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One World with Zain Asher
Rescue Crews Desperately Search for Quake Survivors; Russian Airstrikes Damage Children's Hospital in Kyiv; U.S. Official: Trump Switched Planes in July Amid Iran Threat; Death Toll Rises to 213, Hundreds Injured in Colombia Earthquake; Europe Preparing for Total Solar Eclipse; Harry Potter Fans Save Dobby's Grave. Aired 11a-12p ET
Aired August 11, 2026 - 11:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[11:00:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ZAIN ASHER, CNN HOST, ONE WORLD: All right, coming to you live from New York. I'm Zain Asher. Bianna is off today. You are watching "One World".
Still to come, the death toll is rising in Colombia. One day after a massive earthquake rocked the country, CNN is on the ground in one of the
hardest hit areas.
Plus, an elaborate ruse and a secret flight to protect President Trump. But did it put journalists in jeopardy? And we're counting down to a stellar
spectacular. I'll be speaking with Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson about Wednesday's solar eclipse.
All right, it's just been over 24 hours since the catastrophic 7.4 magnitude earthquake devastated parts of Colombia, rescue crews are
desperately searching for survivors. The death toll now stands at 213, and that number is expected to rise. Five major cities are under a red alert
right now after the quake collapsed dozens of buildings damaged hospitals and shut down seven airports.
Crews from around the country have been called into the quake zone to help look for people stranded under the rubble. Crews like these in Cali say
search and rescue is a delicate operation. One false move could trigger another collapse. The quake struck in the mountainous region of Choco, with
tremors hurtling through the Capital Bogota and other densely populated cities.
This is one of those cities you're looking at here, Pereira. You can actually see the search and rescue teams desperately searching for any
signs of life within the piles of rubble where buildings once stood. Colombia's new President Abelardo de la Espriella quickly declared a state
of national disaster. A disaster that came three days, by the way, after his inauguration. He had words of support for the people of the quake-
ravaged region.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ABELARDO DE LA ESPRIELLA, COLOMBIAN PRESIDENT: We are confident that with God's help and the support of the new government, we will be able to
overcome this terrible ordeal that today has plunged all of Colombia, and of course the people of Choco into mourning. Let this be an opportunity to
tell the country that Choco will never again be the forgotten land.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHER: Our David Culver is in Pereira, Colombia, and saw firsthand the efforts to free those trapped under the rubble, and he filed this report
for us.
DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: We have seen scenes like this scattered throughout Pereira. This is one of the hardest hit areas. And I want to
bring you a little bit closer here because they've just started once again in trying to actively search for folks within what was an apartment
building.
And you can see it's covered now this entire street. They brought in a crane. They've had to bring in a fuel truck directly to the crane just to
keep the operations going. And I was speaking to a couple here who have friends that live in this apartment building, and they say that they were
hearing yelling throughout the night.
And it's for that reason that you have several dozen, not only firefighters and first responders, but then just locals who have jumped in to try to
help in some fashion. I mean, most don't even have the proper gear to do so, but you can see they're using buckets and they're trying to clear as
much rubble as possible.
And they're hoping to get to the areas that they believe that those yells are coming from. And folks are standing on the sidelines. Let me show you
just trying to stay out of the way as much as possible. But also, they're taking this in because these are folks that they know. This is their
community.
Some of them are just standing almost in a daze with tears in their eyes as they're watching this play out. And it's interesting as we got to the first
location in this city, mind you, we had driven for eight hours from Bogota because flights weren't landing anywhere near here last night. We went to
one location, and we thought that was the most devastating part of the city.
And we've been told at each location, no, you need to go to another. You need to go check out this location. Go see this, and that's what brought us
here to La Libertad (ph), where you can see there is just a continued effort right now to try to find whoever may still be alive.
I mean, we're just after 24 hours from when this earthquake struck, and so folks are still incredibly hopeful and yet feeling that urgency to try to
get to whoever may still be alive in this collapsed structure here. But again, I mean, you just go block after block within this city, and you will
see a lot of the streets are just filled with the rubble that have come down from the buildings around.
I was also noticing that they had on the mountain roads that we were coming in on, and these were very windy, dark, difficult roads to traverse.
[11:05:00]
You had a lot of basically personnel coming in from the capital, from Bogota, where we were coming in from. And they were going at really high
speeds, just trying to get with all the equipment and resources they had to this location to assist in this effort because you can see it's exhausting.
