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CNN International: Urgent Manhunt Continues for Suspected Shooter Robert Card; EU Calls for Humanitarian Pauses in Fighting; Al Jazeera: Gaza Bureau Chief's Family Killed in Strike; U.S. and China's Top Diplomats Meeting in Washinton. Aired 4:30-5a ET

Aired October 27, 2023 - 04:30   ET

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

[04:30:00]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Multiple schools and colleges remain closed. The motive for the shooting is unclear. But law enforcement sources say Card recently broke up with his longtime girlfriend. Investigators think he may have gone to the bowling alley and bar because they were places, he used to frequent with her. They say she was signed up to play in the tournament on Wednesday night.

Now law enforcement officials are expected to return on Friday to Card's last known address in Bowden, Maine. Authorities are also digging into his background and his military record, searching for clues to help track him down. CNN's Pamela Brown has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PAMELA BROWN, CNN CHIEF INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Swarms of federal and local officers converge as the manhunt for Robert Card intensifies.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Mr. Card is considered armed and dangerous.

BROWN (voice-over): His background giving a few potential clues about the shooting that left at least 18 dead and more than a dozen injured. His army records show the 40-year-old was a petroleum supply specialist in the Reserves, but never served in combat. A former Army Reservist who served with Card telling CNN that he is a skilled marksman, an outdoorsman who was among the best shooters in his unit.

While he was training in upstate New York over the summer, Card reported hearing voices, and threatened to shoot up a National Guard base -- according to law enforcement sources. The National Guard saying he was, quote: Behaving erratically.

He was transported to a hospital at the U.S. military academy for medical evaluation and stayed for two weeks. His family telling CNN he did not have a long history of mental health issues, quote: This is something that was an acute episode. This is not who he is.

His sister-in-law said, quote: This is a good family.

On his Twitter page, Card liked right wing posts including by Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump Jr., Republican members of Congress and multiple posts criticizing President Biden on the economy. His social media also shows photos of him fishing. Card's vehicle was found at a boat ramp less than 20 miles from the shooting scene, and public records show he also owned a boat. The Coast Guard is also part of the search.

According to another former soldier who served with Card, he had extensive training, including land navigation, quote: So he would be very comfortable in the woods.

The shooting was in Lewiston, Card's most recent address is in a rural area of a nearby town called Bowdoin, according to public records, which also show that his family owns a series of properties nearby.

Law enforcement sources say Card recently split up with a longtime girlfriend, and they are pursuing a theory that he allegedly targeted the bowling alley and bar because he used to go there with her and was supposed to be at the bar that night.

COL. WILLIAM ROSS, MAINE STATE POLICE: Based on our investigation, we believe this is someone that should not be approached.

BROWN (voice-over): Card's brother telling CNN, they are trying to reach him, urging him to surrender. Quote: We have helped law enforcement in any way possible, and the police have been given anything that we can offer to facilitate their efforts.

BROWN: The brother of the suspect also telling me this is many people's worst nightmare. Indeed, it is. And one of the big outstanding questions is why Robert Card was able to leave that mental health clinic after expressing thoughts of wanting to harm fellow soldiers, and able to gain access again to his legally possessed multiple weapons.

We know that Maine does not have a red flag law, which allows family members to petition the court to have weapons taken away from another family member in crisis.

Pamela Brown, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: The Israeli Government is already moving ahead with plans to rebuild the towns near Gaza that were savagely assaulted on October 7th. More than 1,400 people were murdered in those attacks, many of them in their homes.

On Thursday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the newly formed authority that's been tasked with the rebuilding projects. The Prime Minister said security will be the top priority as the communities are made whole again.

