Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Interview with Rep. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA): Some Democrats Furious After 8 Break with Party to Back GOP Funding Deal; Trump Makes Several False Claims About Inflation; FDA Drops Black Box Warning from Hormone Treatments for Menopause. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired November 11, 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]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Weddings can be expensive and they can be stressful, but this year, brides and grooms are dealing with an added layer, and it's not the cake, it's tariffs. The average cost of a U.S. wedding has already risen by 18 percent to $33,000 on average over the last five years, according to The Knot. And two million weddings happen every year in the United States, but they're very much an international affair.

From the engagement ring to the cake, chairs, florals, and the dress, all these items are touched by tariffs. Even those carefully crafted right here in the United States can contain multiple components from around the world. Take the cake.

It may be baked by your local baker, but it has white chocolate from Belgium, which carries a 15 percent tariff, or vanilla beans from Madagascar, 15 percent again, or rice paper from Vietnam, 20 percent. Or take the wedding dress. That can have lace from China and tulle from Taiwan.

An engagement ring, diamonds from Botswana and silver from Poland. One in five vendors have increased costs because of tariffs, and about 33 percent of engaged couples say they're worried about price increases. One piece of advice from vendors, don't get too married to the exact flower or cake or chair for your wedding.

Stand firm on your budget but be open to swapping things out. One thing, though, you cannot swap is champagne. That, of course, only comes from France, and it also comes with a 15 percent tariff.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, reopening the government is now in the hands of the House. Eight Democrats stepped across the aisle to help it pass the Senate, sparking a major fight within the party and new calls for Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to be replaced.

And even if the showdown ends tomorrow, the mess that is air travel in America will not. Just how quickly can airports get back on track once the government reopens?

And in Florida, a man trapped inside a burning car, saved by two strangers who made a split decision that turned them into heroes.

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

All right, the breaking news this morning, a live look for you at Capitol Hill, where it's all in the hands of the House now.

The Senate has passed a bill to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. The House is expected to vote on it as soon as tomorrow, but the deal is deepening the divide among Democrats after eight of their members broke ranks to pass the bill with Senate Republicans. Democrats didn't get the main thing that they've been holding out for, an extension of Obamacare credits that would keep health insurance costs from soaring.

What they did get was a promise from Senate Republicans to hold a vote on it. After the shutdown deal passed late last night, some Democrats did not hide their frustration.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ANDY KIM (D-NJ): What just happened in the Senate chamber was an absolute disgrace. I just I can't stress it enough.

I'm just so pissed off at just what's going to happen to so many people. So we'll get to the political ramifications and whatnot. But right now, just coming out from this vote, you know, I'm just I'm sad for so many that we weren't able to help.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Much of the fury among Democrats is being directed at their Senate leader, Chuck Schumer. He didn't vote for the deal, but some say he didn't hold the line either. And it's time for him to go.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): He's the leader of the Senate. This deal would never have happened if he had not blessed it. It's time for him to be replaced.

He is not meeting the moment. He's out of touch with where the party's base is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Meantime, as the shutdown drags on, it's still causing travel chaos for millions of Americans. More than a thousand flights already canceled today with the FAA set to ramp up cuts to air traffic from 4 percent to 6 percent today at 40 major airports -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Let's talk about the state of things and where this is headed on Capitol Hill. Joining us right now is Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts. Congressman, thanks for being here.

You have said that you are a no on this deal. Why is it not enough? Why is this not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good then?

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Good morning. Thanks for having me on. It's not even good.

I mean, there's there's no perfect and good here. It's caving. And not a single win was delivered for the middle class.

The middle class was very clear in 2024 when Donald Trump won his election and very clear again this week in the New Jersey and Virginia and Georgia and New York elections that affordability is the mandate. You are a politician. You either lower prices or you perish.

[08:05:00]

And so before the shutdown happened, along with other members of the House, I laid out a series of ways that we might lower prices for the middle class. It was reversing the worst for Medicaid cuts. It was a vote on the tariffs to rescind some of these inflationary measures, and none of it got done.

And as Democrats look forward to January, when we're going to be doing this whole rodeo all over again, we had better have a strategy that we can deliver on for the middle class, because voters want to see politicians get stuff done to lower prices.

BOLDUAN: You call it caving. There's a lot of criticism going coming towards the eight Democratically aligned senators who negotiated this deal and voted for this deal. I had one of them, Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, on the show yesterday, and she responded to criticism coming at them from within the party.

Let me play this for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-NH): All those people who opposed this agreement staying in a shutdown mode was not getting us anywhere. And they need to train their fire on the people who are responsible. That's President Donald Trump.

It's Speaker Johnson. And it's the Republicans who have blocked every attempt to get health care. We need to be working together.

That's what I intend to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: And Congressman Angus King is another senator who was -- voted for it. Said standing up to Donald Trump didn't work. It actually gave him more power when it came to this shutdown.

