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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Trump Lashes Out At Political Enemies In Partisan Speech; Cuts At Department Of Education's Office For Civil Rights Has Parents, Disabilities Group Filing Suit; SpaceX Launches New Crew To ISS, Part Of Mission To Return Two NASA Astronauts; Tornado Watch Issued Across Central U.S. And Part Of The South As Multi-Day Storm Threat Gets Underway; U.S. Proposes Hamas Release Handful Of Living Hostages In Exchange For Extended Ceasefire And Entry Of New Aid; Trade War Fears In U.S.-Canadian Border Towns; New Details On American Airlines Flight That Burst Into Flames At Denver Airport. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired March 14, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
EV WILLIAMS, TWITTER, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO: Like we certainly weren't prepared to answer all those questions, it was new to everybody. No one knew what the right answer was.
EVAN HENSHAW-PLATH, FOUNDER OF PLANETARY.SOCIAL AND MEMBER OF TWITTER'S FOUNDING TEAM: All of a sudden, Twitter was running the public square, and who gave Twitter permission to do that? And no one did. I mean, that's the way it works, and I think that that transition into responsibility is hard. No one at the beginning could possibly have understood where it was going,
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: Certainly not when you think about where it is now. Don't miss "Twitter: Breaking the Bird" on Sunday. It's at 10 o'clock. Anderson starts now
[20:00:42]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360 President Trump takes a victory lap the Department of Justice and promises more retribution against those he thinks did him wrong.
Also tonight, the Education Secretary says cuts to her department eliminate bureaucratic bloat, but a new lawsuit says layoffs undermine one office's ability to investigate allegations of discrimination and protect the most vulnerable children in America.
And later, a successful takeoff for a delayed mission to return two astronauts home.
Good evening.
Just over eight years ago, President Trump went to the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, and stood in front of a memorial wall dedicated to CIA officers killed in the line of duty. He used it as a backdrop for a speech that was largely about himself, his grievances and his perceived enemies. That speech was the day after his inauguration.
At the time, it shocked a lot of people. It was a breach of decorum and grace. Well, today, he did the same kind of thing, and perhaps it was no big surprise. His backdrop this time was the Department of Justice, which he's already filled with his attorneys and supporters.
The setting was far more meaningful. It appeared to be a victory lap over the agency that indicted him in two federal cases that were dismissed after he won the election. His speech came after a number of DOJ attorneys and FBI agents involved in the prosecutions of the January 6 attackers that he pardoned were forced out.
The President invoked a lot of his standard campaign lines about weaponization of justice against him, and references to Hunter Biden's laptop. He even exited to the village people's YMCA, the President made it clear all that pre-election talk about retribution, he meant every word.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: We will expel the rogue actors and corrupt forces from our government. We will expose and very much expose their egregious crimes and severe misconduct, of which was levels you've never seen anything like it. It's going to be legendary.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: A purge has already begun. The Justice Department in January, more than a dozen attorneys who worked on January 6 prosecutions were expelled.
Last month, at least eight senior prosecutors who worked on the cases were demoted. Earlier this month, James Dennehy, he the top agent in the FBI is largest field office in New York, was forced out after he told colleagues in an e-mail that officials there were, "being targeted" because they did their jobs in accordance with the law and FBI policy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I pardoned hundreds of political prisoners who had been grossly mistreated. We removed the senior FBI officials who misdirected resources to send SWAT teams after grandmothers and J6 hostages.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Of course, the January 6 rioters were not hostages. They were not political prisoners, and it's shameful to compare them to actual political prisoners. Let's not forget Mr. Trump pardoned and commuted sentences for hundreds charged with or convicted of violent felony crimes assaulting police officers using a deadly weapon, participating in a riot, destroying government property. The longest sentence, 22 years, went to the former head of the so called "Proud Boys" for seditious conspiracy. Now, the charges in Vice-President Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson had said prior to the pardons that violent criminals should not receive them. Well, there were other false claims as well in the speech today,
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The last administration presided over the worst increase in violent crime in our country in many, many decades.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Again, not true according to actual FBI statistics. Let's see if they keep -- keeping statistics in the future, violent crime in 2023 declined across the U.S., murders down 12 percent as for the first six months of last year, another big drop. Murders down 23 percent, this is what the President said about border apprehensions.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Our first full month in office, we achieved the lowest level of illegal border crossings ever recorded.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, as our Daniel Dale notes, this might be true, how the President said the lowest level of illegal border crossings in many decades, but he didn't. What's more, the drop began during the Biden administration. Federal data released in September showed 54,000 encounters with migrants crossing the southern U.S. border. That's their lowest level since 2020.
