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Senate Judiciary Committee to Grill FBI Director Kash Patel; Supreme Court Rejects Trump Plan to Limit Mail-in Voting in Midterms; Interview with Representative Jake Auchincloss (D-MA). Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired September 15, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

ELIZABETH WAGMEISTER, CNN ENTERTAINMENT CORRESPONDENT: Will she not? And as you said, she didn't actually show up. She was at the Chiefs game watching her new husband on the field but she did make an appearance there. And also Jalen Brunson from the Knicks who's also besties with Mariska Hargitay, he made a fun little appearance last night. So it was a big, very fun night, John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: She apparently has a lot of friends, which must be nice.

Elizabeth Wagmeister, great to see you this morning. Thank you very much.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: How do you accomplish that?

BERMAN: I don't -- I once had friends, but then we did morning shows.

BOLDUAN: Yes, that was like, and then we started waking up at 3:00 in the morning.

BERMAN: Exactly.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

BERMAN: Oh, a brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now, with friends.

BOLDUAN: If, like you, you are -- if like John, you are surprised it's the top of the hour, it is 9:00 a.m.. We are standing by for the FBI Director Kash Patel facing lawmakers this morning and expected to face a grilling, including over allegations of excessive drinking and misuse of FBI resources.

The Supreme Court delivers a major blow to President Trump. The justices rejecting his plan to overhaul mail-in voting across the country. So what does this now mean for the midterms? And police officer or linebacker? Wild video showing an officer tackling a fleeing motorcyclist, yes, straight-up NFL style. That hit and the charges ahead.

I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner and John Berman. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: We're waiting and watching with you because at any moment now, FBI Director Kash Patel will be on Capitol Hill, where he's expected to take questions from lawmakers on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Democrats expecting to grill Patel on a range of issues, including the firing of FBI agents tied to past investigations into President Trump, and efforts to investigate the president's perceived political enemies and why the federal agents are not being investigated by federal authorities in the killing of two Americans in Minnesota.

Here's what Senator Dick Durbin, the top Democrat on the panel, told me just moments ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): This is one of the most highly respected law enforcement agencies in the world. He has dragged it into the dirt. The men and women who are risking their lives to keep us safe in law enforcement deserve better. They're being used for political purposes. They're pursuing political conspiracies at Patel's direction, and he is trying to lead a lifestyle with the plane given him as head of the FBI.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Patel has faced scrutiny over allegations of excessive drinking, which he's denied. Also questions about his own personal use of FBI resources.

CNN senior justice correspondent Evan Perez joining us now.

Evan, it was quite a slugfest, a spectacle, if you will, a lot of yelling back and forth the last time we saw him being grilled. What are you expecting today?

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: A lot of the same. I think you already saw some of the criticism that is coming his way from Senator Durbin earlier this morning. And one of the things that you've noticed -- we've noticed already is that Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island, and Kash Patel have already kind of had some pregame fisticuffs on Twitter, on X, where Senator Whitehouse reminded everyone of previous statements that Kash Patel had about the use of FBI aircraft by Chris Wray, the former FBI director by the former FBI director James Comey.

Kash Patel has his numbers. He came armed with a lot of statistics, including claiming that he's using a cheaper place to park the aircraft, to pick up the aircraft at Andrews Air Force Base instead of Washington National Airport nearby. So that's what we're expecting to see. A lot more questions about his management of the FBI and his use of these resources. It's going to be a long morning.

SIDNER: Yes. And we are waiting now as we see that he is now sitting down for this hearing. We'll take it live as we start to hear from him and some of the questions that are coming from members of Congress and the Senate.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it, Evan Perez. John?

BERMAN: It's interesting to see all the note cards in his hands there. It does seem like some of these Cabinet officials and whatnot have prepared responses for each of the people asking questions there. I do wonder if that's what those cards are.

SIDNER: Looked like he was certainly prepared to snap back at them.

BERMAN: Yes. Stand by for that.

In the meantime, we are standing by this morning for President Trump's reaction after the Supreme Court dealt him a major blow just weeks ahead of the midterms. In an unsigned opinion, the justices blocked his new rules that would have given the Postal Service unprecedented power to really get involved with millions of mail-in ballots. Justice Alito and Thomas were the only two to publicly dissent.

Let's get right to CNN's Alayna Treene live at the White House this morning.

