Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

FDA to Remove Black Box Warning Label on Menopause Hormone Therapy; Trump Floats $2,000 Tariff Rebate Checks; Senate Could Vote on Deal to End Government Shutdown Today; Major Airlines Slash Flights Amid Government Shutdown; Trump Pardons Allies Who Tried to Overturn 2020 Election; Trump Says Tariff Money Will Go Towards Rebate Checks, Debt Reduction; Buffet Going Quiet as He Prepares to Leave Berkshire Hathaway. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired November 10, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: -- significantly after these study results came out. Now, one of the issues that they found in the study is that the average age of women was 63. And subsequently, it's been found that it's typically thought to be safe and beneficial for many women to start hormone therapy within 10 years of menopause onset. So typically, the cutoff you hear is around age 60. And so, there are concerns that folks who started it later have a different set of risks.

This can be beneficial not just for preventing symptoms like hot flashes and night sweats, but also potentially for preventing longer- term risks like bone fractures. There are some contraindications though, so of course, it's important to do this under the management of a healthcare provider. But the hope from changing this label is that this could remove some of the fears around starting a therapy that could be beneficial for a lot of people.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": All right, Meg Tirrell, thank you for that. And a new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": First came the deal, now comes the divide. The Senate back in session after a bipartisan breakthrough that could finally end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The agreement though creating more rifts among Democrats.

Plus, President Trump issuing pardons for Rudy Giuliani and other allies accused of trying to help his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. We're going to show you the legal and political implications. And the president proposing giving Americans $2,000 checks from tariff revenues. But how would that work? Who would qualify? And what happens to the money if the Supreme Court finds that these tariffs were enacted illegally? We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

KEILAR: If Republican leaders in Congress get their way, a bill to end the longest government shutdown ever could be just days away from President Trump's desk. Senate Majority Leader, John Thune, just a short time ago saying he wants to hold a vote on a deal today. House Speaker Mike Johnson is hoping for a vote on Wednesday and this hour, both of these timelines are possible after seven Senate Democrats and one independent Senator who caucuses with Democrats broke with party ranks to secure a deal without a concrete plan on healthcare subsidies.

Instead, the reopening plan includes a political promise to hold a separate vote on healthcare, something Speaker Johnson has so far not committed to. CNN's Manu Raju is live on the Hill for us. Manu, what's the latest?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, the expectation is that the Senate could vote as soon as today. Remember, United States Senate, you need an agreement of all 100 Senators to actually schedule a vote. If one Senator were to object, that could drag out the process for several more days. That is not the expectation at this moment. Despite the furious opposition among some on the Democratic side of the aisle over the deal that was cut to end this historically long and painful government shutdown, now in his 41st day, as the consequences pile up for the American public.

Now, as part of this deal that would reopen the federal government until January 30th and also fund for a full year other aspects of the federal government, it would not include language to extend those expiring subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. That had been the chief demand among Democrats from the beginning of this fight. Instead, they had secured an agreement for a vote, a separate vote that would occur no later than the second week of December on a healthcare bill that is yet to be drafted by Democrats.

But the catch is that there is no guarantee that that bill will pass. The Senate is very unlikely to do so, very unlikely to pass the Republican-controlled House, and Donald Trump has come out furiously opposed to extending those healthcare subsidies, which is why this divide is intensifying on the left flank. I caught up with Senator Angus King, one of those eight members of the Senate Democratic Caucus who did vote for this plan. And I asked him about his decision not just to cut this deal, but also to vote repeatedly with Republicans to reopen the government, which most of his Democratic colleagues opposed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ANGUS KING, (I-ME): To me, it didn't make sense to stand up to a bully by giving him another weapon. Now, here we are six weeks later and I understand my colleagues wanted to make this stand and say, well, the Republicans are going to come to the table and negotiate. There was no indication that they were going to do that.

RAJU: Do you think the shutdown was worth it?

KING: Well, it didn't achieve its goal. I don't see any evidence that the Republicans are going to have a different position a week or a month from now. In the meantime, a lot of people are going to get hurt.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: But some other Democrats, including the Democratic leaders of the House and the Senate, say that they should have fought even more on the issue of healthcare as people's premiums are increasing with the expected expiration of those subsidies. The opponents include the House Democratic Leader, Hakeem Jeffries, who've said he plans to fight this bill when it comes over to the United States House.

