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CNN This Morning
Hundreds of Flights Canceled at U.S. Airports; White Power Found in 'Suspicious Package' at Joint Base Andrews; Trump Orders Trump Administration to Pay SNAP Benefits in Full; Critics Howl as Tom Brady Clones Deceased Dog. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired November 07, 2025 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ISABEL ROSALES, CNN ANCHOR/CORRESPONDENT: And take a look at this. It is the first ever barbecue in space.
[06:00:08]
While astronauts aboard China's space station did not use a real charcoal grill, they were able to bake food in orbit. A hot air oven helped them cook up chicken and peppered steak. Oh, that sounds nice.
The ability to grill while in orbit was described as a significant upgrade to the space kitchen.
Well, thanks for joining us here on EARLY START. I'm Isabel Rosales. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: If you are heading to the airport, pack a lunch. It's going to be a while. CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a little worried that we're going to have a hard time coming back.
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CORNISH: Flight cancellations and chaos at the country's busiest airports. Could it finally be enough to break the shutdown stalemate?
And the Trump administration ordered to make full SNAP payments to 42 million Americans by today. Will it comply?
And multiple victims at Joint Base Andrews rushed to the hospital after someone opened a package containing a suspicious white powder.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): I will not be seeking reelection to Congress.
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CORNISH: The end of an era. Nancy Pelosi announces her retirement, and the president responds. Now meet the new dog, same as the old dog. How the GOAT, Tom Brady,
had his late pet cloned.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ELON MUSK, CEO, TESLA: Let's not have this whole thing be a discussion of my alleged pay.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Elon Musk's trillion-dollar pay day. Why the Tesla CEO says it's not about the money.
It's 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. This is a live look at BWI in Baltimore. Flight cancellations beginning to pile up now across the country.
Good morning, everybody. It's Friday, November 7. I want to thank you for waking up with me. I'm Audie Cornish, and here's where we begin.
The FAA cutting flights at 40 airports across the country due to the government shutdown. That includes 30 of the busiest airports.
The FAA says the cuts will start at about 4 percent but ramp up to thousands of canceled flights daily by the end of next week, putting travelers on edge from coast to coast.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's difficult to understand how they just can't figure this out. You know, it's going to impact everybody.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's tough. It's real hectic for everybody. I mean I'm flying right now. I'm going to come back Sunday, Jersey. So, I don't know what's going to happen.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm a nervous traveler anyway, a nervous flier. And you know, you want to know that the -- the people that are keeping you safe are being taken care of. And they're just not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All I can say is Republicans, Democrats, come together. Find a little reason.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Joining me now to discuss, Harvey Scolnick, retired FAA air traffic controller.
Good morning, Harvey. Thanks for being with us.
HARVEY SCOLNICK, RETIRED FAA AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Good morning, Audie. Good to be here.
CORNISH: So, people have been paying close attention, frankly, to the shutdown. In fact, probably because of what's going on at the airports. CNN actually obtained this image from one air controller's pay stub
from the last pay period. I want to show it to you, even though you can probably guess what it says. It says $0.
So, can you talk about the strains that these people are going through?
SCOLNICK: You know, I received a couple of those paychecks in my time, and certainly, I can understand it.
So, you know, there's nothing different that's happening in the towers and TRACONs and centers today that wasn't happening before the shutdown or a year ago or two years ago. Same controllers, same system, same shortages.
The difference is now somebody came and told them, look, go to work tomorrow, but don't bother looking in your bank accounts on pay day next Tuesday or every other Tuesday, because you're -- the money is not going to be in there.
And by the way, these 535 people over here who are responsible for keeping the government open, they're going to continue to get paid.
I think that the government should have expected that the controllers would be calling in sick in massive numbers, as they have done, and that's the reason for the delays. Obviously, the fact that so many controllers are calling in sick that there's not enough people in the towers and TRACONs and centers to handle the amount of traffic that's in their airspace.
CORNISH: I want to play for you something that kind of goes to what you're saying. A retired air traffic controller who's describing the situation for them this way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID RILEY, RETIRED AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Controllers are just being used as a pawn in this. This whole game of the shutdown.
Reducing it by 10 percent is -- it's a joke. Like I said, it's just something that's being used by the administration to make the flying public feel the pain.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[06:05:05]
CORNISH: Can you talk about that theory?
