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Trump to Hold Talks on U.N. Sidelines Amid Wars in Iran, Ukraine; Trump Says He Faces Choice to Make a Deal or Annihilate Iran; Tomorrow, CNN, MS NOW, Politico in Court Seeking to Regain White House Access; White House Rebrands YouTube Stream as Trump T.V. Amid Media Ban; Coroner Says Hayden Panettiere Died From an Accidental Overdose. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired September 22, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: -- let's see Democrats pursuing in perhaps both the House and the Senate.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": We shall see. Lauren Fox, thank you so much for that reporting.

Up next, President Trump says he must decide whether to annihilate Iran. How the world is reacting to the president's U.N. speech, when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": Today at the United Nations, President Trump attempting to end one war while defending the launching of another. He's soon set to hold a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy as he's pushing for an end to Russia's war on Ukraine.

SANCHEZ: This follows his speech before the U.N. Assembly where he defended the U.S. war on Iran and said that he now faces a big decision on whether to strike a deal with Iranian leaders or annihilate their country. Let's go live to CNN's Fred Pleitgen. Fred, you have a unique perspective because you've been on the front lines of both of those conflicts.

Let's start with Iran and this threat of annihilation.

[13:35:00]

Not the first time the president has suggested he would pursue civilizational destruction on Iran. How are America's allies in Europe reacting to that today?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, well, first of all, Boris, I think that America's allies in Europe certainly will breathe a sigh of relief in general about this speech. They weren't attacked by President Trump, as they have seen in several other speeches. But certainly, what he said about Iran is definitely something that people will have been listening to very closely, especially the fact that President Trump says he wants to get things over with as fast as possible. Now, one of the things that is absolutely correct that you say is that over the past couple of weeks, especially, but even before that, President Trump has been floating that idea of a massive escalation in the war with Iran or coming to some sort of agreement.

And one of the things that I've been looking at over the past couple of minutes since President Trump has given that speech is the reaction coming from the Iranians and the Iranians certainly saying that they are not going to budge. They say that they are going to remain steadfast.

In fact, the chief negotiator for the Iranians, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who's also the Head of Iranian parliament, has said that Iran is a nation that does not bow down. Now, what the Iranians have been saying is that they are potentially ready for another escalation. They have been preparing. They say they have new weapons.

But one of the things that's critical is that the Iranians have also saying is that they are willing to go to the essential terms of what was the memorandum of understanding between the United States and Iran, which essentially would mean opening the Strait of Hormuz in return for the United States lifting that naval blockade.

And of course, the Iranians also want sanctions relief and want a lot of their assets unfrozen as well. So it seems as though there is room to maneuver. That's something that America's European allies are looking at.

But certainly the Iranians are looking at as well as they're monitoring very closely what President Trump has said at that speech. Of course, for the Iranians, this United Nations General Assembly, also very important. Their President Masoud Pezeshkian coming over, going to give a speech there, but also Iran's foreign minister.

We've been keeping an eye on that. He's had a lot of meetings today, especially with diplomats from allied countries that are allied with the United States, Boris.

KEILAR: And Fred, we're awaiting the outcome of this critical meeting between Presidents Trump and Zelenskyy. What are the stakes here?

PLEITGEN: The stakes are extremely high. If you look at Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for him, this is very important. One of the things that we were looking at is that, of course, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, was also in the audience when President Trump gave that speech. He's been in the U.S. since last night. He has floated the fact that he has that meeting with President Trump. There's several things to all this.

The Ukrainians from the U.S., of course, want more help from the United States, especially in terms of air defense. One of the things that the Ukrainians are extremely struggling with right now are those new long-distance jet-powered drones that the Russians have been using to pound Ukrainian cities. At the same time, the Russians, of course, also have been on the receiving end of long-distance Ukrainian strikes.

And something that the U.S. has alluded to, President Trump saying that, look, a lot of the diesel shortages and the high price of diesel is due to the fact that Russian refineries are getting destroyed, and they're simply less on international markets. The Ukrainians have floated that there could be some sort of agreement to end strikes on critical infrastructure like that.

Nevertheless, for the Ukrainians, this meeting with President Trump extremely important to try and get the United States to at least remain engaged in the efforts to try and end that conflict, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. We'll be watching. Fred, thank you so much.

Let's talk more now about President Trump's speech and his visit to the U.N. with Beth Sanner. She's a former Deputy Director of National Intelligence and a CNN National Security Analyst. So this obviously is a very important meeting.

BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yeah.

KEILAR: The stakes are very high. The president has put a lot of pressure on Ukraine. What are your concerns about how this could go?