And at this point, I mean the numbers suggest 55 or so who have died in this city alone. But I was talking to a couple who said, look, overnight
they saw that six bodies were pulled out in rubble in this area, so they're not confident that those numbers are going to stay that low.
ASHER: Many thanks to CNN's David Culver for that report. We'll have much more on this developing story later on this hour. All right, Iran's Supreme
Leader is reshuffling the country's military leadership, with hardliners taking up key positions as diplomatic efforts to reopen the key Strait of
Hormuz stalls.
Both Tehran and Washington appear to be moving the goalposts. President Donald Trump is responding to Tehran's latest list of demands, including
compensation for the Strait to reopen, with a condition of his own. In a social media post, he says that he wants compensation from Iran for all of
the people that they have killed and gravely wounded, and he doubled down on that stance at the White House on Monday.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: They asked for reparations, you might say, or they asked for money for the damage that
we've done. And I said that's a good idea. Well, we're going to ask for money for the damage they've done over a 50-year period. If there's damages
to be paid, I think Iran should pay those damages.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHER: CNN's Jeremy Diamond is joining us live now from Jerusalem with the latest. So, you've got Iran demanding compensation. You now have the United
States, via President Trump also demanding compensation. President Trump also saying that his strategy going forward is going to be to sort of wait
it out economically by putting maximum economic pressure on Iran, hoping against all hope that somehow, they cave.
Just walk us through what all of this means for efforts to reopen the Strait, because that is the key issue here.
JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, without a doubt. And what seems to be happening right now is both sides really upping the ante,
maximalizing their positions, hardening their positions, and trying to see which side caves first.
And we've been here before, you know, at a place where you know both the United States and Iran believe that they could cause the other side more
economic and political damage in order to get the other side to kind of change positions before having to make concessions themselves.
What we certainly have moved away from, it seems, is President Trump's strategy over the course of the previous you know month or so, where it
seemed like every other day he was threatening some kind of major military strike against Iran. He's no longer doing that. Instead, what the president
is focusing on is again this game of economic pain.
We saw just yesterday the United States imposed its eighth round of sanctions on Iran, additional sanctions to try and you know increase the
economic chokehold that the U.S. is trying to apply on Iran. The U.S.'s naval blockade of Iranian ports is very much still ongoing, and there's no
question that all of that is having a real impact on the Iranian economy and perhaps in the longer run on the Iranian political calculus.
But the Iranians also have cards to play, and their cards relate to the Strait of Hormuz, where, despite President Trump insisting that the U.S.
has now swept that area of mines and that the Strait is open for U.S. friendly traffic. We've -- the numbers tell a different story.
We've seen just a handful of ships going through in recent days, that's way down from the 120 vessels or so that would go through the Strait of Hormuz
before this war began with those U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran. And that is causing global oil prices to rise, causing gas prices in the United
States to rise ahead of the midterm elections.
And that seems to be what the Iranians are betting on, that that will ultimately affect President Trump's political calculus, that he will be
nervous about the economy, about gas prices, and the effect that that could have on the midterm elections. So, the Iranians are continuing to play that
strategy as well.
And again, this is now a question of which side is going to cave first, which side can suffer more economic and political pain in the coming months
ahead. But again, as it relates to President Trump, we have seen him try out various strategies time and again, and so we'll just have to wait and
see how long he sticks with this latest, Zain.
ASHER: Yeah, and whether or not it will actually work, although there are a lot of doubts about that. Jeremy Diamond, live for us there. Thank you so
much.
[11:10:00]
All right, global oil prices are rising, and Tehran is raising the bar and setting stringent conditions to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. A reminder,
about 1/5 of the world's oil used to transit through the critical waterway. How -- here's how the markets are reacting to that. Look at that red across
the board.
I can't quite see the S&P 500 there, but the DOW and the NASDAQ are both down. Brent Crude, the global oil benchmark, was actually up 2 percent
hovering near $90 a barrel early Tuesday morning.
All right, Russia unleashed a deadly barrage on Ukraine, killing at least six people and leaving more than a dozen others injured. Ukrainian
officials say that Moscow attacked the City of Zaporizhzhia using missiles and guided bombs, damaging four blocks of apartments and non-residential
buildings.
The attack comes as Ukraine steps up its drone campaign targeting warehouses belonging to Russia's largest online retail, essentially the
country's version of Amazon. In Ukraine's capital a Russian attack damaged a children's hospital. CNN's Nick Paton Walsh joins us live from Kyiv with
the very latest on that.
