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Harris: Trump "Unfit to Serve" "Fascist"; Blinken: Expect Ceasefire Talks to Resume Soon; Trump Campaign Heads to Arizona and Nevada; At Least 3,000 North Korean Troops inside Russia; Turkiye Strikes Targets in Iraq and Syria; Health Officials Say Gaza Reaching "Breaking Point"; Gaza Officials Say 770 Killed in Jabalya Camp; "Forest of Noise"; Call to Earth; Beyonce to Campaign with Harris; Nearly 25 Million Votes Already in for 2024 Presidential Election. Aired 10-11a ET
Aired October 24, 2024 - 10:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[10:00:00]
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ELENI GIOKOS, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): I'm Eleni Giokos in Abu Dhabi, in for my colleague, Becky Anderson.
We're following developments in the push for a ceasefire in Gaza. The U.S. secretary of state visits Doha, where Qatari officials say they have
reengaged with Hamas after the killing of the group's leader, Yahya Sinwar.
Now Blinken says negotiators from the United States, Qatar, Egypt and Israel will meet in the coming days. This all happening as we are less than
two weeks from the U.S. Presidential election.
And welcome back to CONNECT THE WORLD. Great to have you all join us today. The final stretch of the race for the White House is taking the candidates
on a blitz through the battlegrounds, key states, that could ultimately decide who wins.
A day after the taking the stage solo at CNN's town hall, Kamala Harris heads to Georgia today, where she is teaming up with former president
Barack Obama. The pair will hold a rally outside Atlanta. Harris has been courting undecided voters, including Republicans skeptical about Donald
Trump.
At last night's CNN Q&A, she repeatedly called her rival unfit for office, casting Trump as a threat to democracy.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Do you think Donald Trump is a fascist?
KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Yes, I do. Yes, I do.
I believe Donald Trump is a danger to the well-being and security of America.
Our country deserves to have a president of the United States who is not afraid of good ideas and does not stand on pride.
I'm never going to shy away from good ideas. And I'm not going to feel the need to have pride associate with a position that I've taken, when the
important thing is to build consensus to fix problems.
I believe in fixing problems.
I love fixing problems.
We cannot and I will not raise taxes on anyone making less than $400,000 a year. But we do need to take seriously the system that benefits the richest
and does not help out working middle-class Americans. I come from the middle class and I believe that the middle class needs tax breaks to be
able to actually not just get by but get ahead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GIOKOS: Harris was also praised by both audience members and host Anderson Cooper about U.S. border security.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: You did raise your hand saying, in a debate, when asked if border crossings should be decriminalized. But obviously that is not your
position.
HARRIS: I never intended, nor do I -- will I ever allow America to have a border that is not secure. I believe we need to deal with illegal
immigration. There needs to be consequences, which is why part of my plan that I have outlined -- and, again, please go to KamalaHarris.com. Sorry to
throw a website on you, but why not?
And you will see that part of my plan includes what we need to do to actually do more as it relates to putting resources in, including
increasing penalties for illegal crossing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GIOKOS: Harris also took a question from an undecided voter about the Israel-Hamas war, an issue that has proved to be a sticking point for young
voters and among Arab American and Muslim communities in the United States. Take a listen to their exchange.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANNALISE KEAN, FUNDRAISER FOR HABITAT FOR HUMANITY: As president, what would you do to ensure not another Palestinian dies due to bombs being
funded by U.S. tax dollars?
HARRIS: So I will say, and I think this is to your point, far too many innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed. It's unconscionable.
And we are now at a place where, with Sinwar's death, I do believe we have an opportunity to end this war, bring the hostages home, bring relief to
the Palestinian people, and work toward a two-state solution where Israel and the Palestinians in equal measure have security.
Where the Palestinian people have dignity, self-determination, and the safety that they so rightly deserve.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GIOKOS: Well, we have team coverage for you. Joining us from Washington is CNN Politics senior reporter Stephen Collinson. And we also have CNN's U.S.
security correspondent, Kylie Atwood at the State Department.
Great to see both of you. A lot happening today.
Kylie, I want to start with you. We heard the VP pushing for the opportunity for a ceasefire now in the wake of Sinwar's death.
[10:05:00]
GIOKOS: We know that U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken is in Qatar, meeting with mediators to come up with some diplomatic solution. There's a
multifront war that is continuing.
I guess, is Blinken making any progress on the U.S. stance?
KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, what he did just now, during a press conference in Qatar, was continue to message the Biden
administration's message that they believe this is an opportunity following the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
To capitalize on for all parties and drive an end to the conflict in Gaza. It's clear that with this trip he's been in Israel now, he's in Qatar. He's
trying to create momentum toward that end. What is a bit unclear right now is if there's actually any momentum that has been created by this trip.
