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Erin Burnett Outfront
Trump Unhinged At Rally Amid Iran War, Low Approval, GOP Revolt; Consumer Sentiment Hits Record Low Amid Rising Prices, Iran War; NASCAR Star's Sudden Death. Aired 7-8p ET
Aired May 22, 2026 - 19:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[19:00:22]
ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:
The breaking news of Trump unhinged amid a war, record low poll numbers and a mutiny in his own party. Tonight, we have new reporting this hour from the White House.
Plus, the alarm bells are sounding -- consumer sentiment plunging, gas prices soaring. Americans now feel worse than they did during the Great Recession. Einstein, Ives and the white board are here tonight.
And the mystery surrounding a star's sudden death. We're now learning NASCAR legend Kyle Busch was short of breath and coughing up blood just the day before he died. What happened to the only 41-year-old?
Let's go OUTFRONT.
(MUSIC)
BURNETT: And good evening. I'm Erin Burnett on this Friday.
And OUTFRONT tonight, Trump losing control. The president in the middle of a war with record low approval ratings, surging gas prices and mutiny over what some in his own party see as a corrupt $1.8 billion fund to pay out Trump allies. Well, that's the context.
And this is what we heard from the president in that context today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When I have lunch with somebody that's really, really successful, I hate it because he or she is bragging about how great they are. And I hate that when they do that, because they stop me from talking about the fact that I became president.
The gay national anthem, if you remember. That's why I did so well with the gay vote.
A lot of people don't know dumb has to be in it. Actually, I'm looking at the legs. He's -- this beautiful guy, he's got legs like tree trunks.
We love electric cars. I have to say that because of Elon.
You have a bear, a snake, an elephant and a horse. Name the horse.
I'm the smartest guy you're ever going to meet.
They hit me with a bad one. He's a dumb person. D-U-M, not the B.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: That is the president of the United States in wartime. That's what he's talking about.
And today, Senator Roger Wicker, who is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, writes, we're at a moment that will define President Trump's legacy. His instincts have been to finish the job he started in Iran, but he is being ill-advised.
Now, just looking at this 30-minute speech, you just heard some -- some little clips there, but of the entire, I'm sorry, 90-minute speech, 90, Trump mentioned Iran just a handful of times.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We'll have that over with soon. It'll be over with soon
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Now, of course, we've been hearing that since the war started months ago, 84 days ago. And we should mention that Trump said it's because of Iran that he cannot go to his son's wedding this weekend, posting, "While I very much wanted to be with my son Don, Jr., and the newest member of the Trump family, his soon to be wife Bettina, circumstances pertaining to government and my love for the United States of America do not allow me to do so. I feel it is important for me to remain in Washington, D.C., at the White House during this important period of time."
Now, of course, obviously, that's a serious statement. If that's the reason, of course, you listen to what Trump said, though, during that rally, it sounded much more frivolous than that.
And it is not just Iran. You heard Senator Wicker there talking and criticizing Trump there. That is causing division within the GOP.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis also taking issue with the people who are right now surrounding Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): We're hitting some headwinds now, and we can't let people in the White House who are advising the president advise him on things that make it even more difficult for my colleagues to come back in majorities.
(END VIDEO CLIP) BURNETT: He is referring, perhaps, to things like the $1.8 billion Trump fund today that was hit with a new lawsuit, a group of federal prosecutors and a prominent government watchdog group are asking a judge in Virginia to now block the fund, writing this latest attempt by the Trump administration to make grift great again is profoundly unlawful and will not withstand judicial scrutiny. Trump, though, is digging in on this one, much like the ballroom and the arch. He wants this fund even though his own party is rebelling.
Today, he defended the $1.8 billion fund, saying, "I gave up a lot of money in allowing the just announced anti-weaponization fund to go forward. I could have settled my case, including the illegal release of my tax returns and the equally illegal break-in of Mar-a-Lago for an absolute fortune. Instead, I am helping others who were so badly abused by an evil, corrupt and weaponized Biden administration to receive at long last, justice."
Now, obviously, the things that he presents in there as facts are much in dispute. There's been a lot of analysis that would have shown he would have owned owed an incredible amount of money had all of this gone forward. And Trump did settle before the case even went to court. So, it's unclear what the reality on the money situation is. But the White House says it looks forward to additional conversations.
[19:05:01]
Okay. Well, they say as needed and they will be needed because Trump's agenda has hit a wall because of Republicans who have left town for Memorial Day. They didn't vote on the immigration bill. Why? Well, in part because of the fund and Trump's mad. And then he took his anger out on Thom Tillis. He called him a quitter for retiring, saying, "I called him a nitpicker, always fighting against the Republican Party and me, mostly on things that didn't matter.
And the Republicans are pushing back, though, on things that do matter, like the Iran war, the billion dollar fund, the ballroom, all of those things matter. And poll after poll shows American thinks they matter. Americans, majority of them disapprove of Trump and say that he has not focused on what matters to them.
