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One American Tests Positive For Hantavirus, Another With Mild Symptoms; Rep. Adam Smith (D) Washington on Trump Calling Latest Proposal From Iran "Totally Unacceptable"; Accused White House Correspondents' Dinner Shooter To Be Arraigned. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired May 11, 2026 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. This morning 17 Americans now back in the U.S. after they were evacuated from a cruise ship stricken by the deadly hantavirus outbreak. They came ashore early this morning in Nebraska with at least one passenger who has tested positive for the virus and another who is showing mild symptoms. The group has now been taken to the national quarantine unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha where they will be assessed and monitored.

Back on the cruise ship the second day of evacuations now underway. Three deaths have been linked to this outbreak.

Joining me now is Dr. Tom Frieden, the former director of the CDC.

Can you give us first an example of what's going to happen now that they are off the ship? What does this monitoring and testing mean?

DR. TOM FRIEDEN, FORMER DIRECTOR, CDC, FORMER NYC HEALTH COMMISSIONER (via Webex by Cisco): Well, most importantly, it is to see whether they develop fever or other symptoms and if so, to make sure that they're rapidly evaluated, isolated, and provided care.

There are two basic issues you want to make sure. One, if they do become ill that they don't infect other people; and two, if they do become ill that they're rapidly treated very intensively. Because even though there is no specific treatment for this, a lot of supportive intensive care measures can greatly increase the likelihood that someone will survive. So these are the two things that want to focus on, whether that's done at the quarantine center of somewhere else where it can be done safely.

SIDNER: The current CDC director and the WHO says this is not COVID. It is nothing to be panicked about on a large scale. Is that how you see it this morning?

FRIEDEN: Well, of course, this is scary. It's an unfamiliar virus. There's not -- there are things that we still don't know about it. And it causes severe illness and death. What it isn't is the potential for a new pandemic because it spreads only through intense close contact.

Cruise ships are kind of like petri dishes. People are all packed in together. The ventilation is poor. People are together. So a cruise ship is a very unique environment where we see lots of different outbreaks. So at this point there is no risk to anyone who hasn't had contact with someone ill who is associated with the cruise ship.

But, you know, Sara, there's a bigger lesson here, which is that we have let down our guard. The CDC has been hollowed out. They've lost thousands of staff. They have not been allowed to speak with the press or with doctors, and they've been barred from discussing things with the World Health Organization until this outbreak. That means that we are less prepared and less safe. And one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty, being CDC director is not a part-time job. And though I hear that Dr. Bhattacharya is doing a good job, he's (sic) trying to run two agencies. That's simply not possible. This is unsafe. We need a strong CDC for a safe USA.

SIDNER: Let me then ask you about what the WHO said. It said look, you have to believe the experts. This is a time to listen to them and not get in a panic about this. As you mentioned, this is not going to be a pandemic, according to the WHO, as well.

Have people just lost because of the -- some of the things this administration in particular but also because of what happened during COVID -- just kind of lost faith in officials with the CDC and other agencies?

FRIEDEN: Well, I think it's really important to level with folks and say look, there is a lot that we are still learning. We don't know how it spread on the ship. That takes a meticulous disease detective investigation to figure out exactly who was with who. We don't know exactly how it is spreading. There's only one other large outbreak that has been identified from this particular virus.

Hantavirus has more than 50 different species, lots of subspecies. This is the only one we know of that does spread from person-to-person and from everything we know it requires prolonged, direct contact.

So I can understand that people are suspicious and scared but that's why I think rather than saying calm down or don't worry, it's better to say here is everything we know and we're going to keep telling you what we know as we learn it. And some things may change but one thing that's almost certainly not going to change is that this is not going to become the next pandemic from everything we've seen. It's very unlikely that this would develop the capacity to spread readily from person-to-person and not be able to be contained.

SIDNER: That is reassuring this morning.

Dr. Tom Frieden, thank you so much for taking the time this morning -- appreciate it -- Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So late yesterday, President Trump called Iran's latest proposal to end the war "totally unacceptable." Now today, Iran is responding, describing what its negotiators sent over to Pakistan, a mediator says, "reasonable and generous." A big question then this morning is now what, which is totally unclear. [07:35:00]

Iranian state media says the counterproposal called for recognition of sovereignty over the blockaded Strait of Hormuz, among other demands. Notably, there is no mention apparently of the nuclear program -- of nuclear weapons, one if not the most important sticking point for President Trump.

