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CNN This Morning
730 Foreign Nationals Expected To Cross Through Rafah Today; Israel Admits to Strike On Ambulance Near Gaza Hospital; Egyptian Source: Hundreds Of Americans To Leave Gaza Today; Biden Meets with Families of Mass Shooting Victims in Maine; Muslim and Arab-American Voters Criticize Biden Over Gaza Response; NASA Unveils First Public Display of Asteroid Sample. Aired 6-7a ET
Aired November 04, 2023 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[06:00:39]
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you. Welcome to CNN this morning. It is Saturday, November 4. I'm Victor Blackwell.
AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: And I am Amara Walker. Thank you so much for being with us this morning. And here's what we are watching. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in Jordan this morning meeting with Arab foreign ministers. The summit coming as we're learning that hundreds of Americans could leave Gaza today. We are live in the region with the details in the latest on that deadly Israeli air strike outside a hospital in Gaza City.
BLACKWELL: Donald Trump's children took the stand in his New York civil fraud case. More on what they said while under oath and what to expect when Trump himself takes the stand on Monday.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT, THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: This is about protecting our freedom to go to a bowling alley, restaurant, a school or church without being shot and killed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALKER: President Biden visited Lewiston, Maine to honor the 18 two people killed in the mass shooting there last week. More on his message to the community and the country.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BILL NELSON, CEO, NASA: And it's all a part of our quest to understand -- to try to understand who we are, what we are, where we are in the vastness of this cosmos.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BLACKWELL: Plus look at them, ain't they pretty? A few tiny pieces of an asteroid get the big moment at the Smithsonian, an up close look at the 4 billion year old space rocks. That's coming up.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken is meeting with key Middle Eastern leaders this morning in Amman, Jordan. This is his third trip to the region since the Hamas terror attacks on October 7th. He's meeting with Qatar's Prime Minister and Ministers of Foreign Affairs. Now the U.S. has credited Qatar for helping to open the Rafah bording -- border -- border crossing where the largest number yet foreign nationals are expected to exit Gaza in the next few hours. An Egyptian source says 730 of them will enter Egypt, nearly 400 of them will be Americans.
WALKER: Israel's relentless bombing campaign in Gaza is stoking more outrage this morning as the Israeli military is admitting responsibility for an attack on an ambulance outside a Gaza hospital killing and wounding dozens. Now Israel claims they targeted the ambulance because it was being used by Hamas. The Hamas run health ministry rejected that claim saying the ambulance was part of a medical convoy traveling to the Rafah border crossing. U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres said he was horrified by the strike and reiterated calls for a ceasefire saying the bombardment of Gaza must stop.
CNN's Eleni Giokos is joining us now from Abu Dhabi with more. Eleni, what do we know about this strike?
ELENI GIOKOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we knew -- know according to the Hamas led Ministry of Health had 15 people lost their lives, 60 people, around 60 people are injured. We saw the images of the streamed bodies on the ground, bloody bodies. We know that the U.N. Secretary General, has said that he was horrified by this and again, reiterating the call for humanitarian pause or a ceasefire, something that, of course, has been gaining in momentum in terms of the pressure that is now against the U.S. and Israel to get that done. Antony Blinken was in Israel yesterday and he met with Benjamin Netanyahu talking about the -- the call for a pause and in the very least, to try and get more aid into Gaza.
We know the humanitarian situation there is intensifying. We're hearing horrific stories from hospitals and also doctors about having to conduct surgery without anesthetics. Water is scarce. Food, of course, is being depleted and very little aid going into Gaza at this point in time.
Look, the idea exist that they targeted Hamas operatives. And we know that this was a convoy of ambulances that were heading to the south carrying injured patients. So this is the conversation we're constantly hearing when these strikes happen is just how many Hamas operatives were targeted. And, of course, the justification for the loss of civilian lives as well.
