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CNN News Central

Juan Andres Guerrero-Saade is Interviewed about the Guthrie Case; Julyssa Lopez is Interviewed about Bad Bunny; Polling on the Economy; Dow Crosses 50,000; Extreme Cold Grips Mid-Atlantic and Northeast; Experts say A.I. Will Transform Work. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired February 09, 2026 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:20]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie enters its second week today, with the Guthrie family facing a 5:00 p.m. deadline. That deadline is stated in purported ransom letters that were sent to news organizations last week. Here is what we do know publicly as of today. Nancy Guthrie was first reported missing last Sunday when she did not show up for church. After her disappearance, at least three media organizations received messages demanding millions of dollars in bitcoin for her return. And in the wake of that, Savannah Guthrie and her siblings have released videos in an apparent effort to communicate with the kidnapers. And in their last video stating, "we are willing to pay."

Joining me right now is Juan Andres Guerrero-Sadde, who is also known as Jax, a cyber security expert and adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins. And you can call me Kate. And I appreciate it.

JUAN ANDRES GUERRERO-SAADE, SENIOR TECH FELLOW AND VP OF INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY RESEARCH, SENTINELONE: Good morning, Kate.

BOLDUAN: One question now -- one question now is, why are they demanding payment in bitcoin? I -- do you wonder the same? Because what should people know about bitcoin when it comes to ransom demands? Because we have seen this in the past.

GUERRERO-SAADE: So, there's this -- there's this misperception that bitcoin is untraceable, which actually makes a lot of folks sort of comfortable with the idea that this is a currency that's going to -- that's best for criminality.

In reality, bitcoin is extremely traceable. It's actually the most traceable currency we've got. You can see every single transaction that's moving between these different wallets. The real problem is that we just don't necessarily know who owns the wallets. So, when you're looking to commit a crime, the idea of being able to move money around this way with no banks in between, nobody doing know your customer, KYC, is quite ideal.

BOLDUAN: How difficult though -- I mean if it's the most traceable but you can still be anonymous, if you will, how difficult is it for criminals to cover their tracks? I mean can they simply just scatter the funds further to throw off law enforcement?

GUERRERO-SAADE: I think that's -- so that's the real issue. We're going to see, you know -- the family's in this impossible situation. But what we -- what we're going to see now, if they do make the payment, that's when people like myself over -- my team at SentinelOne, where we're doing the research, sort of tracking these wallets, that's when we get to see sort of the experience of the attackers, of the criminals, because their ability to move those funds, subsequently hide them, put them in mixers, tumblers, sort of these different aspects in ways that you can obfuscate where the money is moving, that's what's going to show us to what extent how experienced they are, how prepared they are. And, you know, we basically hope for a mistake on their part.

BOLDUAN: Because that was going to be my next question. How -- with smart -- do smart minds like yours, how do you establish how sophisticated this operation is? Can you explain that a little further?

GUERRERO-SAADE: So essentially the way that they handle the money once it's in their wallet, like, you have to -- you have to consider we know in theory the investigators are going to know where the money's coming from and where it's going in the very first transaction. The problems happen after that. Essentially, you know, do they move that money, what's called off chain? Do they move it to a different cryptocurrency? Do they move it to one of these mixer services in dark web, where you essentially get a lot of transactions, everyone's money in a pool, and you can't quite tell who's money came from where. And those are the sorts of moves that normally when we do these investigations, we're tracking big criminal groups that are doing ransomware, they're holding people's data hostage, not so much their family members. But those are cases that have also been on the rise. And the experience of the attackers is really going to be shown in how well they can get their money to cash out.

BOLDUAN: If ransom is paid, and it goes this direction and paid in bitcoin, what is the likelihood that it could ever be recovered if these people are tracked down?

GUERRERO-SAADE: The weak point in this particular situation is going to be what the cash out mechanisms are more than anything else, right? You eventually want to get your money out of the cryptocurrency ecosystem and into the real world. And that's where everything gets real again, with banks or with different sort of mechanisms to get your money out. And essentially, unless there's a failure along the way of the infrastructure that's being used, or they make a mistake in the way that they're cashing out, it's going to be extremely hard to be able to recover that money.

[08:35:01]

BOLDUAN: Also, one of the things that one of the anchors at the local news station had said in describing as much as she could what they had received was that they'd heard from -- they'd heard from law enforcement that this is not -- this was a later letter. "This is not the same IP address, but it appears the sender used the same type of secure server to hide their IP address. That's all we know about the sender at this point." What does that say to you?

GUERRERO-SAADE: To be honest, you know, it's very hard to know without having specifics about what they're discussing with the IP addresses.

