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Judge Tosses Drake's Lawsuit Over Kendrick Lamar Diss Track; Israeli PM Says Some Hostage Remains May Not Be Returned; Deadly Blast at Tennessee Military Explosives Company; White House Budget Chief Says Federal Worker Layoffs Have Begun; U.S. Troops Now Arriving In Israel To Monitor Gaza Deal. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 10, 2025 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": And a federal judge dismissed Drake's defamation lawsuit against Universal Music Group over Kendrick Lamar's diss track, "Not Like Us." The judge ruling that Lamar's lyrics that painted Drake as a "certified pedophile" was opinion and not an expression of fact. Drake plans to appeal. Universal Music Group has called the case frivolous and illogical.

A new hour of "CNN News Central" starts right now.

ERICA HILL, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "CNN NEWS CENTRAL": A deadly blast rocks a military explosives plant in Tennessee. Multiple people are dead, several unaccounted for at this hour. The local sheriff's office pleading with people to avoid the area. And from furloughed to fired, the government shut down just becoming much worse for some federal workers. On the 10th day of this shutdown, no sign that either side is even close to a solution.

And it is a new day in Gaza as that ceasefire takes hold, a painful admission as well from Israel's prime minister, the remains of all the deceased hostages may not be returned. Palestinians meantime beginning the task of rebuilding their shattered lives. We are following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to "CNN News Central."

KEILAR: Right now, emergency crews are scrambling in Tennessee after a devastating blast at a plant that makes military explosives. Local officials say several people remain unaccounted for at this hour. But we don't know -- we do know that multiple people were killed in the explosion. The company is called Accurate Energetic Systems, LLC. It's located about an hour southwest of Nashville, and multiple local state and federal agencies are there on scene. Let's go right to CNN's Ryan Young, who's tracking the latest for us from Atlanta.

Ryan, the scene is devastating. It's clear the community is devastated here. What do we know about what's happened?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, it is devastating and immense when you see that blast scene from the pictures that we got from the aerials. It's just unimaginable what this neighborhood was dealing with. This happened around 7:48 this morning when this whole area just started to shake, and that was from the explosion. Of course, you talked to Mayor Jim Bates almost an hour ago, and he talked about the fact that 80 people worked at this plant here. Of course, we can't even get an imagination of what the size of it used to be because of how the blast pattern looks just from above.

You see cars still on fire. You see cars turned over from the blast. When I first called in and talked to the EMS folks there, they said they were having to stand back a little bit because of the secondary explosions that were going on. They've now brought in federal resources from the ATF to Homeland Security to hopefully not only secure the scene, but start this complex investigation into exactly what happened.

We're hoping for a news conference in the next half hour or so. It was originally scheduled for one o'clock, but that may have been moved based upon all the things they're having to do from notifying families to getting the right people in place. But take a listen to the sheriff as they talk to the cameras for the first time after this explosion.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHERIFF CHRIS DAVIS, HUMPHREYS COUNTY, TENNESSEE: We do have the scene as secure as possible at this time. You may hear some smaller explosions around the scene, but they are things that we have taken into consideration. We know that it's secure. The scene is secure as far as no more mass explosions or larger explosions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Brianna, they were warning people to stay away from this area. Obviously, more crews are starting to surge in as they have to do this investigation. But the one thing that we heard during your interview with the mayor was just the fact that almost everyone in that community knows how big this plant is, knows people who work there. So you can understand this is probably heartbreaking for that community, which is about an hour outside of Nashville. We're still waiting for that news conference. As soon as we get more information, of course, we'll bring it to you. Brianna?

KEILAR: Yeah, this is one building of many on a campus there.

YOUNG: Yes.

KEILAR: Ryan, thank you so much. We'll be waiting for that update. We're joined now by Matt Barnett. He is the owner of Bonetti Explosives. Matt, thank you for being with us. And as an expert on this, give us a sense of what we are looking at here. Just the scene, because there's nothing -- we're just seeing warped metal and we know there was a building there and there is a building no more. We're seeing twisted cars. I think there are a couple dumpsters that are warped. Tell us about the force that would've caused something like this.

