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Early Start with Rahel Solomon
Three CNN Reporters Test Their Chemical Exposure; Texas National Guard Troops Arrive At Facility Near Chicago; Attorney General Dodges Questions, Attacks Democrats. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired October 08, 2025 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:30:00]
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LAURA PADDISON, CNN SENIOR CLIMATE REPORTER: Every time I walked into the cafeteria or a restaurant or down a really busy road, a grocery store -- you know, got on the train to go to work. But perhaps the place that I've most thought about it is when it comes to what I'm actually putting on my body. So, you know, perfume or lotions. Also cleaning products and what I'm using to clean the house.
JESSIE YEUNG, CNN SENIOR NEWS DESK REPORTER: I became quite aware when I was going through my daily life. And, you know, at dinners or just walking around on the street I'd wonder like -- oh, I wonder what around me is potentially putting chemical pollutants in the air, whether that's my gas stove or things from a construction site. It made me realize how many construction sites I pass through on a daily basis.
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: What did we pick up?
BJORN BEELER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL POLLUTANTS ELIMINATION NETWORK: You had a lot of chemical exposure, unfortunately.
WEIR: Really?
BEELER: Everything that we looked for we found.
WEIR (voiceover): All of our samples included flame retardants and UV stabilizers. An alphabet soup of BPA, BPF, BPS, and around two dozen chemicals on each of our bands.
BEELER: And then the most important one I would say that everyone should know is called phthalates.
WEIR: Phthalates.
BEELER: Phthalates. That --
WEIR: It's spelled with a "ph."
BEELER: It is the worst way to spell it. It's like an alphabetical mess. But phthalates are super important because when we first looked at them, they're everywhere.
WEIR (voiceover): Phthalates are what makes plastic moldable and flexible. They're more regulated in Europe than Asia. And Jessie's levels were a bit higher than Laura's. But it is so common globally it's long been known as the everywhere chemical.
There are also endocrine disruptors which hack human hormones and cause problems from cradle to grave from fertility and child behavior to depression, cancer, and cardiovascular disease.
BEELER: The studies have shown about 100 percent of Americans have phthalates in their body, and it's so ubiquitous. It's everywhere. If you look around your room in your house your clothes are made of plastics, your furniture is made of plastics. Everything is getting turned into plastics. But by 2060 -- like, about 35 years from now, we're going to have four times more plastic on the planet than we have today.
WEIR: Wow.
WEIR (voiceover): Bill Weir, CNN, New York.
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BRIAN ABEL, CNN ANCHOR: That's an eye-opening report, Bill.
Tesla has announced the long-promised cheaper versions of two main cars. We'll have those details ahead.
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[05:36:45]
ABEL: Welcome back to EARLY START. Time now for your business breakout.
Trading set to get underway on Wall Street in just a few hours. And right now take a look for yourself. Dow, S&P 500, and the Nasdaq -- all three markets are looking to open the day slightly up.
Let's check on some of the other business headlines today.
Shares of Trilogy Metals, a Vancouver-based mining company, are seeing a more than 200 percent rise in value. The price at close was $6.50 on Tuesday. The surge comes after the U.S. government announced it would acquire a 10 percent stake in the company. Donald Trump signed an executive order to allow construction of roads in Alaska's Ambler mining district where Trilogy is a key developer.
Tesla has unveiled new, cheaper versions of the company's two main cars, the Model 3 and the Model Y. The roughly $5,000 price cuts aim to create a more affordable starting tier for buyers. This comes after the expiration of the $7,500 EV tax credit for U.S. consumers.
And for the first time ever gold prices hit $4,000 an ounce on Tuesday. The record rise as driven by strong investment demand as well as expectations of more interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.
Well, hackers are targeting businesses with video deepfakes that can trick people into sending money, sharing passwords, or revealing sensitive information -- all in seconds.
CNN's Clare Duffy gets advice from an expert on how to avoid getting scammed.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow, that looks a lot like Clare. I can't -- it's a little bit creepy.
CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: There is a new type of AI scam that's increasingly targeting businesses and eventually maybe anybody.
DUFFY (voiceover): Last year, an exec at Ferrari was targeted by someone posing as the company's CEO. And a finance worker at a multinational company paid out $25 million to scammers that used deepfake recreations of the company's CFO.
DUFFY: So I'm here in Silicon Valley to meet up with ethical hacker and SocialProof Security CEO Rachel Tobac. She is going to walk me through how these scams work and how people can protect themselves.
Explain to us what we're going to see today.
RACHEL TOBAC, ETHICAL HACKER, CEO, SOCIALPROOF SECURITY: So you're going to see a demo of what it looks like when somebody uses a deepfake to try to trick somebody with your likeness.
DUFFY: OK.
TOBAC: And it's not too hard to make.
DUFFY (voiceover): Ahead of our meeting Rachel created a deepfake version of me using software commonly used by hackers, pulling video and audio of me posted on YouTube. It can be played back on something like a Zoom call without the person on the other end realizing that it's a recording.
