CNN Obtains Jane Doe’s 2024 Statement to Cornell Police

0:00This briefing is brought to you by Easter Seals Disability Services. Real belonging begins with all of us. This is CNN Breaking News. Welcome to the lead-up, Dick Tapper, and we start with breaking news on several fronts today, including details about that suspected terror plot. Uncovered Sunday, possibly targeting a UK airbase that houses US forces. That suspected plot resulted in five suspects arrested. And now, UK authorities say there are strong indications that Iran was involved in that plot. We're going to tell you more about that. Also today in the alleged rape investigation at Cornell University. CNN has now obtained a six-page signed statement from the woman known publicly as Jane Doe, laying out exactly what she told Cornell University Police back in 2024. Why her statement is prompting new questions about the district attorney and why he did not file any charges two years ago or even launch any investigation. Also this hour, new fallout over AI models going rogue.

1:03The Federal Trade Commission, the FTC, is now launching an investigation into the entire industry to include open AI and theropic other texturrants. This announcement one day after President Trump's AI summit at the White House, one of the CEOs who attended that meeting, will be here on the lead. But we are going to start with breaking news in our world leaders. The attacker, according to the Prime Minister, the captain and the attacker are now both in the hospital, the rest of the passengers now back in Israel. CNN's Jeremy Diamond joins us now from Tel Aviv and Jeremy Heroes on the flight are

2:04being credited with saving 174 lives. What are you hearing from passengers on the plane? Yeah, without a doubt, Jake, I just returned from Ben Gorion Airport where those passengers were returning to scenes of celebration in Israel. But many of them who I spoke to were still grappling with what they experienced, the near-death experience that so many of them described to me the moments when that plane started not only to plummet, but also to spin out of control. It was the quick action, not only of that captain who managed to keep the cockpit door open enough, but also the actions of several Israeli passengers aboard that flight who rushed in, one of whom put the copilot, the assailant in this case in a chokehold, and others who came in and managed to subdue him at the same time. I also spoke, Jake, with a dentist who was aboard the flight. He was the only physician on board, Dr. Shotam Usayev, and he was the one who actually

3:05treated both the assailant as well as the pilot, the captain of this plane, who he told me was in serious condition. Cut, he was covered in cuts, his head, his hands, they were practically sliced open, almost severed into. He was in serious condition, not critical perhaps, but serious due to the massive blood loss. He also tied up the terrorist, he didn't scream at all, he just sat down quietly and went along with it. We used the cord from the headphones, and later they brought us plastic zip ties, which we used as well. And Jake, he told me that he was terrified that they were actually going to lose that pilot during the flight. He said, had they waited a few more moments before landing the plane, he believes they would have lost him.

4:06The blood pressure was dropping, he lost consciousness as they were going down for that rerouted landing in Saudi Arabia. That pilot is now in the hospital tonight, as was the co-pilot, the assailant who has been arrested by Saudi authorities. So many questions still remain about the motives behind what was an apparent attempted hijacking. We know that Israeli authorities are investigating a potential terror motivation behind this attack but so far nothing conclusive has emerged about the motives of this co-pilot in this incident. What is clear though is that tragedy was absolutely averted by the actions of a very few number of passengers with the rest of the passengers extraordinarily grateful for their actions, including one young woman who I spoke to today who said that she went up afterwards, after the flight to thank those heroes who went into that cockpit. He told me that they all saved her life and the lives of their other passengers.

5:08Jake. All right Jeremy Diamond in Israel with that story. Thank you so much. Joining us now to discuss CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst John Miller. John, there's still a lot we don't officially know about this story. We obviously all know what it looks like. I mean, it looks like somebody who wanted to kill the pilot and crash the plane but who knows if that's actually what the co-pilot intended. But we don't know how the co-pilot got the weapon on the plane and what his stated intentions were. What more do you know? Well, what we're looking at is what are the steps that can be taken right away to help answer those questions. And when you have a plane crash, usually there is a serious delay in getting to things like the black box, like the cockpit voice recorder, like a prime suspect. In this case, all of those things will emerge very quickly. The cockpit voice recorder will already be in the hands of investigators. The black box will tell them a lot about what happened to the plane under whose control,

6:13under which station. But there are other things, which is the search of the suspect's residence, what's in his computer, what's on his phones. Did he leave something like a martyrdom video, a communique, a suicide note? There is history to this. I mean, we look at this because of the tension in the region. And logically so, that has a high potential to be a terrorist attack or attempted terrorist attack. But we've also seen Egypt air flight 990 where the co-pilot crashed the plane, a German commuter flight that was crashed into the Alps by a pilot who was depressed and about to lose his license. So, you have to walk through the beginning of this and not run. But I think the evidence is going to be easy to find more quickly. And also, obviously, beyond the black box, we're hearing a lot of firsthand accounts from passengers and there's probably quite a bit of physical evidence on the plane itself. How are investigators going to try to begin to even piece this all together?

7:15Well, I mean, you know, with the Israelis, it all works in layers. Before that plane ever took off, they had run a full dossier. And you know this, you've traveled in the region. You've been interviewed by Schindbett. All of that goes into a database where they scan those passengers as anybody of threat has anybody been of threat in the past, as anybody somebody who should not be on the plane. That includes the crew. You know, so that was the first step. But they'll also be looking to Mossad and their American and regional partners to say that anybody have any tipping and queuing that there was a plot of foot. And by the way, what were the contours of the plot if there was one? Meaning Jake, was it just to take over the plane and crash it as we saw in those two other cases? Or was this something that was supposed to fall between October 7th and 9-11, where as the plane was flying over Israel, that it would be crashed into a target, a military base, a skyscraper, the Kinesa, the building, a lot of questions to answer that they don't

8:17have the answers to yet? Turning to another story involving potential terrorism overseas, the UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham today said that there are strong indications that Iran was involved in that alleged plot targeting a UK air base, which is used by the US military over the weekend. Five British men were arrested and quickly released on bail after police did not find explosives in their vans that were part close to the base. What do you make of these developments? Well, it's fascinating, Jake, because as you study the Iranian target, when they look towards attack, they look towards their... Their Ministry of Intelligence, M-O-I-S, they look towards the IRGC, their special forces, but then they immediately go to proxies like Hezbollah or the Houthis, particularly Hezbollah, because they have external operations that they can operate in other countries. But the new trend, Jake, is something the intelligence community is calling disposable agents. These are people that they recruit online, they vet them, they assess them, they bring

9:20them into a more encrypted space where there's less likely to be surveillance, and then they offer them money to carry out a plot. If you think about it, if they're captured, they can't give up much against the intelligence service, and if they're not captured or they succeed, it's a bargain for the Iranians because they get to attack their target, and they get some deniability. So that's something that is certainly being looked at here. One other report, the British media is reporting that one of the plotters actually called the police just ahead of their arrest to say this plot was a foot. I have pulled all of my sources on both sides of the pond. Nobody is waving me off that report. Hmm, fascinating. John Miller, thank you so much. In New York State today, and at a alleged gang rape at Cornell University in 2024, CNN obtained a six-page statement from the woman, the accuser, known publicly as Jane Doe, that she gave two years ago, what she told investigators then that is raising a host of new questions today.

