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The Situation Room

Life on Another Planet?; Judge Rules Against Google in Antitrust Case; Top NIH Scientist Quits; Frontier Airlines Plane Makes Hard Landing. Aired 11:30a-12:00p ET

Aired April 17, 2025 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:31:36]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: As the Trump administration considers severe cuts to public health programs, one casualty has already surfaced.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: A top nutrition researcher at the National Institutes of Health has resigned, saying federal officials censored his work.

Kevin Hall posted on social media -- quote -- "Recent events have made me question whether NIH continues to be a place where I can freely conduct unbiased science."

Joining us now is Marion Nestle, a prominent food policy researcher and the author of "Safe Food: The Politics of Food Safety."

Marion, thank you so much for joining us.

I know that, when RFK Jr. first came about as the potential HHS secretary, you were so happy that he was shining a spotlight on what you have been trying to shine a spotlight on for many decades, right, food safety.

So now we know the administration is considering these plans to slash the federal health budget. How significant will these deep funding cuts have on research connecting diet and chronic disease?

MARION NESTLE, AUTHOR, "SAFE FOOD: THE POLITICS OF FOOD SAFETY": Well, obviously, it's going to have an enormous effect.

This was a particularly shocking thing to happen because Kevin Hall has been doing what I think is the most important research on diet and health that's been done in the area of nutrition for decades. He did a study that showed that eating ultra-processed foods makes people eat more calories, 500 more calories a day, an enormous finding, enormously important, with tremendous implications for dietary advice.

Eat less ultra-processed foods. But he's talking about calories. And you would think that the make America healthy again movement would embrace his work and do everything that they could to support his work further, but that's not what's happening.

Instead, they're focusing on chemicals in the food supply as the cause of poor health among Americans. I think chemicals are really important. And I'm really glad what they're doing about chemicals, but they have to do something about calories too.

BLITZER: Important point.

And, as Pamela noted, both you and Kevin Hall initially voiced some optimism about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s goals as secretary of health and human services. You believed Kennedy's claims that food and nutrition would be a focal point under his leadership.

So how disappointed are you right now by Hall's claims about how Kennedy is actually running HHS?

NESTLE: Well, I'm truly shocked by what's happening. It means that NIH has not only lost its soul, but has done something absolutely shameless, absolutely shameful.

Kevin Hall is a top-ranking, first-rate researcher whose work deserves all the support in the world.

BROWN: All right, Marion Nestle.

NESTLE: I'm not sure what...

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: OK, I don't know what happened. Go ahead.

NESTLE: Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: So, basically, you were just saying that he's a great researcher and you're sad to see him go.

NESTLE: Yes, a top-notch scientist with enormous courage and integrity who sticks up for what the science says. He's really science-focused.

[11:35:01]

And I don't see how you can make America healthy again without using work like that and research like that. His research really -- was really important. Who's going to do it now?

BLITZER: Good point. And we will find out how this unfolds.

Marion Nestle, thanks very much for joining us. And thanks for all the important work that you do.

NESTLE: Thank you.

BROWN: All right, just ahead: Passengers describe fearing for their life and then erupting in applause after a Frontier Airline plane makes a hard landing in Puerto Rico.

We have a live report up next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLITZER: There's breaking news. A federal judge is ruling that Google has built an illegal monopoly with its online advertising.

[11:40:03]

Let's go live right now to CNN's Clare Duffy, who is monitoring all of this.

What does this really mean for Google, the company?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH WRITER: Yes, Wolf, this really hits at Google's core business, the online advertising business, that's worth about $30 billion and really determines the ads that we all see across the Internet.

At issue here is the fact that Google allows advertisers to place ads and also allows publishers to offer up advertising space. And this judge in Virginia ruled that, by tying those services together, Google was able to build and maintain a monopoly.

Now, because of this, Google may have to spin off part of that online advertising business. And this is the third loss that Google has taken in an antitrust case by the U.S. government in just the past two years. Federal judges also ruled that Google's App Store and its online search businesses are also monopolies.

And, taken together, these decisions could really reshape the way that Google's business runs and really the way that we all experience the Internet.

Now, I should say Google has not responded to the decision in this case, but previously said that the case could raise advertising fees for online advertisers -- Wolf.

BLITZER: All right, Clare Duffy reporting for us.

Clare, thank you very much -- Pamela.

