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CNN This Morning
18 Passengers Monitored for Hantavirus in U.S.; Supreme Court Clears Path for Alabama to Draw New House Maps; Growing Calls to #BoycottSEC Over Southern Redistricting. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired May 12, 2026 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[06:00:00]
BRAD SMITH, CNN ANCHOR: That does it for CNN Headline Express. I'm Brad Smith. CNN This Morning with Audie Cornish starts right now.
AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Today in the Group Chat, RFK Jr. He says we have Hantavirus under control. But could all of the cuts at key health agencies leave Americans vulnerable?
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We can't have a safe USA with a weak CDC.
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CORNISH: President Trump leaves for China today. Could his meeting with Xi Jinping set off a crisis with Taiwan?
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nothing ever plays out exactly in politics as we think it does.
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CORNISH: So, the Supreme Court lets the Alabama GOP erase black house districts just days before a primary. Could too many redistricting moves backfire on Republicans? And the price tag of Trump's repairs on the reflecting pool balloons by millions. As a real estate developer, shouldn't he know better? And this just in, a CNN poll finds a majority of Republicans now disapprove of Trump's handling of gas prices. So, how long will the GOP continue to support his war?
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't even know how I'm going to pay for my next gallon of gas, man.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me be crystal clear. The risk of Hantavirus to the general public remains very, very low. The Andes variant of this virus does not spread easily, and it requires prolonged close contact with someone who is already symptomatic.
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CORNISH: OK. So, far, 16 passengers from a cruise ship at the center of the Hantavirus outbreak quarantined in Nebraska, two more in Atlanta. And this morning, just one American has tested positive.
So, good morning to all of you. I'm Audie Cornish. I want to start here with the health officials who say there is a low risk to the public, but that hasn't erased the anxiety just a few years after COVID.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're treating some people in Atlanta. I could have sworn we have the best intensive care on Mars. They can't go to Mars real fast. I'm just a little irritated. Like somebody in the comments was like, I could have sworn we had hospitals in Antarctica.
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CORNISH: All right. Joining me now is Dr. Amesh Adalja, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. We want to get to the thought we just heard there from one of the viewers, and I'll play for you the director of Nebraska in their biocontainment unit. He spoke to our Jake Tapper, and here's what he said about where these passengers are now.
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DR. ANGELA HEWLETT, DIRECTOR, NEBRASKA BIOCONTAINMENT UNIT: Main one being is that we have the capability of caring for patients, you know, close by, right across the street and providing that spectrum of care should the individual become ill. We also do have testing capability here on our campus, which is unusual. And so, that's another asset that would, you know, we would highly encourage individuals to stay here for a prolonged period of time because of those two options that really can't be offered in the majority of other places.
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CORNISH: I wanted to ask you about this, encouraging patients to stay quarantined, but not mandating. Why is that?
DR. AMESH ADALJA, SENIOR SCHOLAR, JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR HEALTH SECURITY: Because when you're talking about public health interventions, you want to use the least restrictive policy possible. You want to be as voluntary as possible, and there are options with home monitoring. We know that there are some Americans that disembarked earlier that are being home monitored in various states, and we did that after Ebola with some of the returning health care workers. So, that is a feasible option as well.
So, I think that there is some flexibility here, and if you have a proper local public health authority that can quickly link people to testing and treatment if they get ill, I think that that is an option. Nebraska is state of the art. It is one of the -- it's the pinnacle basically in terms of biocontainment units and that whole apparatus in the world. So, that is also a very easy and convenient way because they can do testing rapidly. They've got biocontainment units with top-notch infectious disease and critical care doctors, many of whom I know. So, that is also an option. So, I think there's -- you can kind of go either pathway, and I think both are safe and reasonable.
CORNISH: So, I want you to help me understand the point of view of the passengers who right now are being monitored in case they are symptomatic. Here is the WHO's director-general saying he does expect there to be more cases. Take a listen.
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DR. TEDROS ADHANOM GHEBREYESUS, DIRECTOR-GENERAL, WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION: As you know, the incubation for Hantavirus or Andes virus ranges six to eight weeks. So, we expect more cases to come actually, but I hope they will be as small as possible. We already have one confirmed, you know, the passenger from France. And I expect actually more because of the long incubation period.
