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Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees
Trump Frustrated with GOP Election Losses; One-on-One with New Jersey Governor-Elect Mikie Sherrill; Trump on Election of Zohran Mamdani; FAA to Cut Flights at 40 Airports if Shutdown Continues; Trump Frustrated With GOP Election Losses; At Least 12 People Killed After Fiery Plane Crash; Ken Burns' "the American Revolution" Premiers November 16 on PBS; Trump Administration Faces Skepticism as Supreme Court Hears Tariffs Case. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired November 05, 2025 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: ... say give him a chance and the divisiveness may fade away.
ANDREA DONAHUE, NEW YORK VOTER: When there's been such a division, there's such a relief once the election is over and I think people are going to come together.
ANDRE BROUSSARD, NEW YORK VOTER: It's over.
CARROLL: Move on, is that your thoughts?
BROUSSARD: Move on, you have to live with it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARROLL: And Erin, many of the New Yorkers that we spoke to say what this ultimately is going to come down to for them is what he is able to accomplish when he becomes mayor. He's made a lot of promises, as you know, and a lot of eyes are going to be on him to see what he's able to make good on some of those promises -- Erin.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: All right, Jason, thank you very much and thanks to all of you. AC360 starts now.
[20:00:47]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, "ANDERSON COOPER: 360": Tonight on 360, what a Democratic sweep last night says about Donald Trump. The midterms next year, and maybe the general election '28. We'll talk to one of the big winners, New Jersey Governor elect Mikie Sherrill.
Also tonight, piecing together the first and last fiery seconds of that ups cargo jet crash in Louisville as the death toll climbs in the search for victims continues.
And later, will the Supreme Court turn Trump skeptical and strike down the tariffs the President has made a centerpiece of his second term. Well, today's oral arguments tell us. Good evening, thanks for joining us. And about last night, including the biggest name not running, Donald J. Trump specifically, what to make of an election night that saw Democrats sweep every key contest, with by double digits. A New York mayor race which elected a Democratic socialist and Muslim-American, and a California ballot measure that could reshape Congress next year.
Moderates Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill elected governors in Virginia and New Jersey, respectively, both growing the Democratic vote in areas that were far less blue in 2024.
Sherrill significantly outperformed the polls, turning what was expected to be a tight race into a 13 point romp. She joins us shortly. Democrats made gains in Virginia's House of Delegates, even flipping state legislative seats in Georgia and deep red Mississippi.
And as we said, New Yorkers chose the 34-year-old Muslim-American Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani over former Governor Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa to be their next mayor, casting more than two million ballots, which is a turnout not seen since 1969.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK CITY MAYOR-ELECT: When we enter city hall in 58 days, expectations will be high. We will meet them.
A great New Yorker once said that while you campaign in poetry, you govern in prose. If that must be true, let the prose we write still rhyme and let us build a shining city for all.
And we must chart a new path as bold as the one we have already traveled.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That part about campaigning in poetry, governing in prose was a nod to Andrew Cuomo's father, the late Governor Mario Cuomo, who famously said those words and embodied them.
This evening after admonishing Republican lawmakers behind closed doors earlier in the day, the President spoke to Fox News.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CHIEF POLITICAL ANCHOR: You said today you kind of admitted that last night was not great for the party. You said that the shutdown and your name not being on the ballot were big factors. You're the head of the party. So, obviously the policies are run on in these states. Do you see that at all or how do you read it?
DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I do, because, you know, we've done so much, you know, energy is way down. Look at energy. We're going to have $2.00 gasoline, I did that. That brings everything else down. Groceries are way down other than beef. The country is doing very well but as Republicans, you have to talk about it, because if you don't talk about it, you know, I saw that they kept talking about affordability.
Well, Biden was a disaster with affordability. He had the highest inflation rate in the history of our country. But you have to talk about it. It's no good if we do a great job and you don't talk about it. And I don't think they talk about it enough.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, his was certainly not the only post-game analysis. Here's a small sampling of some of the other reaction from the left and right.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): There was a common theme last night and that is people all over this country are rejecting Trumpism.
REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): No one should read too much into last night's election results.
SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Last night was a shellacking for the Republicans and for Donald Trump.
VOICE OVER: A radical left earthquake just hit America. The epicenter, New York. Now the socialists are celebrating.
REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): Republicans woke up this morning and realized that they were no longer in a 2024 electoral environment.
