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The Lead with Jake Tapper
Artemis II Returns To Earth After Historic Trip; Trump Threatens Iran As Vance Heads To Pakistan for Peace Talks; FAA Investigating Near Collision At LAX; Kamala Harris On Whether She'll Run In 2028: "I Might"; Answering Your Questions About How Space Affects Human Health. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired April 10, 2026 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[17:00:00]
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: I hope that you will join us. Don't forget you can also stream The Arena live or you can catch up whenever you want to in the CNN app. That QR code is below on your screen. If you want another QR code, don't forget, you can also catch up by listening to our podcast. That's that QR code right there. You can also follow the show on X and Instagram at The Arena CNN.
And with all that said, John King is standing by for the lead. Hi, John.
JOHN KING, CNN HOST: Oh, that saved me there at the end there, the QR code. Because I'm going to be doing yard work this weekend, so I can't watch but I can listen. So there we go.
HUNT: Hey, there you go. Jake keeps trying to take a picture of it on the screen every time we talk to each other. It's never worked. Apparently he's just, you know, not clicking.
KING: That's why he's not here today. He's at home learning how to use the camera.
HUNT: See you soon. Have a great weekend.
KING: Thank you, Kasie. You do the same as well. One of the most critical moments of the Artemis mission just moments away. The Lead starts right now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've actually been thinking about entry since April 3, 2023 when we got assigned to this mission. We have to get back. There's so much data that you've seen already, but all the good Stu is coming back with us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Artemis crew, prepare your cabin for landing. We're counting down now to splashdown. And speaking with the family of the crew as they anxiously wait for the astronauts to return. Plus, President Trump's new warning to Iran. Just one day ahead of
peace talks set to begin tomorrow. And a close call at LAX. How a passenger plane ended up having to hit the brakes to avoid hitting two passing trucks.
Welcome to The Lead. I'm John King in for Jake Tapper. Today we start in our out of this world lead. It's splashdown day. After an historic 10-day journey around the moon, the Artemis II astronauts are now on their trajectory back home. Look at that. We're in just about three hours. They're expected to splash down in the Pacific Ocean.
But before that, there are critical steps they need to take to prepare for reentry in the Earth's atmosphere. The reentry process will be intense. The astronauts will hit the top of Earth's atmosphere at an altitude of 400,000 feet. Get this. While traveling about 30 times the speed of sound. Over the next two hours, we will follow this complicated and exciting process.
And we begin with CNN's Randi Kaye, she's at the Johnson Space center in Houston. Randi, walk us through what the astronauts are doing right now and critically, what comes next.
RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, today they did one more burn which would help them pinpoint their path to the specific ocean which has to be very, very specific. And they also reconfigured the cabin. Once again, they want to make sure that things are stowed away in the capsule so they can have a safe landing.
But here at Johnson Space Center, where Mission Control is located, it is a day filled with excitement, but also quite nerve wracking as they get closer and closer to reentry.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KAYE (voice-over): Barreling toward Earth at more than 30 times the speed of sound.
AMIT KSHARTRIYA, NASA ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR: We have high confidence in the system, in the heat shield and the parachutes and the recovery systems. We put together.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Superlative thumbs up.
KAYE (voice-over): Artemis II's Orion capsule is expected to hit the Earth's atmosphere going nearly 25,000 miles per hour.
SEN. MARK KELLY, FORMER ASTRONAUT: It's a challenging phase of flight. The space shuttle, we would hit the atmosphere at about 17,000 miles an hour. So this is significantly faster.
KAYE (voice-over): Faster and hotter. The temperature on the capsule's exterior could reach 5,000 degrees. That's half the temperature of the surface of the sun.
VICTOR GLOVER, ARTEMIS II PILOT: I haven't even begun to process what we've been through. Riding a fireball through the atmosphere is profound as well.
KAYE (voice-over): All of this takes planning, precise timing, and maybe even some luck. NASA showed us how the parachutes will deploy at about 24,000ft to slow the capsule down.
KAYE: If all of the parachutes deploy as planned, they will slow the Orion capsule down to about 17 to 20 miles per hour. They can lose up to four of them and it would still work, but they would come in at about 25 miles per hour.
JARED DAUM, NASA PARACHUTE SYSTESM MANAGER: Still, the crew will be, they'll survive, but it might be a little bit of a rough landing.
KAYE (voice-over): From entering Earth's atmosphere to Splashdown is just 13 minutes. Mission Control expects to lose contact with the astronauts for six of those minutes.
JEFFREY RADIGAN, NASA FLIGHT DIRECTOR: I mean, I'm going to tell you it's 13 minutes of things that have to go right. I have a whole checklist in my head that we, you know, we're going through of all the things that have to happen.
