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France Braces for Another Weekend of Protests; Israeli Forces Imposes Full Siege on Hebron after Two Soldiers Killed at Military Checkpoint; Trump DOJ Sues to Block Results If Alaska GOP Senator Loses; Trump Pledges to Straighten Out Starshield Issue in Ukraine. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired October 24, 2026 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hello and a very warm welcome to our viewers all around the world. I'm Salma Abdelaziz in London. Let's go straight to our headlines.
French authorities are trying to avoid scenes like these today as they brace for yet another round of major protests. We're going live to Paris.
Israel begins demolitions in a West Bank city after two soldiers were killed in an attack. We'll have a live report for you from Jerusalem with the latest.
And a place of worship becomes the scene of an unprecedented, deadly shooting in Jordan.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Salma Abdelaziz
ABDELAZIZ: Let's begin in France, where the country is on edge and bracing for mass demonstrations in the coming hours. These are live images of Paris, where it is just after 10 am.
Authorities have launched a massive security operation to prevent the kinds of riots and violence that had erupted last weekend. Some 70,000 police officers and additional troops are being deployed across the country.
France's main student union is calling for a major protest in the capital this afternoon. One of France's largest trade unions says it will join hundreds of thousands of people are expected to participate and the unrest extends beyond France.
Mass protests are also expected in Rome and Milan, part of a wider wave of discontent across Europe in recent weeks. Demonstrators are demanding action on the rising cost of living, dismal job prospects and other economic and social issues. For more on this latest wave of protests, I want to bring in our
correspondent, Stefano Pozzebon, standing by for us, live in Rome. But first, let me go to our senior international correspondent, Melissa Bell, joining us from the streets of Paris.
Good morning to you, Melissa. I can see the preparations are already underway behind you. But perhaps this is going to be even more tense and confusing than we expected, because, last night, Paris police banned the route that had originally been agreed upon with the unions.
What are you learning about this and how could it impact the demonstrations today?
MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. First of all, essentially what we've seen since last week, Salma, are curfews in so many French cities, gatherings and protests banned. And that is the case again this Saturday.
In fact, the only one that's to be allowed are those that are led by the unions. So the one that was planned to go from here at Bastille all the way, then onwards, instead, that's now been changed.
Still, as you can see, shop owners are not taking any risks here at Place de la Bastille as they are elsewhere in Paris, given those scenes of looting that we saw last weekend and that left some 3,000 businesses damaged over the course of the last week. So they're taking no chances still.
What's changed is that the march, the one that was allowed by the trade unions, will not now go from Bastille, will go from Place d'Italie. Still, the CGT, the union had called on people to start gathering here, no sign of them for now.
But clearly the authorities are taking no risks. Some 70,000 security forces, they include gendarme policemen. Some parts of the military will be on the streets of France today to make sure there are no repeats of the scenes that we saw last week.
Still, a lot of demonstrators determined to continue making their voices heard despite the bans and those difficulties that I mentioned in allowing them onto the streets and to carry out the protests they planned.
The other point to watch today, place to watch, will be Orleans, to the south of Paris. That is where the National Rally is holding its annual congress. It's launching its six-month campaign for next year's presidential election and we expect massive counter-protests there as well, Salma.
ABDELAZIZ: Such an outpouring of anger, of discontent on the streets from a student movement that has now expanded and widened to include so many other voices. Melissa Bell will be monitoring that for us all day from Paris. Thank you so much.
I want to go now to our correspondent, Stefano Pozzebon, who is standing by for us live in Rome. You heard there from Melissa what they're expecting on the streets of
Paris. Talk to me about the protesters in Rome and in many other Italian cities today.
What are they demanding?
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And how has the government in Italy responded with security presence?
STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Salma, well, I think that just like in France, many people here in Italy were really shocked by the violence on display last week and especially in Milan, the looting and this explosive anger on display from the protesters, who have several instances and grievances colliding together.
From the rejection to the war in Israel to, of course, the cost of living, the price of gasoline, lack of investment in the public sector and in school in particular when it comes to the students.
One big difference between what Melissa is going to see in Paris and what's happening here in Rome, I think, is that, right now in Rome, there are at least four different gathering points laid out by the protesters.
Two of them are authorized, while the other two are not authorized. So we need to understand how the square will react. The response of the Italian government has been Swift to Milan's riots last weekend.
