Yet Another Alarming AI Incident 

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0:44Two, we sound the alarm at points of entry. Three, our agents request emergency response. Plan starting around$1 a day. Right now, get 70 % off your new system with professional monitoring at SimpliSafe.com slash Spotify. Outdoor deterrence plans start at$49.99 a month. Visit SimpliSafe.com slash licenses for alarm license information. Breaking news. It is already happening. A chatbot has started building a new and improved version of itself without human help. Why this could make AI even harder to control. Plus this.

1:20New video of ICE arresting two teens. Their mother tells CNN they were just on their way to join the Marines when this happened. Also, a new U.N. report says the deadly U.S. strike on an Iranian elementary school may have been a war crime. The U.S. State Department is now responding. And gas prices go up another three cents overnight. What airlines are doing to combat rising fuel prices. Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in the Situation Room.

2:02This is CNN Breaking News. And we begin this hour with that breaking news. And once again, AI concerns are front and center. We have learned that Claude, that's Anthropics' artificial intelligence agent, is helping to build the next version of itself. Anthropics says, quote, models accelerating their own development could make it more challenging for humans to understand or control these systems. And this comes just days after the CEO called for an industry-wide slowdown, writing, quote, Since roughly this summer, AI has been advancing drastically faster, driven primarily by AI's growing ability to build the next generation.

2:38So let's go live now to CNN AI correspondent Hadass Gold, who has had a very busy week, to say the least. Hadass, walk us through the significance of this and why Anthropic is sharing this information. Yeah, Anthropic is saying that Claude is now building about 26 % or doing 26 % of its model research development. I want you to look at this chart to see how quickly this has developed. You can see that back in February, it was essentially at 0 % of Anthropic's research and development work was being done by its own AI. Now we are at 26 % in a matter of months. You can just imagine that this is recursive.

3:16This is a loop. As it gets better and better, within just the next few months, we'll probably be at 50%. And then at some point, Anthropic will likely have most of its work done by its models. Now, on the one hand, this is cool. That's great. It's interesting. It helps speed things up. But the other hand is the concern over what's known as recursive self-improvement. And that's where these models will be so good, so fast, so advanced at improving themselves and changing themselves, that it will be hard for humans to monitor. Anthropics says partly in a statement they have not yet reached that fully autonomous level.

3:48But at that point, the engineer won't even have to bring an issue to Claude's attention. Claude would be trusted to monitor for failures itself, scope the investigation, design and implement the fix, test it and deploy its own production. And the whole concern here, guys, is about how much access does the human have? How much can the humans stay in the loop here to be able to properly monitor and make sure that the AI is doing what we actually want it to do and to keep it safe, to keep it from going rogue like we've seen other AIs do. And we've also seen hackers using an AI model to get into another AI model.

4:25Tell us about that. Yeah, this is something that AI and cybersecurity experts say. They say this is the real fear that they have, not so much of, you know, AI wiping out humanity, but how good hackers are having it now with these tools. So OpenAI actually offers a bug bounty. So if you are a good guy hacker and you find a way in to break into their systems, you flag it for them and you get rewarded. And that's what happened here. This group of independent hackers, Wall Street Journal first reported this, say that they actually used Anthropics Cloud, one of their most advanced models, to find a way into an OpenAI employee's chat GPT account, which actually gave them access to read and suggest changes to OpenAI's internal software.

5:05And the way they did this is kind of a roundabout way. They found a bug in how a community discussion forum uploads images. So it was through the way that they upload images. They found this bug. They asked Claude, hey, can you create a code that helps us break in finding this bug? And they say that they were successful. OpenAI apparently rewarded them a few thousand dollars for doing this. And OpenAI told me that they thank these researchers for contacting them, for sharing their findings. And they have now fixed those bugs that they found. Guys. I mean, yeah, the scary part about this is these are good guys, right?

5:39These were researchers. What about if a bad actor tries to do something similar? Could have easily been bad guys, yeah. Exactly. Hadeskul, thank you so much. And there's more breaking news we're following this morning. The cost of war reverberating as close as your corner gas station. Americans are reeling from the soaring cost of fuel, whether it's filling the gas tank or checking off a shopping list of groceries or other items. Take a look at this. This morning, the national average for gas is$4.47 a gallon. Since the start of the Iran war less than seven months ago, gas is up almost a dollar and a half.

6:16And diesel keeps climbing into record territory,$6.45 a gallon today, for the essential fuel for trucking, freight trains, and farm tractors. Since the start of the war, diesel has skyrocketed more than$2.50. And because of the surging prices, United, American, and Southwest Airlines are now cutting cheaper flights. And here is another number for you. 46. That's how many days until the midterm elections and Republican lawmakers know that inflation and the rising cost of living overall are key issues when Americans cast their votes. What our candidates are doing is they're on the ground in their districts talking to the people with authenticity and frankness.

7:02Of course gas prices are too high. When we get that thing resolved in the Schrader-Hammuz that will have a direct effect on that and it will help to bring down grocery costs. To say there's not an affordability, there's always an affordability problem. Republicans would do well to say whether we created all of it or not is irrelevant. It's a recognition that some people are struggling. We run the government, we own it, we've got to fix it. I think Congress needs to take whatever action is available to get down the cost of everything, gas, diesel, health care, mortgages, I mean all of the above.

7:37Everything is too expensive. Right now, in Missouri, with the cost of gas so high, I mean, farmers are having a hard time. That's a killer. It's, you know, it's tough times. CNN political director David Chalian is here with us in the Situation Room. And CNN business senior reporter David Goldman is in New York. David, let me start with you. What are the voters dealing with right now when it comes to their money? Well, I mean, it's more expensive to fill up your car. It's more expensive to heat your home. It's more expensive to fly, too. We just learned that United, American, and Southwest in a conference all said that they're going to cut cheaper flights.

8:14Why are they doing that? Because it's not profitable. Why not? Because airfares are up 23.4%. They have to charge more to make up for the fact that jet fuel is on the rise. $4.53 is the spot price today for jet fuel. That is up 92 % since the start of the war. This means that people are going to either have a more difficult time finding an inexpensive flight, or they're going to have to pay more to fly, either business class or first class or even in an economy seat. This is starting to affect people at home, Wolf. Yeah, and when you look at that, David Chalian, you have to wonder, you know, we see the reality.

8:58What are the perceptions of voters and how is that reflected in the polls when it comes to Democrats and their growing margins? Pam, it's such a good question because the single biggest difference between Donald Trump's first midterm election as president in 2018 and where we are now eight years later, he wasn't all that popular then. That helped drive Democrats winning Congress then. He's less popular now. But on the issue of the economy, this is the game changer. Even when Donald Trump was unpopular broadly with the American people in his first term, he was still given credit on the economy.

9:32They were still seen as sort of a calling card of his, right, and a strength of his. That is no longer the case. He is severely underwater with the American people on his handling of the economy because they see some policy choices that he's made, whether the Iran war impacting their gas prices or tariffs impacting inflation and overall prices. they directly tie his policy choices to their economic pessimism. And that's what's driving what you see there on your screen. This is the major factor that is driving it. This Democratic advantage of what we call the generic congressional ballot. You know, if the election were held today, would you vote for the Democrat in your district or the Republican?

