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Trump's Numbers Take a Turn; Winter Storm Brings Record Cold. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired February 20, 2025 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

DR. MICHAEL MINA, VACCINE EXPERT, FORMER PROFESSOR, HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Always be seen as an early warning sign that other viruses are going to be in tow.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And real quick, I mean, the number - we know vaccine hesitancy has been on the rise. The number of people getting their children vaccinated has been on the decline. And a lot of this is driven by very misguided and false and anti-vax ideas and a movement. But still, it is happening. How do you turn the tide, Doctor?

MINA: Yes, I think the most important thing is - is for physicians, public health experts, other folks who are advising parents to really understand what's underlying this. Yes, there's misinformation, but more than anything, this - people don't get their kids vaccinated, not because of any malicious intent, but because they love and are fearful of various things for their kids.

So, I think the most important thing is for physicians and others in a place of decision making and guidance for their patients to really work harder to understand why their patient is choosing not to get vaccinated and don't dismiss them as vaccine anti-vaxxers and things like this, but to - to really understand that it's coming from a place of love for their kids. And - and that's at least the foundation we have to start working on. We have to communicate better.

In an era of disease elimination, it makes sense for parents to start questioning, well, why should I get my kid the measles vaccine, there's no measles. Well, we have to be able to give them the big picture that if they stop getting the vaccine as a population, there will be measles again. And these are the consequences and really work to speak with empathy, which I think is often lost when we're talking about vaccines for parents.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And taking the lead from doctors who know and are the experts in this area is where we need to be leaning more on.

Doctor, it's good to see you again. Thank you.

MINA: Absolutely.

BOLDUAN: Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: An important conversation. Thank you, Kate.

What Americans are now saying about the job President Donald Trump is doing so far officially a month into the job.

And a split in the Republican Party after President Trump's change on his tone when it comes to Ukraine. Quote, "we will use every lever and every vote, regardless of the personal or political consequences. It is legacy defining." We will discuss, ahead.

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[09:36:57]

SIDNER: Today, exactly one month since Donald Trump was sworn in as the president of the United States in his second term. And now we have a look at what Americans think of the work he's done so far and their concerns about what he hasn't done.

CNN's senior data reporter Harry Enten here in fine fettle.

Harry, a CNN poll released some numbers. I know you like to look at things across many - so an aggregate of many different surveys. What are you seeing?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: What are we seeing? The CNN poll looks a lot like the other polls that were out. Let's not make a mistake. The last day in change has been the worst day of polling for Donald Trump during his entire second term in office. What am I talking about here? Take a look at Trump's net approval rating. CNN, you see it on this side of the screen, minus five. Gallup, minus six. Ipsos, minus seven. Quinnipiac, minus four. Negative. Negative. Negative. Negative. Underwater. Underwater. Underwater. Underwater. These four polls, all of them tell a consistent story. And that is, Trump is on the negative side of the ledger. His net approval is negative. He is underwater, like "The Little Mermaid."

SIDNER: All right. What are the changes since the beginning of his term? January.

ENTEN: Oh, right. All right, so we don't have a CNN poll to compare, but we do have the other three pollsters that we can look at. Trump's net approval rating, the change since January, look at this, Gallup, down five points. Quinnipiac, down seven points. Ipsos, down 13 points. They pulled right at the beginning of his presidency. So, not a big surprise that that shows the worst - the worst change for Donald Trump.

But the bottom line is this, across the four new polls that we have, all of them have Trump in net negative approval rating. And the three in which we have a trend line, we see Donald Trump heading in the wrong direction. Swimming upstream you might say.

SIDNER: What is driving this? Like, what is making people so upset?

ENTEN: Yes. You know, one of Donald Trump's great strengths during his first term, one of Donald Trump's great strengths during the 2024 campaign was the economy. The idea that Donald Trump could fix the economy. This was one of Donald Trump's great strengths. Now, it's one of his great weaknesses.