The President also attacked former President Biden.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We also terminated the clearances of the Biden crime family and Joe Biden himself. He didn't deserve it. In fact, he was essentially found guilty, but they said he was incompetent, and therefore let's not find him guilty. I guess.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: The former President was not found guilty, essentially or otherwise, there was no judicial ruling. He wasn't charged with a crime. This is what the Special Counsel wrote in part, "The evidence does not establish Mr. Biden's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt..." Also, Robert Hur wrote that, "several defenses are likely to create reasonable doubt as to such charges."
Now, we should know that the President had praise for one member of the judicial system.
[20:05:23]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We had an amazing judge in Florida, and her name is Aileen Cannon, and I didn't know her. I still don't know her. I don't believe I ever spoke to her, even during the trial, but I did appoint her federal judge and these fake lawyers, these horrible human beings, were hitting her so hard, public relations wise, they were playing the ref. I don't think it's legal. I don't think it's legal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Judge, Aileen Cannon on in Florida oversaw critics said slow walked the classified documents case. She eventually dismissed it. A conservative appeals court repeatedly reversed her rulings in a separate 2022 lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump, involving the documents, scolding her for giving Mr. Trump's special treatment no other private citizen would receive, and shut down the review.
Joining me now is CNN, senior legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, Elie Honig; Adam Kinzinger, former Republican Congressman who served on the House January 6 select committee; and former U.S. District Court Judge, Shira Scheindlin.
Congressman Kinzinger, to see him at the Department of Justice, in front of that crowd. What did you make of it?
ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's chilling. I mean, I think he was sending a very clear message, which is, this is my Department of Justice. He didn't come right out and say -- hey, I'm going to direct you guys to go prosecute these people. But he would talk, I saw with like Cannon. He said, you know, there were people that went after -- I don't know if it was illegal, but it was certainly.
So, he's sending a very chilling message and the other interesting thing is, what you see in there are he's kind of giving a forgiving attitude to DOJ, in essence, saying, Look, from here out, you guys are my people, good to go. Let's talk about what old DOJ did.
And in the process of that, you heard people applauding. You'd hear people applaud when he'd mentioned the name of the FBI director or whatever. And it was, it was very -- it was very creepy. And this is something that I think Americans, regardless of your political position, should really be worried about.
COOPER: Elie, I mean, you've I mean, you know the Department of Justice. You worked at the Department of Justice for many years. Have you ever seen something like this?
ELIE HONIG, CNN, SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: No, Anderson, what happened today, that speech was a desecration of the Justice Department of the Great Hall of Justice where it was given. AGs and occasionally presidents of both parties have used that room for decades to address the rank and file like I once was to call on the highest principles of DOJ.
The person who that building is named after is Robert F. Kennedy Sr., to be clear, and just to give a sense of the type of speech that ordinarily gets given by an AG to prosecutors, I pulled this, I just want to read real quick how RFK ended a speech he gave in 1962 when he was AG, he said to the group, "In closing, let me tell you how important I think your work is to the future of our country. History knows no inevitability, except as men surrender to their own fears of the future, I salute you, and I wish you well in your work."
Now today, by contrast, we have Donald Trump calling prosecutors Marxist, scum, savages and thugs. We have a five-minute speech on Bobby Knight in Indiana basketball. We have talked about the price of eggs and bacon. We have stuff about Hunter Biden's laptop. We have a riff about Norm Eisen. Why, I have no idea.
We have the fact that firefighter -- probably not a fact, but the claim that firefighters voted for him by 94 percent, we have mentions of Al Capone, Wyatt, Earp, Rudy Giuliani, and then it ends with -- I actually thought I was hearing something wrong. YMCA, that song, they played it, and he danced to it on the stage of the Great Hall. It was disgraceful.
COOPER: Judge, what did you make of it? I mean, yes, how do you think actually sitting federal judges who, obviously, they work for a separate branch, but watching that, what do you think they feel?
SHIRA SCHEINDLIN, FORMER U.S. DISTRICT COURT JUDGE: You know, it's funny. It's all projection. He seemed to take the opposite position of what you would think on everything. So he said it was so terrible of the media to attack justice Cannon -- Judge Cannon. She's such a wonderful judge. She's brilliant. She was terrific, and the media was so unfair to her. And it's as if he didn't realize what's going on with attacking judges now, calling them traitors, calling them they should be impeached, and his henchmen, Musk, Mike Johnson, et cetera, they are going forward with thinking about impeaching federal judges from making decisions they think are right.
So, on the one hand, he was so critical of attacking Cannon, and on the other hand, didn't see that it's the it's the flip side. And so that that was just really stunned me, that he didn't see that parallel. And he did that in a couple of other contexts too. He talked about the weaponization of the Justice Department. I can't imagine anything more weaponized than the way he handled that speech, as what he called himself the chief law enforcement officer of the country, as if he's now going to direct the Justice Department, the FBI, what they should do, who they should prosecute and he went after his enemies list.