Adding to all of this is new comments now from the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said this when asked if the war with Iran was over.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: There is still enrichment sites that have to be dismantled. There is still proxies that Iran supports. Their ballistic missiles that they still want to produce. Now we have degraded a lot of it but all that is still there and there's work to be done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Joining me right now, Democratic Congressman Adam Smith of Washington. He is the top Democrat on the House Armed Services committee. Thanks for being here.

Netanyahu has taken the war and when it will be over in his view, right there, Congressman. He says that it won't be essentially until highly enriched uranium is taken out of Iran and the country's enrichment facilities are dismantled.

What do you make of what is his measure of when this will be over?

REP. ADAM SMITH, (D) WASHINGTON (via Webex by Cisco): Well, I think it puts us in a very dangerous situation, and President Trump has said similar things.

Look, we all know what the goals are. Get rid of the nuclear weapons, stop the ballistic missile program, end Iranian support for terrorist groups, and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Yes, those are the goals. There's no particular path to achieving those goals right now through the military. That's been proven in the over two months that this conflict has been going on.

We can inflict a lot of pain on Iran, degrade their military capability, but they're still standing. And the hardliners are actually stronger now than they were before the war started.

Diplomacy is the only way out of this war. There are dozens of nations that are deeply invested in ending the war and opening the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu have pushed them all away and acted like somehow, we can accomplish these goals on our own. It's becoming increasingly clear that we can't. We're going to have to engage in negotiations.

It also points out why it was so stupid to start this war in the first place. It's actually put Iran in a stronger position, at least for now.

BOLDUAN: And at the very same time the -- we know that the Secretary of Defense is appearing tomorrow on defense appropriations beyond the funding request that they are asking for. The cost of this war, so far, appears to be just oddly unclear and undefined. The official line from the administration so far has been that it has cost $25 billion.

Senator Angus King was on with us, and he said the latest he's seen -- Blumenthal -- still is that it's more like $50 billion so far.

Do you have any clarity as the top Democrat on Armed Services who one would think needs to know this on the cost to taxpayers so far?

SMITH: Yeah. Well, there's three things going on here.

One, this administration is just utterly and completely not transparent. They have not from the very start of this war revealed information to Congress or to the American people on a wide range of issues, which makes it difficult to get after.

We have been asking for this information forever and then at the hearing a couple of weeks ago with Secretary Hegseth, I just asked a simple question. The comptroller happened to be there. I'm like, what the hell? I'll ask him. How much did the war cost, and he said $25 billion.

Now, first of all, that is a wildly lowball figure. But second, he actually gave us an answer. And I wanted to turn to Secretary Hegseth sitting next to him and say, was that so hard, you know, to actually say something? So they've been completely non-transparent.

Second, they lowballed the figures. I mean, that was basically munitions expended and a little bit of the operation and maintenance costs of having troops in the region. It didn't talk about all the equipment we had destroyed during the course of this war. So that's the second thing.

The third thing is the real cost of this war is economic. It's in the cost of gas. It's in the disruptions to the global economy that have been massive certainly for us, but even worse for Asia.

So no, this administration is not being transparent about the cost of the war. Worse, they have no path really to achieve their objectives. So the costs, very, very high.

The benefits -- I mean, President Trump seems to think that the way he can achieve these objectives is just to say we've won. Iran has given up. And somehow, he can speak that into existence. We've got to start dealing with facts instead of the fantasies of President Trump.

BOLDUAN: Speaking of the Secretary of Defense, he indicated overnight that the Pentagon is going to be -- going to start investigating Sen. Mark Kelly again after Sen. Kelly talked about U.S. weapons stockpiles yesterday. Let me play this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): We've been brief by the Pentagon on specific munitions. Actually, it's been pretty detailed on Tomahawks, ATACMS, SM3s, THAAD rounds, Patriot rounds -- so those interceptor rounds to defend ourselves. And the numbers are -- I think it's fair to say it's shocking the -- how deep we have gone into these magazines. The munitions are depleted.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:40:13]

BOLDUAN: And all of this related. But now the Secretary of Defense says that the way -- what he wrote, Congressman, is "Captain Mark Kelly strikes again. Now he's blabbing on TV." And he says, "about a classified Pentagon briefing that he received. Did he violate his oath...again?" And says that the Pentagon will be reviewing.

What's going on here? Do you think Mark Kelly overstepped?

SMITH: Gosh, no. I mean, Secretary Hegseth himself has said that our munitions stocks are low. If that's classified, then it's the worst- kept secret in the world. Everybody knew that heck, even before this war started, we had munitions problems. We've worked with the Secretary of Defense on the issue of how do we build that back up. It's been an issue for a long time.

