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White House Weighs Strategy To Improve Trump's Standing On Economy; UK Suspends Some Intel Sharing With U.S. Over Boat Strike Concerns; 800+ More Flights Canceled Today As Shutdown Bill Advances. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired November 12, 2025 - 07:30   ET

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

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[07:31:25]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning White House officials trying to figure out how to talk about the affordability issue. While President Trump has dismissed it as a problem, insisting the economy is great, polls are showing now Americans do not see it that way at all and blame him for it.

One official telling CNN "You can't convince people that their experience, what they're feeling at home, isn't reality."

CNN's Alayna Treene is at the White House. You have some new reporting on this, this morning. What are you hearing?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, that's right. White House officials, Sara, have been privately discussing a number of different strategies to try to get at this issue, and one of those is having the president travel the country to give economy-focused speeches.

Now look, I mean, I think the bottom line through all of this is that the White House recognizes that they have an issue when it comes to affordability and the cost of living. And what I was told was essentially that they argue that what they are doing to try to ease Americans' financial anxieties just aren't resonating with the public.

Now, the White House and officials have essentially advised President Donald Trump not to brush aside or dismiss these concerns. The advice that they are giving the president is you need to recognize that this is a problem and offer solutions to try and help all of this.

And some of the discussions that are happening behind closed doors Sara are these talks on really focusing more on his domestic agenda, cutting back on international trips. And they also are looking at messaging geared toward the holidays and trying to find ways to talk about lowering prices and the different policies that they have.

Now, one of the -- another official told me essentially that the president himself gets that this is an issue and that he's become increasingly frustrated personally about all of this, particularly ever since the elections last week where we saw Democrats walk away with major victories in a number of different states. But then also, the shutdown politics and the recognition that Republicans are the ones who are largely being blamed for this and how much pain has been inflicted on the American people because of it.

One then though that the president kind of differs in some of his thinking is that he sees this more as a perception issue. One of the officials that I spoke with -- a senior White House official essentially said that he's frustrated he's not getting credit for what he is doing.

Now what's been interesting is, and we've looked at some of the public comments from the president, is a lot of times he actually looks like he's going down the road of his predecessor, the former President Joe Biden, who was kind of criticized for him downplaying the issue of inflation and trying to tell Americans that the economy is better than what they are feeling. And some of that, I'm told, is messaging coming from the president's advisers who are essentially telling him your policies are great, but they need time to sink in.

But all of this is really, I think, a broader reflection that the White House recognizes this is a problem they need to solve and particularly one that is going to matter so much in the runup to the midterms next year.

SIDNER: Yeah. I mean, the polling is really very clear.

Alayna Treene, thank you so much. I do appreciate your new reporting for us this morning -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. And as there are questions about how the White House is messaging on affordability there are also questions about how the president is talking about American workers.

On Fox he was asked about the visa program that allows the U.S. to bring in foreign workers. The way he answered the question raising some eyebrows.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You do have to bring in talent. When the country --

LAURA INGRAHAM, FOX NEWS HOST, "THE INGRAHAM ANGLE": Well, we have plenty of talented people.

TRUMP: No -- no, you don't. No, you don't -- no.

INGRAHAM: We don't have talented people here?

TRUMP: No. You don't have -- you don't have certain talents, and you have to -- people have to learn.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:35:00] BERMAN: All right. With us now is CNN senior political commentator Scott Jennings, and Matt Bennett, a Democratic strategist.

I kind of want to talk about this as a whole -- the way the president was talking about workers there -- and this reporting from Alayna that the White House this morning thinks the president needs to get out there more and talk about affordability. It kind of gets to this notion that the way the president has been behaving and speaking in 2025 isn't really the MAGA 2016 Donald Trump who connected with American workers.

What do you think about that?

MATT BENNETT, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND CO-FOUNDER, THIRD WAY, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY ASSISTANT, CLINTON ADMINISTRATION: Yeah. I mean, I was on this show a bunch of times last year saying the economy is going pretty well because that was the Democratic talking point, and it did not work. You cannot convince people that the economy is better than they feel that it actually is.

And Trump is doing -- and Republicans in the Congress are doing things that are making it actively harder for people, like the premium increases that they're about to see on the Obamacare exchanges. So all of that suggests that things are pretty rough out there and Trump just trying to talk it out of existence is not going to work.

BERMAN: What about it, Scott? And what about the message that was spent one week -- sent one week ago in the elections? What voters want to hear and what the White House is actually saying.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, I'm not one to overreact to blue elections in blue states but every president has to grapple with one immutable fact. How people feel about the economy will be directly connected about how they feel about your job in office. He's no different than anybody else on that.

