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ICE Shooting Press Conference; Nevada Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar is Interviewed about Elections; OpenAI Safety Researchers Question their Firing. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired October 09, 2026 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

MARKWAYNE MULLIN, DHS SECRETARY: This attention wasn't given even close when we had an NYPD officer that was stabbed seven times by also two thugs that should have never been back on the streets because those individuals, we had detainers on. At least one of them we had a detainers on, and they both had extensive backgrounds.

I just -- I just want everything to be treated the same. And it should be treated the same. And, unfortunately, we're giving so much attention to this thug that was -- that was a true threat to society, to the point that we had to -- we had to put him to a more secured facility outside of New York. So, he's not even in the state of New York anymore because we wanted to make sure he was in a highly secured facility because of the threat that he has and his history of evading police.

REPORTER: Where is he?

MULLIN: That I won't release.

REPORTER: As you ramp up -- as you ramp up the pace --

MULLIN: What --

REPORTER: I'm sorry. As you ramp up the pace of deportations --

MULLIN: Why do you say ramp up the pace? We do our job every day.

REPORTER: OK. As you -- as you --

MULLIN: That's a -- that's a narrative -- I'm going to push back on this real quick -- that's a narrative that you guys have said that we're ramping up, up to the midterm elections. We're not ramping up anything. We're doing our job every day. That's all we do. This whole narrative that says we're ramping up, where'd that come from? Was there an email that you guys read? There wasn't. Or was there something -- because just -- I think it was last week that you guys were accusing us, saying that we're dialing down enforcements in certain areas. I'm going, no, we're not. We're consistently doing our job every day.

We pursue the worst of the worst, regardless if it's Sunday, regardless if it's Monday, regardless if it's Christmas, regardless if it's Thanksgiving, regardless if it's on a Saturday. We are pursuing the worst of the worst every day. There is no ramp up. There is no draw down. We're doing our job.

REPORTER: As deportations continue, are you going to continue using the planes that were purchased in -- during the prior DHS administration? And are you --

MULLIN: I have no idea what that has to do with the worst of the worst, but go on.

REPORTER: Well, one -- well, I mean I'd imagine you'd be deporting --

MULLIN: And what -- all you're doing here is you're trying to take us to someplace else because you know that we arrested the worst of the worst last night, and you're trying to bring up something else that's controversial.

REPORTER: No --

MULLIN: This is what I hate about fake news. You guys -- you guys -- when we're doing a press conference on something, you guys want to completely steer away when you realize that this isn't someone that you should be defending, and you bring up something as ridiculous as that.

REPORTER: I'm --

MULLIN: I'm just -- I'm just saying, I'm not even going to entertain your question because that's not what we're here for. That's not what we're here for. If you want to ask something that's detained to what we're having this press conference for, I'll be happy to do that. OK.

I'll take this last question, because that wasn't even a question.

Yes.

REPORTER: Can you confirm the existence of an operation -- a surge operation in California?

MULLIN: There is no surge. I just -- I keep saying this. We're doing the worst -- we're going after the worst of the worst. We're serving warrants and individuals that are on final orders. That's what we're doing.

REPORTER: So, no specific surge in California?

MULLIN: No, there's no specific surge. We're doing our job every day.

REPORTER: Anything in response --

MULLIN: We're doing our job every day.

REPORTER: I mean, I'm sure you've seen the comments from the governor and from --

MULLIN: I know they accuse us of being -- doing a job site raids and farm raids. And there are some videos out on TikTok. And you look at TikTok and you go, well, there's people leaving the farm, but there's no ICE agents around. We're serving warrants and final orders.

And this whole surge, we may go to certain areas when we have a high level of threat, like we did in New York 30 days ago, when we do a surge and we're trying to arrest the worst of the worst, which no one knew what we were -- that we were even there. We announced it afterwards, Operation Rotten Apple. You guys remember that one? But we're not doing it to do necessarily job site enforcements. We're doing it to get the worst of the worst off the streets because we've seen this criminal activity continue to grow in sanctuary cities and sanctuary states.

The problem with that is, is it doesn't stay. The criminal activity doesn't stay in the sanctuary cities or the sanctuary states. It doesn't stay there. It bleeds over to other neighborhoods. It bleeds over to other states. It bleeds over to other areas that they don't want this criminal activity. The elected officials in those areas don't want this kind of activity. They're not -- they're not sanctuary politicians. But sanctuary politicians create a safe haven for this to take place and then it bleeds over. When we see that start happening, then we'll go in and do an enforcement to get the worst of the worst off the streets.