And just before we came to air, Trump posted a picture, by the way, if you talk about how he's spending his time, just posted this picture of himself alongside Greenland, saying, "Hello, Greenland."
So, you know, when you're wondering what is going on this weekend, you've got Iran, you've got Cuba. And I guess it's time to remind everybody that, yes, Trump still wants to take over Greenland.
Kevin Liptak is OUTFRONT outside the White House tonight.
And, Kevin, obviously you just saw that post that he just put out about Greenland. What's the latest that you're learning there?
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah. And we're ending a week here where you could really see the pressure mounting on President Trump from all sides. If you hear the sound of motorcycles behind me, it's President Trump arriving back to the White House, back to the north portico. You know, he was supposed to spend the weekend at his golf resort in New Jersey. They abruptly changed the schedule around in the middle of the day today, which led to all kinds of speculation about why the president needs to spend the weekend back here at the White House.
And I think part of it is all of these pressures that he is now confronting, whether it's the open rebellion in his own party. You know, when you talk to officials, a lot of that came to their surprise. They did not necessarily expect Republicans to be so upset about this $1.8 billion fund. That's part of the reason why I think theyre struggling to wrap their hands around what exactly theyre going to do to get some of this legislation moving forward.
You also feel the pressure on Iran. You know, we are now within the time span of the presidents own timeline that he sent earlier this week to restart strikes on that country. If they don't come to him with a deal that he can accept. Remember, he said that it would happen early next week, potentially, if Iran isn't able to submit a deal, he can sort of sign off on.
Now, the president earlier today, we understand, did meet with some national security officials inside the Oval Office. Of course, Iran, a point of discussion there, we just heard in the last hour from Iran's foreign ministry saying that they are not close to a deal with the United States, that there are some very deep differences, that they continue to try and bridge as they try and come up with some sort of agreement.
So, clearly, the president has a huge decision in front of him here. He will spend the weekend here at the White House trying to sort some of that out. But a lot of pressure that he's going to have to try and get himself out from under.
BURNETT: All right. Kevin, thank you very much at the White House.
And everyone's here with me now.
Philip, you've been keeping track of Trump's travel. Okay. And obviously the weather this weekend is not good golf weather. Okay? Why is this relevant? Because it's relevant to Trump. He likes to play golf. You say he's spent more than 30 days traveling since the start of the war, and what, more than a dozen rounds of golf?
PHILIP BUMP, SENIOR DATA EDITOR & COLUMNIST, HEARST: Yeah, yeah. I mean, he's played more than almost 370 rounds of golf over his two terms, despite being president for about five years.
This is what he does most weekends. He goes to one of his properties, sometimes plays golf, often plays golf. And he was scheduled to go to Bedminster. I think you're right. It's raining in Bedminster.
It's also raining, going to be raining in near Washington.
BURNETT: Virginia, Virginia. BUMP: So he has been consistent in his second term in spending a lot
of time away from the White House at his private properties, playing golf, even more so than the first term. I think people sort of got accustomed to doing it. He's been doing it more, his second term in office. And it's frankly remarkable, and I think speaks to your point about the amount of attention he's paying to his job as opposed to just being the Trump he wants to be.
BURNETT: Right. And it is remarkable also in the sense that we are in a war. The United States is in war, and a lot of other things have happened, whether it's what happened in Venezuela, tariffs, this term as opposed to last term.
BUMP: And very quickly on that point in the first term, when the pandemic arose, when the government was shut down, he actually stopped going to his properties. This time he hasn't bothered.
BURNETT: So -- so, Max, you know, some of Trump's tweet today, he said, "Well, I very much wanted to be with my son, Don, Jr., circumstances pertaining to government and my love of the USA do not allow me to do so."
I just want to note, because I remember, getting on the plane that that morning, Trump was in Mar-a-Lago when he launched the war with Iran. So where he is has never been relevant to him in terms of doing anything that he wants to do.
MAX ROSE (D), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: Well, first of all, let me just say this. There's been so many weddings I've not wanted to go to and to wish I had the commander in chief card to pull out in this manner, because he clearly doesn't want to be at his own son's wedding. That certainly speaks to what we've all known about him, which is a person that lacks the capacity for normal human emotion.
[19:10:01]
The president moves with the White House, right? He doesn't need to be at the White House to execute the powers of the commander in chief.
BURNETT: Right.
ROSE: So this is just an incredibly odd situation. And even odder that he would tweet about it in the manner that he did not even speaking to any heartfelt notions about his own, his own child.
BURNETT: You know, Rina, it was interesting because today when I was playing some of the things that Trump said, it was at an event for Congressman Lawler, purple district, very purple district. Right. And so, Lawler has to walk a line. Okay? And Trump, you know, Trump lost to Kamala Harris in that district by less than 1 percent, right? That is a split district.
