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CNN This Morning
Medical Jet With 6 People Aboard Crashes, Explodes In Philadelphia; Three Israeli Hostages Released In Latest Gaza Exchange; Sick And Injured Children Cross From Gaza To Egypt For Treatment; White House Says Trump To Impose Canada, Mexico, China Tariffs. Six Americans Detained in Venezuela are Heading Home to the U.S.; DOJ Says it will not Host Events to Recognize Identity Months; California's Palisades, Eaton Wildfires Now 100 Percent Contained. Aired 6-7a ET
Aired February 01, 2025 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Welcome to CNN This Morning, Saturday, February 31st.
AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: There are no 31 days in February.
BLACKWELL: February 1st. You know why I did that? Because January was so long.
WALKER: It felt long.
BLACKWELL: It feels like January 32nd actually.
WALKER: Well, don't make February longer than it needs to be.
BLACKWELL: February 1st. Brand new month starting off right, starting now. I'm Victor Blackwell.
WALKER: I think you jolted people are like what? There are 31 days in February. I'm Amara Walker going to be with you. Here is what we're working on for you this morning.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Boom. And the whole car just shook.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was in shock. I'm still in shock. Like this is insane.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALKER: A plane on a medical mission plunges out of the sky in Philadelphia, sparking a massive explosion on the ground. All six people in the plane, on the plane, including a pediatric patient and her mother are believed to be dead. We are live with what investigators are saying about what caused it all.
BLACKWELL: Breaking overnight. Israeli American Keith Siegel is among three hostages released by Hamas after nearly 16 months in captivity. We have a live report from Israel just ahead.
WALKER: And President Donald Trump's tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China are set to go into effect today. We're going to talk to an expert about the rising fears of a full blown trade war with three of America's key trade partners.
BLACKWELL: And the Trump administration is set to expand its purge of career law enforcement officials. There's a looming deadline for the FBI to turn over information about all current and former employees who worked on the January 6th investigation.
We're starting this morning in Philadelphia where a medical jet came carrying six people crashed in a neighborhood. Now the jet had just taken off from a northeast Philadelphia airport carrying a child patient, her mother, along with four crew members, a pilot, co-pilot, doctor and a paramedic. And at this time, authorities cannot confirm any survivors.
WALKER: The crash caused a massive explosion that affected nearby homes and vehicles. There were several injuries reported with at least six people sent to the hospital. All we are being told are in stable condition. Witnesses to the crash described feeling the explosion shake buildings and seeing a large ball of flames.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was right here at the door and all I could see is a big ball of flames in the sky. Literally. You heard a loud bang. It shook the entire building. The whole building shook.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was really like, because we didn't know what it was. I just saw blinking lights. I thought it was like something for the plane landing. But then I just got home and I saw it and I was like, dang. I just witnessed it. It was like, it's pretty scary.
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WALKER: While it's unclear how many homes were affected by the crash, Philadelphia's mayor said shelters have been made available for those who have been displaced. CNN's Jason Carroll is joining us now from Philadelphia with the latest. Good morning, Jason. You bring us up to speed. I mean, that really was a stunning sight to see in the sky.
JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Incredible. Incredible for the folks who are out here in the northeast section of Philadelphia, so you can see several blocks, the crash site still cordoned off. Just to give you a sense of where it all happened, we are standing at the corner of Cotman Avenue and Roosevelt Boulevard in this direction behind me, several blocks. And that direction, Amara, that is where the crash occurred.
I mean, this is a community that is still very much in shock this morning. I mean, when you think about where it happened, in the middle of this very busy business district of Northeast Philadelphia, lots of stores, restaurants, the Roosevelt Mall here in the area. Not just businesses, but residences as well, a number of row houses in the area as well. And you think about the timing.
This is a flight that took off just after around 6:00 yesterday, right in the middle of rush hour when it crashed. And as you can imagine, there were a number of people here in the area. There were so many people who are out and about who saw what happened. Some described it as a fireball erupted upon impact. Others said the entire sky lit up right after the crash.
Some actually said that they felt it, that their windows rattled moments after the crash as well. Initially, more than 100 Philly firefighters descended on the scene out here, came out here, were quickly able to extinguish some of the residences that were on fire, some of the buildings, some of the vehicles that were on fire as well.