He has not been able to say exactly who is going to be the new leader of Hamas after Yahya Sinwar. The other countries who have been engaging with
Hamas, including the Qataris, who said they have had conversations with Hamas leaders in recent days, they don't know who is going to be replacing
Yahya Sinwar.
And then on the other side you have the Israelis, who aren't expressing any immediate desire to bring an end to the conflict in Gaza.
There was a glimmer of potentially some forward movement, on working toward this end when the secretary of state said today that negotiators, they're
going to be meeting in the coming days to try and drive forth of course, the hostage release deal and a ceasefire deal in Gaza.
Listen to what he said on that topic during his press conference.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: First on negotiations, on negotiators, on the one, where, the who, can I provide more information?
The answer is no but that will unfold in the coming days. All I can tell you is what I said earlier and what the prime minister noted is that we do
anticipate that the negotiators will be getting together in the coming days.
And again, what we really have to determine is whether Hamas is prepared to engage. And I believe that we'll be able to do that, starting in the coming
days.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ATWOOD: So there he says there will be conversations. They're trying to look at a framework, a new potential series of frameworks, to develop some
sort of concept that all parties could sign on to, to get this ceasefire and hostage release deal going again.
But notably are two parts of this. First of all, he didn't say that Hamas negotiators have actually committed to meet with these negotiators who are
meeting. So you can't really do much at the table unless Hamas is there.
And second, when it comes to these new ideas that they are exploring for a framework to get to an end to the conflict, to release these hostages, it's
very clear that they don't know what that new framework is going to look like.
So it's going to take a while if you think about how this has happened over the last year or so for them to actually solidify a framework that parties
can sign on to, before they can actually get to a yes here. So it appears there's quite a bit more progress to be made.
And the central players here have not explicitly signed on to the vision that the U.S. has, which is this moment of momentum and opportunity.
GIOKOS: It is a moment of opportunity as many say, Kylie. And of course, at least we're seeing them talk around the table. That is important. Kylie
Atwood. Great to see you. Thank you.
Stephen, I want to bring you into this conversation. The reality here is that the Israelis have not given any indication that they'll come to the
table, as Kylie was alluding to.
So the underlying question still is, will the Harris campaign be willing to put more pressure on the Netanyahu government than Biden was?
STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I don't think there's any chance that Kamala Harris breaks with the Biden administration on this
issue before the election. Her answer on this was very passive and, as Kylie was explaining, the conditions for progress in the Middle East don't
seem to be there.
What Harris has is a massive political problem over the issue, however. We've talked in the past about how Arab American voters and progressives in
this key swing state of Michigan, for example, may not show up to the polls because of this.
But talking about a two-state solution and a moment of opportunity is fine but it doesn't really bear any relation to what's happening on the ground.
If Harris wins the election, I think you might see some separation with Biden then.
But if she loses and Trump is the next president, all the administration's leverage just disappears because all the parties, especially the Israelis
in the conflict, will just wait until the Trump administration comes along in January.
GIOKOS: That's a really important point.
I mean, in terms of policy continuity on that front. Stephen, I want to move on now and talk about last night's CNN town hall and you write this.
"No presidential candidate in history has had to field questions on grocery prices and her opponent's alleged fascism at the same event."
[10:10:07]
So what does that say to you about this race?
COLLINSON: I think it encapsulates where we are in America a week or so ahead of this election.
And the choice that is before many undecided voters, pro Trump voters and Harris enthusiasts made their minds up long ago. Politics is very tribal in
the United States. I don't think you'd see an awful lot of people switching between those two candidates.
But the question that an undecided voter has to ask -- and we saw this playing out in the town hall -- is whether, despite their reservations
about Harris' capacity to improve their lives very quickly -- for example, bringing down the high cost of groceries, the prohibitive price of
mortgages and rent.
Do they go with her because they want to avoid everything that Trump brings with him, the extremism, the vengeance, the endless cacophony of Trump's
style of politics?
Or do they put all those worries aside and just cast a vote on the fact that they are hurting economically?
People are very concerned about the immigration issue. And all polls show that those are two of the key issues in the election. And Trump is more
trusted to deal with them than Kamala Harris. The international situation, the wars in Ukraine and Israel are also playing into this.
So it's quite a difficult choice that a lot of these voters are having right now, although it seems difficult for perhaps outsiders to understand
that anyone's not made up their mind about Trump after nine years that he's been on the national stage.