KAYE (voice-over): Off the California coast, the Navy has been practicing how they'll retrieve the astronauts and capsule.
LT. COMMANDER JESSE WANG, U.S. NAVY: We do expect them to have some symptoms for being in space for 10 days, most commonly nausea, a little bit of vertigo or disequilibrium, as well as just being dehydrated, tired.
KAYE (voice-over): And there are still lingering questions about how well the heat shield on the capsule will work during reentry.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 25,000 feet.
KAYE (voice-over): When Artemis I, an uncrewed test flight, returned to Earth in 2022, chunks of its heat shield broke off. NASA investigated, but it was too late to make major changes for Artemis II. So this time around, NASA has chosen a new entry path it says should allow for the heat shield to avoid dangerous levels of cracking.
RICK HEFLING, ARTEMIS II FLIGHT DIRECTOR: We did the survey, and there's nothing to be concerned about for entry.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[17:05:08]
KAYE: And during reentry, John, the capsule is expected to pilot itself. The crew will only take over if there are multiple failures, according to NASA, and they are not expecting that. It's also worth noting that many of the astronauts' family members will be here, certainly their immediate families in Mission Control in the observation deck where we visited earlier this week. They'll be able to watch it come across the different continents and watch them guide the Orion capsule into the Pacific Ocean. John.
KING: Adrenaline pumping. Just watching that, my adrenaline went up. Randi Kaye at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, thank you so much for that. And let's, as Randi said, family members watching closely. Let's bring in Aneesha Ross. She's the cousin of the NASA astronaut Victor Glover, who you've all gotten to meet. He's the pilot of Artemis II.
Aneesha, how you feel and how's the rest of the feeling as this mission comes to a close and you wait still a couple of nervous hours ahead.
ANEESHA ROSS, ASTRONAUT VICTOR GLOVER'S COUSIN: Yes. Well, John, it's just that it is a nervous excitement. Definitely want all of the crew to come back safely and just extremely excited, of course, but there's a nervousness that comes along with that.
KING: Victor's wife Deanna recently got to visit the Mission Control viewing gallery. I want to share this moment because it's just so cool.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I also want to let you know that we have Diana Glover with us in the viewing gallery. She's all smiles.
GLOVER: Well, you just got a bunch of cheers up here. Hey, babe. I love you from the moon.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: I love you from the moon. What do you think when you see that happening?
ROSS: It's such a wonderful feeling for him. Victor is an awesome husband, a wonderful dad, but to be able to know that he is all smiles and all cheers. I know Deanna is just so, so proud of him, as we all are. And it's a wonderful thing to just know that he's OK and that he is all smiles and all cheers from up there.
KING: You know Victor, of course, better than any of us, although we've gotten to know him and the entire crew watching. But Victor, I want to play this first, then ask you a little bit about this. Yet this happened back here on Earth. He's been something of a poet from space, even giving a bit of a sermon. Listen.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
GLOVER: As we continue to unlock the mysteries of the cosmos, I would like to remind you of one of the most important mysteries there on Earth, and that's love. Christ said in response to what was the greatest command that it was to love God with all that you are.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
KING: I mean, you know, the man, obviously, but what was it like to hear that broadcast from so far beyond earth?
ROSS: Oh, that make, you know, growing up with Victor, that makes my heart just overwhelmed with so much joy. I have said numerous times the man that he is just absolutely phenomenal to see and to know that he is a great man of faith, puts his trust in the Lord is beyond. It makes me beyond proud as his cousin. It really does. And that's really who he is. He is full of love.
KING: So when I read this part, I thought my 14-year old had somehow snuck onto that spaceship. The crew wants Uncrustables, the first meal when they get back to Earth. They want Uncrustable sandwiches. That's because for people who might not understand, you can't bring bread or sandwiches in any form because crumbs and get stuck in equipment and cause hazards.
But what did you say when you heard Uncrustables? And is Victor a bread lover? Does that -- are you surprised that's the first thing he wants to put his teeth in?
ROSS: You know, not surprised whatsoever. And I love that about the entire crew because if you would, it gives them, you know, that human factor. They are real people, right. And they love real things. And just that adult kid, if you would, that's in him because that's who he is. He is fun, right, as a person. And so that just cracked me up when I heard that. Loved it.
KING: I was planning on grilling tonight, but maybe I'll just have some Uncrustables in honor of the crew. Aneesha Ross, really grateful for your time on this important day. Thank you so much.
ROSS: Well, thank you so much. It was an honor.
