that and grow the fleet then you can reduce the impact, you can reduce the amount of time sailors are at sea, ships are being deployed and you can reduce the burden on the force and actually improve readiness over the long run.

It costs money, it takes time, but it's worth it because we're now in this era of great power competition where we're going to have to face off against the Chinese, certainly the Russians and other navies that are out there.

SANCHEZ: Former Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, we have to leave the conversation there. Appreciate your point of view. Thanks for joining us.

ESPER: Thank you, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Up next, almost 30 years after Tupac Shakur was shot and killed in Las Vegas, a jury has been selected and the trial of the only person charged in the rap legend's murder, what we're learning ahead of opening statements. And President Trump now asking the Supreme Court to step in and allow construction on his White House ballroom project to continue. The latest on that case when we come back.

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[14:25:57]

ABEL: Nearly 30 years after the killing of rap icon, Tupac Shakur, a jury is now in place to decide if a man is responsible for orchestrating the murder. Prosecutors say Duane "Keffe D" Davis arranged the deadly 1996 drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. He is the first and only person ever charged in connection with Shakur's death. He has pleaded not guilty.

CNN's Jean Casarez is joining us now and Jean, opening statements begin Monday. What can we expect from them?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Well, opening statements on Monday, this is going to be an historic trial because, for 30 years, there has been a question. What is the truth? What happened? Prosecutors say they can get to that truth with this -- in this case. But first, they had to select a jury. They did.

There's 12 jury members, plus four alternates. The alternates don't know who they are. But at this point, it is ten women and six men. And the jurors were asked questions about guns and gangs, Tupac, did they follow him? Do they know who he is, all about his music, whether you've been a victim of a crime? If you have a police officer or law enforcement in your background.

Now, the challenge for the prosecutors is going to be that there are so many people that were there that night in Las Vegas 1996 after the -- after the fight and they're no longer with us. They're deceased. But one person who was there, conceivably, by prosecutors in that white Cadillac that the shots were fired from that killed Tupac, is that man right there, Duane Davis, Keffe D.

Keffe D in 2008 made a statement to Feds and it was a proffer, meaning tell us everything you know about 2Pac's murder and we will never prosecute you on it, but it gives us information because he was just about to go to prison for a very big drug deal. He gave the proffer. But then in 2009, he gives a statement about what he said in the proffer. And then in 2019, he writes a book and in that book is basically everything that he said in the proffer. So it became public.

All of that is coming in because he never thought that he would be charged here but he gives so much information of what happened that night, that there was a gun, the gun was passed around in the white Cadillac. There'd been a brawl and his cousin -- his nephew was actually beat up inside the casino after the Mike Tyson fight and they had to get him back because 2Pac participated in that brawl and the shots were fired, not by Keffe D, but by someone else so he can still be charged.

On the witness list is Suge Knight, also Diddy is on the witness list. Of course, the witness list has hundreds of names. But this is going to be a trial that is something we will remember and I think we're going to learn things we have never heard before about that night 30 years ago.

ABEL: We will see how it all plays out. Jean Casarez covering this case for us, thank you

Coming up next, now that Luigi Mangione has pleaded guilty in federal court, will he still face state charges related to the killing of United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson? We'll discuss next.

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