JOHNSON: What happened last night was blue states and blue cities voted blue. We all saw that coming.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Well, more now on all of this, especially how the President is handling this in public and private from CNN's Kaitlan Collins. So, how concerned is the President or others in the White House about last night's GOP losses?
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: You know, Anderson, the President was pretty candid this morning. He came into this prescheduled breakfast that he had with Republican Senators at The White House. I was there inside the room, and he basically tossed out his speech that he had planned to give on the one year anniversary of his election win last year, and instead acknowledged that it was a bad night for Republicans. He did not sound like the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson did just there where he was saying not surprising, blue states.
Instead, the President basically was making this argument that Republicans didn't have the right message, and some of his allies and advisers have said maybe they didn't have the right candidates in these races going forward. And the President basically, said this morning that once we were out of the room, the press that they were going to have a candid conversation with Senate Republicans inside that room about what is the best path forward for his party. [20:05:43]
And a lot of that frustration, Anderson, this morning centered around the ongoing government shutdown here in Washington. That is something The White House has not said, you know, had to do with Republicans or that they were burying a lot of the blame for it.
The President said today that he actually thinks that it has been more negative for Republicans, and not as bad enough for Democrats. And so, his frustration was quite clear inside the room, the way he believes that should be handled is getting rid of the filibuster, which a lot of Republicans inside the State Dining Room today do not agree with.
And so, it was actually, you know, a pretty candid moment from the President in terms of his frustration with last night.
COOPER: Kaitlan Collins, thanks. Kaitlan, will be talking to Senator Bernie Sanders on "The Source" of the top of the hour.
One of those big wins for Democrats we've been talking about the race for New Jersey Governor, the President increased his margins in the state during his 2024 campaign but despite those gains, Democratic Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill cruised to victory last night. I spoke to her just before air.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Governor-elect, congratulations on your win, which was bigger than a lot of people expected. How much of that do you think was because of specific policy positions? How much of it was a referendum on President Trump, who had actually made gains in New Jersey a year ago?
MIKIE SHERRILL (D), NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR-ELECT: I think it was both the articulation of a bold leadership plan. So many people throughout the state, when I would talk to them about what was keeping them up at night and I would address it, would say, you know, we've heard that before. So, that's why I declared a state of emergency on utility costs to really galvanize the understanding that I was going to address things on day one, not wait for a ten-year plan, or write a strongly worded letter, but actually address it.
It also, I think, was because of getting to see everyone throughout the state. And then focusing on what Trump was doing that was harming the economy of New Jersey, because really, what people are seeing across the state is prices are too high. I am really focused on addressing those costs, and people need to understand where they're coming from and how this works. And I think that was very effective.
COOPER: Your former House colleague and roommate, Abigail Spanberger won the Governor's race in Virginia. A lot of people were talking last night. How the two of you represent a renewed emphasis on centrist or moderate Democratic leadership. Do you see that?
SHERRILL: I think the parallels here are Abigail and I both run tough races. We both came into the House of Representatives in that 2018 cycle in Republican districts. So, it wasn't enough to simply turn out the base. We had to make our case and swing the vote, and that is what we worked so hard to do in these election cycles. And I think that's why we were both so effective.
So, I think what you're seeing here is the traditional Democratic powerhouse vote coming out, working people. And I communicated to working people. I come from a background of labor. My grandfather -- his job in a union lifted us out of poverty. I have four kids, so, as a mom, people know I get what our kids have been through. I know what families are going through.
So, in all these ways, I think it was very effective to say, look, I'm going to take this on and with my background in the military, I'm going to be very proactive and get to this right away. And I think that's what spoke to people.
COOPER: There's been a lot of focus since last night on the contrast between you and Governor-elect Spanberger and New York's Mayor-elect, Zohran Mamdani a Democratic socialist. I just want to play a clip from his victory speech last night.
MAMDANI: If tonight teaches us anything, it is that convention has held us back. We have bowed at the altar of caution, and we have paid a mighty price.
Too many working people cannot recognize themselves in our party, and too many among us have turned to the right for answers to why they've been left behind.
We will leave mediocrity in our past. No longer will we have to open a history book for proof that Democrats can dare to be great.
COOPER: First of all. I'm wondering if you agree with that. And also, there's certainly a lot of Republicans who are trying to paint him as the face of the Democratic Party moving forward. Do you see him in that light?
SHERRILL: I think what he was articulating was this idea that working people haven't felt heard, that there is too much caution and mediocrity in the party and I think that's what people in New Jersey responded to, it was this idea that I was going to take on the status quo.
