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Teacher Shooting Lawsuit; Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Trump Tariffs; Kentucky Plane Crash; Voters Deliver Sweeping Republican Defeats. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired November 05, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: An off-year Republican reckoning, Democrats sweeping several key races, leaving President Trump and the Republican Party grasping at straws, casting contradictory claims about who is responsible only one year out before the midterms.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And historic shutdown. On a day when the shutdown becomes the longest in history, there's reason to hope it could soon be over, as some Senate Democrats appear open to a deal that could reopen the government.

And a fiery trail of destruction left behind after a UPS plane crashes moments after takeoff. At least nine people are dead. The NTSB team begins its investigation into what went wrong today.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: At any moment now, we will hear from President Donald Trump as he speaks at a business forum in Miami on this 36th day of the government shutdown, now the longest ever in U.S. history, as so far today we have heard the president repeatedly urge Republicans to terminate the filibuster, not only to reopen the federal government but also for them to stay in power.

At one point, he also accused Democrats of using the shutdown to take down America if they have to, comparing them to kamikaze pilots.

KEILAR: At a breakfast with Republicans, the president expressed frustration about the shutdown and over Democrats' big sweeping victories last night.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But I thought we'd have a discussion after the press leaves about what last night represented and what we should do about it and also about the shutdown and how that relates to last night. I think, if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor, negative for the Republicans. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: In the meantime, the shutdown is not only the longest ever, but possibly the most damaging as well.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates between $7 billion and $14 billion will be permanently lost.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is in Miami with some brand-new reporting on this.

Kevin, tell us what you're learning.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, we're getting a better picture of what that discussion that the president referenced entails once the cameras were off with those Republican senators in the State Dining Room.

And it is becoming very clear that the president now thinks that this record government shutdown is becoming a major liability for them. The president told them that they were -- quote -- "getting killed politically" by this shutdown and very forcefully urged them to change course and in particular urged them to eliminate the Senate filibuster, that 60-vote threshold in the Senate that he thinks would be the quickest and easiest way to reopen the government.

And we heard the president talking about that when the cameras were on as well. Listen to a little bit of what he said there.

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TRUMP: It's time for Republicans to do what they have to do and that's terminate the filibuster. It's the only way you can do it. And if you don't terminate the filibuster, you will be in bad shape. We won't pass any legislation. We should start tonight with the country's open, congratulations.

Then we should pass voter I.D. We should pass no mail-in voting. We should pass all the things that we want to pass to make our elections secure and safe, because California is a disaster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: You can kind of hear how quiet the room was when the president was speaking there. This was really something of a sullen occasion.

And it's only one year ago today that the president won the presidential election, and you really can't imagine a different atmosphere and a different circumstance. And I think the reception that the president received there just kind of speaks to the misgivings that a lot of Republicans have about doing away with the filibuster.

They think that this could essentially just come back and haunt them if Democrats were to regain the majority. And even after the president essentially castigated them and urged them to take this step, it did not appear as if many of them were moved.

The Senate majority leader, John Thune, when he was coming back to the Capitol, was pretty frank, saying that the votes just aren't there. And so I think the president really searching for a solution to the Republicans' issues here.

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The other sort of rationale that he has pointed to is that he wasn't on the ballot. You saw him put that on social media last night. Of course, he will never be on the ballot again. He can't run for president again, which I think leaves an open question of how he thinks Republicans can be successful going forward.

KEILAR: Yes, really interesting to hear him speaking there really from the cuff.

Kevin Liptak, thank you.

Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear has declared a state of emergency after last night's deadly UPS plane crash in Louisville. At least nine people have been confirmed dead in this. This was a cargo jet that was on its way to Hawaii. It crashed shortly after taking off from Louisville Muhammad Ali International Airport.

SANCHEZ: It exploded into a massive fireball. You see it there. It struck an auto parts store and a petroleum recycling facility. You can also see the plumes of dense black smoke that blanketed the sky in its wake. They could be seen from miles away. The governor is saying the impact on the community will be immense.

Let's go to CNN's Leigh Waldman, who's on the scene there for us in Louisville.

Leigh, what new information do you have?

