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CNN This Morning

Eagles And Chiefs Set To Battle It Out In New Orleans; Security Tight Around New Orleans Ahead Of Today's Big Game; Fifteen Million Under Winter Alerts Across The Northeast; Judge To Hear Arguments On Trump's Buyout Offer On Monday; Judge Pauses Deadline For Fed Workers To Accept Buyout Offer; Trump Administration Making Massive Cuts To Federal Workforce; NTSB Recovers All Major Wreckage From Deadly D.C. Midair Crash; Five Former Hostages Return To Thailand; Sony Restores PlayStation Network After One Of Its Longest Outages; Names Of 10 Victims In Deadly Alaska Plane Crash Released; White House, Musk Slam Judge's Ruling To Block DOGE's Treasury Access. Aired 6-7a ET

Aired February 09, 2025 - 06:00   ET

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

[06:00:43]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. Good morning. Welcome to CNN THIS MORNING. It's Sunday, February 9th. I'm Victor Blackwell.

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: Good to have you with us. I'm Amara Walker. Thank you for being here. And here is what is happening this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HELENA MORENO, NEW ORLEANS CITY COUNCIL: I have never seen this level of security in the city of New Orleans in all of my years.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: It's Super Bowl Sunday, and security around New Orleans is tight, with one official telling CNN it rivals the inauguration. The plans in place to keep fans safe around the Big Easy.

BLACKWELL: Fifteen million people are under winter weather alerts. Fast moving storms are dumping up to nine inches of snow across the northeast. We've got your forecast just ahead.

WALKER: And we could find out tomorrow whether the Trump administration's buyout deadline will remain paused or be reinstated. What to expect as both sides make their case to the judge.

BLACKWELL: One hundred twenty million people are expected to watch the Super Bowl and, of course, the commercials. An early look at the ads everybody is going to be talking about tomorrow just ahead on CNN THIS MORNING.

Finally, it's time for Super Bowl LIX. We've been running that animation for about 15 days now. Security is tight around Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. Live look this morning at the stadium. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. eastern. Kansas City Chiefs aiming to pull off something that's never been done before, winning three straight Super Bowl championships. Philadelphia Eagles are looking for revenge after losing to Kansas City two years ago.

WALKER: Now, there's always a significant security presence around the Super Bowl, and because President Donald Trump and former first lady Jill Biden are attending, there is added security. Jenn Sullivan reports on the additional precautions security officials are taking.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JENN SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New Orleans is getting ready to host Super Bowl LIX. The Kansas City Chiefs taking on the Philadelphia Eagles. And while crews are putting the finishing touches on the field, law enforcement is taking every precaution on the streets.

SUPERINTENDENT ANNE KIRKPATRICK, NEW ORLEANS POLICE: We are going to have approximately 2,000 law enforcement officers throughout this week.

SULLIVAN (voice-over): With 73,000 fans expected at the game, law enforcement says they'll have eyes in the skies with drones and helicopters, as well as street barricades and even boats in the river to patrol.

MORENO: I have never seen this level of security in the city of New Orleans in all of my years.

SULLIVAN (voice-over): The Super Bowl comes just weeks after New Year's Day celebrations in New Orleans were marred by a deadly terror attack. A man driving his truck into a crowd of people on Bourbon Street before being fatally shot by police. Fourteen people were killed and dozens more injured.

ERIC DELAUNE, HOMELAND SEC. INVESTIGATIONS NEW ORLEANS SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: It was a horrible, reprehensible act.

SULLIVAN (voice-over): Eric DeLaune with the Department of Homeland Security says that attack made them reassess their security plans, including bringing more federal law enforcement into the city. The New Year's Day attack raised questions as to why the city didn't have functional street barricades to protect the crowds celebrating, which is why they're ramping up security even more ahead of the Super Bowl.

JOSH JACKSON, ATF NEW ORLEANS SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE: We also have a national response team that will be on the ready and on standby, ready to respond if anything should happen.

SULLIVAN (voice-over): Adding to the heightened safety concerns, President Donald Trump will be attending the big game, according to the White House. Former first lady Jill Biden also expected to attend.