Meanwhile, volunteers were at the site of one of the many massacres cleaning up the terrible aftermath. I'll warn you the video contains graphic content. The location is Kibbutz Holit near the Egyptian border. The cleaners are volunteers with Zaka, a group that gathers the bodies of Israelis who died from unnatural deaths. At least 10 people were killed when Hamas attacked the settlement. Some of the volunteers describe what they found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SIMCHA GRAINAMAN, ZAKA VOLUNTEER: We were cleaning a bedroom from a little kid, a baby that was maybe, maybe three-years-old. You saw her shoes. You saw her blanket. Everything was full of blood. And you saw -- you could see the bullets coming through the main door over there in that bedroom.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He survived the Holocaust, the first Holocaust. He did not survive this Holocaust.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Meanwhile, the European Union is calling for humanitarian pauses in the fighting inside Gaza.

[04:35:00]

EU leaders are also appealing for the creation of safe corridors to deliver aid but are not calling for a complete ceasefire. The Red Crescent says another twelve aid trucks entered Gaza on Thursday but did not bring any fuel, which Israel doesn't allow. Israel says Hamas will steal the fuel and use it for rocket attacks. The fuel is a lifesaver in Gaza, partly because hospitals need it to run their power generators. Gaza's health ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, says 12 hospitals in the area are out of commission. Israel claims Hamas still has fuel stored in Gaza.

The European Union is also pledging more than $50 million in new aid for Gaza. The decision was announced after the first day of the leaders' summit in Brussels on Thursday. EU officials say the group has already delivered more than 50 tons of new aid to Gaza residents.

Let's bring in CNN's Jim Bittermann live from Paris. Jim, French President Macron has been visiting the region. That's been part of this story here. But also the story back in Europe of how these nations actually really struggle to find consensus on how to move ahead on this.

JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, exactly. I mean, I think one of the most frustrating thing for them is that they'd like to get humanitarian aid to the Gazans, basically because they know how they are suffering. And French are among those people who have in fact, taken it upon themselves. The government sent off a plane -- plane load of humanitarian aid to Egypt. It has been taken over by the Palestinian Red Crescent, which is a part with the Red Cross.

But basically the question is, how does that aid then get into Gaza? Only a dozen trucks went into Gaza yesterday, and the Foreign Minister, Catherine Colonna was on the French radio this morning, saying in fact, you'd need to have hundreds of trucks going in every day in order to sustain, have any kind of a durability about sustaining the people in Gaza for their humanitarian needs. And of course, one of the big problems, she said, was this inspection

that has to take place to make sure the trucks aren't loaded with contraband or with things that the -- that the Hamas could turn into weapons or use like fuel. So the process is just nowhere near being very efficient and nowhere near as efficient as is needed in this situation according to those that were there.

I mean, as you mentioned, President Macron was there last week -- earlier this week, actually. And in fact, he visited all the leaders of the Palestinians, the Israelis and Egyptians. And in fact, came with this idea of, you know, some kind of a coalition to fight terrorism in the Middle East, the kind of coalition that came together for fighting ISIS. But there's absolutely no appetite that we can see that after that mission to put together something like that. So it's a real kind of a dead-end situation at the moment and it looks like the Israelis are going to go ahead with their military invasion -- Max.

FOSTER: Yes, France is one of many of Israel's allies that are struggling with this idea of a ceasefire. Many people within the country wanting a ceasefire for humanitarian reasons as much as anything else. But Macron refusing to talk about a ceasefire but instead a pause in the fighting. Just explain the dynamics within the country there on that.

BITTERMANN: Well, I think if you call for a ceasefire, you know, it's almost saying you have to contradict what the Israelis have made it very clear they're not going to do. And that is to not have a ceasefire. They say they're not going to be restricted by any kind of international calls for a ceasefire. They're basically going to go ahead and do their military operation to get rid of Hamas once and for all, as they've always stated many, many times.

So I think that, you know, if you say you're going to have a ceasefire, then you're kind of contradicting Israeli plans. And if you on the other hand, say you want a humanitarian pause, maybe you can get enough goods, humanitarian goods in to help support the Gazans.