BOLDUAN: Right.

GUERRERO-SAADE: But to be honest with you, I think this is a rookie mistake. It's easy to look at email headers and think that those IP addresses are somehow going to come, point us directly at where the criminals are. In reality, it's not like you run a mail server from your house, or you're sort of sending out directly. So, in most cases, those sorts of -- that IP infrastructure is -- it might just be a server off of Gmail somewhere, right? So, that's usually what ends up in an email header. So, the idea that this -- that that would give us a sort of solid lead I think is a bit misleading. It's not the same as a home address.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And there -- and we, of course, assume, as you know, there's a lot more going on behind the scenes in terms of the technology and the tricks of the trade to be used to try to track these people down than they're clearly saying publicly.

GUERRERO-SAADE: Absolutely.

Jags, really appreciate you coming on to explain this and help us walk through this. Thank you.

GUERRERO-SAADE: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, overnight, President Trump weighing in on Bad Bunny's halftime show. He did not care for it. He called it one of the worst ever and a slap in the face to the country. And the president, I'm paraphrasing here, said the stock market is doing very well and 401(k)s are great.

Let's get right to CNN's Kevin Liptak at the White House.

So, Kevin, is it clear why Bad Bunny didn't do any of his 401(k) songs?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, I'm not sure it's clear. And even if it was clear, the president wouldn't understand what the -- Bad Bunny was saying. That was part of the president's criticisms of this halftime show, which in the end were somewhat predictable. You know, he had said when Bad Bunny was selected to be the halftime performer, that it was absolutely ridiculous. And even though this halftime show was really just a celebration of Latin culture, of families, of hard work, of play, it had been kind of weighed down beforehand by all of these, you know, culture war controversies and, you know, clearly came against a backdrop of a tense political moment in the United States. And so, it was perhaps expected that the president responded by saying

that it was "absolutely terrible." He called it "one of the worst ever." He said, "it makes no sense." He called it an "affront to the greatness of America." He said it "doesn't represent our standards of success, creativity or excellence." And he says, "nobody understands a word this guy is saying." And he called the dancing "disgusting." So, a somewhat predictable response from the president.

You know, he's upset that the performance was mostly in Spanish. And although it was mostly in Spanish, he did deliver a couple of messages in English. He said, quote, "God bless America," and went on to name countries across the Americas. He had a football at the end. He spiked a football stamped with the words "together we are America." And, of course, a giant sign in Levi Stadium said, "the only thing more powerful than hate is love."

And so, you know, pointed messages, but not an overtly political message from Bad Bunny. You know, in the past, he has criticized the president's deportation agenda. He endorsed Kamala Harris. That's part of what fueled the backlash. It's part of why Turning Point USA, the -- a political organization founded by Charlie Kirk, put on their own halftime show with Kid Rock with Lee Brice, with Brantley Gilbert. The group said that that performance had more than six million streams on YouTube.

John.

BERMAN: Yes, it is notable, though, there actually are notable conservatives online now fighting with each other over the Bad Bunny show. Some people sticking up for it for this 13 minutes of sort of unbridled joy we're looking at there.

Kevin Liptak, at the White House, thank you so much for that.

Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right, this morning, the Seattle Seahawks are Super Bowl LX champs, but it is Bad Bunny's 13-minute Benito Bowl halftime show that's sparking more conversation than the game itself, as you just heard there. The Puerto Rican superstar performed the Super Bowl's first fully Spanish halftime show, complete with culture, history and even a live wedding. Dozens of flags and a unifying message. Benito spoke just a few words in English, including the words "God bless America," followed by a roll call of Caribbean, North Central and South American nations.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BAD BUNNY, MUSICIAN: God bless America, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, (INAUDIBLE), United States, Canada, (INAUDIBLE) Puerto Rico. (INAUDIBLE).

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:40:16]

SIDNER: Joining me now is Julyssa Lopez, deputy music editor at the "Rolling Stones."

Look, President Trump says no one understood a word he said. Yes, they did. One in seven Americans speak Spanish. And there are all those countries he just named, which all speak Spanish. So, let's be clear about this. But also, let's start with what Bad Bunny did by bringing Puerto Rico to the bay area and the world. How'd he do it?

JULYSSA LOPEZ, DEPUTY MUSIC EDITOR, "ROLLING STONE": I think he really -- he said he was going to unify people and get them to dance. And I think that's what he did. It was such a celebration of Puerto Rican culture. It was a celebration of Latino identity. And I think it really was showing how all of these countries, all of these places, all of these cultures have all shaped part of what the fabric of America is. And so, I think he was able to do that through all of these little -- these gestures, a lot of symbolism, a lot of -- all of these icons of Puerto Rican tradition. And he did it while getting people dancing.

