Return to Transcripts main page

First of All with Victor Blackwell

Flight Delays At Newark Airport, FAA Cites Air Traffic Control Staffing Issues; Today: 90M Plus People From Florida To New England At Risk; Tariffs On Imported Auto Parts Now In Effect; Professor Discusses Latest Research On Preventing Gun Violence; Labor's Albanese Wins, Dutton Concedes; 7 Dead After Fiery Crash Near Yellowstone National Park; Vatican Chimney Installed Ahead Of Papal Conclave; Blood Of Man Who's Had 200 Snake Bites Helps Make A Potent Antivenom. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired May 03, 2025 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Be careful. My next step.

TARAJI HENSON, AMERICAN ACTRESS: Yeah. You don't have to push me hard like that. A little. You remember.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Relax first and stop for sleeves.

HENSON: One, two, three.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All the time.

HENSON: Yeah. Hold all the time. Absolutely.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Don't lean back.

HENSON: I'm never going to lean back. Little bit. Okay. No, no. That's enough. That's enough. That's enough. A little bit more. So elegant. Did you see me smile on the camera?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: Be sure to tune in. A new episode of My Happy Place with Taraji P. Henson airs tomorrow at 10:00 p.m. Eastern only on CNN.

All right, everyone, welcome to CNN this morning. It is Saturday, May 3rd. I'm Omar Jimenez in for Victor Blackwell. Another round of President Donald Trump's tariffs in effect today. This time it's on auto parts and could drive up car costs by as much as $4,000, according to a CNN analysis.

Plus, the moment President Trump was pressed on whether he would be okay with a short term recession to achieve his long term economic goals. And going nowhere fast. There is no end in sight to building air travel delays at one of the busiest airports in the world. And FAA staffing may be to blame.

And we go inside the concerning connection between rising temperatures and gun violence. I'll talk to an expert. Just ahead.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: A lot of storm reports have come in just the last 24 hours. We'll take a look at where all of these storms are headed coming up in just a few minutes.

JIMENEZ: All right. This morning, Newark Liberty International airport enters its sixth straight day of flight delays. FlightAware.com says 28 flights have been delayed today already. Another 56 have been canceled. The FAA site says today's delays are fewer than 15 minutes, though, which is good. But earlier in the week, the delays were hours long, imposed by the FAA because of staffing.

So joining me now to discuss this more, CNN aviation analyst and former FAA inspector David Sousie. David, thanks for being here.

The backlog Newark Airport started on Monday. I mean, what do you make of how this is all playing out and do you anticipate it getting worse?

DAVID SOUCIE, CNN SAFETY ANALYST: Well, I do anticipate it getting worse. There's quite a few issues that are going on. There were some maintenance issues, some things going on at the airport as well. So it's not only about staffing, but the fact that it is about staffing says a lot of things.

One is that the air traffic controllers have kind of had enough. They're not going to work this overtime anymore. There's more retiring going on right now than there has been before. They're selecting where they want to work. It's a real shift, and Sean Duffy has his hands full trying to keep this thing staffed the way that it needs to be.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, the air traffic controller shortages have been well documented for years now. And not just obviously at Newark, they're clearly dealing with it, but Countrywide as well. What is the FAA doing to address it? What are the difficulties in trying to address this problem? Again, that has been an issue for years.

SOUCIE: Well, the biggest problem that they have is the fact that you have to be literally the best and the brightest to be an air traffic controller. You can't be over 30 years old. You can't even apply if you're over 30 years old. So that's a really restrictive amount of people that can do it.

Now, once you go in there, I was at the FAA Academy in Oklahoma City and the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center, and that's where they do the training. So during that time, the washout rate is about, at the time I was there, which was many years ago, but I think it's about the same now, was at least 50 to 60 percent of the people that came into the program got washed out. Because it's a hard job. It's not for everybody. And you have to have a certain way of thinking.

So you can't just go into the closet, pull a suit out, and say, here's another position for someone. It takes years and years of prep to find the right person, to train the right person, and then to retain the right person as well. A lot of challenges.

And, you know, there's always a lot of layers of things going on at once. You know, you have what the FAA is doing, you have what the airlines are doing. You have what passengers are essentially left with or what they're dealing with. And this weekend, Airlines says it's canceling 35 daily round trips from Newark Airport. The fact that they're already announcing that, what does that signal anything to you? How should we be reading into that?