What's your reaction to that? Do you hear their point? AUCHINCLOSS: I hear Senator Shaheen's point that Republicans have had 15 years to propose another way to expand health care coverage and lower health care prices, and they have failed, election cycle over election cycle, term over term, to offer anything to the American public for how to lower health care prices. Republicans own this inflationary economy. Between the biggest tax hike in American history with these tariffs, the biggest health care cut in American history with these Medicaid cuts, between the crony capitalism that hooks up Donald Trump's friends but not the middle class, he owns this economy and the anxiety that lives within it.

At the same time, Democrats cannot simply continue to oppose Donald Trump without offering Americans an alternative agenda. And part of our alternative agenda needs to be a compelling way that we will lower health care prices. And that includes negotiating on the ACA.

I am perfectly open to negotiating on these enhanced subsidies, whether it's for higher earners, shaving off some of those subsidies, whether it is sunsetting it after one year with the agreement that we negotiate on different ways of getting people onto the exchanges through employer grants or Medicaid expansion. But we have to have a strategy and a plan that we can deliver on, even in the minority in Congress.

BOLDUAN: Talk about election cycles. Something that we see in this group of eight Democratically aligned senators is two of them are retiring and the rest of them are not up for re-election next year. Do you think they would have cut this deal had they been set to be facing voters next year?

Would you be voting differently if you weren't facing voters next year?

AUCHINCLOSS: I think a year out trying to play politics with these shutdown votes is losing the plot. The electorate has been crystal clear about what they care about, and that's higher prices, affordability across the board. And the electorate knows who to blame for the affordability crisis in this economy.

It's Donald Trump and it's MAGA Republicans who are fixated on designing a golden ballroom at the same time as they're trying to deprive paychecks for air traffic controllers. I mean, these folks have just totally lost the plot here. But Democrats can't just sit back and point fingers.

What voters want to hear is what's your plan? What's your plan on housing? What's your plan on health care? What's your plan on energy?

And that is what we need to be putting forward. That's what I have been putting forward and what we need to deliver on after the midterms.

BOLDUAN: And you'll have an opportunity even to do that before then as you'll be working allegedly -- all working together supposedly to be putting together a plan ahead of this vote on these health care subsidies by mid next month. But we will see. Congressman Jake Auchincloss, thank you so much for coming in. I

really appreciate your time.

Stay tuned to CNN. A programming note, the top Democrat in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, he will be joining the Situation Room a little later this morning.

And here's also a quote for you. Every price is down. Everything is way down.

That is what the president is trying to convince Americans is the reality today. This is right in line with what the congressman was just talking about. But inflation and current economic data say something else. A fact check coming up next.

Plus, a health update that impacts millions of women. The FDA now lifting its strict warnings on a treatment for menopause.

And a rescue on the water. Several boaters pulled to safety after their vessels sank hundreds of miles from shore.

[08:10:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SIDNER: This morning, President Trump doubling down on the economy, saying it's great. And the polls showing the majority of Americans are unhappy with it are fake. He has made a number of claims about grocery prices, gas prices, drug prices and prices overall.

CNN's Daniel Dale is joining us now with the fact check for us this morning. Let's just first listen to what the president said about prices over the past few days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Every price is down.

TRUMP: Prices are down under the Trump administration and they're down substantially.

Because everybody knows that it's far less expensive under Trump than it was under sleepy Joe Biden. And the prices are way down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: All right. You've heard it over and over and over again. What's the reality, Daniel?

[08:15:00]

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Reality is that none of that is true. Prices are up during this presidency. The latest consumer price index figures show they were up 1.7 percent in September compared to January, the month President Trump returned to office. Three percent higher in September than they were last September, a year prior. He says every price is down. In fact, the price of thousands of individual products has increased and inflation is increasing. There has been inflation every month of this presidency.

It has accelerated for five consecutive months. In September, it was up to three percent, the exact rate that President Trump inherited in January. So, none of that is true.

And I'll note that he has not only made false claims about overall prices like these, but about individual prices. So, last week, he said the gas prices are just a bit over $2. He said they're almost $2. In fact, they're over $3.

He also said that gas prices have plummeted to their lowest level in two decades. Well, first of all, they haven't plummeted. According to the AAA average as of today, they are one cent lower than they were a year ago, so a little bit down, but hardly plummeted. GasBuddy's average shows them actually higher this year than they were a year ago. And they're not the lowest in two decades.

Forget the COVID pandemic when we know they plummeted because of low demand. But they were also lower on various days of Joe Biden's last month in office this year alone. President Trump might have been trying to refer to a federal estimate that drivers this year will spend the lowest percentage of their disposable income on gasoline.

But that's a different thing, and it's an estimate rather than the reality.

SIDNER: Let's talk about the one thing he did talk about was that beef is the only grocery product he claims that has seen an increase. What is actually happening at grocery prices? Because I think all of us know that is not the case.

DALE: Yes, this one, I think, is being fact-checked by a whole lot of Americans who are just going out in the world and seeing what's going on. So beef is far from the only product that has seen a price increase this presidency. It has experienced a notably big increase, but again, far from the only one.

