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Air Travel Slowly Going Back to Normal After the Reopening of the Federal Government; Three Chinese Astronauts Returned Safely to Earth After a Delay that Lasted Nine Days in Space. Aired 3-3:45a ET

Aired November 14, 2025 - 03:00   ET

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

[03:00:00]

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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to all of you watching us around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is "CNN Newsroom."

The U.S. government is back open for business, but the effects of the longest shutdown in history are still being felt by air travelers.

The White House is downplaying the presence of Donald Trump's name in the newly released Epstein emails, which hold much of the response as being dictated by President Trump himself.

And at least three people are dead in what Ukraine is calling a mass attack on its capital.

UNKNOWN (voice-over): Live from Atlanta, this is "CNN Newsroom" with Kim Brunhuber.

BRUNHUBER: The federal government is back open, but things aren't yet back to normal. For example, the SNAP food benefits that 40 million Americans rely on, 19 states have rushed to issue the full amount. People are due, but some states have sent only partial funds.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins told CNN on Thursday that relief is on the way. Here she is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BROOKE ROLLINS, U.S. AGRICULTURE SECRETARY: Hopefully by the end of this week, most will receive it at the very latest on Monday.

It's moving. It's coming. And for those who really depend on it, good news is on the way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: Many federal workers are waiting on their paychecks as government agencies are just starting to process their back pay. Those comes as U.S. Homeland Secretary Kristi Noem handed out $10,000 bonus checks to TSA employees in Houston, citing their work ethic during the shutdown. Noem said more will receive bonuses, but it's not clear how many or the criteria used to choose the recipients, all TSA agents are expected to receive back pay in the coming days.

So as the federal government reopens, airports across the U.S. are still being impacted by its consequences. Flights continue to be delayed or canceled across the country as the FAA cuts traffic, citing safety concerns.

CNN's aviation correspondent Pete Muntean explains what Americans can expect as we enter the holiday travel season.

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PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: The hangover from this historic shutdown has not completely worn off yet for airlines. The good news is the number of short staffing reports at Federal Aviation Administration air traffic control facilities nationwide have gone way down.

The high water mark was about 63 nationwide on Saturday. On Thursday, the number is down only to the single digits. The big question is, how long will airlines have to comply with this mandate from the Trump administration to slash flights by about 6 percent at 40 major airports nationwide until further notice?

American Airlines has sent out a new memo to all of its employees saying that it may take a few days for normal operations to resume and may still have to cut flights in order to comply with that mandate.

I want you to listen out to Delta Airlines CEO Ed Bastian, who says it will take some time for airlines to get back to normal, but he is feeling positive about the upcoming Thanksgiving rush.

ED BASTIAN, CEO, DELTA AIRLINES: I think we'll be back a lot faster than people think. The last couple of days actually were pretty good.

GAYLE KING, "CBS MORNINGS" HOST: Were they?

BASTIAN: The staffing, as soon as the Senate deal on Monday got approved, staffing levels almost overnight improved dramatically. We will be back to normal this weekend. Yesterday we were over 90 percent on time system-wide every flight all day long.

KING: And no concerns about Thanksgiving?

BASTIAN: No concerns. Thanksgiving is going to be a great holiday period of travel.

MUNTEAN: The good news is flight cancellations are down significantly, 2900 nationwide on Sunday, now hovering around 1000 flight cancellations nationwide. Most of those are airlines complying with this Trump administration mandate, which requires that airlines cancel flights four days out, meaning if that order went away today, it would still cause flight cancellations into next week.

Pete Muntean, CNN, Reagan National Airport.

(END VIDEOTAPE) BRUNHUBER: There are new developments in the Jeffrey Epstein case. An attorney for the late sex offender's estate disputes that it hid documents from law enforcement. That claim coming from Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who interviewed Epstein's girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell in prison earlier this year.

Blanche says the documents have only now been provided to Congress. CNN's Kristen Holmes has more on the Trump administration's handling of the crisis.

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KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: The White House spent yet another day fielding questions about these so-called Epstein emails that mentioned President Trump's name, but it was clear that neither the White House nor President Trump wants to talk about this. This is President Trump getting asked about it at an event.

Sir, any response to the Epstein emails that mention your name?

[03:04:56]

Now, this story has plagued the White House for much of President Trump's second term, and there are a lot of conservative allies and supporters of President Trump's who are perplexed why the White House has handled this situation the way that it has, saying that they have never been on the offensive, that they've only been playing defense this entire time, asking why the White House will not release more information when it comes to Epstein.