MATT BARNETT, OWNER, BONETTI EXPLOSIVES: Well, first of all, I want to send my condolences. This is a very small and connected community, and we're all affected by this. And honestly, I'm just now learning about this and I feel like I could throw up. What you're looking at is a mass detonation. So when explosives are together and in large amounts, you get the kind of explosion that we saw in Beirut and what happened in Texas City in the late '40s. And they have, depending on the quantity, enough force to destroy a small town. [14:05:00]

KEILAR: Matt, you mentioned, you said this is a small connected community. There aren't that many facilities, right, around the country that are dealing with this kind of explosives. And talk to us a little bit -- this campus, for instance, this is one building of many because when you are dealing, as we understand it, with this kind of material, they're separated for safety. Talk to us a little bit about that.

BARNETT: So yeah, generally when an explosives facility is, when they lay it out, they have a storage area where the explosives are stored. And even in storage, those areas are generally barricaded. They have earthen mounted bunkers that contain the bulk explosive, and then only the amount of explosive needed at the time for loading is transported to another area on the same campus where it'll be put into hoppers or bins or feeders to be loaded into final product.

But as you can imagine, the whole layout is such that if you have one building blow up, that it doesn't spread across the campus. And like I said, I'm just now learning about this event. I heard that there's other smaller explosions, and that could be from what we call kick outs where you have items that didn't detonate in the first explosion, they get kicked out and they're hot and they're burning and then they burn to detonation. And so that's probably what your secondary explosions are that I'm hearing about.

KEILAR: So, you knew about this facility, this company?

BARNETT: I did. Yeah, I did. I actually have had their product and they're well known in the industry. And yeah, I actually never have been there or toured it, but know of them very well.

KEILAR: Can you talk to us a little bit about that, what they're known for in the industry, the products we're talking about here?

BARNETT: So, they manufacture many types of explosive products. Personally, what I know them for is avalanche control charges that are used to trigger avalanches. This would be a melt cast explosive that is cast into either a plastic or a cardboard tube, generally using something like TNT, Composition B. Pentolite is one of the popular explosives. They also do a lot of custom work for custom shape charges. They're well versed in the explosive industry and everybody knows them.

KEILAR: And Matt, at the heart of this, and as you said, learning about this makes you want to throw up, at the heart of this is people, right, who are going to work every day and earning a living. We're very connected in this community. And I know that must be very much on your mind as you're waiting to see what the final word is on what's happened here. BARNETT: Oh, yeah. There's -- I've already received a few phone calls this morning because while I don't know some of the people direct, we're usually only one degree separated in this community. It's vast, it's all across the country, but we all know of each other, have heard of each other. And so when something like this happens, it's very sobering. And I would hope that everybody in the industry is taking a moment right now to have a stand down and go over the safety protocol.

There's no telling, no fingers can be pointed right now. Nobody knows what happened. But it's just a time for everybody that works with this material, take a moment, stand down and put safety forefront.

KEILAR: Matt Barnett, thank you for being with us. It's so important to talk to you and really have it put into perspective. We appreciate you today.

BARNETT: Thank you.

KEILAR: Erica?

HILL: There is a significant escalation now in the government shutdown. The Trump administration we've learned, has begun firing federal workers today. This on Day 10 of the spending standoff. There's no end in sight to the shutdown right now. OMB Director Russ Vought posting on X, the reductions in federal workforce, or RIFs, as he said, have begun.

CNN Senior White House Correspondent Kristen Holmes is following some of these developments. So, what are White House officials now saying, Kristen, about these layoffs?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Erica, they said they confirmed that this is happening. They say that the number of people who are going to be laid off, federal workers, is "substantial." But on top of that, they're not really giving us any details. They're not sharing specifics of which agencies or which jobs are being cut, just that those notices are going out.

Now, of course, something that we have been reporting on for quite some time was that the White House was planning to do this. They were planning to do this as early as last week. Then they kind of stopped themselves when they were getting pushback from a number of Republican lawmakers and Trump allies. But, with the caveat that if this shutdown went on, they were going to go through with these massive layoffs. Now, there's still been questions in addition to these layoffs as to whether or not federal workers who are furloughed are going to get paid.

[14:10:00]

That was something President Trump had signed into law in 2019 saying, anyone during the layoff, federal workers who had been furloughed or were working as essential workers would get paid. Then he seemed to backtrack that in recent days, essentially saying that some people didn't deserve to get paid. But we do know at least, taking his comments out of it, that there was a White House memo that suggested looking at the legal language differently. Again, about furloughed workers, not necessarily essential workers, but a lot of questions here and a lot of fear right now in the federal workforce.

HILL: Yeah, and understandably. Kristen, really appreciate it. Thank you.

