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Hearing On Trump's Special Master Request Set For Thursday; Ukraine Fears Western Support Could Waver As Winter Approaches; Massive Flooding Expected In Parts Of Mississippi; Power Outages In Cuba Increasingly Common; U.S. Intel Chiefs Assessing Security Risks From Seized Mar-A-Lago Documents; Biden's Student Loan Relief To Help Middle Class Borrowers; What's Being Done About U.S. Teacher Shortages; Artemis I Launch Pad Struck By Lightning. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired August 28, 2022 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers all around the world. I'm John Vause here in Los Angeles.
Ahead here, what was found at Donald Trump's private home. Why the Director of National Intelligence is looking at the classified documents.
And also a dangerous and deadly job, we'll look at the efforts of clearing isolated munitions in Ukraine's active warzone.
And get out now, the warning from a city mayor ahead of record- breaking flooding in Mississippi.
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VAUSE: A Trump appointed federal judge has indicated that she is likely to grant a request from his legal team to appoint a special master to review evidence of the search of the Mar-a-Lago estate. A hearing for a final decision is scheduled for Thursday.
The application for a special master is seen by many legal experts as having no benefit and possibly a delaying tactic. And an advisory will be made on the possible risks to national security. Marshall Cohen has more on that.
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MARSHALL COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: New developments this weekend in the investigation of Donald Trump's handling or possible mishandling of classified documents.
The top U.S. intelligence official says intel agencies are conducting a damage assessment of the documents that Trump took with him from the White House to Mar-a-Lago.
Avril Haines, the Director of National Intelligence, told U.S. lawmakers in a letter that her team and the Justice Department are reviewing the materials recovered from Mar-a-Lago to see what is still classified.
She also said, once that is done, her office will, quote, "lead an intelligence community assessment of the potential risks to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents."
Now this all comes shortly after the DOJ released the FBI affidavit that investigators used to secure that historic search warrant of Mar- a-Lago. DOJ refused to release the affidavit. But they were ordered by a federal judge to make public a partially unredacted version.
And that affidavit, once we got to see what was inside of it, it showed how investigators came to believe that there was probable cause that crimes had been committed at Mar-a-Lago specifically related to possible mishandling of classified material as well as potential obstruction of justice.
For his part, Donald Trump has denied all wrongdoing. In the sworn affidavit, an FBI agent described how the National Archives found 184 classified documents among the 15 boxes that were recovered earlier this year from Mar-a-Lago.
There were 67 documents marked confidential, 92 were marked secret and 25 were top secret. That is the highest level.
According to the affidavit, some of the materials had classification markings indicating that the records were about CIA sources and spies.
Other documents were related to extremely sensitive NSA surveillance programs. All this is precisely why the U.S. intelligence community is now doing the damage assessment -- Marshall Cohen, CNN, Washington.
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VAUSE: Former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, told CNN about his concerns with classified documents being kept at a resort like Mar-a-Lago.
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JAMES CLAPPER, FORMER U.S. DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: I would imagine it is kind of a physical security nightmare in terms of preventing unauthorized access, since they really can't control who is in and out of the place.
And complicating this further is, I think, is not knowing exactly what the chain of custody has been for these documents since they left the White House.
How were they transported, how were they protected, who has had access to them at Mar-a-Lago, has someone perhaps reproduced these documents or taken pictures of them?
(END VIDEO CLIP) VAUSE: Donald Trump has changed his story many times on why the documents were kept at his Mar-a-Lago estate and his story or narrative does not always match the claims from his legal team.
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VAUSE: Former Trump White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham talked about the changing messages coming from her old boss.
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STEPHANIE GRISHAM, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think that he has got to be concerned. I don't know how he is not. The man is under investigation six, seven, eight ways, different investigations.
And now people have gone into his home and removed actual evidence. I think the fact that he keeps changing his messaging, to me, that is very telling. A lot of times with Donald Trump he will go to a message and stick to it and double down, triple down, even if it is the wrong message. This time, the message keeps changing.
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VAUSE: The U.S. Justice Department released the redacted affidavit that led to the search of Mar-a-Lago. And we have a page by page annotation at cnn.com that breaks it all down in easy to understand language, which is very helpful.