The death toll now reaching above 9,000. It's increasingly becoming untenable even for the United States. Anthony Blinken was very clear about protecting civilians in Gaza. Importantly today however, the Rafah border crossing is going to help facilitate the evacuation of more foreign nationals. This was an important breakthrough in diplomatic negotiations that were really led by Qataris. And, of course, we've been seeing this occurring since Wednesday. It's also assisted injured Palestinians to go into Egypt. But today we've got almost 400 Americans. It includes Egyptians, British, French, and German nationals that will be facilitated through the rougher border crossing. Overall, the Egyptians are telling us they need to assist 7,000 foreign nationals to leave Gaza while we are seeing the intense bombardment across the Gaza Strip. And, of course, international goal calls for a ceasefire or a pause to get aid in.
[06:05:46]
It is a tense situation, Amara and Victor, something that international community, I have to say, and global leaders are watching very closely.
WALKER: All right. Eleni Giokos, thank you very much. Well, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with the caretaker Prime Minister of Lebanon and the Prime Minister of Qatar this morning. Qatar served as a key negotiator of Hamas. U.S. officials say the country helped free four hostages in addition to getting the Rafah gate opened up. Later this morning, he will join a summit with his counterparts from Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Qatar in addition to a leader of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
BLACKWELL: Jordan's Foreign Ministry said that this summit will focus on ending the war and the humanitarian catastrophe that it has caused. Our CNN's Jennifer Hansler joins us now from Jordan. So Jennifer, what else can you tell us about the meetings today?
JENNIFER HANSLER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, good morning, Victor and Amira. We are expecting this meeting to be full of tough conversation. Secretary Blinken will meet with his Arab partners later today in Amman. And we have seen key differences in the way the U.S. and its partners here in the region have been approaching the war. There has been strong condemnation from the Middle Eastern partners to the offensive in Gaza to the subsequent humanitarian catastrophe it's causing. Jordan even pulled its ambassador to Israel in response to this.
And now we have also seen Middle Eastern leaders call for a ceasefire in Gaza, that is something the U.S. is not backing right now. They are instead calling for these humanitarian pauses to enable aid to get into Gaza, to try to increase that output of aid, the output of civilians leaving Gaza, and we saw Secretary Blinken push this very hard yesterday in his meeting with Israeli officials in Tel Aviv. And he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others. And this is what he had to say afterwards, about the protection of civilians, and the need for Israel to approach the humanitarian situation in a way that isn't going to harm its reputation around the world. Take a listen.
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ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: We need to do more to protect Palestinian civilians. We've been clear that as Israel conducts its campaign to defeat Hamas, how it does so matters. It matters because it's the right and lawful thing to do. It matters because failure to do so plays into the hands of Hamas and other terror groups. There will be no partners for peace if they're consumed by humanitarian catastrophe and alienated by any perceived indifference to their plight.
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HANSLER: And so we will see Blinken process again, but we should not expect any sort of consensus here at this. Of course, Israel has rejected the idea of a ceasefire entirely until those hostages come out. Victor, Amara.
BLACKWELL: And important point there. Jennifer Hansler for us in Jordan, thanks so much. Let's bring in now for analysis CNN Global Affairs analyst Kimberly Dozier. Kimberly, good to see you.
Okay. So Jordan says that the point of the -- the summit is to stop the war and the humanitarian catastrophe that it's caused. Well, the war will not end and from what we see the catastrophe will not either. This puts me in the mind of the -- the meeting that El-Sisi called for peace several weeks ago that ended really with nothing. How much should people expect out of this meeting today?
KIMBERLY DOZIER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: This is an important meeting because Blinken can hear Arab leaders thoughts behind closed doors and also he's just come from Israel, where he can talk about possible concessions or at least Israel's reasoning that he got from them that wasn't made public. But the fact of the matter is, the Arab leaders, the Arab people seem to be concentrating on the horrible pictures that we're seeing out of Gaza. But Israel feels like its hostages and what happened on October 7, has been forgotten. And they keep saying, you know, a lot of this could end if you would return our 242, that's their latest count, hostages being held by Hamas. And that anything else is a nonstarter.