Still ahead here this hour, we are continuing to following the developments on this devastating blast at a Tennessee company that specializes in making military explosives. Also, as we follow the developments on Day 10 of the U.S. government shut down, as we were just discussing there with Kristen, layoffs have begun. A White House official telling CNN they will be substantial.

And First Lady Melania Trump says she has an open channel of communication with Vladimir Putin. How she is using that to help you Ukrainian children who were separated from their families during the war, that are much more ahead on "CNN News Central."

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[14:15:30]

KEILAR: Breaking News on the ceasefire in Gaza. Just moments ago, a U.S. official confirming with CNN that American troops have now started to arrive in Israel and they're there to help monitor the situation as Hamas faces a deadline to release all of their remaining hostages here in the next 63 hours. Let's get to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, who is live for us in Tel Aviv, not far from Hostage Square. Wolf, how would you describe the mood there in Israel?

WOLF BLITZER, CNN CO-ANCHOR OF "THE SITUATION ROOM": It is a lot more upbeat than it has been over the past two years or so, Brianna, and for good reason that there's a sense here that this could move in the right direction. All the remaining hostages, Israeli hostages will be allowed to come home. And the bodies of those who were killed, they will be returned as well. It's very significant that there could be proper funerals for the loved ones, for the sons, the daughters, fathers, others who were killed. So that's very important here in Israel as well.

So they're watching it all very closely. No one's watching it more closely than our own Jeremy Diamond who's here with me right now. Jeremy, you've seen this dramatic shift in the mood among Israelis, especially here in Tel Aviv and elsewhere.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. I mean, this has been, an agonizing wait for so many, not just the families, but really many Israelis who feel so much sympathy, so much empathy for the fate of the hostages. It's a small country, as you know well Wolf, and everybody has some kind of connection to the story of the hostages or to the victims of October 7th.

And so for more than two years now, they have been waiting for this moment. They have been going out into the streets and protesting. And finally, it seems that this deal has arrived to bring all of the hostages back. Still some questions over the bodies of the deceased hostages. Again, we reported a few days ago that Israeli intelligence suggests that Hamas does not know the location of all of the bodies. And so that will be a process that will probably take longer than the next 72 hours when we expect those living hostages at least to be released.

BLITZER: And as you know, in the Jewish religion, a proper Jewish burial is considered very, very significant. That's why that is so important that these bodies of the deceased Israeli hostages are allowed to come home and get that proper burial.

DIAMOND: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I can tell you, I was speaking yesterday with Michel Iluz, his son, Guy is among those deceased hostages still being held in Gaza. And he told me, listen, I don't even know if I'm actually going to get my son back. And he also said, if I do, how will I be able to recognize him? Will there be DNA? Will it be bones? They don't know the state of these remains. And so there's still a lot of uncertainty for those families.

BLITZER: How does it look like it's going so far? The ceasefire is supposed to be in effect. There's other elements that are in effect. The Israelis have to release a lot of Palestinian prisoners and detainees in exchange for the Israeli hostages. How's it going so far?

DIAMOND: Well, the ceasefire seems to be holding so far in the Gaza Strip. Since the Israeli military announced officially at noon today that it had gone into effect, that meant that the withdrawal of Israeli troops to those pre-agreed lines within Gaza had indeed been completed. And since then, we've seen a mass movement of thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of Palestinians at this point, going along that coastal road to try and return to their homes in Gaza City and then in the rest of Northern Gaza.

But, I was just going through a lot of the footage that our freelance journalists in Gaza have been shooting today, and you can see people who are arriving back to find their homes and their neighborhoods in absolute ruin. So many people who have built their entire lives there over decades and are returning home to find that there is very little left of those lives. And it really just is a stark reminder of the long road ahead that exists for the people of Gaza, not only the days and weeks ahead that will determine whether this ceasefire actually turns into a durable ceasefire that will actually result in end of the war in Gaza, but also the rebuilding that is going to have to happen there, not only over weeks and months, but really over years.

BLITZER: Very quickly, these 200 U.S. military personnel who are being deployed now, not to Gaza, but to Israel, the U.S. Military Central Command --

DIAMOND: Yeah.

BLITZER: -- has decided they are -- will have a significant role. Talk a little bit about that.