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Governor Shapiro came out here last night along with the mayor. Other joining other emergency officials, saying that they are all working together, including the NTSB, the FAA working together to try and get to the bottom of exactly what.
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GOVERNOR JOSH SHAPIRO (D) PENNSYLVANIA: What you're seeing here is a unified response to an awful aviation disaster for as awful as that aviation disaster was. Tonight we also saw the best of Philly. We saw neighbor helping neighbor. We saw Pennsylvanians looking out for one another. We know that there will be loss in this region and we want to offer our thoughts and our serious prayers for those who are grieving at this moment.
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CARROLL: The governor was also joined by Philadelphia's mayor. She says at this point still cannot confirm how many fatalities occurred as a result of this accident. But as you mentioned, six people were on board that Medevac Learjet 55. Four crew members, two passengers, a young girl who was here with her mother. The young girl receiving treatment in Philadelphia. That plane en route to Springfield, Missouri, where it was going to refuel and then go on to Mexico. All on board. Six on board were six Mexican nationals. Again, now at this point, it's up to investigators to determine exactly what went wrong. Amara.
WALKER: All right, Jason Carroll, thank you very much. Joining me now is CNN transportation analyst and former inspector general for the Department of Transportation, Mary Schiavo. Mary, good to see you this morning.
So, I mean, it's stunning and shocking to see this massive fireball light up the sky there in this busy business district, as Jason Carroll described. So it happen shortly after takeoff and the plane made a sharp dive. I mean, what do you make of what you're seeing and what could potentially have caused this?
MARY SCHIAVO, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION: Well, that sharp dive is very dramatic. And as you can see in that video, it is almost coming straight down. But the plane does do a slight roll on its way down. You know, in other, you know, I can't say what happened here, but in other accidents I've worked where they had a loss of control and that's a total loss of control situation.
You know, aircraft have lost part of the tail, for example, the rudder, part of the rudder, the horizontal stabilizer, key control surfaces where they are unable to control the plane. And then in that case, often it will roll and dive.
Also, this looks like a very, you know, a very complete stall. When a plane stalls, which means the airflow is disrupted over the wings, it shutters and then flips over and dives unless there's a stall recovery.
And so because of this total lack, for example, there's no way for those pilots to have any ability to control that flight away from populated areas. That is a plane that is at that point that we see it totally uncontrollable. And then also people, because it was full load of fuel that was about to undertake about a 1,200 mile flight, they'll be looking at fuel contamination, fuel issues, et cetera.
WALKER: Well, what could lead to a total lack of control, especially when on takeoff?
SCHIAVO: Loss of a control surface, potentially loss of engines. But if it's just loss of power to the engines, usually the pilot can set up or try to set up a glide and try to get the plane under some control. But in situations like this, it has been loss of some kind of a control service. In other accidents, not saying in this one, but that would make it impossible to control the plane.
We saw that in American Airlines 587 New York, 2001. And we also saw that on Alaska 261 California in the year 2000 or 2001. And we don't see that very often. And it's just stunning and there's not much that pilots can do if it happens.
WALKER: So then how will this investigation be approached in terms of the black boxes? Do we know if this plane had a black box?
SCHIAVO: Well, this plane, I mean Lear is, you know, it's a twin engine jet and it's, you know, it can be a pretty expensive plane. Now this one was an old one, 1981, but it very well could be equipped with the black boxes, both cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder.
However, if the black boxes are as old as the plane, they don't have as many parameters, meaning data points as modern planes have. And you know, because it was an on demand air ambulance service and it was a Mexican registry plane, the U.S. rules concerning flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders wouldn't apply.
[06:10:04] But in a private plane, you don't have to have them anyway. But that is the biggest hope. If this plane had them, that would give the NTSB the best information they could have.
Now, the NTSB is already gathering the records. Literally when something happens, they start getting maintenance records, fueling records. They'll take a sample of the fuel. They'll look at any maintenance. They'll look at where the plane's been. This plane was a workhorse. It had flood flew two or three times a day in the last, you know, over the last week. And that's a lot of punishing service for an old plane.
But it can do that if it's well maintained. I think this company had another accident back in 2023, but I think there they blamed it on landing too far down the runway. It was a runway overrun, which is very different from this.
