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New Details Emerge in Louvre Heist; Federal Reserve Set to Make Decision on Interest Rates; Hurricane Melissa Slams Caribbean. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired October 29, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

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ANDREW ROSS SORKIN, COLUMNIST AND EDITOR, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": And, as politically unpopular as that was, economically, practically, effectively, it was the right thing to do.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Yes, well, you certainly know about that. Your other bestselling book, "Too Big to Fail," talks a lot about that. This one is "1929."

Andrew, I'm so grateful that you came on.

SORKIN: Thank you so much for having me.

BASH: Congratulations. I know you have been working like a decade on this and it shows.

SORKIN: I appreciate it.

BASH: Thank you.

SORKIN: Thank you.

BASH: Thanks for joining INSIDE POLITICS.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Devastation in Jamaica, damage in Cuba and, in the Bahamas, rushing to prepare for the worst. Hurricane Melissa carving a path of destruction through the Caribbean. We have the latest on the aftermath of this Category 2 storm on these islands and where it could be headed next.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: How low could they go? The Federal Reserve appears likely to cut interest rates next hour, but investors want to hear about the Fed's plans for the future and how many more cuts might be coming.

And trade-off for Trump. The president sits down with China's leader, Xi Jinping, for the first time since 2019, with a future relationship between the world's two biggest economies at stake.

We're following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

Hello. I'm Brianna Keilar here in the nation's capital, alongside Boris Sanchez. And, right now, Hurricane Melissa is inching closer to the Bahamas, where it's expected to bring dangerous storm surge later today. It's already brought major destruction across the Caribbean, including in Haiti, where 25 people were killed when a flooded river burst its banks.

Cuba also took a major lashing after Melissa made landfall there as a Category 3 storm this morning. More than 140,000 people are now cut off because of rising water. And all of this is happening less than a day after Melissa became the strongest storm ever to hit Jamaica. It smashed into the island as a Cat 5, packing 185 mile-per-hour winds.

SANCHEZ: Jamaica's prime minister declared the country a disaster area, and, at latest check, 77 percent of the island had no power. A government minister says it is simply too early to know the full extent of injuries and deaths, as there has been little communication from the western part of the island, which took that direct hit from Melissa.

Our Derek Van Dam is now trying to make his way to the west side and filed this report showing how many roads are simply impassable.

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DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: We're now traveling to the Western side of Jamaica. That's where obviously Hurricane Melissa made landfall. And this is the first time we have safely been able to get out of the capital city of Kingston.

And you can see just some of the overwash here on the roadways. We have encountered a lot of rockslides and mudslides and downed trees, some power lines over the roads. And it's difficult to navigate this area. I mean, here's an electrical wire dangling right in front of us as well.

This is obviously very typical of hurricane damage. But as we get further and further into the disaster area, where the core of the hurricane struck, we anticipate the destruction to be more widespread. And, obviously, the weather's been a challenge as well. We have encountered a lot of fog.

So these narrow roads that wind through these regions as we head towards the St. Elizabeth Parish, the western portions of Jamaica, we're getting closer and closer to New Hope, where the official land point -- landfall point was. This is going to be quite a challenge, but we're going to try and report from this area that was so heavily impacted by the hurricane.

Look at this gully here that was washed out from the heavy rain, just really, really incredible.

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SANCHEZ: All right, thanks to Derek Van Dam for that report. We look forward to getting more as he makes his way to Western Jamaica.

Still to come: Minutes from now, the Federal Reserve is set to announce its newest move on interest rates. The question, of course, is how many more there might be this year.

Plus, prosecutors in Paris giving an update on the multimillion-dollar heist at the Louvre and the whereabouts of those stolen crown jewels.

KEILAR: Then, later: When the findings of one investigation didn't satisfy the Trump administration, they opened another. We have some new details about a recent FEMA probe and its alleged evidence.

That and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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SANCHEZ: In the next hour, the Federal Reserve is due to announce its next interest rate decision, and the Fed is widely expected to cut its key rate by a quarter-of-a-percentage point. Stocks are rallying ahead of that decision.

This would, of course, be the Central Bank's second rate cut this year. This time, though, it's coming without the benefit of some key economic data amid the government shutdown.

KEILAR: The Board of Governors is meeting as we speak, and we're expecting to hear from Fed chair Jay Powell next hour on this decision.

Right now, let's bring in CNN's Matt Egan, who is at the Federal Reserve here in Washington.

Matt, what can you tell us?

MATT EGAN, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Boris and Brianna, we're less than an hour away from what is widely expected to be another quarter- point interest rate cut from the Federal Reserve.

