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CDC Team To Assess Americans On Cruise Ship Hit By Hantavirus; Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff Meet With Qatari Mediators In Miami; With Midterms On The Line, Battles Over New Voter Maps Ramp Up; New UFO Files Released; Los Angeles Mayoral Race Weeks Away; CNN's Harry Enten Sees if He Can Pass Trump's Test. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired May 09, 2026 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:40]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. Hi, everyone. I'm Jessica Dean here in New York.

In just a few hours, the cruise ship at the center of a deadly hantavirus outbreak will dock at a distance from the Canary Islands in Spain. This is a live look at tracking for that ship as it approaches the port of the Canary Islands. 87 passengers and 60 crew members will begin disembarking.

Staffers from the CDC are set to meet the 17 American passengers there. After risk assessment tests are conducted the Americans will then board a charter flight to Nebraska, where they will be briefly evaluated at a quarantine unit before being sent home to be monitored over 42 days.

In Spain, port workers held protests over their concerns about the lack of communications regarding potential risks. The director of the World Health Organization reassured the residents just a short time ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, DIRECTOR, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: This disease is not COVID and we have said it many times as WHO. And when we say this, we don't take it lightly and then, of course, the other issue we'd like to say, which I also indicated in my message to the people of Tenerife, is the risk to the population, to the local population is low.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: CNN's Rafael Romo is joining us now from outside the CDC headquarters in Atlanta.

Rafael, what have you learned?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Jessica. Well, let's remember first that the MV Hondius is carrying 147 people all together still, including 87 passengers and 60 crew members. This is according to Oceanwide Expeditions, the cruise ship operator. It says those on board represent 24 nationalities, including 17 Americans.

As you mentioned before, a spokesperson confirmed the U.S. State Department is arranging the repatriation flight in coordination with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention here behind me, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the government of Spain.

According to sources familiar with the plan to bring those Americans back home, Jessica, the first step involves CDC staffers meeting the cruise ship when it arrives in the Canary Islands in the next few hours, and then escorting the American passengers back home to the United States aboard a chartered flight.

A separate team will meet the passengers in Nebraska, the CDC says. Their passengers are expected to be evaluated at the National Quarantine Unit to ensure the virus doesn't spread. Former CDC director Tom Frieden told CNN it's important for health officials to act swiftly to prevent the spread of the disease. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. TOM FRIEDEN, FORMER CDC DIRECTOR: You really have to recognize that there are other people who have gotten off the ship earlier, and the key here really is to make sure that people have rapid access to good care if they get very sick, because there's no vaccine, there's no specific treatment, but supportive care in an intensive care unit can save someone's life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: And Jessica, when it comes to the United States, five states, including Arizona, California, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia, are already monitoring seven passengers who previously disembarked from the ship, although health officials told CNN, and this is very important, that none are experiencing symptoms. New Jersey is monitoring two people who possibly, possibly were exposed to an infected passenger.

Here in the United States, hantavirus is relatively rare, according to data from the CDC. From 1993 to 2023, 890 cases of hantavirus disease were reported in the country, most of them in western states -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Rafael Romo there outside the CDC headquarters. Thank you so much.

Dr. Luis Marcos joins us now. He's a professor of medicine and the director for the Infectious Disease Fellowship Program at Stony Brook Medicine in New York.

Dr. Marcos, thanks for being here with us. Walk us through how -- what your reaction is to how this situation is currently being handled if you think it's being handled appropriately?

DR. LUIS MARCOS, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, STONY BROOK MEDICINE: Thank you for inviting me. Yes. I think that, you know, this is a very unique outbreak in a very rare disease.

[19:05:03]

And that's why there are several questions and answers. But the response from WHO at the beginning with that report alerted most of us in all continents about what are the next steps and the next steps has been handled I think properly, you know, monitoring, tracing the contacts, making sure that they are in isolation, testing them, recognizing early symptoms of them, and try to make sure you know that the virus doesn't go anywhere else.