SOUCIE: Well, the person I know that's doing that is the CEO of United Airlines. And I think it's a bold move. I haven't really heard of this before, to say, hey, we don't think that the FAA, it shows that there's no confidence from the airlines that they're going to be able to maintain these schedules.

So they're protecting their passengers, are stepping out and saying, if you guys can't support us, then we cannot maintain our schedules. So we're looking forward on that. Something that Sean Duffy and the FAA need to do more of is looking forward. And again, he has his hands full, but he's got to look further than just air traffic controllers.

[08:05:11]

There's air traffic, there's aviation safety inspectors. There's a lot of depth to the FAA, which is also shorthanded. The air traffic control is just the front end, the front line, if you will. But there's a lot of other staffing in the back of the FAA that still needs to be filled as well.

JIMENEZ: And you know, we're not quite to Memorial Day, but the summer travel season is essentially here as far as people booking flights. Do you expect this issue, or how are you looking at this issue to potentially have ripple effects across other major airports? I mean, I guess the question in all of that is how should the FAA be preparing, how should airlines be preparing when clearly there are some issues here?

SOUCIE: Well, the biggest problems we've had in the past have to do with union issues and the fact that unions usually say, hey, we're going to strike during these high peak periods. So they need to foresee that. They need to understand that they need to retain these people and make sure that they're happy with their positions, where they work, what they do, and how their schedules look.

They can't continue to work six days a week, ten hours a day, over and over for years and expect people to stay on the job.

JIMENEZ: David Soucie, really appreciate the time, perspective. Thanks for being here.

Meanwhile, this morning, severe weather threatens more than 90 million people from Florida to New England. CNN's Alison Chinchar joins me now with the latest forecast. So, Allison, which cities are most at risk today?

CHINCHAR: All right, there's a lot of them because really the severe potential stretches from southern New England all the way down to Florida. And even kind of mixed in with that, you also have the potential for some flooding in some of these areas because they had rain yesterday and they're going to get even more rain today. So here's a look at the live radar.

You can see some showers across portions the Northeast in the Ohio Valley right now. They're not very heavy. They're not strong thunderstorms. It's really more of a nuisance than anything else. But it's down to the south. This is where we have a lot of those thunderstorms, especially across the panhandle of Florida and even into areas of Alabama. But it's edging very close to that Georgia state line there. So going to start to see some things spreading here in the next hour or two.

Overall, this is the area you are looking at for your best chance for those strong to severe thunderstorms today. And again, you can see it stretches from New Orleans all the way up into areas of Maine. The main threats here are going to be damaging winds. We're talking winds of 60 to 70 miles per hour, some hail that could be the size of golf balls, and also, yes, the possibility for an isolated tornado or two to kind of get mixed in.

Here's a look at the timeline. This is the line we see this morning. But notice this right here, that second line that begins to develop, especially the sun comes out, it's going to start to heat things up, and you're going to fire up some more thunderstorms. But that also means a lot of the same places that had rain this morning are going to get yet another round of rain as we head into the afternoon. Both of those lines are going to continue to slide off to the east, taking with them the potential to bring some strong to severe thunderstorms. But we also have the potential for more of that development farther off to the north.

So even though it's mostly nuisance rain in the north right now, that's going to turn into some of those strong to severe thunderstorms late this afternoon and especially into the evening. By tomorrow morning, that line finally begins to push offshore. But you've still got some remnants across areas of the Northeast and the Ohio Valley. We also have the potential for flooding. That includes all of this area right here, including Kentucky.

We'll talk about the Derby forecast coming up in just a few minutes.

JIMENEZ: All right, Allison Chinchar, really appreciate it.

Now this morning, another round of tariffs are in effect, this one on imported auto parts. And it could play a significant factor in the auto industry. Previous auto tariffs left U.S.-made cars mostly untouched, but with this new tariff in place, there's not a single U.S. car manufacturer that will get a pass.