SCOLNICK: I agree with him 100 percent. I think that the controllers have been used as a pawn.
You know, this has happened before. Controllers have actually gone to, or haven't used sick leave this -- they are today. This is a different federal workforce of dedicate -- even though they're dedicated employees, there's something different about being a federal employee today.
I agree with that, with him when he said it won't make a dent. I don't think it will make a dent. And it won't make a difference, because the controllers, no matter how many airplanes enter their airspace, they're always going to meter it to the degree that they're able to handle it.
CORNISH: Harvey Scolnick keeping an eye on this for us. Thank you so much.
SCOLNICK: Thanks for having me, Audie.
CORNISH: New this morning, multiple people sent to the hospital after a suspicious package was delivered to the U.S. military base President Trump flies in and out of near D.C.
Two sources telling CNN that package delivered to Joint Base Andrews contained an unknown white substance. The building had to be evacuated, and a hazmat team was brought in. We don't know the extent of any illnesses.
Now, I want to bring in CNN senior national security analyst Juliette Kayyem.
Juliette, thanks for being with us. This envelope apparently was opened in the building that actually Houses the Air National Guard readiness center. And apparently, there was some sort of political propaganda included.
Is this something you've heard, as well? And what have you learned?
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Absolutely nothing specific yet about the nature of the political commentary. But the president, vice president and others do go through that area when they are -- they are getting onto bigger planes.
So, it has a -- it is essentially owned by the administration. And so, you would be worried about whether this is an attack or a threat against President Trump or members of his cabinet. That will -- we'll determine that; that will be released.
It's the powder that is, of course, scary. It's an interesting story at this stage, both, you know -- we are hearing reports that it is not known to be what we would suspect would be anthrax or what people worry about. And yet, people got sick.
Now, people can get sick from lots and lots of even legal toxic things. And so, we're just going to have to determine the extent of what their illnesses are.
But this was definitely the combination of the powder, alluding to anthrax or something scary. And -- and the pictures, or some political protest makes it clear that this is a -- another political attack, at least one targeted towards the government and military.
CORNISH: I was going to say, it's a bit of a throwback, I think, for people who remember way back when.
KAYYEM: Yes.
CORNISH: All the anthrax scares. What is the process for investigating kind of mystery powders being sent at this point?
KAYYEM: Yes, and it will be a little bit different, because we're on a military base. And yet they're on the -- the except D (ph). It was -- we think it was addressed to the National Guard bureau, which is not -- which is you know, these military facilities are quite large. So, there's different pieces of it.
Why was it sent to that part of the facility and not, say, towards the -- the sort of big Pentagon as we -- as we call it?
The investigation will, given the nature of it, will be done by the FBI, but with support, of course, with military assets and investigators.
The individuals who were harmed, we don't know if they're civilians or military. So, that will -- that will also factor in.
But right now, this would be, regardless of where it took place, a federal investigation, as you said, given the nature of what was sent. We don't know what it is yet, but it's clearly a throwback to a time when anthrax killed a lot of Americans.
And -- and this was either a -- you know, a hoax or a trick, or there was something in the substance that got people sick. And that's what we'll have to determine.
CORNISH: OK, that's Juliette Kayyem. Thank you so much.
And coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, it's the longest government shutdown. Will it be the most damaging, too?
Plus, another strike on an alleged drug boat. The warning from the secretary of defense.
And a new order: the government must pay SNAP benefits in full. Will the administration listen? Our group chat's got some thoughts on that, next.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your future doctors, your future lawyers are currently using SNAP benefits. And they rely on that in order to go to school, in order to become the doctors and the lawyers that we need we need.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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[06:14:22] CORNISH: The Trump administration will have to start making Food Stamp payments to millions of Americans as early as today. And that's after a federal judge's order.
The White House already appealed it as President Trump tries to use the program as a negotiating tool to end the government shutdown.
The program is a lifeline for millions of Americans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: People were saying that anyone who uses SNAP is like someone who's mooching off of the government. I think if -- it's important to know that people who are in these, like, respected fields, like medicine and law, are relying on this in order to get to that point where you're in that, like, respected community leader position.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Joining me now in the group chat, we have Noel King, co-host and editorial director of the "Today, Explained" podcast; Jonah Goldberg, co-founder and editor in chief of "The Dispatch"; and Ashley Etienne, former communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris.
