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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

Hurricane Melissa Slams Cuba; Trump Receives Royal Treatment In South Korea; U.S. Government Shutdown Nightmare. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired October 29, 2025 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:24]

BRIAN ABEL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to our viewers, joining us from the United States and all around the world. I'm Brian Abel. Thank you so much for being with us this morning.

It's Wednesday, October 29th, 5:00 a.m. here in Washington, D.C.

And straight ahead on EARLY START.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The first outer bands of Hurricane Melissa are beginning to arrive here in eastern Cuba.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It is going to be a gargantuan humanitarian effort to get the aid to the hardest hit areas in western Jamaica.

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: The U.S. president is in South Korea.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: He's leaving with a medal. He's leaving with a crown. What he might not be leaving with is a signed trade deal just yet.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We are now entering the fifth week of the federal government shutdown, and the consequences are getting much more grim for so many Americans.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY): Bottom line, it's time for Republicans to start getting serious about ending this shutdown.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

ABEL: Hurricane Melissa has now made its second landfall in the Caribbean, this time in eastern Cuba, as an extremely dangerous category three storm. Flooding has already begun in Cuba just hours after Melissa made its initial landfall in nearby Jamaica. Cuba will see damaging winds, torrential rain and dangerous storm surge as Melissa moves over the island. The storm size, as measured by its full wingspan, is roughly the size of Texas, which is about 770 miles across. Rainfall totals remain catastrophic, and hurricane conditions are spreading inland across Cuba's warning areas.

More than 700,000 people were evacuated in Cuba ahead of Melissa's landfall. The Cuban president warning the hurricane would bring a very difficult night for all of Cuba, but assured the island nation would recover.

Let's go now to CNN meteorologist Chris Warren.

We know that it hit Jamaica. Now, Cuba taking the brunt.

CHRIS WARREN, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And then next up it will be the Bahamas, Brian. And this is the latest with the storm. The new update from the National Hurricane Center is in this is still a category three dangerous storm. This is a hurricane with winds at 115 miles an hour, gusting to 140. So, there's the wind, the rain and the storm surge.

So, the purple areas in here, these are the taller storms associated with the hurricane. So very heavy rain moving across eastern Cuba, but also even these two bands right here for Haiti and into the Dominican Republic could bring flash flooding. So, these storms, these tropical systems do have a lot of wild cards with them.

And rain is often one of those wild cards. The winds are pretty straightforward in terms of the worst of the wind. It's going to be close to the eye right in here, so that eyes falling apart a bit, but still within here. That's where the strongest of the winds can be expected.

And then for the rest of this day, by around daybreak or so, it will almost be out of Cuba or off of the coast. At least the center of it will be still raining, though, and hurricane conditions expected for the central and southern Bahamas as a still category two hurricane. And then it will be a category two as well, getting off during the overnight hours.

So, here's a look at the winds and 65 to 70 mile an hour winds certainly can be expected with this. Those wind gusts and then getting over the waters again you lose a little bit of that friction from the land. So, the winds can just have that much more freedom to go fast. And at times gusting to 90 miles an hour over the Bahamas late tonight and overnight, it will really be working out of the Bahamas. And by Thursday morning those winds will be calming down considerably.

Then here's the rain. Remember flooding, rain and anywhere where there's higher terrain, landslides and mudslides a possibility through the rest of this morning and early afternoon. It will absolutely be a nasty day and a dangerous day for those that need to seek shelter. You need to do so here in the Bahamas, 5:00 this evening. Still right over the Bahamas. Not until the overnight hours will it eventually pull away from the Bahamas and head out into the Atlantic.

A big swath of rain expected here again, flooding, mudslides, landslides all a possibility with this. And you can see the track eventually by the end of the week, we'll make another close pass by, Brian, here to Bermuda. So, they are under a hurricane watch. ABEL: It is just hitting nearly everywhere in the Caribbean, it seems, Chris. Bahamas seek shelter. Chris Warren, thank you.

The U.S. president is in South Korea today and has been meeting with the country's new president, Lee Jae-myung.