GIOKOS: It's really important what you're saying because Americans are focusing on the likes of the economy, as you say, and what's happening at
the border as well.
But is the issue of democracy top of mind when they're casting their vote this time around, because that is what Kamala Harris was talking about a
lot during the CNN town hall and talking about Donald Trump not potentially not defending the Constitution.
COLLINSON: The issue of democracy is well down the list of concerns that voters tell pollsters they're worried about. Economy and immigration are
right at the top. But Harris is trying to broaden this into a question, not just of Donald Trump's threat to democracy but his personal instability,
his extremism and his character.
This is something that potentially could work in some of the key areas of the election; where she was in that town hall meeting last night was in a
suburb of Philadelphia. She needs to get massive margins around Philadelphia, for example, to win that key state of Pennsylvania.
A lot of the voters she needs are moderate Republicans who don't like Trump and are wondering when, who to cast their vote for. And women voters, these
kind of character issues and the specter of Trump's return could actually be an actionable thing for her to get those voters to the polls.
So although broadly democracy is not a huge concern of most voters, it could actually be something that's important in certain key areas, the
areas that will decide the election.
GIOKOS: Always great to speak to you. Incredible insights, much appreciated.
And a reminder that you can head to CNN Digital or our app to sign up for Stephen's "Meanwhile in America" newsletter. Definitely worth a read.
Donald Trump reacted to Kamala Harris' town hall on Wednesday by claiming it was her worst performance and calling his opponent, quote, "dirty
people." The former president also promised at a rally in Georgia last night to spend more money on health care than any other nation if he is
reelected.
I want to take you now to Arizona, where Trump will stump for votes today. CNN's Steve Contorno joins us now from Tampa.
Great to have you with us. We all remember when Donald Trump disparaged John McCain's military service.
Is the campaign worried that John Kelly said well, what John Kelly said will resonate with voters in John McCain's home state?
STEVE CONTORNO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, certainly been a posture of responding to him very aggressively. His campaign has been out in full
force, denying what John Kelly said and also responding to the efforts by Barack Obama and Vice President Harris, Joe Biden, others within the
Democratic Party to campaign in Arizona.
Very much on the spirit of John McCain and leaning into that sort of duty to country. Trump, though, has been pushing back and saying that
Republicans and Democrats have been lining up against everyday Americans for a long time.
[10:15:03]
And this homogeny between Democrats and Republicans around Vice President Harris is just the latest example of that. And we heard Donald Trump, just
a few moments ago, interviewed on the Hugh Hewitt show, speaking a lot to this and how the Republican Party, before he got there, was full of, quote,
"stiffs."
In this interview, which also touched on quite a few issues that I -- will be of interest to our international audience, he called the E.U., claiming
the European Union treats us just as badly as China.
And he actually said he had a recent conversation with Apple CEO Tim Cook about how the company is being fined by the European Union. He was talked
about how President Xi of China doesn't respect Biden and Harris and that there will be a very different relationship with China if he is elected.
He said that he would encourage or potentially use force to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and blamed the Biden administration for how
that the international conflict between Israel and Iran has transpired.
So obviously that's not necessarily something he's going to talk about on the stage here. He mostly will be focusing on domestic issues here. But
obviously those international and foreign policies are going to loom large if he is elected in November.
GIOKOS: All right, Steve Contorno, great to see you. Thank you so much.
And right now, just ahead on CONNECT THE WORLD world, North Korean troops training in Russia. Why the U.S. is worried about where they could be
heading (ph). We'll be right back after the short break. Stay with CNN.
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GIOKOS: The U.S. is publicly confirming a move by North Korea that has Western allies on edge. The White House says North Korea sent at least
3,000 soldiers to eastern Russia earlier this month for training at several military sites.
The move has fueled concerns that they -- it may take part in Russia's war in Ukraine.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ADM. JOHN KIRBY (RET.), COORDINATOR FOR STRATEGIC COMMUNICATIONS, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: If North Korean soldiers do enter into
combat, this development would demonstrate Russia's growing desperation in its war against Ukraine.
Russia is suffering extraordinary casualties on the battlefield every single day. But President Putin appears intent on continuing this war. If
Russia is indeed forced to turn to North Korea for manpower, this would be a sign of weakness, not strength, on the part of the Kremlin.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GIOKOS: More for now from our CNN senior international correspondent, Will Ripley.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At this remote Russian military base, a convoy of what appears to be North Korean
troops training in a barren, bleak stretch of wilderness deep in Russia's far east.
CNN geolocated this video; Sergeevka training ground, near China and North Korea.
[10:20:03]
The front lines of Ukraine, more than 4,000 miles away.