What am I talking about? Trump's net approval rating. You go back to his first term, February, 2017. Ipsos, he was at plus 16 points on his net approval. Quinnipiac, plus six. Look at where he is now in Ipsos. He's eight points underwater on the economy. Quinnipiac, four points under on the economy.

I honestly never thought I'd see the day in which Donald Trump would be polling so poor on the economy. But that day is here.

As I said last week, inflation ate the Joe Biden presidency alive. And right now it is very much the case that Donald Trump is in danger of inflation eating his presidency alive because his net approval ratings on the economy are under water.

SIDNER: I just have one last question. What's this for?

ENTEN: What's this for? If I wanted to say some -

SIDNER: If you want to do math?

ENTEN: If I wanted to do math. If I wanted to write my name. If I wanted to do whatever. This is what we have the blackboard here for. And I can say, Harry, plus, Sara.

SIDNER: Your girlfriend and my husband will be very annoyed.

OK, thank you so much, Harry Enten, I should never have asked.

ENTEN: There you go.

SIDNER: John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Glad it wasn't me standing there today.

[09:40:00]

All right, with us now, CNN political commentators Maria Cardona and Shermichael Singleton.

I want to put up one of the graphics Harry showed there, certainly not the last one, because the trend line over the first month in these three polls, Gallup, Quinnipiac and Ipsos, the president is losing ground over the first month. The question is why, Maria? What's the warning sign here?

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The warning sign, John, is that everything that Donald Trump has done from the moment he got elected and then came into office is doing the opposite of what he promised the American people he would do. Everything that he has done has actually brought inflation back up, doing nothing to bring down the cost of groceries, gas and rent, which is what a lot of those voters, the non-MAGA voters who voted for him in November gave him that trust that he was going to bring down their costs, that he was going to fix inflation, that, in his own words, he would make sure that eggs are cheaper the first day he is in office. And in fact what we are seeing is completely the opposite.

And to Harry's point, the economy was the number one issue for the majority of voters in November. And right now, what you are seeing is that Donald Trump is actually - is - what has been a huge betrayal of the American people of what he promised them. And what he is actually doing, the tariffs, the mass deportations, the focusing on every other thing other than the economy is exploding inflation and making things a lot more - more expensive. Much more expensive for families. And that's not what they bargained for. And you're seeing it now in the polls.

BERMAN: And, Shermichael, again, those three polls are showing slippage over a one month period. The CNN poll showed that Americans - an overwhelming number of Americans think that he's not doing enough to push prices down.

And part of politics is performative, is performance, is to look like you're trying.

SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.

BERMAN: Do you feel the president looks - the president looks like he's trying to bring prices down right now, or does he look like he's doing other things?

SINGLETON: So, John, it's interesting, right, because when we look at some data, I think what's interesting is, about 70 percent of Americans, at least two weeks ago, said that Donald Trump is doing everything that he campaigned on. Yet when you look at that same poll, as some of the polling data that Harry mentioned, when you asked a question about inflationary cost, cost of living, you did see some slight dips two weeks ago. Now those dips continue to increase. Two weeks ago 57 percent of 18 to 34 year olds said that they approved of Trump. Today that's around 41 percent. Thirty percent of black voters said that they had approved. Now that's down to, I believe, 23 percent. So, you are seeing some dips.

My advice to the president would be, you have to begin to tackle and address inflation immediately. People agree on immigration. I think some would agree somewhat on some of his stances on foreign policy. But that number one issue for most people, the number one issue that I would argue is why he got elected is the economy. And as soon as he can focus more so on that, I think there's an opportunity, John, for those numbers to begin to shift.

And I'll just add quickly, yesterday, Trump mentioned potentially giving out maybe a $5,000 stimulus via savings from DOGE. If he actually were to move forward with that and we can afford it, I think that could also be a boost that the president would need.