The CEO of General Motors told CNN the tariffs would cost the company between $4 billion and $5 billion this year. So what does this mean for car buyers? We may not see any price hikes in the short term. Experts estimate, though the added cost of the tariffs eventually could average to about $4,000 per vehicle. But Trump doesn't seem worried about how these tariffs will affect the economy. He actually said it's okay if the country takes an economic downturn in the short term. CNN's Jeff Zeleny has more from the White House.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Omar as president, Trump spends a working weekend at its Mar a Lago resort in Florida, the economy remains free front and center on the minds of the challenges of this White House, of this administration, even as the White House is releasing its budget blueprint, if you will, to slash spending across the government. The president was asked about the question of a recession by NBC's Kristen Welker.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS JOURNALIST: And that's my question. Long term, is it okay in the short term to have a recession?

DONALD TRUMP, USA PRESIDENT: Look, yeah, everything's okay. What we are, I said this is a transition period. I think we're going to do fantastically.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ZELENY: The president talking about a transition period, that is something he certainly did not talk about when he was running for office, when he promised to lower prices on day one. But there is no doubt about it. The president is simply trying to buy more time for the economy to get back up to speed even as the administration tries to ink some type of a trade deal that so far has been elusive. Jeff Zeleny, CNN, the White House.

[08:10:16]

JIMENEZ: All right, Jeff, thank you. Joining me now is Republican strategist Brian Robinson and Democratic strategist Tharon Johnson. Thank you both for being here.

Brian, I'll start with you. Let's just pick up where Jeff left off there on the economy because yesterday's jobs report was stronger than expected. Stock market is rallied, but consumer sentiment very lowest level since May 2020. And then Trump tells NBC he would be okay if the economy slipped into a recession in the short term.

I just, I wonder what you make of the economic picture right now and do you worry about it for Republicans?

BRIAN ROBINSON, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Well, there's still a lot of really good economic news. The headline on the top of the Wall Street Journal right now is economy remarkably resilient. Despite all these headwind tariffs and the uncertainty and instability that conversation is bringing.

What Trump said about this may induce a short-term recession, reminds us, Omar, that this guy plays by a different set of rules than almost any other elected official and that authenticity is played to his benefit to a large degree. No one else would ever say, yeah, my policy may create a recession, but the strong, unwavering support of his base allows him to kind of go out on a whim like that. This is something he truly believes in.

And when it comes to these tariffs, he believes that the issue isn't so much that Americans are going to pay more for cars, is that Europeans and Chinese people and Japanese folks need to buy more American cars. We buy theirs. They should buy ours. It should be fair. And if that's where we can get to eventually, I think that's a huge win.

I'm probably a dwindling member of the tree-free trade Republican Party, you know. There's not many of us left, I understand. But if we can use this to get there, tariffs for our products, it's a win. I don't want to see long-term tariffs that will hurt American innovation and ingenuity. It'll make us less competitive.

JIMENEZ: And Tharon, I want to pick up on that because, you know, for even some of the good economic indicators, there are a lot of economic headwinds, uncertainty around the tariffs, essentially ammo that one would think Democrats would have to sort of capitalize on. And I wonder, just from your perspective, what do you believe Democrats have the strongest case on against the Trump administration right now, and the lead up to potentially the midterms?

THARON JOHNSON, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, we got to tell the truth about this economy. And let's start with the tariffs. No matter how you try to spend it, these are inflationary tariffs. Every study, every economist that we talk to in history has shown us in this country that you add on to inflation when you create tariffs.

Donald Trump promised us that on day one or the first week, or at least in his first hundred days, he was going to tackle immigration and he was going to lower inflation. He's failed to do that. If you really look at this report also, Omar, it talks about how job gains are really down, layoffs are up. Small businesses and particularly big businesses should be very afraid because they've essentially been paralyzed.

They can't make any bold predictions about how they're going to run their companies because you have a president who is telling us, hey, just waiting to see trust in me for two years. I think the working- class American hardworking families in this country are worried. A lot of them are worried about their small businesses, many of whom have become entrepreneurs. But big businesses right now are having to answer to their shareholders. And while the stock market did rally, we are seeing record-low stock market activity.

So those of us in this country right now, almost 70 percent put our money in 401(k)'s, we put our money in stock market. And so now with that not being where it needs to be, I think that we as Democrats have got to tell the truth and more importantly, go back to strengthening the middle-class and working class families.