Ukraine is where South Korean intelligence says these soldiers are going. Fifteen-hundred now; as many as 12,000 could be deployed, South Korean
media says. Some, seen here, supposedly just days ago, getting their Russian military uniforms.
The audio muffled, the language sounds like Korean. We can't independently verify this video provided to CNN by the Ukrainian government.
They also shared this: a uniform sizing questionnaire dated last week, in both Korean and Russian, for hats, headgear, uniforms and shoes.
RIPLEY: Why would Kim Jong-un be sending troops to Russia and to Ukraine?
DANIEL PRESTON, LECTURER IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, TROY UNIVERSITY: So if Russia is successful, then you know the North Koreans could follow suit
and it could be a very dangerous situation.
RIPLEY (voice-over): As Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin deepen their anti- U.S. Anti-West military partnership, a terrifying scenario, says Ukraine's president.
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: We know about 10,000 soldiers of North Korea, that they are preparing to send, fight against us. And this is
the first step to a world war.
RIPLEY (voice-over): At the United Nations, no comment from North Korea.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Such groundless stereotype rumors aimed at smearing the image of the DPRK.
RIPLEY (voice-over): They've been busy lately, blowing up border roads with South Korea, coming just days after supposed South Korean drones
dropped propaganda leaflets on Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, almost at Kim's doorstep.
CAPT. CARL SCHUSTER (RET.), FORMER DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS, U.S. PACIFIC COMMAND JOINT INTELLIGENCE CENTER: His regime is very even beyond normal
levels of paranoia right now.
RIPLEY (voice-over): This week, Seoul summoned Russia's ambassador, condemning what could be North Korea's largest ever overseas deployment,
bigger than the 1973 Yom Kippur War and Vietnam, says this retired South Korean lieutenant general.
LT. GEN. CHUN IN-BUM (RET.), SOUTH KOREAN ARMY: So this could be a real serious problem for the entire world.
RIPLEY (voice-over): A problem compounded by a massive influx of North Korean weapons into Russia. Reports of 70 shipments of shells, missiles and
anti-tank rockets since August 2023, not to mention North Korean ballistic missiles, which Ukraine says have killed civilians, including children --
Will Ripley, CNN, Taipei.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GIOKOS: Turkiye's military has carried out airstrikes in Iraq and Syria following Wednesday's deadly attack on an aerospace company near Ankara.
Turkiye's defense ministry said it struck, quote, "terrorist targets" in the region, adding that a large number of terrorists were killed.
The Turkish interior minister says the man and women who attacked the aerospace company on Wednesday were members of the Kurdish PKK group. And
he says they were later killed by Turkish security forces.
No group has claimed responsibility yet for the attack that left five people dead.
I want to bring in Galip Dalay, an expert in Turkish politics and international relations. He joins us now from Oxford, England.
Galip, great to see you again. And of course, you gave us some analysis yesterday as the story broke. And good to have you back on as we have more
information. I want to start off with the targets in Iraq and in Syria that the Turkish defense ministry is calling PKK targets.
What do you understand of these targets?
GALIP DALAY, SENIOR CONSULTING FELLOW, CHATHAM HOUSE: Well, basically that is the Turkiye telling that I will impede upon you, have the heavy calls if
this attack and similar attacks takes place in Turkiye.
Because the PKK's main presence in Iraq, Kurdish part of the Iraqi north, in northern Iraq and also in Syria, in northeastern part of the Syria. The
group that is in charge is the PYD, which is an affiliate of the PKK.
So the fact that Turkiye is sending the message, that I will hit you where it hurts the most, which is the -- for the -- for the PKK, obviously, the
protection of homing (ph) project in Syria is quite a key objective.
And that's pretty much, that is the message also that Turkiye is sending if these unseen (ph) attacks repeats, I will try to undermine this project as
much as possible and I will implicate calls (ph) on Iraq and Syria.
GIOKOS: I want to talk about the timing, which is quite important because, the day before the attack on the aerospace company, the Kurdish issue had
been raised in the Turkish parliament.
What do you make of the timing right now?
DALAY: Well, I think that is the story that attracts the most interest internally in Turkiye because only few days ago, they stood (ph) this
attack.
[10:25:00]
There was an heightened hope that we might see a new opening, that we might see a new political step on the Kurdish issue and particularly on a new
process with the PKK, which would have necessitated the PKK laying down its arms struggle in Turkiye, lay down its arms inside Turkiye.
So the timing for this one seemed very sensitive and the attack itself was seen as a way to undermine or to prevent this. And the question is which
wing or is the PKK itself is against it, given the fact that in Turkiye they'd imprisoned pro-Kurdish former leader of the pro-Kurdish party.