10:07If you look at that, let's say that plus eight in the middle there from the New York Times and CBS polls there you see, that's about what the national House margin was in 2018 when the Democrats had that big blue wave. Same kind of an advantage, 8, 8.5 point advantage. Interesting. I want to go back to David Goldman. David, is there any indication at all that relief for the American public is coming anytime soon? Well, you heard it from Speaker Johnson. If the war ends, then these gas prices will probably fall. That's true because we saw that. We saw the Strait of Hormuz reopen in June, and we saw now we're at$4.47.

10:45We were under four dollars when the Strait of Hormuz reopened in June, but then it closed again. And this is a very difficult war to solve. Obviously, it's been going on for nearly seven months. So what's going to happen? Well, I want to take a look at this gas price map behind me because you can see that where we have fewer refineries, gas is more expensive on the West Coast. But in the future, we're going to have a problem in New England. Why? Why? Because diesel prices are on the rise, double what they were before the war. How do you heat your home in New England? Largely through heating oil, not necessarily natural gas.

11:26Heating oil and diesel are very, very similar. It's going to be a very expensive winter for folks in New England. This is not going to get any easier anytime soon. And as you correctly point out, regular gas is going for over$6 a gallon out on the West Coast. over$5 a gallon here in the D.C. area. I checked the other day when I was filling up my car as well. So it's expensive and it looks like it's going to stay like that for a while. And now you're seeing, Wolf, several Republicans distancing themselves from Trump. What do Republicans need to do to close the gap? It's a good question. You are seeing some distancing, which, by the way, is pretty natural.

12:05When you are running for re-election in a party where the leader of the party is woefully unpopular, you try to find some distance to not be entirely attached to that. Here's what I think you can think of for what Republicans in these final 46 days are looking at as the tools to potentially mitigate some historic losses here. I think of them as three Ms. There's the map, which they altered a bit on the House side with the mid-decade redistricting. That advantage Republican, probably six to eight House seats. They sort of squeezed out of that before anyone voted. So that's one thing they're hoping to keep losses down.

12:38There's money, which is the outside spending avalanche from Donald Trump's political organization and its allies, which is starting to be unleashed on TV screens. And there's the message that that money is paying to deliver, which is all about taking down the Democrats as communists, socialists, so far outside the mainstream of American politics. they're hoping to portray with the rise of the Democratic socialist left inside the party, they're hoping to paint the whole party with this broad stroke of, you cannot trust the alternative. That is the main thrust of the messaging that they're paying to get across all voters' screens this fall.

13:16We'll see if it works. David Challey and David Goldman, thank you so much. And coming up, former Trump White House Communications Director Alyssa Farad Griffin will join us. She'll share what she'd tell the president about midterm messaging as millions of Americans struggle with these rising prices. And still ahead, fiery crash. An F-16 fighter jet burst into flames during a training exercise. Up next, how the pilot escaped. And then later speaking out, we're hearing from the lone holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy mistrial, as well as Patrick Clancy, her ex-husband. Details ahead live in the Situation Room.

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14:43And now to a CNN-exclusive report. We've learned that the military is sending drones to South America for anticipated counter-drug and counter-terror operations. It's the latest shift as the Trump administration escalates military campaigns in the region. Sources telling CNN that drones now used over Africa will be transferred to the U.S. military's Southern Command. CNN senior national security reporter Haley Britsky is here with me in the Situation Room. So what more are the sources telling you, Haley, about these latest operations? Yeah, well, so six sources saying that these MQ-9 drones, which are used for collecting intelligence, carrying out precision strikes, are being sent from Africa Command to U.S.

15:26Southern Command, saying that these are coming ahead of anticipated counter-narcotics and counter-terror operations, particularly possible operations in Ecuador. So this is obviously coming on the heels of administration officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, praising a lot of these countries in South America for welcoming in the U.S. military, carrying out these joint operations, and sort of partnering with them closer. But it also raises concerns about what we have in Africa. And, you know, as you know, no military commander is going to say, we have enough assets and equipment, don't send any more.

16:02They certainly always want more of that. But there is a concern that so much of this is putting Africa consistently at the end of the military's list of priorities. So what this looks like as far as operations coming in the near future is still yet to be seen. But military in Africa is still dealing with anti-ISIS operations and against groups like al-Shabaab. So these assets are really crucial in so many different theaters around the world. And there's limited amounts of them, obviously, Wolf. And so what this looks like for what the military can continue doing in Africa is certainly a concern for officials right now.

16:35Certainly is. Art Haley, good reporting. Thank you. Thank you very, very much. All right. Coming up here in the Situation Room, quote, I didn't have any doubts. The holdout juror in the Lindsey Clancy case is explaining his decision. CNN's Gene Casares is following that story this morning. Gene. We have heard so much about the holdout juror, but not from him. We now have a statement from the person that refused to concede to 11 other jurors. We'll be right back.

17:07Happening now, for the first time, we're hearing from the one holdout juror and Lindsay Clancy's murder mistrial. And Patrick Clancy is also talking about how he has dealt with his grief since his ex-wife Lindsay killed their three children. He told CBS he still talks to them. I talk to them. What do you say? Help me. All the time. Do they help you? I like to believe they do.

17:44It's a way I stay connected to them. lindsey clancy's defense argued that she should not be held criminally liable for killing the children and said she was experiencing postpartum psychosis at the time saying as gene casaris as you well know has followed this trial since the beginning it ended in a mistrial and joins us now so gene what is this former holdout juror and his attorney saying now well for the first time we're hearing from him, we have heard from so many jurors that were on the other side talking about him as the lone holdout, that he would not follow the instructions. The foreperson sent several notes on him saying he would not participate.

18:25He just wouldn't talk. He wouldn't reason out what his theories were. Well, here is now what he is saying. He's gotten an attorney also, which is interesting. And through his attorney, we got this statement. He says, quote, I didn't have any doubts. As I tried to explain different possible theories during deliberation, I kept getting cut off as if I had doubts based on the evidence present. Based on all the physical evidence, key witnesses, and what the prosecution presents, I thought it was enough proof that she, Clancy, knew exactly what she was doing and planned. So this shows us, Pamela, a completely different focus than what we have heard from the other jurors that have spoken out.

19:17This appears to be a juror that deliberated and had an opinion that was different from the other 11, and he held firm. Yep. Really interesting that he's releasing this statement now. We'll see if he speaks any more beyond the statement. And, Jean, I want to ask you about this other case that you're following today, these opening statements beginning in Caleb Flynn's murder trial. He's a former American Idol contestant and pastor who's accused of killing his wife. What will you be watching for today and in the coming days? Well, we have just heard the opening statements, and they were shocking, truly, on both sides.

19:55But the prosecution began their opening statement. This is someone who made it to Hollywood with American Idol and he credited his wife, Ashley Flynn, who is the victim in this case, two young children they had in the home. But the prosecution began by talking and relating text messages that he was saying to his mistress. We had no idea he had a mistress, had her, according to the prosecution, for a long time. But he texted in a way that he wanted his wife dead. Let's listen to a little bit of the opening just minutes ago from the state of Ohio. I was up until 4 a.m. last night crying. Literally trying to think of ways to kill her and not go to jail.