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VAUSE: Ongoing shelling around Ukraine's Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant continue to raise fears of a nuclear disaster. The facility remains under Russian control, while Ukrainian technicians keep the nuclear plant in operation.
On Thursday it was knocked off the power grid for a day. Artillery fire is being blamed for damage to a crucial power line. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says he hopes to lead a team of experts to the site within days.
But the president of the European Commission suggesting that it would be up to Russia to end the fighting once and for all.
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URSULA VAN DER LEYEN, PRESIDENT, EUROPEAN COMMISSION: If Russia stops fighting, there will be no more war in Ukraine. But if Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no more Ukraine.
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VAN DER LEYEN: In Ukraine, evil will not have the last word.
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VAUSE: For more, let's go live to London, Salma Abdelaziz, pulling the early shift for us there.
The situation around the Zaporizhzhya power plant, I mean, how urgent is it to get the IAEA inspectors into that plant, what are they expecting once they get there?
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It is extremely urgent. If you listen to President Zelenskyy, he has repeatedly said that the threat does not just loom over Europe but Europe at large.
This is the largest complex of its kind in all of Europe. And since March, it has been under Russian control, seized by Russian troops.
And it is in recent weeks that Ukraine is accusing Russia of using it as a military base, of using it to fire artillery upon Ukrainian army positions, knowing full well that the Ukrainian military can't fire back on the nuclear power plant without the threat of nuclear disasters.
So is this a critical visit that will take place this week by the IAEA, something Ukraine has called for time and time again, something that President Zelenskyy has been pleading for and something that Russia does welcome.
However, they have not agreed, of course, to pull their troops out of that area. That would create a demilitarized zone. They don't want to see this becoming part of the front line, which it very much is right now.
And already those threats felt very real just a few days ago when this nuclear power plant was disconnected from the power grid. That meant that emergency services, for the first time in the history of that power plant, the emergency system had to be ramped up to keep the nuclear reactors cool, to keep the disaster at bay.
It has since been reconnected. But Russia and Ukraine again accusing each other of shelling that nuclear power plant. So a very critical visit that will happen today. But again, this is a nuclear power plant that is part of the battlefield, absolutely a matter of concern.
VAUSE: Salma, thank you. Appreciate the update.
After six months of war, much of the fighting seems to be at a stalemate. And plans for a reported counteroffensive in the south have yet to fully materialize.
I spoke with a former Ukrainian defense minister about what his country still needs and why the counteroffensive might look different than expected.
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ANDRIY ZAGORODNYUK, CHAIRMAN, CENTER FOR DEFENSE STRATEGIES: We do have manpower; the key problem is weapons. We still don't have enough weapons, which we've been asking to provide us. That includes artillery and multiple rocket launchers, most of all. That's something which is still -- we don't have in sufficient numbers. But from the other side, we need to understand that a counteroffensive
may not take place in the traditional sense. What we do right now, we decrease the capacity and capabilities of the enemy, of Russia.
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ZAGORODNYUK: And as soon as we see that this is a degree sufficiently enough, then we can do the next step. But currently we are destroying their weapons, destroying their positions on a daily basis, including in the Kherson area.
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VAUSE: Nearly six months, the almost constant bombardment of Ukraine by Russia has left the country littered with destroyed buildings and unexploded ordnances, which could detonate at any moment. David McKenzie spent time with a team doing some dangerous work.
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JOHN MONTGOMERY, FSD TEAM LEADER: That is where the vast majority of the contamination has gone.
DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For each devastating strike, there is a deadly chain reaction.
An item of ordnance struck this building. And the ammunition which didn't detonate on that initial blast has been kicked out, has been thrown from here. And it can travel up to several hundred meters.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): Ammunition like this live round can kill civilians, often children, long after the fighting has stopped.
MONTGOMERY: You see before is the carnage that has been left by the ammunition trucks detonating.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): In March, Ukrainian forces struck this farm warehouse housing tons of Russian shells and rockets.