KING: Thank you. Thank you. NASA, of course, has a lot riding on this entire historic mission. We'll speak with the number two at the Agency. Plus, will she run again? The former vice president Kamala Harris answering that question herself today. You want to hear what she says? And that's ahead.
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[17:13:51]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John P. Murtha. We are.
CROWD: Tuesday strong.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: John P. Murtha. We are.
CROWD: NASA strong.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right, let's bring them home.
(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: Great picture there. That's piping the crew there of the USS John P. Murtha. That's the team who will recover the Artemis II astronauts tonight off the coast of California. Joining me now to discuss the hours ahead, NASA's associate administrator, Amit Kshatriya. He's the highest ranking civil servant at the agency.
Sir, grateful for your time, especially at this busy moment. A lot of the coverage in advance of the reentry of the into the Earth's atmosphere of the Orion capital has been on, you know, the past questions about the heat shield from NASA. We have heard, we are confident we've made the necessary adjustments. Walk us through that process. Heat shield climbed to what, about 5,000 degrees as they hit reentry?
AMIT KSHATRIYA, ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, NASA: That's right. It should be about 5,000 degrees. We have, you know, after Artemis I, we had some findings on the heat shield. We learned that the outer material, the heat shield, which is supposed to char, actually liberated a few pieces. And we wanted to understand that was not expected in our modeling.
And so we spent about two years making sure we understood the material in the Artemis II heat shield, the entry profile, and then making sure we had designs for future heat shields because we're going to need to fix this problem.
[17:15:08]
But for Artemis ii, given the nature of the mission, which is free return around the moon, it actually turns out we can control the environment much better than on lunar landing missions. And so we decided, once we had that full understanding, to proceed with the mission, given all the new tests and understanding we have about the performance of the machine.
KING: We've had this distance record, we've had these remarkable images, we've had the great joy and the camaraderie of the crew, but they're also bringing back the most important part. All the data they have collected that you will be going through in the days and weeks and months and even years ahead.
Ultimately, what do you think? What's your best guess about the most important thing that will be accomplished on this mission?
KSHATRIYA: You know, I think what's the most important thing? It's hard to say, John, because we have to get all the data back. But what I will tell you is that this is the. This is the test flight. We've engaged in a very long flight test activity. We've committed to that with Artemis. And this is such a huge step for us to move to crewed flight.
You know, given what we learned in Artemis I, we adjusted the flight plan for Artemis II and made sure that we're focused on the things that are really going to feed forward to the missions that are coming up. You know, we've seen a handful of minor anomalies during this mission that we know we need to go fix. But I think the big. The big lesson for us is just fully witnessing the crew and the environment having Orion in the environment it's supposed to fly in and learning how she performs, tuning all the systems the right way. And so we'll bring all that data back, we'll feed it into the designs for the next missions and keep learning.
KING: To your point, about minor anomalies. You know, that's going to happen. That's part -- that's part of the drill. That's why you do -- that's why you do a test flight, right? So you go into it thinking.
KSHATRIYA: Right.
KING: You go into it -- help me with the context. You go into it thinking, there's going to be 10, there's going to be 12, it's going to be 20, and then what did you get? I mean, are you -- are you -- today sitting there going, this was better than we expected? Or we have A few more checkboxes that we didn't expect.
KSHATRIYA: Yes, you know, John, I won't commit to whether or not it's better than we expected or not. You know, we still have one more test to go and that's a very important one. As you discussed, the physics has to vote last year.
But I will tell you, we -- in terms of the performance of the Machine, we've been very pleased. Most of the things we found, in fact, all of the things we found we think are easy, relatively straightforward fixes for subsequent missions. And so, you know, we wanted, we just want to make sure that we look at that data really carefully before we commit to that.
But so far we've been really happy not just with the performance of the Machine, but also the way the crew has performed during this mission and what they've taught us about how the crew will interact with these spacecraft as we go forward.
KING: Amit Kshatriya, again, grateful for your time, especially at this very busy moment at NASA. Thank you, sir.
KSHATRIYA: Thank you, sir.
KING: Thank you. And let's bring in someone who knows quite a bit about these recovery missions like the one we expect tonight. Retired astronaut Charles Bolden. He flew four space flights and he of course, was the head of NASA under President Obama. Major General, grateful for your time.
We shot pictures of the crew of the John P. Murtha Navy crew out there. They're in the water. Walk us through that process. Obviously the capsule comes in and they have a trajectory that they think will be roughly about right away it's going to come down. How far away? What's the -- one of the safety protocols about how far away is that ship and how quickly will it move?