[20:10:19]
COOPER: I mean, there used to be this sort of agonizing of presidents about, you know, meeting with the head of the Department of Justice about keeping independents, not, you know, the President not influencing stuff, having a FBI director that stays over for multiple administrations. It could be a Republican, it could be a Democrat, you keep, I mean, the idea that there was weaponization, but now there's not going to be. I mean, it's an Orwellian -- SCHEINDLIN: Exactly, he gave them the hit list. He told them exactly who he really wants prosecuted, starting with Alvin Bragg, Tish James, Norman Eisen, Mark Pomerantz. I mean, he laid out a whole list, Biden, of course, and many others and that was the list. He's basically sending a message, go after them. They were not fair to me. They need to be prosecuted.
HONIG: If I can pick up on that quickly.
SCHEINDLIN: Sure.
HONIG: Look, I was critical of a lot of the Trump prosecutions. Anderson, you know well, I said many times I disagreed with the way some of these cases were charged and tried. That said, think about what Donald Trump's logic here is. He basically stood in front of that crowd and said, that crowd and said -- I've experienced firsthand. I know how brutal it is when DOJ gets used against you.
Now, we're going to do it back to everyone else. I mean, it's a child- like view. It's retributive. He just went on a bender, essentially. It's illogical and it's dangerous.
KINZINGER: What I worry about is we're becoming numb to this, like every day there's some massive outrage or some red line that we never imagined a president would cross, and when he crosses so many of them, it gets to be like eh -- but we're just being too upset all the time, and we're falling into his trap.
No, I mean, the reality is, we used to have standards for the president. This president is blowing through him. And it's important to keep talking about this and remember it, because otherwise, again, to my Republican friends, if you think that this will never be used against you, and there's a Democratic president, it easily could, you should be trying to stop this for that reason as well.
HONIG: I heard a couple people defending Donald Trump earlier today saying, Well, he did say some good stuff, right? He said he did and there's parts of there, he talks about fentanyl and the need to crack down on violent crimes. But you can't just blow past the 30 or 40 percent of this speech that were outrageous, and unlike anything we've ever heard in our history.
It doesn't cancel it out. You can put in the good stuff. He seemed to be sort of just wrote going through that it's important, but what he could have done is gone in there and rallied the troops, just like A.G.s have done, going back all the way through history.
I remember when A.G.s came in. I'll tell you frankly, when I was there in the early 2000s the George W Bush administration was in charge, not particularly popular politically, at the Southern District of New York, where I work, Judge Scheindlin was a judge, but Alberto Gonzalez came in and he gave a speech, and we listened respectfully, and he was respectful, and he said, I will support you in the work you do. We are not political. Go out and do your jobs.
SCHEINDLIN: Funny, you use the word rallied. This felt like a political rally. He was repeating all of his rally points --
COOPER: -- playing the music, it had to be intentional. I mean, it had to be, you know, it was not just a coincidence there. I appreciate it all of you. Thank you so much.
Coming up next, massive cuts, the Department of Education, as sources within the organization saying, "students will suffer harm," and now some new legal action is actually being taken. We'll see where that goes.
The SpaceX rocket also officially on its way to the International Space Station as part of a mission to finally bring home NASA's Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore. We'll have more on that ahead as well.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:18:07]
COOPER: Breaking news tonight, in a story we brought you this week on the gutting the Department of Education, a national disabilities rights group and two parents jointly filed a lawsuit over the cuts the Department's Office for Civil Rights saying that the Trump administration has made a "decision to sabotage its civil rights functions." We'll have more on that office in a moment.
On Tuesday, the administration announced it was firing about half of the Department of Education's 4,100 employees. It was the beginning of an often repeated promise from first candidate Trump and then President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I will shut down the Federal Department of Education, and we will move everything back to the states where it belongs.
Ultimately, we want to close the Federal Department of Education, and we're going to do that.
REPORTER: How soon do you want the Department of Education to be closed?
Trump: Oh, I'd like it to be closed immediately. Look, the Department of Education is a big con job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Oh, by the way, many Republicans running for president have talked about closing the Department of Education, not just Mr. Trump. Those recently fired, the largest portion of them were from the Department's Office for Civil Rights, according to the nonpartisan group Ed Reform Now.
The Civil Rights Office was responsible for, among other things, investigating complaints of mistreatment of minority students in schools across the country and looking out for kids with disabilities or special needs. The entire staff of seven of their 12 regional branches were fired and their offices closed in New York, Cleveland, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas and Chicago. Multiple sources at the department told CNN.
Now, maybe you think these are all just bureaucrats who sit around and don't do much, and obviously they're probably people like that in any company, public or private. But I want to give you some perspective on the kinds of cases the office for Civil Rights worked on.
The Office fielded 22,600 complaints just last year, at the beginning of the Trump administration, they were investigating 12,000 cases, half of which involved students with disabilities who said they were being mistreated or unfairly denied help at school. That's according to ProPublica. Here's just one example reported by Michael Bender of "The New York Times," who I'll speak to in a moment.