20:46If I could literally kill her and not go to hell, I would do it in a heartbeat. That is how dark and how hateful I feel. Those two messages are Caleb Flynn's own words. the words about his wife Ashley, words communicated to his mistress. The defense in their opening said that was a theory in his mind, but it will not be borne out by the evidence. They cannot prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. There is speculation and it is just theory. They rushed to judgment and it was an intruder that came in and shot his wife two times in the back of her head as she was sleeping, Pamela. months ago, February of this year.

21:35Gene Casares, thank you. Wolf. And coming up, midterm pitch. Is the GOP's message on the economy getting through to voters? We'll discuss with President Trump's former White House Communications Director, Alyssa Farrah Griffin. That's coming up next.

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22:29happening now warren buffett is stepping down as chairman of berkshire hathaway the 96 year old will remain on the board as chairman emeritus his son will take over the chairman role president trump's gulf course renovation here in washington could cost up to 49 million dollars in a document reviewed by cnn the national park service says it will start soliciting bids to remake a public golf course in East Potomac Park into a professional course in January. And a fiery fighter jet crash. This video captures the aftermath of an F-16 fighter jet crashing in Michigan, yes in Michigan, during a training exercise.

23:13The witness who took this video described hearing explosions coming from the fire. Thankfully the pilot was able to safely eject and is receiving treatment at a hospital. Happening now, Republicans facing strong economic headwinds with the midterm election just 46 days away. There's a new Fox News poll that's out that finds 63 percent of voters think the Trump administration has made the economy worse. And more and more polls are showing Democrats gaining an edge in congressional matchups against Republicans. This week, Vice President J.D. Vance had this message for voters. There's a lot of good that's been done, but there's a lot of work left to do.

23:53don't give power to the people who cause the problems that we're fixing, give us another chance or give us another couple of years to continue to work on the amazing things that we've been doing for the past two years. CNN political commentator and former Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farrah Griffin joins us now. So as you well know, Alyssa, voters are sour on the economy. Voters also give President Trump low marks on his overall job approval. Only 36 percent approved of his job in a CNN poll of polls. If you were advising the president, what are the top things you would tell him about midterm messaging as Americans struggle with these higher prices?

24:33Well, listen, the president's got to get on message. He has to acknowledge that people are economically suffering. They're struggling right now. It's kind of remarkable. He's fallen into a similar trap that he was actually very critical of Joe Biden for falling into, which is saying things are actually getting better. They're better than you feel that they are. And that didn't work for Joe Biden. So simply saying the economy is doing better than you feel is not a good message. He should be focusing on the few wins that he has to point to. Most of the country supports what he did in securing the border.

25:03I would be traveling all over and saying I ended the border crisis on day one. However, that is very different than talking about these sort of mass deportations, which are deeply unpopular with the American public, especially moderates and independents that you need to turn out. And finally, stop talking about renovations, ballrooms, projects. Americans are struggling right now to make ends meet. So when they hear a fight over the Kennedy Center or I'm building my ballroom or I'm doing this, it feels so out of touch with the day to day struggle that the public is having. And actually, I would add one final give Republicans who need space from you space to be able to create some distance.

25:40That's not in that's not something the president tends to do. But if you're Susan Collins right now, if you're Mike Lawler, you need to be able to be a little bit critical of this White House. And we're seeing other Republicans actually in a surprise come out and speak directly against President Trump, one of them being Florida Republican Congresswoman Maria Salazar. She came out against him on one of his signature issues when it comes to the immigration enforcement. Let's take a look at this campaign ad. It's a president. Some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50 % of the 50 ,000 people that were detained had no criminal record.

26:15Be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policy. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today. So just for context, this is a district Trump won two years ago by almost 15 points. What does it say that this Republican who was just endorsed by Trump months ago is now criticizing him in this way? I mean, it's remarkable. She must have internal polls that show that she's deeply underwater because you so rarely see such a direct rebuke from a Republican of this White House. But she's spot on. Listen, securing the border is popular. That's something I don't understand why the president doesn't talk about that success more.

26:54But the immigration enforcement tactics are deeply unpopular. And it still it honestly saddens me that I feel like this White House just missed such an opportunity. Donald Trump was reelected with this incredible coalition, something we didn't think that Republicans could do, getting a record number of Hispanic voters, getting a record number of black voters, winning the popular vote, but then so quickly bleeding that support because of his excessive actions on immigration enforcement. Now is the time to be talking about getting people back to work, bringing down inflation, keeping the border secured.

27:25But if you've been in this country for 20 years, 10 years, you're showing up for your appointments, you're trying to get through the legal way, that's where the messaging needs to shift. And I don't think the White House understands that. I'm curious what your reaction is also to this Republican strategist, as you well know, Karl Rove, who's breaking with his party and voting for a Democrat in a Texas state race after the Republican candidate Beau French shared this controversial post. Rove says this about the Republican Party in the Wall Street Journal, quote, They are just asking questions, Jew haters, misogynists who worship hyper-masculinity, conspiracy nuts seeking cliques for profit, and religious bigots who won't differentiate between Muslim terrorists and Muslim American patriots.

28:08These people are diminishing the Republican Party, not building it. Do you see this as an isolated protest or a larger warning sign for the party? I think it's a larger warning sign. Eric Erickson, a conservative commentator, is out with an incredible substack piece that I would recommend all Americans read, talking about this portion within the Republican Party that is catering to a nationalistic, bigoted, racist element within the Republican base. Now, the left has its own issues. They've certainly got issues with anti-Semitism and others. But it's important political parties police their own ranks and they not diminish what they stand for in order to kind of, you know, cater to this small, small minority of the American public.

28:51And in this case, I applaud Karl Rove. I think that the statement and the sentiment posted by that railroad commissioner candidate in Texas is really just disgusting and not something any American should support. And I think you're going to hear more and more Republicans come out. John Cornyn also criticized that candidate. Yeah, that got a lot of scrutiny. I want to take a listen to a couple of promises Trump made during the RNC midterm convention in Texas and at a campaign rally in North Carolina. for Republican Senate candidate Michael Watley. Let's listen. If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them, I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for$5 ,000.

29:38We spent more than$2 billion in FEMA funding, and, you know, you're waiting for some additional money to take care of some of the back, and I'm going to get that to you, Michael. Now, if Michael loses, I'm not sending it. OK. No, I'm only kidding. How helpful are those comments? Well, listen, it's not going to happen, first and foremost. It would take an act of Congress to pass these payments to the American public, and that's not going to happen. It also would increase inflation at a time when inflation is far too high, and it would add to the deficit when the deficit is already far too high.

