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Erin Burnett Outfront

New Details On FlyDubai Flight; Paxton Blames Trump Convention; "Full Armor Of God". Aired 7-8p ET

Aired September 30, 2026 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:15]

ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:

Breaking news, new details about the diverted FlyDubai plane and the suspect who stabbed his copilot. And we'll speak to someone who was on the plane and describes what it was like to drop 20,000 feet in 35 seconds.

Plus, the Republican nominee for Texas Senate, Ken Paxton, caught on tape blaming Trump's midterm convention for his slump in the polls behind James Talarico. Trump is now responding.

And Hegseth unveiling an office for religious affairs at the Pentagon. He says he wants the Pentagon in a, quote, "full armor of God".

Let's go OUTFRONT.

(MUSIC)

BURNETT: And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett.

And OUTFRONT tonight, we begin with the breaking news. FlyDubai suspending all flights to and from Israel after a copilot stabbed the other pilot in what Israeli officials are calling an attempted terrorist attack. Investigators are now looking at the plane's cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder to try to figure out what was happening, who was saying what, when, and why a pilot allegedly tried to bring down a Boeing 737 with 174 people on board.

So, who is he? And what was his motive?

Well, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu jumping in on this very quickly, telling CNN's Jim Sciutto that the man's an Omani national. We understood that to be the case. But interestingly, the prime minister says Israel had no prior intelligence warning about the attack.

Now that's coming from him. We're waiting for more reporting.

What we do know is that the plane plunged 20,000 feet in 35 seconds. And with that plunge obviously came incredible speed. The plane was cruising along, cruising altitude at about 460 miles an hour. But then, as it accelerated downward, its speed increased to 700 miles an hour, close to the speed of sound. So, earlier, we spoke to Adam Polo. He was on that flight. And he was

on that flight with his wife and his two young children.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ADAM POLO, PASSENGER ON DIVERTED FLYDUBAI FLIGHT: In the first second, it felt like a normal air pocket. when you usually, when you have it normally in air flights, but then after one second you felt that the decrease and the acceleration of the downfall is not normal. The electricity, like all of the multimedia system and the air conditioning in the airplanes stopped working.

People that were standing in the aisle or just going, you know, to the toilet for, they fell. They fell. People fell from it. Anyone that wasn't sitting fell.

So it was like the craziest rollercoaster that you ever did, but, like, multiplied by a thousand. This is how it felt. And it just didn't feel right. It felt like something really wrong is happening here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Just imagine the terror. And there with his wife and young children, that plunge could explain why the plane's rudder was actually damaged. I mean, just to show you the speed and the violence.

Now, the pilot who was stabbed, we now know, is an Indian citizen. And I'll warn you, as we talk about him, that the video we're about to show you of him is graphic because he was stabbed. But he did manage to fight back. He fought back.

So, he eventually opened the cockpit door, bloodied and prone, but was able to unlatch it. Really, the move that saved the lives of every single person on board and allowed passengers and crew to then overpower the hijacking suspect.

Now, according to the Indian embassy in Saudi Arabia, that copilot miraculously is alive and is in stable condition. Now, another passenger spoke out to "The New York Times", saying that once the suspect was pulled out of the cockpit, he and another passenger tied the suspect's hands with headphone cables.

Jeremy Diamond and Pete Muntean have the latest developments on this fast-moving story.

And, Jeremy, I want to start with you. You're OUTFRONT in Tel Aviv. I know you've had a chance to speak to passengers as they were getting off the plane that came to bring them out of Saudi Arabia back to Tel Aviv. What is the latest that you're learning on this investigation right now?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, Erin, Israeli officials are beginning to call this an attempted terrorist attack, with the Israeli prime minister tonight even saying that what was prevented here would have been a 9/11 style disaster. But privately, Erin, I can tell you that my Israeli sources are being

far more circumspect about all of this. They say that they are certainly investigating this as a potential terrorist attack, but they also acknowledge that there is a lot that they still don't know, particularly about the suspects motives in this case. So far, officials have yet to publicly identify this individual beyond sources telling us that he was an Omani national.

[19:05:08]

He is now in the custody of Saudi Arabia and the Israeli Prime Minister tonight telling our colleague Jim Sciutto. that this suspect is expected to be extradited to the UAE, where the Israelis will be able to have far more involvement and cooperation in the next layers of that investigation.