But I think a bigger issue here is what is Secretary Hegseth doing? We just talked about where this war is at. How we are stuck in a high- cost war that doesn't seem to be achieving its benefits. Instead of dealing with that and instead of coming up with some sort of plan explaining to the American people what's going on and running the Department of Defense, Secretary Hegseth is engaging in a petty battle against a United States senator?

Secretary Hegseth, go do your job, all right? We're doing ours. It's time for you to start paying attention to what's going on and start viewing this -- stop viewing this as a political partisan attack.

He's the Secretary of Defense. He's not running for anything. And yet he acts like a politician running for office instead of somebody running the Department of Defense in the middle of a war. We need leadership, not petty partisan attacks.

BOLDUAN: Congressman, appreciate your time. Thank you for coming in -- John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Congressman Smith was talking about the economic impact of the war. Oil prices on the rise. This is a reaction to the president's response to Iran's latest offer, calling it "totally unacceptable."

With gas prices now over $4.50 a gallon, Energy Secretary Chris Wright floated the possibility of suspending the gas tax. Now that would save about 18 cents a gallon and that's just a fraction of the increase since the beginning of the war. It will be an expensive Memorial Day on the road. AAA estimates 45 million Americans are planning to travel this holiday weekend with a record 39.1 million expected to travel by car. Not many of them up and down the Persian Gulf -- what you're seeing right there -- but mostly in the United States.

CNN's Matt Egan is here with the situation involving oil and gas.

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yeah. Look John, these stalled peace talks not helping the price of crude oil, up another two percent this morning. WTI, the U.S. benchmark, flirting with $100 a barrel once again. And remember the more expensive the crude gets, the more dangerous it is to the world economy, and the more expensive it is for all of us consumers.

Now, the good news, relatively speaking, is the fact that gas prices are down four days in a row -- down fractionally today to $4.52 a gallon. I think the bad news is you kind of need a microscope to see this decline, right? Just down four pennies from the peak last week at $4.56 a gallon and well above that pre-war price of $2.98 a gallon.

And look, this is really painful, especially for lower-income families and for everyone filling up at the gas pump, right? Let's say you have a 14-gallon tank, right, which is kind of the standard in a lot of the sedans and smaller SUVs. Before the war started it was costing around $42.00 to fill up. Now, above $63.00. And if you've got one of those gas-guzzling trucks or SUVs it was costing you around $71.00 to fill up before the war started. Now above $108.

Now, JPMorgan is warning that this could get worse before it gets better. They put out a report the other day where they explicitly said, "The risk of five-dollar gasoline can no longer be dismissed."

Now, here's the problem, jet fuel. Jet fuel has skyrocketed and in some places it has doubled -- in Asia, in Europe. It's gotten so expensive that it has sent this really clear signal to refiners. Refiners are basically being told make as much jet fuel as you can because that's where the profits are. But that means they've got to cut back elsewhere, including diesel and, yes, gasoline.

Gas production, John, is actually lower today than it was a year ago because refiners are -- they're maximizing their jet fuel production, but that's causing less supply of gas.

And as JPMorgan says, you could have a situation where in this next phase of the energy crisis it's not going to be this classic crude spike where crude is -- keeps going higher and energy products like gasoline chase it. You could have a situation where crude kind of stays where it is, but gasoline keeps getting more expensive because there's this supply-demand mismatch.

And as you noted at the top -- I mean, this is all coming, what, less than two weeks before the unofficial start of the summer driving season, right -- Memorial Day weekend. Unless something changes drastically, we're looking at a very expensive kickoff to the summer driving season in just a couple of days. [07:45:08]

BERMAN: Yeah, and the oil prices seem sort of stuck around $100 a barrel. Up and down, up and down, up and down, which means that gas prices probably right around here, you know, for a while --

EGAN: Yeah.

BERMAN: -- at some point, which is expensive.

EGAN: It is.

BERMAN: Matt Egan, thank you --

EGAN: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: -- very much -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Thank you, friends.

Today the man accused of attempting to attack the White House Correspondents' Dinner is expected to be arraigned on federal charges just as his legal team is trying to get two top justice officials removed from the case.