But the NTSB will already have the documentation. They're going to have to wait for the firefighters, hazmat, first responders to do their job. I mean, the scene is probably too dangerous right now for the NTSB to really do much, but they will collect all the parts of the plane. If they can't -- if they don't have a cockpit voice recorder, sometimes it's necessary to put parts back together. If they get leading clues, sometimes they'll take those key pieces of the plane back to the NTSB for lab analysis.
And very rarely in history, but sometimes they've actually had to put a plane back together to figure out what happened as in TW 800, July 1996. And they did it, and they found the answer.
WALKER: All right, Mary Schiavo, we're going to leave it there. Appreciate your expertise as always. Thank you.
SCHIAVO: Thank you.
BLACKWELL: Three hostages are now back in Israel after being held captive by Hamas for more than 15 months. This was the moment that Hamas released Israeli-American hostage Keith Siegel in Gaza. Siegel's family reacted with relief and joy. You see them here? They saw him finally free for the first time since he was captured during Hamas's attack on October 7th of 2023.
Siegel, along with Ofer Kalderon, Yarden Bibas, they were released as part of phase one of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Dozens of Palestinian prisoners and detainees are also scheduled to be freed by Israel as part of this exchange. And we have a team of reporters covering all of these major developments in the region this morning.
WALKER: CNN correspondent Jomana Karadsheh is in Amman, Jordan. But we begin with Jeremy Diamond, who's in Tel Aviv, Israel, this morning. Jeremy, earlier you were with the family of Keith Siegel. Tell us what that was like and what they told you.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right. Mostly longtime friends of Keith Siegel and his brother Lee in a kibbutz not far from Tel Aviv. And we saw as 15 months of dreaded anticipation, 15 months of anxiety, rollercoaster of emotions, all of that finally being let go, like, like a pressure valve opening up as we saw sighs of relief, tears of joy and of course, clapping and excitement. Here was that moment for you to listen to briefly.
And you can hear the joy in the room there. You know, his wife, Aviva Siegel. We've now started to see some images of her reacting quite similarly, although of course, with even more emotion. You know, she was also held hostage by Hamas, was released last November as part of the previous ceasefire deal.
And I've spoken to her a number of times as she has ceaselessly advocated both in the United States and in Israel for her husband's release. And now she has finally been reunited with him. We have also seen the emotional images and sights of the other two Israeli hostages who were released today.
Ofer Kalderon, his children had also been taken hostage and they were released as part of that November deal as well. He is now also safely back on Israeli soil. And then there is Yarden Bibas, the father of those two youngest Israeli hostages, Kfir and Ariel, who were just nine months old and four years old when they were abducted by Hamas militants on October 7.
They, of course, have become really a symbol of Hamas's brutality on that day, the fact that they, so young, were taken hostage into Gaza.
But his release, you can see the emotion as he is hugging his family and the difficulty of that moment as well, beyond simply relief and joy, because his release really does raise serious questions about the fate of his wife, Shiri and his children, Kfir and Ariel, the fact that he is being released before them in particular, because Hamas has previously claimed that they were killed in an Israeli airstrike, raising serious questions about their lives and whether indeed they are still alive or not. So emotional reunions, but also real questions being raised today. Victor.
WALKER: All right, Jeremy Diamond, thank you.
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And another historic moment is set to happen in Rafah today. For the first time in eight months, the critical Rafah crossing will reopen for medical evacuations. And this is according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
BLACKWELL: The director general of Gaza's Health ministry says that 50 sick and injured Palestinian people, most of them children, are proved to be the first to cross. Buses have already arrived at the Rafah border crossing and will head to Egypt. Egyptian ambulances, they have already arrived in Rafah to evacuate those people from Gaza. CNN correspondent Jomana Karadsheh joins us now from Amman, Jordan. And some of the most heartbreaking videos that we've seen have been of the injured and undernourished children of Gaza.
JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. I mean, Victor, this is a moment so many have been waiting for desperately for a long time. If you look at the figures of those who need urgent medical evacuation out of Gaza, according to the United Nations, there are 12 to 14,000 patients, including 2,500 children who are in need of life saving treatment abroad.
There is no health care that is really left in Gaza that could provide them with the care that they need, with the treatment they need. They need to get out. They need to get out to countries that will have the facilities, that will have the treatment that they require. And since the closure of the Rafah crossing by Israeli forces when they took over that crossing in May of 2024, only just under really 500 patients were evacuated out of Gaza. And that was through other crossings.