We talked to one source within the White House who said that that's just simply not the case. The White House is not being caught, quote- unquote, "flat-footed," but instead they are responding as soon as they are getting this information.

That being said, I was told by a number of sources that President Trump himself is dictating much of this response, meaning that is why they are responding to documents or various stories being put out not going on the offensive, because that is what President Trump wants.

But one thing that is very clear, this isn't going away anytime soon. As we saw, the speaker expedited this vote on the floor to release the Epstein files. It is believed, at least within the White House, that that's going to pass, that there are going to be enough Republicans who are going to vote in favor of releasing everything around that Epstein case.

Kristen Holmes, CNN, the White House.

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BRUNHUBER: Stacey Williams is a former "Sports Illustrated" model who dated Jeffrey Epstein in the early 90s. She's also one of the first people to come on CNN and make it clear that Epstein and Trump were, in her words, best friends. She spoke with our Erin Burnett about the upcoming vote to release the Epstein files. Here she is.

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STACEY WILLIAMS, FORMER EPSTEIN GIRLFRIEND: I've never understood the role of legislative officials in protecting pedophiles. I didn't think that was part of the job criteria, so it's been very confusing to me.

But if some of them are finally arriving at some moral clarity, that's a good thing. Transparency is critical.

And I was quite shocked to hear the White House say yesterday that they're being fully transparent after dragging a member of Congress there to get her to pull back her vote on releasing the Epstein files. It's condescending to the American people, and it is cruel and damaging to the Epstein survivors.

ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Epstein says he gave Trump one of his girlfriends. He writes, my 20-year-old girlfriend in 93 that after two years I gave to Donald.

By the way, you met him in 1992. When you see that, though, in this email, in black and white, I quote-unquote "gave to Donald," what's your reaction?

WILLIAMS: It screams about the mindset of these men, the same two men who did what they did to me when Jeffrey Epstein walked me into Donald Trump's office to be groped by him. Clearly we are these objects, these trophies, and it's deeply misogynistic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BRUNHUBER: And Donald Trump has always denied any wrongdoing and has never been charged with a crime in relation to Epstein.

The BBC has apologized to President Trump over an editing blunder in a documentary. Trump's attorney has called the piece false and defamatory and threatened to sue for a billion dollars. The public broadcaster rejects the defamation claim, but two executives have resigned over the controversy and the BBC is facing a firestorm of criticism.

Max Foster has more.

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MAX FOSTER, CNN LONDON CORRESPONDENT: The BBC spent several days trying to get this response to President Trump right. BBC lawyers have written to White House lawyers and the BBC chairman has written separately to President Trump offering a personal apology. That appears to satisfy at least one of his demands for this edit in a documentary that even the BBC accepts was a mistake.

Now Trump also asked for a full and fair retraction of the documentary. The BBC says it will not rebroadcast the show.

Will that be enough to satisfy President Trump? Will he see that as a full enough retraction?

Trump's third demand was for appropriate compensation. The BBC hasn't addressed that directly only to say that they strongly disagree there is a basis for a defamation claim. That suggests they are ready to go to court if the President decides to pursue this, as he said he would if he doesn't get that retraction and the apology.

Now they may have offered some sort of settlement away from court. We just don't know at this point, but the media giant is under huge pressure from politicians not to pay anything out because they are a publicly-funded organization and that money would effectively belong to taxpayers.

If Donald Trump accepts this reach out from the BBC, then it could potentially end a very painful period in the BBC's modern history. If he doesn't accept it, then it may well end up in court and it could rumble on and on and on.

Max Foster, CNN London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BRUNHUBER: And four sources tell CNN that President Trump has received an updated briefing on options for possible military operations inside Venezuela, now those sources say he hasn't yet decided how to proceed.

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A senior U.S. official says the options are part of an operation dubbed Southern Spear. But Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is appealing directly to Americans urging them to unite for peace. He spoke with CNN at a pro-government rally in Caracas on Thursday.

The U.S. has deployed more than a dozen warships to the Caribbean, saying the military is targeting drug traffickers. But Venezuela says the US is preparing to overthrow its government.

The U.N. Human Rights Council is holding a special session right now to discuss the human rights situation in Sudan. We're seeing live pictures of it taking place as we speak.

Now, the war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary rapid support forces has created what the U.N. calls the largest humanitarian crisis in the world right now. Around 12 and a half million Sudanese were displaced within and outside the country as of last month.

It comes at a time when global aid budgets are shrinking. The RSF accepted a U.S. ceasefire proposal last week, but the army has yet to agree.

