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Tourists Remain Stuck in Mexico After Cartel Operation; New Reward From Guthrie Family; Trump Prepares to Deliver State of the Union Address Tonight; Footage of Suspect at Guthrie's Door From Two Different Dates; Mexican Troops Guard Site Where Cartel Boss Was Capture, Wounded. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired February 24, 2026 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": -- resilience, as you were speaking to a number of Ukrainians, and the fact that they're really tired of it. Could you just talk to us a little bit more about what they've shared with you?

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is what I really notice, is that what started out as being Ukraine's greatest virtue, this extraordinary superhuman resilience, a lot of them now feel has become a burden because people just expect them to continue to endure and endure as long as this war continues. And what they feel at this moment is enough is enough. We're at a breaking point. We need support. And this just needs to end.

HILL: Clarissa, I really appreciate it. And so good to have you there. And I would encourage anyone who hasn't seen it to find Clarissa's piece online and watch it.

A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

The State of the Union is TBD. President Trump plans to say the nation is, "strong, prosperous, and respected." Will the American public buy what he's selling?

No way out for some tourists stuck in Mexico, even as the country's president says the nation is returning to normal after the operation that killed the notorious cartel leader, El Mencho.

And a million-dollar plea for help. Savannah Guthrie and her family offering a new reward for information about her mother. We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": The theme of President Trump's State of the Union address tonight will focus on America at 250, strong, prosperous, and respected. And the president is expected to tick through a series of what he deems as his administration's biggest accomplishments. But the key question, will he stay on message when it comes to what is maybe the top issue for Americans, which, to quote James Carville, "It's the economy, stupid." So, what's the state of the economy? It is surprisingly strong. Then why is consumer confidence near record lows? Why is the president getting bad marks on the issue from potential voters? Let's break it down.

The good, stocks, they remain near all-time highs. And look, Wall Street is not the entire economy, but enthusiasm from investors helps retirement accounts, which can drive consumers to open their wallets. Another strength, the U.S. economy, it grew at 2.2 percent last year, which is in line with the last three years of economic growth. And that growth is notable when you consider that the longest-ever government shutdown shaved a bunch of productivity off the books.

From the good to the stable parts of the economy, last year was one of the weakest years of jobs growth in decades. It's not great, but job growth was stronger than expected last month and the employment rate remains low. And experts believe the job market could be on the road to recovery. They feel the economy does not need to create many jobs because of low immigration and birth rates.

And then another solid indicator that we're watching is inflation, which appears to be on the downswing again. There is some bad news, though. So is the paycheck growth, which has been on the steady slide for more than three years. But with inflation slowing, that means that paychecks can stretch farther.

But here's the thing with that. Wealthier Americans are feeling that positive more than low-income folks, which leads us to the rough parts of the economy. We mentioned the booming stock market, which has increased prosperity for high-income Americans.

But for some lower- and middle-income households, the finances just seem to get tighter. The burdens are growing. And case in point here, a growing number of Americans are more than three months late on their loans.

Credit card, mortgage delinquencies, those have shot up in recent years. Car loan delinquencies are around where they were during the Great Recession. Student loan delinquencies have been surging after the U.S. government ended the payment pause in late 2024.

So, bottom line here, the president's economic record in his second term appears to be as much about messaging as it is about the numbers, something the president's top advisers have tried for months to try to nail down. They have encouraged the president to be more sympathetic when it comes to Americans and their affordability concerns. But the president continues to claim the economy is thriving, thanks to his policies.

And yet, pulling on the economy and the cost of living could be seen as worrisome for those in the White House. The latest Washington Post- ABC-Ipsos poll shows that 57 percent of Americans disapprove of the president's handling on this issue. So, we'll see how the president addresses it tonight, Erica.

HILL: That is the big question. Joining us to discuss the president's address tonight, pollster and communications strategist, Frank Luntz. Frank, good to see you.

So, Brianna laid out what we know there, right, about the economy, and also at least one poll that shows how Americans are feeling about it. The White House press secretary has said the president will spend a lot of time on the economy tonight, and that fits with what the American people want to hear based on our latest CNN polling. What do you think it is specifically that the president can say to convince the American people that he actually has a handle on the economy?