Salatin Dimitach (ph) came forward very strong this war in this process and condemned the attack itself. We know that by the news that has been leaked
the leader of the PKK, the imprisonment is also very much forwarding (ph) this process. The pro-Kurdish party in Turkiye also this photo (ph).
Also the question is, the PKK, which element within the PKK is against it?
And why?
And I think that takes us to the regional politics and the PKK calculation not (INAUDIBLE) the regional politics is at play here.
GIOKOS: So taking a step back and for context, could you give us a sense of what kind of terrorist attacks we've seen in the past conducted by the
PKK?
Important to note that the group hasn't itself claimed responsibility for the attack. But Turkish intelligence say that the two attackers were part
of the PKK group.
DALAY: Yes, exactly.
The PKK hasn't claimed official responsibility for it yet. But nevertheless, the Turkish intelligence and interior ministry has thus far
released identity of the ones that carried out this attacks and establish that it is a member of the PKK.
Obviously, the PKK has started -- has started this arms attacks. And then in Turkiye, since 1984. And it has been a wrongful whatnot (ph) for
decades. Official, according to official numbers, we have more than 55,000 sortie (ph) 50,000 people that have been killed as a result of this
process.
And there have been previously several attempts to resolve this issue once and for all, the latest one being the Kurdish opening between 2012 to 2015-
16, in which, once again, there was hope that we might see a resolution of this process, in which the PKK would have laid down its arms in -- will
have lay down its arms inside Turkiye.
And in return to Turkiye, was going to take more steps on the Kurdish initiated (ph) domestically and also a more accommodating stance toward
the region Kurds, including in Syria.
Unfortunately, this process has come to an end and then PKK engaged in a bloody urban warfare strategies inside Turkiye and that brought back once
again -- and the confuture (ph) phase in this relationship that resulted in Turkiye to get taken several military intervention inside Syria and
striking PKK inside Iraq.
But recently there has been the PKK's capability of posing such stress. In Turkiye (ph) has been degraded but, nevertheless, it's not been destroyed
in any sense. And the idea once again, that had been cooked up, that is being seen, cooked up inside Ankara.
And Turkiye is once again the political taking (INAUDIBLE) steps to settle these issues and making sure that the prospect of regional destabilization
will not have as much impact on Turkiye as it could have.
Because right now, the idea that Israel and Iran might go toward one of the major factors that will redefine (INAUDIBLE) complex in Iraq, Syria. And
there Turkiye does not want to face this with its own -- with its own Kurdish question not being settled.
GIOKOS: Galip Dalay, I really appreciate your insights into those. Great to have you on the show.
Well, you're watching CONNECT THE WORLD and coming up:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MOSAB ABU TOHA, PALESTINIAN POET: Half of the poems in this book were -- was written after October 7th, which means that the other half was written
before. So this is in itself a testimony that what has been going on after October 7 has been going on even years before.
So the poems in this, in this book are survivors, just like me.
GIOKOS (voice-over): A conversation with Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha about his new book, "Forest of Noise." We'll be back right after this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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GIOKOS: Welcome back to CONNECT THE WORLD. I'm Eleni Giokos, I'm in for my colleague, Becky Anderson.
The U.S. secretary of state voicing hope for renewed hostage ceasefire talks for Gaza at a stop in Qatar. Antony Blinken saying he expects
negotiations to resume in the coming days. He did not provide specifics but again stressed the opportunity to move forward after the death of Hamas
leader Yahya Sinwar.
The situation in Gaza, northern parts of Gaza specifically, could not be more dire. Health officials say they've reached a breaking point with food,
fuel and medicine running out. Israel's military has ordered what it calls a large number of people to leave the area, many of them forced to flee
again.
We've got Jeremy Diamond in Tel Aviv to give us an update on what is going on in northern Gaza.
And Jeremy, we've been covering evacuation orders consistently over the past 11 months. I want you to break down for us what we've been hearing out
of northern Gaza, the harrowing accounts from some of the residents there.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, this renewed Israeli military offensive over the course of the last three weeks in northern Gaza
has wrought an enormous toll on the civilian population there.
We have already seen tens of thousands of people fleeing that area, thousands more trapped in their homes amid the intense fighting, as the
Israeli military says that Hamas has regrouped in an area that it has already gone into and carried out offensives three previous times.
As you said, hospital officials are describing the conditions there as at a breaking point as they are running out of fuel. They are running out of
medical supplies, blood units in some hospitals.
And then, of course, you have the issue of very little to no food aid actually making its way into northern Gaza with concerns now rising about
starvation among the population that has remained there.
