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12 Killed, Dozens Wounded In Attack On Saudi Aiport; Trump Seeks To Blame Ukraine's Zelenskyy For High Diesel Prices; Polls Show Statistical Dead Heat In Maine Senate Race; Aired: 6-7p ET

Aired October 10, 2026 - 18:00   ET

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

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ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): She hopes to build a cafe and laundromat in the village. Recently, she completed the addition of bleachers around the basketball court, giving the community a space to gather and renovations on the village healing house are set to begin soon.

SHAMAYIM "MAMA SHU" HARRIS, CEO AND FOUNDER, AVALON VILLAGE: I remember every inch of how this whole block used to look. Folks hated to come over here. Now, they're like bringing their children over and stuff. It's just really a beautiful thing to see.

You can change your environment. You really can. Sometimes I just sit and I just smile. But then I say, you know what? I'm not done yet.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: To learn more, you can go to cnn.com/heroes.

The next hour of NEWSROOM starts right now.

[18:00:39]

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: And you are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I am Jessica Dean here in New York. We do have some breaking news tonight.

According to the Saudi Aviation Authority and Reuters, 12 people killed and dozens wounded in an attack on Saudi Arabia's busiest airport, the King Khalid Airport in the capital of Riyadh. There have been no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack. The airport was hit two times earlier this week, killing four people.

The U.S. Embassy in Riyadh is telling Americans to avoid that airport, and CNN's Matthew Chance has more -- Matthew.

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MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Eyewitnesses at the scene are talking about an explosion taking place at Riyadh's International Airport. They are talking about a dozen ambulances have appeared at the scene. And again, eyewitnesses reporting that there are injured people.

You know, not exact figure being given, injured people lying down, waiting for treatments as a result of that explosion. So we are going to keep a close eye on exactly what comes out in terms of details.

But I can tell you that this is only the latest in a series of incidents that has affected the international airport in Riyadh. I was there just a couple of weeks ago, and just before we arrived, there was an attack by Houthi rebels in Yemen on fuel tanks close to the airport, sending a big plume of black smoke billowing into the skies over the Saudi capital, near that airport.

And then when we left a short time afterwards, the airport was shut down. We couldn't take off. The planes were grounded for several hours because of another threat of an incoming attack. It has put the Saudis in a very difficult position.

Obviously, they've had their oil exports curbed to the east of the country through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz because of the Iran War. But now the Houthi rebels who are backed by Iran are doing the same thing in the west of the country in the Red Sea striking oil pipelines, striking Saudi shipping, and also striking Saudi infrastructure like its airport.

And over the past week also, those strikes have been escalating. Six people killed at the airport in Saudi Arabia in the past week. That's not counting any potential deaths or injuries that may have occurred today.

And again, we don't have details on that yet. There has been, of course, a Saudi response. They have called on their allies to help them out. They've had a response from the French who provided air support, or rather, air defense support. The British have provided support. The Pakistanis have put troops on the ground. The Turks have said they're going to help.

The United States as well, have been requested directly from the Crown Prince in Saudi Arabia for military assistance. And they are offering data -- targeting data, intelligence and things like that. But they're stopping short, the United States are, at this point are providing sort of the full-throated kind of military support that Saudi Arabia is looking for in order to combat this Houthi rebel threat.

President Trump was asked about this recently -- about support, he said he is looking at it, but no decision has been made yet, and obviously, stopping very short of a commitment to get involved in this conflict.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: All right, Matthew Chance, thank you for that reporting.

Also tonight, President Trump sharply criticizing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after Zelenskyy condemned Trump's diesel deal with Russia. The President saying that, in his words, he suggests Ukraine get a new leader after Zelenskyy described the new U.S.-Russia deal as a "investment" that will help pay for and prolong Russia's war on Ukraine.

Now, all of this, as the president has appeared in Tennessee for a rally as he campaigns through a series of deep red states ahead of the midterms. The President, touching on some familiar themes in his speech and promising Republicans a win in November.

