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Trump Administration to Cut Flights at 40 Airports Starting Tomorrow; USDA Revises SNAP Reduction Plan for Partial Benefits; Trump Administration Tells Congress It Lacks Legal Justification to Launch Strikes Inside Venezuela; 30th Conference on Climate Change Happening in Brazil. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired November 06, 2025 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: Starting tomorrow, the Trump administration says flights will start being cancelled if the shutdown does not end. And just moments ago, United said it is preemptively cancelling about 200 flights tomorrow. The FAA just moments ago also sharing a list of the 40 airports that will be impacted by these flight cuts.

They are some of the nation's busiest, as you can see on that map there. Among them, Atlanta, Boston, New York, Houston, Los Angeles. That's, of course, just to name a few.

Coast-to-coast impacts. And the longer this drags on, of course, this could mean thousands of flights that are grounded each day. President Trump just moments ago was asked about it.

Here is that quick exchange.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you at all concerned that it might not be safe to fly right now? And what do you tell people who are gearing up --?

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, that's why they're cutting, you know. Fair question. As Sean Duffy announced, they're cutting in certain areas 10 percent.

And they want to make sure it's 100 percent safe. That's why they're doing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: Josh Schirard, a commercial airline pilot and also the director of Burnett Technologies, joins us now. So, Josh, when we look at this, these preemptive cuts by United, when you think about what is potentially coming tomorrow and looking at that map of those 40 airports, what's the impact as a pilot when you look at this? Does it give you any concerns about flying?

JOSH SCHIRARD, COMMERCIAL AIRLINE PILOT: You know, there's no concerns about the actual flying. The concern is the added delays that are going to be present as we start canceling these flights. These delays are not just impacting the traveling public, but those working in the industry as well.

You know, we're looking at, you know, up to 3,500 controllers short on the air traffic side, which means once they start canceling flights, closing down airspaces, it's going to further hinder the workload on pilots and crew to make sure that we can get from point A to point B safely.

HILL: When you talk about air traffic controllers, the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association was on CNN earlier today and noted that the level of hopelessness he is seeing among members is something he has not seen before. And he also warned that the impact of this shutdown and what we're seeing in this moment is going to be felt long after the shutdown ends. Do you agree?

And if so, what what do you see as the long term consequences for the industry?

SCHIRARD: You know, being an air traffic controller is incredibly stressful. There is a massive workload put on them every day and a huge responsibility to make sure the traveling public is safe in the skies, on the ground and going to and from. When they don't get a paycheck, you know, obviously, that's going to hit morale pretty heavy.

[14:35:00]

And this is unfortunately doesn't look like a problem that's going to be solved anytime soon. And even if it does, are we looking at the same problem next October? You know, if you're an air traffic controller sitting there, are you looking at not getting another paycheck next year for a couple of months and trying to balance that with the desire to want to do the right thing to want to help is fairly difficult in some of those -- in some of those areas.

HILL: That is and we know, you know, as we heard from Nick Daniels, who's talking about that, you know, a lot of them can't even take a second job, as some did maybe back in 2019, because they're just already working so much on, of course, working without a paycheck at this point. The last shutdown ended after 10 air traffic controllers stayed home.

Air traffic was snarled. TSA staffing shortages as well at some of the nation's largest airports were a contributing factor. Do you have any concerns that the airline industry as a whole is being used as a political pod here, potentially an off ramp for lawmakers who don't want to admit defeat?

SCHIRARD: I think that this is a lot of the law of unintended consequences. I think that there are some obvious other intentions for this shutdown and other political agendas. And I think that they knew that air traffic was going to be somewhat affected, but not to the degree that it has been.

And we already saw this last week. And I'm here in Houston, and we saw the lines with national news of over four or five hours at TSA. And those are just, you know, proliferating throughout the U.S. And now we're talking about cutting up to 4,000 flights a day here in the U.S.

Now we're starting to hit, you know, a different aspect of the population that is now being affected by this shutdown. And it's really going to start to turn the screws on lawmakers to end this shutdown and get the government back open.

HILL: I'm curious, too, as we look at just air traffic -- or travel, rather, I should say, it seems that every holiday, I'm talking from Memorial Day to July 4th to just Labor Day this year, it seems with each of those holidays, we were told that we were going to see the busiest day of the year for travel. And I say that because it just shows the rate at which travel is picking up, the number of people who are traveling. Do you believe airlines also maybe need to do a little self-reflection here?

Have they helped to create a system that is maybe too jam-packed? Are there too many flights at this point? Should that be re-evaluated?

SCHIRARD: You know, the aviation network across the U.S. is such a butterfly-affected industry, where something that one company does is going to affect something that happens on the other side of the country and sometimes the other side of the globe. So, really, what it takes is the industry as a whole looking at the current predicament and how we can best alleviate some of these pressure points by overbooked travel or not enough flights. I mean, we've seen flights getting cut over the last several years, which has only increased the amount of people that we're putting on the planes, which only increases overbooking delays that we're seeing throughout the country.

So, really, this is an industry-wide problem, not necessarily single companies here and there, that they need to look at it, see where can we alleviate some of these pressure points, not necessarily, you know, front-loading profit, but making sure that we can provide a good service and a safe service to the traveling public.

