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Passengers Evacuate Onto Wing Of Plane After Engine Catches Fire; 2025 U.S. Measles Cases Surpass Total For 2024; Trump Delivers Rare Political Speech At Justice Department. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired March 14, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: In which the pilots initially described these vibrations with a fair amount of calm, listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DENVER APPROACH CONTROLLER: American 1006, 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. American 1006.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: The good news now in the latest from American Airlines, 12 people were injured on this flight, or had to be hospitalized rather after this flight. They have all now since been released from the hospital. This plane was a Boeing 737-800, not the embattled 737 MAX or from the MAX line.

The engines made by a French-American conglomerate named CFM, these are CFM-56 engines. And investigators will of course want to look at those because there have been some problems with CFM-56s. Back in 2018, an explosion of one of these engines on a Southwest flight actually killed a passenger on board.

And earlier this month, the FAA mandated that operators of 737s, airlines that use them with this specific type of engines, should beef up essentially the structures around the engines. So the pressure and scrutiny has still been on even seven years after this initial incident. And now this one incident may also raise alarm again.

We will see though as investigators begin to dig into this.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And fortunate that all those passengers appear to be OK. Pete Muntean, thank you so much.

MUNTEAN: OK.

SANCHEZ: Severe storms, possible blizzard conditions and catastrophic conditions for wildfires are on this weekend's forecast. The areas that need to be prepared for extreme weather, straight ahead. [015:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: This just in, President Trump has arrived at the Justice Department. This is video from moments ago where he is with the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, who just today said she would vow to go after those who she says weaponized our government. And at this moment, Attorney General Bondi is at the podium right now.

The president is set to speak very soon and with the White House is calling a law and order speech. So we'll be bringing those remarks to you as soon as they begin.

SANCHEZ: Meantime, we have some startling new numbers in the measles outbreak. We're just three months into the year, and already the United States has surpassed its total number of cases of measles for all of 2024.

KEILAR: Here's the breakdown. There have already been 320 measles cases since January. Just compare that to the 285 for all of last year.

The majority of cases so far link to a multistate outbreak in Texas, New Mexico, and now Oklahoma. CNN medical correspondent Meg Tirrell is with us now with more on this. Where do we stand on this measles outbreak?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's unfortunately still growing. We expect that these cases that we already know about are probably a significant undercount, and the health departments in these states, particularly Texas, where this is the biggest and growing the most, expect that it will continue to grow. So if you look at the trajectory that we've had really just since the end of January, as you noted, cases in 2025, just halfway through the month of March, have surpassed the number that we saw in 2024 or in 2023.

So for the year, we're now up to 320 cases this year compared with 285 last year and 59 in 2023. And this really is centered in Texas, where with today's update --

SANCHEZ: We want to go straight to the Department of Justice, where President Trump is set to make remarks in just moments. He has just taken to the podium. Let's listen in.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's a true honor to be with you today. This very -- this is a storied hall, if there ever was one. And based on the crowd, I think we broke the all-time record.

But as we begin a proud new chapter in the chronicles of American justice, this really is something. We're turning the page on four long years of corruption, weaponization, and surrender to violent criminals. And we're restoring fair, equal, and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law. And you're the people that are doing it. I'm very, very proud of all of you.

Under the Trump administration, the DOJ and the FBI will once again become the premier crime-fighting agencies on the face of the Earth.

People ask me, what am I going to do about law enforcement all the time? The fake news back there, they're asking me that all the time. What am I going to do? And when are you going to do it? And I answer them by saying I've already done most of it by appointing the people that I've appointed. They're sitting right here.

They've done most of it. I don't do it. They do it. Right, Pam? Oh, you are so tough. They just don't know yet.

Let me begin by congratulating the incredible people who will lead these historic reforms. And we start with somebody that you just saw, Pam Bondi. She's extraordinary, and I've known her very well for a long time.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: I watched her for a long time in Florida, for years in Florida, and highly experienced. She seems so young, but she's highly experienced, that I can tell you. She was a phenomenal attorney general in Florida. And she's going to do a really amazing job.

Also, our new director of the FBI, Kash Patel. Kash, great.

(APPLAUSE)

[015:40:00]

TRUMP: A man that I'm very proud of. I've known him and Emil for a long time under a tremendous pressure. I saw these guys under some of the most corrupt judges I've -- It's not even imaginable how corrupt they were.

And these guys never wilted. They never -- they were not shy. They fought. They weren't afraid. And they were brilliant.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche and Principal Associate Deputy Attorney Emil Bove. And thank you both very much.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Great people. They're great people. The Chief of Staff, who is so highly respected, Chad Mizelle. Thank you, Chad.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Chad? Thank you, Chad.

