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Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz Discusses Newsom Facing Pushback From Dems For Trans Comments; South Carolina Death Row Inmate To Be Executed Tonight By Firing Squad; Newly Released Texts From Idaho Survivors Reveal Panic, Terror. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired March 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]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: -- don't agree with them on it.

REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D-FL): Brianna, I don't shrink back from this issue to anyone. I'm a vice chair of the Equality Caucus in Congress and on the board of the Equality Pac.

I have one of the largest LGBTQ-plus populations in the country. So we have to stand on principle and make sure that everyone is treated equally.

I'm not shrinking away from this issue. I'm leaning into the notion that those issues were something that Republicans manufactured, as if that was a like where the number-one priority of Democrats was.

When instead, what we needed to be leaning into is focusing on making sure that the cost of groceries, the cost of gas, the cost of housing and insurance and health care, which is what my constituents are talking to me about every day.

I don't get questions about the LGBTQ-plus issues more than I get them about peoples everyday affordability -- affordability issues. And that's where Republicans are falling dramatically short. Donald Trump isn't living up to his promises. And we're going to hold their feet to the fire.

And we have to make sure that we pass a budget that is going to ensure that we can bring peoples costs down, that we can ensure that taking care of peoples wellness and health and protecting our seniors and their Medicare and the vulnerable who need Medicaid.

Half the country's children are -- get their health care from Medicaid. That's the spotlight that we need to focus. And Republicans need to be held accountable for their willingness to be slashing those vital services in favor of tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires and corporations.

KEILAR: A lot of questions about where they get money and the kind of savings they're talking about without touching some of those entitlements, even though they insist.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Not without touching them. KEILAR: Even though they insist, they won't. It's hard to see.

Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, thank you so much for being with us.

WASSERMAN SCHULTZ: Thank you, Brianna.

KEILAR: Coming up, text messages between surviving roommates reveal new details about the night four Idaho college students we're murdered.

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[13:36:20]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: So just hours from now, South Carolina is set to execute a death row inmate by firing squad. The inmate, 67-year-old Brad Sigmon, who was convicted of a double murder, actually chose this method over the electric chair and lethal injection.

His death will mark the first firing squad execution in that states history, and the first time it's been used in the U.S. in nearly 15 years.

CNN's Ryan Young is tracking this story from Columbia, South Carolina, where Sigmon is set to be executed.

Ryan, it's interesting he -- he chose this as a more humane method of execution in his eyes.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Yes, a lot of details to get to, Boris, and we'll get to them very quickly here.

Brad Sigmon has said that he killed his ex-girlfriend's parents. He used a baseball bat, went from room to room, back and forth as he killed them. Then he kidnaped his ex-girlfriend and she was able to escape. He took a shot at her.

And actually, when he said he did all this, he said he didn't want anyone else to have her. Since then, he's found Jesus and the Bible, according to his attorney.

But he's also decided he wanted to face that firing squad because he was worried that the electric chair was too brutal and lethal injection was too brutal.

We'll show you some new images that we just received in the last hour or so of the room where he will die. In the corner, if you look at the top hand corner there, you'll see a chair that's uncovered. They will strap him into that chair.

There will be three members of the firing squad who will take a shot at him. They will put a hood over his head. There will be a target placed over his heart. And then all three will fire live rounds toward him. When the witnesses are in the room, they'll see a profile of him. This

will happen very quickly. But obviously, they were concerned about the idea that the other two methods were too lethal and too scary and might subject him to too much pain.

There's still a chance, though obviously, the governor or the Supreme Court could come in and say we'll stay this execution. But so far, many people believe this execution will happen.

One last thing, Boris. He has received his last request of a meal, which was KFC. He wanted three buckets he wanted to share with the other death row inmates.

They didn't do that. They did bring him some chicken, some green beans and potatoes. So that is his last meal.

This execution should happen around 6:00 today --Boris?

SANCHEZ: Ryan Young, keep us posted with the details from Columbia, South Carolina. Thank you so much.

Brianna?

KEILAR: Newly released text messages revealing the panic and terror from the night that four University of Idaho students were murdered in their off-campus home.

