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Flames, Smoke Pour from Engine on American Airlines Plane in Denver; Schumer Says He'll Vote for GOP Spending Bill to Avert Shutdown; Zelenskyy Accuses Putin of Dragging Out Ceasefire Negotiations. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired March 14, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

DONNA LIEBERMAN, ATTORNEY FOR MAHMOUD KHALIL: The administration's program. Last I heard, we were a democracy. This attempt to quell free speech is absolutely terrifying. If they can disappear somebody for doing nothing but having ideas that the government disapproves of, it should be terrifying to everybody.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: It appears in the language that the government is using is that they use this word align with a terrorist organization because they have deemed, of course, that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

Is that enough? In other words, there is one thing to have a terrorist organization paying you, and you're doing their bidding. It's another thing to use the word align. Is that enough for them to use that?

LIEBERMAN: They're actually saying that he's a danger to our foreign policy, and that is not enough. That is not only not enough, that is the American way to protest, to have dissenting views to express it. That's what makes America great, actually.

It's what used to make America great, and it's something that we all have to stand up and speak out against the suppression of free speech. We have to protect and cherish free speech for everybody living in this country. That's the law of the land.

That has been the law of the land for hundreds of years. We need to protect that, and this administration only believes in free speech for their ideas.

SIDNER: He is now being held in Louisiana in an ICE detention. I know that there are court hearings that are upcoming. We will stay in touch to find out exactly what happens in this particular case. I really appreciate you coming on, Donna.

LIEBERMAN: Thanks for having me.

SIDNER: All right, a new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Terrifying moments. Passengers had to evacuate onto the wing of a passenger jet of American Airlines flight after it was forced to make an emergency landing. We've got more on this today.

Lawmakers have just hours until a crucial government funding deadline, and Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, he's now stuck in the almost perfect political definition of being caught between a rock and a hard place. What are they going to do about this government shutdown today?

And body camera footage shows the moment that police officers in Atlanta rescued residents from a burning home.

I'm Kate Bolduan with Sara Sidner. John Berman is out today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

All right, this morning, the FAA is launching an investigation into these scary moments that played out on camera -- it's always on camera these days -- on a runway at Denver International Airport. Fire bursting from an American Airlines plane just after it made an emergency landing there. The flight was actually on its way to Dallas, diverted to Denver after the crew reported, quote, unquote, engine vibrations. All 172 passengers on board were forced to evacuate, some even onto the wing of the plane as smoke billowed out of the aircraft.

And imagine seeing this from inside a terminal, guys, watching passengers standing on the wing of the plane as emergency workers rushed to help them and also to put out the fire. This is just the latest scare the aviation industry is having to face that has seen also a string of close calls and also absolute disaster in that collision over the Potomac.

CNN's Pete Muntean covering it all for us. He's joining me right now. Pete, what do you see in this and where what do you think is going to happen with this investigation now?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, the big new headline right now is that the National Transportation Safety Board will now look into this. And there are some pretty big questions here from investigators about how this evacuation on the ground was handled of American Airlines flight 1006. I want to show you the new video from the point of view of passengers there on the ramp at Denver International Airport.

You can see many of them evacuating with their bags, which does slow down the evacuation. The passengers were standing there on the left wing of the plane as the fire raged on the right side of the airplane on the number two engine. That is the right engine of the two engines on board the 737-800.

This plane caught fire on the ground while it was taxiing to the gate, according to the FAA. But let's reset here just to give you a bit of the narrative.

This flight left around 5:15 mountain daylight time last night. That's 7:15 on the East Coast. From Colorado Springs Airport, it was on its way to Dallas-Fort Worth, one of the biggest hubs for American Airlines, presumably a lot of those passengers moving on to other connecting flights. When about 20 minutes into the flight, this plane diverted to Denver International Airport because the pilots were reporting vibrations in one of the engines.

I want you to listen now to the air traffic control audio from LiveATC.net in which you hear the pilots describing this to the approach controllers, the air traffic controllers in Denver saying that they needed to divert, but not a big sense of alarm or urgency here. Listen.

Denver saying that they needed to divert, but not a big sense of alarm or urgency here.

[08:05:04]

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENVER APPROACH CONTROLLER: American 10,006, uh, 1006 just to verify not an emergency still, correct?

AA 1006 PILOT: Nah, we just have a high engine vibration so we are cruising slower than normal.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: So this airplane, a Boeing 737-800, this is not the embattled Boeing 737 MAX, a slightly older plane built in 2012. It uses an engine called a CFM-56, very popular on these 737s made by a French- American conglomerate. Those engines have had some issues in the past, and back in 2018, one threw a fan blade into the fuselage of a Southwest Airlines flight, killing a passenger on board.