MONTGOMERY: I can only imagine the fireball and the sound that was produced when it happened.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): For this explosive ordnance disposal team in Chernihiv --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We don't go in aggressive. Obviously there is a threat out there.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): -- the threat is very real.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We'll continue with the search straightforward. If I stay "stop" at anytime, you stop immediately.
Advance.
MCKENZIE: We have to be all the way back here for our own safety. It shows how dangerous this work is. And it is painstaking.
This small area has taken several days and you are not even finished.
MONTGOMERY: No, we've merely scratched the surface.
MCKENZIE: And you've got an entire country potentially.
MONTGOMERY: Yes.
MCKENZIE: How do you possibly do that job?
MONTGOMERY: If me doing this job and being here in Ukraine, removing one item, however small or however large it is, saves one life, then, for me personally, that is a goal that I've reached.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): When they spot a suspected shell --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everyone come back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).
MCKENZIE (voice-over): -- team leader John Aldridge must go it alone.
Using only his fingertips, John works very, very carefully.
These shells are designed to destroy defensive positions. If armed, even the slightest nudge could set it off.
MCKENZIE: What is it like when you are there, scrambling through, not knowing what exactly you will find?
JOHN ALDRIDGE, FSD TEAM LEADER: Yes, it is interesting, something that you get used to after time but there's still an element of sort of adrenalin kicking in a bit and a few beads of sweat.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): This shell can be moved safely. Soon they will have Ukrainian team leaders clearing their own land.
"This will be an enormous task," says Natalya (ph), "since all this must be done carefully. You just can't rush this job."
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Nice and steady, yes.
MCKENZIE (voice-over): Even if this war stopped today, it could take years for her country to be safe -- David McKenzie, CNN, Chernihiv, Ukraine.
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VAUSE: A state of emergency has been declared in Mississippi as heavy rain and rising waters threaten to flood the state's capital. Details when we come back.
Also coming up, how blackouts are disrupting the lives of thousands across the communist island of Cuba. (MUSIC PLAYING)
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VAUSE: Rivers continue to rise higher in Mississippi. The governor declared a state of emergency, anticipating more heavy rains and flooding. The Pearl River is expected to rise to at least 36 feet by Monday. Jackson's mayor had a dire warning for residents.
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MAYOR CHOKWE ANTA LUMUMBA (D-MS), JACKSON: If you are capable of getting out now, get out now. Get out as soon as possible to prevent any incident or challenge with people trying to leave the area all at once. It is possible for approximately 100 to 150 homes to be impacted by this year's event.
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VAUSE: A fast moving wildfire west of Spokane, Washington, sparked an evacuation order for residents on Friday. Some say that they were caught off guard by the sudden announcement.
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RYAN OLETZKE, EVACUEE: I had a friend text me and said, hey, did you know there is a fire behind your house?
So I hopped out in the yard, kind of looked back, didn't know; checked the internet and saw it was level 1. And then my wife and our kids were away and we just met back here. And you just told us it is level 3. So, yes, time for us to leave, I think.
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VAUSE: Evacuation orders have been downgraded; as of Saturday night, the fire was 10 percent contained. Last report, no buildings or structures have been lost.
And in Oregon, the Rum Creek fire has grown to more than 4,000 acres, prompting the county sheriff to urge residents to leave the area. One firefighter died after he was struck by a tree.
And wildfires in southwest China are mostly contained. Volunteers worked with firefighters to bring them under control. The hottest weather in decades helped spark the blazes. No injuries or deaths have been reported. And a dire situation in Pakistan, where flooding continues to get
worse. More than 1,000 people are now dead from the rising water and that includes 348 children. An estimated 33 million people in total have been affected by the crisis.
Pakistan's minister for climate change posted this video online. She said the bridge was built 5 meters higher than the one destroyed 12 years ago in a superflood and the current floods are a climate induced disaster of epic proportions.
Cuba facing its worst energy crisis in decades; the government blames American sanctions for lack of investment and a disastrous fire. Patrick Oppmann says the crisis has driven Cubans to a rare protest.
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PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For many Cubans, this is now their life, waiting in the sweltering heat for the lights to come back on. In this neighborhood, people say the power is regularly cut by the government amid growing energy shortages for up to 16 hours each day.
