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Critics Raise Privacy Concerns As DOGE Accesses Treasury Data; Search For Missing Plane Off Alaska With 10 On Board; U.S. Economy Adds 143,000 Jobs In January, Unemployment Drops to 4 Percent; Consumer Sentiment Drops To 7-Month Low Amid Inflation Fears; Superbowl LIX Expected To Shatter Betting Records. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired February 07, 2025 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: -- to make the government run more efficiently and to enable the American people to receive the benefits of the work being done by federal workers. What do you think Elon Musk is after?

DOREEN GREENWALD, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL TREASURY EMPLOYEES UNION: Well, I think -- you know, personally, I don't know what he personally is after. I think they've been very clear that the intent is to gut the federal government and to cut massive amounts of federal employees.

But there's been no answer or no information as to what the intended purpose is of that. There is no cutting of the work or the duties. The result will be a cut of services to the American people.

And so it's unclear to me what their goal is, ultimately, other than to remove federal employees from their positions.

SANCHEZ: I wonder what you make of how Democrats have approached this. We saw some of them protesting outside treasury earlier this week. What do you think of their response to DOGE's and Trump's efforts?

GREENWALD: I think the American people are starting to understand what's happening here. And I think they're reaching out to all members of Congress to tell them that they're very concerned.

Obviously, what you just talked about, having people who were not elected, people who are not federal employees, having access to private information. They don't understand what's going on and they're concerned.

Eighty-five percent of federal employees work outside of D.C., so all Congressmen and Senators should be concerned about what's happening to the federal workforce and the services that their constituents rely on.

And so as more information gets out, I think there's going to be more and more people standing up and asking questions about what is actually going on here.

SANCHEZ: Do you foresee any kind of situation where there might be congressional intervention? Is there anything outside of something that's figured out in court proceedings that could either delay this buyout or essentially make it go away and dissolve it altogether?

GREENWALD: I can't speak for the courts. I mean, obviously, there's a delay right now so a court can look at it. Ultimately, I think Congress needs to act and take a look at what's going on.

The civil service is key to the success of this nation. It is intentionally nonpolitical. It's services the American people -- as I said earlier, federal employees take an oath to the Constitution. They are apolitical.

They work from -- for a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent president, whoever it would be in charge of the administration.

Their work does not matter about the politics. Their job is to serve the American people. And so it's critical that those services continue.

If we want to talk about efficiencies gained, everybody supports that. Federal employees pay taxes, too. We can see from a federal employee perspective, if someone is doing the job, they're the ones who can tell you best where to cut and find efficiencies.

But right now, we're not seeing that effort. What we're seeing is a blatant attack on federal employees. These letters that they've been sent, encouraging them to resign regardless of where they are in their career.

We've seen the federal workforce plummet over years with tax cuts and budget cuts. We've seen a difficulty for the federal government to bring in new hires and to retain them. And something of this nature just damages that going forward.

SANCHEZ: Doreen Greenwald, we appreciate you coming on and sharing your point of view. Thanks for joining us.

GREENWALD: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Right now it's a race against time in Alaska after a plane carrying 10 people just vanishes. There's a search going on for survivors right now. We'll talk about what may have happened next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:37:48]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: A search is underway for a small plane that mysteriously vanished off the coast of Alaska.

Flight tracking data showing the plane departing Unalakleet on its way to Nome, Alaska, yesterday before it went off the radar over the Norton Sound Inlet. And there were 11 people on board this.

We have CNN correspondent, Stephanie Elam, tracking this story for us.

Stephanie, what do we know about the search and the investigation here?

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Brianna. We know that this flight disappeared somewhere around just after 3:00 p.m. local time yesterday. That's when they lost where this plane was on the radar, according to the Nome Volunteer Fire Department.

The pilot told air traffic control that he was entering a holding pattern while waiting for a runway to clear. We know that there is one pilot and nine passengers on this flight.

And you see this this path that it was taking. It was about 12 miles off the coast of Nome when it did disappear. That's when local officials learned around 4:00 p.m. about this missing aircraft.

The weather at the time was about 14 degrees. There was some light snow. However. The weather conditions deteriorated as they began their search, looking for this aircraft that obviously HERT (ph) looking for it from the sky.

It -- also HERT (ph) ground searching. They're back at it again this morning. The weather conditions improving this morning.

But still they haven't had any luck. So far, we've already heard from some of the searching parties that they've already turned around. Another Coast Guard flight, heading out there to try to see if they could find this aircraft.

We do know that the Coast Guard is involved, the Air Force is involved, and now the FBI is involved as well because they're trying to geolocate some of the phones on that plane, working to help on any angles there.

Other than that, they've set up a place for families and loved ones to gather so that they can await word while they try to find what happened to this aircraft yesterday afternoon -- Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. Stephanie Elam, we know you'll continue to follow this story. Thank you.

Boris?