I want -- all week I've been trying to suss out this idea of what makes this shutdown feel different in terms of public sympathy. And I know online this is, like, a great example.
The people who are affected can speak out in a way that maybe they weren't able to so many years ago.
NOEL KING, CO-HOST, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, "TODAY, EXPLAINED" PODCAST: That's exactly right. You see people all over TikTok being, like, I have a job. I still rely on SNAP.
Or, I don't have a job, and I rely on SNAP.
What's really interesting about this one is, I think, for a couple of weeks, it was like the shutdown is not causing as much havoc as people assumed. And it was like, well, maybe it's just not affecting that many people.
But 42 million Americans rely on SNAP. That is a lot of Americans who are getting ready to go hungry.
CORNISH: Yes. And then go online and cook up their recession meals hashtag. Like, it's -- it's pretty -- I've heard Republicans in particular will say, like, the mainstream media is turning this into X and Y.
But, like, they don't need us. They're out there showing what they think the problem is.
JONAH GOLDBERG, CO-FOUNDER/EDITOR IN CHIEF, "THE DISPATCH": Yes, I mean, it's also a lot like, you know, economic coverage. People think, well, we don't get the BLS reports, so therefore no one is losing jobs or getting jobs, right?
I mean, the economy does what the economy does, regardless of whether you can see into it. And people's lives are affected, regardless of how the coverage is.
And I think, in some ways, this was reflected in the Democrats' big win earlier this week; is like, the ground truth was just different than the conversation in Washington.
CORNISH: I want to start using ground truth. Thank you for that. Trademark it.
GOLDBERG: Sure.
CORNISH: Ashley.
ASHLEY ETIENNE, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR FOR VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS: How do I follow up ground truth?
I mean, I think -- you know, I was in the war room in '18 when we were in the longest shutdown. And, you know, we --
CORNISH: And by war room, you just mean working in the House speaker's office?
ETIENNE: Yes. Yes.
CORNISH: The politics.
ETIENNE: And we effectively, you know, created the ground pressure up on Republicans. And the way we did that was utilizing these real stories, allowing people space to tell stories about how they're experiencing the shutdown, leveraging mayors and governors and et cetera.
That is not happening as effectively as we did back then. But I think the difference here is, is that the economy is so bad, the economy is in the tank very different than '18. We weren't having the same problems --
CORNISH: Yes.
ETIENNE: -- with the economy now. So, I think everyone's feeling, like, compounded and under a lot of pressure from multiple different fronts, which you know, is causing people to come out and --
CORNISH: I just want to play one quick thing for you, because in this conversation about SNAP benefits, there is a way for the White House to administratively make some emergency funding available. And they're kind of fighting it, right? This is why it's in court.
So, here's what the vice president had to say about this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) J.D. VANCE, U.S. VICE PRESIDENT: It's an absurd ruling, because you have a federal judge, effectively, telling us what we have to do in the midst of a Democrat government shutdown, which what we'd like to do is for the Democrats to open up the government. And of course, then we can fund SNAP, and we can also do a lot of other good things for the American people.
But in the midst of a shutdown, we can't have a federal court telling the president how he has to triage the situation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: How do people hear that? I would --
KING: This is so tricky, right? Because we know the background that the vice president comes from. I think he probably is sympathetic to people who are on SNAP.
The argument is the president has decided that we are not going to do SNAP.
It's the holidays, and it's 42 million people. I don't know. I look at that, and I think, gosh, he doesn't sound sympathetic.
But what really matters here is how does that read to the people, to the millions of people who are going to vote in the midterms?
CORNISH: OK, you guys stay with me. We' re going to talk a lot more this hour about a couple of things. But after the break on CNN THIS MORNING, hard to wrap your mind around a trillion bucks. But Elon Musk is about to find out what that feels like.
Plus, if you can't say goodbye, you could follow Tom Brady's lead. He just cloned his family dog.
Live look at Atlanta. Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson Airport. This is one of the 40 airports where flights are being cut this morning due to the shutdown.
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[06:23:33]
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SETH MEYERS, HOST, NBC'S "LATE NIGHT WITH SETH MEYERS": Former NFL quarterback Tom Brady revealed this week that his dog, Junie, is a clone of his dog that passed in 2023.
