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Americans Stance on Russia-Ukraine Conflict; Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) is Interviewed about Russia-Ukraine War; Car-Ramming Attack in Germany; Israel Will Block Gaza Aid. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired March 03, 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]

TOM DI LIBERTO, FORMER NOAA PUBLIC AFFAIRS SPECIALIST AND CLIMATE SCIENTIST: But to do its job, you're basically going to cause there to be more money being spent and more damages being felt than otherwise happening.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Why do you think NOAA was targeted?

DI LIBERTO: I think this is a clear, across the board attack on science. They don't like necessarily what NOAA does as it relates to climate change. And they don't like necessarily the fact that we help people because of the fact that we just help people. We - there's no ulterior motives at NOAA when we're trying to help the American public. At no point at NOAA has anyone ever said we're not going to give important information, data, and resources to a community based on who that community voted for. But we do know someone has done that. The president has done that when it's related to wildfires out in California. So, I think there's a lot of issues with just the fact that we help others purely because we want to help others, and because we're trying to help people deal with increasing extremes as it relates to climate change.

BERMAN: You're going to protest today in front of the NOAA building. What message do you want to send? What do you hope to accomplish?

DI LIBERTO: I think it's important for people to know just how integral NOAA is into literally everything that they do. The forecasters at CNN are really great forecasters, but they're utilizing NOAA data all the time. Whether they're talking about observations, whether they're talking about who can determine whether a tornado is an EF-2 or ocean impacts or hurricanes.

And I just want people to know that when it comes to who cares about the American public, it's federal workers. We do. Federal workers care so deeply about the American public because it's all we've wanted to do since we were kids growing up. I wanted to be a meteorologist when I was eight years old, and I was able to live out that dream. And I want the American public to know that NOAA is still going to try and do everything they can to make sure that you're safe. But now we're having an issue where they're going to have to do it with one hand tied behind their back.

BERMAN: What's next for you personally?

DI LIBERTO: Well, I'm going to a protest later today. I'm going to keep speaking out about the importance of NOAA and helping to represent those who are fired, and also the amazing people who are still left at NOAA. And then I'm going to keep looking for jobs as it relates to communication about weather and climate. It's what I love to do, and I'd like to keep doing that.

BERMAN: What do you - just give me a sense of what this next hurricane season will be like with these cuts?

DI LIBERTO: So, they were firing at the Aircraft Operations Center at NOAA in Lakeland, Florida. That's where the hurricane hunters are. They - I believe the flight director was fired from AOC. There were technicians fired. People who are engineers as well. So, we know every single year sometimes those hurricane airplanes sometimes break down or need a replacement part. That's going to be harder to fix now. We have less people to do that. We don't have the ability necessarily to fly all the planes 24/7 than we did before.

We're also looking at, just in general, more stress on the National Weather Service, who are the folks who make these forecasts. And we know there are firings across weather forecast offices across the United States, across the Gulf of Mexico as well. So basically you're taking a situation that's already fraught, hurricane season, that's so important. We always see the impacts of this every single year. And now you're saying, oh, let's tinker with this. That's a horrible idea. In no world does that make anybody safer.

BERMAN: Tom Di Liberto, we appreciate you being with us. Sorry to hear about your job. I hope the future is bright for you.

All right, where Americans stand on the Russia/Ukraine war this morning as the Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy tries to hold on to U.S. financial support.

And Melania Trump set to launch a new effort in her first remarks as first lady. How she plans to take on deepfake porn.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:38:30]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, this morning, the White House is going full court press on defending President Trump's blowup with the president of Ukraine. Yet a new poll shows that more than half of Americans still are backing Ukraine in its fight against Russia. That poll conducted before that disastrous meeting took place, but still offers a good sense of where the - a good sense of where the American people are right now.

CNN's Harry Enten is looking at it all for us. He is joining us right now.

What are you seeing in terms of how Americans feel about Trump's handling of Russia's war against Ukraine? HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yes, I think sometimes, Kate, we

get a little too complicated in our questions. So, I think the easiest way we can kind of just ask this is, do Americans like the way that Trump's handling his job and compare it to how they felt about Joe Biden. So, this is the net approval rating.

You look at Joe Biden back in 2024. He was 22 points underwater. Holy cow. You look at Donald Trump. It's just a different planet entirely. I mean, the gulf between these two is wider than the Gulf of America or Mexico, depending on which side of the aisle you stand on. He's at plus two.