JIMENEZ: And Brian, you know, one of the things here that we also saw is the Trump administration put out their blueprint, their budget blueprint for their priorities here. And some of the priorities, just top lines, there's boosting defense spending, including boosted spending at the border, cutting programs though, for education, foreign aid, health, and the environment. At least from someone like Senator Susan Collins, who's on the Senate Appropriations Committee, it does seem like there's not 100 percent of Republicans are fully on board. And I wonder for you, when you hear some of those priorities, are those priorities that concern you excite you? Where do you feel, where do you stand here?

ROBINSON: Well, you're looking at hundreds or thousands of items. So everybody's going to find something in there that they don't want to see cut. Everybody's going to have something they hope to see further investment in. And we did get the word from Republicans on Capitol Hill immediately that the budget from the president, just like it is with every president, not just Donald Trump, is a suggestion that isn't taken too seriously by members of Capitol Congress. So that's very normal.

[08:15:01]

But what I do appreciate as a Republican, as somebody very concerned about our 30 plus trillion-dollar debt, we do have to have fundamental change. We are going to have some tough decisions. We are going to have to cut some spending that we think is good, that we think is efficient, spending that is productive, because we're out of whack, and we cannot go on in this trajectory.

I am so happy that as we're discussing tax cuts and renewing them, which I think they'll do later this year, that we're pairing it with cost cuts. That is something we must do if we're going to be serious in this country about our economic fiscal dilemma. So, look, it's a serious conversation. I give him credit for starting the conversation, showing we've got to change our ways.

JIMENEZ: And Tharon, just on that front, look, we are seeing cuts to education, foreign aid, health, and the environment. It's also played out already in cuts we've seen in the federal government outside of just this blueprint. For the Democrats, I mean, how -- where do you even begin to start to sort of say, I mean, look, the Republicans control all branches of government essentially at this point. So, where do you even begin to start to sort of push back on some of these priorities that clearly the Trump administration has?

JOHNSON: Well, you got to hold them accountable. And you got to also remember, Omar, that President Trump in his first term contributed to that trillion-dollar debt that Brian just mentioned, more so than any other president. I mean, you talk about spending, I mean, he was massive spending. But the thing that worries me the most that Democrats are talking about are the cuts to education. Let's be specific.

We're talking about almost $374 million being cut in K through 12. They're eliminating these preschool programs, many of whom these working families all across the country depend on. Also, if you look at the cuts to Medicaid and to Medicare through CMS, they're trying to basically abolish Medicaid, and it's under attack. And Democrats are speaking out about that.

And we also got to talk about these enhanced Affordable Care act subsid, that many 24 million Americans right now are subject to lose if we don't extend these subsidies and make sure that these premiums that they could actually enhance embody don't go up. But the bigger thing is that if you look at the polling. Let's get back to this.

President Trump is the lowest that he's ever been. He's the lowest of any current president in his 100 days, in seven decades. And so he had a very low approval rating early on in his 2016 presidency. So the American people are very fed up. They don't like the way that the Republicans are leading this country. They are waiting for Democrats to continue to be more bold.

And really, if you look at what leader Hakeem Jeffries and others have been doing, Senator Cory Booker, Chairman Hakeem Jeffries has done, talking to working class people on the steps of Washington, hearing their stories, letting them give feedback, showing that they care. Those are the kind of kitchen table, sort of very succinct primary issues that we're going to focus on.

JIMENEZ: I got to leave it there. Gentlemen, really appreciate you coming in on early Saturday morning, whatever day it is today. Thanks for being here.

JOHNSON: Thanks, Omar. Thank you.

JIMENEZ: All right, coming up, Russia launches a major drone attack on Ukraine's second-largest city, injuring dozens of people. We're also going to have the latest on cease-fire talks and how Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is now responding.

Plus, gun violence and warm weather. Why concern is rising across the country as temperatures go up? Plus, preparing for a new pope in Vatican City, the significance that the newly installed chimney plays in the selection. All that and more coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08::]

JIMENEZ: This morning, dozens are wounded, including an 11-year-old child after what Ukrainian officials are calling a massive Russian drone attack on the city of Kharkiv. Now, the strike ignited fires across four districts yesterday, hitting homes, warehouses, and apartment buildings. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is urging international allies to act swiftly, warning that delays are costing innocent lives. CNN's Melissa Bell joins us now from Paris with more on the aftermath and the global response.

