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CNN Headlines: DoorDash Driver Who Authorities Say is Undocumented Shot in Texas by an ICE Agent; President Trump Bans CNN and Other News Outlets from the White House; Lindsay Clancy's Husband Speaks Out for the First Time Since His Wife's Mistrial in the Death of His 3 Young Kids. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired September 21, 2026 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a shot fired by ICE agent.

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VICTOR BLACKWELL, ANCHOR, CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS: A DoorDash driver who authorities say is undocumented shot in Texas by an ICE agent. More on what witnesses saw and heard coming up. Days after President Trump's ban of CNN and other news outlets, new questions this morning about what will be next from the White House and from the media.

Lindsey Clancy's husband speaks out for the first time since his wife's mistrial in the death of his three young kids. The new steps he's taking to deal with grief.

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(FEMALE SCREAMING)

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BLACKWELL: Yes, and you probably would be screaming, too, if you found this snake in your car. Wait until you see the size of this thing. Good morning, I'm Victor Blackwell, and this is CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS. Glad to have you along this morning. Let's get started. And we are starting in Austin, Texas.

The Department of Homeland Security says a man is in federal custody after he was shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. An immigration lawyer who said she's representing the family, said the man's name is Wilber Rafael Garces Perez.

Officials say he was shot while he was working as a DoorDash driver. They say he's in stable condition. And Homeland Security says he's an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela who had a final order to leave the country. They have not said what led to the shooting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) (SIRENS BLARING)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh my God. Holy -- dude! Oh my God.

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BLACKWELL: A woman live-streaming on Facebook captured the sound of the gunshots. It's unclear whether the DHS agent in the video is the agent who fired the shots. There's also audio from Broadcastify dispatch audio of Travis County law enforcement responding to the shooting. Listen.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ICE is currently in pursuit of a blue Toyota Corolla. And ICE have the vehicle stopped. They're requesting a unit at Research and 183 -- the underpass.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was a shot fired by ICE agent and near -- notify the Rangers or somebody that does involve shootings.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Austin's mayor says that this kind of ICE-involved incident makes people in his city feel unsafe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR KIRK WATSON, AUSTIN, TEXAS: And can feel safe in their city. And when you have a shooting on their streets, it makes people feel less safe and ICE with the fear that it's created is on their streets. And by that, by just being on their streets, it creates some fear in our city.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: This is what things look like after the shooting. Dozens of people protested near the site of the shooting. Some of the demonstrators you see there, they waved anti-ICE signs and Mexican flags.

Now to the unprecedented move from the White House. The removal of CNN from today's assignment as the network pool covering the President. Now, this is the start of a very busy week for President Trump.

He's getting ready to meet with world leaders in New York at the United Nations General Assembly. Under a longstanding arrangement, the five big networks share pool responsibility. So, what is the pool responsibility?

Well, part of it is to provide video and live footage of the President to one another and to the wider press corps. On Friday, President Trump made the surprise announcement on social media banning CNN, "Politico" and "MS NOW" from the White House. Here's how he defended that decision.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's sick. I mean, there's something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative things. Now, if they want to write them, that's fine, but I don't have to let them into my -- into the people's house.

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BLACKWELL: Now, it's not clear how the other four major TV networks will respond. CNN media analyst Sara Fischer breaks down now what this means and looks ahead to the likely legal battle.

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SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST (on camera): Not every news outlet can bring a big camera in to cover the President, whether he's at the White House or he's traveling. And so, instead, the big five networks, which are CNN, "NBC", "CBS", "Fox" and "ABC" rotate who is going to manage the coverage, the video coverage of the President.

[05:05:00]

Now, they provide that feed for all of the other outlets in the press pool. And then those outlets distribute the content to viewers all around the world. And so, it matters if there is not a clear understanding of what happens with the press pool.

That's a huge issue. We've seen over the past two weeks instances where having video footage of the President has been critical. I think back to some of the 9/11 coverage of the 25-year anniversary, you know, all the footage that was captured that day came from the pool.

So, the press pool is critical. I expect those -- remember I said the big five are part of the video press pool. Like they manage the video feed. I think that there's going to be some solidarity from them. And then I also think you're going to continue to see a lot of solidarity from the broader White House Correspondents Association.

The President of that association, Jacqui Heinrich, who is an anchor for "Fox News", has been repeatedly putting out statements supporting her fellow outlets and saying that this ban is not correct.