And I think my history of effective leadership in Congress being the most effective member from the New Jersey delegation, and only my second term, shows that I'm going to be very proactive here. That sounded very proactive what he was articulating to working people. I think the proof will be in the pudding.
It's about governing. We run these races not to run campaigns, but to govern, to deliver for people. And in the Democratic Party, we have a lot of ideas on how we can support and deliver for working people. What's striking to me is that in the Republican Party, there is one person calling the shots and nobody is going to say anything different from that and I think that's why my opponent did so poorly.
COOPER: Governor Sherrill, thank you so much for your time.
SHERRILL: Thank you, I appreciate it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Still ahead tonight, a closer look at just who the voters were and what drove them, including their views on the President. That and how Democrats hope to capitalize during next year's midterms. Maryland Governor Wes Moore joins us live.
Also, seeking answers and searching for victims in the Louisville plane crash that created that huge fireball.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:16:00]
COOPER: The President made serious inroads with Latinos nationally in last year's 2024 Presidential election. Last night told a different story, however.
Republicans lost significant ground among Latino voters in New Jersey and Virginia. CNN's exit poll shows New Jersey's Democratic Governor- Elect, Mikie Sherrill, did exceptionally well among Latino voters there, beating her Republican opponent by more than a two to one margin, 68 percent to 31.
Our poll shows similar results in Virginia, where Democratic Governor- elect Abigail Spanberger won 67 percent of the Latino voter compared to 33 percent for her Republican opponent.
And take a look at these side by side maps. Five New Jersey counties that the President won last year Governor-elect Sherrill managed to turn them from pink to blue. It's important to note that Passaic County has a large Latino community. Roughly 43 percent of the population. That's the largest share in the state.
Joining me with more on last night's election results, Maryland Democratic Governor Wes Moore.
Governor, good to see you. Why do you think there was such a shift in many places on the map from voters who had abandoned the Democratic party for President Trump in 2024?
GOV. WES MOORE (D-MD): Well, I think the thing that we saw was that people focused on the things that people care about most. You know, I was honored to campaign hard for my new colleagues, Mikie Sherrill in Jersey and also Abigail Spanberger in Virginia. And they focused on things like affordability, making life a little bit easier for the people in our states.
They focused on public safety and making sure that we can be smart when it comes to making sure that our communities are safe and they focus on creating opportunities for everybody.
You know, it's the same type of energy that we saw when we ran for governor, the same type of issues and the same type of impacts. And I think the thing that we showed is that we are focused on performance and not being performative.
People want to see us move fast. People want to see a sense of urgency. And I think that's exactly what the candidate showed. And we saw results not just in places I campaigned in, like Virginia and New Jersey, but we saw historic sweeps in Mississippi. We saw historic sweeps in Georgia that this was a state -- this was a nationwide focus on how we bring real results to people's lives. And that's why I think we saw the results that we were hoping for.
COOPER: You and I talked before about frustrations and detachment of young men in this country. It was interesting. Last night, Governor- elect Spanberger had a 17 percent advantage with male voters under 30. Governor Sherrill had a 14 percent advantage with them. Did that surprise you at all?
MOORE: No, because I think that these are these are candidates who understand that the frustration is real. You know, I'm a person who my grandfather was exiled from this country when he was young because he was chased out by the Ku Klux Klan, that my father died in front of me when I was three years old, because he didn't get the health care that he needed.
The frustration that people feel that young men feel is very real. It's the reason that we've made focusing on young men and boys a core focus for our administration. And we know that that people, and particularly men, we don't just want to hear lip service, we want to hear real pathways to work and wages and wealth.
And we need a Democratic Party that stops getting out of the focus of no and slow and starts getting into the focus of yes and now and really making sure that young men are actually part of the conversation and not just subjects of the conversation. And that's why I think you're seeing a real level of momentum in states all around the country.
COOPER: We saw moderate Democrats, Spanberger and Sherrill, elected as governors, a Democratic socialist as the Mayor of New York City, Republicans are clearly trying to make him the standard bearer leader of the Democratic Party. Is he the leader of the Democratic Party?
MOORE: I think for anybody who's trying to claim that one person who won from last night is now the leader of the Democratic Party is just absolutely silly. These are candidates who won their individual races in their own individual jurisdictions.
And the thing that we know is this, you know, we can have fundamental disagreements on how to get there, but the focus on making sure that things are more affordable, like we've done in Maryland, where we focus on housing, building new inventory and making sure that people have a chance to be homeowners by focusing on public safety.