I'm Jen Sullivan reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALKER: Now, earlier this week, Homeland Security said that they hadn't had any specific, credible threats. All right. A fast-moving storm is crossing the northeast, leaving 15 million people under winter weather alerts.

BLACKWELL: So, it started out as heavy snow, then changed to sleet and snow and freezing rain in New York. The storm has left slippery and dangerous road conditions across the region. It's also impacting flights across the country. About 300 flights across the U.S. have been delayed. Today, more than 360 have been canceled.

CNN's Allison Chinchar joins us now. So, who's getting it the worst now?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: So, right now, we still have it lingering across New England to Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and even portions of upstate New York. And I want to emphasize, none of these individual storms are blockbusters by any means.

BLACKWELL: OK.

CHINCHAR: The big issue here is that the cumulative effect, because there's going to be one storm after another after another. You're looking at about five storms in seven days, with not much of a break in between. And so that's where the concern really comes in from.

[06:05:01]

So, we take a look at -- well, a live look right now in New York. And you can see some of the snow kind of piled up there along some of the sidewalks and the side streets there. Nothing major here in the city of New York, but elsewhere they've actually had some pretty decent totals.

You take a look at some of the surrounding states here. Even in Michigan, picking up over eight inches of snow. Now, we mentioned it's not quite done in some of those areas. So, we could see some of those numbers tick back up.

Ice which was also a big concern, especially across portions of southern and western Pennsylvania. Look at some of these numbers. A couple of spots that have picked up at least a quarter of an inch. One getting awfully close to half an inch of ice. This is concerning not only for the glaze that it would put on the roads, but also triggering some power outages and perhaps stringing some trees down as well.

Here's a look at what's left. Again, there's not much, but you can see it's still impacting portions of upstate New York, areas of Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and even portions of Massachusetts. Once the rest of that system finally gets through later on this morning, we'll get a little bit of a break.

So, you still have all of these watches and warnings in effect. Most of them will drop off here in about an hour or so as that final wave begins to push back out. But then we mentioned and you've got even more snow on the way. So, here's a look, at least in the next 24 hours, some of these areas could pick up an extra inch or two on top of what they've already had.

Then comes all of the other systems. So, we take a look going into next week. By Tuesday and Wednesday, you have the next system. Starts off across portions of the lower Mississippi Valley, sliding over the Ohio Valley and then back into the mid-Atlantic and into the northeast.

Right on its heels, you've got the next system. That's going to push into the Midwest first before sliding across the Great Lakes and spreading into the northeast. Again, bringing some more snow.

And then the next system begins to arrive as we head into the weekend, especially into the weekend. So again, as we mentioned, it's really just the back-to-back nature of all of these systems that is the biggest concern.

WALKER: Allison, thank you very much. Well, a federal judge has set a hearing tomorrow afternoon on the buyout offered to federal employees by the Trump administration. Before the judge's ruling, eligible federal workers had until midnight on Thursday to decide whether or not to take the offer, which will generally allow them to leave their jobs but be paid through the end of September.

Two million employees received that offer, and a White House official says about 65,000 have accepted. That's about three percent.

Joining me now is former Manhattan prosecutor Jeremy Saland. Jeremy, good to see you this morning. So, talk to me about this judge pausing this buyout offer deadline extending it to Monday. What's behind it? Obviously, there's questions clearly about its legality.

JEREMY SALAND, FORMER MANHATTAN PROSECUTOR: Right. So, multiple unions I think maybe three or four of them said, hey, before you go forward, I don't think you can do it. Setting aside what the uncertainty that it creates and the issues that it sort of arbitrarily done, it could run afoul of what's called the Administrative Procedure Act, which sets forth the way these things can happen.

So, they're saying, you can't do that. For example, how was the federal government that only gets funding through March or through March 14th, I believe, going to guarantee payments, for example, way out in September when that has yet to be approved?

So, Trump administration, you cannot do this and put these people in jeopardy. And who's going to come in and take care of things, social security checks, national security? How are we going to implement and do the job that we're supposed to do?

WALKER: So, what do you expect then to happen tomorrow?