Let's bring in CNN senior White House reporter, Kevin Liptak, who is joining us now from The White House. Kevin, let's go back to what the President was saying about Zelenskyy. Ukraine, Russia, this diesel deal -- what was he telling you?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Right. And actually, it is related to what the President was doing today on the campaign trail. The President is trying to bring down diesel prices that are above $6.00 a gallon right now that has caused an enormous amount of problems for him and for Republicans three weeks before the midterm elections, the President entering into this deal with Vladimir Putin, whereby Russia will supply the global markets with diesel.

[18:05:10]

But the critics of the deal say that this will just extend a lifeline to the aggressor in the war with Ukraine. You know, Russia has been having trouble because Ukraine has been targeting its diesel refineries. It had put an export ban on its own diesel because of those strikes.

But now the President is saying that Russia will be allowed to sell that diesel on the global marketplace and in fact, the U.S. Treasury lifting sanctions on Russia in order for it to do it, that has generated an enormous amount of criticism, including from the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggesting that this will just prolong the conflict because it gives Russia this economic lifeline that has clearly incensed President Trump.

He came out today, and when I asked him about that criticism, he accused Zelenskyy of making things harder for the U.S., for farmers, for American workers who rely on diesel. He said that the U.S. had asked Zelenskyy again and again to stop his strikes on the on the Russian diesel refineries, but that he had refused.

And then going to this extraordinary, remarkable statement, saying that Ukraine needs to elect a new president, which is really kind of remarkable. You know, the relationship between these two men has really been on a pendulum. It started off very badly when the President first came back into office with that incident in the Oval Office, but it had seemed to be swinging in a better direction over the summer, now, clearly on a very low ebb.

And I think the question going forward is what the President will do in terms of U.S. support for Ukraine. You know, there was at one point last year when the U.S. halted intelligence sharing with Ukraine, halted arms sales to Ukraine. Do we get back to that point now that the President clearly is extraordinarily frustrated with the Ukrainians for how they are handling this situation when it comes to diesel. The President didn't say that today, but obviously, he is very, very angry. Now, it is interesting the Ukrainian Foreign Minister was responding to the President's comments a few moments ago. He says that Zelenskyy has the support of the Ukrainian people, and that, "... statements from abroad only confirm that he is doing his job well" -- Jessica.

DEAN: Kevin Liptak with the very latest from The White House, thank you so much for your reporting.

Also today, Senator Bernie Sanders hitting the campaign trail, headed up to Maine, stumping for Democrat Troy Jackson there, who is trying to unseat longtime Republican Senator Susan Collins. Collins has had very solid voter support in the past, but analysts say President Trump's unpopularity has been weighing on Republican prospects this time around in Maine.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is joining us now from Jackson's rally in Bangor.

Arlette, this is a very hot Senate race. A lot of eyes on this. Obviously, we are going to see more surrogates going to the state as we get closer to the actual election day. What are you hearing there in Maine?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders should be taking the stage any minute now, as he is hoping to help get his preferred candidate, Democrat, Troy Jackson, across the finish line.

This is actually the first time that Bernie Sanders is back here in the state of Maine, since Democrats had to switch their candidate in the middle of this cycle. Sanders had actually endorsed Troy Jackson when he was running for governor. In the Senate race, he was a strong supporter of Graham Platner in this bid, sticking with him until very close to the end when he had dropped out.

What Democrats are hoping is that Sanders' appearance here on the trail could try to energize voters, especially those who maybe had potentially thought about sitting out in this race after Platner had dropped out to ensure that they head to the polls in just about three weeks.

Now, this all comes as this is a very close election here in the contest between Democrat Troy Jackson and Republican Senator Susan Collins. The most recent poll here in the state of Maine was released just a few days ago, and it found that there was no clear leader in this contest.

One thing that the Jackson campaign has really tried to do is continually tie Susan Collins, the senator, directly to President Trump, even though there have been times where she has broken from the President. But this poll also showed that 58 percent of voters felt that Collins sided with President Trump too often.

