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Today: Purported Deadline For $6 Million, Nancy Guthrie's Life Threatened; Trump Accepts Ownership Of The Economy: "I'm Very Proud"; Vonn In Stable Condition After Surgeries On Leg Broken In Crash. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired February 09, 2026 - 07:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:31:30]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: This morning a painful deadline is fast approaching as the search for 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie enters a second week. If the ransom is legitimate, the Guthries have until 5:00 p.m. today to pay $6 million in Bitcoin after her alleged abductors threatened Nancy's life if the deadline is not met. That's according to CNN affiliate KGUN, a local TV station that received one of the ransom notes.

Over the weekend Guthrie's children, "TODAY" show host Savannah Guthrie and her brother and sister, posted a new plea for their mother's safe return.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, NANCY GUTHRIE'S DAUGHTER: We received your message and we understand. We beg you now to return our mother to us so that we can celebrate with her. This is the only way we will have peace. This is very valuable to us and we will pay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Joining us now is former FBI agent Bryanna Fox. Thank you for being here.

It is so hard to watch these videos but for this family making them and being in their situation is the absolute worst scenario.

As we wait and as we're heading into the second week, I do wonder what stands out to you in this latest videos. If you can glean anything about what is happening in the background from what you're hearing -- these very carefully worded -- another video very carefully worded?

BRYANNA FOX, FORMER FBI AGENT, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH FLORIDA (via Webex by Cisco): Yeah, absolutely, and I could not agree with you more. What this family is going through, it literally looks like torture for them. But I would say that perhaps too just to the overwhelming stress of this situation. I mean, can you imagine not sleeping for days on end? I mean, the emotional toll this is taking on them.

There does seem to be a change in tone. Their original, you know, maybe optimism and hope that we saw -- the, you know, happiness and joy that was sparked when they spoke about their mother -- they are just exhausted. And I think they are just so tired, and they just want their mother back. And so, the ending, "We will pay," I think is a culmination of that.

SIDNER: Yeah. I did notice that at this point in time they're not mentioning Nancy Guthrie's health anymore. We know that she needs her medication. We know that it could be deadly for her not having it. It has now been -- you know, we're into the second week. We're talking about, you know, more than week now.

Is there a reason for that?

FOX: Yeah. I mean, there were some changes in this message. They did not specifically advocate for their mother or, you know, address her directly. That was a change from the first message, absolutely.

But it could be that they had something said in this most recent correspondence sent to your sister station that made the Guthrie family feel like they don't want to, you know, kind of go back and forth with these potential ransomers. Maybe they just wanted to be direct and say this is what we want and we're willing to do what you want. But I think they're sort of not able to continue the back-and- forth at any point for whatever reason, and I think it has something to do with what was in this last correspondence.

SIDNER: Wow.

I am curious what you think it tells us that the abductor or abductors keep communicating with the media even though the family has repeatedly asked for them to reach out to the family. And certainly, authorities want them to reach out, but they keep going through the media.

[07:35:10]

If, indeed, it turns out that these are legitimate demands, what does -- what does that tell you?

FOX: There have been some cases where, you know, serial killers or, you know, other types of, you know, these horrific offenders have communicated with the media, and it's certainly unusual. This is not the norm.

But it's really attention-seeking. That's what this is about. If they only wanted money they would have just gone directly to the Guthries. I think it's actually counterproductive that they went to the media, and this is after law enforcement were already at the scene.

Typically, ransomers say, you know, to the family, don't contact the media. Don't contact --

SIDNER: Right. FOX: -- law enforcement. But this has happened in reverse.

SIDNER: Yeah. It's really puzzling as to why they're doing it and if this is just about money why they are sort of letting this become this huge story.

The second note that was sent to the local station -- our local station KOLD -- they said it contained sensitive information. When you see that as an investigator, do you look at that and say oh, this is information that could corroborate that this is actually a real note or what?

FOX: Well, that's a certain possibility. But it could also be something that if they release it to the public -- I mean, this could be tainting jurors. This could be something that -- let's say this isn't the true, you know, ransomer and, you know, we're just now basically planting false memories in people's, you know, memory of the events. There's a lot of reasons why law enforcement is trying to keep this as close as possible to their vest.

