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Scramble to Contain New Ebola Outbreak; Art Raymond is Interviewed about a Utah Data Centers; Trump and Primaries Down Ballot; Bodies Located in Underwater Cave. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired May 18, 2026 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:30:00]
DR. CELINE GOUNDER, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST AND EPIDEMIOLOGIST: And I'm very concerned that we're not prepared.
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SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: CNN's Larry Madowo is joining me now from Nairobi, Kenya, with the very latest on this.
This is really frightening and very serious. We're already seeing more than 100 people who have died. What are you learning this morning?
LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're learning a short while ago that now 105 people have been confirmed dead, Sara, suspected of Ebola. This is the Bundibugyo virus. This is one of the strains that causes the Ebola virus. And it has no treatment. There's no vaccine at this time.
Most of these deaths occurred in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This is an area that's already conflict prone, and people travel a lot to neighboring countries, to Uganda. That's how you saw these two cases in Uganda, but also to neighboring Rwanda and to South Sudan. And now this entire region on high alert.
This is the 17th outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And you are wondering why specifically the DRC? We asked one expert who's managed Ebola outbreaks in the past.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. AHMED OGWELL, CEO AND PRESIDENT, VILLAGEREACH: Some of the populations actually eat bats and therefore the exposure to the Ebola virus is much, much higher in the belt across central part of Africa, and particularly in the DRC, where Ebola virus was first characterized in 1976. And that communication between the human population and the fruit bat in the forest continues. And any time that a fruit bat has the Ebola virus, then the human being is exposed.
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MADOWO: So, surveillance, lab and control efforts are currently ongoing in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The U.S. CDC has sent assistance, working with their interagency partners to help contain this.
The reason is because viruses have no borders. And if it is not contained in the DRC, it will end up around the world, including the United States. The DRC, for instance, has qualified for the World Cup. There will be fans, there will be players, there will be team members coming to the U.S.
At the same time, the CDC is saying a small number of Americans are to be relocated who are directly affected. It did not offer any more information about that. But that is just part of the response right now as the government of the DRC, to their credit, after 17 outbreaks, they've become quite good at managing this. The concern, Sara, is that this might have been detected quite late, and there could be people in the population who are affected.
SIDNER: Yes, a lot to pay attention to. I know you'll be watching this for us there on the African continent and seeing what the spread might be.
Larry Madowo, thank you so much for all your reporting there for us.
Kate.
KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, absolutely. Thanks to him.
There's a new interview with the president of the United States in "Fortune." And in it, President Trump is talking about the A.I. race and the growing debate around A.I. data centers in part. The president saying that there's power for good with A.I. Also adding this, saying, "they need two times more electricity than we have right now," and, "we are beating China by a lot in A.I. because I allowed these plants to be built. These companies build their own electric units now, they don't use the grid at all. Otherwise, we wouldn't be able to compete. It's important that we win."
The president there seems to be specifically talking about his push to get tech companies to supply their own electricity for their data centers, saying that it will shield Americans from footing the bill. Though many Americans and experts disagree.
A new Gallup poll finds that seven in ten Americans say that they do not want A.I. data centers in their communities. And we have seen major protests against these centers in places like Texas, Oregon, Nevada, and Utah. In Utah, plans for one A.I. data center is getting a lot of attention. The community now trying to get the issue to be put on the ballot in November.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CROWD: People over profit. People over profit.
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BOLDUAN: And some of the backlash is also against one of that data center's project's investors, "Shark Tank's" Kevin O'Leary.
Listen to him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KEVIN O'LEARY, SHARK TANK INVESTOR: The economic benefit is incredible. We're talking about bringing billions into the state and jobs and all the auxiliary businesses that go around that and supporting new fire trucks and supporting new sheriffs and everything we have to, to make sure that we can protect this facility.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BOLDUAN: This is becoming a very big thing.
Joining me right now is Art Raymond, technology reporter for the "Deseret News," for more on this.
Art, thanks for being here.
Help people understand how big is this fight in Utah, also and beyond, just communities against data centers right now.
ART RAYMOND, TECHNOLOGY AND ADVANCED INDUSTRIES REPORTER, "DESERET NEWS": Yes. Well, I think the resistance, the concerns are as massive as the project itself. This is a proposal that's calling for, on its full build out, nine gigawatts of power generation, which is, of course, how we measure the consumption, the size of these data centers.
[09:35:06]
That is, you know, to put it in context, we currently, in the entire country, we have just a little bit shy of 15 gigawatts of compute power. So that gives you an idea of how big this project is.
And the resistance has been widespread in concerns I think simply because the project kind of came out of nowhere. It was on nobody's radar until late April as the -- and its sort of introduction to the public was a project earning a package of tax breaks from a Utah state agency. Two weeks later, that -- those same breaks were approved by a Box Elder County Commission vote.
BOLDUAN: And I think that was going to be my -- my question is, as people are kind of learning more and more about this, is it specific to this project that you're finding, the fact that -- or that the fact that local economies are already struggling and locals don't think that this is going to help or a feeling of, there's been a lack of transparency and just anxiety in general around A.I. and what these massive data centers will bring with it that's triggering such big backlash?