SALAND: You know, always expecting and understanding what the federal courts will do is difficult. But I would not expect that all of a sudden that the judge is going to say, you have adhered with this policy and this rule that I just mentioned before, that you can do what you want, Trump administration. Sixty plus thousand people and arguably more because it extended that period of time, can now resign.

And keep in mind there's a new oath or requirement of reliability and loyalty that they have to accept. There could be future furloughs. There could be future firing as the government tries to shrink its structure and what it has in place now under Trump's policy. So, I would expect that it's not going to go forward.

But, you know, listen, a lot of different things happen. And we've seen Trump try and try again to implement, for example, an E.O. on the 14th Amendment. So, he has been struck down or paused. And I would expect this to remain paused.

WALKER: We were mentioning earlier, Jeremy, that about three percent of the federal employees took this buyout. What is your advice to the others who may be contemplating doing the same? And would you tell them to accept the package or stay put and hope the legal process plays out in their favor?

SALAND: You know, it's a frightening proposition. I would imagine a lot of people, especially those who voted for Trump and sort of on the Super Bowl team, are playing a little Monday morning quarterback because no one expected that the magnitude or the shrinkage, if you will, and so aggressively mandated or attempted would happen.

This fork in the road policy that Elon Musk did with Twitter back when he had it initially as Twitter before it was X, was really not something that was expected. So, I -- you know, would I tell him to leave or would I tell him to stay? I don't want to be the bearer of that news one way or another, but it's a hard thing to take and a hard step to make to lose that job now or even accept that package.

[06:10:03]

You may not have that job down the road, but I think the courts will say this is not the way to do it.

WALKER: OK. And you were mentioning this just a moment ago about the implications for those who remain and, you know, new performance standards that they might be held to. Talk to me more about that.

SALAND: Yes. So, as part of this email, they were told that there would be new performance standards. There would be -- there would be a loyalty -- you have to say that you're loyal.

Now, I don't know if that's loyal to Donald Trump or loyal to the constitution, which these federal employees are taking an oath to uphold in their respective roles. So, I don't know about what they will do about that.

So, there's a lot of uncertainty what this is going to mean. And it's not laid out completely in full. You would like to think they're going to keep on doing whatever they're doing before, but you don't know if they're going to move to another position, taking a whole new responsibility. The big question and concern, I think, is out there is how are these jobs going to be done? You can't just take a vacuum, get rid of all these people and expect Social Security to get paid. Does it get privatized? Again, national security. There are so many things at play here.

WALKER: Yes. How does government function with all these layoffs? Quickly, I mean, it doesn't seem like there really is any -- has been any consideration for the law, especially when it comes to Trump's end game.

I mean, what do you think his end game is? Is it partially what we're seeing now with Trump and Musk having instilled so much chaos and confusion as they barrel ahead with these -- with gutting these federal agencies?

SALAND: You know, it's interesting, one of the things that they're arguing, the Department of Justice that this should go forward is if we now take it back, it creates so much uncertainty. That's one of the things that the lawyer said.

Uncertainty is what Donald Trump is thriving on. And I think part of this is a win no matter what. Whether or not the courts say you can or you can't do this, Trump is creating that chaos. Trump is sending that alarm, arguably telling some of these employees, you really -- you're lazy. We don't want you. We don't need you.

He's indirectly getting the results he wants, telling people to leave and putting everyone on notice within government whether he can or he can't he's going to make the effort to do what he wants to do, and that's a really significant and serious message and a frightening one for many.

WALKER: It sure is. Jeremy Saland, appreciate your time. Thank you.

BLACKWELL: There are new details this morning in that deadly passenger jet crash in Alaska. What we've heard from the NTSB about the investigation. Also, New York state has temporarily shut down all live bird markets in New York and several surrounding counties after case of bird flu was detected. What the health department is urging people to do to keep from getting sick.

And more than 120 million people expected to watch the Super Bowl and the Super Bowl ads tonight. The potential standouts and the messages that advertisers are sending this year.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:17:24]

BLACKWELL: Investigators have recovered all major wreckage from last month's midair collision between an American Airlines plane and that military Black Hawk helicopter. The debris from the January 29th collision over the Potomac River in D.C. has been moved to a secured facility for a detailed examination to determine what caused the crash. That accident killed 67 people, making it one of the deadliest aviation disasters in recent history.