So, look, at this particular point, Americans are giving Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt. He's doing considerably better than Joe Biden was doing on the handling of the Russia/Ukraine conflict. And so on this simple question, I think Americans are saying, OK, Donald Trump's doing all right on this.

BOLDUAN: What about specifically on how they feel about bringing the war to an end?

ENTEN: Yes. OK. So, you know, look, questions on this can be quite complicated, but I think this kind of gets at sort of where the American trend line is.

Americans on the Russia/Ukraine war. Want a quicker end of the war, but Russia keeps its captured land.

[08:40:00]

Look at this, 50 percent, 50 percent, bare majority, bare majority coming in here. Support Ukraine's right to fight, even if it means a longer war, that's at 48. This is very, very close. But the trend line on this question is so important because that want a quick end to the war, look at this. You go back to August of 2022. It was at 31 percent. Now we're at 50 percent. I mean that is a rocket ship upwards in terms of the Americans who want a quick end to the war, even if it means Russia keeps the captured Ukraine land. Americans are moving closer and closer to wanting a compromise, even if it means that Ukraine doesn't really get what it set out to want, at least at the beginning of this war.

BOLDUAN: And Americans views on Russia are shifting as well.

ENTEN: Absolutely. I mean one of the reasons why we're seeing this is Americans who say Russia is an enemy. You go back to 2023, it was 64 percent. And that CBS News/YouGov poll, it was down to 34 percent.

Now, there is a chunk that believes that Russia is an unfriendly nation. But the percentage who believe that they're either an ally or friendly, that's up to 34 percent as well, basically equal to the percentage who say that they're an enemy. So, views on Russia have become, let's say, a little less isolated in terms of wanting Russia to be way out there on their own, thinking that they're an enemy. At this particular point, they're starting to see Russia a little bit more friendly. And I think that's part of the reason why Americans want to see a compromise at this particular hour.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you, Harry. Thank you.

ENTEN: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now is Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Democrat from Maryland.

Senator, thank you so much for being with us.

Obviously you watched, you heard what happened in the Oval Office on Friday. You probably just saw those poll numbers there from Harry. What's your advice to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this morning if he's listening? What do you think he should do?

SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): Well, John, it's good to be with you.

I've also seen recent polling that shows the American people, by 80 percent, still distrust Putin, right? They know that he is a bad guy. So, I think we need to be careful on how we approach these polls.

Look, what happened in the Oval Office the other day was reprehensible, right, because we watched the president and the vice president bully President Zelenskyy, who has always said that he appreciates American support. I was part of that meeting that took place just before his meeting with the president, with other senators, and he again bent over backwards to talk about how grateful he was to the United States.

So, look, if I'm President Zelenskyy right now, number one, I need to continue to solidify my support in Europe because I will tell you, John, right now, Donald Trump, President Trump does look like he's very much in Putin's camp. I - I didn't think we would see the day when we had the Russians openly gloating, openly gloating, as they are today and the day before, about the Trump administration's position, saying, wow, the Americans accept our vision.

Well, that vision is one of continuing aggression against the people of Ukraine and their continuing efforts to be an autocratic regime. So, if you're Zelenskyy, you are in a tough spot. He was willing to sign the most recent version of the minerals agreement. And if the Trump administration wants to proceed, I'm sure he's willing to proceed - excuse me - as well.

BERMAN: Look, you noted that - that Russia is gleeful this morning. And they are. They are celebrating what happened in the Oval Office. What do you think happens if this trend continues? Where does this go?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, it trends in a very dangerous direction, meaning that our friends and allies in Europe and other places around the world will see that we're just totally unreliable. And who knows what will happen when - when NATO, if - if it splinters. I mean, you have Elon Musk out there, you know, calling for the end of NATO. So, what we're watching, in my view, is a big realignment. You have President Trump, who no longer believes that the United States is the leader when it comes to defending and promoting freedom and the rule of law and democracy. However imperfectly we've - we've done that. He is discarding that whole paradigm. He sees himself more like Putin or Xi, as this like strongman who is going to just, you know, abandon our friends whenever he thinks it's in his personal interests. In my view, that's not America first, that is America in retreat.

BERMAN: And again, I know you voted to confirm former Senator Marco Rubio, your former colleague, as secretary of state. If you can still hear me. I see you adjusting your earpiece. How do you feel about your vote to confirm Senator Rubio as secretary now?

