Jamaica Braces For Worst Hurricane Ever To Hit Island

27:17and clearly the moves that he's doing right now is getting him a lot of national attention, Jake. So, Alex, you have this new show. It's called The Story Is. It starts tonight. It's 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Pacific time where you are, midnight to 2 here on the East Coast. You get two hours to do whatever you want. What are some of your thoughts about what are you going to do? Are you going to lean into, obviously, breaking news, But what about like you're in L.A., the capital of show business? Is there going to be a little bit more show business going on? What are your plans? Well, it's going to be a mix.

27:53So we've got clearly going to do politics and breaking news and a lot of the West Coast thought leaders on that. But it's an opportunity to have more fun. So we're going to be doing entertainment and technology, which is all based here in Silicon Valley. And we're going to be doing pop culture stuff. So it's a mix of a lot of fun, interesting, dynamic people and with a more laid back West Coast late night feel. And we're excited to get started. And hopefully soon enough, we'll have Jake Tapper as a guest. And absolutely. And I'll tell you, like, it is a great opportunity not just to reach the insomniacs here on the East Coast, But people in the Pacific are really going to appreciate a live show from 9 p.m.

28:36to 11 p.m. Pacific time when everybody else is in reruns. Everybody else is in reruns. And so we'll be live. So tonight, when the hurricane is happening, we'll be live. When President Trump is going to be with President Xi later in the week, we'll be live. I mean, it's an opportunity. There's breaking news happening all the time. CNN is going to be on it while the other networks are in reruns. While they're sleeping. While they're sleeping, you'll be on the case. Alex Michelson, thank you so much. Great to see you, and I'll see you soon. Thanks, Jake. And again, the story is, I'm sorry, the show is called The Story Is with Alex Michelson.

29:09It debuts tonight. It'll air every weeknight, midnight Eastern, 9 p.m. Pacific, only here on CNN. Here in studio is the panel. Honestly, it's a great idea. It's a wonderful idea. I could have saved him that interview and told him that that guy's going to run for president. I could have saved that whole thing. That's not to be saved. Oh, sorry. We want to hear it from Newsom. Oh, my bad. We want to hear it from Newsom, Chuck. Okay, just making sure y 'all do. Before we get to 2028, we're eight days from this year's election day and a year out from the midterms, which means it is also a perfect time to talk about 2028.

29:42That's right. So there's a bunch of, there's going to be no shortage of Democrats running. There's like three generations of Democrats. I'd like to call it a battle royale for the whole new Rashid fans. So here is what former Vice President Kamala Harris told the BBC this weekend. Have you made a decision yet? No, I have not. But you say in your book, I'm not done. That is correct. I am not done. I have lived my entire career a life of service. And it's in my bones. And there are many ways to serve. I have not decided yet. So what are the honest, just, okay, you're a consultant, right? What are the honest decisions that Newsom, Harris, others have to make?

30:26Like they're not just going to it's not just vibes, right? They have to figure out polling, fundraising. Like how do they make how do they get to the decision? The second piece of that is the most important. I wrote about this in my book, Teal Bernie, about how early we started the Bernie race. And this was the second time he ran. The first time it was a shock to all of us. We know we're raising money. It would be a real campaign. Oh, my God, we call it the car, as we say. But it's about the money. And when we'd get together, we would test message to see if there was an audience to actually raise money in a six, eight, ten person field, which is what you're getting at here.

30:57It's going to be a lot of people, but there's only so much money, even if a bunch of individuals are giving it. So it's the infrastructure to raise money from individuals. The big donors will have their super PACs like they always do, but how much money can you raise from small donors over a long period of time? Is there any Democrat that you look at and you think, this person really could go the distance? No. Really not? Not at all. And to the vice president's chagrin, I think this is really about trying to be relevant. I mean, we've all moved on. We're not thinking about the vice president with all due respect to the former vice president.

31:29We're not really thinking about the former president either. Anytime I do read something about the vice president, with the exception of this book tour, is the fact that the DNC is still paying off debts from a campaign that raised one billion dollars. And so to Chuck's point, I've worked on a number of campaigns, presidential, local, state. What you find is, to your point of that sort of small number of major donors that one can pull from, Where can the vice president go, Chuck, to raise money, number one? Number two, what's the constituency? Now, I know the vice president did fairly well with black women, but numerically speaking, that is not enough to build a coalition to turn out the vote, to see the vice president move up numerically against the eight individuals that Chuck mentioned.

32:10And so, to me, I'm not really worried about 2028. And I think, as the president just recently stated, we're looking at J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio. Rubio, in particular, is very attractive, very talented. He said that, but he also, in response to the fact that Steve Bannon, his former Svengali, is out there, whether he's trolling or serious, I can't tell, talking about Trump running for a third term, which is, of course, not allowed by the U.S. Constitution. This is what President Trump had to say when asked about that. I would love to do it. I have my best numbers ever. It's very terrible. I have my best numbers.

32:46I mean, fact check. He does not have his best numbers ever. He is underwater. He's a negative 9.5 percent. But he also rejected the idea that he could serve a third term legally by having J.D. Vance run for president. He runs for vice president. And then Vance gets into office and resigns. And they do a switcheroo. Here's what Trump had to say to that. Yeah, I wouldn't rule that out because it's too cute. I think the people wouldn't like that. It's too cute. It's not. It wouldn't be right. So I know you're going to lean into this Vance Rubio thing, but he's still talking about running for a third term.

