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FBI Releases Profile of Masked Suspect at Nancy Guthrie's Home; Partial Government Shutdown Could Take Effect After Midnight; Secretary of State Rubio Leads U.S. Delegation at Security Conference. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired February 13, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now racing against the clock and the weather. How rain could impact the search for clues in the kidnapping of Nancy Guthrie as she remains missing after two weeks. We are live in Tucson.

Plus, transatlantic tensions, will Secretary of State Marco Rubio's appearance of Munich ease things with European allies or further distance the U.S.?

And it's the skating scandal rocking the Olympics, the controversy over the upset of a pair of U.S. skaters.

Welcome to our viewers, the United States and around the world. I'm Pamela Brown, Wolf Blitzer is off, and you are in The Situation Room.

Happening now, the FBI releases a new description of the masked gunman captured on Nancy Guthrie's doorbell video the night she was allegedly abducted. They're now officially calling him a suspect. Experts say he stands between 5'9" and 5'10", has an average build and was wearing a black 25-liter Ozark Trail Hiker Pack backpack.

The FBI also says it has received more than 13,000 tips and the agency has doubled its reward. It now stands at $100,000.

Let's go live now to CNN's Ed Lavandera in Tucson. Ed, authorities are reaching out to neighbors for camera video and expanding the distance and timeframe of that search. What more can you tell us?

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that call went out yesterday and they've already -- we're already asking for video around the day of January 31st and February 1st as well. But now we are entering day 13 of the investigation in the search for Nancy Guthrie, and this call is going out for a much wider expanse of video within a two-mile radius of Nancy Guthrie's home. Investigators are hoping neighbors and residents and business owners will look for video for anything suspicious or suspicious vehicle from January 1st to February 2nd. That's a massive amount of video obviously of a lot of people start sending that in. And also there was another alert that was sent out to neighbors here along one specific street in particular that kind of focused of trying to find video of a vehicle around January 11th between 9:00 P.M. and midnight, which is three weeks before Nancy Guthrie went missing, and also some more specific times in the morning hours of January 31st from 9:00 to 11:30.

So, some interesting kind of leads there. We were told that more than 13,000 leads and tips have been called in to the FBI. And all of that work continues here in Tucson. It is a rainy day, perhaps complicating matters for agents and investigators who are out in the area kind of searching and canvassing the neighborhoods, as we have seen so much over the last couple of weeks.

But, you know, once again, we spoke with the sheriff this morning who said that they do have some good leads, mostly being generated because of that video and the images that were released from the front doorbell camera that showed that suspect that the investigators are talking about someone, a male being 5'9", 5'10".

And the hope is that those specific identity markers and will help to tune in a little bit better some of the tips that are being called in from the public. You imagine more than 13,000 tips, probably not all of them are very useful. So, they're hoping that these more specific details of what we've seen in these video images will help people notice something or call in the higher quality tips that they need to find the suspect. Pamela?

BROWN: Yes. Ed Lavandera, thank you so much. And on that note, Ed, if anyone has any information that could help investigators call the number on your screen. The FBI tip line is 1-800-CALL-FBI and the Pima County Sheriff's Department at (520) 351-4900.

Well, happening now, a partial government shutdown affecting the Department of Homeland Security could take effect just after midnight. It's all about funding DHS, which includes ICE and other agencies. Senate Democrats are holding up funding and are demanding reforms in how federal agents, immigration agents operate.

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Those demands were prompted by the recent deadly shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. And just yesterday, White House Border Czar Tom Homan announced an end to the immigration surge that we saw there in Minneapolis.

So, let's go live now to CNN Congressional Correspondent Lauren Fox. Lauren, members of Congress have gone home for a week-long break. So, are funding talks still ongoing, or is everything on hold right now? What's going on?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, obviously these talks have been playing out over the course of the last two weeks, but they had just not made significant progress, which is why both Republican leaders in the House and the Senate elected to allow their members to go home for this week-long recess and arguing that if there is a deal, if there is a breakthrough between Senate Democrats and the White House, that they will then call those members back to Washington to vote on the package.