SANNER: Yeah, I mean, we talked yesterday about him putting out this kind of neutral tweet where he doesn't blame Ukraine for the diesel and says the Russians, but doesn't blame on anyone. It's the war needs to end. But he did call Zelenskyy as recently as Sunday and demand an end to the strikes on the refineries. And since then, today, another strike on a refinery right on the eve of this meeting.

So clearly, Zelenskyy is going to be trying to convince the president that, you know, they have to keep the pressure on Russia and that the United States should keep the pressure on Russia. And he certainly will be turning to the Graham bill that was just passed and say, like, you need to use this now.

So I think that's -- but what I'm worried about is that the president will look at the polling that came out today, the CNN polling, and shows that, you know, people are very upset about gas prices. So it could go sideways in that the president really holds Zelenskyy's feet to the fire and doesn't want to put pressure on Russia.

[13:40:00]

SANCHEZ: Notably, Zelenskyy said overnight that a new drone agreement is ready to be signed without specifying which countries are going to be involved. Drones, obviously, a huge part of the Russia-Ukraine war. What are you anticipating there?

SANNER: There is a new agreement. There's agreements all the time, but there's one with a U.S.-based or the U.S. affiliate of a Ukrainian company for a multi-million dollar contract that's just been signed by the Department of War. And so that could be it. I saw that in the news this morning.

So Ukraine has a lot of technology in the drones that we want to be copying and using. And so this kind of deal where you're actually giving -- I think it's actually billions of dollars -- giving this to a joint venture investment that includes Ukraine is the kind of investment that will really help Ukraine in the long run and that we need. We need. It's a win-win. So I think that's probably it, but I'm not positive.

(LAUGH)

KEILAR: On Iran, the president talking about this big decision he has to make between a deal or annihilation. I mean, at this point, with the way he's gone on this, it would kind of be weird if he didn't issue a sort of an ultimatum or a threat about potentially destroying Iran. He's done it so many times. He's backed off of it so many times. What is his position? I mean, does this appear weak? Does this appear unpredictable and strong? What does this look like?

SANNER: I mean, I think to the Iranians, it's kind of a yawn at this point. I mean, that's sad because we want the United States to be able to make these kinds of statements, and it forms a deterrent or it forms pressure. But, you know, after you hear it many, many times, it's kind of, you know, crying wolf in a way.

And so I just think the Iranians are getting us, and we're not getting them. I mean, in the speech today at the U.N., he did say, President Trump said, like, I think Iran's going to come around, basically, after the midterms because they think that I'm going to lose, but it doesn't matter in the midterms, doesn't matter to me.

That is not going to change Iran's mind. What Iran is trying to do is actually put pressure on us to go back to the MOU. This is what Fred was talking about, right? That there's some form, some aspect of this MOU that might work. And so they're pressuring us to do that.

What Trump is doing seems to be pressure for pressure's sake. Like, what are we actually trying to get? Unclear.

SANCHEZ: Notably, Trump talked about there being an openness to meet with Iranian leaders. Members of his administration repeated that claim. We know that the Iranian president, the foreign minister, are in the U.S. right now, yet there's some question about their legitimacy in the eyes of the supreme leader and how much weight they would even carry going into a meeting.

Do you think a meeting is likely? Would it be consequential at all?

SANNER: I don't think that meeting with this group of people is consequential, although I suspect that there's some IRGC people who are probably part of the delegation. There might be some quiet back channels at a lower level, but this group is not going to do a deal. And I think the president isn't expecting a deal right now. I think he's expecting to hold their feet to the fire and then somehow, after the midterms, they'll capitulate. I just don't see anything being the consequential, like, where is the silver bullet that he's expecting? What will actually change this? And what's very interesting to me, coming out of this golf meeting, he's going to be meeting with these golf leaders today. The chatter around that over the past two days has been countries as close to the United States as UAE, you know, our closest and most consequential ally right now in terms of military force, they're talking about we need to rethink, a whole rethink on our relationship with Iran, and they're talking about, you know, we need to, in the Arab states, have some kind of deal with Iran because the U.S.-Iran talks are going nowhere.

This is what's happening, is that no one can see an end to this from the U.S. position, and, you know, they may be forced to take matters into their own hands, and what that looks like probably isn't a deal that will be absolutely in the interest of the United States and certainly not better than what we started with before we started this war.

KEILAR: Extraordinary to see them making that calculation. Beth, thank you so much, as always.

Next, the latest on the legal fight over President Trump's press ban. Stay with CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:49:14]

SANCHEZ: During his visit today at the United Nations, the president bringing up his fight with the press. This is his exchange with CNN's Kaitlan Collins earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Mr. President, two-thirds of Americans, two-thirds of Americans don't think the U. S. is winning the war with Iran. When will it end?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: So it's an honor to be here. I'm surprised that CNN is here covering me.

COLLINS: The United Nations allowed us in, sir.