33:23Yeah, he's still talking about it because reporters are going to Steve Bannon. And to my knowledge, I don't think Steve Bannon has much of an influence on the policy at the White House directly or indirectly. He had a meeting with Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries to avert this government shutdown. And he put Trump 2028 hats on the table. And, Jake, that's a bit of trolling, as we like to say, right? The president answered this the proper way, which is to acknowledge and admit it will be a violation of the Constitution. He can't do it. He went on to pivot by saying we have two strong candidates being the current vice president.

33:58The secretary of state has 50 million jobs. So not only do we have two attractive candidates, but you have two attractive candidates who can actually get the job done. And again, if you're looking at the other side, my question is a side that's lost among men, a side that's only gained, according to their own autopsy report that just came out, among white liberals. And so to me, if I'm looking ahead the next two and a half years, I'm not looking at a rival party that makes me nervous as a strategist. I'm looking at a rival party that's going to be easy to beat. Chuck, I want to get your reaction to something that just caught my eye.

34:29Trump administration's Department of Labor has this new social media campaign using these Norman Rockwell-style posters, such as this image of a family in a church with the text, A Dream Worth Fighting For. And there's this collection of images that we've seen on the Department of Labor's Twitter and Instagram account. It's really, we searched for ones that didn't look like this of white men or white people. And we couldn't really, it's not really a representation of the country's workforce, Chuck. What's going on here? I think that this is Donald Trump trying to sell an America first idea. like his ideological value has always been America first.

35:12And as a non-college educated working man who grew up in a trailer house in East Texas, who's a Democrat, sure, Michael, I'll say that people are people as me over here. Count me. He is he's he knows what he's doing when he messages this. The problem is, is that folks are starting to understand that they can't understand or believe what he says, because he said he wasn't going to touch the structure at the White House. And now it's tore down. He said he was going to be American first. And he gave Argentina 40 billion dollars. He can put up all the nice pictures that he want. but folks are starting to read into it.

35:40We only have a few seconds left, but Trump making huge grounds with black men, with Latino men, et cetera. Yeah, I actually, my response to this, I would double down on all men across the board. I'd have images of black men. I'd have images of black, but I'm saying politically speaking, based on the numbers that we saw, the gains we made in November of 2024, I would double down on all men across the board. But that's my point is they're not doing that. Because it makes it competitive and difficult for Democrats. It's exactly why Ruben Gallego would make a great 2028 presidential candidate. All right.

36:10Latino man. Thanks to both. Good luck, Chuck. Appreciate also a veteran. That's right. Thank you, Jake. Reason number 999 to be frustrated with Washington and the current dysfunction. Congresswoman-elect Adelita Grijalva. She won her election. Speaker Johnson says she can't be sworn in right now because the government shut down. So how is that sitting with the Arizona voters who elected her? That's next.

36:36Craig Ferguson is going coast to coast to unpack what it really means to be an American today. What could possibly go wrong? Craig Ferguson, American on purpose. New episodes now streaming on the CNN app. Go to CNN.com slash watch to subscribe or log in with your TV provider. In our politics lead, it has been more than a month, 34 days to be precise, since Arizona voters elected Adelita Grijalva in a special election to Congress for a seat that had been previously held by her father, Raul Grijalva, who died in March. That, but still, the Congresswoman-elect is not officially a Congresswoman because she has not yet been sworn in.

37:15Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson says she won't be sworn in until the shutdown is over. CNN's Steve Quintorna went to Tucson, Arizona, to hear from Grijalva's constituents who are frankly waiting for representation in Congress.

37:31Voters here elected Democrat Adelita Grijalva over a month ago to replace her late father, but they're still waiting for their voice in Washington. What is it like not having a representative at this moment? It's frustrating because it's something that should be just a given and for them to kind of hold us hostage to get what's going on. It's political baloney. Arizona's 7th District spans 300 miles of desert along the U.S.-Mexico border. It's home to an Air Force range, a major university, and a large veterans hospital. It's the middle of the day and we're walking up on what is the Tucson District Office, a black ribbon for the late congressman, but the office is closed and actually there's a sign saying to contact the senators instead.

38:17Grijalva says she thinks Republicans are stalling her swearing-in because she would be the final House member needed to push for a floor vote to release the Epstein files. If Donald is innocent, why wouldn't he want them totally out? Republican Daniel Gutierrez lost to Grijalva in the September special election and said he would have also voted to release the files. I just think that's just a talking point. He argued the district hasn't had representation for the past two years, noting the hundreds of votes Grijalva's father missed while undergoing cancer treatment. The fact is Grijalva was physically incapable of representing Arizona and he should have stepped down.

38:58He didn't. So why didn't anybody care then? Machine shop owner and Republican voter Jerry Ward said the lack of representation doesn't concern him yet. We're not going to have much of a voice, I don't think, under Grijalva as a Republican. but she definitely needs to get her seat and if she's patient, it will happen. But it's not just about politics. Some say they no longer have access to the help they need. Here I am paying taxes to the federal government. Not only is it closed, but I don't have a representative either. Rachel Wilson is an immigration attorney who typically contacts the congressional office weekly for federal assistance.

39:39It's ringing. We listened as she tried calling the local district office. Hello, this is Raul Wiggy Kahnba. It went to voicemail. She then called the D.C. office. Please call our Tucson office. Call the Tucson office. We just tried calling the Tucson office. Yeah, yeah. And the thing is, I mean, we can't. Our senators are helpful as well, but they don't know our district like the Grijalvas do. Grijalva has an office in Washington, but she says she lacks resources to help constituents back home. Only in recent days did she get a government email, instead relying on less secure technology. We're using text and signal, Google chat.