I believe it was -- I know it was President Trump that brought this statistic out, and I think it was a great statistic. He says two percent of the population are the ones that make the severity -- or the most -- two percent of the population are the -- are the creators of over 90 percent of the crime. I believe that's what he said.

But his point -- my point is, is that two percent of the population can absolutely destroy a city because of the criminal activity. And that was what the president was trying to make -- the point he was trying to make. And that -- and I agree. So, we're -- we always go after those individuals.

So, with that, I just want to leave it with this.

The men and women at DHS, all 22 of our components, our job every single day is to protect the homeland. That's our job. And I stand in front of you as the secretary of the Department of Homeland, and I feel so honored to have this position.

There is nothing that should be controversial about protecting our homeland. We do our job and we do it well. It's because these politicians, these career -- sanctuary city politicians that want to make it controversial.

[09:35:05]

What is controversial about protecting our border? What is controversial about enforcing immigration policy that, by the way, these career politicians, especially in Congress, they're the ones that make the law. We simply enforce them. If they want to change it, they have the ability to change it. We enforce it. But yet somehow it's our fault. What is -- what is so bad about the Department of Homeland Security,

because it was stood up to protect us from an event that happened 25 years ago on September 11th? Is our memory that short? Is it really that short?

When I say it's the greatest job I've had, it's the greatest job I've had because I get to protect my backyard and every men and woman that works inside DHS, we protect our backyard as tough as we protect your backyard. Regardless if it's a blue state. Regardless of it's a red state. Regardless of sanctuary city. Regardless if it's not a sanctuary city. We look at it the same. It's the homeland. And we do a dang good job doing it.

And I'm so tired of it all of a sudden being controversial because it's a political talking point. We're keeping men and women in this country safe. We're protecting them from the criminals that are -- were -- that were -- that have flooded, flooded our country under four years of the Biden administration. I'll never apologize about our men and women doing their job. I'm very proud of them. And I thank the president for giving me this opportunity.

Thank you.

REPORTER: Mr. Secretary --

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, you've been listening to the Department of Homeland Secretary Markwayne Mullin, who revealed that President Trump actually got involved in the case after an undocumented man was shot while ICE officers tried to detain him here in New York City.

Secretary Mullin tried to explain why ICE officers shot into the suspect's vehicle, even though there was a young child inside. He said the undocumented man accelerated his vehicle, smashing into two ICE vehicles and accelerated towards ICE officers. ICE has named the suspect as Oscar Belgal, who they said had an extensive criminal record but was sentenced to five years of probation and released back onto the streets.

What is interesting here also is that he says that there was a conversation with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani overnight, where -- who has called the shooting an outrage. And Mullin has shot back saying that his words incite hostility.

But he said he spoke to the mayor several times last night, and he claimed that the mayor wanted them to release the individual back on the streets, even though President Trump had said, look, we will release him to NYPD, but not onto the streets.

Let's bring in Brynn Gingras here.

I know that you have heard from the mayor about this once. What did you make of this conference where he is basically saying, look, we made an offer to the mayor, and the mayor did not take us up?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, I expect we're going to hear from the mayor soon again, Sara. Certainly, we heard from him very quickly after this incident happened last night.

But Mullin, obviously, going after the mayor quite, frankly, quoting him at some point in this news conference. So, I do imagine Mamdani will be saying something about their conversation since Mullin mentioned so much of that and about that exchange, about them -- the administration offering to let Belgal go into the hands of the NYPD.

But the mayor, according to them, said, no, I'm going to basically not detain him. And that's why that did not successfully work out.

But what I did find interesting about that whole entire news conference, Sara, is how -- the way Mullin started the news conference and, quite frankly, ended it, talking about why is this so controversial? Well, I think what's missing in this whole conversation, and what he's missing is it's -- my gosh -- oh my gosh, controversial. I can't talk, Sara --

SIDNER: You got it.

GINGRAS: Because this didn't happen in a vacuum, right? These tactics -- these tactics, we know, we've seen them before. We've seen them with Pretti. We've seen them with Renee Good. And then they -- people here in the Bronx saw them on their streets. The tactics of basically surrounding a vehicle, even if there was some acceleration and there was some backing up and he was trying to evade police, it's just the fact that they weren't identifying themselves according to the people that were witnessing this. They were some -- some of them, according to the mayor, were wearing construction vests with large vehicles. They even admitted they didn't even know a five-year-old was in the car. So, how is that possible when they were doing surveillance on the subject?

So, while this person has a lengthy criminal history, and he made that very clear in this news conference, I think, at some point, he did miss the point that this is why it's so controversial.

SIDNER: Yes. And you can actually see in the video the construction vests. And there were questions about whether or not they had identified themselves because they were in plain clothes and their cars were not marked.

GINGRAS: Yes.