CHARLES BOLDEN, FORMER NASA ADMINISTRATOR: John, thanks very much for having me tonight. You know, fortunately I've had the privilege. I wasn't on the Murther, but when we did the Artemis I, I had an opportunity to go out on the ship, the recovery ship. So they try to be as close to the point where the vehicle is going to get in the water as possible.
You know, if you're inside a mile, it's great, you know, because one, you want the crew to have an opportunity to see what's going on, but you actually want the swimmers and the fast boats to be able to get to the vehicle as quickly as they can get up on it, check it for leaks, for toxic leaks and the like so they can clear the people to come in and open the hatch and get the crew out, because that's -- their purpose is to get there, get the crew out of the vehicle as quickly as possible, get them to the ship for a preliminary medical exam, and then in a helicopter back to. I think they're going to Balboa for their.
KING: You mentioned -- you mentioned the medical exams. You went through that every time you came back to Earth. We had one of the crew members say, you know, sometimes you're a little dizzy, sometimes it's more vertigo, sometimes it's nauseous. What do you look -- what are they looking for to make sure, you know, it's just normal stuff, but everybody's OK.
BOLDEN: I have to admit, I have never landed in a capsule or in the water. All four of my flights were in the shuttle where I came in on a glider. So they will have the same kinds of problems that we had. And I don't call them problems. Same thing that we did.
First thing is reorientation to gravity. Just -- can I stand up straight? And all that stuff that takes a couple of hours to get, you know, to get yourself back to normal. That's musculoskeletal. The big thing is neurovestibular, or it's your balance mechanism. You've been in space. They've been there for 10 days now. And so their balance mechanism has gone to bumble land for 10 days. So they didn't know what up from down. They'll come back and they'll get out of the vehicle.
They have two things that one of them I did not encounter, and that's being out there rocking in a vehicle for an hour or so before they get out, and they're going to go to another rocking vessel, the ship.
[17:20:02]
So a lot of people get seasick. This is real seasick when you're on a ship. So they will have to confront that. And you know, in addition to the normal readaptation, which takes a couple of days.
KING: I heard you just made the point about you came back in the shuttle. I just heard Senator Kelly, who obviously has the same experience as you --
BOLDEN: Yes. Yes.
KING: -- talking about that, and he says you're at a slightly slower speed, I guess about 17,000, as opposed to 24,000, 25,000.
BOLDEN: A lot slower speed.
KING: OK, but you're -- but OK -- you want to go. I guess a lot slower, but it's still 17,000 miles an hour. I mean, there are just very few people alive who can describe --
BOLDEN: Yes.
KING: -- what it's like to just come through the barrier and reentry. What are you feeling at that moment?
BOLDEN: The thing about speed is we're talking about energy. That's what we're really talking about. So we're trying to convert speed, energy due to speed, into energy due to heat, because that we can dissipate, we can throw off the vehicle. And that's going to do two things. It's going to slow us down, which is the primary part.
So when I say were a lot less, were 3,400, 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit on the bottom of the shuttle. These guys are going to be at 5,000 plus, which is like I think the scientists say, about half the heat of the sun.
KING: Right.
BOLDEN: That's pretty doggone hot. But the heat shield, we think will, as Amit said, we think the heat shield is going to do really well. That's our hope. And it's performed pretty well in tests and everything else, so it's OK.
KING: So you were the NASA administrator. You know what they're looking for in terms of data and discovery.
BOLDEN: Yes.
KING: And, you know, we know, looking in the rearview mirror --
BOLDEN: Yes.
KING: -- all the things the space program has brought to us, all the gifts it has brought to us in so many ways. Health wise, nutrition wise, everything else. What do you think is going to come of this? What are you hoping?
BOLDEN: Well, a lot of what I hoped has already happened to be quite honest. The interaction between the science team and the crew, which is real time, it's not in shuttle, we were generally talking to the capsule communicator, the capcom who was relaying word to us from scientists.
The science community has been able to interact with the crew for this entire time. And anybody who's been listening to it understands the real love between the crew and their science team on the ground. So they've been given some guidance, real time as to things to look for.
The crew has given them some ideas about what they're seeing that they really didn't expect to see. And so the science team can adjust.
The other thing is just Victor said it over and over again about this planet. I think we got a realization of the beauty of this planet. You know, we got the Earthrise and Earth set when we got it from Apollo 8. We were mesmerized. KING: You see this live picture as you're talking about it.
BOLDEN: Oh, yes. But I think it's the reminder that we're all occupants of a very unique place in the universe and we're all earthlings.
KING: What's it like to have had this view with your own eyes, not a camera?