What we are learning a lot more about though already are the heroic rescue efforts that took place on board. I heard tonight and spoke with several of the men who were involved in charging towards that cockpit, describing the moments of terror on board and also the ways in which they zip tied the assailant. He apparently didn't put up much of a fight once he was actually taken down.

I also spoke with Dr. Shota Musaev, a dentist on board who actually administered medical care to the pilot who had been stabbed. He told me that he was terrified that that Indian pilot might not make it, that he was coming in and out of consciousness as they were landing in Saudi Arabia. But thankfully that now at a hospital in Saudi Arabia and recovering from his serious injuries -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right, Jeremy, thank you very much, in Tel Aviv, and we are learning new details on how this unfolded inside the plane, right? Miraculously, the next flight crew, the pilots, British pilots, were on board. They were going to be flying the plane back. They were there to then fly it and pull it up.

Pete Muntean is OUTFRONT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For the passengers on FlyDubai Flight 1073, this was the moment of relief after their trip turned terrifying. The Boeing 737 Max left Dubai for Tel Aviv and climbed normally to 34,000 feet. But two hours into the flight, the plane suddenly plunged. FlightRadar24 data shows a steep descent, a sharp climb, then another dive.

The jet ultimately losing nearly 20,000 feet of altitude in 35 seconds, reaching speeds of nearly 700 miles per hour.

MIKA BAUMAN, PASSENGER ON DIVERTED FLYDUBAI FLIGHT: We just felt the plane drop completely and start spinning a little and everyone was screaming. There were children crying.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): Israeli officials say the flight's first officer stabbed the captain, identified as Smit Machchhar from India, and then tried to crash the airplane. Passengers and off-duty FlyDubai pilots rushed forward, forced their way into the cockpit. The injured pilot apparently able to unlock the door.

"I grabbed the attacker, put him in a chokehold, and dragged him out first," passenger Yaniv Hayun told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, his shirt still stained with blood. "Two other guys came over," he said. "I jumped back, grabbed the controls and started pulling back the handles. The plane started to level out a bit and then the pilot told me he was taking over the controls from there."

Hayun told Netanyahu he knew what to do because he watched documentaries about plane crashes.

Disturbing video shows passengers providing first aid to the stabbed pilot, his blood smeared on a door. Nearby, the attacker also apparently injured in a blood soaked shirt.

"They tried to murder the pilot and we took over the crew," one passenger says.

By then, the flight had declared an emergency, first transmitting the emergency transponder code, then the code for a hijacking.

PASSENGER ON DIVERTED FLYDUBAI FLIGHT: We have taken control of the terrorist. We are about to land. Anyone who hears me, we need help.

MUNTEAN (voice-over): The plane landed in Saudi Arabia, apparently damaged by the force of the sudden dive. Ultimately arriving at Tel Aviv's airport on a different FlyDubai flight, Israeli passengers chanted, "The people of Israel live" -- after a brush with death that apparently originated from inside the cockpit.

PASSENGER ON DIVERTED FLYDUBAI FLIGHT: I felt that I am losing it, and I'm going to lose all my family. It was very, very terrifying.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MUNTEAN: Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin says this incident triggered no credible threats in the U.S. Even still, the agency says it's reviewing policies to make sure Americans are safe.

There have been successful cases, Erin, of what's known by suicide by pilot like the Germanwings crash of 2015. That sparked renewed calls for pilot mental health screening and reform there because it's a major stigma for commercial pilots who say treatment can jeopardize their livelihood. The U.S. Senate just passed a bill that would increase options for pilots, but it's yet to pass the House -- Erin.

BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Pete. The Germanwings one. There was an Air Egypt one, of course, many years ago. MH370. We'll never know, but those fears are there. Thank you so much.

And as I mentioned at the top of the show, we spoke to one passenger on the flight, and I wanted to share with you a little bit more of what he said. And just to think about this before we play it, to have almost died with his two young children beside him now just able to start to process what happened.

[19:10:02]

Here he is, in his own words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

POLO: It's not a big plane. It's the Boeing 737. So, I was on row 13. In the first second, it felt like a normal air pocket when you usually -- when you have it normally in air flights, but then like after one second, you felt that the decrease in the acceleration of the downfall is not normal. After another couple of seconds, people start to shouting that there is stabbing and there is blood and we need help.

Many people stood up and went for the -- towards the cockpit. But then, eventually, they said, like, after a couple of seconds, like, stay at your places. Like, don't come home because it will just make more of a mess than help if everyone will enjoy the cockpit.