I think it's absolutely true that he has done things that will put us on a better path. I think the big, beautiful bill, the permanency in the tax rates, energy deregulation -- all of these things over time he firmly believes will work. I think Republicans believe they are going to work.

The immediate issue though is that during the Biden years prices went to the moon, and they're still there. And although the rate of inflation is undoubtedly lower today than it was during the comprehensive period of Joe Biden, people still feel like it's hard to get my nose above water. And the way you ultimately get out of this is how? Through growth. Through wage improvement.

And I think the Republican view is that over time our plans will create more growth and will create higher wages. It just hasn't -- you know, it hasn't caught up with people's perceptions of affordability in the 10 months. BERMAN: But the perception is what we're talking about here and this White House sort of sending acknowledgement that the president needs to address it more. He seems to be saying things are great. People don't feel the way they say they feel. The polls are lying. I mean, that -- he has literally said the polls aren't reflecting what's out there.

JENNINGS: Yeah. Look, I'm sure some people feel much better than they did when Joe Biden was at the wheel, and I'm sure some people don't yet feel as good as they want to feel.

I mean, ultimately, what you want voters to feel like is the trajectory is correct. Am I on the right path? Is -- in the next year --

BERMAN: Yeah.

JENNINGS: -- am I going to get ahead? That's ultimately how you want people to feel.

And look, he's got three years, ultimately, for the entirety of his presidency to make feel that way, but the first report card comes in less than a year when the midterms come up.

BERMAN: Music to your ears -- the idea that the White House --

BENNETT: Yeah, boy.

BERMAN: -- the president is still talking a certain way?

BENNETT: Yeah. It all sounds very familiar to me.

And I think the other thing to keep in mind is he's doing things that are making it actively worse. Not just the Obamacare premiums but the tariffs. They're making stuff more expensive. And he promised to bring down prices on day one -- he didn't.

BERMAN: Let's talk about the Jack Schlossberg era of American politics. President Kennedy's grandson Jack Schlossberg announcing he is going to run for Congress here in Manhattan. Jerry Nadler's district encompasses the Empire State Building, the Upper East Side, Central Park -- a big part of Manhattan now.

Schlossberg -- and we should be showing video of this right now -- is basically a social media influencer. He spends a lot of time on TikTok -- some 800,000 followers. Head to your computer to check it out. Here we go. This is him. All kinds of videos all the time. And this is basically his gig. I mean, he's written some articles for Vogue and whatnot, and other things.

How do you feel about this? Family name? Social media? Is that the recipe for the Democratic future?

BENNETT: I mean, maybe, but I don't know about another social media influencer in Congress. There's a lot of kind of social media performance that goes on in Congress already. And walking over here I passed about nine other candidates for that House seat, so it's not a lock by any means.

BERMAN: So Jerry Nadler himself -- the retiring Democrat -- had a really interesting conversation with Kate a little while ago when Schlossberg was thinking about running. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): There's nothing particularly good or bad about a Kennedy holding my seat. But the Kennedy, unlike Schlossberg, should be somebody with a record of public service, a record of public accomplishment, and he doesn't have one. So I don't think he's going to be a candidate in the end, and he certainly is not going to be a major candidate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Well, Nadler was wrong. He is a candidate, Scott.

JENNINGS: Yeah. Look, I mean, it's a free country. I guess everybody is allowed to run. And the way you get attention these days in some of these Democratic primaries is to be a social media influencer. To try to do attention-seeking outrageous things that have nothing to do with public service or issues.

[07:40:00]

I don't know -- I don't know whether it's good or bad for the Democratic Party. They seem to have no real clear direction to me right now.

BERMAN: Is it a party thing or is it a political thing? Because I do think that the social media influencing isn't -- you know, it's sort of a nonpartisan issue. We're in this new era where attention seems to be the main commodity.

BENNETT: Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of congressional hearings where there are people posing for social media, there is no doubt. They're asking ridiculous questions. They're making speeches. They're doing it so they can post the stuff online. And this is a very bipartisan problem. Plenty of Republicans are doing this.

JENNINGS: I mean, I don't -- I don't know if it's a problem to communicate with people. I guess the question would be what are you communicating and what do you stand for? What -- why is it -- what is motivating you to be in this particular race? I think ultimately that's what most voters want to know.

I'm not entirely sure what's motivating him other than he thinks it's the family business, which I'm not certain is a great argument for voters these days. We just had the "No Kings" rally. I don't know if he still thinks the monarchy is good here -- passing these things down through the family.