HILL: Josh Schirard, great to have your insight and your point of view. Thank you -- Brianna,

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Millions of Americans bracing for a reduction of their food-assistant benefits are not going to see cuts as large as they initially expected. The USDA is revising its guidance for SNAP recipients. They will now receive still a huge cut, 35 percent of their monthly SNAP allotment.

That gives them more than 50 percent reduction, or I should say it was a 50 percent reduction that was initially announced and expected. So this is a little less than that. The USDA is issuing only partial benefits this month that comply with the court order amid the government shutdown.

CNN's Rene Marsh is here with more on this. Rene, people are receiving partial payments. Even though this isn't quite as bad, it's still not going to be enough. RENE MARSH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. And, you know, I just spent some time in West Virginia. I spoke with one mom, and I specifically asked her about these partial payments, and her words were, it's laughable. She'll still have to scrape by, ration out food just to make it through the month of November.

Now, this USDA change in how much it's dispersing to states this month came shortly after a left-leaning think tank published an analysis arguing that the USDA was cutting benefits more deeply than they needed to. And the analysis said that based on the USDA's original proposal of a 50 percent cutback in SNAP benefits this month, that would mean roughly 5 million people who rely on food stamps would not receive any benefits this month.

And that's simply because the reduction that the USDA was proposing was much larger than the usual amount that those people get. But just when people will start to receive these partial payments, it really, Brianna, depends on where they live.

[14:40:00]

States have to now reconfigure their systems to make sure that they can make those reduced payments. That could take some states that use older technology weeks or even months -- according to a USDA official. We know that in North Carolina and Massachusetts, people who rely on food stamps should receive their benefits next week. That's according to those states' websites.

Pennsylvania, in a letter to USDA, said that the agency has chosen, quote, the most complex and labor-intensive approach possible to issue partial payments. And they said that the process will require 10,000 hours and about three weeks to process partial payments.

Just to recap, SNAP payments ran out due to the government shutdown, and two federal judges said that the agency had to use these contingency funds. And just about an hour from now, we're expecting another hearing on this case.

This federal judge in Rhode Island is going to decide whether he will force the agency to pay full benefits for the month of November. So we'll be watching that -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, Rene Marsh, thank you so much for following this.

Ahead, the Trump administration telling Congress it's not planning to strike inside Venezuela for now. We'll have details next.

[14:45:33]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: New today, sources tell CNN, Trump administration officials told Congress the U.S. is not currently planning to launch strikes inside Venezuela, adding that's because the administration does not have the legal justification to support attacks against any land targets right now. The U.S. military has carried out 16 known strikes against suspected drug boats, killing at least 67 people in the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific since September.

CNN senior national security reporter Zachary Cohen is covering this story for us. So the fact that right now the administration says it doesn't have any legal jurisdiction for land strikes inside Venezuela, does that mean they are working toward finding legal jurisdiction?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yes, Erica, the key words are right now. But we're told that top Trump officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, telling lawmakers yesterday in a classified briefing that the Trump administration's current plans do not include launching strikes inside Venezuela itself. Which would be an escalation of its ongoing military campaign targeting alleged drug traffickers. And as you mentioned, too, they also informed lawmakers that the current legal justification, which is an opinion put together by the Justice Department, does not expand to targets on land in Venezuela or elsewhere.

So while that is sort of the restricted parameters of the current moment, sources leaving open really any possibilities in the future, one U.S. official putting it this way, what is true one day may very well not be the next. And we're told by the same official that the Trump administration is seeking a second Justice Department legal opinion that could open the door for potentially launching strikes against drug traffickers on land, whether it's Venezuela or potentially elsewhere. That is something that is a major concern amongst lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who have really pushed the Trump administration to explain what its endgame is here, whether or not it does expect to expand this military campaign towards something more of a regime change variety.

We know that the Trump administration has gone to great lengths to try to connect Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro to these drug cartels that it has put on a list of 24 drug cartels, criminal organizations that it considers effectively terrorist groups, and therefore has authorized the killing of them without any sort of due process. We know there are similar concerns about other drug groups located in other countries in the region, too. So I think the primary concern here for lawmakers who have been largely cut out of this process is what is the ultimate goal here for the Trump administration and how far do they expect to take this ongoing military campaign?

HILL: Yes, absolutely. An important question. Zachary, appreciate it. Thank you -- Brie.

KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour. An investigation is underway after a huge fire destroyed the multimillion dollar home of Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra.

WSVN reports Spoelstra arrived on the property and looked distraught as he watched his home burn. Officials say no one, thankfully, was injured in this.

Also, Outback Steakhouse abruptly closed 21 restaurants last month and will not renew the leases of 22 other locations once they expire. The changes are part of a turnaround plan, which was disclosed in its recent earnings report. The company has struggled in recent years as customers pull back and also amid strong competition from rivals.

And this year's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree is now on its way to New York City. There it is. It's a 75 foot tall Norway spruce that was cut down in upstate New York. It was believed to be 75 years old.

