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Markets Open Ahead of Interest Rate Decision; Russian Drones Hunt People; Leland Melvin is Interviewed about the Astronauts Return. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired March 19, 2025 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:30:07]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: The folks from that company real excited, trying to get everybody to cheer. But not everybody's been so cheerful about the markets. The opening bell ringing on Wall Street ahead of this crucial decision from the Federal Reserve on interest rates. Investigators - investors are waiting to see what Fed officials have to say about the potential - there it is. It's ringing - the potential impact that President Trumps trade war and rapid fire policy shifts will have on the economy.

CNN's Matt Egan joining us now from Washington, D.C.

You heard the bell ring. It's always exciting for a company to get up there and ring it. But what kind of excitement might the Fed bring us, or none at all?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Sara, all signs point to the Federal Reserve remaining on the sidelines at today's meeting. You can see the markets opening kind of mixed. A little bit of a muted reaction ahead of the Fed.

Now, Fed officials, they really need better visibility into all of the policy changes here in Washington, especially on the trade war. There's just so many major questions, right. How high are tariffs going to go? For how long? On what products? On what countries? How do other countries retaliate? And, of course, the trillion dollar question is, what does all of that do to the real economy?

And so that's why Wall Street expects the Fed to keep interest rates steady today. There's just a 1 percent chance of an interest rate cut today. A low chance at the next meeting in May. It's not until June that there's any sort of confidence that the Fed will be able to start cutting interest rates.

Of course, for borrowers, that's disappointing because interest rates, although they have come down a bit, they do remain relatively high. And that is painful, of course, to people who are trying to pay down credit card debt, trying to get a car loan, of course the people who are trying to get a mortgage, although mortgage rates have ticked a little bit lower. The market, of course, has been concerned in recent days and weeks about the economy, about the trade war. We've seen the Dow, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq, they're all in the red so far this year, led by that 7 percent drop for the Nasdaq.

Now, Wall Street is going to be paying very close attention to what the Fed says today about the future. In particular, for the first time since December, the Fed is releasing new economic projections. And we know a lot has changed since December. That's why economists anticipate that the Fed is going to downgrade its GDP growth forecast and likely bump up its inflation forecast.

And the magnitude of those moves is going to speak volumes about just how concerned, or not concerned, Fed officials are about the trade war and the slowdown in the economy. A Goldman Sachs economist, they told clients that they believe Fed leaders would prefer for officials to still be penciling in those two interest rate cuts that they had previously projected because they don't want to cause any more market turbulence. But Goldman Sachs acknowledges that it's going to be kind of awkward to explain why the Fed still anticipates two rate cuts at a time when inflation expectations have been rising.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, the numbers looking up right now. The question is, will they stay that way and what the Fed will do, although you think they're just going to hold and wait, which is what maybe we all should be doing at this point.

Matt Egan, thank you so much. I really appreciate your reporting from Washington today.

EGAN: Thanks, Sara.

SIDNER: All right, ahead, two 16-year-old girls who vanished while paddle boarding have been found alive, but what happened? We'll talk about that story.

And after 286 days in space, astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, finally back on solid ground. So, how will they be able to adjust to life back here on earth?

Those stories ahead.

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[09:38:31]

BERMAN: All right, breaking news. CNN just learned that a phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will happen in about 20 minutes. Now, this follows the call between President Trump and Vladimir Putin, the fruits of which the White House and Kremlin cannot agree on this morning.

Overnight, Ukrainian officials say a hospital was targeted in a Russian drone attack, along with other critical infrastructure, including an electricity system powering the railways in central Ukraine. This is just a new chapter in the three years of suffering of the Ukrainian people.

CNN's Clarissa Ward reports.

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CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): On the streets of Kherson anyone is fair game. Everyday swarms of Russian drones glide across the river on a deadly hunt that locals have dubbed a human safari. They target the old and the young, men and women. Flying low, they taunt and terrorize their prey.

A man crosses himself, preparing for the worst, before the drone buzzes on. Others are not so fortunate.

Russian social media is awash with these videos, complete with heavy metal soundtracks and gloating comments. But to the people of Kherson, this is anything but a game.

WARD: So this is the central square here in Kherson. And you can see, it is eerily deserted. Just a few people out on the streets. It was raining and cloudy earlier, which means sometimes more people go out because that's not good weather for flying drones.

[09:40:06]

But now, again, just a handful of people. All the stores you can see over there are basically boarded up.

WARD (voice over): The one supermarket open is heavily fortified. For Kherson residents, the simplest daily errand is the riskiest part of the day. Some can't even get to the supermarket. We drive to meet volunteers from the local administration.