10:22And a new recording captured Texas Attorney General Ken Paxden, the Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, what he said privately about President Trump posting that GOP midterm convention in its state and how it may have hurt him. Hi, I'm Ben Mankowitz, and this one's special. Stanley Kubrick was a hero to so many filmmakers and artists. It's tough to overstate his influence. We're thrilled to go behind the camera with some of his closest friends and collaborators to examine his legacy. TCM and criterion present the plot thickens Stanley, hosted by me, Ben Mankowitz, featuring an exclusive newly released audio interview with Stanley, available now wherever you get your podcasts. Our law and justice lead down new questions emerging about the alleged 2024 gang rape at Cornell University's Cai-Fi fraternity house, a former student identified only as Jane Doe, is

11:26suing the university seven members of that fraternity and others, a warning some of the report we're about to bring you is disturbing. Jane Doe alleges that several of the men drugged and sexually assaulted her and says the school did not do enough to protect her. The woman reported the alleged assault to Cornell University Police in 2024 and gave a six-page foreign statement which was forwarded to the Tomkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houghton. Based on that statement, Mr. Van Houghton, the DA decided to not file criminal charges or even to push police for more of an investigation. Now there are conflicting accounts of what information university police shared with the DA's office during the initial 2024 investigation. The DAWCBS reportedly attained a transcript of Jane Doe's today 2024 police interview in which she clearly says she was raped. To be clear, that transcript is separate from the six-page statement that the district attorney received and that CNN has now obtained.

12:29Now the district attorney says his office never received that transcript but Cornell insists that it shared all investigatory information with the district attorney's office, including this screenshot from the damning Snapchat group. The Jane Doe says the men used to invite others to join the alleged assault referring to the situation as free pussy in one room. On Monday, I pressed the district attorney Van Houghton on when his office received any of those Snapchat screenshots. Here's what he said. When did you get the linchpin of we did not see them initially. They were not part of our initial analysis but I understand that Cornell had them and they sent them to our team. According to a document that Cornell put out today on the incident, university police sent the screenshot to the DA's office in November 2024. So what information was shared? What wasn't shared?

13:29CNN's Jason Carroll reports for us now from Ithaca, New York on these conflicting accounts of the initial investigation. More details emerging surrounding what Jane Doe alleges happened to her at the Kai-5 fraternity house in 2024. CNN obtained the six-page statement she gave to Cornell police two years ago, saying it got to the point where she quote, had become extremely uncomfortable with how this night was turning out. So my thought was if I do ketamine again, maybe I will pass out. My thought was that if I passed out and these men had sex with me, then they could be charged with rape. In the six-page statement, she said two Kai-5 members were asking me to have sex so many times that I finally gave in to me that felt like coercion. Also telling Cornell police, I remember being totally disgusted at the situation and I felt tired and intoxicated. I would say it was the most intoxicated I have ever been in my life. I felt like I was unable to make any decisions because of how intoxicated I was.

14:35This month, Jane Doe filed a civil lawsuit against Cornell University and seven members of the Kai-5 fraternity. That lawsuit also included a screenshot of Snapchat messages between the fraternity members, allegedly inviting others to join in. The district attorney's office facing criticism by some on campus, who questioned why charges were not filed in 2024. Despite the disturbing details, the Tompkins County DA says he is bound by New York law. The voluntary intoxication of someone is not a basis to claim or to prove that they are incapacitated to the point that they cannot consent to sexual contact. So as much as I am emotionally repulsed and morally repulsed by the events, I can't prosecute cases based on emotion or based upon moral standards or moral repulsion. The DA later pointed out while he did receive Jane Doe's six-page statement, he says his

15:36office did not receive a separate transcript of Jane Doe's interview with campus police. Quote, we never received it and still don't have it. It was not part of what Cornell provided to us. We got the six-page statement and nothing more except for the Snapchat video. In that transcript exclusively obtained by WCBS, the young woman told police, I can say with 100% confidence I was raped. That comment does not appear in her six-page statement to Cornell police. Well a spokesperson for the university tells CNN that Cornell police shared a quote, lengthy investigative report with the DA's office and if there are any further questions about that report, that needs to be addressed with the DA. Many on and off campus have called for more transparency in the investigation, though it is not required, if the cosmeyer says campus police should still have alerted Ithaca police about their initial investigation.

16:38Our officers are specially trained to respond to the level of trauma-informed care that is often required when dealing with a survivor. Why not work with the municipal police department to try and help find justice? And Jake the mayor's tells us that he has reached out to the university as recently as today asking the university to consider an agreement that going forward any time that there is any sort of incident on campus involving violence involving a sexual assault or worse that they loop in the Ithaca police department. He says he is still waiting for some sort of a reply. Jake. All right Jason Carroll and Ithaca New York, thank you so much. Later on the lead I'm going to talk with the mayor of Ithaca, but joining us now is the former district attorney for Westchester County, New York, Mimi Roca, Mimi questions are swirling around this initial 2024 investigation. As we reported WCBS claims to have a transcript of Jane Doe's 2024 police interview in which

17:44she says I can say with 100% confidence I was raped, this transcript is separate from the statement that we've reported on the district attorney says he never received that transcript and he's out there saying that she said at the time that everything was consensual. Cornell says it shared everything. What do you make of this latest development? Jake, I make of it pretty much what you asked him in your initial excellent interview of him the other day, which is why didn't they follow up? Why didn't they do more? I mean, this is going to continue to evolve. We're going to continue to get drips and drabs of things that the DA had or didn't have or in his office, but we know this. He said this in a statement. He is said it publicly that he based his decision not to go to the grand jury, right, not to even try to get charges on that six page written statement.

18:44That's it. There was no other investigation done. They didn't listen to the interview, which we now know about. They didn't review forensic evidence. They didn't review cell phones. They didn't try to get other witnesses surveillance video. There is so many avenues in a case like this. It is a case that clearly just on the face of her statement is so complex and so nuanced. The rape laws, the consent law, the voluntary intoxication loophole that we're talking about. These are things that prosecutors and investigators can sit and analyze and debate for hours. If your investigator trying to get it the truth as this DA office should have been, they should have sought more information. Period. It's as simple as that. I mean, I don't think that anyone right now can say whether a crime should or should not have been charged.

19:45I actually would not make that conclusion right now. I would say there should have been a full and fair investigation that was not done. And I frankly don't see how this DA now can be the person to conduct that investigation. Nothing's I wonder how can the public go ahead and finish your thought. I'm sorry. I don't believe that at this point given everything that's happened, that the victim could have faith in whatever decision he renders, that the defendants, the people charged if they are charged with a crime, could have faith in the decision he renders or that the public will. It is a case where everyone's doubting his motives at this point. And that's frankly understandable, right? He's reopened the case which is an admirable move. But then he goes ahead and tries to essentially, in his interview with you and elsewhere, lame

20:48her for not having said the right words at the time to cause him to go to the grand jury. Yeah, although in that initial police interview, she says I was raped and that somehow doesn't end up as far as we know in that six-page statement that the police officer typed up which is very, very bizarre. She alleges a crime that doesn't make it into the six-page summary. I don't understand that. Mimi Roca, thank you so much for your time today. In the gravity and nature of this story, we want to remind folks trying to navigate any similar crisis. There are people who can help at the Rain Network, for example, that's short for rape abuse incest national network. You can reach them anytime at rain.org. That has two ends, r-a-i-n-n, dot org, or call 1-800-656-HOP. My next guest was one of the many tech execs at the White House yesterday talking about AI. We're going to get his take on today's breaking news. The FTC investigating open AI and theropic and others after troubling instances of cyber intrusion by AI models.