Nick, walk us through what we know about this attack on the children's hospital? And also, where Ukraine stands with the status of its air defense
interceptors something that obviously President Zelenskyy has been very clear about the fact that they are dwindling?
NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR: In short supply, if not at this point non-existent, which may explain the absence of
interceptions over Zaporizhzhia last night, and how another missile seemed to go through here to hit that target of the children's hospital in Kyiv.
The patients in the shelter underground there safe, damage done to the building. A lesser attack, I think, is fair to say, on the capital last
night. Zaporizhzhia taking the brunt. Interestingly, the six dead, 19 injured in that attack on apartment buildings.
Well, it was North Korean KN23 missiles that Ukraine has said were ultimately responsible for that damage. Another sign of the assistance of
Pyongyang, who Ukrainian officials have said have put forward another 30,000 troops towards the front lines, still inside Russia, as far as we
understand, to assist Russia's offensive here.
President Zelenskyy himself has said the war changes in character every three months. And I think three months ago the narrative was ultimately
about how technology, long-range drone strikes, had given Ukraine finally what felt like the upper hand. Well, it's the lack of Patriot interceptors,
the only things that can take down, as we know at the moment, these ballistic missile attacks from Russia that Moscow is seeking to urgently
exploit here.
And while a few months ago about 60 ballistic missiles or hypersonic missiles might be fired in a month, we're now edging closer to 200 or so.
Fears they could be launching dozens potentially every night. Ukraine has no means of stopping them. They could potentially have those means.
President Donald Trump has said, indeed, that they should have those means. Promised on the sidelines of the Ankara NATO Summit that Ukraine would get
licenses to build their own. They're itching to do so, but he since went back on that, and it appears Ukrainians are putting forward various
compromise ideas how to get this moving.
But it's a result of the war in Iran. You were just talking about Zain that ultimately there is this global shortage of Patriot interceptions. But it's
only really here that it's felt most acutely. Ukraine doing what it can to sort of retaliate to make the pain felt inside Russia.
You mentioned the strike on the Wildberries facility last night, 180 kilometers inside Russia in Voronezh. Ukraine says that these Amazon-style
warehouses, sort of internet purchase and distribution, are essentially part of the military logistics chain here.
Russian officials saying 16,000 meters square were affected by the fire yesterday, and some of the tallies and reports suggest that Wildberries'
capacity is at least 10 percent destroyed now at this point. A real sense I think of the war being brought home to the more boring domestic parts of
Russian life hitherto untouched.
But really, I think a capital here and a country bracing for more ballistic missile attacks in the nights ahead, and ultimately looking for a simple
decision here for the Western military companies and officials who have the power to influence them to give them the chance to build their own
interceptors, so they don't have to wake up to a growing death toll. Last month, July, the worst civilian death toll since April 2022, Zain.
ASHER: Nick Paton Walsh, live for us. Thank you for joining us from Kyiv. All right, just into CNN, after four years in Russian detention, a Former
U.S. Marine has been released. Robert Gilman was detained in Russia in 2022. In the recent days, advocates have raised the alarm about his
deteriorating health. Gilman is on his way to a U.S. military hospital in Texas for evaluation.
[11:15:00]
All right; we certainly do have a full show here on "One World" hidden in plain sight. New details are emerging after last month's mysterious flight
out of Turkey. We'll explain the lengths American officials went to in order to protect President Trump.
Plus, a celestial sensation nearly 30 years in the making. Part of Europe is going to be experiencing a total solar eclipse on Wednesday. Who other
than Neil DeGrasse Tyson is going to be joining us to explain what to watch for?
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ASHER: All right, new ethical questions are being raised after U.S. President Donald Trump secretly switched planes in Turkey last month in an
elaborate ploy prompted by an Iranian threat. In a story first reported by "The Washington Post", U.S. officials announced that after the NATO Summit,
Trump would fly out on an older presidential plane because of a security threat from Iran.
Here, you see the president boarding Air Force One as is shortly after 08:00 o'clock in the evening local time on July 8th. But according to the
Post, minutes later, Trump actually left Turkey aboard a secret plane after he and several of his aides were covertly shuttled onto an airport catering
truck.
That truck then apparently took the president to a smaller plane. This move effectively made the old Air Force One a decoy, even though reporters and
some White House staffers were still on board, and the threat still remained by the way, making them unwitting participants.
