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Search For Missing Plane Over Alaska With 10 On Board; Indian Deportees "Shackled" During 40-Hour Flight; Trump Administration Laying Off Nearly All USAID Workers Tonight. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired February 07, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:31:55]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning a search is underway for a small plane with 10 people on board. It vanished mid-flight near Alaska. We're going to show you a map with the radar data of the plane's flight path across Alaska's Norton Sound yesterday afternoon. And then you can see the moment it stops transmitting over the water.

Joining us right now CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien. And a massive search is underway right now. What we know here, Miles, is this is a Cessna plane operated by Bering Air. And Alaskan State Police -- they were notified at about 4:00 p.m. yesterday that -- of an overdue aircraft that had gone missing with these 10 people on board.

What are your questions as they continue with this search now?

MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AVIATION ANALYST (via Webex by Cisco): Well, checking to the box. It's a very safe aircraft generally. The Cessna 206 -- the Caravan, 10 passengers and pilot, single-engine turbine. It's a workhorse for the backcountry. So that has a really good safety record. The airline itself has been going since about 1979 and never had an accident. So you have a safe airline and a safe aircraft.

Horrible weather conditions. It is Alaska in the winter after all. We're told that the aircraft arrived near Nome and was told to wait while they cleared the runway because of this bad weather.

Now you can see those pictures there. That kind of gives you an idea of what we're talking about. Of course, it's dark at this time of year at that time. And in the course of this holding pattern waiting for them to clear off the runway vanished.

Now one of the top things you have to look at in a scenario like that, Kate, is the possibility of icing. If that bad weather coated the wings with ice, the air dynamic surfaces, the air intake for the engine, the performance of the aircraft would degrade, and it could stall and crash.

The one thing about the search to consider here is Norton Sound there has a fairly significant amount of ice cover. That aircraft with fuel and passengers probably weighs about 8,000 pounds. But there are places where the ice is actually thick enough to support the craft. So that should give searchers some bit of hope.

BOLDUAN: That is very interesting, Miles. So that search continues. Is it riskier to -- I mean, you called this plane a workhorse. Is it riskier -- any riskier flying in that area than anywhere else in the United States? I mean, yes, it is Alaska, and you know that they have more brutal winters than anywhere else.

O'BRIEN: Yeah. Alaska has disproportionately a much higher accident rate. It's a combination of weather. We were just talking about rough terrain. Lots of small aircraft. Lots of landings on dirt and gravel. Landings off runway types of situations.

And as a per capita there is a lot of small airplane usage up there because of the lack of roads, it's the way to get around. And as a result, the accident rate there is very high.

BOLDUAN: I want to ask you about something -- the latest we heard about the investigation into the deadly midair collision in Washington.

[07:35:00]

President Trump was on the Hill yesterday and speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast he blamed the crash on what he has called the obsolete computer system used by air traffic control. The way he put it is that the United States has spent billions of dollars to renovate an old system instead of investing in a new one.

Let me play this for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We should have had the proper control. We should have had better equipment. We don't. We have obsolete equipment. They were understaffed for whatever reason. I guess the helicopter was high. And we'll find out exactly what happened.

We're all going to sit down and do a great computerized system for our control towers -- brand new -- not pieced together and obsolete like it is -- land-based -- trying to hook up a land-based system.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: What do you think of -- what do you think of that?

O'BRIEN: Well, he has a point there about the system, but I would caution everyone not to pin blame this early. The accident investigation is still underway. There are a lot of factors that go into these crashes. Whether the computer system, which runs the FAA control system, the radar system, the satellite system all kind of patch together -- whether that has anything to do with this remains to be seen.

But it is true that the FAA has had difficulty modernizing its system and that difficulty stems from the fact that Congress has not appropriated the money to really do a wholesale change from a ground- based radar system, which goes back to '50s, to something built on satellites, which is where the future is, of course, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Oh, so you could hear the beginnings of that being a new -- a new push from the president right there from that sound bite from him.

