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Vance Says, Thanksgiving Could Be Disaster If Shutdown Continues; King Charles Revokes Andrew's Royal Titles, Evicts Him from Estate; What People Most Love About Halloween. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired October 31, 2025 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: New this morning, the White House is warning of a travel disaster if the shutdown continues as Thanksgiving travel approaches. Vice President Vance and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy sounded the alarm as they met with aviation travel and union leaders.

With us now is CNN Aviation Correspondent Pete Muntean. Pete, what are they saying?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, the pressure's mounting now from airlines, John, for there to be an end to this shutdown immediately. And yesterday was probably the best proof yet. More than 7,200 flight delays reported Thursday, according to FlightAware. New York's LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark topped the misery map primarily due to bad weather.

But the staffing shortages caused the FAA to impose delays for flights heading to Dallas-Fort Worth and Reagan National Airport outside Washington, D.C. Orlando International Airport had one of the most dramatic air traffic control staffing alerts of the last 31 days that we have seen.

And this is what was sent out around 6:00 P.M. Eastern daylight time last night saying that airlines can, quote, expect a period of time later in the evening when no arrivals will be able to land, as there will be no certified air traffic controllers available at Orlando International Airport.

A source familiar with the situation tells me the FAA was able to get some controller supervisors into the radar facility in Orlando so the airport could still handle arriving flights. At one point, though, flights to Orlando were delayed nearly three hours because of the staffing shortage there. It is the perfect example of why all major airlines are now calling for Congress to immediately pass a clean continuing resolution, not a full budget bill, to get air traffic controllers working with pay again.

Vice President J.D. Vance and Transportation secretary Sean Duffy met with airline CEOs during a White House Roundtable yesterday, and here is what United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said following that meeting. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCOTT KIRBY, CEO, UNITED AIRLINES: It has been 30 days. I also think it is time to pass a clean C.R., use that as the opportunity to get into a room behind closed doors and negotiate hard on the real and substantive issues that the American people want our politicians on both sides of the aisle to solve. But let's get a clean C.R. and get that negotiation done behind closed doors without the pressure and without putting the American workers and the American economy at risk.

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MUNTEAN: I heard from so many people yesterday stuck on delayed flights, and today, air travel is expected to tick up. It's a Friday, it's also Halloween. Thankfully, this is a time when not a lot of air travel numbers are really big. The travel numbers are actually kind of light before the holidays. But airline CEOs say this needs to be fixed. There needs to be a fix to this shutdown.

So, air traffic controllers and TSA agents are working with pay before Thanksgiving. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says, if this continues until then, the Thanksgiving air travel rush will be what he calls a disaster. John?

BERMAN: All right. Yes, things will get worse very quickly.

Pete Muntean, great to see you this morning, thank you. Sara?

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Still ahead, stripped of his royal duties and evicted from the royal mansion, the latest in the saga involving the now former Prince Andrew.

And trick or treat turned into a monkey business at a Texas Halloween store, oh, look at that little critter, when a runaway monkey went bananas, swinging from the ceilings. How did this happen? And what happened when police showed up to try to capture the little guy?

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[09:35:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Okey-dokey. Imagine walking in to buy Halloween costume and seeing this, literally a monkey swinging from the rafters. It turns out the monkey went shopping with its owner, as one does, at Spirit Halloween store in Plano, Texas, as one does, and got loose and apparently spooked by one of those animatronic Halloween moving displays, which definitely happens all the time.

Officers were called to the scene, so was animal control, and then this, once they enticed the monkey down.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that your monkey? You got a leash for it?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: That officer's like things I never thought I'd ask. Is this your monkey? And do you have a leash for it? Neither monkey nor officer nor trick or treater was hurt in the making of this story.

All right, so ahead of today's APEC summit in South Korea, three tech billionaires stepped out for fried chicken and picked up the tab for everyone in the restaurant.

