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New Ultimatum from Trump; GOP'S Careful Pushback on Musk; Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) is Interviewed about Dismantling Federal Agencies; Flu Cases Peak for Second Time; Louisiana Police Looking into Death of Reporter. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired February 11, 2025 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All saying that the courts shouldn't have the power to override the president in these cases.

Are you concerned in any way that they may just defy the judge's rulings if the judges rule in favor of these employees?

AARON HERRERAS SZOT, EMPLOYMENT LAW ATTORNEY: That is a concern. Ultimately, judicial orders are binding on all parties. If one branch of government decides to ignore another, that is teeing up a constitutional issue.

SCIUTTO: Aaron Herreras Szot, thank you so much for coming on and explaining what your clients are going through and the uncertainty that they are living with at this hour. Appreciate it.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, cancel the ceasefire and let all hell break out. President Trump's new suggestion to Israel as Hamas threatens to stop releasing hostages.

And a reporter covering the Super Bowl was found dead in his hotel room. Police investigating what a so-called career criminal had to do with it.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:35:33]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, a new ultimatum coming from President Trump as the fragile deal between Israel and Hamas feels like it's on the brink of possible collapse again. Hamas postponed the next release of hostages, claiming Israel broke terms of the ceasefire. And Donald Trump has now jumped in saying this, quote, that "all hell was going to break loose" if Hamas does not release all of the remaining hostages by noon on Saturday.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is live in Tel Aviv with much more on this.

Jeremy, what are you hearing about this - well, about the ceasefire deal, where it stands and about this ultimatum now from Donald Trump?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think that it's important to say that this really is perhaps the most fragile moment that we have seen for this ceasefire deal thus far. It - but it's - and that's just because we have seen so many things injected into the kind of public conscience in recent days. You begin with Saturday, and the images of those three, frail, emaciated looking hostages who emerged from 16 months in Hamas captivity. Then you have Hamas threatening to delay the next release of hostages, accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire several times. And you add on top of that, President Trump not only talking about displacing all of Gaza's population in favor of a riviera of the Middle East U.S. real estate development, but also now suggesting that the Israeli government effectively issue this ultimatum to Hamas to release all of the hostages by Saturday at noon or face all hell breaking loose.

The Israeli prime minister is currently in a security cabinet meeting discussing all of this with the members - the highest level officials in the Israeli government. There's no question that right wing members of that government have been seizing on many of Trump's proposals here. Whether that is the ultimatum to release all the hostages or go back to war, whether that is the proposal for the United States to take over the Gaza Strip and expel all of the Palestinians who are living there. And so the Israeli prime minister is going to be facing a series of political crosswinds, not only the families of the hostages who have ramped up their demonstrations in Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem, but also, of course, from the right wing. And this ultimatum from Trump could potentially run the risk of making the prime minister look weaker to his right-wing base if he doesn't join Trump in issuing that call.

But that being said, an Israeli official I spoke to just a little bit ago suggested to me that there is no indication right now that Israel is interested in breaking off this deal. Keep in mind, we are still expecting about 17 more hostages to be released as part of this ceasefire, and their families are counting on this deal to stick.

BOLDUAN: And add into all of this, today, President Trump is about to be meeting with and welcoming the king of Jordan to the White House. This at another remarkable moment in that relationship and allyship, which is Donald Trump, in part of making his case for owning Gaza, saying that Palestinians need to - that Jordan needs to be taking in Palestinians.

What's the reaction to all of that?

DIAMOND: Well, the president is - has actually making explicitly clear now that the billions of dollars in U.S. security aid that the United States provides to Jordan and Egypt, which we should make clear is not just some kind of benevolence from the United States. It is something that protects U.S. interests in the Middle East. The president is now saying that that is on the line if Jordan and Egypt don't get in line and support his plan for Gaza, support taking in more than 2 million Palestinian refugees from the Gaza Strip.

But Jordan has more to consider than just that security aid. It also has to consider the fact that more than half of its population are already Palestinian refugees, that it cannot simply be viewed as abandoning the notion of a Palestinian state by allowing a U.S. takeover of Gaza. It has its own domestic political considerations as well. So, all of that we expect to be discussed between the president and King Abdullah today.