LEIGH WALDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Boris, Brianna, we know that the NTSB is here now. It's a 28-person go team, and they're going to search through this debris, through this wreckage to try and determine exactly what went wrong here.

We know from some of those early images that the UPS Flight 2976, one of its engines actually came off of that plane. We saw it from those first videos. It appears that engine was on fire. Now we know that the engine was actually off of that plane.

The fire chief, one of the fire chiefs of the many fire departments that responded here saying that the fuselage is completely burnt up. A state representative saying that it looks almost apocalyptic here in Louisville, and, as you mentioned, the death toll now at nine. Two people are in critical condition from burns, 16 families still looking for their loved ones here. Take

a listen to what Governor Andy Beshear had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. ANDY BESHEAR (D-KY): There have been over 200 first responders that were on the scene last night, and there is a significant amount of resources in the search-and-rescue, and ultimately what is probably by now the recovery effort that is occurring, but know there may be more loss of life that we're going to learn about today.

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WALDMAN: And we know that the NTSB is going to be holding a press conference at some point today. The governor and the mayor will be touring the crash site that's off in the distance behind us there.

KEILAR: Yes, the video, Leigh, is just unbelievable. You see so many people scrambling for safety affected near the runway.

What are officials telling residents and businesses who have been affected by this? Is the shelter-in-place order still activated?

WALDMAN: At this point, no. And they're asking anyone who has any surveillance video, who is finding any pieces of the debris left behind from this crash to go ahead and report that to the NTSB. It's going to be vital in their ongoing investigation to try and figure out exactly what went wrong here.

We know that engine that's left behind, that's going to be a big piece of evidence for them to determine what led up to this tragedy. We know there's still a temporary flight restriction in place here. There's a lot of flight delays and cancellations into this airport itself. So it's going to be a long time for them to try and search grid by grid to determine exactly what happened.

It's a large crash scene here.

KEILAR: My goodness. Leigh Waldman, thank you for that report.

Let's bring in Mary Schiavo, CNN transportation analyst and former inspector general for the Department of Transportation.

I was saying my goodness because the aerial picture of just the scar created from this crash is horrific there through all of these buildings. What is the NTSB on-scene team going to be looking for here, Mary?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Well, they have already started looking.

And, first and foremost, they will -- they have called for and you must cooperate fully with them, so the NTSB will have them, all of the maintenance records, all of the repairs on this plane, literally the history of this aircraft, and not just the parts on any repair, but also the procedures because, both your parts and your procedures must be approved and any approved steps.

So they're already gathering all those records because there is a report that this plane had just had some heavy maintenance, meaning a lot of overhaul or at least inspections in October. And then, of course, once all the rescue and recovery is completed and all of the possible recovery of humans is done, then they will start looking for those black boxes.

And they're going to be important, because, obviously, it gives you the best source of data that was happening at the last minute, and then, of course, the position of the wreckage. That picture that surfaced after the fire was put out and the smoke cleared where you could see that the engine had detached from the plane before the final impact and fireball, that was hugely important as well.

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And it's really changed over the last three decades. I mean, decades ago, when you worked a crash, you didn't have this video. You didn't have people filming everything all over. And it's really helpful. And the NTSB asked that people provide them a video in any accident and photographs.

SANCHEZ: And as we look at that image of what appears to be the engine, what does it tell you that it came off?

SCHIAVO: Right.

Well, investigators always look to things, the history that they know, accidents they have worked before, et cetera. So the fact that the engine came off always makes me go back to other accidents that I have had experience with where that happened. There was one in Chicago, for example, way back in 1979.

And an engine came off because it had been improperly removed from the wing during a major check, a C check or a D check or an overhaul, and it wasn't removed properly or put back on properly, and the mounting pins were damaged. In other cases, it's called an uncontained engine failure, where the engine itself literally spews parts out because something's wrong.

Often, it's the turbine blades, the fan blades. And, believe it or not, sometimes, those are defective. Sometimes, they're not even the real thing, they're bogus. So they're going to be looking very closely at anything that went on or touched that engine most recently, but sometimes it's something that happened years ago.

There was a DC-10 crash in Iowa, oh, about 1989, and that repair had happened almost a decade, nine years before that crash. So they're really going to be covering the records, and then, of course, eyewitness, earwitness, whatever was known, what was reported at the loading facility just before the plane departed, all very important.