TRUMP: You should not be here covering me. You said you weren't going to cover me. You shouldn't be covering me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Tomorrow, CNN, MS NOW and Politico will be in court asking the judge to lift the president's unprecedented restriction on White House access. The news outlets say that the ban violates the First Amendment and due process protections because Trump explicitly tied the action to coverage that he considered negative.

[13:50:00]

The White House is expected to submit its response to the lawsuit today. Let's turn now to CNN Chief Media Analyst, Brian Stelter.

Brian, moments ago, the president said he thinks the judge probably will rule in the media's favor.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yeah, the president being realistic about his chances in court. And keep in mind, this is a Trump appointed judge who has been serving for years and who did side with CNN back in 2018 in the Jim Acosta case.

So here's what the president said moments ago. And of course, we don't have the video because of this ban situation, but we have the text. Thanks to our colleague, Kipmar (ph). The president was asked if he planned to let those three outlets back into the White House if the judge ruled against him, and Trump replied, quote, "Probably will because he's not a particularly fair judge, so you never know." But, the president said, I'm talking about national security. I think we have a right to clean out fake news. You know, news is fake.

OK, so it's the same strategy we've seen from the president with the ballroom and with the arch over in Washington. He's engaging in these national security claims in order to push through whatever he wants. I suspect a court would see right through that in the same way the legal experts say a court is going to see through his attempt to ban CNN, MS NOW and Politico.

But it seems the president might be resigned already to losing in this particular situation, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Brian, with the White House press pool suspended as this plays out, the White House launched or rebranded Trump T.V. Tell us about that.

STELTER: Yeah, have you checked this out on YouTube? This is a very interesting and pretty ridiculous stunt that's being pulled. So the White House took one of its old YouTube live streams and renamed it Trump T.V. yesterday and they made a big deal about it, hyped it up on social media, posted a bunch of memes.

What appears to be some examples of copyright infringement where they're ripping off old classic T.V. shows and sitcoms, so they're putting it out there, claiming they're launching Trump T.V. The administration clearly trying to capitalize on this ban news story. But whatever the White House is doing here, it's obviously not a replacement for real news.

I have been watching it so that the rest of you all don't have to. Trump is using this live stream to rerun old speeches and also his speech today at the U.N. But it's mostly just repurposed old content from the White House. So it has a very small audience. When I checked in last night, fewer than 5,000 people were watching with me. Earlier this afternoon, only a thousand people were watching with me.

So I find it interesting for the following reason. Critics like California Governor Gavin Newsom are speaking out, saying this is authoritarian. It's literally state-run T.V. Others are comparing it to Chinese and Russian state-run T.V. But in this case, if this is propaganda, it's pretty poorly done and it seems to me, Boris, there is not a big audience for actual literal government-run T.V. in the United States.

SANCHEZ: Brian Stelter, thank you so much.

So we now know what killed actress Hayden Panettiere at just 36-years- old. The autopsy results when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:57:58]

SANCHEZ: A South Carolina coroner says actress Hayden Panettiere died from the toxic effects of fentanyl and other substances. Remember, she was found unresponsive at a Greenville apartment last month. Her death has been ruled an accident. CNN's Dianne Gallagher joins us with the details.

Dianne, what else are you learning?

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, just incredibly tragic here, Boris. Actress Hayden Panettiere, just 36-year-old, died from the toxic effects of fentanyl and other substances. And as you said, her death has been ruled an accident by the Greenville County coroner's office in South Carolina.

Now, I want to put up what they wrote in a release this morning about that autopsy report and explain a little bit about what this means. They list the cause of death, of course, as toxic effect of fentanyl and 4-NPP, which is a byproduct of fentanyl. Then, along with Alprazolam, that's commonly sold under the brand name of Xanax, the next drug is a muscle relaxer, and then an antipsychotic medication, before noting the manner of the death has been ruled an accident.

Now, despite that ruling, authorities are still investigating whether anyone might be criminally responsible for providing her with a lethal substance. Now, last week, CNN reported that a source familiar with the case said that Drug Enforcement Administration agents, as well as Los Angeles area authorities, have been questioning people about the circumstances surrounding the 36-year-old's death, including whether she may have taken a counterfeit narcotic and whether that may have interacted with other substances in her body at the time of death.

Now, shortly after these autopsy results were released this morning, Panettiere's representative, Kasey Kitchen, released a statement to CNN saying, quote, "The investigation remains ongoing and the circumstances surrounding the case are complex. We must all continue to remain patient and allow the investigative process to unfold."

Now, back on August 16th, according to a Greenville police report, the boyfriend, Brian Hickerson of Panettiere, and his brother, Zach Hickerson, called 9-1-1 to report that she was unresponsive. Medics arrived to an apartment in Greenville where she was temporarily --