[09:05:01]

Have we heard from the president yet on this, on this thing which he cared so deeply about?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We have not yet, John, although I am sure we will in the near future. And you're exactly right. I mean, this is a significant loss for the president, who for years has railed against mail-in ballots, arguing that they have been rife with fraud, something that, of course, is -- are false allegations and continuing to vote by mail himself.

But what we're learning about this opinion, you mentioned it, it's unsigned. We do know that the two justices, of course, the conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, were the only ones to dissent from this opinion. You do the math there. That means seven in the majority. Despite this being unsigned, agreeing with the majority opinion here, blocking this controversial order, which essentially would allow DHS to come up with a list of eligible voters and then have USPS only send mail ballots to those eligible voters. Essentially, this is blocking that from happening.

Now, if you look in this unsigned opinion, they lay out two key points to why they made this decision. One was they argued that the administration was unlikely to prevail on the merits of this case, essentially saying that they find it likely unconstitutional to move forward with this attempt to try and essentially have DHS and USPS decide who gets these mail-in ballots. They argue that it is up to the states who really get to determine how elections are run, not the federal government.

But again, that is a -- they're likely unconstitutional. I think we're still going to see some legal action here. But then the other consideration, and this was really laid out in a concurring opinion from Justice Brett Kavanaugh, was that this is just too close to the midterm elections. I'd remind people we are less than two months away until the November 3rd elections. And many of these mail ballots have already gone out.

That was a key argument that we heard from many different mainly, primarily the Democratic states who had come together to try and sue the administration over this executive order. I think to keep in mind, when we look ahead to the future, it's unclear if the Trump administration is going to try to do this again. As I mentioned, the court said that the administration is unlikely to succeed on the merits of its challenge.

Unlikely, essentially showing that this is a bad sign for the administration if they want to try to move forward with this down the line. But again, because of the timing considerations, they could try to put this back in place for elections down the line, like the 2028 presidential. But for now, for the 2026 midterm elections, the Supreme Court coming in and saying, this isn't going to fly. There's not enough time, and we're still determining whether or not this is actually unconstitutional for the administration to try to do this.

So, look, we'll see what the administration says. We'll see what the president himself says when they weigh in on this. But definitely a big loss for them, John.

BERMAN: Yes, we're standing by for those comments.

Alayna Treene, at the White House this morning, thank you very much. Kate.

BOLDUAN: As we stand by for that, joining us right now is Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts.

Thanks for being here, Congressman. You know, Richard Blumenthal was on and -- earlier this morning and applauded the ruling, but also said that he thinks damage has already been done to the 2026 midterm because of the confusion in the lead up to this decision.

Do you really think so?

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Yes, I have been doing outreach, Q&A sessions, town halls throughout the 35 cities and towns in my district, and I'm hearing from many voters, particularly, Kate, senior citizens, with questions about mail-in balloting. I think the confusion has already been sowed, and it's going to be incumbent upon elected officials of all stripes to communicate clearly that mail-in voting is a effective and protected option for exercising their franchise.

BOLDUAN: I want to turn the focus now to the new focus and attention being given to A.I. and the dangers of A.I. potentially. You've been -- you were one, an early adopter of A.I.. You also one of the few who has talked about early and often about A.I. in Congress, and the latest voice kind of weighing in as this discussion really kind of exploded once again to kind of the national attention this weekend, the latest person speaking out is the president. He's lashing out against the concept of new guardrails and protections

on the industry. The way he put it is A.I. taking over the world, destroying humanity and all other things bad is a hoax.

How much do you think he could get in the way if Congress did want to take action here?

AUCHINCLOSS: We could roll him on this. The president also said, Kate, that all you need is a smart president in order to put guardrails on our A.I., which is yet another reason why Congress needs to act, to put guardrails on A.I.. A.I.'s capabilities are doubling every six to 12 weeks, depending on how you want to measure it. Congress obviously does not move that fast.

[09:10:01]

Fortunately, there is a legal tool that is designed for technologies that move very fast, where the creators of those technologies know more about them than regulators do. And that tool is liability. It's the concept that policymakers define outcomes that we consider to be vital to the health and safety of the American public. And then the creators of that technology are accountable if they violate those outcomes.

This is why my bipartisan Deepfake Liability Act is such a critical tool in regulating A.I., is that we define things not in terms of the technology, which again, is moving at such a fast pace, but in terms of outcomes that we care about, about harassment and cyberbullying and intimate privacy violations through deepfakes, and say, you know, whether you're using a PowerPoint slide or you're using 4.6, you're liable.

