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Nor'easter Slams East Coast; Consumer Sentiment Nearing Record Low; China State Visit Wraps Up. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired September 25, 2026 - 13:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Ally or adversary? President Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping wrapping up a state visit. CNN has new reporting on how Beijing may have helped Iran in its war against the U.S. Did President Trump bring that up? We will discuss.

Plus: a crisis of confidence, Americans having some serious doubts about the economy. Could they take it out on those politicians running for reelection?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And a rare September nor'easter slamming into the East Coast, wind, rain, and flooding all significant threats for more than 40 million people.

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

SANCHEZ: And that's a wrap, President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping officially ending their three-day state visit just a short time ago, the summit heavy on pomp, circumstance and spectacle.

It remains to be seen just how much substance was part of this, how much was accomplished, the two leaders talking about everything from their ongoing trade truce to the war in Iran, even potential cooperation on reigning in AI.

Let's go straight to the White House with CNN's although.

Alayna, President Trump calling his talks with Xi very productive. What was actually accomplished?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's still very much unclear.

As you mentioned, Boris, there was a lot of pomp and circumstance. It was clear, not only from my conversations with officials here at the White House in the lead-up to this visit, but you saw it really on display, just how much they wanted this to be successful. I mean, when was the last time, Boris, you remember a president going

all the way to Joint Base Andrews to welcome a foreign leader there on the tarmac and rolling out literally the red carpet for them? So, I think that was a huge part of this as well, to get a sense of just trying to improve the ties between these two powers.

But on the deliverables, it's still very much unclear what was actually accomplished. Now, we heard the president, at one point, he said they discussed AI, he said that they discussed Iran, but he didn't give any substance to what -- actually any agreements that were struck during this visit.

He also brought up something today when asked a question by CNN and others at the National Archives about this idea of how farmers would be very happy. I want you to listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think our farmers are going to be very happy. A lot of very positive things happened. But America is very happy about this visit, and I'm sure China is very happy also. Great things for both countries. And it's been just very, very productive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: OK, so there you have the president saying our farmers will be very happy. Again, he didn't expand on that, so we don't actually know what he means.

What he could be referencing, I will say, one of the agreements we do know that was reached actually prior to Xi Jinping's visit here in Washington was that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and some of the Chinese officials who were doing some of the prep work on the front end extended a trade truce known as the Busan Agreement, essentially lowering some of the tariffs, reducing some of the tariffs that they were placing on the other countries.

Part of that deal was also China agreeing to buy more so soybeans, so that could potentially be what the president was referencing, but we really haven't gotten any firm details. One of the things we really only -- we did get was actually from Chinese state media, which reported that President Xi at one point said that he hopes that President Trump and the United States would not support Taiwan.

Independence obviously a major controversial issue between these two countries, with the question of whether or not the U.S. is going to move forward with arms sales to Taiwan still on the table, when we know Xi has been pressuring the U.S. to move away from that.

All to say, not very much clear again on the substance of what was agreed. And one thing as well that I think is worth pointing out here is this idea of artificial intelligence, because a lot of tech leaders were at that state dinner yesterday, another lavish party we saw from the images that came out of that evening, and questions of whether or not there was any sort of agreement on that issue as well. We did hear the president address this on social media this morning,

Boris. He wrote -- quote -- "A very productive meeting with President Xi for both the USA and China. Tremendous things will be happening.

"Like almost everyone else, he seemed to like calling that poorly and inaccurately named artificial intelligence to be a far more accurate and important" -- excuse me -- "important name, superintelligence. That would be super."

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Of course, superintelligence is what we know the president has been floating as a less threatening name for artificial intelligence, but no real clarity on any sort of agreement there, even as we know a lot of these leaders have been calling for more safety guardrails for the future of AI.

So, look, a lot of pomp and circumstance. I think both leaders got a lot of the coverage they wanted out of this of these ties being strong, nothing really clear, though, on the actual substance of any sort of agreement -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Alayna Treene live for us at the White House, thank you so much -- Brianna.