BERMAN: There's an issue with - well, for another time. That could be inflationary, which could be the very problem that he has right now, the problem he's facing now.

SINGLETON: That's a - that's a fair point.

BERMAN: But - but that's - that's a discussion for another time here.

And, Shermichael, I - you know, I want to - you've been a Republican for a long time. And some of the things that the president has been saying the last few days doesn't sound like any Republican that I've heard over the last 20 years, saying that - that Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a dictator, that Ukraine started the war when Russia invaded them. And we're starting to see a few Republicans speak out against this. Mike Pence did. He said, Mr. President, Ukraine did not start this war. Nikki Haley speaking out, these are classic Russian talking points. She said, "exactly what Putin wants."

And just a few minutes ago we heard from Brian Fitzpatrick, a Republican member of Congress, someone who's actually in office right now, and he wrote this extensive, long, long tweet so people could see, I think, his thinking on this, and to explain it. You know, I - it'd be - take to long for me to read all of it here, but what he says is, "there's an outcome-determinative number of members in the U.S. Congress, from both parties and in both chambers, who are ready, willing and able to do whatever it takes to prevent communist dictator Vladimir Putin for being rewarded for this illegal invasion." It just goes on here.

We're starting to see Republicans get angry about the language that the president is using, Shermichael. Will we see more stand up?

SINGLETON: It depends. I think Pence and Haley aren't really a factor as it pertains to Trump. If we begin to see, John, more members in the House and in the Senate sort of come forward and say, Mr. President, I think we should reassess our long-term strategy here, I think that may have some impact.

[09:45:01]

I agree with the president that we don't want to be involved in long- term, never ending wars that could cost taxpayers an unlimited amount of money. However, I am not willing to cede any ground to Vladimir Putin. I'm really concerned about the strengthening partnership and relationship between Russia and China, specifically with China being the leader, as they are our greatest international adversary at this moment, I would argue.

I would also caution the president to be somewhat concerned. If we see some ground to Putin, does that give permission to Xi Jinping to potentially invade Taiwan? And if he were to do so, then what will the stance be from the United States?

So, again, I agree with the president, let's end this. But also I would say, let's not give any ground to Vladimir Putin. He is not our friend. He's our adversary.

BERMAN: He has given all the rhetorical ground to Vladimir Putin in a certain way already to the extent that a key Russian official this morning said if you would have told him a U.S. official would say the things that Trump has been saying three months ago he would have laughed.

So - So, Maria, we've got 30 seconds left here. Democrats, what do you want to see them doing on Ukraine?

CARDONA: I want them to continue to speak up about the importance of supporting Ukraine. And, you know, it's so ironic, Republicans love to talk about their hero, Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan is not just turning over in his grave, he's doing flips because of what's going on right now.

Donald Trump's way of saying things, his rhetoric, his positioning, is nothing less than what the words and what the actions would be of a Russian asset, John. And that is incredibly concerning, incredibly dangerous and incredibly embarrassing for the president of the United States on the world stage. What he did when he was in Europe was nothing less than essentially offering Ukraine on a silver platter to Putin. And I think moving forward we need more Republicans speaking out, joining with Democrats to underscore our American values, protect Ukraine, which is our democracy, and not cede anything more to the dictator and to the murderer and criminal that is Vladimir Putin.

BERMAN: Well, some Trump supporters say it's a negotiating tactic. Let's see.

SINGLETON: John - John, I - you know, I wouldn't - I wouldn't - I wouldn't call -

BERMAN: How - Shermichael, we - we got to - we got to - Shermichael, we got - we got to go, but I do appreciate the time.

SINGLETON: I just want to say, I wouldn't call the sitting president a Russian asset. I would say, look, Republicans should go to the president and articulate a more robust case for why we should support Ukraine versus Vladimir Putin and why it's more so in our interest.

CARDONA: That's what he's acting like, Shermichael.

BERMAN: We will -

SINGLETON: But to call the president a Russian asset, that's a bit ludicrous.