BROWN: A terrifying moment, Wolf, captured on a Frontier Airlines flight making a hard landing in Puerto Rico.

The plane was arriving from Orlando. It came down so hard that the landing gear was damaged and left debris on the runway.

CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean joins us now.

So, what happened here, Pete?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, this incident happened late Tuesday, but passengers are just now describing this terrifying ordeal on Frontier Airlines Flight 3506.

It was flying from Orlando International Airport to San Juan in Puerto Rico when the crew tried to make an attempted landing there, but the FAA describes it as a hard landing that caused some damage to the landing gear. The flight then went around. The crew elected to get back in the air, enter a holding pattern, try to run through some checks.

The flight tracking data tells a little bit of a story here. You can see that they tried to come in at about 500 feet, according to the data, so that the controllers in the tower could check if there was any damage to the airplane. That's pretty typical when there's a landing gear problem, and then the moment of truth, and you can see it here now, when the flight came into land there at San Juan International Airport.

Thankfully, nobody hurt, 228 people on board here. But I want you to listen now to one of the passengers who really describes the drama in a lot of detail, because, for a fairly long period of time, this plane was in a holding pattern with the crew trying to describe to the passengers exactly what was happening, and then they had to essentially hold their breath as they came in to land successfully. Listen now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): There's a strong smoke smell. It was truly terrible to fear for your life and not know what was going to happen, not to know if you were going to land safely or how everything was going to end.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: The images surfacing online show the damage to the nose landing gear of this Airbus A321, with one of the wheels completely missing.

There are two wheels on the nose landing gear, also two on each side of the main landing gear, so six wheels in total. The passengers weren't in a ton of danger here, though, because a commercial airliner like this can land just fine with a wheel completely missing, six wheels in total on an A321.

The challenge for the crew is keeping the airplane straight and on the ground. It seems like they did a pretty good job here, although now investigators will have to figure out why this damage took place in the first place. Was it an error by the flight crew? Because the weather at the time was relatively good.

And so there are some big questions here, and we now know that the NTSB is investigating as well.

BROWN: All right, scary stuff. Gosh.

Pete Muntean, thank you.

MUNTEAN: Any time.

BLITZER: Excellent reporting.

And personal question. I fly in and out of Reagan National Airport all the time. No more helicopters, right?

MUNTEAN: No more helicopters. They have been banned outside of Reagan National Airport. That's at least a temporary ban. We will see if the FAA extends it past the May date that they have as the expiration right now.

BLITZER: It makes me feel good to hear that.

MUNTEAN: Yes.

BLITZER: Thank you very much.

And coming up: Scientists may have just taken a giant step towards finding life on another planet. We're going to tell you how they made this incredible discovery and what it potentially could mean for the future of NASA funding.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:46:42]

BROWN: All right, I'm going to take a moment here to return to a story that we shared with you on Tuesday.

Price Johnson, a small business owner who was -- his manufacturing job that relies on China, he came on the show and he talked to us. And he told me about how the Trump administration's tariff policies are putting his operations at a standstill. And he also alleged that he was unable to get in touch with his congressman, Republican Kevin Kiley.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRICE JOHNSON, COO, CEPHALOFAIR GAMES: I can't get ahold of my congressman, Kevin Kiley, here in California. No one's answering our calls. We don't feel represented.

And it just feels like we're being made to suffer until who knows when.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Well, as promised, we reached out to the congressman's office to get a response.

And they told me that Mr. Johnson had been -- quote -- "in touch with our office repeatedly" and that he spoke with the legislative director about his concerns. They went on to say: "As has been widely reported, the tariffs are part of active negotiations and the situation is quite fluid."

And Mr. Johnson maintains that he has not received guidance or support on how to navigate the tariffs during this difficult time for his business, though he did acknowledge he had a phone conversation with someone in the office last week.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:50:00]

BROWN: K2-18b, no, it's not a character from "Star Wars." It's a planet 2.5 times the size of Earth and 700 trillion miles away. And it could be home to living organisms.

BLITZER: Here's what we know right now, Pamela. The James Webb Space Telescope is so powerful that it actually can analyze the chemical composition of atmospheres from far, far away.

And the atmosphere analyzed from K2-18b shows molecules that can only be produced by living organisms. In other words, it's a step potentially closer to directing life on another planet.

For more, we're joined now by astrophysicist and NASA adviser Paul Sutter.