One thing that the Collins' campaign have tried to argue here is that she is independent and that they try to tout all of the federal money that she has helped steer to the state. That "Washington Post" poll also found that more voters trusted Susan Collins to steer funding here than Troy Jackson in this contest.

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But all of this is under consideration as voters are weighing their decision here in this critical state. This is a state that has always been very close in past cycles. Susan Collins has survived in her past Senate runs, but with this race, many of the Democrats we've spoken to at this rally and at other events as well, have said that they hope that this will be the year that they can unseat Collins in this contest and sanders will be here today and tomorrow, holding three events as he is hoping to energize that Democratic base to turn out in just 30 days.

DEAN: All right, Arlette Saenz on the campaign trail for us. Thank you so much for that reporting.

Still to come, she was a Facebook whistleblower. Now, her story is the subject of a new film out this weekend. Frances Haugen joins us next here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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DEAN: Isaias is now a post-tropical storm, but it is being blamed for at least four deaths. That storm made landfall in the Florida Panhandle last night as a Category 2 hurricane, leaving a trail of destruction in its wake -- downed trees, flooded roads and widespread power outages are now impacting communities across that region as crews work to clean up the damage.

CNN's Melissa Nord is tracking all of it. And, Melissa, what are you seeing as this storm now makes its way across the Southeastern United States?

MELISSA NORD, AIMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, Jessica, it is wide reaching. I think that's the biggest player for this weekend is that we are not done with Isaias all together. We are still tracking multiple different threats with this storm.

You can see big picture radar. We have rain on the map pushing up into D.C. and all the way back to the Mississippi River and in Florida, so it is a wide reaching storm right now that the most imminent threat that I am tracking are these brief spin up tornadoes, which have been occurring this afternoon and evening across the low country of South Carolina and Eastern Georgia, where we've seen train spotters spot those tornadoes and video coming in as well to CNN.

Still a tornado watch until 8:00 Eastern Time for the low country of South Carolina. A couple tornado warnings over the last hour, this one still an observed tornado so likely on the ground still with that particular one. Watch the rain though, tomorrow morning in D.C. and then by mid-morning arriving in New York, so the remnants of Isaias bring a raw kind of wet day there to the northeast as we look at tomorrow.

DEAN: And, melissa, you're also tracking a rare tropical storm that is threatening the San Diego area. So we go all the way to the West Coast on that one. What is the latest on that?

NORD: And that's so interesting because this is only the second time that we have seen one of these tropical storm watches issued for the San Diego area. It doesn't look like much on satellite, but this is Tropical Storm Rachel actually is stronger now than it was even earlier today, but landfall is happening tonight. That landfall going to be over Baja, California, 100 to 200 miles south of the border with Mexico.

But then the remnants of Rachel pass directly over Southern California, the desert southwest, in through Las Vegas. We are already seeing rain lifting north over a lot of these places that don't get more than five inches of rain for the whole year combined. So we've got one to two inches of rain coming. Watch the forecast radar. There is landfall happening overnight tonight. So local time there on the West Coast. It will be around 10:00 or 11:00 or so tonight then, we will see a lot of those tropical downpours spreading overhead lasting through the day on Sunday, even into Monday. And that rain eventually gets tossed over the Great Basin as well.

So forecast rainfall again, one to three inches locally could be up to five. It doesn't seem like much, but the topography, the lay of the land is not accustomed to absorbing that much rain in a short amount of time.

So desert flash flooding, urban flash flooding -- high chance of that. You can see that rain outlook overnight into tomorrow for excessive rainfall, level three out of four, moderate risk for both days combined.

DEAN: All right, Melissa Nord with the very latest for us. Thank you so much for that.

Her leaks from inside Facebook put a harsh spotlight on the social media company. And now her story is the subject of a new movie out this weekend. Frances Haugen joins us next here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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DEAN: From "The Social Network" to "The Social Reckoning, filmmaker, Aaron Sorkin bringing audiences back to the world of one of the most powerful social media platforms, Facebook. But this time, the film takes a more serious tone, exploring the bombshell report from "The Wall Street Journal," thanks in part to Facebook whistleblower, Frances Haugen, played in the film by actor, Mickey Madison who revealed thousands of internal documents indicating Facebook was aware of its harmful effects on users, but did nothing about it.