Now, we need to understand this very carefully. Hantavirus is not just one virus. There are several hantavirus family viruses in Europe, Asia, North America, and South America. The only hantavirus that has been able to be transmitted person to person is the South American Andean virus, the strain. And that's it.

And the ratio is one person infected to another person or two people. It's not like COVID that you can infect 20 people at once or like missiles. So it's very different. And that's why I think that this report from WHO and the CDC I think is proper.

DEAN: And you just underlined something that I think people really do want to know is that this is different than COVID.

MARCOS: Absolutely. COVID, it can, you know, a couple major differences. COVID mortality is 1 percent. This one is different. 30 percent. COVID can be transmitted to 20 people at once. This can be transmitted to one or two people without protection. With protection goes below one actually. So it's very different. And by the way, we have several outbreaks in the world every other month.

We were just hearing this one because it's a daily virus. And of course we have the previous history of COVID and we are all concerned and worried about this could be a pandemia, but it's very, very unlikely.

DEAN: And so to that end, how concerned should a general member of the public, not obviously someone who's not had any exposure to anybody on the ship or flown with anybody that has been exposed, but just a general person here in the U.S.. How at risk are they and how concerned should they be?

MARCOS: I don't think that they have to be concerned that much or at all because once -- because a couple of reasons. The incubation period is quite long. It's not like COVID or the flu very fast. This can take two or four weeks or even a little bit more, and therefore, you know, when you trace the contact of the sick people, like in this case, from the cruise and the airplane, then you are monitoring them.

And if they become sick, they will immediately be isolated and be on a hospital. So right now, I think that the response has been fast in general. You know, of course, we always want faster responses, but this one is I think is contained. I don't think that the general public should be that concerned at all. DEAN: And we saw there that people in Tenerife, where nearby where the

ship is going to dock, are very concerned that they don't think they've got enough communication. What about for people like that who are at least in proximity to being exposed?

MARCOS: Proximity will be, you know, really close contact. Proximity in the island is not proximity because it's not really close contact. So I don't think that they have to be concerned about that. Communication is always, you know, an issue everywhere. Nothing is perfect. But I think that the response has been quite fast.

DEAN: All right. Dr. Luis Marcos, thank you so much for your time. We do appreciate it.

MARCOS: You're welcome.

DEAN: And still ahead this evening, President Trump waiting for a response from Iran on that proposal to end the war nearly 24 hours after that response was expected. What could come next in the back and forth between the two nations. Plus Republicans inching ahead in the redistricting fight but Democrats are not backing down. How both parties are scrambling to change maps before November's midterms.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:13:44]

DEAN: Right now, the White House is waiting to hear whether Iran's leaders will accept a framework toward a plan to end the war. Both President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicating they were expecting an answer yesterday. In the meantime, Secretary Rubio and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff lunched with the prime minister of Qatar and a mediator between the sides in Miami today.

The State Department releasing a statement thanking Qatar, adding, quote, "The secretary and foreign minister also discussed U.S. support for Qatar's defense and the importance of continued close coordination to deter threats and promote stability and security across the Middle East."

CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger is with us now. He's also a correspondent with "The New York Times" and wrote the book "New Cold Wars: China's Rise, Russia's Invasion and America's Struggle to defend the West."

David, great to have you here as always. Listen, Iran.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL AND NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: It's great to see you.

DEAN: Yes, you too. Iran is known for playing for time. It tends to do that in so many things. Is that what you think this response is about? Again, we noted that the secretary of state and president expected to hear from them as early as yesterday, and so far we have not heard from them today.

SANGER: Well, we don't actually know yet whether or not this has been privately communicated, presumably through the Pakistanis. That seemed to be the most likely.