[08:45:07]

VAN HOLLEN: Well, I regret that vote because, you know, when it was Senator Rubio, Senator Rubio was somebody who understood that Putin was the aggressor and the Russians were the aggressor. He didn't go around calling Zelenskyy a dictator. But it seems like he's had a, you know, a total lobotomy or heart transplant. I don't know what it is. But first of all, he allowed Elon Musk essentially to take over the operations of the State Department. We saw how they're trying to dismantle AID. That was an Elon Musk initiative. And now he is just parroting Donald Trump. Now, if that's why he took on the job just to do the dear leader thing with Donald Trump, then I'm extremely disappointed. But that seems to be the direction that he's headed.

BERMAN: Are you going to go to the president's address to Congress tomorrow night? Will you be in attendance?

VAN HOLLEN: I decided to attend, but bring a guest. This is the head of Democracy Forward, Skye Perryman. They're the organization that has successfully brought a number of these lawsuits against the lawbreaking spree by Musk and Trump. They brought this - one of the suits to stop the effort to illegally freeze, you know, appropriations, monies that Congress had already approved of for all sorts of local priorities, as well as one of the lawsuits with respect to protecting federal employees against these illegal firings, where - where the administration is just lying when they send out these letters saying that people are being fired for poor performance, when we see that their most recent reviews are glowing reports. So, these are just lies, John.

In any event, I'm going to bring her as my guest, as a symbol of our efforts to block the illegal actions of Trump and Musk.

BERMAN: And I know later today you're going to be demonstrating outside NOAA. We just had an official who had been fired from NOAA last week, who I think will be there as well. Why are you attending that demonstration?

VAN HOLLEN: Well, for two reasons. Number one, I think it's important to show solidarity with all the patriotic federal employees who do good work on behalf of the American people. But the other is to help get the word out and build momentum around the country where people are really getting more and more upset about what's happening. And for - for a good reason. I mean at NOAA, for example, what they're doing will make us less safe, right? They provide all the information from the National Weather Service. They're our eyes and our ears for hurricanes and tsunamis. And if you - if you blind yourself or you plug your ears, bad things happen. People get hurt. People can die. So, we're getting that word out.

You're seeing, John, these town halls across the country where Republican members of the House or the Senate are finally being confronted by angry constituents. And that's because those constituents are understanding exactly what the threat is right now. You've got Donald Trump, who promised to bring down prices. He promised to cut prices. Instead, he is cutting services that are important to every American, that help every American. National Weather Service being just one. And instead, rigging the government to help people like Elon Musk, who, by the way, the other day just got another billion dollar contract from the FAA.

BERMAN: Senator Chris Van Hollen from Maryland, we appreciate your time. Thank you so much for being with us.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: A little bit of good stuff for you this morning.

A group of former players of the Cincinnati Bengals coming together to make it a little easier for one World War II veteran to get around his home. One hundred and four years old, Army Veteran Richard Stewart, he recently fractured his hip, making it hard to move around the home. The former Bengals players then teamed up with a nonprofit called Operation Ramp It Up after Stewart's daughter reached out for help. Stewart thanked the group as he tested out the new ramp outside his door.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RICHARD STEWART, ARMY VETERAN: Thank you! Thank you!.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.

STEWART: Everyone! Thank you, everyone!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're welcome, sir. You are very welcome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: He's moving around just fine now.

Coming up still for us, President Trump is expected to announce tariffs on Mexico and Canada tomorrow. How will companies respond? What it could mean for your next trip to the store.

And it was an historic night at the Oscars. The record-setting haul for one of Hollywood's rising stars.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:54:22] BERMAN: All right, we do have breaking news. A large-scale police operation is underway in Germany after a car rammed into people on the street, killing at least one, injuring several others. Police do say a suspect has been arrested. This happened in Mannheim. That's in Germany's southwest. One witness told CNN he saw a black car drive by at high speed, and then he heard people screaming.

Let's get right to CNN's Fred Pleitgen for the latest on this.

Fred, what are you learning?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there, John.

Yes, and that large scale police operation is still very much going on there in that city of Mannheim, which you mentioned was in the southwest of Germany. There's choppers in the air. There's a big police presence there on the ground as well.