But make no mistake, Gazans and Arabs in the region at large are wholly rejecting this proposal from the president. The only place it has support is in the right wing of Israeli politics over here.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Jeremy Diamond, thank you, always, for your reporting. Really appreciate it.

Sara.

[08:40:00]

SIDNER: All right, the speaker of the House, the vice president, several members of Congress who are Republicans, all publicly coalescing around Trump and Elon Musk's sudden and severe slashing of the federal government workforce. But behind closed doors, some Republican members of Congress are facing pressure now from anxious constituents who benefit from federal monies and programs that are effectively frozen.

CNN's Annie Grayer is joining us now.

What are you hearing about what these Republicans are trying to do now that they're facing - can we call it backlash yet or something similar?

ANNIE GRAYER, CNN CAPITOL HILL REPORTER: Well, Sara, there is a lot happening behind the scenes. I'm not sure if backlash - if we're at that point, but certainly pressure. The phone lines in Republican offices have been ringing off the hook. And that's because the federal workforce doesn't just live in Washington, D.C. In fact, over 80 percent work around the country. So, this is an issue that doesn't just affect D.C., it affects the entire federal workforce. And that means that Republicans, whether they want to or not, have to sort of weigh in here. And they are hearing, consistently, from their constituents.

So, I have talked to a number of Republicans for this story who told me the ways that they are trying to help their constituents and federal workers. For example, Republican Zach Nunn of Iowa is filing individual casework for his constituents who are having concerns, trying to advocate for their jobs directly with the Trump administration or the relevant agencies. Republicans are looking to the government funding deadline next month as being key to leveraging the programs that they want to continue to see funded. So, that could be a tension point between what the legislative decides to fund and what Donald Trump and Elon Musk want.

And then you also have a number of private meetings going on this week. A number of Republicans are sitting down with representatives from the larger - largest federal workers union to hear them out directly, where we're sure they're going to get an earful. And some Republicans are even hosting town halls back home to let their constituents air out their grievances there.

So, Republicans are very aware, Sara, of all that's going on and all the pressure that they're facing. I mean, and then we have to think of the politics of all this, right, about how Republicans have to navigate this, because while they want to protect their - their federal workers in their districts, this is also an effort to cut the federal government and its workforce, led by Elon Musk and blessed by President Trump. So, they have to really thread this needle here.

And one Republican lawmaker who we granted anonymity to speak to us kind of encapsulated all of this when they said, quote, "if this were a Democratic administration with the same things happening, people would be lit up about it," end quote. So, that just shows you, Sara, the dynamics that Republicans are facing and how they are trying to address it.

SIDNER: Yes. Yes. This is an issue. It's one thing to say, hey, we want to blow up the federal government's budget and we want to get rid of people. When it starts to affect you personally, things tend to change a bit.

Annie Grayer, thank you so much for your reporting this morning. I know you'll be watching all this as it unfolds.

John.

BERMAN: So, this morning, a new response from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer when asked by Mara Gay from "The New York Times" what Americans want from Democrats right now. What Senator Schumer said was this, quote, "they want us to beat Trump and stop this spit," except they didn't say "spit," they said something that rhymes with it.

With us now is Senator Ed Markey, a Democrat from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Senator, thank you so much for being with us.

Senator Schumer says you're stopping it. What have you stopped?

SEN. ED MARKEY (D-MA): Well, so far the federal courts have blocked Trump's attempt to change birthright citizenship, blocked the cuts to NIH funding, blocked the access to the Treasury information, blocked the firing of USAID employees, blocked, blocked, blocked, blocked. That's the federal courts.

We are, in the Senate, we are using every single moment in order to fight against these unqualified and dangerous cabinet nominees, which Trump has put up. This week we're going to be having the whole debate about Robert F. Kennedy, who is unqualified and deeply dangerous as a secretary of Health and Human Services, because, amongst other things, and this is where we're going to get to tell the story, Kennedy is saying he'll do whatever Trump wants as a matter of policy. Well, Trump and Musk have made it very clear, they want to loot Medicaid. They want to loot the Affordable Care Act to get hundreds of billions of dollars for tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. And we're just going to continue to fight every single day in order to protect all of these vital programs for the health care, the environment, for the education of American families all across our country.