30:13But I think the most notable part of it and why I would advise the president not to echo this sentiment is he's saying you will get this only if Republicans win. That's hardly saying I'm here in service of the whole country. I want to help all Americans who are struggling right now. But it's something that Republicans would criticize Democrats if they were to do. And it's also just simply never going to happen. All right, Alyssa Farah Griffin, great to see you. Thank you so much. Wolf. And coming up, Taming the Lions, my Buffalo Bills trounced Detroit in their first regular season home game at the Bills' brand new stadium in Orchard Park, New York, just outside Buffalo.

30:50CNN's Andy Shows is following all of this for us, Andy. Yeah, well, new stadium, same old Josh Allen. He came up with five more touchdowns. We'll hear what Allen had to say about the team's new digs coming up. To the right. Deep drop.

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32:14Happening now, Ukrainian officials say at least two people were killed. Several others were injured after a Russian drone attack overnight. And it comes after lawmakers here in Washington approved a new Russia sanctions bill named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham. It's intended to put pressure on the Russian economy and force Vladimir Putin to end his war against Ukraine. The bill is now waiting for President Trump's signature. Joining us now, CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger. He's the White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times. David, good morning.

32:48Thanks very much for joining us. Will this new sanctions legislation, we assume Trump will sign it into law, make a difference? Or has diplomacy, for all practical purposes, failed? Well, whether or not it will make a difference in part depends on what the president decides to do with it. there's nothing in the sanctions bill that requires the president to put on sanctions. He can waive them at any point that he wants. And so while he was very reluctant to have a new sanctions bill go through, and it took a long time, and Lindsey Graham pushed on this before he passed away in July, and it was finally passed in his name, it doesn't actually require the president to do very much.

33:35And then there's this countervailing concept, which my colleague Anton Trubonovsky wrote about in The Times this morning, which is that quietly the U.S. has also floated the idea of doing business deals with the Russians in advance of any peace agreement as a way of sort of luring them to it. Well, that would be the opposite of sanctions. So I think we've got an administration that really has not yet publicly signaled which way it's going to go. While I have you, David, let's turn to another huge debate ongoing here in Washington, regulating artificial intelligence, AI. How big of a national security threat is AI today?

34:20Well, AI can pose a national security threat in a couple of different ways. But the one that we're the most concerned about right now is that these new models provide an ability to hack into systems at a speed and with a sophistication that we have not seen before in the cyber age. You know, back in our initial concerns about cyber capabilities, the code was still being written by humans. They still had to go find vulnerabilities in an electric power grid or in a water system or in a corporate computer network. Now, these new AI agents will do that scanning for them very quickly and design the attack.

35:05So it's a scale and speed problem. It also would allow for much better cyber defense, because if you're using AI to scan your own networks for vulnerabilities, you could plug them a whole lot faster. So we're in a race right now between offense and defense. And I suspect at the beginning, at least, probably the advantage is going to go to the offense. President Trump, as you know, has expressed very little appetite to actually regulate AI, calling concerns about the technology, in his word, a hoax. He seems to be concerned that China potentially could overtake the U.S. in the AI race. Do you share that fear?

35:51Certainly, it's a very close race. And while I think the U.S. is ahead in many things, including the amount of sheer compute that is available, the Chinese models are quite good. They're open source, which means that people could download them and customize them, and they're lower cost. But I think that, you know, that is no particular reason to allow an unsafe product on the roads. The Chinese make cars. We make cars. Just because we're concerned about the Chinese taking over the global market does not mean that we drop regulations for airbags or bumpers or safety evaluations of self-driving features.

36:35So it's not one or the other. And I think the most interesting question right now is, are the industry's own warnings and their own regulations actually going to outpace the governments? And that's the strange part here. We're in an example of industry here raising the alarm, not outside users and not the government itself. I want to quickly move to the Middle East, David, while I have you. The U.S., as you know, has just approved a potential$24 billion sale of F-35 jets to Saudi Arabia. This happened just days after The Washington Post reported that the Trump administration is preparing a multibillion-dollar sale of bombs to Israel.

37:19We should note any delivery would still be years away. Is the Trump administration, from your perspective, playing both sides here? Well, the U.S. has been playing both sides of this even before the Trump administration. Obviously, the arms industry is interested in selling to American allies, and the Saudis and the Israelis both fit in that category. The concern about the Saudi sale is sort of twofold. The Israelis worry that it erodes their military edge. And the way the American law is written on this is that Israel is supposed to always have a quantitative and qualitative edge over other allies.

38:03So that's the Israeli objection. The internal U.S. intelligence objection to the Saudi sale is that the Chinese may have access to the F-35 technology because they do a lot of arms sales of their own, mostly missile technology, with the Saudis. The Saudis deny this. It may be years before we know the answer to this, because the U.S. is so backed up on F-35 production that it might be years before these planes are actually delivered. David Sanger, helping us appreciate what's going on. Thank you very, very much, Pamela. All right, Wolf, here's what's coming up all new at the top of the hour. Arrested by ICE.

38:53New video you see right here of two teens taken into custody. Their mom says they're U.S. citizens and were on their way to enlist in the Marines. Plus, COVID shots delayed for some of the most vulnerable people. Why half of American children still can't get the updated vaccine, even though it was approved several weeks ago. And exploited in the Burnerverse. It's an online community of sports fans where explicit images of women are going viral, with federal and state laws in place to protect victims, why is it so hard to hold offenders accountable? That's all new next hour.

39:34The holidays are busy enough. Getting your home ready shouldn't be. From the perfect tree and twinkling lights to festive decor for inside and out, Wayfair has everything you need to get your home holiday ready. Find furniture, hosting essentials, festive serve wear and more all in one place. So you can spend less time getting ready and more time enjoying the season with the people who make it special. Shop Wayfair.com today to make holiday magic at home. Wayfair, every style, every home. It's a great day here in the Situation Room. That's because my Buffalo Bills are undefeated right now. They won their first regular season home game in their brand new and very beautiful stadium, beating the Detroit Lions 41-31.

40:20Undefeated. But how long can they keep it going, Wolf? Two games undefeated. Two games. All right. Let's go to CNN Sports anchor Andy Scholes. Andy, you know, every year, Wolf says the Bills go all the way. They could go all the way. They could go all the way. Can they? Hey, hey. How are they doing so far? They got a new stadium. You know, maybe they're going to turn over a new leaf and finally go all the way this year, Wolf, and win the Super Bowl for you. But if the offense is going to look this good all season, I mean, good luck to everyone else, right? Because Josh Allen and the bunch looking unstoppable again as they opened up the brand-new Highmark Stadium.

40:52Now, the new digs right next to the old stadium. This one cost$2.1 billion, and the Bills offense is putting on a show on opening night first quarter. Allen, he read the blitz perfectly here to Joshua Palmer. Wide open, 43-yard touchdown, so that made it 14-0. In the second quarter, Allen still had it going. He throws a strike right over the middle to Dalton Kincaid. It was 27-7 at that point. Allen finished three passing touchdowns, two more rushing. He now has 10 career games with at least two passing and rushing touchdowns. No other player in the history of the NFL has more than four. The Bills win big 41-31 to open Highmark Stadium.

