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tv   CNN This Morning  CNN  December 1, 2023 4:00am-5:01am PST

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congressman george santos could be out of a job, threatening to take down his own colleagues. if expelled. there is a divide within the gop. >> if we have an opportunity to start a new precedent, i'm pretty confident the american people would applaud that. governors gavin newsom and ron desantis tackling all matters of policy in an often heated debate. >> gavin newsom did exactly what a surrogate is supposed to do. >> you almost have to try to mess california up. >> i don't think it gets you much with republican primary voters. >> neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024. good friday morning, everyone. we are following breaking news this morning. >> the truce between israel and hamas is now over. this is a live look at gaza this morning. we have been seeing huge plumes of dark smoke after the
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week-long pause ended. israeli strikes have already killed at least 32 people in gaza this morning. an eyewitness tells cnn, trucks with that desperately needed humanitarian aid at this moment have stopped going into gaza. israel is accusing gaza of breaking the truce by firing rockets near the gaza strip. >> the big question, what happens now? this is a conflict, a region, a world at an inflection point. negotiations, they are still technically ongoing, according to the foreign ministry of qatar. but whether or not they can actually reach any type of resolution, whether or not they're engaged in a fullsome manner, it's unclear at this time. stakes could not be higher. the remaining hostages is a significant question across the world. israel says 137 are still believed to be in gaza. a senior u.s. official tells me before the truce fell apart, hamas claimed it did not have any more women or children hostages to exchange that's been critical to the deal up to this point.
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israel says that is not true at all. the official tells me hamas did not submit a list of hostages to release last night, which they had been doing nightly up to that point. what happens now to the civilians in gaza? the biden administration pressing israel to protect innocent civilians. secretary of state antony blinken says he told israeli leaders the massive loss of life we saw in northern gaza cannot be repeated in the south. we start with cnn's oren lieberman live for us in tel a aviv. the operations began almost immediately. we've seen strikes, the smoke rising over gaza and leaflets being dropped warning people in the south they are in a conflict zone. what do we know? >> reporter: phil, this is starting to look very much like the war we have known to this point before the course of the past seven days. both israel and hamas said they were ready for fighting to resume if the truce fell apart or wasn't continued. that's exactly what we saw happen. one of the earliest indications over the course of the past seven days there might be another 24 hours of a pause in
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fighting is israel acknowledging they received a list of the next day's hostages to be released. we did not see that last night. we saw the fighting resume this morning. israel carrying out punishing strikes. we have heard artillery strikes, air strikes being carried out across gaza, including southern gaza, where israel told gazans in the northern part of the strip to evacuate too. secretary of state antony blinken raised the issue of civilian casualties while he was here meeting with prime minister benjamin netanyahu and the war cabinet. he says israel has to have a plan in place to avoid civilian casualties before it moves into the second phase of this war, which frankly, may have just started here. we have seen the idf dropping leaflets in parts of southern gaza with a qr code on it. it takes you to a map of gaza with the strip broken up into a lot of little parcels. it seems this may be part of israel's plan to avoid civilian casualties. being able to tell specific areas through the internet to
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evacuate to other areas so cel . it's not clear how this would get to everybody who needs to know it. it's unclear if this is the entire plan or if there are more steps to try to protect civilians, phil and poppy. >> what about the negotiations in terms it of the pace they're going at? obviously they were around the clock in the seven-day truce. does it continue at that clip? >> it certainly continues. whether it's possible to get to another truce and how long it would take to get there, that remains an open question after negotiations fell apart to continue the current truce. it is worth remembering they got to this current pause in the fighting during the war itself. they have shown they are able to carry out negotiations. not only israel and hamas, but qatar being the main negotiator. the question, how long does it take to find some other framework? israel accused hamas of not
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living up to the bargain by not providing a list of women and children that would be able to come out during another 24 hours. as well as soldiers, men and women, for a longer pause in the fighting. israel has made clear and blinken acknowledged when he was here, when the pause ends, the fighting will very much resume. blinken also said humanitarian aid needs to continue to go into gaza but according to an eyewitness at the rafah crossing, there are trucks that have been inspected but are not going in today. it's unclear if humanitarian aid will go in at all during the resumption of fighting. >> do you know why they're not going in? last we heard from the idf, they'll join us next hour, but late last night they said on cnn they had no reason to believe that humanitarian aid would stop. why are these inspected trucks this morning not going in? >> reporter: we'll have to double check. part of the humanitarian aid was part of the deal.
