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19 Missing After Blast at Tennessee Explosives Company; Israel Says Ceasefire in Effect as Troops Pull Back in Gaza; As Ceasefire Begins, 72-Hour Window Opens for Hostage Release; Federal Worker Layoffs Have Begun. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired October 10, 2025 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

SHERIFF CHRIS DAVIS, HUMPHREYS COUNTY, TN: Concentrated so much on what is here right now and getting this stable, secure, and taking care of the people here that I hadn't been able to have any kind of feedback from the community. So I'm sure that I'll start hearing some things, we'll start interacting with things as time goes through this. And again, this is not going to be, we're going to close this up tonight. We'll probably be here three or four days from now, five days from now.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if we're here next week. But we're just, you know, again, we've got to go slow, methodical. So forgive me, I don't mean to avoid that question, but we just can't, I can't, I can't answer it right now because I don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do have one more question. I know you were kind of being really sympathetic towards the souls of the lost. I am wondering if eventually you are going to let us know how many people have perished.

DAVIS: Yes, ma'am, well, we will confirm that and like I can say right now, the list that we have right now, we are missing 19 souls.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're not confirming that some of them are missing. You can't confirm which ones have actually been accounted for.

DAVIS: I cannot tell you whose been accounted for.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What are the next steps for you?

DAVIS: Good question. Right now, honestly, we're having to go hour by hour. We're having to take things hour by hour.

We're having to take developments that's going on. We're operating this is, for lack of better words, and I don't want to say two different scenes, but we're letting them take care and doing the things that they need and up there where the incident occurred. And we're taking that information, compiling what the needs are and setting goals that we're trying to reach as we go.

So pretty to answer that we're on an hour by hour situation. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think we'll have more numbers

about the number of people being treated?

DAVIS: Miss Gray, if you don't mind -- what time was we going to come back together? 4 p.m. I'm hoping by 4 p.m. that we can be able to tell you more information about that. So it's there again, it's not that I'm avoiding it, it's that we're getting information as we go. And that's why I want to try to maybe do these every hour or every couple of hours to be able to answer your questions. OK.

Again, --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is there some kind of list of people that you can potentially access? This is one woman that told me your son is on that. That people that were there have a list. I don't know if the media is privy to.

DAVIS: I don't have that available for the media at this time. And we're still working with that. There again because there's some of the delicate information. We're trying to confirm that every family has been notified.

And we've got 110 percent have got to make sure that that's happened. You know, Sheriff Kraft and I have even said if there's somebody we can't get a hold of, we're going to send officers and along with Accurate Energetic staff to make sure that we go out and find that. So, excuse me, we're trying everything we can do to, here again, to take care of the people.

Fair enough?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, Chris, in years past, you've asked media to help in different aspects. Is there anything we can do to assist at this time?

DAVIS: Burton, I really appreciate you commenting on that. In putting things out here, we had some early pictures that was released and man, I'm just asking you to be mindful of these families. This is a huge ordeal.

It's a very devastating ordeal. And I'm not talking about devastating on the scene. I'm not talking about that.

I'm talking about devastating in the fact of a loved one that just come to work and now may be missing or deceased. So please keep that thing -- that in mind when you're having or doing these stories. You know, these stories, we often find ways that we try to turn things into negative.

This is a bad situation. This is a negative situation. But there's no reason for us to take the downward spiral or the downward side of this story when it comes to these families.

So I'm all about that.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: It's a devastating scene that the sheriff here is painting there in Tennessee. As he put it, when he was asked to describe the building where this explosion occurred, he said, there's nothing to describe. It's gone. It's the most devastating scene I've seen in my career.

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: And you can just hear, you can hear the emotion, the heartbreak, frankly, in his voice there. Also talking about, in his words, there are 19 souls that we're looking for. No firm numbers that the focus right now, as he pointed out, is making sure that all families are notified, that the families are taken care of in this moment.

He did say he hopes to have another update in about 90 minutes or so.

[15:35:00]

We'll continue to follow these developments for you out of Tennessee. But just a devastating scene, as the sheriff himself said.

Much more on the other side of this break.

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KEILAR: Ten hours into the Gaza ceasefire, all eyes on that Monday deadline, Hamas has agreed to release all of their hostages by then. And in return, Israel will free some 2,000 prisoners. Monday is also the day the Israeli police say President Trump will be visiting.