And a high-speed chase involving a U-Haul truck. It ends in a wild crash. We have new details on why police were trying to stop this driver in the first place.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:50:28]

BERMAN: We've got new questions about security at Denver International Airport after a person jumped over a fence and was then hit and killed by a plane taking off. Surveillance footage shows the person walking across the runway before being hit but the Frontier plane Friday night. Pilots quickly aborted takeoff and passengers were evacuated. Twelve people on the plane were hurt.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PILOT: We're stopping on the runway. Ah, there -- we just hit somebody. We have an engine fire. Uh, we have 231 souls on board. We have 21,320 pounds of fuel on board. There was an individual walking across the runway.

AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL: OK. Um, we are rolling the trucks down.

PILOT: We've got, uh, smoke in the aircraft. We're going to evacuate on the runway.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: That is just an incredible thing to hear from a pilot in an airplane.

One passenger told CNN it was like a bomb going off.

The airport says it is now investigating what happened and taking a closer look at the airport's perimeter security, Kate.

BOLDUAN: That is wild to hear that. My goodness.

All right. Hours from now the man accused of attempting to assassinate President Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner -- he's going to be back in court. Thirty-one-year-old Cole Tomas Allen is expected to be arraigned this morning on federal charges.

His legal team is pushing, at the very same time, that the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia and the acting attorney general be removed from the case. They argue -- they're trying to argue that there's a potential conflict of interest here because both of them were at the dinner themselves.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz has much more on this and she's joining us now. What are you hearing about this?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well Kate, it's the fourth time that Cole Allen will be in federal court since that shooting about two weeks ago, but it's an important moment because this is where the case begins to truly move forward against him. He has been indicted and so today in court Cole Allen is set to be arraigned, meaning he will have the opportunity to enter an initial pleading. We presume it will be not guilty. That's what would happen at this stage.

And then the judge will be able to talk to both sides about what the arc of this case is going to look on -- look like from here on out. Timelines, what might be coming down the road. How much the Justice Department still needs to do to investigate where they are on their investigation potentially right now.

But there's another thing hovering over this case. This -- we're not sure if this will be discussed in court. It most likely won't be today. It'll most likely be argued at a different point.

But there is an argument from Cole Allen's attorneys -- his defense team -- that the Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and the U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro -- that they should not have any role in this case. They say in a court filing on Friday that these two top Justice Department officials -- they are both witnesses of that shooting. They were at the dinner in the ballroom. They saw the Secret Service react to what was going on just outside the ballroom.

And also, they're potential victims or targets of Cole Allen. They are the "high-ranking" members of the U.S. government, potentially that he wanted to go after whenever he wrote his manifesto and sent it just before the shooting.

His attorneys have written that -- to the court that these people, Pirro and Blanche, have made statements that they heard the gunshots and that there is a situation that they could be put in approving charges for Cole Allen. And also, looking at any potential plea offers and any possible sentencing recommendations if he were to be convicted.

So all of that -- they say he needs to be -- they both need to be out of the case.

Now, Pirro's office will have a chance to respond in court, and they haven't done so yet. That will probably be upcoming in the coming weeks.

But he is back in court today for the long road to trial -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Really interesting how this could develop.

It's good to see you, Katelyn. Thank you so much for today -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right.

This morning we are learning about a Nepali climber who died yesterday on Mount Everest. The veteran mountaineer had climbed four times -- summited four times and he died while ascending from base camp during preparations to climb the world's highest peak, according to the Everest Chronicle.

But officials do not yet know the cause of his death. This is reportedly the second fatality of Nepal's spring climbing season and a reminder of just how incredibly dangerous Everest is still to this day.

Our next guest experienced and wrote about the extreme dangers of climbing Everest. Thirty years ago a violent storm hit the upper reaches of Everest, killing eight climbers. Jon Krakauer was there on assignment for Outside magazine and he survived, but four of his teammates did not.

[07:55:10]

He wrote about the devasting experience in a number-one best-selling book "Into Thin Air," which has just been rereleased with new information.

Jon Krakauer joins us now. I cannot tell you how many people in this office said, "Is that Jon Krakauer?" Because we all remember. This was sort of a sentinel book about the dangers of climbing Everest, and still to this day the dangers exist.

Is it better? Is it safer now?

JON KRAKAUER, MOUNTAINEER, AUTHOR, "INTO THIN AIR": Well, it's definitely safer. There's a -- there's a whole new -- like, I was the 161st person to climb Mount Everest. Since that climb 30 years ago, 13,000 people have climbed Everest. So this year, right now as we speak, 1,000 people are preparing to go to the summit this year.

And it's still -- statistically, it's much safer. When I climbed it, for every five people who reached the summit, one person died.