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the deal has now fallen apart. it could be a simple delay. it could be issues with the rafah crossing itself. according to an eyewitness there, the trucks, even those that have been inspected, have not gone in. we've seen hundreds of trucks lined up there. it's a key point, they should be going in, even now. that's something the u.s. was very much pressing for. >> unequivocal from the secretary of state. thank you. also this, hostage negotiations as you heard from oren are continuing even though the truce is over. hamas released ten more hostages in the final hours of the truce. among those hostages, french israeli my yeah schem. you see her here. that's before she was released. we'll show you her reuniting with her mother. >> the 21-year-old was kidnapped
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from the music fess val and was seen in that first dai-- mia getting released. you see her breaking down in tears. now she's reunited with her family she's being treated at an israeli hospital. meantime, israel says it is still assessing hamas's claim, a 10-month-old baby, brother and mother were killed because of an air strike. that's what hamas is claiming. israel is doing an assessment. jeremy diamond joins us. they released a video blaming israel for the death of his family and wife. he has been held separately. have we heard anything from the idf to confirm or deny that? >> reporter: well, this video follows a claim by hamas earlier this week that those three
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members of the family, the mother, the 10-year-old and 4-year-old were killed in an israeli air strike. that's yet to be confirmed by the idf or anyone else. in this video you hear the father effectively blaming israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu. he's visibly distraught in this video and very likely under duress, which is why we're not airing that video. the military calls this psychological terror. they say it was a cruel and difficult footage of the father of this family. interestingly, hamas has said they offered to return the bodies of sheri and ariel as part of this framework but they have any concrete proof they are dead. for the family, just extraordinarily difficult to be witnessing all of this without any clear confirmation. >> we've also been seeing the video of hostages reuniting with
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their families. you spoke to one. what did they say? >> reporter: i did. i met one of -- the uncle and the father a couple of weeks ago. i've been closely following their story. yesterday i had an opportunity to actually visit their home. i actually was able to meet those who were recently returned off camera. they did not want to be interview. their father talked to me about his 50-day journey, fighting for their return and the ways in which they are now trying to get back to normal. he waited 50 days for this moment, embracing his wife and 12-year-old daughter, now free from hamas captivity. >> i can easily say it was the happiest moment of my life. the attitudes of the happiness and the emotion was almost unbearable. in a good way. >> reporter: waking up the next day brought a new flood of emotions. >> and i was the first one to
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wake up. i just wake up and count, one wife, two kids, and it was so -- it's supposed to be obvious that you wake up alongside your family. for me, it wasn't obvious for the last 50 days. >> reporter: tell us how they're doing. >> i didn't see anything that is abnormal up to this point. they're sleeping well, eating well. they're making -- they're laughing a lot. most of the humor has come from noom. she's giving me a hard time with my humor. >> reporter: already? >> you're too old. you're not updated. you don't know fashion, you don't know anything. >> reporter: for now the avigdori family isn't sharing much about their captivity. >> they gave me a lot. i can share nothing. this is a matter of privacy and national security. >> reporter: for the moment they
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were kidnapped. until a few days ago, you didn't know exactly what happened to them. what have they told you about that moment? it must have been absolutely terrifying. >> it was absolutely terrifying. again, i don't speak about what happened to them. >> reporter: avigdori did share his wife and daughter were held alongside four other relatives where she took on as big sister. >> she is surrogate own big sister for them. she kept this job all during her captivity. now the girls are at home, adjusting slowly but surely. >> reporter: for his wife, that also means fresh grief. >> her brother was killed on the 7th of october. she didn't know what happened. she took it well. it will take time. >> reporter: they are also adjusting to this.