The press pool, meantime, was advised to keep their window shades in the cabin closed during the flight. Hours later, the president was seen exiting
the old Air Force One when it touched down in the UK. It's not clear how exactly he got back on board.
He then boarded a third plane to fly home to the United States. This time, it was the plane gifted by the Qataris. When asked about why reporters had
to lower their window shades? The president gave this response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Probably on a dangerous flight because of the sleazebags that we have to deal with.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think Iran was possibly thinking of trying to --?
TRUMP: Yeah, I mean if they ask you to close your windows, probably they'll be in
the way.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Were you aware of any credible threat by Iran against Air Force One?
TRUMP: Well, I have a threat all the time. I'm number one on their list before you. But if I go, you go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[11:20:00]
ASHER: The situation obviously is certainly unusual, especially when considering the individuals who were not transferred to a safer plane.
Obviously, the reporters. Let's discuss all of this with Kevin Liptak live for us at the White House.
So, Kevin, you know you as somebody who travels with the president a lot, as all of our White House reporters do. Just walk us through what is sort
of normal protocol? And whether or not there were any clues this time around in Turkey that something was off?
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, the normal assumption is that the plane that you're traveling with the president on also contains
the president. That's kind of the baseline protocol for what you're doing as the pool reporter.
And so, the fact that the president wasn't on this plane would probably be the first indication that something was afoot. I think, in retrospect, when
you look back on that day, there are details that suggest something may have been happening.
Principally among them, the fact that the reporters were asked to put their window shades down as soon as they got on the plane. You know the way those
planes were situated on the tarmac in Ankara. The press cabin is along the right-hand side of the old Air Force One.
So, if you were looking out of the window, you probably would have seen a catering truck with the president on board being spirited away to a
different aircraft. And so, that was the first sign that something may have been amiss.
One of the other details that I noticed was that when the president or when the old Air Force One landed in the UK, reporters were kept on board for an
unusually long period of time. In retrospect, we now know that that was in order to give the president time to get back on the plane, and then be
photographed getting off of the plane.
And so, there were indications that something like this may have been happening. You know, I think whenever you fly in Air Force One, you kind of
recognize that the security priority is not you. It's going to be the president, and so I don't think that there's an assumption by the people
who are flying with him that they will be kept safe from any potential attack.
You know, the president is the priority for the Secret Service, and the word secret in the title I think emphasizes the fact that they are doing
things that are unseen and unspoken to keep the president safe. But still, it is a little disconcerting for any regular flyer and Air Force One to
think that you are being put out as a sort of an unwitting decoy for an Iranian missile attack.
And I do think the fact that this very elaborate subterfuge was put into place is an indication that there are concerns, some very real concerns
about what Iran might be planning in terms of assassination attempts on the president, but also what their capabilities are.
The fact that they could be able to target what, in theory, is the world's most safe and secure aircraft in a totally separate country, and so some
real eye-opening revelations from what these reports indicate. What the White House says, they didn't confirm it, they didn't deny it.
But what Stephen Chung, who's the Communications Director, said was that quote, as the president has said recently, there are many enemies of
America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal to address those threats. There is at least one precedent for the president
using a plane like this, which is back in 2000 when Bill Clinton was flying in Pakistan.
He took an unmarked plane there. But that was revealed almost immediately because cameras caught him getting off of the plane. What's different this
time is the amount of time that this has gone without anyone really knowing what had happened.
ASHER: Yeah, about a month, in fact. Kevin Liptak joining us live now from the White House. Thank you. All right, let's continue this discussion with
my next guest, our Senior National Security Analyst, Juliette Kayyem. Juliette, thank you so much for being with us.
I mean, obviously there are threats against presidents quite a bit, you know. This is not something that never happens. But you know, for Secret
Service and I guess for the CIA, how do you differentiate between just another threat versus a threat that is credible enough to sort of be on
high alert?
And a threat that is so credible that you go to the length of, you know, implementing some kind of decoy and moving the president into a catering
car and onto another plane?
JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: That's right. Look, and what's not being sort of discussed is that threats don't exist in a
vacuum. The threat that the Secret Service was worried about was obviously because of the war that the United States started.
But more importantly, it was worried, or the Secret Service was worried, because the plane that the president had chosen to use, a plane gifted by a
foreign country that many of us had rightful concerns about his security was not an adequate count offense. And so that is why this whole.