But ultimately, he's going to have to make an argument and typically it's not good enough just to say well, I'm on your screen. That's a good enough argument to put me in Congress. You have to have something to say, and I don't know what that's going to be for him, but we'll see.

BERMAN: All right, Scott, Matt. Thank you both very much. If you like this segment, please clip it and share it on social media. That's all I have to say about that -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Right away.

Also right now, Venezuela is launching what it is calling a massive mobilization of military personnel and weapons in response to the U.S. military buildup off its shores.

To that point, the U.S. Navy has announced America's largest warship, the USS Gerald Ford, has now arrived in the waters off Latin America, part of the Trump administration's campaign against drug trafficking but there are new questions today about that campaign -- that boat strike campaign.

And CNN has new, exclusive reporting that in a major break, the U.K. is now suspending some intelligence sharing with the U.S. over these strikes, underscoring the growing skepticism of this military campaign.

Joining me right now is retired Adm. James Stavridis, who oversaw operations in the region from 2006 to 2009. He's a CNN senior military analyst and former NATO supreme allied commander. It's good to see you again, Admiral.

Let's start with that CNN reporting about the U.K. suspending intel sharing over these alleged drug boats and the campaign. Reporting is the reason they're suspending it is because they think the strikes are illegal and don't want to be part of it.

I mean, does that happen often? What was your reaction when you heard this?

ADM. JAMES STAVRIDIS (RET.), CNN SENIOR MILITARY ANALYST, FORMER NATO SUPREME ALLIED COMMANDER, PARTNER, THE CARLYLE GROUP (via Webex by Cisco): That does not happen often. And as a former commander of U.S. Southern Command, as you mentioned, in charge of all military activity in that region, this kind of concerns me if the reporting is accurate.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

STAVRIDIS: Let's stipulate neither side has confirmed it.

But there -- first and foremost the Brits have a lot of intelligence to offer so it's a tactical shortfall when they walk away. They've got the British Virgin Islands, the Caymans, Montserrat. They still have territories in the Caribbean.

Secondly, operationally, Kate, normally this would all flow into our overall national counterdrug center in Key West, Florida -- a place called Joint Interagency Task Force South. So if the Brits are leaning out of that, that's a real operational shortfall.

And then to your point, Kate, what ought to concern us all. Here are a set of eyes who are looking at this -- presumably, the British -- who are saying no, we don't want any part of that. And they're not, by the way, an impartial observer. They are partial to us. Normally they would want to go along with us. So if they're concerned about legality -- if that part of the reporting is correct, I think that's strategically quite concerning as well.

BOLDUAN: Venezuela's President Maduro now says that he is activating this massive mobilization of forces in response to the U.S. buildup there -- a buildup that includes the USS Gerald Ford, which you and I have talked about several times of how significant that is because of what that advanced aircraft carrier brings with it.

You've been telling me that odds of a land invasion keep increasing with every strike, with every time that we speak, and with every new addition that the United States adds to its military buildup there.

Is the USS Gerald Ford going to -- being in the waters there now and in the region -- is that going to make land strikes more or less likely?

STAVRIDIS: Oh, more likely. Clearly, what's happening here is a lot of forces are flowing to the region. In my three-plus years as commander I was lucky to have a couple of destroyers in the Caribbean. What you see now -- a massive aircraft carrier, Aegis guided missile destroyers and cruisers, a big amphibious readiness group. I think this is the largest concentration of naval force of the United States anywhere in the world right now -- not the Pacific, not the Persian Gulf, not the Mediterranean -- it's in U.S. Southern Command in the Caribbean.

[07:45:07]

So in Pentagon vernacular you're setting the table, then you go to the president with options. Option one, continue to hold and gather intelligence. Option two, conduct land strikes ashore. Maybe go after narcotics. Option three, special forces go after Maduro.

Those options, I am sure, are being provided to the White House. Next there will be some decisions. We'll see where this goes.

BOLDUAN: We'll see where this goes, which means I'll see you in a couple of days so we can talk about what they've added to this campaign next.

It's good to see you, Admiral. Thank you so much -- John.

BERMAN: All right. One of the biggest advances in computing that you could possibly imagine -- and shockingly, we're not talking about AI exactly.

And it's a bridge nearly half a mile long -- at least it was. New reporting on what caused this new bridge to suddenly collapse.

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[07:50:30] SIDNER: All right. So there might be a light at the end of the tunnel on the longest government shutdown in history, but travelers are still going to be dealing with delays and cancellations at airports until a deal is done and the shutdown ends.

