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Campaigning In Georgia, Trump Attacks Harris And Walz; Turkey: Five Killed, 22 Injured In Terror Attack; Northern Gaza in Dire Need of Aid Amid Israeli Offensive; Israeli Airstrikes Hit Beirut's Southern Suburbs; Blinken Discusses Gaza in Meeting With Saudi Crown Prince; United States Says at Least 3,000 North Korean Troops Are Inside Russia; Huge Shipments of North Korean Weapons Arriving in Russia; G7 Members Finalize $50 Billion Loan Package for Ukraine; U.N. Chief and Russian President to Discuss Ukraine Soon; Putin Says a New Multipolar World Order is Being Formed; China's Xi and India's Modi Hold First Formal Talks in Five Years; CNN Crew Was Held Captive by Militia in Darfur, Sudan and Released After 48 Hours; New Search of Liam Payne's Hotel Room Ordered. Aired 2-3a ET

Aired October 24, 2024 - 02:00   ET

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

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ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Harris also ran through some major policy plans, including having Medicare cover home healthcare for the elderly and a tax increase on the richest Americans. When pressed as to why the administration hasn't done more to slow the record number of illegal border crossings, she stressed the need for a bipartisan bill to provide a long-term fix.

Harris will begin her closing argument to voters on Tuesday with a speech at The Ellipse, a park near the White House and the same place Donald Trump spoke on January 6th, 2021. Falsely telling supporters he had won the election and urging them to march to the Capitol to pressure lawmakers not to certify the results. Harris campaign sources say the address will be a warning about the chaos Trump would bring to the Oval Office and the nation if he should win reelection.

Well, Donald Trump spent his day campaigning in the swing state of Georgia at a massive rally in suburban Atlanta, Trump launched more personal attacks at Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And you can't even say, well, let's go to the Vice President, because he is really a sicko, right? Remember, he called J.D. Vance and I weird? We're not -- we're very solid people. He's a weird dude, that guy. He's always pumping his heart, ha, ha, ha, you know, like he's got great heart. He's a sick guy. He got both of them. I don't know who the hell is worse. (END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: Trump also lashed out at his former Chief of Staff, General John Kelly, after Kelly said in a series of interviews that Trump praised the loyalty of Hitler's Nazi generals and insulted a fallen American soldier with a racial slur. In a post on Truth Social, an outraged Trump denied the claims, calling Kelly a total degenerate who made up the stories out of pure Trump derangement syndrome hatred.

Joining me now from Long Beach in California. Faith Pinho is a national political reporter at the Los Angeles Times. Good to have you with us.

FAITH PINHO, LOS ANGELES TIMES NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Hi. Thanks for having me.

CHURCH: So, during her live Town Hall on CNN Wednesday night, Kamala Harris took questions on a range of issues with just 12 days to go to Election Day in America.

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How did Harris perform and did she say anything that would convince undecided voters to support her rather than Donald Trump?

PINHO: Harris came out really strong with her framework for her closing argument down here on the last few days of the election. She framed this, really taking a page out of Joe Biden's playbook as a decision about democracy. You know, she referenced January 6, the certification of the election when Donald Trump was leaving office, as an example of the kind of leadership Donald Trump will bring.

And, you know, she spared no punches. She called him a fascist on record. She uses her traditional terms of calling him unfit and a dictator and these sorts of things. So, she's, you know, had this incredible wave of a campaign in the last few months but she's really coming home to this core argument here that democracy is on the line. And that seems to be one of the issues that undecided voters really care about, is Trump's character and whether another January 6-type event might happen.

CHURCH: And in two bombshell interviews in The Atlantic magazine and the New York Times, Donald Trump's former Chief of Staff General John Kelly said Trump fitted the definition of a fascist and quoted Trump as saying that he needed the kind of generals that Hitler had. Now as you point out, Harris said she agrees Trump is a fascist and that General Kelly was putting a 911 call out to the American people.

