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The Situation Room

Kentucky Plane Crash Investigation; Zohran Mamdani Wins New York City Mayoral Election; Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Trump Tariffs. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired November 05, 2025 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

NEIL GORSUCH, U.S. SUPREME COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE: On this inherent authority idea, does -- I take -- I understand the president's inherent authority in wartime. And a lot of your examples of regulating commerce and maybe your best one, Hamilton, during the Civil War, they occurred during wartime, when the president's commander in chief power is clearly in play.

Does the president have inherent authority over tariffs in peacetime?

D. JOHN SAUER, U.S. SOLICITOR GENERAL: No, we do not contend that.

GORSUCH: OK.

SAUER: And, in fact, I'd cite that -- if I may, I'd point the court to two cases. They're Loving against the United States and then Mazaree (ph) that is cited in Loving.

Those are situations, for example, Loving against United States, the president had broad Article II inherent authority. There, it was the commander in chief power. But this court held he does not have inherent authority to do the power that was delegated to him, right, which was the power to identify aggravators that make you eligible for the death penalty in court-martial trials.

And yet this court said, well, we're not going to see a delegation problem here, even though it's really a wholesale delegation which would otherwise be legislative authority. It would be kind of like a small version of what your hypothetical would be, an abdication.

But because you're in a foreign affairs context, where there commander in chief, military context, when the president has his own delegation of authority, he doesn't have the power to do this. But because of his background inherent authority, the court said, this is a situation where we're not going to see a delegation problem, when there clearly would have been a delegation problem in the domestic context.

And those cases, I think, are powerful here.

GORSUCH: General, if I can cut through those words, I think you're saying that, no, the president doesn't have inherent authority over tariffs in peacetime. SAUER: Absolutely.

GORSUCH: OK.

SAUER: That is -- we do not assert that. We say that Congress can delegate that to him, and when Congress does so, as it does when it uses the phrase regulated importation...

(CROSSTALK)

GORSUCH: I follow all of that. OK.

You emphasize that Congress can always take back its powers. You mentioned that a couple of times. But don't we have a serious retrieval problem here? Because once Congress delegates, by a bare majority, and the president signs it -- and, of course, every president will sign a law that gives him more authority -- Congress can't take that back without a supermajority.

And even that, it's going to be veto-proof. What president's ever going to give that power back? Pretty rare president. So how should that inform our view of delegations and major questions?

SAUER: I would look at the balance that Congress struck, because what Congress did, initially, it had a two-house legislative veto.

(CROSSTALK)

GORSUCH: And we struck that down, yes.

SAUER: And then Congress went back to the statute and amended it.

GORSUCH: Yes.

SAUER: It took out the legislative veto and left in the joint resolution, but still left the president with all those powers.

GORSUCH: That's what Congress did?

SAUER: Yes.

GORSUCH: Fair enough.

As a practical matter in the real world, it can never get that power back.

SAUER: I disagree, because, in January of 2023, Congress voted to terminate one of the biggest IEEPA emergencies ever, the COVID emergency. And the president went along with that.

So what the statute reflects is, there's going to be the ability for a sort of political consensus against a declared emergency.

(CROSSTALK)

GORSUCH: but what happens when the president simply vetoes legislation to try to take these powers back?

SAUER: Well, he has the authority to veto legislation to terminate a national emergency, for example. I mean, he retains the powers in the background, because IEEPA is still on the books. But if he declares an emergency and Congress doesn't like it and passes a joint resolution, yes, he can absolutely veto that.

(CROSSTALK)

GORSUCH: Yes, so Congress, as a practical matter, can't get this power back once it's handed it over. The president's a one-way ratchet toward the gradual, but continual accretion of power in the executive branch and away from the people's elected representatives.

SAUER: I disagree with that. And the recent historical counterexample of Congress' termination of the COVID emergency demonstrates that political oversight....

(CROSSTALK)

GORSUCH: With the president's assent.

(CROSSTALK)

SAUER: ... meaningful.

GORSUCH: With the president's assent, in fact.

SAUER: Once he lost it by a veto-proof majority in the Senate, I think the position moved.

GORSUCH: Yes. Yes. Right.

SAUER: And I think he realized. And that's the political process working. There was a little consensus against it that coalesced.

GORSUCH: Yes. It takes a supermajority, a veto-proof majority to get it back. Yes, OK.

One other question. Do you think tariffs are always foreign affairs?

