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Sheriff Nanos Probes Possible Ransom Notes in Search for Nancy Guthrie; No Suspects Identified in Guthrie Disappearance; Bill Gates Regrets Spending Time With Epstein, Says I Was Foolish; Sen. Mitch McConnell Hospitalized Over Flu-like Symptoms; Washington Post to Lays Off One-third of Staff; ADP Report Find Private Sector Employees Added Just 22,000 Jobs in January. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired February 04, 2026 - 13:30   ET

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

[13:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": -- Charles Ramsey, he led the police departments in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.

Chief Ramsey, thanks so much for being with us. How does law enforcement process ransom notes like this that are sent to media outlets?

CHARLES RAMSEY, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, the sheriff is right. You take them all seriously. Now, it may or may not turn out to be credible. We do have people that do that sort of thing, even though they're not involved in the case, unfortunately. But you have to take it very, very seriously.

Now, what we don't know is whether or not was this a written note or letter. Was this transmitted electronically? I mean, there's a lot we don't know. And the kind of detail that would be included in a note like that, that would give the reader the understanding that they, in fact, were responsible for this abduction.

But before anything else is done, I would imagine that you certainly would want some proof of life just to make sure that Mrs. Guthrie is still alive.

SANCHEZ: To the point that you just made, these media outlets are reporting that the letters contain information about the crime scene. The sheriff would not confirm whether they accurately match details that investigators have gathered.

There has to be a delicate balance, right, between revealing certain information to the public and confirming anything that might be in those letters.

RAMSEY: Well, this has gotten national attention, I mean, very intense attention from media outlets. And so, there's a lot of information that somebody could include in a letter to make it sound like they're legitimate. But in every case, especially one like this, there's a lot of information that investigators withhold, that only the person responsible for the crime would know. And if that letter, I'll call it a letter, whatever it was, letter, note, what have you, if it contains some of that information, then that gives it the credibility that you would need in order to really move forward and process it as a critical piece of evidence. Yeah.

SANCHEZ: Right. I wonder how you read, Chief, the details about her pacemaker last connecting to her iPhone at 2 a.m., her iPhone, one of many personal things that were found at the residence.

RAMSEY: Well, I mean, 2 a.m., that tells you that the crime could have happened right around that time, within that window. The pacemaker would be -- the signal will be picked up by her iPhone, the Bluetooth connection I would imagine, once you get a certain distance away from that, you no longer receive the signal. And so that gives you a time, a window as to when this might have occurred.

Now, there's still a lot we don't know and that is, was there a forced entry or not? My understanding is that from one of the reporters that you had at the scene, that the family, when they first arrived at the house, thought that maybe she had a medical emergency and she was at a hospital.

Well, that would indicate to me that maybe it was an obvious forced entry, but that doesn't mean there couldn't have been a window or there couldn't have been some other way that a person could gain access. So, there's still a lot of unanswered questions in this case. But the bottom line is we can only hope and pray that she's still around, that she's still alive.

She's got medical conditions. She needs medication. It's been several days now where she has not had that medication, and that does not bode well.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. Chief Charles Ramsey, thanks so much for sharing your expertise.

RAMSEY: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Plenty more news to come on News Central. Bill Gates speaking out after appearing in the latest batch of the Epstein files. You will hear directly from him right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:38:02]

SANCHEZ: Bill Gates is now responding after he was named in the latest Epstein files released by the Justice Department. In a 2013 draft message saved in Epstein's email account, he appears to write about feelings of betrayal toward the Microsoft co-founder. There's also a mention of marital discord between Bill and Melinda Gates, talk of business deals, and the idea of Gates having concerns about a sexually transmitted disease. It's unclear who wrote that message. Gates says he regrets ever being associated with Epstein.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BILL GATES, CO-FOUNDER, MICROSOFT: That email was never sent. The email is, you know, false. So, I don't know what his thinking was there. It just reminds me, you know, every minute I spent with him, I regret and I apologize that I did that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": We should note that Bill Gates has not been accused of any wrongdoing relating to Epstein. But in a new interview with NPR, his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, is responding to the controversy as well.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MELINDA GATES, PHILANTHROPIST: It's just sadness, sadness for, you know, I've left, I had to -- I left my marriage. I had to leave my marriage. I wanted to leave my marriage. I had to leave the -- I felt I needed to eventually leave the foundation. For me, I've been able to move on in life and I hope there's some justice for those now women.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: A spokesperson for Bill Gates told NPR that the claims are, quote, "absolutely absurd and completely false. The only thing these documents demonstrate is Epstein's frustration that he did not have an ongoing relationship with Gates and the lengths he would go to entrap and defame." We're joined now by Rachel Martin, who interviewed Melinda French Gates and is the host of the NPR podcast "Wild Card with Rachel Martin."

