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Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Will Not Seek Reelection in 2026; Trump Admin Threatens to Cut Flights At 40 Airports Starting Tomorrow; Jury Deliberates in $40 Million Lawsuit Filed By Teacher Shot By Student. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired November 06, 2025 - 10:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, cutting flights. The Trump administration is threatening to reduce air traffic at 40 airports across America, impacting thousands of flights.

Plus, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, our special guest here in The Situation Room, we're going to ask her about the shutdown, the Epstein files, and whether she has any thoughts of leaving the GOP.

And later, explosion in the Bronx. Shocking video shows a car engulfed in flames, then blowing up injuring seven firefighters.

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Also, there's more breaking news we're following. Nancy Pelosi is retiring. The former House speaker will not seek reelection next year after nearly 40 years in Congress.

Plus, deadly crash investigation, the UPS plane lost its engine on takeoff leading to this fiery crash that killed 12 people. Multiple people are still missing.

And later, verdict watch, the jury is now deliberating in the $40 million lawsuit brought by a Virginia teacher shot by her six-year-old student.

Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer with Pamela Brown, and you're in The Situation Room.

We start with breaking news, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi of California is retiring at the end of her term. The former speaker was first elected to the House nearly 40 years ago. Here's part of her announcement.

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REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): For decades, I've cherished the privilege of representing our magnificent city in the United States Congress. It seems prophetic now that the slogan of my very first campaign in 1987 was a voice that will be heard, and it was you who made those words come true. It was the faith that you had placed in me and the latitude that you had given me that enabled me to shatter the marble ceiling and be the first woman speaker of the House whose voice would certainly be heard.

It was a historic moment for our country and it was momentous for our community, empowering me to bring home billions of dollars for our city and our state.

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BLITZER: CNN Anchor and Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash is joining us right now. Dana, what more are you learning?

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, just that this was a decision that certainly wasn't a quick one. She's been thinking about it for a very long time. And, you know, when you consider the fact, Wolf, that Congresswoman, former Speaker Pelosi stepped down as the Democratic leader a few years ago after the Democrats lost the majority, and people kind of assumed that at that point she was going to retire also from her seat, and she didn't. She decided to stay on.

She, you know, was officially a rank and file member, Wolf, but you know very well, she will never be and was never just a rank and file member because she continued to fundraise, she continued to quietly wield power and then sometimes not so quietly wield power. I mean, if you think about it, she was not the leader of the House of Representatives when she had a pretty clear role in getting Joe Biden to step aside and not be the man on the ticket in 2024. And it really hurt their relationship. They served together for so long.

And you see on the screen there, if you kind of think about the span of her time in Congress, Wolf, almost 40 years, we're talking about seven presidents that she has served alongside with and just even in the last quarter century, Wolf, the big, big issues of our time, from the Gulf War -- excuse me, the Iraq War, which she opposed, the financial crisis in 2008, which she helped the country get through, working with the Republican administration, and, of course, the Obamacare, a legislation which she was fundamental in getting through Congress.

BLITZER: Nancy Pelosi, a real leader indeed.

[10:05:01]

All right, Dana, thank you very, very much. Pamela?

BROWN: Wolf also breaking right now, the FAA says, air traffic control staffing shortages are causing new delays this morning, this as U.S. airlines, airports, and air passengers are bracing for potential travel chaos tomorrow. That's when the Trump administration plans to cut 10 percent of flights at 40 major airports nationwide if the government shutdown continued. The head of Frontier Airlines is offering this grim advice. If your flight is canceled, your chances of being stranded are high, so I would simply have a backup ticket on another airline.

Air traffic controllers have been working without pay because of the shutdown, creating staffing issues as controllers call out sick. And with the holidays just around the corner, the transportation secretary is warning things could get uglier.

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SEAN DUFFY, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: So, I think you're going to have more significant disruptions in the airspace. And as we come into Thanksgiving, if we're still in the shutdown posture, it's going to be rough out there, really rough. And we'll mitigate the safety side. But will you fly on time? Will your flight actually go? That is yet to be seen.

