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Senate Advances Deal to End Shutdown; Trump Pardons Allies; Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY) is Interviewed about a Shutdown Deal; Airport Delays and Cancellations Plague Travelers; Mother of Missing Daughter Arrested. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired November 10, 2025 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:00]

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Vast majority of people in this country, not just folks who are extremely low income. There are plenty of people who consider themselves middle class, who say, you know, I make enough to own a car and to own a home but I have not factored in that type of jump. The question is, you know, what type of deal is Congress going to be able to reach to help some of these people out?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Look, and as you point out with Sunny, that this is a life or death scenario for her. She won't be able to get any of her treatment with the -- with late stage cancer. And that goes for a lot of people who are using Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act.

So, great reporting from you, Gabe Cohen. Thank you so much.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

All right, breaking overnight, a shutdown breakthrough on Capitol Hill, but a deep divide also exists among Democrats. And despite a possible deal, even more travel chaos this morning after the worst weekend since the shutdown started.

Also breaking this morning, President Trump pardoning a long list of political allies who tried to overturn the 2020 election, including Rudy Giuliani.

And another twist in the case of nine-year-old Melodee Buzzard, who vanished during a family road trip last month. Her mother, now in jail, but not related to her daughter's disappearance. What is happening there?

I'm Sara Sidner, with Kate Bolduan. John is out today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, the breaking news this morning, the Senate has a deal, but many Democrats are, this morning, fuming about it. Senators are going to be back to work this morning after a late night, rare Sunday session, late night vote that saw eight Democratic senators break ranks, join Republicans, to advance a plan that would end the longest shutdown in U.S. history. But to the Democrats fuming, Democrats are angry about it because the

deal does not include the one thing that they wanted out of it -- out of all of this, which is a concrete extension of Obamacare subsidies set to expire at the end of the year. What the deal does include is, it gets the government open. It funds the government through January 30th. It funds SNAP benefits through fiscal year 2026. It reverses President Trump's layoffs of federal workers that happened during the shutdown. But, instead of that concrete extension of health care subsidies, Senate Republicans are, as part of this deal, committing to put the matter to a vote next month.

CNN's Annie Grayer, live on Capitol Hill.

Late night. Early morning. Where do things go today?

ANNIE GRAYER, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, now the Senate comes back into session and we'll see how long they debate this deal before they have a final vote on it. And then it will go to the House, who has been out of session since September 19th. The House is now on a 36 hour notice, and they will be called back into session as soon as the Senate passes the final version of this bill.

But I can't emphasize enough how much this deal has divided Democrats. Eight centrist Democrats joined with Republicans last night to break the 40 -- the 41 day stalemate, the longest government shutdown in history, and vote to reopen the government.

Now, those Democrats argue that they had to make this deal because the window was closing, that President Trump was coming out against those Obamacare subsidies, and that there wasn't really going to be an option to extend them more permanently, and that instead settling for a vote was really the best that they were going to do and argued that with Republicans controlling the floor, getting them to give up floor time on this, they say, is a major win.

But the majority -- many, many Democrats specifically on the left, outside groups, are furious at this because now Democrats have given up their point of leverage here, that they have now are -- instead of getting any assurances about those expiring tax credits, all they're going to get is a vote. There's no guarantee that this vote will pass the Senate. And even if it does pass the Senate, those expiring tax credits, it's unclear if it's going to be even brought up in the House.

So, the cost of health care for people that -- that Democrats have made so central to their argument, they are not going to get a major win here.

But listen to how both sides of the Democratic Party view last night's vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-:NH): Keeping the government shut down for another week or another month doesn't indicate that there would be any change in the outcome. All it would mean is that more Americans would suffer. We need to get this government back open.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): I know as part of this resolution that the majority leader is going to say, well, Democrats can create, put together their own bill and it will come to the floor here in the Senate for a vote. As everybody here knows, that is a totally meaningless gesture.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[09:05:02]

GRAYER: So now Democrats are going to have to wait for that vote in December that Republicans have agreed to and try and negotiate a deal that could actually pass both chambers of Congress and become law. There's no guarantee that could happen. But in the meantime, it does look like the government's close to reopening.

BOLDUAN: All right, Annie Grayer, thank you very much for that.

One of -- Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who you just heard from there, one of the eight who voted on it, one of the senators who negotiated this deal, she will be joining us in just a few minutes.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right. And breaking this morning, we've got more news for you. Trump allies Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Mark Meadows and dozens of other staunch loyalists have been pardoned by the president. They were all part of Trump's efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. The Justice Department says a total of 77 people received pardons. The proclamation claims its ending what the White House is calling a, quote, "grave national injustice" following the 2020 election.