[15:40:00]

When the ceasefire began, crowds of displaced Palestinians started heading home from the south to the north, many of them returning to find utter devastation as Israeli troops started to disperse.

Just last hour, CNN learned the first American troops have now arrived in Israel. U.S. officials say about 200 service members will be on the ground by Sunday to help monitor the deal. We're joined now by CNN political and global affairs analyst, Barak Ravid.

Barak, talk to us a little bit about what we're expecting now that the ceasefire has begun.

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: So, first, I think we'll have to see that the exchange of hostages, Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners happens as planned. The deadline for completing, concluding the release of the hostages is Monday at noon local time. So we still, there's still quite a lot of time until then.

But this is, you know, it's going to be a complicated task because all those hostages are supposed to be released in one tranche and not in several phases, which is something that we haven't had since the beginning of this war. So we're talking about at least 20 live hostages that are supposed to be concentrated in one place and released.

This security and logistical operation that is very sensitive because situation in Gaza, security situation in Gaza, even though there is a ceasefire, is still very unstable.

KEILAR: And really for the first time, Netanyahu hinted at something that President Trump sort of hinted at the other day, which is the difficulty of getting the remains of hostages who are deceased back to Israel and the possibility that they may not all come back. It's very sensitive because of the importance of burial in Judaism.

Can you talk to us a little bit about what the expectation is and how people are reacting to that, Barak?

RAVID: So first there are 28 dead hostages that their bodies are expected to be retrieved as part of this deal. Two of them are U.S. citizens, Itay Chen and Omer Neutra. Their body, they were killed on October 7th.

Their bodies were kidnapped by Hamas to Gaza, have been held there for two years. And I think Donald Trump, President Trump, wants to see those two Americans coming back. And I'm pretty sure that this message was conveyed to Hamas by the Trump administration through the mediators, that they expect those two Americans, that their bodies will be returned as part of this deal.

The Israeli intelligence doesn't know exactly how many of those hostages, how many of those bodies Hamas knows where they are. They think that the majority, there's a pretty clear idea where they are. But there are a number of bodies that are sort of missing, meaning it's not clear if the last location that they were, and that we know they were, if this is still where they are, because some of the bodies were moved from place to place. Some of their bodies were, they had guards protecting them, but those guards were killed during the war.

So it will -- it could take several days, weeks, maybe months before Hamas can retrieve all those bodies.

KEILAR: And the scene in Gaza right now, we see the pictures of Gazans heading from the south to the north. Many of them will return to homes that don't exist. Talk to us a little bit about that, as the IDF is kind of moving out of certain areas.

Aid is expected to be coming in, but what is the scene expected to be like there in Gaza?

RAVID: So first, the Israeli pullout, the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza was wider than originally planned. First because that during the negotiations, Hamas demanded a wider withdrawal, which Israel agreed to. And second, because at the end, for operational reasons, the IDF decided in certain places to withdraw a bit more for force protection.

So the withdrawal -- there's the bigger parts of Gaza right now doesn't have presence of the IDF in them.

Second thing which I think is extremely important, is that the Rafah crossing is going to be open. And for the first time since the war started, it's going to be opened on both sides, meaning for the first time, Palestinians who left Gaza before the war or during the war will be able to come back. [15:45:00]

This is quite a significant change, because in the last two years, no Palestinians were able to go back to Gaza. I'm not sure if anybody wanted to, but right now, Palestinians will be able to go back.

And there are, I think, between 100,000 and 200,000 Palestinians, at least, who left Gaza before the war or during the war and would now be able to go back.

KEILAR: And then as President Trump is heading to the region, he's going to be in Israel Monday. He'll be speaking to the Knesset, addressing the Knesset. What are you expecting from that?

RAVID: So I think Trump's visit to Israel will be very, very short, five or six hours. The speech in the Knesset is going to be the main event. He's also going to see Prime Minister Netanyahu.

He's going to meet hostage families in the Knesset. And then he's going to travel to Egypt. And there, I reported earlier on Axios that President Trump is planning to hold a summit with at least eight Arab leaders and at least four European leaders, the leaders of the UK, Germany, Italy, and France, and leaders from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Indonesia, and Pakistan.