Then again this is -- having covered Israeli Palestinian peace talks over the decades. This is one of the things that happens. Each side layout -- layout -- lays out their maximum position. And then you start negotiating towards something in between.
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BLACKWELL: So let's talk about those negotiations. I mean, we heard from the Secretary of State when he was in Tel Aviv on yesterday calling for this humanitarian pause saying while he was with President Herzog there that it matters how Israel does this. What should we expect me? I mean, I don't know, maybe you do. What is the half measure between not a ceasefire but a pause to get things in short of getting those hostages free?
DOZIER: Well, from the Israeli perspective, the problem with the pause is right now they have done militarily what they wanted to do in terms of ringing Gaza City, and starting now to first soften up the targets with air strikes and then approach militarily on the ground the Hamas leaders that they're going after.
A pause would give him us time to regroup. The other problem with a pause, just in terms of how you would figure it out is a lot of the roads south have been damaged or destroyed. And with Israel ringing that area, what area are they going to open up to allow people to flee. We had a senior U.S. officials brief reporters yesterday and say, Hamas already tried to sneak out a number of its wounded operatives as part of the negotiation to get the wounded out and let foreign nationals out over the Rafah border crossings. So what Israel will ask is okay, if we opened some avenues South, how is Hamas going to take advantage of that? So that's why they want more hostages out. It would help Israel militarily to prosecute their war.
In the meantime, you know, Blinken doesn't have a lot of political capital to play with because the Israelis are feeling like people have forgotten what happened to them and therefore, they're just going to do what they have to do.
BLACK: Yes. I'm going to talk with General Hertling a little later today about if there is a pause, what then does the IDF do? You can't just sit there for 72 hours and be sitting ducks there in Gaza. Let me ask you about the Secretary General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, who delivered this speech endorsing the attack on October 7th. But saying, we didn't know anything about it. We weren't given a heads up. And then kind of claiming that yes, we are involved. We've been involved in this fight since October 8th, although Hamas is saying we need to see more from Hezbollah. What do you glean from the speech about what could come next from that group?
DOZIER: It looks like Hezbollah has decided to do a holding action, pointing out to Hamas that, look, we are engaging a large portion of the Israeli military, keeping them on the northern border instead of you by engaging in small scale skirmishes. What Hamas had hoped to see, what they called for on October 7, was an all-out fight from Hezbollah and other groups. They wanted to see Hezbollah unleash its 100,000 plus sophisticated rockets that can hit all of Israel. But it seems that his was decided to take the action of you know, living to fight another day. Once it unleashes all of those rockets, the U.S. carrier strike groups that are in the Mediterranean right now could attack and it could also pull Iran into the war.
I don't think Iran wants that either. Iran and Hezbollah both had been very good at calibrating their violence to get attention, stay on the map, but not trigger an all-out response.
BLACKWELL: All right. Kimberly Dozier, always good to have you. Thank you.
WALKER: Still ahead. Former President Trump is set to testify next week in his $250 million civil fraud trial in New York. But how will what his sons said under oath impact his testimony. Plus the labor market cool down continues, what the latest jobs numbers tells us about the state of the economy and the fight against inflation.
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BLACKWELL: On Monday, former President Trump is expected to take the stand and the New York civil fraud case against him, his company, and his two adult sons.
WALKER: You might remember a judge found them liable for fraud back in September ruling that they overvalued assets of several Trump properties to obtain favorable loans. Both of Trump's sons tried to shift the blame this week in Court arguing they had limited involvement. Here's Karis Kanal with more.
KARIS KANAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Eric Trump wrapped his testimony on Friday after being on the stand for four hours over two days. In his testimony, he stood by the accuracy of these financial statements, something that the Judge has already found to be fraudulent. Eric Trump testifying that after he was comforted by lawyers and accountant, that these financial statements were quote, "perfect". He said he was more than happy to sign them. Adding, he wouldn't have signed anything that was inaccurate.
