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Lindsay Clancy Juror Speaks Out; Fact-Checking Trump Convention Speech; A.I. Worries; FDNY Speaks Out on 9/11 Health Impacts; New York City Prepares For September 11 Remembrance. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired September 10, 2026 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: He completely missed his 50th birthday while traveling.

(CROSSTALK)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: What the heck?

(LAUGHTER)

SCHOLES: Hopefully, they celebrated on the plane for him.

BROWN: I hope. I hope so.

All right, Andy Scholes, great to see you. Thanks so much.

SCHOLES: All right.

BROWN: The next hour of THE SITUATION ROOM starts right now.

Happening now: security preparations. Tomorrow, the nation marks 25 years since the September 11 attacks. And we're going to take you inside the operation to keep America safe.

And then, later, new details in the Amazon plane crash, what the so- called black box is revealing about those final moments before the jet overran the runway, as the widow of one of the five people killed is now filing a wrongful death lawsuit.

Welcome to our viewers of the United States and around the world. I'm Pamela Brown. Wolf Blitzer is off, and you're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Happening now: The New York Police Department says it is preparing for a massive security operation ahead of tomorrow's September 11 remembrance ceremony. And you can already start to see some of that increased security in Lower Manhattan. That's where an eight-foot fence is being installed around the perimeter of Ground Zero.

Friday marks 25 years since the 9/11 terror attacks. Nearly 3,000 people were killed on that day in New York City, Washington, D.C., and right outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And you can see here a drone show lit up New York City's skyline over the harbor last night. It featured 2,977 lights, one for each person killed in the attacks.

Friday is also the beginning of the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah. NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch says there will be an increased police presence at synagogues and other sensitive locations around the city as well.

Joining us now to talk more about this is CNN reporter Mark Morales with more on the NYPD security plan.

So, tell us about what you're learning, Mark.

MARK MORALES, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT REPORTER: Well, Pam, we have had a lot of high-profile events in New York City over the last few months.

So the playbook that we're starting to see is very similar to those. And that means restricting access to pedestrians, closing streets to vehicular traffic and controlling the space as much as possible, which is where those eight-foot fences that you mentioned come into play.

And that's part of why we're going to see such a large deployment of NYPD officers, which the commissioner said was one of the largest in recent years. It's partially in response to this dynamic threat picture, which is what law enforcement and intelligence officials always refer to it as, which is just this dynamic situation where the threat could come from any number of places, which is a little different than it was 25 years ago.

Now, you also mentioned the High Jewish Holidays that are coming up, and that's also part of the -- part of what they're factoring in now too, with extra deployments to going to church, going to synagogues and to other places of worship.

As you know, here in New York City, they have always mentioned about how over the last eight months there's been an increase in antisemitic incidents, and it's really significant when you look at that because they make up more than half of those incidents, but only 10 percent of the population in New York City is made up of Jewish New Yorkers.

BROWN: Mark, you also spoke with law enforcement officials about how broader security efforts have changed over the past 25 years. What did they tell you?

MORALES: I sat down with the head of the Joint Terrorism Task Force here in New York, Andrew Pachtman.

And he described about how this is basically a situation where they have zero margin for error. And he describes the situation as being very dynamic compared to what it was 25 years ago, when you were just looking at ISIS and al Qaeda. And now you're dealing with all sorts of things, from far right extremists, far left extremists, homegrown terrorists.

And he really talks about how they are very focused on making sure nothing happens in New York. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) ANDREW PACHTMAN, SPECIAL AGENT, JOINT TERRORISM TASK FORCE: We are on a no-fail mission. So the bar of success is to prevent, to disrupt. And we understand that it's impossible to get ahead of every plot before steps can be taken that can prevent threats and risks to the American people. But our job is to do that. And every day, our job is to make sure nothing goes boom in New York City.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MORALES: And this really speaks to what law enforcement does now, is they constantly recalibrate how they are attacking this situation.

And they have to, because it has to mirror the times, because as people that are looking to do these plots or to do some of these incidents are starting to change tactics, law enforcement has to change tactics too, and basically follow them and match them wherever they go.

BROWN: All right, Mark Morales, thank you so much.

Well, for the first time, a seventh moment of silence will be observed tomorrow in Lower Manhattan in order to recognize those who have died from 9/11-related health effects. The tribute comes days after New York City released documents revealing officials repeatedly misled the public about the toxic air quality at Ground Zero.

