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Number Show GOP Support for Trump; Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R- NY) is Interviewed about the Budget; Pope Showing Slight Improvement; U.S. Teen Arrested in Paris. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired February 25, 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]

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: FBI reached out to one of the brothers because they wanted that DNA to go into the public databases that law enforcement can search. The brother said, just stop bothering me. I'm not going to do it. FBI did their own work on this. And on December 19th, that is when the name Bryan Kohberger from genetic genealogy was first announced to Idaho law enforcement. And we have a quote here. Brett Payne, who was the - is the lead investigator, said, "that was a result of investigative genetic genealogy that was being undertaken by the FBI. We had a phone call that evening and we were told Bryan Kohberger's name." So, from that point they went on to get search warrants.

But here's more information we learned. We learned that there is - there was blood on the knife sheath, but that it was actually swabbed for fingerprints. We do not know the results. If there were any fingerprints that were found on that knife sheath, it was partially under the body, but they got single source male DNA. We probably won't know that till trial.

Also found out, between the second and third floor of the home, there was blood on the handrail intermixed with single source DNA. Now, we do not know, from everything we know it wasn't tested. And that's something that's going to favor the defense.

But the defense wanted all of this genetic genealogy material suppressed because that's the key to this case for prosecutors is that unknown DNA that they matched to Bryan Kohberger when he was given a swabbing after he was arrested. And so they - it didn't happen. It's not been suppressed. But they're saying the FBI went about this, not following protocol, that they went to unauthorized genetic genealogy public database sites. And we have reached out to the FBI. They have not responded to us. But that is what they're going to try to show in trial, if this is allowed in. We don't know yet.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, I got to say, two and a half years later, Jean, you've been covering this every step of the way. Pretty interesting to have all these new developments come to light with these filings. Thank you so much for the work you've done here.

CASAREZ: Thank you.

BERMAN: Fascinating.

All right, new this morning, a teenager is in custody, accused of throwing a newborn baby out of a hotel window. We've got new details on that investigation.

And, oh, no, not moons over my hammy. Eggs getting so expensive now Denny's is instituting a new egg surcharge.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:37:04]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: With a razor thin Republican majority, House Speaker Mike Johnson is fighting to secure the votes to pass a budget blueprint. A few GOP hardliners could sink it. They're saying no so far. They all, though, want to advance President Trump's agenda, but they can't quite agree on the best way to do it.

CNN's Harry Enten is with me now.

Harry, Republicans are fine with fighting with one another.

HARRY ENTEN, SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yes.

SIDNER: But is there any indication they'd be fighting against Donald Trump, or is this the loyalty of loyalties?

ENTEN: Yes, this is all about Donald Trump because the bottom line is they're not so worried about voters in the middle of the electorate. Why? I want to take you through history, play a little bit of where's Waldo.

Split House districts. Those that are won by a GOP House nominee and a Dem presidential nominee. Ergo, in 2024, won by the Republican House member and Kamala Harris. Simply put, they don't exist. There are only three of them. There are only three of them. My goodness gracious. It's easier to find a New York Yankee fan in Boston, Massachusetts.

Look how much down that is from 2016, when it was 23. Or how about 2000, when George W. Bush won, it was 40.

The bottom line is, there are really very, very few GOP House members representing a district that Kamala Harris won. And there is only one United States senator, Susan Collins, representing a state that was won, in fact, by Kamala Harris.

SIDNER: All right, so how popular is Donald Trump right now with the GOP base? We're now just a past a month of his time in office his second time.

ENTEN: Yes, I mean, look, the bottom line is this, Republicans love Donald Trump the way Grimace loves Ronald McDonald. Take a look here. Republicans net approval rating, February of 2017 it was plus 77 points. Somehow it's even gone up. Look at this. It's plus 82 points at this point. You do not want to upset the Republican voters if you are a Republican member of Congress because Donald Trump, at this point, has a popularity that, truthfully, is sky high.