Now the Judge also extended a gag order in this case to attorneys saying that they cannot make any references both in Court and outside of Court about any of the confidential communications the Judge has with his staff. This is after Trump's lawyers have raised questions of potential bias with the Judge's clerk passing notes to him during the trial and during testimony. Next on the stand will be Donald Trump and Eric Trump after leaving Court said that his father is more than ready.
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ERIC TRUMP, SON OF FMR. UNITED STATES PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: My father's certainly going to be here. I know you're tired enough to be here and he thinks this is one of the most incredible injustice that he's ever seen and it truly is.
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KANAL: Trump's testimony is expected to last all day Monday. Next up will be Ivanka Trump. She is scheduled to testify on Wednesday and after that, the New York Attorney General's Office will rest their case. Karis Kanal, CNN, New York.
BLACKWELL: All right. Kara, thank you. Let's discuss now with CNN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson. Joey, good morning to you. So, let's start here with what to expect on Monday. We've seen that Trump has been deposed before. But this is going to be public. They're in the courtroom. What should we expect? And what's the -- I guess, the significance on the judge's decision considering he's already determined that there was fraud?
JOEY JACKSON, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Victor, good morning to you. So very significant in decision and very significant with respect to testimony. Let's talk about what to expect. If any indication of Trump's past with regard to how he handles things is any indication to the future, I think we'll hear that my business was ran perfectly. We have a branding that is tremendous. Subjective values were placed upon property. It is not an exact science. My brand is enormous, spectacular. We did nothing wrong. The financial statements were perfect. Remember what he said to the Secretary of State drawing the parallel of Georgia.
And so I don't expect there to be any admissions on his part. I expect there to be double, tripling, and everything down. The distinction, though Victor is important to note that this is in front of a judge. The Judge is not persuaded by star appeal. The judges not persuaded by arguments about witch-hunts and political prosecutions. The Judges are persuaded by facts. And when you have a control of the company indicating as the comptroller testified, Mr. Connolly, that we had an eye and I had direction from his son with regard to the financial statements, appraisals, and evaluations, when you have one of his sons signing off of, right? Where you have Donald Trump Jr. signing off of financial statements. Oh, it was my accountant. Oh, I relied upon my lawyers.
It's a problem. Because the essence of what was in those financial statements are not factually accurate when you include, for example, apartments that are not yet constructed, when you have rent stabilized apartments that you don't account for and you deem to be private. Those are factual discrepancies. So it will be interesting to me how he deals with those factual issues and can't and has to just get away from the witch hunt narrative, which a Judge in a bench trial will not buy, potentially jury, not a Judge.
BLACKWELL: Can we talk about the complaints from the Trump attorneys about the Judge's law clerk Allison Greenfield. I mean, that really was kind of the headline that came out. Although Eric Trump was on the stand on -- on Friday morning, where they have been complaining consistently, they say that she has been whispering to the Judge or passing him notes. The Judge defended her and said he is allowed to secretly receive that -- that counsel. Is there anything unusual about what's happening between this Judge and his law clerk that justifies all these complaints from the Trump team?
JACKSON: So it doesn't. So -- and the most objective way that I could present this Victor, what happens at any trial as a Judge in presiding over the trial, being in at a jury trial, or particularly a bench trial, is really reliant upon the law clerk for certain issues and matters. When there's testimony that a person is giving to the Judge. Remember, a Judge has a trier of fact meaning has to make an assessment as to what's factually accurate as a jury, in a normal case, would do if it were a jury trial. And a Judge also has to make rulings with respect to the admissibility of the evidence, with regard to being a referee, about what he's going to -- really of value, what it's not, right, because that's what a Judge does is a referee of the evidence of a trial and just has to control that.