The Israeli military yesterday said that a, quote, "large number" of Palestinians have been evacuated from northern Gaza. We've seen some of
those dramatic pictures of thousands of people on the roads leaving that area.
They didn't provide a specific number though. And beyond that, we know that the fighting is not just limited to northern Gaza at the moment. There have
also been intense airstrikes in other parts of the Gaza Strip as well, the latest one coming in central Gaza on a school that is now effectively
serving as a shelter for displaced Palestinians.
Seventeen people were killed in this strike, 42 others wounded, according to Palestinian health officials. And according to al-Awda hospital, the
majority of the casualties were indeed children in this strike.
The Israeli military, for its part, says that there was a Hamas command and control center, which they say was embedded inside this school turned
displacement camp. They did not provide a figure for how many Hamas militants they believe to have killed in this strike.
[10:35:04]
But once again, we are just seeing as civilians are bearing the brunt of this conflict in Gaza, Eleni.
GIOKOS: All right. Jeremy Diamond. Thank you so much for that update. Good to see you.
Well, amid the chaos, devastation and destruction, Mosab Abu Toha is trying to preserve the stories of his people and his land through poetry. Abu Toha
made it out of Gaza last year, several weeks after October 7. And he has just released his second poetry collection in the United States, "Forest of
Noise."
And that's released in the United Kingdom on November 7th. Ada Limon is a poet, a U.S. Poet Laureate, describing the poems in the new book as
"urgent, prayerful."
"In the bleakest of nights, necessary and wrought out of both terror and truth, these poems sing and weep in a rough and haunting harmony."
Becky Anderson spoke to Mosab about the new collection.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
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ABU TOHA (voice-over): "Under the rubble, her body has remained for days and days.
"When the war ends, we try to remove the rubble, stone after stone.
"We only find one small bone from her body. It is a bone from her arm. Right or left? It does not matter as long as we cannot find the henna from
her neighbors' wedding on her skin or the ink from a school pen on a little index finger."
That's "Right or Left!" about the girl who is still buried under the rubble of her house since last November, 11 months, her body and the body of her
father and one of her brothers is still under the rubble until today.
BECKY ANDERSON, CNN HOST (voice-over): Acclaimed Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha escaped Gaza with his young family late last year after his home
was bombed. Now in New York, he's releasing his second poetry book.
You chose the name "Forest of Noise" with a very powerful piece of artwork on the front of this collection of poems.
Why the name and why the artwork?
ABU TOHA: The title comes from a poem called "Forest of Noise" and it's about the potholes in the street, the bomb craters in Gaza. Everything
tells you a story. It's a story of noise, the screams of death, the sound of airstrikes, which the rockets flying away and falling down, the sirens
of the ambulance.
So each tiny pothole in the street, each tiny bullet hole in the wall is a forest of noise.
And the artwork is a beautiful piece done by Arsh Raziuddin. I think the artwork was inspired by the first page of my poetry collection. And it
says, "Everything in Gaza is me."
And I work as a Palestinian, who was born in the Gaza Strip, amongst the trees, amongst the beach. Everyone there is part of me. And I made up of
all of this.
"Before I sleep, Death is always sitting on my windowsill, whether in Gaza or Cairo.
"Even when I lived in a tent, it never failed to create a window for itself.
"It looks me in the eye and recounts to me the many times it let me live.
"When I respond, 'But you took my loved ones away!' it swallows the light in the room and hides in the dark to visit next day."
ANDERSON: You write how it is shocking to see the cover of your book, then to see the hands of 19-year-old Shaban al-Dalou (ph), reaching out in the
fire after Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital was hit by an Israeli airstrike.
How are you feeling as it publishes?
ABU TOHA: This artwork has been put as a cover, I think, four months ago. So it's not something that has to do with the fire at Al-Aqsa Martyrs
Hospital and the tends (ph) there. But I mean, I've watched the video.
And I saw -- I saw the pictures. And I saw that young man, Shaban al-Dalou (ph), 19 years old. And I saw the messages that his mother was sending to
the outside world about her son.
You know, Shaban (ph) got a very high grade in his high school two years ago. He's one of the top students.
[10:40:00]
And he was trying to reach out with his hands to the outside world. There is nothing that we can do about this. So I feel helpless as a human being,
watching other people burning in the fire.
ANDERSON: How would you describe your new book?
ABU TOHA: So half of the poems in this book were -- was written after October 7th, which means that the other half was written before. So this is
in itself a testimony that what has been going on after October 7 has been going on even years before.
So the poems in this, in this book are survivors, just like me, because I have the responsibility as a poet to tell the stories of other people.