Very difficult, really uncomfortable, when it's time to go to bed, you can't, he says. The mosquitoes eat you alive. The heat doesn't let you sleep.
Power cuts are nothing new here but Cubans are now dealing with the worst outages in decades as a perfect storm of economic calamity. A drop in tourism and skyrocketing inflation batters the island.
The Cuban government blames increased U.S. government sanctions for the outages but lack of investment in the state controlled energy sector and a massive fire that destroyed Cuba's main oil storage facility had brought the crisis to the brink.
As the lights go out more frequently, Cubans fed up with the outages have taken to the streets in rare protests that the government usually does not allow. Cuba's president says protesters need to be patient.
Some people take advantage of the situation to shout anti- revolutionary slogans, he says. Others take part in vandalism and throw rocks and break windows and that doesn't resolve the situation.
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OPPMANN (voice-over): But government officials admit there is no quick solution to the outages.
OPPMANN: The power outages have a major impact on people's lives. When the lights go out foods boils more quickly in the summer heat.
People can't go to work or to school. And they often have to sleep outside on the streets where they're exposed to mosquitoes that carry diseases like dengue. At this point there's no indication that the energy crisis is going to get better anytime soon. Wendy is nearly nine months pregnant and most nights has to sleep on the ground outside her house. She says out loud what many here are thinking.
"The food spoils and there's no food in the stores. There's nothing," she says. "This is going from bad to worse. I want to leave."
Already a record number of Cubans have left the island in the last year. For those that remain they know there are more long nights like this one to come -- Patrick Oppmann, CNN, Havana.
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VAUSE: Live now to central Italy, where Pope Francis is visiting a cathedral devastated by an earthquake 13 years ago. He will meet with families who lost loved ones and will celebrate mass there. More than 300 were killed, houses and buildings were destroyed, thousands were left homeless.
Coming up here, Libya's worse violence in years raising fears the country is spiraling toward greater turmoil.
And just one day from the launch of the Artemis I rocket, a preview of the mission to the moon and beyond when we come back.
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VAUSE: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm John Vause.
And we're following new details over the top secret documents seized from Donald Trump's Florida home.
A Trump appointed federal judge has scheduled a hearing for Thursday to consider the former president's request for a special master to oversee the FBI's review of evidence which was taken from Mar-a-Lago.
The judge put the parties on notice that she had a preliminary intent to appoint a special master, an independent legal expert, who would filter out privileged material seized during the search.
Meantime the U.S. intelligence officials are conducting a damage assessment to determine if national security was put at risk. On Friday, the Justice Department released the heavily redacted affidavit that led to the search, providing details on why the Feds wanted to take this unprecedented action.
The FBI said it has probable cause to believe that classified national security materials were taken to unauthorized locations at the resort. Deadly clashes in Tripoli are raising fears for Libya's stability.
Gunfire and explosions were heard across the capital Saturday, as the worst fighting in years erupted. The health ministry says the clashes killed at least 23 people; 140 others have been hurt.
The U.N. mission in Libya says neighborhoods were hit by shelling and destroying dozens of buildings and homes. For more, we get the latest with Nada Bashir, live from London.
What do we know this hour?
NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Really, this is the most intense round of fighting that we've seen the last two years. And it has brought into question the security situation in the capital, threatening to push the country back into that status of sustained violence that we've seen in the past.
Of course, Tripoli is no stranger to this sort of violence. We've seen clashes between these rival factions in the past. And this is off the back of months of political stalemate between two key rival factions.
You have the U.N. backed international government of national unity led by the prime minister. And then in the east, a rival political administration, which has essentially appointed its own prime minister. And we saw back in May he and his allied forces attempting to seize control, a failed attempt.
But since then we've seen simmering tensions between these two administrations. We've seen the forces, allies to the east, mobilizing around Tripoli over the last few weeks.
But it really all came to a head Saturday when we saw the intense clashes using live fire and machine guns, even mortars being deployed in some central parts of the city, impacting many who have been trapped in their homes as a result of the clashes.