The reality, Pam, is that it was always going to be really difficult to find a compromise for the kinds of things that Democrats were asking Republicans for, whether that was requiring all officers to identify themselves in immigration enforcement proceedings, whether that was changing how warrants were used in these immigration arrests. Those were already really sticky issues. And over the course of the last week and a half, there just hasn't been any major breakthrough. There's been passing of paper back and forth, passing of proposals, legislative texts, but it hasn't been enough to actually get members to a place where they had something to vote on.

It's also important to note that Democrats declined to even vote for a short-term stop gap measure to keep the Department of Homeland Security funded while those negotiations continued, because they argued that those negotiations weren't serious enough, weren't intense enough, and they believed that the White House was stalling. Meanwhile, Republicans arguing that Democrats are the ones who are slow walking these talks. Pam?

BROWN: So, just to be clear, despite this funding and pass right now, most immigration enforcement operations will continue, right?

FOX: Yes, that's exactly right. If you remember the president's signature legislative proposal that passed this summer included seven times what the annual budget for ICE and CBP on immigration enforcement would typically be. That means that the bill that Republicans already voted for has significant resources for immigration enforcement around the country, and that is one of the arguments that Republicans are making, that Democrats want to make this about immigration enforcement and reforming, how that is done in this country.

But shutting down the government doesn't practically change the dynamics of what is happening on the ground when it comes to immigration enforcement because that money is already there. Instead, the agencies that are maybe going to feel the most impact of this are TSA, the Coast Guard, as well as cybersecurity agencies. So, that just gives you a sense of sort of the messaging dynamics here that are happening. Democrats want to make this about immigration. Republicans say we're going to continue doing exactly what we've been doing on immigration.

BROWN: All right. Lauren Fox, thanks for breaking it down for us.

And still ahead here in The Situation Room, recruiting Chinese spies. The new video from the CIA aimed at poaching Chinese military officers.

And then later, inflation cools to an eight-month low. What this means for your wallet just ahead.

You're in The Situation Room.

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BROWN: Happening now, world leaders are gathering in Germany for the annual Munich Security Conference, and the meeting comes as a pre- conference report, says that the world has entered an era of, quote, wrecking ball, politics, and labels. President Trump, a demolition man of world order. Secretary of State Marco Rubio leads the U.S. delegation this year following that fiery speech by Vice President Vance at last year's conference. You may remember.

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MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: I think they want honesty. They want to know where we're going, where we'd like to go, where we'd like to go with them. So, that's our hope.

The old world is gone, frankly, the world I grew up in and we live in a new era in geopolitics and it's going to require all of us to sort of reexamine what that looks like and what our role is going to be.

We're deeply tied to Europe and our futures have always been linked and will continue to be.

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BROWN: All right. Let's go live now to see in Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour. She's in Munich.

So, Christiane, Secretary of State Marco Rubio is already striking a different tone from that of Vice President Vance last year. How do we expect this year's conference to go?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, the hope is that it will be much more conciliatory, if I could put it that way, than it was last year, because last year the vice president came here primed to literally go after the allies. Who's the ally? Who's the adversary? Who are we supporting? Who are we not? Who's been with us for the last 80 years? Whoop, great big slap in the face to the concept of the alliance where he told them all off and not giving enough political space to their far right, to their extreme right, not respecting their freedom of speech and all the rest said, blasting them on migration.

And as you've seen in the intervening year, the Trump policies are to allies and adversaries have sort of been upended. You saw the famous dissing publicly of President Zelenskyy, the victim in the war that Russia has declared on them more, cozying up, if you like, more, giving more space to Russia. And to this day, allies here say they still can't understand why Trump, who wants to end this war, won't put more pressure on Putin.

So, we expect to hear a little bit, hopefully, about what their plan might be for the Russia war that they're trying to end. Then Europeans who I've been speaking to here, even some of the American senators and others in the CoDel here, and there are a lot of them. [10:15:04]

They are, you know, wondering also how Rubio will bring their country back onto the sort of transatlantic -- into the transatlantic fold.

