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Sources Say McConnell Done with Trump and Is Moving on; Trump- McConnell Feud Threatens GOP Path to Power; Hundreds of Thousands Without Power for Fourth Day in Texas; NASA's Perseverance Rover Lands on Mars. Aired 3:30-4p ET.

Aired February 18, 2021 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: The animated question is whether we need more Trump, that's not going to work.

So what McConnell is saying is -- and I was also told this -- the quote, he's not going to bend the knee and go visit Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago. Nor does he intend to talk to him. Nor does he intend to talk about him.

There will be times that perhaps they'll end up endorsing the same candidate because they agree that the same candidate will help McConnell and the Republicans win back control of the Senate. But if they don't, McConnell is going to go his own way, and he's had it with Donald Trump. He does not believe, and he's going to try and make sure that Trump is not the future of the party.

BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: I was talking to Jeff Flake yesterday on TV, former Republican Senator. And he said to me basically, Brooke, there's never been love for Donald Trump, but yes, there's been this real palpable fear of Trump's control of the base. He says that's ebbing and that it's ebbing fast. He said, don't bet against Mitch McConnell when you're looking at Senate races coming up.

Obviously, the Lindsey Grahams of the world who believe Donald Trump is winning, winning, winning, would disagree. What are you hearing?

BORGER: Well, we just don't know the answer to that yet. If you talk to folks like Flake, he's going to say, yes, Trump's influence is ebbing because really that's what he wants and that's what he hopes will occur.

I think that's the bet that Mitch McConnell is obviously making. He's making the bet that the Republican Party can be restored somewhat to what it was before it became the cult of personality about Donald Trump. And he's going to try and make sure that happens. And he doesn't really care if Trump tweets about him or makes him the enemy. He just feels that they need to get things back under control and they need to win back the majority, and this is the way to do it. BALDWIN: One more for you. This is all on -- there's been all this

speculation there could be a number of Trump family members on 2020 tickets. But we have just learned today that Ivanka Trump told, actually told Senator Marco Rubio that she will not challenge him in that Florida primary. What does that signal to you -- Gloria?

BORGER: Well, I think being a cynical journalist, perhaps. What it signals to me is --

BALDWIN: What, you are? No.

BORGER: -- that Marco Rubio has behaved -- oh, no. Well, but it signals that Marco Rubio has behaved well and that Marco Rubio has been a friend to Donald Trump and has not crossed the line against the former president, and that challenging him is something that perhaps Ivanka might've thought of if Marco Rubio had been a Jeff Flake, for example.

But, of course, he hasn't been. And you know, remember back to the election of 2016, he called Donald Trump every name in the book. But things have changed. And so I think if Ivanka Trump has any political ambition, maybe she'll set it aside for a while.

BALDWIN: Gloria Borger, good to see you. Thank you so much.

BORGER: Thanks, Brooke.

BALDWIN: Breaking news now on this disaster in Texas. Officials now say the power grid there was, quote, seconds or minutes away from catastrophic failure. We'll talk to the man who actually saw this coming years ago.

And any moment now NASA's Perseverance rover is set to land on Mars ending a nearly 300 million-mile journey from earth. We will bring it to you live. Stay right here.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:35:00]

BALDWIN: Listen, you all know this. You're following what's happening. It's a dire situation right now in Texas, as hundreds of thousands are affected by power outages for a fourth straight day. The state is experiencing some of the coldest weather in decades prompting this electricity crisis that has affected roughly 4.5 million homes, millions more are now also facing water disruptions.

With me now Ed Hirs is an Energy Fellow with the University of Houston. Ed cowrote this opinion piece, we're going back to 2013 -- this is for the "Houston Chronicle" -- where he warned of the planning failures of Texas's energy distribution systems. So Ed, thank you so much for being with me. And hope your hanging in there. I know you told me during commercial, you have power. You don't have water. I just can't imagine.

But let's get to the facts. You called this a soviet-era power grid that was doomed to fail. You said this almost a decade ago, you saw this coming. Why didn't anyone listen to you?

ED HIRS, ENERGY FELLOW, UNIVERSITY OF HOUSTON: That's right. Well, nobody really likes hearing bad news, Brooke. That's the nature of politics.

The answer of course would've been we would have to spend money to upgrade the grid. And no one was willing to stake the political firepower to go do that. The situation we have in Texas is the market is set up so that there's one buyer. And that's ERCOT, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, the grid manager.

And so generators were forced to compete to bring their power to market because in an electricity-only market like we have in Texas, they only get paid if they're providing electrons.

So we're talking in Atlanta this is just like the Braves taking the field, and only those players taking the field would get paid in this type of market. Those on the bench, those in the farm clubs they wouldn't be paid unless they were actually on the field during the major league game. And so the other players would bid, I don't know, offering the manager a bribe or bidding into the game. And they'd keep undercutting each other.

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And eventually of course some would go away and leave the market, and that's the direction we've had in Texas.