[11:25:00]
I mean, we're talking about three airplanes now. Originally, the gifted one, then a turn to the old one, and then the secret one that we're just
learning about. So, I'm not denying that there is a threat against the president, but the threat was elevated because the he was more vulnerable
in this new plane.
I think the second thing I'm going to be a little bit more direct than our fabulous reporters. So, the idea that you would leave reporters, civilians,
staff, administrative staff, the pilots vulnerable as sort of an acceptable loss, as we say in war, to protect the president is unprecedented and
really needs to be discussed.
If the threat was real, people were put on an airplane with no knowledge, believing that the threat is elevated because the president is on the
plane, but not agreeing to be a decoy for a president who was not on the plane.
ASHER: You know, this might be an unfair question for me to ask you live on television, just sort of put you on the spot. But then, you know, how
should this have been handled? So, for example, you -- there's a credible threat against Air Force One, you can't have the president take that plane.
You don't necessarily want the reporters and the staffers and the pilot to be put in any danger. What are you supposed to do? That literally, that
might be a bigger discussion, and you might need some time to think about that.
KAYYEM: The scenario I imagine I ask myself this is, you basically just by yourself four hours as the president because he's in Turkey. He wasn't in
like on Mars. Turkey is very close to Germany. You can get him on a third plane as they did. Say that the flight is delayed. Say that the president
is delayed.
Get him into safe territory, and then you move people later. But so, but that would have been the option, and I mean that seriously. I mean when
you're thinking through, do we really want to put reporters, staff, the pilots, as a decoy, which is essentially what they're doing, rather than
admit that there is a threat four hours later, get him out of Turkey to Germany?
That's easy. It's an easy flight. And then begin the process of returning them back to the United States, which would have been much easier from the
sort of safe haven of Germany or London or Paris. You choose your European capital. So, I do think there was a solution.
And I think you know my concern is that the president and the Secret Service in doing this have really you know sort of opened up a Pandora's
box and a really sort of you know difficult conversation about what they were willing to do to protect a president whose elevated vulnerability was
because of the original plane.
We cannot forget that it was his choice to choose a foreign plane, and that's when the Secret Service said, look, he's not safe in this plane.
That then led to the story.
ASHER: Yeah, Juliette Kayyem, thank you so much for that. I mean, because a lot of people did question this idea of, I mean, reporters aside, whether
or not the elaborate ruse was necessary? I mean, couldn't you just have moved him onto a different plane? Was it -- was all of that at first?
KAYYEM: You needed for, as I said, you needed for a few hours to get to Germany, and then you admit what happened.
ASHER: All right, Juliette Kayyem live for us there. Thank you so much.
KAYYEM: Thank you.
ASHER: All right, there is certainly still a jam-packed show for us still to come on "One World". We cast our gaze up to the heavens. Astrophysicist
Neil DeGrasse Tyson will join us to discuss Wednesday's rare total solar eclipse visible in parts of Europe.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[11:30:00]
ASHER: All right, welcome back to "One World". I'm Zain Asher in New York. Here are some of the headlines we are watching for you today. Officials
across Colombia report that at least 213 people have lost their lives in Monday's powerful earthquake. The magnitude 7.4 quake struck the Choco
region west of Bogota. At this hour, search and rescue crews are looking for those trapped under the rubble of collapsed buildings.
Iran and the U.S. appear no closer to reaching an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, President Donald Trump is now demanding compensation from
Tehran for quote all of the people that they have killed. His announcement comes just days after Iran demanded war reparations from Washington.
Ukraine says that Russia unleashed a wave of missiles striking Zaporizhzhia overnight, killing six people, injuring dozens, and damaging four blocks of
apartments. One missile also hit the grounds of a children's hospital in Kyiv today, but staff and children were unhurt. The attack comes as Ukraine
steps up its drone campaign on Russia's online warehouses.
Former Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad has been sentenced to death in absentia. A Syrian court made its ruling on the ousted leader along with
his younger brother today. They were sentenced for crimes against humanity and war crimes during the country's 14-year conflict that left around half
a million people dead. Assad and his brother fled to Russia in 2024.
All right back to the deadly earthquake in Colombia. So far, the death toll is 213 people. It is 10:30 in the morning there, and these are live
pictures of people digging for survivors in Pereira, which is in the western part of the country. Five major cities near the epicenter, remain
on red alert.