SANCHEZ: The first jobs report of 2025 is out. And the numbers for January not quite what economists had expected. The labor market added only 143,000 jobs, though the unemployment rate dropped to 4 percent, which is historically low.

[13:39:59]

CNN's Matt Egan is here to crunch the numbers for us.

Matt, how do you read them? Well.

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Boris, January has a long history of being a messy month when it comes to jobs reports. And this one definitely lived up to that reputation. There's a lot of conflicting signals here, a lot of moving parts. Let me go through the numbers. 143,000 jobs added in January. That is

worse than expected. And as you can see on that chart, this was a big slowdown from the gangbusters growth at the end of last year. December was revised upwardly to 307,000. So this is less than half of that pace.

Digging into why this happened, economists had been bracing for a slowdown, in part, because of the Los Angeles wildfires and the extremely cold temperatures throughout much of the country.

What's interesting is the BLS said in this report that there was no discernible effect from the cold temperatures or the wildfires. But a number of economists that I've talked to today say they do think that was a factor. It was just hard to measure.

Now, the better news here is the unemployment rate, right? That ticked down unexpectedly from 4.1 percent down to 4 percent. That is historically low.

Just to give you some context, there was only one month in all of the 1970s, the 1980s and the 1990s where the unemployment rate was lower than it is right now. And that was back in 1970.

Of course, the unemployment rate did go below 4 percent before Covid and after Covid, but still, clearly, this is historically strong. This is good news, of course, for workers.

More good news for workers on the wage front, because this report showed that paychecks went up by more than 4 percent year over year. That is a solid number.

And it is well ahead of the most recent inflation rate, which is 2.7 percent. So that means this is real wage growth. Paychecks are going further.

And this is a trend that has been going on for a bit. And the longer it goes on, the more that people are going to feel like they can catch up to the higher level of prices at the grocery store and everywhere else.

So when you put all of it together, there's some head fakes in this report. But still, this does look like overall a good place for the jobs market.

Moody's Economist Mark Zandi, he told me, he said, soak it in, this is a brief, shining moment where the labor market is exactly where you want it to be -- Boris?

SANCHEZ: Matt, to your point about wage growth helping to alleviate some of the concern caused by inflation, there's this new survey from Michigan University -- from the University of Michigan. I should say, that shows that Americans are a lot more concerned about inflation going into 2025.

EGAN: That's right. And there's a number of reasons why that could be. What's interesting is the University of Michigan really pins this on one thing, and that is tariffs and concerns that tariffs are going to increase prices.

So the big number from this report is 4.3 percent. That's how much consumers, on average, expect the prices will increase over the next 12 months. That is a very big increase from what people were expecting just a month ago.

In fact, the University of Michigan said that this is one of the biggest increases month-to-month that they've ever seen for this metric. And they said that a lot of consumers are worried that it's almost too late to get ahead of tariffs that are on the way from the Trump administration.

We should point out, though, that this survey was concluded on Tuesday, and it was really only Tuesday morning that many people woke up to find out that the tariffs that were being threatened on Mexico and on Canada were going to be delayed for at least a month. So you wonder how that factors in here.

But the other big takeaway from this survey is the fact that they found that consumer sentiment went down. It went down to the lowest level in seven months. And they really said this was across the board.

The survey said that the decrease was pervasive with Republicans, Independents and Democrats, all posting sentiment declines from January, along with consumers across age and wealth groups.

So this is something we obviously need to pay very close attention to because this economy still is driven by consumer spending, by American shopping.

And if people decide to spend less, that could obviously factor into the health of the overall economy. And again, a lot of this does go back to concerns around tariffs -- Boris?

SANCHEZ: Matt Egan, thanks so much for the update.

Brianna?

KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour.

The former interpreter for baseball star, Shohei Ohtani, has been sentenced to four years and nine months in prison. Ippei Mizuhara was sentenced in federal court Thursday after pleading guilty last year to stealing nearly $17 million from the Los Angeles Dodgers player's bank account.

[13:45:03]

He was also ordered to pay $18 million in restitution, with nearly $17 million going to Ohtani and the remainder to the IRS. He has to begin serving his sentence by March 24th.

Also, a state of emergency declared in Santorini amid that earthquake swarm, as hundreds of tremors continue to shake the Greek island every few minutes after the 5.2 magnitude quake that hit Wednesday night. A seismologist warning the tremors are getting larger instead of

smaller. And that's creating concern that a bigger quake could be coming. About 11,000 people are believed to have fled the island amid those tremors.

And a suspected tornado killed a mother and daughter last night and hurt three other people in a small community in east Tennessee. The severe weather blasted through Morgan County in the middle of the night. More than 100 emergency responders are now in the area.