One pilot, he was stabbing the other pilot. And in the first pilot, like, the main pilot is injured pretty badly. And then the stabber or the terrorist, how you want to call him, but the guys that went into the cockpit, they neutralized him, and he was handicuffed, and he was lying with his hands tied behind his back. And people were guarding him for the whole time.

Everything was full of blood. And when we landed in Saudi Arabia, then they brought the ambulance, the pilots that were stabbed, and the terrorists, and they both put him inside the ambulance. He was covered in blood, not full of blood like the pilot that was stabbed, but still he was covered with blood.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: John Miller and Andrew McCabe are here with me now.

And, John, obviously this is moving fast. It was one of those situations, though, where before we knew anything, there were a lot of people who were saying a lot of things as fact that we didn't at the time know to be fact, right? It's been one of those days. And now we are getting more and more facts coming in. What are you hearing happened here?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, what we know is the plane's in the air at 7:05 a.m. Shortly after that, it starts squawking at 9:31, the emergency signal, as Pete told us. Then it switched to the hijacked signal.

And then at 10:28, it switches back to the emergency signal. What does that tell us? What it tells us is that likely the pilot, when this attack started, was able to throw that signal into effect so that people on the ground would know something very wrong was unfolding. And that the third signal, which is going back to a regular emergency, was just to tell people on the ground, we need a place to land and now. You know, what happens next is really the digital archeological dig,

if you will, of that co-pilot's life. They got to go through his computer, through his social media, into his phones, look at his conversations with friends and associates, figure out had he been radicalized or was he suffering from depression.

We don't know what this is, but we do know from the geography, Erin, of that map, that when that rapid descent starts, they're approaching Israel. So, we have to ask the question, if it's a terrorist attack, outside of killing everyone on the plane, if that was the intent, did they also have a target, a building, an air base, a military location, a government location?

And all of that is what they're hoping to find out. Key to this is going to be the black box from the plane, which will give you the telemetry of what went up and what went down and who had which control, but also the voice recorder for the cockpit, where we could end up hearing something that could be a real clue.

BURNETT: And maybe that could -- that could answer it.

I mean, Director McCabe, the Israeli prime minister saying 9/11-style attack, obviously, the implications of that are not a plane that crashes into the ground, killing everyone on board. The implications are hitting mass buildings and killing thousands of people.

Now, we don't know why he used that phrase and certainly not privy to any information that would lead in that direction at this time. But how likely do you think it is that this was terrorism as opposed to depression and sort of a suicidal homicidal pilot as we've seen in other cases?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Yeah, so the prime minister certainly has access to better information than we do at this point. And I think that -- and people rightly want to know the answer to that question because it tells us more about was this a one-off incident of someone who is deeply disturbed? We have seen that in cases with pilots intentionally downing aircraft in the past.

[19:15:01]

Or was this person acting at the behest of or the direction of or even just in in solidarity with a terrorist organization, because that's a very different threat and one that we need to consider prospectively.

Right now, I'd say there are indicators of terrorism here. Again, not enough to draw the conclusion, but the fact that this episode started with a violent attack, a stabbing on the -- stabbing of the pilot rather than just waiting until the pilot leaves the cockpit and then locking him out seems a bit more this like inclination towards violence and incorporating violence into the act as he was as the copilot was doing it certainly leans in the direction of terrorism.

And then of course the possibility that it was done specifically to target Israel and Israeli citizens and potentially a specific target within Israel as John has mentioned. So those things are all standing out pretty strongly now but there's a lot more work left to be done.

BURNETT: And, John, you know, interesting, as the director says, was this done at the behest of or the direction of, right, whether an org -- you know, some sort of an organization or a government or a government-sponsored group, right? I mean, these are the real questions we're looking at, especially in the context of the war that's going on.

MILLER: Well, and I mean, as Andy pointed out, Sure, you have to take into account that anything is possible in terms of cause or motive, but first you have to take into account the tensions in the region, that somebody could have been outraged. The idea that terrorist groups, you know whether it's ISIS or al-Qaeda, have been fixated on aviation as weaponizing airplanes.

But also, Iran has been very busy on a recruiting campaign to recruit external operators. or what they call disposable agents, someone they can get to do something for them who's expendable. Every possibility here, including depression and suicide, but every possibility is on the table. I would start with terrorism, given the statements of the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel.

