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Republicans Spending Millions on Ads Recounting Brutal Murders; GOP Stronghold Breaks With Trump on Data Centers; Looksmaxxing Streamer Clavicular Pleads Not Guilty to Rape Charge; New Mexico A.G. Files Civil Lawsuit Against Two Epstein Advisers; Ebola Spreads From Congo to Four Other Countries; Stella Parton Says She Had to Correct Her Vote for Governor Three Times; Teacher Recounts Being Shot, Playing Dead During Oregon School Shooting. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired October 22, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:31:43]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": This election season, Republicans are pushing ads that detail brutal killings to make Democrats look soft on crime. But families of victims featured say the political point comes at their personal cost. Now, a CNN Investigation probes how much is being spent on ads like this and how much pain they're causing.

CNN's Isabelle Chapman is here with the details on this. Isabel, tell us what you're learning.

ISABELLE CHAPMAN, CNN INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER: Yeah, so if you can imagine someone you love is murdered, and years later you turn on your T.V. or are watching videos on YouTube and you see their death used in a political ad, that's what happened here.

A CNN review found the Senate Leadership Fund, the Republican Party's most powerful Senate super PAC, spent at least $17 million on spots naming specific victims or perpetrators. We spoke with a number of victims' families who said they were never contacted by this group. So to give you an idea of what the ads are like, you're about to see a commercial that features the murder of 18-year-old Jessica Ledford, who was killed in Michigan in the 1990s.

I should warn you, the language is graphic. Give it a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mark Osborne serving a life sentence for killing 18-year-old Jessica Ledford.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Osborne stabbed her, raped her, strangled her, left her for dead in the park.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHAPMAN: So I spoke to Jessica's fiance, Robert Homrich, who said he was upset when he came across the ad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT HOMRICH, JESSICA LEDFORD'S FIANCE: It really caught me off guard. It certainly was not anything I was expecting. And to just see him on the screen like that and being used in that way, I guess words really can't describe how I felt. It was very off-putting.

There's more to this than just a political race. And these types of things are not tools for your political campaign.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: What he dealt with. He's not the only one, though, right? Jessica Ledford's fiance, other families spoke to you. What did they say?

CHAPMAN: Right. So Homrich isn't the only one who says the group never contacted him. I spoke to two mothers whose children's murders were used in ads funded by this group. One woman whose five-year-old daughter was raped and murdered in the 1990s told us she had a panic attack the first time she saw an ad that described what happened to her daughter, Nicole. She asked "Why the group was using someone's child's death for political gain?"

KEILAR: Oh, my goodness. So what's the response from the Senate Leadership Fund?

CHAPMAN: SLF didn't respond to questions about its ad strategy, but they did provide us with this statement. Every life lost to violent crime is an intolerable tragedy, made even worse when it is entirely preventable and the direct consequence of failed liberal policies. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. Isabelle Chapman, thank you so much. Boris?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": As the midterms zoom ever closer, the battle over data centers has become a lightning rod issue for many voters. President Trump is also facing opposition from some of his most loyal supporters over the facilities. CNN's Donie O'Sullivan spoke to some of them in Kentucky.

[13:35:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROOKE MCGOWAN, HUMANS FIRST ACTIVIST: We are responding to this huge data center overreach, what looks like an invasion across our country, this explosion.

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Here in Maysville, Kentucky, a Trump stronghold, activists and locals have gathered to protest the building of a massive A.I. data center by Mark Zuckerberg's Meta.

MCGOWAN: Not all progress is good. All right? O'SULLIVAN: President Trump recently, I think he said, you know, communities that don't want A.I. centers want to stay backward or something like that.

MCGOWAN: I did hear that.

(LAUGH)

O'SULLIVAN: When you hear that, how did you feel?

MCGOWAN: I said, well, I guess I'm going to be backwards and poor.

(LAUGH)

MCGOWAN: But I also want to reiterate that not everything the president does do I agree with, but not everything my husband does do I agree with.