CARDONA: That's just weak sauce (ph).

BERMAN: We will hear more from both Democrats and Republicans on this no doubt.

CARDONA: Well, he's acting like it.

BERMAN: Thank you both very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: This just in. The former head of Spain's soccer federation has been found guilty of assault after that kiss seen round the world at the women's World Cup in 2023. And a programing note, the CNN film "Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve

Story," is now the winner of the Bafta Award for best documentary. You can watch a special re-airing presentation of it Saturday night, 10:00 p.m. on CNN.

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[09:52:32]

BOLDUAN: The Trump administration will not be allowed to end birthright citizenship for immigrant children for now. A federal appeals court has just declined Trump's emergency request to immediately lift a nationwide block on his executive order ending the policy, which has been considered settled law since the Supreme Court ruled on it in 1898. It is the first time an appeals court has weighed in on one of the several lawsuits challenging Trump's moves on this. This decision likely sets - now sets this fight up to head to the U.S. Supreme Court for a final decision.

The former head of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, Luis Rubiales, has now been found guilty of sexual assault by Spain's high court. This stems from what we described as the kiss seen around the world after the 2023 World Cup championship when he forcibly kissed the star player, Jennifer Hermoso, on the field after the win. It sparked protests across Spain, and prosecutors, they were seeking a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence over it. But the Spanish high court ruled that he should just face a fine instead, ordering that he pay $11,000. Rubiales is also banned from communicating with Hermoso or going within roughly 600 feet of her.

And this morning a new warning from America's biggest retailer and a consumer spending bellwether. Well, Walmart said today that strong holiday sales propelled its revenue to another annual record. The company also warns that it expects sales and profit growth to slow in the coming year, in 2025, as inflation ticks back up and Donald Trump's tariffs set in.

And Walmart is projected - Walmart's projected slowdown is also a signal to the rest of the retail industry that 2025 is going to be a rocky one. In an interview with CNBC, the CFO says this, there is far from certainty in the geopolitical landscape. Walmart's shares have dropped on the news today.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, something else dropping from the sky, snowfall, across the Mid-Atlantic states is setting records now. Norfolk, Virginia, posted its top ten snowiest day yesterday and chalked up its snowiest winter in a decade.

Let's now turn to CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam, who is in Atlanta.

It is February. It is cold. No biggie. But then it kind of is a big deal this time. What's happening?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, absolutely, Sara. In fact, it's my job to try and come up with a new and interesting way to visualize just how cold it actually is. So, we put up what is called the enhanced satellite loop.

[09:55:02]

And what this satellite is actually meant to do is detect the coldest cloud tops. So, anything that you see moving here is extremely cold cloud tops. Here across the Great Lakes and here throughout the Plains.

But this stationary color you see here, not moving at all, that is the enhanced satellite picking up on the cold levels of the ground. And that is just represented of just how frigid the temperatures are at the surface as well. Just incredible. We're talking 30 to 40 degrees below where we should be this time of year, impacting places that normally wouldn't experience this type of weather, from Dallas, to Houston, and right here in Atlanta as well.

And we're not just setting records casually, were shattering records by over ten degrees. Take Wichita, for example. It's negative four. Your daily record was three degrees above zero. And those record lows will continue overnight tonight and into Friday morning as well. One hundred million Americans under these extreme cold alerts. And when you step outside, the wind chill values are downright dangerous.

But interesting, the weather is going to flip for the better. We're going to see mild temperatures return. And then the snow starts to melt across the Ohio Valley.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you so much, Derek. Appreciate it.

BOLDUAN: Like whiplash here.

BERMAN: In the meantime, find a nice pashmina until it warms up.

BOLDUAN: I also love a casual record breaking, you know what I mean?

BERMAN: Yes, casual record breaking.

All right, thank you so much for joining us. This has been CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "NEWSROOM" is up next.

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