SIDNER: What was -- what was real -- and someone wants to get in touch with you. Maybe it's Bad Bunny. I don't know.

What was real and what was made for TV because we were all watching going, oh my gosh, is that couple real? I think they might really be getting married. Wait, the trees are humans that ran out onto the field. When you look at this, what were the things that were actually real?

LOPEZ: So, the couple really did get married. That was confirmed by Bad Bunny's team. That was all true.

The trees, I think these were people that were flown in and asked to be part of the -- of the staging. Also, Bad Bunny and all of his shows has done something called la casita (ph), which is this little pink house that looks like a traditional Puerto Rican house, and it's become a staple of all of his shows where he has a lot of his famous friends come and hang out. And you saw Cardi B there. You saw Karol G there. You saw Pedro Pascal there. So, all of that was very real. And I think you could feel the energy in that stadium and everybody getting riled up and excited for this performance.

SIDNER: OK. There is a rumor that I think needs to be put to bed. So, he handed a Grammy over to a little boy. And if you go online, there is a lot of speculation about who that little boy is. Do we know who he is?

LOPEZ: Yes. There is a lot of speculation that that was Liam Ramos, the five-year-old boy who was recently detained in Minnesota. Bad Bunny's team quickly clarified that that's not the little boy. This was instead an actor whose name is Lincoln. And he was kind of meant more to represent Bad Bunny's sort of inner child. Bad Bunny, as a little boy, winning that Grammy and being able to make -- to make history because, as we know, just last week Bad Bunny made history by winning album of the year, which is the first time a Spanish language album has ever won that specific award in that category. So, not Lima Ramos.

SIDNER: And he did it with flair. Yes.

LOPEZ: Just wanted to clear that up.

SIDNER: Yes, it's good to clear that up.

All right, now this couple that actually got married during the Super Bowl, which is, how do you top that, had the great wedding singer Lady Gaga. So, we see Lady Gaga there.

LOPEZ: Oh, yes.

SIDNER: A lot of us were like, wait, is that -- from afar I was like, is that Christina -- wait, what's going on here? And then I was like, wait, but where is Bruno Mars? He's Puerto Rican, or part Puerto Rican. Why Lady Gaga? Why did he choose her?

LOPEZ: So, we -- actually, it's funny because at "Rolling Stone" we've kind of documented their friendship for a long time. I think when Bad Bunny was on the cover of "Rolling Stone" in 2023, Lady Gaga was one of the people that was responding to the cover with a bunch of emojis.

They've been friends for a while. He's been such a big fan of hers and talks about her a lot. And we saw them interact at the Grammy's together. There was that scene that kind of became a little bit of a meme, where she came up to him and grabbed his shoulder. So, I think they've been cooking this up for a while.

I think the choice was still surprising to a lot of people. I think a lot of people thought he might bring out Puerto Rican artists or old school reggaeton artists, but instead what you saw was Lady Gaga come out and she performed a salsa version of "Die With a Smile." So, it was a little bit of a twist on what she typically does. And then you saw them dance for a little bit together and do his song "BAILE INoLVIDABLE" (ph).

SIDNER: Yes, she is -- can do anything. Like, she is an incredible performer and singer.

But we did see some folks that we knew, like Cardi B and others who were in the casita (ph). It was just -- it was so much fun and there was so much love there. And there are a lot of people who were, like, really emotional about it. There was a -- there was a guy that worked for Telemundo that was there that was, like, this is the most beautiful thing. And he's like a sports guy and he was crying. So, it was a beautiful moment.

Julyssa Lopez, thank you. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate you.

LOPEZ: It was. Yes, it was.

[08:45:00] Thank you so much.

SIDNER: All right, Kate.

BOLDUAN: In a new interview with NBC News, President Trump took ownership of the current state of the economy, saying, "I'm very proud of it," he said. This comes as there is new polling showing that many voters are not as happy as the president with the way that things are going with said economy.

CNN's chief data analyst Harry Enten is running the numbers on this.

But also speaks to the changing nature of President Trump's base right now. Talk me through this.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yes, OK. So, you know, if you know anything about Donald Trump, you know that he built his two presidential victories on winning voters without a college degree, while Donald Trump's base with non-college voters is absolutely collapsing.

What are we talking about here? Well, why don't we just take a look. Voters without a college degree on Donald Trump. Look at this, back in 2024 he won those voters over Kamala Harris by 14 points. You come over to this side of the screen. What's his net approval rating with him? He is underwater by nine points. That's a 23-point switcheroo with his base of non-college voters. He is absolutely collapsing with the group of voters that helped put him into the White House, Kate.