She has also said Trump's comments are deeply troubling and that he is dangerous, unstable and unfit to serve. What did you think of her response to this issue and how might voters respond to all of this?

PINHO: Yes. I mean, you know, she's clearly trying to drive home this point. And I think having John Kelly come out so close to the election with such strong language, you know, it's something that she's trying to keep alive and very much keep in the news cycle. You know, and like I said, I mean, this is an issue that is important to undecided voters. It does sway some of them.

However, you know, it's, it's so hard to parse out what is going to be the tipping point for folks, because Trump's own running mate at one point called him America's Hitler, and now he is running for vice president with him, J.D. Vance. So, you know, people have said so many things over the years about Trump. It's hard to keep track but it's clear that this is the message Harris wants to leave undecided voters with.

And, you know, a lot of the rest of her speech during the town hall and a lot of the questions that voters posed to her were about sort of traditional campaigns, dumb speech type stuff like the economy, you know, caring for the elderly, immigration, things like this that she's used to. But this is the one point she kept coming back to which really shows us where she's going to direct the next few days.

CHURCH: Yes. As you point out, Harris did list some of her major policy plans, including a tax increase on the wealthy and home health care for the elderly to be covered by Medicare. But she was pressed on immigration, wasn't she? An issue Trump has used against her over and over again. How did she go explaining what she would do about problems at the southern border?

PINHO: Yes. You know, Harris has come out very strong in support of this bipartisan immigration bill that was going to pass Congress before President Trump asked some of his allies. Republicans to bulge the bill because he needed immigration as a campaign, as a campaign tenant. And, you know, she immediately started the question with that, you know, pointing this back to Trump because she knows that people are really fed up with immigrate --the immigration system right now.

She was tasked with, sort of developing the root cause solutions to immigration from certain countries in Central America. That was sort of her task as vice president. And people have been, you know, fairly disappointed with how she's delivered. So, she immediately takes this and turns it around on Trump. And there was a question in there, I believe, Anderson Cooper sort of pressed her on, you know, would she support more funding for a border bill?

And she got sort of squirrely about answering this, even though funding for the border bill was in that bipartisan bill that she supports. But the border bill is so closely aligned and tied to Donald Trump because that was his big campaign issue in 2016 that I think you could tell she was trying to keep it at an arm's length.

CHURCH: And Harris is, of course, particularly vulnerable when it comes to the issue of the economy which most voters say is their top concern. Despite the Biden administration bringing inflation down from nine percent to below three percent, most people are still feeling pain in the grocery store. So, Harris says she will tackle price gouging. But did she say enough to convince Americans that she would fix this problem?

PINHO: Yes. This is a major issue that she needs to develop trust with, with American voters. And you know, I think you could hear her trying to do that by first acknowledging the pain, which is something that back when President Biden was running for president, a lot of people said he could have done better which is just recognizing, hey, Americans are not happy with their -- where prices are right now.

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And you can tell them, look, unemployment is lower and people are getting hired at unprecedented rates. But it doesn't matter if they're going to the grocery store and they're upset with how their bill is coming up. So, you know, she starts with acknowledging it, and then talks about price gouging which, you know, studies have said is it's not necessarily the most important factor with the economy.

But this is something that she is trying to develop a middle-class economy, right? This is her pitch. It's an opportunity economy for the middle class. And so, her other policy positions that she proposes for this is tax credits, you know, child tax credits, first time homebuyer credits and things like this to give middle-class -- middle-class taxpayers a boost.

CHURCH: Faith Pinho, thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate it.

PINHO: You're welcome. Thank you.

CHURCH: Turkey has carried out retaliatory strikes following a deadly terror attack in Ankara on Wednesday. Turkey's defense ministry says it struck the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK targets in northern Iraq and Syria. Video from northern Syria shows a series of explosions overnight. Kurdish officials say at least two people were killed and six others wounded in the shelling. The Turkish government says it believes the PKK is responsible for the terror attack in Ankara.

The strikes came hours after an explosion and gunfire ripped through the headquarters of the state-owned Turkish Aerospace Industries near Ankara.