SIDNER: But this is another shooting and, of course, as you point out, the controversy has a long tail. There's a lot of different cases that people are concerned about.

We will see what happens with this one. I know you'll be paying attention to all this.

Brynn, thank you so much for your reporting there from New York.

Kate.

[09:40:00] KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: We continue to follow other breaking news, including the storm brewing in the gulf right now. Hurricane Isaias now a major hurricane, strengthening to a category three this morning. We're live in Florida as the outer bands move ashore.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: So, last night, there were big debates in some of the most closely watched races this midterm election in Michigan and Maine and Georgia. Among the critical issues debated, election security.

[09:45:04]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ABBY KOUSOURIS, STATEWIDE REPORTER, ATLANTA NEWS FIRST: Georgia has been at the center of fights over voting rules and election administration. What voting rules should be left to Georgia to decide and when, if ever, should the federal government step in?

SEN. JOHN OSSOFF (D-GA): Well, look, Georgia has voter I.D. And that's good. Mike Collins and Donald Trump, they're still obsessed with overturning the 2020 election. Mike Collins still believes the 2020 election was stolen. Mike Collins has supported Donald Trump's effort to overturn the election, and he wants to give your tax dollars to the violent thugs and criminals who sacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6th. Mike Collins is attacking your voting rights. But that's not a surprise when you consider who Mike Collins is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: One of the many attack lines coming from Senator Jon Ossoff there, as he tries to hold on to his Senate seat.

Looking ahead, there's also new reporting into the extent of the Department of Homeland Security's election fraud operations ongoing right now ahead of the midterms. Records now showing that ICE has reviewed tens of millions of voter records, scrutinized dozens of nonprofit voter group -- voter registration groups, all to look for noncitizen voters. That is according to documents just released by the advocacy group Democracy Forward.

One state watching this closely is Nevada, a perennial swing state and one which data shows 10 percent of the state's residents are naturalized citizens, almost nine percent not yet citizens.

Joining me right now is Cisco Aguilar, Nevada's secretary of state, to talk about what this midterm is going to look like.

You recently told, Secretary, "Time Magazine" that Election Day is going to be unlike any other in Nevada's history. Why is that?

CISCO AGUILAR (D), NEVADA SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, good morning. Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here.

It's because all of the threats and intimidation that's coming from the federal government, you've seen the attempts to federalize our elections, but we know the Constitution says that states run elections. And then with the efforts to intimidate Latino voters, this nonsense of talking about 16,000 noncitizens being on Nevada voter rolls is completely false. The data they sent us has been incomplete. We can't do a thorough job of looking at the information they're sending us, as if it's not complete, and they continue to tell us, no, it is complete and it's not. We've sent them multiple emails explaining to them why we need additional information.

And the second thing is, you're dealing with a fundamental right of the Constitution. And that is the right to vote. You can't take away somebody's fundamental right with some high level of scrutiny being done to verify whether or not that information is true.

BOLDUAN: The president has floated the idea also of sending ICE officers to polling stations. There's been some back and forth with -- what -- the FBI and DOJ talking about if that is going to happen or is not. But if they do, what can you do?

AGUILAR: Well, in Nevada, it's a felony to harass a voter. We know it's illegal for ICE or federal agents to show up at polling locations and intimidate voters. Our Republican governor has publicly stated that he does not support federal agents being at polling locations, and he's in a competitive race for governor to keep his seat. I think this would hurt him.

But not only that, this is not something we want. Also, Nevada is one of the few states where it's a felony to intimidate poll workers and election workers. And so, we want to make sure we maintain decorum. We keep calm and safe environments so that people are encouraged to say -- show up and cast a ballot. I say it's like no other. It's because everything we've gone through to push back on the federal government and this administration, when they're telling outright lies about our elections process.

BOLDUAN: One of the things -- that reporting I was getting at of the extent of the election fraud, operations that they are -- that the government's already putting forth and the tens of millions of records that they've gathered, the data suggests that their investigations have mostly focused in five states that don't include Nevada. But do you know if there is active operations investigating -- that they are investigating in Nevada right now?

AGUILAR: So, Nevada runs some of the safest, most care (ph) and accessible elections in the country. We have accessible elections without costing safety and security. We know there are investigations. We have seven (ph) grand jury subpoenas from the DOJ through the FBI in our office now that we are responding to.

Not only that, we received a letter from DOJ saying that I was officially under investigation. I don't know what that means, but we are taking it very seriously. But we're also reminding voters, this is an opportunity for them to show up. This is an opportunity for them to push back on this administration for the intimidation efforts by voting.