21:52Breaking news today in our series, AI Friend or Foe, the Federal Trade Commission is launching a probe into anthropic open AI and other AI labs as reports surge about AI models running rogue and a muck sparking fears about public safety. This all comes after top tech leaders and President Trump met yesterday and they signed a pledge that companies will self-regulate their developing technology, including four starting principles and a notable misspelling we should note below the president's signature, unless, of course, he's also changed the name of the country to the United States. Brandon Daniels is the CEO of Supply Chain AI Company Exager and was at his White House at the White House summit yesterday for the tech executive meeting. He joins us now. Brandon, thanks for joining us. So your quick thoughts on this FTC probe. Do you think this is necessary? Jake, I think it's important for us to understand the circumstances in which these agents can

22:56go rogue. I've had agents go rogue and testing before. And so what I do is I set up the three Cs. If they start using more costs, start using more compute or start using more cyber surface than I intended, then there's a circuit breaker. There's something that stops them. And in these cases, they didn't have that happen. So you tell our team that the other executives yourself included verbally agreed to this morally binding, what's what Trump called it, morally binding list of accords, implementing robust internal controls, which it sounds like you have done, empowering an internal team for monitoring, partnering with an independent external auditor and designating an independent committee to receive reports on the controls. Do you think it's enough now to self-police as this technology continues to evolve at rapid speed when we've already seen so many incidents get out of hand? And that's just what we know about. Yeah, Jake, I think this is an important first step.

23:56What we agreed in the room is that we all believe there are a set of super-seating principles that we must adhere to. I mean, one example is, if I sell you a product, I can't have something dangerous in there, I can't have IP that I don't own in there. I have essentially unlimited liability to those principles. And so we agreed that we must own the tooling that sits around this AI that creates the capability for the AI to be productive, right? And that tooling allows us to implement governance, allows us to implement checks and balances, allows us to implement, like I said, the circuit breaker, the surge protectors that we have inside of the code to stop them from going rogue and stop them from creating harm. But then the other thing that we all came together on, which is really important. And the president led this, certainly Jensen and Mark were very vocal advocates of it, is that we do need external auditors.

24:59We do need third parties. We do need board reporting to show that we're actually executing these. And I think folks that are on one side of the spectrum, like Dario, and folks that are on the other side of the spectrum, like, you know, Hawk Tans, a great example of someone that's full board going forward with AI growth. It's bringing us together and creating a set of principles that we can agree to and we can say, like, let's start self-regulating. So I think the thing is, is technology? Yeah, sorry, please go ahead. Well, I just go ahead. I think one of the concerns that people have is, and I'm not talking about you, but that's a big room full of a lot of people with a lot of power and a lot of wealth. And I think there are a lot of people in the public that think, I don't know that I trust these guys, or at least some of these guys, the New York Times. The New York Times reported yesterday that earlier this year, open AI ignored their own employees who were warning about security flaws in the training. This is months before the hugging face hack.

26:00And yet one of the listed layers here is to empower an internal team to ensure there are no issues. Do you have faith that all of those CEOs are willing to listen to naysayers in their companies, even if it means slowing down and losing money? We had a robust debate around this, and I think everyone agreed that it's about ensuring that your products have the safe guards and safety constraints that are necessary to make it so that what you're delivering to the public is safe, what you're delivering to the public is scalable and reliable. That doesn't mean that you have to stop innovating, though. This is one of the misnomers here, Jake, is that most people think if you want this to be safe, you have to stop innovating. The fact is, it's actually the deployment and the tooling and the infrastructure that you give to these models that makes them potent, makes them so they can do things, makes them productive.

27:00We can continue to innovate and win and beat the world in terms of artificial intelligence and superintelligence and bring that capability to the United States and create lots of jobs. But the thing is we have to make sure that before we open up those models to the general public, to hobby developers, to people that might not have everyone's best interests in minds, that we have these circuit breakers and we have these testing and compliance capabilities that avoid the infinite loops that can cause major errors or can avoid malicious attacks like we've seen hacking groups do. Brandon Daniels, thank you so much. Appreciate your time today. Coming up next in audio recording, capturing part of a private conversation with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxed in the Republican nominee for US Senate, what he said about President Trump hosting that midterm convention earlier this month in his state.

28:01My name is David Chang and I've been a chef for 25 years. Before algorithms, binding something good deep and getting out in the world and looking for it. So I'm picking up my friends, hitting the road and seeing what's out there. The detour with David Chang on CNN, now streaming with an all-access subscription. Oh yeah, we love that CNN election jam. We're just 34 days out from midterm election day. The New York Times obtained an audio recording of the Republican Texas Senate nominee, current Attorney General Ken Paxed in. Talking to conservative donors last week, he didn't sound particularly grateful for President Trump holding that GOP midterm convention earlier this month in Dallas in his home state. Here is some of that audio. He's a little bit of a drag. So to be honest with you, the numbers can get slowly to that convention for dropped our numbers. Everybody's going to be dropped. Right now, yeah, not good.

29:04Everybody's numbers dropped after the convention, Mr. Paxed and says, my panel's here, Ron, President Trump was just out asked about what Paxed and said in the New York Times. I haven't heard that, but I can tell you that the convention was amazing. This was a national convention. Midterm convention never been done before. And we went directly against the NFL. It was just the timing worked out that way. And we had 107 million versus 25 million views. And advisor for Paxed and told CNN in a statement, quote, this is more manipulated nonsense from the New York Times to create a story that doesn't exist. Our latest poll from the last week has Ken Paxed in leading by three points. And every serious poll, sir, will tell you that our numbers have improved since early September. Ken Paxed in is going to win this race. And he looks forward to closing strong alongside President Trump, including when he comes to Texas this week, unquote. So Ron, Trump and Paxed in having an event tomorrow in Texas.

30:05Trump has been known to make interesting comments about Mr. Paxed and do you think this might cause some trouble? You know, I look, I think the fundamental trouble is that Trump has a negative approval rating in Texas. I mean, you know, if you look, if you look at the battlefield this year, Jake, virtually every compared, every seat in both the House and the Senate that both sides are seriously fighting over voted for Trump in 24. It's a Republican landing terrain. But today, even in states that he won by double digits like Texas, Ohio, and Alaska, there's persistent polling that is approval is under war. And it is worth reminding. As performance, no guarantee of future results. But in his first term, Susan Collins and Maine was the only Republican Senate incumbent or challenger who won in a state where the exit poll showed where people disapproved and approved of his job performance. That's what Ken Paxed and everybody else, that's the headwind they are running against in these final weeks. Peter, other Republicans in tough races have also been breaking with Trump in different ways, more publicly than Paxed in there in that audio.

