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Iran Vows Response to Israeli Strike; Varun Nikore is Interviewed about the AAPI Vote; Health Officials Clear Quarter Pounder. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired October 28, 2024 - 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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[09:33:22]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening today, Gaza ceasefire and hostage talks are set to resume. Egypt's president is proposing a two-day ceasefire to exchange some Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners. This is happening at the same time Iran is responding to retaliatory strikes by Israel over the weekend that the IDF says severely damaged Iran's ability to manufacture long-range missiles. Now, Iran is responding.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond is in Jerusalem for us.

Jeremy, what are you hearing from Iran at this hour.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN JERUSALEM CORRESPONDENT: Well, Iran is planning to raise objections to those Israeli strikes over the weekend that hit Iranian military targets at a meeting of the United Nations Security Council today. They are vowing that there will be a response for this Israeli attack, but we're really not hearing as much fire and brimstone from the Iranians as you might perhaps expect in this instance. Instead, the Iranian president vowing that there will be a, quote, appropriate response but making clear that Iran does not seek war with Israel.

Other Iranian officials also saying that the response will come at a time of Iran's choosing. But overall, we have seen Iran relatively willing and eager to downplay the extent of the damage in this Israeli strike over the weekend, even as they acknowledged that four soldiers and one civilian were killed in these Israeli attacks.

Now, Israeli officials, for their part, are making clear that this could be just the beginning of their strikes should Iran choose to retaliate further. They believe that these strikes over the weekend, which damaged Iranian air defenses, have now made Iran more vulnerable to future Israeli attacks should Iran retaliate and Israel feel compelled to retaliate in turn once again.

[09:35:00]

The Israeli prime minister saying that Iranian defense capabilities were severely damaged, as well as their ability to produce ballistic missiles.

Sara.

SIDNER: Jeremy, can you also give us some idea of the conditions in Gaza now. I mean we've seen for so many months just how dire the humanitarian crisis is there.

DIAMOND: United Nations officials are being very blunt about the situation in northern Gaza, saying that life has become untenable there. One senior U.N. human rights official warning that all of those who remain in northern Gaza are at risk of being killed, of dying, if this Israeli assault in northern Gaza continues.

And that's because it's not just Israeli military operations, including at the - one of the few remaining hospitals in northern Gaza, Kamal Adwan over the weekend. What we are also seeing is Israeli officials seeming to deny entry of at least some, if not most, humanitarian aid into northern Gaza. Very little aid has actually made it in, and the United Nations has repeatedly said that their efforts to bring humanitarian aid into northern Gaza have been denied by Israeli authorities.

The conditions at Kamal Adwan and other hospitals are growing increasingly dire, running out of basic medical supplies, blood units. And this comes after this assault over the weekend where we saw that Israeli troops entered the Kamal Adwan facility, arrested dozens of health care staffers, as well as others who they claimed were Hamas terrorists. The Israeli military claims that Hamas was using Kamal Adwan hospital as a base and that they were fighting Israeli troops from at least near that facility.

Sara.

SIDNER: Jeremy Diamond, thank you so much for your reporting there from Jerusalem.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, this morning, the invited guest speaker at the Trump rally who liking Puerto Rico to a pile of garbage is defending his comments, as the Trump campaign tries to minimize the damage.

Back on the menu, the Quarter Pounder. New details on what caused the deadly E. Coli outbreak.

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[09:41:36]

BERMAN: Want to talk about where Vice President Harris is going today and why, and I want to use the 2020 election map to do that. She is going to the state of Michigan. Everyone remembers that Michigan is part of the so-called blue wall, a state that Joe Biden did win in 2020 by 150,000 votes. Fairly comfortable. But it's a state that Donald Trump won, albeit barely, 10,000 votes in 2016. So, Harris needs to work hard to make sure Michigan stays in her column.

And today she's going to three different counties, three separate stops. I kind of consider them sort of right, middle, and left. Way left here. What do I mean by that? OK, let's go right first. Macomb County. This is the epicenter for the so-called Reagan Democrats. In 1980, Ronald Reagan flipped a lot of traditionally blue collar, Democratic voters to the Republican Party. And by-and-large, they've stayed with the Republican Party ever since.