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CHURCH: This video shows the moment armed attackers launched the assault. The interior minister says at least five people were killed and 22 injured. Video, verified by CNN, shows at least two attackers carrying guns and wearing backpacks approaching the entrance of the facility. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Turkish authorities are working to identify those involved, and say early assessment points to the PKK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHURCH: CNN's Salma Abdelaziz is following all the developments from London and has this report.

SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Turkey is reeling after an attack on an aerospace company just on the outskirts of Ankara, the capital. We do have social media video to show you of the moments of this attack. It's been geolocated and verified by CNN. And in this video, you can see a huge explosion. You can hear the sound of it as well. And then you can see those that plume of smoke going up in the air. And then an individual appears who is carrying or looks to be carrying a weapon. You can hear the sound of gunfire winging out. Now, images like this are absolutely going to send shockwaves across Turkey. It is no stranger to terror attacks, but it hasn't seen one like this in recent years. Authorities say that two assailants, two attackers, were killed. A man and a woman and that a judicial investigation is underway to identify those who are behind this attack.

Now the location is extremely significant. This aerospace firm is state owned. It also provides military supplies, drones, airplanes to Turkey's military. One analyst described it as the crown jewel of Turkey's defense industry. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has issued his condolences to those who were killed and said the attack targeted the survival of the country and the peace of our nation.

Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, London.

CHURCH: Lebanon says more Israeli airstrikes are pounding the southern suburbs of Beirut. The latest from the Middle East, next.

Plus, thousands of North Korean troops at a military base inside Russia. What the U.S. is worried they're training for.

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CHURCH: A major explosion rocking a southern Beirut suburb late Wednesday. The Lebanese health ministry says at least one person was killed and five others injured by Israeli air strikes on a residential complex. Lebanon's national news agency described the strikes as the most violent in the area since the conflict began.

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CHURCH: Video on social media captured a large fireball rising from buildings along with the sound of explosions. A spokesperson with the Israel Defense Forces had warned civilians to stay away from certain areas minutes before the strikes. Also, Wednesday night, the IDF says two projectiles from Lebanon landed in central Israel, while two others were intercepted. No injuries have been reported.

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CHURCH: Meantime, Lebanon's army said on Thursday, the three Lebanese soldiers were killed in an Israeli air strike during the evacuation of wounded civilians in the south of the country.

Well, the U.S. Secretary of State is urging a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Lebanon and Gaza during his trip to the Middle East. Antony Blinken is now on his way to Qatar after spending Wednesday in Saudi Arabia where he sat down for about an hour with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The U.S. is renewing its efforts for a Gaza cease fire, a release of the hostages still being held by Hamas and to deter a broader conflict in the region.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond has more from Tel Aviv.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Secretary of State, Antony Blinken is making his 11th visit to the Middle East since the beginning of this war, but he appears to be coming up empty handed once again. On Tuesday, he sat down with the Israeli prime minister for over 2-1/2 hours trying to convince the Israeli Prime Minister that now is the moment in the wake of the killing of Yahya Sinwar to end the war in Gaza and strike a deal to bring the hostages home.

But the tone and the wording from the Israeli prime minister and his office in the wake of that meeting was very different from what U.S. officials would have hoped. The prime minister's office putting a lot of emphasis on the ongoing fight in Gaza, the potential for Israeli strikes against Iran. And only offering really just a fig leaf to this idea of ending the war in Gaza in the wake of Sinwar's killing saying in the statement that Sinwar's killing, "light -- is likely to have a positive influence on returning the hostages and achieving Israel's goals in the war in Gaza.'

Not quite a firm commitment to getting back to the negotiating table. We also know that the Secretary of State pressed on the humanitarian situation in Gaza and the reality is that we are watching that despite these efforts by the United States, they say that Israel is taking some steps to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza, but it's clear from on the ground that we are nowhere close to that situation getting resolved.