But the NTSB has worked, believe it or not, bigger debris fields than this. They have scoured ocean floors and gone to fjords and you name it, so they will get the job done.

KEILAR: At the 3:00 p.m. presser, we're learning, from the NTSB, Mary, what questions would you have for them?

SCHIAVO: So, for the NTSB, obviously, you want to know what team they have put together. And it's a pretty large team, they have advised. So they're going to have all sorts of teams.

Most particularly, I'm sure they will have obviously the engines, maintenance, et cetera, and also have a human factors team. And from what I see, there was just nothing that these poor pilots could have done, but they always do have a human factors team to examine, what could be done? Was there any way to avoid anything?

Why are all these buildings around the runway? Should we be taking more care to get rid of hazards at the airports? And all sorts of questions like that. But at this first presser, the NTSB will be very careful to release only things they know. So they will say, we know this, we know this, here's the team we have put together,and if you have videos, pictures, information, call us, and they will give a number.

They also have to do a briefing for the families. And that's required by federal law. So they will have -- they can have a separate private briefing, but they have to keep the families informed. They have to tell the families what they're doing, what they're finding, where the investigation is going. And that's very important.

That does help the families understand. In the horrific tragedy that they're facing, it helps them understand what's being done.

KEILAR: Yes, they need that information right now.

Mary Schiavo, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Still to come, we will have much more from Louisville. We're going to talk to a witness who was working in a restaurant just a couple hundred feet from the crash site. She says the horrifying scene unfolded like something out of a movie, the crash site so close that she could feel its heat.

SANCHEZ: But, first, the Supreme Court weighing whether President Trump overstepped his authority when he announced sweeping emergency tariffs against most of the world. Could today's arguments offer clues as to how the justices might rule?

And they are incredibly popular, but also very pricey. The Trump administration says it's close to striking a deal that would lower the cost of weight loss drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic -- that much more coming your way next.

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SANCHEZ: Breaking news to CNN, just moments ago at the Supreme Court, oral arguments wrapped up in a case pivotal to President Trump's economic agenda, whether he could use emergency powers to impose his sweeping global tariffs.

Some of the conservative justices, including Chief Justice John Roberts, expressed skepticism of the Trump administration's argument that the president can unilaterally declare a national economic emergency that then gives him under restrained tariff power.

Listen.

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JOHN ROBERTS, CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE U.S. SUPREME COURT: The justification is being used for a power to impose tariffs on any product from any country for -- in any amount for any length of time, that seems like -- I'm not suggesting it's not there, but it does seem like that's major authority.

And the basis for the claim seems to be a misfit. So, why doesn't it apply again?

(END AUDIO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Let's get some perspective now from CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig.

Elie, first let's talk about how we got to today's Supreme Court arguments and help us understand what's at stake.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Boris, the president clearly thinks that the stakes here are massive.

He put up on TRUTH Social yesterday a post in which he said that this case presents literally life or death for our country. Now, in the administration's actual official brief to the Supreme Court, they put it a bit more modestly. They said the administration's most significant economic and foreign policy initiatives are at stake.

So what exactly are we talking about? There's really two sets of tariffs that were being argued today in the Supreme Court, first a set of what we're called trafficking tariffs that the president imposed on Mexico, Canada and China during his first day in office.

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And then, second, we all remember the reciprocal tariffs that Donald Trump announced on so-called liberation day, April 2 of this year, which imposed vast tariffs on dozens of countries across the globe.

Now, how did we get here? This is the third step in our chain. We started off in the district court, which ruled that the tariffs were illegal by a 3-0 ruling. Notably, the judges on that case that ruled against Trump include a Reagan appointee and a Trump appointee.

Then it went up to the Court of Appeals, which ruled again against the tariffs by a 7-4 ruling. We actually saw appointees of both political parties on both sides of the outcome. So we're not talking about our traditional ideological and political splits here.

That led us today to the U.S. Supreme Court, where arguments just concluded minutes ago.

SANCHEZ: And what main legal arguments were presented for both sides? HONIG: OK, so two things, if you listen to today's argument that you

heard the lawyers and the justices talking about over and over again. One is delegation, and two is this thing called the major questions doctrine.