Melissa, what more are we learning about the scale of this attack? Let's start there.

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What the Ukrainians are saying is that it was massive with dozens and dozens of drones, fire at Kharkiv, which is of course Ukraine's second city up by the border with Russia. That has been the focus of so much of the violence of the last few years. Now, what we understand is there are 47 wounded, no dead. But across the country, Omar, seven civilians died on Friday, a reminder, said President Zelensky, of the urgent need for a ceasefire because with every day that passes, it is further civilian lives that are lost and the urgent need for greater sanctions and pressure to be brought on Moscow.

JIMENEZ: Now, is there any sign at this point that Russia might escalate these attacks? I mean, I guess the question more so is have there been any updates on a potential ceasefire?

BELL: Well, we have been hearing these comments from President Zelensky who's been speaking, Omar, to that meeting that he had with President Trump in the Vatican last weekend, saying that it was one of their shortest meetings but one of the most productive. It had gone better than any other discussion he'd had with the American president, suggesting that he felt a real turnaround in the American position towards Ukraine and a certain frustration and impatience with Moscow. And this in the shape of Steve Witkoff, but also President Trump himself and some of the comments that President Zelensky said he made to him.

[08:25:07]

Also this minerals deal, speaking more to that and how that's going to work, saying that the deal will allow the purchase by Ukraine of the much-needed air defense systems that are so crucial to ensuring its ability to continue to withstand and hold firm the borders where they are. Both sides, he said both Donald Trump, President Trump, and President Zelensky in that Vatican meeting agreed. He said that a 30- day ceasefire was needed, not simply the three-day ceasefire that's been offered by Moscow next week, but a 30-day ceasefire that needs to take effect now in order that further civilian casualties are not inevitable, that this can be stopped at this stage and that he feels now he has the backing of the American administration.

So that is a big change really from what we've seen over the course of the last few weeks, and certainly a note of optimism there from President Zelensky who finds himself with this deal signed in a far better position than he was before, Omar.

JIMENEZ: No doubt. Melissa Bell, thank you so much. We appreciate the reporting.

Coming up, fear of an increase in gun violence that typically comes as it starts to get a little warmer outside. But we're taking a deeper dive into the factors that are leading to gun violence across the country. An expert weighs in next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:53]

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As temperatures warm up, concerns over the potential for gun violence due to. Every day, 125 people are killed in the United States with guns and more than 200 are shot and injured. That's according to Everytown USA, which is the largest gun violence prevention group in the country. I want to discuss the latest research in gun violence on gun violence

and prevention with University of Chicago distinguished Professor Jens Ludwig. He's also the Pritzker director of the university's crime lab as well. And he has a book called "Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence." Good morning, Professor. Thank you for being here.

I want to start with just that top line of look, typically, gun violence numbers tend to rise during the summertime, but is it simply because people are outside and around each other more? I wonder how you analyze that typical trend and maybe if it's indicative of anything more structural.

JENS LUDWIG, DISTINGUISHED SERVICE PROFESSOR AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: Yes, maybe the place -- thanks so much for having me on. Maybe the place that I would start is to note that, you know, this regular rise in gun violence that we see every summer in the United States, it doesn't make any sense under the sort of conventional wisdom about gun violence that we've been thinking about for the last hundred years.

You know, the usual way that we think about gun violence is that it's, you know, it's driven either by morally bad people who aren't afraid of the criminal justice system, or we think that it's due to bad economic conditions, people who are desperate to feed themselves and feed their families. Neither one of those really helps us make sense of why gun violence goes so much over the summer.

Because it's not like economic conditions drastically change over the summer, that morality or the criminal justice system really changes over the summer. And so I think to make sense of this, we, you know, this is one of those sorts of patterns that is kind of a mystery under the way that we've been thinking about gun violence for a long time and is one of the things that makes us think that we maybe need a new way to see the problem.

JIMENEZ: You know, you wrote in one chapter of the book that, and I'm quoting here, that while the history of U.S. gun legislation includes a few success stories. The evidence on the effects of gun laws in America, taken as a whole, is sobering in its lack of major impact.