[05:05:06]

He presented Donald Trump with the country's highest honor, usually reserved for South Korean leaders. He was also given a lavish gift, a replica of an ancient golden crown. President Trump, addressing leaders at the APEC CEO summit, earlier noting he made, quote, groundbreaking agreements while visiting Malaysia and Japan. He says the deal with South Korea will be finalized very soon.

For the latest on all of this, we now go to CNN's Will Ripley for us live in Seoul -- Will.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Brian, it was a red carpet. Some might say royal treatment for President Trump here in South Korea, that the band even played "YMCA" as he was walking with the South Korean president. And then they bestowed him with that enormous gold-plated crown adorned with deer and birds and trees, which are symbols of sacred authority and divine rule. That crown was worn by the ancient Korean kings of the fifth and sixth century. And now, President Trump has an exact life size replica. Also, he was awarded South Korea's highest honor, the grand order of Mugunghwa, which is a medal that he can take home with him.

What he's not taking home is a finalized trade deal with South Korea, at least not yet. The two sides are still having to hammer out details. The biggest sticking point $350 billion in upfront investment that President Trump wants in exchange for 15 percent tariffs. The South Koreans say if they handed over that much cash to a fund that President Trump controls, they would essentially trigger a financial crisis in this country.

So they're trying to find a workaround, but still giving trying to give President Trump what he wants on trade and also giving him some other gifts to take along with him. For his big day tomorrow here in South Korea, where he meets with the Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Now, one leader that he likely will not be meeting with here on the Korean peninsula. Despite a lot of speculation in recent days, is North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the North Koreans basically stayed silent even though President Trump, when asked about meeting Kim, said repeatedly he would love to. He could even extend his trip if possible. But just within the last few hours, President Trump, finally that meeting ain't going to happen this time.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know Kim Jong-un very well. We get along very well. We really weren't able to work out timing. We have -- President Xi is coming tomorrow and that was something that obviously is very important to the world, to all of us. (END VIDEO CLIP)

RIPLEY: Stakes are very high for that meeting with the Chinese leader. It's their first sit down of President Trump's second term. They haven't seen each other face to face in a number of years, and they certainly have a lot to talk about.

Recent days, both the U.S. and China have been signaling that they're getting closer to finalizing a trade deal, which, of course, would cause much of the world to breathe a sigh of relief, because obviously, if things went downhill, it could be disastrous for the global economy, not to mention the economies of the U.S. and China.

But there are still a lot of details, Brian, they have to work out rare earths being probably the biggest one. China basically controls the rare earths market right now. They use rare earths to make the microchips, the semiconductors that power all of our global tech. President Trump doesn't want China to have that much leverage. He's trying to strike rare earth deals with other countries. But it's going to be years before the rest of the world can catch up with Chinas control of that market.

So, a lot of things to talk about, and that will be happening here on the Korean peninsula in our morning hours, local time. Your evening hours there in New York on the East Coast.

ABEL: Will Rripley live in Seoul, laying out just how important this trip is for President Donald Trump. Will, thank you.

The U.S. government, meanwhile, is shut down and its heading into its 29th day of shutdown. And there's still no sign either side is willing to budge. Members of the military may not get paid on Friday, and tens of millions of Americans are also at risk of losing crucial federal food aid, known as SNAP benefits.

The top Senate Republican is defending the Trump administration's refusal to use $5 billion in emergency funds for food aid, funds that Congress had already set aside. Democrats are pushing back, saying President Trump does have the power to use that money as past administrations have done during government shutdowns.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ROSA DELAURO (D-CT): What President Trump is doing on the hunger issue and on the nutrition issue is immoral. I am the ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, and I promise you that there is funding available to provide SNAP benefits beyond November 1st.

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD), MAJORITY LEADER: I think that the White House obviously is faced with a tough decision. They have to figure out how do they reallocate, reprioritize funding, where it goes, where it doesn't go. And they're doing everything they can legally and with the capacity that they have available to them to try and make this, I think, as painless as possible. But there is a point at which they don't have that capacity anymore. And I think we've reached that point. (END VIDEO CLIP)

[05:10:03]

ABEL: Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are criticizing a Republican led investigation into President Biden's use of an autopen. This after the committee sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi urging her to take action for potential prosecution against some of Biden's aides.