Those engines have been very much under the microscope since that incident, and the FAA earlier this month ordered new inspections of those engines as a result of that incident.

Right now, we know that the crash fire rescue crews, the airport rescue and firefighters did an amazing job here of getting this fire extinguished very quickly, and we know that some of the passengers were able to evacuate using an emergency slide on the back of the airplane.

So, some really big questions here for investigators as they just now start to dig into this, and no doubt they are aided by all of this video that keeps surfacing of these passengers waiting helplessly on the wing and other passengers in the terminal waiting helplessly as this fire raged.

BOLDUAN: Wow. Pete, thank you so much for bringing us all of your reporting.

SIDNER: It is hard to look at these pictures and then the picture of the Delta plane upside down. It's like, this really is giving a lot of people some consternation.

BOLDUAN: There's so much going on. SIDNER: Joining me now to talk more about this, CNN aviation analyst Peter Goelz. He is also the former managing director of the NTSB, the organization that investigates every single one of these things.

First of all, give us some sense of engine vibration. What does that mean? What does that tell the pilot as he's trying to deal with getting this plane down safely?

PETER GOELZ, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, when you're in flight and one of your engines starts to reflect something going wrong, you don't fool around with it. The pilots were correct to get the plane down as quickly as possible.

As Pete mentioned, these engines are very common among the 737 fleet. And they did have a problem with a fan blade. These blades can weaken. They can be thrown off. And my guess is that something let go in the engine just after landing and severed either a fuel line or a hydraulic line, which caused the fluid or fuel to go out and catch fire.

The evacuation will be studied very carefully, as will be the evacuation in Toronto, because we need to know that the FAA regulations governing evacuations reflect real world situations. And that's the value of these accidents where you don't have serious injuries.

SIDNER: Yes, you can ask everyone what the experience was like inside of the cockpit, inside of the actual plane with the passengers and, you know, them just coming and watching them slide down the slide.

I do want to ask you about what it is like when an engine goes out. You've got, you know, obviously you've got two engines. It's a large plane. It's a 737. What is it like for the pilot when the engine goes out? What is the pilot feeling and how difficult is it to land a plane like this when you only have one engine?

GOELZ: Well, flight crews train for engine out situations every time they go into the simulator. So they -- and they train for them at the most vulnerable moments of flight. You know, if on takeoff and on landing.

In this case, they saw something developing in the engine. It triggered a checklist that they reviewed and they said, let's get the plane down. The flight crew is, you know, on pins and needles. They are watching everything that's going on with with the aircraft until it gets down on the ground. So it's a unusual event, but it's something that flight crews train for and are ready for.

SIDNER: Yes and thank goodness they do. Because this pilot, she did the right thing, got everybody down, got everything together and got everyone off safely.

Peter Goelz, it's always a pleasure to talk to you. And I'm sure there will be more, unfortunately, that we need to talk about with some of these incidents happening with our aviation transportation. Appreciate it -- Kate. BOLDUAN: A midnight deadline to avert a government shutdown. Current funding runs up at midnight and House Republicans passed a bill and left town, leaving the ball in the Senate's court.

[08:10:03]

That is where the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, comes in facing a tough political reality. Vote for a GOP crafted bill that gets none of the concessions that Democrats wanted or block the bill and see the government shut down.

Yesterday, Schumer abruptly changed course, saying that he is going to vote for it. Explaining his reasoning, then, on the Senate floor and also in a New York Times opinion piece, Trump and Musk would love a shutdown. We must not give them one.

Now, eight Democrats in the Senate are needed to vote with Republicans to get this over the finish line. Schumer's decision also, though, sparking some backlash within his own party.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ (D-NY): I believe that's a tremendous mistake. This turns the federal government into a slush fund for Donald Trump and Elon Musk. It sacrifices congressional authority, and it is deeply partisan.

And so, to me, it is almost unthinkable why Senate Democrats would vote to hand the few pieces of leverage that we have away for free.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me right now is Mychael Schnell, a congressional reporter with The Hill. It's good to see you, Mychael. Now, with Schumer making this move, what happens today?

MYCHAEL SCHNELL, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE HILL: Yes, so this first vote, Kate, the cloture vote, it's called, which is essentially procedurally a way to end debate. It's really just a procedural vote to advance legislation. That's scheduled to take place sometime in the early afternoon, sometime after 1:15 p.m.

Now, the cloture vote is the key one because that's the one that requires 60 votes to break that filibuster. Now, we know that John Fetterman is going to support that effort, and we know that Chuck Schumer is now going to support that effort. The question is, will six other Democrats join? And it's six, even though Republicans control 53 seats in the chamber, because Rand Paul has said he's not going to support this funding bill.