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realizing people across israel know their faces and their story. his brother, meanwhile, is savering the little moments. >> it's like when we eat dinner and my mom brings a bunch of food, like most of us won't eat. she brings it anyway. these are things that you didn't realize how much we miss them until they actually happen again. >> reporter: those little moments followed seven weeks of relentless advocacy. even with his wife and daughter home, he says his work isn't done yet. >> because i tasted the happy end, i know that my country should be -- should do anything to -- this experience to all other members of the kidnapping as soon as possible. >> reporter: his commitment to keep fighting for the avigdori
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family -- for other hostages, rather, really struck me. he said the other hostage families have become like his brothers and sisters and he is going to continue to fight, he said, until all of them get their loved ones back. phil, poppy. >> jeremy diamond, great piece. thank you. just a few hours, george santos could be just the third elected lawmakers since the civil war to be kicked out of the house by his peers. it's going to be a close vote. how he's defending himself. that's next. the debate last night between florida governor ron desantis and california's gavin newsom where president biden was top of mind. >> he should not be running. he is not up to the job. it is dangerous for this country. >> i will take joe biden and 100 versus ron desantis any day of the week at any age. george sant
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yesterday, lashing out, refusing to step down ahead of a vote on whether to expel him from congress. that vote scheduled for just a few hours from now on top of 23 criminal charges. a house ethics report has accused him of wrongdoing, stealers from donors, and fraudulently exploiting every aspect of his house candidacy for his own, personal financial profit. joining us, cnn political commentator and host. other than that, there's not a lot of merit to what's going on, michael. i want to -- this is so clownish, to some degree. if we make light of it with good reason, given what's in a lot of that report, but stepping back a little bit, this is something that just doesn't happen very often at all. it's never happened before for somebody who hasn't been
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convicted of federal crimes. the bigger picture here, is there one? >> i think there probably is, phil. by the way, as a trial lawyer, i can tell you that when you're arguing a case if the facts are on your side, you argue the facts. and if the facts are not on your side, you argue the process. and all of the arguments advanced for santos, including by santos yesterday, were about process. like nobody wanted to mix it up and talk about any of the allegations that are hanging against him. i thought the funniest best line of the day is when matt gaetz stood and said, i rise not in defense of george santos, whoever he is. like, nobody wants to try to defend him on the merits. to your question of the bigger picture, there is a bigger picture question here. it's one of due process, again, arguing process, and the idea of whether the voters in his new york district ought to ultimately be the ones to throw him out. i'm convinced they would. or should it be the congress?
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what kind of precedent are we setting if someone who hasn't been convicted because the two you reference since the civil war were both convicted in a criminal process. so, do we really want to open the door now to say, even without a conviction, you're out? >> i think that's a fair question. it's an important question. you're right, michael, that's what the republicans who are defending him, the republicans are defending him on those grounds. can we talk about the debate last night, though, between ron desantis and -- >> please. >> -- and gavin newsom? you had a prediction. tell people your prediction. i know it but tell our viewers your prediction and then what actually happened. >> i think it came true. i predicted gavin newsom and ron desantis would win the debate and that nikki haley and kamala harris would lose the debate. i think that's the net effect of it. i think each of them -- first of all, i think it's a rorschach test, whoever won, whatever that means, depends if you suit up in your red or blue armor, but each
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was able to elevate their game and elevate their status as a future within their party. do i think it really moved the needle for de santos against nikki haley? probably not. you know, you can't now talk about the future of the democratic party and an heir apparent to joe biden without talking about gavin newsom and kamala harris, and then everybody else. and if i could say one other thing, poppy, i have long wanted to imitate the ncaa march madness. you can picture the brackets, your office pool. why don't we see more candidates paired against one another? why can't we see nikki haley and ron desantis without chris christie? instead -- i remember being at the reagan library in 2016. there were 15 people on the stage. they had to break it up into two. give me head-to-head match-ups and that's when we can really see what people can do. >> we can do it. i'm sure cnn --
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>> on tv? >> yeah, the organization. but this took a lot, a lot of -- many months of negotiating for this one to happen. i agree with you, michael. seeing head-to-head with time makes a difference. >> absolutely. i think our team who does these types of things would absolutely do it. candidates need to be willing to do it so some degree. i would also note our team is the best by far. i like the head-to-head. i thought both were at a high level throughout the course of the night. but i also was struck by the prepared quippiness, including this one. take a listen. >> there are profound differences tonight and i look forward to engage him, but there's one thing in closing that we have in common, is neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024. >> it was clever. to your point, i talked to republicans last night, they thought desantis crushed it or
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crushed newsom. you talk to democrats, biden campaign officials were saying, we hope you're watching it. what is the takeaway for the actual presidential race? >> i'm not sure there is one as long as donald trump continues his trajectory and as long as president biden follows through and does continue to run for re-election. you both know all the speculation about whether biden in the end continues forward. donald trump certainly will continue forward because he's got no choice facing four criminal indictments. things could change. i have to say something, as we're now beyond thanksgiving and headed towards the holiday season. although the strong likelihood is that it's a trump/biden match-up, i would not be floored if in the end, neither of them is the candidate of their party. so, file that away. you can play the tape a year from now and embarrass me and say, michael, it wasn't quite a
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prediction but you did float that notion. >> can we play that out, michael? play that out. they're not the candidates. who are the candidates? >> on the republican side of the aisle, you know, it all rests in the hands of my law school classmate, tanya chutkan. if donald trump is on trial in march, if he's on trial next march and there's a conviction, then i think it's a total game-changer. so, there are a lot of intangibles. how about i leave it like that? >> thank you. we'll what much this weekend. >> thank you. we're learning more about what the child hostages released by hamas went through in captivity from the lack of food to the fear of making too much noise. a trauma expert helping those children joins us next.
