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Early Start with Rahel Solomon

White House Warns Of "Mass Chaos" As 40 U.S. Airport Cut Flights; Today's Senate Vote To Reopen Government Expected To Fail; Trump To Discuss Russian Oil With Hungary's Orban; China Launches New, Advanced Aircraft Carrier; Storm Slams Vietnam, Major Damage To Homes, Trees, Power Lines. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired November 07, 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]

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning and welcome to our viewers joining us from the United States and all around the world. I'm Isabel Rosales. Thanks so much for being with us.

It is Friday, November 7th, 5:00 a.m., right here in Atlanta.

And straight ahead on EARLY START.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: The Trump administration is mandating that airlines slash flights.

CHRISTINA MINNICUS, PASSENGER: They need to get this fixed. They're going to hurt a lot of innocent people.

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: Donald Trump clearly is feeling pressure to bring the shutdown to an end.

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: There had been some glimmers of hope, glimmers of progress over the course of the last 24 to 48 hours. But all that has shifted.

KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR: Elon Musk now has a shot at becoming the world's first trillionaire.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This comes at a time when Tesla has been struggling with its sales, with increased competition in the electric vehicle market.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(MUSIC)

ROSALES: Americans are bracing for chaos at the nation's airports, with more flights getting cut in the hours ahead because of the government shutdown. Airlines have canceled more than 800 flights so far today. That is four times the number of cancellations seen yesterday. That's according to FlightAware. The Trump administration is asking airlines to reduce the number of

flights by 4 percent. It will impact 40 of the busiest airports in the U.S. you can see them all right here highlighted on a map. Now those flight cuts are expected to go up to 10 percent by next Friday. If the government is not reopened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEAN DUFFY, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: As we come into Thanksgiving, if we're still in the shutdown posture, it's going to be rough out there, really rough, and we'll mitigate the safety side. But will you fly on time? Will your flight actually go that? That is yet to be seen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: And just ahead of the holidays, travelers are raising concerns about the federal employees who have to keep those flights running while not getting paid.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANA PAULA ZAMORANO, PASSENGER: I feel really bad for the TSA agents and everybody else, air traffic controllers that are being impacted. So, in a way, I think we saw it coming. And all I can do myself as a traveler is when I get in the plane and when I get to the airport, I thank everybody and say thank you, because I know it's rough.

CHRISTINA MINNICUS, PASSENGER: I have like mixed emotions, but I think my main focus is they need to get back to work. They need to get this fixed. They're going to hurt a lot of innocent people. I'm not worried about getting to Florida, but it might be concerned in 10 days about getting home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: What a mess.

CNN aviation correspondent Pete Muntean has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: The federal aviation administration just published this 15-page emergency order. And in it, the Trump administration is mandating that airlines slash flights if the government shutdown does not end and air traffic controllers continue working without pay.

Here is the breakdown, starting at 6:00 a.m. on Friday, airlines will have to cut 4 percent of flights from their schedules. Next Tuesday, 6 percent of flights. Next Thursday, 8 percent of flights. And next Friday, 10 percent of flights. That, in essence, makes changes within two weeks of Thanksgiving, when air travel was expected to be huge.

This is coming with sharp criticism for major airlines, which are huge economic drivers. And they're saying that the Trump administration is holding a gun to their heads, turning the travel pain of millions into political gain. And no airlines really buying the administrations excuse that the U.S. airspace is suddenly unsafe.

Here's what it means in real numbers. American airlines told me that it will cancel about 220 flights each day, Friday through Monday. Southwest Airlines will cancel around 120 flights on Friday. Delta airlines will cancel 170 flights Friday, and United Airlines will cancel around 200 flights on Friday.

Here's the administration's reasoning for all of this. Air traffic controllers just got this zero dollar pay stub. Their second of this government shutdown.

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says that stress in the national airspace system has reached a point where it is no longer safe to operate at full capacity, though even air traffic controllers have expressed to be major skepticism about all this. Where will this be? While this is the new map of airports everywhere from New York to Florida to Albuquerque to anchorage.

Now airlines are scrambling to adjust, telling me they're dealing with this like they would deal with the mass cancellations during a major snowstorm. The Trump administration says air traffic controllers are in crisis, but airlines say this will create travel chaos.