[14:05:00]

FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER & COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGIST: It's not the economy. I want to challenge that. It's affordability. In the end, the public is secure with the jobs that they have. They're secure about the overall environment. There's some question about tariffs. That continues to plague the White House. But it's affordability that cost Joe Biden his re-election, cost Kamala Harris, and is now a challenge to this administration.

And in the end, you have to empathize. You have to hear and not reject it. That cost of living matters to every American, regardless of whether you're lower, middle income, or higher. And so, he has to be able to show that he's got -- sorry, go ahead.

HILL: No, no, finish, Frank.

LUNTZ: So, he has to be able to show that he's got a plan, that that plan is detailed, that it's working, and that he understands this. And it's broader than just food and fuel. It's housing. It's health care. It's insurance. Any issue where prices are going -- climbing beyond what the public's ability to afford it, those are the things that he needs to address tonight.

HILL: And to your point, we were just putting up the numbers. I don't know if you were able to see it, but our latest CNN poll out this week that shows 57 percent want to focus on the economy/cost of living. For most Americans, if you talk about the economy, that is about affordability, right? It's their personal economy as they think about it.

What I think is also interesting is, is in that same poll, 68 percent said that they don't believe he's paying enough attention to the country's most important problems. So I hear what you're saying about addressing that. But that has, as Brianna was just laying out, the messaging has been one of the issues. Is it your sense that that is starting to break through for the president?

LUNTZ: It's my sense that he has more to go, but he has more time, that the public makes their decisions sometime around Labor Day. And so, he's got another eight months where the public will be watching, will be considering their own situation and how he seems to be impacting that. But at that Labor Day, that's when decisions are made whether or not the president has been successful or not. And these are issues that he only has some control over.

There's only so much a president can do. For his messaging, step number one is, I get it. I understand. I hear you. Step number two is, I have a detailed plan of action to address this, detailed because it's specific, planned because they want to see it laid out, and action because they want something done. And third, he cannot keep dismissing the half of America who didn't vote for him, that in the end, this is all of America. We're not Democrats or Republicans. We're Americans. And he needs to use the State of the Union to make that conclusion, so that everyone feels like they're embraced by what he's trying to do.

HILL: Do you think he will, though, in fact, do that? I mean, we heard, I'm just calling this out, so give me one second, Frank. But we heard from Jim Jordan earlier today speaking with Manu Raju, who said, and I'm quoting him here, he said that one of the things that the president is going to talk about tonight is he's going to talk about how the left is crazy. The president may feel that way. But how is that uniting the country?

LUNTZ: It isn't. And it's a difference of opinion. I know that some strategists believe that he should be using this speech to make and articulate the case for the Republican Party and Republican candidates in the fall. I'm of the belief that you need to use the State of the Union to bring the country together, to articulate what you're going to do for every American.

And then in the end, you invite accountability, you invite judgment from the population based on your performance, based on your objectives, based on your plans, because in the end, that's what will make us a stronger democracy and a stronger country.

HILL: We will see if the president is listening to you today, Frank. Appreciate it as always. Thank you.

LUNTZ: Thank you.

HILL: Still ahead here, the family of Nancy Guthrie now raising their offer of a reward for information. What the sheriff is now saying about the person captured on a doorbell camera outside of Nancy Guthrie's home.

Plus, travel chaos in Mexico following the killing of a drug kingpin over the weekend. What stranded tourists are doing as they wait to get home.

And a bit later, President Trump invites both gold medal winning hockey teams to the State of the Union. Did some players though feel perhaps left out in the cold by the way that offer was made and received? That and much more ahead on "CNN News Central."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:14:15]

KEILAR: The family of Nancy Guthrie has just released another emotional video pleading for the return of their mother.

HILL: In that video, Savannah Guthrie also announces a $1 million reward for any information and offers a heartbreaking acknowledgement.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, HOST OF "TODAY" SHOW, NBC NEWS: We also know that she may be lost. She may already be gone. She may have already gone home to the Lord that she loves. But we need to know where she is.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: The search for Nancy Guthrie is now in its fourth week. Joining us to discuss, CNN Chief Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst, John Miller. John, it is a tough video to watch, right? Your heart goes out to Savannah, to her entire family.

[14:15:00]

What do you make of what we see in this video?