And another one could be the demands in this letter saying we don't want this shared. We want this absolutely kept, you know, close. And maybe that's why the response from the Guthrie family is so short and cryptic.

SIDNER: Yeah.

Bryanna Fox, thank you so much for walking us through that. It is a horrible situation that this family is in. And there is, of course, numbers that people can call if they have any information. Thank you so much. I do appreciate it -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: We also have new comments coming in from President Trump and him now taking credit for the economy, though he has spent the entire pretty much first year of his second term blaming Joe Biden for the economic pain that Americans are feeling.

President Trump now declaring the country is in the Trump economy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Oh, I'd say we're there now. I'm very proud of it -- 5.6 percent. You know, we have a GDP of 5.6 despite a shutdown. We had a 42-day shutdown -- I call it the "Democrat Shutdown" -- and because of that I loss a point and a half. I would've been in a seven GDP, which hasn't been seen, I don't know, ever maybe -- maybe ever.

TOM LLAMAS, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: Yeah.

TRUMP: And I think '26 is even going to be better.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: CNN's Kevin Liptak live at the White House for us this morning. Kevin, what else is the president saying here? KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, and it is striking just to hear him now take ownership of the economy after spending most of last year laying the blame directly on Joe Biden. You know, he even said at one point that he would take credit for the good parts but that the bad parts were Biden's fault.

Now we should note that some of the numbers that the president used there don't comport with what the government have put out. The president saying that GDP was at 5.6 percent. You know, the last reading that we got, which was for the third quarter of last year, showed that annualized growth was up 4.4 percent.

We haven't gotten a figure for the last quarter of last year because of that government shutdown. Estimates have been much lower, although one estimate from the Atlanta fed put the rate at 5.4 percent, so that could be perhaps what the president is pointing to there.

I think it all I think points to this disconnect perhaps between what the president says is the state of the economy and what most Americans feel is the state of the economy.

You know, a CNN survey last month found that 55 percent of Americans said that President Trump's policies had worsened. U.S. economic conditions -- 32 percent said that they had improved them. Thirteen percent said that there were no effects.

Now how the president reconciles those viewpoints with his view of how the economy is doing will certainly be his challenge in this very important election year. White House officials have said that he will be hitting the road with this economic message.

They at one point said that he would be out once a week although so far, he's only done two of these trips and both of those speeches sort of veered off in multiple different directions. The takeaway wasn't necessarily the economy. The president talking about his grievances, about immigration, about all manner of other topics.

Perhaps his biggest opportunity to make this argument will be at the State of the Union address. That's coming up in about two weeks' time on February 24. But certainly, there is a recognition here at the White House that it will be the economy and it will be the president's imperative to convince Americans that the economy is doing well. That will be sort of make or break for Republicans in this very critical midterm election year.

[07:40:15]

BOLDUAN: Yeah. It is now the Trump economy until maybe someone decides that he doesn't believe so anymore.

It's great to see you, Kevin. Thanks so much -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, with us now CNN political analyst and Washington bureau chief for The Boston Globe, Jackie Kucinich. And senior contributor for Axios, Margaret Talev. And friends, somehow, we made it to, like, 7:40 in this broadcast

without talking about the president's attacks on Bad Bunny and the 13- minute halftime show last night. But it actually relates to what Kevin was just talking about here because in this Truth Social post, which I have in front of me, attacking Bad Bunny, it includes this line. "This show is just a slap in the face to our country, which is setting new standards and records every single day, including the best stock market and 401(k)s in history!"

Margaret, to me this felt like Donald Trump desperately wanted to attack Bad Bunny but, you know, Susie Wiles and all the people who have been telling him he needs to talk about the economy -- sitting on his shoulder and being like but talk about the economy, talk about the economy, talk about the economy. Kind of a strange combination there, Margaret.

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, AXIOS, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR DEMOCRACY, JOURNALISM AND CITIZENSHIP, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY: Yeah, it is a bit of a pivot there, John.

You know, it's interesting. I'd say like on the economy what defines whether the economy is good? This has been like one of the great political questions that have plagued the previous president and now the current president.

