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Business Raise Prices; Trump's Poll Numbers; Tig Notaro and Ryan White are Interviewed about their Documentary. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired February 17, 2026 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:31:59]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, new word that several major companies say they will be raising prices this year, largely thanks to President Trump's trade war. Price hikes reaching from your closet to the kitchen.

CNN's Matt Egan joining us now with more reporting on this.

And what are you hearing, Matt?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Kate, yes, some companies are jacking up their prices for a variety of reasons. Some of them are citing higher wages for their workers, higher health care costs, and, of course, the president's historically high tariffs. And, yes, this is affecting everything from jeans made by Levi, to spices from McCormick. Also outerwear, jackets and other clothing from Columbia Sportswear.

One example. So, McCormick said that they're facing about a $50 million hit from higher U.S. tariffs. And they're taking what they're describing as, quote, "surgical price hikes." Levi says that some of their men's jeans are going to go up by $5 per pair, woman's jeans up by $10. Not just major corporations. Look at this. This is small businesses. More than half of small business owners in a recent survey, 54 percent, that's the blue chunk here, say they plan to raise prices over the next few months, 42 percent say they're going to keep them the same, and just three percent, that little green slice, say they plan to cut prices.

Now, some of this is kind of normal start of the year type moves that you see from companies as they look at their prices. Some of it seems a bit more aggressive. "The Wall Street Journal" talked to a construction company in Cincinnati that said, because of health care costs and steel tariffs, they plan to raise their prices by 10 to 15 percent. Online prices are also going up rapidly. Adobe tracks online prices, and they saw that in January there was the biggest monthly increase in prices since they started tracking 12 years ago. Big price hikes for electronics, computers, also for furniture as well.

And all of this comes as there's some new research out over who's paying for the president's tariffs. All right, the president says it's going to be foreign exporters. BOLDUAN: Right.

EGAN: But the New York Fed has found that foreign exporters are just shouldering 10 percent of the burden of those tariffs. Last year, the vast majority, 90 percent, are U.S. importers. And, of course, consumers.

And there's some new evidence that some of those importers that are trying to pass along the cost to all of us as consumers, they're running into resistance from consumers, right, because it's turning off some of their customer base. It's destroying demand.

For example, there's a tool company, Stanley Black and Decker, they are actually cutting prices after having previously raised them last year to cope with tariffs. Another example, there's Newell brands. They're cutting prices on Rubbermaid products, also their Graco baby gear for the same reason, they raise them because of tariffs and they found that demand was falling.

So, Kate, I do think all of this kind of explains why some economists are a little bit divided over what happens next with inflation, right? There was the better than expected inflation report that we talked about on Friday.

BOLDUAN: Right.

EGAN: But all of this just shows that a lot of companies, they're still trying to make sense of what to do with the tariffs. Some of them have raised prices. Some of them are unwinding those price hikes. And some of them haven't yet implemented their price hikes yet.

[09:35:02]

BOLDUAN: Yes, it seems -- all continue to be an evolving picture of what they're facing.

EGAN: Very much so.

BOLDUAN: Thanks so much, Matt. Great reporting.

EGAN: Thanks, Kate.

BOLDUAN: John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, new video of a driver crashing straight into a parked highway patrol car. That doesn't look good.

And some remarkable memories of Jesse Jackson, who has died at the age of 84. We just heard from Ambassador Andrew Young, who told us about the day they met in Selma in 1965.

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[09:40:09]

BERMAN: There's all kinds of new polling out right now that shows that President Trump is at a low in terms of his approval rating in this term. So, it does beg the question, do people who voted for him, and maybe people who didn't vote at all, are they having second thoughts about their 2024 choices?

With us now, CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten.

There's actually been some polling, in a way, on this, going back and trying to redo the 2024 election.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yes, regrets of some folks, had a few.

What are we talking about here? Well, let's just take a look here. OK, choice for 2024 presidential election. The actual was Donald Trump winning by about a point and a half. It rounds to a point.

But take a look here. In a polled redo between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. In April of 2025, it was within the margin of error, right? Kamala Harris by a point.

But look at where we are now, according to an NBC News survey (INAUDIBLE) poll, Kamala Harris wins in a redo Asking folks, essentially, if you could redo the 2024 election, how would you vote? She wins it by, get this, eight points. A massive shift from what we saw back in November of 2024 when Donald Trump won by a point. And I will note that this sample was weighted, weighted to the 2024 result in which Donald Trump won by a point. But yet Kamala Harris, in this reweighted -- in this weighted sample, get this, she wins by eight amongst the sample that voted for Trump by one.

BERMAN: So, the good news is, Kamala Harris, for her, wins the 2024 election. The bad news is, it's actually 2026, so it doesn't count for her.