DUFFY: We have a colleague of mine in New York who is ready and waiting. She knows this is coming because you are an ethical hacker. We didn't want to trick anybody here.
TOBAC: Right.
DUFFY: But talk about how this would actually happen in the wild. If she were there unsuspecting what would happen?
TOBAC: She would probably get a text message or an email. "Hey, I'm on the road. Can you jump on a call real quick? I need something." So it will look like it's coming from you.
[05:40:00] And when she gets on there, she sees you quickly ask for something like a wire transfer or a password, or a code. And usually these types of conversations aren't lasting. They're short and they're sweet.
DUFFY: OK. All right. We've sent that email --
TOBAC: You've got it queued up.
DUFFY: -- and we'll see when she answers.
Hey, thanks for jumping on so fast. Can you remind me of our password for our shared drive? I need it for an interview starting in 30 seconds.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow, that looks a lot like Clare. The movements are little bit off. Like, it definitely doesn't seem human. I have never seen Clare look this surprised. Also, she's usually very chill.
DUFFY: Sorry, my connection is bad.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, Clare. Honestly, this is a little bit creepy.
(Laughter)
DUFFY: All right. Can -- Misha, can you hear us on your end?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, I -- I heard you guys laughing a little.
DUFFY: This is real. This is real Clare, not deepfake Clare.
What are your thoughts? Like, if this had been our boss, Dave, calling you really quickly to ask you for something, do you feel like there would have been red flags going off or do you think that you might have been fooled?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There definitely were red flags going off. I feel like your movements were very jerky. Um, but yeah, this is so realistic. It sounded exactly like you.
DUFFY: It does sort of look like I've had 17 cups of coffee, which could happen.
TOBAC: And you're probably seeing that I added in, like, little phrases for her to say just to bolster the pretext a little bit. But your connection is bad. You know, everything is going wrong. We need your help right now.
DUFFY: We need your help right now.
Well, and I can imagine that this is only going to get better, right?
TOBAC: Yeah. I mean, this is where we're at right now in 2025. Give it a year.
DUFFY: So this is mainly happening in a work setting, right? It's not necessarily like my husband is going to get a Zoom call request from --
TOBAC: Right.
DUFFY: -- deepfake me.
TOBAC: I mean, it could, right? If you are well-known enough and your threat model is high enough, then I'm pretty sure that an attacker would pretend to be you to anybody that trusts you. This is the type of thing that we see it right now in a business context in a limited way, but it is pretty much hitting people who have a lot of authority at the company asking somebody who really is supposed to do that task for that person of authority.
DUFFY: What can people do to make sure that they don't fall victim to something like this?
TOBAC: You and the people around you have to be politely paranoid. So essentially, verify that people are who they say they are before taking action on their sensitive request. So before sending a wire transfer, getting a code, giving access to a password or a document. If you do that after the fact because it felt weird, it's already too late.
DUFFY: And I think that's really good advice for so many things as we enter this AI era. Whether you are scrolling on social media or answering a Zoom call from your boss we all need to slow down and make sure that we take that extra minute to verify that what we're looking at is real and not an AI deepfake.
Clare Duffy, CNN, New York.
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ABEL: The U.S. attorney general facing questions on the Epstein files, National Guard deployments, and political investigations. Why Democrats say all they got in return were deflections and attacks from Pam Bondi.
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[05:47:35]
ABEL: Welcome back. I'm Brian Abel. Here are some stories we are watching today.
The U.S. government shutdown is now into its second week and it's causing flight delays at major airports across the country. They're facing shortages of air traffic controllers. Some are working through the shutdown without pay; others are not turning up to work. Some control towers have been forced to temporarily close.
Day three of the Gaza ceasefire talks are underway in Egypt. The Qatari prime minister and Egypt and Turkey's intelligence chiefs are mediating the talks. And U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, along with Ron Dermer, a key ally of the Israeli prime minister, are also expected to join. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is on a two-day trip to India to promote trade. Starmer says he wants to implement a free trade agreement as quickly as humanly possible to cut tariffs on goods and allow greater market access for businesses. The British prime minister is set to meet with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on -- in Mumbai on Thursday.
Chicago's mayor lashing out at the deployment of Texas National Guard troops to Illinois. Mayor Brandon Johnson calls the deployment illegal and dangerous, and he is suing to stop it. The troops are part of the Trump administration's effort to protect federal immigration agents amid growing protests.
CNN's Omar Jimenez reports.
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OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now that the Texas National Guard is here in Illinois the question is what will their deployment actually look like?
We've been here throughout the day monitoring outside this Army Reserve training center. And really, some of the new things that popped up are this fencing, for example. Of course, as more people started to get curious as to what their operations actually look like, we have seen in these nighttime hours uniformed military personnel coming in and out of what appear to be barracks or some form of structures here on the front. But again, this fencing was put up hours after the Texas National Guard was seen here initially on the first place.
Now, when we talk about the scope of what their deployment is actually going to look like one of the main concerns comes down to how community-facing will they be. Some of the folks in many of Chicago's communities -- we are just outside Chicago. But in Chicago's communities many people have already had what, at this point, have become high-profile run-ins with federal immigration enforcement.