We heard yesterday from the Libyan Red Crescent that they have been trying to evacuate some of the civilians directly impacted by the clashes. Even hospitals in parts of the city were forced to evacuate some of their patients from their wards and send them back to their families for fears of nearby clashes.
And there are real concerns now that this could push the political situation in Libya into uncharted turmoil, despite the last two years, where we have seen some semblance of peace, at least in the capital.
We heard yesterday from the United Nations secretary-general, calling for a return to peace, for all parties to return to open political dialogue. And we also heard from the leader of the GNU, the Tripoli based government.
He said that the GNU forces have defended the country, they have defended Tripoli and he also confirmed the GNU remains committed to democratic elections. But he also issued a stark warning to members of the opposition during a visit to GNU allied fighters. He said anybody looking to launch a political coup was misled, that
that time was long gone. And also said that anybody looking to seize power by force by any means other than democratic elections would meet his GNU allied fighters on the field.
VAUSE: Nada Bashir, thank you.
When we come back, school districts starting the school year in desperate need of teachers. Why the problem is hitting some areas harder than others.
Also what the White House is saying about how Americans can apply for student debt forgiveness and when it may disappear from their loan.
You're watching CNN NEWSROOM.
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VAUSE: Seems Americans are divided over President Biden's plan to forgive thousands of dollars in student loan debt for millions of students. The plan would forgive up to $20,000 for many working and middle class borrowers. Now we're learning about how the plan will work and how much it might cost. Arlette Saenz has details.
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ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The White House has started to offer some details on how much they anticipate their student loan forgiveness program to cost. The White House says that they are projecting that it will cost $240 billion over the next decade.
That is based on the idea that they would have 75 percent of eligible borrowers participating, a figure that they have derived from similar loan forgiveness programs in the past.
But that figure is far lower than what some experts are projecting. Analysis from Penn Wharton says it could cost up to $605 billion over the next decade and possibly over $1 trillion.
The White House has pushed back on that analysis, saying that it is purely speculative and, on the higher end of the spectrum, noting that there have been some changes to parts of the program and also saying that that analysis is taking into account 100 percent of eligible borrowers participating.
President Biden has said if simply 10 percent of eligible borrowers participate, that he would deem that a success. And he is continuing to push back on those with economic criticisms of his proposal.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's not going to cause inflation, number one.
Number two, it would generate economic growth, the opposite, because you got people who are, in fact, now going to be freed up to be able to go borrow money to buy a home, to be able to start businesses and do the things that need to be done.
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VAUSE: Criticism has come from both sides of the aisle, and even some Democrats.
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SAENZ: But the top economist from the Obama administration says that it is akin to pouring half $1 trillion of gasoline on the inflationary fire.
One other big question for these eligible Americans is when they will start to see relief from the program. The White House said that they will start rolling out applications in the coming weeks, with the goal of having that application out by early October.
Once people file, it will take four to six weeks for them to receive relief and the White House is encouraging applicants to apply by November 15th in order to get that relief. The pause on current federal student loan payments is set to expire at the end of the year -- Arlette Saenz, CNN, the White House.
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VAUSE: If headlines are accurate, America's education system is in crisis. Teacher shortage, some describing that as catastrophic. Nevada's Clark County has over 1,400 job vacancies, some of those actually teachers.
And the shortage can depend on where you live and what sort of teacher you need. Gym teachers, plenty of them; Special Ed, not so much. Discontent was seen in action at a strike in Washington state.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm trying not to tear up because this is not what we want to do. We just want to see what is right and what is fair.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: And if the pay is not bad enough, there's the issue of culture wars over critical race theory and gender definitions. Angry parents insist that they know your job better than you do if you're a teacher.
And then, of course, the looming fear of mass shootings and the ugly futile political debate that follows each one all lead to some troubling trends. A recent survey shows a 34 percent rise in job dissatisfaction among
members since the start of the pandemic, from 45 percent to 79 percent; 40 percent of members say that they may leave the job in the next two years.
Three quarters of teachers say that they would not recommend this profession to others.
But is there actually a teacher crisis across the country?
That is a real question.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
Matt Barnum is a national reporter at "Chalkbeat," a nonprofit news organization covering education. He is with us now from Vermont.
Thanks for taking the time to speak with us.