Five former hostages from Thailand were released last week. They're now back in their home country. Hamas abducted the men during the October 7th attacks. Thailand's labor minister says that around 5,000 Thais were working in the area when Hamas attacked. Human Rights Watch says that Thailand has dominated the foreign migrant worker market in Israel for the past decade.

And after more than 24 hours of disruption, Sony says its PlayStation network is back online. The company announced on X just after midnight that services had fully recovered from an operational issue. It was one of the platform's longest outages. An estimated 116 million monthly users were affected, and Sony is offering all PlayStation plus members an extra five days of service for that inconvenience.

WALKER: This morning, new details are emerging about the victims of a deadly plane crash in Alaska. The small commuter aircraft, carrying nine passengers and one pilot vanished shortly after taking off from Unalakleet on Thursday. The wreckage was discovered Friday about 34 miles southeast of Nome, the flight's intended destination. CNN's Julia Vargas Jones has more.

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We're now entering day three of recovery operations on this crash, Victor and Amara. And the fact that it happened in Alaska in winter is definitely not helping. This was a small commuter plane traveling from Unalakleet to Nome on Thursday afternoon, but it never made it to where it was supposed to land on Friday afternoon.

A crew finally found the aircraft with the 10 passengers, nine passengers and one pilot. Ten victims, all dead. And we are learning now some of the identities of these victims, among them Rhone Baumgartner, a utility operations technician, and Kameron Hartvigson, a utility operations specialist. Both of them with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

They said that they gave the ultimate sacrifice for the people that they were serving in that community. They were on their way to Nome to help fix and maintain some of the water plants that this community badly needed. We also heard from the National Transportation Safety Board on Saturday.

[06:20:02]

They said that the recovery of the bodies of these victims has been made more difficult due to inclement weather.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENNIFER HOMENDY, CHAIRMAN, NTSB: We do have a short window where we have weather -- bad weather coming in, some snow. And please understand that some difficult conditions, because this is on an ice floe which is moving about five miles a day.

(END VIDEO CLIP) JONES: A winter weather advisory will be in place in Nome and other parts of northwest Alaska until 9 p.m. on Sunday, making those efforts more difficult. But so far, the coast guard has recovered three of those victims from inside that plane. Seven others remain in there.

They say that it could be days before they finish this part, and then they go into the investigation with the NTSB saying it's still too soon to tell why is it that that plane lost contact with the tower and eventually crashed. Victor. Amara.

WALKER: All right. Julia, thank you. Still to come, a judge has blocked DOGE from accessing treasury systems. But how will that actually work if DOGE team members are working with the federal government? We will discuss next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:25:36]

BLACKWELL: The White House slammed a federal judge after he blocked DOGE from accessing the Treasury Department's payment system. In a statement, a White House spokesperson called the lawsuit akin to children throwing pasta at a wall. Also called it judicial overreach.

Elon Musk also responded. He said his team and the treasury agreed to certain terms and certain -- changes, rather, are being implemented by long-time government employees. A hearing is set for February 14th.

Chicago Sun-Times' Washington bureau chief Lynn Sweet is with us now. Lynn, good morning to you.

So, the judge here not only stopped access to the sensitive information, but also ordered the destruction of any information that was already downloaded. The opacity is so high on what DOGE does. Is it the honor system?

I mean, how will anybody even know, because they don't know what they're doing, what has been harvested, what has been destroyed?

LYNN SWEET, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, CHICAGO SUN-TIMES: Well, good morning. Thanks for having me.

Here are the questions that you raised and the answers are that this is cutting us to a very dangerous intersection. This isn't about government efficiency, per se. This isn't about shrinking the federal workforce because you are endangering the payment system when you do not go very cautiously to treasury and look at what you're doing in an orderly way.

So, in case people don't know, Victor, this is the system that pays Social Security. Social Security payments go to everybody, no matter your ideology, no matter if you're MAGA, no matter if you're liberal. I think people want to know all over our nation that they don't have to worry about anything. And why wouldn't you worry?

Let's use common sense. When everything goes through, basically, one person, Elon Musk, and there are no safeguards, there's no one else with any oversight, and this is done with great haste you don't have the peace of mind of knowing that things will come, right?