[14:05:00]

And the Democratic Leader of the United States Senate, Chuck Schumer, also opposed to this deal. But his number two Democrat, Dick Durbin, was one of those eight Democrats who are now backing this and plan to vote for it on final passage as well, showing you the divide within the Democratic Party over a fight they started over healthcare to raise their concerns about healthcare premium costs increasing but not getting anything concrete in return.

Some proponents though, Brianna, pointing to a concession that they did win in this deal, which would prevent the Trump administration from firing federal workers in any future government shutdown, that was to reinstate some federal workers who were fired in this past government shutdown. That is one concession they made, but not the big concession on healthcare which is causing so much angst in Democratic ranks.

KEILAR: There seems to be this disagreement about whether Democrats capitulated, whether they caved, and whether they just did not prolong the inevitable. What are you hearing?

RAJU: Yeah, that's the exact point that Senator Angus King and those other members who support this deal are saying, is that look, we would not have gotten anything different if we held out for a week, for two weeks, for three weeks. Donald Trump made very clear in the last few days that he was not going to go along with any sort of healthcare deal, criticizing an extension of those Obamacare subsidies.

So in their view, what was the point of holding out when the consequences were getting so dire for the American public? But that's a debate, undoubtedly, will continue to intensify in Democratic circles.

KEILAR: Definitely.

RAJU: Yeah.

KEILAR: Manu Raju, live for us on the Hill, thank you. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Meantime, today, on the 41st day of the government shutdown, President Trump is lashing out at air traffic controllers. In a social media post, the president demanding that all air traffic controllers must get back to work now. He also threatened to dock the pay of those who called out during the shutdown and give a $10,000 bonus to the workers he calls patriots, who didn't miss any days. Despite progress on ending the standoff, nearly 3,000 flights have already been canceled for today and tomorrow as staffing shortages have been reported at 17 airports across the country. CNN's Pete Muntean joins us now live. Pete, bring us up to speed on the situation at airports today and how quickly things might return to normal.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, even though there is light at the end of the tunnel for getting to a shutdown deal, it does not seem that we'll be totally out of the woods when it comes to these staffing shortages we have seen at airports across the country. The list today keeps going up and up, 25 different FAA facilities with understaffing issues today. We've seen staffing shortages in Atlanta at the Tricon there, the approach control facility there that's key for low-altitude flights, Detroit and New York.

Just add those to the list of the places that have had staffing shortages over the weekend. From Friday to Sunday, we saw about 150 staffing shortages at air traffic control facilities nationwide. 50 different facilities, we're talking all the way from San Juan to Anchorage, every major airline hub, and that pushed the number of cancellations higher and higher. We saw about 1,500 cancellations in the U.S. on Saturday, according to FlightAware. That number nearly doubled on Sunday, making it the worst day -- fourth worst day for flight cancellations since the start of 2024.

It seems that things are really sort of in a perpetual motion machine and getting worse and worse. And today, we've seen about 1,800 delays. 900 of them are because of the Trump administration mandated cuts to flights. You've seen the number for tomorrow there, 995. Those are airlines now loading in their cancellations for tomorrow as mandated by the Trump administration to siphon off some of the stress on the national airspace system and air traffic controllers who continue to work unpaid during this shutdown.

This new statement by President Trump on Truth Social may be only insult to injury, given the fact that they were about to get another $0 paycheck to hit their bank accounts come tomorrow. I want you to listen now to Union Chief Nick Daniels. He's the head of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association and he says that controllers have really been stuck in the middle of this shutdown game since it started 41 days ago. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK DANIELS, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATION: Now, history will remember who is responsible for the shutdown. The public and media will debate who won. But we all know who carried the weight of it and who has to pick up the pieces when it finally ends. It's us. The federal workforce that has been the rope in this game of tug of war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: So even when the shutdown ends, controllers will get back pay for work they have done during the shutdown. Remember, they've been continuing to show up to work without pay for 41 days now. Some big questions now about whether or not there could be a bill in Congress to make it so that when the government shuts down again and many controllers have been through more than one shutdown now, that they can continue to get paid.