Colombia's President, less than a week on the job, has declared a state of disaster. Our Stefano Pozzebon has the details on the strongest quake to
hit Colombia in a decade.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's a scene of complete chaos as travelers in Matecana International Airport in Pereira seek cover
and run for their lives, as a deadly 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit much of Western Colombia on Monday.
It is the strongest quake to hit the country in over a decade, according to the Colombian Geological Survey, and was followed by two aftershocks. The
epicenter hit in the Northwestern Department of Choco, less than 200 miles west of the Capital Bogota. The area, known as the country's coffee region,
was heavily damaged. And multiple people were killed in the City of Manizales.
[11:35:00]
A cathedral tilted after the ground shook for almost a minute. In Cali, drone footage points to the scale of the devastation. Survivor Saul Paz can
barely believe what's in front of his eyes as he comes through what's left of his home.
To give you an idea, look how this house looks like now. The whole block was destroyed. I'm sorry, but I'm left with no words. This is just so very
tragic. Others had to climb down several floors to reach safety. As the sun sets, the evening is pierced by the screams from the search and rescue
operations.
It's a silent race against time. Even a whisper can result in a life saved when more than 100 people have already been found dead. Shouts of joy
follow a successful rescue as a survivor is taken to an ambulance. One little cheer against an abyss of despair. Stefano Pozzebon, CNN.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ASHER: All right, thanks to CNN's Stefano Pozzebon for that report. And for more information about how you can help Columbia earthquake victims, go to
cnn.com/impact, and you can find lots of ways to donate to various charities on the ground that are heading there as well.
All right, if you are in Europe, you may be one of the very lucky 1 billion people in the line of sight of Wednesday's total solar eclipse. It is the
first one in about three decades. A total eclipse happens when the moon moves directly in front of the sun, fully blocking it and casting a shadow
on the Earth.
The total eclipse will be visible in Northern Russia, parts of Greenland, Iceland, Portugal, and Spain in Madrid. Protective glasses are in high
demand ahead of Wednesday's event. Totality will last less than two minutes in much of Spain. People there are certainly very excited to see it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
XIAOXI WU, TOURIST IN MADRID: It has been a dream for me to see the real one with a sunny day, and this year it will be solar eclipse during the
sunset. So, I guess it will be more romantic with all the sunset views. So, it will be really exciting to see.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ASHER: Neil DeGrasse Tyson, we are so excited to have you by the way. Oh, thank you so much for joining us. Obviously, he's an Astrophysicist with
the American Museum of Natural History. He joins us live. So, Neil, a lot of people in Western Europe, obviously, very excited to see this very cool
cosmic coincidence.
Just walk us through what total solar eclipses actually are and what we can expect if you are in that part of the world tomorrow?
NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, ASTROPHYSICIST, AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: Let me lead off by saying that it should be on everyone's bucket list. It's
one of the great spectacles of nature. It's something even an alien would be impressed by because the combination of no, I'm serious because the Moon
is our moon. You realize that the Moon is 1/400 the width of the Sun, and it's 400 times closer.
So, what that means on the sky is that the Moon has the same size as the Sun on the sky. And occasionally, which is more frequently than people
think. Occasionally the Moon will pass exactly between Earth and the Sun, blocking the Sun, revealing the outer atmosphere of the Sun, which we call
the corona, in this beautiful spectacle of nature.
And if you're ever nearby one, or you have the resources to travel to one, you should definitely take one in. By the way, they occur about every, on
average, about every two and a half years. So, if you miss this one, wait for the next one. It's not going to be that long.
ASHER: So, I loved what you said about just understanding the sort of science of it, because obviously the Moon is a lot smaller than the Sun,
but it's also much closer to the Earth. So, briefly, they're going to sort of appear to be the same size when the Moon covers the Sun.
What is that moment going to feel like, right? Because I understand that temperatures drop. I mean, obviously, it's such a sight to see. It's
beautiful, but temperatures do drop, and I understand that animals react as well.
TYSON: Yeah, I think the animal that acts most strangely are humans.
ASHER: Go figure --
TYSON: Personally, that's my assessment in the Animal Kingdom. Just let's consider that the moon is always out there in space, and it always has a
shadow, a conical shadow through space. It's always there. It's just a matter of whether the geometry of the Earth, Moon, Sun is such that that
shadow crosses Earth's surface.