40:17Speaker Mike Johnson says he'll swear her in when the House comes back in session and reopens the government. Until then, she can't vote and she says she needs to be escorted around certain parts of Capitol Hill. I am basically a tourist with an office in D.C. The Democratic Attorney General of Arizona has sued to force the House to seek Rojava, but Speaker Mike Johnson says the state has no jurisdiction in Congress and, quote, rerun the House. Back to you. Welcome to the lead. I'm Dick Tapper. This hour, Hurricane Melissa is now the strongest storm on planet Earth this year. The storm is bearing down on Jamaica tonight as a deadly Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of 175 miles per hour.

41:04The storm's turbulence is so rough, even a hurricane hunter flight aborted its mission. CNN's live on the ground in Jamaica ahead of landfall. Plus, millions of low-income Americans who rely upon food stamps are at risk of losing them in just days due to this government shutdown. The program is set to run out of money this weekend, but the Trump administration says they're not going to tap into the emergency funds they have to keep food stamps running. Will this deadline force Democrats and Republicans to make any sort of deal? And brand new questions about President Trump's health after he told reporters that he got an MRI scan during a recent trip to Walter Reed.

41:43Trump won't say why he needed an MRI or why he made this unusual second hospital visit when presidents usually have their checkups only once a year.

41:59The lead tonight, one of the strongest storms ever recorded in the Atlantic, is heading straight for Jamaica. This is an urgent situation. Category 5 Melissa has sustained winds of 175 miles per hour with stronger gusts and is expected to make landfall in Jamaica early tomorrow. Mandatory evacuation orders have been issued. Officials are predicting widespread flooding and landslides and extensive infrastructure damage that will cut off potentially entire communities. The entire Caribbean region is on high alert. CNN's Patrick Oppmann is on the ground in Cuba. But we're going to start with CNN's Derek Van Dam in Kingston, the capital on the south of Jamaica.

42:36Derek. Yeah, Jake, what our viewers need to know is that this is now the strongest storm on the planet in 2025. At 175 miles per hour, this monster is slowly crawling towards an eventual, unavoidable direct hit with the south coast of Jamaica. Here within the next 24 hours, we're in Kingston right now where we have a triple threat of not only storm surge closer to the coast, that's behind me to the right, as well as flash flooding, mudslides and landslides, the catastrophic wind. This is why it's so important and imperative to have this exact forecast track as we finalize the moments leading up to the landfall, because we do see more of a trend in the models that will be more of a west side of Jamaica that will get the catastrophic winds that will make that area potentially cutting off communities for days, according to the National Hurricane Center.

43:30You can see the palm trees, they're not even swaying. So we don't have the wind at this moment in time. But, of course, the worst is still yet to come for the country. And when we talk about Jamaica in particular, this area is surrounded by mountains. The Blue Mountains, you may have heard of Blue Mountain Coffee, you may drink that. That's all farmed here in the mountains behind Kingston, the nation's capital. About a million people reside here. But that water that will be funneled in from those mountain ranges will make its way down through the communities and the valleys below. And that is what we are so concerned of.

44:05So, yes, maybe the capital city will be spared the worst catastrophic winds. But the rain and the flash flood threat and mudslide threat is very real here. So there have been preparations on the ground. We talked to the prime minister earlier today. He said that they have buses funneling in and out of some of the hardest and most vulnerable areas across the south coast of Jamaica. And there are over 800 emergency shelters that have been evacuated. They're trying their hardest to get every person, the most vulnerable communities out of harm's way as quickly as possible. Jake. Patrick Oppmann in Cuba, after Jamaica, Hurricane Melissa is expected to hit Cuba.

44:45How seriously are Cubans taking this? Well, we've already seen some of the tens of thousands of people who have been evacuated across this island here in Santiago de Cuba, where you have a lot of low-lying areas. We've seen the government come in today and tell people they need to just get the belongings and leave. Some people resisting that. But if you are in the low-lying areas, there will be that storm surge. There are mountains behind me as well, just like in Jamaica. And you will see heavy, heavy rain, which could lead to rivers going over the banks, to dams failing. So there are any number of threats to this region.

45:19And in an impoverished country, Jake, you just don't have the kinds of supplies you see elsewhere. So people have been lining up today just to buy water, to buy a little bit of bread, to get some cash out of an ATM. And those simple transactions sometimes take hours and hours. Behind me on roofs all day long, we saw people taking down structures that could be turned into missiles by Hurricane Melissa's powerful winds. And so this is very scary for an island nation where people simply cannot evacuate. They're going to have to hunker down where they are or go stay with relatives or go into shelters.

45:51But they won't be able to get out of the way of this storm. And so hundreds of thousands of people will be threatened by a direct hit from Melissa. It's expected to come here as a major hurricane, Category 3 or stronger. And that could just be catastrophic. I remember being here in 2012 when Hurricane Sandy came through Santiago de Cuba and leveled much of this city. And that is still considered a once in a generation type hurricane by the many people here who survived it. We hear the government say today that as bad as Sandy was back then, Melissa is going to be far worse. All right, Patrick Ottman in Cuba, Derek Van Dam in Jamaica.