WARD: So, we're heading now to the eastern outskirts of the city. This is one of the most dangerous parts of the city, and they're getting ready to distribute some aid. They have to do it quickly and efficiently to ensure that they don't get seen by the drones.

WARD (voice over): The area is very exposed. We're told to hide our body armor under our coats.

WARD: OK, so we've just arrived at this point. You can see they're starting to distribute the aid.

WARD (voice over): Beleaguered residents emerge from their homes, where they live largely stranded. They grab supplies for neighbors who need help. They've lived through Russian occupation, then liberation, now this.

Ena (ph) and her granddaughter tell me that life is so hard here. But there's no time to be afraid. She goes to collect her box of supplies.

WARD: So, I told her that she's very strong. And she said, everybody here is very strong. We have to be. WARD (voice over): A man sets about repairing the roof of his home,

undeterred by the near-certain prospect of future attacks.

WARD: So, they're saying that they have heard from the army that Russian drones have taken off from the other side of the river. So, they're telling us to move on out.

WARD (voice over): We speed through the roads back to a safer part of the city. Nowhere in Kherson is really safe.

The local hospital is surrounded by sandbag barriers.

WARD: He says they hit here quite a lot. That's why there's all these protections outside.

WARD (voice over): Across Kherson region there were more than 2,000 drone launches just last week. The aftermath of that staggering statistic, clearly seen here.

Olena Shigreva (ph) says she and her friend were walking home from work when they were hunted.

We were two women, all made up, without hats, carrying flowers and wearing white jackets, she tells us. They could see we were women, not soldiers. It's just horror.

In another room, 19-year-old Boris is recovering from lung and leg injuries after the minibus he was traveling in was hit by a drone. Two people were killed and eight wounded.

They are Russians. What can I say, he tells us. They're animals. Nothing else to say.

WARD: Pretty much every room in this entire ward has someone in it who has been injured or maimed by a drone. The doctor says they have 28 drone injuries that they are treating at the moment. This is just one of three hospitals that serve this city. And he said the number has just been going up and up since last August.

WARD (voice over): We steadily received 90 to 100 patients injured in drone attacks a month, he says. And there were 20 attacks in one week on the hospital's generators.

Russia has frequently targeted Ukraine's power infrastructure in this war. Rarely has it so flagrantly pursued civilians.

We can call it a hunt for civilians, Mayor Roman Goroshko explains. The Russians send fresh drone units to Kherson region, and they train by attacking ordinary people with drones, then send these units to Donetsk and Luhansk, then they send another new unit here to continue the human safari.

WARD: What can you really do to protect people here?

WARD (voice over): There's no panacea to fully cover the city because the Russians are developing their technologies, he says. There's no jammer that can fully close the sky.

And so the people of Kherson suffer on as outside powers bargain for an end to this war. Nowhere are Russia's intentions felt so intimately.

Clarissa Ward, CNN, Kherson.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BERMAN: And our thanks to Clarissa for that.

We should note that CNN has reached out to Russian authorities for comments on Ukraine's allegations that Moscow has deliberately targeted Ukrainian civilians. We have not received a response yet.

A judge grants freedom to the last person seen with a college student who went missing while on spring break. This comes as her parents speak out publicly for the first time since her disappearance.

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[09:49:24]

BERMAN: All right, this morning, two 16-year-old girls who vanished while paddle boarding off the Florida coast have been found alive. Strong winds and waves apparently pushed the paddle board they were sharing out into the open gulf. That was Monday. The next morning, officials say someone spotted them about 14 miles southeast from where they started. The sheriff's office says they were cold and had a few scratches, but are otherwise in good shape.

This morning, the Peruvian fishermen rescued after being lost at sea for 95 days says he survived by eating roaches, birds and turtle blood. After he could find no more roaches to eat, he turned to catching birds.

[09:50:05]

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MAXIMO NAPA CASTRO, RESCUED FISHERMAN (through translator): There was nothing. Then came the birds. They started to rest on my boat around 1:00 or 2:00 a.m. They fell asleep there. And at that hour, I had to hunt them. I didn't want to, but I didn't have a choice. It was my life.

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BERMAN: Rescuers found him severely dehydrated and in critical condition. He says his faith in God and love for his family kept him going.

This morning, the young man who investigators believe was the last person to be seen with missing college student Sudiksha Konanki, he won his fight for freedom. Attorneys for Joshua Riibe argue he was wrongfully detained in the Dominican Republic. This comes as Konanki's parents asked that she be declared dead. This after she went missing nearly two weeks ago while on a spring break trip to Punta Cana.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, thank you, John.