31:07Congresswoman Ashley Henson running for Senate in Iowa, Senator John Houston in Ohio, former Congressman Mike Rogers running for Senate in Michigan. They've all publicly called on him to end the war in Iran to bring down prices. Collins and Maine, Sanunu and New Hampshire slamming the trade war with Canada, which are obviously border states, border countries, is a border country. Is Paxed in just cashing in some way the way the tide is turning on Trump right now? I think that Paxed and look, remember at the midterm convention, Donald Trump basically called Kempaxen ugly. There could be a variety of reasons why Kempaxen said their poll numbers have gone down since that convention. But Ron is right. That Donald Trump's approval rating is the drag. It went back and looked. Trump's approval rating has spiked since the GOP midterm convention. And yeah, maybe it was that people were watching Trump and they didn't like the dividend offer for people to go vote for Republicans. It's really, as you said, Jake Price's.

32:07Gas prices have gone up by almost 50 cents over the last month. That's contributing to Donald Trump's approval rates going down and why those candidates you just mentioned are trying to break with him. I think Iowa is a very fascinating case because it's not just prices. People talk about diesel a lot lately. Yes, that's important. There's so many inputs to the farm economy in Iowa that go back to tariffs. They didn't export soybeans to China. They need to bring in potash from Canada. And so all of these economic pressures, I think, relate to the war. And that's exactly why you're seeing these candidates try to break, which I'll be even though they're not actually doing anything about it on Capitol Hill for the ones who are members of Congress. Yeah, and it's not just Ashley Henson in Iowa. It's two members of the House who are running for election miller meeks and none. Also voting against Trump on the war with Iran. Staying in Texas, though, Paxton's Democratic competitor James Talleriko is out with a new attack ad against Paxton. Here's a little bit of that.

33:29$15 million Ocean View property in Hawaii. Absolutely. Ken Paxton owns 15 properties valued at approximately $9 million, even though he makes just $153,000 annually as a turn general. I mean, Ron, that's kind of a brutal ad when you think about the fact that there are corruption allegations against Paxton. I mean, he's been indicted and then not to mention impeached. And people are struggling with affordability. The people don't have 15 homes. Yeah, look, in Texas as a Democrat, even if you turn out Democrat at an elevated rate, which seems likely this year, if you win independence by a big margin, which seems likely this year, that's still probably not enough to wait. You've got to either depress, republick, and turn out or peel away some Republican voters. And you know, that, that cornering constituency, the non-magic Republicans in Tarant and Dallas and the suburbs of Dallas and the suburbs of Houston. Those are the voters who are having the most trouble getting to Ken Paxton.

34:31And I think this is just another attempt to remind them of why they find him so personally unacceptable. Even if Tallarillo can't pull many of those people all the way over the voting for him, there is the risk that they either don't vote or simply skip the Senate and that, you know, can boot him a long way as well. Peter Hanby, Ron Brownstein, thanks to both here. Appreciate it. A big night tonight for politics. CNN is hosting a debate in California's race for governor between Democrat, Secretary Harvey Arbysera and Republican Steve Hilton. I'm here in Los Angeles right now to moderate alongside CNN's Dan Abash. You can look for that tonight at nine Eastern, six Pacific only here on CNN. Coming up next, we're more promising signs of a drug that has been nothing short of a miracle for patients fighting one of the most aggressive forms of cancer. We're back in a moment. And our health-laden new hope for pancreatic cancer patients. You might remember my interview with former Senator Ben Sass a few months ago. Sass credits a transformational drug for extending his life.

35:32But you don't have to be a former senator to access it. CNN's Randy K introduces you to a Florida woman right now whose TikTok video went viral in her fight to prolong her husband's life. Yay! Got to ring the bell. In August 2025, Russ Reed celebrated being cancer-free. But just four months later, Russ' pancreatic cancer had returned, and this time had spread to his liver and intestine. My mutation is so aggressive, it's the most aggressive mutation for pancreatic cancer. He tried chemotherapy, but nothing worked. Then came word of a brand new drug called Rasunque showing promise, but not yet approved by the FDA. How frustrating was it for you, for your husband, to not have access to a drug that was out there? It was beyond frustrating. Marney Reed's father died of pancreatic cancer at 63. The same age her husband Russ was when he was diagnosed. I was determined this was not going to repeat itself.

36:33So she took action. My name is Marney Reed, and I'm trying to save my husband's life. Marney posted on social media about her husband's cancer battle and lack of access to the new drug. It went everywhere. The FDA called the house. In the end, Russ got the medicine through the FDA's expanded access program. It took 63 days, and with pancreatic cancer, every second counts. So this is what you take. This is it. This is the Rasunque. It's two, so 150 milligram pills, they're pretty large. Oh wow. And I take two of those every morning. What does it feel like to actually have this in your hands? You waited so long. It feels great. You know, it's hope. It's hope in a bottle. In just 12 days of starting the new drug, Russ says his pain was gone. Not even a Tylenol. So it was... Watching his energy come back was amazing. It was amazing. And what about the side effects? The rash. We talked about it's real. It's difficult, especially because you can't put a lot on your scalp.

37:37You know, so the scalp is probably the most itchy and broken out, if you will. I think it was... It's been worse on my face. How's he going? The rash is on his face, torso, arms and legs. But he's still grateful for the medicine. I wouldn't be sitting here today or if I did, I'd be riding in pain because of the tumors. It's a game changer. It's the best thing that's happened in pancreatic in 40 years. A game changer indeed, but as Russ's oncologist told me, Russ on Q will not save Russ's life. It doubles the survival rate in patients with pancreatic cancer. This is not a cure, unfortunately, but is a step in the right direction. Not only is it going to give a little bit more quantity, but it's quality as well. He promised me 50 years. Russ on Q is now approved by the FDA, but only available to patients with stage 4 pancreatic cancer that has spread. I would like to give these medicine to every single patient with pancreatic cancer. I'll take every day that I can get.

38:39We've had very difficult conversations about what's to come. We know that that day is going to come. We just don't know when. I tell people jokingly that the dolphins need to win the Super Bowl. Before he's able. That could be a while. Randy K. CNN, Port Saint Lucie, Florida. Thanks to Randy K. for that report. More reports of disturbing Snapchat messages from 2024 in that Cornell alleged gang rape story. They're all surfacing now. Why is it all coming to light now? Why no charges two years ago? Why no further investigation two years ago? The mayor of Ithaca, New York, is coming up next. He also has questions about this case. Stay with us. Welcome to the lead. I'm Jake Taber, this hour. New documents obtained by CNN are raising fresh questions tonight about the investigation

39:41or lack thereof into an alleged gang rape at Cornell University. Now, Ithaca, New York mayor, the Ithaca, New York mayor, is demanding that the campus take immediate action, not just into this case, but how it is going to ensure that every student on its campus is safe. That mayor is going to join us live in moments plus terrified moments, terrifying moments on board of flight as Israeli officials say passengers stopped and attempted terrorist attack. Those officials say that one pilot attacked the other, stabbed him, causing the plane to drop 17,000 feet. But the injured pilot was able to open the cockpit door, which allowed passengers on the plane to rush in and restrain the suspect. The new details we're learning as officials scrambled to figure out how and why this all happened. And Secretary of Defense Hegseth attempting to rally troops today during his state of the force speech, he attacked what he called woke policy and lots of Americans, as he announced he's removing more senior officers from the ranks. But how will that message resonate with the rank and file?