I would be remiss not to note, you have plenty of conservatives who are pushing back on this, because their fear is that if President Trump does this to outlets he doesn't like during his administration, then what's stopping a future Democratic president from trying to target conservative outlets?

So, nobody really seems excited about this ban. In fact, one thing we keep hearing, and I keep talking to sources about this, is that broader folks within the administration and the White House, even they felt caught off guard by this ban.

And so, it comes to show you that President Trump sort of tweeting one thing, saying one thing one day, it has massive repercussions, but it's not like there's a huge, you know, alliance of people who really wanted this to go down.

The law very clearly states that this is unconstitutional. And so, I'm sure there's going to be legal action taken if he were to expand this even further. I see this as a distraction for the headlines at a time when his administration is facing so much heat and blowback and low approval ratings.

I think he's just trying to drum up and focus everyone's attention elsewhere. But I don't think he ultimately wants to put himself in a position where he's not getting a lot of coverage. And if you take a look at what's happened at the Pentagon, where the Pentagon has basically forced out a lot of mainstream outlets and only favorable outlets are there, that does not seem like there's something that I think the President wants, either.

He actually likes the attention from big mainstream organizations because they -- he knows they have big distribution and they have big influence and reach.

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BLACKWELL: In a statement, CNN said its mission to report on the U.S. government will continue regardless of any attempts to restrict physical access to the White House and other government buildings or any other attempts to impede our journalism.

The network added, "we have a right under the U.S. constitution to do our reporting without hindrance or interference from the government, and this ban is an illegal assault on this fundamental right."

Other news outlets like "The New York Times", "The Washington Post" and "C-SPAN" have spoken out against the ban. The CEO of "C-SPAN" wrote. "C-SPAN stands in solidarity with our colleagues as they seek to simply do the work that America's Constitution guarantees them the freedom to do, and upon which our democracy depends."

Happening today, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is scheduled to host President Trump ahead of the United Nations General Assembly. That meeting will be held at the Mayor's Office, official residence, Gracie Mansion.

Mamdani's spokesperson says the two will focus on issues impacting New Yorkers. It will be the third time that Trump and Mamdani have met in person. The President is also expected to meet with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy while in New York.

Zelenskyy says the two had an important conversation on Sunday. In a social media post, he thanked Trump for a recent visit to Kyiv by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. He also thanked the President for signing a new Russia sanctions bill into law.

The Massachusetts father of three children killed by their mother opened up about the alleged crime to 60 Minutes last night.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How do you respond to people who have that --

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BLACKWELL: Patrick Clancy, the ex-husband of Lindsay Clancy, also spoke about the holdout juror in the case and why he was able to forgive Lindsay.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But it wasn't just about your kids, it also had something that I think a lot of people found at that moment incomprehensible, which was something about Lindsay.

PATRICK CLANCY, FATHER OF THREE CHILDREN MURDERED BY LINDSAY CLANCY: Yes --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where you forgave her.

P. CLANCY: I saw headlines that said, you know, killer mom and baby murderer monster, and none of them were accurate. I believed that it was her mental illness that caused that. So, I shared those words. And I think when it comes to forgiveness, I also felt that if I didn't get there, I would be eaten up inside.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Meanwhile, the holdout juror whose vote led to the mistrial released a statement on social media after being accused of having an agenda. He says his position has been misrepresented by his fellow jurors, and that he never doubted Clancy's guilt.

That contradicts a note sent by the jury foreperson to the judge during deliberations that claimed he had expressed reasonable doubt, but refused to apply it to the verdict.

[05:10:00[

Now to a CNN exclusive, an alarming incident involving the U.S. military and a false Intelligence report. Now, this was generated with the help of A.I. and almost started a war. Sources familiar with the matter tell CNN, earlier this year, the U.S. military had planes in the air ready to strike, ready to take action against a Chinese ship in the Middle East.

The report indicated that the ship was transporting components of a nuclear weapons program. But just before the operation, officials dug deeper into the report, put together by a Special Operations Command analyst, they found the A.I. chatbot, the analyst used inaccurately identified the material the Chinese ship was carrying.

U.S. Special Operations Command Pacific, and the Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment. Lots more to come on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS, a new guideline is on the way about how childhood vaccines are administered, but many medical experts say it's a bad move.

Two boaters in Florida were stranded and clinging to a tree, look at this, their boat capsized and drifted away. That story later in the hour. Stay with us, you're watching CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS.

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[05:15:00]

BLACKWELL: President Trump has a new plan to station drones and snipers in D.C. They would be at the Triumphal Arch that he wants built across from Arlington National Cemetery. Here's CNN's Julia Benbrook on the President's announcement.