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BROWN: Our Aviation Correspondent Pete Muntean is tracking all the developments. So, what can travelers expect in the coming days, Pete?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Not an easy go at it. You know, supporters say this is about safety, but the critics here are underscoring this and asking, is this about political leverage? Because millions of travelers woke up to emails overnight from airlines warning about possible changes to their flight. This is now the most direct consequence the government shutdown has had on air travel.

Airlines caught so flatfooted, really blindsided by this new directive from the Trump administration. I'm told carriers were given less than an hour's notice that the FAA would order flight reductions nationwide by tomorrow morning.

Here is the reasoning from the Trump administration. Aircraft controllers just got their new $0 pay stub, the second of this government shutdown. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says that puts stress in the national airspace system and it's reached the point where it's no longer safe to operate at full capacity.

Here is the new directive broken down. If there's no deal to reopen the government, the FAA will reduce flights by roughly 10 percent at 40 of the country's biggest airports. An FAA source tells me the list is expected to include what are known as the core 30 airports. Those are the busiest, most operationally critical airports nationwide.

FAA Administrator Brian Bedford says the new policy was guided by safety reports from pilots, not air traffic controllers that these reductions are intended to protect. Controllers tell me there's a lot of confusion right now among their ranks about how exactly this will be implemented, also a lot of confusion from the airlines, which are now scrambling to adjust their schedules. All four major U.S. airlines say they're complying with this directive. They're giving passengers some outs here, some waivers to change their flights free of charge.

And then there's this reaction from Frontier Airline CEO Barry Biffle. He called the directive unsustainable saying, quote, you cannot run the national airspace system like this. This is not how a modern aviation system functions. And he even suggested travelers consider booking a backup ticket on a different airline, totally unprecedented.

You have to put this into context though. The U.S. handles about 45,000 flights a day. 10 percent reduction of that number is worse than the worst day for cancelations of the past year every day until the shutdown ends. This is not a small tweak. Aviation is a multi- billion dollar industry, and when you slow the system, you slow commerce, travel, supply chains nationwide. The clock is really ticking now. Never in modern U.S. aviation history has the federal government done it across the board, cut to flight capacity like this, and it now seems that passengers are really going to be the ones who have to pay for it.

BROWN: Yes, this is so significant. Pete Muntean, thank you.

BLITZER: And so many people are getting ready to travel, to fly for Thanksgiving. That's coming up as well.

BROWN: That's right, yes.

BLITZER: This is huge.

There's more breaking news we're following right now, take a look at this a huge fire at the home of the Miami Heat Head Coach Erik Spoelstra. Our affiliate, WSVN, is reporting the blaze started around 4:30 this morning. WSVN reports, Spoelstra arrived on the property and looked distraught as he watched his home burn. And this is what's left of his house. Look at this, a smoldering shell, completely charred. Officials told our affiliate that no one was injured.

We will, of course, continue to monitor this development and bring you all the latest developments. Pamela?

BROWN: And just ahead here in The Situation Room, families are still missing loved ones after that fiery UPS crash in Kentucky, the key evidence now in the hands of investigators.

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We are live in Louisville with the very latest.

BLITZER: And later, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene joins us live here in the situation room as lawmakers resume negotiations to end the government shutdown.

Stay with us. You're in The Situation Room.

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BLITZER: Happening now, the jury is deliberating in the lawsuit filed by a Virginia teacher after being shot by her six-year-old student. Abby Zwerner is suing former Assistant Principal Ebony Parker for $40 million, saying she neglected concerns that the student had a gun.

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Parker's attorneys say, no one could fathom a child so young would actually bring a gun to school and shoot someone.

We'll continue to monitor the jury deliberations, bring you any updates as they come in.

BROWN: All right, Wolf. Well, today, the centerpiece of President Trump's economic agenda is facing an uncertain future. In a high- stakes hearing yesterday, Supreme Court justices expressed doubt about the White House's justification for imposing tariffs on nearly every country, raising the possibility that some of the court's conservatives may rule against President Trump.