And since the ceasefire began, this is the first time we're about to see these medical evacuations resume. So the Rafah crossing is really a very important, it's a lifeline really for those patients who need to get out, who need to get that treatment fast. And what we understand right now, as you mentioned, is today we are going to be seeing 50 patients who will be leaving with their family members, those are sick and injured, many of them are children. And they will be heading out for medical treatment in different facilities.
And in the last hour or so, we saw those buses, those ambulances carrying them arrive on the Egyptian side of the Rafah crossing waiting to be cleared, waiting to enter Egyptian territory. And really, I mean, this is a moment they have been waiting for so long, but it really is a drop in the ocean.
We understand from Palestinian health officials that they had submitted the names of 400 patients they wanted to get out today, but only 50 were cleared by Israel for those evacuations.
BLACKWELL: To give us some perspective, important numbers there. Jomana Karadsheh for us in Amman. Thank you.
Still to come, President Donald Trump is expected to move forward with aggressive new tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China today. How this could impact grocery bill.
WALKER: Also interviews of air traffic controllers are underway after a plane and helicopter collided earlier this week over the skies of Washington DC. We're going to have the latest on the investigation.
BLACKWELL: More than 12 million people across Central California are expected to be hit with helicopter heavy rain over the next few days. More on the atmospheric river event expected to hit the state.
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BLACKWELL: This morning, President Trump's tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China are expected to go into effect.
Now, this move amounts to a 25 percent tax on goods from Mexico and Canada, 10 percent on goods from China. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the tariffs would be met with a swift response.
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JUSTIN TRUDEAU, CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER: If the president does choose to implement any tariffs against Canada, we're ready with a response, a purposeful, forceful, but reasonable, immediate response.
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BLACKWELL: Now, when the president was asked last night if there was anything the countries could do to prevent the tariffs, President Trump said no. With me now is Greta Peisch, former general counsel at the U.S. Trade Representative's Office. Greta, good morning to you.
So the threat, let's go back a couple of days to this spat with Colombia. Different country, different economy, different trades relationship. But the threat worked for Colombia based on the pieces on the board right now. Which moves are you watching today?
GRETA PEISCH, FORMER GENERAL COUNSEL, OFFICE OF THE U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE: Sure. And thank you for having me. Well, yes, the Columbia spat, it was very short lived. No tariffs went into place. This is a very different circumstance. President Trump has been talking about putting tariffs in place on Canada, Mexico and China for months, all throughout the campaign. And he is serious about doing it.
So I think the question will be once the tariffs go into place, what exactly is he demanding of Canada and Mexico and China and can they deliver to reduce or remove these tariffs in the near term.
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BLACKWELL: So what's the risk here? I mean, the Fed chair, Jerome Powell declined to cut interest rates after three consecutive cuts. There are concerns about inflation flaring up again. What's the risk to people sitting at home when they go to the grocery store, when they buy their car, their television?
PEISCH: Fundamentally, there's a lot of uncertainty. We don't know how long these tariffs will last. Will they change over time? The President's invoking a very broad authority with very little precedent, no precedent for using it for tariffs.
So for companies and for consumers, there's a lot of unpredictability. And what we saw when tariffs were put in place with China, some of the tariffs were absorbed by exporters, importers, some were passed on to consumers. It really depends on a product by product basis. And here just so much widespread with economies that are quite integrated with ours.
BLACKWELL: Is this a scenario in which there would be U.S. tariffs or the U.S. would place tariffs on the imports of these countries and then potential retaliation and then static? Or are we potentially going into a tit for tat Point, counterpoint, where they continue to climb? PEISCH: Again, I think uncertainty is a bit this time around. Mexico and Canada have indicated that they're ready to put retaliatory tariffs in place. I'll be watching how quickly that happens. If the countries think that a deal is on the table in the short term that could be had to avert or reduce these tariffs, you may not see those go in place right away.
You may see the country is giving a chance for those discussions to continue. If they do put tariffs of equivalent value in place right away, then the ball is back in the Trump administration court. Raising even higher could risk economic impact the that the president just doesn't want to see.
BLACKWELL: The President imposed tariffs on Chinese imports during his first term. And for as much as the Democrats criticized the President's decision, when President Biden came in, he didn't remove them. And then in the latter part of his term, he added new tariffs on some Chinese imports.