It's good to see you, Miles. Thank you so much for getting up -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Happening today, Homeland Security Sec. Kristi Noem will visit Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. Navy base which President Trump says will also house a massive detention center as part of his administration's immigration crackdown.

Also this morning we are seeing new video of what the border patrol chief is calling "the farthest deportation flight yet using military planes." It shows 100 deportees from India in shackles boarding a plane for a 40-hour flight. One deportee says they were treated like criminals.

Joining me now, CNN international correspondent Marc Stewart and CNN Havana bureau chief Patrick Oppmann.

First to you, Patrick. What is happening there at Guantanamo Bay at this hour?

PATRICK OPPMANN CNN HAVANA BUREAU CHIEF: Well, this is the highest level visit that Guantanamo Navy base has seen in years and we have observed the last few days that a lot of work is taking place at this very isolated U.S. military base in Cuba readying the base for potentially thousands and thousands -- up to 30,000 migrants.

And already there have been about 23 or so that have been brought in the last several days. We have seen video of them being removed from military aircraft. And that's what Kristi Noem is going to see how these preparations are going because there's a lot of work to be done to essentially make tent camps where migrants -- supposedly the worst of the worst -- will be brought.

Kristi Noem has said that these migrants will be afforded all legal privileges. But, of course, how long they will be there no one can say.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, Patrick, for your insight there from Cuba.

Marc, there has been quite a response. We are looking at the video now where these men are shackled. Their hands and feet shackled together. And they were on this flight for a very, very long time.

What can you tell us about the international response or reaction to what we are seeing here?

MARC STEWART, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, Sara. And as you know, having spent time as a correspondent yourself in India, this is very much becoming a global story -- these various movements. The world is reacting.

In India, on Thursday, we saw very intense protests. At one point people were burning a statue that resembled Donald Trump in response to the movement of these undocumented migrants but also amid these claims of mistreatment.

Again, this was a flight that lasted about 40 hours. About 100 individuals were flown from the West Coast, made a fuel stop in Guam, and then proceeded to India. Again, according to the government, this is the longest such flight since these operations began.

The Indian government has actually weighed in on all of this and said that much of this is protocol -- the way this was conducted -- but people on board feel otherwise.

[07:40:00]

Let's listen to one man who was on that flight.

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HARWINDER SINGH, U.S. DEPORTEE FROM INDIA (through translator): They had handcuffed everyone, even women. They put chains on all 104 people. They would not open it no matter what anyone says. If anyone had to go to the bathroom, they would still not open it. They would just open the door and you had to go in no matter how difficult it was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEWART: And we have reached out to border patrol for a response, and we've not heard yet back from them.

Sara, this issue of Indians -- Indian citizens entering the United States illegally has been a big issue in recent years. It will likely come up when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets with President Trump in Washington next week.

SIDNER: Yeah. One of the big issues that you are hearing -- as you said, I worked in India for many years. People feel that they were treated like terrorist suspects as opposed to people who had just come into the country illegally. So there is a lot of really big feelings in India about how their citizens are treated, except for, as you mentioned, the Indian government who has been quite friendly with Donald Trump.

Marc Stewart, thank you so much for your insight there. I really appreciate it -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. This morning a House lawmaker is leaving the so-called DOGE caucus because of Elon Musk. This was a bipartisan group of lawmakers, and the idea was they would get together and they would help with streamlining government.

But Democrat Val Hoyle, a moderate from Oregon, says, "Fundamentally, I don't see how we can actually do this work when Elon Musk is blowing things up. It's like trying to replace your roof when someone's throwing dynamite through the window."

With us now Republican strategist Matt Gorman, and Democratic strategist Julie Roginsky.

And normally, look, the actions of one House member on one of these caucuses wouldn't be that attention-grabbing, but I do wonder if it's something of a canary in the coal mine here. Because this was -- Democrats joined this DOGE caucus. They were into the idea of efficiency but now it's becoming toxic.

JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, CO-FOUNDER, LIFT OUR VOICES: Now it's becoming toxic? So then this wasn't completely apparent to them that an unelected, unvetted billionaire who has extensive business interests in China where the bulk of his wealth comes from because of the Shanghai factory that he now has control over to some extent -- because he has control over the federal government might potentially not be working for the American people and is working for himself and his own interests.