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CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Well, who pays the tariffs if a tariff is imposed on automobiles? Who pays them?

JUSTICE AMY CONEY BARRETT, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Is it your contention that every country needed to be tariffed because of threats to the defense and industrial base, I mean it, Spain, France? I mean, I could see it with some countries.

JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH, U.S. SUPREME COURT: Could the president impose a 50 percent tariff on gas-powered cars and auto parts to deal with the unusual and extraordinary threat from abroad of climate change?

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BROWN: Oregon's Democratic Attorney General Dan Rayfield is leading a lawsuit from 12 states against the president's tariffs, and he was at the Supreme Court yesterday. He joins us now. Attorney General, thank you for being here with us.

What was your takeaway from being there, listening to the arguments and the questions and some of the skepticism we heard from some of the court's conservative justices?

DAN RAYFIELD (D), OREGON ATTORNEY GENERAL: Well, there was unquestionably skepticism from some of the conservative jurist that were sitting there, and that was palpable in the room, some very actually intense moments as they were grappling with foundational constitutional principles in this moment.

I think what was also an incredible takeaway and I think would be incredibly frustrating for Americans if they were listening is that for, what, 10, 11 months we've listened to the president talk about these tariffs are going to be paid by foreign companies, foreign countries. What you heard is the attorney for the president look these justices in the eye and said, Americans are paying right now 30 to 80 percent of the tariff costs here in America.

And they sat there and said, that's $4 trillion or what is going to come into the treasury because of these tariffs. That's wild that they're willing to sit there and admit to these justices how much we as Americans are paying.

BROWN: Yes. And the administration contends that this is not a tax, this is a way of regulating in foreign affairs and so forth. But one issue that came up actually was, well, what would happen if your side wins, right? You heard Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked Neal Katyal, who was the plaintiff's attorney, say, I mean, who's going to get paid back? How would refunds work? It would be chaos. How do you see it?

RAYFIELD: Well, I mean, again, I think there's these interesting issues that you hear them grapple with. What happens if we get a ruling that says these tariffs are unconstitutional? What we have to remember is like what do we teach our kids, right? When you make a mistake, when something is wrong, you fix it and you make it right. If the president knew and got advice from his lawyers that, hey, this is unlikely unlawful, then you got to fix that. You have to make it whole. Businesses are paying tariffs that they shouldn't have been paying. You need to fix that.

I also thought you see them grappling with a very interesting issue, which is what happens when we get a Democratic president, right, and the shoe is on the other foot, right? What do we do as a country? And you heard Justice Gorsuch talk about this. In a climate change, when you have a climate change situation, could a Democratic president start importing -- putting tariffs on things, putting export bans on certain things? And so very interesting.

BROWN: Yes, that was an interesting moment. I want to ask you about other news of day. This week, a federal judge extended her order blocking Trump from deploying any National Guard troops to Portland until tomorrow. What actions will you take if that order expires and the Guard is deployed in your state?

RAYFIELD: So, what we're going to do is, you got to remember in any community, the National Guard are our neighbors, they are our citizens, and we're going to respect the court's ruling however they decide to rule. We feel very confident because we have multiple rulings preventing President Trump from federalizing the National Guard.

Because here's the thing in Portland, Oregon, it is a safe place. We do not have a rebellion. We don't have an insurrection. The president can effectuate the laws of the United States. Actual true story, on my way here for the Supreme Court hearing, there was a man dressed in a chicken suit, getting on the airplane, a direct flight from Portland to here to Washington, D.C. That's the level and temperament that we have currently in Portland, is it's absurd that the president's trying to federalize and normalize the presence of the military on our streets.

BROWN: You've sued the Trump administration nearly four dozen times at this point. What do you say to critics who say that's partisan and a waste of taxpayer money?

RAYFIELD: You know, a year ago, I would've said the same thing. But what you have to really look at is independent judges are making rulings. And in almost every single one of those cases that you referenced, we've sought immediate relief. Judges have agreed with us. Think about the tariff case, right? You have Trump appointees and others that have agreed with us on those cases.