[19:15:02]

But the overall answer to your question is this entire negotiation is a play for time. Remember, the president said that the war would be over in three to six weeks. Three weeks ago, he said Iran had agreed to everything. It's pretty clear they've agreed to nothing. If they do come back, I think what we're expecting is some kind of proposal about the Strait of Hormuz, and then at least a 30-day clock on negotiating all of the issues that were central to why this war began to begin with, the nuclear program, the missile program, the president's vow to come to the help of protesters, though he's dropped that in recent times, the concerns about Iran's support of terrorism in the Middle East and Hezbollah and Hamas in particular.

So I think what you might see is some kind of agreement on the strait. But the Iranians so far have been pretty clear that they have no interest in giving up their newly found control of the strait, which is itself their sort of new super weapon.

DEAN: Right. And then it seems that they've discovered that. And to your point, have no intention of giving it up anytime soon. I do want to ask about this meeting in Miami with the Qatari prime minister, and what that signaled to you.

SANGER: Well, one thing it signals is that the Americans may be beginning to wonder whether or not the Pakistanis are the right intermediaries here. Qatar has usually played this role or frequently played this role with the Iranians. And I think the administration now wants to try as many different pathways as they can. The Qataris are also a good source of intelligence. And at a moment that everybody is trying to figure out who's making the decisions in Iran could be useful for that.

I mean, it seems to us that from afar that what's happened as a result of the war is that it's empowered the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which, you know, is full of hardliners who, among other things, own the nuclear program. So they may be less interested in giving it up.

DEAN: Yes. I want to ask you about like a political piece of this. We have heard from the president again and again, but he has been very vocal in slamming President Obama's Iran nuclear deal, which piece of that was releasing these sanctioned funds back to Iran. It's very -- like how is this not the same thing? And is it the same thing in the sense that if we were to release sanctioned funds back to Iran?

SANGER: So in the Obama era deal, the funds that were released, I think was about $1.7 billion, if I remember, which was the money plus interest, was Iranian money that had been sent to the United States, I think, for the purchase of weapons before the 1979 Revolution. After the revolution, obviously, we were not about to go deliver them weapons and had the money here in banks. And they demanded that back.

In the current case, there's about $20 billion tied up in the Mideast. The Iranians want that back. My guess is that the president is going to attempt to say, you get it back in products, Boeing parts, maybe food or something like that, so that he can make the case that he's not giving them cash.

DEAN: That that's a workaround that you can give maybe goods. OK. So lastly, the president also set to meet next week with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping. Obviously, you have covered China for a long time. You wrote a book about it. This has already been delayed once due to the war. The State Department just sanctioned three Chinese companies it accused of aiding Iran. What are you expecting from that meeting and how is China viewing all of this?

SANGER: Well, it's going to be pretty fascinating to see. I'm going to go along on the trip with a team of "Times" reporters just to try to understand exactly what you're asking here. I think the Chinese are of divided view. I mean, on the one hand, they want to free up the Gulf. They get about 30 percent of their oil and gas through the strait. And while they've got big reserves right now, they're going to need that sooner or later.

On the other hand, they're watching the United States flailing to some degree in the Mideast, being driven crazy by a much smaller power. They're seeing divisions in the West between the U.S. and the Europeans who were not consulted, but who the president expects to come to their aid.

[19:20:10]

Some tensions with the Gulf allies. And I think they think that over the long term, this probably would enable the Chinese to make the argument that they're the more stable noninterventionist government with whom the Mideast countries should be interacting.

DEAN: It'd be very interesting to see. David Sanger, great to see you. Thank you so much.

SANGER: Thank you.

DEAN: This week, Republicans won a big battle in the redistricting wars leading up to November's midterms. How both parties now plan to move forward. More on that when we come back.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:25:07]

DEAN: Republicans appear to be winning the redistricting war. This week, the Virginia Supreme Court rejected a new congressional map that had been approved by Virginia voters that was designed to help Democrats net four House seats this November. And despite protests, Republicans in Tennessee passed new maps, splitting up the city of Memphis and effectively eliminating the state's only Democratic and majority black district.