It is the biggest sporting event of the year. It's also the biggest day on the calendar for gamblers. Ahead, on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, we're going to talk about the billion-plus dollars that will be wagered on this big game.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:50:52]

SANCHEZ: Superbowl Sunday promises to be huge and expensive, not just for the tickets or the commercials, but also the amount being shelled out on bets. The American Gaming Association says that Americans are expected to drop nearly $1.4 billion legally, betting on Superbowl LIX, a number that was unthinkable until a 2018 Supreme Court decision that essentially legalized sports gambling in states that allow it.

But this rapidly growing industry is also cause for concern among some experts.

Let's discuss with Nick Kostos. He's the host of the "You Better, You Bet" radio show.

Nick, thank you so much for being with us.

Some 38 sports have legalized sports betting -- rather, states have legalized sports betting. It's estimated to become a $45 billion a year industry. Once the market matures. I wonder why you think it's growing so fast in popularity.

NICK KOSTOS, HOST, "YOU BETTER, YOU BET," AUDACY'S BETMGM NETWORK: I -- well, first off, Boris, really appreciate you having me.

And they named the show after the Who song. So yes, it is. It's a little ridiculous. So I understand.

(LAUGHTER)

KOSTOS: Betting on sports, it's fun. And, obviously, obviously, I would say, for everybody, like please bet responsibly, especially coming up on Superbowl Sunday.

But everyone I know is a sports fan. I surround myself with sports fans, growing up as a huge sports fan, and everyone has an opinion, Boris, on what's going to happen in the game.

And I think that's what's fun about sports betting is, you know, it's one thing to say, well, I think the Chiefs are going to win because Patrick Mahomes is going to win the game at the end, right, which we've seen happen in a number of Superbowls recently.

Well, now you can put your money on it. You can actually bet on it happening. And when it happens, you feel like you are the smartest person in the world. And conversely, if and when the Eagles win, you probably won't feel as good.

But it's really taking that knowledge that we all have as sports fans and saying, you know what, can I win money based off my opinions? And I think that's really like the biggest draw, for me at least, when I started betting on sports. That's the thing that I love the most.

SANCHEZ: There is obviously a personal investment in what happens in the game when you bet.

I do wonder to your point about gaming responsibly. The one-time executive director of the National Council for Problem Gambling estimates that the risk of gambling went up some 30 percent since sports gambling became legal. I wonder what you make about those numbers.

KOSTOS: Yes, I would say like -- like anything that can cause -- alcohol, et cetera. And I'm not trying to make an apples-to-apples corollary here. But I would say, yes, like it definitely can be troubling if and when someone falls into a gambling addiction.

We say on our show every single day, "You Better, You Bet, weekdays, 3:00 to 7:00 p.m. Eastern, the final hour. NBC Sports now on Peacock. We always say multiple times throughout the show to please bet responsibly. Kind of everything comes with that warning at the end of it.

And look, and I'll say this to your audience, Boris, on CNN right now, right? The Superbowl is the most bet event every single year. I will have personally more bets on this game than I will have on any game throughout the year.

But I go into it saying, OK, if I lose -- let's say I lose all my bets and I lose X amount of dollars, will I be able to sleep at night? Like, will I be OK when I go to bed at night?

And -- and you set a limit for yourself. So I think as long as people are betting responsibly and people like me with a microphone and a platform are urging that message, again, which we do multiple times per show, I really think that's all we can do. And I think we do a pretty good job of that.

SANCHEZ: So, Nick, you talked about some of the bets you might have on the game. I wonder what you're looking forward to most on Sunday and what color the Gatorade is going to be that gets dumped on the winning coach.

KOSTOS: Well, if I had to bet, if I we're a betting man, Boris --

(LAUGHTER) KOSTOS: -- I would take a look at lime-green yellow as the color for the Gatorade.

(LAUGHTER)

KOSTOS: That would be the color that I would look at.

The thing that I am -- that I am looking at -- most forward to with this game is Kansas City winning.

Boris, I -- I tell people all the time, and I'm sure a lot of your audience will agree with this. This country is faced with a virus, an affliction, a disease, and it's gripping so many of us. And it's unfortunate.

Boris, that disease, I call it CDS -- Chiefs Derangement Syndrome.

(LAUGHTER)

[13:55:05]

KOSTOS: Everyone hates the Chiefs. Everyone thinks, well, it's funny, right, because they win all the time. No, they're not actually good.

And I'm from New York. I'm not a Chiefs fan. Everyone hates the Chiefs. Everyone thinks the refs help them and they get lucky. But here they are winning game after game, Superbowl after Superbowl.

So my advice to everybody, don't let Chiefs Derangement Syndrome ruin your Superbowl Sunday. Because when Patrick Mahomes gets the ball at the end of the game, he's probably going to do what he always does, win the game. Nothings a lock. Please bet responsibly. Give me the Chiefs.

SANCHEZ: We will be watching very closely on Sunday.

Nick Kostos, thanks so much for your analysis. Appreciate it.

KOSTOS: -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Still to come on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, we're waiting on President Trump, expected to speak to reporters with the Japanese prime minister at any moment. You see officials there setting up the podium.

We'll be right back on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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