Now, they don't think that he's going to -- clearly, he's not going to break with President Trump, but what will the tone be? You heard a little bit of it before he got to, you know, here, and we're going to hear it formally tomorrow.

In the meantime, the German chancellor opened the conference and he also said, look, this world order no longer exists. But he did say we have to keep trying, hoping, and keeping America close. Take a listen.

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FRIEDRICK MERZ, GERMAN CHANCELLOR: Even the United States will not be powerful enough to go it alone. Difference, being a part of NATO is not only Europe's competitive advantage. It's also the United States' competitive advantage. So let's repair and rewind transatlantic trust together.

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AMANPOUR: So, that is absolutely the case. Of course, it benefits the United States as well, and that's what Europeans and other NATO allies hope to impress upon the U.S. delegation.

Now, the other thing, though, is that they are really sort of almost divided. There's some Europeans who say, we should de-risk, decouple, really go it alone. And then there are others like Merz who says, well, yes, we've got to stand our own two feet, but we need to stay within, you know, the American orbit. So, even the sort of European response is somewhat unclear and unformed.

I am going to be speaking to the head of the European Commission, the president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, after Rubio's speech tomorrow. So, we'll get a little bit more reaction about how they plan to take this world order forward.

And remember, Pamela, very importantly, this 80-year transatlantic alliance has really benefited the U.S. because of all the global powers. The U.S. stands alone in having this amazing global alliance structure. So, destroying allies and pushing allies away can really only weaken the United States. And I think that's what players here are seeking to impress on the U.S. administration's officials, like Marco Rubio,

BROWN: And you had mentioned earlier, Christine, on the questions from allies, why President Trump isn't putting more pressure on Putin if he really wants to end the war. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he'll likely meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at this conference. We're a little more than a week away from marking four years since Russia's full scale invasion of the country. Listen to what Rubio said about it.

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RUBIO: It's terrible. It's a war. That's why we want the war to end. People are suffering. It's the coldest time of year. It's unimaginable, the suffering. That's the problem with wars. That's why wars are bad and that's why we've worked so hard for over a year now to try to bring this one to an end.

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BROWN: Is there actual progress being made on the war in Ukraine, or has it all just been a lot of motion without progress?

AMANPOUR: Well, here's the thing. I actually spoke to a Ukrainian M.P., a delegate here, this morning. And I asked him exactly that. What about these talks that have been going on? And he says, there isn't really progress because Russia is still, Putin is still intransigent and still hanging onto his maximalist demands that, you know, he put down four years ago, as you said, when, you know, the 2022 full scale invasion.

We were all here. I interviewed Zelenskyy on stage. The invasion hadn't started yet. And we were talking about what would they do, how would they survive, et cetera. He went straight back to Kyiv, and a couple of days later, Russia invaded. Remember, the U.S. had warned Zelenskyy that that was going to happen, their intelligence, and they -- in an unprecedented way. They shared publicly that intelligence.

Anyway, the bottom line is that under, you know, President Trump's administration who's asked for ceasefires and terms of ending the war and where they can maybe freeze the battle lines. Zelenskyy has pretty much agreed to just about everything. This time last year, he signed -- he started the process of signing rare minerals, you know, deal with the United States, big economic deal. So, he's pretty much done everything that has been asked of him, and Putin has not.

And as you know, the Senate has a pretty big, strong package of sanctions that could be dropped at any time, but has not yet been dropped. So, you know, I spoke to the previous NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who also was the prime minister of Denmark, so he had a lot to say about Greenland, but he said, look, we have to make Putin understand that he cannot continue this war without huge, huge damage being inflicted on him and his economy.

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And the fact is that he is making in great gains on the ground, but very incremental, but the humanitarian catastrophe that he's unleashed, especially this winter on Ukraine, by bombing their energy infrastructure, by leaving people in the cold and the dark, it's the coldest winter in at least a decade, and it is a disaster for the people of Ukraine and for the people of the whole region.