SAUER: I do think they would -- I can't think of a situation where they're not foreign-facing, if you're talking about tariffs on imports. I mean, maybe there are other tariff contexts that I'm not aware of, but yes, they typically would involve a foreign affairs thing.

However, in Gibbons against Ogden, if they are revenue-raising tariffs, they would not raise the same sort of like foreign affairs issues as regulatory tariffs, which are imposed not for the purpose of raising revenue, but to induce foreign powers to change their behaviors.

GORSUCH: So revenue-raising tariffs are not foreign affairs, but regulatory tariffs are? SAUER: I don't think a revenue-raising tariff would be foreign affairs to the same degree at least. I think it has a foreign application, obviously, but I don't think it would raise the same issues.

GORSUCH: OK, thank you, General.

JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT: Justice Kavanaugh.

BRETT KAVANAUGH, U.S. SUPREME COURT ASSOCIATE JUSTICE: Figuring out what regulate importation means is obviously central here.

And for major question purposes, I think the way we think about that kind of question is, does the specific authority, power, major power now asserted pursuant to that general statutory authorization, was that the kind of power that would have been understood by people, by Congress at the time the general statute was passed, as distinct from being a novel kind of use of that general authority to do something different? Unheralded is the word in our cases.

[11:05:24]

OK. One problem you have is that presidents since IEEPA have not done this. Your primary answer, or one of your many answers to that, is the Nixon example. And that's a good example for you, because Nixon relied on regulate importation to impose a worldwide tariff. Good example.

What is our understanding of Congress in 1977 vis-a-vis that Nixon example, when Congress reenacts or enacts the regulate importation language into IEEPA?

SAUER: Congress at that time was fully aware that a Court of Appeals with exclusive jurisdiction had interpreted that very phrase very visibly, very prominently to include the power to tariff and then reenacted it without change.

The court addressed a kind of lesser situation in Algonquin, when it came to Section 122, and the court said President Nixon interpreted this to include a tariffing power, a tariffing-like power, and then Congress a few months later reenacted the language without change, and that's powerful evidence of congressional acquiescence.

So that immediately, historical background...

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: All right, we're going to continue to monitor these oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on Trump's tariffs, whether or not they're legal or not legal.

But, right now, the mayor-elect of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, is speaking. Want to listen in to hear what he's saying.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK CITY MAYOR-ELECT: The campaigning may have come to a close last night at 9:00, but the beautiful prose of governing has only just begun.

The hard work of improving New Yorkers' lives starts now. That process begins with transition. In the coming months, I and my team will build a City Hall capable of delivering on the promises of this campaign. We will form an administration that is in equal parts capable and compassionate, driven by integrity and willing to work just as hard as the millions of New Yorkers who call this city home.

And central to that effort is a transition team that is defined by the excellence New Yorkers will soon come to expect from government. Our team will be directed by Elana Leopold, whose roots in this city extend back to her grandmother running the trams on Roosevelt Island.

She has extensive experience in city government and has been a key part of our campaign to become the next mayor of this city. And it will be led by our formidable co-chairs, former Federal Trade Commissioner Chair Lina Khan, former First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres- Springer, United Way president and CEO Grace Bonilla, and former Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services Melanie Hartzog.

Over the coming days, we will start announcing the leaders who will implement our agenda, people like deputy mayors, who oversee entire areas of government, and the commissioners, who carry out the critical work of city agencies. Some of these people will have familiar names. Others will not.

What will unite them will be a commitment to solving old problems with new solutions. We will cast a wide net. We will speak to the organizers on the front lines of the fight to improve our city, government veterans with proven track records, policy experts from around the country and the world, and working people who know better than anyone what their neighborhoods need.

Throughout this campaign, I have worked hard to be accessible and transparent with New Yorkers. That same spirit will animate this transition and the City Hall we build, because New Yorkers deserve a government that they can trust.

And on January 1, when our city celebrates the inauguration of a new administration, let us also celebrate a new era for our city, one that we all feel invested in and whose success we all work to achieve.

Now it is my pleasure to invite Elana Leopold to deliver a few words. Thank you.

(CHEERING)

ELANA LEOPOLD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ZOHRAN MAMDANI LEADERSHIP TEAM: Thank you.

Good morning. My name is Elana Leopold, and I'm very honored to serve as the executive director of mayor-elect's Mamdani's leadership team. I want to thank Zohran for his faith in me both on the campaign trail and in this next exciting chapter of this movement.

