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FBI Releases New Details About Suspect In Guthrie Disappearance; DHS Set To Shut Down At Midnight After No Deal On Funding Fight; Scoring Controversy Surrounds French Figure Skating Judge. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired February 13, 2026 - 09:00   ET

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

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CHRISTINE BRENNAN, SPORTS COLUMNIST, USA TODAY: We don't know yet, but because he was banned, because of sexual assault, according to the Canadians, then that is what -- and that assault occurred with, sadly, tragically, a U.S. skater back in 2012, that again, allegedly so, that then she needed to find a new partner.

So at that point, she goes with Cizeron, whose partner also Gabby Papadakis (ph), in a podcast with -- with us on USA Today, Milan Magic Special Edition talks all about her concerns about the imbalance between men and women in figure skating, abuse, and how difficult it was for her to skate with him.

So both of those -- that -- the pair, or the dance team of the French put together last minute, you know, obviously skated great, but the back story here is very concerning, and what an awful message for those victims and survivors of sexual abuse, that this is the team with this, as Adam Rippon said, sinister energy around them.

This is the team that won the gold, and that's again, you think about those survivors, John and victims, and I've talked to a few of them, how difficult that night was seeing the French win.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And then, of course, these new questions about the judging. Always scandal surrounding ice-dancing. No laughing matter. I mean, this is serious. These are athletes who've worked very, very hard and deserve better. Thank you for explaining it so well. Appreciate it.

Brand new hour of CNN News Central starts right now. The FBI releases new specific details about the suspect in Nancy Guthrie's disappearance. The reward being offered for information has now doubled. Where did all the lawmakers go?

A partial shutdown is coming, and there are not members of Congress left in Washington really to vote to stop it, and then a new team headed to the International Space Station. What it means for future missions? Sara is out today. I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan, and this is CNN News Central.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: There are a lot of new developments this morning in the search for Nancy Guthrie in Arizona. The Sheriff says investigators have good leads in the case, and now, 13 days after she disappeared, the FBI has given the first official description of the suspect that they're looking for, captured on the doorbell camera video at Guthrie's home.

Right there. They say the person is male, five foot nine to five foot 10, with an average bill, and he was wearing a black Ozark Trail hiker backpack, a brand sold by Walmart. The FBI also adds that it has received more than 13,000 tips in this case. The reward, as John mentioned, has doubled to $100,000.

Showing you images from Guthrie's home right here. This is from yesterday, and you see that white tent. Investigators set that white tent up at the entry. A source saying that it was -- that it was part of what they were trying to do was to recreate the night-time conditions that were -- that they had the night that she was abducted, using clothing and a backpack similar to the suspects to conduct tests to try to gather more information and clues.

CNN's Ed Lavandera, live on the scene in Tucson this morning. Ed, what's the latest?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning. Investigators here still believe that these video images and still images from that front door camera is ultimately what's going to help them find Nancy Guthrie. As you mentioned, the investigators have received more than 13,000 tips.

And one of the reasons that the specific information in this simulation was done there at the door was to give people a little bit more clarity to improve the quality tips. I know from talking to various people here in Tucson, they're with 13,000 tips, you can imagine that many, many of them, are really just not good quality tips and not helpful.

So they're hoping that more specific guidelines, so like the height 5.9, 5.10, male, the specific brand of the backpack, and all those kinds of things will help narrow down the tips that come in, because they believe that somebody out there recognizes who this person might be and can phone that -- that tip in.

So a lot of that work continues, and they -- and they're -- at the same time that that's happening, they're also kind of going back out through the area here and expanding their call for video, and hoping that residents will do that as well. So they're asking for video from January 1 to February 2 within a two mile radius of this home.

You can imagine the manpower it will take to go through all of that video. So much of it starts pouring in. And then there's a few specific dates that investigators are also interested in as well. We've learned from around January 11, which is about three weeks before Nancy Guthrie was abducted from like 9:00 p.m. to midnight, and also in some early morning hours on Saturday before she was abducted.

[09:05:00] So you know, in talking to residents here for almost two weeks now, they feel a great sense of ownership and a sense of obligation to help and do whatever they can to help bring Nancy Guthrie home.