Airlines must continue to follow the FAA's emergency order to reduce flight capacity this week. Today flight operations being cut by six percent. By Thursday that number will jump to eight percent of flights. And Friday up to 10 percent of flights are expected to be cut if the shutdown does not end.

Joining me now is Clint Henderson, managing editor at The Points Guy.

All right -- how long might this take to get back to normal? Today there is supposed to be a vote on the House floor. If it passes the shutdown is done.

CLINT HENDERSON, MANAGING EDITOR, THE POINTS GUY: So two days to two weeks, but I think --

SIDNER: Two days to two weeks!

HENDERSON: I still think there's going to be impact for Thanksgiving because you've got a lot of unhappy workers right now. Some of these folks have already left and found new jobs, so it's not going to go back to normal like that.

SIDNER: Wow. The two weeks thing just threw me because I --

HENDERSON: Yeah.

SIDNER: -- see where that puts us into.

HENDERSON: He hasn't even lifted the limits yet, so we don't even know when that's going to go away. So this is -- this is pretty major.

SIDNER: What should travelers do in light of all this? I am often tempted by that insurance that they ask you and I never, ever do it. But should they be tempted by it now?

HENDERSON: No. Because, in fact, we never tell people to buy insurance unless they're going on, like, a $100,000 cruise or something. The insurance that you get when you book with a credit card usually covers delays and cancellations and at least some expenses. But they're not covering some of these expenses right now.

So I don't say don't buy extra insurance. We're already after the fact. It won't do you any good. Instead, try to book refundable fares. Try to fight after the fact for compensation in these situations. But yeah, it's a tough one.

SIDNER: Yeah, and refundable fares are often so much more expensive that --

HENDERSON: They are.

SIDNER: -- most of us are like I'll just chance it. But maybe now is not the time to do that.

HENDERSON: Well, if you've got points and miles, I am actually telling people right now you can travel for Thanksgiving. I was telling people don't go home for Thanksgiving. Now I'm saying go but have a backup plan. Maybe book a second airline ticket using points and miles or fully refundable so that if things go wrong, you have a backup plan in place.

SIDNER: You get it all back.

All right. I do want to talk to you about Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy -- did an about-face really. At the beginning of this month he said he's absolutely not going to fire anyone who was calling out sick --

HENDERSON: Yeah.

SIDNER: -- as an air traffic controller. Many of them calling out sick because they can't afford their lives or they have to deal with child care.

But now there's an about-face. He's saying well, he's considering potentially firing some of them if they have been calling out sick a lot during this shutdown.

Didn't we already have a major problem with the number of air traffic controllers before this? I mean, what's that going to do potentially?

HENDERSON: Yeah. He's echoing a line from President Trump, which I don't think is helpful to a beleaguered workforce.

So these folks are already stressed out -- remember they've had no support staff. There was already a dramatic shortage. They've got to hire more people. You're not exactly making the job look really appealing right now.

SIDNER: Right, and it -- and there was already, like, a shortage before that was causing problems in places like Newark --

HENDERSON: Exactly.

SIDNER: -- that we saw.

HENDERSON: We've seen reductions in flights at Newark, so --

SIDNER: Yikes.

I do want to ask you about these plans to do -- it's six percent today and potentially a total of 10 percent on Friday --

HENDERSON: Yeah.

SIDNER: -- if the shutdown doesn't end.

Isn't there something already in place -- that the Department of Transportation already has in place when it comes to what airlines have to do -- or what air traffic control has to do in case they are overwhelmed?

HENDERSON: Well, it's reduced flow. So that's one of the reasons we're seeing so many delays and cancellations.

But remember, when they're canceling 10 percent of flights, if your flight gets canceled and you're trying to rebook --

SIDNER: Right.

HENDERSON: -- that's a lot less flights available for you.

SIDNER: Right.

HENDERSON: In the busiest week of the year, Thanksgiving week, it's going to be a real tough road to try to get rebooked. So that's what I'm sort of looking at right now.

SIDNER: Be prepared for problems is what you are saying.

HENDERSON: You know, be an informed consumer and know what's going on. Have the airline app and have a backup plan for goodness sake. Maybe trains is a good idea this time.

SIDNER: Trains, not planes, but automobiles.

HENDERSON: Maybe, yeah, yeah. Those two things.

SIDNER: Those two things might be a better choice --

HENDERSON: Yeah, I think so.

SIDNER: -- but then there will be a lot more people on the road as well.

HENDERSON: Exactly.