Our next administrator of the DEA, Terry Cole. Terry?

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Thank you, Terry. Good luck. It's going to be great.

Senior Counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights -- boy, I've been watching him on television last couple of weeks. He is really a tough one, and he's a great one -- Leo Terrell. You watch how good he's going to be.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: He's going to be so good. Thank you, Leo. Great guy.

Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division, who's got an incredible reputation. She'll do very, very well, Gail Slater.

Thank you, Gail. Good luck. Great job.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Now, we're joined by many, many great friends and terrific friends, and I won't be able to -- too many to name, but some that I just see very quickly. General Flynn, thank you for being here. He's a man who went through hell, by the way, and he shouldn't have. He's a patriot. He went through hell.

We're also pleased to be joined by Senator Chuck Grassley and House Majority Whip. Hi, go sit.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Hi, Chuck. House Majority Whip, Tom Emmer. Tom, great job you're doing.

Representative Guy Reschenthaler. One of the toughest names to say, but I got it. I got it perfectly, I think. And State Attorney General Ken Paxton, thank you very much. Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Somebody who was with us early on, and she's really become a big star and very popular, Brenna Byrd. Thank you, Brenna. Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Steve Marshall, Alan Wilson, James Uthmeier, Chris Carr, Dave Sunday, Marty Jackley, as well as White House Deputy Chief of Staff. Stephen Miller.

What a man Stephen is. Become a big star. Right, Emil?

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Steve Miller. Steve has been something very special.

For generations, the Federal Department of Justice was one of America's most revered institutions. The men and women of the DOJ brought down the mafia, hunted down the killers, kingpins, and spies, tracked down terrorists and traitors, and tore down corrupt political machines all across America. This department commanded the respect and admiration of the entire world. And with Pam and Kash and all of the people I introduced, and far more, big numbers, and all of you sitting back there, I recognize so many of you. But with you leading the way, it'll soon be the most admired and most respected of all. You're going to be more respected, and I really believe that there's also a lot of things to solve. A lot of problems to solve.

But that's going to put you in the upper tier and maybe the top tier, and I believe that's going to happen. I'm so proud of the people in this room. But first, we must be honest about the lies and abuses that have occurred within these walls.

Unfortunately, in recent years, a corrupt group of hacks and radicals within the ranks of the American government obliterated the trust and goodwill built up over generations. They weaponized the vast powers of our intelligence and law enforcement agencies to try and thwart the will of the American people. You remember the 51 intelligence agents that said, as an example, that Hunter Biden's laptop from hell came from Russia when they knew it came right from his bedroom. They knew that. It was a big lie, and they knew it so well.

[015:45:00]

They spied on my campaign, launched one hoax and disinformation operation after another, broke the law on a colossal scale, persecuted my family, staff, and supporters, raided my home, Mar-a-Lago, and did everything within their power to prevent me from becoming the President of the United States.

With the help of radicals like Marc Elias, Mark Pomerantz, and these are people that nobody's ever seen anything like it. So many others.

But these are people that are bad people, really bad people. They tried to turn America into a corrupt communist and third-world country. But in the end, the thugs failed, and the truth won. Freedom won. Justice won. Democracy won. And above all, the American people won.

There could be no more heinous betrayal of American values than to use the law to terrorize the innocent and reward the wicked. And that's what they were doing at a level that's never been seen before.

And it's exactly what you saw with Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, and their cronies to do the building of the last four years. They ripped -- what they've ripped down is incalculable.

But what you're going to build up is, likewise, something that will be breaking all sorts of records. They set loose violent criminals while targeting patriotic parents at school board meetings. They dropped charges against Antifa and Hamas supporters while labeling traditional Catholics as domestic terrorists, the Catholics.

We did very well with the Catholic vote, so I want to thank them for that. They imported. They really did.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Record numbers. I would say, what's with the Catholics? They're really after the Catholics. So, I don't know. They were after a lot of people. Maybe they didn't even know why.

They imported illegal alien murderers, drug dealers, and child predators from all over the world to come into our country while putting elderly Christians and pro-life activists on trial for singing hymns and for saying prayers. They went to jail for that. Our predecessors turned this Department of Justice into the Department of Injustice.

But I stand before you today to declare that those days are over, and they are never going to come back. They're never coming back.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: So, now, as the chief law enforcement officer in our country, I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred.

The American people have given us a mandate, a mandate like few people thought possible. We won every single swing state. We won the popular vote by millions and millions of people. We won districts 2,750. Think of that. 2,750 districts compared to 505.