BURNETT: So, Director, when you think about pilots and they move a lot around a lot, FlyDubai is actually quite a large airline and has a lot of routes, so we don't know the routes necessarily that be that the pilot who stabbed his copilot has been on right we don't know all the places he's been but we know it's probably a lot and it's probably a lot in the Middle East and North Africa. How does that help or hinder investigators in finding you know what connections there are out there?

MCCABE: Yeah. So the investigators are going to be basically disassembling every aspect of this person's life. They're going to be looking at all of his digital kind of footprint, social media, devices that they can seize. They'll execute search warrants on all of his e- mail accounts, phone accounts. They'll execute physical search warrants in the places he lived, the places he worked, things of that nature.

But as you said, in this case, there is an interesting twist, and that is when If, and we don't know, this is just a possibility, but if this person was recruited to act on behalf of a terrorist organization, it's possible that that recruitment involved meeting with handlers or controllers in other countries.

And who better but a pilot to be able to do that? He has perfect cover to travel in and out of countries where you might be able to meet with someone who was your connection to another group or maybe who was passing you, you know, supplies or direction or or kind of operational control in the way that we normally think about it.

Again, this is just an additional thing that investigators really have to consider right now. They will probably like to -- like to try to understand where he was, places he went in these different locations in between flights. They're going to look for video coverage if they can pin him down to any locations. So, it's a lot of work for folks to do.

BURNETT: Yeah, a lot. Well, and certainly if he was based in the Emirates where fly Dubai is is based, there will be a lot of video. It's a heavily, heavily monitored society.

Thank you very much both of you. I appreciate your time.

And next, our breaking news continues. We're going to go inside the flight simulator. We talk about the terrifying events here and what happened to go 700 miles an hour straight down. What was that like inside the plane?

There were some people actually standing up, we understand, as it fell nearly 20,000 feet.

Plus, Texas Republican Senate candidate on the defense tonight after blaming Trump's midterm convention for his grim poll numbers.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN PAXTON (R), TEXAS SENATE CANDIDATE: To be honest with you, the numbers in case when we do that in convention, we'll drop our numbers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: And Trump demanding former Fed Chair Jerome Powell resign or be sued. That ultimatum after Trump suffered a major blow, a new report clears Powell of any wrongdoing with the Fed's renovation.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:24:13]

BURNETT: Breaking news, a passenger aboard the FlyDubai flight describing the utter terror on the plane even after the attacker was restrained. Take a listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASSAF RAJUAN, PASSENGER ON DIVERTED FLYDUBAI FLIGHT (through translated): There was nothing but desert beneath us. We feared being taken to an enemy country or landing in the middle of the desert. We didn't know who to trust, whether the pilot was on our side or who was on which side. We even started suspecting the flight attendants.

We knew nothing. You suspect everyone, all the crew members, except the passengers. You don't know where you are or where you are going to land. We just wanted to get on the ground.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, Aaron Murphy. He's a commercial pilot and a flight instructor in Canada. He's in a flight simulator right now with us, along with his colleague, Angelo Peterson, I'm sorry, who's flying the simulator. [19:25:01]

So, thanks so much to both of you.

So as Angelo's going to fly, Aaron, the plane is flying normally for two hours, right? You know, that's a route-- I think there's at least 10 of these flights a day, right? Back and forth and back and forth. And most people on that plane have probably been on that route many times. And you look down, and it's desert pretty much the whole way.

So, you're just kind of lulled there, staring into space. And then it drops more than 20,000 feet in 35 seconds, finally topping out at a speed, we understand, of 700 miles an hour plus. So, can you just show us what that looks like?

AARON MURPHY, CANADIAN COMMERCIAL PILOT AND FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR: We certainly can. And, Erin, hello. Thanks for inviting us onto the show tonight and all your viewers, of course.

Angelo is going to take us through exactly that procedure that happened to the flight-to-by flight. And we're going to start that right now.

Let me just change the view and we can take a closer look at things on the outside of the aircraft and the instrumentation. I will be trying to give everyone a bit of -- a little bit of information on what's happening on the primary flight display as we go along, which is the image you're seeing in the lower left corner.

Angelo, when you're ready, if you'd like to take us through a really nasty descent in the MAX 8. And of course, this is a 737-800, but let's pretend it's a MAX 8.

When you're ready, sir, autopilot disconnect. And down we go.

And if you can give us the external view of the aircraft when you're ready. Thank you.