SIDNER: Thank you so much. It is so good to see you.

HENDERSON: Good to see you.

SIDNER: Kate.

BOLDUAN: So there's a big shift in computing on the horizon and we're not talking about artificial intelligence this time. Imagine being able to develop a new medicine in a matter of hours instead of years of research and development. This -- this is -- that is just some of what's promised with quantum computing, a field that's been studied for decades but only recently has really exploded with interest and investment.

[07:55:05]

CNN tech editor Lisa Eadicicco has more reporting on this. Lisa, what are you learning about this?

LISA EADICICCO, CNN BUSINESS TECH EDITOR: So what we're learning about quantum computing is that there are a lot of applications for it. And the big thing to remember about quantum computing is that the reason why this is so monumental is because it represents a completely different approach to computing.

So while regular computers today process and store information through bits made of zeros and ones, quantum computers use quantum bits that can kind of be in a state between zero and one or zero and one at the same time. So what that allows these computers to do is to process really complex computations that would take regular computers potentially years or longer than that.

So what we're seeing here is the idea is that with quantum computers these computers operate on the principles of quantum physics. The idea being that they can kind of simulate things happening in the real world. So let's say you're discovering a new drug or testing materials for a new battery -- things like that. The idea is that you can use quantum computing to kind of simulate what those chemical reactions might look like, but on a computer instead of having to do it in a lab.

So there's certainly a lot of interest and a lot of research being done in this area now, in particular.

BOLDUAN: And that means a lot of investment as well.

And there's some news out just this morning that you're learning from IBM kind of having to do with this. What are you learning?

EADICICCO: Yes. IBM made a bunch of announcements around this, this morning, and one of them was critical ones to this new experimental processor called Loom that is introduced.

And the big advancement here is that this experimental processor represents a step towards building a quantum computer that can actually operate at scale even with errors. And that last part -- the errors part -- is really critical because the qubits that quantum computers run on are very, very temperamental so they are very prone to error. It's going to be really, really hard to get that error rate down. So what these computers need to do in order to advance a lot of those use cases that we talked about is be able to operate at scale.

So that is the big news coming out of IBM today with quantum computing.

BOLDUAN: Fascinating.

Lisa, thank you so much for bringing that to us today. I appreciate it -- John.

BERMAN: Operating at scale even with errors.

All right. New this morning British lawmakers are calling for the release of 15 penguins that they say are trapped in a London aquarium basement with no daylight or fresh air. Advocates say the living conditions are unacceptable. They are writing in a petition "Their enclosure offers just six to seven feet of depth in which to dive, a pitiful fraction of the 600 feet they can dive to in the wild." The aquarium says they have specialists to make sure the penguins are "healthy and thriving."

New video shows the collapse of a newly-constructed bridge in China. Wow. A landslide wiped out one end of the structure which spans nearly half a mile. At least it used to expand nearly half a mile. Local authorities had actually already closed the bridge. They had spotted cracks in nearby roads and slopes. No deaths or injuries reported in this accident.

All right. A lot of strained necks across the country this morning from people looking at the Northern Lights. This time it's all thanks to solar storms. They were visible in Colorado and as far south as Florida and Texas. Folks in Iowa saw them too. They should be visible again tonight.

Here is a tip, actually, having tried to see them here in the north last summer. Actually, it's easier to look at them through your phone. You get better colors if you look at them through your phone. The naked eye --

SIDNER: Good tip.

BERMAN: -- not so much. It looks kind of like just dark. But if you look at them through a lens then you see oh, there are all these colors right now.

SIDNER: That's such a good tip because I tried to peek out. Also if you're in a place that has a lot of lights it's a little bit --

BERMAN: Yeah.

SIDNER: -- harder to see. But the phone thing --

BERMAN: Yeah.

SIDNER: I should have tried that.

BERMAN: Or go to Norway. One or the other, or both.

SIDNER: If you're planning a trip, I don't think now is the time.

BERMAN: No, no, not exactly.

All right. A brand new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

SIDNER: All right. A vote in the House today could end the longest shutdown in U.S. history. House lawmakers reconvening for the first time in seven weeks to vote on the Senate's funding bill.

And you have 15 minutes to get out. That's all the time some vacationers say they had to get out of their hotel rooms. There was no fire, no attack, no flood. This was all due to one thing -- the hotel chain suddenly going bankrupt.

And what happens to passengers as the train careens down the track with the driver appearing to be asleep at the wheel.

I'm Sara Sidner with Kate Bolduan and John Berman. The whole team is here. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

BOLDUAN: All right.