MAX MORAN, MASON COUNTY RESIDENT: I'm Republican, but due to his stance, I feel he's going to cost the Republicans the House and the Senate, maybe not big margins. It might be very slim margins, but he needs to reverse his stance.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Max Moran is among the locals who have organized to oppose the data center.

MORAN: So that is Delsia Bare. She's actually nearly blind in her eyes. She's one of the landowners we've been helping since last year. They felt coerced into signing these contracts to sell their land.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Zuckerberg and Meta should have never walked out of that courtroom with a dime left in their damn pockets.

(APPLAUSE)

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Delsia and her mother, Ida, live on a 1,200- acre farm a few miles outside of town. The pair made headlines around the world when it was reported they turned down $26 million to sell their land.

IDA HUDDLESTON, KENTUCKY FARM OWNER: They come through the door around May the 2nd, 2025, and said, we want to buy your land for $35,000 an acre.

O'SULLIVAN: Technically, on the contract, you don't know who's trying to buy your land.

DELSIA BARE, KENTUCKY FARM OWNER: Nope, it's a non-disclosure agreement.

O'SULLIVAN: But people here believe it's Mark Zuckerberg, it's Meta?

BARE: Mom goes through the contracts, really, with fine-tooth comb. She says, I don't care what you do, but get out of this.

O'SULLIVAN: What does the land mean to both of you? BARE: Freedom.

HUDDLESTON: Yeah, life and freedom.

BARE: Should I choose to live totally off of this land that we've got, I could. I wouldn't have to be beholden to anything out there.

O'SULLIVAN: Did they tell you what they wanted to do with the land?

BARE: No, they did not tell us what they wanted to do with the land. They were just in a very big hurry to get it off of you as fast as possible.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Trump won this Kentucky county in the last election by a 44-point margin.

HUDDLESTON: I voted for Trump. I have every time he's run. I would go questioning it now.

O'SULLIVAN: Trump said if you're against data centers, you're going to end up backward and poor.

BARE: And that sort of pisses you off when you're from Appalachia anyway, you've always been backward and poor.

O'SULLIVAN: Do you think this issue is going to hurt Republicans in the midterms?

BARE: I hope it hurts them. They need to be voted out.

HUDDLESTON: Voted out.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): In this Bible Belt household, this fight is spiritual.

O'SULLIVAN: For you, it's about more than land. It's --

BARE: It's about humanity. If we don't stop this, there's not going to be a future for humanity. That's anti-human. That's what A.I. is. Oh, let's let it make the decision. But it doesn't have any morals. And it can't be held to God's standards.

O'SULLIVAN: Is there any amount of money Zuckerberg can give you to get the hell out of here?

BARE: Nope.

HUDDLESTON: No.

O'SULLIVAN: Really?

BARE: Really. Her last words to him was, you may get it, but you have to rock (ph) me out of your feet first. You can bring the bulldozers if you want to. You'll have to bulldoze it down around my head.

O'SULLIVAN: You're really going up against -- it's David and Goliath here.

BARE: But I'll remind you, it only took one stone to bring down a Philistine. One itty bitty little stone in the right place can bring down any giant that there is on this planet.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Donie O'Sullivan, CNN, Kentucky.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: An amazing report. Our thanks to Donie O'Sullivan for that.

Ahead on "CNN News Central," the Looksmaxxing influencer known as Clavicular appearing in court, pleading not guilty to charges of raping a 17-year-old girl at his family's Massachusetts home. The details when we come back.

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[13:44:24]

SANCHEZ: Today in court, the so-called Looksmaxxing live streamer known as Clavicular pleaded not guilty to charges that he raped a 17- year-old girl. His real name is Braden Peters, and he appeared on a Massachusetts courtroom for his arraignment today. Prosecutors accused Peters of giving the girl alcohol until she was drunk and then sexually assaulting her at his family's Cape Cod home in May 2025. Peters was charged last month after a police investigation. His lawyer says the sex was consensual. CNN's Jean Casarez joins us with more on this.

So Jean, what are the details?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the details are very serious.