So, we won it at levels that have, I don't believe ever seen before. That's the one where you see the map of the United States, and it's all red. Red for Republican, not for communist. Red for Republican. They would like it to turn red for communist, but it didn't work out that way. The American people have given us a mandate and really a far -- just a far-reaching investigation is what they are demanding into the corruption of our system.

And that's exactly, I'm sure, what Pam and Kash and everyone else mentioned here and not mentioned is going to be doing. We will expel the rogue actors and corrupt forces from our government. We will expose and very much expose their egregious crimes and severe misconduct, of which was levels -- you've never seen anything like it. It's going to be legendary. It's going to also be legendary for the people that are able to seek it out and bring justice.

We will restore the scales of justice in America, and we will ensure that such abuses never happen again in our country. And that's why, on day one, I signed an executive order banning all government censorship and directing the removal of every bureaucrat who conspired to attack free speech and many other things and values in America.

My administration stripped the security clearances of the disgraced intelligence agents who lied about Hunter Biden's laptop from hell. We revoked the clearances of deranged Jack Smith, Alvin Bragg, Letitia James, and the crooked law firms that aided their partisan persecutions. And I went through it. These are state and city courts, and the corruption is unbelievable.

[015:50:00]

We also terminated the clearances of the Biden crime family and Joe Biden himself. He didn't deserve it. In fact, he was essentially found guilty, but they said he was incompetent. And therefore, let's not find him guilty, I guess.

Nobody knows what that ruling was, but I didn't want any part of it. I think I would have rather been found guilty than what they found with him. They said he didn't know what the hell he was doing. And therefore, he's let him go. I said, you know, I'd rather be convicted, Pam, I think, than that. That was not -- I said, please convict me. Don't say that.

I pardoned hundreds of political prisoners who had been grossly mistreated. We removed the senior FBI officials who misdirected resources to send SWAT teams after grandmothers and J6 hostages.

And it was a great honor for me to fire, I will tell you this, a great honor to fire James Comey. A great, great honor. That was nothing. There was no better day. A lot of people said, oh, that's too bad you did that.

And they said, that's going to be -- and you know what? A year later, they said, that actually saved the administration because the level of corrupt things that we learned after that turned out to be that they were doing, in fact, really bad things.

He was a terrible person, did terrible things, and persecuted people. And all in the guise of being an angel. But he wasn't an angel. We created a brand-new DOJ task force, an anti-Christian bias.

And under Director Patel, we're getting the FBI agents out of the headquarters in Washington, D.C., and back on the streets in pursuit of dangerous criminals where they belong and where they want to be. And, you know, you have that big FBI building, and it's a very big building, and they were going to build an FBI headquarters three hours away in Maryland, a liberal state, but that has no bearing on what I'm about to say.

But we're going to stop it. Not going to let that happen. We're going to build another big FBI building right where it is, which would have been the right place because the FBI and the DOJ have to be near each other.

You can't every -- that's one thing I did learn from this persecution. The FBI and the DOJ work together. Now, in my case, they work together for bad purposes, but they do. They were always together. So how can you have one that's three hours away?

But one thing I said to Kash, well, we're going to get a great building built. It's going to be a magnificent building. He said, sir, we don't need that kind of room.

I said, what do you mean? He said, I'm just going to take an old Department of Commerce building that's about 25 percent the size, and that's what I need. We're going to have the best staff that you've ever seen, and that's what I need. It's in a nice location, but I don't need that big building. Why don't you just sell the site to somebody? And we're going to be very happy.

And they want to have far fewer people. But we also want to have them in D.C. And if for no other reason, we like having law enforcement walking the streets of our Capitol because when the bad guys are out there and they see there's an FBI agent, that's the ultimate in law enforcement. And they're not going to be acting so bad.

We're cleaning up our city. We're cleaning up this great Capitol. And we're not going to have crime, and we're not going to stand for crime. And we're going to take the graffiti down, and we're already taking the tents down, and we're working with the administration. And if the administration can't do the job, we're going to have to take it back and run it through the federal government. But we hope the administration is going to be able.

So far, they've been doing very well. The mayor has been doing a good job. We've said there are tents galore right opposite the State Department. They have to come down, and they took them down right away. And so, so far, so good.

But we want to have a Capitol that can be the talk of the world. When Prime Minister Modi of India, when the President of France, and all of these people, the head of Prime Minister of United Kingdom, they all came to see me over the last week and a half. And when they come in, I like to -- I had the route run.

I didn't want to have them see tents. I didn't want to have them see graffiti. I didn't want to have them see broken barriers and potholes in the roads. And we had it looking beautiful. And we're going to do that for the city.

And we're going to have a crime-free Capitol. When people come here, they're not going to be mugged or shot or raped. They're going to have a crime-free Capitol again.

And it's going to be cleaner and better and safer than it ever was. And it's not going to take us too long.