So will there be six more votes from the Democratic side to support this? Presumably, yes, because Chuck Schumer has given folks cover by saying he's going to support it, essentially giving them the OK if they want to do this. But it's still not a done deal just yet.

We've seen a number of moderate and vulnerable Senate Democrats, the latest being John Ossoff from Georgia, a Democrat who's perhaps one of the most vulnerable in this election. They've said they're going to oppose this bill and oppose advancing it. So until this legislation has the 60 votes, it's not a done deal.

But certainly, Chuck Schumer's help is a big boost.

BOLDUAN: Yes, it's definitely something. I mean, it is Chuck Schumer we're talking about, the Democratic leader. What does, though, this expose in terms of the disagreement we know exists within the Democratic Party right now on how they decide to push back against Donald Trump's agenda?

SCHNELL: Yes, I think this is definitely worsening the tensions and the rift that we've been seeing play out in the Democratic Party really since the day after the November election. And look, the thing that I think is going to catch a lot of eyeballs in this instance is that there was a disagreement among the top of Democratic leadership. You have Hakeem Jeffries, who kept the majority of his caucus together in voting against this bill, and then Schumer saying he's going to support it.

And we heard from Jeffries last night, along with his two deputies, without mentioning Schumer, sort of taking a veiled jab at his position, saying they still think this is an extremely harmful bill and they still oppose it.

So I think since after November, we've been talking about who's the new leader of the Democratic Party, who's going to lead them through these two years in the political wilderness and help their messaging so they can win back some leadership in Washington come 2026. We're seeing right now why it's so difficult for the Democratic Party to achieve that, because there's this disconnect at the top and there's no one voice that the party's listening to.

So when you talk about this postmortem and picking up the pieces process for the Democratic Party, certainly this week's fight over the shutdown did not help it and arguably could be hurting it.

BOLDUAN: Yes, definitely in progress would be -- would be definitely one word for it. Mychael, it's great to see you. Let's see what happens in these coming hours. Something's got to give -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you, Kate. Ukraine's President Zelenskyy accusing Vladimir Putin of dragging out ceasefire negotiations and new details about what's going on behind closed doors at the Kremlin.

Plus, President Trump takes his fight to end birthright citizenship all the way to the Supreme Court.

And J.D. Vance strikes a chord during his visit to a concert at the Kennedy Center.

[08:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SIDNER: Just into our newsroom, CNN has learned that Steve Witkoff, President Trump's special envoy, met with Vladimir Putin in Moscow late last night. According to officials with the administration, the meeting went on for several hours. The Kremlin says Putin sent, quote, additional signals to President Trump via Witkoff, and that there was grounds for cautious optimism.

Those new developments come after the president laid out some tough conditions for the ceasefire. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Putin of trying to simply drag out the negotiations.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Now we have all heard from Russia very predictable, very manipulative words from Putin in response to the idea of the ceasefire on the front line. He is actually preparing a refusal as of now. Putin, of course, is afraid to tell President Trump directly that he wants to continue this war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Joining us now is CNN senior political and global affairs commentator Rahm Emanuel. Thank you so much for being here, live for us from Chicago there this morning. A very cold Chicago.

[08:20:00]

Putin is rejecting the deal at this point but is fine in talking with President Trump and his representatives. But Trump has so far not asked Russia to give up anything that we know of. So what does Trump have to negotiate with now?

RAHM EMANUEL, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS COMMENTATOR: You know, it's a very good question and framing of this. I used to tell President Obama and President Clinton that if you want to get to a yes, the other side's got to know that you're able to live and you're comfortable with a no. And that has not, as you just noted in the question, that hasn't been articulated.

We know what the president's agreed with President Putin on, which is that President Zelenskyy's going to have to give up four regions. He's going to have to basically cut his military down. He's going to not be allowed to join NATO.

President Trump has never articulated what President Putin has to live with, a sovereign, independent Ukraine, a Ukraine that can join the EU, a Ukraine that allows to have their own security so they don't have to get 2014, lose Crimea, 2022 have a war for all of Ukraine.

So until President Trump articulates what he wants to see in the end in the sense of the things that he redlines for the United States as a mediator of this process, you're going to have President Putin keep pushing, which is he already won four big concessions from President Trump that he agreed with. He's never told them what you can't have. And that is why you have this yes but kind of negotiations and President Putin is not agreeing as President Zelenskyy has. I also think that that's going to create a kind of continuation of the war effort on the ground and nothing but negotiations behind closed doors. And I think that's a mistake for how the United States is approaching it, not only in this region, but in other parts of the world that are watching this.

SIDNER: Look, Putin says he may speak directly to Donald Trump, which sets up a big power dynamic. Will a direct call give Putin more power in some ways and a bigger standing in the world, which is what he craves, without having him do anything that Donald Trump wants?