So, you know, given what you heard Trump say today at that event, was it smart? If you're trying to win the house, maintain your seat to bring Trump there? RINA SHAH, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Absolutely not. Lawler has been
confusing in the past many months. I think by continuing to seem like he wants to be close to this White House, I mean, his colleagues in the Senate are understanding right now that, well, theyre reading the room. It's six months out from the midterms. It's time to get tough about what matters to you constituents hate endless war.
And when we think about these Republican senators, some 25 that really stood up and got mad at Blanche on Capitol Hill this week, for example, about the fund. I'm thinking these guys aren't in full revolt. They're just in midterm savior mode.
And so, Lawler, if he knew better, he would be doing that too. But I think he's employing a throw it all at the wall strategy. He thinks that maybe Trump's charisma might win out with some folks. But again, the pocketbook issues. Trump is not talking about. He's making it all about himself. And he's clearly lying to many folks as well, because he wants to cover up.
I mean, this is about three T's here, Erin. This is how I've been thinking about things lately -- timing, transparency and trust. And a lot of members of congress have lost trust in Trump because he's demanded their trust, but he hasn't given them a reason to trust him in return.
And then timing is pretty awful on everything. Iran being number one, he said four to five weeks. Where are we at now? He's not transparent, even again, about Iran. Who's helping him craft these deals, which, as Senator Wicker put it, he's being ill-advised on.
So I think this is a really terrible week for this Trump administration. And Lawler should not have Trumped him at his event.
BURNETT: I mean, Max, what do you make of that, Lawler having him? Especially in the context of what's been happening, where Trump has been getting his victories and clearly its been puffing him up.
ROSE: Sure.
BURNETT: But his victories have come from primaries that appeal to the most base of his base. Right? And that has been giving him energy. But that's not Lawler's position.
ROSE: Yeah. Look, anyone that knows New York politics knows Mike Lawler doesn't actually believe anything. He follows the numbers. And so, the fact -- and he's politically astute. So the fact that he invited Donald Trump speaks to actually the political conundrum that he is in, he needs to somehow excite this rather crazy, Trump obsessed base and try to win over these independents who are totally moved away from that.
And the truth of the matter is, is that you cannot do both. This is a midterm election. In a midterm election, people win when their base is enthusiastic. And that's why the prospects of Mike Lawler winning reelection, because he's unable to actually truly be an independent voice who can disassociate himself from that base, that's why it's so unlikely he'll win.
BURNETT: So, you know, amidst all of this, Philip, we have Tulsi Gabbard today announcing that she's resigning as director of national intelligence. And she said that her husband has been diagnosed with an extremely rare form of bone cancer, that she needs to be with him in the coming weeks and months. Now, I will note that her resignation does not take place, immediately, right? She's going to be here, I believe, for what? Another five weeks or so?
Okay, so, she is going to be here for another five weeks. But you know, what do you make of this happening now?
BUMP: Yeah, it's a good question. And I don't know what the best answer is to it. I think that, you know, she, she has poisoned her own political career. Very obviously, she was originally a Democrat, as people may recall, and she sort of aligned with Trump. And she got brought into the administration.
And her position was always -- she was very fervent anti-war. She now has Iran hung around her neck as being part of the administration when this occurred. It is possible that finally caught up with her, her chief deputy, Joe Kent, had actually left the administration and cited Iran as the reason why. So it's possible she may have just.
BURNETT: In a very notable way. Yes.
BUMP: Very publicly, very publicly.
So I don't know why now. I'm not surprised that it happened. This is, I think, the fourth woman who has left the Trump administration, which I think is notable in its own regard.
BURNETT: Yes, it is. But, you know, I don't think, though, that it makes Donald Trump's position worse in terms of what it is he's trying to do, because Donald Trump is his own advisor and he does what he wants to do. And, you know, he'll ask the, you know, waiters on the floor at Mar-a-Lago what they think about stuff, too.
But it is not as though she was a central part of the decision making, as we've heard from the reporting. So I don't know if this changes a lot.
BURNETT: Right, right. I mean, you can chuckle and say, well, Marco Rubio just takes another job.
But, Rina, it is -- it is notable that this is happening now.
SHAH: Yeah, it's questionable because number one, her track record as someone who questions war is really big here. And I think she fell out of step and really fell out of the personal circle. I think she really understood that her head was on the chopping block. She was either going to be fired like Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi, or she could be ahead of the curve like Lori Chavez-DeRemer, the former secretary of labor, and say, I think a firing is coming, so I'm just going to resign because I think if health were the real question here or the real reason. I -- I certainly think that she would just go sooner than five weeks from now.
I know the DNI job is a big job, but she's been sidelined. There are people that can step right into that job tomorrow and be an acting designee. So I have a lot of empathy. My late dad was a surgical oncologist, specialist. I just -- I just feel for her and her husband. They are young, but this isn't -- this timing is really suspect, much like a lot of things that come out of that orbit.
BURNETT: All right. Thank you all very much. I appreciate you.