They have deployed additional troops, especially from the army, to support law enforcement. And the Meloni government has drafted and immediately passed a law-and-order decree that has several measures to help the law enforcement units to keep the protesters at bay.
One of them, for example, is allowing the police to preemptively detain minors, underage protesters, which is something that they were not allowed to do in the past.
Because we have seen that the vast majority of the people stopped and brought in for identification during the riots in Milan between Saturday and Sunday last week, where indeed underage. We're talking about 13, 14, 15 or 16 years old.
Here in Rome, there is a massive display of police and deployment of several units, all trying also to keep the protesters at different spots in the city. And just like Melissa is seeing between Paris and Orleans, here in Rome, Meloni supporters are also gathering on the streets to support her policies instead, Salma.
ABDELAZIZ: Stefano Pozzebon there in Rome. And I know you'll be on the streets later as protesters gather and as that security force that you mentioned increases across multiple Italian cities.
Now to learn more about these protests, I want to bring in Mujtaba Rahman. He is a Eurasia Group managing director for Europe. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. I know you were
listening to our reporters on the ground there in Paris and in Rome. So I really want to begin with what's at stake here.
Why has this cost of living crisis, this general anger and discontent reached a breaking point?
I mean, it is, you know, astounding to see two major European capitals essentially in lockdown.
Why is this happening now?
MUJTABA RAHMAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR EUROPE, EURASIA GROUP: I think the immediate trigger is the cost of living and the affordability crisis. As you've said, certainly in Italy, also in France and half (ph) in Spain, its last weekend. The immediate trigger, I think, was to do with the housing crisis.
But it's the mismatch, Salma, between the life experience, in particular the younger feeling, and government's complete inability to address the affordability crisis and some of the concerns that the younger generation has.
Countries do not have the fiscal space. They have very, very tight budgets. The bond markets are scrutinizing all the spending commitments that governments are making. And it's resulted, I think, in a complete divergence between what the electorate, in particular the young are demanding, and what governments are able to deliver.
ABDELAZIZ: So let's talk about the government response, at least in the immediate, which is deploying thousands of police and troops, as we heard there, in both Paris, in France, essentially locking down these cities, shutting down major sites like the Louvre, for example, in Paris.
Is this, as critics argue, too heavy-handed and simply a way to quell and silence this discontent?
Or is this more about policing the streets?
How do you read that?
RAHMAN: I mean, I think, look, the immediate response to the protests, certainly in France, is to avoid the sorts of scenes that we saw last week up and down the country. I think, as your reporter Melissa suggested in Orleans, that will absolutely be one very important flashpoint.
Le Pen, holding her annual congress, 30,000 anti-le Pen demonstrators expected to mobilize and march on Orleans. So that's an absolute, I think, risk point and worth keeping an eye on.
More generally beyond how governments deal with the immediate protests, I think, is the bigger question about whether they have a plan in place over the medium term.
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To address some of the concerns and the challenges that the electorate is demanding. In France, there is a minority government, meaning they have no majority in the national assembly, in parliament.
They are struggling to pass a budget for next year that will undertake the necessary investments in public education or broader public services that address some of the concerns and the demands that the electorate is making.
And so I think over the medium term, there is a bigger concern about whether these protests will continue to grow or whether governments are going to devise plans to enable their economies to grow, to generate the sorts of resources they need to address these challenges.
I'm quite concerned about the medium term picture beyond what's happening this weekend, next weekend or the very short term.
ABDELAZIZ: So let me dig into that further, because, as you said, these governments may be unable or unwilling to address these concerns. But we are talking about a very broad array of demands here, from increasing education funding to concerns about climate change, to concerns around the housing crisis.
How can the authorities possibly respond to this massive, broad array of demands and discontent on these streets?
RAHMAN: Well, I think in the first instance, governments need to address, through reform and fiscal policy, undertake measures that are going to, you know, begin to address some of these challenges that the electorate is talking about.
The government in France is not able to even pass a budget for the next year that will undertake some of these investments in public education that the youth are demanding.
So I think, in the first instance, it's about governments aligning around a plan, around reform that will begin to address some of these challenges. But what you see, I think, across many countries in Europe is weak governments. They have very weak mandates. They don't really have a reform plan.
They don't really have an agenda to deliver economic growth. They don't really know what they're doing with their budgets. They have very slim majorities. And as a result, I think you have a, as I said, divergence between what the electorate is demanding, what governments can deliver.