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JENSEN HUANG, CEO, NVIDIA: The chicken wings was so good. Have you been here before?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

HUANG: It's incredible, right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: That was NVidia's CEO. He was joined by the heads of Samsung and Hyundai at a very popular fried chicken restaurant in Seoul, and cameras followed along. The tech giants washed down the meal with Terra, I'm probably mispronouncing, a popular Korean beer. Combined the trio, not the cost of the beer and not the tab, but combine the trio have a net worth of $195 billion. Sara?

SIDNER: They could have bought the whole restaurant. They could have bought everyone cars and houses and they still wouldn't even notice. It's like dropping $10.

BOLDUAN: But even a billionaire needs to eat fried chicken once in a while.

SIDNER: That's true. And that chicken looked good, just saying.

All right, onto the next. King Charles announced that not only is he stripping his younger brother, Andrew, of his remaining royal titles, including the title of prince, he is also evicting him from the Windsor Royal Estate. The stunning and unprecedented move is part of the ongoing fallout of Andrew's close ties to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

It comes after the release of a posthumous memoir by one of Epstein's victims, Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre said she was trafficked and sexually assaulted by Andrew three times as a teenager.

[09:40:03]

Andrew has repeatedly denied all the allegations against him.

Giuffre's family applauded the news that Andrew's royal titles all are being yanked, saying, today, an ordinary American girl from an ordinary American family brought down a British prince with her truth and extraordinary courage. And we have to mention, Giuffre did end up taking her own life.

And joining me now is Royal Media Commentator Meredith Constant. Thank you for being here. You know, some of these allegations have been in the air for a long time against formerly Prince Andrew. Was it the book that sort of pushed the royal family to say, all right, enough, we're going to go further now?

MEREDITH CONSTANT, ROYAL MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: I think the book didn't help, but as you said, these rumors and these accusations have been around for a long time. I think it's the combination of both the book coming out, but also a succession of emails that have shown that Prince Andrew, well, formerly Prince Andrew lied about when he cut off ties with Jeffrey Epstein.

There's also allegations that he involved either the MET or his personal police officer and somehow obtained Virginia Giuffre's Social Security number and her birth date. So, it just became untenable for the monarchy to no longer act.

SIDNER: It's a huge embarrassment, but he isn't as if he's being kicked out on the streets. He's going to a private residence. Explain sort of how this works.

CONSTANT: So how this works and what they basically saw was this, is that after it was announced that Prince Andrew would no longer use the Duke of York title a couple of weeks ago, the Times in the U.K. started digging into the royal estate, the royal lodge, where he currently lives on Windsor estate. And that is owned by the crown estate, which is not the crown as in the monarchy, but the government.

So, the idea here is to not only move him out of London. Sandringham estate is roughly a hundred miles outside of London, but it's also the private residents, the private estate of the monarch. So, this allows King Charles to privately pay for his brother to live out his years instead of questions around government spending and what Andrew was or was not paying on rent for the royal lodge.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you just how much damage this is doing to the Royal family as a whole. There was -- you know, there is -- there are people in the U.K. who do not like this family and do not think the monarchy should exist. Well, of course there are many others that cherish the monarchy. What do you think this has done to the monarchy itself?

CONSTANT: For some people, it's seen as decisive action from Charles that finally we have gotten to this point where it is time to remove the titles, but for others, it simply doesn't go far enough. There are too many questions around his connections with Jeffrey Epstein and others, also his time as the special U.K. trade envoy.

And there are also monarchists and people that feel strongly about this institution that are feeling a little unsure about the foundation. Because if you can just take away a Prince title, which he was born with, what does that mean about this system, about how you're born into the system? What makes it special? What is the point of a monarchy? So, there's a lot of back and forth and disagreement over what sort of precedent this sets for the monarchy moving forward.

SIDNER: Meredith Constant, it is a pleasure. Thank you so much for your analysis this morning. John?

BERMAN: All right. Major elections just days away. We've got the latest polling on Halloween candy.