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CORNISH: Do you agree with that? And help me understand that in the context of people being home for a long time, right? In close quarters maybe with their family or whoever for this long incubation period.
DR. ADALJA: So, first, I do definitely agree with Dr. Tedros that there are going to be more cases. We should expect them. We should not be surprised when they occur because that's just the nature of what happened on that ship that there are some people that had close contact with the index case, the first case, and others that might have been infected. So, we should expect that number, I think it's 11 right now, to go up.
Number two is when people do home monitoring, they're not going to be cleared for home monitoring unless they can isolate in a separate part of their dwelling, meaning that they're not mixing so much with their family members. So, it's not something that everybody just reflexively will do. There's going to be an evaluation. Do they have the appropriate way to isolate in their home or their apartment or wherever it may be? Do they have a local public health authority that's going to be able to check on them?
And number three, are they close enough to a hospital with advanced intensive care units to be able to take care of them if they do become ill? So, all of those criteria sort of have to be met before someone is going to get home monitoring.
CORNISH: All right. In the meantime, we know there are these facilities in Nebraska, also Atlanta. Dr. Amesh Adalja, thank you so much for your knowledge. Appreciate it. And coming up on CNN This Morning, a last-minute legal win rewrites Alabama's voting map. Group Chat is here to discuss if this redistricting fight will come back to haunt Republicans.
Plus, how a Supreme Court ruling impacts access to the abortion pill Mifepristone. And a president -- and President Trump offers up his honest opinion about the White House when he moved in.
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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I was told by my wife, you have to act presidential, so don't use foul language.
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CORNISH: Yet another state, this time Alabama, now poised to redraw its congressional maps after an order by the Supreme Court clears the way for the state to vote on those new maps. So, the Supreme Court decision will allow state lawmakers in Alabama to essentially erase a majority-minority district, and it puts another House congressional seat firmly in Republican control.
Now, this move tilts the redistricting push even further in favor of Republicans. Is there a chance, however, that this could backfire?
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KARL ROVE, FORMER WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: In the South where you take these large black-dominated cities like New Orleans or rural areas like in South Carolina that are dominated by blacks and who are traditionally Democrat voters and split them up into several different Republican districts and make things more problematic in a swing year. You know, nothing ever plays out exactly in politics as we think it does.
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CORNISH: Joining me now in the Group Chat, Aaron Blake, CNN senior reporter, Chuck Roach, a Democratic strategist and former senior adviser to the Bernie Sanders presidential campaigns, and Ashley Davis, former White House official during the George W. Bush administration.
We're going to come to you, Chuck, because I know this is the only thing that is in your Group Chat. However, you have been writing about this, and I want to come to you, because that was Karl Rove saying things don't always work out the way you think, and I have to admit, Republicans are feeling good now, right? The Supreme Court has told them, listen, partisan redistricting is fine, and they're jumping in on it, like left and right.
AARON BLAKE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Yes, what's really interesting here is after the Supreme Court's decision, that one pertains specifically to Louisiana. It kind of left in limbo what would happen in some of these other Southern states. So, I see this move by the Supreme Court as kind of blessing these other states to do what Louisiana wanted --
CORNISH: So, do they.
BLAKE: -- carve up these African-American districts, these majority black districts, and that really opens things up for Republicans to take apart these districts. And I think what's interesting here is, you know, obviously this is a big initiative of President Trump. He wants to do this to help them hold the House in the 2026 midterms. His popularity is low enough that it's probably not going to save the House, at least as things look right now.
CORNISH: Really? Because it's -- I mean, it's moving.
BLAKE: It's going to help them. It's going to make it harder for Democrats to do that. It's going to be, you know, they have to win 12 or 15 seats instead of winning three seats. I think more this probably helps them in future elections though, because there's going to be so many more slightly Republican-leaning districts that might not go Republican in this election, but could in future.
CORNISH: I don't think there'll be that many slightly. Let me play for you one thing, the Alabama attorney general, Steve Marshall, in a social media post, you know, cheering himself on. Here you go.
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STEVE MARSHALL (R), ALABAMA ATTORNEY GENERAL: For too long, unelected federal judges have had more say over Alabama's elections than Alabama's voters. That ended today. My job in this office was to put the legislature in the best possible legal position to draw a congressional map that favors Republicans 7 to 0.