The film features an older Mark Zuckerberg, played by actor, Jeremy Strong, in the midst of the scandal, showing how his early days of connecting the world evolved into something darker.

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MICKEY MADISON, PORTRAYING FRANCES HAUGEN: Facebook wants you to stay on the site for as long as possible, and two years ago, the algorithm was changed.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Wait, Mark, we are trying to address hate speech and we are going to amplify and turbocharge it.

JEREMY STRONG, PORTRAYING MARK ZUCKERBERG: The debate is over.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Joining us now is Frances Haugen, the former Facebook employee turned whistleblower who later testified on Capitol Hill.

Frances, welcome. Thank you so much for being here with us.

I know that Aaron Sorkin reached out to you after your explosive testimony. What made you decide to help him put all of this together for a film?

FRANCES HAUGEN, THE FORMER FACEBOOK EMPLOYEE TURNED WHISTLEBLOWER: The reality is that different kinds of people reading "The Wall Street Journal" -- who read any newspaper versus necessarily watch movies. Movies touch people in a very different way. They help people kind of feel the experience. They move people, they inspire people.

And the world right now needs whistleblowers more than ever before with things like frontier A.I. labs, the last line of safety between the public and these ever growing more powerful A.I. is individual employees speaking out when they see problems.

So if the movie helps inspire even one whistleblower, I think it would have been a real success.

DEAN: Yes, and I do want to talk to you about A.I. in a second, but is that your hope for the film? Is that maybe it will inspire people to speak out?

[18:25:10]

HAUGEN: The reason I -- you know, having your story dramatized is a big risk, right? You get very little say in, you know exactly how you're portrayed. You never know if they're going to get the details right, and for someone like me who really, really cares about being a very precise communicator, it is a big leap of faith.

But Aaron Sorkin has done such a good job of tackling other complicated topics before, and when I interacted with him, it was so clear that he wanted to get the details right. You know, he came to me with like a copy of my book that was like underlined and highlighted and like had little sticky notes coming out of it. Like he wanted to understand.

And so of all the people who could have brought "The Social Reckoning" to life, I feel like I really struck the jackpot.

DEAN: Yes, and what did -- I am assuming you've seen the film, what did you think of Mickey Madison's portrayal of you? Of how it all turned out generally?

HAUGEN: So I have seen it twice. I saw it once at the premiere, and then I got another time, a few weeks before then. And, you know, I think that the things that she gets really, really -- she does a really good job with are one, there is a period of time when someone doesn't know yet they are on a road to becoming a whistleblower. You know, they are seeing things where they know there is information that potentially can harm people if people don t know about it. But the nature of being a whistleblower is that means that you were surrounded by people who either told you what you saw wasn't real or that it didn't matter.

So that she does a good job of capturing how stressful that period of time is when you're -- you don't -- you haven't yet been pushed over the edge, but you see things where you are really worried about the well-being of the public.

And the second thing they did really well is kind of the spirit of and excitement of discovery. So when I was working with Jeff from "The Wall Street Journal," you know, there were things that I knew going in for sure. Like I had specific documents. There were certain things that I had worked on personally that I knew a lot. But there were other things like this bigger why question where, you know, the process of getting to fit all those facts together and find the documents and figure out how all the puzzle pieces work together, it captures that kind of excitement of understanding finally, like how things are working.

And I am so glad I always have this little memento of like this very weird period in my life.

DEAN: Yes! This summer, I do want to ask you about this. Meta agreed to pay as much as $18 billion and make some changes as part of a settlement after more than two dozen states sued, accusing the company of intentionally designating or designing rather addictive platforms that harmed young people's mental health. But the company didn't admit to any wrongdoing.

I am curious what you think that settlement tells you about Meta's thinking when it comes to the harm behind some of these platforms?