Th texts show how two surviving roommates who were inside of the house we're frantically texting each other and trying to reach their other roommates around the time of the stabbings back in November of 2022.

Prosecutors are asking the court to allow the messages as evidence in the case against Bryan Kohberger, whose trial is set to start in August. A not guilty plea has been entered on his behalf.

We have CNN's Jean Casarez, who is here with us on the story. She's been following this since the beginning.

Jean, this is the first time that we're seeing these messages. What do they say?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. Because this has been the mystery, what happened in that house with those two surviving witnesses?

Well, first thing we want to tell everyone is that law enforcement believes that these murders were committed between 4:00 a.m. and 4:25 a.m. on November 13th of 2022.

And the timeline really begins a little bit after 4:00. At 4:04 a.m., there was a white Hyundai that went -- that drove across -- in front of the house. Now this car started doing that about 3:30. But law enforcement homes in on that time right there.

Then a little bit later, at 4:12, DoorDash arrives. Xana Kernodle, one of the victims, had ordered DoorDash. She got the food. It's believed she was in her room eating the food, alive, when the attack began.

[13:40:03]

And then at 4:17, right in the middle of that time frame, there's a security camera about 50 feet away from the residence. It had audio and video. The audio heard, first of all, a whimpering sound, a loud bang and a dog barking. And there was a dog in that house.

Now, at 4:22, the surviving roommates began to text each other from their own bedroom.

And by the way, one of them is saying, according to the probable-cause affidavit, that she saw a man all in black when she opened the door of her bedroom on the first floor. And they were also trying to get ahold of the victims at this point.

So we see the first one. "No one is answering. I'm really confused right now."

"Xana was wearing all black. I'm freaking out right now."

"No, it's like ski mask almost. I'm not kidding. O, I am so freaked out.

"So am I."

"Come to my room. Run down here."

And that really shows the frantic nature of this. At 10:23 a.m., they were still trying to get hold of the victims, trying to call them.

The 911 call not made until 11:58. It was -- they were crying. They were frantic. They said, "We have an unconscious person," and they were talking about Xana Kernodle.

KEILAR: Ah, its terrifying.

Jean Casarez, thank you so much.

Ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, the future of more than a trillion dollars in student loans now in question. We're digging into that next.

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[13:45:43]

SANCHEZ: President Donald Trump is preparing an executive order to start dismantling the Department of Education. Sources telling CNN that taking apart the education agency could also make it much harder for the government to collect more than $1 trillion worth of student loans.

CNN's Kayla Tausche is joining us now, and she has details on this.

So, Kayla, what would the government's plan be to get that money back? KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Well, the president has

acknowledged that this is the most complicating factor in trying to dismantle the agency.

You have the policy apparatus, which they would reassign to a bunch of other agencies or shutter, but then you have this massive $1.6 trillion debt portfolio that Trump says they would transfer to the Treasury Department or the Small Business Administration.

But staffers at the Federal Student Aid Office tell me that they're already having a really hard time trying to get these borrowers to pay, these borrowers who don't have affordable repayment plans now and have not had to pay on their loans for the last several years.

They argue that the best way to collect on those loans is to introduce some of these more affordable payment plans.

But conservatives have a different idea. They believe that the government should get out of the business of making new loans entirely and instead have a new agency that makes those loans.

They say that this new private-sector-backed entity would treat taxpayers more like investors.

Here's what the Heritage Foundation, author of that chapter in Project 2025, told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LINDSEY BURKE, PROJECT 2025 AUTHOR ON EDUCATION: So undergrad experience typically isn't always preparing students to do well in the workforce.

And so a big part of that is the federal lending program, where, right now, the federal government, underwritten by the U.S. taxpayer, is providing this easy access to federal - to federal student loans to anyone, regardless, again, of their ability to repay.

So restoring student loans to the private sector could have some really beneficial signals to students about what would make sense for them to study and what provides a good ROI.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: So that could mean steering students toward a specific major or a specific occupation or having a higher interest rate if they weren't. But of course, a lot has to happen before you even get to that point -- Boris?

SANCHEZ: It's got to be tough for high school seniors, especially getting ready to go to college and now having all these questions about loans and how things might turn out.

Kayla Tausche, thank you so much for the reporting.