He got the idea after it worked on Gronk.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: He's the GOAT, and as you just heard, he's got a new dog that's just like his old dog. Junie is a clone of his late dog Lua. Brady is an investor in Colossal Biosciences. Brady says Colossal,
quote, "gave my family a second chance with a clone of our beloved dog."
Colossal is the same bioscience firm that brought the dire wolf back from extinction last year.
We heard Seth Meyers poke fun at Gronk. So, let's hear from Brady's close pal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROB GRONKOWSKI, NFL LEGEND, TOM BRADY'S FORMER TEAMMATE: They take the piece of DNA, and they clone the dog. And it replicates the same exact look.
But the personality is not the same, and that's what you kind of really want in a cloned dog --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
GRONKOWSKI: -- is the personality.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CORNISH: Colossal just acquired ViaGen Pets and Equine, which has already cloned dogs for Paris Hilton and Barbra Streisand.
I wanted to talk about this with David Ewing Duncan. He's a science writer and contributor at Vanity Fair.
Good morning, David. Thanks for being with us.
DAVID EWING DUNCAN, SCIENCE WRITER/CONTRIBUTOR, "VANITY FAIR": Good morning. Happy to be here.
CORNISH: Not that I want to do it, but how much does this cost? Like, is this a thing?
DUNCAN: Well, there's a reason why people like Tom Brady and Barbra Streisand are doing this: they have the money. It's about $50,000 to get a viable dog, and sometimes you get more than one, by the way, just because, you know, as we know, you get more than one puppy often.
[06:25:12]
So, that's what it's going to cost you.
CORNISH: How far has this science come since the birth of Dolly the sheep?
DUNCAN: It's actually come a long way. I mean, the basic technology around Dolly the sheep is -- is pretty -- you know, it's pretty much the same as it was back then.
You -- you take the DNA out of the cell, a cell from the -- you know, dearly beloved animal. And you put it into a new cell, an egg that has had its nucleus taken away, its DNA taken away.
And you -- you put the -- the original dog's DNA into that new cell, and you get it -- you kind of tweak it so it starts replicating. And then you implant it in a surrogate dog.
And that -- that's basically the way Dolly was made. And that still is the essential technology.
But, you know, the technology around that has come a long way. I mean, we're heading towards things like artificial wombs, even for people at some point. You know, a lot of technologies. IVF has been a big part of this, as well. It's all kind of interrelated.
CORNISH: Although, of course, once you say IVF, this kind of gets at the heart of why people get concerned, right? They get worried about what it means for human beings.
But can you give me a sense of, I guess, who the critics are of this? Are there ethical questions that remain? Is it simply the animal welfare folks who say, look, there's plenty of dogs for you to adopt. You don't need to do this?
Kind of who are the people -- the coalition of people who may be experiencing some frustrations?
DUNCAN: Well, the animal rights people are a big part of this. And Barbra Streisand sort of let it slip during an interview back in 2018 that she had cloned her dog, Sammy. And she was pretty much -- she was pretty much attacked, somewhat viciously, from the animal rights community, for, you know, spending $50,000 on a -- on a cloned dog instead of going and finding -- you know, adopting a dog. Because there's so many of them out there that that need home.
There also is -- the process does involve a surrogate dog. You know, you -- there's this idea of commodifying life, which a lot of people are -- you know, we have to all think about that, really? You know, what road are we going to head out to, you know, with this idea of having, especially, surrogates. The process. These are real dogs.
When I did my "Vanity Fair" story, I actually went to South Korea, to another company called Sooam. And I was allowed in to go and meet these surrogate dogs, which live in a big compound and watch the whole process.
And it was a little queasy -- I'll just put it that way -- to think of, you know, these -- these cute, cute surrogate moms just being kind of a new form of puppy mill, in a way.
So, there's criticism around that. And, you know, just a lot of bioethicists. And, you know, it's also -- seems somewhat frivolous to be spending that kind of money on something when there are all these other dogs out there that one could adopt.
CORNISH: That's David Ewing Duncan. Thank you so much.
DUNCAN: Thank you. CORNISH: Ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, get a backup ticket. We're going
to be live from one of the busiest airports in the U.S. as travelers prepare for chaos.
Plus, Spotify sued for recommending too much Drake. Is it a pay-for- play?
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