[14:10:00]

A lot of issues here when it comes to air traffic control staffing shortages, and even when the government reopens, the U.S. is still short between 1,000 and 2,000 controllers, according to Transportation Secretary, Sean Duffy. And the FAA is scrambling to hire more. But Duffy says this makes it even harder, the threat of these shutdowns makes it even harder to lure people in to what is always a very -- already a very stressful career. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Yeah, this was an issue well before the shutdown. It seems like it will linger after the shutdown ends, once it does. Pete Muntean, thank you so much for the reporting.

Still to come this afternoon, President Trump handing out pardons to Rudy Giuliani and dozens of others charged with trying to overturn the 2020 election. It may not represent an end to their legal troubles though. Plus, an Arctic blast with snow piling up around the Great Lakes. We are tracking a record cold snap. Plus, a new gambling scandal tied to pro athletes. Two major league pitchers accused of rigging bets pitch by pitch. That and much more coming your way, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:15:45] KEILAR: President Trump is once again flexing his pardon powers for his political allies. Department of Justice Attorney, Ed Martin has shared a list of more than 70 people who either supported or were involved in plans to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and who will receive a pardon writing "No MAGA left behind." That list includes Trump's former attorneys, Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell. And even the president's former Chief of Staff, Mark Meadows. The proclamation states they each receive a full complete and unconditional pardon.

CNN Legal Analyst and former Federal Prosecutor, Elliot Williams is here with us now on this. All right, what do these do exactly?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST AND FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Literally nothing because of the fact that none of these people were convicted of federal crimes. Now to be clear, what the pardon power does, Brianna, is gives the president vast power to lower sentences or erase people's convictions if they've been convicted of a federal offense. None of those people we just showed on the screen have been convicted of anything. So this is purely symbolic and purely political.

Now, maybe if there were a day that some of these folks were charged with crimes in the future, perhaps this pardon would do something. But really this is a statement, not a legal act.

KEILAR: They deny wrongdoing. WILLIAMS: Sure.

KEILAR: A number of them facing potential issues in states.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

KEILAR: Right? Which is different from what this pardon would protect them from.

WILLIAMS: Right.

KEILAR: Could they try to parlay that into something?

WILLIAMS: If they could get a governor or a state parole board to do the same thing, then sure. This idea that somehow this federal pardon will apply to state offenses is ludicrous. Now, Ed Martin who was the person leading the pardon office right now, no, he's not a pardon attorney, but he's the one that the president has installed, made a wink, nod comment saying, oh, we'll see what happens with those state offenses. But by law, no one in the federal government can pardon someone for a state offense. So I don't know.

KEILAR: What do you think of that wink, nod?

WILLIAMS: It's -- I mean, they know what they're doing. I mean, again, this is about recalibrating America's relationship to January 6th and it is about actually absolving people of federal crimes. This is a political statement far more than anything else.

KEILAR: What does this say about pardon power?

WILLIAMS: Yeah. What does it say about pardon power? Good for Donald Trump for taking advantage of the powers that were given to him. This, to be clear, Brianna, Donald Trump is the symptom, not the problem here. The problem is the vastness of the pardon power that every president, certainly in my lifetime, probably yours, has abused in some way, or at least maybe not abused, but pardoned people who really the public does not --

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: So many controversial pardons over the years, right?

WILLIAMS: So many, across parties, Democrats and Republicans. And the solutions are, look, you can elect new presidents, pick a different president. You can impeach a president if he abuses his power. Or the real solution here is for Congress to get together and put some guidelines around presidents because otherwise, you're going to keep seeing things like this, which are just pure political statements and not really do anything legal.

KEILAR: What do you think it does broadly to the idea of rule of law?

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

KEILAR: And that no one is above it? WILLIAMS: Right. It's really interesting because the pardon power, the framers put it in as a check on the king, as a check on the executives, so that if prosecutions got out of hand, of course, you could roll them back in. Now what it's become is a thumb in the eye of the rule of law and this idea that pretty much it's a free for all. And if you can get to be friends with the president or be linked with an issue that the president cares about, you can get out of jail. So yes, we all knew Donald Trump will be doing these kinds of things. He sort of boasted about it before he got here, but it's not just Donald Trump. This is a far bigger systemic issue that America has with this power.