The market is pricing in about a 98 percent chance of a cut today, just a 2 percent chance of no move at all. But what is unusual here is that the Fed is operating in a bit of an information vacuum right now. For the first time since the 1930s, when the Fed's rate-setting committee was established, the Fed is making a decision on interest rates without the benefit of that monthly jobs report that officials rely on.

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I mean, the jobs report is kind of like the Fed's North Star, and that is what guides them on whether or not to raise or lower interest rates. But because of the shutdown, we haven't even seen the September jobs report yet, and it's almost November. It's not just the jobs report. There's weekly unemployment claims, consumer spending, and many of the inflation indicators.

All of them have been delayed. So, right now, the Fed, which likes to say it's data-dependent, is operating mostly in the dark. Still, though, interest rates are expected to come down today. This would lower interest rates to the lowest level in three years, and this would certainly be good news for consumers, for people who are trying to pay down credit card debt, and they're paying very high interest on that, for people with home equity lines of credit.

Mortgage rates, which are really controlled by the market, they have already come down to one-year lows. The president, he has signaled that he's not going to be satisfied with a quarter-point cut. Take a listen to some comments he made overnight.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Jerome "Too Late" Powell, but he's out of there in another couple of months. We will be very happy about that. We will appoint somebody that we all like because we should have the lowest interest rates of any country, because, without us, there are no other countries, really.

I mean, the whole thing falls apart.

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EGAN: Now, not totally clear what he means by there are no other countries, but, look, rates obviously have started to come down in the United States, but he's right that rates are higher in the U.S. than they are in some other major economies.

Of course, that's partially because inflation remains way too high, right? The cost of living is one of the core frustrations of voters right now. Inflation is at 3 percent, not the 2 percent it's supposed to be at. Remember, Boris and Brianna, the reason the Fed is cutting is not because they think inflation has been defeated. It's because they're worried about the health of the job market -- back to you.

SANCHEZ: And, Matt, it's especially hard to gauge the health of the job market when you don't have jobs reports, right? We haven't gotten one since before September. Talk to us about that challenge for the Fed government.

EGAN: Yes, it is certainly making life more difficult for the Fed officials, because, again, they say they're data-dependent, but there's no data to be dependent on, at least not when it comes to the official government statistics.

There are some alternative private numbers, such as the private payroll numbers they could put out by ADP, but they're really no substitute for those official numbers. Now, one thing to remember when it comes to the job market is, despite those mass layoffs that were announced just yesterday by Amazon, right now, by all indications, unemployment and layoffs, they have remained relatively low. The most recent jobless claims that we got a month ago were pretty

low. The real issue right now appears to be a lack of hiring, right? Hiring has been very low. I speak to college students who graduated back in the spring of 2024, and they say they have been looking for a job for a year, and they just can't find one, or they have had to take one that's really not enough to pay the bills.

And one of the problems, of course, when it comes to hiring is the fact that there's just so much uncertainty right now, including, in part because of the president's historically high tariffs. Some executives do think that that's one of the things that's holding companies back from hiring.

And so now we wait to see what the Fed says, not just about interest rate cuts likely today, but what's it going to take for further interest rate cuts in the months ahead? And I will be interested to hear what Fed Chair Jerome Powell says about how he's operating in this information vacuum and what indicators he's looking at as the government shutdown continues -- back to you.

KEILAR: Yes, we will definitely be looking for that.

Matt Egan at the Fed, thank you.

And ahead: Prosecutors in Paris just revealed some new details on the museum robbery seen around the world. We have the latest on the suspects who've been arrested in the Louvre jewel heist.

Plus, after months of economic chaos, President Trump is set to meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. And while trade will be front and center, other important issues could come up.

Stay with us.

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KEILAR: In Paris, prosecutors now say the two suspects that they have in custody from the Louvre heist investigation are admitting to involvement in the theft.

SANCHEZ: But officials say that the jewelry said to be worth tens of millions of dollars has not been yet recovered.

Melissa Bell joins us now live from Paris.

Melissa, what else are we hearing?

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, she was -- this was the first time she spoke, by the way, since we heard about those arrests.

And in this press conference, she announced a little bit more about the suspect's that they currently have in their custody. Even now, they're appearing before a judge who will decide whether they're there to be charged. But she certainly suggested, going back to what Brianna was just saying, that they had partially admitted their part in this heist.

Remember that there were four men, suspects that were being looking for in the wake of this heist, four people who were there on the ground on the day. And listening to prosecutors just then outline what progress the case had been made, she did say more about the fact that there had been two wearing those high-visibility jackets that had gone up into the Apollo Gallery.

The other two had stayed on the ground and then they'd made their escape. Of course, that means that there are still two suspects at large. And what she also warned about was that, just because there were four individuals there that day, two who have been caught and who we expect, if they're charged, then to be kept, two who are still at large, that it doesn't exclude the fact that there could be other people responsible, for instance, someone who might have commissioned this theft.