In doing that, you're reliant as a Judge on your law clerk. And in any instance when I'm in court, you see a Judge conferring during trial with the law clerk, after trial with the law clerk, before the trial with a law clerk. And so there's nothing nefarious or myths about a law clerk who's keeping copious notes and giving it to the Judge to make sure they have a consistent focus and that the Judge is on point with regard to rulings and factual determinations.
BLACKWELL: Donald Trump is on Monday. Wednesday, we're expecting Ivanka Trump to testify after her request to postpone was denied. She said that there was an undue hardship because her kids have to go to school. Now, Ivanka Trump is not, you know, keeping her head above water and making a wave when she can. Well, the idea that it's an undue hardship because her kids have to go to school. Was that ever credible?
JACKSON: So it was not credible. I think what the issue is we look at her there is, is that listen, I no longer as you noted, Victor, a Defendant in the case, having been dismissed from the case. The statute of limitations with regard to the issues about this case do not involve me. I don't have any relevant or material information to provide. I'm outside the scope and the universe of really the issues that are being discussed here. I have nothing of value to share with you why am I here? I think that's really the essence of the argument. But you have to throw on all these other things because she's saying, I'm in Florida. I'm outside of the jurisdiction of the court. I haven't been in New York since 2017. Don't bother me. So you'll try anything to get out from under it. At the end of the day, she's not. She'll be appearing and she has to give testimony.
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BLACKWELL: And we will watch it. Joey Jackson, thanks so much.
WALKER: Coming up President Biden steps into his role as Consoler in Chief following the latest mass shooting in the U.S. We're going to have more on his visit to meet families of the victims next.
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BLACWELL: Well, President Biden visit another community recovering from a mass shooting and he says that he still hopes to pass a comprehensive Gun Bill even with a deeply divided Congress.
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WALKER: The president and first lady, as you see there, went to Lewiston, Maine, on Friday, they left flowers at a memorial to the 18 people killed at a bowling alley and a restaurant. Here's CNN's Omar Jimenez with more.
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, even though, it's been more than a week since the shooting, the pain is still very raw for so many in this community. And that was the climate that President Biden was visiting in over the course of Friday. He met with first responders, nurses, others that were on the frontlines of responding to the pair of shootings that again, happened a little bit more than a week ago.
Now, you can't go far in this Lewiston community and the surrounding areas without seeing signs of support. Even just behind me where I am outside the bowling alley, which was the first site of where the mass shootings happened that night. We've got signs of support, saying Lewiston strong, same thing simply like "be nice", acknowledging the climate and the pain that so many are going through still even at this point.
Eighteen people killed total in these shootings, and their families are still trying to figure out how to process. Now, President Biden along with meeting with first responders, he also met with members of some of the victims' families. He also took some moments to make some remarks about his visit. Take a listen to some of what he said in regard to the political climate around some of these mass shootings.
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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know consensus is not only possible. This is about common sense, reasonable, responsible measures to protect our children, our families, our communities. Because regardless of our politics, this is about protecting our freedom to go to a bowling alley, a restaurant, a school, a church without being shot and killed.
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JIMENEZ: And the president also talked about how he's made too many of these visits before, including in places like Buffalo and Uvalde, and now, of course, here in Lewiston. One thing we heard from at least, one community member ahead of his visit about wanting him to be here was -- she said, she was glad he was here, because it showed that the highest levels of the U.S. government cared about what happened here in this particular community.
Another thing that I've heard overwhelmingly from residents, even from the hours after the shootings actually happened, when my crew and I first got here last week was that, they never thought something like this would happen in Maine. And of course, many communities say that, for them in particular, a place like Maine, the amount of homicides they see in a year statewide is what is comparable to the amount of people that were lost in a single night here.
And that gives you the idea of what they're actually going through, the shock and the pain. They're still trying to figure out how to process over an event that isn't ancient history. It happened just a little over a week ago, it is still raw for so many people, but yet, they have to figure out a way to go forward. And every indication we've seen is that they want to do so together and as strong as possible. Victor, Amara?