BOLDUAN: OK. So, how are these non-college voters feeling about 2026?

ENTEN: OK, so, you know, you see this. You see this drop of 23 points, right, from plus 14 Trump to now he's underwater by nine points. How is that impacting their views on how they're going to vote for Congress.

Well, you see a similar story going on here, right? Take a look. In the 2024 election, Republicans won those voters, those non-college voters by 13 points. Now they're just ahead by just one, two, three, four points. When you can count it on one hand, you know that you're in trouble. If you're Donald John Trump and the Republican Party, in this case the Republican Party, when it comes to the voters in Congress. And, of course, a four-point lead among non-college voters is not anywhere close to being good enough because Democrats are dominating among voters with a college degree, up by 20 points. At this point, the Democratic base with college voters is rising, and the Republican base with non-college voters is collapsing.

BOLDUAN: One of the big promises when he -- circling back to the economy. One of the big promises from President Trump was bringing back manufacturing jobs. And that speaks to somewhat of this split that you're kind of highlighting here. How -- what are the hard numbers on this?

ENTEN: Yes, OK. One of the reasons why Donald Trump has been able to bring non-college voters into the Republican ranks is because he said, hey, I'm going to bring back those jobs, those manufacturing jobs that were lost to free trade, right? Bringing those tariffs. Restrict those jobs from moving overseas.

But there's just a bit of a problem going on here. How about those manufacturing jobs? In December of 2025, compared to the beginning of the Donald Trump presidency, the manufacturing jobs have gone adios, amigos, see you later. They've been going away. Down 63,000 versus January of 2025, with an even larger collapse since liberation day, right? So, what we're dealing with is a Donald Trump message that is not actually meeting the reality. And that is why non-college voters have been going away from the president of the United States and away from Republicans as well.

BOLDUAN: An important message in all of these numbers. Thanks so much, Harry.

ENTEN: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: All right, this morning, enough already. Seriously. Sixty million people under these extreme cold weather alerts. Where is it headed next?

And almost as reprehensible as taking candy from a baby, stealing the tip jar from hard working teenagers, all caught on camera.

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[08:52:21]

BERMAN: All right, a live look at stock futures ahead of the opening bell. You can see basically flat. Opening basically flat this morning after a big milestone passed on Friday. Dow hit 50,000. The president was pretty quick to take credit for it. He said that his tariffs were partially responsible, and he predicted that the Dow would get to 100,000 by the end of this term.

CNN's senior reporter Matt Egan is with us now.

We just -- no.

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: This is a look back to that major milestone on Friday.

BERMAN: Oh, you -- basically like a rewind, an instant replay.

EGEN: There you go. Instant replay. In case you missed that.

BERMAN: It's not so sexy as sports. Like, the Dow instant replay, not as good as like a sack.

EGAN: It's not. No. No.

But look, the president does sound a bit like the stock picker in chief with that Truth Social post last night and on Friday saying that it's not going to end at 50,000. It's going to go up to 100,000. Clearly taking a victory lap.

Now, normally presidents don't go out and make a bold prediction right there, right, like specific -- specifically saying when the Dow will hit a specific level. But, obviously, we've left the world of normal quite a while ago.

Now, this would take pretty much an epic move from the market, especially considering how much the market has already gained. When you look back at the market back to early -- late 2016, right, after the 2016 election, the Dow has almost tripled over that span. Of course, that was nearly a decade. What we're talking about now would be doubling in the span of less than three years. Those kinds of moves, they're rare. They're not unprecedented, though. It would require something like 34 percent per year for the Dow. That is almost triple the Dow's historical annualized gain, which is around 11.5 percent. Market veteran Art Hogan, he told me, look, maybe Dow 65,000, maybe 70,000 is doable. He said 100,000, that sounds overly optimistic. It would basically assume that nothing bad happens, right? No market meltdowns, no economic recession.

And in the past there's been a few instances where it's happened. Right, the Dow basically more than doubled after the Covid crash, after the 2008 financial crisis. But those were from low levels. This is from, obviously, a high level. The best comparison might be the 1990s, when the Dow did double. Of course, that proved to be unsustainable and eventually that dot com bubble burst.

And so I think that, John, look time will tell here, right? If the president is right, or if maybe there's a reason that presidents don't normally make predictions like that.

BERMAN: Yes. And the issue is over time the stock market goes up.

EGAN: Yes.

BERMAN: But it also drops from time to time, too. And you don't want to be caught predicting a huge gain if you're on the downturn.