As a third-generation New Yorker raised in... PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: All right, we're just listening to Mayor- Elect of New York City Zohran Mamdani, day one here on the job, Jamie Gangel.

JAMIE GANGEL, CNN SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: So, one of the things I was thinking about, as we were listening to him, he talked about the hard work, hard work of improving New Yorkers' lives, delivering.

[11:10:01]

Now that he has won, it reminds me of the movie "The Candidate" with Robert Redford, where he unexpectedly wins and gets into the car and says, what do we do now?

Everybody knows that Mamdani was charismatic, struck a chord, got people to vote who had -- normally don't vote. The question now is, can he manage? And I think that's what you heard in those words today.

BLITZER: Let's not forget this is the transition.

GANGEL: Right.

BLITZER: He's not going to be the mayor of New York City until, what, January 1.

GANGEL: Correct.

BLITZER: He's the mayor-elect right now, putting together his -- not only his team, but his portfolio at the same time.

GANGEL: And I think people are really going to be watching closely who he surrounds himself with. Are these people with experience who know how to manage? And that will be the first test.

BROWN: And, Eva, what are your thoughts on this? Because that was one of the big questions. Will he be able to implement some of these sweeping promises he made on the campaign trail to lower the cost of living for the everyday American under the socialist ideology?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the greatest test is if he is going to be able to deliver, but it will be really a boost for progressives across the country if he can, in fact, deliver on these policy promises.

But he stepped to the podium today really looking like an executive. Last night was about the excitement and the momentum. And I think today is sort of a reflection on where he goes from here. But so much, Pam and Wolf, of how he got to where he did was this affordability and economic populism message.

And I think that we're going to see the sort of Mamdanification of so many candidates that pivot and adopt that structure. As I was covering the campaigns, so much of the Republican messaging was steeped in sort of the culture wars. And I think that those are kind of over.

I think that last night sort of proved that the conversation around trans children and how they're governed in public schools and that entire debate has kind of, like, lost its momentum, and that, really now, I think there's more of a focus on affordability, the cost of living, and we're going to see that from candidates across the board.

LAURA COATES, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: I like to say he's going to spend the next couple of months preparing for litigation, litigation as a -- and I don't mean to be tongue-in-cheek.

(CROSSTALK)

COATES: But he already knows he has an attorney general in New York who has been battling with President Trump and this DOJ, a lawsuit totally unrelated to his own candidacy. He knows the litigious nature of Donald Trump and New York state.

He also knows there's already a threat being made about withholding funding from the federal government if the people of New York chose Mamdani as their mayor. It's one of the reasons that Andrew Cuomo was somebody that he was saying you have to go with him because he wouldn't have those same challenges.

Now, the people did not buy it and it was their right to vote for whom they want. We have voting rights in this country for that reason and democracy. But now I have to think about strategically what will that mean litigation-wise? Will I have to try to fend off or proactively try to ensure that I get the funding as a part of my city and state?

Governor Hochul will look at the same things as well. So the next couple months are going to be the transition. Normally, it's like maybe curtains in your office. Maybe it's the idea of who you want as your staff. The legal teams surrounding this mayor will have to be worth their weight in platinum, not just gold, because there's going to be so many things thrown at them.

And that's an unfortunate reality of where we are right now in politics, where every move you make as an elected official, you have to pay the political piper here in Washington, D.C., which is one of the reasons you have got the Supreme Court looking at things right now and protests happening, et cetera.

So I will be curious to see what his approach will be to that threat that was made from the president of the United States about that funding, what litigation he will do to try to proactively fend that off. And then, of course, the reality of all you have described, how to get the job done.

BROWN: Yes.

BLITZER: Can he legally take over, take control of the grocery stores in New York City or public transportation in New York City, some of the things he was talking about when he was running for mayor?

COATES: That would be a monumentally uphill legal battle. These are private entities. And you have got -- even if the government wanted to just generally, say, take over a private entity, you have got eminent domain issues where essentially you say you have to get fair value. That's if they want to even sell it to you.

That's for some compelling reason to do so in order to say this is an emergency of sorts. I need to commandeer this property in some way. The idea of a preference and your policy stance is not going to cut it. This has really been a big issue here in terms of what his challenges will be.

But just simply saying I'm going to take over a private business and impose a political will be a very big struggle, as it should be knowing how our system operates. But I will say something very surprising to people, the idea of bureaucratic deference, the idea of budgetary control, that power of the purse of an official is so important.

