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Day Two Of Kaiser Strike Underway; UAW Strike Has Already Cost GM $200 Million; FedEx Plane Crash Lands And Skids Off Runway In Tennessee; U.S. Fighter Jet Downs NATO Ally Turkey's Drone Over Syria. Aired 3:30-4p ET
Aired October 05, 2023 - 15:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:30:01]
PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: And the reality is, I mean, a lot of this falls on Congress right now. I mean, the President can only do so much as it comes to immigration.
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Correct. Well, first of all, we don't even have a functioning House of Representatives right now.
BROWN: So that's true.
CHALIAN: So I certainly see no political path for a true bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform that has buy in from enough folks that actually can address this problem. I don't see a legislative solution to that. And you are right, everybody on all sides of this issue understand the solution is to be legislative or it's not going to be a real solution. So that means we live on with the problem, and both Republicans and Democrats are going to take that problem to the campaign trail.
BROWN: Yep, they sure are. David Chalian, thank you.
Still ahead, healthcare, auto manufacturing and entertainment, all industries getting hit by strikes right now. Why it's seemingly been the year of the strikes?
[15:35:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: The largest healthcare strike in U.S. history is now in its second day after more than 75,000 Kaiser Permanente workers began walking off the job on Wednesday. The strike is supposed to last just three days, but the union groups involved say they'll plan an even longer strike in November if they don't get a new contract by then.
Meantime, members of the American Actors Union, SAG-AFTRA, are still walking the picket lines nearly three months into their strike against television and film studios. After a full day bargaining session on Wednesday, talks are set to resume tomorrow.
And as United Auto Workers continue their strike against the Big Three automakers, General Motors says the strike cost them $200 million over its first two weeks. Ford and Chrysler's parents, Stellantis, have not said how much the strike has cost them. Let's bring in CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich, who joins us now with more. Vanessa, the UAW is set to give an update on where negotiations stand tomorrow. What do we anticipate we'll hear?
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: This is going to be one of Shawn Fain's signature Facebook live. He's holding it at 2:00 p.m. tomorrow, and he's going to be giving an update on the state of negotiations between the Union and the Big Three. However, what we do not know is if he's going to be announcing any expanded strikes against the Big Three.
But a person familiar with negotiations says that General Motors and the Union has made progress on key economic issues. And this is important because over the last three weeks, we have seen the Union announced strikes against General Motors three times, while just announcing strikes, expanded strikes against Ford and Stellantis twice.
General Motors also telling us that the first two weeks of the strikes, the strike has cost them $200 million. And according to analysis that we have from Anderson Economic Group the total impact of the strike over the last two weeks has been about $4 billion. That's including that impact to those automakers, to consumers, to dealers and to the lost wages that many of these employees have seen.
Also to note though, the lost wages for people who are on strike and the layoffs that these companies have announced more than 3,000, those individuals, Boris, though are eligible for strike pay. That's about $500 a week from the Union.
SANCHEZ: And we'll look forward to that update tomorrow from Shawn Fain. Vanessa, what's up with all these strikes? It seems like they're hitting across multiple industries -- the auto industry, entertainment, healthcare. Why is this all happening now?
YURKEVICH: Yes, we were calling it the hot labor summer. As you mentioned, strikes across multiple industries. There's a couple of things going on. One is that many of the people who were working in these industries worked over the course of the pandemic, when many of us were working from home. And at that time, especially in the auto industry and also in healthcare, they watched these companies that they work for make record profits. They also look at the pay of many of these CEO's. Mary Barra makes almost $30 million a year, and she has seen her pay in increased by a significant amount. And the folks who are working for these companies feel like they should be on that same pay raise increase as these CEO's.
Also, I think you have unions in some industries looking at unions and other industries and seeing the success of the Writers Guild who was on strike for many months come to a pretty good agreement at the end of their strike. So a lot of unions paying attention to what other unions and other industries are doing and wanting their fair share -- Boris.
And it appears to be a ripple effect. Vanessa Yurkevich, thanks so much for the reporting.
Still to come on NEWS CENTRAL, a FedEx plane with a malfunctioning landing gear, making a crash landing in Tennessee. How the crew was able to pull off this spectacular landing.
And later, Simone Biles back on the world stage like she never left. Yet another first place finish, another broken record for Team U.S.A. We'll be right back.
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BROWN: A rough landing in Tennessee after a FedEx plane skids off the runway and into the grass near a roadway. You can see sparks coming off the bottom of the plane there. Three people were aboard the Boeing 757, but thankfully no one was hurt. I want to bring in CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean. So I mean, this is a happy ending. Everyone was OK. The packages were OK. Tell us what happened.
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: What happened was good TV. You know, that was an incredible landing. And you see the sparks coming out of that 757. This was a textbook belly landing. You see it sometimes in smaller airplanes at smaller airports, the landing gear malfunctions. They can't get it down. Rarely ever do you really see it on a transport category airplane as big as a Boeing 757 carries a couple 100 people when it's in the passenger configuration, a lot of packages, when it's in the cargo configuration.
[15:45:00]
This FedEx flight was leaving Chattanooga, Tennessee, going to FedEx's big hub in Memphis. Pretty quickly though, the flight crew realized there was a bit of an issue. They had something called a gear unsafe of flight. And so they were able to see that the landing gear was malfunctioning on the crew alerting system that they have in front of them -- all of those screens in front of them. So they essentially just took off straight. They radioed air traffic control and they flew around the Chattanooga airport a couple of times.
They did something that's a bit old school. They came in for a bit of a fly by to try and see if the air traffic control tower -- the controllers in there -- could pick up binoculars and see if the landing gear was in fact down. It turns out it was not. And so you can hear this relatively calm and cool air traffic control transmission from the pilots on this FedEx flight saying. Hey, we got a problem. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FDX1376: Approach, FedEx 1376?