One of things the French did too -- and I should have this earlier -- is that they've sent out a ship. It's a helicopter carrier, but it does have a lot of hospital equipment on it. It has 60 hospital beds, as well as landing craft and other things. And if there was ever to be an evacuation, the French say they've got about 170 people in Gaza they'd like to get out. That includes 50 French citizens. If they ever were going to do an evacuation, this ship would be ideally suited to do that because it has landing craft and other kinds of things. But at the moment everything is at loggerheads. There's not -- there's no sign of any movement on anyone of the fronts -- Max.

FOSTER: OK, Jim Bittermann, as always, thanks for joining us from Paris.

An Al Jazeera journalist has returned to work less than 24 hours after an Israeli airstrike killed his family in Gaza -- his network Al Jazeera said.

[04:40:00] The IDF says it was targeting Hamas infrastructure in the area were the man's family was sheltering. CNN's Salma Abdelaziz has more and a warning that parts of her report are graphic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A journalist, some called the Voice of Gaza, mourns over the body of his teenage son.

They're taking their revenge by killing our children, he cries.

Al Jazeera says its bureau chief in Gaza, Wael Al Dahdouh, lost his wife, 15-year-old son, 7-year-old daughter and baby grandson, all killed in an Israeli airstrike, the network says.

The reporter had moved his family south of Gaza City after an evacuation order by the IDF, believing it would keep them safe.

This conflict is taking a severe toll on journalists, with at least 24 killed so far, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Reporters are also facing threats, arrests and censorship.

No one and nowhere in this enclave is spared, Palestinians say. Death and funerals are constant. Anguish and agony are on every corner.

Every 10 minutes, a child is killed, Save the Children estimates.

Anywhere else in the world, it is sons who bury their father, this man says. Why is it different in Gaza? Why do we have to bury our children before they're even grown?

Families desperate to keep their little ones safe are taking refuge anywhere they can find. Packed U.N. shelters are turning people away.

We can't live like this. We're 17 people living in a school classroom, this woman says. How long are we supposed to live like this? Tell us world, how long?

Eking out a living here is difficult and grim. Food, fuel, water, everything is running out.

I don't even know what the point is of being here, she says. We're still terrified and we have nothing, no help. We can bear it. We're grownups. But how are these children supposed to handle this?

There is no childhood left here for the more than one million kids now trapped in this hellscape. And no way, Gazans say, to keep the youngest safe.

Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: If you'd like information on how to help with humanitarian relief efforts in Gaza and Israel, please go to cnn.com/impact. You'll find a list of vetted organizations providing assistance. That's at cnn.com/impact.

Well, still to come, Hurricane Otis kills more than two dozen people after barreling into Mexico's west coast. How it intensified from a tropical storm to a powerful category 5 in just 12 hours.

[04:45:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: The U.S. Secretary of State and China's top diplomatic are meeting in Washington as concerns continue to grow over the Israel Hamas war expanding. Antony Blinken said he's looking forward to having, quote, constructive conversations with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi over his three-day visit. In a statement just released, the State Department says that during their meeting on Thursday, Blinken reiterated the U.S. will continue to stand up for our values and interests and those of our allies and partners. Wang will also meet with national security adviser Jake Sullivan. The Chinese Foreign minister is set to speak with President Joe Biden during his trip as well.

CNN's Beijing bureau chief Steven Jiang is live for us in the Chinese capital. Steven, so I mean, what are you looking out for in this trip because there's so much that these two countries have in terms of tension, but also a lot of common ground.

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Yes, Max, you know the list is long, but the bar is low. And we haven't learned much from either side actually about what Wang Yi and Blinken talked about in detail. But the key take away here is it's now increasingly likely the likely that Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader, is going to be in the U.S. next month to attend the APEC Summit and also meeting with President Biden. Because Wang Yi's visit to the -- to DC is very much seen as time to hash out the final details to pave the way for the Chinese leader to go to San Francisco next month.