There we are with the FlyDubai. That's the 800 model right there. And right there is the overspeed warning. And I'm going to just get my hand in here if I can and start pointing a little bit on the screen. If you can see my hand on the left side of that screen right there, there's the barber pole indicating the overspeed.

We're looking at nothing but ground on the primary flex display on the additive care and the jet. If you can take a look in the center of your screen, that is approximately what we would have seen -- we are now recovering at about 18,000, 17,000, 16,000 feet, perhaps a little more of a dive than the aircraft is today.

BURNETT: I mean --

MURPHY: Erin, back to you.

BURNETT: Yeah, so, okay, just to even imagine what that's like. I know there were some people, they said they were sort of standing by the bathroom, right? They would have fallen immediately. I mean, frankly, it's miraculous with something like that, that people didn't get more seriously injured or die. So --

MURPHY: That's correct. I answer the stick shaker, it's the overspeed warning that's clicking away in the background, not the stick shaker stick shakers at the other end of the spectrum where you're stalling the aircraft. So that is still going.

We're just coming into the 500 knots, so some of the numbers that we're seeing from the reporting initially are they don't make sense to me because if you're descending that rapidly, the aircraft would have disintegrated completely. So, the numbers will change when we get the preliminary report.

BURNETT: That's interesting because that -- those -- I mean, as you point out, those are only the numbers that we have right now, but interesting that you said that that could have caused it to break apart. And that maybe some of those are a little higher than actually happened.

We do know there was damage on the rudder, right, from whatever the speeds actually will turn out to be. And portions of it apparently tore away during flight. Now obviously with serious damage to the rudder, a plane's going to crash.

So, when you just look at what we know here, how fortunate do you think it is that this plane was actually even able to safely land?

MURPHY: Well, when I saw the images of the aircraft on the ground with the rudder section torn out, I immediately had a cold chill because the amount of damage that would cause hydraulic systems, electrical systems, especially hydraulics, once you start ripping apart electronic, sorry, hydraulics, you start to bleed electronic fuel, hydraulic fuel, excuse me, I'll get my words right here, and that would have affected other systems in the airplane. The saving grace on this one is at the vertical fin.

So you'll see the vertical fin of the aircraft and then the rudder is at the rear portion, the rear portion of that. That rudder was torn away. The vertical fin was what saved the day because that gave the aircraft directional stability.

And I do not know how much longer they could have flown it after they landed because of the loss of hydraulic fluid due to the rudder being removed from the aircraft.

So, his is a very incredible story about the MAX 8. We've seen the MAX 8 in the news before. I've been certainly involved with that. And to see this aircraft land safely after going, I think it went supersonic momentarily. I think that MAX 8 is fully redeemed.

It's an excellent aircraft. That old airframe, everyone was questioning how safe that was. I think we just got our answer. The other problems were something else entirely.

BURNETT: Yeah, Boeing, as we said, Boeing 737 took with a Max 8. Thank you both very much. Really incredible. You think of so many

levels of just one in a whatever that things would have gone right. And it did time after time after time.

[19:30:01]

It's really incredible.

MURPHY: I'm so glad everybody made it out safely. Thanks for having us.

BURNETT: All right, thank you both. Angelo, Aaron, thank you.

And next, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announcing a new Office of Religious Affairs.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: Our department is, you might say, putting on the full armor of God.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Plus, CNN obtaining the six-page statement the young woman gave to investigators after the alleged gang rape at Cornell University. So, what did she say in it?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BURNETT: Breaking news, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announcing a brand-new Office of Religious Affairs focused on, quote, "elevating spiritual readiness".

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: The experts, our chaplains, will finally have an advocate at the highest levels. Policy and resources will serve the mission, not smother the mission.

[19:35:05]

As Psalm 33:12 extols us, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. Replacing spiritual health at the same level as physical health, our department is, you might say, putting on the full armor of God. Because while we wage physical war, we all know the real battle is spiritual.

God is good. Evil is not. And America's military must understand the difference.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego. He's on the Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs Committee. He also served with the U.S. Marines in Iraq.

So, Senator, you know, just talking about so many of the stories in the news these days, to hear such --

SEN. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-AZ): Yeah.

BURNETT: -- religiosity and obviously Christian religiosity from the United States government can be extremely unsettling, to say the least. The secretary of defense said quite a few things there, including that the U.S. military is putting on the full armor of God.

How do you respond to that?