DIAMOND: It seems that their role is going to be to monitor the ceasefire, any violations of the ceasefire as well as the implementation of this actual hostage release. That seems to be why all these U.S. troops will now be in place by Sunday it seems. And again, I think it will also likely pave the way for this international security force for which a lot of the Arab countries that are going to contribute troops to that, they wanted to see a role from the United States in overseeing all of this. So I think more to come on that front.

[14:20:00]

BLITZER: Yeah, more to come indeed. All right. Jeremy, thank you very, very much. Brianna, amidst all of this, as you well know, the president of the United States will be coming here to Israel in the next few days and he'll be delivering a major address before the Israeli parliament, the Knesset. We'll, of course, have special coverage of all of these dramatic developments coming up. Brianna?

KEILAR: Yeah. We'll be looking for that as we are holding our breath, waiting for these hostages to be released. Wolf Blitzer, thank you so much. Live for us from Tel Aviv.

And next, a huge blast in a military explosives plant in Tennessee leaving multiple people dead. Officials say several are still unaccounted for, we'll have the latest.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:25:14]

HILL: We are getting some new video now from the moment of that deadly blast at an explosives plant in Tennessee. Take a look at what it sounded like from one neighbor's perspective.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(Sound of Explosion)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: So you hear that there, you see the dog come running, understandably, as that blast is heard. We are standing by at this hour for an update from local officials. What we can tell you as we wait for that update is that several people were killed. There are still a number of people who are missing after the blast. This happened at Accurate Energetic Systems, a facility that's southwest of Nashville, about an hour from Nashville.

Joining me now is John DeVito. He's a retired Special Agent in Charge at the ATF. John, when you look at these pictures, I have to say we are all struck here as we see them over and over again about what little appears to be left there. We know that this was a facility that manufactured explosives for the military. Also, we were told for the -- by the mayor, things that could be used in construction, demolition. When you see these images, what does that tell you about what may have happened here with this blast?

JOHN DEVITO, RETIRED SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, ATF: Well, first and foremost, my thoughts and prayers are with the victims, their families, and everyone impacted by this terrible explosion, especially the first responders as well. This is a tragic moment for the community and it calls for compassion, strength, and unity for all involved. This is a devastating scene and the people that are dealing with it, they have the immediate aftermath of an explosion like this. Number one priority is the search and recovery of the injured and hopefully, the survivors, and then the treatment of those individuals.

Fire, police, EMS personnel are working under extreme unpredictable conditions, debris, unstable structures, live hazards and possibly secondary blasts. Their mission right now is to clear, locate survivors, and render medical care, and make sure no one is left behind. This is a terrible incident, but we will get to the bottom of it. We will find survivors and we will treat them, and we'll provide answers to the community.

HILL: Yeah. And it is. You talk about the community, we've heard from so many people about just how connected this company, this facility is to the community. The mayor speaking with us a short time ago, talking about 80 people in this building alone who worked in this building. There were a number of buildings spread out, typically just to give people a sense of what facilities like this, how they may be organized. Other experts who we were talking with, explaining that you don't want a lot of these facilities, a lot of these buildings too close to one another in the event that there is a tragedy. How important is that in terms of the safety measures and the way things would be laid out in this area?

DEVITO: It's important to understand that facilities like this one, which handle explosives, propellants, and other energetic materials, they operate in an environment where risk is always present. Manufacturing or processing energetic compounds requires extreme precision and disciplined safety culture. Even the smallest error sparks static discharge or pressure or fluctuation can have catastrophic results. And these facilities are highly regulated under both federal and state law.

ATF's Explosives, Industry Operations division oversee licensing, storage, the compliance to ensure that every aspect of production and handling meets national safety standards. And these companies put all safety protocols into place to mitigate things such as this. But then again, things do happen and this is a travesty.

HILL: Tragically, they do. You know, you talk about those safety measures, those would also be measures, I would imagine, that local law enforcement, local officials in the area would've been familiar with as well. How much would that involve, also sometimes training for local law enforcement and first responders?

DEVITO: Oh, 100 percent. These safety precautions cover the full spectrum, federal, state, and local. So, everybody that's involved with regulating and maintaining these types of facilities are all well versed in what they need to know and what they need to do to ensure tragedies don't occur like this. But of course, mistakes do happen. And unfortunately, we're going to find out what exactly happened in this place.

HILL: Yeah. It is a tragedy no matter which way you look at it. John, appreciate you joining us. Thank you.

Just ahead here, the indictment of New York Attorney General, Letitia James. Why the charges left senior leadership at the -- why the charges caught senior leadership at the DOJ off-guard.

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