And that means making in Maryland historic investments in local law enforcement and historic investments in the community by creating real opportunities for everybody. Giving a tax cut to the middle class, and asking the wealthiest of us to pay a little bit more.
I think that people are seeing that we had candidates who spoke directly to the issues of the jurisdiction that they were running for, because these are people who are serious about governing, people who are serious about delivering results. And that's why I think you're watching the election results that were seeing around the country.
COOPER: Governor Moore, good to have you on, thank you.
MOORE: It's great to see you.
[20:20:39]
COOPER: Coming up next, the President weighs in on whether he'll work with the New York mayor-elect. He calls a communist, and his answer might surprise you.
Also, major shutdown fallout just announced that could leave a lot of travelers without flights to get on starting just two days from now, we'll explain ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:25:33]
COOPER: Barely three days after reluctantly endorsing his former nemesis, Andrew Cuomo, in the New York mayor's race, the President opened the door to working with Zohran Mamdani, who defeated Cuomo the same Zohran Mamdani he's been calling a communist throughout the campaign, and several times today.
Tonight on Fox, the President was asked whether he'd be willing to work with him as mayor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You know, I'm so torn because I would like to see the new mayor do well, because I love New York. I really love New York.
He has to be a little bit respectful of Washington, because if he's not, he doesn't have a chance of succeeding. And I want to make him succeed. I want to make the city succeed. I want to make him succeed. I want to make the city succeed and we'll see what happens.
BRET BAIER, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CHIEF POLITICAL ANCHOR: Do you see reaching out to him?
TRUMP: I would say he should reach out to us, really.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Plenty to talk about tonight with CNN political commentator Van Jones and David Urban.
Van, do you see Mamdani reaching out to President Trump? VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, I mean, I think he could and I think that he should. They should reach out to each other and I think for a lot of people this is going to test peoples values.
Do you care about everyday New Yorkers and how they're going to make it in this world? Well, there's a chance to do that now. You have new leadership. Even Bill Ackman said he's willing to reach out. So, this could be a big reset moment or we could just fuss and fight. But I hope they do reach out to each other.
COOPER: David, how much do you think President Trump and Mamdani are actually kind of relishing a brewing faceoff? Because clearly, Mamdani last night was, you know, throwing down the gauntlet to President Trump. And obviously President Trump has threatened cutting off federal aid to New York in some capacity.
DAVID URBAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, Anderson, listen, I couldn't really tell what Mamdani was saying because he was screaming so loudly at the television and his supporters there. But I think he needs to tone down the rhetoric a bit.
COOPER: David, you should have seen Scott Jennings' face when Mamdani got up and quoted Eugene Debs. It confirmed everything Scott Jennings has been saying.
URBAN: Listen, I don't want to get Van in even more trouble than he already is, but I agree a hundred percent with Van. The guy had an opportunity yesterday to really bring people together and show that he can govern this city.
Listen, the city budget is $118 billion, $118 billion. Mamdani's prior job was housing foreclosure counselor before this okay. So, you go from helping people not get their houses foreclosed on to running, basically an independent country. He's going to need all the help he gets.
So maybe he'd need a little humble pie. He should reach out to Kathy Hochul. He should reach out to the President. He should reach out to Hakeem Jeffries. He should reach out to Chuck Schumer. He should say, please help me succeed.
You know, I heard you talk about Bill Ackman, Jamie Dimon, some of these gentlemen who are very smart in the financial side who have vested interests in their big companies in New York. They want to see New York succeed.
Mamdani needs to dial it back a bit, eat a little humble pie and recognize that, you know, he did win a big victory. But the people he was running against weren't necessarily the A-Team.
JONES: Look, I see it a little bit differently in that he did pull off something extraordinary to be able to stop a Cuomo in New York is not easy. A bunch of people spent millions of dollars trying to stop him after that. Donald Trump jumped in the race. He pushed past a bunch. And he is an inspirational figure for a lot of people because he's the first Muslim in a town where 25 years ago, Muslims were, after 9/11, often living in fear.
So, I do think --
COOPER: He also came from like hardly any recognition at all to winning.
JONES: Yes, so, I wouldn't, I tell you what, I would not underestimate this new mayor. He's got something most mayors never have. He's got 90,000 people who are volunteers to organize to help him get stuff done. That's going to put pressure on the City Council. Those people could also, if they wanted to, they could do their own projects or, you know, park cleanups, food drives. So, he's done something extraordinary.