And, you know, is it the Dow? Because if it's the Dow, which President Trump is trying to message, yeah -- like, stocks are doing well. But if it jobs and if it's how far your salary goes in an inflationary era, if it's confidence, if it's the trendlines, those are really problematic for the president right now.

And President Trump really won on two issues. It's that Americans --

BERMAN: Um-hum.

TALEV: -- seemed to have a little more confidence in him than in Joe Biden of repairing the economy, and that Americans liked what they thought he was going to do on immigration. But what we're seeing now are these two other trends. Americans think he has gone way too far with ICE and Americans don't think that he's done for the economy what he said he was going to do. And if you're part of the Trump base who believed in crypto, it's been a difficult run for you also lately.

So yeah, I think those are real headwinds he's falling into.

And when it comes to Bad Bunny, looking at conservative media this morning it does feel like one of the major points of contention for some critics of the performance was that it was all in Spanish. But this is really interesting. About one in three Americans will be Spanish-speaking by 2050.

BERMAN: Yeah. You know, and it's interesting, Jackie, because there is some criticism of the Bad Bunny show from conservative circles -- some of the people you would expect -- but there's also a lot of support for just as 13 minutes of a great performance and pure joy and entertaining. I was in a pretty bad mood at halftime last night, I have to say, Jackie.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE BOSTON GLOBE: Oh, John.

BERMAN: And -- it's all right. But it was joyful. It was this joyful 13 minutes.

And I want to show you Alexis Wilkins, who some people might know is a country music singer. Some people might also know she's Kash Patel's girlfriend, the FBI director and also conservative political activist. She put out a statement on Twitter this morning that said, "Unpopular. Republicans need to unite and get on better messaging because this branding is fantastic and allows all Dems to get behind it. Also super esthetic."

What she's saying basically is the Bad Bunny show was good. This is a good presentation. Conservatives, you may want to check your messaging on this.

What do you think?

KUCINICH: I mean, Bad Bunny is one of the most popular artists in the world, let alone, you know, in the -- in the United States. But right, this seemed really engineered in a lab to make Trump angry, not on purpose but this really did celebrate the diversity of America -- the Americas, but also the United States. And the -- what is it -- love is stronger than hate. I mean, that's -- it's not not a winning message and it really is a -- the whole halftime show was a message of unity, of bringing people together.

But the president, in part because of some of the things that Bad Bunny has said in other places like at the Grammys about ICE, looked at this just as a -- just as a rebuke and someone who has spoken out against him. And I think that's what we saw last night with the tacked on affordability kind of light message on the end.

BERMAN: Yeah, it was interesting tagging it on there.

Also in terms of people the president is going after, members of the U.S. Olympic team --

KUCINICH: Right.

BERMAN: -- competing right now in Italy.

Olympic skier Hunter Hess is a -- I believe a snowboarder who made a comment where basically he said sometimes it's hard to stick up for some of the things happening in the United States.

[07:45:00]

And so the president posted, "U.S. Olympic skier Hunter Hess, a real loser, says he doesn't represent his country in the current Winter Olympics. If that's the case, he shouldn't have tried out for the team, and it's too bad he's on it. Very hard to root for someone like this. Make America Great Again!" A very odd look for the President of the United States to be attacking someone wearing the red, white and blue overseas, Jackie.

KUCINICH: Foundationally, it is what the -- what America is about is being able to speak your mind. That's what the First Amendment says. So the fact that -- and what this skier said actually wasn't what the president said he said.

But the ability to speak out is fundamentally American. And I think one of the concerns is what this does say to people watching abroad that Americans don't feel -- shouldn't feel like they could speak out and speak their mind and they'll get criticized by the president. How are less Democratic countries and places looking at something like that, that's concerning.

BERMAN: Margaret Talev, Jackie Kucinich, great to see you both this morning. Thanks so much for coming on -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you, John.

Ahead, Olympic dreams dashed. Olympian Lindsey Vonn crashes, breaking her leg. How she's recovering from not one but two surgeries this morning.

And some watch for the football and watch for the halftime show, but others watch the Super Bowl for the ads. The biggest commercial winners and losers.

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[05:50:10]

SIDNER: These are terrifying moments inside of an elevator in Mumbai when a gas-filled balloon -- watch this -- walks in and watch -- it explodes. All of it caught on camera there. It's believed the balloons were filled with hydrogen instead of helium -- hydrogen being much, much cheaper. All three people in the elevator managed to escape after the explosion but one woman suffered some really severe burns.