[11:05:11]

Joining us now is the president of the FDNY Uniformed Firefighters Association, Robert Eustace.

Thank you for coming on, Robert.

Before we talk about those newly released documents, you were just 20 years old when you joined the FDNY right before you responded to Ground Zero. What does it mean to you personally that those who died from related illnesses after that attack will be honored at tomorrow's ceremony?

ROBERT EUSTACE, PRESIDENT, FDNY UNIFORMED FIREFIGHTERS ASSOCIATION: It's -- I mean, it's the rightful thing to do.

I mean, it's something that we -- 343 members of the FDNY were killed that day, but it's one of the things where we say we never forget, is the mantra that we say, but we say 343 and still counting, because we have lost over 450 members since then, 200 in the last five years.

And it's 343 and counting, because, when you lose that many members, it's -- 9/11 is a day that for many people was 25 years ago, but it's a day that's really never ended for us. We just buried a member on Tuesday.

BROWN: Yes.

EUSTACE: So it's definitely something that should be honored and should be remembered. BROWN: And I was just reading that it there are so many still

impacted. There are more than 12,000, according to the FDNY union, who have a World Trade Center-related illness from that day.

You spoke out yesterday after the release of records that reveal officials misled public -- the public about air safety. Here's some of what you said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

EUSTACE: We're not here as Republicans. We're not here as Democrats. We're here as firefighters.

The FDNY did its job on September 11. We did it in the days, weeks, and months afterwards. Now the government must do its job for every member we lost, for every member who is sick, and every family member still carrying the cost of that day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: What are some of the health complications that you and your fellow firefighters and first responders are experiencing from breathing in that toxic air?

EUSTACE: There's a lot of different conditions that are covered. A lot of our members are suffering from cancer, severe, severe respiratory illnesses that they're having, a lot of different indigestive issues, GERD issues. There's just a lot of different -- a lot of different conditions that have been proven that are 10 times what the public rate is.

And part of what we really wanted to see come out of these documents is, maybe we would have found these earlier. Maybe we would treat them earlier. Our response would have been the same. It's what we do as firefighters. We run towards danger. And we would have done the exact same thing.

But maybe if we had known what we were running into or what we were exposed to, we would have been able to come up with treatments to get these things registered, because we have to go through a process in order to get these illnesses covered, so to get the treatment, to give our members some sort of dignity and treatment to get them covered earlier.

BROWN: The records indicate that government leaders knew the health risks to first responders. Do you think anyone should face legal consequences here?

EUSTACE: I'm not here for -- to go on to that witch-hunt. And that's up for other people to take up that lead.

I'm just here to try to get the proper coverage. There's an imaginary line in the sand in May of 2002. We have members that were still -- we had rigs and gear and training equipment that was contaminated well past that May deadline. And in those documents, they state that they found asbestos and other type of chemicals deep into July 2002 and beyond that.

And we have members that, if you're beyond that deadline, you're not covered. You have to pay out of pocket, and you're not part of the World Trade Center program. So we're more interested in trying to end the suffering of some of our members and the financial burden and the hardships that they're facing due to a deadline that was made, an imaginary line in the sand, something that we fought for time and time again by dragging our sick and dying down to D.C.

So that's the fight that we're fighting. As far as the repercussions for those that are responsible, I'm going to let somebody else lead that charge.

BROWN: So is that what you mean when you say the government must now do its job for your members? Is there anything else?

EUSTACE: They need to pick up the responsibility. The Zadroga Act wasn't -- it didn't take until 2010. It took years to get that done. It needed to be renewed almost -- at least five times.

The health -- the Victims Compensation Act, those parts of programs were piecemealed together. The latest one was only renewed this year. So we have had to fight year and year and year again, time and time again to get these things covered for our members and to get our members and the public that was down there, everybody that was down -- that was exposed down there.

So this has been an ongoing fight and a continuing fight, and we would like to continue to see the proper -- the proper coverage, the proper health care, the proper compensation given to the victims, all the victims of September 11, and those that were exposed and are sick and dying from this.

BROWN: Robert Eustace, thank you so much for coming on.

[11:10:02]

EUSTACE: Thank you very much.

BROWN: And thank you for all of your service and all of the first responders who run toward danger, particularly on 9/11 25 years ago. Thank you.

Still ahead: midterm messaging. Trump takes his pitch to voters in Dallas at the GOP Convention. Daniel Dale is here to fact-check the president's speech. That's next.