Russia takes aim at Ukraine's capital, leaving scores of casualties and multiple buildings on fire. Still ahead, the aftermath of what Ukraine calls a new mass attack on Kyiv.

Plus, Israel identifies the body of a deceased hostage returned from Gaza and we'll share what we know about them and the current hostage situation after the break. Stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: At least three people are dead and more than two dozen are injured following what Ukraine called a mass attack on its capital. Officials in Kyiv said several buildings burned overnight and a medical facility was damaged.

The warning also said that power, heat and water could be out in parts of the city. Across the border, Russia claims it has foiled an assassination plot against one of its top officials. The statement didn't name him, but Russian security services claim Ukraine planned to assassinate him during a visit to a cemetery near Moscow.

CNN couldn't independently verify those allegations. Ukraine has claimed responsibility for killing Russian officials in the past.

Ukraine is trying to move on from the largest corruption scandal since the war began. It involved more than $100 million in suspected kickbacks and it has embroiled two government ministers along with a businessman tied to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Ben Wedeman has the details.

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BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: After around 70 raids and more than 1000 hours of wiretaps, Ukraine's National Anti- Corruption Bureau announced it has uncovered a massive corruption scheme. The investigation has implicated Ukraine's energy and justice ministers as well as a former deputy prime minister in a scheme involving at least $100 million in kickbacks from contractors hoping to work with the state-run nuclear power company known as Enerhoatom.

Most damning the alleged mastermind of the scheme is none other than Tymur Mindich, a close associate of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Mindich, a dual Ukrainian-Israeli national, is co-owner of Kvartal 95, the media production company Zelenskyy founded.

Ukrainian authorities report Mindich left the country just days before the Anti-Corruption Bureau announced the results of its investigation. Zelenskyy has called for the resignation of the justice and energy ministers who insist of course that they're innocent.

Since independence in the early 1990s, Ukraine has been plagued by corruption. Although this isn't the biggest scandal of its kind, it couldn't come at a worse time in terms of Kyiv's dependence on the goodwill and trust of donor nations, particularly when Russia has been targeting the energy sector as winter approaches.

Thursday President Zelenskyy spoke with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. A statement issued by the Chancellor's office said Zelenskyy assured the Chancellor of, quote, "complete transparency, long-term support for the independent anti-corruption authorities and further swift measures to regain the trust of the Ukrainian people, European partners and international donors."

The readout from Zelenskyy's office, however, made no mention of the corruption scandal.

Ben Wedeman, CNN, reporting from Rome.

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BRUNHUBER: We should note neither of the two Ukrainian ministers embroiled in the scandal have been charged with any crime.

So for more on this, I want to bring in Michael Bociurkiw, who's a global affairs analyst, founder of the World Briefing Report on Substack and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. He joins us from Phuket, Thailand. Good to see you again.

So you're in Thailand right now, but I mean, you've been reporting from Ukraine throughout this war. You've lived through those blackouts and Russian missiles knocking out power and now allegations that officials were taking kickbacks on contracts meant to protect that same power infrastructure. I mean, how damaging is this for President Zelenskyy politically?

MICHAEL BOCIURKIW, GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST, SR. FELLOW, ATLANTIC COUNCIL, AND FOUNDER OF "WORLD BRIEFING" ON SUBSTACK: Good to be with you again, Kim. Very damaging. The rot goes very deeply.

And, you know, imagine if you're one of my neighbors in Odessa or someone in Kyiv or whatever in Odessa the other day, and it continues into this week.

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They're getting more hours of the day without power than with up to 13 and a half hours without power. And although most people, of course, attribute this to those really, really fierce Russian strikes, including ones overnight, as your report, as you referred to earlier, now they're beginning to ask. I mean, could our power stations have been protected better if people weren't putting their hands into the honeypot, $100 million siphoned away? This was siphoned away from funds that were supposed to go to protect the infrastructure of power plants, especially nuclear power plants.

So a lot of disappointment right across Ukraine is absolutely disgusting.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, I imagine. Now, this investigation, Operation Midas, is being run by the very anti-corruption agencies that Zelenskyy tried to weaken just months ago before the street process sort of forced him to reverse tack there.

I mean, there's a bit of irony that these agencies are now going after, as you say, people in his own circle. It is very close to the president.

BOCIURKIW: Indeed, I would use the word Zelenskyy tried to decapitate them, and they use the excuse that they're infiltrated by Russians. No one really believed that. But luckily, and this was due to people power, to protests, he backed off.