And in the background, of course, that is fomenting populism. And we are seeing insurgent populist parties continue to gain ground across many European countries.
That will do very well, particularly in 2027, where about nine countries are going to hold quite critical elections and in which most populist parties on both the extremes of the Right and the Left will do very well. ABDELAZIZ: Mujtaba Rahman there in London, on the driving force
behind these demonstrations that are expected across Europe this weekend, thank you so much for your analysis.
I want to go next to the occupied West Bank. This is where the Israeli military is demolishing buildings in the city of Hebron. Two Palestinian gunmen opened fire on a military checkpoint near Hebron on Friday, killing two Israeli troops and wounding three more.
The assailants were shot dead in a gunfight that lasted some 20 minutes. All this is coming just days before a crucial election in Israel. For more on all of this, we are joined by our Oren Liebermann, who is in Jerusalem.
Good morning to you, Oren. So as we just mentioned there, this attack is coming just four days before that very crucial election in Israel.
Is that playing right now into the prime minister's response?
OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN JERUSALEM BUREAU CHIEF AND CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's unlikely that the attack itself or the response will dramatically sway the elections. We actually just saw the final round of pre- election polling come out last night and the day before.
And most of the major pollsters show that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing, far-right and ultra-orthodox bloc are a bit behind his main rival, Gadi Eisenkot's bloc, though nobody has a clear path to a victory.
So it is certainly possible here, perhaps even likely, that the speed and the scale of the Israeli military response that is led by Netanyahu and his hardline defense minister are, to some extent at least, a political calculation.
Netanyahu has for years tried to show himself as a Mr. Security. And he's never acknowledged any responsibility for the myriad failures that led up to October 7th, three years ago. So he has tried and it seems he may be trying here once again to show his security credentials, the speed with which Israel can respond.
We have seen Israel destroy the homes of attackers in the occupied West Bank after attacks but not on this scale and not at this speed.
Within just hours of the attack early Friday morning, the far-right finance minister said that they would evacuate the neighborhood and look and destroy for anything they deem to be terrorist infrastructure.
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And we saw that play out very quickly, videos of soldiers yelling at Palestinian residents there that they have five minutes to evacuate. And that continued into the night and potentially even into this morning as they begin to work and carry out demolitions.
Netanyahu said they would replicate the model that they used in West Bank Palestinian refugee camps. Those models, those military operations displaced thousands or tens of thousands of Palestinians, cleared out entire neighborhoods.
And that looks like what Israel will be doing now, right before the election here, in terms of the neighborhood in Hebron, where these two Palestinian gunmen came from and from where they tried to flee as this gun battle carried out here.
So just a few days before the elections here, part of this response looks very political as well as, of course, on the military and security side.
ABDELAZIZ: And a very interesting point there from Oren Liebermann, that it is the scale and speed of this military operation that is telling us so much about the political climate ahead of elections. Thank you so much for that update.
I want to go next to Jordan now, where at least eight people were killed in an unprecedented shooting at a church. Gunmen opened fire during a funeral service attended by Christians. This is in the southern Karak province.
You're looking right now at security camera footage showing the gunmen near that church. Now Jordan's king is calling the attack a terrorist act and says those responsible will be dealt with harshly. It is not yet clear who the gunmen are or what the motive they may have had but a manhunt is now underway.
Still to come here on CNN NEWSROOM, president Trump is on a midterm campaign blitz across America. We'll tell you what he said about his strategy to deal with Democrats if they take control of Congress.
Plus a possible way out for residents stranded in a Ukrainian town that is occupied by Russia.
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ABDELAZIZ: Welcome back.
The U.S. is now just 10 days away from midterm Election Day. In the coming hours, president Trump will vote early. A White House official confirmed the president and first lady will cast their ballots in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Now according to data compiled by CNN, more than 23 million early votes have been cast as of Friday. The president will continue his midterm blitz over the next few days. He'll be in Georgia later today. On Sunday, he'll be in Michigan. Then Trump heads to Mississippi on Monday. On Tuesday, he'll make two stops in Texas. And on Wednesday he'll be
in the battleground state of Ohio. As he was leaving Washington on Friday, the president previewed his strategy for the remainder of his presidency if Democrats win control of Congress in the midterms.