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CORNISH: Ashley, is that his job as solicitor general?
ASHLEY DAVIS, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL: He's the attorney general, right?
CORNISH: As the attorney general, yes.
DAVIS: I mean --
CORNISH: I thought he was like the top law enforcement officer for the state, which is what --
DAVIS: Well, I don't know how actually it's run in Alabama that maybe elections are underneath him. In regards to how they're structured, I have no idea. But I also think, going back, I've been saying this for, you know, the last eight months, nine months, I think the whole redistricting is not a great idea. And I said that during Virginia with the Democrats. I would say it going back to when Eric Holder did this in 2017. I just don't think --
CORNISH: Did Eric Holder do this?
DAVIS: Well, he raised $100 million to take Republican seats away.
CORNISH: Yes. But did he get seats? We're showing new maps here.
DAVIS: Well, he didn't.
CORNISH: I mean, we're not showing --
DAVIS: In Illinois.
CORNISH: I wish he had the scorecard, and I'm sure he wishes he had the scorecard you're talking about. That's not where Republicans are right now. They are benefiting.
DAVIS: What's -- yes, and is it 10 or is it 12? I don't think we really know, or is it really six at the end of the day.
CORNISH: Let me let Chuck in, because you actually have to run.
CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST AND FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO BERNIE SANDERS' 2016 AND 2020 CAMPAIGNS: I'm trying not to talk over you.
CORNISH: I'm sure there are people who are -- no, no, I'm sure people are calling to be like, my district is going away, or my district has changed. So, like, what do you even say in this environment?
ROCHA: It's crazy. Even in Virginia, where folks were putting together campaigns. But first of all, I want to take a step back. I was taught in school that the wheels of government work really slow. If you want a bill passed, you had to go to the House and the Senate, whether it was the House in Alabama or the House in D.C. Everything moves slowly. It took us 50, 60, 100 years to get a voting rights act.
Can I just say that the wheels of government move really, really fast. We wanted -- when we want to dilute black voting power. I have never seen -- you all were talking about the speed of this?
CORNISH: Yes.
ROCHA: Think about how slowly government actually works when you need to get your trash picked up. But when we're talking about this, it moves really quick.
CORNISH: I'm going to show the population of black voters, the black population in Alabama.
ROCHA: So, as we move into the midterm elections, the point that Aaron was making and others have making is an off-year election is much different than a presidential election just based off of turnout. And if you have a highly motivated group of voters, black voters are really pissed right now, and they have every right to be, so they're more motivated. Polling shows that. Republicans aren't motivated. There's a new poll today in Texas showing that. It doesn't mean it's the end-all, be-all. And this is -- or this is the greatest thing for either party, but motivation in a midterm is a major factor on who wins. So, a 10 percent more turnout is a really big deal.
CORNISH: One other interesting thing. You had D.L. Hughley, the comedian, saying, I've got an idea. Maybe these major college athletes, black athletes, should boycott participation in the SEC. Maybe they should not go to those schools. Here's how he explained it.
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D.L. HUGHLEY, ACTOR, COMEDIAN: I think the only thing these people understand is the loss of income. And I think the clearest way to do it, I think if these four- and five-star athletes, they need to understand they are contributing to a system that only wants to erode the situations they're in. If you can't run in a state, you shouldn't run in a state.
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CORNISH: I thought that was a great way to put it.
ROCHA: I'd take the Tennessee Holler podcast. I love that podcast.
CORNISH: Well, in part because there's been an exit of black Republicans from the Congressional House caucus, and I think people forget the Voting Rights Act. When they talk about representation, it's because white voters did not traditionally vote for nonwhite candidates, period. It wasn't just black voters are going to vote for black candidates. It's white voters didn't vote for anyone but white candidates.
And is the Republican Party positioning itself, even for the very next election, to not be able to combat all of the criticism it had gotten for its complete and total lack of diversity and now, arguably, hostility to black and brown voters?
BLAKE: It's going to be -- I don't know if this is necessarily going to translate for people right away until they actually see the new Congress come in and they see --
CORNISH: Listen, once it's in the broadcast, it's in the broadcast of fear, OK, like people are going to --
BLAKE: But, you know, what happens when the new Congress comes in and suddenly the Congressional Black Caucus is sharply cut or, you know, is cut in half or something like that? I haven't looked at the numbers specifically, but that's the moment at which this becomes a little bit more real for people because I think it's a little bit academic right now when you're talking about this.