ATC: FedEx 1376 approach?
FDX1376: Yes, Sir, when we land, we're going to have to stop on the runway. We're not going to have any steering available to us and we'll get our truck out. But just to give you a heads up, we'll be shutting down the runway. So in that case, we're going to go ahead and declare emergency this time. We got three souls on board approximately an hour and a half of fuel remaining.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MUNTEAN: The book, you tell air traffic control how much fuel you have on board, how many people are on board and they said they were going to clog up the runway. And that is a big issue here, especially when you don't have wheels to stop the airplane. No brakes. Also, the airplane comes in on its belly. And so, though you can't really use the engine thrust reversing system that would usually bring an airplane to a stop.
The runway there in Chattanooga, 7,400 feet long, a mile and a half long, they used up every inch of it and then some. So they went off the end of the runway there. Thankfully, nobody was hurt. The procedure says get out as quick as he can after something like that. So they evacuated. Even the firefighters there in Chattanooga said, good coordination, pilots did an excellent job. Now the NTSB is going to investigate and see exactly what went wrong here. But pretty clearly a mechanical problem that would have caused something like that.
BROWN: Yes, kudos to that pilot for staying calm under tremendous pressure. Wow.
MUNTEAN: They train for it.
BROWN: Glad there was a happy ending. Pete Muntean, thank you so much -- Boris.
SANCHEZ: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour. The lines on Alabama's congressional map are shifting after a lengthy legal battle. A federal court has approved this new map that significantly boosts the Black population of a second district out of seven in the state. Alabama Republicans fought the change, but their proposed map was twice rejected by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Also, friends and family of Ryan Clinkunbroomer are gathering today to pay tribute to the fallen law enforcement officer. The LA County Sheriff's deputy was shot in an ambush style killing last month. The 30-year-old had just gotten engaged days earlier. A suspect in the killing has been arrested and a preliminary hearing is scheduled for next month.
And Adnan Syed, the subject of the popular serial podcast, is again arguing to keep his freedom. Syed was released last year after more than two decades in prison for the murder of an ex-girlfriend. A Baltimore judge overturned his conviction after city prosecutors found flaws in the evidence. But now the State's High Court is considering whether that decision violated the rights of the victims brother to have adequate notice to attend the hearing.
Still, plenty more news to come this afternoon, including U.S. fighter jets shooting down a drone over Syria that belonged to a NATO ally. We'll discuss when we come back.
[15:50:00] (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: Breaking news. A U.S. fighter jet shot down a drone that belonged to NATO ally Turkey. It all happened over Syria. The Pentagon says the drone was flying near U.S. troop positions in the northeastern part of the country. Let's go straight to seeing the national security reporter Natasha Bertrand. Natasha, does the Pentagon believe Turkey was targeting the U.S.?
NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: No signs as of now, Pam, that Turkey was intentionally targeting U.S. forces there. But that Turkish drone, it came really way too close for comfort there for the U.S. forces that are operating in northeastern Syria.
What happened was early this morning, local time in Syria, the U.S. did observe an armed Turkish drone about half a kilometer away heading towards U.S. forces. It was in a restricted operating zone that the U.S. uses there to conduct its anti-ISIS work, in anti-ISIS missions.
Well, according to our sources, the U.S. issued several warnings to this drone. Over a dozen warnings, warning that they were going to potentially shoot it down if it did not respond, and if it did not leave the area. Now, ultimately, an F16 fighter jet did in fact shoot that drone down. Now here's what Pentagon press secretary General Ryder told reporters today about how this all played out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRIG. GEN. PAT RYDER, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: U.S. commanders assessed that the UAV, which was now less than 1/2 a kilometer from U.S., forces to be a potential threat. And USF16 fighters subsequently shot down the UAV in self-defense at approximately 11:40 local time. It's important to point out that no U.S. forces were injured during the incident. We have no indication that -- that the -- that Turkey was intentionally targeting U.S. forces.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BERTRAND: Now, Pam, this is obviously really significant because Turkey is a NATO ally and this would potentially mark the first time that the U.S. has downed a Turkish aircraft in this way.
But the Secretary of Defense, he did speak to his Turkish counterpart and apparently according to General Rider, they had a very productive discussion. No word, however, on whether the Turks agreed to not do that again in the future. There are about 900 U.S. forces operating in in Syria at this moment. And of course, Turkey has been conducting air strikes against Kurdish forces in Syria that work very closely alongside American forces.
[15:55:02]
So this could get very dicey again soon in the future -- Pam.
BROWN: Certainly could. Natasha Bertrand, thank you. More news ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: All right, let's just be honest here. It is Simone Biles world, and we're just living in it. The 26-year-old gymnast led the U.S. Women -- women's gymnast -- that gymnastics team, back to a team title. She's got me tongue tied. Her 20th World Championship gold.
SANCHEZ: She is impressive. And it was this impressive floor routine that secured the title for the U.S. Women's Team at the World Championships. Their seventh straight gold, and it's not over yet.
[16:00:00]
Biles still has a few more events coming up this week, including the women's individual all around final tomorrow. It's like it takes your breath away watching her glide through the air like that. And it's so great to see her back on the floor after some of the challenges that she's gone through.
BROWN: What a comeback. She is truly inspirational. Superhuman. My goodness. Best of luck to her. We'll be rooting her on.
SANCHEZ: Yes, look forward to more in the very near future.
Hey, thanks so much for joining NEWS CENTRAL this afternoon. Pam, great for you to be here. You're back tomorrow.
BROWN: I'm back tomorrow. Don't miss it.
SANCHEZ: Looks forward to that. Yes, "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts after a short break.