Because even if these people do not survive, at least their stories survive. At least the whole world know that these people existed and they
had hair, they had eyes.
You know, it's very devastating for me to write poetry as much as it is devastating for me to read my poems to the other people because it's about
real people that I know. Or even if I don't know them in person, I know that their fate could be my fate.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GIOKOS: Two days after Becky spoke with Mosab, he sent our team this photo. This is Sama, his 7-year-old cousin. Mosab told us that she was
killed last week in an airstrike on her house, along with 18 in other members of her family.
And he said, "I told everyone that tanks and soldiers were besieging the area. But no one heard. No one did anything to save them."
Sama shared Mosab's love of language and, every time they spoke, she would tell him about all the new English words that she had memorized since their
last conversation Mosab took this photo in June 2022 during Eid.
Right. We'll be right back after this break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
GIOKOS: Norway is often associated with some of the most pristine and untouched waters in the world.
But in recent years, plastic pollution has become prevalent. Today on "Call to Earth," we look at how a unique school is helping combat that rise of
pollution with help of students from every corner of the globe.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): The fiords of Western Norway provide a breathtaking backdrop to a unique international organization rooted in
Nordic culture.
JAMES CONNELL, STUDENT (voice-over): UWC Red Cross Nordic is an international school, teaching students age from 16 to 19 and located on
the west coast of Norway.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): With 200 students from 90 countries, UWC Red Cross Nordic offers a unique learning environment.
MAHDULIKA SINGH, TEACHER, UWC RED CROSS NORDIC (voice-over): The college has environment of one of our base fillers (ph).
[10:45:02]
So we focus a lot on environment and impact on environment. So this sort of comes in everything we do.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): Here we were lucky. We had a --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): The school is supported by the Red Cross and encourages students to take action to protect people and places in
need.
At the center of their education model is a project-based learning or PBL.
SINGH (voice-over): Project-based learning basically implies that they are the ones who are part of the planning and they do the project and then they
evaluate and look into how things work.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): A recent study found that Norway contributes an estimated 15,000 tons of plastic waste into the environment
annually. And with almost 29,000 kilometers of coastline, plastic pollution poses a threat to marine ecosystems around the country.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Norway has one of the longest coasts in the world. And that is why it makes it so complicated, right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (OFF MIKE COMMENTS).
Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): During the coastal cleanup PBL, the students are leaving their dorms and embracing Norwegian coastal culture.
DALMAS OREJE NGANYI, STUDENT: We are leaving in the boats for five days. It's just enjoy being when you wake up and there's a little bit of waves,
you wake up to some rowing and it's certainly magnificent.
NORKIS VALERO MENDEZ, STUDENT: It has been really great. I haven't been in a boat before. Sometimes it moves. Sometimes I'm really scared but it's
really, really cool.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (voice-over): The project has been running for the past four years. During this time, students have removed several tons of
plastic from coastal islands, significantly impacting both the environment and the participants.
CONNELL: Within the space of about six hours, we collected around 300 kilograms of plastic. And it was -- it was totally surprising.
ANA POL MAYORA, STUDENT: It's been quite bittersweet. So just opening up and seeing like layers and layers and layers of plastic where you take out
one and there's even more and more.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Crazy.
MENDEZ: I still really want to make something that, thanks to this experience, would allow me to inspire other people and to tell them that
this is going on, thanks to the fact that I saw it with my own eyes.
SINGH (voice-over): It doesn't have to be changing the whole world. But if they can make an impact in their own little way in the spaces they are in,
that little drop in the ocean, probably many drops, will make a big difference.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GIOKOS: Let us know what you are doing to answer the call with the #CalltoEarth. We'll be right back.
(MUSIC PLAYING)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
GIOKOS: Welcome back.
Kamala Harris is bringing out the superstar power in the final weeks of her campaign for the White House. A person familiar with the planning tells CNN
that Beyonce will make her first appearance with Harris on the campaign trail.
They'll be together at a rally in Houston, Texas, on Friday. It will be the second day in a row of celebrity rallies for Harris. Tonight in Georgia,
she'll be joined by musician Bruce Springsteen, filmmakers Tyler Perry and Spike Lee and actor Samuel L. Jackson.
[10:50:00]
And in a first for the Harris campaign, the Democratic candidate now says she would support raising the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Kamala
Harris was speaking at CNN's town hall last night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES AND 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We've got to get past this era of politics and
partisan politics, slowing down what we need to do in terms of progress in our country.