And by the way, this lawsuit and the order is only temporary. There's a hearing coming up on the next stage, February 14th.

BLACKWELL: Yes. And as you said, this is an intersection that will hit several times as DOGE goes from department to department.

SWEET: Yes.

BLACKWELL: Let's talk now about the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau order to stop work there. Now, the new head of the office of management and budget is the acting director of that office. Republicans have long wanted to defund this office. Senator Ted Cruz filed a bill two weeks ago to defund the CFPB.

How is this going to be sold to the American people? Because over the first week or so of DOGE, you know, announcing how much money USAID spent on an Iranian children's program is one thing, despite how much that is really of the budget, but shutting down something that was created after the Great Recession to protect people from the abuses and recklessness that lost so many people so much money, theoretically, that's a different sale.

How do they do it? Is that a concern at all?

SWEET: Well, they do it when the Republican members of Congress don't say anything or do anything to exert oversight. One set of people cannot wipe out, in a sense, by firing people and stopping the funding of an agency created by Congress. There's a fair and legal way to do things.

So, this is the agency -- you know, the brainchild of this was Senator Elizabeth Warren when she was an academic. And this is the watchdog for the financial industry at the -- during the Biden era, one of the big things they were going after are junk fees that -- again, these are fees that people pay, that no matter your political leanings, Victor, this is a consumer-oriented initiative that was taken on junk fees that, you know, the financial institutions didn't like.

But unlike the treasury, where you might be messing with Social Security payments, I don't think the work of this entity is as well known. And so, you might not have people rise up and care about it.

[06:30:00]

But I do want to emphasize that what we are watching here is whether or not Congress does anything to react to how something is being dismantled that was created by Congress.

BLACKWELL: Yes, let's look ahead to the week in Congress. The Speaker says that Tuesday, I believe, that they're going to start markup on the budget. And, you know, if it includes the cuts that the President wants, a nonpartisan think tank, their analysis shows that it could, I guess, cost revenues or lower revenues over 10 years between $5 to $11 trillion.

Here's another thing the President wants. Let's play it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: Why don't we just balance the budget? Why don't we cut certain things and balance the budget? Don't touch Social Security. Don't touch Medicare, Medicaid. Just leave them alone.

Now, there are people that are illegally in there, because we have a lot of illegal immigrants that have found their way in. And we just can't do that. We just can't do it. But just let's see if we can balance the budget. And they started and they started screaming and shouting.

And within about an hour, it was amazing what they -- they found, $750 billion in the Green News scam.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: That's what he calls the Green New Deal, which is not federal law. So, let's put that to one side.

SWEET: Yes.

BLACKWELL: But they probably were screaming and shouting if they were. Has the definition of balanced budget changed, Lynn? Because I don't know how you do that with the cuts that are coming to revenue and with the President's demanding about a balanced budget.

SWEET: Well, also, since President Trump has been president before, let's see what he did. He did not have a balanced budget the first time out. So federal government is designed to allow a non-balanced budget. Some states, by law, you have to have a balanced budget.

And the idea that some so-called cuts that have not been locked in law could somehow be used to fund anything, I think this budget cycle, Victor, is just going to be fairly meaningless in the long run. Trump wants one, quote, one big, beautiful bill to go through the House and Senate. So -- so even among Republicans, there's differences.

But here's what I wonder what the Republicans will do --

BLACKWELL: Yes.

SWEET: -- if they let Congress write the budget and approach as they're supposed to or just be dictated to by President Trump.

BLACKWELL: We'll see. All right, Lynn Sweet. Good to see you. Thanks so much.

SWEET: Good to see you.

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Still to come, what the state health department is urging people in New York to do after multiple cases of bird flu were detected in the city and in nearby counties.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:37:29]

WALKER: Several live bird markets across the state of New York are temporarily closed. The order from Governor Kathy Hochul came after inspectors discovered seven cases of bird flu last week. Hochul says markets in New York City and Westchester, Nassau, and Suffolk counties must close through February 14th.

BLACKWELL: The Governor says it's a proactive move to safeguard public health. She says there's no immediate public health threat.