It will be decorated with more than 50,000 lights, crowned with a Swarovski crystal star and then lit for the first time on December 3rd. When the holidays are over, the tree will be milled into lumber for Habitat for Humanity.

No officials from the Trump administration will be there, but California's Governor Gavin Newsom is heading to Brazil for the United Nations Climate Change Conference. A look at what to expect from this year's gathering next.

[14:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: The world's largest climate summit kicking off today in Brazil, minus one notable participant, the United States. President Trump, of course, has called climate change a, quote, con job. That's despite the overwhelming evidence of its reality and the very real threat it poses.

President Trump seemed to get an assist recently from Bill Gates, who argued that resources actually should be shifted away from the battle against climate change. It's a move that experts have said is just flat out wrong. Here's CNN's Bill Weir with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ten years ago, humanity was burning so much fossil fuel that Earth was on track to overheat by a catastrophic 4 degrees Celsius by century's end.

[14:55:00]

But then came Paris, when nearly 200 nations agreed to wean themselves off of oil, gas and coal, protect more nature and hold the global warming line at 1.5. The Paris Accords led to innovation and market forces that now make sun, wind and storage cheaper and more popular than ever.

But humanity is still burning way too much carbon. And the U.N. announced this week that Earth will likely overshoot 1.5 on the way to around 2.6, which would still mean the end of coral reefs and mountain glaciers, coastal cities and island nations as we know them. So going into history's 30th conference on climate change in Brazil, the stakes could not be higher.

WEIR: And then at this pivotal moment comes a second coming of Donald Trump, who is actively trying to force all of these countries to go backwards on climate. And then Bill Gates drops a 5,000 word memo in which he argues that less money should go towards the climate buckets and a lot more should be poured into solving global poverty and global health.

But Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist at Texas Tech, argues climate is not a bucket. Climate is the hole in every other bucket. The hole that makes solving these problems that much harder and more expensive.

KATHARINE HAYHOE, CHIEF SCIENTIST, THE NATURE CONSERVANCY: And that hole is getting bigger and bigger, the more carbon emissions we produce. And if we don't patch that hole, we are never going to be able to address any of the other issues he cares about. His premise that climate change is just a separate bucket at the end is profoundly flawed.

WEIR (voice-over): She is among the chorus of top climate scientists who spent the week trying to debunk the billionaire's confusing new message, that rich cities will be immune from the worst effects and that technology can save us.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Those coal mines are opening up one after another, clean, beautiful coal.

WEIR (voice-over): Even if Republicans refuse to even try.

ZEKE HAUSFATHER, CLIMATE SCIENTIST, BERKELEY EARTH: Technology doesn't descend from the heavens on magical stone tablets. It comes from decades of important R&D work, most of which is funded by governments and deployment work, which is funded by governments like tax credits for clean energy. And so, this idea that we can somehow rely on technology to save us independent of policy, independent of what we actually do to get that technology out there, I think is worrying.

DANIEL SWAIN, CLIMATE SCIENTIST, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: They had just fired their entire climate team at CBS. I was literally reading this instead of going to do that interview. At the same time, there was a torrential downpour. Multiple people drowned in New York City.

And in the interviews that Bill Gates has given in response to the criticisms, specifically pointed out it's -- that it was ridiculous to think that New York City was going to have problems with climate change. I was reading this as people were actively underwater in their basement apartments in New York City last week.

So the rhetoric just isn't matching the real world here.

WEIR (voice-over): Meanwhile, former Biden climate czar Gina McCarthy is in Brazil, along with a group that includes California Governor Gavin Newsom and others, who will try to convince the world that blue states and big cities are still in the fight with pledges to keep.

GENA MCCARTHY, FORMER EPA ADMINISTRATOR: This is a difficult time, Bill, that you know, and I've never been at a time when I felt that the federal government was as much out of the loop as this federal government is. But that can't be what we focus on. We have a chance to go to Belem and let people know that America is all in.

There are solutions. There are opportunities. There is hope in the United States. HAYHOE: We also see that businesses, organizations, nonprofits, churches, tribal nations, universities, all kinds of different entities are taking climate action. So when Gina is going to Brazil to tell people that people in America, organizations in America are still acting, she's right.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HILL: And Bill Weir joins me now. So with the U.S. missing in action, I mean, we have, right, the one from The Nature Conservancy there saying, look, we've got Gina McCarthy. They're going to tell us people are doing things.

The U.S., though, I mean, what does it mean without the U.S. there as a government, given that the U.S. is still, I believe, the second biggest emitter of carbon dioxide?

WEIR (on camera): Absolutely. And the biggest historically. It just means not having a seat at the table as the post-carbon economy is sorted out.

It's giving its seating that sort of influence to China and European countries as well. There is also a huge presence of lobbyists, oil and gas lobbyists. They're trying to undermine any sort of carbon tax as well.

So those good faith negotiators would be there to balance all that out as well. But Erica, just as an example of what the rest of the world is doing, Australia just announced a scheme that will give everyone in the country three hours of free electricity every day because they have installed so much solar nationwide. And that will become more evident as other countries lean into this transition while the Trump administration clings to the fuels of the 19th century in many ways.

So it's really a seismic moment right now. So many different angles to watch ...

END