GALLEGO: Well, I don't quite understand it. Like, look, I served in combat. I, prayer was very important to me, especially in some very, very hard times and to me and my comrades who were going through some very hard times, especially when we lost a lot of our brothers. There's never really been this disconnect between the military and whatever religion you choose to believe in. And from -- when I served, I served with Muslims, served with Jews, served with Christians, served with atheists.

And what the Department of Defense was very good about, no matter what, was making sure everyone felt comfortable practicing or not practicing however they wanted.

The thing that I think that really makes me kind of mad is that this is him kind of weaponizing religion because he needs to distract from the fact that he's losing a war. If he needs to set up any type of new part of the office in Department of Defense, it's figuring out how to win this war in Iran, not trying to add something that's already kind of redundant.

There's a lot of very good support for those that choose to worship in the Department of Defense. You know, if for us that served in the military, for example, even when you go through boot camp, which one of the hardest things possible, you always get Sunday off to go and worship at your place, your preferred place of worship.

So, this is just a distraction because he is -- I mean, at this point, he is the worst Department of Defense -- secretary of defense that we've ever had in this country. And instead of actually trying to answer how to win a war or get us out of this war, he's just trying to throw more red meat and more distraction.

The Department of Defense and people in the military have great access to chaplains, have amazing opportunities to be able to both worship and go to worship services. We have churches, we have active churches on base, mind you.

This is just him actually trying to describe the fact that he is, again, the worst secretary of defense that this country has had in quite a while.

BURNETT: Well, and you mentioned the context of the war. Hegseth also today claimed that negative or critical reporting about Trump's war with Iran amounts to treason.

Okay, treason, of course, is punishable by death. And then he went on to say this.

GALLEGO: Yeah.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: As you know, the information space, it's a battle space. Yet our so-called press makes Iranian state media look reasonable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: That's obviously absurd. It's actually shocking to hear him say such a thing. It's an insult to the American Constitution.

GALLEGO: It is (ph), yeah.

BURNETT: I mean, what do you say to that comparison?

GALLEGO: Well, look, Pete and I served in the Iraq War. We were both combat troops, frontline combat troops. And one of the things that we saw during the Iraq War was this weaponization of opinions against the war, which could have helped save a lot of our men and women, instead of actually being serious and looking seriously about the conduct of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, about how long we should have been there, the type of armaments we needed.

For example, for me, we needed a lot of armor so my men didn't die in IED strikes. It was the press that actually was very important in keeping us alive. The fact is, like, where the war is going, the way the war is going, is because he is a failure. And instead of actually dealing with that, dealing with the fundamental problem of that, he's going to go after the people that are either messengers.

But the messengers are the press because they're just carrying the message of what is actually going down on the ground. And historically, let's be honest, if we didn't have the press, we would have been in the Vietnam more longer than we would have. We would have seen some of these bad atrocities actually being covered up by the military. It would have been some of the abuses of some of our men and women in the military, whether it's the Navy with some of our aircraft carrier personnel, or other things.

So, we need the press to actually be a good check when it comes to what happens to our -- our men and women in the military.

[19:40:00]

And that's what scares him. It scares him because that's the one area that he cannot control. And at the same time, instead of actually dealing with it, he's just trying to make the press the enemy. And so, the fact is that he is the fact, he is one of the most important reasons why we're losing this war in Iran. It's him and Donald Trump.

But he can't deal with that. So, he's just going to blame y'all.

BURNETT: So I want to ask you about this development in the Texas Senate race. The Senate candidate, Ken Paxton, is doing some damage control because "The New York Times" got audio. Audio of him, where he blamed Trump's midterm convention in Texas, basically said, you know, it was not effective at the very least. He said he blamed it for his poll numbers going down against the Democrat in the race, James Talarico.

Here he is.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

KEN PAXTON (R), TEXAS SENATE CANDIDATE: So, to be honest with you, the numbers -- when we did that convention -- it dropped our numbers. Everybody's numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BURNETT: Interestingly, Trump has said he hasn't heard Paxton's comments. He defended the convention, but he's not taking on Paxton, who, of course, is sitting as the nominee because of Trump's backing, right, as opposed to John Cornyn, which is a big reason perhaps why this race is so close.

But do you think Democrats are simply too-- that they're too confident about the way this is going now?

GALLEGO: No, I don't think we're too confident. I think quite the opposite. Democrats are kind of the warriors all the time. When things are looking really good, we're always just kind of like antsy.