And this is important because those people, those leaders in those countries are the ones that Trump needs in order to, A, be part of the International Stabilization Force that will enter Gaza in order to do the peacekeeping. And second, those countries are the countries that Trump needs in order to pay for the reconstruction or to at least help in funding the reconstruction of Gaza, a process that is going to take many, many, many years.

KEILAR: Certainly. Barak Ravid, thank you so much for giving us a sense of what is happening there. We do appreciate it.

RAVID: Thank you.

KEILAR: And coming up, the Trump administration has begun firing federal workers, making good on its threat for mass layoffs as the shutdown drags on.

[15:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HILL: As we continue to follow the fallout from the government shutdown, the White House today now making good on its threat to fire federal workers.

KEILAR: And this is coming on the 10th day of the shutdown with no solution in sight at this point.

And we're joined now by pollster and communications strategist Frank Luntz. Frank, as we're hearing word that people are going to start getting riffed, right? So some folks who are furloughed are going to start getting fired. I wonder sort of what the risk factors are here politically, because you have both sides at this point playing chicken. So I wonder what questions you are asking about how this is going to play out.

FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGIST: I'm wondering, and you set it up perfectly. I'm wondering how they're going to communicate this. The public was overwhelmingly in favor of ending wasteful Washington spending, making the government more efficient, more effective, and more accountable.

And yet, month after month of DOGE and efforts in Washington to make those changes did not receive the same kind of public support that they did in the initial polling, in the initial conversations. And the reason why is communication. Rather than doing this as support for the American taxpayer and as acknowledgment the government had gotten too big and too ineffective, too unwieldy, it seemed like it was being done out of vengeance, out of punishment.

And nobody was looking for that, that in the end these are human beings and how they were being eliminated had a big impact in how the public received it. So my answer to you is, first, is it going to be communicated as a punishment or a benefit?

Second, is what's being done to ensure that those services that those government people were involved with are maintained?

And third, is there any other way to do this, or is this the only way to give people the Washington and the federal government that they want, that they need, and they deserve? I'm trying to answer your question explicitly. And the only way to do that is to measure what kind of communication strategy they exhibit as they do this.

HILL: Yes. And we still have a lot of questions to your point right now in terms of we don't know exactly where or how many or how these cuts are going to are going to fall out here. What we do know, though, is some of the initial polling that pulled from The Washington Post last week in terms of how it's being received, 47 percent said they saw this really as the fault of Republicans, 30 percent pointing the finger at Democrats.

Which is interesting because yesterday you had Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene here on CNN telling Pamela Brown that she is also pointing the finger at her party's leadership, saying we control the House, we control the Senate, we have the White House. That's been a Democratic message, of course.

Is that gaining steam, though, with more folks in the country?

LUNTZ: That is -- that also is what you should be asking, because in the end, it is the leadership. It's not the country. It's not the grassroots. It's what's happening in Washington.

And the way that I look at it is which side seems to want to solve this, to resolve it, and which side seems to be more intransigent. Make no mistake, if all you do is blame the other side, which is what the public has grown so frustrated about, just blaming, holding people responsible, that's different than accountability and the sense that you're trying to make things work the way that it should for the people who work hard, play by the rules, pay their taxes, and are simply asking for the government that they pay for nothing more and nothing less.

I've been critical of both sides and how they've communicated, because there doesn't seem to be the desire to end this. Instead, there's the desire to pin the tail on the donkey.

And in the end, that won't be good enough. In the end, the public expects something better from their elected officials.

KEILAR: We see your Go Army spirit finger over your right shoulder there. And you can't ignore, Frank, military families are getting hosed in this, right? We're expecting they're going to miss a paycheck next week, another one if this goes on.

How much does that factor into the politics of this?

LUNTZ: Significantly. There are two things that you do not do in the shutdown. You do not punish Social Security recipients, because hell hath no fury like a senior who's been denied their benefits, even for a few days.

And the other group that you do not punish are people, are men and women in uniform. Both of those will be significant players. And if that should happen in the end, they'll be held to pay at the ballot box.

[15:55:00]

People do forgive. Issues happen, crises happen, and moods change. But if you deny our people in uniform their salaries, their benefits, you're going to have a problem months or even on Election Day a year from now.

KEILAR: All right. Frank Luntz, great to speak with you. Really appreciate it.

And "THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts after a quick break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

END