RAYMOND: Ye. Well, certainly the, you know, Utah concerns focus -- their myriad, but they focus primarily on environmental issues, water usage and, you know, potential air quality impacts from this power generation, which needed to be perhaps a portfolio of generation options, but likely the main source of that would be natural gas powered. A similar project, also backed by Mr. O'Leary, in Alberta, Canada, estimated 25 megatons of new emissions based on a similar natural gas generating site. And if we look across the country, resistance and concern about these projects are growing rapidly. You know, one tracking site notes that a year ago there were only eight state and local jurisdiction efforts aiming at seeking moratoriums or bans. Now there are nearly 70. And that number is growing every day.
BOLDUAN: Wow, that is quite a significant jump. You're absolutely right it's becoming bigger and bigger.
Let's talk about the Kevin O'Leary element of this. I mean he is attacking -- he's gone on the attack, attacking some of the groups that oppose the project. These two groups. The Alliance for a Better Utah and Elevate Strategies. And this has really kind of gone viral, if you will, the back and forth. I've been tracking it myself. He accuses the people involved here of these groups of being proxies for China. Both of these groups say absolutely not. What are you hearing about O'Leary's claims?
RAYMOND: Well, those allegations have gotten a lot of attention, of course, through social media and traditional media coverage. At this point, Mr. O'Leary hasn't offered any evidence to support those claims. I mean I think it's worth noting, Alliance for a Better Utah is a progressive advocacy group that's been around for 15 years. And even the individuals that Mr. O'Leary has called out have responded to those claims and, you know, characterized them as ludicrous. And again, we've yet to see hard evidence of any of this, although recent social media posting from Mr. O'Leary indicated his team had found -- traced some funding connections. But again, we've only heard that. We've yet to see any evidence.
BOLDUAN: Real quick, where does this go from here, this fight in Utah?
RAYMOND: Well, it's -- it'll be interesting to see next steps. Right now the project has earned initial approvals from, you know, regulatory or state and local agencies. However, there is an active effort to put the Box Elder County Commissions vote on a -- on the ballot in November as a referendum item. And it would give residents there a chance to overturn that vote. That's what's coming up next.
BOLDUAN: All right. Well, Art, thanks so much for coming in and covering this. I really appreciate it.
Sara.
SIDNER: All right, ahead, it's become one of the most expensive House races in history, all because a Republican congressman held the Republican president to his word about releasing the Epstein files. We'll talk about that story in a bit.
And we have brand new details on the effort to recover four drivers who ended up dying in the caves -- underwater caves in the Maldives.
That story and more, ahead.
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[09:44:24]
JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, today, the U.S. secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, is going to Kentucky on a political campaign trip. This is virtually unprecedented. No one can really remember something like this, especially during war time.
Why is he going there? He's going to campaign against an incumbent Republican congressman, Thomas Massie, who, among other things, pushed for the release of the Epstein files.
With us now, CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten.
So, the Trump political world descending on Kentucky, trying to unseat Thomas Massie tomorrow in this Republican primary.
[09:45:02]
What are the prediction markets saying? How is this race going?
HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: To put it mildly, I don't think that Donald Trump likes Thomas Massie.
BERMAN: Yes.
ENTEN: And if you look at the prediction markets, it looks like they may get their man. They may get their man. Look at this, chance that Massie is, in fact, a Kentucky Four GOP nominee. It has been falling considerably over the last ten days, according to the Kalshi prediction market.
Look at this. It was 71 percent ten days ago. Look at where that number is now. It's 44 percent. So, chances more likely than not, though it is very close, very close, that Massie will, in fact, go down to defeat. But again, we're just going to have to wait and see the votes getting cast and counted because this is quite close.
But any time that an incumbent member of Congress goes down, he has done something seriously wrong in the minds of the voters. And in this case, if Massie goes down, it is that he crossed Donald John Trump.
BERMAN: OK. And I think one of the things the prediction markets might be seeing is what happened a couple days ago in Louisiana, where the incumbent Republican, Bill Cassidy, didn't just lose, he lost badly in a Republican primary where the president endorsed an opponent.
ENTEN: Yes. I think one of the things that people who are putting their money where their mouths are seeing is seeing exactly what Johnny B. said, which was, saw what happened in -- saw what happened in Louisiana on Saturday.
And I went back, and this is sort of just going back through the archives to see how bad Bill Cassidy -- he got 25 percent of the vote, OK. I went back and I looked at every single, non-inpointed -- non- appointed senator. This, in my mind, was the worst primary showing ever, at least since the end of World War II. That is how Bill Cassidy, how badly Bill Cassidy did. he did worse than every single one, getting 25 percent of the vote in a -- for a senator in a primary. It's literally unheard of. And that is because, of course, Donald Trump endorsed against this guy.
BERMAN: Look, if you can find a different case of this, Harry looked at every single one and thinks it's the worst. Send us, you know, email --
ENTEN: Send it.
BERMAN: Yes, tweet it -- tweet us.