BOLDUAN: Ed, thank you so much for being there. Really appreciate it. John?

BERMAN: All right, with us now, Retired FBI Hostage Negotiator Chip Massey and CNN Law Enforcement Contributor Steve Moore and Chip, I want to start with you. With this new FBI posting. This is sort of a new tool in the investigation. They put out this notice, and they have doubled the reward to $100,000 from $50,000. What does that tell you? And in your experience, what kind of a difference can that make?

CHIP MASSEY, RETIRED FBI HOSTAGE NEGOTIATOR: Well, if anybody is motivated by money, and people that might be associated with this kind of individual is definitely going to be motivated by money, because this is the kind of thing that will -- if people are on the fence, doubling something, it's going to make a difference.

BERMAN: In your experience, it does matter?

MASSEY: Oh, absolutely.

BERMAN: All right, so another piece of information that we're getting from this Steve, is the description of the suspect, a male, 5.9 to 5.10 with an average build, and then a discussion of the backpack, the Ozark Trail hiker backpack. How important are details like this to get out into the public?

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: It's very important. Somebody might not realize that the person that they're -- that they know, could be a suspect until they happen upon that backpack. It could be kind of a serious, serious discovery for someone, and that backpack is extremely important in tracking the possible purchaser through debit cards, credit cards, things like that.

BERMAN: Yeah, this is a picture of the backpack that we have right here. Chris, you can see the backpack in the doorbell camera footage. You can see the backpack, what it looks like as it sold in the store. Some other images here. I imagine a pretty common backpack. So what do you do with this information?

MASSEY: Well, what this really helps us do again, is that it puts it in front of the public eye. It's always going to be the American people that come to the rescue in this kind of thing. So now they have a shape, they have a design, they have a brand. Somebody is going to tie that together to the person that they know, and when they see those videos together --

BERMAN: Yeah.

MASSEY: -- of him at that doorway, and when he turns his back again, backpack, person movement, gate. Now we have a height. It just gets really tight for these things. BERMAN: It's combining really this, the idea of the backpack, and putting it together with this other piece of information. Hey, wait a second here. I know a guy about this tall who walks like this, who has that backpack.

MASSEY: Exactly. We saw a lot in that video, where he's turning around, he's moving around, he's getting that foliage up. And when we see that backpack, and we see those mannerisms, the gait, the kind of things he does when he's indecisive, somebody is going to recognize that.

BERMAN: So Steve, one other bit of information now that officials are asking for. They're saying that everyone who lives within a two mile radius of Nancy Guthrie's home, they want them to go through whatever security footage they have for an entire month, basically the entire month of January. Nancy Guthrie went missing the night of January 31 into February 1. You know, I'm looking at this map here, and I see a lot of dots there. Each one of those is a house. How much information is that likely to produce? And how easy or hard will it be to go through that all?

MOORE: It's -- it's going to produce a lot, hopefully. And, yeah, it's -- it's going to produce so much, it's -- it will astound you. It is extremely tedious to go through those -- that type of film. However, that area where the -- the crime occurred that's not a thoroughfare. People don't go through there on their way to somewhere else.

So any vehicles that are in that area that cannot be traced back to a home or a homeowner in that area can -- you can just drill down right on that and start finding vehicles that don't belong there, and you're going to find somebody possibly casing well before the abduction.

BERMAN: Yeah, that's a great point here. I mean, as you look at this, the only sort of semi large road going through it is right there. All the other roads are very residential. They're not the type of place you would go under any circumstances really like, not even if Waze took you off course by mistake.

So Chris, I spoke to you before. You know, as we talk about the individual who may have Nancy Guthrie in custody. Now, in all these new pieces of information that are going public, and this individual watching it all go public with the reward and with everything else, what are they thinking now as they're watching this investigation?

MASSEY: Oh, that's the thing, right? Is that there is so much more pressure now that's on them, right? These captors, they didn't expect that there would be, you know, these many eyes on them.