You can be sued in a court of law if you violate someone's individual rights. So we got to pass that legislation, including many others as well. But liability is a strong start.

BOLDUAN: I was going to say, with liability, it's kind of like same- same and different of where, you know, Dario Amodei is talking right now in terms of A.I. could just get out and pass the point of no return, and there will be no guardrails to even control the dangers to humanity.

Congressman -- Republican Congressman Rich McCormick, he was on this bipartisan A.I. task force that had actually been put up together, put up by leadership at the start of this Congress. He was talking to Manu yesterday, and he says that he does not think that Congress is equipped to regulate the industry kind of in general. Let me play this for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RICH MCCORMICK (R-GA): Let's face it, when the average congressman or senator is getting up there and they have a hard time turning on their cell phone, and your staff has to figure out how to do things for you, how are we supposed to govern A.I. from that perspective? (END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Do you see his point there that, I mean, basically he's saying is like, Congress is -- members of Congress are too old? I mean, I know a lot of members of Congress who still, you know, have never even used e-mail to be able to actually regulate this industry.

AUCHINCLOSS: Well, what a defeatist and cynical attitude. It's the same attitude in the 1990s and early 2000s that led members of Congress to not want to regulate social media. Back then, they called it computer interactive services. Well, what did that do? That created, I think, Web 2.0, where people like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk can platform hate and toxicity, have attention fracked our children, made them one of the least mentally healthful generations in American history.

That kind of attitude is what allows these tech titans to dominate our society and economy. Absolutely not. Members of Congress need to educate themselves on the issues of the day, and we need to connect technology to social norms. Again, that's what liability does. You know, I don't know how to weight the neural network of OpenAI or Anthropic's next model. What I do know is that if you create an intimate privacy violation of a teenage girl, you go to jail and we can legislate that.

BOLDUAN: Yes, your grasp and knowledge of this is an important one in this conversation going forward. What do you make of the argument that if the U.S. regulates A.I., pumps the brakes, does pacing as they're calling it, then China wins?

AUCHINCLOSS: Nonsense, nonsense. Americans have always embraced the frontier of science and technology. We should continue to, including with the upside potential of A.I., agentic tutoring on phonics for children or biomedical drug discovery. I think we want to embrace the good that new technology can bring. And we can insist that technology be a servant of the American public, not the other way around, because these tech companies, they are attention fracking the American public through doomscrolling.

They are extracting the internet and training their models on the internet. And that is an exploitative enterprise. And Congress is fully within our rights to insist that, yes, you guys can innovate and you're going to innovate to improve outcomes for the American people.

You look at what China does, for example, Kate. Look at TikTok within China, OK, those kids are capped at 90 minutes a day. And all of the content is educational. They're not getting sort of, you know, dance videos. They're getting like robotics instruction. Why can't we treat our kids with that same type of mindset?

BOLDUAN: There's also a lot of talk that China is actually quite -- to the kind at this point. China has a lot of regulation already in place over A.I. as you're discussing.

Congressman, thank you very much for coming in today. I really appreciate it. Sara? SIDNER: All right. Thank you, Kate.

A Senate hearing underway as we're speaking right now involving FBI Director Kash Patel, where he is going to be asked some tough questions from senators. We will update you on what's happening inside of that hearing in just a bit.

Also heading to Capitol Hill today, the families of the Reagan Airport crash victims. Now what they are asking or demanding from federal investigators now. And a daring rescue hundreds of feet in the air. Body camera video capturing the breathtaking mission to rescue an injured hiker.

[09:15:05]

Those stories and more ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right, happening now, you are looking at live pictures of FBI Director Kash Patel. He is with the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill. At this moment, the ranking member of that committee, Senator Dick Durbin from Illinois, he is delivering his opening statement. Let's listen in.

DURBIN: -- a grand conspiracy. Jack Smith, the special counsel, is now under or will be under oath before this committee.

[09:20:02]

Each of us will have a chance to ask pertinent questions to clear it up. But for some reason, the decision was made at some level to let this controversy fester, rather than to bring the person in who can actually answer the questions.

This hearing couldn't come at a more important time, 25 years after 9/11, the deadliest terrorist attack in history. The FBI at that point had to immediately adapt to a changed world. Do you realize that on 9/11, when information was gathered about the potential terrorists, it was sent to the FBI bureaus across the United States not by any e-mail device or any computer device, but hand-mailed because the FBI computer capability on 9/11 was below the expertise level of RadioShack. It was that bad.