There's a new phenomena that is taking place with these violent, vicious lawyers that we have all over. They play the ref. You know what playing the ref is? Like the great Bobby Knight basketball coach. He'd scream and scream at the ref. He'd scream. I watched him.

By the way, I love Bobby Knight because he endorsed me. And having Bobby Knight's endorsement in Indiana was an extremely good thing. A friend of mine said -- I was running in Indiana at the time.

[015:55:00]

This was early on, 2016. And I was doing great. But a friend came up and said, Do you know Bobby Knight? I said, No, I don't. But I hear he was a tough cookie. He said, Not only tough. He was beyond tough. But he's the most popular guy you can imagine. It turned out he wanted to endorse me. And he called me about two years before.

He said, Sir, I'd like to endorse you. I said, Is this really Bobby Knight? He said, It's me.

I could tell it was Bobby Knight. He had been known for throwing the chair across the court and slapping a player. Can't do things like that, right?

And the man that came in fired him. He was the new administrator for the college. That guy didn't last very long. They were like 14-0. And they fired Coach Knight. That was not good. But he had a little chip on his shoulder. But he loved Trump. And he came in and he said, I'd love to endorse you. He said, If you ever run, please call me.

So he said, Do you know Bobby Knight? I said, Well, I don't know. But he called me a couple of years ago. He was an amazing phenomenon. I took his number.

And on each side of my desk in New York, I had stacks of paper, like nice and neat, but about two feet high each. And I said, You know, I wrote his number down and I put it here two years ago. And I said, Let me see if I can find it. It was almost like a miracle. I had other miracles that happened, too. My ear is still throbbing.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: That was a miracle. That was a miracle also, wasn't it? That was a miracle also.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Thank you. Thank you, Leo. Thank you. Thank you, my man. That was a miracle.

Anyway.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: OK, that's enough. That's very nice. Thank you.

But, so, he said, Bobby Knight. So, I said, You know, I put his name down and I wrote it down. It's in one of these stacks. Let me -- I lifted it up. It would have to be 2,000, 3,000 pages in each stack. I lifted it up, the first one. I had no idea. And there was his name on a little card, Bobby Knight, with his number. It was like incredible.

I tell that story all the time. And I called him and dialed the number. He said, I've been waiting for you to call. And he went out and he made a speech for me in a packed arena in Indiana, and it was over. It was over. He was -- he was a tough guy.

He actually went a little far, you know. If you were -- if you remember, he made a great speech because he was actually a motivational-type guy, to put it mildly. But he left the stage, and then comes talking, and he walks back onto the stage.

I said, Uh-oh, this is trouble. Why is he coming back? He was a big guy, too. I said, Why is he coming back? He said, May I say a few more words? I said, Yes, go ahead, Bobby. Say a few more words. A little different.

And he said, Let me tell you something about this guy, Trump. This guy, if he has to, will use the nuclear weapons that we have. He will use the -- he has no fear. He's going to use -- and that's the kind of guy -- and he walked off the stage.

I said, I think I'm -- I think I'm in big trouble, Pam. That was not good, but it worked out OK. In the meantime -- in the meantime, we won the state in a landslide, and it was great.

And it was just an amazing period of time. But this is the most amazing period of time. I think this is more amazing. What's taken place it's been more amazing. I think it's more consequential. And if we do the job -- you know, one of the big media outlets said what we did was the most consequential election in the last 129 years.

Well, if we do the job that we're all capable of doing, I think it's going to be -- it's going to prove to be that and then some. And that's what we want to do. We have a real big shot at making this country so great. So great.

What happened to our country was so sad. What they've done in four years to our country with the borders, with Afghanistan -- the embarrassing, most embarrassing period of time -- allowing the Russian situation, who is never going to happen, with Ukraine.

Allowing October 7th to happen would have never happened, because under me, Iran was totally broke. They had no money. They weren't giving any money to Hamas or Hezbollah. It was totally broke.

But allowing inflation -- look at what inflation has done to people. It's been so devastating. And now you see that -- by the way, the price of eggs is down 35 percent in the last week and a half. We're doing a good job. Brooke is doing a good job. Brooke Rollins and everybody.

And inflation is down. Interest rates are down. Gasoline has come down to a level that we haven't seen in a long time. And all things that we wanted to do, because then everything else is going to be coming down. We want it to come down.

We want bacon to come down, and groceries. A term I used to use -- it's sort of an old-fashioned term, but I used to use it on the campaign trail those last 90 perfect, beautiful days. We just hit it.

And I want to thank Suzy. You have done a great job. Susie Wiles.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Great job, Susie. A big magazine just named her the most powerful woman in the world.