OK. The future of delivery falling right out of the sky. This Amazon delivery drone was supposed to be dropping off a package in Richardson, Texas but instead it came crashing down in pieces at first. Footage shows the drone hovering close to the building before what appeared to be broken pieces falling to the ground. Amazon is apologizing and says it will pay for any damages. What caused it to go down still unclear.

All right. Forgive me for this but (singing) don't stop retrieving. The whole place is quiet. They're worried about what I'm going to do. Even Berman is looking at me weird. Golden Retrievers --

BERMAN: I just worry about you in general.

SIDNER: (Laughing) Don't make me laugh. This is the cutest story ever.

BERMAN: Go ahead. SIDNER: Golden Retrievers -- just watch this -- don't look at me -- gathered in Golden, Colorado. This is the best. I have to go here one of these days. This is the city's annual "Goldens in Golden" event. An estimated 5,500 Golden Retrievers -- oh, what a cute baby -- and 16,000 of their humans joined in on the fun.

You're welcome for that song, by the way.

BERMAN: Do you know that no Golden Retriever has ever won Best in Show at the Westminster Dog Show?

SIDNER: I do because you have told me that. And you know what?

BERMAN: Because it's an outrage.

SIDNER: I'm angry about it.

BERMAN: Because it's an outrage. This is adorable. What happened last week in Westminster, a travesty.

OK. This morning, Lindsey Vonn in stable condition this morning following that crash seconds into her downhill race. Everyone saw it. Reuters reports she underwent two surgeries after suffering a fracture in her leg -- the same leg that she had ruptured her ACL in before the Games.

Thirty-year-old American Breezy Johnson went on to win the gold and really should be celebrated, not overlooked in all this.

Let's get to CNN's Amanda Davies with the latest in Milan. What are you learning?

AMANDA DAVIES, CNN WORLD SPORT: John, emotions all over the place yesterday, I have to say. And those pictures -- as you see them, they just don't get any easier to watch even now, 24 hours on from that crash in Cortina. I can tell you as you mentioned, those reports from the news agency Reuters are the new update this morning providing a little bit more detail, saying that Vonn's had those two operations after the news we received yesterday that she had suffered that serious leg fracture.

They say it's a source saying that the procedures were carried out by a joint team of local orthopedic and plastic surgeons. They were aiming to help stabilize her and prevent any complications. She was taken by the helicopter, as we saw, to a hospital in Treviso here in Italy straight from the course.

I think it is important to say though that neither Vonn's team or U.S. Ski or Snowboard have commented. We understand there might be some news coming in the next couple of hours.

But, I mean, the news has but shouldn't take away from the achievement of Vonn's 30-year-old teammate Breezy Johnson. She took the gold. It was a brilliant run for her in Cortina and very much a redemption story on this same course where she suffered an injury that saw her miss out on the Beijing Olympic Games in 2022. Understandably, she opted to give this morning's practice run for the team combined a miss. That's the new event. She'll be back in action with Mikaela Shiffrin tomorrow looking to add more gold to their world championship title from last year.

The figure skating team celebrating as well a second-straight success. But boy, was this one tight. They were pushed all the way by Japan, ultimately winning it by a point thanks to the "Quad God." Ilia Malinin pulling out all the stops in his free skate heading into the final segment of the competition. The U.S. and Japan were tied -- 59 points apiece. Four-time national champion Malinin knew what he needed to do -- put on a show.

Now the 24-time tennis grand slam winner Novak Djokovic and his wife Jelena were there and they much enjoyed it. Djokovic kicking every ball, as the saying goes.

Malinin scoring 200.03 to seal the deal.

And hopes are really, really high for this U.S. team over the next couple of weeks. They're being dubbed perhaps the greatest U.S. figure skating team in history. And their competition continues today with the ice dance, rhythm dance.

[07:55:15]

And in progress very much into the final stages I can tell you Stanford student Eileen Gu looking to win that one Olympic gold that eluded her in Beijing four years ago -- the freestyle slopestyle. It was billed as a head-to-head between Gu and Switzerland's world champion and defending Olympic champion Mathilde Gremaud.