40:47The lead tonight new details about the 2024 alleged gang rape at Cornell University raising questions as to what exactly law enforcement knew at the time, CNN's Pamela Brown obtained a six-page signed statement by Jando. Two Cornell University police, when she first went to school officials about the alleged gang rape by several members of the Chi-5 fraternity. Now, some of the contents of this report that we're about to share with you are disturbing. According to the six-page statement, Jando told police that she was okay with an initial encounter, she was having with two men. But that later in the night she did not consent to sex with other men who entered the room. Jando also described being physically hit and having bruises. Then there is a separate document which was obtained by CNN, Affiliate WCBS. This one is a transcript of a November 2024 interview with campus police, Cornell University police, where Jando makes a more explicit rape accusation. Now according to that transcript obtained by WCBS, Jando said, quote, I can say with 100

41:47percent confidence, I was raped. Now, on that transcript, Tomkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten tells CNN his office, quote, never received it and still don't have it. It was not part of what Cornell provided to us. Cornell University did not specifically address the transcript but said, quote, it shared all investigatory information with District Attorney Houten Van Houten's office. There's also more information about that damning Snapchat group among the members of the fraternity. The Jando says, the men used to invite others to join this alleged assault or rape, referring to her as free pussy. According to CBS News New York at 1.42 a.m., during the hours long alleged assault, another message in the group said, quote, shop still open? These new details continue to prompt uncomfortable questions, including why did the District Attorney not ask for more information from either campus police or from Jando or from any of the

42:50men in the fraternity? Why weren't any criminal charges fired at the assault file at the time of the incident? And why does it appear that Cornell and campus police and the District Attorney's office were not on the same page when it came to the allegations the survivor was making? My next guest is calling for an immediate pause on any Greek life events and student gatherings at Cornell following the reopening of this investigation into the alleged 2024 gang rape. Ithaca, New York mayor, Robert Cantelma, thanks for joining us. So, Mr. Mayor, you want to see a pause on all student event and special event permits until Cornell quote, conducts an accounting of its protocols to prevent and prosecute crimes of sexual violence and publicly releases new standards and practices to keep our community safe on quote. What does that look like? What does the university have to do? Thanks, Jake. I really appreciate you having me and for CNN helping to shine a light on this issue

43:51and the problem of sexual violence on campuses writ large. From where I sit, we have three demands that we're making of the university. One, I want assurances in writing that going forward crimes of a violent or sexual nature are disclosed to the Ethically Police Department immediately and allow our department with trained professionals to assist in those investigations where appropriate. The fact that this was handled solely by CUPD is a failing in my mind, especially given that universities treat these matters like disciplinary actions in most cases. Secondly, as you noted, we want to make sure that the university complies with the governor's call for an independent investigation. And I want to see public and concrete measures to both prevent, monitor and punish sexual violence on campus. And I'd also like to see the university get on board with efforts statewide to close

44:52what they refer to as the intoxication loophole, which allows people to claim a defense in sex crime cases that just because someone is conscious, they are able to consent to sex, which I feel is wildly inappropriate. Yeah, we're going to talk more about the intoxication loophole in a second with the state legislator. We are just learning that Cornell University has agreed to an independent investigation into how it handled the Jando case according to Governor Kathy Hokus office, your reaction. I'm glad to see it. It's a necessary bare minimum step. Again, I think the case that we're talking about here is heinous and very tragic, but I really don't want to lose sight of the fact that there are incidents of sexual violence that occur on this campus and campuses around the country on a regular basis. And there is a deep rot in higher education that needs to be addressed. And I think that it is a bare minimum that we do an investigation so that we can try to address this problem nationwide.

45:54So I'm not going to defend Cornell University, but I have a lot of questions about others involved here. Like for example, Jane Doe said that explicitly she was raped in an interview that WCBS broke from from 2024. But that was not in the six page report that the campus university police officer wrote. So I don't understand that. Why did the campus police didn't go to Ithaca police? I don't understand that. And why the district attorney read this document, which is horrifying and didn't ask police to find out more about it, that I don't understand. Why the focus just on Columbia and not, I mean on Cornell and not some of the other players here? Well, I completely agree that we need to have a full accounting of what was happening in the district attorney's office. I know my colleagues at the county legislature are really interested in pursuing this further. The level of government that oversees the district attorney's office. And I would also say with respect to CUPD, one of our demands is that they hand those things

46:57over to Ithaca police going forward. I don't understand why some of these common sense feeling steps were missed. And I think when I look at my community, when I look at the students here, they have an expectation of safety. The parents that send their kids to these schools have an expectation of safety. The community that lives in coexistence with the campus has an expectation of safety. And it's really hard to see how those needs are met when the university is not trained in the same way that our officers are. They're not handling this with the same level of trauma-informed care and attention that our officers are. And there's a lot of open questions that I think we really need a full accounting of, but I think we need to make sure that at a bare minimum this type of thing doesn't happen again. And that was going to require real action by the university. Yeah. Ithaca Mayor Robert Contellamo. Thank you so much. Appreciate your time. According to the Associated Press, New York State is one of 19 states in this country that has rape or sexual assault laws laws that do not consider somebody mentally incapacited

48:01if they knowingly drank alcohol or took drugs. In other words, somebody can get super drunk or super high or whatever. And because they did that to themselves, there are no issues when it comes to consent. That person can give consent. Now a short time ago, New York State's Assembly Speaker announced that he's forming a legislative working group to examine New York State's sexual assault laws. My next guest is going to be part of that working group. New York Assembly Member Anna Kowals, her district concludes Ithaca. Work Cornell is located. Thank you so much for joining us. So New York State law makes it more difficult to prosecute those who take advantage of people who are super drunk or super wasted if they did so, if they got in that state on their own voluntarily. Now, the Tompkins County District Attorney cited the law for why his office did not initially file any criminal charges against any of the men who were part of this alleged gang rape. Is that something that your working group plans to address? Yes, we absolutely plan to look at this gap, but I do, Jake, want to note that the DA had

49:07more than enough information from Jane Doe's statement alone to follow up on an investigation in this case. He chose not to do that, but that is not a problem with statute. Obviously there's no question that investigatively he could have asked campus police, Cornell police, or Ithaca police to get involved in even doing an interview, another interview with the woman or any of the witnesses or anyone else. I want to ask you, I was shocked when I learned that this loophole existed. You don't exactly come from a, well, it's a very democratic state and one would think theoretically with very progressive laws when it comes to sexual assault and rape. Who has been standing in the way of this becoming law? So just to clarify what you are referring to is a gap in the way the law is currently written. The law is written. Some prosecutors do cite this as a reason for not prosecuting, and they call that the

50:13voluntary intoxication loop. So loophole, so you could have two women, for example, one of them gets roofies in her drink and is raped, and that is prosecuted as rape. And another woman who chooses to get to drink and becomes intoxicated and is raped, and that is the loophole that you're referring to that you cannot say that she did not consent to that. And I agree that is an antiquated interpretation. There is case law that does close that. But that is something that we should explore, and we will be exploring in this task force to make sure that law is very, very clear in this case. So that is hugely important. And I do really want to lift up the fact that as a survivor, it took me 35 years to come to terms with what I experienced.