Instead, the Israeli military is stepping up its military offensive in northern Gaza, where we are getting reports every single day of civilians being killed in these strikes, killed by gunfire.

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And also, of course, that very little to no aid is actually making its way there, as hospitals are also facing very dire conditions. In Lebanon, we are also watching the Israeli military continuing to carry out heavier strikes, not only in Southern Lebanon, including in the historic city of Tyre, but also in the Lebanese capital of Beirut once again. And so, it's just clear that for now, there is no real sense that things are going to de-escalate in this region for the moment.

But nonetheless, even as the Secretary of State tried to press on these kind of immediate-term goals, he also is looking longer term. And that's what he was doing in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday as he sat down with the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to talk not only about this opportunity to end the war in Gaza, but also to think about the day after the war in Gaza. And there's no question that Saudi Arabia is likely to play a strong role there. The question now though is when will we actually get to that day after the war.

Jeremy Diamond, CNN, Tel Aviv. (END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: The United States is publicly confirming a move by North Korea that has Western allies on edge. The White House says it has seen evidence that at least 3,000 North Korean troops are currently training at multiple military sites inside Russia. The move has fueled concerns that they intend to take part in Russia's war in Ukraine. More now from CNN's Senior International Correspondent, Will Ripley.

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WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At this remote Russian military base, a convoy of what appears to be North Korean troops training in a barren, bleak stretch of wilderness deep in Russia's far east. CNN geolocated this video, Sergeevka Training Ground near China and North Korea, the frontlines of Ukraine more than 4,000 miles away.

Ukraine is where South Korean intelligence says these soldiers are going. 1,500 now, as many as 12,000 could be deployed South Korean media says. Some seen here, supposedly just days ago, getting their Russian military uniforms. The audio muffled, the language sounds like Korean. We can't independently verify this video provided to CNN by the Ukrainian government. They also shared this, a uniform sizing questionnaire dated last week in both Korean and Russian for hats, headgear, uniforms, and shoes.

RIPLEY: Why would Kim Jong-un be sending troops to Russia and to Ukraine?

DANIEL PINKSTON, LECTURER IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, TROY UNIVERSITY: So if Russia is successful, then the North Koreans could follow suit and it could be a very dangerous situation.

RIPLEY (voice-over): As Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin deepen their anti-U.S., anti-West military partnership, a terrifying scenario says Ukraine's president.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: We know about 10,000 soldiers of North Korea that they are preparing to send to fight against us, and this is the first step to a World War.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My delegation does not --

RIPLEY (voice-over): At the United Nations, no comment from North Korea.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: -- such groundless, stereotype rumors aimed at smearing the image of the DPRK.

RIPLEY (voice-over): They've been busy lately, blowing up border roads with South Korea. Just days after supposed South Korean drones dropped propaganda leaflets on Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, almost at Kim's doorstep.

CAPT. CARL SCHUSTER (RET.), FORMER DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, U.S. PACIFIC COMMAND JOINT INTELLIGENCE CENTER: His regime is very -- even beyond normal levels of paranoia right now.

RIPLEY (voice-over): This week, Seoul summoned Russia's ambassador, condemning what could be North Korea's largest-ever overseas deployment, bigger than the 1973 Yom Kippur War and Vietnam, says this retired South Korean Lieutenant General.

LT. GEN. CHUN IN-BUM (RET.), SOUTH KOREAN ARMY: So, this could be a real serious problem for the entire world.

RIPLEY (voice-over): A problem compounded by a massive influx of North Korean weapons into Russia, reports of 70 shipments of shells, missiles, and anti-tank rockets since August 2023. Not to mention North Korean ballistic missiles, which Ukraine says have killed civilians, including children.

Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CHURCH: G7 member nations have finalized plans for a $50 billion loan package for Ukraine to aid in the war against Russia. The U.S. will contribute $20 billion towards that amount. Half of the money will be dispersed by December, specifically for economic assistance, according to officials. The other half will be for military aid. The remaining $30 billion will come from the U.K., Canada, Japan, and the European Union. This is in addition to more than $37 billion in aid backed by Russian assets seized by authorities.