And next, the breaking news, a new warning tonight that the Ebola outbreak is much larger than confirmed cases suggest. As were learning more tonight about the American doctor who is fighting for survival tonight.
And our KFILE with new reporting about one of the front runners in a crucial race this November, the leading candidate repeatedly calling to defund and abolish the police. And she's not changing her tune.
And consumer confidence plummeting to a record low this month. How bad is it? Einstein and Ives are back, along with the whiteboard.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:21:33]
BURNETT: Breaking news, flashing warning signs for the U.S. economy. Consumer sentiment hitting an all time low amid growing concerns about inflation and Trump's war with Iran, which means Americans are more down on the economy than in any other time since 1952. That's a long time ago.
And it comes as Kevin Warsh, who Trump picked as the new Federal Reserve chairman in the hopes that Warsh would lower interest rates, was just sworn in. Trump claiming today that Warsh will be free from any pressure from Trump in the job.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I want Kevin to be totally independent. I want him to be independent and just do a great job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Now, Kevin Warsh is well aware of the reality, which is that -- that is hard to believe because you will remember what Trump routinely said about the former chairman of the federal reserve, Jay Powell. That's Warsh's predecessor, Trump said pretty nasty things about him when Powell refused to do Trump's bidding.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We have a terrible chairman right now.
We have a lousy Fed chair.
He's a fool. He's a stupid man.
He's incompetent
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: I'm sure Kevin Warsh is ready for that. If he does what the markets think he's going to need to do, which is the opposite of what Trump wants. Einstein and I, as Peter Tuchman and Dan Ives are back here with me.
Okay, so let's just start here, Peter, with this consumer sentiment. And I always there's consumer sentiment and consumer confidence. There's two different numbers that come out a couple weeks apart. They are both saying horrific things today. It's the lowest level since 1952, a couple weeks ago. The other measure was the lowest level -- in an even longer period of time.
It's incredible. Okay. And we were just talking about it. We'll just get our whiteboard out of the way, right? Let's get it out right away.
Some people's perception of their personal finances fell 13 percent. It's an unlucky number, down 13 percent in one month. That number really stands out.
PETER TUCHMAN, TRADER AT THE NEW YORK STOCK EXCHANGE: Is it this month, just this past month?
BURNETT: This past month, yeah.
TUCHMAN: Okay. Look, that that is, you know, that is after -- we've been in the conflict now for, what, three months?
BURNETT: Eighty-four days.
TUCHMAN: Okay. So -- and, and think about it, we've sustained a price of a barrel of oil above $100 for way too long. That has got to be the biggest inflationary component of all. And think about it.
And I'm sure, you know, not only people who are in the stock market, but your everyday person who's living paycheck to paycheck or anybody, you know, who has a blue collar job is noticing that everything related to, to gas and or oil is expensive, is really expensive. And it's whether they're K-shaped, right. Explain the K shape because that's because --
DAN IVES, GLOBAL HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH, WEDBUSH SECURITIES: It's everything. The K-shape where its going, the high end, those, whether it's the market exposed to tech and everything we see going on in silicon valley, it's --
BURNETT: The market just keeps going up and up and up, even as American consumer situation is going down, right? So the K -- that's K.
IVES: Yeah. A lot of that is A.I. and tech driven. And then as you're talking about on the low end, in terms of just the regular economy, you continue to see it soft and you see some of the Wal-Mart numbers and others. And it speaks to, you know, what were going through right now in terms of this unevenness.
BURNETT: Yeah.
TUCHMAN: No, there are certain times when, you know, the market goes in concert with the economy, and then there's some times where they kind of bifurcate, right? And that's -- that's at a high, in my opinion, that's -- we're at that point now in such a huge way.
BURNETT: All right. And, there's only so long that can continue. Something's got to give. The question is what we don't know, but when you have Kevin Warsh coming in. Okay. Was it -- I think the last person to come in, in such a bizarre moment was Alan Greenspan.
[19:25:00]
IVES: Yes.
BURNETT: Okay? And Kevin Warsh comes in, Trump wants rates to go down. And Kevin Warsh maybe a few months ago would have been possibly on board with that. That was one of the reasons Trump wanted to pick him. But now you've got a situation where you have you have an inflation problem, even as you have a growth problem. And to solve that, the markets now saying, hey, guess what? Kevin Warsh, you're going to have to raise rates even as people are in pain.
IVES: Well, that's what the markets say. And the reality is like a dual mandate when you think about growth. And then of course, lowering inflation.
Look, inflation is creeping up. And as we've talked about relative to oil and what we're seeing from PPI to CPI, and Warsh is going to come in and basically has to like he's going to sort of clear the decks and say, okay, were ultimately going to have to have an economy that is very focused in terms of, you know, making sure inflation doesn't get worse.
And the reality is that's probably a hike that's now factored into to the rest --
BURNETT: Well, because we haven't even really seen inflation yet.