HAUGEN: I think the fact that they settled for $18 million is a sign -- if you remember, until this summer, when they signed with their first school district, Meta had never settled. Right? Like they had -- many, many cases have been brought for, I think on the order of like 10 years -- more than 10 years -- alleging harms from these platforms and Meta had never lost a case and they had never settled.

And the fact that they settled before even the trial was over. So it is not even like we presented the whole case, it was like they didn't even want the case to be presented before they settled. Part of that is I've gotten to look through a lot of these documents. They've been released as, as court exhibits and they are pretty horrifying, right?

Like the way that they talk really nonchalantly about knowing ways to protect kids, you know, running the experiments, getting the data and then being like, but they use the product one percent less. Like it doesn't matter that the kids said they were less stressed, that they could focus better in school. I think they didn't want to have that story told out in public um.

DEAN: I do want to talk to you about A.I. as well. as you're sitting back watching what is happening, what is in the news, the various CEOs and founders that are ringing alarm bells, but also moving forward with the creation of new A.I. models and agents. Are you worried about history repeating itself? Are you worried about what comes next in that arena?

HAUGEN: When we look at the things that have been requested in the last few weeks, for example, um Anthropic CEO has said, we need to have mandated -- legally mandated observers, auditors inside all the frontier labs who have the same access to data that employees would have. You know, that is a request that I made five years ago when I testified before the Senate.

The reality is what is going on right now isn't social media or A.I. it is our economy shifting from a world where we can all see what is going on. You know, you buy one car, you buy another car. Those are the same product. You know, you buy one phone, you buy another phone. They're the same product. We can look at them. We can take them apart.

When we move into these personalized and tangible experiences, suddenly what the product is can really only be seen by the people who are working at the company. The people behind the curtain.

Whistleblowers are the people who bridge those two worlds. The people who say, my company said this was going on, but this is what is really going on. The public needs to act.

[18:30:10]

Having mandated observers incentivizes telling the truth. You know, right now we are getting more information out of these frontier labs than we ever got out of the social media labs. The question is, is any of it true? And we need to learn the lessons of social media and make sure that we have in place that system of incentives as soon as possible?

DEAN: Yes. Do you think that these companies are capable of policing themselves?

HAUGEN: You know, I think we are going to look back in a few years at the fact that the CEOs were repeating over and over again, like, we need legally, we need a level playing field. Like you shouldn't punish companies that do the right thing.

We need a legally mandated playing field to incentivize telling the truth. We are going to look back on it and be like, why didn't we act? We cannot rely on for profit companies that are full of humans, right, to make decisions that have potentially societal consequences. And what we've seen from social media is you don t have to be a company full of bad people. Like I loved my coworkers at Facebook. Like there were lots of wonderful, kind hearted, empathetic people working there to have really horrible things happen. You just need to have the incentives be set up to motivate people to cut corners. And one too many corners can be really, really catastrophic.

DEAN: All right, Frances Haugen, it is great to have you on. Just a brave new world out there when it comes to the new technology. But also congratulations on the new on the new film.

HAUGEN: Yes.

DEAN: A lot to learn from that. All right, thanks so much.

HAUGEN: Thank you.

DEAN: And still ahead, the latest on a deadly strike on a Saudi airport as the Iran-backed Houthis escalate attacks against Saudi Arabia. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[18:36:18]

DEAN: We do have breaking news, as the Saudi Aviation Authority says at least 12 people were killed. More than 300 wounded during an attack on Saudi Arabia's busiest airport earlier today. Video posted on social media shows an ambulance outside the airport in Riyadh. There has been no claim of responsibility for this attack, but it comes as the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen have been escalating strikes against Saudi Arabia. President Trump today saying he has been briefed on the attack.

We are joined now by CNN global affairs analyst, Brett McGurk. He served as a senior adviser to four presidents and was The White House Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa under President Biden.

He is also the author of the new book, "Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages." And I do want to get to the book in just a moment, Brett, but first, I have to ask you about these escalating attacks. And the Saudi-Houthi conflict that we are seeing.