[05:50:13]
Remember, previously, when the National Guard was being considered here, it was over violent crime. Now it seems to be, at least in part, trying to bolster the federal response to what we have seen on the immigration front in the city of Chicago.
We got some hints from Gregory Bovino, who has sort of helped lead the immigration response for the Trump administration in various jurisdictions, including L.A. And we have seen his operational patrol here in Chicago as well. He said at the very least, if these National Guard troops are sent out to protect federal property and personnel, as has been laid out in the White House memo to this point, then it also frees up federal agents to do other types of work.
And then hanging over all of this is this lawsuit that the federal judge did not immediately deny troops being deployed here and instead gave the Trump administration two days to respond with oral arguments over this set for Thursday.
So the beginning of a new chapter in the back-and-forth between the Trump administration and local officials here in the Chicago and Illinois area, but what exactly that next chapter looks like is yet to be seen.
Omar Jimenez, CNN, Elwood, Illinois.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ABEL: And James Comey is expected to appear in court for his arraignment in about four hours from now. The former FBI director was indicted last month on charges of giving false statements and obstruction of a congressional proceeding -- perceived by many to be part of President Trump's political vendetta.
The charges stem from Comey's September 2020 testimony during which he is accused of lying about his knowledge of a leak of classified information. Comey, a longtime Trump critic, has said he's innocent and is expected to plead not guilty. He could get up to five years in prison if convicted.
Democrats in Congress want to know if the case against Comey is nothing more than an attempt by President Trump to get revenge against a political foe. But Attorney General Pam Bondi didn't have many answers for senators on that front on the Judiciary Committee. Instead, she went on the attack.
More now from CNN's Michael Yoshida.
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MICHAEL YOSHIDA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voiceover): United States Attorney General Pam Bondi testifying before U.S. lawmakers.
PAM BONDI, ATTORNEY GENERAL: I took office with two main goals: to end the weaponization of justice and return the department to its core mission of fighting violent crime.
YOSHIDA (voiceover): Bondi sparring with Democrats over the Trump administration's push to deploy the military in U.S. cities.
BONDI: I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump. And currently, the National Guard are on the way to Chicago. If you're not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will.
SEN. DICK DURBIN (D-IL): I've been on this committee for more than 20 years. That's the kind of testimony you expect from this administration. A simple question as to whether or not they had a legal rationale for deploying National Guard troops becomes grounds for a personal attack.
YOSHIDA (voiceover): Bondi also asked about allegations from Republican senators that as part of the January 6 investigation the FBI improperly spied on them by obtaining phone records of GOP lawmakers. SEN. JOSH HAWLEY (R-MO): You've seen this document, Attorney General Bondi. What was going on here? Who ordered this? Who ordered the tapping of the phones of United States senators?
YOSHIDA (voiceover): Bondi saying she's looking into the matter.
The A.G. also pressed on other issues, including drone strikes of suspected drug cartel boats, the so-called Epstein files, and investigations and personnel decisions which Democrats argued had been motivated by politics.
Bondi often deflecting and attacking.
BONDI: And you rail against dark money that --
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE (D-RI): Wait a second. Wait a second. Wait a second.
BONDI: That you work with dark money groups all the time, Senator.
WHITEHOUSE: Wait a --
BONDI: Senator, you shut down the government. You voted to shut down the government and you're sitting here --
YOSHIDA (voiceover): In Washington, Michael Yoshida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ABEL: And we have this just in to CNN. Susumu Kitagawa, Richard Robson, and Omar Yaghi have been awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for the development of metal organic frameworks. It was just announced in Norway. Every year the awards are granted in six categories: physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, peace, and economic sciences. The Nobel Peace Prize will be announced on Friday.
We'll be right back.
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[05:58:45]
ABEL: Here is a live look at San Francisco this morning where it is nearly 3:00 a.m.
And a little south of there in Los Angeles, superstar LeBron James -- he managed to fool millions of basketball fans with a cryptic and much hyped post about a big reveal. Many wondered if he was announcing his retirement or a possible trade. And many were not amused to learn that LeBron's big announcement about a "second decision" turned out to be an ad for a cognac company.
The branding of the stunt was a callback to his 2010 live TV special "THE DECISION," during which he announced he was leaving the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Miami Heat.
LeBron, who is 40, is in the final year of his contract with the L.A. Lakers.
All eight teams will take the field today in the Major League Baseball playoffs. The Seattle Mariners could clinch their series against my favorite, the Detroit Tigers, after and 8-4 win in game three. Home runs from J.P. Crawford and Cal Raleigh lifted the Mariners to victory in Detroit.
[06:00:00]
And the New York Yankees live to fight another day thanks to a dominant performance from Aaron Judge. He drove in four runs, including this game-tying shot in the fourth inning -- boom! Final score Yankees 9, Blue Jays 6. Toronto leads the series two games to one.
Well, that does it for us here at EARLY START. Thank you for joining us. I'm Brian Abel in Washington, D.C. "CNN THIS MORNING" starts right now.