CNN's Kevin Liptak is at the White House for us this morning.

You are hearing now from the spokesperson and others about this pardon or these pardons. What are you -- what can you tell us this morning?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, and it is a lengthy list. And a lot of the names, I think, will be familiar to anyone who's been kind of following this saga over the last five years. I think the one thing that is important to note is that none of the names have actually been charged with a federal crime. And, of course, the president has the power to grant clemency for federal crimes. And so, in a lot of ways, this is symbolic, but it really does underscore the president's efforts to rewrite the history around the 2020 election.

And just to tick through a few of the names. You have Rudy Giuliani, of course, the former New York City mayor, who really kind of led the effort to pressure state legislatures to reject Joe Biden's victory. Sidney Powell, the conservative lawyer who worked very closely with Giuliani. Mark Meadows, who was the president's chief of staff at the time. Jenna Ellis, another lawyer. Boris Epshteyn, a top Trump adviser. John Eastman and Kenneth Cheseboro, who are two attorneys who kind of helped devise this effort to pressure Mike Pence to overturn the election results on January 6, 2021. And Bert Jones, who's now the lieutenant governor of Georgia and was a fake elector after the 2020 election.

Now, Karoline Leavitt, who's the White House press secretary, saying today that "these were great Americans who were persecuted and put through hell by the Biden administration for challenging an election, which is the cornerstone of democracy." She goes on to say that, "getting prosecuted for challenging results is something that happens in communist Venezuela, not the United States of America, and President Trump is putting an end to the Biden regimes communist tactics once and for all."

The one name that is not on the list and, in fact, that this proclamation specifically excludes, is President Trump himself, saying that it does not apply to the president of the United States. You know, a lot of these names have been charged in states like Arizona and Georgia, that were affected by all of this.

But there was an interesting piece of background from a White House official who says that, "under long established law, states have no jurisdiction with respect to any alleged wrongdoing associated with a federal proceeding." And you can kind of see here how the White House is now starting to try and lay the groundwork for suggesting that some of these state charges may have been out of bounds.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, Kevin Liptak, thank you so much for your reporting there from the White House for us.

Joining me now is Democratic Congressman Gregory Meeks of New York. He sits on the House Financial Services Committee, among others.

Thank you so much for being here this morning.

Look, this is the discussion that's going on in many Democratic circles. And if Democrats' main reason for not voting for a budget to keep the government open was to secure those health care subsidies, to keep health care premiums from skyrocketing beyond a person's ability to pay for them, and now, after 41 days, enough Senate Democrats are willing to sign a bill that does not guarantee that, what was it all for?

REP. GREGORY MEEKS (D-NY): Look, I don't know why those -- the senators voted the way they did. Clearly the issue in America, as we saw just this past Tuesday, is affordability. That's what Americans are concerned about. That's what the elections were about. And clearly, by not making health care affordable, because that's what this is, you know, affordability for health care, affordability for food, affordability for housing. That's what the whole elections were about.

And so, by now not making health care affordable, millions of Americans will either go uninsured or have to reduce the type of insurance they have. And it's clear that the president of the United States has done nothing since he's become the president to deal with the issue of affordability. As we see with his tariffs, things are going -- prices are going up. Inflation is going up. And -- and this one, which is why we have to stick to it because long term the affordability of health care is important for all Americans because you know what else, Sara, if, in fact, individuals, healthy individuals, no longer have insurance, the insurance is going to go up for even those that have corporate insurance, et cetera, because the number of healthy people leave, then the price goes up for everyone else.

[09:10:24]

So, there's a health crisis in America, and this president and the senators that have -- the Republican senators, because it is still their bill. Remember who has done all of this and put us in this situation are the president of the United States, the Republican senators and the Republican members of the House of Representatives who have been on vacation since September 19th.

SIDNER: Let me -- let me ask you about that, because you're in a scenario right now where you have to weigh the pain of people who use SNAP, who don't have enough food on their table for their families, and those who have been furloughed, the government workers who are not getting paychecks, some of whom, like TSA and the air traffic controllers are working, versus those who do not or will not be able to afford insurance.

How do you weigh those two? And if this bill goes through without a guarantee of trying to keep those subsidies for health care in place, how will you vote?