[11:40:00]
And it does so. So, the Moon orbits the Earth at one kilometer per second. That's the speed that the shadow is moving through space. And as it crosses
Earth, Earth is also turning with it, so it doesn't move quite that fast across the Earth's surface, but it still moves fast. A 1000 kilometers per
hour easily.
And this particular eclipse, as we see in the graphic, it starts well up there beyond Greenland. So, all the billions of people in Greenland, you're
going to see.
ASHER: But apparently --
TYSON: Greenland it just -- it just nips Iceland and comes down and goes smack through Spain, right smack dab through Spain. You don't have --
practically you don't have to go anywhere to see a total eclipse if you live there.
ASHER: Yeah, and a lot of people in Spain are very excited about this. But talk to us about the safety, right? Because you do have to wear protective
glasses to look at the total solar eclipse.
TYSON: Yeah, yeah, a very important fact. The Sun is not especially more dangerous during an eclipse than otherwise. You wouldn't just spend your
day looking out at the Sun. You just wouldn't do that. So, you don't do that during the partial phases of an eclipse unless you have special
glasses like these.
And you can -- I can't see you at all now. Where are you? It's only very bright sources of light will get through these glasses, as is displayed in
your graphics there. And there's many of merchants that sell them, and they're great for the partial phases where the Moon begins to cover the
Sun, because the Sun is still visible to you.
But during totality, the entire Sun sits behind the Moon. You can remove the glasses and look up, and gaze and a gap at the Sun. What's interesting
about this eclipse, which makes it a little rarer than other eclipses, that is happening very late in the day, just before sunset, and often the Sun is
very is much dimmer during sunset anyway.
So, as was said in the woman, the tourist in Madrid who you interviewed just at the beginning of this segment, it adds a little bit of romance to
the eclipse because you will see. You can take pictures of it. There'll be a horizon there, maybe buildings or mountains or trees, and there's the
eclipsing Sun laid bare for you to view.
Now, my issue with this eclipse is that in Spain, it's like a minute long, at most a minute 15 seconds. It peaks at about 2.5 minutes if you're in the
North Atlantic, up near between Greenland and Iceland. So, it's not a long eclipse, and many of the places that the Moon shadow will pass, the cloud
prospects are not very good.
Some are likely to have you know half cloud cover, so I'm hoping people get good conditions for this. Now you ask what it would feel like. So, shadows
get really weird because the illumination, the source of illumination, the Sun gets thinner and thinner. You know what that does?
That sharpens the edges of your shadows. And the world takes on this creepy, eerie, shadowy theory to it.
ASHER: Wow.
TTYSON: And during totality, you'll feel a temperature drop, because the Sun is radiating on you, and then it goes away. You will feel colder during
that totality. And what I'll invite people to watch is because the eclipse is so short. It means the width of the shadow on Earth is very narrow,
which means if you look left or right of the eclipse, you will see outside of the shadow where it's still lit by the Sun.
And that's a fascinating bit of geometry to participate in. You're in the shadow, but you know 100 kilometers to your east or your west, they're not
in the shadow. And it's like this slice coming right down above your head. So, I hope everybody enjoys it. I'm slated. I might go to one in 2028. That
one hits Australia.
ASHER: OK.
TYSON: That's 5.5 minutes of an eclipse. That one hits even more.
ASHER: Honestly, I thought that what we were going to see in Spain was two minutes, but you're saying it's so quick, it's just one minute.
TYSON: No, no. So, if you look at, yeah, they'll say how long is this eclipse? They'll give you the maximum. It's like 2 to 2.5 minutes in the
North Atlantic. Is that where you're going to be? No, you're in Madrid. So yeah, all the times for Spain is just over, barely over a minute. So, you
don't want to miss that one. No.
ASHER: So, this is like a Super Bowl for you. I mean, obviously, this is what you do for work. You're not going to be in Spain. You're not going to
be in Portugal. You're not going to be in Iceland. But how are you going to be celebrating this moment?
[11:45:00]
TYSON: Well, so consider, by the way, Portugal, the path of totality, just kisses the upper right, the north east edge of Portugal. But the rest of
Portugal gets a partial eclipse, and Europe will get a partial eclipse. So, the Sun will pass, the Moon will pass in front of the Sun, but not
completely.
So, you need your glasses, and you'll see like a crescent Sun, depending on how close you are to the path of totality. But I will take any excuse for
people to look up.
