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Early Start with Rahel Solomon
Massive Manhunt Underway For Charlie Kirk's Killer; New Video And Images Of Suspect In Kirk Killing; Green Bay Packers Hold Moment Of Silence For Charlie Kirk; South Korean Workers Detained In U.S. Raid Arrive Home; Qatar Prime Minister To Meet Trump Officials After Israeli Strikes in Doha; Gaza City Takes Damage As IDF Prepares For Its Conquest; Bolsonaro Sentenced To 27 Years For Plotting Military Coup In Brazil. Aired 4:30-5a ET
Aired September 12, 2025 - 04:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:30:00]
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just saying. He just ran from over -- where's my finger from over there. Ran in and now he's right there.
KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Based on aerial images and 3D analysis that CNN has reviewed, the shooter would have been about here. This photo shows orange evidence markers. You can see indentations in the loose gravel on the building's roof as if someone had been laying on it.
A CNN analysis shows that precise angle would have a clear line of sight to where Kirk was sitting, about 150 yards away at his event down below. Kirk had several security guards lining the fence near the stage as 3,000 people packed into a courtyard. Then at 12:20, counting or not counting gang violence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Great.
LAH (voice-over): Just after the shooting, in this video, you can see six someone on the roof running away. This ledge and this ledge appear to be the same. So if we watch the video again, we can assume the shooter ran in this general direction northeast.
BEAU MASON, UTAH DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY COMMISSIONER: After the shooting, were able to track his movements as he moved to the other side of the building, jumped off of the building and fled off of the campus and into a neighborhood.
LAH (voice-over): In that neighborhood right next to the school, law enforcement has been combing through an area partially blocked off by police tape. CNN spotted a forensics team in and out of this wooded area taking laser scans of the site. People who live here sent us multiple videos of police activity, and residents tell us law enforcement was there all day long.
But police released this image asking for the public's help to identify a person of interest. Pictured wearing a long sleeve black T shirt and jeans. The logo on the shirt appears to be from a disabled veterans group.
LAH: Audio analysis captures a signature crack and pop pattern in the video, and that, says audio forensics expert Rob Marr (ph), suggests that it's a single supersonic gunshot. Now, supersonic rounds are fired from high powered rifles, ruling out the possibility of a small handgun because those rounds from handguns or similar weapons fire below the speed of sound.
Marr's (ph) analysis does find that based on the time between that crack and pop sound and an inferred bullet speed, the firearm would have been located about 150 meters from Kirk's podium. Kyung Lah, CNN, Los Angeles.
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BRIAN ABEL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Kirk's conservative organization is considering its next steps in the wake of their leader's assassination. His appearance Wednesday at Utah Valley University was meant to be the kickoff for a new round of speaking engagements on college campuses around the country. An official with Turning Point USA tells CNN the tour will continue in some fashion to celebrate Kirk's life.
But friends and colleagues are still processing his death and say it's too soon to determine what comes next. Donors are recommitting their support for Turning Point USA. Allies have vowed to channel their grief and anger into growing a new, younger generation of conservative activists and politicians.
Mourners gathering at the organization's headquarters in Phoenix, Arizona on Thursday to pay tribute to Kirk.
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JENNA GILL, LAID FLOWERS AT KIRK MEMORIAL: This was a really heartless act and I feel so sad and I feel like when we're trying to be silenced, we need to come together as a whole and be a family. I think that, you know, this is beautiful. There's so many people here and it just goes to show that we are not alone in anything.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ABEL: President Trump says. Charlie Kirk's widow is absolutely devastated. CNN's Sunlen Serfaty has more on Erika Kirk and her relationship with her husband.
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CHARLIE KIRK, CONSERVATIVE ACTIVIST: The beautiful, legendary Erika.
ERIKA KIRK, CHARLIE KIRK'S WIFE: I love you so much.
C. KIRK: I love you.
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For 36 year old Erica Kirk --
E. KIRK: I literally won the jackpot with my husband.
C. KIRK: Vice versa.
SERFATY (voice-over): Her marriage to 31 year old Charlie Kirk became the center of her life, with much of it playing out in public.
E. KIRK: I love you.
C. KIRK: I love you too.
SERFATY (voice-over): Second only, she says her first priority, her faith.
E. KIRK: Now more than ever your faith has to be so on fire.
SERFATY (voice-over): The two have been married for four years, getting engaged two years after their first meeting.
