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Early Start with Rahel Solomon
U.S. FDA Approves Vaccines for Limited Group of People; Communities in Minneapolis Gather to Pray for Victims of Minneapolis School Shooting; Fight for California's Redistricting Enters New Phase. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired September 01, 2025 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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BRIAN ABEL, ANCHOR, EARLY START: Good morning and welcome to our viewers joining us from the United States and all around the world, thank you so much for being with us. I'm Brian Abel, Rahel Solomon is off, it is the 1st of September, 5:00 a.m. on Labor Day here in Washington D.C., and straight ahead for you on EARLY START.
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JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH & WELLNESS REPORTER: The FDA has approved the vaccines for a limited group of people.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Secretary Kennedy has undermined 60 years of progress. This isn't about Democratic or Republican. This is about fact versus fiction.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the people of Minneapolis, all of our neighbors, we are in a very low place.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are here to support this Christian community.
ROBERT PREVOST, POPE, ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH: Let us plead God to stop the pandemic of arms, large and small, which infects our world.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's not a question of fairness towards Republicans. It's a question of, you know, principle and playing by the rules.
PREVOST: We have to fight fire with fire.
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're facing an existential threat to our democracy, and we need your help.
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ABEL: We'll get to all of those stories in just a moment. But first, lawmakers are savoring their last moments of peace before returning to Washington this week. Their August recess is about to end, then it's back to the political grind and issues they had to explain to constituents over the break, like the Jeffrey Epstein files saga and President Donald Trump's signature tax bill. But now Congress will have to deal with funding the government right
away, because the funding deadline is September 30th. Congress may also decide if it will impose new sanctions on Russia and how to address some of President Trump's latest firings. Meanwhile, the city of Chicago is preparing for a possible deployment of National Guard troops sometime this week.
But the Illinois governor says no one in Washington has told him anything about it. Sources tell CNN, potentially, thousands of troops and hundreds of federal agents as well as armored vehicles, could be in the city as soon as Friday. John Lawrence(ph) has more details.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): There's a political tempest blowing in the Windy City.
KRISTI NOEM, SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY, UNITED STATES: Oh, we've already had ongoing operations with ICE in Chicago and throughout Illinois and other states, making sure that we're upholding our laws, but we do intend to add more resources to those operations.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Donald Trump has issued fair warning to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, saying in a social media post to address the crime in Chicago or the federal government will take charge.
GOV. JAY ROBERT PRITZKER (D-IL): Chicago, apparently is living rent- free in his head, even though on other days he'll talk about Baltimore, he'll talk about New York. Notice, he never talks about where the most violent crime is occurring, which is in red states.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is pushing back at the President, signing an executive order this weekend that resists the administration's planned crackdown.
MAYOR BRANDON JOHNSON, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: This order affirms that the Chicago police department will not collaborate with military personnel on police patrols or civil immigration enforcement.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sources say the operation in Chicago could start within the next few days, and may include a surge of federal agents and the National Guard.
KATTIE FROST, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: President Trump has a mandate to have strong immigration enforcement. That is one of the main things that got him elected, and now we're seeing it's playing out. I believe ultimately, the American people are on his side.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm John Laurence reporting.
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ABEL: Chinese leader Xi Jinping is touting his country and its partnerships as a stabilizing force in what he calls a, quote, "fluid and chaotic moment in history". That message comes on the final day of a landmark security summit in Tianjin, China. Mr. Xi is hosting leaders and dignitaries of the Shanghai Corporation Organization, including Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Sunday, Mr. Xi called the group a, quote, "pivotal force" in advancing a new type of international relations as he positions China to be a powerful counterweight to the United States and the West. And CNN's Ivan Watson joins me now from Tianjin with more on this. Ivan.
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IVAN WATSON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brian, I mean, this is -- China is hosting this gathering and talking about what is unfair in Beijing's eyes in the way international relations are managed right now. Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader talking about bullying, hegemonistic behavior, a cold war mentality, and he's announced the launch of something that he calls the global governance initiative.
He's pledged some $280 million in grants to members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. And he's just calling. He's basically championing China to be a voice for the less developed global south. He was followed -- in statements coming from his close friend and partner and neighbor, the Russian President Vladimir Putin, who in his own remarks blamed the West for the raging war in Ukraine, one triggered by Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of that much smaller country.
And Putin echoed some of these themes, saying that it was time for a new system of international relations. Take a listen.
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VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT, RUSSIA (through translator): The system that would replace the outdated, Eurocentric and Euro-Atlantic models, taking into account the interests of the broadest possible range of countries, truly balanced, and therefore preventing attempts by some states to secure their own safety at the expense of others.
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WATSON: Now, the most interesting change at this summit is the presence of the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who has been at odds with the Chinese government for the past five years really, after the Chinese and Indian soldiers fought a deadly skirmishes against each other in a disputed border region.
He has been here mending fences, meeting face-to-face with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping and talking about friendship instead of rivalry. And he's also made a very warm embrace of the Russian President. The two leaders spent an hour in the Russian presidential limousine today, holding talks and then holding further talks in a bilateral meeting.