46:27Thanks to you both. Please be safe, both of you. Joining us now from Kingston, Jamaica, is Jonathan Petromala. He's a journalist and a documentarian who focuses on documenting major disaster events. So, Jonathan, based on the latest forecast, what sort of damage are you expecting to see as Hurricane Melissa aims directly at Jamaica? I'll be honest, Jake. It's been a really tough year as far as weather models go and consistency. The cuts this last spring, I think, are having an impact in terms of what we know what to expect. And even in this late hour with Hurricane Melissa, we experts in tracking storms like this are having trouble deciding exactly where this is going to be, what the main impacts are going to be.

47:11Is it still going to make that right hand curve here in Kingston? The biggest threat is going to be not necessarily the wind, but absolutely the rain. You know, the mountains right above us that feeds into the rivers. It's got the water is going to rush down those mountains into what they call goalies. And just like they have in Los Angeles, what they do here in the goalies, they have them made into cement. And that's good because it rushes the water into the ocean. But if these forecasts ring true in terms of 20, 30 inches of rain and it comes in a short amount of time, that's going to overwhelm the system.

47:44And so the water will leave the banks, go into communities. And so the government has been rushing for the last few days, clearing out some of these goalies. We saw one just to the east of Kingston today, a backhoe working away, trying to dig underneath an overpass, trying to clear that path enough so the water will indeed rush to the ocean. And instead of leaving its banks and going into homes and businesses that ride along that goalie. Have you ever actually been in the middle of a storm as as powerful as this one is forecast to be? hurricane barrel last year in karaku we were the only two journalists in the path of that storm as it came across just north of grenada into that tiny island the eye directly went over our head the hotel we were staying in the roof flew off above where we were we were filming and documenting the front eye wall so yeah we've been in a storm almost similar exactly to melissa of course melissa appears to be a different beast.

48:43It's stronger. But you get to that upper level, category four, category five level, and it's absolutely a terrifying sound. It sounds like a jet engine as the winds really start to kick off in that front eye wall. And then if you're in the center of that eye, as it crosses above you, you get that stillness. You can maybe even see the blue sky above you and then the backside comes so you can imagine the front side winds blow everything one direction it's like if you're bending a twig you bend it that one direction and then the backside of the eye comes with winds going the opposite direction and everything breaks and it becomes a tsunami of debris so absolutely the winds are going to be terrifying in this but it's going to be contained just along around that core of the storm the eye of the storm and the eye wall surrounding it.

49:35So it's not going to be a massive wind field. This is going to be a buzz saw. But as you get further away, the winds might lessen. But the problem is when it drags that moisture with it, all of that rain, if a rain band were to set up right over Kingston, it could be quite disastrous in a different way from just the violence of the water coming in off the mountains. Jonathan, earlier in the show, we talked to Jamaica's information minister who expressed concern that not enough locals, not enough Jamaicans are heeding the evacuation requests and heading to the shelters. Can you shed any light on that for us?

50:10What's your experience with talking to locals? I went to what's a town called Port Royal, Jamaica. It's a very historic village. It sits on a literal spit of sand, just a sandbar, essentially. It's by the International Airport. It's about 10 miles into the harbor here around Kingston. And it's a fishing village now. No one there plans to evacuate. And what happens in these situations, Jake, there's a couple of situations that happen with this. First and foremost, people take into account what they've experienced in the past. That's the lived experience is what people make decisions on more than what people are warning.

50:48And so folks around here went through Hurricane Gilbert in 1988. And they survived and nothing happened to their homes. For instance, they're on Port Royal. And so they're going to stay based on that. Another factor is resources. A lot of poverty exists here. And the resources are very difficult for people to leave their home, leave it unprotected and go to a shelter. And then they don't know when they're going to come back. And that provides a whole other level of stress on people that often they don't want to make those decisions to go away from home because then they don't know if and when they're going to be able to go back.

51:24It could be days, could be weeks. And they've had bad experiences in the past in shelters. And so I think those factors are really what's keeping those people away. just lived experiences from past storms, even though each storm is its own storm with its own circumstances and own hazards. It's really difficult to convince people what's coming, especially in a storm like this, which has been crawling ashore for so many days. And at this point, the weight is making people think, is this really going to be as bad as everybody's been talking about? Because we haven't really experienced anything yet.

51:57And it's been, you know, since Wednesday, at least. Jonathan Petromala in Kingston, Jamaica, thank you so much. Please stay safe. We'll continue to track this monster storm as it bears down on the Caribbean and threatens to drop up to 40 inches of rain in some places. Plus, the new question's swirling about President Trump's health after he reveals that he got an MRI. But he won't say why.

52:22Sorry about the technical issues, folks. We're back in our health lead, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, here to discuss President Trump's recent disclosure that he had an MRI during this unusual second physical he's had this year. Dr. Reiner, sorry about that. What is an MRI? Why would somebody need to have one done? An MRI is an advanced imaging test performed by radiologists, which uses this really remarkable technology that involves a strong magnetic field and radio waves, and it basically realigns your hydrogen ions and then lets them relax back, and different tissues have different signals that come back.

53:04And this technology can provide very detailed images of virtually any body part. But we don't even know what type of MR he had. We don't know whether he had a head or brain MRI. We don't know if he had an MRI of the chest or abdomen or prostate. And we don't know what symptoms promulgated this kind of testing. I will say that just routine MRI testing is not part of a standard physical, either in the civilian world or in the White House executive medicine world. So obviously some kind of complaint or symptom or physical finding prompted the White House medical team to go ahead and get an MRI. And again, it's important to understand that the White House can do a lot of testing in the White House.