[08:45:07]

And we're not going to stop. We are going to battle him every single day.

BERMAN: Obviously, Massachusetts has some of the best hospitals, some of the most cutting edge medical research in the country, and will be affected by cuts to NIH funding.

Your New England colleague, Republican Susan Collins from Maine, said she called RFK Jr. because she's concerned about the NIH cuts. Now, she says she's voting for RFK Jr., but she's concerned, and that Kennedy promised to reexamine this initiative.

How confident are you that that will lead to results, and how confident are you - I mean what do you think of Susan Collins' decision?

MARKEY: Well, we have, as you say, the finest hospitals, the finest medical researchers in the world in Massachusetts. It's where we're from, John.

But we started a revolution. And the revolution was to make sure we did not have a king that was in Lexington and Concord. Well, Article One of the Constitution creates the Congress. Article Two of the Constitution, it creates the presidency. Article Three, it creates the judiciary. Well, Donald Trump and Elon Musk, they want to create Article 3.5, the Musk-ocracy, where anything that Elon Musk wants is going to trump all other articles of the Constitution. And they want to loot the NIH funding. They want to loot Medicaid. They want to loot the funding for children who need help in school. Kids with disabilities in their learning. They want to loot all of it for hundreds of billions of dollars for a tax break. So, that's where we are right now. NIH funding is essential to finding the cure for Alzheimer's and cancer and diabetes and heart disease. And they want to, for all intents and purposes, shut it down. So, we're at a constitutional crisis moment in our country. What they're trying to do is unconstitutional, it's illegal, and we are going to battle them every single day until we win.

BERMAN: Katie Miller, who works on Musk's task force, called NIH funding, quote, liberal DEI deans (ph) slush fund. Your reaction to that?

MARKEY: Well, look at the kids in every high school class in the first row all studied biology and chemistry and physics. They were the smart kids. Those are the kids working at NIH. Those are the young people, the older scientists trying to - trying to do the research, which is medicine's field of dreams, which gives hope to families that there will be a cure for that disease which is running through their family's history. That's not anything other than pure science. That's finding the best people to do that research.

And all of this characterization of everything as DEI again is just part of the plot to attempt to loot all of these programs for the tax breaks, for Musk and for all of his billionaire cronies. So, it's - it's wrong. The American public knows it's wrong. And if there's anything people want, on a bipartisan basis, regardless of ethnicity, regardless of race, regardless of income, it is to find the cure for all of these diseases, which NIH funding makes possible.

BERMAN: Senator Ed Markey, from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, appreciate your time this morning.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us, schools forced to close because of flu outbreaks. New data coming in from the CDC showing this flu season is the most intense it's been in the last 15 years.

And an egg heist caught on camera as prices soar amid this nationwide shortage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:53:25]

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, you might know this already the hard way. This year's flu season is on track to be among the worst in years. Doctor Sanjay Gupta is here with us this morning.

So, Sanjay, how bad is it?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's pretty bad. I mean it's certainly the worst that it's been since before Covid. If you look at cases overall, it's the worst in many, many years in terms of hospitalizations, probably the worst since 2017. So, you know, this is something people are paying attention to.

Let me show you the map. You're used to looking at these maps. It gives you an idea of sort of the activity of flu around the country. The darker the color, the more flu in your area. So, those are the places where you're thinking, hey, is this the flu that I have? If you live in a darker state, according to this map, chances are higher that it's actually going to be flu. So, that's something that people are certainly keeping an eye on overall.

If you look at the numbers, sort of broadly speaking, you know, first of all, they could have predicted this to some extent, John, because wastewater numbers were going up. They were seeing flu in wastewater. But now, you know, 24 million cases, 310,000 hospitalizations so far this season, 13,000 deaths. So - so, pretty significant. And 38,000 hospitalizations just last week alone.

And you may remember, John, from talking about Covid for so long, hospitalizations, I think, are probably the truest measure of what's really going on. So, again, paying close attention to that. Positivity rate. I don't know if you remember that term, John, but

that basically means people go in to get tested. How many times do the tests come back positive? The higher the positivity rate, the more likely that flu is - is out there and is going to be out there for a while.