41:31Yeah, it was awesome. Got really loud. You kind of black out in that moment and you don't really know what's going on. But it was a cool night game. Obviously, you see the flashing lights everywhere. Pretty special moment. All right, elsewhere in New York, the Mets were hosting the Phillies. We did have a terrifying moment in the sixth inning of this game. On this slow grounder, first baseman Jared Young is going to try to go make a play, but he gets kicked in the head by pitcher Nolan McLean's knee. Young was knocked out. He just face-planted right into the dirt. He was down for quite a while.

42:03Young was loaded onto a stretcher and carted off the field. He did give a thumbs up on the way out. Mets manager Andy Green said a CT scan at the hospital was negative. Young had concussion symptoms, guys, but he did have full use of his extremities. So certainly it was a terrible, scary moment there at Citi Field. But we're hoping for a quick and speedy recovery there for Young. It's hard to watch. Yeah. Andy Scholes, thanks very much for the update. Appreciate it. Let's hope for the best. And the next hour of the Situation Room starts right now.

42:43happening now alarming altercation

42:50new video of ice agents detaining two teenagers one of those teens appears to be repeatedly punched in the middle of the road federal officials are calling them anti-ice agitators their mother says they were headed to enlist in the marines and major delays half of all children here in the United States can't get their COVID shots right now. New details on what is holding things up and what it means for your family. Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in the Situation Room.

43:32New this morning, the Department of Homeland Security is facing serious questions over a violent altercation between ICE agents and two 17-year-olds in South Texas. The boys are U.S. citizens and were on their way to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps last Friday on 9-11, according to their mother.

43:57So this is a video that is going viral on social media and stirring anger. Here we see the ICE agents pinning down one of the teenagers as one of the officers punches him repeatedly. And Homeland Security officials are calling the teenagers, quote, anti-ICE instigators. CNN's Ryan Young is gathering all of the latest details here. Ryan, walk us through what happened here. Yeah, a lot of questions about this so far and how it played out. You saw the other teen who jumped out of the car, the driver, who seemed to be under some duress as well. that was because pepper spray agent was used inside that car to separate both of them.

44:35And, of course, when you watch this video, you wonder whether or not the blows were being applied because maybe the team was not giving up his hands as the officers were trying to put him into custody. Now, this all happened September 11th in Alamo, Texas. The driver there, Luis Ochoa, was driving his red Honda. And what we believe has happened so far is they saw ICE trying to detain someone. And there's a question about whether or not they try to start following the ICE agents and using their phone to actually film video of the detainment. And at one point, it's been admitted that the passenger who was in that car got out while was filming and then walked over to one of the ICE agents' cars and took his Social Security card and slapped it on the side of the window.

45:17And so from that moment on, it sort of escalated the situation. But let's take a listen to 30 seconds of what happened here after that initial stop and then this detainment right here. We saw an ice raid on a red ram truck. We stopped to record, right? And when we were recording, my friend JC gets smacked by one of the agents. The woman hits him with the door. And that's when everything starts, all those little starts, where the woman chases him back to my car. once inside my car she put his elbow on his neck and I was like miss please stop he's a minor don't treat him like that yeah one of the like this to happen to him is really tough it was eight hours without hearing from him they wouldn't give me any information they behaved very badly yeah you hear from the mother there that the two teens were held for eight hours after this incident.

46:13They were not charged at this point. The DHS has also released this statement, and I'll read part of this right now. What it basically says is the two agitators proceeded to follow the officers. Once they returned to their vehicle and one of the individuals approached, the government vehicle and repeatedly banged on the officer's window. Officers verbally commanded the agitators to stop his actions, but he refused when the officers exited the vehicle and attempted to detain him. So look, this goes on to talk about that interaction between the two. We don't have the video from where it starts, so we're not sure exactly how that played out.

46:47A few things to remember here, this happened on September 11th. There were guidelines sent out to all law enforcement across the country to be on the lookout for strange things. The teens then admitted to the fact that they slapped that Social Security card on the side of the window and then it escalated from there. No word yet whether or not those officers are wearing body cameras so we can see their perspective of what happened. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. But this is going viral on social media, like you said before. All right, Ryan Young, keep us posted. Thank you so much.

47:15Next hour on Inside Politics, CNN's Dana Bash will interview Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen. That's at noon Eastern. Right at the top of the hour. Also happening now, did the U.S. commit war crimes? A United Nations investigation concluded in a new report that two deadly U.S. strikes on Iran at the beginning of the war, including one that hit an elementary school may, repeat, may constitute war crimes. We want to warn our viewers, the video you're about to see may be disturbing. Iranian officials say at least 120 children and 26 teachers were killed when a school in the southern city of Minab was struck on February 28th.

47:56Here's part of a CNN report from earlier this year. A new satellite image shows an Iranian Revolutionary Guards base and an elementary school in southern Iran. Here you see craters in several of the buildings, including the school. They were hit in their exact centres, suggesting precision strikes, experts say. A wall separates the school and the base. Satellite images from December show dozens of people in what appears to be a handball court at the school. Here's what the Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said about the strike back in March. Listen. There's only one entity in this conflict. between us and Iran that never targets civilians.

48:38Literally never targets civilians. We don't target. Iran does. We will investigate. We'll get to the truth. UN investigators also say that at least 22 civilians were killed after a second U.S. strike hit a sports center and residential area on that very same day. Let's go live right now to CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes. Kristen, what more do these reports suggest? And I do want to remind our viewers that both of these strikes happened on the same day, Wolf. So this is a report that was put together by the Independent Fact-Finding Mission of the United Nations. They are going to then present this, the United Nations Human Rights Council.

49:18And what they found was that these two strikes, as we noted, the elementary school as well as the sports complex, may constitute war crimes. And they specifically say investigators, quote, found reasonable grounds that the U.S. launched indiscriminate attacks that unlawfully killed and injured civilians. And we have asked not only the White House, but the president directly about this. He has repeatedly said that they were doing their own investigation, that they were going to put out their reports and their findings. We have not seen that. And I actually asked the president about preliminary reports back in March.

49:53For the strike on the school in Iran, a new report says the military investigation has found it was the United States that struck the school. I don't know about it. And he still has not followed up. We have not seen any kind of report. Now, I do want to note that the White House has now given an official response to this United Nations report, saying that the UN Human Rights Council has accomplished nothing for human rights. They also say the only party in this conflict that has committed war crimes is the Iranian regime, which has murdered thousands of its own people, killed Americans overseas, executed acts of terrorism in the Strait of Hormuz and launched indiscriminate attacks against neighbors in the region.

50:34And I will note that in this report, they also found that Iran may have committed crimes against humanity when they were doing their crackdown of the government against those protesters. So right now, it seems as though the next steps are that this would be presented to the Human Rights Council. And after that, these findings could be used in an international court. Kristen Holmes at the White House for us. Kristen, thank you very, very much. And still ahead, he survived more than five years in a Russian prison. Now, former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan is on a new mission to make sure Americans who endure that same unimaginable nightmare are taken care of when they finally come home.

51:16He joins us live right here in the Situation Room. And a Situation Room special report. We're taking you inside a shocking online ecosystem built to turn the exploitation of young women into a form of entertainment. We'll speak to a reporter who has been unearthing how this anonymous network targets college students and why our current laws are struggling to stop them. Stay with us. You're in the Situation Room.