53:51And you only go to Walter Reed when you need a test that just simply cannot be performed there, like an MRI. So it made sense that he was going there for a certain test like this. And in fact, his physician, Dr. Barbara Bella, said, in fact, he used a euphemism. He said, we did advanced imaging. I'm not sure why he just didn't come out and say he had an MRI, but now we know. So over the summer, the president was diagnosed with chronic venous insufficiency. We all have seen the swelling in his ankles and the bruising on his hands, sometimes the bruising covered with heavy makeup. Is any of that related to his need to get an MRI?

54:34Maybe. Those symptoms didn't quite match, you know, make sense to me. First of all, they called the swelling in his legs chronic venous insufficiency, which it could be, except his yearly physical in April stated that he had no swelling. So swelling in July would be acute venous insufficiency, which is entirely different animal than chronic venous insufficiency. The bruising in his hands, they say that he's bruising because he shakes a lot of hands, but that's not really a likely scenario. we see bruising on the back of hands of people who are on blood thinners. And while it's possible the president is on it, his team has never disclosed that.

55:18So who knows? People take blood thinners, if he is taking a blood thinner, for things like atrial fibrillation or history of pulmonary embolism or deep vein thromboses in the leg. But again, the White House hasn't disclosed that that is indeed the reason for the bruising. An MRI of the head, if indeed he had an MRI of the brain would be done to interrogate a symptom. Did the president have transient slurred speech or weakness or tingling? If it was a different part of the body, MRI can be used to assess the heart. It's a very elegant test for examining cardiac function and structure. Look, there's no sin in being tested at age 79.

56:06Everybody has something and our president doesn't need to be superhuman. Yeah, I just wish presidents would disclose everything, whether this one or the last one or the next one. Just disclose everything. The American people deserve it. Dr. Jonathan Reiner, thank you so much. Appreciate it. In our world lead right now, a U.S. warship, the guided missile destroyer USS Gravely is docked off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago. Joining the close by USS Gerald Ford aircraft carrier, dubbed the most lethal combat platform in the world by the U.S. Navy. both blaring signs of President Trump's campaign to increase military pressure on neighboring Venezuela and its strongman leader, Nicolas Maduro, whom Trump accuses of orchestrating drug trafficking into the U.S.

56:51Maduro criticized the U.S. ship movement as an attempt by the U.S. to create a, quote, new eternal war. Maduro's vice president claims they've already captured CIA-linked mercenaries in Venezuela. Joining us now is retired U.S. Navy Vice Admiral John Fozzie Miller. Vice Admiral Miller, thank you so much for joining us. Give us a sense of what these two ships are capable of. Thanks for having me. A carrier is an extraordinarily capable platform all by itself, whether it's the forward or one of our U.S. class carriers. It brings with us a tremendous amount of air power, strike fighters, about 44 or so strike fighters, electronic attack, airborne early warning for surveillance.

57:30All of the super hornets that are embarked can do surveillance as well. So intelligence gathering, there's large staffs on the carrier that can take in this intelligence and evaluate it and make assessments and recommendations. And of course, we have one or more destroyers that are going to come with the Ford, and they're capable of carrying land attack missiles, anti-submarine missiles, anti-ship missiles. So quite a formidable platform. So Democratic Senator Mark Kelly, he served in the Navy. He says that a president either deploys a battle group because he's trying to intimidate or trying to start combat operations.

58:08Which one do you think this is? Well, we move carriers around the world routinely. To intimidate. Well, in order to make sure that people understand that we're interested in what's going on in that part of the world. And certainly you do that when you bring an aircraft carrier into a region. You're as visible as you want to be. We can say that we're deploying that carrier, but they'll never see it. Or maybe they will see it. It'll get close enough to land to be able to see it, but they'll know it's there. So it does indicate an interest on the part of the United States. Is that intimidating? I think for the most part, yes.

58:40And that's the reason we send them, is to send a signal. So the U.S. has been conducting these strikes against boats that the Trump administration asserts are boats of narco-terrorists. The Columbia's president has called them extrajudicious. We've also heard some criticism of that from Democrats on the Capitol Hill, even a Republican or two. What do you think of the Trump administration carrying out these strikes in international waters and justifying it by designating these individuals as terrorists? Well, that's really a discussion for members of Congress and policymakers. In terms of what the aviators are doing or what the ships are doing in attacking these ships, I think one of the things that we can be proud of, at least, is that they're conducting themselves in a very professional way.

59:32So they receive a set of orders. They deem them to be a set of legal orders. They carry out those orders, and they do so quite professionally. Whether or not that's the right thing from a policy standpoint, that's a different discussion. Does the U.S. Navy, when it gets an order like that, this is a newly, this is a new theory, the idea that the powers that presidents have been using to strike people with ISIS or Al Qaeda, that the U.S. can now do this on narco traffickers under the decision by the Trump administration that they are terrorists too. Does the U.S. Navy have its own jags that check that out?

1:00:11Or do we just take the president's word for it? Well, all of the chain of command has has a jag officer so that's everybody from the secretary of defense down through the combatant commander in this case uh down at southern command uh to the strike group commander on board the fort they all have lawyers that they can talk to they understand the rules of engagement they have a chance to make an input into those rules of engagement so this is all done in a in a very well-defined process and and there are no surprises there's no doubt when someone goes up and man's up an airplane, that the mission that they're tasked to carry on is a mission that they're legally authorized to do.