Dozens, hundreds of individual products, far more products have increased than decreased, a federal data shows. Other products that have seen big increases include products subject to his significant tariffs, items that are heavily imported like coffee, like bananas. But not only those, from lettuce, to salad dressing, to gum, to cakes, to tomatoes, all increased.

Five of the six overarching categories of grocery prices tracked by the consumer price increases -- sorry, consumer price index have increased. Only one has down. There have been some individual products that have seen big decreases, notably including eggs, but far more have gone up than have gone down.

SIDNER: Our Daniel Dale fact-checking for us this morning. We do appreciate you coming on. All right, ahead. Custom meals and puppy time. This morning, a

whistleblower is claiming Ghislaine Maxwell is receiving special treatment in prison. We'll talk with the family of one of Jeffrey Epstein's victims about what they're hearing now.

Plus, a key case that could upend mail-in voting in dozens of states. That is now headed to the Supreme Court, how it could affect the midterm elections, depending on what the court decides.

[08:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BOLDUAN: So in a major shift for women's health, the FDA now says that it will be removing its strongest drug warning, the so-called black box warning from many hormone therapies used to treat menopause symptoms. The change comes more than 20 years after that warning sharply reduced prescriptions of hormone therapies due to fears of increased risk for cancer and heart disease. They said it was connected to the treatments.

The FDA says that new evidence, though, has come forth suggesting that those risks may not apply to many women younger than 60 years old and could help millions finally get some relief.

CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, is here with much more on this. And you know, a lot of women want to pay very close attention to this because this has been status quo for 20 years now.

What is a black box warning, Sanjay, and why do hormone therapy products have this -- have had this for so long?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Kate. This is a big deal, and I've watched my own mom and my wife sort of navigate these decisions. It's been really confusing, I think, for people for close to a quarter century.

As you mentioned, you know, in some ways it made total sense. As women are going through menopause, their ovaries are making less estrogen and progesterone. So the idea was, replace that. It made total sense.

They started to do a study. That study started in the late 90s, 97. And by 2002, there was some concerning safety signals to which there was a significant reaction to those safety signals in the form of this black box.

Which, as you mentioned, is the strongest warning that goes out. About 400 medications have black box warnings on them. But take a look at this.

I mean, you can understand why it got so many people's attention, warnings about endometrial cancer, cardiovascular disease, breast cancer, probable dementia. So that all of a sudden was what women were confronted with, again, you know, close to 25 years ago. What we knew before that black box warning was that a significant number of women took hormone therapy when going through menopause, about one in four women.

When the black box warning came out, you saw the numbers go down to about one in 25. So there was a significant drop, 70 percent drop overall in women taking hormone therapy as they're going through this time. So that was -- that's that's what we've sort of been dealing with with for the last, you know, quarter century.

What the FDA has done now is remove that black box warning with the hopes that, you know, maybe people won't be so frightened of taking hormone therapy.

BOLDUAN: So, yes, then fast forward to to the today. What has changed? What additional evidence came forward?

And again, I just hope it doesn't become even more confusing for women trying to navigate this.

GUPTA: Right. So I'll tell you a couple of things. First of all, you know, there have been organizations, including American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, who've been saying for some time now, look, those risks were just overstated.

[08:25:00]

It wasn't even so much new evidence as it was looking at the same evidence from before and saying it was overstated. But when I looked at the studies, I think there's two main things.

First of all, there are all the formulations of estrogen and progesterone were sort of lumped together. So if it was at a patch, a spray, a cream, they were treated the same as pills in terms of risks. And we know that's not the case.

But I think the bigger thing was when you looked at the women who were actually making up this group of people who were at higher risk of things, they were older women. They were often women who didn't hadn't started hormone therapy early enough to get the benefits, just getting some of the potential harms. So overall, if you look at it now, what the FDA is saying is there is some nuance to this is that you can have significant benefit if this is started -- hormone therapy, that is -- within 10 years of menopause.

I think that's that's the big one. So there was a nuance there. And if you did that, you had a significant, significant potential benefit in terms of cardiovascular benefits, up to 50 percent reduction of cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, bone fractures.

My mom had a bone fracture this past year. She's in her early 80s. What her doctor told her is had she been on hormone replacement therapy, she may have had higher bone density and possibly mitigated that that bone fracture.

So lots of potential benefits here as a result of of starting hormone therapy on time, though, again, within 10 years of menopause onset.

BOLDUAN: Which is fascinating, taking a relook at the existing data, which is an important --

GUPTA: Yes.

BOLDUAN: -- part of all this process. You're the best, Sanjay. Thank you so much for bringing us that.

And I'm sure there are a lot of women, men, families who have questions about this very issue -- hormone replacement therapy. You can scan the QR code that you see on your screen. And Dr. Gupta will be back later this week to answer your questions about all of this.

Coming up still for us today, drones, gunships and fighter jets. There's new detail coming out this morning on just how intense the military presence is and what is being used in the president's campaign against alleged drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean.

And it happened again. Astronauts stuck in space. The culprit this time, space junk.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:00]