You know, the fact that Democrats even agree to get behind Elon Musk in anything is shocking to me considering who Elon Musk is. This is not new information. This is something that could have been seen through the lens of everything Elon Musk has done, including Sieg Heil a couple of weeks ago, that should have been apparent to them.

BERMAN: I guess what I'm asking though is if there was bipartisan support for streamlining initially, how has the politics moved in 2 1/2 weeks?

ROGINSKY: Well, the politics moved because clearly, Elon Musk is in charge. Congress is not in charge. The people on this DOGE caucus are not in charge. The people who should be doing this work are not in charge because they've abdicated their responsibility to an unelected billionaire. And that's something that, again, should have been apparent to them.

So the politics may have shifted because people are waking up to this. But the fact that our own leaders in Congress whom we have entrusted with the power of the purse have abdicated that responsibility to Elon Musk is inexcusable.

BERMAN: You know, Matt, is Elon Musk helping or hurting the cause at this point?

MATT GORMAN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER, TIM SCOTT PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN (via Webex by Cisco): Look, he's wanting to do some of the things I think that elected leaders don't want to do, right? I think what you're seeing is may be a little bit of a good cop-bad cop routine with Trump and Elon Musk.

Look, I worked in the House. I know what these caucuses are like. Democrats, I am certain, put their name to this sort of thing because it looks good when they run for re-election. We're cutting government.

BERMAN: Yet --

GORMAN: But when the actual work gets to actually happen that's when they suddenly run for the hills.

And so I will say this. It does give a little bit of a good cop-bad cop routine and a little bit of separation for Donald Trump as he does this where Trump can be the good cop and come in and save things like that -- like the spending freeze that they talked about that they put the kibosh on a couple of weeks ago, but also Elon can be the proverbial undertaker going to these agencies and cutting things.

BERMAN: I mean, you do say they sign their names to this because it's politically advantageous. Then they take it off because they think it's politically advantageous.

GORMAN: Yeah.

BERMAN: That's I guess what I'm getting at here. The politics does seem to have shifted a little bit.

Matt, you've worked in a number of capacities. You mentioned the House, Republican campaign committees. In any of the jobs you've held, have you ever held a subscription to a newspaper or a magazine?

GORMAN: Yes, I have.

BERMAN: You subsidized with your money these liberal rags. Look, I'm joking here. But there is this -- the most ridiculous scandal --

GORMAN: Yeah, I like them.

BERMAN: -- of all time. The biggest nontroversy of all time is the idea that these subscriptions to Politico and other news sources were somehow subsidizing news organizations. People in government and in politics get newspapers and magazines because they need to find out stuff, yes?

[07:45:10]

GORMAN: I -- so I've been told. Yes, yes, exactly. Look, yes.

We can talk about the price of it. We can talk about how these things are priced. Some of them are outrageous. I'm not necessarily talking about Politico here. That's not the point of this.

But look, well I guess to that first point everybody in theory loves to say they want to cut government. They want to trim spending, waste, fraud, and abuse. But like anything, when the hard decisions need t happen -- when you need to talk about bureaucrats that have in -- that think they have lifetime contracts or foreign aid, that's when the rubber meets the road. And suddenly, putting their name on a caucus isn't as easy as actually doing the hard work of cutting these things.

BERMAN: Julie, look, I get wanting to cut costs and sometimes you do want to get rid of a few --

ROGINSKY: Yeah.

BERMAN: -- subscriptions. You know, sometimes those recipes -- you don't need them anymore. But to suggest it's anything other than just trimming some fat -- that it was somehow subsidizing the media, it's ridiculous.

ROGINSKY: I mean, give me a break. I worked in the Senate. I worked as a Senate communications director. I can tell you we had subscriptions to everything. You know who else has them? The White House -- or they did until yesterday. And now they're probably using somebody else's account to read the same stuff that they were getting paid for.