And I can tell you just on the final run, Eileen has fallen. So that means she is going to claim silver and Mathilde Gremaud successfully defending her gold medal from four years ago in Beijing.

BERMAN: So live real time updates as we speak. Amanda Davies in Milan. Thank you very much for that -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, so on to the other sports event. If you didn't think the game packed much punch, what about the other stars of almost every other Super Bowl, the ads? This year's Super Bowl commercials leaned on star power, humor, nostalgia -- all of it mixed together.

Here's a sample.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Clips from ads from Dunkin', State Farm Insurance, and Pepsi.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Axios reports that there were many more ads about tech and AI this year -- more on that topic than really anything else. Just take a look at this. I mean, you also have -- if you look at food and bev -- food and beverage, they were also, you know, ever present as they are every year. But according to the analysis, there were significantly fewer food and beverages this year compared to last.

The next question though, of course, is how effective were any and all of these advertisements?

Joining us right now branding and social media consultant Peter Shankman for more on this. It's good to see you. Thanks for coming in.

PETER SHANKMAN, BRANDING AND SOCIAL MEDIA CONSULTANT: It's good to see you.

BOLDUAN: So we were -- we picked your brain last night and said give us your top hits and misses. I want to roll through some of them -- as many as we have time for.

But first and foremost you said that Adrien Brody in the TurboTax commercial about just the pain of taxes is noteworthy. Let me play this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Adrien Brody starring in TurboTax commercial.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: I wanted to start there because I loved that. Why did I love this one so much?

SHANKMAN: Well, it's nice to see him finally take a break from being Adrien Brody, right, actually. And a shoutout to my fellow LaGuardia High School graduate. He graduated with me.

BOLDUAN: Oh, very nice, very nice.

SHANKMAN: It's nice to see stars be able to play on themselves a little bit, just like Will Shatner did.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

SHANKMAN: You know, they finally come in and they say look, we're not all that. We can have fun with this as well.

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

SHANKMAN: So I saw that and I really enjoyed it.

AI, as you mentioned, was pretty big and --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

SHANKMAN: -- that scares me a little bit. The reason being it was back in 2000 when I was running my first public relations firm. All the ads that we were asked to do and asked to promote were all about the dot- com boom and that was in the 2000 Super Bowl. And we know what happened in 2000 for the dot-coms. It's just a little scary there, so I'm a little worried about that. Too many of those.

BOLDUAN: That is really interesting. I also -- I got confused by some of the AI -- some of the AI ads.

But anyway, I do want to play William Shatner and Raisin Bran bringing fiber to the masses. Let's play this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

William Shatner starring in Raisin Bran ad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: I -- the -- leading to the age-old question is double entendre the best device of all devices?

SHANKMAN: Apparently, it's the only device we have this year, you know. And it's really -- look, the guy is in his 90s.

BOLDUAN: And 14-year-old humor.

SHANKMAN: I've got to give him credit, you know. This is -- this is not what he signed on for when he took us where no man has ever gone before back in 1964, so I give him credit. You know, he's still out there and he's still doing it, and it is funny. It does -- it does make people think. It's one of those ads that says OK, I don't need a lot of brainpower to process this.

BOLDUAN: Yeah, exactly.

OK, let's do -- OK, do you want to do polar bears or do you want to do Fifty Cent?

SHANKMAN: Let's do polar bears.

BOLDUAN: OK, let's go polar bears. Pepsi's choice ad with the traditionally known as the -- well, the Coke polar bear. Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

Coca-Cola's polar bear starring in Pepsi ad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: You call this one a clear winner. Why?

SHANKMAN: That's the power of understatement, right? The polar bear didn't say anything. It was all emotion. It was all mood. It shows that when you look at something and you get the idea it really can play. You don't need a lot of words. You don't need a lot of talk. And throwing in the Coldplay riff was a nice touch as well.

BOLDUAN: It was -- it was something. It was something. I really did -- and the polar bear got me as well.

It's great to see you, Peter, as always.

SHANKMAN: Always a pleasure.

BOLDUAN: Thanks for coming in. I really appreciate it.

SHANKMAN: Always.

BOLDUAN: A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.