BOLDEN: Trust me, I wish I knew what it was like to have that view. It has to be absolutely spectacular. I've seen Earth parts of it at a time. Just like people were -- when they saw the moon. They saw it unlike any other astronaut has ever seen the moon. Every other astronaut, you know, other than getting approaching it, they saw it like we see Earth when we're in low Earth orbit. You see a piece of it. They saw the whole globe the whole time they were going around. So they got a different perspective.
KING: Well, I bet you're looking forward to a conversation with them.
BOLDEN: I'm looking forward to flying again.
KING: Major General Bolden, thank you so much. Appreciate your time. I'll take you with you when you go. With U.S. ships in the Middle East ahead. President Trump's new threat to Iran, ahead of those consequential peace talks set to begin tomorrow.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:27:51]
KING: In our World Lead this hour, Vice President JD Vance, you see him right there on his way to Pakistan for high level talks on ending the war on Iran. President Trump already is threatening new military action if those peace talks fail. In a phone interview today, Mr. Trump telling the New York Post, quote, we have a reset going. We're loading up the ships with the best ammunition, the best weapons ever made, even better than what we did previously and we blew them apart.
On Truth Social, the president adding, the Iranians don't seem to realize they have no cards other than a short term extortion of the world by using international waterways. The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate that from the president.
But just now at Joint Base Andrews, the president sounding a bit more optimistic about the Strait of Hormuz reopening.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: The Strait will open up if we just left the strait is going to, otherwise they make no money. So the strait is going to open, but what we have is no nuclear weapon, but we'll open the strait anyway.
(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: CNN's Nic Robertson is in Islamabad, Pakistan where those talks are scheduled to play out tomorrow. Nic, what are you hearing about the location and the format? How are they going to sit down hoping to get a good result?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, the Iranian delegation just arrived in and look, it's all about how the interlocutors of Pakistanis handle both delegations. JD Vance when he arrives in, the Iranians got a huge red carpet greeting. They're the speaker of the Parliament, foreign minister. The main interlocutors right now there was the army chief of staff, the most powerful man, if you will, in Pakistan there to greet them, very warm greeting along with the foreign minister of Pakistan, the interior minister of Pakistan.
So a big delegation, this was in the middle of the night. The talks are going to be in a big hotel in a super secure zone in the center of the city. What we understand at the moment that they will be partly indirect. Different rooms, negotiators, Pakistan negotiators going between the rooms and direct. If that happens, that's a big deal.
Of course the Iranians are coming into this with this belief that they've got a 10-point plan. These will be talks about the ten point plan. The Iranians come in with a sort of a sense that the talks could last a while.
[17:30:00]
The perception I think from the negotiators is that if they can land some five, six or seven of those 10 points the Iranians want, then that can really lock in the ceasefire.
And I think the perception coming in from the U.S. side, J.D. Vance very clear that he thinks is going to be able to figure out pretty quickly whether or not Iran means to do business this go around. So two different styles but face to face the fact that both sides will be here, that's a pretty big deal so far.
KING: It's a huge deal, especially as you know, if they actually meet down together that would be the highest level meeting between the United States and Iran and quite some time. You heard the President's threats coming in. There's often people decide what tone am I going to set to try to influence the talks from President Trump? It's bluster. It's threats. What do you hear from other parties involved?
ROBERTSON: Yes, look what I'm hearing from the region here is that J.D. Vance is an important player in this because the Iranians have lost faith and trust in Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. That trust broke down because the previous talks broke down and fell into a war. And the other thing that I'm picking up here is that the Vice President is really respected by the negotiators here as somebody who really knows what he's doing diplomatically is making the right moves at the moment.
But I would say the read that this region has about Iran's capabilities right now, military capabilities and Iran's understanding of what cars it has to play, they do think that Iran still could shoulder more war. That's the perception and the understanding that Iran could go longer in this that it still got about a third of its drones left, about half of its ballistic missiles. So the sense that Iran is on the back foot is not kind of the perception here. So that could cause obviously in the negotiations that perception difference, some pretty tough talks.
KING: Busy and important hours ahead for your reporting. Nic Robertson from Islamabad. Nic, thank you very much.
And still ahead for us, that close call at LAX that forced the pilots to slam the brakes to stop their plane from hitting two passing trucks. Hear what a pilot told air traffic control about it, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:36:14]
KING: In our National Lead, another runway tragedy narrowly avoided this week when two trucks pulled in front of an airplane taxiing at Los Angeles International Airport. Thankfully, the pilots were able to break in time to avoid a crash. CNN Aviation correspondent Pete Muntean is covering this one. Pete, as the FAA investigates, walk us through what we know so far. What in the world happened?