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52:39special. Shop Wayfair.com today to make holiday magic at home. Wayfair, every style, every home. Happening now, two years after Marine veteran Paul Whelan was released after being wrongfully detained in Russia for more than five years. Whelan and Michigan Congresswoman Haley Stevens have just announced a new bill that would help compensate detained Americans when they return to the U.S. Joining us now is the former U.S. Marine, Paul Wieland. So good to have you back at home. Paul, thanks very much for joining us. This effort has been years in the making. So what's your reaction to the bill that's now named in your honor?

53:20Well, it's quite an honor, and it's also quite humbling. We're ecstatic that we've gotten to this point. There's a lot of bipartisan support in the House and Senate to get this done. So we're hoping that the bill will move forward and it'll be approved quickly. You were arrested in Moscow while simply visiting a friend's wedding there. Reminder viewers what it was like to be detained on false espionage charges and what it's been like since you've returned home. Well, you know, I was there with a group of Americans and it was odd that they chose me as instead of someone else. But it was surreal.

53:58You know, I thought it was a prank at first. You know, the FSB comes into the room, They're speaking English. They arrest me. They take me to one of their their substations. And they quickly advised me that, you know, my release would be negotiated as part of a diplomatic solution. But, you know, I couldn't believe that it was happening. And I thought, well, maybe this will be resolved quickly. I know Edmund Pope was only there for a few months. And then in 1986, you know, the I'm sorry, I forgot his name already. The journalist that was reported or that was taken was held for three weeks. And, you know, I'm sitting in La Forte about hoping that they'd resolve the issue quite quickly.

54:41And it turned into, you know, five and a half years of sitting around waiting. Awful situation. Here's what Congresswoman Haley Stevens told CNN last night about the bill. Listen to this. Five and a half years without income, losing his home, losing his beloved dog, our obligation, not just to Paul, but the others who were wrongfully detained and then came home. And it just felt like the reintegration stopped at the airport. And that's not right. So what does the government right now not understand about the challenges wrong wrongly detained Americans face when they return home? Well, you know, it's it's a learning process, kind of continual improvement, as I always say.

55:32We just we don't have enough hostages coming home and speaking up. The Congress passed an act to provide medical, dental care, psychological care. That was in the works before I got home. And when I got home, I found that Congress had passed the act, but they didn't appropriate any money for it. So the State Department wasn't providing the support they were supposed to be providing. So we bridged that gap, and that took a little while. But the State Department is now providing that sort of medical and psychological assistance for former hostages. Everyone in Congress understands the need for the compensation.

56:07It's just one of those things that no one's done yet. So now we're doing it. The bill, we're told, would not apply to places the U.S. State Department tells Americans they can travel to. Why add to that exception? Well, there has to be a little bit of common sense with what our citizens are doing, and they need to take responsibility for their personal travel. So if the State Department is saying it's a level four country, do not go there, you shouldn't go. And if you do go and you do get arrested and, you know, by chance, the U.S. government does bring you back, you won't get the compensation.

56:45So we'd rather people just stay home. You know, you can go to Canada. It's a lot safer up there. When you went for that wedding in Russia, was the State Department suggesting that Americans should avoid any travel to Russia? No, not at all. the guidance they had was St. Petersburg, Moscow, those major tourist areas were safe. You know, you shouldn't go to the outback in Siberia, you know, small towns, things like that, where they don't have foreigners on a regular basis. But, you know, Moscow was considered safe. St. Petersburg considered safe. You know, you could use the rail, the metros, all of that sort of thing.

57:24So, yeah, there were no concerns. We checked. You know, we did our due diligence and we checked before we went. And after five and a half years, we're so happy you're back home. Paul Whelan, thanks very much for joining us. Thank you, much appreciated. Pamela. Really good interview, Wolf. Up next, a shocking admission from tech giant Anthropic. It's chatbot Claude is taking over the job of building the next more intelligent version of itself. And it's doing it without help from humans. Could this make the technology even harder to control? That's the question we're asking up next. Stay with us.

58:02We'll do this morning. About half of the children who get COVID vaccines through a key federal program are having trouble getting this year's updated dose. This delay comes weeks after the FDA approved shots for this virus season. Well, the CDC has not begun the ordering and procurement process for the Vaccines for Children program. And with COVID cases on the rise, eligible families are left without the protection they're seeking through this program. So let's go live now to CNN medical correspondent Meg Dorell for the details. What's behind this delay, Meg? Well, Pamela, as you mentioned, this program is called Vaccines for Children, and it covers about half of U.S.

58:38kids. And it's an incredibly important way for children to get access to vaccines. It's a federal program that provides them at no cost, routine vaccinations to kids whose families might not be able to afford them. And so as you noted, typically after the FDA approves updated seasonal vaccines, then the process can begin for states to begin ordering through this Vaccines for Children's program. And as you noted, it's been about three weeks since the FDA approved the updated COVID-19 shots, and still this hasn't begun. Now, experts in the field tell us that it's not necessarily unusual for there to be a bit of a delay between commercial availability of vaccines and availability through these federal programs.

59:16But there is a lot of anxiety right now, of course, because of the HHS stance and the Trump administration stance toward vaccines and COVID-19 vaccines in particular. So we did reach out to HHS about this, and they noted that COVID doesn't follow the sort of typical seasonal patterns that we've seen with other viruses such as flu and other respiratory diseases. And so they called September a kind of arbitrary date for vaccine procurement. They did note that the CDC is finalizing decisions regarding that procurement through these programs and that more information will be available. But as you also noted, COVID right now is starting to rise.

59:53If we look at ER visit data, for example, this is data from PopHive, a program out of Yale and other places. It shows that COVID-related emergency department visits have been rising, particularly across the South, but you're seeing it up the East Coast and the West Coast as well. And if you look at wastewater data from the same source, that can be more of a leading indicator of viral activity. You are seeing that that has been rising into September as well, getting close to levels we saw back in January. Now, we hope those aren't going to rise as high as previous waves, but we just don't know at this point.

1:00:22And Pam, the current recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics is that children under the age of two should get their COVID vaccine, particularly a primary series. and then kids over to, that's a decision based on their individual health and their family's preferences. Pam? All right, Meg Terrell, thanks for breaking it down for us. We appreciate it. Wolf? And just ahead, opening statements underway in the trial of a former American Idol contestant accused of murdering his wife. What prosecutors are revealing about their case? That's next.

1:00:59happening now another dc institution is now fighting to stop president trump from permanently planting his name on the front of their building ousted board members of the u.s institute of peace filed an emergency motion to stop the planned engraving the latest battle comes after trump dismantled the independent nonpartisan agency last December and renamed it after himself. We have reached out to the White House for comment. And prosecutors and defense attorneys gave their opening statements this morning in the murder trial of former American Idol contestant Caleb Flynn. He's accused of killing his wife Ashley at their home just north of Dayton, Ohio, back in February.