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first time i connected with kim, she told me that her husband had passed. and that he took care of all of the internet connected devices in the home. i told her, “i'm here to take care of you.” connecting with kim... made me reconnect with my mom. it's very important to keep loved ones close. we know that creating memories with loved ones brings so much joy to your life. a family trip to the team usa training facility. i don't know how to thank you. i'm here to thank you.
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welcome back. there will be no joyful videos of child hostages reunited with their families today because the temporary truce between israel and hamas is over. but for those kids who are back with their loved ones, there's a stark contrast between those happy hugs, those joyful moments we saw and the trauma they endured being held by hamas in
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gaza. these are teenage brothers, reuniting with their family members after being released but their uncle revealed they endured terrible treatment. he said hamas terrorists held the boys' legs against motorcycle exhaust pipes and burnt them. this is 12-year-old eitan getting a big hug from his mother. his aunt said he was forced to watch horrific footage of the october 7th terror attack and every time children cried they were threatened with a weapon to shut up. also this, you'll remember the big smiles from 4-year-old abigail after she was released. her aunt told "the new york times," this american israelied toer shared one piece of pita bread per day with four other captives and did not have a shower or bath during her 50 days in captivity. this is 17-year-old running to get a hug from his family on wednesday. the joy is palpable.
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while he was held his family said he was told to keep quiet. >> they told him -- they told him if he will talk loudly, the israeli army will bomb his house and kill him. so, my brother told me this morning after he slept a few hours, he wake up and just -- just didn't speak loudly. he just whispered. he told him again and again, it's okay, you can talk normally. you're back home. >> joining us now is d dr. shapiro, an israeli psychoanalyst leading a team of professionals for freed hostages, their families and survivors. thank you for being with us this morning. >> you're very welcome. >> listening to that mother describe the whispering of a child, we heard something similar to thomas hand, emily hand's father, even when they
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are home, held, loved and safe. how do you begin to treat this trauma? >> so, first of all, very, very slowly and very delicately. everybody has to have patience with these children and with all the other hostages who are going to be back. it will take a long time, a very long time. and i think the trauma will take days before the family and the therapists will only begin to heal the sores. i'm not even beginning to understand the stories. i think understanding will take much longer. and a lot of patience. it's going to be manifested in ways from the smallest, you know, details of everyday life to things we -- we tell bigger and more important. >> yeah. one of the other things i've been struck by in these stories
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from family members as they welcome their loved ones back is something that the uncle of one of the hostages told our colleague wolf blitzer about how his niece talks about what happened to her, almost as if it happened out of her own body. listen to this. >> she's a little bit distant now. she's a little bit cold. she talks about things like it happened in third-person, like it happened to someone else. she said she saw horrible things but will say it with a straight face. it's like she's describing a scene from a movie that she watched somewhere. >> i'm sure that's not just her. i'm sure that other hostages, especially children, will be experiencing that. why would that happen? what do you make of that? >> well, it's actually a very common feature of trauma. i expect that to be very common not just with the children and not just with the hostages, but
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also with the survivors of the massacre. it's actually a defense mechanism. it's -- the pain is unbearable. to realize what you have seen and to realize what has been done to you and to your family is really unbearable, so what the mind does, it disassociates itself. so, sometimes you can remember the details, but the affect is gone. and sometimes you're very emotional and you cannot remember what happened. because connecting the details with the emotions is beyond whatever a person can handle at such an early stage. this is actually what therapy is about. about slowly, at the pace of the person, of the specific person, to just try and collect all the details together. the story, again, the smallest
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details. when you saw someone who was bleeding, to have the patient, again, at his own pace say what he felt, what he was thinking about, and what kind of triggers today when he's home and safe, what kind of triggers make this reappear. and then make him, you know, think about it and be terrified again. and it can take years and years. >> doctor, thank you for being with us and for the work you're doing right now with these families. >> you're very welcome. thank you. >> of course. >> thank you. today north carolina becomes the 40th state to expand medicaid coverage as part of the affordable care act. that comes as donald trump has unleashed a string of recent attacks threatening to gut obamacare if he returns to the white house. we'll have north carolina's democratic governor roy cooper respond to those attacks. in case you missed it, there was a debate last night between republican presidential hopeful ron desantis and california
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governor gavin newsom. the attacks and the substance just ahead. >> you will not admit it. >> you will not admit it. >> all right, gentlemen -- >> one thing in closing that we have in common is neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.