WALKER: Omar Jimenez, thank you very much. And coming up, we will be joined by the mayor of Lewiston, Maine, next hour. Make sure to stay tuned for that. Let's bring in CNN political commentator and "Spectrum News" political anchor Errol Louis. Good morning to you, Errol. Let's start with President Biden's trip to Lewiston, as you heard there, he called for common sense measures to protect our communities.
He did say that he's hopeful a consensus is ultimately possible, though he didn't make a forceful push for gun control. What did you make of his trip and what he had to say?
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Good morning, Amara. This is something the president, of course, has done over and over again. He's suffered so much personal trauma in his own life that he connects with voters. That's the job of the politician, and even when they're not running for office. And he certainly, as he tries to get re-elected, it is a skill that comes in handy, but it's also genuine and heartfelt.
That's always very obvious. He's also, look, politically-speaking, he's on the right side of the issue, in the sense that every poll that you ever look at shows that solid majorities of voters want common sense gun reform. They want there to be restrictions on who can get access to weapons of war. They want restrictions on who can get a license, you know, the background check system.
Almost every point in what the president has proposed is something that bodes very well, so both politically and personally, he's doing what makes sense for him and, you know, obviously, for the country as well.
WALKER: So Biden's visit, Errol, came, you know, as he's been dealing with this very difficult and polarizing issue of the Israel war.
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Our Dianne Gallagher, she spoke with a Muslim-American community in Michigan, specifically Dearborn, which as you know, has one of the largest concentrations of that population here in America. They're all Democrats, they voted for Biden in 2020. I want you to listen to what they're now saying.
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DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Are you going to vote for him again in 2024?
EMAN HAMMOUD, MICHIGAN IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: I mean, if you would have asked me a month ago, I would have said absolutely a 100 percent, no doubt about it. But honestly, the past few weeks have changed everything, and I don't know any more.
HUSSEIN DABAJEH, POLITICAL CONSULTANT: I would gladly turn in on empty ballot.
SAM BAYDOUN, COMMISSIONER, WAYNE COUNTY: If the election was to be held today, and President Biden is on the ballot and we have to go out and vote today, I can't promise you that he will get five votes from Arab-Americans in the city of Dearborn.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALKER: You also have Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who is a Palestinian-American from Michigan, accusing President Biden on Friday of supporting what she calls the Palestinian genocide. And she also issued a warning of consequences for what Biden is doing and not doing for 2024. Will there be consequences for Biden and the Democrats?
LOUIS: Well, sure, there are going to be consequences, if only in the sense that the Democrats are going to be very worried about this and try to figure out how to square their policy position, which is solid support for Israel with the political aftermath. Because in this case as you're seeing, people not just in Dearborn, not just in Michigan, there are a lot of Muslim-Americans all over the country that are expressing to pollsters and others that they've got these concerns.
And now, you know, even in a state like Arizona which Joe Biden won by 10,000 votes, it doesn't take a lot to really sort of change the political map in a way that's quite meaningful, well, for his re- election chances. So, this is not going to go away. This is going to be a very serious issue. Some of the polling, Amara, I don't think I've ever seen anything like it.
I mean, the level of support by Arab-Americans for the Democratic Party, for this Democratic incumbent president has just fallen off a cliff. They're telling pollsters right off the bat, 30 percent drops, 40 percent drops --
WALKER: Wow --
LOUIS: In support. Not necessarily becoming Republicans by any means, but also talking about becoming independents, not feeling so great about voting Democratic. That could spell trouble up and down the ticket, and it's something that I think the Democratic candidates are all going to take into account.
WALKER: What about the conversations and debates happening within the Democratic Party, Errol? As you know, 13 Senate Democrats signed a letter, calling for a short-term cessation of hostilities to allow for more aid to get into Gaza. And I want to play for you what Chris Murphy had to say on CNN yesterday.