TUCHMAN: And it's far -- we're not going to feel it. We're going to feel this way down the road. The one, the thing that Dan sort of shared with me a couple of weeks ago was that for every for every $10 increase in the price of a barrel of oil is equivalent to 1 percent GDP. So we went from a $65 barrel of oil before the conflict, right, and a fairly three and a half, 4 percent GDP. And we're now at $105 on a sustained level.
BURNETT: Yeah.
TUCHMAN: And so, that means that that the GDP is probably down to flat. And if you cant lower interest rates with a low growth, slow growth environment or landscape, right? BURNETT: But yet in this, you have a lot of problems and then you have
a market that just keeps going up. La di da. If this is the greatest thing that's ever happened and it happens day after day, and it happens, even though a whole lot of companies are hurting and a whole lot of stocks are hurting, way more hurting than going up, but the ones that are going up are going up so much in such a meaningful way that the whole thing is going up.
And that's A.I., your heart and soul.
TUCHMAN: And derivatives of A.I.
BURNETT: And derivatives of A.I., seven top A.I. companies. But it's not just that the economy doesn't -- isn't catching that either yet or ever. Who knows? It's Americans' perception of this A.I.
So, Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, gave this, this college graduation speech at the University of Arizona. Let me just play a clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ERIC SCHMIDT, FORMER CEO OF GOOGLE: I know what many of you are feeling about that. I can hear you.
(BOOS)
SCHMIDT: There is a fear -- there is a fear in your generation that the future has already been written, that the machines are coming, that the jobs are evaporating. And I understand that fear. It's rational.
The question is not whether A.I. will shape the world. It will. The question is whether you will help shape artificial intelligence. We do not know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: Sadly, we're all shaping it because it's stealing all of our data every single second. But that's a separate issue. But maybe that anger you just heard from me is what a lot of people in that audience.
IVES: Well, I'll guarantee you this, Schmidt's not getting invited back as commencement speaker there. And look, look, and I think it just speaks to like you talk about reading the room. You know, that's a big issue right now because tech has a P.R. problem when it comes to A.I. and we've talked about it because look, for the first time in 30 years, U.S. has ahead of China when it comes to tech, you see everything from SpaceX to OpenAI to Anthropic.
But for kids graduate, and I see it so many colleges. What does it mean for them? And you have to read the room. And I think it comes down to how are jobs going to be created? How are you going to have an economy that's not K shaped, and that's why you're seeing this -- this backlash. TUCHMAN: If you -- if you watched, I think it was Bill Ackman who gave
a commencement speech also. And he said, you know, A.I. is here to stay. As you said, it is a revolution, right? And what you're going to have to do to get ahead of it is to learn coding and learn this, even mention a particular one. And the bottom line is its way bigger than us and its way bigger than they were.
BURNETT: And they were receptive to that?
TUCHMAN: And they were right, because then it's reading the room. The bottom line is, when I say that to college students all the time, I say, do you know what? The best thing I can tell you is that just get as savvy as you can about everything about A.I. and then you'll set.
IVES: Right.
TUCHMAN: Exactly.
IVES: And also when Ackman.
TUCHMAN: Be flexible with your skill set.
IVES: Ackman is someone that sees it front and center, just like many others. And I think Schmidt -- you know, you talk about situations we've seen across commencements, like you have to talk to students how it could help them. And Peter and I, we mentor students, you know, all the time around the country, around the world, because its trying to show them like how they could ultimately get better in this new world and embrace it and the skill sets.
BURNETT: All right. Well, thank you both very much.
And next, the breaking news, we've got new 911 calls that reveal that NASCAR legend Kyle Busch was coughing up blood and struggling to breathe just the day before he died. It's terrifying. What could have happened to him.
Plus, our KFILE uncovering a post from a leading Democrat for governor who once went after the fast food industry, calling Trump, quote, "orange and fat".
[19:30:01]
And that is not all she said.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BURNETT: Breaking news, we are learning new details in the sudden death of 41-year-old NASCAR star Kyle Busch. Just released 911 calls show Busch was coughing up blood this week, the day before he died. Here's the moment someone called for an ambulance as Busch lay awake on the bathroom floor, overheating and struggling to breathe.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
911 CALLER: I've got an individual that's shortness of breath, very hot. I think he's going to pass out and is producing a little bit of blood, coughing up some blood.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
BURNETT: Busch died Thursday, and so far there is no known cause of death.
Dr. Jonathan Reiner is here with me.
And, Dr. Reiner, obviously an incredible tragedy.
[19:35:00]
Such a young person, 41 years old, two young children. And the symptoms here appeared so suddenly. You know, he had said he had sort of what he felt was a sinus infection in recent days. But then in these the day before he died, shortness of breath, overheating, coughing up blood, feeling like he would pass out lying on the -- on the floor and then ending in this horrific way.
Do you have any idea what this could be?
DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, first of all, my heart goes out to Mr. Busch's family. What a -- what a horrible and tragic loss.