Look, Talarico is winning for a couple of reasons. Number one, the cost of living is just soaring through the roof all over this country. Paxton has no answer to that. You know, while Paxton is making millions of dollars in all these sweet little property deals, Texans can barely afford the private taxes that aren't being increased. Utility prices are going up. Cost of living when it comes to food, going up. Mortgage rates have gone up.

Paxton's not answering any of that at this point. And Talarico is having a very strong campaign that's actually talking about what people are talking about versus Paxton is talking about everything except for cost of living, right?

So, there's going to be some distractions. He's going to throw everything out there. He's going to blame Donald Trump. Donald Trump may eventually blame him.

They both stink, right? And they're just going to end up stinking together. But at the end of the day, the Texan is going to actually care about how their life is better. And I've been campaigning down the Rio Grande Valley with some great candidates and up in the San Antonio area and Houston, other parts for other great candidates, too.

We're hearing everything, the same thing everywhere we go. People are sick and tired of the chaos this administration has started. has caused them, and they are sick and tired of paying so much and not having a candidate such as Paxton that seems not to even care about the fact that people are basically going broke while the Trump administration's in charge.

BURNETT: Senator Gallego, I appreciate your time, and thank you very much.

And we are now learning some more about the woman who says she was raped by several men at Cornell and what she actually told police. And what she said is now turning this case upside down yet again.

Plus, former Fed Chair Jerome Powell cleared of any wrongdoing, but that is not stopping Trump from targeting.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:47:17]

BURNETT: Tonight, new details in the investigation into the alleged gang rape at a Cornell University frat house. CNN obtaining the six- page statement that Jane Doe gave investigators telling police that she was pretty okay with the initial sexual activity but repeatedly refused acts later in the night.

And in a separate transcript of her interview with police, WCBS reports that she told investigators, quote, "I can say with 100 percent confidence I was raped."

Now, we had scheduled an interview with the DA tonight, but as these new details came out, he canceled. And he told us -- I want to read exactly what he told us. He said, "At this time, I need to shift my focus to the investigation and to pursuing additional evidence that has recently come to light."

And all of this is raising new questions about how the case was handled. We begin our coverage tonight with Jason Carroll OUTFRONT.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): More details emerging about what Jane Doe alleges happened to her at the Chi Phi fraternity house in 2024. CNN obtained the six-page statement she gave to Cornell police two years ago, saying she consented to some sexual acts but repeatedly refused others, including a foursome. proposed by one of their fraternity brothers.

The 20-year-old then says it got to the point where it quote had become extremely uncomfortable with how this night was turning out. So, my thought was if I do ketamine again, maybe I will pass out. My thought was that if I passed out and these men had sex with me, then they could be charged with rape.

In the six-page statement, she said two Chi Phi members were asking me to have sex so many times that I finally gave in. To me, that felt like coercion. Also telling Cornell police, I remember being totally disgusted at the situation, and I felt tired and intoxicated. I would say it was the most intoxicated I have ever been in my life. I felt like I was unable to make any decisions because of how intoxicated I was. This month, Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell University

and seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity. That lawsuit also included a screenshot of Snapchat messages between the fraternity members on the night of the alleged incident, inviting others to join in.

The district attorney's office facing criticism by some on campus who questioned why charges were not filed in 2024. Despite the disturbing details, the Tompkins County D.A. says he is bound by New York law.

MATTHEW VAN HOUTEN, DISTRICT ATTORNEY, TOMPKINS COUNTY, NY: The voluntary intoxication of someone is not a basis to claim or to prove that they are incapacitated to the point that they cannot consent to sexual contact. So as much as I'm emotionally repulsed and morally repulsed by the events, I can't prosecute cases based on emotion or based upon moral standards or moral repulsion.

[19:50:09]

CARROLL (voice-over): The D.A. later pointed out while he did receive Jane Doe's six-page statement, he says his office did not receive a separate transcript of Jane Doe's interview with campus police. Quote, "We never received it and still don't have it. was not part of what Cornell provided to us. We got the six-page statement and nothing more except for the Snapchat video."

In that transcript exclusively obtained by WCBS, the young woman told police, "I can say with 100 percent confidence I was raped." That comment does not appear in her six-page statement to Cornell police.

Well, a spokesperson for the university tells CNN that Cornell police shared a, quote, "lengthy investigative report with the D.A.'s office. And if there are any further questions about that report, that needs to be addressed with the D.A.