[09:50:01]

Nevada is a battleground state. We know we're part of the road to the White House. We know we're going to matter in '28. And '26 is really about setting up '28. We have a president who is trying to choose his voters rather than voters choosing the elected. And that's not what this democracy means. That's not what our Constitution says. So, we're going to continue to encourage people to show up, because if we can increase our margins, that is the best offense to everything that this administration is trying to do to the elections.

BOLDUAN: You mentioned 2028. I actually did want to ask you about that because Nevada just got a boost in terms of the Democratic calendar. It now stands alone as the -- as second on the Democratic presidential primary calendar for the next cycle, which we're kind of -- I was talking with my coworkers off set, and we started wondering, why is Nevada better and more important than states like New Hampshire and Michigan in your view?

AGUILAR: Because of the diversity of our state. We're diverse from an ethnic perspective. We're diverse from an economic perspective. We are a working community state. We have a 24/7 economy in Las Vegas due to tourism. We have a 24/7 economy in northeastern Nevada with the mines.

But it's also too our geographic diversity. We have very urban cores, but we also have very rural communities that make up Nevada's diversity. And I think the fact that Nevada represents America, and we are a strong voice of what the future looks like. And when you talk about the non-citizen issue, 30 percent of Nevada's population is Latino. One in five voters is Latino. They definitely have an opinion about the job performance of this administration. Some of them may have voted one way in '24. And in '26, they're going to hold this administration accountable for their failed leadership.

Gas is expensive. Groceries are expensive. Life is hard. And then you try to put additional burdens and pressure on them to speak their mind by showing up to a ballot box. That's not acceptable. And I think they know that this community is going to hold them accountable and they're scared of what the results could be.

BOLDUAN: And the election is not far off. And early voting, I believe, in Nevada starts just next week. So, it's really about to get underway.

It's -- thank you so much for coming in, Secretary of State, I appreciate your time.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, three OpenAI safety researchers say they were fired over suspicious circumstances.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:57:03]

BERMAN: New this morning, three former OpenAI safety researchers say they were fired by the company and are now openly questioning the reasons why. The researchers, who all worked on A.I. safety or alignment with OpenAI, said they recently played a key part in investigating the incident where a swarm of OpenAI A.I. agents went rogue, escaped their test environment and hacked into another A.I. company, Hugging Face. I'm taking my safety in my own hands by referring to it as A.I.

CNN's Hadas Gold is with us now with the latest on this.

So, what's going on here?

HADAS GOLD, CNN A.I. CORRESPONDENT: So, these three safety and alignment researchers say that they were fired. They say that they were all given slightly different reasons. But they all believe that it was because they were raising safety concerns and were working very closely with outside safety groups, auditors that were essentially brought in on an official basis with OpenAI to help investigate the Hugging Face hack.

Now, OpenAI disputes this. They say it's not because of these safety concerns, and instead it's about how these three handled sensitive info.

But this matters because it's not just an employment dispute. This matters because there's a fear among some in the A.I. industry that the companies may be trying to suppress safety concerns, not only for business reasons, but also because of this swell of sort of panic over A.I. safety that they may be trying to sort of quiet it down a little bit when there are people inside these companies who have still legitimate safety concerns.

So, these three employees, now former employees, have been posting extensively on social media. One says that they were fired because of how they were talking to the third -- to the third party safety evaluators, even though he was their main point of contact within OpenAI. The three of them wrote a letter to OpenAI leadership, you know, talking about their firings, what they believe actually happening, and also issuing sort of a list of recommendations that they have.

Now, OpenAI says that the firings have, again, nothing to do with the safety concerns. They said it was about how they handled sensitive information. One of their research leaders sent a memo out to all of OpenAI saying that they agree with a lot of the recommendations. And OpenAI says in a statement, "our investigation confirmed that these individuals mishandled sensitive information outside established company procedures, violating our policies, and breaking the trust essential to our work."

OpenAI also says that they are actively creating new contracts with third party safety assessors. These are going to be outside people who come in, will investigate OpenAI safety practices, will look into any of these other safety incidents to give us, you know, greater clarity into what happened.

But the researchers are still talking, and they say that their firing has already created a culture of fear within OpenAI. I'll read to you what one of these researchers posted on X. They say, "my former colleagues are telling me they are confused about what to believe. They also are afraid to speak and worry their personal phones will be searched for messages to us and third parties. I worry that the pervading fear to speak up and engage with third parties will mean OpenAI will cut corners on safety behind closed doors."

It is really incredible to see employees like this speak up now. OpenAI and Anthropic, their employees have always been well known for not being afraid to speak up and speak out.

[10:00:00]

And now we're seeing, you know, a flurry of posts on social media from people calling on OpenAI to give more details on exactly what happened and why these three were fired versus