When Republicans win in Michigan, they win in Macomb County. Obama won a few times there. But by-and-large, you see margins not unlike this. Donald Trump, 53 percent, Joe Biden, 45 percent. Harris wants to keep the race and Macomb about here. If it stays here, she can win in Michigan. If Trump is able to boost his numbers there, it could be a sign for her. So, that was right.

Let's talk center. Saginaw, Michigan. This one's interesting. You can see that Joe Biden won here by less than 1,000 votes. Donald Trump in 2016 won here by about 1,000 votes. So, it's really close.

Right in the middle, manufacturing a big deal here. That's what Harris will be talking about when she stops there. Auto workers, the so- called Chips Act, microchips here. She wants to appeal to those manufacturing voters right in the middle. If this swings one way or the other, it could tell us which way Michigan is going on election night next week.

Finally, when I talk about left, Washtenaw County, this is where Ann Arbor, Michigan, is. The University of Michigan. Wolverines, OK. Also, the capital here. You have government workers, a lot of students. It's left. Very, very left. You can see Joe Biden won by more than 100,000 votes there in 2020. So, Harris wants to run up the score.

But one interesting thing I do want to point out. Kind of for the only time I'm going to talk about the Democratic primary this last year. Remember, Joe Biden actually did run in a Democratic primary and he won Michigan with 81 percent of the vote. But Washtenaw County was his worst county in Michigan and one of his worst in the entire country during the primaries. Uncommitted got 17 percent of the vote. A lot of that students who were upset about the war in Gaza. It was a protest vote. So, Harris going there today. She needs to run up the score in this county. She also needs these uncommitted voters to get committed. For her campaign, it could be decisive.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And in the final stretch of the 2024 presidential election, both candidates are focusing in on Asian- American voters. Donald Trump headlined a rally reaching out to Asian- American and Pacific Islander voters in Las Vegas last week, and Kamala Harris has rolled out new television ads specifically directed at the AAPI community in battleground states.

The most recent survey of this slice of the electorate shows this, 66 - 66 percent plan to support and vote for Kamala Harris, with 28 choosing Donald Trump. Joining us now to get a better look at what's happening here is Varun Nikore, executive director of the AAPI Victory Alliance.

Thanks for coming in.

You said that the Asian-American and Pacific Islander electorate is going to mean more to the outcome of this election than it did in 2020. Why? What are you seeing, and in what states do you think AAPI voters are going to have the most impact?

VARUN NIKORE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AAPI VICTORY ALLIANCE: Well, thank you for having me on.

I strongly believe that, you know, given the growth of where the AAPI community was in 2020. And, you know, we've grown by 2 million voters just in the last two years. That's going to be absolutely influential to the final vote outcomes.

As John just, you know, said, that a lot of these counties, a lot of these states are neck and neck. And so every last vote, even though, you know, our population size is about 7 percent of the nation, in critical states like Georgia, like Arizona and Michigan and the other battleground states where significant - small but significant portions of the population that can determine the final outcomes at the end of the day.

BOLDUAN: And for the Biden - the latest count we see, there's 15 million eligible AAPI voters, which is up from the 2020 election and who - in eligible voters, especially - and lot of them in battleground states. What do you think is the opportunity here for both campaigns in the final days.

NIKORE: You know, I think what both candidates are attempting to do, I see a little bit more, I would say, nuance out of the Harris side objectively, which is, is to micro-target each ethnicities, you know, voters essentially. So, the AAPI umbrella is made up of over 20 nations of origin. They speak hundreds of languages and dialects. And so if - if the campaigns are effectively going after Mung (ph) voters in Wisconsin and Minnesota, going on after Filipino voters in Nevada and Arizona, Indian and Chinese and Korean voters in the east coast states like Georgia and North Carolina, you'll see that they'll be able to run up the numbers by micro-targeting each of the ethnicities. And so that's how, at the end of the day, the AAPI umbrella is going to come out is by focusing on the subcomponents.