Many on and off campus have called for more transparency in the investigation. Though it is not required, Ithaca's mayor says campus police should still have alerted Ithaca police about their initial investigation.

MAYOR ROBERT CANTELMO (D), ITHACA, NY: Our officers are specially trained to respond to the level of trauma-informed care that is often required when dealing with a survivor. Why not work with the municipal police department to try and help find justice?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BURNETT: All right, this is Jason Carroll reporting from Cornell.

And I want to go OUTFRONT now to Mark O'Mara, criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor.

So, Mark, there's -- there's a lot I want to ask you about. But the WCBS reporting says that the police transcript shows that Jane Doe told investigators in 2024, right, which is when this happened. So, we're not talking about now, two years later, when it happened, that she told investigators, quote, I can say with 100 percent confidence I was raped.

Okay, so that that's obviously new information today. What is the impact of that?

MARK O'MARA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY; FORMER PROSECUTOR: Well, a couple of impacts, right? One is why didn't Cornell police give that to the DA to begin with? You have to wonder if they were whitewashing their investigation because that word, that sentence itself is extraordinarily telling. It is in effect a challenge, a request by someone to acknowledge that she was raped.

And I'm very troubled that it was left out of the report. Look, the D.A. has its own concerns with the voluntary intoxication, we may talk about that, but the idea that they would some information out in a case like this, where the facts are so concerning, seven men on one underage or 20-year-old woman, that I'm very troubled by the fact that they decided not to forward that.

And the D.A. looked at it, probably stuck with some of the concerns that the statute requires him to prove.

BURNETT: So, the D.A., I mentioned we were going to be speaking with him tonight, but he canceled. He says he's got to shift his focus. He's got to be on the investigation now all the time, some of this new information coming out.

But I just want to say, he was very clear that he did not receive this transcript from Jane Doe's 2024 interview with police, right? He said he did not get it. Cornell said it shared all investigatory information with the D.A. All right?

So Somebody's not telling the truth. It's hard to imagine that a D.A. would have gotten this and then lied about it and not done anything based on it. I mean, I don't know. How do you see it?

O'MARA: Well, look, I think Cornell may be using very careful words. They said that they forwarded the investigative summary. I think those are their words. They may be wrong.

They gave a summary. They gave the six pages. They probably gave other information, Snapchat and whatnot, but if they did not give the transcript. And they had it and it was a sworn transcript, the question to Cornell is why not? Why not give the entire package to the agency that is supposed to do prosecution?

And we know in days not too far gone by that universities like to try and keep these things on campus and that may have been an impetus for this.

BURNETT: Yeah. Well, it certainly raises a lot of questions and you know again, we don't yet know, but it there's a lot more that we're going to be finding out.

Mark, thank you for your time. O'MARA: Thank you.

BURNETT: And next, Trump suffers a major blow when it comes to the investigation into former Fed Chair Jerome Powell, but the fight is escalating.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:58:36]

BURNETT: Tonight, President Trump threatening to sue former Fed Chairman Jerome Powell by the, quote, highest level by the U.S. government, telling Powell to, quote, resign immediately. Powell is on the Fed board. He stepped aside his chair, but he retained being on the Fed board, a really unusual move. And it came as Powell was cleared of criminal wrongdoing in the $2.4 billion renovation of Federal Reserve headquarters, the renovation that Trump, of course, has attacked Powell over for months because Trump was pushing Powell to slash interest rates.

Well, the findings from the Fed's inspector general today, of course, undercut Trump's entire claim.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I mean, it's possible there's fraud involved with the $2.5 -- $2.7 billion renovation.

Well, he's billions of dollars over budget, so he either is incompetent or he's crooked. I don't know what he is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: And remember, of course, the unforgettable moment when Powell and Trump toured the construction site together.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: It looks like it's about 3.1 billion. It went up a little bit or a lot, so the 2.7 is now 3.1.

JEROME POWELL, FORMER FED CHAIRMAN: I'm not aware of that.

TRUMP: Yeah, it just came out.

POWELL: You're including the Martin renovation. You just added, you just added in a third building is what that is. That's a third building.

TRUMP: It's a building that's being built.

POWELL: No, it's been, it was built five years ago. We finished Martin five years.

TRUMP: It's part of the overall work. So --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURNETT: Trump has repeatedly threatened to kick Powell off of the Fed board, but Powell has insisted on staying in that role until this investigation was complete.

And now it's clear, that made sense.

Thanks for joining us.

"AC360" starts now.