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, this was so close to being a crash that the pilots were captured swearing on the radio. Also an interesting factor here. LAX controllers in the tower could not see the near collision playing out in front of them all because there was a building blocking their view. This happened late Wednesday night.
Frontier Flight 3216 was taxiing for takeoff when the pilots said two airport ground vehicles cut them off. Here is the exchange that the pilots had with air traffic control. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, ground, you see this?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just had two trucks just cut us off. We had to slam on the breaks not to him them.
It happened so fast both us were just like holy -- and we slammed on the brakes. I'm going to have to call the flight attendants to make sure everybody is all right in the back. It was real close. Closest I'd ever seen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN: Thankfully, nobody was hurt in this incident. Frontier Airlines credited the pilots for making a good save here. Right now, it is not clear exactly how close this flight came to hitting those vehicles, though it seems likely that this would be classified as the highest level of incident, meaning a very close call with a collision very likely. Begs mentioning there is no requirement by the FAA for cars, trucks, buses, fire trucks and the like driving on airport runways and taxiways to broadcast their position live using a transponder. That is only a recommendation.
For now, the Federal Aviation Administration is leading this investigation into what went wrong here. The National Transportation Safety Board is looking into this incident, though it has not launched an investigation just yet. John?
KING: Pete, I know the answer would be every case is different if you ask the FAA, but this seems eerily reminiscent of that Air Canada flight that crashed into the fire truck at LaGuardia recently.
MUNTEAN: Yes, no doubt. Since that LaGuardia crash, everyone's senses are heightened to a potential collision on the ground. In that case, that incident was on a runway and the airplane had just touched down and was still going about 100 miles an hour. Not much a pilot can do in that case to quickly maneuver to avoid a collision, even if they see it coming.
In this case, the jet was still taxiing, meaning they were going pretty slow. The pilots could stop on the brakes and stop in a short distance. But some of the same questions in both investigations. Why did trucks pull out in front of an oncoming plane? Did they not see it or were they somehow trying to get past it and ran out of time? In both cases, there were no transponders in the trucks, making it harder for controllers to really know the full picture of what's going on.
KING: Yes, that transponder is a recommendation thing. Seems a tad curious, but what do I know. Pete Muntean, thanks very much. Appreciate that reporting.
[17:39:01]
Only 942 days, 942 days until the 2028 presidential election. Who's counting? Well, she might be. Kamala Harris might be. What she said today about her plans for another presidential campaign. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REV. AL SHARPTON, CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Are you going to run again in '28?
KAMALA HARRIS, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Listen, I might. I might. I'm thinking about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: That's the former vice president, Kamala Harris, confirming right there. You saw it. She may. She might. She's thinking about it. Might run again for president in 2028. Her comments today at the National Action Network convention and against mounting speculation about what she might do next with her political career. Let's discuss with our CNN commentators, Karen Finney and Shermichael Singleton.
So for all the people I encounter who say, oh, my God, please don't. She shouldn't run again because she lost. I say to them, well, who can beat her in the current field? There's someone who's raised a billion dollars. Yes, made some mistakes in the campaign, without a doubt, but also is trying to do something near impossible in 110 days.
KAREN FINNEY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes.
KING: Should she run?
FINNEY: I think everybody and anybody who wants to run should say they might be running right now. That is the advice that I give to all the candidates when they come through. Look, this is an environment where it is about getting your name out there. It is about seeing what kind of energy you get from whether it's from audiences, whether it's from donors, whether it's from leaders like Al Sharpton.
So, you know, that's been my advice to people is, look, if your name is in the is in the running, keep it out there because it all, as you know, John, until we get to the point where we see who actually makes it on to the primary debate stage, anybody is a viable candidate for the most part.
KING: So my biggest question for her would be, has she learned? You lose a race. Have you learned what you did right? Emphasize that double down on what you did wrong. Maybe learn from it. Listen to this Shermichael, she's talking about how she says she understands the job. She knows what it takes. And she seems to sound like she is learning.
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[17:45:06]
HARRIS: The status quo is not working. And hasn't been working for a lot of people for a long time. And part of the issue is the need to get rid of some of the bureaucracy in government.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Interesting for a Democrat.
SHERMICHAEL SINGLETON, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Very interesting to say that.
KING: A liberal Democrat to say that. That would be interesting if she tried to sell that message. She would be doing so somewhat. These are my words, not hers, but as a senator. She served in the status quo not that long ago. So people have been mad at the status quo for a long time. That includes her.
SINGLETON: And she was a part of the status quo. And I would imagine other Democrats would say, well, why didn't you fix it?
