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Trump Expected to Talk About Economy in State of the Union Address; Source Says, Suspect Seen at Guthrie's Door Before the Day She Disappeared; Potential for More Snow Across Northeast as Millions Dig Out. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired February 24, 2026 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right this morning, brand new reporting on what the president will say in tonight's State of the Union Address, as new polling shows the American people think he is focused on the wrong things.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Did the suspect who kidnap Nancy Guthrie appear on her doorstep days before the new reporting? On an image of a masked man on her doorstep, recorded on another night. What the sheriff is now saying,

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: And you thought it was over, haha. This morning, the blizzard of '26 makes way for the great dig out of '26. But, wait, a new winter blast is brewing.

I'm Sara Sidner with John Berman and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: We have new CNN reporting this morning on what President Trump will say just hours from now when he delivers his State of the Union Address to Congress and the American people, that in just a moment.

First, this is how the president previewed his speech.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: We have a country that's now doing well. We have the greatest economy we've ever had. We have the most activity we've ever had. I'm making a speech tomorrow night and you'll be hearing me say that. I mean, it's going to be a long speech because that's -- we have so much to talk about.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Well, taking a look at just one of the measures on the economy, the U.S. added only 181,000 jobs in the entire year of 2025. That's the kind of number a healthy economy might add in a single month, economic growth last quarter was only 1.4 percent. That's way down from the third quarter. There is controversy over looming potential strikes on Iran, frustration over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case, backlash to the ICE crackdown in Minnesota, and, of course, a historic rebuke by the Supreme Court striking down his tariffs.

And heading into tonight, the president approval sits at 36 percent. That's down from 48 percent last February.

Let's get to CNN's Alayna Treene live at the White House this morning, where I have to believe, Alayna, preparations are underway.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Oh, absolutely, John. And he also spent a good portion of yesterday, I'm told, the president preparing for tonight as well.

I do just want to go back to that clip you played of the president with him saying it's likely to be a long speech. I'd remind you that last year he gave an address to Congress. It wasn't an official State of the Union Address, but essentially it was, and that was 99 minutes. Him saying that this is going to be a long speech tonight, it could have ultimately hit the 100-minute mark. We'll have to see.

But, look, he's really planning to tick through what he deems as his administration's biggest accomplishments from his first year in office. A lot of that is going to be him talking about his policies that he ushered in last year with Congress, you know, the tax cuts included in that. I'm told he is expected to talk about what he's been doing to try and lower prescription drug prices.

But a lot of this as well is going to be kind of marking a big milestone this year for America, America's 250th anniversary, something that the president has been very much hyped up about in his second term. And a lot of that is going to be him trying to say that he's ushering in this new era of exceptionalism.

However, one of the key questions, of course, is how he actually talks about the issues that Americans want him to be talking about. And the big one is going to be the economy and affordability. That is an issue that his team here at the White House, his top advisers in that building behind me, John, have been trying to get him to stay not only on message, but on the right message.

And I'm very much keen to see how he talks about that tonight, particularly when you see recent polling showing that a lot of Americans are not happy with his handling of the economy. A recent poll from CNN actually said 57 percent are very much eager to hear about him talk about the economy tonight. From what I've been told from my sources, he's expected to kind of talk through and specifically actually talk about American stories that he believes kind of props him up on this issue.

But another thing I'll be watching for, of course, is the people that he's going to have in front of him. You mentioned the Supreme Court, that tariff decision on just Friday, where they really rebuked him. A lot of those people, justices are going to be in front of him, he's going to have to deal with that, as well as a lot of Republicans who have been pushing back on some of his key policies. All of that though will be wrapped into the speech tonight as he tries to tout what he believes was a great first year in office. John?

BERMAN: If it's 90 to 100 minutes, he can fill that time with a lot of different things.

[07:05:02]

Alayna Treene, thank you very much for that reporting. Kate?

BOLDUAN: All right. Let's turn now to the new details on the search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie. A source now tells CNN the masked person seen in doorbell camera footage is believed to have appeared on her doorstep on another night before she was kidnapped. The source saying that the video and images were taken two different days and point to how the masked suspect is seen wearing a backpack in some images and in others, as you see, not. The search for Guthrie has now stretched into a fourth week, if you can believe it.

Joining us right now for more on this is Andrew McCabe, CNN, senior law enforcement analyst and former deputy director of the FBI.

Okay, Andy, when you hear this, we have the images, they're from two different nights, what does this add into this investigation? Does it add clarity? Does it add more complexity? What do you see?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Well, Kate, it doesn't add a lot that's new, but it does make sense. And it kind of resolves some conflicts that we had with some of this information before this. And that is those -- that image, the single image there, where the subject is or the person of interest is not wearing the backpack or the gun, was just completely inconsistent with what we saw on the video.

And there's almost no way, there's no scenario that you can imagine in which someone comes to that house in the middle of the night to execute a kidnapping or an abduction, and in one moment they are carrying the things they need and a gun, and in the next moment they're not. So, it certainly makes sense that it was an earlier photograph of a moment of surveillance or reconnaissance to understand what the subject's residence looked like and what sort of dangers were there for that person.