[08:55:05]

So, with a positivity rate over 30 percent, that means we're going to be in this for a bit longer. The numbers are not really crescendoing at this point, so we'll keep an eye on that as well. Those are the three things really that give an indication of how bad things are.

BERMAN: So, given that we're going to be in this for a while, as you said, what can we do to protect ourselves?

GUPTA: I mean, you know, we talk about vaccines a lot. And people may say, hey, look, is it too late to get a vaccine? The answer, based on what I've just told you, is, no. Now, keep in mind, if you get a vaccine, it takes about two weeks to actually get the immunity from the vaccine, for those antibodies to build up in your body. Those are the vaccine rates right now, pretty much in line with what they've been. About half the country's adults get a vaccine, a flu vaccine, every year. That number has not budged. Fewer kids, though, getting flu vaccines, around 54 percent, usually closer to 60 percent. That's one thing.

Another thing, and this is sort of new, John, is there is now an at home flu test. That's it. So, you can do a flu test at home. We weren't able to do that. You could do Covid tests in the past, but now there's a 3 in 1 flu test. This will look familiar to you, John. It's a swab. You dip it into this little reagent and then you basically put the drops on here and it tells you if you have the flu.

Why should you do this? Well, again, if you want to know if you have the flu so that you don't spread it to others, that's one reason. Another thing is, if you're at higher risk, there are certain antiviral medications, Tamiflu for example, which typically can shorten the duration of how long you're sick. It may not lessen the severity of symptoms, but it can shorten the duration by a day or so. For people over the age of 65, for people who have some preexisting condition, lung conditions, for example, in particular, Tamiflu might be a good option. You can know ahead of time at home now if you actually have the flu and are a candidate for that.

BERMAN: Yes, those tests, you know, a little triggering. I was hoping never to see those devices again.

Doctor Sanjay Gupta, thank you very much.

And if you have questions about this flu season, scan the QR code right there on your screen. Head to cnn.com and send the questions to us. Sanjay will be back later this week to answer them.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thank you, sir.

Trader Joes now limiting egg purchases that it has - it has now announced at all of its locations nationwide. Every customer only now allowed to take home one dozen eggs. That's 600 locations this is impacting, and a very real example of the fallout from the ongoing egg shortage caused by the bird flu. That shortage has also sent egg prices soaring, as we all know, up 14 percent in one month. And prices are projected to continue their climb, possibly another 20 percent this year.

The family of Sonya Massey, a black woman killed by a white deputy in her Illinois home last year, the family has now reached a settlement with the county. $10 million settlement. This comes over six months after Massey called 911 over a suspicious person outside her home. Just minutes after the sheriff's deputies and other officers arrived, she was shot and killed in her kitchen when she went to check on a pot of boiling water. The sheriff's deputy has been fired. He remains in - behind bars on a first degree murder charge, which he has pleaded not guilty to. Now, the settlement with Massey's family must still be approved by the county board.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, this morning there is some new information in the investigation into the death of a young sports reporter sent to New Orleans to cover the Super Bowl. Twenty-seven-year-old Adan Manzano worked for Telemundo in Kansas City. Police say he was found dead in his hotel room last Wednesday. Police say he was seen on security cameras around 4:30 in the morning, entering his room in Kenner, Louisiana, with this woman. Police say the woman is actually a known career criminal. They say Danette Colbert left the room a short time later and then returned about 6:00 in the morning before leaving again alone. Police say she has a rap sheet that includes, and this is the new information, allegations of drugging men and financial crimes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF KEITH CONLEY, KENNER POLICE: All of the circumstances are very similar. And that's the calls that we're getting. We believe one or two might involve Miss Colbert from what we have, but we still have to do a lot of investigating.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: All right, CNN chief law enforcement and intelligence analyst John Miller is here with us.

With all the information that police have, namely that she's the last person to be seen with him. He did not leave that room after she left the room for the final time. Why isn't she a suspect so far in this case?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, she is a suspect, but it doesn't mean she's chargeable yet. It seems - if we were watching "Law and Order," this would be easy. They do a search warrant at her residence. They find his credit card. They find his phone.

SIDNER: Right.

MILLER: He's been drugged and is now deceased.

[09:00:02]

But they have a much longer way to go.

And, I mean, I know this because we had similar cases in New York. One involving a similar suspect who.