[08:55:02]

One of the things the police have been saying is that there is indeed one person who's in custody right now, but they're not sure whether that dangerous situation is over, whether people there are out of danger. And I can tell you from the online apps that they have there in that area, that that warning is still out there for people to not go into the central city of Mannheim.

Now, from the latest that we know, apparently all this took place around midday local time in the pedestrian area of the city of Mannheim. It's near a tram station. The tram sort of goes through that pedestrian area there. It apparently seems as though that car rammed into a group of people at a fairly high speed. You were mentioning that one eye witness.

From some of the video that we've been seeing from the scene, it seems as though it was a compact car that did all of this. The police indeed saying that there is one person who is in custody at this point in time. And they're not saying whether or not this was - well, they are saying it was an attack, but what exactly is the motivation for this attack, why all of this happened.

But, of course, we do know that right now the security situation in Germany has been fairly tense over the past couple of weeks, the past couple of months, as there have been a string of attacks that took place, some of them involving vehicles. One of the biggest ones, of course, a Christmas market attack that took place in the eastern city of Magdeburg, but also as the Munich Security Conference was getting underway in the southern city of Munich, there was another ramming attack that took place there as well.

So, it does come during a tense security situation. But again, right now the police are saying they are still working that situation, John.

BERMAN: All right, Fred Pleitgen, in Berlin, we know you will keep your eye on this. Please keep us posted. Thank you. Kate.

BOLDUAN: Let's focus in on the Middle East right now. Israel has announced it will stop the entry of all humanitarian aid into Gaza in an effort to get Hamas back to the table, turning up the pressure on the terrorist group to agree to new terms or extending the ceasefire agreement. The initial phase of the truce expired this weekend.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond has much more for us on all of this from Jerusalem. And what is the latest here, Jeremy?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, Israel is very much trying to change the dynamic here in the negotiations with Hamas, essentially putting aside what was supposed to happen, meaning, negotiations with Hamas to get to phase two and three of this agreement, which would entail an end to the war, the release of all the remaining hostages, and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. And instead, trying to force Hamas into accepting a very different type of proposal, one that the Israeli prime minister says was put forward by Steve Witkoff, President Trump's special envoy for the Middle East.

And the proposal that the prime minister is proposing here is to extend phase one of this agreement to see half of the remaining living and dead hostages released in exchange for seven more weeks of ceasefire. That would take us through the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, as well as the Jewish holiday of Passover.

But as Israel does so, it is also saying that Hamas, in not immediately accepting this proposal, is therefore going - they're therefore going to turn the pressure up on them. And the way that they are doing that is by stopping all humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip, which, of course, poses a major risk to the civilian population in Gaza. That move has quickly been assailed as a violation of international law by a number of human rights groups, as well as the United Nations. Egypt, one of the key mediators here, accusing Israel of using humanitarian aid as a, quote, "tool of blackmail."

But the White House, for its part, seems to be supporting Israel, with the National Security Council Spokesman Brian Hughes saying in a statement, "we will support their decision on next steps given Hamas has indicated it's no longer interested in a negotiated ceasefire." Hamas has made very clear that they are interested in keeping this ceasefire alive, but they want to do it in the way that it was supposed to be done, meaning getting to phase two and ending the war in Gaza.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Jeremy, thank you so much for the latest on that. Stay close to it.

John.

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, companies bracing for new tariffs on three of the country's biggest trading partners, Canada, China and Mexico. Some people weighing - some companies weighing whether to pass on higher prices to consumers. Others, though, taking a different approach.

CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich is here with that. What approach are we talking about?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you can take two approaches, right? As this is a time of economic uncertainty, you have tariffs that are looming, inflation heated up in January and consumer sentiment fell. People are not feeling great about the economy. So, consumers are probably going to tighten their wallets. We saw that in January with retail sales falling by nearly 1 percent.

So, companies are either going to have to absorb some of these higher costs, particularly with tariffs, pass those to consumers, or the other option is lower prices. And we've seen that with a few brands. Sixty-five percent of adults say that the most important thing to them when they're choosing where to shop is price.

BERMAN: Sure.

YURKEVICH: So, the companies I spoke to, Lalo, that is a company that makes baby furniture, toddler furniture, Bobbie, a formula brand company, and Blue Apron, a meal kit company, all said independently in the last month they lowered prices. And they're doing this because they think it's a good investment in their business.

[09:00:03]

For example, Lalo, in particular, they lowered prices by up to 40 percent on 90 percent of their