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, I think we see a couple of things going on at once. First, announcing a $1 million reward is meant to bring out those people that they truly believe exist. People who don't just have a lead or something they saw, most of those people came forward already. They were deluged with such leads.

But somebody who actually knows. Somebody who actually knows what happened, where she is, who's behind it. And getting to that amount of money is supposed to make someone like that who has been hesitating and avoiding this maybe step forward. That's the first thing.

The second thing they're trying to do is to be clearer about the idea that they hinted at in a video that was released earlier, which is they understand that she might not be alive. They are hoping against hope that she is, and they need her back if she is.

But even if she isn't, they still want her back in whatever condition she can be delivered, whatever condition they can point them where to find her. And that's very important to them.

KEILAR: It's incredibly important to have some kind of closure here, even if it is not that miracle that they're praying for. And the reports, John, of the masked suspect being at Nancy Guthrie's home on a day other than that day of her disappearance, what's the importance of this? And what do you make of the Pima County sheriff seeming to downplay the discovery with his comments about there being no timestamp associated with the images? Is it or is it not a new clue?

MILLER: So, it's not a new clue. Law enforcement has been aware of it from the beginning. It's something that they chose not to share with the media for a strategic reason, which is they don't know how many times, other than those two times, that the suspect might have been to the house doing surveillances or reconnaissance or what equipment he might have carried with him, including communications devices that might have left a trace.

So, they were deliberate in not saying that those pictures occurred on separate dates, but they wanted to give us as many pictures that had as good a view of the suspect head to toe as they could. What does it mean? It means that he did apparently do reconnaissance, pre- operational surveillance, trying to get a lay of the land. Literally, where are the lights? Where are the cameras? The kinds of things you would do before you did some kind of dynamic entry and violent abduction.

And I say violent because we know that's Nancy Guthrie's blood from DNA on those front steps where we see him looking around. So apparently, there was a struggle and at least an injury as this occurred.

HILL: John, before we let you go, you know, as you talk about it and we've talked with you in so many investigations, it's important to note there's a lot that we don't know publicly. There's a lot of things that are happening behind the scenes. So even when we're talking about these two different pictures that stood out to people when they were initially released, even if we don't have the timestamps there, when you mentioned the communications device that this person could have had, all of that one would imagine has been going on for the last several weeks in terms of trying to figure out who or what may have been in the area in the days leading up to Mrs. Guthrie's disappearance.

MILLER: You know, Erica, the leads have slowed down. And that's natural at this stage as we approach a month this weekend. But that doesn't mean the investigators have slowed down. They've spent less time than they'd like to on those leads. I think the $1 million reward will bring a new deluge of leads today into the FBI's NTOC Center where they're taking those calls.

But, they have been very busy trying to trace that backpack. Was it purchased at a Walmart or brought online? And they're going to go through a lot of those purchases. The jacket, identifying the shoes, looking at the cellular signals that were there on the date they know the first picture was taken versus the date of the actual abduction. Any of those common threads. It's very man-hour intensive. It's a lot of detail work.

As you remember from the Washington, D.C. bombing case, those things can take months or longer to go through all of those leads till you find that one that connects. But that's all going on in the background. One of the reasons they don't call these news conferences and talk about it is, they don't want to get into that level of the detail. But it's not that they're not busy.

HILL: Yeah. John, appreciate it as always. Thank you.

Still ahead, Americans stranded in Mexico after the violence brought on by the killing of a drug cartel boss. So, what is the impact of that situation? How could it keep tourists from coming back to the area? How safe are the residents in the area? We're live.

[14:20:00]

HILL: Today, we're getting in some new video from Western Mexico, which shows a heavy presence of Mexican troops and crime scene investigators near the site where the drug kingpin known as El Mencho was captured and mortally wounded.

[14:25:00]

He later died of those wounds.

KEILAR: President Claudia Sheinbaum says things are beginning to return to normal after cartel members launched widespread retaliatory attacks across multiple Mexican states on Sunday. That led to flight cancellations and lockdowns, thousands of tourists remaining stuck and unable to return home at this hour.

CNN's Senior National Correspondent, David Culver has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We're about to touch down. This is one of the few commercial flights that's actually able to land in Guadalajara today. This plane will be fully booked with a very long standby list of people eager to get out.