BROWN: Before we let you go, I want to ask you one more question. Democrat Jay Jones was elected to be the next attorney general of Virginia. [10:20:00]

As you know, he, during the campaign, it came out that he'd had these violent text messages that he had sent. He suggested that the state's former Republican House speaker deserve bullets to the head, hoping that kids would die to inflict pain. Do you want to see more accountability for his comments? I mean, do Democrats lose moral high ground here?

RAYFIELD: Yes. Those comments are absolutely disgusting. And when those texts were absolutely disgusting, there's no way around that.

I think what you saw in the elections though, what went on is that people who were talking about economic issues, the things that Americans are facing right now, that's where the voters gravitated towards across the entire country on election night. And I think that's part of the reason why Virginians led the way they are.

I think the other big thing is the way the Supreme Court has ruled that if Virginians do not have an attorney general that is a part of these lawsuits, think about the SNAP benefits, food benefits, they are not going to be a part of those cases and they're not going to get the relief. So, I think those very stark, those economic measures really resonated with voters.

BROWN: No. Certainly, economic measures did resonate with voters. We know that. But what about accountability? I mean, are you comfortable working with him given these text messages that he had sent in the past?

RAYFIELD: Well, again, what I would tell you is that those text messages are abhor. I think some of the other things I disagree with personally and philosophically, that's not where I am personally. I spent time as the Oregon House speaker for two years, four years of the budget of a co-chair of Ways and Means. One of the things that I prided myself on is being able to work with all parties, being able to bring together folks on common solutions.

You can disagree with how someone may have acted in those situations, but I think Americans demand responsive answers to the issues that they're facing in their lives right now. And I'll absolutely do that for Oregonians.

BROWN: All right. Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, thank you so much. I appreciate your time. Wolf?

BLITZER: Me too. Thanks very much for coming in.

And coming up, we're following other breaking news right now. The Dallas Cowboys say a 24-year-old player has died. What we're learning, we have details, that's coming up.

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BLITZER: We're following other breaking news right now. The Dallas Cowboys say one of their players has died.

CNN Sports Anchor Andy Scholes is joining us right now. What are you learning, Andy?

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Well, Wolf, yes, the Cowboys Confirming that Defensive End Marshawn Kneeland has died. He was just 24 years old. He was a second round pick out of Western Michigan just last year.

And in a statement, the Cowboys said, it's with extreme sadness that Dallas Cowboys share that Marshawn Kneeland tragically passed away this morning. Marshawn was a beloved teammate and member of our organization. Our thoughts and prayers regarding Marshawn or with his girlfriend, Catalina, and his family.

Now, the team has not disclosed any details on how Kneeland died. Now, this comes just days after kneeling scored the first touchdown of his career on Monday Night Football on this pump block right here against the Cardinals. You see Kneeland there recovering while there for the touchdown.

Kneeland's agent, Jonathan Perzley, posted on Instagram, I watched him fight his way from a hopeful kid at Western Michigan with a dream to being a respected professional for the Dallas Cowboys. Marshawn poured his heart into every snap, every practice, and every moment on the field. To lose someone with his talent, spirit, and goodness is a pain I could hardly put into words. That's what Kneeland's agent had to say.

The Cowboys, they're currently on their bi-week, Wolf. They're not scheduled to return to practice until Monday, but certainly now dealing with a tragedy, as Kneeland was just 24 years old.

BLITZER: Have they given the cause of death, Andy?

SCHOLES: No. We've got no details yet, Wolf. We'll bring them to you as soon as we are able to get them.

BLITZER: All right, Andy Scholes reporting, and our deepest condolences to Marshawn's family and friends. May he rest in peace, and as we say, may his memory be a blessing.

BROWN: What a shock, 24 years old, just awful.

Well, just ahead here in The Situation Room, Republican Congressman Marjorie Taylor Greene joins us in The Situation Room after a Democratic sweep at the polls. Her reaction, next.

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