He described an investigator from the Civil Rights Division looking to a complaint from what he described as a student whose wheelchair had been repeatedly stuck and occasionally tipped over from crumbling walkways on campus.
[20:20:21]
Now, you would think a local school would immediately fix something like that, but according to this complaint, that wasn't the case. Here's another from the same investigator she was working on a case about, "a school retaliating against a Black student who complained about racial slurs from classmates."
Well, Tuesday night, that investigator was fired and said she had no way to resolve the issues or even tell the students' parents what was going on. "I'm so sorry," she said through tears, President Trump and his Education Secretary Linda McMahon have said the firings will not cut services for the 50 million students in elementary and secondary schools, but there are no details about how that is possible, that it wouldn't cut some services, and these cuts by design, are just the beginning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST, "THE INGRAHAM ANGLE": Is this the first step on the road to a total shutdown?
LINDA MCMAHON, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION SECRETARY: Yes, actually it is, because that was the President's mandate. This directive to me, clearly, is to shut down the Department of Education, which we know we'll have to work with Congress, you know, to get that accomplished.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: She went on to say these layoffs were, "eliminating what I think is bureaucratic bloat." I want to bring in reporter Michael Bender has written about this for "The New York Times."
Michael, appreciate you being with us. So, what happens now those ongoing investigations, the student in the wheelchair, who's, you know, can't get into a class because the sidewalks are cracked. He or she is falling out of it. What happens the all the cases being handled by the Office for Civil Rights?
MICHAEL BENDER, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": I mean, right now, those cases are in limbo. That's why I focused on -- I talked to this investigator a couple of days ago. These are cases that she was handling at the moment, and these are people that she can't get back to. Her access to work e-mails and phones has been turned off.
There was another case that was about to be wrapped up. She can't finalize that. And those were the those were cases that were in process, on the verge of being finished, to say nothing of the parents complaints of discrimination that were in the queue.
And you have to imagine, from these parents what it must have gotten to get to the point where they have to make a complaint with the Federal Office of Civil Rights, and now to have to wait even longer, you know, the Education Department has not exactly said what they are going to with this, how they going to, you know, fulfill their legal obligation to promptly investigate complaints of discrimination.
COOPER: What more have you heard from the Trump administration as it as it defends these cuts? Because they say no services are going to be interrupted. It's hard to imagine how that would be possible.
BENDER: That's right, it's not just reporters asking those questions. It's Republican members of Congress who are asking those questions and the Trump administration is giving them the same answers that services won't be interrupted.
I've heard some talk inside the Department of Education that they're going to move these the cases, from these closed offices to other offices that remain open. Even before the cuts, Anderson, these investigators were handling on average, 50 cases at a time. I mean, we can, you know, simple math that you lose half your investigators, that doubles, and meanwhile, the Trump administration is opening its own investigations into programs that aimed at promoting diversity or acknowledging gender diversity and that sort of thing.
COOPER: Well, that's what that's what is at the base of this lawsuit, as I read it, which is what they're saying is that it's not just that they're cutting programs for minority students, for Black students, for disabled students and investigations, but they're opening up new investigations the Department of Education into diversity programs or things that unfairly, in their opinion, target, I guess, White people or non-disabled people?
BENDER: Yes, I think this case is going to be really interesting to watch as it moves forward. The accusations, I think here are kind of two-fold. One is, is sort of the legal -- the legal responsibilities of this department, Congress has created this office. They've given money for it to do a certain thing and ordered it to do a certain thing. There's that piece of it. But what these parents and this disagree disability group are doing is pulling the aperture back here a little bit and saying, This is a is a pattern of misuse of this office from the Trump administration saying that even before they made the cuts, they stopped current investigations and created their own into that align with their own political agenda basically saying that the office created to investigate civil rights abuses has been turned into its own instrument of discrimination.
[20:25:19]
COOPER: Michael Bender, I really appreciate all the reporting you've been doing. Thank you so much.
BENDER: Thanks for having me, Anderson.
COOPER: Coming up next, we have breaking news, strong winds spreading dangerous brush fires and dust storms in Texas and Oklahoma.
Also, millions of Americans on alert for possible tornadoes tonight and tomorrow. We'll get an update on the extreme weather.
And SpaceX launches a new crew to the International Space Station, part of a plan to bring NASA's Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore back home after nine months.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:30:20]
COOPER: More breaking news. Two astronauts living aboard the International Space Station since last June. They'll finally be coming home. You're looking at a video of a successful SpaceX launch tonight.
The crew of four international astronauts is part of a routine ISS staff rotation mission that will allow Commander Suni Williams and Captain Butch Wilmore to return to Earth in a matter of days. This comes after Wednesday's launch was scrubbed.