BALDWIN: Listen, as a baseball fan, I appreciate the metaphor growing up in Atlanta and rooting for the Braves. But I just want to cut right through it. You mentioned ERCOT, for the nearly half a million Texans that are sitting there freezing, when is this going to get fixed?

HIRS: It's going to get fixed when it gets warmer because these generation units that were not available to answer the call, that were not winterized or those that broke. You know, this is not something you can go down to the corner and have your mechanic fix. This real equipment, broken pipes, busted turbines, fuel lines. This is industrial repair. And you know, we've had a hard freeze across Texas, we're still in a freeze. You know, this is really difficult to get maintenance to come fix.

BALDWIN: Ed Hirs, I going to leave it there because we have to go to Mars. I've never said that before, but that's the truth. Ed Hirs, thank you so much for all of your expertise there in Texas. But I've got to pivot.

We're monitoring breaking news now.

We're going to take another live look at NASA Mission Control Pasadena, California, everyone preparing for the Perseverance rover to land on Mars. We will bring it to you live when it happens momentarily.

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BALDWIN: All right, everyone. Sara my producer just got in my ear. She says we're three minutes away from atmospheric entry. We'll talk to an expert who actually knows what means in a second. But we are potentially about to learn, you know, whether or not there is life on Mars.

The Perseverance rover, this is what it's called. It's about to attempt to land on the red planet. This is happening in mere minutes.

It is NASA's most sophisticated rover to date. It has traveled for six months on a nearly 300 million-mile journey from earth. With me now, said expert, retired NASA astronaut Colonel Ron Garan. He is also the author of "Floating in Darkness: A Journey of Evolution."

So colonel, thank you so much for being on and, you know, as a three times space camper, I feel uniquely qualified to help us walk through this. Listen, you're the expert, can you just talk me through -- we're minutes away. How huge is this?

RON GARAN, NASA ASTRONAUT (RET): Yes, this is incredible. It's an incredible not just for its own sake, but the fact that it's the third spacecraft that's entering the Martian orbit. And there will be two touching down on the surface this month alone. And so we're doing a lot of science on the surface of Mars coming up here. And it's really exciting.

BALDWIN: That's right. It's been China, U.A.E. now us again and, of course, there is curiosity from, you know, a couple years ago. But just because that was successful, from everything I've read, doesn't mean this will be successful.

GARAN; That's right.

BALDWIN: Perseverance will have to decelerate for more than 12,000 miles per hour to this full stop to what NASA is calling it the seven minutes of terror from the time it enters into the atmosphere until it's landing, and it only has one try. Can you speak to that?

GARAN: Yes, I mean, it's called seven minutes of terror. But we had seven minutes of terror on Curiosity's descent as well. And that was successful.

It's a very, very similar dissent with Perseverance. But as you said, we hit the top of the atmosphere at 12,000 miles per hour. And we've got to get to zero on the surface.

And one of the things that both helps and hurt us is the thinness of the Martian atmosphere. But it's not so thin that we don't need a heat shield. So we have to put a heat shield on the vehicle to protect the spacecraft from the heat of that re-entry. But it's not so thick that we can touchdown with parachutes. We don't have enough aerodynamic breaking to touchdown with parachutes. So we have to have this elaborate method where we have, you know, a sky crane and a jet pack. And it's, you know, really going to be a spectacular landing.

BALDWIN: This is not a done deal, right, is what I'm hearing you say. Let's pause our conversation --

GARAN: There's a lot that can go wrong.

BALDWIN: Yes, let's listen into mission control. This is NASA there in Pasadena.

NASA MISSION CONTROL: 5.3 kilometers per second and an altitude of 150 kilometers from the surface of Mars.

I have confirmation of entry interface. Perseverance is currently going 5.3 kilometers per second at an altitude of about 120 kilometers from the surface of Mars.

The (INAUDIBLE) is now waiting until it begins feeling the atmosphere of Mars slow down. Once there is enough atmosphere, it will start controlling its path to the landing target.

Navigation is also confirming that we can see a little bit of that slowdown of the atmosphere on the Perseverance entry capsule.

Our current velocity is about 5.36 kilometers per second and an altitude of about 67 kilometers from the surface.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are probably seeing MRO plasma blackout at this point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The vehicle should be doing its turns right now.

[015:50:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: MRO has lost lock.

NASA MISSION CONTROL: Perseverance --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The vehicle should be doing its turns right now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: MRO has lock again.

NASA MISSION CONTROL: Perseverance. We have indications that Perseverance is now performing bank reversals in the atmosphere. These are the systems ordered to control its distance to the landing target. Perseverance has just past through the point of maximum deceleration and has indicated that it felt 10 earth Gs of deceleration.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: MRO has lock again.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, yes, yes, yes.

NASA MISSION CONTROL: We saw a small outage of the UHF telemetry from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter during that peak heating phase likely caused by the plasma blackout. Perseverance is still continuing to perform bank reversals in the atmosphere to control its descent to the landing target.