CNN's Annie Grayer reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNIE GRAYER, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: The Republican-led House Oversight Committee is calling all of former President Joe Bidens presidential pardons void, and is asking the Department of Justice to look into this further. The committee is basing their claims off of interviews with 14 of Biden's former aides and is raising serious questions about how Biden went about his pardon process and use of the autopen.

But all of those aides stand by the former president, and Biden maintains that he made all of his own decisions. It is really unprecedented for the Department of Justice to look into this, though, because there is no record of ever overturning a presidential pardon. DOJ has its own ongoing investigation into Biden's use of the autopen. So, this Republican led report just continues to bolster their own investigation.

On top of this report, the committee is also asking DOJ to look at three of Biden's former aides who pled the Fifth Amendment in their testimony, pleading. The Fifth is when an individual doesn't want to answer specific questions, doesn't necessarily mean evidence of wrongdoing, and the committee is also asking the D.C. board of medicine to look at Biden's former doctor and whether there were any issues in his care of the former president during his term.

So, there is a lot to unpack with this report, but we will see what happens with the Department of Justice now that it has it in their hands.

Annie Grayer, CNN, from Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ABEL: Israel claims Hamas is in clear violation of the ceasefire. Coming up, the latest on the aftermath across Gaza as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu orders a wave of renewed airstrikes.

And the U.S. carrying out its largest one-day operation against alleged drug cartel boats so far. We'll look at the latest round of deadly military strikes on vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:16:34] ABEL: Israel says it will resume the ceasefire in Gaza after a wave of heavy overnight airstrikes across the enclave. The bombardment, which has killed at least 91 people, according to hospital officials, came after Israel accused Hamas of violating the truce. Israel claims Hamas killed one of its soldiers in southern Gaza, staged the discovery of a dead hostage with this video you're seeing here is proof and returned remains Israel that didn't belong to any of the hostages.

Hamas denies all of this and says it's still committed to the ceasefire.

CNN's Nada Bashir joins me now from London with the latest. And all of those accusations against Hamas leading Israel to retaliate -- Nada.

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. We have seen a devastating round of airstrikes carried out by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip, marking the deadliest day in Gaza since the ceasefire came into effect. As you mentioned, hospital officials say at least 91 people in Gaza are confirmed to have been killed in those strikes. Hospital officials say some half of those are believed to have been children. And that figure is expected to rise. We have been seeing over the course of the morning video footage coming in from the Gaza strip, showing Gaza's civil defense searching through the rubble, recovering bodies that have been killed in this devastating attack.

And as you mentioned, this wave of airstrikes carried out by the Israeli military came on Tuesday night. The Israeli prime minister's office calling on the Israeli military to strike powerfully, according to the prime minister's office, in response to what they have described as ceasefire violations.

Now, as you laid out there, Brian, the Israeli prime minister's office has accused Hamas of staging the recovery of a deceased hostage. They have also accused Hamas of returning the remains of it remains that do not match that of the remaining deceased hostages that have not actually been returned to Israel as part of the ceasefire agreement, and in addition to that, they have accused Hamas fighters of killing an Israeli soldier.

Now, of course, what we have seen is this continued debate over the return of the deceased hostages we had known prior to the agreement of this ceasefire deal that it would prove very difficult. That was the understanding to recover all of the deceased hostages. We know that the Red Cross has been playing a crucial part in aiding in that process.

But, of course, seeing the delay following the implementation of the ceasefire, in returning those deceased hostages there has been growing frustration both within the Israeli prime minister's office and, of course, within Israel, where many had hoped that they would be able to lay their loved ones to rest and have still not had that final closure.

Now, we've been hearing from the Red Cross, they've described the situation on the ground as difficult, that they continue to play a key role in supporting in those efforts. But again, this has raised questions as to the durability of the ceasefire agreement. We did hear from the U.S. president, Donald Trump, telling reporters yesterday that this will not jeopardize the ceasefire agreement. And it's clear that mediators involved in securing that deal are keen to ensure that it is upheld, and the terms of that deal are upheld, despite this wave of airstrikes that we have seen.

ABEL: All right, Nada Bashir for us live from London -- Nada, thank you.