My concern last night was just, you know, the first time he won, when he won in the summer, he gave a beautiful speech that, I mean, would have moved anybody's heart.
And last night, I thought the tone was more harsh. And I'm thinking to myself, don't go down that road. Go back to that warm, embracing tone you had before, because you are going to need all the help you can get. And I want him -- I want him to be successful.
COOPER: David, Republicans are clearly, at least in part, blaming the government shutdown now the longest on record for their bad night last night. Now, there's this word the FAA is going to reduce flights by 10 percent at 40 busy airports starting Friday. You've got Thanksgiving coming up. If this thing continues, do you think at this point this is hurting Republicans more than Democrats?
URBAN: No. It's hurting Americans. That's who it is hurting Anderson. Look, just real quickly on Mamdani, being TikTok famous is not the number one qualification for running America's biggest and most prestigious city. So, I think he needs to look in the mirror a little bit more. Look, the government shutdown is terrible. I think that when the -- when people aren't working, the government is working, our government is failing.
Democrats need to just vote for this clean CR, get it over with. Let's get going. Let's get the people back to work. People fed SNAP benefits, these FAA workers back in there. This is -- it's an easy solution to Chuck Schumer. Anderson, I've said this many times. Chuck Schumer is fearful of AOC, of Mamdani, of the left wing of his party, because the last time he voted for CR, he got beaten with a cudgel.
And if he'd have just allowed everyone to vote their conscience and vote yes, and get the government open, we could have worked to get these healthcare subsidies dealt with. Republicans don't want to see people's healthcare go up in an election year. They don't want to see that happen.
JONES: Look, go ahead man. Look, Trump could resolve this tomorrow. He could pick up the phone, call Hakeem. He hasn't done that. Call Chuck Schumer, he hasn't done that, and get this thing resolved. He's the deal maker. He should pick up the phone and get this thing resolved. Donald Trump should do that. COOPER: Van Jones, David Urban, thanks.
URBAN: But, all they got to do is vote yes. They just got to vote yes. 14 nos, they voted 14 times.
JONES: That's not how it works. That's not how it works.
COOPER: All right. Next tonight, the search for why a loaded cargo jet --
URBAN: That is how it works. That is exactly how it works.
(LAUGH)
COOPER: All right, guys, take it outside. Full of fuel lost an engine that caught fire in the video, and this is extraordinary, cut of swathe of flames and death across the ground near the airport in Louisville last night. We'll have an update.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:37:13]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: It is hard to seeing those images. Tonight, Kentucky Governor, Andy Beshear says rescuers do not expect to find anyone else alive in the area where a UPS cargo plane crashed on takeoff yesterday at Louisville Airport. At least 12 people are now confirmed dead, including three who are on board, and the toll is expected to grow. A number of people are still reported missing. Investigators said that the left engine fell off while the plane was attempting to get airborne, instead crashing, igniting a giant fire that stretched up to half a mile long.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. ANDY BESHEAR, (D) KENTUCKY: What this scene is, is violent. Where the plane hit, at best, is destroyed. And what you see are mangled remnants of what was in its path completely burnt and blackened.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Investigators also said they've already recovered the plane's flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder. Some businesses located next to the airport suffered obviously extensive damage, and some employees are still missing. More tonight from CNN's Isabel Rosales.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The UPS cargo plane that departed Louisville bound for Honolulu crashed at approximately 5:15 p.m. Tuesday evening. Because the crash happened during daylight hours, surveillance cameras in the surrounding areas captured the harrowing scene. The crash ignited up to 38,000 gallons of jet fuel, sparking a fire that stretched nearly half a mile, creating an enormous plume of black smoke over Louisville.
TODD INMAN, NTSB BOARD MEMBER: We have viewed airport CCTV security coverage, which shows the left engine detaching from the wing during the takeoff roll.
ROSALES (voice-over): That engine can be seen on the runway, along with other scattered debris from the plane. Two businesses near the airport were directly impacted.
SEAN GARBER, CEO, GRADE A AUTO PARTS & RECYCLING: I've never been in a war zone, but I would have to imagine it is what a war zone looks like. All of our buildings in the path of the airplane are destroyed.
ROSALES (voice-over): Garber still has three people missing from his company and has little faith they're alive. As of tonight, at least 12 people are dead and at least 16 families have reported loved ones unaccounted for, according to Kentucky Governor, Andy Beshear. The NTSB says, investigators have recovered the plane's black boxes and that all the video footage that captured the crash is already proving critical to the investigation.