And I bring that up because I think some people might say, wow, there's a lot of shootings here, or this is happening there. Why don't we just make some laws to figure it out and patch it up? And not that's not possible, but. But what did you mean by that particular passage and where are the most significant gaps you're seeing in sort of the current legal efforts in regards to gun control?

LUDWIG: Yes, I think the biggest challenge that we have in with American gun laws is that we have a bunch of regulations around how people buy guns from licensed gun dealers and then almost no federal laws about how guns get resold person to person. And that winds up being the main source of guns into the hands of people who wind up using them in crime. And that turns out to be -- that's been a very hard problem for us to figure out how to solve in the United States. You know, I think a lot of people are making -- working very hard to

solve that problem, but it's certainly not going to be something that's going to be solved soon, and it's certainly not going to be something that cities all around the country are going to be able to fix.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

LUDWIG: Over the next few weeks as summer starts and the rise in gun violence begins.

JIMENEZ: And, you know, I want to talk about Chicago in particular for a minute here. Obviously that's where you guys are based. But so far, homicides down over 20 percent compared to last year, shootings down over 30 percent. One local WBEC analysis showed April had the lowest number of people killed than any April since 1962. And I bring all of that to sort of tie into to what you talk about in the book, because you're in search of the roots of gun violence.

What is working in that respect there in Chicago, at least from what you've been able to observe to this point?

LUDWIG: Yes, I think the, you know, the key to thinking about what's going on with gun violence and including why it's been declining since the pandemic, is to realize that, you know, most shootings are not premeditated. They're not motivated by economic considerations.

[08:35:00]

There are arguments that go sideways and end in tragedy because someone's got a gun. And I think one of the things that we saw during the pandemic was huge surge in shootings, partly because the pandemic, I think, just had everybody so much more on edge than normal.

And I think we're starting to see the effects of that pandemic on people's on edgeness, or whatever you would want to call it, starting to ebb.

The fact that so many of these shootings are due to arguments that go sideways also helps us understand why the sort of the policies that we've been following for the last hundred years that really focus on incentives like changing the carrots and the sticks for gun violence haven't had more of an impact. And it starts to make you realize that we just need a fundamentally different approach to the problem.

JIMENEZ: And we have to go, but we only have like a few seconds left. But I know you close the book on you make this case for hope just before we go. What is your case for hope here?

LUDWIG: Yes, I think that the hope here is, you know, most of these shootings are arguments that go sideways. And we've just learned a lot about how to prevent mistakes from leading to tragedies that circumvent a lot of the hardest political fights that we have in the country and wind up not requiring huge amounts of resources to solve.

JIMENEZ: All right, everyone go get the book. It's titled "Unforgiving Places: Unforgiving Places, The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence." The professor is Jens Ludwig. Thanks for being here.

LUDIWG: Thanks so much for having me.

JIMENEZ: Of course. All right, coming up, preparations to find a new pope are underway. A chimney was installed on the Sistine Chapel ahead of next week's conclave. The prominent role it plays in the final decision. Coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:41:33]

JIMENEZ: All right. New this morning, Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has won a second term, delivering a major blow to the Liberal party leader. Now voters backed Albanese, center-left Labor Party among amid rising concerns over inflation and foreign policy tensions sparked by President Trump's return to power in the United States. Now the win makes Albanese the first Australian leader in 20 years to be reelected.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANTHONY ALBANESE, AUSTRALIAN PRIME MINISTER: In this time of global uncertainty, Australians have chosen optimism and determination. Australians have chosen to face global challenges the Australian way, looking after each other while building for the future and to serve these values, meet these challenges, seize these opportunities and build that better and stronger future. Australians have chosen a majority labor government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: He now promises to ease living costs, build more homes and continue Australia's push toward renewable energy.

Meanwhile, authorities in Idaho are investigating after a fiery crash that killed seven people near Yellowstone National Park. Investigators say a pickup truck and a van collided on the highway, causing both vehicles to catch fire. The driver of the pickup and six people inside the passenger van died. Eight other passengers in the van were injured and taken to an area hospital.

We also want to give you a live look at Madison (sp?) Square and St. Peter's Basilica it looks like a beautiful day in Rome, good amount of people there milling about. But in just days, this square will be packed with people waiting to hear that a new pope has been picked.