It also makes sense with what we've heard the FBI ask for in terms of asking the community to review their surveillance cameras. We know they've said, please go back and look at the entire month of January and focus particular attention on January 11th. So, we don't know that that photograph comes from January 11th, but I think it's fair to speculate that they have some sort of information that raises January 11th as a possible night of reconnaissance, and now we know we have this photograph that was taken on a different day that was likely capturing that reconnaissance as it was taking place.

BOLDUAN: So, this kind of clarification coming from sources, right? Late yesterday evening, we get a statement from the Pima County Sheriff's Department saying this in part, there is no date or timestamp associated with these images and any suggestion that the photographs were taken on different days as purely speculative. That adds to me, now I'm more confused.

MCCABE: Yes, I think that's the sheriff trying to be particularly careful about releasing information. I think they've been, in some respects, a little bit overcareful about it. They've not released much information in the last few weeks, which I think is a lost opportunity.

But nevertheless, what he's saying is probably entirely accurate. There is no -- when they recovered those images, those are not perfect images that were recorded intentionally. As we know, those were images that happened to be -- that were a -- we were able to locate from somewhere deep within the security company system.

So, it may not actually bear a specific date stamp on the image. However, as I mentioned, they may have other information that suggests that reconnaissance was done on that night, on January 11th, or some other night, and that photograph certainly makes much more sense, you know, structurally as an image that was taken on an earlier day.

BOLDUAN: Yes, which, let's be honest, is appreciated as none of this makes sense, why Nancy Guthrie was kidnapped, why this has played out the way it has. We're now into a fourth week of searching for Nancy Guthrie.

Andy, it's good to see you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you coming in. Sara?

SIDNER: All right, thank you, Kate.

It's not over. After record-breaking storms and freezing temperatures, there is more extreme weather on the way after the historic bomb cyclone that slammed the Northeast.

And now that the Supreme Court has declared President Trump's tariffs illegal, how much of that $134 billion will go back to American consumers? We'll have more on that ahead.

And iconic rapper and official CNC hype man, Flava Flav, fresh off the Olympics says, yes, boy, to the U.S. Women's Hockey Team offering to host them for a, quote, real celebration in Las Vegas, because they're not going to the White House.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:10:00]

SIDNER: This morning, the bomb cyclone moving out, but parts of the Northeast are still buried under three feet of snow. Nearly 400,000 people across the region still don't have any power. In New York, many people are still snowed in with piles of snow lining, sidewalks and roads, and parts of New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, more than 30 inches of snow fell, and more snow on the way tonight.

CNN's Michael Yoshida is in Boston. You are -- well, you just tell me where you are because, clearly, that is a mountain of snow.

MICHAEL YOSHIDA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Sara. Well, the big dig out, it started here in Boston following yesterday's storm. You know, we were talking with you guys yesterday. We were trying to show the buildings behind us. But we had all those whiteout conditions so you couldn't see them. That stopped, thankfully. But the bad news, it all ended up on the ground. And you can see the crews. They've been working throughout the night.

We were out here late last night doing some live shots, and they were building up this massive pile of snow clearing the streets, obviously doing a great job, because you walk through here, you can see at least this street here in Boston wide open for the most part. Streets open, cars being able to make their way, we have people out walking this morning trying to get to and from work.

So, the cleanup has started here in Boston. We still have no school here. We still have other impacts going on. But the big story here in Massachusetts is in the south coast area of the state out on the Cape, that's where you were talking about those power outages. We have some 250,000 customers at last check without power here in the Commonwealth, a good chunk of that down in that area along the Cape. That's where we saw all of this snow. We got all of this heavy wet snow caking, the power lines, caking the trees, bringing those down, leaning to all of that power trouble.

[07:15:00]

Officials across the state, the utility companies saying they're out, they're getting to work, but for some of those harder hit areas, it could be some time, maybe even several days until they get those lights back on.

I had a chance to speak with a plow driver yesterday talking about this storm. He said he'd been doing this for 40 some years. This is one of the tougher storms because of that heavy, wet snow. Obviously, the cleanup started, but still some work to get done. Sara?

SIDNER: Michael, bless you and your team for being out there throughout this. We could see you struggling in the wind and snow yesterday, and here you are again in the freezing cold. We do appreciate you.

Over to you, John. And John, you tell me this is pronounced --

BERMAN: Situate.

SIDNER: -- situate.

BERMAN: Situate on the south shore. There's a great tradition in Boston proper, which is if you dig your car out after a storm like this, that is your space until the snow melts. Like you can come and go, but that's your space until the snow melts.

They tried to actually ban it about 15, 20 years ago and people went bonkers. So, that's almost the law.

SIDNER: I love that.

BERMAN: Almost.

SIDNER: It's common law. It's the common law.

BERMAN: Exactly.

SIDNER: I like it. Let's do it.