BOLDUAN: And Harris does appear to be doing better with - when you say the AAPI umbrella, if you will, than we saw from Democrats in 2020 and 2016. And I think you're getting to it, but I am wondering, do you think it is the Harris campaign doing something better than Democrats did in the past, or is it something that the Trump campaign is doing less or worse than he has in the past?

NIKORE: I think it's both. I say I see Trump doing less, attempting to make platitudes, like at the Las Vegas rally that he had last week, you mentioned, right? There were comments about how Filipinos dressed. Versus, on the other side, I think Harris, Vice President Harris has done a really good job in honing in on the issues that matter the most to AAPIs, abortion, gun violence, education, small business. And those nuanced policy positions are the things that are going to be meaningful.

Younger voters, which I think are absolutely critical to this election, as the largest voting bloc right now, they have said in survey after survey, they need to hear more about the actual policy positions before they feel comfortable in the voting booth.

And so, I see that out of - very much out of the Harris campaign and the Harris team. I'm not seeing that much outside of platitudes. In fact, even at the Madison Square Garden rally, Tucker Carlson made a swipe at Vice President Harris' ethnicity, saying, you know, that she was Samoan and Malaysian, which everyone should know by now in this high-information election who Vice President Harris is. And by taking a swipe at one's identity, I think is a really low blow. But certainly not something that's going to win you plotits (ph) at the end of the day by a constituency that's going to be critical in this election.

BOLDUAN: Yes. It's really interesting to speak with you as we are now - I mean people are voting, especially in this - in the last few days before actual Election Day. I'm very interested to see turnout amongst AAPI - the AAPI umbrella, and looking forward to talking to you about it after the fact.

Varun, thank you so much.

Sara.

SIDNER: All right, there may be something missing when you order a Quarter Pounder, but it's back on the menu after an E. Coli outbreak.

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[09:54:58]

SIDNER: New for you this morning, the Quarter Pounder is returning to all McDonald's restaurants this week after the burger was pulled from the menu in at least 900 locations after some beef patties tested negative for E. Coli.

Joining me now is CNN's Meg Tirrell.

What did they decide the cuprite was because there were several people who were sickened and one person died from E. Coli.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Sara. As federal authorities are still working on absolutely confirming what the ingredient was, but McDonald's itself says it has ruled out the beef patties associated with the Quarter Pounder. And they are homing in on the fresh slivered onions that are found - that are used on the Quarter Pounder. And so they say after the Colorado Department of Agriculture came back with testing on the beef patties and found no evidence of E. Coli on those, they say they are going to ask their suppliers to provide a fresh supply of beef patties to these locations and bring back the Quarter Pounder over the course of this week to all of those affected locations.

However, they will not have the slivered onions that McDonald's really is focusing on as the source of this E. Coli outbreak. They say in a statement yesterday, quote, "the issue appears to be contained to a particular ingredient and geography, and we remain very confident that any contaminated product related to this outbreak has been removed from our supply chain and is out of all McDonald's restaurants."

Now, we've seen this outbreak grow now to at least 75 illnesses, 22 people were hospitalized and one person died. They say there are likely that there are more cases out there. The CDC and FDA are still investigating this and they may tie more illnesses to this outbreak as time goes on.

This has been in 13 states, mainly in Colorado. You can see the most people were affected in that state there.

Now, a lot of folks may be wondering, did this go beyond McDonald's? We know that the suspected supplier of these onions, Taylor Farms, has issued a voluntary recall. McDonald's says they were the supplier of onions to the affected restaurants. They do have other customers, and they have contacted those customers and told them to remove those onions and not to sell them. So, right now, the CDC is saying that the risk to the public is, quote, "very low." And we haven't heard of any other cases beyond McDonald's at this point.

Guys, back to you.

SIDNER: All right, that's good news.

Meg Tirrell, thank you so much.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. And thank you so much.

SIDNER: Oh, how kind.

BOLDUAN: And thank you so much.

This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "CNN NEWSROOM" is up next.

So thankful on this Monday.

BOLDUAN: So thankful. So thankful.

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