This morning, NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore are undergoing extensive medical checks and getting used to gravity again after returning to earth from nine months in space. They were only supposed to be there for eight days. Return to earth protocols include keeping the crew at Houston's Johnson Space Center before doctors give them the green light to be able to go home.

For more insight on why that is, someone who knows all about spaceflight, former NASA astronaut and author of several books, including his latest book, "Space Chasers." He also, by the way, is the only person drafted into the NFL to have flown in space. He is basically the modern-day superman that we have live here on the show, Leland Melvin with me now.

Thank you so much for being here.

I do want to ask you, how hard is it on your body -

LELAND MELVIN, FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: Thank you for bringing me on, Sara.

SIDNER: It is my pleasure.

How hard is it on your body when you return from that zero gravity of space, and then get the full force of gravity here on earth?

MELVIN: Yes. Oh, my goodness, Sara, when you get home, Suni and Butch and Nick and Aleksander are feeling like a ton of bricks weighing them down right now, because in space you're able to float things and eat your food and float into it. But now gravity is not your friend.

And I think one of the things - the biggest thing that happens when you come home is your vestibular system, your inner ear is not synced up to what your eyes see, because in space your inner ear basically shuts down and all of your cues for orientation are done by your eyes. But when you get back home, now this data from the inner ear is - is conflicting a little bit with, you know, the eyeballs. And now you're thinking, OK, am I upside down or right side up? That's one of the things that's really tricky when you get home.

SIDNER: This is wild.

MELVIN: Yes. No, it is wild.

SIDNER: I did not know that. That is crazy. It's like vertigo or something where you just - you're disoriented?

MELVIN: It can't - yes, it can be. I mean, if you're walking in a straight line and you start taking a - taking a curve, you could just fall over because you're, you know, you're trying to figure out where - what orientation am I in. And the other thing is, when you're in space, you can float food to

your mouth, you can float things around. But on the ground, you might have a plate to put some food on it, then you might turn away thinking the plate's going to stay there. So, lots of broken China on the ground when you get home in from space. It's kind of crazy.

SIDNER: Do what my grandmother did, plastic - well, actually, it was paper. Paper plates, y'all. Like, we don't have to do dishes. Just, you know, she had six kids. Paper plates. That's what we use my whole childhood. And even I do it today sometimes.

MELVIN: Paperware (ph).

SIDNER: All right, on Instagram you wrote, "welcome home Crew-9 Nick, Aleksander, Suni and Butch. Proud of you all helping advance our civilization. Godspeed."

You know Suni and Butch, correct? What are - what are they like? They look like a real fun bunch.

MELVIN: Oh, they're - they're crazy fun. I mean, Suni and I, we were paired together in our astronaut class. And we were the two people that were going off to do some wilderness survival training together. So, we learned a lot of things about survival. She's a military person. I'm a former football player and engineer. And we're just like working and - and trying to figure out how to survive in the woods.

Butch and I flew on STS 129. And we were instrumental in the helping get the spare parts installed on the Space Station so that once - once we retire the shuttle, that they would have the parts up there now to service it. So, we've had some good times together, training and working in space together.

SIDNER: They really do look fun.

I do want to ask you, what did you miss the most in space, and what did you miss the most from space when you got home?

MELVIN: OK, so, got home. The lack of gravity, because you grow an inch when you get to space. I was taller in space. And I could do the superman maneuver, you know, all around.

SIDNER: Yes. Yes.

MELVIN: The other thing is, when you're in space, looking back at the planet, you're going around it every 90 minutes, see the sun rise and the sun set every 45, and you're thinking about the things that you can't eat in space, like a greasy cheeseburger or a slice of pizza. So, we all have these moments right before coming home where we say, OK, the first thing I'm going to eat is this. And so they were probably thinking about that as the Crew Dragon was coming home, landing in the - the Gulf of Mexico.

SIDNER: John Berman wants to know if the pizza was deep dish that you craved, or if it was normal pizza that you get here, for example, in New York. [09:55:08]

MELVIN: OK. OK, John, we had deep dish. We had thin slice. We had a whole smorgasbord of different slices of pizza to sample when we got home.

SIDNER: Oh.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good. I'm glad. You earned it. I will say, you paid the price for that variety.

SIDNER: It's - it is incredible, like, just the thought of going. Would you go?

BERMAN: Yes, all the Tang you can drink. That's why I'd be an astronaut. All the Tang you can drink.

SIDNER: I'm with you. Me too. I love Tang.

BERMAN: As they used to say in the 70s.

SIDNER: Leland Melvin, thank you so much. That was incredible.

And thank you for joining us. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "THE SITUATION ROOM," up next.

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