So, you know, the sort of triad of acute shortness of breath, coughing and coughing up blood, what we call hemoptysis makes me think of something like an acute pulmonary embolus. So a pulmonary embolus, as, as many people may know, is a clot that travels up to the heart and gets stuck in the pulmonary artery or in the smaller arteries in the lungs.
If a clot is large enough, it can block almost all the blood that the heart is trying to pump into the lungs, and that would cause somebody to collapse. So the -- this sort of this triad of Mr. Busch's symptoms sounds an awful lot like that.
Now, what doesn't sort of, you know, match is that about ten days before, he had complained of something when he was driving at the end of a race in Watkins Glen. And he asked to see a doctor at the end and said he needed -- needed a shot.
BURNETT: Doctor, let me just jump in here. Let me just -- I'll just jump in here because I want to play that moment when he did that, when he called for the doctor over his radio that you're referring to a couple of weeks ago, here he is.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
KYLE BUSCH, NASCAR DRIVER: And, can somebody try to find Bill Heisel? He's Kendrick's doctor guy. Tell him I need him after the race, please.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, do you want Mr. Bill at your car or in the -- at your bus after the race?
BUSCH: Bus. I'm going to need a shot.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Copy. He's going to -- he'll be at your bus.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
BURNETT: You heard him say that. I'm going to need a shot. So when you look at the timing of that, what he said and what happened, what do you see?
REINER: Well, he wasn't feeling well two weeks before. So the question is whether that was part of this process. Just an earlier, earlier symptom of the same process or it was different. Or maybe he did have a cold a couple of weeks ago, but something different happened to him.
But it's possible to have some small pulmonary emboli. And then a week or two later have a massive pulmonary embolus. Other things that can do this include entities like a heart attack, a massive heart attack with acute dysfunction of the heart can cause pulmonary edema or fluid leaking into the lungs, shortness of breath, cough, and also blood.
And that's very possible. He was 41 years old, but I take care of people all the time who are 40 years old having a heart attack. Severe what we call necrotizing pneumonia, where pneumonia actually is destroying the tissue of the lung can do this.
This will be known. You know, his doctors. And if necessary, a medical examiner will figure this out. And it's just a tragic loss.
BURNETT: Yeah. Absolutely tragic. And just so terrifying to see how it happened so suddenly. Shockingly.
Dr. Reiner, thank you very much, as always.
REINER: My pleasure.
BURNETT: And also breaking tonight, the World Health Organization warning the Ebola outbreak is, quote, "much larger than the number of confirmed cases," writing, "There are now almost 750 suspected cases and 177 suspected deaths. As president Trump's former CDC director is making a dire prediction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. ROBERT REDFIELD, TRUMP'S FORMER CDC DIRECTOR: It's going to be very hard. I suspect this is going to become a very significant pandemic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BURNETT: A very significant pandemic. Important words as we are learning more tonight about the American doctor who tested positive for the virus while he was working to help Ebola patients, Dr. Peter Stafford, a medical missionary with the charity organization Serge, currently in an isolation ward at a hospital in Berlin, Germany, amid what surge is calling, quote, his fight for survival.
And Matt Allison is OUTFRONT now. He is the executive director of Serge.
And, Matt, I'm grateful for your time tonight. What are you able to share about Dr. Stafford's condition tonight and his symptoms?
MATT ALLISON, CO-WORKER OF AMERICAN DOCTOR WITH EBOLA: Yeah. So I've been able to speak with Peter just about every day since he arrived in Berlin. And every day we get a better report. He's feeling better. You know, appetite is back. Fever is gone. He feels still weak, but in the right direction.
BURNETT: Well, that is really good news. It's great to hear that. And that he's even able to talk to you every day, because I know, you know, that he had shared via your organization. Matt, before I was evacuated, I was feeling really concerned I wasn't going to make it. And, you know, we had heard he wasn't even able to walk essentially when he arrived in Berlin.
[19:40:01]
I mean, did you share that concern, that life and death concern in those early hours of his diagnosis when he was rushed to Berlin?
ALLISON: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when we first encountered an Ebola outbreak 20 years ago within our company, you know it felt like a death sentence when you became sick. And so, you know, when, his teammate texted us that, you know, I had to help him out of bed and get him to the ambulance to go. He couldn't walk on his own, that -- that really concerned me.
BURNETT: Yeah. I mean, obviously, you look at the -- we know half the people that get it possibly could die. I mean, it's terrifying diagnosis.
And I know Dr. Stafford's wife, Rebecca, and their four children. We've got images that they shared were potentially exposed to Ebola as well. So, they're in the same Berlin hospital, and obviously isolated from others. You could see them looking through a window into the room where their dad is being held. Just to put the image on that, that separation, what that is for those children.
There's another American doctor, Patrick LaRochelle, who was also potentially exposed to the virus. And he's now in quarantine in Prague.