That follows the Supreme Court's landmark decision to weaken parts of the Voting Rights Act. And as a result of all the redistricting, Republicans now stand to gain as many as 14 House seats compared to Democrats' six.

Let's bring in Andrew Solender. He's a congressional reporter for Axios.

Andrew, you've been following all of this as it's been playing out. I think about the Virginia ruling on Friday. I know you were talking to various members in Virginia. What were they telling you?

ANDREW SOLENDER, AXIOS CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER: Yes, I mean, Democrats clearly are very upset about the Virginia Supreme Court decision. This was supposed to be kind of their biggest opportunity to offset what Republicans have done in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Missouri, which was to, you know, rack up a good half dozen to a dozen extra seats just in those states before the Supreme Court's Voting Rights Act ruling.

So they were always going to kind of be on the back foot ever since then. And Virginia was supposed to sort of even the playing field a little bit. And now, you know, with the loss of that potential four- seat pickup, it's going to put them at a significant disadvantage going into November.

DEAN: What is your sense from Democrats and Republicans, though, about where things stand? Because there's the redistricting kind of, we'll call it war that's playing out. And then there's the history of what typically happens in a midterm election when one party has been in complete control. Usually the House does flip and a president who is under water on a host of issues. What are you hearing from both sides on how this is shaping up?

SOLENDER: I mean, you hear a lot of bullishness from Republicans about their chances, sort of focusing specifically on the redistricting part of it. But to talk to Democrats, even the most pessimistic ones, when it comes to the structural disadvantage, still tell you, you know, we have the upper hand going into November. This is Democrats, have the upper hand going into November, you know, saying that obviously cost of living is a big issue, gas prices, big issue, Iran, they feel that the Jeffrey Epstein issue has been favorable to them.

So they really have felt a lot of headwinds going into November. And they don't see this necessarily eliminating their chances of taking back the House so much as just making it a little more difficult and potentially forcing them to deal with the smaller majority and just reducing the overall number of competitive seats that they could pick up. For example, you know, in Tennessee, they were really hoping to knock off Andy Ogles. But the redistricting there has sort of shored him up.

Same with Cory Mills in Florida. So there takes a few seats off the map, potentially knocks off several of their incumbents. So this makes it a little more difficult. But they're still hoping of the roughly 16 to 20 competitive seats still out there that they can run the table on those. And with what they've been seeing in special elections, for example, they think that the margins will be there for them.

DEAN: Do you get the sense from members on either side of the aisle that anyone up there thinks this has all gone too far when it comes to this mid-decade redistricting push?

SOLENDER: Oh, yes. For sure. I mean, you talk to -- certainly there are some Republicans who are out loud saying this, but Democrats, especially, throughout this whole process, have really been emphasizing that they tried to eliminate redistricting in their H.R. One bill, their, you know, voting rights bill back in 2021.

And to talk to them now, you know, Jamie Raskin, Joe Morelli, you know, prominent Democratic committee ranking members, say that if they take power in November, redistricting is going to be a top priority for them in terms of trying to get a national gerrymandering ban or some kind of independent commission requirement. And they were hoping, of course, to go into that Congress with the potential, if not advantage, then at least a sort of even structural, match-up due to what had happened in Virginia.

But now, obviously, Republicans are a little less incentivized to go along with the complete nationwide unilateral disarmament, if you will, on redistricting because they have the advantage here and are primed to continue having the advantage.

DEAN: All right. Andrew Solender, who's talking to these members day in and day out. Thanks so much for being here. We appreciate it.

[19:30:12]

SOLENDER: Thank you for having me.

DEAN: The truth is out there and this week, President Trump pulled back the curtain a little bit. Are we alone in the universe? Big deep question there.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:35:01]

DEAN: President Trump says he's letting people decide for themselves whether extraterrestrial life is out there. These are some of the murky images included in what the Pentagon billed as never before seen files of UFO's released yesterday. These files outline various investigations of reported sightings that spanned decades.