KING: But can you speak from the learning part? Can you spin it to your favor? SINGLETON: Maybe. Look, you never underestimate a candidate. The Vice President did get more votes than what any other Democrat in history. Karen, if I remember correctly. So, look, I wouldn't discount her ability. It's a matter of what does the operations look like. She clearly can raise the money, so I'm not going to discount that. But can she bring forth the right level of a number of advisors to help her figure out how do you target those young men? How do you target Hispanics? How do you speak to sort of that middle ground where I think she struggled with before?
KING: And before you jump in, some of it's also we were talking about this before we came on camera. Some of it's also what's the climate out there?
SINGLETON: Yes. Right.
KING: Even the best candidates sometimes get whooshed by a climate. And sometimes weak candidates get carried along by a climate. And so another potential candidate is the Democratic Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan. She's been visiting states that President Trump won, going around saying let's check out these, which is a smart way for any candidate, whether you've run before or not. When asked by "Politico" playbook if the nominee should be a Democrat who did not serve in the Biden administration. She mentioned Harris and Buttigieg were mentioned there. I think there's a lot of baggage there. I don't know if it's insurmountable, but I know that the strongest feeling I get from a room like this, from being in Columbus, being in Iowa, being in Wisconsin, Idaho, Kansas, is that people want something new.
FINNEY: And that, to my mind, is going to be the most important thing for Democrats for 2028. I think 2028 is going to be a real turning point for this country. It has got to be about really the future. And we always say elections are about the future, but it's going to be a big picture future election. If you think about what's happening with A.I., if you think about what's happening with the global economy, there will be big challenges and big questions that we need to be asking that are going to change our lives in pretty dramatic ways.
And so, look, I think that being said, someone like Slotkin, it kind of goes what I said before. If her name is in the mix, that is good for her, right? That gives her a little bit of cachet within the party. And I do think you see people like her and that sort of level of sort of these newer, younger Democrats who want to be part of shaping where the party goes between now and really 20 -- into 2027 to set the table for what that presidential will look like.
KING: And so the midterms will set the table for what the climate is and then the economy and things like that. But so if you're if Republicans are sitting around having an early conversation about who we worry about, who we're not worried about, we saw Harris.
SINGLETON: Yes.
KING: We know that former mayor of Secretary Buttigieg is moving around. Senator Slotkin, as you mentioned, also showing up with Al Sharpton at the National Action Convention this week. The Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, the Maryland Governor Wes Moore, California Congressman Ro Khanna, the Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, Arizona Senator Ruben Gallego.
When Republicans are sitting around, you know, thinking we might have Vance, we might have Rubio, maybe we'll have something new, too. But does anybody on that list, do you look at anybody on that list and say that one is head and shoulders better or more fearful to us?
SINGLETON: No, but I do look at Pritzker because of his ability to self fund. I mean, this all comes down to the money. You have to build in operations and it's expensive to do so. Pritzker comes from a very wealthy family. He's wealthy himself. He could throw in a couple of hundred million dollars to give him a head start that no other Democrat, quite frankly, would have.
The other candidates I'm not really worried about, but as a strategist, he's the guy I'm looking at. He represents a state where I think some of his messaging could potentially be palatable to Hispanics in the south. I'll be curious to see how he moves forward with targeting Latinos in the country. But the money thing is going to be big, in my opinion, John, and he's someone that immediately has a head start.
KING: And so if we talk about the here and now, between now and November, about seven months, the inflation report today was not good for the Republicans. Most of that's because of the Iran war. We'll see if it dissipates, but inflation is persistent. A data point I always look at, the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment, way down. Worse than the pandemic. Worse than the 2008 financial crisis. So if you're a Republican today, you should be nervous about this climate.
FINNEY: Yes.
KING: Let me flip it for you. Do you see a Democrat? And you mentioned the A.I. challenge, which I think is a big thing out there. People don't have any politician they trust to give them a North Star. Where are we going in this environment that I'm nervous about?
FINNEY: Yes.
KING: Do you see anybody?
FINNEY: So I will say, and I have also said this to candidates, I think governors have a little bit of an advantage on this because they're already having to deal with that in terms of workforce development. They're already seeing what is that doing to your state, both from the perspective of state government, but from the perspective of the industries within your state.
[17:50:08]
So I do think they have a little bit more experience with saying, and here's what I put in place to make sure we're ready for it. And I think that's going to be part of deciding what that North Star is going to look like. But I would just remind us we were in a very different place in 2020 than we are 2024, right, in terms of COVID, in terms of all the things we're having. So I think we also got it. Let's let the people lead us a little bit where they are.