INMAN: This and other videos, along with evidence we are finding, are very valuable asset to our investigators and helping us hone further which areas we were going to be focusing on as we move into further days of the investigation.
[20:40:00]
ROSALES (voice-over): Tomorrow will be the first full day the NTSB will be on scene to investigate, and they expect to be there at least a week, if not longer.
INMAN: Our mission, again, is to understand not only what happened, but why it happened and recommend changes to prevent it from happening again.
ROSALES (voice-over): For nearby business owners, the focus for them is finding those still missing and eventually on rebuilding.
GARBER: Well, the most important thing for us is figuring out where these three people are and identifying the customers that were there, so we can provide information to their families, comfort them and make certain that that process is as painless, which it can't be, for them. And then turn our focus onto our business.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROSALES (on camera): And that ill-fated UPS flight was not delayed and had no maintenance work done immediately before that crash Tuesday. That's according to the National Transportation Safety Board, citing UPS. Now, the NTSB is deploying several different groups to look into this investigation. One of them is a maintenance group that will look at every single aspect when it comes to maintenance done to that particular flight, to independently verify what UPS is saying. But so far, Anderson, they're saying that they haven't found anything to disprove what they've said.
COOPER: Isabel Rosales, thank you. Joining me now seen, CNN Aviation Analyst Miles O'Brien. Miles, what might cause an engine to fall off a jetliner right after takeoff?
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, Anderson, it's almost inescapable that you have to look at maintenance, maintenance records. And really in this case, while it's good they found those black boxes, the real evidence, the telltale on what happened is going to be in the wreckage itself. There will be pieces of metal that will tell a trained investigator and eyes that are used to looking at these things, what exactly failed and how it failed. But, engines are not supposed to fall off wings, and there's really no other way to consider this one except for the fact that some sort of maintenance error occurred.
COOPER: I mean, it's incredible to imagine that even a piece of metal from the engine would survive a blast like that with all the jet fuel and the fires we've seen.
O'BRIEN: Yeah, I am sure a lot of it was -- because the heat of the fire, I'm sure some of it was lost. But, these investigators are pretty good at finding these key pieces that lead to understanding what exactly happened. There's a strange echo here, Anderson, it's long time ago, but in 1979, an American Airlines DC-10, which was the forbearer aircraft of the MD-11, almost the same design, taking off from Chicago O'Hare and its left engine fell off, and all the people on board that aircraft, 273 of them died. And it turned out in that case that the maintenance team was using an improper technique to attach the engine after they did work on it.
So, it'll be interesting to see where this goes. Clearly, the crew did not have a chance in this case at all. It wasn't weather.
COOPER: Yeah.
O'BRIEN: So, we're going to be focusing pretty carefully here on maintenance.
COOPER: And just very briefly, this government shutdown, the FAA is going to cut flights by 10 percent at 40 of the nation's busiest airports starting Friday. How much trouble -- how much difficult is it going to be traveling this weekend?
O'BRIEN: Well, yeah. It just -- show up earlier and clearly, they're focusing on the high-volume airports, but the system is so interconnected that it's going to have a tremendous domino and ripple effect.
COOPER: Yeah.
O'BRIEN: The takeaway here though is to remember these cutbacks are for safety. This will ensure some level of safety. COOPER: Yeah, Miles O'Brien, appreciate it as always. For more than 40 years, documentarian Ken Burns has chronicled some of the most pivotal and consequential moments in American history. His documentaries are extraordinary. The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz, The Vietnam War, among so many others have been seen by many millions of viewers. His new series, "The American Revolution," premiers on PBS on November 16th. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEN BURNS, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER (voice-over): Muskets are mostly inaccurate beyond 80 yards and hopeless beyond 120 yards. So, a lot of the killing is done with a bayonet. And the bayonet is a nasty way to kill. It's a nasty way to die. This is really eyeball to eyeball, nose to nose. It's very intimate. And that kind of intimacy is horrifying.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: And Ken Burns joins me now. You were on my podcast about grief which is out now, available on -- all over. I'm so excited about this. I mean, your films are extraordinary. Why the American Revolution? Why now? When did you decide to do this?