I mean, this is a joke. Politico provides a service that either is helpful or not helpful, depending on your perspective. Nobody's subsidizing anything. Either you're paying for the service because you get a benefit out of it, or you don't. But to say that the government is subsidizing The New York Times or subsidizing Brietbart if they were to start charging -- I don't know if they do -- is absurd.

The problem here is, of course, that they're going to continue to subsidize the media that they want to subsidize and go after the media that won't exactly bend a knee, although most of the media is but not in exactly the way that they want.

BERMAN: All right, Julie and Matt. Thank you both for being with us this morning. I appreciate it -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, get ready. Some major winter storms are on the way this weekend. Severe thunderstorms slammed the Ohio Valley yesterday. And in the Midwest and Northeast beware of ice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(Ring camera)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Falling down steps).

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BOLDUAN: Oh, poor guy. So that guy is OK. He actually sent that video into the CNN weather department as a good reminder to watch out and beware of ice.

Those storms have caused tens of thousands of power outages and a slew of crashes have already happened because of it this week.

CNN's Derek Van Dam has the very latest for us on the winter weather that just won't quit. I know it's not yet over, but I can still complain about it. What are you watching?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah, buckle up, Kate, because if we count yesterday's storm that moved through the East Coast, we have five winter storms to contend with across the U.S. over the course of the next two weeks. What an incredible round. I will call it a winter blitz, right?

And right now it's actually raining in Los Angeles. And I want to show you the satellite loop because this is the storm system that is going to race across the country bringing a swath of snow and eventually ice to the East Coast. And I'll show you that in just a moment.

But here's the look at the large area covered by winter weather alerts this morning. So basically, this jet stream that's running parallel with the country -- West Coast to East Coast -- dividing the cold air to the north and the milder air to the south.

The storm system will traverse that jet stream and make it to the East Coast by late Saturday into early Sunday. You'll wake up to a half a foot of snow on the ground if you're in Boston, perhaps even New York City, into the Hudson Valley. You could have double digits -- certainly a possibility with this storm.

But look at what's on the warmer side of this system. We get a mixture of rain, snow, and even ice in and around the nation's capital -- Baltimore to D.C.

Something to consider. I talked about five storms. Here is the weekend storm. Look what happens on Monday and Tuesday. That's storm number three. Then we've got storm number four Wednesday and Thursday. And then for the second half of next weekend we have our fifth storm to contend with.

So winter not over. Kate, can't blame the messenger.

BOLDUAN: I will, but that's OK.

VAN DAM: OK. That's the relationship we have.

BOLDUAN: You call it a winter weather blitz. It almost sounds like quaint and cute. But blitz sounds short and this is not any --

VAN DAM: It's a football weekend. It's Super Bowl weekend.

BOLDUAN: Oh, right. Oh, I get it. Now I get the football term -- OK. And I'm up to speed.

Thank you, Derek -- John.

BERMAN: He was talking about the sports game that's happening this weekend.

All right --

BOLDUAN: What? Sports?

BERMAN: -- quote, "Three babies that would not have had HIV now due." This morning President Trump is being sued over his move to dismantle USAID.

And a terrifying discovery after one homeowner finds 102 venomous snakes hiding in his yard. That breakdown -- and I know you're curious about this -- five adults, 97 babies. That's a lot of snake.

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[07:53:55]

BERMAN: This morning new video of a Pennsylvania commuter train up in flames. Hundreds of passengers were forced to evacuate. More than 300 people were on board the six-car train traveling from Philadelphia to Wilmington when a fire suddenly started underneath and spread inside. Everyone was able to make it out safely. Officials are working to determine the cause of this fire.

New this morning a controversial claim from the Colombian president. Gustavo Petro declared that cocaine is no worse than whiskey. He argued that cocaine is only illegal because it comes from Latin America, not because he says that it is more dangerous than alcohol.

Security camera footage shows a man attacking a priest at a church in Spokane, Washington. Reverend David Gaines was able to block the punch, but the attack left the congregation shaken.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REV. DARRIN CONNALL, CATHEDRAL OF OUR LADY OF LOURDES: I thought it was kind of that situation where the guy was just running into the sanctuary but clearly, it was a potentially much more violent and in that sense much more scary. It took me a while to realize that this was pretty serious.