Perseverance is going about one kilometer per second at an altitude of about 16 kilometers from the surface of Mars. We have entered heading alignment, which means Perseverance is no

longer trying to control the distance to Mars, but to the target on Mars, but instead is flying straight to the target.

Our current velocity is about 550 meters per second, at an altitude of about 15 kilometers from the surface.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: MRO is reporting good telemetry lock.

NASA MISSION CONTROL: We are coming upon the straighten -- we are starting to straighten up and fly right maneuver, where the spacecraft will jettison the entry balance masses in preparation for parachute deploy and to roll over to give the radar a better look at the ground.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, yes, yes!

NASA MISSION CONTROL: The navigation has confirmed that the parachute has deployed, and we are seeing significant deceleration in the velocity. Our current velocity is 403 meters per second at an altitude of about 12 kilometers from the surface of Mars.

Perseverance has now slowed to subsonic speeds and the heat shield has been separated. This allows both the radar and the cameras to get their first look at the surface. Current velocity is 145 meters per second at an altitude of about 10 -- 9 1/2 kilometers above the surface.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes! Yes! Yes!

NASA MISSION CONTROL: Perseverance now has radar lock on the ground. Current velocity is about 100 meters per second, 6.6 kilometers from the surface of Mars.

Perseverance is continuing to descend on the parachute. We are coming up on the initialization of terrain relative navigation and subsequently, the priming of the landing engines. Our current velocity is about 90 meters per second at an altitude of 4.2 kilometers.

We have confirmation that the lander vision system has produced a valid solution and part of terrain altered navigation.

We have priming of the landing engines.

Current velocity is 83 meters per second at about 2.6 kilometers from the surface of Mars. We have confirmation that the back shell has separated. We are currently performing the divert maneuver. Current velocity is about 75 meters per second at an altitude of about a kilometer off the surface of Mars.

[15:55:02]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) safety bravo.

NASA MISSION CONTROL: We have completed our terrain relative navigation. Current speed is about 30 meters per second. Altitude of about 300 meters off the surface of mars. We have started our constant velocity accordion which means we are

conducting the sky crane. About to conduct the sky crane maneuver.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We've lost direct-to-earth tones.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As expected. As expected.

NASA MISSION CONTROL: Sky crane maneuver has started. About 20 meters off the surface.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're getting signals from MRO.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: UHF is good.

NASA MISSION CONTROL: Touchdown confirmed! Perseverance safely on the surface of Mars, ready to begin seeking the sands of past life.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

NASA MISSION CONTROL: At this point, the descent stage has flown away to a safe distance. Perseverance is continuing to transmit direct through Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to earth.

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my god. Oh.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: MRO reports they're still getting telemetry from the lander.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, all stations.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We got it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Touchdown confirmed. We're going to wait for the images.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wow.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is so exciting. The team is besides themselves. It's so surreal. Stay tuned. We might get some pictures.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That would be great.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So much has been riding on this.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, we just heard the news ...

BALDWIN: All right. So touchdown -- touchdown, Ron. Nothing makes me happier than some fist bumping NASA scientists at the Jet Propulsion Lab there in Pasadena, so score one for them.

Before I hear from you, I just want to tell our viewers, so what we were watching is this animation, right. So it was impossible for NASA to see actual live video of this Perseverance rover touching down on the red planet, but we will get those pictures. They will get those pictures tomorrow. Ron, oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh!

GARAN: Amazing. Amazing. Think about what we just witnessed. That spacecraft traveled 300 million miles. It hit the top of the atmosphere of the Martian atmosphere at 12,000 miles per hour, went through that seven minutes of terror, and it did that all automatically, because it takes 11 minutes for a signal to reach the earth from Mars. All that has to be done automatically.

BALDWIN: Talk about -- so, you saw on that animation map the crater, it's called the -- I don't know if I'm saying this correctly, the Jezero Crater. This is where this rover is headed, right. Because it's all about figuring out, you know, signs of life from billions of years ago.

GARAN: Yes, this is an ancient -- it's a crater, but it used to be a lake, right. And so there are going to be areas there that are the prime places to look for life.

And I think -- imagine if we do. Image if we see evidence that there was once life on Mars. I mean, that would be amazing in itself. But to me, the other part of that is, we want to know why there's not life there now. We would want to know why a planet that used to have water and used to potentially be able to support life no longer does. And that has incredible implications for our own climate study here on earth.

BALDWIN: Last question for you, Ron. Just, you know, as an astronaut, as someone who's obviously studied space for -- and all of it for years and years, for our viewers at home, why is this truly spectacular? What will this mean for the U.S. moving forward in terms of space discovery?

GARAN: I think it's -- these are the baby steps of exploring our whole solar system. And really, everything we do in space directly benefits life on earth. It directly benefits our ability to survive all the crises that might come at us, whether that's super volcanic eruptions, global warming, whatever the case is, a better understanding of how planetary science works, how planets function, and the life cycle of planets is going to help us here on earth immensely. And it's also going to help us understand our place in the universe.

BALDWIN: For sure. For sure, for sure.

END