MEEKS: Well, look, we're in this situation because a man who wants to be king, who is the de facto speaker of the House of Representatives also, just wants to do his way and forget with anyone else. We've seen already with this big, ugly bill how it cuts everything for the average, hard-working American. If you talk about Medicaid, Medicare, if you talk about what we see him doing with food. We've had shutdowns before. SNAP payment was never in question. So, we've seen the evil side of this president with the average everyday American. The only one that he cares about, the only thing that he's made permanent since he's been the president of the United States, is tax cuts for the super rich. Everything else, even though he says, for example, no tax on tips, that expires, you know. And here in the tax cuts that he gave back, expired. But he made sure that those were renewed and made permanent. We should have done the same thing here. We're not in a short-term fight. We're in a long-term fight about the affordability of America and for Americans. And we cannot just sit back and just let this guy walk by.

And guess what, you saw -- as you saw in this election, not only did we win in New York and Virginia and New Jersey, but when you look at state legislative seats, et cetera., even in Georgia and Mississippi, because all Americans are affected by these heartless decisions that are put forward by a Congress that has the Republicans head of the House, the Senate and the White House.

SIDNER: Congressman Gregory Meeks, thank you for joining us this morning. I do appreciate it.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, right now, there is more travel chaos to report at Dallas' busiest airport. No flights are getting in or out of Dallas- Fort Worth International Airport because of staffing shortages for air traffic controllers. It comes, of course, after what is already -- what was already the worst weekend for air traffic control since the government shutdown began. We're told flights already headed there will have to possibly wait on the ground for more than an hour.

CNN's Omar Jimenez is at Newark's international airport in New Jersey. Ryan Young is at Hartsfield Jackson in Atlanta.

Omar, how's it looking at Newark right now?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, we are already starting to see a trickle of delays and cancellations coming in. We've been keeping an eye on the board. It is nothing significant across this board, but definitely some cancellations starting to dot in since we've been here over the course of (AUDIO GAP) pretty loose right now, or not loose but, you know, light line I should say.

But, bottom line, what we have seen across the country is, we are already up to 1,600 cancellations for flights within or coming in and out of the U.S. here. And it's coming out of a weekend where we saw really the first significant impacts of these flight flow, air traffic flow reductions put in place by the FAA and these airlines. Four percent was sort of the beginning portion. And if this continues, it could get up to 10 percent in cuts by Friday. All tied to the government shutdown and, in part, due to some of the staffing reductions we've seen in air traffic controllers.

It's obviously affecting travelers in a real significant way. Take a listen to this one traveler we spoke to who tried to fly yesterday to get to Seattle and essentially was trying again today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FABLANO JOHANN, TRAVELER: When I got here to get my flight to Seattle today because they didn't have Portland, the Seattle flight's delayed, so I cannot get Seattle. So, I cannot get a train (ph) to get to Portland.

[09:15:01]

So now they're booking another flight to San Francisco, which it doesn't guarantee that I'm going to get there because I have to count the flight here is now delayed and the flight in San Francisco is now delayed.

So, just praying. Wishing the best for everybody in this airport.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: He told me he'd been up for like 36 hours. But it shows how one travel issue can cascade into another, and then you end up in -- flying to cities that you didn't even intend to in the first place just to try and navigate through this process.

So, while there are some very real negotiations happening on Capitol Hill, and, you know, we'll see where the politics go from there, there are very real effects on the travelers trying to get back to their loved ones, as was his case trying to get back to his kids, but also people just trying to navigate what over the weekend was a mess. And we will continue to see if anything like that continues today.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely, Omar. And even if they strike a deal today, that does not mean it is going to clean things up with the mess that we're seeing at airports now.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

BOLDUAN: And, well, for the foreseeable future, I guess we have to say.

Thank you so much, Omar.

Ryan, let me get over to you in Atlanta. How are things looking there? How is the trickle effect in the fallout looking in Atlanta right now?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's the right word, the trickle effect, because there are people who are upset about this. And you have to understand, people pay a lot of money to fly places, and sometimes they're flying very close to the time they need to be there, because, obviously, they can't take a lot of time off from work.

Right now we're at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport, the world's busiest airport. And when people walk in, normally this is packed on a Monday. So far we're not seeing the long lines that we normally see. Something that I want to walk you over to. Look at the checkpoints right now. You can see the north checkpoint, the main checkpoint and the south checkpoint, all at two minutes. That's a line that people would love to see on a Monday, especially with all the business travelers that flow through this airport.

If you walk this direction, though, you can see the work that's being done, especially here. The TSA workers who have been not paid for a while are still here doing their jobs. People are getting through. But at the same time, there have been cancellations, 203, 79 delays.