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Because one of the interesting things about the profile of those two men in custody, we know that they're in their 30s. We know that they were living in the suburbs of Paris. We know that they are of Algerian nationality, but we also know that they were known to police and they were known for low-level delinquency and petty crime.

So there is nothing in their profile, although they were easily caught thanks to the matches in the police DNA database, to suggest they would be capable of such an extraordinary crime as this one.

KEILAR: So, Melissa, the multimillion-dollar question, where are these jewels?

BELL: A hundred and two million dollars' worth of a question, to be precise, Brianna. She also explained, the prosecutor, just now that we did not know, but she also had a warning, which is that anyone who tried to purchase the jewels or any part of them would be complicit in this crime and that everyone had to be very careful.

For now, of course, their priority is to get the jewels back, with great fears, of course, as we have been saying over the course of the last 10 days, that they may not even still be in one piece. The big fear of French authorities is that they might be dismantled, the precious gems sold on one side, the gold melted and sold on another.

And, of course, if that is the case, these are extraordinary national treasures that will be lost, will have been lost forever. For now, we wait to hear more about the jewels themselves, what state they find them in, if they find them, and of course, those two other suspects that are still at large.

SANCHEZ: Yes, let's hope that they are out there intact and are soon found.

Melissa Bell, live for us in Paris, thank you so much. Hurricane Melissa left behind major flooding and a trail of

destruction for Jamaica and Cuba -- ahead, what to expect as the storm heads directly toward the Bahamas.

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KEILAR: Back to our breaking news on the impacts of Hurricane Melissa, one of the strongest storms ever to make landfall in the Atlantic. It is now a Category 2 hurricane with the Bahamas in its sights.

Melissa has killed at least 30 people across several island nations in the Caribbean, with Jamaica still trying to assess the extent of the historic devastation there. Melissa was at its strongest a Category 5 system when it made landfall yesterday in Western Jamaica.

Rescuers, facing impassable roads and little cell service, are struggling to reach much of the area there. The U.S. is deploying disaster response teams to assist in recovery efforts across the Caribbean.

We're joined now by former FEMA Director Craig Fugate.

Sir, thank you so much for being with us.

And we're trying to get a sense, right, of just how extensive this damage is. What are you seeing in these early images that we're getting?

CRAIG FUGATE, FORMER ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT AGENCY: It's what our fear was. And while most people are focusing on the wind, I think that, unfortunately, a lot of the loss of life is actually going to be due to the extreme rainfall and flooding.

I mean, people forget Jamaica's got some of the highest mountains in the Caribbean. And the Blue Mountains became a place where, as that storm approached it, it was already saturated with previous rains, and then you throw in the torrential rainfalls from that storm, add that to the winds, and that's why it's hard to get in these areas.

And I have worked with and I have met with the -- my counterparts in Jamaica. This is a government that has an emergency management program. They have resources, but this will require more assistance. And so their priority right now is just getting to the areas and doing search-and-rescue while they try to do the assessment of the total area of impact.

KEILAR: These are some new images that we're getting in from Montego Bay that I want to tell our viewers about here as you take a look there.

The State Department, Craig, says that it's deploying a regional disaster response team and activated U.S.-based urban search-and- rescue teams to bolster response teams in Jamaica. Is that what would normally happen? Is the timing what would normally happen? Can you tell us what they will be doing and if this is going to be enough?

FUGATE: Well, it's to start, and it's what we would do.

Again, Jamaica is in charge of this response. This would be from the Jamaican government through the embassy request for additional assistance. The two urban search-and-rescue teams that are part of the deployment are the same teams that FEMA and former USAID, now State Department, share.

And those teams have been deployed numerous times. Most recently probably for a lot of folks was when Haiti was hit with the earthquake. And the disaster assistance response teams are the core cadre of the State Department employees who, on behalf of the U.S. government, will work with the Haitian -- or not the Haitian -- but with the Jamaican Emergency Management Agency on coordinating assistance that they request from the United States.

KEILAR: It's not just Jamaica here. There's countries, there's island nations across the Caribbean hit hard. What are you anticipating the impact of the shuttering of USAID is going to be for disaster recovery? That's a concern many people have brought up.

FUGATE: It's unknown.

A lot of those functions were transferred into the State Department. So, as we see this unfold, I would imagine many of those elements that were there, including warehouses that are in the Caribbean that are used by the U.S. government to support international disaster response, are still there.

So it really comes back to, one, the initial response seems to be as it would have been before. A longer-term question will be U.S. commitment to long-term recovery and what that may be -- what may be required. And we're not going to be the only players here. You also remember that Jamaica's a commonwealth nation.

The U.K., the British have long-term relationships in disaster assistance and supporting the commonwealth nations in the Caribbean.