Jamaica has declared a disaster in the wake of Hurricane Melissa. We'll speak with a resident who rode out the storm, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:24:26]

ABEL: Right now, Cuba is feeling the full impact of hurricane Melissa. The powerful storm making its second landfall in the Caribbean about two hours ago in eastern Cuba at category three strength. More than 700,000 people have been evacuated. The storm has knocked out power in many areas, and life-threatening storm surge, catastrophic flash floods and mudslides are expected.

Melissa's initial landfall on Tuesday was in Jamaica, where the prime minister has declared a disaster. There are concerns about shortages of food, water and other crucial supplies. More than half a million customers are without power there, and roughly 15,000 people are in emergency shelters.

[05:25:06]

Melissa responsible for at least seven deaths throughout the Caribbean. President Donald Trump says the U.S. is prepared to help Jamaica in its recovery.

Let's bring in a guest now, Natassia Wright. She is co-founder of Mind Food International and a Jamaica resident. She joins us live this hour from Portmore. That's just outside Kingston in southeast Jamaica.

Natassia, thank you for being with us.

I want to do a quick check in. How are you holding up? And I know you have an 11-year-old with you. How are they doing?

NATASSIA WRIGHT, CO-FOUNDER, MIND FOOD INTERNATIONAL: Thank you so much, Brian. Boy, this is probably one of the most unique interviews I've ever done. So, I'm currently in my car. It's pitch-black outside because, of course, it's 4:00 a.m., but more so because most residents on this side of the island in Saint Catherine, we are without power. And so, I've had to be really, really what we'd call creative today.

But I'm happy to be able to join and give you guys some updates. So, on the ground right now, we know that there's quite a bit of damage. Even where I am, where we live, it's actually close to the sea. And so, we have been having winds up ridiculous. Speeds for the past two days. And so we're seeing the effects of that, even driving to this location.

So, there are trees falling, electrical poles are in the way. You do have some houses that have been damaged, but the full extent of the damage has actually been in the western and some of the parishes in the middle.

ABEL: Can you walk us through how it was during the worst of it, as it came through what you were doing, how you prepared for those moments? Absolutely. So, it was terrifying. I have to tell you, it -- the winds, the hearing, the winds howling, outside, hearing the sea roaring just wondering what's going to happen next. Seeing trees fall. And these trees have been around for ages.

Just seeing different objects flying in the wind. It was quite a scene, and it was scary. It was at one point it was very hard for us to sleep because of what we were hearing happening on the outside.

No, we did our best to prepare. One thing I have to tell, you know, persons who are listening in or structure here in Jamaica, we try our best to ensure that, you know, our buildings are built to be able to, you know, manage these kinds of weather. But of course, this superstorm is, is unmatched.

And so -- we, you know, a few houses in the community, may have gotten some kind of damage. But again, those homes on the western side of the island talking about Saint Elizabeth, Montego Bay, Manchester, clarendon, they have seen record levels of just roof damages, losing homes completely. So, no matter how prepared you possibly were, you know, there were just some things that you could not have prepared for.

Hospitals as we speak right now, hospitals are damaged, schools are damaged. It's just unbelievable what the reports will look like come tomorrow and the day after.

But we tried our best on our end, just to ensure that there wasn't debris around anything that could become missiles in the wind. Also ensure that, you know, we minimize the leakage's, make sure we had enough food in the house, those kind of things. We did as best as we could, make sure our devices were charged, but not even that. We were prepared for.

We lost electricity more than 48 hours ago, so there were just some things, Brian, we could not have preempted.

ABEL: Yeah, it doesn't matter how much you charge your devices with two days' worth of no power, especially when you're checking in on friends and loved ones. Through all this, I do want to ask you, because you are in your vehicle. You did drive around a little bit. See some of the damage.

What do you anticipate will be needed moving forward as the island begins its recovery?

WRIGHT: Well, Brian, I have to tell you, driving around is nothing compared. I[m not seeing the damage compared to what I'm seeing happening in the western end of the island. So, for example, Manchester, Black River. I've seen videos of flood so high that individuals have to evacuate that entire area or town. For example, the eastern side of the island in Saint Thomas, the riverbanks broke, you know?