Right now, cardinals are preparing for next week's papal conclave to choose a successor to Pope Francis. CNN's Rafael Romo explains why all eyes will be on the roof of the Sistine Chapel.

(BEGI VIDEOTAPE)

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's yet another sign that preparations to choose a new pope are well underway here at the Vatican. On Friday morning, the Corpo de Vigili del Fuoco, the Vatican fire brigade, began to put up the chimney stack on the roof of the Sistine Chapel that will be used to announce the election of a new pope.

The conclave to choose Pope Francis successor will begin next Wednesday, May 7th. The Vatican also announced earlier this week that since voting will begin in the afternoon of the first day of the conclave, there will only be one round of voting on Wednesday.

On subsequent days, the Holy See (ph) said in a statement, two ballots are held in the morning and two in the afternoon. In keeping with tradition, after the votes are counted, all ballots are burnt.

And here's where the chimney takes a prominent role, because during the conclave, if a ballot is inconclusive, black smoke will come out. If a pope is selected, white smoke will billow out of the chimney, signaling to the world that the Roman Catholic Church has a new leader.

How long will it take to choose a new pope? If history is any indication, it will be decided in a matter of days. All conclaves that took place in the 20th and 21st centuries concluded within a week of the cardinals gathering. That was certainly the case during the last two conclaves. It took only two days to choose Benedict XV and Francis.

[08:45:00]

The longest conclave on record lasted almost three years, from November 12, '68 to September 12, '71. And while we don't know yet who the new pope will be, nor the name he will choose, John has historically been the most common papal name. 21 Popes have chosen that name throughout the history of the Roman Catholic Church. Rafael Romo, CNN, Rome.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

JIMENEZ: Rafael Romo, great assignment in Rome. I'll come there next. Hopefully. Fingers crossed. Still to come, sink your teeth into this. Experts believe this man's blood could be the key to unlocking a universal anti venom treatment for snake bites. We'll show you what it took to find that out. Coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:10]

JIMENEZ: This Sunday, Eva Longoria is back with another episode of the CNN Original Series, "Searching for Spain." Aren't we all? John Berman sat down with her for a meal at a Spanish restaurant in New York to learn about the delicious region of Andalusia. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Hi -- cheers.

EVA LONGORIA, HOST, "SEARCHING FOR SPAIN": Cheers. (Speaking foreign language).

BERMAN: What am I drinking here and why?

LONGORIA: You're drinking vermouth, which is very popular. This was my drink while I was in Spain. It was very, very, very popular.

BERMAN: Is there a wrong time to be doing vermouth?

LONGORIA: No. I guess every hour is (speaking foreign language).

BERMAN: Andalusia.

LONGORIA: Yes.

BERMAN: Where is that?

LONGORIA: In the south.

BERMAN: And?

LONGORIA: It used to be called Al-Andalus, which is the south of Spain that had the longest rule of the Moors. So when the Reconquista -- when Spain reconquered -- it started in Asturias and then they pushed the Moors out toward the south. That's how -- where they came in and came up from Africa. And so Al-Andalus is the south.

BERMAN: And this is jamon?

LONGORIA: Jamon.

BERMAN: Jamon.

BERMAN: And -- which is --

LONGORIA: Cured pig, yes.

BERMAN: Cured pig.

LONGORIA: But it's a special pig and especially if it's pata negra -- which it means black foot. They're very spoiled pigs. They only eat acorns.

BERMAN: Is it a finger food or is it a fork food?

LONGORIA: No, finger, finger, yes. You grab a piece like this. And it's cured for a long time. And you eat it --

BERMAN: Acorns?

LONGORIA: They eat acorns.

BERMAN: I think I just --

LONGORIA: Acorns are good.

BERMAN: Do you taste a little bit of that? LONGORIA: Well, yes. That's how you can tell if it's really good because not all of them are pata negra. Not all of them are of a certain pedigree.

So you wrap it in this little thing -- yeah -- and you do that.

BERMAN: It was so -- can I have another piece?

LONGORIA: Yes, but clean your chin.

BERMAN: Do I have it on me -- my chin?

LONGORIA: There you go.

BERMAN: That's gross.

LONGORIA: No, it's great -- it's great.

BERMAN: I had one on my chin?

