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School Shooting Lawsuit; Air Travel Delays; Judges Order White House to Provide SNAP Benefits; Trump's Disapproval Rating Hits All- Time High. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired November 03, 2025 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:01]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN HOST: Ronald Reagan came to Chicago and sat down with Jesse Jackson seeking an endorsement. So he was trying to create leverage in the political system in both parties for a time, and then eventually decided that the way to do it was to run for president.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST: Yes, he even had a show on he had a show on this...

PHILLIP: He had a show on CNN, yes.

BASH: On this network called "BOTH SIDES WITH JESSE JACKSON," which is where I first met him.

It is called "A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power."

Congratulations.

(CROSSTALK)

PHILLIP: Thank you so much, Dana. Thank you.

BASH: Thank you so much for being here.

Don't forget, you can see more of Abby Phillip tonight on her show, "NEWSNIGHT," at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.

Thanks for joining us on INSIDE POLITICS.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts right now.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Higher than ever, though not exactly how you would want, President Trump's disapproval rating hitting an all-time high as voters headed the polls for an election that could be a bellwether before next year's midterms.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And shutdown slowdown, staffing issues already impacting at least two airports today, while the wait time at TSA checkpoints hits three or more hours at another. Today is the 34th day of the shutdown. And in the civil case brought by a teacher who was shot by her 6-year- old student, attorneys for the school's former assistant principal present their defense.

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

SANCHEZ: We start this afternoon with breaking news in the shutdown fight, after two major legal decisions, the White House saying it will be providing some food stamp benefits this month, only half, though, of what SNAP recipients usually see.

KEILAR: Those benefits are, of course, usually deposited into accounts on the first of the month and were skipped because of the shutdown.

Two judges last Friday ruling that the White House must provide these benefits with money from a contingency fund.

Let's go to CNN's Alayna Treene, who is live at the White House.

Alayna, what are we learning here?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, well, what we're seeing now from these court rulings today is that the Trump administration will provide partial funding to continue one of the nation's largest or, I should say, the largest food programs, food stamp programs, in the country.

Now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the SNAP program, had initially said that they were going to be freezing the money that goes to SNAP essentially on November 1. Of course, this comes during the government shutdown. They said they were running out of money.

But because these two judges had ruled that they have to, the Trump administration had to keep this program going, now we're learning that they are going to -- they said in a sworn statement the agency is going to use roughly $4.6 billion from a contingency fund to help keep this up and running.

Now, $4.6 billion is only about half of the money that is needed to keep this operating full-time, so we're still looking at what this could mean once we hit that point. And to be clear, again, this is the largest -- the nation's largest food program. It serves about one in eight Americans and, of course, is a major part of America's social safety net.

And so this has been one of the key issues and concerns really as this government shutdown has continued, but now we're seeing they're going to pull on this contingency fund to at least pay for half of the money that they would normally during this time.

SANCHEZ: And, Alayna, during tomorrow's off-year elections, several key races could give us sort of a glimpse of how people feel about the economy and, of course, the administration. New polling, though, shows that voters may not be impressed with President Trump. The data finds he's hitting his lowest approval rating this term, just 37 percent, his highest disapproval, matching January 2021. Democrats also showing a very early advantage when it comes to potentially flipping Congress in next year's midterms.

What is behind these numbers?

TREENE: Yes, well, one of the really interesting things about all of this, Boris and Brianna, is that White Houses normally shrug off these type of disapproval ratings, these poll numbers.

But what we have seen the president do is actually entrench himself even deeper in some of the issues that this polling shows from CNN that Americans disagree with him on. For example, I would take immigration enforcement across the country.

A majority of Americans, 57 percent in the CNN survey, said that they believe the Trump administration is going too far with its immigration enforcement and. The president was actually talking about this last night when he had -- when he appeared on "60 Minutes" for an interview with Norah O'Donnell.

And he said actually that he believes his administration is not going far enough. Of course, this comes as we know there's been a lot of uptick and criticism over the way that ICE has been handling some of these procedures, including breaking glass as they try to get into cars, their use of tear gas. The list goes on.

[13:05:03]

So that's one area where -- that we saw the president really dig in. Another is the government shutdown. We're seeing in these polls that Republicans and the president are taking a lot of the blame, facing a lot of the political heat on this. But the president is still digging himself in deeper, saying it's up to the Democrats to open this.