1:00:51Retired Vice Admiral John Fozzie Miller, thank you, sir. Great to have you here. Appreciate it. Millions of Americans who depend on food stamps are at risk of losing this help in just days due to the federal government shutdown. Is there any hope for a deal before that happens? I'll ask a Democratic senator in moments.

1:01:10You ever have somebody offer to come home with you from the hardware store? I am giving away a room makeover. Where's the catch? Three days to complete this renovation. You have no say in the design, and we start today. Oh, wow. You're not just gonna steal everything. Surprise! Ready to get your house cracked? For real? A little dated. It's time to turn this over to us. You guys gotta get out of here. Gotta get out of here. Crashers all new Monday at 10 on HGTV. Lord, remind our lawmakers that no gold medals are given for breaking shutdown records. Senate chaplain earlier today appealing to lawmakers on day 27 of the shutdown, the second longest in American history.

1:02:00A critical deadline looms this week. SNAP food assistance benefits are set to expire Saturday for more than 40 million low-income Americans. The Department of Agriculture says that they will not use their$6 billion contingency fund to cover the program, setting up another pressure campaign along party lines. Joining us now, Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar from the state of Minnesota. Senator, the federal workers union said today that it's time to reopen the government. And here's what one mother who relies on SNAP or food stamps. Here's what she told CNN's Pamela Brown earlier today about how she feels about the partisan fighting on Capitol Hill.

1:02:38Take a listen. We're really taking the actual hit of the effects of their choices. And if we don't receive relief soon, it can put people in desperate situations to make mistakes that they cannot come back from. and that's not okay. So you guys should both to come to whatever consensus that needs to be done in order to put the American people first. So what's your message to her? It's very clear the Republicans right now could make sure that those food benefits that I have fought so hard all year, they're the ones that cut them and I strongly opposed it. They could make sure that she got the help that she needs.

1:03:23We know it because we could read it on their website that they nicely took down, but we got a screenshot on September 30th when they sent out, the USDA put out their plan for the shutdown, and they said multi-year contingency funds are available to fund participant benefits in the event that a lapse occurs, and now they have taken that down. They know they have the funding to do it. It is very sad that the president has decided to turn his focus to raising money for a ballroom that's going to cost 300 million or more dollars instead of coming to the table and negotiating as every shutdown has ended with compromise, with a negotiation.

1:04:10But you asked before we got to this segment if there's going to be a negotiation. Well, not unless he is serious about it and comes to the table because the House isn't even here because they're afraid of voting on the Epstein files. He has to demand the House comes back and he has to come to the negotiating table. But even before that, they could give those benefits to this recipient. The last government shutdown was because Republicans wanted money for the wall and Democrats in the majority said no. The one before that was because Republicans wanted to end Obamacare and Democrats in the majority said no.

1:04:50This one is Democrats saying we want health care changes, especially these Obamacare subsidies, extended and Republicans are saying no. I'm not sure what compromises were made in those previous government shutdown compromises to end the shutdown. My recollection is that the minority party, then Republicans, in your case Democrats, finally just folded. Obviously, you're fighting for... With all due respect, I was in the negotiations for the second longest one, the Ted Cruz shutdown. And that was major negotiations that went on between the leadership in the Senate. I was in some of those rooms. And then between a group of senators.

1:05:34That went on and there was an agreement made on a number of fronts. That is not happening right now. They are not serious about it. And by the way, when you look at these healthcare premiums, it is premiums that are going to double for millions of Americans. And they've already started to get their notices. They know what's happening. The November 1st is the day. That is the day when the marketplace opens. And a lot of my constituents are saying, we can't even afford to continue our healthcare. With Breast Cancer Month here, they don't have, if they don't have the insurance and they're not on a plan, they don't even get their screenings.

1:06:12This is the kind of thing we're talking about. So I don't see this as a demand for Democrats. I see this as a demand for the American people, especially given that 75 percent of the people on the Affordable Care Act live in states that Donald Trump want. My Republican colleagues are well aware that we should have negotiations and that many of them care a lot about an extension on these tax credits, which helps their constituents even more than it helps people in blue states. So what I'm saying is I think there is a possibility, but Donald Trump has to get serious about it and not use food as a bargaining chip, not use hungry children as a bargaining chip.

1:06:52I have other questions, but I'm told you have to go vote. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, thank you so much for your time. It's great to be on, Jake. Thank you. Heavy hitters turn out in the final days of the New York City mayor's race. The messages from Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as they rally for Zoran Mamdani to lead New York, New York. The city's so nice, they named it twice.

1:07:18In our politics lead, we are eight days out from the critical gubernatorial race in New Jersey. And as CNN's Arlette Saenz explains, it may all come down to the Latino vote.

1:07:31Two very different candidates for governor in New Jersey with a similar mission.

1:07:45Democrat Mikey Sherrill's insistence New Jersey is a blue state put to the test in her race against Republican Jack Cittarelli, one year after the state moved dramatically towards President Donald Trump. That shift fueled in large part by Latino voters, a group both parties are targeting in the final stretch. We need everybody here in Passaic County to get out the vote. No New Jersey county saw a bigger swing towards Trump than Passaic, home to the state's largest share of Latino residents. In 2020, Joe Biden beat Trump there by 16 points. Four years later, Trump flipped the county, defeating Kamala Harris there by nearly three points.