As far as, you know, are Dr. Stafford's family, Dr. LaRochelle, are they all still asymptomatic?
ALLISON: That's right. Yeah. And for Patrick and Rebecca and the kids, you know, the doctors have decided to go ahead and give them the antibody treatment that was so effective for peter, almost as a preventative thing. So, that, you know, were just further reducing the chances we think of symptoms developing and there to be anything to be concerned about.
BURNETT: Do you think any of them will be headed home soon? And it certainly sounds like from Dr. Stafford's condition he's getting better day by day. Do you have any sense of a timeline?
ALLISON: Yeah, I mean, the standard -- the standard procedure for Ebola is 21 days from your last contact with an Ebola positive person. And so that count, we don't know exactly how the CDC is counting that for us with their partners in Berlin and Prague. But we think its going to be week still before any of them will sort of be out of their isolation. But, you know, they've done it before for other things.
And so, you know, I think they're all in really good spirits.
BURNETT: Yeah. Well, certainly wonderful news about Dr. Stafford and his improving condition.
Matt, thank you very much for your time tonight and for giving us all those updates.
ALLISON: Absolutely. Thank you so much, Erin
BURNETT: And OUTFRONT next, the fear of future of flying. Our Pete Muntean takes on a plane powered by A.I. Maybe that's why I said fear, because A.I. powered planes. But it's an amazing story.
Plus, our KFILE uncovering a number of posts from a leading candidate in a major race for governor posts. This front runner is standing by even though her own party is backing away from similar comments. KFILE is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:47:17]
BURNETT: Tonight, a CNN exclusive, a leading Democratic candidate for governor in battleground Wisconsin, repeatedly called for abolishing police departments. And unlike many Democrats who later distanced themselves from the defund the police movement very, very aggressively distanced themselves. She did not disavow these comments when questioned by CNN.
State Representative Francesca Hong is a Democratic socialist who is among the top candidates in Wisconsin's Democratic primary. She wrote in 2020 that she supported defunding the police as a first step towards abolishing the police. And then in 2021, she wrote, "Police exist to uphold white supremacy, defund, then abolish. Reform can't be an option."
KFILE's Andrew Kaczynski broke the story, and he joins me now.
And obviously, this is very significant because she's, you know, a very important frontrunner here in this race. So what more did you find?
ANDREW KACZYNSKI, CNN KFILE SENIOR EDITOR: Well, Erin, her comments were not isolated to the racial justice protests in 2020 and 2021. We found, our view, that she repeatedly called for not just defunding police departments, but abolishing them entirely, including after she took office in the Wisconsin state legislature. In one post, she called to abolish the police state and argued that
reform has never been the answer. And many of these comments came after, to be clear, high profile police shootings during those racial justice racial justice protests, including the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Now, in another tweet, Hong wrote, "When an institution can only respond in violence because it's so deeply rooted in maintaining a carceral system upheld by white supremacy, the priority can only be to work to abolish the institution."
And in 120 tweet -- 2023 tweet directed to the city of Madison, she wrote, "Defund the police, defund the police, defund the police, craft the 2021 budget."
BURNETT: Wow. Yeah, I see that. Defund the police, defund the police. Defund the police. Yeah. Okay. One, two, three and four. All right. So you also found that she made another number of other controversial social media posts touching on race, also touching on policing. What has stood out to you?
KACZYNSKI: Yeah, Erin. So in addition to the policing comments, Hong also reposted during the 2020 Democratic primary about white male privilege and during the early days of the pandemic, reposted a thread that read, you can all say Chinese coronavirus as long as they could say white racism. Now, she defended those comments to CNN, saying this was coming at a time when anti-Asian rhetoric, particularly from then President Donald Trump, was contributing to attacks against Asian Americans. And she said it was, quote, completely, completely reasonable for people to call out racism.
In a since deleted tweet from march 2020, she also lamented that the White House invited the nation's top fast food chains and restaurant industry groups to talk about the pandemic response. And she said, quote, "This is who gets to talk about food policy, the folks, dot, dot, dot, dot, the folks who keep Trump orange and fat."
[19:50:04]
And then you see that she said the F word.
Now, she stood by that tweet where she told us that it was uniquely frustrating to watch fast food executives who she said sole purpose is increasing profit, influencing health and food policy.
BURNETT: Okay. Now what's interesting, there's a lot interesting about this, but one of the things is that the defund the police movement, there were there were many Democrats who were talking about that at the height of some of those racial justice protests, but then they walked it back, right? And then they said they just wanted smarter policing or they completely walked back the defund the police. What is she saying now?
KACZYNSKI: Well, that is what's notable about this is that unlike many Democrats who later deleted or announced support for the movement, Hong didn't disavow her past calls to abolish the police departments, when we asked her directly. Instead, she described her comments as part of what she called was a wider conversation around police abolition. But she said she does not support what she said were would be arbitrary cuts to public safety budgets.