[13:45:00]

This is rape in Massachusetts, maximum 20 years in prison and upon conviction, you are a registered sex offender. So just as you said, Boris, it was May 2025. According to the criminal complaint, the accuser and Braden Peters had been communicating on Instagram.

And so they were both in Massachusetts. She is at her grandparents' house. He is at his family home with his mother and his grandmother. So he messages her, I'll send an Uber, why don't you come over to my house? You can be on the live streaming on my Looksmaxxing. And so she did, and he ushered her into the house, say go upstairs. It's actually his bedroom. He's live streaming at that point.

He says, look, don't say on the air that, number one, you're 17, and number two, this, it's water, it's not alcohol. So they start together on the streaming. He is having her drink the alcohol, which she says, according to the complaint, was vodka.

She said she had two to three shots of it. She said that once she got loosened up, she was a little flirty with him. They actually kissed on the live streaming. But once he shut it off, she went to his bed, and she started to go to sleep. She woke up the next morning, the complaint states, and she is alleging she was being raped at that moment by him when she woke up.

Now, I researched the precedent case law in Massachusetts of what has to be proven to show that alcohol and plying of alcohol results in a lack of ability for someone to consent. Number one, that the intoxication is present. Number two, prosecutors must show that the alcohol, the drug itself, made it so that the accuser was -- had the inability to consent. And number three, the defendant knew or should have known that the rendering of the alcohol would make it so they were not able to voluntarily consent to what was happening.

And the next hearing is in November. He's been released on bond, had to give his passport, not to associate with the accuser. And if he gets in any more trouble with the criminal law system, this bond could be revoked and he would be in jail in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

SANCHEZ: Jean Casarez, thank you so much for the update on that story. Brianna?

KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour. New Mexico's attorney general has filed a civil lawsuit against two of Jeffrey Epstein's closest advisers. This lawsuit accusing Darren Indyke and Richard Kahn, the co-executors of Epstein's estate, of having facilitated and concealed his crimes.

Both men have denied having any knowledge or involvement in Epstein's sex trafficking operation. The suit follows an investigation into a property that Epstein owned in New Mexico. You see it here. It's called Zorro Ranch, which drew scrutiny after the release of the Epstein files.

And the Ebola outbreak in the Congo has now spread to three other African countries and to France. Nigeria is the latest country affected. Officials say a woman who got sick soon after arriving from Uganda has tested positive. Uganda confirmed an outbreak linked to a man traveling from Congo.

And Kenya announced its first case involving a man who also traveled from Congo and died after testing positive. Kenya now reports nine cases connected to him. And France reported a case in June, a doctor who recovered.

The World Health Organization says this is the fastest growing Ebola outbreak in history, with more than 9,500 cases in Congo alone. More than 4,600 people have died.

And get ready to pay more for health insurance next year if you get coverage as part of your job. A new insurance industry forecast says as companies pay out more, they're likely to shift more of the costs on to workers. Aon forecasts that premiums will rise for the fourth year in a row as employers pay 9.5 percent more next year to cover their workers. That's partly due to higher use of health care services, expensive cancer treatments and high demand for costly obesity drugs. Dolly Parton's sister says that she had some trouble while she was voting early in Tennessee. On social media, Stella Parton says while she was voting in Nashville, she had to correct her choice for governor three times. She says the machine kept changing her vote to the wrong candidate. And she's urging voters to double check the printed ballot before submitting.

SANCHEZ: Always a good idea. Election officials and experts say this is not something nefarious, though, that nearly always it is unintended touches on the screen that cause this.

CNN's Gabe Cohen is with us. So Gabe, walk us through what might have happened.

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, and to be clear, we have seen a whole bunch of these claims popping up in recent days, not just in Tennessee, although some of them are there.

[13:50:00]

We've also seen them in Texas. One of the reasons, of course, that this one is getting a lot of attention is because we're talking about Dolly Parton's sister.

So what we are -- what these folks are talking about are the touch screens that voters in dozens of states are able to use during the voting process, the early voting process, at polling locations, where they can make their selections.