1:08:27I want you to continue to grow. I want you to continue to prosper. In his third run for governor, Cittarelli looking to build on that progress. There's two million Hispanic Americans that call New Jersey home. We've worked every minority community hard all across the state. Trump's gains in New Jersey mirror his improvement with Latinos nationwide in 2024. Latinos support Trump. I love you. A trend Democrats want to reverse. Why do you think Latino voters gravitated towards him? People are very cost sensitive here. He committed to driving those down and in fact has done the opposite. In this year's governor's race, both candidates putting economic concerns at the center of their pitches.

1:09:11On the first day of early voting, Democrat Jennifer Suarez said she's concerned about the treatment of immigrants in the U.S. and expressed frustration with the Latino shift towards Trump. This is my personal opinion. It's like the folks that are climbing the ladder and cut it down below them. And I'm not about that life. My family's not about that life. Because again, we want, you know, you want a better world for the future. Chittarelli is banking on voters like Leonardo Pomales. This is my first time actually voting for a governor. Pomales voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 before switching to Trump.

1:09:49The Democratic Party has always said they're going to do something. They don't. They only want our votes and then they don't do nothing. He's not perfect, but hey, that's what we want. We want to feel safe in our own country. Now, the Trump administration has said that they will be keeping an eye on this Passaic County. The Justice Department will send federal election monitors to polling sites there on Election Day after a request from the state Republican Party, which has alleged that there was vote by mail fraud in the past. Now, the Democratic state attorney general who leads the state's voter protection initiative, he has said that that move is highly inappropriate and as they're looking at all steps to try to prevent any voter intimidation from occurring.

1:10:27Oh, fascinating stuff. Stick around, Arlette. My panel joins me now. And Joan Goldberg, you heard Arlette report on Trump's gains with Latinos nationwide in 2024. Do you see this environment and Democrats like Mikey Sherrill in New Jersey or Abigail Spanberger in Virginia able to chip away at some of the leads that Donald Trump made? Well, part of the problem is connecting the governor's mansion with federal policy, which takes some political skill to do. It's also worth pointing out, though, that while it's absolutely true Trump gained impressively with Hispanics, his support among Hispanics right now has plummeted.

1:11:06And it kind of matters where those Hispanics are, though, and what ethnicity... The way we talk about Hispanics, like this monolithic bloc, is one of the dumbest things in American life, right? I mean, it's like talking about Europeans, like Russians and Swedes or something, or Russians and Ukrainians. Right, Cubans and Mexicans are quite different. Right, and so there are a lot of Puerto Ricanos in New Jersey that maybe aren't as affected necessarily as a lot of Mexican-Americans. But his support among Hispanics generally has really, really plummeted. And it would take a real bit of malpractice by Democrats not to figure out how to exploit them.

1:11:40Don't put it past them. They can always figure out a way to commit malpractice. New York City mayoral hopeful Zoran Mamdadi held a rally last night with Senator Bernie Sanders and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. When it came to messaging, they were in lockstep. Take a listen, Dave Weigel. New York must have a mayor who represents the working families of this city, not the billionaire class. While Donald Trump's billionaire donors think that they have the money to buy this election, we have a movement of the masses.

1:12:18Can that populism work for Democrats elsewhere? Well, I'm glad you said elsewhere. It has worked in New York. Bill de Blasio won two landslide elections with that message. Can it work elsewhere? I have a story in Semaphore today about centrist Democrats looking at what has worked and not worked for the party the last 12 years. Answer, basically, what has not worked is identity politics. Maybe using Duolingo and talking to Hispanic voters about immigration. what has worked is an economic focus. And they say Zoran has some of that. Do they think every message Zoran has is effective? No. Do they think bringing every single thing back to cost and being an outsider who's not responsible for inflation like Biden could be?

1:12:55That works. That will work everywhere. You're seeing that, I think, if Democrats have a good week next week, they will point to Mikey Sherrill talking about electricity costs. Abigail Spanger talking about tariffs and how they're raising prices in Virginia. And every other issue that blew them off message, they will push that out of the way and say, no, we won because we talked about costs, and that overwhelms every cultural issue that you can think of. But you actually have to have competence, right? I do. So de Blasio didn't have a lot of that. And so the messages, the popular messaging works, but then you have to have some sort of follow through.

1:13:27The Democratic Party is the party of big city urban liberalism. And if it can't actually run big cities well, what is it here for? And that's, I think, the real problem for Democrats is, Madame's got a lot of interesting ideas. I don't think free buses is going to change. The underlying problem is that they don't, they're not very good at running big cities anymore. Who would you vote for if you lived in New York? I have no idea. Out of nostalgia, probably Sliwa. Arlette, Momdani told CNN yesterday he would take the Trump administration to court if he was mayor, but also that he would speak to Trump if it was an issue that would benefit New Yorkers.

1:14:02What kind of relationship do you think Momdani, who is clearly the frontrunner, and the White House will have? Well, maybe I'll be wrong, but I don't think that there's going to be any type of kumbaya moment in the Oval Office. This is a question that Democrats are grappling with across the country when you think about Gavin Newsom and J.B. Pritzker and their pushback against Trump. But then you look at someone like Gretchen Whitmer, who has found ways to work with the Trump administration. I anticipate that Mamdani will follow more in the pathway of Newsom and Pritzker. He's already said that he's willing to challenge them, borrow from some of the Democratic playbook that we've seen across the country, challenge them in court.