KEILAR: All right, Elliot, thank you so much for that. And still to come, how soon could the government reopen? We're going to look at the next steps on the path to ending the shutdown and what could still derail a deal. And then next, President Trump says he wants to share tariff revenues with millions of Americans. Why financial experts say handing out $2,000 rebate checks is actually a bad idea. We'll have that and much more coming up on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:24:10]

SANCHEZ: Defending his trade policy, President Trump today revealed his priorities for the billions of dollars the U.S. is collecting from his tariffs. He just posted that the money will first go toward giving low and middle-income citizens a $2,000 rebate check. And that whatever is left over will "be used to substantially pay down the national debt." Just how close to reality are these plans? For answers, let's turn to CNN's Matt Egan. Matt, is there enough money to do tariff rebate checks and also pay the $38 trillion national debt?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Boris, it's a little hard to say because there's still a lot we don't know about this idea, including exactly who would qualify for these dividend checks. At this point, this is really more of a just a Truth Social post or two (ph), rather than a formal policy proposal from the White House.

[14:25:00]

But look, it's absolutely true that the president's tariffs have generated a lot of money for the federal government. So far this fiscal year, tariff revenue has surpassed $36 billion. And keep in mind, the fiscal year just started on October 1st. That is more than triple what was collected at this point last fiscal year. Of course, the president can't just unilaterally return that money to the American people. That would take an act of Congress.

Now, some lawmakers have proposed returning some of the tariff revenue to taxpayers. Republican Senator Josh Hawley, he had introduced a bill last summer calling for a $600 per adult and per child rebate check. Of course, what the president's proposing is much, much bigger. $2,000 per person. Now, I just spoke to Erica York over at the Tax Foundation and she said there's simply not enough revenue being brought in from tariffs to pay for a rebate check of the size that the president is talking about. She said that if you - even if you had a cutoff at a $100,000, this would still cost $300 billion. The problem with that is that's well above the $200 billion or so that the Tax Foundation projects the president's new tariffs will bring in, in the calendar year 2026.

So that means not only would there not be enough money to pay down the national debt, this would actually add to the national debt. The other problem, of course, is if you give people money, they're going to spend it. Right? So this would likely increase demand. And if you increase demand without boosting supply, then it's just going to raise prices. I mean, people already have inflation fatigue. This could make matters even worse. Perhaps that's why Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent over the weekend, he seemed to sort of distance himself, tapped the brakes on this idea. Take a listen at his response over the weekend when he was asked about whether or not he has a formal policy proposal here.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT BESSENT, (R) UNITED STATES TREASURY SECRETARY: I haven't spoken to the president about this yet, but it could -- the $2,000 dividend could come in lots of forms, in lots of ways, George. It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing on the president's agenda, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on social security, deductibility of auto loans.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

EGAN: So, not exactly a ringing endorsement there. One other point here, is stimulus checks are normally reserved for an emergency like the 2008 crisis or COVID, which raises a question here, Boris. If the president says that the U.S. economy is so hot, the hottest in the world, then why does he think it's a good idea to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to send rebate checks to people?

SANCHEZ: That could be, as you alluded to, potentially inflationary as well. Inflation is still not at the Fed's 2 percent target, we should note. On top of that, Matt, there's also the question of the Supreme Court and their argument over whether these tariffs are even legal. If they wind up siding against the president here, is it possible that the administration gives out these checks that then have to be paid back?

EGAN: Yeah, you're right. That is one of the big wildcards here because at the oral arguments last week, a majority of the Supreme Court justices, they did sound skeptical about the president's use of emergency powers to slap many of these global tariffs on the imports. And if the president loses that case in the Supreme Court, it is possible that the Supreme Court requires the federal government to refund some of that tax revenue and most of, or at least much of the tax revenue that has been -- the tariff revenue that has been raised so far this year, it does come from those global tariffs that are being challenged. So, that does just add even more uncertainty and makes this proposal even harder to make sense of. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Matt Egan, thank you so much for that reporting there. We have some news just into CNN, legendary investor, Warren Buffet says he'll be "going quiet" sort of after he steps down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year. In a new letter to shareholders, the so-called 'Oracle of Omaha' says he will no longer write the message atop the company's annual report. Buffet does plan to continue delivering the annual Thanksgiving message though. He also shared plans to step up his philanthropy, planning to give away the $149 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock that he continues to hold. Buffett, of course, has led the company for six decades.

Still to come, air travelers getting stuck in terminals, rebooking lines growing longer, a live report on the travel mess across airports this afternoon.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)