LONGORIA: But it's great. I mean, the greasier the better. The way --

BERMAN: That means I'm doing it right, then?

LONGORIA: It means you're doing it right. The way they test if this is good ham is that it wouldn't -- it won't fall off the plate. Well, this -- not the decoration but it has so much fat that it doesn't come off the plate. That's when you know it's good jamon.

BERMAN: You were saying this was the Moors region -- the region that was conquered by the Moors, and that the ham actually played an important historical role.

LONGORIA: In Spain it's hanging like this, and they'll have a lot of legs of jamon hanging in the shop. And during the Spanish Inquisition it was to prove that you weren't Jewish. You could hang pork, you know, in your storefront and that would keep the Spanish Inquisition away.

BERMAN: Well, you know what? I'm going to eat it anyway --

LONGORIA: Eat it.

BERMAN: Even though I am Jewish. Don't tell anyone. I'm breaking many traditions, Spain's and my own.

LONGORIA: This is to me is comfort food when I get to Spain. Like if everywhere you go, they will give you a plate of jamon.

BERMAN: And has it ended up on other people's chins, too, or is it just mine?

LONGORIA: Just yours.

BERMAN: I'm the first. Okay.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: A new episode of "Eva Longoria: Searching for Spain" airs this Sunday night at 9:00 on CNN.

Now just hours from now, races will begin ahead of the annual Kentucky Derby, famously not in Spain. But today, things could get a little muddy on the track. CNN's Allison Chinchar joins me now right in the path of some severe weather. How is that going to impact today's competition?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Right, flooding is going to be the biggest concern in Kentucky because you've got a lot of these areas that saw rain the last couple of days. Now they're getting some more rain and it's going to be multiple waves of rain today.

So, yes, we could end up getting quite a muddy track out there for the race itself. Here's a look at the area where we're talking about for all of that flooding. Anything you see here in this green area has the potential for that excessive rainfall to take place today.

And yes, that includes basically the entire state of Kentucky, not just where the race is place, but when you look at the timeline, some of those storms are already starting to develop. And really the best chance for the timeline of the storms is going to be late morning and into the early afternoon.

Then things will gradually start to taper off, but they don't go away entirely in terms of rain chances through the evening. Which means yes, more likely than not the rain will be on the front end. Still a small chance there, but either way it's going to likely end up with a very muddy track. So as we talked about earlier, you know, have the mint julep in one hand and maybe an umbrella in the other.

JIMENEZ: Yes, not a bad vibe even in the rain. Allison, appreciate it.

Before we go, scientists have worked for decades to develop a universal antivenom that cures poisonous snake bites now they're on the verge of a major breakthrough, thanks to this guy, Tim Friede. His blood contains crucial antibodies that react to neurotoxins from 19 different species of snakes. But that's because it's after he was bitten hundreds of times by some of the world's deadliest snakes over the course of 18 years. CNN actually sat down with Friede to learn more about his mission.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM FRIEDE, INJECTED HIMSELF HUNDREDS OF TIMES WITH SNAKE VENOM: What I do is I drive venom out very specifically, right to the microgram.

[08:55:05]

And I have a lot of notes and Excel files where I hit these particular windows to where I know I can boost up before a bite. I don't just take the bite because that can kill you.

I properly boost up and methodically take notes and weigh the venoms out very specifically. It's very important to do. My goal is always to do 6 milligrams. That can achieve the highest tighter level possible IGG. And that's exactly how I did it. I'm helping humanity. I know I'm helping somebody 8,000 miles away I can't talk to.

And that makes me feel really, really good that everything I did was in vain or, you know, no pun intended. (END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Yes, no pun intended. In his veins. Look, I'm glad there's someone doing it.

CHINCHAR: yes. I don't want to be -- I don't want to have snakes bite me a hundred times.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

CHINCHAR: So I'm glad there's somebody else that volunteered for that job.

JIMENEZ: You know what's interesting is he had a plan. He had was like, I don't just do this out of nowhere. Willy nilly.

CHINCHAR: Yes.

JIMENEZ: Thanks everyone for being with me. See you back tomorrow morning, 6:00 am. First of all, with Victor Blackwell will be back at 8:00 Eastern next Saturday. Smerconish up next after a short break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)