SIDNER: We are seeing some dissent in town halls in a couple of different places. But if you were to take Congress and Donald Trump and tell voters, OK, you choose whose side you want to be on, who are they going for?

ENTEN: Yes, who are they going for? If you match up the GOP in Congress versus Donald Trump, who do Republicans trust more. The answer here is very simple, it's Donald Trump. Look at this, 58 percent, when the two of them disagree. Look at this, just 22 percent say GOP leaders in Congress. The bottom line is, in a matchup between the GOP and Congress and Donald Trump, Donald Trump is Muhammad Ali. The Republicans in Congress are Sonny Liston. He would beat them right down.

SIDNER: Wow, we are doing boxing and we're doing a lot of things. Thank you so much for that, Harry.

ENTEN: Thank you.

SIDNER: I thought you had your dancing shoes on, but apparently you had your boxing gloves on this morning.

ENTEN: My boxing gloves and my dancing shoes.

SIDNER: No, no. No, no, we're not doing that.

John, please take this away from him.

BERMAN: I - well, I - before we go, just two things. Number one, I was not aware of a relationship between Grimace and Ronald McDonald.

SIDNER: I knew you were going to say -

ENTEN: We're breaking news on CNN, John Berman.

BERMAN: I'm going to look into that.

ENTEN: We're looking in. We'll -

SIDNER: We're not sure they're friends.

BERMAN: I don't know what the nature of their relationship is, but I wasn't aware there was one at all. The second thing is, is Harry Enten is now the chief - chief data analyst here.

[08:40:00]

SIDNER: Oh, is this true?

ENTEN: This - this is true. All my mornings with the lovely people here, Kate -

SIDNER: Chief.

ENTEN: Hold on. Put - put it on the blackboard. Put it on the blackboard.

SIDNER: Oh, the black - right. Right. All right.

ENTEN: Put it on the blackboard. There you go.

SIDNER: Chief.

ENTEN: All my mornings here with everybody here, Mr. Berman at the desk, Kate, who's not here today, Sara, Chris, Bethany, who are behind the scenes, Patrick, who's in my ear every morning, it's because of you that I am now the chief data reporter - or I think it's actually analyst.

SIDNER: Oh, excuse me.

ENTEN: There we go. There we go.

SIDNER: I put his title wrong on that.

BERMAN: Congratulations on that.

ENTEN: Thank you.

BERMAN: Hail to the chief. I did not know there was going to be an acceptance speech.

ENTEN: There was.

BERMAN: Thank you for that. But thank you very much, Harry, for that.

SIDNER: And you know what, our executive producer is so happy about this.

ENTEN: I'm like Sally Field.

BERMAN: With us now is Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican from New York, and the House Republican Conference assistant whip.

Thank you for bearing with us through that moment right there, Congresswoman.

Listen, there is a budget resolution that may come to a vote in the House today. We're not totally sure because I don't know that we know whether Speaker Mike Johnson thinks he has the votes. But there's reporting this morning in "Punchbowl" and elsewhere, you went from a lean no, to undecided, to a lean yes in one day. That's a pretty big shift. Why?

REP. NICOLE MALLIOTAKIS (R-NY): Well, it wasn't really just in one day. It was over the course of the last week. And I'm still undecided. I'm not 100 percent certain how I'm going to vote. But we are working through this. We're getting certainly some assurances from our leadership, some math breakdown of how this is going to look like after we pass the resolution. Remember, the resolution is just the first step that unlocks that legislative process. There's nothing in there specific toward any particular program or any particular tax code change. We would then have to go and craft that.

And so, you know, my concerns were always making sure that if we were going to look into Medicaid, that it was going to be focused on the waste, fraud and abuse that we know is rampant. It is roughly $30 billion to $50 billion a year across the country. New York, my state, is one of the worst perpetrators, where we've seen that type of fraud and abuse.