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They were just looking for, OK, listen, I've got this task to do, and this is what I'm going to do. This is going to be my pay day. Now everything has changed for them. Now the focus is entirely on them. When they -- when they see these billboards, when they see these alerts go up on the TV, right? Everything narrows down, and they've got millions of eyeballs on them now. BERMAN: All right. Chris Massey, great to see you. Thank you very much

for your help on this. Steve Moore, thanks to you as well. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio in Munich to meet with European leaders for the first time since the President's threats to acquire Greenland and all sorts of other things he said.

Christiane Amanpour just told us that world leaders are basically on pins and needles now for what he might say. The shake-up at the top of Goldman Sachs all over the Epstein files and then a burglary gone wrong, a suspected thief behind bars, get this after locking himself in the back of the van, he was trying to rob.

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BOLDUAN: In a matter of hours now, the Department of Homeland Security is set to shut down, really, with funding running out at midnight. That's because Democrats and Republicans have not reached a deal, and both the House and Senate have left town.

At the center of this funding fight is the bitter back and forth that's continued over the President's immigration crackdown and how ICE is handling federal immigration enforcement. Top Democrats want to well, all Democrats want to rein in ICE operations. Republicans say they want to rein in sanctuary city policies in response, and they are at a stalemate despite two weeks of negotiations.

CNN's Kevin Liptak, live now from the White House for more on this. What are you hearing from there about the what is next, since it seems almost inevitable that this shutdown is going to happen?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, what is next is a shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security. That's a virtual certainty. Lawmakers have left Washington for 10 days, and so this agency is going to run out of money. You know, I think yesterday, there was sort of the faintest glimmer of hope that the decision by the administration to end this enforcement surge in Minneapolis might have been the conciliation that Democrats were looking for.

But it became pretty clear, pretty quickly that they were going to require a lot more of their demands in order to allow this funding bill to proceed. Remember, among the curbs that they have demanded that includes better identification for ICE officers, a new code of conduct for some of these agencies, better coordination with local authorities.

I think two of the most contentious demands are the use of judicial warrants, so a warrant signed by a judge for enforcement actions, and this demands that ICE officers remove their masks. You know, Republicans have balked at that, saying they're worried that the officers could potentially be doxed.

We did hear yesterday from John Thune, the Senate majority leader, who said there could potentially be room for compromise on that particular issue. But then President Trump, yesterday, really kind of downplayed the idea that he could move in any way on this. Listen to what the President said.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They want our law enforcement to be total -- totally vulnerable, and put them in a lot of danger. They have some things that are really very hard to -- very, very hard to approve, frankly. We have to protect our law enforcement, very important.

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LIPTAK: You know, Democrats appear dug in here. They seem emboldened by the increasing unpopularity of President Trump's immigration agenda. This will be the third time in five months that a part of the government has shut down because of one of these standoffs with Congress. But I think the irony here is that ICE and CBP likely aren't going to be affected. They still have $75 billion to work with from the President's Tax and Spending Bill that passed last year. The parts of the agency that could be affected are the Coast Guard, FEMA, TSA, effects on those parts of the agency likely to be felt much more quickly. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Yeah, it's a very important point, and a big part of the politics kind of surrounding all of this and who feels they have the upper hand right now. Thank you so much, Kevin. John?

BERMAN: Right, the Olympic scoring controversy lighting up the figure skating world as a French duo, which has controversy of its own, beats out Americans' Chock and Bates for the gold. Was it because of the French judge?

And then SpaceX spends cents (ph). Four astronauts to the International Space Station. So what are they going to do up there? We'll tell you their plan.

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BOLDUAN: The Munich Security Conference kicking off today, and the atmosphere there, it seems, maybe bracing for impact. Last year, you'll remember Vice President J.D. Vance lashed out, to say the very least, lambasting America's NATO allies to their faces. Now Secretary of State Marco Rubio. He is the one on the ground in Munich this morning, but it's his boss who is the central focus and question, it seems.

The Annual Security Report released ahead of the conference labeled President Trump as one of the most prominent demolition men when it comes to world order. Here's another quote from that report, which is, "More than 80 years after construction began, the U.S.-led post 1945 international order is now under destruction." The German Chancellor just spoke in Munich and said this.