And he even brought up the idea of getting rid of the filibuster, essentially eradicating this precedent, and trying to end the shutdown without any Democratic support. And so as we look at these numbers, 63 percent disapproval, you mentioned it, but it is -- that is a higher disapproval rating than he did have actually when he left office during his first term.

SANCHEZ: Alayna Treene live for us at the White House, thank you so much.

One key race we will be watching is the battle for mayor in New York. Today, front-runner Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani firing back after this threat from the president:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's going to be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York, because if you have a communist running New York, all you're doing is wasting the money you're sending there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Here was Mamdani's response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZOHRAN MAMDANI (D), NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL CANDIDATE: Now, Donald Trump may speak as if it is his decision, but this is money that this city is owed. This is money that we will expect to collect, and I will take every single day after this election to put together my city government, my city hall to ensure that it is prepared not only for the threats from Donald Trump, but also the threats from an affordability crisis that has put one in four New Yorkers in poverty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Let's get some perspective from Andrew Yang, a former 2020 presidential candidate who also ran for New York mayor in 2021. He is the co-founder of the Forward Party and CEO of Noble Mobile.

Andrew, great to see you, as always.

Do you see tomorrow's mayoral election as a referendum on President Trump?

ANDREW YANG, CO-CHAIR, FORWARD PARTY: I wouldn't think so, Boris, because New York City is a very distinct political environment. There are three candidates in the race, Zohran Mamdani, Andrew Cuomo, and Curtis Sliwa, who still has maybe low double digits of the vote.

I don't think that Donald Trump's popularity nationally is necessarily going to be reflected. I will say that obviously whoever becomes mayor is going to have Donald Trump very much front and center in terms of their governing, because New York City does get a lot of money from the feds.

And I live here in New York. We're going to need it.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

One of the stories that has come up as we debate the future of the Democratic Party and what it looks like is the comparison between Abigail Spanberger running for governor in Virginia and Mamdani running for mayor of New York City, two very different archetypes for Democrats, right?

How do you see what some have described as a civil war playing out in the Democratic Party as you look at these two candidates?

YANG: I definitely think Virginia is a little bit more representative Boris. I mean, again, New York City is blue-dominated. It has politics that I think are not reflected in the vast majority of communities around the country.

Virginia, now, that's like a swingy, kind of blue-leaning state that's trended kind of purple. Also, they're being caught up in the shutdown because there's so many federal government employees. So I think that Virginia is a much truer bellwether. I think New Jersey, you could also argue as well.

As you can tell, I think New York City is its own thing.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

YANG: And I think Zohran is going to be elevated certainly within the Democratic Party, but I'm not sure that a Zohran-style campaign would necessarily have the same result elsewhere.

SANCHEZ: And yet one of the central issues, perhaps the central issue that he's focused on in his race is affordability, as a lot of people are feeling the pain of inflation and an economy that doesn't really reflect some of the success that we have seen on Wall Street.

Do you think that some of his populist messaging is something that other Democrats can mimic?

YANG: They should, for sure. And that can include Abigail Spanberger or folks who represent the moderate wing of the party. And that's not a me thing or Zohran thing. That's every poll. If you look at it, Americans are very stressed and concerned about the lack of affordability, and A.I. is going to make that dicier for a lot of households.

Last week, Amazon said they were replacing 14,000 white-collar workers with A.I. And people read those headlines and think, oh, my gosh, like, is that going to impact me? So that to me is something that should bridge all parts of the political spectrum. If you look at it, they're going to be Republicans talking about affordability too, just in a slightly different way.

[13:10:03]

SANCHEZ: Yes, that's a good point.

I'm glad you mentioned A.I., because I always try to shoehorn a question about artificial intelligence any time we have a conversation.

And I want to get your reaction to Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon telling CNN about A.I. -- quote -- "There will be disruption. But I'm a big believer that our economy is very nimble, very flexible. And when you look at the technology that's flooded over hundreds of years into our society, we adapt. We find new businesses. We find new jobs. I don't believe it will be different this time."

He has a bit of a rosier picture on the disruption that we are likely to see from A.I. than you do. What do you think?

YANG: I don't think he's looked at the data, honestly. I mean, if you start digging, you find that about 44 percent of American jobs are either repetitive manual or repetitive cognitive. I actually talked to an officer at a peer institution to Goldman Sachs

who said that that institution is going to be cutting 30 percent, 40 percent of workers. So I don't even think he believes it, honestly. I think he says what you would say publicly to the press.