Now, Congress holds the power to impose tariffs. However, they can delegate, they can give some of that power over to the president if they pass a specific law. Now, the Trump administration argued that a law passed back in 1977 called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act -- you heard the lawyers talking about the IEEPA, that's what they're talking about -- gives the president this power to impose tariffs.

But the opponents, a group of states and small businesses, said, no, that law actually says nothing at all about tariffs and that the president exceeded his powers when he declared an emergency. So that's the major questions doctrine. It basically says that if Congress intends to give the White House a vast economic or political power, it has to say so specifically in a law.

And, again, the challengers said, not only does it not say so specifically in this law. This law says nothing at all about tariffs themselves.

SANCHEZ: And we just played a moment ago Chief John Roberts suggesting that the application that the White House is using to raise these tariffs may be a misfit in relation to the law.

What other indications did we get on how justices might be inclined to vote?

HONIG: Yes, Boris, this did not go well for the Trump administration. I think, if we break down our nine justices, you can put them in a couple of different classes.

First of all, the three liberal justices, Sotomayor, Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, seemed openly hostile to this notion of tariffs. They asked questions that were very challenging of John Sauer, the solicitor general, do not seem to be on board with these tariffs being legal or constitutional at all.

More importantly, though, if we look at the four conservatives who now constitute the court's middle, it seemed that at least three of them, at least Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and the chief justice, all also shared that skepticism towards these tariffs. They seemed to think that International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not give the president the power to impose these sweeping worldwide tariffs.

If just two of these three or two of these four join with the liberals, then those tariffs are going to fall. Now, Justice Kavanaugh seems to think there may be some exception here that may allow the tariffs to stand.

And, of course, if you look at the two most conservative members of the court, Justices Thomas and Alito, they seem to be on the administration side. But, Boris, I think if you're arguing this case for the Trump administration, I think you're coming out of this feeling concerned. I think the challengers are going to come out of today's argument feeling optimistic that the court will strike down these tariffs.

SANCHEZ: And, quickly, Elie, we are anticipating this decision to come next year, before June?

HONIG: Yes, so typically the big decisions don't come down until May or June. But, remember, Boris, this case was decided on an expedited calendar, an expedited schedule. I think it's clear the Supreme Court is going to rule, if I had to guess, somewhere around the turn of the new year, somewhere late 2025, early 2026.

The stakes are so high here, and I think the court understands there's a need for certainty one way or another.

SANCHEZ: And we will, of course, be watching that decision closely.

Elie Honig, appreciate the expertise.

HONIG: Thanks, Boris.

SANCHEZ: So, a jury will soon decide whether an elementary school assistant principal will be held responsible for an on-campus shooting by a 6-year-old. We're following closing arguments in the $40 million lawsuit filed by teacher Abby Zwerner.

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SANCHEZ: Closing arguments have begun and the $40 million lawsuit filed by a former Virginia teacher who was shot by a 6-year-old student in her own classroom.

Abby Zwerner is suing the school's former assistant principal Ebony Parker. Zwerner accuses Parker of failing to act despite being warned the child had a gun at school that day and a history of concerning behavior.

KEILAR: Parker's attorneys have argued that no one could fathom such a young child bringing a gun to school and carrying out a shooting.

CNN's Brian Todd is monitoring these proceedings.

And, Brian, you have covered this shooting since it happened really. Now you're covering the closing arguments. What's standing out to you today?

BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna and Boris, what's standing out to me is that there were very dramatic closing arguments given just a few minutes ago by the attorney for the plaintiff, the attorney's name, Kevin Biniazan.

He's the attorney for Abigail Zwerner, the teacher who was shot. Just moments ago, he gave some very compelling arguments to the jury, saying -- quote -- "A gun changes everything. You have to get to the bottom of it," basically outlining for them how the plaintiffs believe it was Ebony Parker's job to make sure the campus was safe after she was warned three times, according to the plaintiffs, three times that the boy may have had a gun on campus.

He went through what he called a road map. He detailed the three different warnings that she had where people came up to her and said he could have a gun.

She was asked -- according to the plaintiffs, she was asked, Parker was asked whether they should search the boy, search his person, and she said: "Let's hold off. His mother's going to be here soon to pick him up."