Now, you may recall that both astronauts were only supposed to spend about a week on the space station, but technical issues with the Boeing Starliner spacecraft, they arrived and delayed their return. President Trump and Elon Musk have repeatedly, without presenting evidence, claimed the astronauts were stranded in space, something that Commander Williams and Captain Wilmore denied when I spoke to them in space last month.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: I'm not going to -- I don't want to get into politics at all, but I know you've been asked this question before. There's some who've suggested here, President Trump, that you were virtually abandoned by the last administration. Again, I know you've been asked this question before, but do you feel you've been abandoned?
CAP. BUTCH WILMORE, NASA ASTRONAUT: We don't feel abandoned. We don't feel stuck. We don't feel stranded. I understand why others may think that. We come prepared. We come committed. That is what your human space flight program is. It prepares for any and all contingencies that we can conceive of, and we prepare for those.
So if you'll help us change the rhetoric, help us change the narrative, let's change it to prepared and committed, vice what you've been hearing. That's what we prefer.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: Well, if all goes according to plan, they'll be returning to Earth later this month.
I'm joined now by a former NASA astronaut and retired Air Force Colonel Cady Coleman. She's the author of "Sharing Space: An Astronaut's Guide to Mission, Wonder, and Making Change". So Colonel Coleman, the mission is expected to dock with the International Space Station around 11.30 p.m. Eastern time on Saturday. What does that journey look like? What do the astronauts do in that time?
CADY COLEMAN, RETIRED NASA ASTRONAUT: Whatever they want. It is this magical time in between, you know, launch where there's so much to do and watch, and certainly the most -- one of the most dangerous parts of the mission. And then between that and when you're going to get ready to dock with the space station, it can be a couple hours.
I tell people it's about nine minutes to get to Space, and either a couple hours, or in their case, 28 hours to parallel park with the space station.
COOPER: Wow.
COLEMAN: But during that time, it is four humans in that SpaceX capsule, you know, circling the Earth, orbiting the Earth, all alone. And that's what happened with our crew. We had about 44 hours alone together like that. And it is -- it's just like the Apollo, the Mercury, the Gemini folks. It's just you and your spacecraft and your planet. And it was wonderful.
COOPER: And this is a dumb question. Are you -- you're locked in your seat for all that time?
COLEMAN: No, no, no. Nope. They'll get out of their seats. They'll put regular clothes on them. We call them the first day clothes. And then when -- within a couple hours of docking, that's when they'll put those spacesuits back on and really, you know, get everything buttoned up.
They've had to take their rocket ship and then turn it into an orbiting spaceship. So they're turning on the bathroom, you know, just getting it configured so they can all probably get some rest. And then they will actually configure for rendezvous to actually catch up with the Space station.
COOPER: And once they arrive at the Space station, the astronauts on this mission, I understand they're going to spend a couple of days undergoing a handover period with the other astronauts. What takes place once the two crews are safely aboard the space station? Or do they -- I mean, are they -- are the two crews in the Space station then?
COLEMAN: Absolutely. So they'll dock, they'll do all the pressure checks. And then there is just nothing like having the hatch be opened. And there's actually a Navy bell physically on the Space station --
COOPER: Really?
COLEMAN: -- and someone will ring --
COOPER: Well, that's cool.
COLEMAN: -- into -- onto the station and say, it will say endurance arriving.
COOPER: Wow.
COLEMAN: You know, I'm at the commander on the station right now. We'll do that. So it's really -- it's ceremonial, but it's actually more like flying hugs and greetings and everybody. I mean, it's one family, the astronaut family, you know, all of us. And so it's pretty neat.
But then it's as many days as you can get to kind of bridge what you've learned on paper. And this is how we do this. You get up, you'll go here. This is what will happen when you're on the ground.
And then when you're really up there and people take you around and say, OK, that procedure, you know, we're really just going to take a memory stick. We're going to, you know, eject it safely. And then we're going to put it in that experiment there.
And when you start that experiment, realize that the erase everything and the start the experiment button are right next to each other. So it's just things like that, or, you know, you'll want to be grabbing this place and realize that that's a dangerous place to grab. Or this experiment, if you turn yourself upside down, that's really going to be the place to do that.
[20:35:10]
And you think we know all that stuff when we do all our training on the ground, but there's nothing like people actually showing you around the house. It's kind of like looking at your house on Zillow or, you know, virtually. And then when you really get there and someone opens drawers and shows you around and tells you what --
COOPER: OK, this is another dumb question, but when that hatch is open and the new crew comes in, I mean, does the space station like -- I mean, they've been up there for a long time. Does it smell bad? Does it have air coming in? And, I mean, what is it -- what -- I assume there's some air system.
COLEMAN: I say like, it depends who's up there, right? But actually we have great air circulation up there.
COOPER: OK.
COLEMAN: And so it does not smell on the space station.
COOPER: OK, good to know.
COLEMAN: But then that part of the Space station has been ready for docking. That's been exposed to space. And now the new capsule comes and they're like this, but that metal there has been getting oxidized out in space. And there's this kind of metallic kind of smell --
COOPER: That's interesting.