KEILAR: And as Chinese President Xi heads home, sources telling CNN the U.S. has linked intelligence support from groups in China to Iranian precision strikes on U.S. military bases in the Middle East and on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

That's a kind of intel and satellite imagery that helped enable Iran to hit this American air base in Jordan in July, killing three U.S. service members. But those sources also say it's unclear what role, if any, the Chinese government is playing in this.

So let's talk about this now with Josh Rogin. He is the lead global security analyst for "The Washington Post Intelligence." He's also the author of the book "Chaos Under Heaven: Trump, Xi, and the Battle for the Twenty-First Century."

Josh, I know you have been watching this visit very carefully here. And Trump says that he talked with Xi about the Iran war. Does he have the power to stop this intel sharing?

JOSH ROGIN, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Yes.

In China, any commercial company has to do what the government says all the time, or they're done, the guys get arrested or worse. So, yes, Chinese President Xi Jinping could stop Chinese companies from giving Iran intelligence, but their position is, we have -- we weren't doing it. They deny it.

And then they say, and if we were doing it, we're not going to do it anymore. So, in that kind of environment, it's unlikely that we're going to see a lot of progress. Now, U.S. Ambassador to China David Perdue said on another network that he saw some signs that the Chinese were willing to stop some of the intelligence.

But you have to remember that satellites are not the only way that China helps Iran. Iran could not build its missiles without Chinese components. They couldn't fuel their missiles without Chinese materials, and they receive Chinese support on a range of fronts.

So it's true that the president brought it up, but I'm skeptical. I'm not holding my breath for a lot of change.

KEILAR: Secretary Hegseth told the Senate in a public hearing back in July that China was enabling Iran in the war, right?

Less than two weeks ago, the president was asked about this "Wall Street Journal" report about Chinese entities sharing these satellite images of U.S. military bases with Iran, and Trump said -- quote -- "When they say that China spies on us, I say you're right, and we spy on them too."

It's a refrain, I think, we have heard before when a foe of America does something. We have heard it with Russia.

ROGIN: Sure.

KEILAR: The president retorts back with like, yes, we do the same thing. But what's the message that he's sending to China?

ROGIN: I mean, the message that he's sending is that there won't be consequences for these actions.

And, of course, the U.S. did sanction three Chinese satellite companies already. But, broadly, what we see in this visit is a pullback of the U.S. effort to confront China, not just on Iran, but on human rights.

The arms sales to Taiwan haven't been approved yet. And everybody knows why Trump is doing this. He wants to have a good visit with Xi Jinping. He may go to China to visit the APEC summit, which is in Shenzhen in November. He really wants Xi Jinping to come to Miami for the G20 in December.

So they could meet two more times. So President Trump doesn't want to mess that up by -- with little -- like, little sanctions and caring about the Uyghurs, the Tibetans or the Hong Kongers or anything -- or the Taiwanese. And that's the mood. That's what you see here. It's a detente.

It's an effort to just have everything be copacetic, and that pushes all the national security issues to the back burner.

KEILAR: OK, let's talk about Taiwan. There's this $14 billion arms deal, which Trump has yet to sign off on. And in May, the way Trump was sort of relating to this was he was saying it was a very good negotiating chip.

Of course, Xi's main goal in so much of this is getting U.S. support for Taiwan to be chipped away. Is he succeeding in that? Or is Trump really -- I mean, is this leverage, or is this Xi sort of, like, rolling him?

ROGIN: Well, President Trump already conceded a huge point to President Xi on Taiwan. By saying Taiwan's a negotiating chip, he changed 50-some-odd years of U.S. policy.

We're supposed to support Taiwan's defense regardless of what Beijing thinks. They're not supposed to have a say in it. So already that's a big concession. Now, going forward, what Xi Jinping wants is for President Trump to say that the U.S. opposes Taiwan independence.