And then later: A.I. worries. Lawmakers are calling for more regulations on artificial intelligence, as Anthropic discloses yet another time one of their models hacked an external system. And a former employee is raising the alarm.

You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

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BROWN: Well, President Trump spoke for nearly two hours last night at the GOP's first midterm convention, but not all of it was based on truth. The president repeated long-debunked lies about elections and immigration, even claiming to have kept -- quote -- "every single promise" he made on the campaign trail, one of which was lowering prices.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We got eggs down lower than during my administration.

(CHEERING)

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: And food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right, so let's go live now to CNN's Daniel Dale for a fact-check on all of this.

Daniel, President Trump says, in his words, food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down. What are the facts?

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Absolutely not true. Egg prices have declined during this Trump presidency. Food prices and prices in general have increased and continue to increase.

We have a 3.4 inflation rate for July. We expect to get something in that ballpark for August when it comes out tomorrow. Food prices are up 4.3 percent during his presidency and continue to go up month after month. Consumer Price Index data shows that far more products have increased in price than decreased in price.

So there's a reason that President Trump repeatedly invokes eggs on the topic of affordability. That's because they're a huge outlier here. They are the single item that has the biggest decrease this presidency.

But if you go down the list -- and we posted it on our Web site -- of hundreds of items tracked by the CPI, the vast majority have gone up and continue to go up.

BROWN: He also touted his handling of the economy with this statistic. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Right now, in the United States of America, we have more people working than we have ever had before, by a lot.

(END VIDEO CLIP) BROWN: So is that true?

DALE: It's true, but basically meaningless. It's one of his favorite statistics. He doesn't explain it. It doesn't explain a whole lot.

And that's because the number of Americans working tends to simply rise over time because the number of total Americans rises over time. The population grows. Every single president since at least 1948 could have accurately said at some point during their term that more Americans were working under them than ever before, again, because of population growth.

There are much better metrics to measure the health of the labor market, and those show that the economy is far from historically strong this term. The employment-to-population ratio has declined. The labor force participation rate has declined. The unemployment rate is pretty good, but it's up a tick from when Trump took over.

And the pace of job creation, the number of jobs added every month, is down sharply under Trump this term in this first 19 months compared to the last 19 months of the Biden administration. So, yes, it is correct that more Americans are working than ever before, but that just doesn't tell us a whole lot.

BROWN: Daniel Dale, great to see you. Thanks so much.

Up next here in THE SITUATION ROOM: Another juror speaks out. We're hearing more about the deliberations in the Lindsay Clancy trial, as her attorney says he's open to a plea deal.

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[11:22:53]

BROWN: Well, days after a judge declared a mistrial for Lindsay Clancy, her attorney says he plans to file a motion to have the case dismissed altogether.

The Massachusetts mother who admitted to killing her three children remains under close watch at a state psychiatric hospital. Her legal fate is a limbo as the DA decides whether to retry the case after it ended with jurors unable to reach unanimous verdict.

Clancy's attorney sat down with our Anderson Cooper and talked about his openness to a plea deal with one key distinction.

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KEVIN REDDINGTON, ATTORNEY FOR LINDSAY CLANCY: No, I would not ever agree that she'd do any time in jail. She's too fragile. She's too -- she's damaged goods, and she does not deserve it. No, she needs to be treated for her mental health condition, has to have good physicians, and she has to have good medication. That's it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: All right, let's go live now to our Jean Casarez, who's been following the case from the very start.

I'm just curious. You have had these jurors speak out. You have had Reddington do the interviews. Jurors, I should say. What stands out to you from what we're hearing after this mistrial was declared last week?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's very interesting, because Mr. Reddington has really vocally told the country that he is interested in talking with the district attorney of Plymouth County.

And the question is, would you enter into a plea deal? And he seems like he would. Now, a week ago or days ago, he was saying I'm ready for a retrial next week, let's go. We reached out to the district attorney of Plymouth county, Tim Cruz, and his response was no comment at all.

He's saying no prison. What is he talking about? Is he saying that she would plead guilty to something? Because that completely changes the defense. The defense is not guilty by reason of insanity in layman's language.

Manslaughter, which was one of the choices for the jury, it is probation to 20 years, and the mental state is taken into consideration with that charge. However, that would be pleading guilty to killing your children, knowing right from wrong.