India buys oil and energy from Russia, and it also buys weapons from Russia. And India is also stinging from the fact that the Trump administration just days ago imposed 50 percent tariffs on Indian exports to the U.S. Indians, kind of shocked at the criticism and level of rhetoric that's come from the Trump administration, kind of demeaning the Indian government, accusing it of being a kind of laundromat for Russia.
That was one of the justifications used for the tariffs that were imposed on India. So, we're seeing perhaps a consequence of Washington's hardline with India in many experts arguing that it has pushed India into the arms of a neighbor that had only just recently seen as an adversary, and that is China. Brian, back to you.
ABEL: All right, Ivan Watson for us at the summit in China, Ivan, thank you. Back here in the U.S., a federal judge has blocked temporarily, the Trump administration's attempt to deport unaccompanied minors from Guatemala back to their home country. Attorneys representing them argue the migrant children have special protections and can't be removed without due process or a chance to get relief from deportation. CNN's Betsy Klein now with details.
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BETSY KLEIN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER (on camera): It was a remarkable scene on Sunday after the Trump administration in recent days had identified hundreds of Guatemalan children to be repatriated to Guatemala. And according to a federal judge overnight Saturday into Sunday, some of those children were woken up in the middle of the night and put on planes set to return to Guatemala.
Their providers were told to prepare them to be discharged within hours, and to collect their belongings and prepare them a pair of sack lunches. A federal judge says that she was woken up at 235 in the morning and notified that a complaint had been filed in this case, trying to get in touch with the federal government and those children loaded onto planes and essentially stuck on the tarmac while an emergency hearing played out on Sunday afternoon.
Now, the Trump administration had been fixated on this idea of unaccompanied minors in the United States. These are children who arrived here without a parent or legal guardian. They are then placed into U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Care, and then officials work to place them with U.S.-based family members while they go through that immigration process.
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What's unprecedented here is that these children were identified to be returned to Guatemala before that process could play out. Now, advocates for those children say that some of them are afraid to go back to Guatemala. Some of them have experienced abuse or neglect while the U.S. government says that they have been requested to be returned to Guatemala by their parents or legal guardians.
So, a clear disconnect here. The judge in this case seeking more clarity and facts on the matter and stepping in with a temporary restraining order to stop those flights from taking off as they sought out some of these next steps. She set a new Friday deadline for the federal government to send a formal response back.
And one of that judge's main questions was, what happens to those children in the meantime? Xi received assurances from the Trump administration that they would be taken off of those planes and returned to U.S. custody. Betsy Klein, CNN, the White House.
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ABEL: Still to come, a powerful quake strikes eastern Afghanistan, killing hundreds. The latest on the rescue efforts, that's just ahead. Plus, new COVID-19 vaccines are arriving soon. But there are new rules on who is allowed to get them and where they can be given. Also, a very slim chance for somebody in the U.S. to become the next billionaire. But you've got to be in it to win it.
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ABEL: A powerful earthquake hit Afghanistan Sunday, killing more than 800 people and injuring more than a thousand. That's according to the Afghan Interior Ministry. The 6.0 magnitude quake hit the country's mountainous eastern region near the Pakistan border. Rescue workers were deployed to the hardest-hit areas, but they are struggling to reach remote communities as landslides and destroyed roads hamper their progress.
CNN's Nic Robertson is joining us now from London with what more we know on this, what sounds like an absolutely devastating quake, Nic?
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yes, the reports we're just getting are coming from the Afghan government spokesman, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. The spokesman saying that now they believe more than 800 people have been killed. They're estimating about 2,000 people injured.
These are -- I think we should stress, preliminary figures that may go up, may be corrected, perhaps down, but most likely up as the government gets more information. It is, as you say, remote areas. Some of them village areas, some of them are up essentially dirt tracks. So, very -- in the best of times, hard to get there and hard to ascertain the information.
The injured are being transported to one of the sort of main regional cities in the east of the country, Jalalabad in Nangarhar Province, which has affected Kunar Province, is the province that's understood to be the most heavily affected there. Other local hospitals are taking in some of the wounded, and for the Afghan healthcare system that is already stretched economically, that is already stretched in terms of what it can -- the facilities it can offer.
This is undoubtedly going to stretch their resources possibly beyond life-saving for some of those people being brought in. The construction of houses in that area, in the villages, some of the remote villages is sometimes rough stonework, often using mud as well. So, these are -- these are structures -- wood structures as well that can be prone to earthquakes.
The last time there was an earthquake of this similar magnitude, it was a 6.3 back in October 2023. Two thousand people died as a result of that earthquake. And we're looking at essentially a similar situation again now where the Afghan medical services are being stretched, are in need of lifting equipment, are in need of blood supplies.
And at the moment, they're looking to the international community or anyone that can help support them in this. There have been a number of after-shocks, the most intense of which was a 5.3, but at the moment, the Afghan authorities really stretched in trying to account for -- recover the survivors and account for all the dead.