MATT BARNUM, NATIONAL REPORTER, "CHALKBEAT": Of course, happy to be here.
VAUSE: So there is a lot of anecdotal evidence of teacher shortages in some parts of the U.S.
But how can it be true that there is no actual data available to answer a very simple and yet crucial question about teacher numbers nationwide?
That in itself says a lot.
BARNUM: Yes, right. It is a very weird thing. But we have a very fragmented education system. We have thousands of different school districts, governed by thousands of different school boards. And they have their own rules and their own data and their own issues.
And sometimes they report that data up to states and sometimes they don't. And maybe the federal government will collect that data or maybe they won't.
And so that just leaves us in a situation where we have so many different anecdotes but no definitive answers or no -- at least at the national level, on whether there is a teacher shortage or what that looks like nationally.
VAUSE: So what is known at this point about teacher numbers and where they may or may not be shortfalls?
BARNUM: Right, so we do know that some districts report that it is harder to hire teachers. And so that might mean that there are more classrooms that start the year unfilled. And that might mean that they have teachers but they are less skilled or less qualified.
But that varies from place to place. Again, without data, it is hard to say definitively. What I can say is, historically, we tend to see the biggest issues and high needs, high poverty schools and in recruiting and retaining skilled teachers.
And we also tend to see the biggest challenges in certain subjects -- math, science, special education -- and I would expect that it is the same thing this year.
VAUSE: There is record low unemployment right now in the United States and that is leading to labor shortages in many industries.
Are those numbers simply reflected in what some people are calling a teacher shortage?
BARNUM: It is certainly possible. What we have seen very consistently is that schools are having an especially hard time getting school bus drivers and getting substitute teachers actually.
And the substitute teacher thing is one where that might seem, oh, well; that is not such a big deal to substitute. But substitute teachers actually allow a school to function, allow teachers to take days off when they are sick.
And when you don't have enough subs, the school can devolve into chaos. So I think it is true that the schools are feeling the labor shortage. But it is not always with the regular classroom teachers that they are facing the biggest struggles.
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VAUSE: And a lot of schools have been using pandemic relief money to boost teacher wages to keep them from leaving. That will eventually run out.
What happens when that money is not there?
BARNUM: I think that that is part of the issue, that there are some school districts who don't want to raise pay or hire new teachers as much as they would like to just because the COVID relief funding -- which, you are right, that is a lot of money -- that will run out.
And they know if they give a big pay raise now, they will fall off; some call it the funding cliff later. And they would be stuck, oh, we'll have to cut pay later or lay off teachers.
And so they are really torn between these two impulses. Raise pay to fix the shortage or hire more teachers to help assume (ph) the learning loss. But doing it with temporary funding is not necessarily the wisest long-term investment. So I think a lot of leaders are torn and different districts are doing different things.
VAUSE: Ultimately is the long term solution here just to basically raise teachers' wages because they are so ridiculously low in the first place?
They need to pay them more to attract not just more teachers but better teachers?
BARNUM: There is a little bit of debate about this. But what we do know is teachers on average get lower salaries than other workers with college educations. Now there is some debate about if you account for summers off or if you account for health care, retirement benefits, which tend to be more generous for teachers, whether that makes up for those lower salaries.
And so I can't sort of definitively answer that. But in general, it is right if you have a shortage of labor, one of the best ways to address that is to raise salary.
There are other folks who would agree with that but say, look, we don't have an across the board teacher shortage; we have a teacher shortage in certain areas -- math, science, special education in certain high need schools.
And those are the places where you should target the salary increases. And so there is a little bit of debate about the best way to do that.
VAUSE: I would challenge anyone who says teachers are paid enough or more than enough to spend a couple days in a classroom with a bunch of kids.
BARNUM: It is a tough job.
VAUSE: Thanks, Matt.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Still ahead here, as we wait for the launch of the Artemis I rocket, we'll look at the new protective vests that will be tested during this mission to fly past the moon.
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JANET PETRO, DIRECTOR, KENNEDY SPACE CENTER: My dad worked on the Apollo program. So to be here on the cusp of the first test flight of the Artemis generation, I'm not only excited but it is very, very personal for me.