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TRUMP: I think the Republicans are going to win. But if there was, as you call it, gridlock, what happens is I veto everything. And then the Democrats come and they want to make a deal.
You veto, veto, veto and then they come and they say, how do we get it done?
And you make a deal.
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ABDELAZIZ: In the meanwhile, the president says he told the Justice Department to file a lawsuit to block certification of Alaska's Senate election if the Republican incumbent loses.
Senator Daniel S. Sullivan is in a tight race with the Democratic candidate. But there is also a Daniel J. Sullivan on the ballot. Alaska uses ranked choice voting, so four candidates are on the general election ballot.
The DOJ lawsuit argues that the situation could confuse people and divert votes from the incumbent. The president talked about the lawsuit on Friday.
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QUESTION: Any thoughts on the Alaska lawsuit?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, I am the one that said do it. They have two guys running named Dan Sullivan running. So the Democrats put up a guy, never -- I don't think he ever voted before, all of a sudden he decides to run for the Senate and his name is Dan Sullivan.
One is Daniel S. one is Daniel J. The Daniel J. is the fake.
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ABDELAZIZ: The lawsuit is the latest attempt by the Trump Justice Department to insert itself into the administration of elections. According to the Constitution, elections are run by the states.
Now a legal expert at Notre-Dame law school says the lawsuit is based on, quote, "strange and unusual legal theory," adding that it is unclear how a court could intervene in the way that the DOJ proposes.
Former president Barack Obama is also hitting the campaign trail in the final days of the midterm election cycle. He will be in Ohio later today, then heads to Michigan. Then he finishes out his campaign blitz on Wednesday in Georgia.
There is some hope on the horizon for people stranded in a Ukrainian town that is currently occupied by Russia. Kyiv and Moscow say they have agreed to a local ceasefire in Alaska.
This is after the U.S. first lady, Melania Trump, helped secure the deal, along with Pope Leo. He raised the crisis with Russian president Vladimir Putin after the pontiff's cancer surgery last week.
About 2,000 people, mostly elderly residents, remain in the town, facing severe shortages of food, water and medicine. The truce is expected to begin next week, with aid deliveries to follow. Residents will be given the option to either evacuate to Russia or to Ukraine.
Meanwhile, U.S. president Donald Trump is promising to get to the bottom of the Starshield controversy in Ukraine. Kyiv says the service is still not fully operational. This contradicts president Trump's claim that it had been restored.
It remains unclear who ordered the restrictions. Here is how Trump responded when CNN pressed him for an explanation on Friday.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You must know now who ordered the Starlink access in Ukraine to be restricted.
Who was it?
Was it dependent on --
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, I wouldn't tell you if I did know. I have no idea. But I wouldn't tell you if I did know.
Why would I tell you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Zelenskyy said they still are receiving --
TRUMP: Well, if there is a problem. I'll get it straight --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Have you told Elon Musk to stop messing around with Ukraine's Starlink connection?
TRUMP: I have not spoken to him.
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ABDELAZIZ: The U.S. president is hinting at the prospect of military intervention in Cuba. Donald Trump spoke at a rally on Friday. This was in southwest Florida, home to a large population of Cuban Americans and Latinos.
Polls suggest that many Cuban Americans favor U.S. military action on Havana. Take a listen to what president Trump told that crowd.
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TRUMP: We'll take care of Cuba on our way back from Iran. We'll just -- We'll do a little stopover. No, we'll do a little stopover. Actually, what we're going to do with Cuba is we're going to come back from Iran. Those beautiful ships will pass Cuba.
We'll have one of them stop about 50 yards off the coast, they'll raise up their hands and then we're going to send Marco Rubio in to finish up the deal.
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ABDELAZIZ: Now U.S. secretary of state Marco Rubio also posted this saying, quote, "To those who seek to create positive change in Cuba, now is the time.
"The disappointment of failed promises, corruption and the privileged lives of only a few seize this opportunity to create the change you desire through a discrete partnership with the CIA."
Cuba's foreign minister is pushing back against U.S. ambitions toward his country and a veiled message on social media.
He said that while Cuba's coastline has beautiful beaches, it also has razor sharp spikes, especially for those who come to the island with a, quote, "lust for domination."
Thank you so much for watching. I'm Salma Abdelaziz "CNN CREATORS" is next and I'll be back with more news at the top of the hour.