EMANUEL: Oh, look, there are four basic things, which is the problem here. And you've outlined them kind of. One is he wants the status of being equal to the United States.

Two, he wants to make sure that he can continue to politically manipulate and militarily manipulate Ukraine. He does not want a sovereign Ukraine, an independent Ukraine, a Ukraine that's integrated with the West. That has to be the red lines for the United States.

But that's over here. And then, as you said, the rest of the world is watching President Putin. We need to be conscious of this.

As we're sitting here negotiating, and we've conceded, I think, a tremendous amount and looked erratic and willing to sell out our allies and treat them like they're adversaries, China right now is circling both Japan, Australia, India, and Vietnam and challenging them in their sovereignty and their independence in the naval area. China sees weakness in the United States and is sending a message in the Indo-Pacific, so away from what's going on in Europe. You see a very, very new aggressive China.

And the administration AWOL on that effort. Australia's talked about that. Japan has talked about that. Vietnam's talked about that. India's talked about it. It's all been written about. And this is all recent, in the last two weeks.

So there's a clear effort where both you say the world is looking at what President Putin is doing. The world's looking at what Donald Trump's doing.

And I think the United States is, you know, strength deters aggression. Weakness invites aggression. And I think the United States right now is not playing the cards it has, which are strong as well as it could to not only secure the ceasefire and peace, but to send a message around the world as it relates to aggression by big powers.

SIDNER: Look, there is this argument where a large swath of the American public, certainly those who supported Donald Trump, do not like American involvement in foreign wars and spending money in foreign wars.

But we've got some new CNN polling out that I want you to go through with me. CNN's latest poll finding that 59 percent of Americans think it is not very likely or not at all likely that Trump's approach will bring long-term peace between Russia and Ukraine.

So politically, what do you do with this? If you were in the shoes of this presidency, of this administration, when you see these numbers, first of all, would they matter in what you did? And second of all, what would you do that is the politically savvy thing to do?

EMANUEL: Well, first of all, you look at this number, also away from it, there's a very negative view in the American public with President Putin. And President Trump is aligning himself too close to a person and a personality that has a very negative predisposition among the American public.

Second, I think the best thing to do is to secure the ceasefire and start the peace negotiations, but you do it from strength. We have given up both our independent mediator role, and we're now negotiating rather than mediating, and we're also seen as aligned with somebody who is the aggressor here.

[08:25:04]

That is not where American public and public opinion has ever been historically. And so to me, that is the problem here, is not being very clear with President Putin what the red lines are for the United States.

Second, you brought something up as it relates to the war here.

You know, the United States just went through two of the longest wars, both Afghanistan and Iraq, spending trillions of dollars, losing thousands of Americans. I don't want to say $100 billion, but $100 billion here where not a single American life is lost, but the principles of freedom, liberty, sovereignty, self-determination are on the line. This compared to what we wasted in both Afghanistan -- mainly in Iraq, in the sense of loss of lives, livelihood, and money.

It is on a comparative basis. This is something totally different when it comes to the very principles we talked about in Iraq, sovereignty, independence, self-determination, democracy, freedom, and we're not losing a single American. And I think in this situation, America can actually stand up for those principles at an incredibly affordable way that I think if you don't do it here, as I get back to the point I made earlier, your weakness will invite aggression.

What happens to Moldova if you give away on Ukraine? What happens to Armenia? What happens to Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia?

If you think for a moment President Putin is going to look at this moment and looks like he got everything he wanted, that he's always going to rest, not a chance. That has been proven from Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, not a chance. And he is actually extremely vulnerable. We are underestimating how weak President Putin is at this moment.

SIDNER: I've been in Ukraine. I've been in a few of those countries where that was the talk, the fear that this was going to escalate and involve the countries surrounding Ukraine that are also close to Russia.

EMANUEL: Sara, every other country that is right on the border with Russia is watching and literally says, there for the grace of God goes I. And the United States either can invite future aggression or stop it dead in its tracks. It's up to President Trump, and right now he's playing a strong hand, very weak.

SIDNER: Rahm, one last question. Is there anything you want to tell us on a personal note?

EMANUEL: How's your family? My family's good. How's yours? I'm very good.

SIDNER: I figured we needed a little levity this morning.

EMANUEL: And it's not as cold in Chicago as you think. That's good. That's the most important thing. Everything else will take care of itself.

SIDNER: All right, it's a pleasure. Thank you, Rahm Emanuel, I really appreciate it.

EMANUEL: Thanks.

SIDNER: All right, coming up, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer defending his decision not to block the GOP spending bill, the choice ahead for Senate Democrats wary of the bill as the clock ticks towards the midnight shutdown deadline.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)