But, meanwhile, he will have a meeting later that day that's talking about cutting a lot of workers within his own organization. And that's true not just of Goldman. That's true of other financial institutions. It's true of insurance companies and on and on, so that the A.I. job buzz saw is unfortunately real and speeding up.

SANCHEZ: Andrew Yang, always appreciate having you on. Thanks so much for the conversation.

YANG: Thanks, Boris. Great to be with you.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

Still to come: security wait times longer than some travelers' flights. It is getting uglier at airports across the country, and we are following the latest.

Plus, a case that could see school officials held accountable for a shooting on campus. We're following testimony in the $40 million lawsuit filed by elementary teacher Abby Zwerner, who was shot by a student.

KEILAR: And later: Federal officials release more information about an alleged terror plot thwarted in Michigan.

We will have that and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:16:15]

KEILAR: Air travel experiencing new levels of strain as the government shutdown drags on.

So far today, Newark and Albuquerque airports are reporting air traffic control staffing shortages. This past weekend was the worst for air traffic control staffing since the government closed on October 1. Nearly a dozen airports nationwide suffered delays. On Halloween alone, roughly 80 percent of air traffic controllers in the New York City area called out.

And it's not just air traffic control. Security checkpoints are also stretched because of a lack of TSA staffing. Today, Houston's airport warned travelers of three hour-wait times, blaming the shutdown.

We're joined by Nick Daniels, the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.

What are you hearing now as we are looking at what really look like new images, kind of a new situation that we saw this weekend? What are you hearing from air traffic controllers about what the weekend was like?

NICK DANIELS, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATION: The amount of stress, the fatigue, the frustration is growing every day.

Air traffic controllers are waking up to a headline that says there's no end in sight. And that leads to a level of hopelessness as well. And there's not even as many air traffic controllers that are working today as there was in the 2019 shutdown, where air traffic controllers working six days a week, 10 hours a day.

And that was already an issue that we were working on. And now every day that this continues, it continues to build and it continues to put them in a place that is completely unacceptable.

KEILAR: Can you help us visualize what it's like inside of a tower when there are not enough people?

DANIELS: You start having one person take on multiple tasks, where you would normally have that workload divided between controllers. They're going to go to work. They're going to do their job. They're going to keep everyone safe.

But you have to start slowing down the number of aircraft that can go through it, so one person can handle this level of complexity. This is the most high-consequence job in the entire world. You're making 1,000 decisions in just one rotation to ensure that aircraft move safely in and around the airport or in the sky.

And every single time that they have to take on an additional level of responsibility amidst all these other issues is something we have to be concerned about and something we have to manage.

KEILAR: What are the personal financial dilemmas that they're facing right now?

DANIELS: We're not only seeing air traffic controllers already reporting, like, I have no money for gas and to be able to get to work. They're over one month at this point without a level of compensation for the amazing work that these patriots do day in and day out, but also on top of that, not having childcare.

We're seeing air traffic controllers for their first time starting to resign. We have trainees that are resigning and we have certified controllers. And we're getting reports of them resigning over the course of this past week.

KEILAR: You have called for a clean funding bill. Is that -- that's right.

DANIELS: Yes, it is.

KEILAR: You have called for a clean funding bill. That at this point is the demand of Republicans and the White House as well. You were at the White House roundtable this past week on aviation, travel and union leaders. And the White House has said they have no intentions to meet with

Democrats until the government is reopened. Have you been able to speak to Democratic House and Senate, especially leadership, about what your folks need?

DANIELS: We have. And our message has been consistent from the very beginning. One day of a shutdown was too much. Air traffic controllers cannot be used as a political pawn.

And I can help everyone know the end of this story. People can't live without money. It's putting us in a position to -- for an air traffic controller to have to not only deal with this profession, but then weigh going home and having to have the consequences of being at a home and trying to explain to your family that you're going to go into one of the most demanding jobs in the world and you don't know when you're going to get paid again.

Our message is simple. Open the government and it has to open now. That's the real issue. And that's the only way that this is going to be solved.

KEILAR: You have been through this time and again, and the threat of it time and again now, right? This is becoming a kind of regular thing.

[13:20:05]

But I don't know that we have ever seen it threatened in recent history, a holiday season kind of at a critical point in the shutdown, right?