COLEMAN: -- which almost ablaze (ph). You know, and that's, I think, what people call the smell of Space. I mean, I will say that on our crew, I was the gym clothes police. I was like, boys, it is that time new gym clothes today.
COOPER: But that's interesting that Space has a smell, kind of a metallic smell.
COLEMAN: Well, I mean, it does really --
COOPER: Or it's from the oxidizing?
COLEMAN: It's actually from the way the metal smells after being out in space and having, you know, all this oxidation, all these little, you know, oxygen radicals and things like that out in space actually reacting with the metal. And it's just that smell of the metal.
COOPER: That's cool. Maybe it wasn't such a dumb question.
Cady Coleman, it's really a pleasure to talk to you. I'm obsessed with this guy. I think it's so incredible what you get -- what you all do. So thank you so much.
COLEMAN: Well, thanks a lot. It's going to be fun.
COOPER: Yes. I wish you the best and I wish them the best.
Tonight, more than 8 million Americans are on alert with two tornado watches stretching from Missouri and Illinois, southward to Louisiana, Mississippi. Meanwhile, in the Texas panhandle, strong winds are whipping around grass fires, causing blinding dust storms leading to some dangerous driving conditions.
CNN Meteorologist Derek Van Dam joins us now with more. So what are we seeing out there right now as the storm moves through the central U.S.?
DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, Anderson, it's imperative that we think of this as the appetizer with the main event, the main course actually occurring tomorrow. But if these videos show you any indication of how strong the system is and tomorrow it could potentially be worse, it gives you an idea of what we're facing. So you're actually watching what was mandatory evacuations because of a brush and grass fire that burned near Stillwater, Oklahoma. Also the dust that's been blown around by 70 to 80 mile per hour winds has been very intense, changing the skies to that eerie orange that you saw overhead.
So what you're looking at right now is a satellite and you can see all of the dust in that kind of light shading of gray. And the Stillwater fire is just northeast of Oklahoma City, but there was a grass fire in the panhandle of Texas that burned the equivalent of two football fields, a football field every two seconds. And it was fueled by winds that were clocked over 70 and 80 miles per hour.
The good news is the winds are starting to relax, but there's still that critical fire threat that is in fact extreme fire threat where you see this shading of purple. It's all part of a larger storm system that definitely has a severe component to it as well.
So what you're looking at is tonight's severe weather forecast, the greatest risk here across that shading of red, strong tornadoes, and also a lot of wind associated with the system. Remember, you don't have to have severe worn storms in order to have the damage that we've already been seeing.
But this line of storms moving into St. Louis has tornadoes worn to the west. And then tomorrow, Anderson, this is imperative, the deep south, a rare high risk. It's only happened three times in their history this far in advance. So they're very confident what's going to unfold tomorrow.
COOPER: Yes. All right, Derek Van Dam, appreciate it.
What Hamas is now saying about releasing Americans really hostage and the latest on U.S. talks with both sides.
Plus, we'll take you to a town near the U.S.-Canadian border trying to navigate what these new tariffs will do to their businesses.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:43:57]
COOPER: In the Middle East, Hamas announced it is prepared to release a kidnapped American citizen. His name is Edan Alexander. He's believed to be the last living American hostage in Gaza. He has dual nationality, was kidnapped in -- on October 7th, 2023. He's been held captive for 525 days. He's 21 years old.
Hamas is also saying they'll release the bodies of four dual nationals as well, but hasn't said who they are. There are four dead Americans still being held by Hamas. This announcement by Hamas doesn't mean that it's actually going to happen. This is the sickening roller coaster that families and their hostages -- and the hostages have been trapped on. And Edan Alexander's family has been through excruciating pain. Days ago, the Trump administration said it was negotiating directly with Hamas over a ceasefire deal, a break from the tradition of not talking with terrorist organizations. According to a source familiar with the negotiations, the U.S. had been proposing that Hamas release a handful of living hostages in exchange for an extended ceasefire and the entry of humanitarian aid.
The Israeli prime minister's office says that they have agreed to that proposal, but they said Hamas has, quote, "not budged a millimeter".
[20:45:02]
And in reference to this new offer involving Edan Alexander, they say that Hamas is, quote, "engaging in manipulation and psychological warfare". It's believed as many as 24 hostages in Gaza are still alive and more than 30 others are dead and still being held.
Canada's new Prime Minister, Mark Carney, was sworn in today in a ceremony that was overshadowed by fears of a trade war with the United States and questions about its very sovereignty over comments from President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
MARK CARNEY, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: We will never, ever in any way, shape or form be part of the United States.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: Those fears and questions are also hitting border towns on the American side. Here's MJ Lee with that story.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
OLIVER MANNING, HERDSPERSON, MANNING DAIRY FARM: So we have 600 total cows in here, and they're all making over 85 pounds of milk.
MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Fifteen miles south of the Canadian border, the Manning Dairy Farm has been in St. Albans for four generations.
MANNING: When the cows press against that brush, it's kind of a socializing thing that they do --
LEE: Oh my gosh.
MANNING: -- and it keeps them clean, keeps them happy.
LEE (voice-over): Oliver and his friends are buzzing lately about their Canadian neighbors. From President Trump's threat of tariffs --
MANNING: I have a couple friends with dual citizenship that aren't really pleased about it.
LEE (voice-over): -- to the suggestion that Canada become America's 51st state. MANNING: Foolish. It's never going to happen.
LEE (voice-over): The Manning Farm relies heavily on Canadian goods.
MANNING: And this feed right here, about 40 percent of that total mix right there is from Canada. Sawdust in the stalls, that's all out of Canada.
LEE (voice-over): And it too is stuck in the middle of the escalating trade war.
MANNING: It would be about $20,000 a month increase for a farm this size.
LEE: Wow.
MANNING: Yes, a lot.
LEE: And that's a lot, right?
MANNING: Yes, yes, that's a lot.
LEE (voice-over): One specific idea Trump has floated, slapping tariffs on Canadian dairy coming into the U.S.
MANNING: Obviously, expanding our market would be great for U.S. dairy farmers, but if the costs of business is increased so much by doing that, then it would have to outweigh it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) for you today.
MANNING: Down the road at the Maple City Diner, Don Rucki is a regular.
DON RUCKI, RETIREE LIVING IN VERMONT: My second time here today.
LEE (voice-over): Here in St. Albans, where proximity to Canada is simply a way of life, there are some signs of the economic tensions spilling over into everyday life.
LEE: In your day-to-day life, you must come across Canadians all the time here, right?
RUCKI: I love Canadians. I've been going to the same camp since I'm six years old. Same camp in Ontario. I'm not sure I'm going to go this year. There's a level of anger coming from both sides --
LEE: Yes.
RUCKI: -- that makes me not feel that I would maybe feel safe or feel comfortable or -- as an American being there. I don't want people to give me grief because I'm an American in their country.
LEE (voice-over): Don also says it's about time that the U.S. rethinks its approach.
RUCKI: If they're not going to lower their tariffs, then we're going to apply the tariffs to them. I want things fair.
LEE (voice-over): At Mill River Brewing a few minutes away, owners Joyce and David Fitzgerald fully embrace St. Albans and their own Canadian connection.
JOYCE FITZGERALD, CO-OWNER, MILL RIVER BREWING BBQ & SMOKEHOUSE: All my grandparents, all my great aunts and uncles all came from Canada.
LEE: The proximity to Canada --
J. FITZGERALD: Yes.
LEE: -- like you're all used to it.
J. FITZGERALD: It's a great little community. Everybody kind of supports each other.
LEE: Yes.
J. FITZGERALD: Everybody kind of knows each other in a way.
LEE: Yes.
DAVID FITZGERALD, CO-OWNER, MILL RIVER BREWING BBQ & SMOKEHOUSE: This is where the magic happens.
LEE (voice-over): Their brew house in the back is filled with Canadian supplies.
D. FITZGERALD: All of that malt is from Canada. About 95 percent of everything coming in are cans or made from aluminum from Canada.
LEE (voice-over): David and Joyce are bracing for the impact of the tariffs both on their business.
LEE: When you heard the possibility of 50 percent tariffs on aluminum and steel coming from Canada, what was your reaction?
D. FITZGERALD: I thought it was a nightmare. Potentially could be a game breaker for some breweries.
LEE (voice-over): And their close-knit community.
D. FITZGERALD: We love Canadians. I don't believe this has anything to do on a personal level, you know, between Americans and Canadians at all. If anything, I'm hoping this is going to strengthen our bond with each other.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
COOPER: MJ Lee joins me now. I'm assuming you hear the guy at the diner say he'll probably skip his annual trip up to Canada this summer because he's worried about the animosity. Did you hear that kind of sentiment from others?
LEE (on-camera): Well, you know, at that same diner, Anderson, I stopped by every other table and I was really struck by just the range in opinions that I heard. I mean, first of all, there is a real affection for Canadians in that border town.
You know, these people are their neighbors. They work with them. There's a lot of cross-border travel for vacations and shopping and all of that. On the tariffs issue, I heard from a number of people that said, yes, it's about time that the U.S. got tougher on this front. And others said, you know, I feel like this is going to be economic suicide. I think you can pick up on that a little bit in my piece.
On the whole 51st state issue, there were folks that were laughing it off as a joke, a silly idea. But others that I talked to were genuinely offended by it. You know, they were bothered by this idea of offending your friend. And I do think I picked up on a real concern about a deterioration in the U.S.-Canada relationship, Anderson.