E. KIRK: Do you think that I had an issue understanding where Charlie stood when he looked at me across Bill's burgers table and said, I'm not going to hire you, I'm going to date you.
SERFATY (voice-over): They went on to have two kids, a one year old boy and a three year old girl.
E. KIRK: Motherhood is, it's not a pause, it's a launch pad.
SERFATY (voice-over): She's committed herself to homeschooling their kids while supporting him.
E. KIRK: I love submitting to Charlie because he's a phenomenal leader and the way that he loves me like melts me to want to be able to help. How can I help you?
SERFATY (voice-over): By his side as he traveled the country, but also speaking out herself.
[04:35:00]
E. KIRK: I want you guys to be able to just live such an abundant, joy filled life that you know how to battle in the trenches of this world and the foxholes of this culture.
SERFATY (voice-over): Not just espousing his political beliefs.
E. KIRK: My husband, Charlie Kirk is a force.
SERFATY (voice-over): But complementing his with what she says are her more conservative values.
C. KIRK: I am a moderate to Erika. Erika is very conservative and yes --
E. KIRK: I was raised well. SERFATY (voice-over): Raised in Scottsdale, Arizona by her mother. Her parents divorced when she was young. Her grandfather was an immigrant from Sweden. She studied political science in college and is working on her doctorate in Christian leadership and Biblical studies. She was briefly an NCAA women's basketball player.
E. KIRK: Everyone thought I was a little boy because I wore Jordan and all these different types of athletic clothes.
SERFATY (voice-over): Crowned Miss Arizona in 2012.
E. KIRK: I love to work out. I love to spend time with family. I love to play with my dogs.
SERFATY (voice-over): She has a nonprofit.
E. KIRK: Internationally we support and sustain several orphanages throughout Europe.
SERFATY (voice-over): A devotional podcast and a Christian clothing company.
E. KIRK: I guess you could say I'm a social entrepreneur where I find little pockets within a culture that I like to disrupt.
SERFATY (voice-over): Her partnership in life and politics with Kirk often tinged with concern for their well-being. Something she mentioned during her most recent podcast.
E. KIRK: You know, my husband is on college campuses getting screamed at by college kids as he's trying to share with them the truth. And he is so calm. Would I be calm? No, I wouldn't. I barely go to those. Only because I don't trust myself not climbing over the table and like attacking someone in the crowd because I'm very protective of my husband.
SERFATY (voice-over): She acknowledged his appearances made them vulnerable. But in conversation with her husband, committed to stay their chosen course together.
E. KIRK: Do I get hate? Bring it on.
C. KIRK: Exactly.
E. KIRK: I'll have a velvet steel spine by the end of my life. So bring it on. I have nothing to fear.
SERFATY: Erika was with her kids at Wednesday's event where her husband was killed. Her last post on social media just hours before he passed away was a Bible verse which said, God is our refuge and strength. A very present help in trouble. Sunlen Serfaty, CNN, Washington.
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ABEL: The National Football League paid tribute to Charlie Kirk with a moment of silence ahead of Thursday's matchup between the Green Bay Packers and the Washington Commanders.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The National Football League asks that you please join us in a moment of silent reflection following the murder of Charlie Kirk. The NFL condemns all violence in our communities. It will take all of us to stop hate. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ABEL: The New York Yankees also holding a moment of silence for Kirk on Wednesday when they played the Detroit Tigers.
Hundreds of South Koreans detained by ICE are now back home. Still to come, why the immigration raid in Georgia trigger tensions between the U.S. and a key ally.
Plus, Israel's prime minister makes a move that could deal a major blow to the future of a Palestinian state. We'll explain.
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[04:42:57]
ABEL: Prince Harry has made a surprise trip to Kyiv. Sources familiar with the matter tell CNN the Duke of Sussex visiting with a team from his Invictus Games Foundation. The Invictus Games is a sporting event for wounded military veterans.
Prince Harry is expected to unveil initiatives for rehabilitating wounded soldiers in Ukraine. News of the trip was broken by the Guardian newspaper, which said it accompanied the Duke on the train to Kyiv. The Guardian said he visited after an invitation from the Ukrainian government.
And the visit comes after Harry reunited with his father King Charles earlier in the week for their first face to face meeting in 19 months.
More than 300 South Korean nationals detained in a US immigration raid are now back home. A special Korean Air chartered flight carried the workers back from the US. They were detained during an ICE raid at a plant under construction in the state of Georgia.