CNN's Tom Foreman has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Crackling with videos and photos Showing cryptic images of what appear to be very peculiar flying craft. The release by the Pentagon has UFO and UAP watchers buzzing even as President Trump, who ordered the release, has said he doesn't know if there is life beyond Earth.

DONALD TRUMP (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I don't have an opinion on it. I never talk about it. A lot of people do.

FOREMAN (voice over): Many of the newly released reports are quite recent. For example, U.S. Intelligence officials just last year saying they saw glowing orbs traveling in some undisclosed spot at a high rate of speed. They appeared to be oval shaped orange in color, with a white or yellow center and emitting light in all directions.

In 2022, there are reports of a military sensor tracking a UAP moving from north to south. And in another report flying from west to east.

In 2024, a teardrop shaped craft and an uneven ball of white light and a diamond shaped vessel traveling nearly 500 miles an hour are all reported by military observers.

VOICE OVER: All engines running, commit lift off.

FOREMAN (voice over): Older NASA missions also appear, although many were made public earlier, among them a bit of unusual audio between the capsule and ground control during the 1965 Gemini VII mission.

HOUSTON CREW: This is Houston, say again, Seven.

GEMINI VII CREW: We have -- at 8:00.

HOUSTON CREW: Do you have any more information, estimated distance or size?

GEMINI VII CREW: It looks like hundreds of little particles going by to the left out about three to four miles.

FOREMAN (voice over): Also, Apollo 12 astronaut, Alan Bean, reporting from space in 1969. You can see these lights, particles of light, flashes of light, and they're just sailing off. They really haul out of here and press off out at the stars.

There are many pages of comments by curious citizens, some obvious hoaxes, and more, but no solid answers about what it all means from government officials, present or past.

LEON PANETTA, FORMER CIA DIRECTOR AND DEFENSE SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: I have not seen any firm evidence that there are aliens out there, but the Pentagon is now doing is basically letting the American people make up their own minds.

FOREMAN (on camera): To be clear, the overwhelming majority of these sightings are eventually explained as aircraft or weather balloons or mirages or meteoroids, something that makes sense. But some of them still are not explainable. And that's why the interest remains and it's going to keep going, because the Pentagon says more releases are on the way -- Jessica.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: All right, Tom Foreman, something to think about.

It is a crowded race for the top seed in Los Angeles. Current Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass joins us after the break to discuss her reelection campaign. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:42:48]

DEAN: Incumbent Los Angeles mayor, Karen Bass is facing off against more than a dozen challengers in her reelection campaign. The primary now less than four weeks away. It will take place on June 2nd.

Her main challengers have emerged as a former reality star, Spencer Pratt and L.A. City councilmember Nithya Raman. And last hour, I spoke with Raman about one of the central issues in this race homelessness.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NITHYA RAMAN, LOS ANGELES MAYORAL CANDIDATE: The mayor's signature program spends over $100,000.00 a year per person in some cases, to get people indoors and off the streets. That is not a sustainable system. We can address homelessness. We can bring so many more people indoors. We can end the crisis of unsheltered homelessness, but we can only do that if we build an actual system in City Hall.

This mayor has shown no urgency to do that. I feel that urgency, and I want to build it for our city.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: And we are joined now by Mayor Karen Bass. Mayor Bass, it's great to have you. Thank you so much for your time tonight.

MAYOR KAREN BASS (D) LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Thank you.

DEAN: I just want to, it's nice to see you. I want to get your response first to what we heard from Councilmember Raman. What she said there.

BASS: Sure, well, first of all, in the last two years, for two consecutive years, we've had the first decline in street homelessness in decades. And let me just say that the Councilwoman's claim is interesting because she's been at City Hall twice as long as I have and the success that has happened in our city and even in our district has been the result of the Inside Safe Program.

So, we have gotten people off the street. I have fast tracked the building of housing, and I know that we can move forward. And we absolutely do need a new system.