ENTEN: Tweet us.
BERMAN: If you -- is Twitter still a thing. I don't know.
ENTEN: You're X-ing us, I guess.
BERMAN: In any case. So, President Trump endorsed an opponent here. How does President Trump do in general when he endorses a Republican primary?
ENTEN: You know, we've quoted the movie "Good Burger" every single time basically when we've done this. When, in fact, you go against President Trump, you go in the grinder. And you could just see this, times Trump endorses have won in GOP primaries. It's about 95 percent each of the last four cycles. Now, I will note, you know, sometimes he endorses and there's no real challenger. But even in those cases, the challengers to the incumbent have won a majority of the time as well. And one of the key reasons why that is, right, is you look at Trump's approval rating within the GOP. Twenty-first century, own party approval. At this point in term two, he's still at 83 percent. That's more popular than Obama was with Democrats. Way more popular than George W. Bush was with Republicans back in 2006. So, the power of a Trump endorsement is still sky high. And we'll see tomorrow if that happens with Thomas Massie, going down.
BERMAN: We'll be watching that very, very closely.
Harry Enten, thank you very much.
ENTEN: Thank you, my friend.
BERMAN: A lot of news. We'll be right back.
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[09:52:36]
BOLDUAN: We have an update now on that urgent and dangerous effort underway to recover the bodies of four divers who perished in a deep system of underwater caves in the Maldives. The group went missing, and their bodies eventually were located by a robotic camera. But the recovery operation itself has now turned deadly. Saturday, one rescue diver died trying to locate the remains. Barbie Latza Nadeau is tracking this one for us, and she's back with
us now.
Barbie, now that they've located the bodies, what is the plan? What is next?
BARBIE LATZA NADEAU, CNN REPORTER: Yes. I mean, this really does present a whole new set of challenges for these divers because the bodies were found, or located by these cameras, in the deepest part of the third chamber of this underground cave system. And that's about 70 meters deep. That's 230 feet. That's a 20 story building, basically. And so what they've got to do is conduct these risk assessments before they try to go down and retrieve the bodies.
Now that will include understanding the currents of the water in the cave and on the way down. And, you know, because the rescue or the recovery operation has already claimed the life of one diver, they're particularly worried. Now they've got some three Finnish deep cave divers who have joined the team. They weren't able to dive very deep today. They weren't able to go past the decompression line because they had just taken a long flight. But tomorrow we expect them to be an integral part of this if the conditions allow them to not put anyone else at risk and not make this tragedy even worse than it already is, Kate.
BOLDUAN: I mean, it is -- just how deep they are, how deep they need to go, and just the threat now to the rescue teams. It's all just so tragic and so dangerous.
Barbie, thank you very much.
Sara.
SIDNER: All right, speaking of dangerous, there's a dangerous round of severe weather that could hit America's heartland to plans -- the plains, and the Midwest could see everything from powerful tornadoes and large hail to damaging winds and heavy rain. It comes after at least one confirmed tornado tore through parts of central Nebraska yesterday. First responders rescued two men and a dog from the basement of this collapsed home that you can see there. There were more than a dozen reports of tornadoes and more than 100 reports of hail.
This morning, New Yorkers dealing with some travel chaos as service on America's busiest commuter railroad, the Long Island Railroad, remains suspended because of an historic strike.
[09:55:05]
Five unions representing 3,500 workers are on strike over wages and working conditions. The LIRR, or LIRR, typically carries around 250,000 customers every weekday across nearly 950 trains. The unions are asking for the first raise since 2022. Commuters are being told to avoid non-essential travel, work from home if they can. Essential workers are being told to use a limited shuttle bus service. All right, overnight, a third teenage suspect was detained after a
string of shootings in Austin, Texas, over the weekend that left four people injured. Police say a 15-year-old and 17-year-old were taken into custody earlier Sunday. Officials say they stole at least four vehicles and shot at apartment buildings, homes and two Austin fire stations. The shootings appear to be random. That is according to police.
BERMAN: That's tough.
Got 30 seconds to kill. How you --
BOLDUAN: I got a deal. Let's talk about Stewie the robot.
BERMAN: How you been?
BOLDUAN: Humanoid robot.
SIDNER: Have you seen this thing?
BOLDUAN: Southwest Airlines now bans robots, human-like or animal- like, from being on planes. They say that it has to do with lithium- ion batteries. Look it.
BERMAN: What about robot-like humans? Asking for a friend.
SIDNER: I knew he was going to say.
BOLDUAN: I mean --
SIDNER: Let's see you do the robot.
BOLDUAN: Berman's going to be banned when he tries to board a plane.
SIDNER: He's going to get on and be like, what can I, and they'll be like, sir, get off.
BOLDUAN: Yes.
SIDNER: Just, for that alone, good-bye.
BOLDUAN: That alone. And your --
SIDNER: You're canceled.
BOLDUAN: And your -- and your dad jokes. Get off.
Are we good now?
SIDNER: "SIT ROOM" is next.
BOLDUAN: We filled the time.
BERMAN: All right. "THE SITUATION ROOM," up next.
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