It was being built as a joint venture between South Korean giants LG Energy Solution and Hyundai. The raid triggered an outcry from South Korea, a key U.S. ally, and raised questions about foreign investments in the US. CNN's Mike Valerio is live for us at South Korea's Incheon International Airport were.
Mike, so many families of those returning home surely must be relieved.
MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Brian. I think that could be the understatement of the evening here in Asia. And you know, the sentiment that so many of these families have is if you're asked to invest arrest and the threat of arrest should not be part of that equation of helping out an ally like the United States is being helped by South Korea with its technology sector.
So, we want to show you the video. We'll have the control room play it with the additional note that a lot of these images, Brian, because of South Korean privacy laws and out of request of the company here, LG Energy Solution.
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None of the people you're about to see, all three -- all 316 of them, none of them have been charged with a crime. So with privacy protections and just the outpouring of emotion, the raw emotion, that's why this video is being blurred.
So you see men that are ranging, mostly men ranging from 20 into their 50s. We're talking about engineers, technicians, not with luggage coming into Incheon International Airport, one of the gateways to Seoul, South Korea, but with clear plastic bags or mesh bags with all their belongings provided to them by the U.S. Government. Such a striking sight.
So now the question turns to what are all these companies going to do, Brian, that are here in South Korea, that have future projects in the United States, they do not want anything like this happening to their employees. The president of South Korea, Lee Jae Myung, spoke to some potential feelings of hesitation that businesses might have. Listen to what he said yesterday.
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LEE JAE MYUNG, SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENT (through translator): From the perspective of companies, they will be concerned about disadvantageous treatment or facing difficulties when they're building factories in the United States that could probably have a significant impact on direct investment in the U.S. in the future.
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VALERIO: So let's go to the video of another moment, an outcry of emotion. It was a giant banner almost twice as high, tall as I am, about 6 foot 1 inches. It says we're friends, aren't we? And it's somebody who is supposedly depicted as being from ICE, all in black chains over one shoulder, an assault style weapon and a smiling Donald Trump face.
That is one of the myriad strands of emotion of how people are feeling being treated by an ally of the United States like this with those indelible images, Brian, from ICE with people handcuffed chains around their waist. So really the question is what, if anything, is going to change about visas between the United States and South Korea?
The South Korean president yesterday has said that there are movements to perhaps add more visas to heighten the visa quote quotas that are between the United States and South Korea right now, perhaps have a new class of visa. If a business is investing in the United States, they get another visa that's been created to prevent what we saw just a few days ago, Brian. ABEL: And we know that the U.S. President will be meeting with South
Korea's leader here in the coming weeks. And I know that you will stay on top of that development as Trump tries to somehow smooth over the situation so far. Mike Valerio for us at Incheon Airport in Seoul. Thank you.
Bad Bunny one of the world's biggest music stars is skipping the U.S. in his upcoming world concert tour. The Puerto Rican music sensation says he left the U.S. off the tour due to concerns that immigration officers could raid the concert venues.
Bad Bunny has performed in the U.S. many times, but recently has been critical and openly vocal about the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. The world tour begins in November in the Dominican Republic and wraps up next July in Belgium.
Qatar's prime minister will meet U.S. President Donald Trump later today. That's according to a person familiar with the plans. And the meeting comes a day after the U.N. Security Council condemned an Israeli strike this week in Qatar's capital, which targeted Hamas leaders.
Qatar's prime minister told the council that his nation will not stop its diplomatic work towards peace in Gaza. The U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. said the strike didn't advance either Israel's or U.S. goals. Hamas says Israel went after its leaders just as they were discussing their response to the latest U.S. ceasefire proposal.
And Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will meet his top security officials in the coming hours to discuss his plan for what officials call the conquest of Gaza City. Local officials say Israeli strikes have destroyed more than 130 residential buildings over the past week alone and left 50,000 more Palestinians homeless.
As Jeremy Diamond reports, the toll on Gaza City is staggering.
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JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is Gaza from above. In early August, CNN joined the Jordanian military on a cargo flight delivering aid to starving Palestinians. The scale of the destruction hard to grasp and yet Gaza City has been one of the areas least scarred by Israel's two-year war. The Zai 2 neighborhood, for example, was largely still intact, as also seen in this satellite imagery at the time.