COOPER: Yes. MJ Lee, thanks very much.
[20:50:09]
Coming up next, new details on why passengers aboard an American Airlines flight had to exit off the wing of the plane on fire after it made an emergency landing.
Also later, Jake Tapper joins us inside -- take a look inside one of the biggest corporate frauds in American history.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:55:00]
COOPER: Some more information now on that scary situation last night involving an American Airlines flight that burst into flames shortly after an emergency landing and evacuation. Here's our Aviation Correspondent, Pete Muntean.
(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New images of roaring flames and thick black smoke will be key to investigators as they dig into yet another incident on a commercial flight.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Charlie 48, engine fire!
MUNTEAN (voice-over): The fire on the right side of American Airlines Flight 1006 was visible from the terminal at Denver International Airport as passengers started streaming through emergency exits on the left side of the plane, then waiting on the wing helplessly.
Ingrid Hibbits was one of the 178 on board.
INGRID HIBBITS, PASSENGER: There's flames out of the window where I was looking out. It started bubbling, like melting. It was really weird. And everybody's kind of pushing to get out of the plane. MUNTEAN (voice-over): Passengers say the flight from Colorado Springs to Dallas-Fort Worth started normally. But 20 minutes in, the pilot said the flight would divert to Denver due to an engine vibration, an issue reported to air traffic controllers with apparent calm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: American 10,006, just -- 1006 just to verify not an emergency still, correct?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, we just have a high engine vibration so we are cruising slower than normal.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): The Federal Aviation Administration says the fire in the Boeing 737's right engine started after landing during taxi to the gate.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Smoke started filling the cabin and people started kind of screaming and pushing and jumping up and yelling.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Still unclear is whether passengers were ordered to evacuate by the crew or if they did so on their own.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: There's a lot of questions about the decisions, the sequence of events and how this chaotic evacuation occurred.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): It is just the latest emergency evacuation to be captured on video.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our plane crashed.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Last month, everyone survived when a Delta Airlines regional jet crashed as it landed at Toronto Pearson International Airport.
PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: The evacuation will be studied very carefully, as will be the evacuation in Toronto, because we need to know that the FAA regulations governing evacuations reflect real world situations.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): In both cases, airport rescue and firefighting crews arrived in moments. And all passengers escaped with their lives.
HIBBITS: I'm grateful that everybody survived and there weren't any major injuries or anything, so that's something to be grateful for, for sure.
(END VIDEO TAPE)
MUNTEAN (on-camera): This involved a Boeing 737-800, which is not part of the embattled 737 MAX line. It uses engines from CFM, which are known as some of the most reliable in the world. But they have been under some scrutiny, an explosion of one of these engines killed a passenger on a Southwest flight in 2018.
And just this month, the FAA called for modifications to 737s with CFM engines to help prevent a repeat. Anderson? COOPER: Pete Muntean, thanks so much.
This Sunday night CNN's Jake Tapper takes us inside one of the biggest corporate frauds in American history. The infamous implosion of Enron, a Texas-based company in late 2001 after a massive accounting scheme. A number of executives of the energy company were convicted of fraud- related crimes, including former CEO Jeffrey Skilling.
I talked to Jake about it earlier.
(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: So, Jake, in this week's episode, you speak with a former Enron employee and whistleblower. Is there anything about that scandal that still surprises you? Because when -- once I saw this, I was like, I'd forgotten a lot about it. It's so crazy.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Yes, I mean, I think the degree to which there is just this fear of speaking up and that can take over anywhere and we've seen it a billion times since Enron, I mean, you could look at the Biden White House as an example. Like, is this really a good idea that we're about to do this?
I mean, and just the terror of challenging people in power is just really evident in the Enron story and ultimately aged horribly. Because anybody that even raised their hand remotely, like Sherron Watkins, who's one of the whistleblowers, who didn't go to like a government agency, she just questioned internally executives, looks good and everybody else just looks incredibly cowardly.
COOPER: What do you think it was about Enron as a whole and Jeffrey Skilling, who is its leader, that generated so much confidence in the company on Wall Street and elsewhere?
TAPPER: Well, Skilling was this -- he was portrayed as a visionary and so many people in the business press thought he was amazing and this incredibly charismatic leader. And so it becomes one of these things where it's just -- there was only one reporter really who seriously questioned, how is it exactly that Enron makes money? You might remember Bethany McLean, who's in the piece, who's in the segment.
And the idea of challenging a charismatic, visionary leader was so daunting, even though people had no idea how Enron was making money. And obviously there was criminal activity going on.
COOPER: Yes, it's fascinating. Look forward to it.
Jake Tapper, thanks.
TAPPER: Thanks, Anderson.
(END VIDEOCLIP)
COOPER: Well, the Enron Scandals, the latest episode of "United States of Scandal", this Sunday at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, right here on CNN. That's it for us. Have a great weekend. The Source starts now.