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JULIA BENBROOK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): And Donald Trump says that he now wants his proposed 250-foot Triumphal Arch to double as a top-grade military complex. And he announced this development of plans on social media earlier today.

He said that this arch would, quote, "house, store and have the rapid ability to use large numbers of drones, plus snipers on both the roof and plaza areas, and additionally have and hold large quantities of sniper ammunition and storage."

He added, "there will be no facility like this anywhere in the world." As you pointed out, our team did learn that many working on this project, working alongside the Trump administration on this project, were caught off guard by this announcement.

And there's already been some controversy surrounding this arch. Its proposed location is at a traffic circle near the bridge that connects Washington, D.C., and Virginia. And a group of veterans have said that this large structure would block the view from Arlington National Cemetery to the Lincoln Memorial, and have taken legal action against the arch.

This is just one of the most recent examples of Trump working to put a stamp on the nation's capital to really kind of get it to reflect his style and his image. It's also not the first time that he has kind of added a military component to justify the creation of these structures, including the White House ballroom, which he says will go where the East Wing once stood.

That project is now tied to an underground military complex. But all these latest developments on the arch, there are still questions on how this would work when it comes to the approval process. There are a couple of groups, some federal agencies, that oversee major changes to architecture and design here in Washington, and those original plans that were submitted, they did not include this as part of the concept.

So, still a lot of questions there. We have reached out to the White House for more.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: The Kennedy Center laid off more workers as this legal battle over the venue continues. Two sources say that more than a dozen employees were let go, including the center's spokesperson. Now look at this.

Over the weekend, hundreds of people protested President Trump's plans. This was outside the venue. Friday, Trump reiterated his insistence the center should bear his name. The Trump administration also told a judge the venue had to close because of structural deterioration.

A district judge has ordered the center to give at least 30 days notice before any demolition or new construction. Still to come on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS, we're checking out gas prices which are frustrating so many people. More on why they continue to rise.

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[05:20:00]

BLACKWELL: President Trump says his administration plans to recommend that some routine childhood vaccines be broken up into five shots.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to break it into 20 percent doses so that instead of a child going in and having a tremendous amount of different vaccines pumped into his arm, so big, a big proportion of the body, we're going to recommend that they do five doses, marked one, two, three, four, five, and then they'd be given six months intervals so that a small amount of the vaccine gets pumped into the body.

And we're going to be splitting up some of the vaccines. They'll get everything that they want, everything that is recommended.

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BLACKWELL: Now, it's unclear which immunizations the President was referring to. He suggested the federal vaccination schedule changes would lead to a massive reduction in autism. Now, that's despite extensive scientific studies of vaccines that show no evidence of a connection to autism.

You heard that laughter is the best medicine, right? Could it be true or at least make you healthier? CNN's Don Riddell has the story.

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DON RIDDELL, CNN WORLD SPORTS (on camera): Looking after your health is no laughing matter. Or is it? Scientists know that when you laugh, your stress hormone cortisol drops by around 30 percent. Think about it. It's impossible to throw a punch while you're laughing.

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: You've just got to let it out. You've just got to let it out --

RIDDELL: When was the last time that you laughed so hard that your cheeks hurt? It's not just fun. It's actually really good for you. I love going to comedy clubs, but I didn't think about it that much until I started doing some research.

[05:25:00]

Craig Shoemaker is a comedian who's been working with doctors to develop laughter-healing properties.

CRAIG SHOEMAKER, AMERICAN COMEDIAN & ACTOR: Your stress level decreases. Your circulatory system is working, your lungs are expanded. All of these things happen when you laugh. That's a fact.

RIDDELL: Craig has since turned laughter into a therapy program.

SHOEMAKER: You've heard of a sound bath with the bowls and the gongs. I've developed something called the laugh bath. It's intentional, voluntary laughter.

RIDDELL: Now, admittedly, there's not much to laugh about these days. We've got wars, climate change, the cost of living is getting higher, and partisan politics are just so ugly. But if you can find a way to have a laugh, you'll discover that something which is infectious --

(LAUGHTER)

RIDDELL: Might just make you feel better.

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BLACKWELL: Watch it, then laugh makes me laugh. Thanks so much, Don. Ahead on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS, after one opening act was kicked off his tour and the others dropped out. We're hearing now from Ed Sheeran. What he had to say to fans over the weekend.

Federal agents in Texas are under new scrutiny after another ICE- involved shooting. This one involves a DoorDash driver. The latest coming up.

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