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The war in Ukraine has been looming awkwardly over the BRICS Summit in southwestern Russia. In the coming hours, host Vladimir Putin will meet with U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres, who is expected to press the Russian president to end the invasion. President Putin, however, says he is working to form a new multipolar world order that's not beholden to the West.

A highlight from the summit so far, the meeting between the Chinese President Xi Jinping and India's prime minister, who had not held formal talks in five years. The two nations recently reached a deal over the disputed Himalayan frontier. And we'll be right back.

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CHURCH: Earlier this month, a CNN crew was held captive in the North Darfur region of war-torn Sudan. They arrived to report on the world's worst humanitarian crisis but wound up becoming part of the story. Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward's team was supposed to meet a group deemed a neutral party in Sudan's civil war, but instead they were detained by heavily armed militia for 48 hours. CNN's Richard Quest spoke to Ward about the conditions leading up to their terrifying ordeal and how they got through it.

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RICHARD QUEST, CNN ANCHOR: Thank God you and the team are safe. But it's a risk you all took because this is the forgotten war. I mean, God help me for saying in those terms, but you know what I mean. This is the forgotten war that is just getting worse.

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: There's no question, Richard, that the conflict in Sudan has been overshadowed by Ukraine, by Gaza. But when you talk to the U.N., when you talk to aid workers, they will say by the numbers alone, Sudan is the world's worst humanitarian crisis and Darfur in particular, all eyes are on it at the moment. There was a genocide that was perpetrated there between 2003, 2005. We have seen vicious war crimes taking place that are really heightening fears that you could see the worst being realized once again in Darfur.

On top of that, you have huge displacement, heavy fighting, the spread of disease. And in August, a famine declared in the Zamzam displaced people's camp outside of the besieged city of El Fasher. And Tawila, the town that we were trying to get to, is just a few hours away from El Fasher, from Tawila. Almost no international journalists have been able to get in on the ground, the two main warring factions simply not giving permissions to journalists. And so, that has made it next to impossible to effectively report on this crisis, Richard.

QUEST: So, you and the team are held for two days.

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I've heard the description -- your description -- I've read your description of your -- under trees, and you were not harmed. But the very fact of detain -- being detained is a horror in itself. How are you all?

WARD: We're all fine. It was absolutely a stressful ordeal. All of us, I think, were very much fixated on our families back home and how stressful this must be for them. And it weighs on you, not having information, not knowing when you might be able to get out, when you might be able to cuddle your kids again. As the only woman, I was very mindful of restricting my food and water intake because there was no private place where I could relieve myself.

At the end of the day, we got out after two days, we came back home. We're safe and we're with our families. And as journalists, it is so cringe inducing, honestly, Richard, to become the story. But we felt it was really important to share our experience because it does touch on the broader themes and challenges of covering this conflict, but also of the complexity of the situation in Darfur, the difficulty of getting aid, and the difficulty of human rights organizations getting in and getting the stories out of the people of Darfur that deserve to be told and that the world needs to hear.

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CHURCH: The militia leaders eventually announced they were releasing our colleagues, claiming they thought they were spies. Ward said, after hearing the news, there was a wave of relief. Then came smiles and handshakes, and this photo that she described as awkward, posing on a mat that had been their makeshift prison. And you can read Clarissa Ward's entire report about being held captive in Sudan on cnn.com.

Well, a week after his death, police in Buenos Aires are apparently not finished searching the hotel room that Liam Payne stayed in before his death. The British musician died after falling from the room's third floor balcony last Wednesday. Police say the latest search was ordered by the prosecutor's office. Payne was a member of the boy band, One Direction. Distraught fans held vigils outside the hotel for days. Early autopsy reports indicate he died from massive trauma. Toxicology tests are still underway.

I want to thank you so much for joining us. I'm Rosemary Church. "World Sport" is coming up next. Then I'll be back in about 15 minutes with more "CNN Newsroom." Do stay with us.

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