ROCHA: Democrats have made a living off of running black radio ads talking about criminal justice reform or whatever. They will now run ads saying, this thing coupled with taking your name off of this monument, taking this off of this, shows a disrespect to that community and that's motivation when you want to get somebody --
CORNISH: All right. You guys stay with me. We have more to talk about. We have a lot more to talk about. I want you to have time to talk about it. We're going to, of course, be hearing about what the president has to say about the White House before he got there.
Plus, the Tiger Woods case returns to court today. Why his prescription drug records will be front and center. And this is the rising sun over Philly.
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CORNISH: It is now 23 minutes past the hour. Here are five things making news this morning. Today is primary day for voters in Nebraska and West Virginia. Nebraska's blue dot becomes the center of a closely watched Democratic primary fight. It's the race to replace retiring Republican Representative Don Bacon. And Democrats are hoping to regain the seat that has been GOP-controlled for nearly a decade.
And today in Florida, Tiger Woods' attorney and prosecutors will appear for a hearing over his March arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence. Both will argue whether his prescription drug records should be handed over to the state as evidence. Woods is not expected to attend this hearing.
[06:25:00]
And the family of a victim in last year's mass shooting at Florida State University is suing OpenAI. It alleges that ChatGPT, quote, "inflamed and encouraged" the accused shooter's delusions after he messaged it thousands of times before the attack. The complaint said the chatbot helped him plan the logistics of the shooting, including which guns and ammo to use and how to use them.
And two South Florida police officers are taking Ben Affleck and Matt Damon to court, alleging their new movie is too real. The defamation lawsuit claims the action thriller, "The Rip," used too many real-life details in its fictional narrative, causing harm to real-life officers' reputations. And that movie debuted on Netflix in January.
And there's a nonprofit asking a federal judge to stop the Trump administration's painting of the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool. It's the latest challenge to Trump's effort to refurbish historic institutions around the Capitol. That also includes the White House ballroom. Yesterday, President Trump had some harsh words about the People's House.
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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: This place was not properly taken care of. I was told by my wife, you have to act presidential, so don't use foul language. I won't, therefore. Normally, I would have said it was a -- house, but I don't want to say that. The columns were falling down. The plaster was falling off. You made a speech, and I would say, couldn't you fix up the paint job up there? You know, it looked a little -- and this place is tippy-top now.
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CORNISH: OK. We're going to bring back the Group Chat. Ashley, have you been to the White House recently?
DAVIS: Yes. And to be honest with you, when I was there daily, when I worked there, it is a really -- and that was 20 years ago. There are things that need to be fixed. So, I don't understand --
CORNISH: Fixed or ripped to the studs into a hole in the ground?
DAVIS: Well, I'm a huge believer in a new ballroom because of the security alarm.
CORNISH: Yes.
DAVIS: So, the ballroom title, it should have just been a new East Wing redo. It would probably have been a better thing. But also, like, the criticism over the reflecting pool. That place was disgusting. So, what is that bad?
CORNISH: What's weird is, do you remember doing the government shutdown when Republicans said, like, they didn't want to give money to, like, the national lawn and all these upkeep things because, like, the deficit and the debt was too high? I will not put the debt on screen right now, but let me tell you, $13 million in cost overruns, I don't know.
BLAKE: And what brings all this stuff together, I think, and I'm glad you brought up that you support the ballroom, like, if Trump had come out and said the White House needs a new East Wing, it needs to be updated, we need better security features, he goes to Congress, he goes through all the processes, there's a decent chance that this gets approved.
The thing that unites the ballroom, what's happening with the reflecting pool, according to this lawsuit, is kind of the hastiness by which this has been done. The process is --
CORNISH: Well, we're going to talk about this more, and we will have the numbers, so hold that thought. Straight ahead, we're going to be talking about gas prices, OK, the stuff you're actually dealing with, and the impact that suspending the federal gas tax would have at the pump.
Plus, a high-stakes trip to China, President Trump's put his strong relationship to the test when it comes to trade, tariffs, and Taiwan, all that may be on the table for conversation.
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