Pete Muntean, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[05:05:00]

ROSALES: Can you imagine working for no pay? Well, some unpaid federal workers are understandably dealing with significant financial challenges.

An air traffic controller union rep described for CNN the problems that he's hearing about, including some employees now facing eviction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAN MCCABE, SOUTHERN REGIONAL VP, NATIONAL AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLERS ASSOCIATION: When you're not at work, you should be recovering. You should be resting, spending time with your family, doing the things that that you know, someone that's not at work does. But when someone gets off work as an air traffic controller, we don't, as a country want them to have to go work for Uber or go stock shelves at a grocery store. That's another one that I heard today. Or go wait tables and then turn around and get minimal sleep and go back to their -- to their main career where we want them to show up well rested, on their A-game to do a job that is extraordinarily important, that requires a lot of focus.

And for the life of me, I don't understand what we're doing right now because controllers need the ability to sleep, to not take stress from outside work, into work. And when they go on break at work, after getting crushed during a session full of airplanes, they should be able to recover. They should be able to walk around, call their family, watch a TV show, do something to get their mind off of what they just did.

And you know what they're doing right now. They're deferring their mortgages. They're trying to trying to figure out how long can I continue to pay for child care, which allows me to come to work anyway, because you can't bring your child to work.

This is what they're dealing with on a daily basis. And it's disgusting.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: Not good.

And the U.S. Senate appears to be barreling toward a dead end after a new push this week to end the government shutdown. Democrats are indicating that they might block Republicans from forcing a vote to reopen the government today until they deal with the expiring Obamacare subsidies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MINORITY LEADER: Clearly, is feeling pressure to bring the shutdown to an end. Well, I have good news for the president, meet with Democrats, reopen the government, fix the ACA crisis. That's the best way to put this crisis behind us.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: Vice President J.D. Vance is blaming the Democrats for the ongoing shutdown and issued this warning to Americans.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

J.D. VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The American people are unfortunately about to start suffering some very real consequences because of the shutdown.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: More now on today's Senate vote from CNN's Sunlen Serfaty on Capitol Hill.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, things are very fluid at the moment. There have been some glimmers of hope, glimmers of progress over the course of the last 24 to 48 hours. But all that has shifted now that Senate Democrats have indicated that they cannot get behind the deal that is being put forward, that they say it does not go far enough. And if it is put on the floor of the Senate for a vote on Friday, that they will block this, meaning that the shutdown will continue.

Now, the potential deal was to hold votes in the Senate related to reopening the government with a separate vote to fund various other federal agencies. But important here, it also included a standalone vote on those expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies that Democrats have been pushing for. And this is where Democrats say this version of the deal does not go far enough. They want that extension in the underlying package that President Trump potentially would sign into law. And they're holding firm at this moment. So, if that vote goes to the Senate floor on Friday, Democrats say they will block it, meaning the shutdown potentially will drag on,

Sunlen Serfaty, CNN, on Capitol Hill.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROSALES: The U.S. military conducted a new strike against an alleged drug trafficking vessel in the Caribbean Thursday, killing three people. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted this video of the strike on social media. He claims the military attacked a quote, designated terrorist organization but provided no proof. The U.S. has killed 70 people in 17 strikes in the Caribbean.

This comes as the U.S. Senate rejected a resolution that would block strikes against Venezuela without congressional approval. The bipartisan resolution failed 49 to 51, but the White House said on Wednesday that it doesn't currently have legal justification to attack land targets in Venezuela.

Investigators are on the scene at Joint Base Andrews outside of Washington. Officials there evacuated a building as a precaution after someone opened a suspicious package. Sources tell CNN the envelope contained an unknown white powder, and multiple people became ill and then taken to a hospital. Andrews is the military base used by government VIPs, including the president, vice president and cabinet secretaries.

Hungary's prime minister is due at the White House today. We'll see what's on the agenda for talks between Donald Trump and Viktor Orban just ahead.

Plus, the U.S. and Russia are talking about resuming nuclear testing. We'll get the latest from our Fred Pleitgen in Moscow, just ahead.

[05:10:04]

Plus, Israel launches new strikes in Lebanon and says it has new concerns about what Hezbollah is up to. That's straight ahead, after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROSALES: U.S. President Donald Trump will become Hungary's -- Hungary's prime minister, Viktor Orban, and Donald Trump, excuse me, will meet at the White House later today. Hungary's insistence on buying Russian oil despite U.S. sanctions is expected to top their agenda.