Right now, the language is, we do not support Taiwanese independence. And that change is really important to the Chinese for some reason. And so Trump might do it. But it's not really important to the Taiwanese, because they're not about to declare independence.

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And President Lai has made it very clear that Taiwan's already independent. It's an independent country. It acts like an independent country. And so they don't have to declare independence. But this is, like, an obsession with the Chinese Communist Party. So it's something that he wants for President Trump.

I don't know if President Trump's going to concede it. He very well might.

KEILAR: So, mutual admiration, mutual flattery going on, right?

ROGIN: It's a bromance.

KEILAR: Yes.

ROGIN: It's a love affair.

KEILAR: So what did you think of Xi likening Trump's signature slogan, of course, make America great again, to his own plan for the -- I don't know if this one's as catchy -- great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation?

ROGIN: Right, right.

I mean, the phrase that you will hear a lot from the Chinese side is a new model of great power relations. That's what President Xi said in 2013 when he first met President Obama. Now here we are 13 years later, and essentially that's what Trump is agreeing to. It's a model where the U.S. and China basically divide up the world between each other, spheres of influence.

They don't interfere in each other's affairs. We don't hassle them about human rights, and we try to get along and do business as much as possible. That's what Xi Jinping wants. That's basically what Donald Trump wants. And that's the policy we have, give or take, at least for the next couple of years.

KEILAR: Josh, great to have you talk about this visit. The expectations were low. I think the accomplishments were kind of minimal. But so much is still at stake, and it's really important to talk about it. Appreciate it.

ROGIN: Absolutely.

KEILAR: Still to come: another red flag for Republicans heading into the midterms. New numbers out today show Americans feel worse about the economy than at almost any point in modern history.

Plus, the Justice Department calling it the biggest election observer effort in history. What we're learning about the administration's efforts to send out more than 1,000 election monitors.

And then, later, tens of millions of Americans bracing for powerful winds, heavy rain, and coastal flooding as a strengthening nor'easter barrels toward the East Coast.

We will have that and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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SANCHEZ: We have got some more troubling news to share with you on how Americans feel about the economy, consumer sentiment hitting its second lowest level on record, down 13 percent from a year ago, according to new data from the University of Michigan.

CNN's Matt Egan is here with a closer look at the numbers.

Matt, what do they spell?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Boris, this shows that consumer sentiment is weak. It's historically weak. The mood on Main Street is very gloomy, despite the fact that unemployment is low and the stock market is high.

So this is coming from the University of Michigan. They found that, as you mentioned, sentiment down 7 percent between August and September, 13 percent lower than this point last year. But what really stands out is the level, 48.1. University of Michigan, they have been taking this survey since 1952, and this is the second lowest reading on record.

This chart really shows the trend. So this goes back to 1980 and the shaded areas or recessions. And so what you can see is that sentiment now is lower than it was during previous recessions, including the COVID recession, the 2008 financial crisis, the 2001 recession, even lower than it was in the early '80s during that period of very high inflation.

Now, why is this happening? University of Michigan blamed two main factors. First off, they cited high fuel costs. And we know gas has never been as expensive in the month of September as it is now, and diesel is at all-time highs. The other factor that they cited is intensifying trade tensions.

And we know the trade war with Canada has really escalated this month. Now, Americans are bracing for even higher inflation ahead. Back in February, before the war started, consumers were penciling in a 3.4 percent increase in prices over the year ahead, not terrible, elevated, but not terrible. But, look, by August, got up to 4 percent, and now there's been this massive acceleration during the month of September to 4.6 percent.

Now, in case you're wondering, the decline in sentiment, it is not all being driven by Democrats. Joanne Hsu, the survey director at the University of Michigan, she said that interviews revealed broad agreement across the political spectrum that the outlook for the economy has weakened since the beginning of the year.