I mean, this is what you see as soon as you walk out of baggage claim. You've got crowds of folks who are sitting with all their luggage. You've got people who have turned their luggage into furniture, propping their legs up, some of them essentially camping out under blankets. And many of them seem to be here without even anywhere to go.

They don't have flights. They don't have a confirmed ticket. They don't even know if they have a ticket, if the plane will take off.

How confident are you you'll be flying out tonight?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Hopefully.

MUSKAN DAVE, STRANDED TOURIST: Like, it's a 50/50.

CULVER: You don't feel internally at ease?

DAVE: No. It feels like eerily quiet right now. And then, like, you read online that, OK, maybe the cartel is, like, regrouping and maybe it's going to get worse now. And --

CULVER: You just want out of here at this point?

DAVE: Yeah, 100 percent.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.

DAVE: Yeah.

CULVER: You just want to go home?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.

ANITA EGSDAL LUTTA, STRANDED TOURIST: Yeah. I'm five months pregnant.

CULVER: You're five months?

A. EGSDAL LUTTA: Yeah.

MARTIN EGSDAL LUTTA, STRANDED TOURIST: We cannot run if anything actually happens.

A. EGSDAL LUTTA: No.

M. EGSDAL LUTTA: And then also, like, just to keep the baby healthy. How are we going to get food? Are we going to be able to have clean water?

CULVER: So where will you sleep?

A. EGSDAL LUTTA: We don't know yet. We'll just take it --

M. EGSDAL LUTTA: (Inaudible).

A. EGSDAL LUTTA: Yeah, take it by the minute and see what happens.

CULVER: Is it possible you'll end up sleeping here tonight?

A. EGSDAL LUTTA: Possibly, yeah.

M. EGSDAL LUTTA: Yeah.

CULVER: You've got Army, National Guard -- I mean, let's see there. They're searching some of the vehicles, it looks like, there too. I mean, in the middle of the highway, the car burnt out. I mean, another very obvious sign of the narco-terrorism, targeting a popular convenience store. This OXXO, look at it, torched.

CULVER (voice-over): The chaos erupted Sunday after Mexican authorities launched an operation against the Jalisco New Generation Cartel. The main target, the cartel boss himself, Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, better known as 'El Mencho.'

Mexican Special Forces raided his compound in the town of Tapalpa, led there, officials say, through a romantic connection of El Mencho. Video recorded by locals and geolocated by CNN showed the Mexican military swarming the area after confirming his location.

The cartel leader captured and injured during the operation. Officials say he died en route to Mexico City for treatment. El Mencho was wanted on drug trafficking charges by both Mexico and the United States.

White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt called him a top target for both countries and said the U.S. provided Mexico with intelligence support ahead of the operation. His death sparking a wave of retaliatory violence across at least 20 Mexican states, but nowhere worse than in the cartel's stronghold of Jalisco, and especially in the coastal city and American tourist hotspot, Puerto Vallarta. Large plumes of smoke seen covering the city. As tourists hunkered down inside one of the many hotels, the cartel set barricades on fire across the city. Many stranded after airlines suspended flights amidst the violence.

Here in the state capital, Guadalajara, set to host World Cup games in just a few months, fierce clashes between gangs and the police. One video showing a man seemingly trying to set a truck on fire.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KEILAR: And David Culver is with us now live in Guadalajara. And David, you've had to move around a few times in just the last few minutes. What's happening there?

CULVER (on camera): A handful of times just because there's outbreaks of uncertainty. And we're not sure just yet if there was an actual exchange of gunfire or if it's just at this point rumors of something which have been happening. They trigger a certain response.

But let me just tell you where I am. I mean, this is the military base that we were just at where the governor of this state of Jalisco was holding a press conference. He lifted the code red. He said life is getting back to normal. Businesses are opening. Cars are back on the streets.

Schools will reopen tomorrow. And an hour, hour-and-a-half after he said that, then there were concerns that there might be an exchange or an attack of gunfire just on the other side of the base. And they immediately had us get off the base.

And they've even, as we were trying to set up to talk to you now just a few minutes ago, hurried us along to even be as close as we were just a block over. So it does show you that there is, even with a code red lifted, a lot of uncertainty as to what the next steps are going to be here and what really they can do as far as sustaining any sense of true security.

KEILAR: Yeah, a lot of questions for today --