1:14:38But then I think what's very unique about New York City is that Donald Trump has a very personal interest in New York City as well. So I anticipate that he's going to have a lot of opinions about the way that that city is being run and potentially look for fights with his money as well. I think Republicans are going to talk about Mamdani quite a bit. Dave, on that piece that you just talked about, this group, this new Democratic group called Welcome that asserts that identity politics has wrecked the Democrats' ban, you You report, quote, most voters, this is according to the study, this is not your assertion, nor is it mine.

1:15:10Most voters believe the party overprioritizes issues like protecting the rights of LGBTQ plus Americans and fighting climate change while not caring about securing the border or lowering the rate of crime. Do you think Democrat lawmakers, Democratic lawmakers are willing to listen to this kind of feedback? And as you know, Bernie Sanders used to be much more in term, he used to speak, you know, we have a right to have a border. He was much more anti-illegal immigration than he came to be as a candidate. He was, but there was this interregnum in 2019-2020, and the Bernie immigration plan in 2019 is decriminalized border crossings.

1:15:48Remember everyone raising their hand? That was something he was going to raise his hand for, changing ICE, dismantling ICE, and breaking up the functions, and Democrats don't talk like that anymore. So, yes, Democrats are willing to hear this sort of language in this report, this advice. Importantly, the report does not say there's some group that we can blame for this. There's some interest group that got in the room. The ACLU did this to us. The argument is Obama didn't talk like this. People did not look at Barack Obama in 2012 and say, this guy is not going to put criminals in jail. His brand was very different and his policies were different.

1:16:20And that's the point is not just we need candidates with better vibes. We need candidates with better vertical videos. It is the party made a bunch of mistakes. We should own those mistakes. That involves maybe throwing Joe Biden under the train and saying we're not going to be like that anymore. and Bernie 2016, what you were just talking about. Those ideas, they think they can resurrect if they are willing to admit the party went too far to the left on cultural issues and immigration and crime. What do you think? Can they do it? I think it's going to be really hard with the existing Democratic leadership.

1:16:47I spent four years of Joe Biden's presidency screaming, here's another sister soldier moment. Here's another sister soldier moment. And there's something internal to the bubble that a lot of the influencers in the Democratic Party are against doing it. And fairness ain't got nothing to do with it. It would be in their best interest to signal who they're willing to pick fights with. And they don't want to pick fights with the left. Thanks to one and all. Appreciate it. The World Series returns to the U.S. tonight, all tied up. A one game apiece. We're going to go live to Dodger Stadium ahead of a rather important game three.

1:17:19That's next.

1:17:24And our sports lead, batter up. It's game three of the World Series tonight. the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays are all tied up with one game apiece. Friday, the Blue Jays trounced the Dodgers, winning 11-4. But then the Dodgers roared back in Game 2 on Saturday, defeating the Jays 5-1. CNN's Andy Schultz is in Los Angeles for Game 3 and the first matchup in Dodger Stadium. Andy, how are fans feeling there? Well, Jake, they're excited and confident and hard not to be when you have the highest payroll in baseball and the pitching staff that the Dodgers do. Their Japanese ace, Yamamoto, with a complete game masterpiece in game two to even this series at a game of peace.

1:18:06Tonight the Dodgers have Tyler Glass now on the mound. He's been fabulous in the postseason, given only one run in 13 innings. He'll be going up against 41-year-old Max Scherzer. And, you know, Scherzer, one of the best pitchers of his generation. He's a Hall of Famer. He struggled in September but then had that vintage performance in game four of the ALCS against the Mariners, to really help the Blue Jays get to this point. Scherzer's going to be the first player ever to pitch in four different World Series on four different teams, and he says he just lives for these moments. This is what you play for, to be able to get to this spot, to get to this moment, to have a shot at it.

1:18:44You just think about all, throughout your whole life, all the different things that have unfolded, and so fortunate to have another crack at this. I mean, there's so many great players that have never gotten a World Series. So many great players where this, they only have one World Series. Yeah, now Scherzer are going to be going against that vaunted Dodgers lineup that starts with three former MVPs, Shohei Otani, then Mookie Betts, then Freddie Freeman. Those three guys, though, are really yet to get going in this series, just four for 21 with two RBIs. It's going to be hard to keep them down for long.

1:19:13But the Dodgers, they're trying to win back-to-back titles. They'd be the first team to do that since the Yankees won three in a row back in 2000. And I asked the team, you know, what would it mean to make that kind of history? It would be pretty amazing and obviously thought started in spring training about how cool that would be to be able to do something like that but when you put on a uniform you know how hard it is. Not everyone can say that they got to play on a team that was expected to win you know and so really just understanding and loving those expectations, embracing those expectations has gotten us this far.

1:19:50Now, last time we saw Shea Hotani on this field, he had what people are saying was the greatest game in baseball history. Three home runs, 10 strikeouts on the mound. Only hitting tonight, he will be the starter for game four tomorrow, Jake. But, Jake, tonight we've got the sports equinox. We've got all four major sports leagues. MLS even has two playoff games going. It's only the 32nd time it's ever happened, so you're definitely going to need that multi-view going if you're watching sports tonight. All right, Andy Scholes at Dodger Stadium. Thanks so much. You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram, threads X, the blue sky and on the tick tock at Jake Tapper.

1:20:21You can follow the show on X and Instagram at the lead CNN. If you ever miss an episode of the lead, you can listen to the show once you get your podcast. Aaron Burnett out front starts right now. See you tomorrow.

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