So as we watch this political fight over it, is it as controversial as it seems now, what makes this different than the first round?
PEISCH: Absolutely. I mean, you were right. I was in the Biden administration, those tariffs were examined. They were maintained and even increased on a more limited basis. That reflects a really bipartisan concern about China, its nonmarket economic practices and its impact on the United States, our supply chains and the world.
When you talk about Canada and Mexico, it's very different. We have a very integrated supply chain that goes back decades, a very high level of trade going both directions across the border. So that -- this move is quite more controversial. And I think the Hill on a bipartisan basis will be very concerned about the impacts on states and constituents and districts.
BLACKWELL: Greta Peisch, thank you so much for the insight.
WALKER: All right, so to come, salvage operations are underway in Washington after that deadly collision between a plane and military helicopter. What new video exclusive to CNN tells us about the accident.
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WALKER: Well, this morning, six Americans who were detained in Venezuela are back home. This is a picture of the Americans on their flight yesterday, four still wearing their Venezuelan prison uniforms. President Donald Trump's senior officials met with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to secure their release.
However, the U.S. along with its allies still reject Maduro's presidency. The State Department warns Americans not to visit Venezuela, citing high risks of wrongful detention. The Department of Defense canceled diversity celebrations just hours before Black History Month was set to begin.
In a Friday statement, the department banned all, quote, "cultural awareness months." Anyone wanting to do -- to attend must do so off the clock. Now, this affects several major observances including Black History Month, Women's History Month, Asian-American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, National Hispanic Heritage Month and National American Indian Heritage Month.
Well, after more than three weeks of two deadliest and most destructive wildfires in southern California are now fully contained. The Eaton and Palisades Fires started on January 7th. The Eaton blaze tore through Altadena killing 17 people and destroying over 9,000 buildings across 14,000 acres in the Pacific Palisades, 12 people died as flames consumed 23,000 acres and leveled more than 6,000 structures.
BLACKWELL: Investigators in Washington D.C. are still trying to figure out what caused Wednesday's collision between an American Airlines flight and a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter over the Potomac River. There's a lot of work to do. CNN's Pete Muntean is following the investigation and the recovery efforts.
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PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It is the best view yet of the worst aviation disaster in decades. The Army Blackhawk helicopter flying down the Potomac River and directly into American Airlines flight 5342.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's 67 people losing -- or so losing their lives right there. I mean, that's hard to watch. This isn't a video game.
MUNTEAN: Brad Bowman(ph) was a company commander in the very same Blackhawk unit and flew this flight path often.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The helicopter pilot at this point should be scanning aggressively.
MUNTEAN: The exclusive videos show no sign of evasive maneuvers and new flight tracking data suggest the Blackhawk may have been above the areas maximum altitude for helicopters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If it's higher than 200 feet, that's a decisive error that should not have happened.
MUNTEAN: The chopper was flying on a special helicopter path, skirting the airport, regularly used by the military to train for missions like evacuating leaders in an emergency.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have the Washington monument left and the Jefferson monument on your right. And then -- and then you're flying right here by Reagan National Airport. It's one of the busiest aviation spots in the country, if not the world. MUNTEAN: Less than 48 hours after the crash, the Federal Aviation
Administration has now shut down the routes for the foreseeable future. A source familiar with the investigation tells me more permanent changes are being discussed. Investigators have recovered the so-called black boxes from the passenger plane and are reading them at a laboratory only a mile from the crash site. Recovery crews on the Potomac River braved rain Friday as they turned their focus to the wreckage of the helicopter.
JOHN DONNELLY SR., CHIEF, D.C. FIRE & EMS: It's been a tough response for a lot of our people. We've had over 300 responders operating at one time, and I think we've got about 500 people that have worked through the site.
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BLACKWELL: All right, Pete, thank you very much. Tomorrow, Anderson Cooper takes a deeper look into the safety of our skies. "THE WHOLE STORY" with Anderson Cooper airs tomorrow night at 7:00 p.m. Eastern right here on CNN.
WALKER: The Trump administration is preparing to remove thousands of FBI agents and personnel. The two groups, they could fire as soon as next week.