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FRIEDRICH MERZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): You've chosen a grim motto for this conference, under destruction, and it probably means that the international order, based on rights and rules, is currently being destroyed. But I'm afraid we have to put it in even harsher terms. This order, as flawed as it has been, even in its heyday, no longer exists.

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BOLDUAN: Joining us right now is Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen, who is in Munich as well. She is the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Thanks for coming. And Senator, what are you hearing while on the ground from European leaders, and what is the message you're bringing to them?

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SEN. JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-NH): Well, we have a very large bipartisan delegation from the United States Congress, mostly senators, but we have a number of House members as well, and we are here to reaffirm the importance of the Trans-Atlantic Alliance, the importance of our European partners and the importance of NATO.

And Chancellor Merz focused on the importance of NATO, not just to European security, but also to American security. And that's a message that all of us understand very clearly.

BOLDUAN: From what you're hearing, that's the message you're bringing. But what are you hearing from other European allies? Are they nervous? Are they scared? Do they trust the United States will be there if they need it?

SHAHEEN: Well, clearly, the President's rhetoric around Greenland and Denmark has had an impact, and again, one of the reasons we're here with this bipartisan delegation is to reassure our allies that there is tremendous support in Congress.

We are the Article I branch of the Constitution, and I hope that we're going to hear a positive message from Secretary Rubio when he speaks.

BOLDUAN: Back at home, you're all staring down at another government shutdown. You were one of the key Democratic votes to end that long shutdown back in November. What's going to happen with this one?

SHAHEEN: I don't think it's clear yet. I think there is a real understanding among the American public that ICE has taken horrific actions when American citizens are being killed in the street by a federal agency, then it's time to reform that agency, and that's what this fight is about. We need to reform ICE.

They have a legitimate role to play, securing our borders, but they do not have a role terrorizing American citizens, shooting people in the streets as roving bands with masks. That is not what Americans want to see, and so we need to fix that. I hope the Trump administration will come to the table and work with us on this, because this is not a Democrat or Republican concern. It is an American concern.

BOLDUAN: Right now, when it comes to the politics of it, it is Democrats versus Republicans on Capitol Hill in terms of what's going to happen and when funding is going to run out? Republicans think they have the upper hand. One of the reasons being, over the summer, they were able to pass billions and billions of additional dollars for ICE, enough they argue, to cover operations for months, if not years to come.

So a shutdown now they're saying are going to hit not ICE, but agencies like FEMA and TSA. Here's Senator Bernie Moreno, what he said, Democrats can take the DHS appropriations bill or they can shut down FEMA, Coast Guard, TSA, Secret Service, that's up to them. Are you ready for that?

SHAHEEN: Well, it's not the Democrats. It's the Republicans' unwillingness to negotiate with us, that's the problem. And look, it's in their interest to address the excesses that ICE has been showing all Americans. All you have to do is turn on the television at night and see the horrific pictures of masked people arresting and detaining American citizens and putting -- putting them in detention centers that have been described as concentration camps.

So I don't think that's in Republicans' interest long term to do that. They need to come to the table. They need to work with us to get this done.

BOLDUAN: So one of the demands that had been made in order for Democrats to get on board with funding was that DHS -- funding for DHS was, did -- that ICE get out of Minnesota. Now that they've just announced yesterday that they are ending the surge operation there, does that get you closer to yes?

SHAHEEN: Well, it depends on what happens with ICE. Are they going to be pulled out of Minnesota -- Minneapolis and sent in to five other cities around the country, which is what President Trump has suggested. Are they going to reform the way they operate? Are they still going to have masks? Are they going to go into people's homes without warrants and search homes?

Are they going to detain American citizens? Again, are they going to detain children? That's what people are so upset about, and this needs to be fixed. It is not America when we have federal agents roaming our cities with masks on arresting people and shooting people without any accountability.

That's what this is about, and Americans want to see something happen, and it's in Donald Trump's interest, and it's in the Republican's interest to work with us to fix this, and they know that. That's why they're coming to the table, because they're seeing the polls, they understand that Americans are outraged about this.

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