And then making sure that we were going to look elsewhere within the energy and commerce space so that my seniors are going to be protected, that the developmentally disabled and other people with disabilities would be protected, and that my hospitals wouldn't see - see cuts that would affect the service that they provide in the community.

So, that's always been my concern. And as I get assurances and - and - and clarity, I'm moving more - more toward the yes in the process, but I'm not there yet.

BERMAN: There are some Republicans in the conference who would like to see cuts to Medicaid that go way beyond what you're talking about, which is, you know, waste, fraud and abuse. They want to see some of the meat really cut out. Would you vote for anything that - that was like that?

MALLIOTAKIS: No, I disagree with my colleagues. And, unfortunately, there are some that are - want to vote no on this resolution because they say it doesn't go far enough and we need to cut more. But we need to do this with a scalpel - I've said this repeatedly - not a sledgehammer, as some of the, you know, rash decisions that I've seen coming out of DOGE, which I do support finding efficiencies. There is so much bloat in this bureaucracy that we have in the federal government. So much waste and overhead with the tax dollars and not actually benefiting citizens. It's going to just, you know, pure - pure bureaucracy. So, I understand the need to find efficiencies. And I - and I support that. But we need to do it in a responsible way so we don't have unintended consequences.

What happened last week when we saw the rash decision to fire people and take away grants from the CDC, we saw the 9/11 healthcare program in New York City, that benefits so many first responders and survivors from 9/11 that I represent. we had to go back to the White House and get that reversed. And so, again, that was an unintended consequence, but, nonetheless, it happened and we had to get involved to reverse it. And that's what I'm trying to avoid here. Let's get - let's do the homework and make sure we're doing this right from the beginning and taking our time so we don't have, you know, unnecessary anxiety and - and unintended consequences later on.

BERMAN: On the subject of anxiety, and maybe chaos, which is what you're describing a little bit of there, I want to talk about this demand to federal workers, more than 2 million, to list their accomplishments in the last week. I'm going to walk through the timeline here.

On Saturday, February 22nd, Elon Musk's team sends an email that, "all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they've done in the last week. Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation." That was Saturday, the 22nd. But Monday, yesterday, at 2:00 p.m., the Trump administration informs federal agencies that it's voluntary for employees to respond to Musk's email, and they will not be fired if they don't respond. But wait, there's more. At 7:00 p.m. yesterday, Elon Musk tweets, "subject to discretion of the president, they will be given another chance. Failure to respond a second time will result in termination."

So, you'll definitely get fired. You definitely won't get fired. You'll definitely get fired. Do you know which one it is?

MALLIOTAKIS: Look, I think there's definitely a lack of coordination here.

[08:45:03]

And again, we're seeing Mr. Musk make some decisions that perhaps the White House is not aware of or that they don't approve of, and then they have to go back and fix it.

What I would say is, look, it's perfectly appropriate for an employer to ask the employees of what they've been - what they've been able to accomplish on behalf of the constituencies. And I think that's - you know, we do that in my office. We ask for legislative reports of what we've been able to do during the week.

The thing is this, we have a president who appointed very good people to run the various agencies, and these secretaries are the ones who should be looking within their federal agency and looking to see how they can make things better, whether that means improving job performance, whether it means making things more efficient, making it - making sure that there are metrics in place so federal money that we're spending are going to their intended purpose, and they're achieving their outcome that we wanted them to.

So, that's - that's the thing here. I feel like there should be more involvement here from the secretaries looking within their own agencies, as opposed to an outsider. I think it's - it's a good endeavor for Mr. Musk to be looking for, you know, waste and - and - and spending that could be eliminated, and he's done, I think, a good job with a lot of it. But this is happening too fast and furiously. There are rash decisions being made. Slow down a little bit and involve the people who are actually appointed to head these agencies to incorporate efficiencies and changes.

BERMAN: Sounds like you think Musk went too far in this one case.

MALLIOTAKIS: Well, yes, I do.