What about, though, the 2026 midterms when we're talking about Trump voters and then also Harris voters?

ENTEN: OK, so you see this, and as John was laughing about, the fact is the 2024 election is good, gone, goodbye. But it has a massive impact, this voter sentiment on what may happen later this year. Why do I say that? Because let's take a look at the vote for Congress. And this is very important, all right. 2024 Harris voters. They vote for the Democrats on average by, get this, 89 points. The Trump voters mostly stick by the Republicans but by a significantly smaller margin, by 83 points. This means that the Democratic base that voted for Kamala Harris is sticking with those congressional Democratic candidates to a much greater degree than those Trump voters are sticking with the Republican candidates for Congress. And that is why what you're seeing on that generic congressional ballot is Democrats leaping ahead by this point by about five points because at least at this point the Trump voters are not sticking by the Republicans as much as the Harris voters are sticking by the Democrats.

BERMAN: Yes, and these numbers may not look that different, but this five points, which is roughly what that is, that really could be hugely important come November. This is people who did vote in 2024. What about those perhaps who did

not?

ENTEN: OK, so part of the equation, right, is that the Harris voters are really sticking with those Democratic candidates to a -- more so than the -- than the Trump voters are sticking with the Republican candidates. But it's more than that. It's also people coming off of the sideline.

OK, voters choice for election. For the 2026 congressional elections, if they didn't vote in 2024, look at this, Democrats are winning that vote by a significant margin, by 16 percentage points. So you add on to that, the Harris voters sticking with the Democratic candidates, all of a sudden you see, hey, this is the way that Democrats are going to get back their congressional majority.

And more than that, I will note that in 2024, of course, the Trump voters, or the people who voted for Trump, he actually won a larger share of those non 2020 voters. So, it's not just what we're seeing here historically speaking that, hey, non-voters vote Democrat. That was not the case in 2024.

And when you put it all together, Mr. Berman, you put all of this together, what do we get? It's not just the House, it's the Senate as well. Democrats chance to win the Senate. A year ago it was 19 percent according to Kalshi, 30 percent six months ago. And now Democrats have a 40 percent chance of taking back the U.S. Senate.

BERMAN: And that seems to be going up even more over the last few weeks.

ENTEN: Yes.

BERMAN: Harold Enten, thank you very much

ENTEN: Thank you, my friend.

BERMAN: A lot of news this morning. We'll be right back.

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[09:48:45]

BERMAN: Rescue crews airlifted two hikers from Mount Eleanor in Washington state. Officials say a 51-year-old woman fell into an avalanche chute, and then a 16-year-old boy injured his knee while trying to help her. We've got no word on how the hikers are doing now.

New video shows a driver slamming into a parked police cruiser. This happened in a highway in Oklahoma. Oh. Doesn't look good. Officers, you can see there, were waving traffic away from a nearby grass fire when they had to run for cover just seconds before impact. Three people inside the car were taken to the hospital.

And then a bald eagle rescued in Florida on Presidents' Day. Police got a call when someone spotted the raptor in distress. Officials arrived to find the bird struggling to fly. They safely detained the eagle. Look at that right there. Putting it in their patrol car and waiting for a local wildlife rescue to take it to an emergency vet.

This morning, Taylor Swift is hyping up Team USA, the women's figure skating team.

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TAYLOR SWIFT, MUSICIAN: Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to introduce you to Amber, Alysa and Isabeau, three American showgirls on ice.

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BERMAN: I see what you did there. Taylor Swift introducing the Blade Angels.

[09:50:01]

Amber Glenn, Alysa Liu and Isabeau Levito, before they hit the ice tonight for their short program. All three have a shot at the medal.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: All right, the Oscars are around the corner, and one of this year's most powerful films nominated for best documentary feature is one exploring and grappling with life and mortality, love and loss, and everything in between. Here's a bit.

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ANDREA GIBSON: At first I thought it was a stomach bug. But when it started feeling like a stomach anaconda, my doctor convinced me to get a CAT scan. This is the beginning of a nightmare, I thought. But stay with me all, because my story is one about happiness, being easier to find once we realize we do not have forever to find it.

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BOLDUAN: That is Andrea Gibson, the poet laureate whose battle with cancer and what ended up being the final year of their life, are chronicled in this film called "Come See Me in the Good Light." Gibson died just last July at the age of 49 following that four-year battle with stage four ovarian cancer. Gibson's close friend and comedian Tig Notaro helped bring this story to life. Tig and the director of the film, the filmmaker, Ryan White, join us here.

Thank you, guys, very much for joining us.