Orban has been a strong supporter of Russian president Vladimir Putin throughout the conflict. In Ukraine.

[05:15:02]

The Hungarian prime minister has also threatened to veto some European Union sanctions against Moscow.

Meanwhile, the U.S. and Russia are exploring the possibility of resuming nuclear testing.

CNNs senior correspondent Fred Pleitgen, reports from Moscow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: So, Russian President Vladimir Putin just ordered his ministers and top generals to prepare for possible new Russian nuclear tests. Now, that's potentially huge news. It has been decades since the Russians conducted a nuclear explosion. And they are, of course, a nuclear superpower.

So, I got in touch with Putin's spokesman, and he immediately sent me what he calls an important clarification. Listen in.

DMITRY PESKOV, KREMLIN SPOKESPERSON: But I want to draw your attention to one very important thing. So, we are not starting preparations. We're just investigating whether it is necessary to start preparations. We're still -- we're still bounded by our obligations on the overall ban of nuclear tests.

PLEITGEN: After U.S. President Donald Trump said that the U.S. would begin nuclear testing again, Vladimir Putin called a meeting of his National Security Council, and that's where he said this.

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (translated): I am instructing the foreign ministry, the ministry of defense, the special services, and the relevant civilian agencies to do everything necessary to collect additional information on this issue, analyze it within the framework of the security council, and make agreed proposals on the possible start of work on the preparations for nuclear weapons testing.

PLEITGEN: President Trump has accused both China and Russia of secretly conducting nuclear tests. Now, the Russians have indeed been modernizing their nuclear forces. They've come up with things like a torpedo that can allegedly cause a radioactive tsunami and also recently launched a missile that's actually powered by a nuclear engine and has an indefinite range, the Russians say.

One of the things the Russians haven't done, though, is actually exploded a nuclear bomb. And the Russians say that they do still feel bound by the nuclear test ban treaty. But what they want is for the Americans, for the Trump administration, to provide them with additional information as to what the U.S. president actually meant when he said that the U.S. would begin nuclear testing again.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROSALES: United Nations peacekeepers are urging Israel to hold its fire after a series of new strikes in Lebanon.

Israel says it hit Hezbollah weapons storage facilities on Thursday, claiming the militant group is trying to rebuild its operations in the country. But Lebanon's president slammed the strikes as a, quote, full fledged crime, saying they forced civilians to flee their homes. The U.S. brokered a ceasefire in Lebanon last year after an Israeli ground offensive against Hezbollah, but Israel continued its strikes, claiming Hezbollah violated the truce. The militants deny that.

Kazakhstan will become the fifth majority Muslim country to join the Abraham Accords. That is, according to U.S. President Donald Trump, who hosted a dinner for Central Asian leaders in Washington on Thursday. He claims more countries want to join the agreement, which provides a framework for normalizing ties with Israel. However, Kazakhstan has had diplomatic relations with Israel for decades, and its unclear if this marks any sort of substantive change.

Trump says a signing ceremony will be held soon. Sudan, Bahrain, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates have already joined the agreement.

The U.N. Security Council has voted to lift sanctions on Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa. He is set to visit the White House on Monday. The U.S. has been pushing for the move after President Trump ordered the easing of sanctions on Syria earlier this year.

Here's U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Mike Waltz.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE WALTZ, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE U.N.: As President Trump previously indicated, now is serious chance at greatness. The delisting of President al-Sharaa and Interior Minister Khattab should help give Syria, should help give the Syrian people that greatest chance.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: Al-Sharaa is the former jihadist who once led al-Qaeda's official wing in Syria. He replaced former President Bashar al-Assad, who was overthrown back in December.

China has launched a new aircraft carrier into service, and its one of the country's most advanced yet. In fact, it is the third most advanced in their entire fleet.

[05:20:01]

It features an electromagnetic catapult that can launch three different aircraft types. Chinese President Xi presided over the ceremony.

CNN's Steven Jiang has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: The milestone event of commissioning of the Fujian took place on Wednesday, but shrouded in secrecy, as state media here did not reveal this until two days later on Friday, with their reports and images focusing on Chinese leader Xi Jinping's presence during the ceremony, but also highlighting his role in deciding to adopt this electromagnetic catapult system that is really what sets apart this aircraft from its two predecessors, as this is a more advanced system that will allow aircraft to take off with heavier weapon and fuel loads, really putting it in the same league as the U.S. on this front.