CNN's national correspondent Gloria Pazmino has more for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Victor, Amara, the governor's order requires a poultry markets like the one you see here behind me to shut down for several days after seven positive cases of bird flu were detected across the state of New York.

Now the cases were found in live poultry markets in Queens, in the Bronx, and in Brooklyn. The place behind me is not one of the places that was detected to have had this bird flu but we spoke with the staff inside who told us that they are working through their inventory and then they will be shutting down. That's exactly what the order directs the markets to do.

This is going to affect about 80 live poultry markets around the area who will have to shut down, clean up, disinfect, pass an inspection before they can reopen on February 14th. The governor cautioning that while there is no threat to the public health at this stage, the state is taking this as a precautionary measure to prevent the spread.

Take a listen.

GOV KATHY HOCHUL (D-NY): For a week-long period, no poultry can be delivered to those live bird markets. Each uninfected market must sell down all inventory, undergo thorough cleaning and disinfection, and then remain closed for at least five days.

Each must then be inspected by our state Ag and markets before they can reopen.

PAZMINO: And while there's no public threat to the public health at this stage, the number of virus infections have been increasing in recent months. Hundred thirty cases have been reported so far and 67 cases have been reported in people.

One person died as a result of the virus last year, although we should note that nearly everyone who became infected with the virus had been in close contact with an infected animal.

Victor, Amara. (END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: Gloria, thank you.

So, the bird flu outbreak is responsible for the rise in egg prices. Experts expect that the cost could increase about 20 percent this year.

[06:40:00]

WALKER: According to the Bureau of Labor statistics, the average price of a dozen large grade A eggs was $4.15 in December, up from $3.65 in November.

CNN's Nick Watt has more on the impact to consumers and farmers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FRANK HILLIKER, OWNER, HILLIKER FARMS: You can have two.

NICK WATT, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): Frank Hilliker is rationing his eggs. The line forms around 7:00 a.m.

WATT: How many eggs do you eat?

EMILIA SOUTHWARD, SHOPPER AT HILLIKER FARMS: Myself, probably three a day.

WATT: What?

SOUTHWARD: Yes.

WATT: That's a lot, no?

SOUTHWARD: That's a normal amount.

HILLIKER: Two dozen?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.

WATT (voice-over): The average American eats about 284 eggs a year. Well, they used to.

WATT: You're consciously dialing back on the eggs?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, for sure, yes.

WATT: Because of the price?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right.

WATT (voice-over): President Donald Trump claims the high price of eggs helped him win the White House.

TRUMP: They would double and triple the price over a short period of time, and I won an election based on that. WATT (voice-over): He made wild promises.

TRUMP: We're going to bring prices way down, and we're going to get it done fast.

WATT (voice-over): And he got egged in the first White House briefing.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Egg prices have skyrocketed since President Trump took office.

WATT (voice-over): Democratic lawmakers urged him in a letter to crack down on corporate profiteering.

HILLIKER: They put price controls on things, but now all of a sudden were Cuba or Venezuela. You know, who wants to be like that?

WATT (voice-over): Waffle House just introduced a temporary $0.50 egg surcharge. And Roberto's Tacos, around the corner from Frank's Farm, is charging customers an extra buck-fifty for all eggy dishes.

WATT: Who are they blaming?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, they take it out on me.

WATT: It smells rather noticeable.

HILLIKER: What smell?

WATT: Do you eat a lot of them?

HILLIKER: No. They're too expensive. It's gone from $2, $3 a dozen to $9 a dozen.

WATT: That's massive.

HILLIKER: It is. It's crazy.

WATT (voice-over): And predicted by the USDA to climb even higher.

HILLIKER: Current egg shortage is because of the bird flu.

WATT: It is, purely.

HILLIKER: Because of the bird flu.

WATT (voice-over): The only way to stop the spread is to cull millions of infected birds. So, slashing egg supply.

HILLIKER: These astronomical prices are all due on supply and demand. Economics 101, there's nothing Biden could have done to stop the bird flu. Look, there's nothing President Trump could have done to stop the bird flu. It's neither of their faults.

WATT: You literally have all your eggs in the one basket.

HILLIKER: Yes, I do. Got to be careful with that. WATT: There are so many other bad egg word plays that we could use. But.