SIDNER: Wow.

KRAKAUER: Those aren't great odds. Now for every 173 people who climb there's only one. But it's still incredibly -- there's a -- there's a risk for mass casualties.

Right now, as we speak, there's a huge serac -- a huge tower of ice glacier moves three or four feet a day. As it moves this thing is going to tip over. The route was closed for two weeks --

BOLDUAN: Right.

KRAKAUER: -- because it's so dangerous. They had to open it. There's all this pressure to open it because climbers need to acclimatize. There's only two weeks left of the season. People have paid $100,000 and they want to --

Anyway, this -- that serac is still there. It could -- if people are in the ice fall and everyone has to go through it multiple times -- when that thing falls it could kill a dozen people. It could kill 200 people. In 2014, that happened and it killed -- it hit 26 people and killed 16 Nepalis. So Everest is still really dangerous.

BERMAN: Well -- so first of all, I'm a giant fan. Like, your books have had a profound impact on me. And now it's my 19-year-old children who are reading and it's really fun reading them through their eyes, although I'm not sure they're getting the message I want them to.

But to that end -- seriously, when you wrote this --

KRAKAUER: Uh-huh.

BERMAN: -- about Mount Everest I think you thought that this would discourage people from climbing it and it --

KRAKAUER: I was -- I was certain that -- I have friends who are Everest guides and I was certain they would hate me because this would kill the Everest guiding industry in the crib. It had the opposite effect.

SIDNER: It did.

KRAKAUER: It had the -- it encouraged people to climb. It alerted people you could do it. They'd see people like me and go you -- I saw this. You climb Everest? And you could see the wheels turning. If he climbed Everest, I could climb Everest. So that's -- I mean -- so yeah, it's -- my book accelerated the commercialization and the commodification of Everest.

I have -- I mean, I'm -- yeah, I -- every year at this time -- every year around this time when people are climbing, I get really nervous because, you know, I'm not over it. I still have PTSD. I was badly affected from that.

BOLDUAN: I was reading some of your conversations just in the last days --

KRAKAUER: Yeah.

BOLDUAN: -- about that, and that is really striking, Jon. I mean, 30 years later you're still --

KRAKAUER: Oh, yeah.

BOLDUAN: -- dealing with your post --

KRAKAUER: Well, I feel --

BOLDUAN: -- your post-traumatic stress. And you used to also -- I read that you said you don't even -- you have not found closure.

KRAKAUER: Oh, no. I don't think you ever find closure. I mean, I went -- I -- it was much worse. I wrote a book about Pat Tillman in Afghanistan --

BOLDUAN: Yeah.

KRAKAUER: -- embedded with combat troops. And when I got back, I was hanging out with my friends who are veterans and they -- this was like long after Everest -- 10 years or so. And they told me we have group therapy every Tuesday. You should come. And I was like I don't have PTSD. I'm not like you guys. I never -- you know, I was in Afghanistan, but I wasn't threatened.

They said no, we're not talking about Afghanistan; we're talking about your book. We read your book and we know you are messed up. You've got PTSD. We know it when we see it.

And I resisted for two years and then I said look, quit bugging me. If I come once, will you promise never -- come three times -- I'll come three times if you promise never to mention it again. And they said deal. So I went and I went for the next seven years, and it -- incredible -- it helped me. It was incredible. Group therapy is pretty amazing.

I mean, you know, and these veterans went through much worse than I did and I saw it helped them, and it definitely helped me, and I needed it. I really needed it.

And, you know, right -- they'll tell you too. You just -- PTSD -- like, you don't get over it.

BOLDUAN: Is there one big lesson 30 years later that you have now from all of this?

KRAKAUER: Don't go to Mount Everest.

BERMAN: But that was the lesson 30 years ago and I --

KRAKAUER: I know.

BERMAN: What are people thinking? It's such a story of vanity. KRAKAUER: It's pretty -- I mean, it is. A lot of people just want the trophy on their shelf. But it's also -- it's Mount Everest. It's symbolic. I mean, it's like -- you know, it's like people want to go in space and nowadays you can pay $100,000, a million, whatever it is to get on one of those commercial spaceships and go for 30 seconds.

And Everest still has that draw. It's the highest mountain in the world. People -- you know, a lot of people think that it will transform their life and sometimes it does. It did transform mine and not for the better. So yeah, it's still Mount Everest. It's still --

It's getting more dangerous because of global warming -- this ice fall that I was talking about.