[11:15:02]

It really parallels what we're seeing in Washington, D.C., right now. You have got Congress and you have got the power of the purse. The president can't do anything about it. You're going to have the executive in a city and in a state saying, I have got my own power of a purse with my legislative branch and I want to do something with it and wield it in a different way.

And so I will be curious about that point, because lawyers -- they say if you throw a rock in D.C., you will hit 10,000 lawyers. Good luck in Manhattan. You're going to hit a million.

MCKEND: But the political pressure will be there, though, for people to get in line, because Mamdani has won the affection of so many voters on these issues. And so I think it's no longer going to be sufficient for maybe more centrist Democrats or Republicans to stick their head in the sand and try to block him at every turn.

They're going to have to work with him because of the demands of the people.

GANGEL: I'm going to push back on that a little bit and say in New York that may happen. I don't think this reflects throughout the country.

Certainly, we saw the races in Virginia and New Jersey, the -- Spanberger and Sherrill, they are moderate with national security. When you're talking about these things, I think it's very focused on New York. I also don't think the culture wars are over yet.

I think that President Trump sees Mamdani as a foil that he will take advantage of, and you may see other Republicans do it. And I think a big question about his success will be, can he now deliver?

If he can deliver, if he can manage, if he can improve the lives of New Yorkers every day, yes, those things may be true in New York. But New York is a very tough city to run. And so he has a big challenge.

And I think Laura's point about these legal cases, this can become both all-consuming, but it's also going to take a lot of time.

BLITZER: Yes.

COATES: Which is not to say that he can't be successful. I think the people of New York have elected him because they want him to be successful, and it's their right to want it and it's his job to try to carry it off.

But I will say the blueprint that Trump has used about being unapologetically rejecting the status quo and the normal vehicles to get things done, he might be able to employ it in New York and they might have more in common than he thinks.

BLITZER: We will see.

All right, everybody, stand by. There's a lot of news unfolding today. It's a very big news days. We will take a quick break, resume all of our special coverage right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:21:08]

BROWN: Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani in New York City answering questions. Let's listen in.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

MAMDANI: My message to ICE agents and to everyone across this city is that everyone will be held to the same standard of the law. If you violate the law, you must be held accountable.

And there is, sadly, a sense that is growing across this country that certain people are allowed to violate that law, whether they be the president or whether they be the agents themselves. And what New Yorkers are looking for is an era of consistency, an era of clarity, an era of conviction. And that is what we will deliver to them.

And I am looking forward to having conversations with Mayor Adams and his administration about the work of the transition to ensure that the handover is a seamless one and that it is one that benefits the shared work we all have to deliver for the people who call the city home.

Thank you. Everybody's asking too.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

MAMDANI: I have made my intention clear to retain Commissioner Tisch, and I look forward to having conversations with her on that very subject.

Last night, I spent time with my wife, with close members of my team, as we watched the results come in. I spoke briefly with Curtis Sliwa and then I headed to address the thousands of New Yorkers that were there waiting to hear of what this new era of government will look like. And that is always my focus, not on the candidates of this past election, but rather on the people that are so often left behind by our politics. I look forward to serving them.

BROWN: Oh, that's right. All right, we were just listening to Zohran Mamdani there in New York City.

A lot of breaking news today that we are following, including in my home state of Kentucky. Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear is expected to give an update on the investigation into that deadly UPS plane crash. The Louisville mayor telling CNN that nine people were killed, and that number could go up.

And we're warning you right now that some of the video coming in of the scene is disturbing.

BLITZER: This is from a truck driver's dashcam. Look at this. You see the plane and the flames roar past. The crash set off fires and explosions in an industrial area right near the airport. At least 11 people were hurt. Two are in critical condition with severe burns.

Joining us now is CNN's Isabel Rosales, who's in Louisville for us right now.

Isabel, what are we expected to hear from the governor?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, hopefully more information about this NTSB go team that is set to arrive here and start this investigation that we know will take days, if not weeks, if not months to piece together what exactly went wrong here.

What is clear is that something catastrophic happened as this UPS cargo plane was taking off. We have images, videos showing this plume of smoke coming off of it, this fire that appears to be coming from the left engine. This is a plane that has three different engines.

And then within a matter of under a minute, the plane goes down into this huge explosion and leaving behind a trail of devastation in this really industrial area surrounding Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport.

Now we know that 15 patients have been treated at Louisville Health; 13 of them have been discharged, but, as you mentioned there off the top, two of them still in critical condition.