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[09:45:00]

BOLDUAN: It's a Hollywood honor that feels perfectly timed and perfectly spooky. On Halloween, the man who's brought nightmares to generations of people, Robert England, is getting his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He is best known, of course, as that Freddy Krueger, the razor-gloved, horrifying bloody murderer from Nightmare on Elm Street. But beyond the horror flick franchise, he's actually classically trained actor with more than 80 films and T.V. credits to his name. So, congrats to your terrifying man. J.B.?

BERMAN: With us now is CNN Chief Data Analyst Harry Enten. Harry, as you can see, is into inflatables.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA REPORTER: That's right.

BERMAN: Harry, can you tell me about how this is working?

ENTEN: This is working. It's working, but like this entire segment, it's kind of a dumpster fire. Every single segment I do is encapsulated in this costume right here. You never know what's going to happen, but you do know it's going to burn up in flames.

BERMAN: Is there actually air blowing?

ENTEN: There is air blowing in here. There is consistently air blowing in here. When I go out for Halloween, I go out full throttle. That's what I do.

BERMAN: All right, Harry. Let's talk about all the polling surrounding Halloween. So, for adults, what's their favorite activity? And I assume the polling here is on fully clothed activity.

ENTEN: This is on fully -- that's exactly -- we keep it clean in this segment, John. Despite the dumpster fire, we keep it clean. Look. If you want to be a winner and you don't want to have a dumpster fire Halloween, the number one most popular thing is to pass out candy to trick or treaters at 33 percent. Look at this side of the aisle, the least popular, passing out healthy snacks. Do not have your house handing out healthy snacks. Save it for the other 364 days of the year. Otherwise, your Halloween, in the minds of the kids who come trick or treat, will, in fact, be a dumpster fire.

[09:50:03]

BERMAN: All right, do people have a favorite candy?

ENTEN: Do they have a favorite candy? Well, why don't we take a look here, America's favorite Halloween candy?

Look, number one, according to DoorDash, is Reese's Cups, number M&Ms. Oops, let's get that there --

BERMAN: The inflatable hit the wall.

ENTEN: The inflatable hit the wall. It's a workplace accident, right? Number three is Hershey's. That's my favorite. Number four is Snickers. But the bottom line here, Reese's Cups, you can't lose on that in the minds of most people. Look at this, the inflatable keeps sitting the wall, you can't lose in the minds of folks with Reese's Cups, but if you want to make sure you don't have nuts, how about some Hershey's, which is actually, I think, my favorite.

BERMAN: Can I just say, does this include Crackle, because I feel like Crackle gets shortchanged?

ENTEN: It does not include crackle. This is those milk chocolate bars that I think are the generic standard.

BERMAN: All right. Now, Harry, in terms of what people believe in, I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me, Yoko, and me, but what do people say they believe in?

ENTEN: Thank you, John Lennon. Okay, what are we talking about here? Well, Americans who believe in -- well vampires, 9 percent. How about witches? 24 percent. This entire segment seems to be full with witches. But ghost, ooh, that comes in at 39 percent. And ghost belief is actually way up in this country over the last 45 so on years ghost belief used to only be about 10 or 11 percent.

But based upon this segment, guys, I do think that there are supernatural forces at work because I somehow got through it. It wasn't a complete dumpster fire.

BOLDUAN: But it is emblematic of everything going on in our lives today. Thank you.

ENTEN: That's right. Your life, my life, dumpster fire.

BOLDUAN: The common denominator is always Harry Enten. Thank you so much, my love.

ENTEN: Love you.

BOLDUAN: You can dumpster fire all over the place. Bye-bye.

Now to another dumpster fire, joining us right now to talk more about the Halloween is the host of the online show, Permission to Speak, Emmy-winning comedian Paul Mecurio. And you're back. Okay. What is your favorite candy?

PAUL MECURIO, EMMY AWARD-WINNING COMEDIAN: First of all, I got little presents for each of you. Oh, thank you so much. There you go, little Halloween treats. Now --

BOLDUAN: I'm sorry. There's something in here that shall not be in here.

MECURIO: Exactly. That's the point. The first rule --

BOLDUAN: How dare you.