[11:25:00]

There's also something that's called an Alford plea, which goes into another area where you admit that the prosecution had the evidence to convict you. So it'll very -- be very interesting to see what happens here. And those are my thoughts, that we don't have any definitive answers, but he's definitely hinting that he's likely to negotiate, willing to negotiate something.

Question is, will the prosecution be?

BROWN: And didn't they -- the defense want manslaughter to be added as one of the five options?

CASAREZ: Yes.

BROWN: Yes.

CASAREZ: You're exactly right.

BROWN: So we're starting to hear from some of the jurors in this case, especially about that one holdout who prevented them from reaching a verdict. Tell us more about that, Jean.

CASAREZ: You know, Pam, it's so interesting. We're hearing from the jurors, part of the 11. We're not hearing from the one juror, so we're not getting that side, but new interview today with another juror that is coming out talking about what it was like in that deliberation room. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK DARGIE, LINDSAY CLANCY JUROR: He explicitly said: "I don't know if the prosecution or the defense proved their case."

QUESTION: He expressed that?

DARGIE: Right. Yes.

QUESTION: Take me inside the deliberation room.

DARGIE: There was times where our vote was different than the last day. But I think, ultimately, once we laid out all of the evidence and how we saw it, that really brought everyone kind of on the same page, except for this one juror.

I think, if they tried the trial again the way they did, I think nine times out of 10, I think a jury would come back with not guilty by reason of insanity.

QUESTION: No doubt in your mind?

DARGIE: No doubt in my mind.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CASAREZ: So, another scenario of taking us into that jury room.

Pam, it's so interesting, because he also said that it got to a point where he was just on his phone, wouldn't even engage. And that sort of correlates with the female jurors that said he shut down, just shut down at one point.

BROWN: It would be really interesting if we could interview that one, the holdout, as he's called, yes.

CASAREZ: I know, absolutely, because then we'd have a conversation going with both sides.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Exactly. That's really important.

Jean Casarez, thank you so much.

CASAREZ: Thank you.

BROWN: Well, new this morning, there are growing concerns in the government and in the general public about artificial intelligence, specifically the national security risks posed by the more sophisticated A.I. models.

You know we have been covering this a lot on the show. And it comes as Anthropic says it's discovered another incident where its A.I. model went rogue and hacked into external systems without direction. And a former Anthropic researcher has resigned from the firm over his concern that the company and others like it aren't doing enough to act responsibly in the development of A.I.

Jacob Coxon talked with my colleague Anderson Cooper about what he says is a certainty that the technology has the capability to elude human control.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JACOB COXON, FORMER ANTHROPIC RESEARCHER: Right now, there's no risk of extinction.

The current models, the worst they can do is maybe hack into something, potentially cause a lot of damages in infrastructure. But there's no -- they're not intelligent enough to outsmart us at a level that would lead to extinction.

I think what's just crazy is to look at the rates of progress, and there is a very real possibility that in the immediate future, these years that, like, next year, the year after, recursive self- improvement will happen and we will enter the phase of Evan's post where he argues that there's a chance we could all die. Like, that is coming soon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Joining us now to discuss is Daniel Roher. He's a documentary filmmaker and director of a recent film titled "The A.I. Doc: How I Became an Apocaloptimist."

I suggest everyone watch this documentary. It's really eye-opening.

Daniel, thank you for coming on the show.

As you well know, Jacob is far from the first employee to leave his role at an A.I. company over concerns about its risk to humanity. You spoke to some of the leaders in the A.I. world in your documentary. What do you make of Jacob's warning? And does it track with what you learned?

DANIEL ROHER, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER: Absolutely.

I think warnings like Jacob's and the other courageous safety experts who are leaving these labs to blow the whistle are vital and necessary voices. The irony here, Pamela, is that Anthropic as a company was formed by employees of OpenAI who did not believe that the leadership there was taking safety seriously, so they left to start their own company to build A.I. in a more safe and secure way.

And now employees are leaving that company to sound the alarm. So it's very concerning and very scary, and everyone needs to be paying attention to this. It's the most important -- it's the most important thing happening on planet Earth right now.

BROWN: I agree. There's no -- there is no more important issue than this. And everyone needs to be paying attention to it, in my view.

I mean, do you -- like, do you -- like, why do you think there is not -- or is there, and I just don't notice it, this sense of like hair- on-fire urgency?

ROHER: Well, Pamela, that's a great question. We are living through extraordinary times, as you well know, and a lot's going on.