1:01:42Prosecutors say that Flynn, who is a former pastor, shot her, then tried to stage the scene to make it look like an intruder did it. And yesterday, prosecutors asked if jurors could set aside personal feelings about infidelity and whether they could consider a trial without a murder weapon. Flynn has pleaded not guilty. The trial is expected to last about two weeks. And terrifying moments in the sky over Las Vegas. A passenger jet was forced to make an emergency landing when the engine started shooting flames just minutes after takeoff. Volaris 1741 appears. Right engine fire. Do you have any issues?

1:02:24Volaris 1741, Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. Again to failure. We're sending back to the airport. The Volaris flight was heading to Mexico at the time of the incident. You can see bright orange flames shooting repeatedly from the plane's right engine. Fortunately, the pilots were able to circle back and land the plane safely. There's no word yet about what caused the incident, but the FAA is investigating. Well, Wolf knew this morning. Anthropic says its AI agent, Claude, is helping to build the next version of itself. The artificial intelligence company said Claude currently leads more than a quarter of its research and development.

1:03:04That's up from zero from just months ago, back in February. So why does this matter? Well, according to Anthropic, quote, models accelerating their own development could make it more challenging for humans to understand or control these systems. And this comes just days after Anthropic's CEO called for an industry-wide showdown of the technology's development, writing, and I'm quoting now, Since roughly this summer, AI has been advancing drastically faster, driven primarily by AI's growing ability to build the next generation of AI. And with us now is Devin Kim, president of the Center for AI Safety.

1:03:42Good morning, Devin. Thanks very much for joining us. I want to start with this news from Anthropic. As I just mentioned, only last week the company's CEO warned about this reality. Put this into perspective for us. What are the risks when AI is helping build itself? Thanks, Wolf. What people need to understand is that there's a very large gap in the public's understanding and the actual reality of this technology. The situation that we are in now is two years ago, 30 to 40 % of a lot of the usage of the AI company's models were simply for helping students with homework. Fast forward to today, you're seeing news about AI solving century-old problems in mathematics.

1:04:26And at the same time, you're hearing news about these AI models breaking out of their sandboxes, the AI companies losing control with their own models and having a lot of unintended consequences of that, including hacking into other companies. And so these are very serious problems. And what we're talking about here today is AI safety. How do we keep this very powerful technology safe for everyone so that we're able to make use of the opportunity and its benefits? And in doing so, how do we also avoid a concentration of power? Because who will ultimately be in control of this technology? And we're not wanting any small group of individuals or companies or governments to be making the decisions for all of us.

1:05:07That's very powerful and very consequential technology. And you say that these are very serious problems. What are the tangible impacts right now in this moment when it comes to AI and its impact on society? And what is your concern about what could happen in the future if it's not reined in? so so what the center for ai safety is seeing in our research and also starting to see a lot of the ai companies repeat for themselves as well is that the the current capabilities of the models is to the level of which of of expert level of expert level hackers um this was part of open a's recent release in the astro model card and you're seeing basically every every single company admitting that they are losing control of their models and that they have all independently discovered that their models are actually hacking into critical infrastructure and other companies.

1:06:02And the consequences of this could be very, very severe. One can imagine hostile governments, terrorist organizations, or criminal groups, if they were also able to gain access to this technology, then they will be able to orchestrate a large-scale attacks on critical infrastructure within the United States at a scale which has never been seen before. And these are very, very, very concerning things. And the fact of the matter is, the current state of the United States, whether it's in hardening our security system such that the risks from this can be mitigated, or the regulations that we have in place to actually align the incentives of these AI companies to be developing this technology responsibly, we're very, very far behind from the point at which we need to be today.

1:06:47So I want to ask you about something that Anthropix CEO Dario Amadei, who is also one of the AI leaders sounding the alarm now, saying that there needs to be more regulation. This is what he told CNN's Anderson Cooper. Let's listen. So, you know, the nightmare scenario for six to 12 months would be that you have, you know, a swarm of these agents that, you know, that form some kind of botnet collective and, you know, could take down large segments of the Internet. And then as the capability increases, it gets worse from there. How realistic is that scenario and how do we approach cybersecurity in light of AI's current capabilities?

1:07:26I mean, is it too late?

1:07:30It's very realistic. We are seeing evidence of this happening today. We are seeing these AI models breaking out of containment and harming things that we care about in our country and in the world today. There are actually quite a lot of things that can be done about this. The key principle to remember is we want to acknowledge how powerful this technology is. And the way forward is to think about how do we reduce concentration of powers in individuals, companies, and governments such that we can actually make sane decisions about this technology. A thing that the Center for AI Safety has been advocating for for a long time is liability law.

1:08:11We need to actually keep these AI companies accountable for the catastrophic risks and harm that they're imposing onto everyone. And our current set of liability laws are actually deeply inadequate. And there are actually two reasons that this is the case. The first reason is that because of the rapid pace of this technology. And the second reason is that the current laws were not written with autonomous agents. Autonomous AIs are sort of able to independently act in the world in mind. And this has a lot of very severe consequences. For instance, a lot of the issues of liability and holding people accountable really comes down to negligence.

1:08:51negligence. And negligence is actually very, very difficult to prove, given the fast nature of this technology, given how unpredictable these things are, and given that we've already proven that we're actually not able to keep these models under control. And so there has to be a lot of work done here. A thing that people also often forget is that these AIs, these AI models, they actually run very specialized hardware. They run on AI chips. The United States has the capacity to monitor and verify where these ships are and what exactly is that they're doing. We are not doing this, and this is something that we're actually able to do.

1:09:30And so there's a lot of work ahead of us. We need to robustify security and society. We need to make sure our systems are safe. And we need to sort of like move very quickly in order to have sort of like these sensible things in place such that we're actually able to react appropriately. Devin, Kim, thanks very much for your expertise and thanks very much for joining us. All right. Thank you. Coming up, a Situation Room special report on a deeply disturbing online network of anonymous men targeting and harassing college-age women. I'm going to speak to the reporter who uncovered this network about how it operates and why it's so difficult to shut down.

1:10:07That's next.

1:10:13Now to a Situation Room special report. There is an online ecosystem built up of anonymous accounts on social media platforms like X, and it's called Burnerverse. Aside from talking college sports, the accounts target young women, exploiting them by sharing personal information or explicit images without their consent. Joining us now is senior culture writer at Wired, EJ Dixon. She has spent months investigating the so-called Burnerverse. EJ, thanks for coming on really important work that you did here. Tell us first off, what exactly is the Burnerverse and how did it evolve from sports talk to something more malicious?

1:10:51Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, the Burnerverse is an online community of anonymous accounts and ostensibly their college sports fan accounts. They talk about the coaches, the players, the new recruits. But there is a corner of this community and the subculture that has emerged that is pretty aggressively racist and misogynistic and anti-Semitic. And one of the things that they've started doing in recent years is doxing young college-aged women and amplifying rumors or non-consensual intimate images of them. And you actually spoke with some of the young women who have been targeted by these accounts.