She told CNN, while I envision a world where public safety is not synonymous with law enforcement, I recognize that this paradigm shift is a very long term vision, and my focus is on building systems of care for now and for our future. And, Erin, this is all coming, as we said, as national Democrats have spent years trying to distance themselves from the political fallout surrounding defund the police. Polling has consistently found this slogan deeply, deeply unpopular, even with progressive Democrats in major cities who have since walked away from that rhetoric.
And remember, this is a true battleground state. Donald Trump carried Wisconsin twice, and Republicans have already begun seizing on her past comments as they try to paint her as too far left in what is essentially one of the purplest of purple states. So, Erin, it is going to be super, super interesting to see in this hotly contested Democratic primary how this will play out.
BURNETT: And fascinating too, because as we've been watching what's happening in some of the MAGA primaries, with the victories there that are going more towards the right, what are you going to see on the left, and is it going to go more? That direction is obviously an important one to watch.
KACZYNSKI: We'll see.
BURNETT: KFILE, thank you very much.
And next, Pete Muntean is taking a ride on a plane that could transform how we all fly because it is a plane -- a plane powered by A.I.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[19:56:27]
BURNETT: And finally tonight, what is it like to be inside an airplane flown by A.I.?
Pete Muntean found out, and he's going to take you on the journey.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): I'm in the copilot seat of a Cessna.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One, two, three. Good
MUNTEAN (voice-over): And I'm about to find out what happens when the pilot flying is not human, but artificial intelligence.
TIM BURNS, CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, MERLIN LABS: This is our experimental caravan. MUNTEAN (voice-over): Tim Burns is the chief technology officer at
Merlin Labs, a Boston startup developing a system that can be bolted into existing airplanes. Merlin says its system can fly the plane, talk to air traffic control, and even help make decisions about weather and routing.
BURNS: We're trying to capture the judgment and abilities of a real aviator.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Merlin says it has completed hundreds of test flights to see how the system performs in real world conditions, though it is likely years away from carrying passengers.
In the back of the plane, one of the company's engineers is monitoring what the A.I. is doing in real time.
MATT DIAMOND, TEST PILOT: I don't know if I know exactly what I'm in for here.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Alongside me is test pilot Matt Diamond, who on this flight won't be doing much piloting at all.
MUNTEAN: So this is just a manual takeoff?
DIAMOND: This is going to be an automated take.
MUNTEAN: Oh, this is an automated.
DIAMOND: Yeah.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Meaning the A.I. system is flying the airplane from the very start.
MUNTEAN: Nicely done.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): The next part of the demonstration, communicating with air traffic control. Merlin system displays its language processing on an iPad as it listens to a mock controller, repeats the instruction, and then flies the airplane to match it.
CONTROLLER: Magic 01, turn left, heading 090, descend 2000.
A.I. VOICE: Left 090 and down 2000. Magic 01.
DIAMOND: Authorized.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Authorized.
MUNTEAN: We're at about 1,500 feet now over Newport, Rhode Island. And we just turned on to the final approach here at Quonset State Airport. Now this is going to be an automated landing and the system will fly the airplane all the way down to the pavement.
DIAMOND: It's a challenging problem for the automation, but once you crack the code, then it's so much easier on the pilot.
MUNTEAN: You seem pretty confident over there.
DIAMOND: Oh, yeah.
MUNTEAN: Yeah, you seem pretty relaxed. Should I be this relaxed?
DIAMOND: Yeah, absolutely.
MUNTEAN: OK, all right.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): As a pilot and a bit of a control freak, this is not exactly easy for me, but the system lines up with the runway and flies a gradual descent all the way to touchdown.
MUNTEAN: Smooth, easy.
DIAMOND: Right on center line.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Even still, putting A.I. in control of an airplane raises big questions about safety and trust.
Merlin CEO Matthew George.
MATTHEW GEORGE, CEO, MERLIN LABS: What were building is certainly very sci-fi, but were doing it in a responsible, incremental way.
MUNTEAN: Will this put pilots out of jobs?
GEORGE: It won't. This is sitting alongside pilots, not necessarily replacing pilots and enabling those pilots to do more of what they do best, which is operate aircraft safely.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): That could be appealing to airlines worldwide, which will need to hire more than 600,000 new pilots over the next 20 years, according to Boeing.
Merlin has already secured $100 million contract with the U.S. Air Force to eventually fly cargo planes without pilots on board at all. But convincing passengers may be the hardest part.
MIKE TANNENBAUM, PASSENGER: As long as it's safe and a more efficient, and test it out in advance, I'm for it.
MEG MCKNIGHT, PASSENGER: But I don't know if I trust A.I. in the air. I doubt I trust it.
STEVE COLEMAN, PASSENGER: I like the idea of humans having control. I don't like the idea of machines having control.
MUNTEAN (voice-over): Pete Muntean, CNN, Quonset, Rhode Island.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BURNETT: And thanks so much for joining us.
"AC360" begins now.