51:15It took this woman two weeks, two weeks to not only see what she had experienced, but be willing to come forward to speak to law enforcement for hours, probably a room full of men. To not confess, this wasn't a confessional, she went to report a crime. Yeah. It's a heartbreaking story, but maybe hopefully people will be educated in a dark way, but maybe some good can come of this in some way. New York Assemblymember Anna Callis, thank you so much. Thank you for your courage, and thanks for coming to talk to us today. Thank you so much for having me. We want to remind people who might be dealing with any similar crisis, or know someone in a similar situation. There are resources who can help anytime. At the Rain Network that's short for rape abuse, incest, national network, R-A-I-N-N.

52:16You can reach them anytime at rannn.org, two ends, or you can call 1-800-656-HOPE, 1-800-656-HOPE. Defense Secretary Pete Hankseth, speaking to troops today, or he launched a new autonomous warfare command, said he's removing woke from the military, and he used a slur to describe transgender service members. How will those comments go over with the rank and file? Well, we're going to talk to a retired Army Major General Max. In our politics lead, Secretary of Defense Pete Hankseth addressed U.S. service members at the U.S. Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia this afternoon. He started his speech defending the quote, patriotic cowboys, unquote, of his new war department, and he is 20% cut to senior officer positions, including admirals and generals. Here's an excerpt. The media calls that a purge. I call it accountability and long overdue.

53:18And frankly, the bare minimum. You see, you can't change a culture with the same people who enabled it. No fatties, no tranny, no beardows, no weirdoes, no wimps, no radicals. No transparency in the Pentagon, a war with no end in sight, 19 dead service members, more than 160 Iranian children, killed with no accountability, in addition to the list he cited. All this after Hankseth's morning sweating with service members of the Pentagon, they were wearing matching shirts and blazoned with, this is war, which is interesting because the administration insists we are not at war. We tired U.S. Army, Major General Randy Manor joins us now. General, thanks for joining us. Some of the people that Hankseth is fired in the quote unquote name of accountability are some of the most decorated and respected officers we've had in the modern era. I'm thinking specifically of Army Chief of Staff, General Randy George and General Kristana Hugh. What do you think of Hankseth's characterization? So I completely agree that he has been firing people based on their political ideology

54:24in his perception, which of course military officers are not political, but anybody who does not agree with him is actually labeled as such. The concept of reducing the number of admirals in general is a good one. Just as an example, the British Navy has over 35 admirals, but you have only 15 combat ships. That's clearly out of sync. The problem is that the Secretary of Defense has already proven that he's trying to purge the military, already fired 80 people, 80 generals and admirals. And because they're gender, because they're not white like him, or because they were associated with General Millie or others, incredibly competent generals, and he's getting rid of them. Do you have any concerns about now being the right time to cut senior military positions given the fact that the US is engaged in an act of war with Iran? This is just unbelievable and it's soft-moric.

55:25Think about this if it was a business of $1.5 trillion budget and over a million and a half people in it. Any corporation would be very thoughtful to be able to figure out how to restructure the organization so there was not a loss of ability to serve the customers and to reduce any kind of risks. So a thoughtful restructuring would be very smart. He's not doing that. He literally is purging people who don't agree with him. The problem is this incompetent Secretary of Defense is actually dealing with not the profitability of a corporation that is instead playing Russian roulette with the security of the United States. This is extremely dangerous. So earlier this week, the Pentagon said that Secretary Hegs had signed a memo directing the US military to deploy, quote, advanced intelligence and cyber capabilities to thwart any foreign interference from impacting the midterms. The efforts in the memo are largely things that the US and spy agencies are already doing. What are you hearing if anything from military officials about this new memo and what the

56:27point of it might be? That was rather shocking but it was something that was absolutely predicted on the member of an organization of 1600 retired generals, admirals and ambassadors, called National Security Leaders for America. We saw this coming. We predicted it in writing and it's something where he's laying the groundwork with false flags of foreign interference to be able to cause the military to mobilize against it. This is all propaganda and fake news. It's not even the military's responsibility to be able to defend against this. It is the NSA and the FBI. So the idea that he has put out that memo two days ago, directing it, is actually inappropriate to have the military start to do this. It sounds good but it's not appropriate in any way and it is a precursor for the governors of Georgia and possibly Texas to deploy their own national guards in certain precincts to theoretically defend the voters around election time.

57:30A lot more to follow and so we need to buckle up and be prepared. Retired US Army Major General Randy Mannor. Thank you so much for appreciating it. Today the Justice Department announced it's, it's, um, jitting up its fight against almost all of the federal judges in Minnesota. We're going to explain why next. We're back in our National League, the Trump administration today escalating a fight with the judicial branch. Attorney General Todd Blanche denounced the Justice Department filed a judicial misconduct complaint against six of the seven federal judges in Minnesota. The Justice Department is demanding those judges be disqualified from any immigration-related case at issue is a New York Times article from earlier this month in which those judges described the Justice Department's failure to comply with court orders during the ice surge in Minnesota earlier this year as a grave threat to the rule of law of the three judges identified by the Times.

58:31One was appointed by Trump, one by George W. Bush, and another by Bill Clinton. Let's bring in CNN, senior justice correspondent Evan Perez. Evan, what is in the article that has the administration so upset and what are the rules when it comes to judges speaking to the press? Look, it's extraordinary, Jake, four judges to speak on the record for sit-to-sit for an interview like this at times in their story a few weeks ago that they published, said that they spoke into seven judges on the bench there in Minnesota. All of them described this extraordinary, very tense situation which you, of course, covered in your coverage of Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. They described how the Justice Department was essentially ignoring court orders, going above the heads of some of the judges, going, for instance, to the appeals court when they didn't like a ruling and not going through the proper process. They described a process where the Homeland Security Department seemed to be trying to

59:32what one judge said was a law onto itself. And so that's what they were describing in that story. The Attorney General today took a very strong issue with that saying that that broke a lot of the rules that govern judges. Listen to what he said. This is a flagrant violation in the department's view of the Code of Judicial Conduct. The comments are not only overtly political, it's self-evilation, but also concern matters pending before these judges, or still in the appellate process, a separate violation. Aside from the fact, on top of the comments themselves, the comments are not even true and blatantly false. And without a doubt, Jake, this is unprecedented. And you have to look back to what happened in Minnesota. That was also unprecedented. And I'll also note that the criticism from those judges is not just in Minnesota. There are judges around the country that no longer take the Justice Department's word

1:00:35for what it stands for. I mean, we have seen that in cases around the country. We've also seen grand juries reject indictments. We've seen juries reject cases because the Justice Department has lost some of the normal faith that people have in its word. So this is a problem nationwide. This is not just an issue in Minnesota. Obviously, Minnesota is at the center of this immigration surge. And these judges, of course, got the attention of the Attorney General there. All right, Evan Petta. Thank you so much. Tonight, a hero passenger is sharing more details about how he and others were able to restrain an attacker in the middle of a flight. That's next. And our world lead investigators are scrambling for answers tonight after what Israeli officials are calling an attempted plane hijacking.