So, now you have Europe stuck between a predatory Russia and a potentially predatory United States, and that is what's happening here in Munich, which way are they going to be able to turn for reasonable security and, you know, geostrategic plan forward? BROWN: It is certainly a pivotal time there.

I want to ask you about something else quickly, Christiane. CNN has learned that the Pentagon is sending a second aircraft carrier group, the USS Gerald Ford, to the Middle East, according to a senior administration official and another source familiar. Trump says, talks with Tehran will continue, but what does this move signal to Iran, in your view?

AMANPOUR: Well, certainly, it signals pressure. I mean, there's no doubt about it. This would be the second battle group and, you know, there's no messing around with U.S. aircraft carriers. This is serious military presence and intention. So, the question is, what is the actual final goal of the administration?

Now, President Trump, after meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, just in the last couple of days, he came out and essentially said, I've told the prime minister that I am committed to continuing negotiations over Iran's nuclear situation and at the moment indicated that he was not going to be pursuing a military intervention, certainly not regime change for now anyway.

So, it's kind of unclear which way this is going. It's very unclear as to whether these negotiations are going to prove satisfying to the United States, to Israel and how much the Iranians will give.

I think the most important thing to the factual matter right now is that after Israel and the United States bombed the Iranian facilities in June, their nuclear program has not made any strides that matter in order to rebuild them or even restart in Richmond. That is pretty much on hold. But what they have been doing is rebuilding missile sites and presumably missiles as well.

Now, these missiles, they say, are for defense precisely in case Israel or the U.S. or whoever attacks them and they need it for defense. But it is something that the U.S. has said, Trump has said, he wants to negotiate over as well. The Iranians just want the nuclear file. The Americans, the Israelis want missiles and also they want Iran to stop funding its foreign mercenaries, Hezbollah, Hamas, and the rest, like in Yemen, et cetera.

So, the question is how far will these negotiations go? And most importantly, what will it mean for the people of Iran who have taken their desire for freedom, for a decent standard of living, a change to the streets and have been brutally, brutally crushed. And, of course, the American administration did say, President Trump did say that he would -- you know, help his on the way and et cetera, and that didn't happen.

The people still want to change the regime. There's no doubt about it. I'm interviewing the leader of the Iranians in exile, the former crown prince, the son of the late shah who was overthrown almost exactly 47 years ago right now. And we'll see what he says in terms of a plan forward, if there is one, and whether there's a unified and capable opposition that also has a ground game inside Iran. BROWN: Well, we'll be looking forward to that interview, for sure. Christiane Amanpour, thank you so much, live for us at the Munich Security Conference.

And new this morning, an unusual and fascinating recruiting effort by the CIA, the agency is ramping up its effort to recruit Chinese spies by releasing a new video in Mandarin aimed disaffected Chinese military officers. A CIA official will tells CNN the video features a fictional, mid-level Chinese military officer, quote, making a difficult decision to stay true to his values and forge a better path for his family by contacting the CIA.

The video comes as China's President Xi Jinping has purged his top generals. And today, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson said China, quote, will take all necessary measures to firmly combat infiltration and sabotage activities by overseas anti-China forces.

Well, coming up, a year later, Americans are the ones footing the bill mostly when it comes to President Trump's tariffs. We'll discuss next with the former commerce secretary under President Biden.

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BROWN: And new this morning, data just released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed the annual rate of inflation slowed to an eight-month low last month. Consumer prices rose 2.4 percent for the 12 months that ended in January. So, that marks a cooling from the 2.7 rate notched in December, and will likely, of course, be welcome news to the Trump administration and consumers.

Joining us now to discuss is Gina Raimondo. She served as President Biden's commerce secretary and as the Democratic governor of Rhode Island. Thank you so much for coming on.

I'm wondering how you read these latest inflation numbers and what they tell you about the broader economy right now.

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GINA RAIMONDO, FORMER COMMERCE SECRETARY: Yes. Well, thank you for having me, first of all.