DANIELS: Air traffickers, we're worried about that as well.

KEILAR: Talk to us about that. What happens if we get to the Thanksgiving travel rush and the government is still shut down? What does that look like?

DANIELS: There's a lot of things, doing this job for 23 years, that I can predict or I could tell you and explain. I have no idea how to explain what it would look like if we get to the holiday rush and we're still dealing with a government shutdown.

The number of issues are growing daily. When air traffic controllers can't drive to work already and don't have gas or childcare, and then we're talking about it lasting all the way to holidays, it's not something I can sit here and tell the flying public, America in any way, shape, or form of what that would look like.

KEILAR: Would you feel safe flying?

DANIELS: I feel safe because of the hardworking men and women that I represent. They are showing up. And to every single person that shows up each day, each moment, they're the ones shouldering this burden of the shutdown.

And it's something that we have to recognize them for, is that they're taking on -- this on when it has nothing to do with them whatsoever. And it's, again, why we're calling this shutdown has to end now. These hardworking Americans need to be paid.

KEILAR: Do you feel safer when they're not dealing with these kinds of issues?

DANIELS: No, every day this continues, this system will be less safe. Tomorrow will be less safe than today. And because of that, and it's our job to communicate for the safety of the flying public, it's why the traffic has to reduce, why things have to slow down, because we cannot put these men and women dealing with this job on top of this prolonged shutdown.

KEILAR: Nick Daniels, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.

DANIELS: Thank you.

KEILAR: And, next, we're following a potential landmark trial that could end up with school officials being held responsible for shootings on their campuses.

Plus, President Trump says Nicolas Maduro's days are numbered, as he attempts to dispel concerns of possible war with Venezuela. We will have more on that ominous warning ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:26:22]

SANCHEZ: So court is back in session today in a case that could set a precedent for holding school officials accountable after school shootings.

Testimony resumed in the civil trial of a Virginia elementary schoolteacher who back in 2023 was shot by a 6-year-old student. Abby Zwerner is suing the former assistant principal for $40 million, claiming that Ebony Parker failed to act after several people raised concerns that the boy brought a gun to school.

KEILAR: Let's talk about this now with CNN correspondent Jean Casarez.

Jean, what have we heard from defense witnesses so far?

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, right now, on the stand, it is a fascinating witness, Dr. Amy Klinger. She is an expert in education and school safety, and she's been testifying for quite a while now.

But she is basically saying that the defendant in this case, who was the vice principal, Ebony Parker, did not violate any duty whatsoever. She did not breach her professional standards for several reasons, number one, the credibility of the threat.

She is saying that because this was a 6-year-old, unprecedented that they would bring an actual gun to school, that you cannot believe that there is a credible threat here. And, yes, a teacher came in saying two students have told me he's got a gun today. He's brought a gun to school. Another teacher saying, we understand he took something out of his backpack, pulled it in his pocket, but she is saying that does not raise the level of threat because it is just not a possibility.

It wasn't at that point a possibility that a child that young could bring a gun. Second, specificity, that when a teacher came and said that two students had just said they saw he has a gun, the teacher didn't know the students by name. So there was no specificity. So that did not give the vice principal a duty to investigate further.

And the third thing she is saying is that the foreseeability, there was no foreseeability there could be a gun. Now, what's interesting is, we're on cross-examination. He has not brought up, the plaintiff's attorney, the past behavior of this child, because, at this school, in the previous school year, they tried to strangle their kindergarten teacher.

And this 6-year-old, once he returned to the school that school year, was taking a belt around trying to whip students out on the schoolyard. And then two days before this shooting, he took Abby Zwerner, who is the plaintiff in this case, her cell phone, his teacher, slammed it on the ground and the glass shattered. He was suspended and that was his first day back to school after that suspension.

So this witness is staying firm that, because it could be a play gun -- now, nobody said it was a play gun, but she says, with the child of that age, the assumption is going to be by the assistant principal that this most likely, if there was a gun at all, it was a play gun.

SANCHEZ: Wow.

Jean Casarez, thank you so much for the update in court.

The government shutdown now threatening to surpass the longest on record, as tens of millions of Americans have been caught up in the chaos, whether federal employees, SNAP recipients, or folks simply trying to catch a flight home at a U.S. airport.

We're going to ask a lawmaker how much longer he expects this will drag on next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)