... actually invest in a substantial way in the industries of the future, in American-based manufacturing, in American-based industries where
American workers and union workers have those jobs in a way that is good- paying jobs that gives people the dignity they deserve.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GIOKOS: Well, for context, the federal minimum wage has been stuck at $7.25 per hour since 2009. Donald Trump declined to say what he would do
with the minimum wage when he visited McDonalds on the weekend.
Now Election Day in the U.S. is less than two weeks and, so far, nearly 25 million Americans have already voted, either in person or through mail-in
ballots. That early voting number will keep rising as November 5 gets closer. For context, more than 150 million in total ballots were cast in
the 2020 election.
We have CNN senior politics writer Zachary Wolf, tracking the early voting trends from Washington and looking deep into the data, hopefully giving us
some insights of where we are headed and what the data is telling us right now.
I know you want to talk about the star power Beyonce at the rally but let's look at the numbers.
ZACHARY WOLF, CNN POLITICS SENIOR WRITER: Yes, let's look at the numbers. The first thing we need to know about early voting is that this is a very
different year, 2024, than four years ago in 2020. That was the pandemic year. A lot more Americans were voting by mail that year.
So it's hard to compare the data from 2020 with the data from 2024. And that's why we see that early voting is down pretty much across the board.
You see in Wisconsin, that's a key state. It's down 65 percent, it's down less than some of the other states like Georgia, where they had that record
first day.
Things have fallen a little bit but people are voting less early and by mail, more or less by mail. And I think there might actually be an uptick
in early voting. But these numbers are put together. Now let's go a little bit deeper and see what we can figure out from the actual data that we get.
There are some states out West in Nevada and Arizona, where we have some partisan preferences for the early votes so far. In both of those states,
there have actually been more Republicans vote so far than Democrats -- than Democrats. And that turns on its head what was happening in 2020.
Now again, the numbers are very different since the vote by mail element is different. Also Republicans have not been as opposed to early voting this
time around, they're actively trying to get their people to vote early.
And that carries over to Pennsylvania where Democrats still have an edge in the early vote. But it's certainly not as big as it was in 2020.
GIOKOS: That's a very fascinating. I want to talk about the undecided vote and what trends we're seeing on that front.
WOLF: Well, we can look at Georgia. We see sort of similar -- or sorry, in Pennsylvania and those states. We see some similar numbers of undecided
voters. Those will end up being the key people who probably decide this election.
Where do they sway toward Harris or toward Trump?
So we don't know how any of these people are voting. We just know party affiliation for these couple of states. It's not -- it's not clear to us
what will happen. So we're going to have to wait for Election Day to figure out what's actually going on here.
GIOKOS: And in terms of the trends in Georgia, obviously the rally there today, give us a sense of what we're seeing and what can we can anticipate.
WOLF: Now Georgia is interesting in the early voting data, because we don't have the partisan breakdown. So we can't really tell it's more
Republicans or Democrats. But what we do know is we have some demographic data.
We know that the number of white voters and Black voters is relatively the same. A few more white voters as a percentage of voting this year than
there were four years ago. But the overall numbers again are down.
So for instance, it was about 650 (ph) Black voters had cast ballots at this point in Georgia in 2020. That number is closer to 0.5 million today.
So it's hard to compare the numbers. We'll just have to see what ends up happening.
But certainly the number of white voters is up compared to compared to 2020.
GIOKOS: Well, we'll know soon enough. It's the last stretch now. Zachary Wolf, great to have you on and thanks for breaking those numbers down for
us.
WOLF: Thank you.
[10:55:00]
Now a small number of Americans, though, are still undecided about which candidate they'll pick in key battleground states. These undecideds could
have outsized impact on the outcome of the election. Both campaigns are doing everything they can to make sure undecideds show up in the polls.
CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten explains.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(MUSIC PLAYING)
HARRY ENTEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST (voice-over): The few, the proud, the undecided. At this point, only about 3 percent of the electorate is
undecided about who they want to vote for.
That is way less than the percentage we saw at equivalent points in both 2020 and certainly in 2016. But it's not just undecided about who they're
going to vote for. There's a portion of the electorate that's undecided about whether they're going to turn out at all.
Of course, this election is going to come down to the seven key battleground states plus Nebraska's second congressional district.
Across those states in the congressional district, only talking about 45 million registered voters, of whom only about 5 million to 7 million are
undecided about whether they're going to turn out and whom they're going to vote for.
When you talk about the money in these states, we're talking upwards of $50 to $70 per undecided voter. Wowser (ph).
(END VIDEOTAPE)
GIOKOS: Well, that is it for CONNECT THE WORLD. Stay with news. "CNN NEWSROOM" is up next with Rahel Solomon. I'm Eleni Giokos and I will see
you tomorrow. Have a great evening.
END