And we talked to someone this weekend who had their flight canceled. First it was delayed two times, then it was canceled. They had a one- year-old along with them. What they were telling me is, after leaving the airport, then it really started to cascade because then they could not find a hotel because so many people here were booking hotels because of all the cancellations. You could understand the pain point for that family. The guy was telling me, look, he already took all his days off from work. He didn't have any left. He was very concerned about that. But when you think about the TSA workers here who haven't got paid in a while, you understand their pain point as well. So, Kate, a lot of questions to see how this will sort of unfold

itself throughout the day. But right now, as you saw, two minutes, not a long wait here at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport.

BOLDUAN: All right, some good news amidst a sea of bad right now, at least the wait time with TSA.

Ryan, thank you so much. Omar, in Newark. Thanks as always, guys.

SIDNER: I thought that Ryan was going to walk all the way, like, from there to here. He was -- that was -- that was a long trek.

BOLDUAN: He was like, you know what, I'm just going to take you through that TSA line.

SIDNER: Just walking. Yes.

BOLDUAN: No one's going to -- no one's going to suspect anything at all.

SIDNER: No one's going to notice. We know, gate lights (ph).

But any way. All right, so coming up, where is nine-year-old Melodee Buzzard? Police are now trying to retrace her mother's steps and her journey over 2,000 miles. And now her mother has been arrested, but on other charges not related to her daughter's disappearance. We'll talk about that story coming up.

Plus, big backlash from financial experts to President Trump proposing a 50 year mortgage.

And look at these pictures from Chicago. Holy smokes. It's snowing. And a lot. There is an arctic blast that is spreading across that city and some of the rest of the United States. We'll talk about it coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:23:23]

SIDNER: This morning we've got new details in the search for nine- year-old Melodee Buzzard, who has been missing for a month following a cross-country road trip with her mom, Ashlee, in early October. On Friday, police arrested her mom, Ashlee, but not for her daughter's disappearance. She's facing a felony charge of false imprisonment.

CNN's Jean Casarez joins us now.

This is a really strange wrinkle in this case. What do you know about this arrest and the reason behind it?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, let's look at this because they're not commenting on this. But here's what we can deduce based on the facts.

It is from the state of California. They believe probable cause that there is kidnaping that Ashlee, her mother, perpetrated against a victim, preventing that victim from leaving, right, against their will. So. that means it happened within California. They say it's not involved with the missing persons case of Melode.

SIDNER: Right.

CASAREZ: However, the FBI executed search warrants of the home, of a storage unit, and of that rental car.

Did they find there they've got probable cause, they believe? But anyway, she's been arrested for kidnaping. But let's go to Melode because that's the issue right here. And let's look at the timeline, because timelines are always helpful.

October 7th was the last day that it's believed that Melode was in California, because she and her mother, on surveillance cameras at a rental car agency in Lompoc, where they lived, renting a car. Authorities say because of surveillance video, they now realize that they went from California, in no particular order, passing through the states of Nevada, Utah, Arizona, Nebraska, on the way back, Kansas.

[09:25:09]

But for three days they believed that Melodee was with her mother.

Now, on October 9th, an important day, October 9th, it's the last time it appears she was seen between the border of Colorado and Utah. Her mother arrives back in Lompoc October 10th, giving the car back to the rental agency, and Melodee is not there.

Now, her mother, according to authorities, has not been helping in the investigation and the disappearance of her daughter at all. Law enforcement really hopes that she dropped off with a family member or a friend, and they want everyone to look at the picture of Melodee, because if you've seen a young girl that looks like this, and it might be difficult because they believe that her mother put her in a disguise, starting off at the rental agency. They believe she was wearing a wig and a hoodie that was over her head, so it might be difficult. But just see if you can recognize this beautiful little girl in pictures. Her mother hasn't taken pictures -- there haven't been pictures of her in a long time authorities say. So, the last known one is where she has that curly hair. But there is an all-points bulletin to find her, and the FBI is involved.

SIDNER: Yes, I mean, this case is really got a lot of our attention. And again, just look at the picture. And if you see a little girl that looks like this, call authorities immediately.

Thank you so much, Jean Casarez. Appreciate it.

Still ahead, a desperate search to find a worker trapped deep inside a flooded coal mine. This is happening in West Virginia.

And a breakthrough in the Senate. Potentially eight Democrats make a deal to reopen the government. One of them, Senator Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, will join us next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)