1:01:35The fly Dubai plane was traveling from the United Arab Emirates to Israel earlier today when all of a sudden it plummeted thousands of feet in just a few minutes. Here's what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told CNN just moments ago. The amazing heroism here of the Indian pilot, the Israeli passenger and his colleagues and those pilots managed to prevent a 9-11 disaster. Here's how one passenger described what transpired on the plane. We just felt the plane drop completely and start spinning a little. And everyone was screaming. There were children crying. And it was just like a death in front of her eyes moment. I was just sure I was going to die. CNN anchor and correspondent Richard Quest joins us now. What else do we know about the suspect in this and how it all unfolded?

1:02:41We only know, according to what the Prime Minister just said, that the suspect was his own money. We may also have dual citizenship. And we don't know anything about his history, his flying background, other than what the Prime Minister said today, which was that he attacked the other captain, the attack the captain, who heroically managed to open the cockpit door, thus allowing other passengers into the cockpit. They then overpowered your sailant, who was not in his seat at the time. And one of the passengers then took the controls, having watched air-crushing investigation, knew to pull back on the stick, to pull back on the yoke and then of course other pilots came in. This is the big, look, the reality here, Jake, we've always known someone has to fly the plane. And that has always been the number one weakest link in aviation at the moment. When the rogue pilot is the problem, we saw it with Egypt a years ago, we saw it with

1:03:44German wings, there have been other cases where the pilots have done this. And there really is, except for vetting, except for certain procedures. Because at the end of the day, Jake, many of the things that prevent these attacks were put in place after 9-11. But thank goodness the people were able to get into the cockpit today because the captain was able to open the door. It would have had a very different ending if they hadn't. So Richard, how was the plane able to land if one pilot was seriously injured, having been stabbed and the other one was being restrained? So there we have the first passengers come in and pull back slightly, pull back on the yoke and get the plane so it's stabilized. Then you've got these two off duty pilots who are dead heading to Tel Aviv, they come into the cockpit, they then take over the plane and fly it, they're emergency landing inside you. But here's an interesting point. If you look at the picture of that 737, the rudder, part of the rudder has been sure

1:04:49enough. And forces as that plane was put into a steep descent. The IU estimate, 15,000 feet over two minutes, it's about three or four times faster than you would normally do in a normal top of descent in the initial phase. So it was a been terrifying. Let's be clear, this would have been horrific. To have been, to have seen this taking place, to have felt the aircraft falling out of the sky, having no idea what was likely to happen. And then you have this sort of next bit where the other pilots come in, take over, a challenging landing without the rudder, not impossible, but of course they won't have known what else might. This was a very close. This was way, way too close. And we'll once again focus attention on pilots, the sort of stresses and strains and who is actually flying the planes. And you're wrongly, that's where the focus is now going to be. A horrific tragedy, averted, thankfully, Richard Quest, thanks so much.

1:05:51Here to discuss this US Air Force Reserve Colonel Dr. Josh Maconkey, he's an emergency physician who also deployed during Operation Iraqi Freedom. Dr. Maconkey, what are the biggest questions you still have unanswered right now? Well, the biggest questions on the culprits who actually partook in this attack, the pilot, his background. But it was much more harrowing. It was actually almost 15,000 feet, just about 14,000 feet in 30 seconds. So if you can just imagine like the worst carnival ride of your life, and then it lost about 17,000 total over those two minutes. So the initial 30 seconds were incredibly dangerous and those were the forces that damaged the aircraft. But lots of questions to be answered. We're going to hear a lot of stories of heroism to come for sure. You've trained for hijacking scenarios. What stands out to you here about how the pilot who was attacked behaved and how the passengers on board reacted? With 25 years of military service as a crew member, as a flight surgeon, I saw how things

1:06:52changed after 9-11. But what do you do when that threat is actually inside the cockpit? And so this pilot has the ability to actually keep the plane from crashing and getting that cockpit door open. It's so many lives and allowed the rest of the Russian in there. I don't know if this is policy for flight to buy, but having those two pilots on the aircraft, they were dead heading, but having them there to land the aircraft, you can imagine the immense loss of life had they not had all of those lucky events occur. But what a scary scenario. Very scary. It occurs to me also, by the way, that this is a very post 9-11 thing to happen in the sense that the pilot had the wherewithal to open the door and the passengers had the wherewithal to think, we have to take action to save our own lives. It reminds me of Flight 93, which is, if memory serves, those passengers in the Let's Roll, Todd Beamer bravery, they knew that other planes had hit the towers.

1:07:58They were aware that they had to do something. And we see that now in passenger behavior and pilot behavior. Boy, that's exactly what I was thinking. You just hear those and see those echoes of Flight 93. Our recent 25th anniversary of 9-11, I sat down and watched a documentary of that flight with my children. It was very emotional. And boy, as exactly what they were going through, and fortunately, they were successful in stopping that hijacker. What kind of safety reviews do you think officials are going through right now, not just about US airspace, but the airspace of our closest allies and who they allow to fly planes and such? Well, that's going to be the biggest questions. Is there background checks? Where they're from? Probably getting a lot more involved with questioning and background, family, prior jobs. I don't know how well that was scrutinized before for fly to buy, but I can assure you to have any access to European, Israeli or American airspace, it's going to have to be much more

1:09:01due diligence than that. Dr. Josh Pekonky, thank you so much for your time and expertise. And as always, of course, thank you for your service, sir. President Trump seemingly praised AI leaders for what he calls, tremendous self-policing, but are those actions truly enough to protect the public? I'm going to ask a former Facebook whistleblower, what she thinks next. And we turn once more to our series AI Friend or where we weigh the benefits and the risks of this emerging technology this week. Leaders from nearly 20 tech companies met with President Trump in the White House and signed a commitment to regulate themselves as they continue to develop this technology, which, according to their own researchers, has the potential to wipe out all of humanity. Joining us now, someone intimately familiar with the internal workings of major tech companies, former Facebook data engineer and whistleblower, Francis Hogan. Francis, thanks for joining us.

1:10:02Do you trust these companies to self-regulate? Self-regulating is going to lead to the same problems that we saw the social media. As long as there are financial rewards for cutting corners, and there's no consequences for those same lack of rigor, we're going to see them over and over again, prioritize profits over people. We saw a story in the New York Times about how OpenAI earlier this year was ignoring warnings from its own people. How can that culture change? I mean, you're a whistleblower, so obviously you didn't think you could come forward with your complaints internally. What do you think needs to happen for these tech giants to listen to their people inside the company? When I was inside the company, I raised my concerns time and time again to my boss, co-workers. But what you see when someone comes forward as a public whistleblower, it usually means that there are many people inside the company expressing similar concerns, but those concerns are not being taken seriously.