And yes, that is part of the good news story, is that these anti- corruption structures are independent, they're functioning well, and we have to also give credit to Ukraine's amazing journalists and media outlets, especially Ukrainska Pravda, who many months ago put out some stories that pointed to shady business dealings involving the chief suspect, Mr. Mindich.

But yes, Mindich is a very close associate of Zelenskyy. And, you know, the other question people are wondering, because I monitor the Ukrainian Telegram channels, is how on earth did he leave the country during martial law? It does look like more and more he was tipped off and he made his mistake. So that adds to the anger of ordinary people.

BRUNHUBER: So in terms of what comes next, then, if corruption allegations start hitting the military side of things, I mean, does that become an existential threat to Western support? Because obviously we've seen, I mean, there's been an erosion of support here in U.S. Congress and, you know, clear reluctance in the White House.

BOCIURKIW: It sure does. And, you know, wherever I travel in the world, Kim, even here in Thailand, people are asking about the corruption in Ukraine.

So, of course, at the moment, the worst thing that could happen is that Western donors back off supporting Ukraine because it needs it very badly, that aid. But the other thing that should worry Zelenskyy and his circle is the Ukrainian diaspora, which is absolutely huge and kind of unofficial ambassadors around the world of the presidency. I think, of course, it's too early for Zelenskyy to call elections to trust, to test his support among the population.

But what he could do, and I put this in the "New York Times" op-ed earlier this year, is do some kind of smaller elections in outer parts of the country where the war isn't as present.

And one more thing, Kim, you know, looking down the road, this could open the door to more defections or firings from the office, even the chief-of-staff, Mr. Ryamak. And it could open the door, too, to newcomers to the political system.

For example, General Zaluzhnyi, who used to be the head of the army; and the head of intelligence, Budanov, and maybe even a comeback for Mr. Poroshenko, the former president.

BRUNHUBER: So disappointing for so many Ukrainians and the people who've been supporting them through this long war. Michael Bociurkiw, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

BOCIURKIW: My pleasure. BRUNHUBER: The Israeli government identified the body of a deceased hostage returned by Hamas as Manny Goddard. The 73-year-old man and his wife were killed during the October 7th, '23 Hamas attack. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum says Goddard, a family of four, a father of four, was killed at his home in a kibbutz near Gaza and his body was taken to the enclave.

Israeli authorities confirmed his identity after his remains were released by Hamas to the Red Cross and then turned over to Israel on Thursday. The handover leaves three remaining deceased hostages in Gaza.

The head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees is warning that they don't have enough time, money or supplies to adequately help the people of Gaza. The UNRWA chief says the need for aid goes beyond food and includes access to clean water, health care, mental health support, waste management and emergency repairs. UNRWA says it has about 6,000 A-trucks waiting in Egypt and Jordan.

Meanwhile, UNICEF and its partners are organizing a vaccine catch-up campaign aimed at reaching more than 44,000 Palestinian children who've missed vaccinations and other routine health care due to the war. Vaccines for measles, polio and pneumonia are being administered.

[03:25:00]

Alright, coming up, NASA is one step closer to its Mars mission. Look at why the successful launch of Blue Origin's new Glenn rocket is critical for that project.

And you've heard of flight delays, but how about spaceflight delays? We'll explain why this crew of Chinese astronauts is more than a week late coming home. See them there, stay with us.

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BRUNHUBER: All right, we're showing you live pictures happening right now.

Three Chinese astronauts are returning to Earth more than a week later than planned. Their journey home from China's space station was delayed because tiny debris in orbit is suspected to have cracked a window on their spacecraft and the three had to wait nine days to voyage home using a backup plan.

So as we watch this landing here, I want to bring in CNN's Mike Valerio, who's watching with us from Beijing.

Mike, very cool. We were seeing those pictures of the capsule sort of glowing as it was going through the atmosphere. And then we saw the parachute open and now they're about to land.

Tell us about where they're landing and take us through this remarkable story of why it's taken them so long to get back now.

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Could not have timed this live shot better, Kim, the magic of T.V. and everything going right on this return back to terra firma. Exactly where the drama was, sort of the moments of space suspense boils down to there being too much space junk in low Earth orbit.

More than 140 million pieces of stuff orbiting around the Earth. So a couple of days ago, we did get an indication from China's manned space agency that one of the two spacecrafts docked at China's space station was hit likely by a piece of space debris.

And then we got the indication in a little more detail this morning that one of the spacecraft, its windows had a crack in it, again, likely from a piece of space debris hitting it at a very high velocity. So as we talked about in the last hour, what made the difference here was there being two vehicles docked at China's space station.