HILLIKER: Exactly.

WATT: Nick Watt, CNN, Lakeside, California.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALKER: Clever.

BLACKWELL: Hey, if you're planning a vacation, Kim Jong-un wants tourists to visit North Korea. Of course, there's risk involved.

We'll talk about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:47:38]

BLACKWELL: If you're planning a vacation, Kim Jong-un hopes you might consider North Korea. He started out efforts to transform a remote town near the border of Russia and China to a must-see vacation destination.

WALKER: CNN's senior international correspondent, Will Ripley, takes a look at the secretive country's tourism plans.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Even by North Korean standards, Rason is not exactly a tourism hotspot. A remote economic zone closer to China and Russia than the capital Pyongyang.

Rason is known for its shoe factory and banking system. There's also a textile factory and sea cucumber breeding farm. A typical workday includes outdoor exercise, weather permitting. In almost any other place, tourists probably wouldn't be lining up for the chance to open a bank account.

But this is North Korea. The secret state has chosen Rason as its first post-pandemic destination for Western tourists, allegedly.

SIMON COCKERELL, GM, KORYO TOURS: Will it happen next week? Entirely possible. But will it be delayed? Entirely possible.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Longtime tour operator Simon Cockerell knows there are no guarantees when it comes to North Korea.

Simon's made nearly 200 trips. He says traveling there is not for everyone.

COCKERELL: You're choosing a highly restrictive time in a very complicated country on a trip that your family will be worried about. RIPLEY (voice-over): And some say for good reason. American college student Otto Warmbier was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, accused of stealing a propaganda poster from his Pyongyang hotel. After 17 months in detention, he returned home in a persistent vegetative state and died days later.

The State Department has banned U.S. tourists from visiting North Korea ever since.

RIPLEY: What's the number one thing you tell people not to do when they visit North Korea?

COCKERELL: Don't proselytize religiously. It's illegal. Don't break any law, regardless of whether you agree with it or not. Simple as that.

RIPLEY (voice-over): Not as simple, for some anyway. The question, should tourists go?

RIPLEY: What do you say to critics who argue people's money is basically supporting a regime and its illegal nuclear program?

COCKERELL: It's not really supporting any of those things because the state of North Korea does not stand or fall on tourism revenue. If it did, it would no longer exist.

[06:50:06]

RIPLEY (voice-over): For the past year, North Korea has only allowed Russian tourists to visit. Soon, maybe, a handful of visitors from the West, arriving just in time for one of North Korea's biggest holidays, the late Kim Jong Il's birthday.

RIPLEY: For now, only a handful of Western tourists are expected to be allowed back in if this happens. And we don't know if this is the beginning of a wider reopening, or perhaps just an extremely limited test run, thus putting them in such an isolated city.

But one thing that we are noticing is that Chinese tourists have yet to return, which is interesting because you have a lot of Russian visitors, but no Chinese tourists back yet since the pandemic. Some say that may be a sign of Beijing's growing displeasure with Pyongyang's deepening ties with Moscow.

Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALKER: That's fascinating. I would be open to considering to going as a tourist to North Korea, only because my family, my father and my mother, my maternal grandmother are from North Korea. So, I would like to see the country. But you also have to think about the rights you would have to give up. I mean, you would probably have minders wherever you go. They'll be watching you, they'll be listening in. So, and of course, the safety thing.

BLACKWELL: You know what he says, don't break any laws, even if you don't agree with them.

WALKER: Agree with them

BLACKWELL: My question would be, well, what are the laws?

WALKER: Yes. Yes --

BLACKWELL: There might be some things --

WALKER: -- I would take the listen (INAUDIBLE) --

BLACKWELL: -- I'm doing that I don't know? So, I didn't know that was illegal.

WALKER: Yes. Yes. No praying in public. I don't know. Interesting stuff.

Well, companies spend millions of dollars promoting their products during the Super Bowl. And while those Super Bowl commercials are catchy, are they effective?