Now, so far, unlike the U.S., none of the Chinese aircraft carriers are nuclear powered, but Beijing has already building one that is going to be nuclear powered. That will allow that vessel to remain at sea for much longer period of time. So, all of this is just the latest indication in terms of how fast the Chinese have been catching up with the U.S. in terms of military hardware.

Now, remember, only 13 years ago they commissioned their first aircraft carrier, which was rebuilt from a Soviet era vessel. Since then, of course, they have grown by leaps and bounds under Xi Jinping as he invests massive amount of resources into developing and updating the country's arsenals of weaponry from fighter jets to missiles into aircraft carriers, as well.

Now, China not only boasts the worlds biggest naval fleet, this latest news also means even though the military here still has its own problem in terms of internal corruption and questions over its combat readiness. But this news is obviously generating buzz and excitement at home, but also sending a message to the U.S. and its allies and indeed the whole world, about Beijing's growing confidence to project its military prowess far away from its shorelines.

But still, this is also very much with an eye towards Taiwan, the self-ruled island that Beijing claims to be its own and vows to take back by force if necessary. Its not lost on people that the Chinese named this aircraft carrier the Fujian, which is the name of the province sitting across a narrow strait from Taiwan.

Steven Jiang, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROSALES: World leaders are gathering in Brazil for the upcoming COP30 climate summit, but much of the focus is on the one country that's not even there. That's ahead.

Plus, people in central Vietnam are struggling to recover from a deadly typhoon. It damaged homes and uprooted trees. We'll have a live report right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[05:27:14]

ROSALES: In the next hour, world leaders begin day two of their gathering ahead of the COP30 climate summit in Brazil. That's part of preliminary talks for the summit, which officially gets underway on Monday. You're taking a look right now at live images just outside of where this will be taking on.

It's been billed as really a landmark meeting, aiming to make a push toward dramatically cutting climate pollution. But the U.S., the worlds second largest polluter when it comes to greenhouse gases, is not sending any high-level negotiators. California Governor Gavin Newsom is expected to be there on Tuesday, however. The governors of Wisconsin and New Mexico are already in Brazil.

Typhoon Kalmaegi is weakening, but it did major damage in central Vietnam. So far, the storm has killed at least five people there. There are reports of homes collapsing, roofs blown off of buildings and trees and power lines that were downed. More than a million people are without power. It is one of the strongest storms to hit Vietnam ever, with maximum sustained winds similar to a cat three hurricane.

Days earlier, Kalmaegi left a deadly trail of devastation and destruction in the Philippines. Authorities say the storm killed at least 188 people there.

CNN's Mike Valerio is following the storm and joins us live.

Good morning, Mike. I mean, we're talking about max sustained winds of 125 miles per hour before coming onto shore. That's -- that will pack a punch.

MIKE VALERIO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right. And we've been focusing so much on Jamaica, you know, in you know, in the Western hemisphere. But, Isabel, you know why this is such a big story line in this part of the world is were not just talking about one typhoon. We're talking about two typhoons to affect Asia within a weeks' time.

So we're going to put up the forecast track of Kalmaegi, which, as you said, is weakening as it pushes through Vietnam, making its way towards Cambodia, Laos, Thailand by the end of the evening here.

And then we have the second typhoon, Fung-Wong, making its way closer and closer towards the Philippines, which has already been hit by this first typhoon. The two storm tracks there when it makes its way to the Philippines, separated by about 500 miles or so, around 800 kilometers. So a double punch.

But you know, we have new images, Isabel, courtesy of "Reuters" coming in of the seaside damage in Vietnam. And we also have a new soundbite. We talked to a 26-year-old shrimp farmer about just what he is facing now that the deadliest typhoon to Asia this year has come through his backyard.

Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NGUYEN DINH SA, VIETNAMESE SHRIMP FARMER: Even though the storms are more frequent now, I will still have to try and borrow money to build a stronger farm than what I lost. I don't know how else I could do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VALERIO: Yeah, so I mean, if I were him, unimaginable prospect, right?

Let's go into a couple more details about Vietnam.