BERMAN: Right. Some pretty serious news, new calls for Congressman Tony Gonzales to resign. Text messages emerged purportedly of him asking a staffer for sexy pictures. She later took her own life.

And then 11 years after their last epic bout, they are fighting again. But, honestly, at age 47 and 49, should Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather be fighting at all?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

BERMAN: All right. This morning, the U.S. Men's Hockey Team back on home soil, the first day where they will never have to pay for a drink again for the rest of their lives.

Let's get right to CNN's Andy Scholes. And I get the sense that there may be some members of that team that take advantage of that.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yes, you're 100 percent right there, John. They're having a grand old time being back. I promise you that. And, you know, President Trump, he's also invited the men's team to go to D.C. today to attend the State of the Union Address tonight, and it's just been a wild 40 hours for the team. So, we'll see who still has enough gas in the tank to make it up there.

The team arrived back to the U.S. yesterday. You can tell by the look on their faces, hadn't gotten a lot of sleep since Jack Hughes scored that winning goal against Canada.

Now, the team had to go to Miami instead of New York because of the blizzard. Tons of fans, they were at the airport to greet the team and they said -- well, the team said they're excited to bring the celebration back home.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEW TKACHUK, USA HOCKEY GOLD MEDALIST: It's been amazing. It's a dream of ours. It's was such an amazing way to unite the country. We felt the support being across the Atlantic and now being back on home soil. We can feel it the second wheels hit the ground. So, I'm so excited to be back in the greatest country in the world and so excited to celebrate.

JACK HUGHES, SCORED GAME-WINNING GOAL IN O.T.: It's been long, like no sleep, obviously. And then, you know, we're enjoying it with our family, friends, you know, great celebration after the game. And then we had like a 4:30 bus to get on the flight to get here. So, happy to be back in the U.S. now and we're going to enjoy this for a few days.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SCHOLES: Yes. Now I assume the guys got some rest yesterday afternoon because they were back at it celebrating at a club in Miami last night. The NHL season resumes tomorrow. We'll see how many of the guys can recover in time to suit up for their team.

Now, the U.S. Women meanwhile have politely declined President Trump's invite to the State of the Union Address tonight. There's been much criticism on how the invitation was handled in a joking way while speaking with the men's team. The statement the women's team said, due to the timing and previously scheduled academic and professional commitments following the games, the athletes are unable to participate. They were honored to be included and are grateful for the acknowledgement.

Now rapper in reality star Flava Flav meanwhile, he wants to celebrate the women's team. He tweeted, if the U.S. Women's Hockey Team wants a real celebration and invite, I'll host them in Las Vegas, do some nice dinners and shows and good times. I'm sure I can get a hotel and airline to help me out here and celebrate these women for real, for real.

All right, and finally we are getting a Floyd Mayweather, Manny Pacquiao rematch 11 years after their first bout. So, Mayweather beat Pacquiao by unanimous decision back in 2015, but Manny has always wanted a rematch, insisting he wasn't completely healthy for that bout. The fight's going to be September 19th at The Sphere in Las Vegas. It's going to be on Netflix.

So, Mayweather's 49 years old now, Pacquiaio's 47. Mayweather's actually going to fight Mike Tyson, who's 59 in the exhibition match this spring, John.

But, you know, I was at that match back in 2015. You know, it was a big spectacle. But even back then, in 2015, John, we were saying this fight is ten years too late. So, what is it now? But I guess that just goes to say where we are in boxing, you know?

BERMAN: Yes. Look, I love boxing and I have had a chance to talk to Manny Pacquiao a few times over the years, but like not for 15 years when he was first thinking about retiring. I'm not so sure this should be celebrated. These are two pretty old guys getting in a ring, about to hit each other pretty hard. So, you know, it's their lives, they can do what they want, but we'll see.

SCHOLES: We'll see. I'll probably -- I'll watch it.

BERMAN: Andy Scholes, thank you.

BOLDUAN: It's like definition of grown men making their own decisions.

BERMAN: Or not, based on how many times they've been hit in the head over the years.

BOLDUAN: J.B. --

BERMAN: Seriously, I'm being -- honestly, I think this is a serious thing. So --

BOLDUAN: It's still a boxing match.

BERMAN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: And they're still grown men and can make grown men decisions if they want to get into said ring.

Here we go. Where do tariff dollars go now? Lawmakers are now demanding refunds from President Trump to the tune of $134 billion for small businesses, and FedEx just filed a lawsuit for a refund as well.

Ukraine's president sits down with CNN on the fourth anniversary of Russia invading his country. What he's listening for now in President Trump's State of the Union Address tonight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: I want him to stay on our side.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

SIDNER: President Trump is getting ready for primetime. A live picture there from the White House. Just hours from now, he'll give us his take on how the country is doing in his State of the Union Address. He's expected to focus on the economy, arguing that it is strong overall, despite concerns among Americans about affordability.

Some Democrats are going to boycott the speech and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries says he expects those who do attend will show some decorum.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): It's my expectation that members.