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SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): I simply believe that the current level of civilian casualties inside Gaza is too high, both from a moral perspective and a strategic perspective. What we have learned in our own country's counterterrorism operations is that, when you are too permissive of civilian casualties, you kill a lot of militants, but you also create a lot of terrorists as well, because that civilian harm becomes bulletin board material for terrorist recruiters.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALKER: So the divide over Israel, look, it's always been there, right? But I'm -- but the division amongst Democrats, is it getting stronger?
LOUIS: Well, look. It's getting more pronounced for sure, and, you know, what you just heard from Senator Murphy is, you know, if you think about the U.S. experience in Iraq and in Afghanistan, where we fought the longest war in U.S. history, you know, he's certainly got a point.
You know, there were -- there were trillions of dollars and thousands of lives that were all invested or sacrificed, depending on how you look at it in Afghanistan. And look at who is in charge in Afghanistan now? When you look at Gaza, and you look at the fact that, I think half the population is under the age of 18.
I mean, it's -- there are a lot of young people there and you don't want to become a recruiting ground for jihadists all over the -- all over the world and specifically in the region. He's got a very good point. I mean, you know, this is -- this is going to be a debate that continues, and a lot of this is up to Israel. They're getting a lot of pressure from a lot of different places to conclude whatever it is that they are going to do in Gaza and to do it quickly.
WALKER: Errol Louis, appreciate the time as always, thank you.
BLACKWELL: All right, the top ten CNN Heroes of 2023 have been announced, one of whom will be named the CNN Hero of the year by our viewers. So, this is where you come in. We'll introduce each of our top ten as you vote for your favorite in the next few weeks. So, let's start here. When this top ten CNN Hero lost her 2-year-old son in a hit-and-run accident on her block, she know she needed -- she knew rather, that she needed to find a way to challenge or channel her trauma into something positive.
So, she looked around her neighborhood, it's in Harlem Park, she saw some blight, it's just outside Detroit. And she thought, I can transform this into something beautiful.
[06:40:00]
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After Jacoby(ph) got killed, I needed to just basically change grief into glory, pain into power. Folks thought that I was crazy, like that lady crazy, talking about she's about to buy that block and fix it up, because they didn't see. I saw crystal clear what it could look like. It took about eight years or so to actually clean up the block.
We started buying the lots next door, and now we have 45. There were so many things inside of my head I wanted to actually build for the people. I felt that, that is what we deserve. Beauty is healing. 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 CLIP)
BLACKWELL: Go to cnnheroes.com right now to vote for her for CNN Hero of the Year or any of your favorite top ten heroes, and remember, you can vote for any or all of them up to ten times per day every day.
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[06:45:00]
WALKER: New this morning. The U.S. Supreme Court says it will take up a case challenging the federal ban on bump stocks. The news coming just days before the justices are scheduled to hear arguments in another landmark Second Amendment case this week. Bump stocks allow shooters to fire semi-automatic rifles more rapidly, discharging potentially hundreds of bullets per minute.
The justices will decide a federal circuit court split over whether the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives or ATF exceeded its authority, and we're classifying bump stocks as machine guns under the National Firearms Act. The Trump administration banned and confiscated the devices in 2019, it happened after a mass shooter armed with semi-automatic weapons and bump stocks opened fire onto concertgoers in Las Vegas in 2017, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds more.
BLACKWELL: A 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck a remote part of northwestern Nepal overnight. The country's prime minister is visiting that area now after officials say, at least, 129 people are dead, more than 140 are injured, and that number dead is expected to rise. The earthquake toppled buildings, sent tremors as far as neighboring India's capital. This is the country's deadliest event since 2015 when 9,000 people were killed in a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake, and that one caused about $6 billion in damage.
WALKER: A red-hot labor market may be slowing down. This week's jobs report showed the U.S. added about 150,000 jobs in October, short of economists' expectations. The report says unemployment rate -- the unemployment rate rose above 3.9 percent, its highest level since January 2022.
BLACKWELL: So what does this mean for you? CNN's Rahel Solomon breaks it down.
RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Victor and Amara, good morning. October's jobs report suggests that we're beginning to see this cool-down in what's been a red-hot labor market. Let's break down the numbers. So we learned that the economy added 150,000 jobs in October. That is below what economists had been expecting.
It's also a dramatic slowdown from September's revised total of 297,000 jobs. When you look at the jobless rate, the unemployment rate, that ticked higher, slightly to 3.9 percent. And when you look at industries, and you look more in-depth of the breakdown of where jobs were added and where jobs were lost, so 35,000 jobs were lost in the manufacturing sector.
And that includes the more than 33,000 in the motor vehicles and the parts industry. And that's mainly due to the now resolved autoworker strike activity, the UAW strike. Now, on the flip side, healthcare led the way with 58,000 new jobs added, and government added about 51,000 positions, returning there to pre-pandemic levels.
When we look at wage growth, annual wage growth, this was a welcome sign, I think, for the Fed. This slowed to levels not seen in more than two years. And when you put all of this in perspective, you look at monthly averages of 239,000 jobs in 2023. That is what we've seen so far.
That is noticeably smaller than the monthly gains of 400,000 that were reported last year. But this is actually -- this report and these new figures, these are likely welcome signs for the Federal Reserve, because remember, they're looking to tame inflation, and one way they are looking to do that is by bringing a bit more balance in the labor market. So, creating a bit more balance, seeing a bit more balance, in terms
of the supply of workers and the demand for workers, and this report suggests that they may be getting a bit more of that. Victor, Amara?
WALKER: Rahel Solomon, thank you very much. Still to come, an intergalactic unveiling at the Museum of Natural History. How we could help explain how water and organic molecules first reached earth.
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[06:50:00]
WALKER: On display for the first time, a piece of the asteroid a NASA mission brought back from space, and it is now at the National Museum of Natural History.
BLACKWELL: Scientists say the asteroid samples may reveal more about how water and organic molecules first reached earth. CNN's Kristin Fisher got a close-up look.
KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE & DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: Victor and Amara, this is the first time since 1972, the end of the Apollo program that NASA has collected something in space, brought it back to earth, and then put it on public display. Back then in 1972, it was moon rocks, today, it is a small sample from the asteroid Bennu which returned to earth late last month as part of NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission.
And so, I had the chance to see this asteroid sample at the Natural History Museum where it was unveiled on Friday. It is a very small sample. It looks like a small rock, but it is a very special rock, and the reason why it's special is because it contains water and carbon and organic molecules, the very building blocks of life.
Here is NASA Administrator Bill Nelson who was on hand for the unveiling, explaining some of the questions that scientists hope to answer from this asteroid sample.
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BILL NELSON, ADMINISTRATOR, NASA: Asteroids are these rocks, some of them metal, some of them rocky, some of them we don't know. They're flying through the solar system and they crash into things. And in the evolution of the solar system and our earth, four and a half billion years. First, there was a star that was spit out of a cloud of dust and gas, and that became a medium-sized star called our sun.
And then, all of these gases and dusts started forming into smaller planets, and some of them were bigger. And then, things crashed into each other and planets crashed into each other, and over that four and a half billion years, some of these asteroids that are flying through space are the remnants of those early collisions.
And it gives us then, when we bring a sample back, or we send a spacecraft like Psyche out to an asteroid closer to Jupiter, we can determine what is in that asteroid. And this particular asteroid, Bennu, we now know it has ice crystals and it has carbon, and those are the building blocks to life.
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FISHER: And for an asteroid sample that traveled billions of miles to get here, you might think that there would be some sort of pomp and pageantry associated with its arrival at the museum, but, no, it actually got here from Texas in somebody's carry-on luggage in a commercial flight. It even went through a TSA checkpoint. Victor, Amara?
BLACKWELL: Pieces of asteroids, just like the rest of us. Just ahead, an emotional meeting in Maine. President Biden visits with the victims in last week's horrific mass shootings. We'll speak with the mayor of Lewiston about what comes next for his community.
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