MECURIO: The first rule of Halloween, do not give fruit to kids. Every Halloween, I would get apples. Yes, because that's what every kid wants, fiber, right?

SIDNER: Do you remember the scare with the razor blades and the apples?

MECURIO: Yes.

SIDNER: And so I never took them again.

MECURIO: So, you know what I would do? I would throw them against the wall and smash them. The other, I had a neighbor that would give me raisins, raisins. A raisin is a grape that couldn't cut it as a grape, but I didn't like it was a pretty grape. I'm like, you was a wrinkly brown raisin. And they put it in that little box. They put in that little box, right? You look inside, it's an old age home for fruit. That's all. Yes.

The only way you should give fruit to a kid is if the kid comes up to the house dressed as gluten-free bread. That's it.

BERMAN: See, now you're laughing. Exactly.

BOLDUAN: You can give me a gluten joke every day.

BERMAN: Exactly. You can't fit razor blades in raisins.

MECURIO: Exactly.

BERMAN: Do you have a favorite costume?

MECURIO: Oh God, yes. Well, this year. I'm going as a Zoom meeting. And when I ring the bell -- don't steal this at home. When I ring the bell, instead of saying trick or treat, I'm going to be like, you're on mute. Unmute yourself. You're on mute.

Can I tell you I am traumatized to this day? Every Halloween as a kid, and I think some people out there will relate to this, my parents would dress me as what they called a hobo. Because we didn't have money for a costume, so it is like daddy's old clothes and they put some brown stuff on your face, beer, and you go out.

Now, you couldn't do that today. Didn't mean anything by it, but you know, it's a homeless person. It'd be a little insane. It was kind of weird if you think about it. Think about it. Our parents dressed us as homeless people and sent us out onto the streets at night.

SIDNER: They were trying to send you a message, I think.

MECURIO: Exactly. And now I'm on the street collecting free food in front of real homeless people and it was terrible. I never got candy, every house, baked beans and a harmonica. That was it. That was it.

SIDNER: That sounds horrible. All right, what about movies? What's your favorite, the scariest, the thing that really brings Halloween home for you?

MECURIO: I mean, the -- I'm old school, the original Halloween movie with Jamie Lee Curtis, right?

SIDNER: Come on in.

MECURIO: Yes.

SIDNER: Every single day --

BOLDUAN: Stay far away from me.

SIDNER: Every single day, he comes in. Come on.

BOLDUAN: This has been happening.

SIDNER: Let's see it. Let's see it every day.

BOLDUAN: This has been happening all day.

SIDNER: Every day.

BOLDUAN: He creepy dudes.

SIDNER: Okay. There he goes. There -- I mean, yes, we have to deal with this.

MECURIO: This?

SIDNER: No, this. Look at his.

BERMAN: He's got a Mike Myers shirt.

MECURIO: Oh my God. Can I tell you something about Mike Myers? It wasn't plausible though because he walked about as fast as a Roomba, but he always caught everybody. I don't know. How -- there you go, the crew, here, this is for you.

BERMAN: Give him an apple. Give him an apple.

SIDNER: Oh God. There's really -- you literally have an apple.

MECURIO: I have an apple in here. Here you go.

SIDNER: I'm checking it for razor blade. I don't trust you.

BOLDUAN: This is -- look what we've been dealing with all day. Look what we've been dealing with all day.

SIDNER: It's so -- okay, but now I'm going to have to show up.

BOLDUAN: Don't, oh my God. SIDNER: At least mine is --

MECURIO: This is what we're going to do.

BOLDUAN: Take it please.

BERMAN: I will say this.

[09:55:00]

Coming up, you are going to see people dressed as Pamela Brown and Wolf Blitzer.

MECURIO: Hey, there you go.

BOLDUAN: Is it really them?

BOLDUAN: Is it really them on The Situation Room?

Thank you so much for joining us. This has been CNN News Central.

MECURIO: Where's that apple? Let me --

BOLDUAN: Do not throw it.

MECURIO: Let me put you out of your misery.

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