But let me just tell you, Angelenos can't wait. Angelenos want to see tens of thousands of tents off of our streets. That's what we're facing now and I led the first decline in street homelessness period. DEAN: And obviously, when you get to look back, you know, that that's always easier than looking forward. But what would you change about your first year? What would you do differently?

BASS: Well, I think that there are certainly a lot of things. Number one, many of the city problems that I came in to tackle have been problems for more than three decades.

And so, jumping in and tackling the bureaucracy much quicker is something I would have done differently, as opposed to trying to work with the system and, and moving it forward.

I came in for change. I came in to disrupt things. I have absolutely done that in three-and-a-half years. I know we need a new system and we can have that, which is why I am fighting for another term.

But the bottom line is, in Los Angeles, we have 40,000 people who are unhoused, 40 percent of those people are on our streets. We are the epicenter of homelessness and that ends and it started ending on my watch.

[19:45:49]

DEAN: Another issue is your response to the deadly and devastating fires in January. Your challengers have accused you of mismanaging that response on a number of levels.

Spencer Pratt personally blames you for his family losing their homes in those fires. Are you responsible for what happened there and the mismanagement that did occur in those fires and the response to them?

BASS: Let me just say that as the mayor of the city, the buck stops with me. That is very, very clear. What was true of our city, but not just our city, our region, our county, was that we were not prepared. Because let me just tell you, with climate change, we are experiencing climate events that Los Angeles is not prepared for.

Hurricane strength winds that happened in our city is something we've never seen before. And so, I would do a lot of things differently. First of all, our Fire Department should have pre-deployed in advance. Firefighters in an area that we knew was at risk, and the Fire Chief sending home a thousand firefighters left us understaffed.

And so many things I would do differently. But let me just tell you that a year-and-a-half in the rebuilding is coming along, 400 homes are under construction now. People are beginning to move back in. We've issued over 2,600 permits.

The biggest challenge that Palisadians are having now is with the insurance industry and with the banking industry. Many people have approvals, but are reluctant to rebuild because of financing and because of insurance. So many, many new things, many things need to be done differently so that we can prepare for events that are totally foreign to us in Los Angeles.

DEAN: And to your point, while the things are happening that you're talking about, there are still many people that are not back in their homes and they're very, very frustrated. I don't think frustrated probably they think is a strong enough word. They're really upset about how this has been handled. What can you do differently if you're reelected to help them get back in their homes that you're not doing now?

BASS: Well, the biggest thing, I'm not sure if there's anything in addition, but because I have streamlined the permitting process, we've established a concierge service. We have a one-stop center in the Palisades. So, I believe that we have done everything we could as a city to fast track the rebuilding and to make it easy on residents.

But I think that there's a lot of other factors. And the two largest ones are the ones I named. I took a delegation of Palisadians up to Sacramento to advocate for laws to change for the insurance industry.

I recently was in Washington, D.C. I met with the administration. I met with the President. I asked him to help us advocate with banking and with insurance. He did do that and things are beginning to move in the Palisades with the insurance industry and with the banking industry.

But this advocacy actually impacts more than the Palisades. It impacts the other fire, the jurisdiction in the city of Los Angeles only covers Palisades. It does not cover Altadena.

DEAN: Right. I want to ask you more broadly; you've been a member of the Democratic Party for many years. You're facing more than a dozen challengers, and the race for California governor is kind of wide open. It has a number of Democrats who are also running. This has been a cycle where were seeing Republicans breaking through in a state that is typically run by Democrats. What does that say to you? And what do you say to people who say that Democrats aren't running that state and, in your case, your city effectively?

BASS: Well, I think that all of us around the country are struggling with many of the same macroeconomic issues. The price of gas, the price of groceries. I think the state of California, as the world's fourth largest economy is run well. Do we have problems? Do we have longstanding problems?

Absolutely, but I know, you know, in your perch that we are dealing with a disgruntled electorate nationally, and that is certainly reflected in California and it's reflected in Los Angeles as well.