The White House so far hasn't been willing to get involved on that front. President Trump saying today in his words, he said, "we may." You've been on the front lines of decisions like this, of these conflicts. What are you looking at as we are getting this information about this attack at the airport?

BRETT MCGURK, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Yes, Jessica. Actually, if you read the first chapter of "Brink," it is about -- much of it is about this problem. And the Houthis in Yemen, just who are these guys? They are an indigenous Yemeni group. They overthrow the legitimate governments recognized by the U.N. Their motto is "Death to America, Death to Israel, Curse the Jews." Heavily backed by Iran, and Iran has provided them with ballistic missiles, anti-ship ballistic missiles over a period of years and they are able to shut down the Red Sea, and they are able to do what you just saw today with an accurate ballistic missile strike on a civilian airport.

This is Iranian technology that has proliferated to the Houthis is extremely serious. The reports coming in, Jessica, are a number of casualties, including possibly an American dead. This is -- I would consider this a terrorist attack. It is on a civilian airport. I think it will be very difficult for President Trump not to have some response here, hopefully in coordination with allies. But this is obviously still developing, extremely serious, but this is what unfortunately, these Iranian-backed groups in the region have just been, you know, so stocked up with weapons, drones, missiles. It is a huge problem. It is a huge problem.

There is no easy answer. But, you know, you kind of have to take this on because you can't have this group controlling access to the Red Sea as Iran is doing what it is in the Strait of Hormuz.

And I think the U.S. has made some huge mistakes over the course of this year in this conflict, but now we are going to really have to hopefully coordinate with some allies, because this is a global, international challenge.

DEAN: Yes, and Brett, just as you were talking there, I was told that we can confirm that an American was killed in that attack, which to your point, escalates. The Associated Press is reporting that.

To your point, you know, that really escalates this for President Trump and what the U.S. might do.

MCGURK: I would suspect within tonight, CENTCOM would come in with options for the President about what the options are. Honestly, Jessica, they might not be great options, but you've got to look at all possible targets in Yemen and what can be done.

It is a serious development. I am hearing there might be scores of wounded as well. So I think, we will get reports here through the night, unfortunately.

DEAN: Yes, and listen, I do want to talk about -- we are going to obviously continue to report that out. At same time, we do want to talk about your book "Brink." I've been reading it. It is literally on my nightstand right now. It is so fascinating to see all of these behind-the-scenes details that you have as you worked to secure the release of the October 7th hostages, avoid an all-out war in the region.

It is also a very personal account of what you were going through personally at the time, too, and how it weighed on you.

[18:40:15]

And interestingly, you noted that the Houthis are in that first chapter, but you were trying to deal with that then. This was years ago and it had been going on for years.

MCGURK: Right. Yes, Jessica. I really try to bring readers and your viewers who hopefully read the book into the room, into all the rooms of what this is like, you know, what it is like with the President in the Situation Room, thinking through military options, or as hundreds of ballistic missiles are in the air heading for Israel, what it is like sitting with Intelligence chiefs in the region, with Hamas on one floor, Israel, another floor trying to get a ceasefire in Gaza, get the hostages out.

And just what it -- the hard work to actually to do this. And so I think readers hopefully come away with a better understanding of what it is like to deal with Benjamin Netanyahu? What is it like to deal with the Iranians? I have a chapter in the book, Jessica, all about -- the chapter is called "Under Attack," about when the Iranians really started coming after our personnel.

I went to see the Iranians in Oman in a back channel to try to contain things and calm things down. And so what is it like to deal with the Iranians? It is all in this book. It is really the inside the room account. You're with me throughout. And, I think readers can obviously make -- readers can make their own judgments at critical moments because the moral quandaries, Jessica of a hostage negotiation and, you know, Hamas would offer just a handful of hostages. Do you take those birds in hand and try to save those lives, or do you hold the line to get more hostages out?

It is a vexing, awful problem. I put it all in the book, and I just wrote it in a very direct, very raw way. And I hope readers take it to account. I think they'll have a better understanding of all these issues we are talking about.