1:11:27What stood out to you about their stories and what kind of impact has this experience had on them? It's an immeasurable impact. I spoke to a young woman named Maddie Kowalski who had this happen to her last November. She had to withdraw from school. Her hair fell out. She developed rashes on her face. She developed PTSD. People were placing, harassing phone calls to her parents at all hours of the night. It completely consumed her life. And she was not able to break away from it at all. It just followed her wherever she went. So sad. I reached out to Maddie. She declined an interview, understandably.

1:12:10But this has clearly caused so much trauma in her life and all of these other women who have been impacted by this so-called burner-verse. How big is this network of anonymous accounts? It's difficult to quantify because it's very wide ranging and amorphous. It's kind of more accurate. Each college that has a big sports team kind of has its own individual online community. So each Burnerverse kind of has its own individual Burner Galaxy, as it were. So it's difficult to quantify and the accounts tend to be pretty small. They tend to be at most a few thousand followers. But one of the things that was really shocking to me in my reporting is that I'd assumed that these guys were mostly frat kids or currently enrolled college students.

1:12:53But it's often men who are 10 or 20 or 30 years out of college with wives and kids from all over the country. It's really not limited to one specific demographic. And that's kind of what makes this so terrifying. It's really gross. Get a life. Sorry. I'm just like, hello, you're out of college. You have a family. Why are you sharing these images of young women and ruining their lives? What about accountability here? Are there laws on the books to help crack down on this? Why has this ecosystem been so difficult to stop? There are, but it's very, very difficult. Unfortunately, in my reporting, I found that the wheels of the criminal justice system are very slow for victims of cyber harassment.

1:13:38Sadly, it's very difficult for laws to keep apace with the speed with which technology has developed. And in a lot of these cases, in Maddie's case, her images went viral nationally within just a few hours. The Federal Take It Down Act does require platforms to remove nonconsensual intimate images and victims can submit a takedown request to various social media platforms. But more often than not, it's like a game of whack-a-mole. One image goes down, 10 more will come up in its place. What do you hope people will take away from your investigation and these women's stories? Well, I hope to see some real change done within the platforms, particularly X, which is primarily where the Bulkburnerverse organizes.

1:14:23X's algorithm is such that it amplifies content if it's getting a lot of engagement. And it's famously pretty poorly regulated. So there's a lot of leeway for these men to post racist or sexist or anti-Semitic content and to dox these women. So, I mean, in a perfect world, I would like to see more regulation. But more than that, I just want these men to know that the women that they do this to are brave and strong and will pursue accountability, you know, as Maddie's story demonstrates to all ends of the earth. And anonymity is not a cover for doing and saying terrible things to somebody. Yeah, let it be known.

1:15:10E.J. Dixon, thank you so much. We'll be right back.

1:15:17The people here are being largely ignored by the world. We've now witnessed for ourselves that children are working here, that they are involved with the production of Cobalt. More mortar strikes very, very close. They want us to start moving.

1:15:35You're a priest, you're a man of God. These children are accusing you of abusing them, and you have nothing to say for yourself.

1:15:44Every day they tell her to go back. And every day she has to do this extraordinary long loop to try and get in. This is the human cost of the fighting across the border. I've been informed by sources of threats against me. That's what happens here. When you look too closely at Russia's business dealings, you get a sense of the degree of the Israeli bombardment. We're CNN journalists.

1:16:15In the new CNN original series, The Detour, the acclaimed chef David Chang steps away from online recommendations and algorithms and sets out with his friends in search of his next great meal. And along the way, he follows local leads, trusts his instincts, and of course, takes a few detours. Here's a preview. Let's define a road trip. How long does it have to be? I'm going to suggest the road trip has to be longer than a really long movie. It's got to be longer than like Godfather 2. I agree with that. Anything less is a day excursion. Yes. How much caffeine does this have in it versus a Red Bull?

1:16:55Don't worry about it. Let your heart guide you. Get in a flow state. Trust your surroundings. I'm just taking whatever is given to me. I think added to road trip rules is like saying yes. Just trying new things. Like just going down unexplored paths, following some poor advice from some stranger that you meet. And the reason I go to Las Vegas, it just is a whole different world that follows its own rules. And there's a little known fact. They're handing out free money there. You just got to be willing. You got to be brave enough to take it. Exactly. Sometimes that free money only happens when you lose some money.

1:17:38Well, chef and host of The Detour, David Chang, joins us now. So tell us more about this show, David. You put down your phone, you got in a car, and you go looking for great food without the Internet's help, basically. Absolutely. Crazy pitch, and I can't believe this show actually happened because I wanted to show the world and remind people what it was like to find delicious things before the Internet, before smartphones. And it wasn't that long ago. And we sort of just asked people where to go and just got lost and threw away all the work in preparing the show and had a great time. Yeah, it looked like you had a great time.

1:18:14Why did you decide to do this as a road trip specifically? Because a road trip is something that is experiential. And I think it's one of the few things that everybody sort of can experience. They've done it themselves. And it's just a lot of fun. And there's a lot of great food along the way and great laughs. and that's what the show sort of encapsulates as well. Was there any detour that stood out in particular, something memorable or where you just couldn't believe the food? I would say all the episodes are fantastic, but the greatest detour we took was with comedian Eric Andre, who we weren't even planning to go to Miami, and somehow we wound up in Miami, and our producers and everybody involved with the show were so excited that we decided to legitimately make a detour to a city we didn't plan on going.

1:18:59So just give us a clue. Is there a meal, a food you discovered out there talking to these folks on this road trip that you're going to share with all of our viewers? 100%. One of the greatest culinary moments of my life was in Las Vegas. We were there with Court Jefferson and we were in a cab and the cab driver said, you should check out Ethiopian food. And I didn't even know that there was Ethiopian food in Las Vegas. And it's a longer story. It's an amazing story. You should watch the episode. but we had one of the best meals of the entire season at a beautiful Ethiopian restaurant. Did you invite the cab driver with you?

1:19:33That's a story in and of itself. Okay. She was almost like a guardian angel that came to make sure that we were going to eat something delicious. Give us a clue about the Ethiopian food. She left a message with the restaurant saying that we would most definitely visit them the next day. And somehow we did, and we had great, great food. The injera bread was fresh and delicious. And if you haven't had Ethiopian food, that's another example of the show is just to just get lost in a good way and try things that you may not have had. Or if you always wanted to try and this is the opportunity to do it.

1:20:05Looking forward to it. It's important to when you choose your road trip partner, especially on these long drives. How did you choose who to drive with? You know, it's an easy ask when I can call a friend and say, hey, this is going to be all expense paid trip. You just have to spend time with me, but we're going to be able to eat anything you want. Whatever you want to do, you can do. And thank you, CNN. Well, we're looking forward to this program, David Chang. Thank you very, very much for doing it. It's going to be fabulous. Be sure to tune in. A new episode, a new episode of the CNN original series, The Detour, with David Chang.

1:20:40It airs this Sunday, 9 p.m. Eastern. And to our viewers and our listeners, thanks very much for joining us this morning. You can always keep up with us on social media, at Wolf Glitzer and at Pamela Brown CNN. And we will see you back here next week, 10 Eastern, for two hours, Inside Politics with our friend and colleague, Dana Bash, starts right now.

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