BERMAN: All right, Representative Nicole Malliotakis, we appreciate your time this morning. Thanks so much for being with us.

Sara.

SIDNER: This morning. Pope Francis' condition is, quote, "improving slightly," but he remains in critical condition, according to the Vatican. Vatican officials tell us the pope is not bedridden and is eating normally, as he does remain hospitalized battling pneumonia.

To help us understand what all of this means and what it can mean for our own health, we're paging CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

The pope initially, I think, hospitalized for bronchitis. Then it took a turn for the worse. Whenever you hear pneumonia in someone his age, what does that tell you?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It's obviously concerning. I mean, you know, pneumonia is always concerning in someone of advanced age, in his late 80s even more concerning. And keep in mind as you look at this timeline that the pope has had a significant history of lung problems, going back to, you know, even childhood or young adulthood when he had part of a lung removed for an infection at that point.

Before February 14th, when he was hospitalized, we already got some indication that there were issues because he was having aides, his aides, give - give talks for him, for example. He was having a hard time catching his breath well enough to do that. Probably more upper respiratory at that point.

But then, by Valentine's Day, lower respiratory bronchitis. That's the sort of deep cough, you know, that people will get. That's usually bronchitis. Then pneumonia a few days later. As you - as you point out, slight improvement overall in - in his condition, but, you know, it's - it's still pretty worrisome.

SIDNER: Yes, because we already know that part of his lung, one of his lungs, is - has been removed years and years and years ago.

GUPTA: That's right.

SIDNER: What can you tell us about, he had an asthma attack as well, correct?

GUPTA: Yes, so, you know, when (INAUDIBLE) what asthma is, you think about it, exercise-induced asthma. It's - it's an inflation of the airways that causes spasm of the airways. So, just think about those airways. You know, normally you got air going in, air going out. They start to spasm like this as a result of asthma, or in this case an asthmatic crisis. Typically that spasms actually worse as you're exhaling, even more so than inhaling.

But all of that basically, first of all, is very uncomfortable, but makes it harder for you to actually exchange air in your lungs. So, that's - that's concerning. On top of pneumonia, which already is this infection of the lungs, now you get the asthmatic crisis on top of that. And I think that's what really had people worried in particular over the weekend. You can give medications to sort of decrease that spasm of those airways, and you also give more oxygen.

And, you know, if - you're familiar with these nasal cannulas, you see the two prongs that go inside the nose. You can give high flow oxygen through those nasal cannulas, 60 liters of oxygen. It's so much oxygen, so quickly, that you have to warm that oxygen. You have to humidify that oxygen because it can be very drying. So, it's quite - you know, it can really accomplish a lot. But that's what he's required as well. Dealing with the pneumonia, dealing with the asthmatic crisis, giving high flow oxygen again in the wake of someone who has part of their lung removed and is, you know, in his late 80s.

SIDNER: Why did he have a blood transfusion? What was that for?

[08:50:01]

GUPTA: There's two things there. And this is - this is an important thing because you think lung infection, what does that have to do with blood transfusion. So, there's - there's two things. First of all, if you give red blood cells, red blood cells are what carry oxygen throughout the body. So, the more red blood cells you can have, you know, you want to make sure that level does not drop. That improves the opportunity to transport oxygen throughout the body.

But there was something else as well. And that is something known as platelets. Platelets are another blood component responsible for your clotting. People's platelets may sometimes drop as an early indication that they're starting to develop a more widespread infection. Platelets start to get consumed in the body. So, no one is saying that the pope has sepsis, which is a sort of body-wide infection, but that is the concern, Sara. That is the big concern here. Obviously, pneumonia, which is what they call polymicrobial, many different organisms sort of causing that pneumonia. But the idea that it could spread into the blood and spread into the rest of the body is the concern. And so you look for clues. Are the platelets dropping? Are there other - other indications of that? And you try and get on top of it as quickly as possible. So that's certainly something that doctors are going to be monitoring and we'll - if we get more information about that, we'll bring it to you as well.