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VAUSE: The first woman director for a mission like this 50 years after the last Apollo mission. The U.S. space agency NASA preparing to send astronauts back to the moon for its Artemis missions.
This time they will use a powerful rocket, with the first test launch of an uncrewed capsule set for tomorrow. Once launched, the Orion capsule will travel about 1.3 million miles or so over 42 days, a record. Earlier I spoke with CNN aviation analyst Miles O'Brien and he described why the Artemis missions are such a big deal for NASA.
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MILES O'BRIEN, CNN AEROSPACE ANALYST: This is not flags and footprints, as we saw 50 years ago with Apollo, a sprint to the moon and a photo opportunity, selfies, if you will, as we call them today.
The idea here is to build an outpost and learn how to live in space at some distance away. Going to Mars is a quantum leap beyond that. The distance is greater. The radiation exposure to the crew is greater. And we really don't know how to do it.
We don't even know how to do the entry, descent and landing for the amount of mass we need to get on the planet in a practical way.
So there's so many unanswered questions that need to be addressed, including whether we're going to go to Mars on these traditional chemical rockets or if we will build some more advanced propulsion, perhaps with a nuclear power plant, that will get us there much faster and allow the astronauts to be in fitter shape when they finally get to the surface of Mars.
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VAUSE: One of the biggest health risks to astronauts is exposure to radiation. This one will be carrying two mannequins to test new protective vests.
If successful, it will allow astronauts, especially women, to spend more time in space. CNN's Hadas Gold has the story.
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HADAS GOLD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): NASA's next moonbound rocket is not just named after a woman, the Greek goddess, Artemis, it is setting the stage for the first woman to walk on the moon and for more to explore deep space.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to spend more time there and that is riskier business. So the more we learn about the moon itself and the environment where we'll be operating, the better we can prepare.
GOLD (voice-over): One major health concern for astronauts in space is radiation, especially during solar storms. Research has shown it can be particularly dangerous for organs like breasts and ovaries.
So much so that for years, NASA let male astronauts stay longer in space than female astronauts. And so Artemis will carry a joint Israeli-American and German experiment that will protect a new protective vest called AstroRad, which could help humans, especially women, spend more time in space.
SHINT SCHWARZ, DIRECTOR, PRODUCT MANAGEMENT: Would you like to try it?
(CROSSTALK) GOLD: Yes, let's do it.
GOLD (voice-over): Shint Schwarz, director of product management for the team that created the protective vests, lets me try on one of their demonstration vests.
GOLD: I think that there are handles on my sides as well. That's complete coverage all around.
SCHWARZ: Yes.
GOLD: So this is what the actual inside of the suit looks like and feels like.
SCHWARZ: Yes. The material is the high density polytiran (ph), which is high in hydrogen and that is the most effective element in protecting from such kind of radiation.
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GOLD (voice-over): The vest varies in thickness from 6.5 millimeters to 65 millimeters, depending on the sensitivity of the areas it covers. Two mannequins called Phantoms, made of special materials that mimic the inner organs of a female body, will be aboard Artemis.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: One is called Helga, will be unprotected, while the Israeli Phantom will be protected with our vest.
GOLD (voice-over): As NASA prepares to send the first woman to the moon, Schwarz says being a woman leading the design on a female focused experiment in a male dominated field is adding extra significance to an already historic project.
SCHWARZ: It adds to the general feeling of being part of something very significant and, for sure, I'm very happy to contribute to the equality between the genders.
GOLD (voice-over): Hadas Gold, CNN, Tel Aviv.
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VAUSE: Now cnn.com has an interactive launch look at this launch.
Big day coming up.
Here is something you don't see every day while going through airport security. Clark, the bald eagle, showing off his impressive plumage at North Carolina's Charlotte airport. He was heading home to the World Bird Sanctuary in Missouri on Thursday.
The airline notified them ahead of the arrival so that they could screen him before the flight. He returned to his travel case after passing through security. Eagles apparently fly commercial.
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VAUSE: That wraps up this hour. I'm John Vause. Yes, I'll be back with 100 percent more me in the next hour. Hope to see you soon.