[19:50:22]

DEAN: But you don't think Democrats in California should be doing anything differently that they are running their states and cities as effectively as they can.

BASS: Well, absolutely, I do think that, of course, there's things that could and should be done differently. But again, our economy has been flourishing. We wouldn't be the fourth largest economy in the world if things were not run generally well. And so, are there ways to improve? Absolutely. On just every issue that you can make, every issue that you can name. But I do think and first of all, I don't think our state is going to change hands. We are a Democratic state and we are a Democratic city, and I don't think that's ready to change anytime soon.

DEAN: All right, Mayor Karen Bass, currently running for reelection. Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.

BASS: Sure, you're welcome.

DEAN: And I also want to note; we did extend an invite to Republican, Spencer Pratt to appear on the show. We'll be right back.

[19:56:01]

DEAN: There was a time when kids had to climb a rope up to the top of the gym ceiling, and this week, President Trump announced he's bringing back the Presidential Physical Fitness Award.

It's part of the executive order he signed last year, resurrecting the test, which had been a fixture in public schools from 1966 until 2012. And now that it's back, our Harry Enten had to run his own numbers -- Harry.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Hey, Jessica, Happy Saturday to you. Look, the Presidential Fitness Test is coming back. It's coming back. So, it's fitness time, and I've actually trained for it. And were going to take a look at how I did when it comes to the Presidential fitness test.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ENTEN: All right, apparently were bringing back the Presidential fitness test. So, I've decided can I actually beat the median sixth grader from all the way back in 1985. So, this is the first time that I've been in a gym since about 1985. I have to run a quarter of a mile and get this about two minutes and 11 seconds, I think it is, or two one.

Someone time me. I'm going to make it. I'm going to make it. I did it.

Now, how do I shut this thing off? I'm a lean, mean running machine.

So now I'm in the V-sit and reach part. This is supposedly testing flexibility. This looks basically impossible. But we have the tape measure there. And apparently in order to get to the 50th percentile for a six-year-old, I got to reach to the 16 mark.

So, next up is some curl ups. I got to do 22 of these 22 in a minute. I'm not quite sure I'm going to be able to do it, as I can barely get this yoga mat out. One -- 21, 22. I did it, I did it. Look at this. I had a full minute and I did it in a little bit under 51 seconds. Booyah, baby!

So now comes the part I dread most, which is I have to do seven pushups. My arms are not exactly my strength despite all my wonderful working out that I've been putting in, all those seconds in the gym up till now. We're going to go down for one and then two. Oh my God, it's a miracle! I did it.

So, it's all come down to this. For those of you who don't know what the shuttle run is.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ready, set. Go.

ENTEN: Two markings 30 feet apart. I've got to go down. Pick up one of the blocks as being a Diet Coke. Bring it back, place it down, then go back. Pick the other one up and run through the finish line.

I did it in 12.59 seconds. I beat it by just less than a second. But you know what? Close to failing is not failing. It's a pass.

All right, so I managed to get four out of five on the Presidential Fitness Test. President Trump, I say bring on the Presidential Fitness Test because you ain't got nothing on me. Cheers!

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ENTEN: I hope you enjoyed that, Jessica. Back to you.

DEAN: You know what I enjoyed most? The fact that he did it all while wearing loafers and then hydrated with a Diet Coke at the end. What better way to be fit? Harry, thank you so much for that. We do appreciate it.

And tonight, Kara Swisher travels to South Korea to uncover the country's secrets to longevity. Is it universal health care, a smarter diet, cutting edge technology? Find out in the next episode of "Kara Swisher Wants To Live Forever". It's an all-new episode tonight at 9:00 P.M. only here on CNN tomorrow. You can watch it on the CNN App, wherever you are.

In the meantime, thanks so much for joining me this evening. I'm Jessica Dean. I'm going to see you back here again tomorrow, starting at 5:00 Eastern. "Real Time" with Bill Maher is headed your way next. Have a great night everyone.

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