ASHER: Can I just say I love your excitement. I love your --
TYSON: You get into less trouble looking up.
ASHER: -- about this. You know, it's just -- it's just beautiful to watch you light up.
TYSON: Well, thank you, but we all should. It's our universe. It's not my universe.
ASHER: OK. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, thank you, thank you so much for joining us in this Author of "Take Me to Your Leader". All right, a quick programming
note for you. CNN's extensive coverage of the total solar eclipse gets underway Wednesday, 01:00 o'clock in the afternoon Eastern Time, 06:00 p.m.
if you are watching from London, we'll be right back with more.
TYSON: Excellent. Happy to observe.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ASHER: President Donald Trump is moving to overhaul how childhood vaccines are recommended in the United States. A new executive order calls for fewer
routine immunizations in the early years, leaving some to only those considered high risk.
The order also calls for an altered timeline to receive those vaccines, splitting up the MMR, Measles, Mumps, and Rubella shots. Our Health
Reporter Jacqueline Howard joins us live now with more. So, what are the risks in terms of splitting up these vaccines? There are -- there is a lot
of concern about this.
JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Zain, many health officials and physicians do have some concerns about splitting up these vaccines because
they worry that when you split up the MMR vaccine into single disease shots, so just the measles or the mumps or the rubella.
That means more shots for children, and some children might not come back for these repeated doctor visits to get those shots. And then, if they
don't complete all of their vaccinations, they may not be fully protected against those diseases. So, what this executive order does?
It takes childhood vaccinations and places them into different categories, recommending fewer vaccines for all children.
[11:50:00]
The immunizations recommended for all children in this executive order are the vaccines that you'll see on this list: Measles, Mumps, Rubella, DTAP,
Polio, HIB, Pneumococcal, HPV, and Chickenpox. Those are the immunizations recommended for all children in the executive order.
In another category, the executive order names immunizations that it says should be administered based on shared decision making with the doctor. So,
these would not be broadly recommended for all. These include Hepatitis A and B, Rotavirus, Meningococcal Disease, Flu Shots, and COVID-19
vaccinations.
A third category are vaccinations that are recommended for only certain high-risk groups, and that category includes immunizations like the RSV
immunization, among others. Now, like you said, Zain, there are some medical groups and physicians who are pushing back when it comes to this
executive order, they say they have concerns.
In a statement, the President of the American Academy of Pediatrics had this to say, as measles cases reach a 35-year high in the U.S. and with
cold and flu season quickly approaching, today's executive order on vaccines is not only disheartening but dangerous.
Instead of insuring every family can access life-saving vaccines for Measles, Influenza, RSV, and more, federal leaders are once again spreading
misleading claims. Today's executive order is not based on gold standard science. There is no new evidence to justify significant changes.
So, Zain, that seems to be the consensus among medical groups saying that we don't have new evidence to support these changes to the vaccine schedule
for children.
ASHER: All right, Jacqueline Howard, live for us there. Thank you so much for your reporting. We'll be right back with more after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ASHER: All right, a sigh of relief from Harry Potter fans today after saving the grave of the character Dobby from a massive energy project
involving an underwater cable. It was near where fans had created Dobby's unofficial memorial in Wales. CNN's Ivana Scatola has details.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVANA SCATOLA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Potter fans managed to get an electricity project re-rooted all to protect Dobby's grave. The grave is
actually a memorial for the fictional character on a beach in Wales, where Dobby's death scene was filmed.
[11:55:00]
It's a popular tourist spot where fans leave stones and some travel across the world to visit. The GreenLink Interconnector carries electricity
between Britain and Ireland through cables going under the Irish Sea. During the project's development, its planned route was set to go through
the fan-made memorial to Dobby the Elf.
That's before fans caught wind of the plan. Former Project Manager Simon Ludlam said in a podcast. He said they received hundreds of calls
protesting the route after the plans were revealed, so they ultimately changed the planned route to avoid the grave. It's actually not the first
time the memorial has been saved.
In 2022, the National Trust considered removing it or relocating it because of the environmental impact it was having on the beach. In the end, they
decided that it could stay open as long as visitors stopped leaving socks and other items that could harm the environment.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ASHER: Many thanks to our Ivana Scatola. Unfortunately, the plan adjustment now places the cable near a Bronze Age archeological site. CNN has reached
out to GreenLink for comment. All right, stay with CNN. I'll have much more "One World" after this short break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
END