[08:55:03]

EGAN: Absolutely.

BERMAN: Matt Egan, great to see you this morning. Thank you very much.

EGAN: Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you both.

More than 60 million people from Maryland all the way to Massachusetts are waking up to dangerous, record-breaking deep freeze this morning. Major cities, including Philadelphia and here in New York are under extreme cold alerts.

Let's get right to CNN's Derek Van Dam in the Weather Center. You know, it's disrespectful what is happening with the weather here.

It is so cold. You go outside, I'm like, all right, what is happening? My lips don't work. My hands don't work. I mean some people were happy because I can't talk too much. But what is happening? When does this end?

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: My wife sent me a meme the other day and it was like, why do I live in a place where the air hurts my face, right? So, who left the freezer door open? It is absolutely frigid and it continues, right?

So, here's a look at those 60 million Americans. Guess what? Albany, New York, has not risen above the freezing mark in over two weeks. And Watertown, New York, yesterday, had their second coldest February ever recorded, negative 36 degrees Fahrenheit. Yes, they got to a balmy three degrees by the afternoon.

Yes, we can make light of the cold, but this is actually dangerous, especially when you factor in the wind chills. When you start to step outside, this is what it feels like on your exposed skin, negative nine in Syracuse, negative 17 in Buffalo. You can get frostbite in about ten minutes on exposed skin. So, you need to bundle up, protect yourself from these types of elements.

There is, however, some relief in sight. And we like to see this because we're already noticing the temperatures going in the positive trend here across the Midwest and the Plains. That is when we are going to see the warmer air spread a little further towards the east. And this is what we want to see, especially as we head closer and closer to the spring season.

Check this graphic. And I -- and I really find that this is the most important part because there's a lot of red. You got to look to where the source of the warmer temperatures is. This area here across the central plains, where we have those red dots plotted, those are record high temperatures for today.

Now, as I advance this, look at how it tries to move into the eastern half of the U.S. Kind of eroding the blues. That is going to change the temperature map for us for many locations and give us a brief reprieve from this arctic chill that we have had.

So, Sara, I mean, why do we live in places where the air hurts our faces? What are we doing here?

SIDNER: I -- I don't know. I do love the city, but, man, I've been kind of angry the last couple of days, Derek. And it's all your fault.

VAN DAM: You're not alone.

SIDNER: Thank you, Derek. Appreciate it.

VAN DAM: Don't blame the messenger.

SIDNER: Kate. BOLDUAN: We are now learning, according to Reuters, skiing legend Lindsey Vonn underwent two surgeries in Italy after her terrifying crash at the Olympics. She suffered a fractured left leg during yesterday's Olympic downhill final. She's now said to be in stable condition, thankfully. The surgeries were on the same leg that she injured just over a week ago during another run where she ruptured her ACL and then made this amazing comeback even to get to that Olympic final. And then this.

Police in Michigan are now searching for a woman who was caught on camera stealing a tip jar, a jar full of cash. A supervisor at the restaurant where this happened says it was stolen when the hostess actually just went back to the kitchen to place a food order. That's when the thief was seen then snagging the jar. You see right there. The cash was meant specifically for the restaurant's teenage employees. Again, police are now looking for her.

John.

BERMAN: Just low, taking the money from the teenagers who are working hard there.

BOLDUAN: Right.

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, in the age of A.I., when so many people are nervous about A.I. coming and taking their jobs, there might be one industry that's a little bit resistant.

CNN business tech editor Lisa Eadicicco is here.

So, where do I have to go work if I want to keep my job?

LISA EADICICCO, CNN BUSINESS TECH EDITOR: So, radiology keeps coming up in conversations about the future of A.I. and work because it is thought to be a field that has benefited a lot from A.I., but there's still a demand for radiologists. So, this comes up a lot in conversations, for example, at the World Economic Forum last month. Radiology was mentioned in a couple of answers to questions about how A.I. will impact work.

And I do think there's a couple of reasons for that. One, A.I. happens to be really good at a lot of the things that are involved in the actual job of radiology. For example, going through really large data sets and analyzing images, things like that. The radiologists that I spoke with are using it for things like triaging, deciding which x- rays maybe are higher priority that need to be addressed sooner than some of the others. Things like that. For example, also speeding up the amount of time it takes to capture an MRI, right? These are all things that are helpful and give the radiologist more time to spend with patients but don't take away from the job that they do. So, I think that's why a lot of tech leaders are kind of pointing to that job as an industry, as an example of the rosy outlook of A.I.'.s impact on jobs.

[09:00:03] That said, we don't know if that's going to apply to every single industry. Just last week we saw what happened with software stocks after the