What that machine then does is after you're done, it will print you a ballot receipt. So you can double check that what you think you put into the machine is what is eventually going to be cast for you as a vote. Once you have gone through that, it will then get scanned into a different machine, and that is when it actually gets tabulated, added in as an actual vote.

What we're talking about here are people who got that printed receipt and said, this does not match up with what I thought I filled out on the screen. Dolly Parton's sister, one of those people who said repeatedly that she was getting back this receipt that said she was voting for the Republican candidate for Senate there. She had to fill it out a couple of times.

To be clear, though, officials in Tennessee are saying this is not a malfunctioning machine, and it doesn't appear to be, at least. It is not something that has been hacked. What it most likely is, is user error, that people end up touching the wrong name on the screen.

We have seen it in past elections, as well. That is something that was echoed to me by various voting rights attorneys and organizations. The same people, by the way, who have been fighting the Trump administration on some of the claims they have been making about so- called vulnerabilities or widespread voter fraud, the same people are saying it's not necessarily an issue with the machines. It looks to be user error. And I think it's also a really good reminder of why we have so many checks and balances in our voting system. Because the ballot, that printed receipt, is not actually a cast vote. And in the case of Dolly Parton's sister, she was able to spoil it on multiple occasions and go back and recast it, fill out her selections again. So voters out there should not be panicking that voting machines are being hacked or anything like that. But it does get to this bigger conversation.

And it's one of the reasons, also, why there are a lot of states that are considering going back to hand-marked paper ballots to remove these touchscreens. That's not necessarily going to happen. But there are a lot of states that are talking about it because they want to avoid errors like this.

KEILAR: Really interesting. And thank you for that reporting, Gabe Cohen. Appreciate it.

We have some new details now from the Bend, Oregon, school shooting investigation. One teacher describing how she had no chance to protect the children and had to play dead in order to survive after she was shot. We'll have that story ahead.

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[13:57:33]

KEILAR: For the first time, we are hearing from a teacher wounded in last week's deadly shooting, the school shooting in Oregon. Becky Drury now describing what happened when she came face-to-face with the 16-year-old gunman and what she did to survive. CNN's Leigh Waldman has this story.

Leigh, what's Drury saying about what must have just been terrifying moments?

LEIGH WALDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Truly terrifying, Brianna. She's talking about how quickly everything happened. She heard some kind of commotion, went outside of her classroom. That's when she saw the 16- year-old gunman, and she tried to get back to her students.

Let's pull up part of her statements now, where she talks about how quickly everything unfolded. She says, "I turned to shut the door behind me but the shooter was already there. Before I could do anything more, he shot me at close range and I fell to the ground. I did the only thing I could do which was pretend to be dead in the hope that he would not shoot me again."

We know that Drury, she nearly lost her left hand in this shooting. She was also shot in her right arm. But there's been some misleading reports, misleading narrative, this hero narrative thrust upon her that she tried to use her own body to shield her children. She didn't even have a moment to try and do that.

She is releasing this statement now to try and heal some of the wounds that were inflicted on her one week ago in that horrific shooting that claimed the lives of three young children and another teacher, Brianna.

KEILAR: And what are you learning about how the 16-year-old shooter got the gun and whether his parents could face charges here?

WALDMAN: That seems to be the biggest question. How did this 16-year- old get this gun? We know that he was using a pump-action shotgun. It was bought legally by his mother. Now, Oregon does have strict gun laws, and anyone under the age of 18 cannot own a firearm, with very few exceptions. Some of those exceptions are for certain long guns that are out there that can be transferred from a parent and guns that are used for hunting and practice.

We're still waiting to hear from law enforcement about the details here, but that question of if his mother will face charges, there's a precedent that has been set in recent years. We just have to look at the Crumbleys in Michigan and Colin Gray in Georgia. We know that the Crumbleys, they had bought their son a gun for Christmas, same thing with the Grays.

They both faced charges. Both of these families faced charges following these horrific shootings.

KEILAR: All right. Leigh --