A really interesting interview here, Rachel. You called the new documents the elephant in the room during the interview, obviously, something that you were going to have to address with her.

RACHEL MARTIN, INTERVIEWED MELINDA GATES FOR NPR' "WILD CARD" PODCAST: Right. I mean, I should just tell you, Brianna and Boris, ours is not a news show, right?

[13:40:00]

Like "Wild Card", this show is about how people see themselves, their interior lives, how they make sense of the world. And so, it was in that context that I felt like I had to ask her about this because no doubt it was on her mind. I mean, her name is in this latest tranche of Epstein emails. Her name is all over the news.

And so, I just wanted to give her the space to say whatever she wanted to say in whatever way she wanted to say it. And what was interesting is that she could have said nothing, right? She could have said, I'm done. I've said everything that I want to say on this issue and I'm done. Or she could have denied everything that had been laid out in these emails, the new details of her ex-husband's alleged behavior.

And she didn't do those things. She -- I sort of opened the door and she sort of walked through to say that it had been so, so hurtful that she walked away from her marriage. She walked away from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and started her own philanthropy.

The damage it did to her personally in terms of breaking a fundamental trust that has still scarred her. So yeah, it was really surprising to me that she was actually so forthcoming when she didn't need to be.

SANCHEZ: Yeah. Rachel, did you get the sense that what we're seeing in this new document dump was new to her? Any of the details in there?

MARTIN: Well, I mean, the fact that his name, Bill Gates, is in the Epstein files is not new. The fact that her name has been dragged into it is not new. But the details about his alleged behavior, as you mentioned, that is a new revelation. And I did not ask her to confirm or deny those details.

I mean, for me, those are intimate details about her marriage and her health that she doesn't know anyone, you know? So I wanted to give her an opportunity to respond and she did. And to her credit, Melinda focuses and centers the experience of the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, right? The girls who are now young women and women who were systematically abused by him and his associates.

And that's where she wants the attention. I mean, she's led this incredibly exceptional life that has not insulated her from pain. It didn't insulate her from this, but she made it clear that she has moved on.

She is in a great place in her own personal life. But again, she could have left it there and she didn't. She said there are still outstanding questions that people need to answer, including her former husband.

KEILAR: Yeah, and that focus on the victims was really interesting there. She also -- she told you that the document brings back those very painful times in her marriage, as you mentioned. She's spoken a little bit about this in the past, right? How much the Gates-Epstein relationship actually factored into her divorce from Bill Gates?

MARTIN: Yeah, she has. She gave an interview to CBS's Gayle King in 2022, where she was very forthright about it. She told Gayle that that was in part why she needed to leave her marriage. She didn't like Jeffrey Epstein. She didn't like the fact that he had a relationship with her husband.

But in terms of the details about her husband's alleged involvement with Epstein, the extent of that relationship, we still don't know. I mean, what we do know is that there have been allegations of not just one, but multiple extramarital affairs.

And now, this recent tranche of Epstein emails, which suggests that Bill Gates may have, again, his team and he have vehemently denied this. But the release of Epstein emails just a few days ago suggests that he may have been trying to procure a medicine to treat a sexually transmitted infection. And then again, according to the emails, may have planned to give it to Melinda French Gates surreptitiously.

It's important to remember he has denied this. But again, I said that out loud to Melinda French Gates and asked her to respond. She did not deny it. And she said that there are still outstanding questions that need to be put to him. It is not -- the onus should not be on her to have to explain that. I feel strongly about that and respected her boundary on that.

[13:45:00]

SANCHEZ: Yeah. And the full interview, we're looking forward to its release tomorrow. What else should we expect?

MARTIN: Well, she had very interesting things to say about trust. I mentioned that before and the long road to be -- to rebuilding trust in her relationships. She's in a good place now. She's in a romantic relationship. And she said with the right partner, you can do that. But it's been baby steps for her.

And then, you know, our show is a conversational card game. The guests pick randomly cards to answer. They don't know the questions. And one of the cards that came up that she picked was about forgiveness. And the question was, are you good at forgiveness? And her answer felt very, very real and very thoughtful. And you'll hear it in the episode that drops tomorrow.