DEAN: And how deeply complex they are and difficult those decisions, as you note, are. And you note that it is very personal.

You talk about Abigail Idan, a dual American and Israeli citizen, four years old when she was kidnaped by Hamas. And you met her when she visited The White House after she was released. You also have a daughter around her age, and that's kind of what you were talking about is like, it was this little girl that you were trying to get released. And at the same time, you had -- you know what that is like. You have a little girl at home.

MCGURK: Yes, you know, Abigail was three when she was taken hostage. Her parents were killed in front of her in a town in Israel. And I actually have, in a photo insert in the book, the family, very kindly, I used. Her father was a photographer and he took his last photograph before he was killed, was of a Hamas paraglider that had landed in their kibbutz.

Abigail was taken into Gaza. And I describe what it was like to get the deal about a month into the war for all women and children. She was supposed to come out on day one, and you would wait this agonizing wait as we are in the ceasefire, Hamas would issue a list every night who is coming out, and she was not on the list, then she was not on the list again, and we thought she might have been dead. She finally came out, Jessica, I tell the story in the book, and then she visited The White House several months later in April. And I just remember, you know, holding her and feeling the weight of her very similar to my daughter and it felt like a miracle. And just all the children trapped in this horrific conflict and working to end it and get the hostages home and the two are totally intertwined. You couldn't get a ceasefire in Gaza without the hostages, and you couldn't get the hostages without the ceasefire.

And in the midst of the broader regional dynamics, with Iran on the brink of a broader all-out regional war, constantly. So that's the story. But I think the story of Abigail, particularly early in the war and how hard it was to get her out, also tells a lot about Hamas and what their intentions were here, and that deal in November, Jessica, I will just finish on this, it was for all women and children. And on the eighth day, we got about a hundred hostages out, and just a month into the war, and on the eighth night, and the reader is with me at this moment, Hamas says, you know what? We are not going to release the younger women.

These are women in their 20s who are taken from the NOVA Music Festival, where there is that horrific massacre, or were taken from their homes, including the town where Abigail was from and Hamas said, let's skip to the older men. Let's talk about the older men, keep the ceasefire. You know, skip the younger women, talk about the older men. So, what do you do in that moment?

Because the older men are in bad shape, too. You want to keep the ceasefire intact. But if you skip over the younger women, you're probably never going to get them out.

And the war started again that night, tragically, and I did not -- and I say in the book, I did not anticipate it would be 14 months until we got another deal, tragically.

[18:45:10]

I describe what happened in the weeks after that deal, but those are the kind of moments. There are a number of them throughout the book of these quandaries and dilemmas and how vexing they are. But fortunately, Abigail did come home. Her parents were killed on October 7th, and she has a great family. But I can't imagine what she went through.

DEAN: Absolutely. And toward the end of the negotiations, you write about, you know, obviously there is an election here in the U.S., President Trump wins. Now you're working with now U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff. He comes into the negotiations and you both come together to try to move the ball forward, essentially on your on your -- you know, the Biden administration's way out and the Trump administration's way in.

MCGURK: Right, so just as things kind of line up after the talks really collapsed in the summer, of course, we had six hostages killed in the tunnel under Rafah City in Southern Gaza. Talks collapsed. And just as the kind of door opens again, because Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of October 7th, the leader of Hamas, he is killed in October, a number of other things happen, and I know we have an opening to get back to the deal. And then Trump is elected.

And so if left to its current course in Washington, given how polarized things are, the incoming Trump team wouldn't want to work with us. We probably wouldn't want to work with them. But I knew we had a shot. President Biden wanted us to do everything we could. I called Jared Kushner, actually, shortly after the election and said, this is the situation. I think if we can work together, we can get a ceasefire by the inauguration and hostages coming home. He agreed. And I met Steve Witkoff, who was kind of my incoming successor, and we started working every day.

And without that, I really credit President Biden and the work we did to put this deal together. It is a detailed 17-page agreement, but without Steve in those final days, because President Trump was about to take power, we probably would not have gotten that done.