[11:25:01]

Now, I just got off the phone here in the past hour or two with a business owner, the owner of Grade A Auto Parts and Recycling, one of those businesses along the path that this plane took as it went down. And he says his business is damaged. He's taking a look at it right now. He's being allowed access inside.

He talked to me about how his CFO called him describing the chaotic scene. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEAN GARBER, OWNER, GRADE A AUTO PARTS AND RECYCLING: What had happened was the power had gone off in our offices. Everybody heard a loud noise, and then an additional rumbling. And then it felt like an earthquake.

She ran outside, had the phone on, and there was a huge fireball right in the center of our facility. Her initial thought was that our facility had exploded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: And what's heartbreaking about this is that business owner tells us he has three employees that are unaccounted for. They're missing. So he's understandably in a desperate situation right now trying to figure out what happened to them.

But patience is going to be key here, especially with that NTSB team figuring out what happened. This is just the start of things -- Pam, Wolf.

BLITZER: Isabel, I take it the mayor of -- the governor of Kentucky, Governor Andy Beshear, says at least nine people were killed in this disastrous crash. I assume the crew members, three crew members, were on their plane. Is the assumption that they were killed as well?

ROSALES: Yes, they're presumed dead. They've confirmed the rest of the people on the ground, not on the plane that have been killed.

Obviously, even though this is an industrial zone, it's still very much a business district with mechanic shops, recycling shops, all sorts of businesses when this happened at 5:00 p.m. just yesterday.

And I will leave you with this, Wolf. Louisville is my hometown. We heard from a councilwoman that UPS is one of the major employers here, that UPS is Louisville. And that is certainly the case, with so many people knowing by extension family members, those who work here. You can understand how this is incredibly shocking and painful to a community that's still trying to wrap their heads around how this could have happened, as so many are still missing.

We heard from Governor Andy Beshear 16 families who had loved ones that did not come home yesterday.

BLITZER: Yes, awful. The video that we're showing, the pictures, really devastating in Louisville right now.

All right, Isabel Rosales, we will stay in close touch with you -- Pamela.

BROWN: Louisville has been through so much over the years.

BLITZER: Yes.

BROWN: You had that shooting a couple years ago, flooding, this. It's just awful to see what's been going on there. So, as we're waiting for Governor Beshear to speak, we're also

tracking what's happening at the Supreme Court with these oral arguments over President Trump's tariffs, whether they're legal or not. Right now, the plaintiff's lawyer, Neal Katyal, is speaking. So let's listen to the large part of that.

So, let's listen in.

NEAL KATYAL, PLAINTIFF'S ATTORNEY: We think instead of thinking about foreign versus domestic, the better way of thinking about it is Article I versus Article II.

And as my friend finally conceded to Justice Gorsuch, there is no Article II power here, at least when we're talking about peacetime.

ROBERTS: Well, you don't agree with a large part. What's the little part that you do disagree with?

KATYAL: So, we agree -- we agree with the idea that tariffs have foreign policy implications, absolutely. Our founders recognized that. That's in The Federalist Papers.

But, nonetheless, they exclusively committed that power to the Congress in Article I, Section 8, and gave it as its first power. So when you hear my friend cite cases like Egan (ph) and Garamendi (ph), they just don't apply to this specific, unique situation in which Congress has given that power.

And if you were tempted by this, I think the best place to look is Youngstown, because what Justice Jackson said -- and I was surprised that he quoted page 652, because what Justice Jackson said is -- quote -- "Emergency powers tend to kindle emergencies, so it's essential the public may know the extent and limitations of the powers that can be asserted and persons affected may be informed from the statute of its rights and duties."

And Justice Jackson went on to say there that it's notable our founders didn't give the -- didn't give the president revenue-raising power even in a time of war.

KAVANAUGH: Can I just get a clarification of your answer? Which is you agree, if the word tariff were in the statute, that would be acceptable and constitutionally permissible, correct?

KATYAL: No. Well, it would be -- it'd be constitutionally permissible. The question would then be, is the open-ended assertion of power here, because every other...

(CROSSTALK)

KAVANAUGH: Oh, I get it as applied to this case, but the general point is, yes, Congress -- you said it's assigned to Congress, but Congress can grant authority to presidents to impose tariffs as a general proposition?

KATYAL: Absolutely. Absolutely. KAVANAUGH: OK, so we have to figure out then what regulate importation means. And you have heard my questions.