SIDNER: You know, I always feel a thousand times smarter after listening to you, and then I completely forget everything that was said. So, maybe I should write it down.

GUPTA: Call me. I'll remind you.

SIDNER: Yes, I need some of your big, beautiful brain. That's all I'm saying, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Thank you so much. It is such a pleasure to have you on this morning.

GUPTA: You got it.

SIDNER: And don't forget to scan the QR code on your screen and head to cnn.com to send us your questions about pneumonia. Doctor Gupta will be back later this week to answer your questions.

Also ahead, after Donald Trump doubles down on Elon Musk's demand that federal workers justify their jobs while their bosses tell them not to. There is still a heck of a lot of confusion about what they are supposed to do after the deadline has already passed. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:56:29]

SIDNER: An American teenager has been arrested in Paris after authorities say her newborn baby was thrown out of a second story hotel window.

CNN's Saskya Vandoorne is outside the hotel in Paris.

What can you tell us about what happened here?

SASKYA VANDOORNE, CNN SENIOR PRODUCER: Yes, Sara, well, it's a truly harrowing story. And I am just here outside the hotel where the American teenager allegedly threw her newborn baby from that second floor window. We've just been hearing from local officials that apparently the baby was then taken and placed in a trash can nearby before being found by authorities. The baby was then rushed to an emergency room at the Children's Hospital in Paris, (INAUDIBLE), but died shortly after being admitted.

Meanwhile, the American teenager was taken to a different hospital to undergo surgery and then she was placed in police custody.

Now, the Paris prosecutor's office has opened an investigation for homicide, and they believe that the young woman may have been in denial about her pregnancy.

Now, what else do we know about this woman? We know, of course, that she is American, that she's 18 years old and that she had been staying at this hotel for a week with a young group of friends. They'd been traveling throughout Europe.

Now, this morning, we were able to speak to neighbors in this neighborhood. We're in the east of Paris, Sara. It's not a very touristy neighborhood. And on Monday, neighbors here were awoken by the sounds of sirens, ambulances, police cars. And when they found out what had happened, they were deeply shocked.

And, Sara, just a couple of hours ago the U.S. embassy in Paris did release a statement saying that they were very saddened by the loss of this young life.

Sara.

SIDNER: This is just a horribly tragic story. Thank you so much, Saskya Vandoorne, live there for us from Paris.

John. Oh, you are here. Hello, John.

BERMAN: All right, new dash cam video of the moment an overpass collapsed at a construction site in South Korea. Look at that. At least four workers were killed, several others hurt. Rescue efforts now underway, although it's unclear if they have specific knowledge of people trapped underneath. There were no passenger cars near the site at the time of collapse. All right, this morning, Denny's is adding a temporary surcharge on

eggs at some locations in response to the rising cost of eggs. The Grand Slam getting more expensive. Egg prices have soared after a resurgence of the bird flu. The chain has not specified how much more that eggs will cost.

All right, new this morning, one less thing to worry about. Maybe one fewer things to worry about. The 2024 YR4 asteroid had been considered the riskiest on record, with a 3.1 percent chance of hitting the earth. But that's been revised. Now NASA estimates there is a one in 59,000 chance of it hitting the earth in December of 2032. Thats 0.001 percent, which is not a lot. So, Bruce Willis and Ben Affleck can probably stand down, at least for now.

SIDNER: Oh, Lord.

BERMAN: A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

SIDNER: Confusion, chaos and questions. So many questions. Elon Musk says federal workers have another chance to answer his email, or they will be fired. President Trump says they must answer or they may be semi-fired. Whatever that means. But his administration says you don't have to answer at all. This chaos and confusion just part of everyday life for federal workers right now.

[09:00:04]

All right, pushback from hardliners in his own party as he tries to pass a budget plan.