Paul, this is potentially an extremely exciting finding. How compelling is the evidence of life on another planet?

PAUL SUTTER, ASTROPHYSICIST: Oh, this is definitely very exciting and very interesting.

But I have a personal mantra when I encounter results like this, which is, if it's interesting, it's probably wrong. And that helps me temper my enthusiasm and my geekiness, excitedness with a healthy dose of scientific skepticism, which we need to approach these kinds of results.

Now, the evidence here is certainly the strongest evidence we have ever had for life on another planet, but, in an absolute sense, the evidence isn't all that strong. It's a very weak signal here of these elements. And even if these elements are on the planet, it's not necessarily generated by life.

We are at the very, very edge of what we can discover and detect with the James Webb. And it will take a lot more analysis, a lot more study, a lot more investigation to rule this in or rule this out, which is how science progresses.

BROWN: We're all just -- we were looking for you to say, hey, this is proof that aliens exist.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: But, clearly, you're not going there.

BLITZER: I was going to ask you if we can actually call and speak to somebody a few hundred trillion miles away.

(LAUGHTER)

BLITZER: Not yet. SUTTER: We can definitely make the call, but you're going to have to wait for that response.

(LAUGHTER)

BLITZER: All right.

BROWN: So what does it mean? We talk about life on another planet. This could be a wide range, right -- array, I should say, of the type of life that could be there, correct?

SUTTER: Absolutely.

Like, we're the only known living creatures in the universe. We don't know the true variety of life out there in the cosmos. We are hunting for life like our own because we know what it looks like. We know what it does to planets. We know how it alters the chemistry of an atmosphere.

And so this planet K2-18b, it has water vapor. It has methane. And in the latest discovery, it has dimethyl sulfide, which is made by algae on the Earth. Is there some sort of alien life here? We don't know. But it's very intriguing.

And this world -- I should say, this world is completely unlike the Earth. It's twice as wide. It's eight times as massive. It orbits a small red star. It has a year that only last 33 days. If there is life here, it is truly alien in a very real sense.

BLITZER: Walk us through the science a bit. How does this telescope actually work? Because this planet is, what, trillions of miles away.

SUTTER: This is fascinating. This is exactly what the James Webb was built to do. This is what we waited so long to be able to accomplish.

We're not taking pictures of this planet. This thing is way too tiny for that. All we get is the light from its parent star, which appears as nothing more than a dot of light, even with our most advanced instruments.

But what happens is that this planet in its orbit crosses in front of the face of that star. And so the light from the star filters through the planet's atmosphere on its way to us. And then any chemicals, any molecules in the atmosphere change the light from that star, and we can pick up that change and figure out what's in the atmosphere.

The fact that we can even do this, that we can say, oh, yes, yes, there are these elements on this planet 700 trillion miles away, is a testament to just how powerful James Webb is and the creativity and ingenuity of my fellow astronomers.

BROWN: Yes, I mean, really remarkable, right...

BLITZER: Amazing.

BROWN: ... the people who built that and all that goes into it. Are you concerned about NASA's science budget and how that could

impact further discoveries like this?

SUTTER: Yes, I'm, frankly, I'm scared. And when I'm not scared, I'm exhausted. And when I'm not exhausted, I'm scared of what's happening to science in our country and the future of science.

And I empathize with people. I really do. I understand that, if budgets are tight, if times are uncertain, things like the James Webb, things like looking for life outside the solar system, things like astronomy seem like unnecessary expenses.

[11:55:11]

And, yes, this is extra stuff. Also, if we were to eliminate all of NASA's budget, nobody's life in the United States would change. I mean, it's not going to affect our bottom line. We take the tiniest fraction out of the federal budget to make this kind of stuff happen, to make our science advance.

And what we do is make the world a more beautiful, more wondrous place. What we do is create exciting news for us to talk about and think about.

BROWN: And this was certainly fun.

BLITZER: Very...

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: All right, Paul Sutter, thank you so much.

BLITZER: Thanks from me as well.

SUTTER: Thank you.

BLITZER: And, to our viewers, thanks very much for joining us this morning. You can always keep up with us on social media @WolfBlitzer and @PamelaBrownCNN.

We will see you back here tomorrow and every weekday morning for our expanded two-hour SITUATION ROOM. That starts at 10:00 a.m. Eastern.

BROWN: "INSIDE POLITICS" with our friend and colleague Dana Bash is next right after a short break.