TUSCHE: Thank you. SANCHEZ: Still plenty more news to come on NEWS CENTRAL, including

this test launch from SpaceX not going the way they had planned. We have details in just moments.

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[13:52:31]

KEILAR: For the second time in a row, a SpaceX Starship spacecraft exploded less than 10 minutes after its launch. People watching this, debris lighting up the sky from some parts of Florida and also over the Caribbean.

SANCHEZ: Let's discuss with former NASA astronaut and former director of SpaceX operations at SpaceX, Garrett Reisman.

Garrett, thanks so much for being with us.

Eventually, this rocket is supposed to carry people. What if there had been people on board when it started to lose control?

GARRETT REISMAN, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT & FORMER DIRECTOR, SPACEX: Well, Boris, that's a good question. You know, it would have been a very bad day for those people, to say the least.

So the thing that's worth noting is that Starship, unlike all the other rockets we're using today to get people into space, does not have a launch escape system.

So like the SpaceX Dragon, the Boeing Starliner, the Orion, the Soyuz, the Shenzhou, all those rockets have an ability to take the crew and the capsule away from the rocket in the event the rocket is having a bad day and bring them to safety. But Starship does not have that capability.

KEILAR: Wow. And I mean, not to mention -- and I know I'm just a layperson here, Garrett, so correct me if I'm wrong. But at a certain point, isn't rocket debris repeatedly raining down on earth?

You know, they had to close airspace last night. They're still finding stuff on Turks and Caicos from the January explosion. Isn't that less than ideal?

REISMAN: Oh, sure. And that's the FAA's job is to protect the uninvolved public. And so far, it's working. You know, it's been very inconvenient. They grounded flights in Florida. They had to turn some airplanes around.

But the FAA is doing its job and making sure that nobody gets hurt. So far. And it's a tricky thing to do when you have a vehicle this big that's coming apart.

And by the way, I should point out about that launch escape system. You know, this is an unprecedented hubris on the part of SpaceX. We actually did not have a launch escape system on the space shuttle either. But we thought we had got to the point where we can make the ship safe enough that we didn't need one. And then we had the Challenger explosion.

And one day, we're going to have to get to the point where, like, right now with airliners, we don't have escape systems on those either, but they're safe enough that we don't need one.

The question is, will Starship get there? And that's very much an open question.

SANCHEZ: I do wonder if you think the FAA should have authorized this test before they finalized the investigation into that previous crash in January. That one is still under investigation.

[13:55:00]

REISMAN: Yes. You know, again, the FAAs job is not really to make SpaceX successful. Their job is to make sure that nobody gets hurt.

And if they're assured that there's nothing that changed in the analysis or the potential danger of the launch, and then they'll go ahead and give them a go to proceed. And in this case, that was true.

You know, they did have another almost identical explosion and debris raining down. But again, the FAA did its job and -- and nobody was hurt, just inconvenienced.

So that's really what the FAA is focused on. It's SpaceX's job to make the rocket work.

KEILAR: Do they need to add an escape capsule, Garrett?

REISMAN: Well, it'll be very hard to do that with a rocket this big that's going to carry up to, you know, maybe 70 or more people. There's no -- not really a good practical way to do that. So what SpaceX is banking on is that they can make this ship successful.

And what they try to do is be unafraid to fail and -- and work out all the bugs and have incidents like these when the consequences of failure are low and nobody's going to get hurt. So that later, when there are 70 people on that rocket, it'll be safe.

But you know, they're trying to do something that's more complicated than anything they've tried in the past. And -- and again, I think it's an open question.

I know NASA would have some concerns. One of the things we did after the space shuttle accidents is, going forward, we said we need to have an escape system on all of our vehicles, and that's why there is one on the SpaceX dragon, which was NASA certified.

So, you know, it's -- this is something to watch as we go forward. And I'm not really sure how it's going to turn out.

KEILAR: All right. Really interesting. Garrett, thank you so much for being with us.

REISMAN: My pleasure. Always a fun time with you guys. Thanks.

KEILAR: Thank you.

So one Republican calling it a strategic retreat. Critics say the president is flip flopping. Ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, what's behind the wild policy swings by the president? We'll have that next.

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