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BLACKWELL: The federal employees given the option to resign now and get paid through September say they are confused. Some are mad and not even sure if it's legal. Multiple federal employees told CNN that they are not willing to sacrifice benefits, including health and retirement benefits and student loan forgiveness.
WALKER: But President Trump is already moving on, setting his sights on specifically clearing the FBI of people who worked on Trump-related investigations. CNN's Evan Perez reports on the new deadline to clean house.
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EVAN PEREZ, CNN CRIME & JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT (on camera): The Trump administration is set to expand a purge of career law enforcement officials, with officials drawing up a list that could include thousands of FBI agents who worked on January 6th and Trump-related investigations to be evaluated for possible removal.
Acting FBI Director Brian Driscoll told employees Friday that he had been ordered to provide by Tuesday, a list of agents and supervisors who worked cases related to the Capitol attack and one involving Hamas leaders. The memo reads, "the office of the deputy Attorney General will commence a review process to determine whether any additional personnel actions are necessary."
We understand that this request encompasses thousands of employees across the country who have supported these investigative efforts. Separately, more than a dozen prosecutors at the D.C. U.S. Attorney's office that worked on January 6th cases were fired on Friday. The prosecutors initially had been hired on a temporary basis, but at the end of the Biden administration, their jobs were converted to permanent status according to a DOJ memo that was obtained by CNN.
Well, the changes are part of a broader purge that began last week with targeting of senior career Justice Department prosecutors for reassignment. And earlier this week, senior FBI leaders were told to retire, resign or be fired on Monday. Well, the FBI Agents Association said in a statement dismissing potentially hundreds of agents would severely weaken the bureau's ability to protect the country from national security and criminal threats, and will ultimately risk setting up the bureau and its new leadership for failure.
The new administration is moving very quickly to deliver on President Donald Trump's vow to strike back at the Justice Department and the FBI that he claims had been weaponized against him and his supporters. Evan Perez, CNN, Washington.
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WALKER: All right, Evan Perez, thank you. Joining us now, the Hill congressional reporter Mychael Schnell. Michael, good to see you. Let's first talk about this attempt at expanding this purge of career law enforcement officials. I mean, it's an extraordinary move. Period. And we know that the due date for this list of names is due out on Tuesday.
Talk to us about the reaction that you've been seeing and also the impact that it could have on the workforce. I mean, we're talking about potentially thousands of people losing their jobs.
MYCHAEL SCHNELL, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, THE HILL: Yes, this seems to be, Amara, a really large scope of individuals that are being looked at.
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There were a lot of people who worked on the January 6th investigations. Let's remember it wasn't just the investigation into President Trump's actions surrounding that day and in the lead up to that day, but it also involved the thousands of protesters who stormed the building, those of whom were, of course, prosecuted a lot, put in jail, and then that pardon came later on.
So, it seems like this could be a real sweeping action. And it is worth noting that this is something that President Trump sort of hinted at on the campaign trail. He said that some times that he would go against folks who had investigated him in the four years that he was out of office. So, Democrats are outraged at this move and this reporting, saying that, you know, this is expected because this is what we had heard President Trump talk about on the campaign trail, but nonetheless not the right move.
And in addition to this list, we also saw some FBI officials be dismissed yesterday, folks who led some really key state field offices, including Washington D.C. and new city field offices including Washington D.C. and New Orleans. And there were also some DOJ, some FBI leaders who were dismissed, who helped work on the Mar- a-Lago investigation, the classified documents, in addition to January 6th. So, these are some sweeping moves, and there's --
WALKER: Yes --
SCHNELL: Absolutely going to be a lot of focus on them in the coming days as this list is prepared.
WALKER: In addition to retribution, another part of Trump's agenda will be crammed into -- it looks like one massive bill you have reporting on this, on this House GOP retreat in south Florida. How united are Republicans behind this one potentially massive bill that would include, you know, border and energy policy and extending those 2017 tax cuts?
SCHNELL: Yes, look, Republicans are on the same page. They know they want to do something on these key priorities like you mentioned, extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts, many provisions of which are going to expire at the end of the year, implementing stricter border security, putting more money towards the border and energy policy among some other priorities.
But they can't exactly figure out just how to do that. I reported over that over during this week when Republicans were huddling in Miami for their annual retreat. The -- you know, folks went in there with the mindset of getting on the same page, being united so they can work through this one big, beautiful bill, as Trump has called it. But they emerged from that meeting with some very clear tensions on the rise. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, for example, she said that folks were huddling and they came out of those huddles with no plan.