[20:45:00]
BURNS: Well, there's no now because we began this in December of 2015 when Barack Obama had 13 months to go in his presidency. So there's been a lot of water under the American Bridge during this time. And we've sort of disciplined ourselves to stick to trying to tell a complicated story about something that we tend to gloss over with sort of sentimentality and nostalgia, may have to do with having no photographs or news reels. They seem different to us. But I think it's also that we want to protect the big ideas. And we think that if we show how bloody this war is, we show what a civil war it also was and a global war that it also was, that it would somehow diminish those big ideas. Not at all. They're actually made all the more inspiring. And you begin to realize how central in all of world history our revolution is.
COOPER: Well, it's so interesting because you hear people, I mean, throw around the term civil war as if it's, I mean, it's for people who have never been to a civil war --
BURNS: Right.
COOPER: -- never seen one up close. And I mean, I've been to a bunch overseas, it is a horrific --
BURNS: Horrific.
COOPER: -- horrific thing. How bad was it in America in the revolution?
BURNS: Well, first of all, our civil war is in some ways not a civil war. It's a sectional war. There's very few civilian deaths in our civil war, outside of Missouri and eastern bleeding Kansas, as it was called. Two people died in the Battle of Gettysburg. That doesn't happen in civil wars, to civilians I should say. But this is particularly New Jersey and South Carolina. These are Americans killing other Americans. There's some battles in South Carolina and North Carolina where the only -- there's one British officer and the rest are Americans fighting each other. There's civilian on civilian violence. It's pretty rough. And I think being honest about that helps you get a real clear picture of our founding. We say today, like chicken littles, oh, this is the worst it's ever been.
COOPER: Right.
BURNS: Well --
COOPER: It's not.
BURNS: It's not.
COOPER: By a long shot.
BURNS: And the civil war, by a long shot. And that I think that when you feel like we're challenged, as we do now, that we're divided, you go back, as a person would, to a therapist and ask where'd you come from? And going back to our origin story gives us the opportunity to help repair, maybe revitalize what it was that we were originally involved in, to dispel some of the myths about it and to also help understand how extraordinary those people were.
I mean, they were thinking about us, people who are no longer alive, people who did not know us were imagining us. Everybody is saying John Adams, untold millions yet unborn. They're thinking about what they're doing and understanding the specialness of this moment, that for the first time in human history, people aren't going to be subjects under authoritarian rule, but they're going to be citizens. Some new exalted state that's going to require all of the energies to resist the temptation, just to give in to authoritarian rule, and to have the virtue that would mean through lifelong learning. That's what the pursuit of happiness meant, not stuff, riches.
COOPER: The pursuit of happiness is not everyone being happy.
BURNS: It's -- yeah, no, it is happiness in a capital age sense comes from a lifelong learning in which you become virtuous. You repair yourself, you work on yourself. It's not about the acquisition of wealth and objects, it's about lifelong learning. And so, when you think about it in that term, then the idea of citizenship is this spectacularly new exciting thing. And the exercise of citizenship, which we kind of take for granted and forget to do, it becomes a very special privilege when you realize that up until this point, most everybody had been a subject and were dependent on authoritarians who wanted you uneducated, wanted you distracted by conspiracies and wives tales and fictions, instead of what a new modern Republican government would mean, would be being honest about what was going on.
COOPER: You talk about making films about the U.S. but also the us about us.
BURNS: Yes.
COOPER: Can you talk about that?
BURNS: Well, it's a great privilege to have both the big macroscopic view, all the majesty, complexity, contradiction, and even controversy of the U.S., but all the intimacy of us. So we've tried to parse all the battles. We've tried to tell you what actually happened, the social transformations, understand who those boldfaced names were that are kind of opaque to us now. We don't really -- we think we know them. We've heard of them. We maybe passed the test, taxes and representation. But we also want to tell you it's about something else and introduce you to scores of other people who are more like us.
A 10-year-old girl at the beginning of the war, a 14-year-old boy who joins the Patriot cause, a 15-year-old, what a loyalist who has to kill his best friend growing up, who's attacking him in the middle of the Battle of Bennington, stabs him with a bayonet, deflects off the bone. And as he says, I was obliged to destroy him. So that's one end of the story of the American Revolution.
[20:50:00]
The other is an Irish soldier who notes, in a lull in the Battle of Saratoga, that the British and Americans are chattering across a little river. And suddenly, one British guy gets up and runs down and jumps in the water and an American jumps down in the water and they meet halfway through and embrace. They're brothers --
COOPER: Wow.
BURNS: -- that hadn't known that they were fighting each other, hadn't seen each other in years, and hadn't known that they'd end up on the other side of an army. So between the polarities of those two kinds of us moments, there's the story of the American Revolution, which can be as inspiring and as patriotic in the best sense of the word as anything. I mean, I won't work on a more important film than this.