When you look at sentiment among Democrats, since January, it is down, down 13 percent. But look at this. It's down even more among Republicans, down 20 percent since the start of the year. So, look, bottom line, it is absolutely true that economic growth has been resilient, a lot more resilient than people would have imagined. And the stock market is near all-time highs. Unemployment is low.

But consumers really remain very frustrated. And I think it really all goes back to the main problem that the president promised to solve, and that's the cost of living -- Boris, back to you.

SANCHEZ: Matt Egan, thanks so much for breaking that down for us.

Still ahead: more than 40 million people bracing for an early nor'easter bearing down on the East Coast. We're going to take you live to New England as residents are preparing for fierce winds, heavy rains, and coastal flooding.

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KEILAR: Right now, a fierce storm is intensifying as it moves up the East Coast, and more than 40 million people are expected to feel the impacts of this rare September nor'easter.

It's set to bring strong winds, heavy rain, and coastal flooding, and forecasters warn conditions will deteriorate, with some areas getting a month's worth of rain in just a day, coastal New England bracing for some of the worst of this storm.

We have CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam, who is on the Massachusetts shore in Scituate.

Derek, what are conditions like right there?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Brianna, it hasn't started raining yet, but the wind has been furious and it's been picking up throughout the course of the day today.

They have had this persistent northeasterly wind. We are in Scituate, Massachusetts, this area no stranger to nor'easters, right? But what is a nor'easter? A nor'easter is primarily defined by the direction of the wind around these powerful low-pressure systems.

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And this is -- this here lies the concern. What you're looking at behind me is a newly constructed seawall. And we're now going towards low tide, so the water's come out somewhat, but earlier today this was splashing up and over this seawall here and some of the waves impacting the homes in this area.

So, this is the old seawall. You can see why they had to construct a new one, because the old one just isn't going to cut it any longer with these storms getting stronger and stronger. So, what does this area have to plan for and prepare for?

Well, we know that the ocean here has been pushed in by this powerful northeasterly wind, the nor'easter, and you can just see how tumultuous the waves action is out there. Well, the rain shield is only about 30 miles away from us.

So, in a matter of about a half-hour, we expect the first drops of rain to fall from the sky, and that could be the beginning of what may drop over five inches of rain here, which would be more than the monthly average for the entire month of September for Boston. I mean, that's significant.

What I'm concerned about, though, is that we get this wind from the northeast that continuously pushes up the Atlantic Ocean like it does. We go through multiple high tide cycles. So we saw it earlier today with the high tide that came up. But the peak of the storm isn't here yet.

We also have a full moon this weekend that's going to coincide with that at the same time. So it'll exaggerate the tidal levels. And so I am concerned about these low-lying coastal communities, even with seawalls in place. There are obviously so many other vulnerable locations that dot the landscape here across the cape.

Let's get to the specifics, because I want to show you this map. I mean, it is looking very impressive on satellite and radar. I mean, you could see the low pressure system spinning in that kind of counterclockwise rotation. We zoom in a little bit. We have real-time wind gusts here, over 40 miles per hour here in Nantucket, 32 in Montauk.

We're talking strong wind gusts all the way down to Ocean City. This is like a tropical storm, but without the name, right? That's kind of the difference, a nor'easter, but without a name. Well, this system is going to sit and it is going to spin for several days.

It may linger, its impacts, right through early parts of next week. And when you get that continuous push of rain -- or wind, rather, along the Atlantic Ocean, that is why we have this coastal erosion threat, the coastal flooding, and then, of course, that -- just timing with these high tides and the full moon are going to make things very, very tricky this weekend for some of the vulnerable low-lying areas.

Power outages, that's a threat, and also inland flooding as well a concern -- Brianna. KEILAR: All right, a lot to watch.

Derek, thank you so much for that from Scituate, Massachusetts.

And still to come: The search for Karoline Leavitt's replacement is still under way, as the White House is looking for a new press secretary. Former Trump White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci will join us to talk about this and more next.

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