ABEL: And Nic, you mentioned that previous earthquake that sounds like it was pretty close to the same magnitude as this one. Did the region ever recover from that one? As to right now, may that have -- be -- or may be leading to more damage here?
ROBERTSON: It's likely that most of the structures that were damaged back in 2023 were either not used again or reconstructed. The structures there are -- many of them are of -- as I was mentioning poorly made, poorly constructed because the economy is there -- is poor, and they're built in remote areas.
So, I think the 2023 earthquake is probably the after-effects of that, are probably not going to have a hugely significant impact, a minor impact may be, of course, it's in the similar area in the east of the country towards the border with Pakistan.
But primarily, the problem here is going to be people in their homes when the quake struck, bringing down roughly built houses on the people inside and local authorities such as they are not having heavy lift equipment, and certainly not being able to rush it into the area, particularly when homes have been destroyed.
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There are very few tarmac roads in that area for quick medical support to be brought in. However, we understand the Afghan government is using helicopters as well to try to get some of the most badly-injured to hospital, to those medical centers, which are, as we understand at the moment, quite frankly, being overwhelmed by the number of casualties they're facing.
ABEL: And we all see how the humanitarian effort navigates the same issues that first responders are having. Nic Robertson, I know, also keen to point out those casualty numbers are preliminary and may be subject to going up. I know, you'll stay on top of it, Nic Robertson, thank you. A group of activists are heading toward Gaza right now.
It is the largest ever attempt to break Israel's blockade of Gaza by sea. Those details are just ahead. Plus, a Minnesota community copes with the tragedy of a deadly shooting. And Pope Leo offers solace. Those stories and more after the break.
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ABEL: Israel appears ready to proceed with its military takeover of Gaza city despite mounting pressure both home and abroad. On Sunday, the Israeli security cabinet reviewed the military plans. Two Israeli officials tell CNN that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is also considering a full annexation of the West Bank, or partial annexation of selected settlements.
Outside the meeting, Israeli protesters called for the release of hostages and a ceasefire deal with Hamas. Israel hasn't responded to the latest proposal which Hamas accepted two weeks ago. For the latest, we go live to CNN's Paula Hancocks in Abu Dhabi. And Paula, what more are you able to tell us about the security cabinet meeting?
PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brian, this was a meeting that was specifically going to talk about the planned takeover of Gaza city. It is the plan that has already been approved by the Israeli Prime Minister and the Defense Minister. So, this was almost a technicality, just pointing out and uncovering exactly what the plan is to the full security cabinet itself.
Now, we do know that there is resistance. There is significant opposition within Israel to the plan to take over Gaza city, most notably from the security establishment. We know that it's been led by the IDF chief of staff. We know that he is concerned about hostages, their safety being jeopardized even more risk to soldiers lives, the risk of making a humanitarian catastrophe even worse.
So, two Israeli sources telling us that the hostages really is the greatest concern at this point for the Israeli military. Now, we understand that this was going to be brought up by the security establishment within this meeting on Sunday. It's not clear, though, whether this had any response from the far-right coalition that Benjamin Netanyahu is in charge of at this point.
We do know that the heads of a number of other security agencies are also in agreement that there does need to be this push towards the ceasefire hostage plan as opposed to another intensification of military efforts. Brian?
ABEL: And Paula, there's also a changing posture by the U.S. when it comes to Palestinians and passport holders there. What can you tell us about that?
HANCOCKS: So, these changes from the U.S. State Department effectively make it very difficult, if not almost impossible for a Palestinian holding a passport issued by the Palestinian Authority to get a visa to the United States. Now, we have a cable that has been seen by CNN, and the State Department has told diplomats to refuse most visas for Palestinians.
This includes for medical reasons if they're applying, if they're applying to be a student. Also, business trips will be difficult. And it comes just a few days after we heard from the State Department that they had either refused or revoked a number of visas from Palestinian Authority officials, including President Mahmoud Abbas, who was expected to go to the U.N. General Assembly later this month, which is in New York. Now, of course, holding and hosting the U.N. in the United States, the United States is expected to give visas even to those it does not agree with, as it is U.N. business. But at this point, it looks as though they have canceled and revoked visas for a number of Palestinian Authority officials. It's very clear that this is much closer now.
The U.S. is much closer to the Israeli view of events. The far-right coalition believing there shouldn't be a Palestinian state. Brian.
ABEL: All right, Paula Hancocks for us in Abu Dhabi. Paula, thank you. Meanwhile, activists launched a new attempt to bring much-needed aid to Palestinians in Gaza. On Sunday, a flotilla of ships departed from Barcelona to Gaza with food, water and medicine on board. It is the largest attempt yet to break Israel's long blockade of the enclave by sea.
Perhaps, one of the most recognizable faces on board is Greta Thunberg; the Swedish activist, you may remember, did try delivering aid to Gaza by sea previously, but was stopped by the Israeli.