COOPER: Wow. I can't wait to watch the whole thing. Ken Burns, thank you so much. Also want to mention, Ken is on the new season of my podcast, "All There Is." The episode released just last night. In it, we spoke about how Ken losing his mom, his mom died when he was just 11-years-old, led him to his life's work. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BURNS: And then he said to me, but look what you do for a living. I said, what? He said, you wake the dead. You make Abraham Lincoln and Jackie Robinson come alive. Who do you think you're really trying to wake up?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: You can watch the entire episode at cnn.com/allthereis or wherever he gets your podcast. In addition, we launch a new weekly online show called "All There is Live," companion show to the podcast every Thursday night, live at 9:15 p.m. Eastern Time. You can also find that at cnn.com/allthereis.
Next, story Ken Burns would certainly be familiar with, a clash over presidential power, the Supreme Court playing referee. The justices today hearing oral arguments about the president's tariffs. Jeffrey Toobin joins us next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[20:56:15]
COOPER: At the Supreme Court today, oral arguments in the case pivotal to the president's economic agenda, whether he can claim emergency powers to impose the sweeping global tariffs. At issue, his use of a law dating back nearly 50 years called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act. Now, you may remember back in April, the president announced tariffs on most trading partners. Today, several members of the court's conservative majority seemed skeptical of the president's authority to do that. And the solicitor general downplayed their fiscal impact.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN SAUER, SOLICITOR GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES: We don't contend that what's being exercised here is the power to tax. It's the power to regulate foreign commerce. These are regulatory tariffs. They're not revenue raising tariffs. The fact that they raise revenue is only incidental.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Incidental said the solicitor general, which is not what the president says.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The tariffs have been so good. We're taken in trillions and trillions of dollars.
But thank God for tariffs. We are the richest nation in the world now because of tariffs.
You have to pay a tariff. And we're taking in plenty, at a level that no other country has ever seen in less than a year -- actually to be exact, less than nine months, of $17 trillion.
I love the word tariff. We're becoming riches, huh?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: Join us now is Supreme Court Biographer, former Federal Prosecutor Jeffrey Toobin. So, what surprised you today, if anything?
JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: How hostile the conservatives were to Trump? Here we have a -- it's been 10 months that he's been president and the Supreme Court in mostly these short orders has given him basically everything he wanted. But the conservatives were really loaded for bear today. They were not impressed with the tariffs. Now, how they will rule ultimately, I don't know. You can be deceived by oral arguments, but this was a very rough day in the office for the solicitor general.
COOPER: And what's the core dispute?
TOOBIN: It's actually very simple. What the challengers to the tariffs say is that these are taxes. These are ways the government is raising money. Under Article I of the Constitution, it is only the Congress that can pass taxes. The president cannot impose taxes in this form, and that argument made a lot of headway.
COOPER: Does it matter that the president is out there -- has been out there saying how much money has been raised?
TOOBIN: Technically probably not, but the justices live in the real world and they know that too. The solicitor general tried to make the argument not just that the tariffs were part of national security, international relations, which is something that the president is responsible for, but the money is the money. And every time they kept coming back to the fact that, look, this operates like attacks and that is not something the president can do unilaterally.
COOPER: This was done on an emergency basis. How quickly might there be an actual ruling?
TOOBIN: Well, usually with big cases, it's not till June. But because this is such a moving target and the tariffs are in effect now, I would expect a ruling probably before the end of the year. And the real complexity is if they rule against the tariffs, they have to give all the money back.
COOPER: Really?
(LAUGH)
TOOBIN: Yeah. And that becomes a tremendous logistical problem and a fiscal problem for the United States because as the president has said, this has generated a tremendous amount of money. That's a problem that came up in the oral argument. But if they actually rule against the president, it will be a huge issue.
COOPER: Is it possible that they could rule that OK, it's not -- you can't do this, but you don't have to give them money back?
TOOBIN: Yes, they could because they're the Supreme Court.
(LAUGH)
COOPER: Yeah.
TOOBIN: They get to do stuff that they want. And I think even though legally that might be difficult to justify, logistically, it would be tremendously simpler.
COOPER: Right. It's incredible. And who -- is there likely to be a swing vote?
TOOBIN: The only justice who seemed completely sympathetic to President Trump was Brett Kavanaugh. John Roberts, Neil Gorsuch seemed --