SANCHEZ: We look forward to it. The host of NPR's "Wild Card", Rachel Martin, thank you so much.

MARTIN: Thanks to both of you.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Still ahead, CNN tries to answer this age-old sports question, which is the better playing surface, natural grass or artificial turf? See what Dr. Sanjay Gupta found out and whether it could make a difference in the Super Bowl, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:51:00]

SANCHEZ: The stage is set for Super Bowl 60 this Sunday, and if there's one thing players on both teams should like about Levi's Stadium, it's the natural grass playing surface. It may not matter to viewers at home, but to those on the field, grass versus turf could be a big deal.

CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains why.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: There are 32 NFL teams and 30 stadiums around the country.

GUPTA (voice-over): Half of those stadiums play on grass and half play on turf, and this has become one of the most provocative issues in sports.

GUPTA: 92 percent of these players say they prefer grass.

NICK PAPPAS, NFL FIELD DIRECTOR: Yeah.

GUPTA: So as Chief Medical Officer of the NFL, what do you do with that?

PAPPAS: I think we have to understand why is that. Number one is performance. They want to be able to perform, so I've got to be able to execute the movements that I need to do to do my job and do it well.

But secondly, how does my body feel after playing on that? One of the things we're learning from the testing is turf returns energy back to your body differently than natural grass does.

GUPTA (voice-over): The data is a bit mixed on this topic. Data from the 2021, 2022 seasons did find grass to result in a lower number of lower extremity injuries. However, the NFL says data from every season since then does not show a significant difference in injuries on grass versus turf.

But due to different factors like different climates, different stadium designs and even different operational needs, alternative surfaces have become increasingly necessary.

GUPTA: It all started back in 1966, where you had the Astrodome and then AstroTurf, which at that point was basically just like carpet on top of concrete. It's changed a lot over the last several decades, but there's still a lot of concerns about injuries, about toxicity, about whether you can ever make this turf really behave like grass.

PAPPAS: It gives us that bounce back, that energy return to the body, so what they're feeling when they step underfoot.

GUPTA (voice-over): Nick Pappas is the NFL's Field Director, and his job is to quantify that grass feel that players want and then try to level the playing field.

So, how to do that? First step is to develop a series of standards that all fields will need to meet by 2028. And part of that testing is for things like surface hardness, player impact and overall traction.

PAPPAS: We've added two studs like a cleat on the bottom. It's about twice the weight, falls from the same height, but ultimately gives us a representation that is much like the athlete. We can test all of our stadiums with these devices and actually quantify the amount of traction available at any given time, rotational traction, so twisting of the cleat, and translational traction, so a sliding of the cleat.

GUPTA: Essentially, putting a cleat into the ground or testing rotation and movement?

PAPPAS: Correct.

GUPTA (voice-over): And these tests are applied at 60 individual points all over the field. While no two fields will ever be exactly the same, the hope is they might at least start to feel that way to the players. GUPTA: Do you think that we're going to get to that point where you look at 30 NFL stadiums and they basically all have a uniform surface?

PAPPAS: I do. In the last 10 years, we've seen helmets change dramatically and that's really improved their safety. I think you're about to see the same thing happen in the surface industry.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Our thanks to Dr. Sanjay Gupta for that report. Still ahead, Senator Mitch McConnell hospitalized, what we know about the 83-year- old's condition. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:58:58]

KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour.

Former Senate Republican Leader, Mitch McConnell has checked himself into the hospital after experiencing flu-like symptoms. A statement from his office says the 83-year-old went into the hospital Monday night to be evaluated, and that he's showing positive signs of recovery. His office also says the Kentucky Senator is looking forward to returning to Senate business. McConnell plans to retire when his current term ends early next year.

And "The Washington Post" is laying off one-third of its staff as the storied newspaper undergoes a major restructuring. According to sources, employees were told today in a Zoom call that the publisher is now shutting down almost its entire sports department, closing its books section, canceling the Daily Post reports podcast, restructuring the metro desk, and significantly reducing its international coverage. Post Owner, Jeff Bezos had no immediate comment about the sweeping cutbacks.

And a new report shows the country's sluggish labor market isn't getting any better. Payroll giant, ADP says private sector employers added just 22,000 jobs in January. That is less than half of the 45,000 that economists were expecting --