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:56:10]

BLACKWELL: Tonight, more than 100 million people will watch the Kansas City Chiefs battle the Philadelphia Eagles in the Super Bowl. And when the players take a break, that's really when a lot of people come in and watch the game. I'm not saying --

WALKER: Including (INAUDIBLE) --

BLACKWELL: -- right, I'm going to say who it is. Fifty commercials, brand new, are lined up for competing for your attention this year.

WALKER: At least 10 of the brands are spending more than $8 million just to get exposure during the big event. And while some newbies are joining the bunch, there are some familiar faces.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Still too little, buddy. Still too little, buddy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: We are joined now by Paul Hardart. He is a professor of marketing at NYU Stern School of Business.

And that Budweiser Clydesdales ad is likely one of the most recognizable Super Bowl ad themes over the years. We were just talking about it during the break that those are the -- that's one of the ads that we really remember.

Does Budweiser really have to advertise? I mean, everybody knows the Clydesdales.

PAUL HARDART, CLINICAL PROFESSOR OF MARKETING, NYU STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: Absolutely. Well, this is the 50th year that they've used the Clydesdales. So, I think there's a bit of sort of nostalgia and comfort and reminds people, right? People have a lot of choice when they can choose to drink a beer of any kind.

And so, this is just sort of a fun way. You know, it ends with sort of a -- it's sweet. But then at the end, they have the story of a guy telling a joke about a horse going into a bar. So, I think it just gets people talking about the brand. They're watching football. So, it's sort of on target.

And if you're thinking about Super Bowl football snacks, you're probably also thinking about beer. And so, I think it gives you a good connection and affinity to the brand of Budweiser.

BLACKWELL: And I also think if the game ends and we don't see a Clydesdale, we'll say.

WALKER: What happened?

BLACKWELL: They didn't have the Clydesdales this year.

WALKER: That's right.

BLACKWELL: Right. You kind of miss it if they're not there.

HARDART: Where was my Clydesdale?

BLACKWELL: Right, where was the Clydesdale this year? Let's take a look at a Hellmann's ad.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There we go.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my gosh. Oh boy.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So good. So --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This one's real.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: This one's real. OK, so obviously --

WALKER: I'm a little early for this.

BLACKWELL: -- Harry Met Sally play here with Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal. Do celebrity appearances and especially that nostalgia feeling, do they pay off for these brands?

HARDART: I think it can. I think sometimes it can seem gimmicky. I think in this case, I like this ad. I think it first of all, you remember what it's for, right? So, she the sandwich is bland and then it becomes sensational because she put Hellmann's on it.

And, you know, that's an old movie. So, I think it also leads to a bit of stickiness where there might be a subsequent conversation about why what's going on in that ad. And then at the end they have Sydney Sweeney, which sort of brings in sort of different demographics to that ad. It was Rob Reiner's mother in the original movie saying that line about I'll have what she's having.

And then lastly, I think unintentionally, you know, Billy Crystal suffered during the L.A. fires. And I think there's a little, you know, underlying hint of resilience and support.

So, I think it's a really good ad for the Hellmann's brand. And I think you remember the brand in this case. So, I think I think it's a very effective use of celebrity IP and nostalgia.

WALKER: Quickly, the NFL also got in on the action with its own spot, promoting players with New Orleans children.

Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Repeat after me.

[07:00:00]

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS (in unison): Yes sir.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS (in unison): I am.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS (in unison): Somebody.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I may be young.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS (in unison): I may be young.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: But I am.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS (in unison): But I am.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKERS (in unison): Somebody.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALKER: So how do you think this ad will play given the controversy over the NFL ditching the end racism message and going with choose love this year?

HARDART: I think it'll play really well. I think it's -- I think it's sweet. I think we can all relate to kids wanting to sort of figure out what their identity is and if they take up space in the world.

And you notice it's not -- it's more about sort of, people trying to live their best lives. And I think the NFL has become such a part of our culture. Obviously, we'll see this during the -- during the Super Bowl. The NFL is trying to expand its audience. Things like CTE. You know fewer and fewer people are playing football as young kids.

So, there's going to be football, flag football in the Olympics in the L.A. Olympics. So, I think this is all kind of on brand and feeling good and a really good time for the culture. I think -- I think it's good ad.

WALKER: Paul Hardart, thank you very much.

And the next hour of "CNN This Morning," starts right now.