1:11:02The fact that we have seen major whistleblowers come out of basically every major AI lab with similar or kind of resonant concerns, issues about people moving too fast, not giving enough time to adequately audit the models, or in the case of OpenAI, having dangerous circumstances for how they're testing the models. Those are the reasons that we need to have more access from independent people from the outside. I want to shift gears and discuss a new CNN flash doc that you participated in, it's called Zuckerberg, Facebook and the Cost of Connection, which explores the influence of Facebook founder or Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg and his impact on our society. Here's a quick preview. Man, when the Facebook files broke, it was crazy. There was a great disturbance in the force. We could feel it all over the company. We had no idea who I'd lead. These documents. Our witness this morning is Francis Hagen. I'm here today because I believe Facebook's products harm children, stoke division, and

1:12:04weaken our democracy. The company's leadership knows how to make Facebook and Instagram saver, but won't make the necessary changes because they have put their astronomical profits before people. I wanted people to understand Facebook knew they were hurting kids. Fundamentally how Facebook operated was the problem. If I didn't act and I knew that I was one of the few people who could, I would always feel that I was responsible in some way for what happened. I'm sure it was frightening to be a whistleblower against one of the biggest, most powerful companies in the world. What was the worst case scenario in your mind about what might happen because you came forward? For myself or whatever. Find yourself. For myself, I wasn't that worried about consequences. Up until when Sarah and William's came forward with her book, Careless People, no employee

1:13:06of Facebook that had blown the whistleblower had ever been sued. I'm a data scientist and I have a lot of experience working with algorithms and AI. I assumed some startup would hire me or there would be a place in academia for me. The kinds of things that I had not considered could be threats were things like people on the internet targeting me. A lot of the worst scenarios that were presented by my lawyers were actually about external threats. Once you become a public figure, you can't control how the public will respond to you. Zuckerberg and Facebook and Metta, they denied claims that the company prioritized profits over mental health. They cite changes that the company has made to its algorithms in an effort to increase well-being. Do you see those changes having taken effect? Do you think it's sufficient? In the year after I came forward, I saw a lot of really meaningful changes inside the company. They invested almost twice the budget in trust and safety. They expanded to cover many, many more languages because my primary concern was about violence caused by a lack of safety systems in places outside the United States and your African

1:14:11countries in Southeast Asia. But after Elon Musk bought Twitter and fired the whole safety infrastructure there, we saw the same drastic reductions in headcount inside of Metta. Mark Zuckerberg has been telling us people shouldn't launch AI models that they think they're not safe. We've already seen from Metta before that as soon as they have the opportunity to spend less on trust and safety, they do. So we clearly they're not going to be able to make those assessments independently. It's been almost five years since you came forward. You still think it's important to continue to talk about these issues, obviously. The issues that I reported on when I first came forward, so this is around many places outside the United States, Metta still serves as the internet in those countries. If you go to the Philippines, the average person spends six to eight hours a day on Facebook's products. When you have people around the world at least to billion people, two billion people who are dependent on Metta's infrastructure to connect their societies. At the same time, Metta doesn't take seriously the safety of those people.

1:15:13You're setting up some of the most fragile places in the world for chaos caused by our tech choices. Great, so, Samven, thank you so much. Appreciate your time. And be sure to tune in the all new CNN Flash Doc Zuckerberg, Facebook and the cost of connection premier Sunday at 9 p.m. on CNN. And next day on CNN, all access. Coming up next is Cuba's 9-million-residence struggle with energy blackout after blackout. CNN traveled to Cuba to look at the ruins of Hidalcaster's nuclear power dream, one that failed to ignite prosperity. And we're back with more on our world lead as CNN remains the only US network with a permanent presence in Cuba. The communist nation continues to grapple with blackouts amid the US embargo on oil shipments. And Cuba has had issues with reliable power for decades. CNN's Juan Carlos López now takes a look at a fascinating look at the time when Cuba thought it could solve that problem by going nuclear.

1:16:16Blackouts aren't new to Cuba. They've been a part of life since at least the 1980s, although not at the scale of the current crisis triggered by the Trump administration's ban on the sale of oil to the Cuban government. In 1982, Fidel Castro made a bold move. The nuclear plant at Uruguay would be the first step of a plan to win the island of oil with the help of the Soviet Union, which would build and finance the project. Driving down the coast, we spot the concrete giant. During a ban on oil, it was once expected to provide at least 15 percent of the island's electricity needs. Now that was back at the end of the 80s, beginning of the 90s. It wasn't the best moment for this type of project so close to the United States. A project that took too long, cost too much, and at the end ended up just being what it

1:17:17is today. Just ruins. The Cuban Premier Fidel Castro. In Russia for a visit with Big Brother. That's because Havana bet everything on being in the Soviet Union's fear of influence during the Cold War. And on Moscow's assistance for ambitious projects like the Huda-gua power plant, which sat under 200 miles from the Florida Keys and sent Washington into a tailspin over national security. Even though the Turkey-Point nuclear plant in Homestead, Florida had been operating 200 miles from Havana since 1972. We've had long-standing concerns about the quality of the plant's construction and about Cuba's ability to operate it safely. Fiers of an accident stemmed largely from the world's worst nuclear disaster internoble in 1986. But the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported that same year to Congress that even though they had reservations about the project, Huda-gua resembled western nuclear plants and was not considered a threat.

1:18:19In the end, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Havana came up dry. And this now eerie monolith was left unfinished. This is Ciudad Nuklear, built to house the plant's workers. That's where I meet Luis Vargas, an electrician who was involved in the project. What do you feel when you see the structure? I ask him. I don't know, Luis says. I feel a deep sorrow inside because many things were ruined. It's a shame that it ended up this way because unfortunately millions were invested and we weren't able to finish it. Francisco Perez, who also worked at the plant, remembers when Fidel Castro came to tell them it was over. He told us the truth, Francisco tells me. He explained the situation, the problem they faced, and that they had to shut the plant down. Hula-gua was the first of three nuclear plants that would help Cuba overcome a monumental

1:19:20challenge the island faces to this day. A growing demand for electricity and a lack of capacity to produce it. This fading sign in Russian and in Spanish reads, may the atom be a worker and not a soldier. In Hula-gua, it was neither. Juan Carlos López, CNN, Hula-gua, Cuba. And our thanks to CNN's Juan Carlos López in Havana, Cuba. A reminder, it's going to be a big night for politics tonight, CNN's hosting a debate in California's race for governor between Democrat Javier Bacero, the former HHS secretary under Biden, and Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox host. I'm here in Los Angeles to moderate alongside CNN's Danny Bash. That's coming up in just a couple hours, 9 p.m. Eastern or 6 p.m. Pacific, only here on CNN. You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, threads, X, and on the Tik Toka Chick-Tapper. You can follow the show on X and Instagram at the lead, CNN. You have a missing episode of the lead.

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