So I tell that story. I think it is a unique story. We were a very unlikely partnership there, but it is about, you know, two teams coming together for the good of the country and to stop a war and save lives, and that's -- I tell that in those latter chapters of the book, I think in a very detailed way, you're right there with me and Steve throughout until the final moments.

DEAN: Yes, and obviously in writing this book, I am sure you went through your notes, through your recollections, and it really takes you back. And yet here we are in 2026 now with everything, and you and I led this interview with an attack on the airport in Saudi Arabia. Are you surprised by where we are now? Is this where you thought we might be?

MCGURK: You know, I thought -- I tell a story at the end of the book on President Biden's last day in office, he gave a speech about what he was handing over, and we had a ceasefire in Gaza, hostages coming out, ceasefire in Lebanon, new government in Syria, and kind of go through it. Iran was in a very weak position, and unfortunately, that first phase hostage deal fell apart in the spring. Eventually, all the hostages came out last October, which was great.

But what was really changed in the map was this conflict that started in February of this year, Jessica and it is different than the strikes against the nuclear facilities last year. That was a kind of defined military operation.

I think it was kind of a textbook. This is ill-defined. We took out the entire leadership of Iran, and we are now in this very difficult situation because Iran is in total war mode, survival mode. I am hopeful we can get this back into an economic pressure situation than going back to all-out war.

But what we led with Jessica, I fear this is going to escalate again, but I bring this back to the Iran and all these other actors in the region and how they make decisions and what their ultimate objectives are and it is all in the book. I think it comes through dealing with all of these guys. It is exceedingly hard. But there is a critical role for the United States. We need to stay engaged in it because it can get a lot worse if we don't.

DEAN: All right, Brett McGurk, always great to have you. And congratulations on your new book.

MCGURK: Thank you.

DEAN: It is really a great read. We really appreciate you being here tonight.

MCGURK: Thank you, Jessica.

DEAN: All right, we will be right back.

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[18:54:10]

DEAN: In this week's episode of "The Detour" with David Chang, the chef road trips across Pennsylvania with actress, Gillian Jacobs testing out sandwiches from her home city of Pittsburgh.

Omar Jimenez sat down with Chang to talk about his takeaways from filming that episode.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Let's switch gears to a very different place, Pittsburgh.

DAVID CHANG, CHEF: The drive from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia is going to different circles of hell. It is so long and there is really nothing. And that's, again, part of a road trip is, you're going to have to go through some periods of boredom. And that was -- that was -- it is a long one.

But along the way, we can stop by and have great road trip snacks. And we stopped by Sheetz, which is a fantastic gas station, convenience store. Oh my God, it was so good.

But I know the city of Philadelphia quite well, so I felt like I had a pretty good grasp of that. Pittsburgh, I knew something very little.

I've got to say, of all the cities that sort of won me over, Pittsburgh, I think is at the top for me. It was pretty amazing.

[18:55:07]

JIMENEZ: And one of the things that stands out, I think across all the cities and states you went to was this deep connection to the food, and it is something that, as a consumer, showing up at these restaurants, it is almost impossible to see unless you really look beyond the dish that's being served to your plate.

And yet, you found it in this, just by talking to either the chefs, the wait staff, folks that are regulars at a certain restaurant. CHANG: It was cool to be there with Gillian Jacobs. And for me, the highlight of the show was going to the ice cream store where she grew up eating. It was like a real moment where you could see all the nostalgia and all the feelings that she had for the city and her mother and her family, and it was all there in one little ice cream shop.

CHANG: This is great.

GILLIAN JACOBS, ACTOR: It is. It is.

CHANG: These are the moments that make going out, getting off your ass, doing things you wouldn't normally do worthwhile. Because if you can make somebody feel that way, that's what hospitality is about.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Omar Jimenez and David Chang, thanks to both of you.

And all-new episode of the CNN Original Series, "The Detour" with David Chang airs tonight at 10:00 Eastern and Pacific. It streams tomorrow with an all-access subscription.

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