Congressman Chip Roy didn't even attend the retreat, and then afterward, he said that he was not going to attend something that he knew that -- when he knew that the outcome was not going to be sufficient enough -- and then the House Freedom Caucus made this call for what they said as rudderless Republicans, if they feel that the Republican conference is rudderless right now and they want to join a different plan to join their plan for this budget reconciliation process which conflicts with a lot of things that Speaker Johnson seems to be planning to do.
So, there are a lot of these tensions and disagreements right now within the House Republican Conference, which is notable and then concerning for leadership, because we know that when we're talking about this budget reconciliation process, it's going to require near unanimity --
WALKER: Yes --
SCHNELL: From House Republicans. So, at this early stage, to see them disagreeing like this is a concerning sign for leadership --
WALKER: Yes, sure is. Before we let you go, Mychael, let's talk about, you know, these tariffs that President Trump is expected to impose as soon as today. I mean, 25 percent tariffs on goods from Mexico and Canada, 10 percent for products from -- for Chinese products. The last time -- the first round in 2017, we saw this trade war really hurt the agricultural industry here in our country.
How are Republican lawmakers, especially, that represent these agricultural areas, how are they feeling about these tariffs?
SCHNELL: We're still gathering the full scope of the reaction. You know, one of the benefits of the Trump administration doing things on the weekends or announcing things on Friday afternoons is that Congress is out of session, so, we can't exactly get the reaction that we'd like to get if we were in the Capitol badgering folks with questions in the hallways.
But I think it's fair to expect that in some of these key states, the reaction is not going to be thrilled. We know that oftentimes, tariffs that are slapped on countries make prices in the U.S., goods in the U.S. increase, which is not going to be good for the consumer, but particularly for leaders in states that are going to be massively impacted.
And then you also have to talk about the threat of a potential trade war. A lot of these countries have said that they are prepared with retaliatory measures if Trump does go through with these tariffs. So, in a lot of different ways, it's not going to be a great situation, but we'll have to see if Republican lawmakers criticize Trump, we know they're often times weary to do that.
WALKER: Mychael Schnell, thank you very much.
BLACKWELL: Torrential rains are expected to move into the west over the next few days, thanks to another one of those atmospheric rivers. Allison Chinchar has the forecast next.
[06:50:00]
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BLACKWELL: Right now, more than 12 million people across the U.S. are under flood alerts, and more than 5 million are under Winter weather alerts.
WALKER: Meteorologist Allison Chinchar is here, and you're tracking another one of those atmospheric rivers --
ALLISON CHINCHAR, METEOROLOGIST: And it's multiple, so, we have one today, but it's going to be a series of them that comes up through in the next several days. And that's what's going to ultimately lead to the flooding concern because it's going to be back-to-back events and having not much time in-between them is going to lead to a tremendous amount of water in a short period of time.
So, yes, you have 12 million people under those flood watches as we go through the next couple of days.
[06:55:00]
Now, one thing to note, too, on a lot of these is, it's not just rain, it's also snow. You're going to get the combination of both, and you can start to see a lot of those rain bands continue to slide in as we speak, but also too, look at the snow piling up, especially around Lake Tahoe, up and down the sierras. But it's not just the sierras, the cascades, the Olympics, even the Rockies are going to see that snow spreading eastward over the next 24 to 48 hours.
Now, when we talk about the atmospheric rivers, there's categories here, level twos, threes, those are mostly beneficial with maybe just the possibility for some hazardous impacts. Now, we're talking a level four out of five which is still beneficial, but now we start getting into mostly hazardous impacts especially around the bay area and slightly north.
So, it's a combination of getting multiple of these atmospheric river events that you've got the potential for flooding, not just today, but also tomorrow. And if we took these maps out even into Monday and Tuesday, you would continue to see it there as well, very heavy rainfall along the coast of California, and those continues even as we head into the upcoming week.
WALKER: All right, Allison Chinchar, thank you very much.
BLACKWELL: Thank you. Our breaking news coverage of the plane crash in Philadelphia continues next hour. More about what we know about the Medevac jet and the six people on board. We'll take a break. We'll be back.
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