So one was for the incoming astronauts. The other vehicle was for the outgoing astronauts who we see right here coming back down to Inner Mongolia. It's a couple of hours drive north from our position in Beijing, one of the scarcely populated regions of China where manned space missions come down with a parachute pretty frequently.

So what the astronauts or taikonauts did, as they're called in China, they said, we need a backup plan. There's no way that we can come back to Earth in this spacecraft that has a slight crack in one of the windows.

So the spacecraft that brought the new team of astronauts, that is the spacecraft, the capsule that we are seeing right here, that's been used to bring the old team that spent six months on Tiangong space station back down to Earth. I should note, though, we kind of glossed over it in the last hour. This is not quite as simple as getting into a new car when you have two cars in your garage.

What these astronauts had to do, they had to reconfigure, actually, the re-approach procedures coming back to Earth. And all of these seats, Kim, are custom made. When you're packed in pretty tightly, you need a custom made seat.

So those had to be adjusted. The procedures for landing certainly had to be adjusted as well.

So we are seeing within the next couple of minutes, these three astronauts, after they had to spend nine extra days in orbit to come up with a plan B, apparently landing safely, thank goodness for that, a couple of hundred kilometers, hundred miles away from where we're perched in Beijing right now.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, as we're just watching a plume of smoke emerge from that space capsule. So we're just going to watch as they land, hopefully safely, as you say. In the meantime, as we sort of watch this unfold live in front of us

here, it leads me to the obvious question. If these astronauts are taking the vehicle from the ones that were up in space, I mean, how do the people who were up on the space station get back home then?

VALERIO: Yes, they're going to send a new spacecraft much sooner than they otherwise would have, because right now there's China's space station, the Tiangong space station, and it has that spacecraft that has the crack in the window.

So the astronauts, to your point, they're up in the space station with a slightly damaged vehicle. So what needs to happen is a new one, Shenzhou 22, needs to come up earlier than expected.

[03:35:00]

It was going to come up at some point next year as part of the ferry system to ferry astronauts back and forth from Earth to the space station. But they have to get these astronauts a viable return option just in case, because right now they don't have a, you know, as close to a completely safe option of getting back to Earth as they should have right now.

What they're going to do with Shenzhou 20, the damaged spacecraft, they're going to run experiments on it, keep it up there so they can just see like, all right, so if we do have a damaged spacecraft in the future, let's take some measurements and just see how it's interacting with the environment.

But, you know, when we were talking to a couple experts, especially an astrophysics professor down in Hong Kong about this problem, he was saying this is going to be a huge deal when we have more and more satellites going up.

There could be a point where there's too much space junk, too much space junk to the point where, heaven forbid, it's not safe. So this is just a tiny microcosm of that problem we may be hearing about more and more. I shouldn't say may, we will be hearing about more and more in the years to come.

BRUNHUBER: Yes, that's right. I did talk to an expert on space junk specifically, and it just impressed on me sort of how little it takes to damage a craft when the speeds are as high as they are there. So we're going to leave this right now as these Chinese astronauts are hopefully going to land safely in Inner Mongolia.

Always a relief when astronauts land back on Earth, but especially for these ones who had to wait an extra-long time.

Mike Valerio, great to have you on in this moment. I appreciate it. Mike Valerio in Beijing. Thanks so much.

VALERIO: Thanks, Kim.

BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll be right back here on "CNN Newsroom." Stay with us. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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BRUNHUBER: All right, I want to go now back to CNN's Mike Valerio in Beijing, as we're seeing there, Chinese astronauts returning to Earth. They just touched down in that big puff of sand and dust. Mike, take us through this moment and its significance.

VALERIO: Landed. What a relief. It was a couple of days of space suspense, Kim.

This is not just the average mission. So dramatic.

I mean, palpable sense of relief for more than a billion people in China and the space community writ large. So incredible that we're seeing this picture.

And it's dramatic because the return vehicle for these three astronauts was damaged. We got the indication a couple of days ago that it had likely been hit by a piece of space debris.

And I think it's all lodged in our popular consciousness. What a tiny crack in anything involving space travel can potentially lead to disaster. So they had to come up with a plan B, China's main space, manned space agency.

And what they did, they said essentially at China's space station, two space capsules. Let's use a different one. And they made it back safe.

That's the long story short.

BRUNHUBER: Unbelievable. Well, it's been great tracking this with you as we saw it in space and then with the parachute and then now finally landing a huge moment for China.

I appreciate it. Mike Valerio in Beijing. Thanks so much.

That wraps this edition of "CNN Newsroom," I'm Kim Brunhuber. "World Sport" is next.

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(WORLD SPORT)