This is something so personal on so many levels, for you especially, Tig. And also then you have like the celebration of it with an Oscar nomination. I mean how do you -- how do you put it all together and what's this journey been like?

TIG NOTARO, PRODUCER, "COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT": Well, I would say that because it was really incredible how close Andrea and their partner, Meg, became to Ryan, the director, and the rest of the production, and it -- and it helped make their final year of life so joyful because they all got so close. And luckily Andrea was able to see the film before they passed away. And I think that the momentum that the film has had, and the joy in that final year of life has just continued on and followed us through this entire awards campaign. I mean it's been quite an experience.

BERMAN: What was it like to bring a camera into this period of time? I was going to say, what are the challenges? But to here Tig talk about it, it's also something of an opportunity because this was something that I think, ironically or maybe unexpectedly, produced a certain amount of joy.

RYAN WHITE, DIRECTOR, "COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT": Joy and humor. Tig had known Andrea for 20 something years and said, like, trust me, I know they're a poet, but this is one of the funniest people I've ever known through my entire life. So, we felt like it gave us this opportunity to subvert this terminal illness genre of films and do it in a way that's not necessarily -- I mean it is a tearjerker at times, but I think it's extremely funny as well. And joyful. I mean the way that they were confronting end of life together, it's a love story between two poets. It was infectious to be around. We had never felt so alive when we were making this film.

BERMAN: Really?

BOLDUAN: It's kind of that, what is it, juxtaposition. It's just because this like collision of happiness and tragedy and happiness and loss. And have -- did you learn something yourself? Or what are the lessons that kind of you took from -- on grief and loss, which is something so different for everyone who's gone through it in many different ways after being -- bringing this to life?

NOTARO: Well, I think for myself, I -- death has always been something that I have kicked away the idea and been so fearful, and I don't want to die. Andrea didn't want to die. But I would say that watching Andrea go through this process made me really realize that it's something I want to be more in conversation about. And I also want to -- I know not everyone can choose the way that they go out. But if I do have a choice, I want to do it how Andrea did. And that definitely has changed for me. I have children. Not to, like, get dark, too dark with them, but I want -- it made me realize, I want to have that conversation with them and make it a part -- I mean death is a part of life.

BERMAN: What was it -- you mentioned Andrea saw the film. What was it like for you as the filmmaker when Andrea saw this? What were you most concerned about likes or dislikes?

[09:55:00]

WHITE: I mean, by that point it was a miracle that Andrea was in the room with us.

BERMAN: Yes.

WHITE: We all thought this was going to be an end-of-life film. We thought it would end with their final breath. And that sort of shifted in the production of the film, and especially the edit of the film. The footage was so joyful and funny, we decided to end it. We decided, why does our hero have to die at the end of this film? And so, we shifted what the ending was.

And so, it was the Sundance Film Festival last year. We were in a packed audience. Tig said afterwards, like, man, that played like a Will Ferrell comedy.

BERMAN: Yes.

WHITE: So, Andrea getting this --

NOTARO: I mean the humorous moment -- it was electric in the theater.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

WHITE: And Andrea was in the back row in a mask with their partner, Megan.

NOTARO: Yes.

WHITE: And getting to feel the audience react to the film.

BOLDUAN: What a message (ph).

WHITE: I think that was enough.

NOTARO: Yes.

WHITE: They knew -- they knew that it would have an impact on people.

BOLDUAN: What's behind the name of the film?

NOTARO: I mean it's -- it's one of Andrea's lines, but it's also I -- I don't know. I'm curious.

WHITE: I know.

NOTARO: Oh, OK. I was going -- I was going to say, I'm curious.

WHITE: Yes.

NOTARO: Because I know, but I feel like you have a --

BOLDUAN: OK, let us in on it.

NOTARO: Yes, don't tell them.

WHITE: No, it's -- I think so much of this film is about finding the light in the darkness. Like, culturally we're taught that end of life and death is supposed to be so scary and so sad. And it can be. But I think what Andrea -- it's an invitation to the audience. And it is a line that Andrea wrote in a love poem to Megan, but it is an invitation to the audience to come along for this journey that sounds dark but that might be a lot lighter than one expects. BERMAN: This is what we all want, right? Isn't it what we all want

every day with everyone?

WHITE: Yes.

BERMAN: I mean, I want people to come see me always in the good light.

BOLDUAN: Yes. It's a beautiful thing (ph).

BERMAN: Anyway, Tig Notaro, Ryan White, thank you both so much. Congratulations and best of luck to you in what I know has got to be a very special moment.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Congrats.

NOTARO: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Thanks for coming in.

WHITE: Thank you.

NOTARO: Thanks.

BOLDUAN: And thank you all so much for joining us today. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "SIT ROOM" is up next.

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