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One month later, the area has been leveled, four schools, dozens of businesses and hundreds of homes destroyed. This is the damage wrought by the opening moves of Israel's invasion of Gaza City, which the government announced days after CNN flew over the Strip.
The initial assault has also pummeled Jabalya on the northern outskirts of the city, where more than 750 buildings have been destroyed. All told, in the months since approving their plan to invade Gaza City, Israel has damaged or destroyed more than 1800 buildings, according to a CNN analysis of satellite imagery.
Tent camps at Gaza City's perimeter emptied out, forcing displaced Palestinians to be displaced once again into ever more crowded tent cities as the threat of an Israeli invasion looms.
Many more began to flee on Tuesday after the Israeli military ordered all Palestinians to leave Gaza City ahead of a major expanded offensive. Israel's assault continues as intended, striking multiple high rise buildings that the military says are used by Hamas as terrorist infrastructure without providing evidence. But on the ground, thousands of Palestinians sheltering around them are suffering.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We were having a bite to eat underneath the building until suddenly we saw people fleeing from inside. No one warned us or told us to take our belongings. We only carried our children and sat on the adjacent street. A little while later, they struck the building. We came back to find that everything was gone. There's nothing left.
DIAMOND (voice-over): These large scale demolitions of entire neighborhoods in Gaza rendering already fragile lives unlivable and offering a glimpse into the ruin that may lie ahead. Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Jerusalem.
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ABEL: Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is set to spend at least two decades behind bars after being convicted Thursday for attempting to overturn Brazil's 2022 presidential election. He was sentenced to more than 27 years in prison.
Prosecutors argued Bolsonaro supported actions that would have led to violence and the assassination of then President elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. In the days leading up to the verdict, thousands took to the street to support the former president. The verdict caught the attention of U.S. President Donald Trump, a longtime Bolsonaro ally.
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TRUMP: I watched that trial. I know him pretty well, foreign leader. He was a good. I thought he was a good president of Brazil. And it's very surprising that could happen. That's very much like they tried to do with me, but they didn't get away with it at all.
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ABEL: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the verdict went against democracy and insisted the U.S. Would be forced to respond. Bolsonaro has always denied the allegations, calling them a politically motivated witch hunt.
The United Kingdom's ambassador to the U.S. has been fired over ties to the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Recently, a group of U.S. lawmakers released a birthday book, which was compiled in 2003 for Epstein's 50th birthday. It included a note written by Peter Mandelson calling Epstein, quote, my best pal. CNN's Clare Sebastian has more.
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CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We'd seen days of mounting criticism of Mandelson's relationship with Epstein leading up to this decision after a series of revelations this week. First, the documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Monday contained a 2003 letter from Mandelson as part of a birthday book, describing Epstein as, quote, my best pal.
But the clinching factor was the emails obtained in a Bloomberg investigation released on Wednesday, revealing that Mandelson showed support for Epstein after he pleaded guilty for soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008.
I think the world of you and I feel hopeless and furious about what has happened, Mandelson wrote in one of those emails, the British Foreign Office said in a statement on Thursday. The emails show the depth and extent of Peter Mandelson's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein is materially different from that known at the time of his appointment.
And the strong sense is that Mandelson had hoped to keep his job. Despite this, he did not heed calls to resign. And in a long interview on a British podcast on Wednesday, Mandelson clearly tried to get ahead of this, saying he deeply regretted his relationship with Epstein.
PETER MANDELSON, FORMER U.K. AMBASSADOR TO U.S.: I regret very much that I fell for his lies. I fell and accepted assurances that he had given me about his indictment, his original criminal case in Florida. Like very many people, I took at face value what he said, but it wasn't enough.
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SEBASTIAN: But it wasn't enough. Just seven months in, he's now leaving arguably the most consequential posting in the British diplomatic service. It's the third time in his long and turbulent political career that he's had to leave a post over a scandal. And it comes at a delicate moment for the U.S.-U.K. relationship. President Trump himself under scrutiny for his past relationship with Epstein, something he calls a dead issue, is expected here in the U.K. in just six days time on a state visit.
It's part of a major effort by the British prime minister to cement ties with the Trump administration and one that he won't want overshadowed. Clare Sebastian, CNN, London. Claire.
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ABEL: Clare, thank you. Thank you all for joining us for this hour of early start. I'm Brian Abel in Washington, DC. I'll be right back with more news after a quick break.
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