KING: But who can help lead them or at least give them confidence? You see any Republican? President Trump doesn't talk about this stuff. Do you see any Republican talking about A.I. economic challenges in the future?
SINGLETON: No. I mean, there are some congressmen, but in terms of a leader, not really. And Karen, I've talked about this a lot in the green room. You need to have people who can talk to younger voters. And Karen has pointed this out to me a lot. Younger men in particular on this A.I. issue. And I don't see anyone really speaking to that. The candidates who can do that will have a decisive lead come 2028.
KING: Well, thank you both. We'll keep an eye on it. If you see anybody, give us a shot. Don't give Jake a shot.
FINNEY: OK. All right.
KING: Astronaut Reid Wiseman is the commander of Artemis II, which is coming in for landing right now. His family will join us ahead on The Lead.
Plus, from bedtimes to gravity, we're paging Dr. Sanjay Gupta to answer your viewers, your questions, our viewers' questions about the health of the astronauts while in space and when they get back.
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[17:55:39]
KING: We're paging Dr. Gupta in the Health Lead today. He's embracing the space theme this week and taking your questions on the Artemis II mission and the health of the astronauts. All right, Sanjay, a grandma from Canada wrote in on behalf of her seven-year-old grandson, Cammie, who wonders about sleep or bedtimes, as most kids do, asking if there's a schedule and do you feel rested?
DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I love the fact that we're getting seven-year-olds writing into the show. That's amazing.
KING: Expanding the demographic.
GUPTA: I think Cammie -- exactly. Cammie will be happy to know that maybe the astronauts are being treated exactly like Cammie is because NASA is essentially telling them when to go to bed and when to wake up. And also, John, those astronauts are probably getting more sleep than you or I because it's very important, according to NASA, for these astronauts to get at least eight hours of sleep a night. It's important because they have cognitively challenging, important things to do, and sleep is a big part of that. So they get really granular on this. First night, they actually had to split up their sleep into two chunks because partway through the night they had to essentially activate the rockets, pointing them towards the Moon. But after that, it's eight hours of sleep. They all sleep around the same time. I think we have images of what the sleeping bags look like. The sleeping bags are attached to the wall. They're still floating, but that sort of, at least attaching them to the wall, keeps them relatively stable.
They've got noise and light and vibration to sort of contend with, but they're collecting a lot of data about sleep, John. They wear these wristbands that are monitoring their movements and their sleep, which is important information for future missions.
KING: I've got to get one of those bags for the long election nights, hang it against the wall over there. That would be actually quite helpful. This one from Brenda in New Jersey. Since water's heavy, I wonder how they get the essential nutrient up there with them. How do they continue to keep up with their daily intake amount to avoid dehydration?
GUPTA: Yes, great question and a challenging sort of thing for NASA, water. They send it up, and they send up four 125-gallon tanks. I'm sorry, 125-pound tanks, I should say. So that's about 15-gallon tanks, four of them. And then they have these lines, and they're sort of embedded into the capsule, and then they have these lines that essentially create a dispenser of water. And you can go there and get your water.
They have enough, they say, for the entire mission. But in addition to hydration, a lot of the food goes up freeze-dried, John, so they have to rehydrate it. They freeze-dry it to save space, then they rehydrate it up in space. So they need water for hydration but also to rehydrate their food. They do take up some other drinks, coffee, green tea, lemonade, and I'm told peach-mango smoothies as well. So a few treats in there.
KING: A few treats in there. And finally, Sanjay, you clearly have someone who watches you closely, knows her from Texas, definitely saw your segment yesterday, because she wrote in asking, OK, can you explain more on the hot sauce?
GUPTA: So this is really interesting. And just for context, you're sending a craft 23,000 miles away from Earth. You have limited space. One of the things they decide to send up is five different types of hot sauce. And there's a rationale for this. The rationale is because you have all these changes that are happening in the body, fluid is migrating from the lower body closer to the head, it affects taste. It affects the taste buds but also affects the sinuses. You feel congested. You can't smell as well. Food doesn't taste good. These astronauts need to eat, though, and that's where the hot sauce comes in.
So they got five different types of hot sauce to try and flavor the food so they get enough calories. What you're looking at there on the screen, though, is from 2023, where these astronauts essentially tasted food, determined which foods they'd like to take up with them to, you know, on this mission. This was three years ago. And again, that just gives you some idea of just how granular, how detail focused they are on things like, you know, sleep. We talked about water and then obviously food.
KING: Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you.
[17:59:54]
Welcome to The Lead. I'm John King in for Jake Tapper. We're following breaking news tonight. Its final preparations underway right now with the crew of Artemis II set to splash down and return to Earth in just about two hours.