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[07:55:00]

BERMAN: A security guard restrained the suspect before police arrived. He is in custody and charged with assault. The church has now hired additional security.

In Sydney, Australia, a snake explosion in one man's backyard.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID STEIN, HOMEOWNER: My wife Googled why so many snakes -- black snakes are together, and it turned out that the pregnant females -- they congregate to give birth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: And they found a total of 102 -- 102 snakes. And that number kept growing because the snakes were giving birth during the capture. So the red-bellied black snakes -- they are venomous, which is nice to know. They were all safely removed and now living out their days in a national park.

SIDNER: No.

So, happy endings, Sara.

SIDNER: No. We -- I think we can stop doing that story. That was enough. I'm thoroughly freaked out. Thank you, John Berman.

BERMAN: My pleasure.

SIDNER: All right. Just hours from now the global USAID workforce will be cut from 10,000 to just under 300 people -- part of the Trump administration's plan to dismantle the humanitarian agency. Two labor groups, however, have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration trying to stop it from leveling this agency. The clock though quickly running out.

Joining us now to discuss is Randy Chester, USAID vice president for the American Foreign Service Association. Thank you so much, Randy, for joining us at this time when I know you and the other employees at USAID are beyond rattled.

Can you first tell me what kind of information have you received about your future at USAID?

RANDY CHESTER, USAID VICE PRESIDENT, AMERICAN FOREIGN SERVICE ASSOCIATION: Absolutely nothing. The administration hasn't told us what to expect in the coming days, other than for the 1,400 foreign service officers and their families overseas to be expected to be recalled to the States in 30 days.

The future of the -- of us who will be laid off at 11:59 p.m. tonight -- we don't know what that means. Are we on administrative leave indefinitely while they complete a reduction in force, or will we be summarily fired come Monday morning or by a tweet Saturday or Sunday night?

SIDNER: You know, there has been a lot of talk about Donald Trump being a businessman. About the same thing with Elon Musk and sort of how he went about culling those at Twitter. But businesses generally don't work like this. You usually have some sort of idea of a plan.

When you are talking to some of your employees what are they saying? And how difficult will it be because many of your employees work outside the United States? They and their families live and work in some of the most difficult regions. How difficult will it be to figure out how to get them back home and repatriate them?

CHESTER: Yes. So normally in the course of a year, you find out about six months before you transfer where you're going, so you have six months to plan and prepare for it. And you have the support network of staff here in USAID Washington and at your post, as well as the State Department, to do that.

But now you don't know where you're going. So are you coming to D.C.? Are you going to your hometown? We have no direction from the administration of where people will be sent. And so it's really creating a sense of chaos and emotional distress, and it's not only affecting the foreign service officers but their families and their children who will be ripped out of school midyear not knowing where they're going to go to school come March or April.

SIDNER: Let me ask you about some of the words that have been used against you and your colleagues. Donald Trump calling USAID leadership radical left-wing lunatics. Elon Musk saying of the agency that it was a ball of worms. They are talking about you and your colleagues who work for the United States on behalf of the United States.

What do you say to them?

CHESTER: I would say look, I'm a career foreign service officer. The American Foreign Service Association represents 1,980 foreign service officers and 485 career limited foreign service officers at USAID. We are patriots. We are American citizens.

We joined USAID because we believe in public service, and we wanted to serve the people of the United States. That's what we do. We've been doing it our entire careers. And we believe not only in USAID, but we believe in America, American values, and supporting the policies of any president regardless of party or political affiliation. That is our jobs, whether it's a Republican administration or a Democratic administration. We implement their policy. And I have personally done so under George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. I do that willingly and we do it every day.

SIDNER: What will it mean with 10,000 employees if, indeed, this happens the way the Trump administration and Elon Musk's DOGE group wants it to -- 10,000 employees leaving, whether they are fired or pushed out, or resign?