Now the reason this is happening right now, I think both international and domestic, internationally there is expectation that the two superpowers need to put a floor on this freefall in their relationship. Because especially as mentioned, with global conflicts intensifying and expanding, they really need to work together on a lot of these things, and especially when it comes to Gaza at the United Nations.

But domestically, of course, Xi Jinping is still facing strong economic headwinds and also of course, Chinese relations, not just with the U.S., but with many other Western nations and even many of its neighbors, are very strained. So he needs to show this domestic audience here that he is capable of managing and recalibrating relations with other countries, especially with Washington.

But all of that though, Max, and I will say, it could be just tactical move because fundamentally the way China and Xi Jinping views the U.S. has really not changed. It's very much about the U.S. is out to contain China's rise and suppress China's interests. That's why he is still very much determined to reshape this U.S.-led world order -- Max.

FOSTER: We've also had the news of the death of the former premier, Li Keqiang so that's obviously making all the headlines there at the moment.

JIANG: That's right. You know Li's death -- the news came as a shock for many people as they woke up Friday morning because he was only 68 years old and retired from his post as premier only in March. He was actually seen not long ago touring the provinces and videos of him appearing on Chinese social media, and he appeared to be quite healthy and energetic. So this was really, I think, catching a lot of people off guard. Maybe even the authorities, because even eight hours after the announcement, we still have not seen an official obituary.

But of course, there have been a lot of reactions and emotions online. But the comments very much are closely monitored and strictly censored. But the one thing that seem to be emerging in this, even though the legacy of Li Keqiang still very much discussed and debated, people are comparing, contrasting him, a very much known reform minded technocrat to the current top leader, the strongman leader Xi Jinping, under with -- under whom Li Keqiang, of course, served for 10 years, but only saw his power increasingly weakened and sidelined even when it comes to the economic portfolio, which he was supposed to be in charge.

[04:50:00]

But Max, a lot of people associate Li's exit from power with that dramatic moment when his patron, former leader Hu Jintao was unceremoniously led out of the party Congress last year as stoney faced of Li sitting there really with no emotion, Max. I think that is really the symbol of today's Chinese politics. Nobody is indispensable in XI Jinping's China -- Max.

FOSTER: Absolutely. Steven Jiang in Beijing, thank you.

Now, recovery efforts are underway after a hurricane -- hurricane Otis slammed into Acapulco as a powerful category 5 storm, killing more than two dozen people.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he can see the end of the war in this country. This comes after new American and Danish defense support measures were announced on Thursday. U.S. Secretary of State says his country's security assistance package includes $150 million worth of arms and equipment. President Zelenskyy says Denmark's offering is over $500 million worth of tanks, drones and ammunition.

Now recovery efforts are underway in Acapulco, Mexico, after hurricane Otis caused extensive damage. Power is slowly being restored, but operations at the airport are still suspended and crews are working to clear debris from a landslide on a highway leading into the city.

[04:55:00] CNN's Gustavo Valdes reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GUSTAVO VALDES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This is typically what people come to Acapulco for. The nice beach, the nice surf, but right now it doesn't take long to see what happened after Otis came by. You see all the debris, its plants, its palm trees, its metal, its brick. This is the front of those fancy hotels where people spend hundreds of dollars to come and enjoy some time off. It's completely ruined. Not only the front. Look up. Look at what happened to this building. You cannot even see any proof that anybody could have been living there.

We have reports that people were actually in these buildings when the hurricane came, but you can see the danger they were in because of the damage that buildings like this have suffered after Otis. And this is something that we see not only on these nice, expensive areas, the resort areas. They -- more poor parts of the city are also suffering. The people are telling us they are not getting help, they're not getting water, they're not getting food.

We saw looting in some streets, in some stores, people were coming out. In most cases they were just taking food, water, something to drink. There were some that took advantage of the situation and they walked away with big screen TVs, but mostly people were telling us they just needed something to get by.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Well, that does it for me. Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster in London. "EARLY START" with Kasie is up next.