From modernizing technology to integrating agents and analysts rather than silo them, the bureau built out capabilities and developed immense expertise across its workforce after that terrible event 25 years ago. Director Robert Mueller led the FBI at this tumultuous time. He more than any single individual was responsible for modernizing the FBI to combat the threats we face in the 21st century.

I was proud to work with him on a bipartisan basis. I knew little or nothing about computer technology. I called him and said, when I heard about the RadioShack comparison, it's clear we need to do something to modernize technology. If you'll lead in that area, I'll try to help. And that's what I did. We didn't always agree, but I always respected him. Bob Mueller was a patriot and a person of honesty and integrity.

Modernizing the FBI has not been an easy process. Balancing growing focus on national security and terrorism prevention efforts with traditional work investigating white-collar crime and corruption has taken a lot of time and effort. And over the years, the FBI, as it gained more authority at times in history misused it. There is still work to be done to earn public trust and ensure the most powerful federal investigative agency in the world only engages in lawful operations.

Continue to meet -- continuing to meet new threats while tackling these challenges requires steady, committed leadership from someone who understands the stakes and has the humility to lead as a servant of the public like Bob Mueller. Sadly for the American people, the current director does not meet these standards. Mr. Patel is the least qualified and most partisan FBI director in our nation's history.

He does not have the judgment, experience or temperament of Director Mueller. Before he was confirmed, Mr. Patel falsely claimed in public that the FBI, quote, "was planning January 6th for a year," close quote. He compiled an enemies list of public servants he called, quote, "government gangsters," close quote, who he promised to target if he was confirmed as head of the FBI.

Despite the warnings of Senate Democrats during his confirmation hearing, our Republican colleagues chose to ignore these facts, to prioritize President Trump's retribution campaign over the safety of Americans and they joined on a partisan basis confirming Director Patel to lead the FBI. Under Mr. Patel's failed leadership, decades of efforts to modernize and reform the FBI are being undone, and the bureau has been reshaped as a political weapon against President Trump's political enemies, and to shield to protect the president and his MAGA loyalists, not the American people.

Director Patel has been the central figure pushing the so-called grand conspiracy, diverting FBI resources to inane, debunked conspiracy theories that the, quote, "deep state" has been targeting President Trump since his first campaign. The deep state, characterized by some as worse than Watergate, secret and insidious, and yet the majority on this committee refuses to call Jack Smith as special counsel under oath to answer questions about this so-called grand conspiracy.

Director Patel is also wasting FBI resources to relitigate the 2020 presidential election. How many times have nominees who are judges, respected professionals, professors come before this committee and refuse to acknowledge what every eighth grader in America knows? President Trump lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden by seven million votes. That's simple. It's obvious. It's a matter of fact.

And yet, these nominees refuse to acknowledge that reality because this is part of the great conspiracy theory that Trump never loses anything.

[09:25:06]

To weaponize the FBI against president's opponents, Director Patel has overseen a purge of thousands, thousands of law enforcement officials. From analysts and agents to the most senior leadership the bureau has been deprived of tens of thousands of years of cumulative experience of these agents. Director Patel has installed MAGA loyalists as political appointees in key career positions, and he imposed -- even imposed loyalty tests requiring FBI officials to undergo polygraphs to say whether they ever criticize him.

And at the same time, thousands of agents have been reassigned from their primary criminal and national security mission to immigration enforcement, with a number of FBI personnel working on immigration matters increasing by over 2,000 percent as of last September.

And let me ask you, where are the worst of the worst? Overwhelmingly, the people who are being detained and deported have no criminal record whatsoever. In total, over 9,000 FBI personnel, 25 percent of the bureau, worked on immigration cases between January and September of last year. As part of this shift in resources, the Department of Justice shut down 23,000 criminal cases in the first six months of the Trump administration.

To replace these career professionals he purged, Director Patel has gutted hiring standards. Today will be his opportunity under oath to answer some basic questions about the standards being used for new FBI agents. In an interview in July, he claimed the FBI is, quote, "losing too many qualified candidates."

BERMAN: And FBI Director Kash Patel will face questions. Those questions will begin very shortly. Stay with us. Our coverage continues.

DURBIN: -- what are those co-called obsolete requirements. According to a memo --

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)