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he thinks biden and harris have done a great job. he thinks the economy is working because of their policies for americans and they are not. what california represents is the biden/harris agenda on steroids. >> here's a guy who celebrated biden bidenomics that celebrated just this week. one of the most significant economic plans since fdr. i'm proud of the work biden and harris have done. >> so, it was an unusual debate last night. florida republican governor and 2024 presidential candidate ron desantis took on california's democratic governor gavin newsom, who technically isn't running for anything. the fox debate zeroed in on whether president biden should be re-elected. joining us, democratic governor
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of north carolina, governor roy cooper. we appreciate your time this morning. gavin newsom as serving as key surrogate for the biden administration in the campaign last night. you've also been utilized heavily as a surrogate. i'm interested, how did you think the governor, your fellow democratic governor did last night in the debate? >> well, gavin newsom is a great governor. i appointed a new state auditor yesterday. we're getting ready to launch medicaid and i had secretary yellen in town so i didn't get to see it. i might need to grab some popcorn and watch the replay. what i will tell you about democratic governors, last year i was chairman of the democratic governors association. we picked up net plus two democratic governors in a year democrats were supposed to be get clobbered. it's because we had right-wing extremists running against competent people. as we begin medicaid expansion today, ensuring 600,000 more
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north carolinaens, ron desantis could be doing the same thing in florida. he could get more than 800,000 people who need health insurance. right now without costing any florida state tax dollars. you know, these right wing republican governors seem to think the only thing that government is good for is banning books and banning women's reproductive freedom. i'm sure he did a great job, governor newsom did last night, and i look forward to watching it. >> i wanted to get in on what you're talking about, medicaid expansion. it's fascinating. one, this has been a central fight since you you've taken office, to get to this point. at the same time it comes when former president trump has started attacking obamacare again. i'm old enough to remember the 2018 midterms. i know how this polled and how effective this message was for democrats. so effective you saw the biden campaign within 24 hours roll
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out a brand-new ad. with the context of your fight on medicaid expansion, is this a game-changer for the 2024 presidential race? >> absolutely it is. donald trump is really good at reading the room full of conspiracy theorists but he's not good at reading the room full of americans who need health care. medicaid expansion, the affordable care act, has provided health insurance for millions of americans. and we're about to get 600,000 more insured in north carolina. we're talking about working people who right now are making too much to qualify for medicaid but not enough to qualify for subsidies under the affordable care act. so, they're stuck in that gap. we're talking about child care workers, we're talking about senior -- people who take care of seniors, people who work in restaurants. these are the people that donald trump wants to rip away insurance from. and that is a message that, i
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think, will resound during these next campaign. and, plus, people want to keep their health insurance. we see republicans, democrats, independents for this. i got a republican legislature to pass medicaid expansion. we pulled together nontraditional coalitions. tough on crime, republican sheriffs coming in and saying, 80% of the time my deputies spend is on mental health issues and substance abuse disorders. these people need health care and not handcuffs. those ten red states that have right-wing extremists preventing medicaid expansion, they need to get it now. north carolina has a road map. ron desantis should look at it if he really wants to help the people in florida. >> my question coming from that is, i constantly hear from white house officials, biden campaign officials on the policy issues themselves in isolation, the polls are always in our favor. if you take them one by one, the legislative success of the first two years, what he's pushing, how he's operated.
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people like them. and yet, you know the polls, you see them whether you dispute them or not, they are out there. part of the issue, very clearly, is when you look at numbers on age, stamina, whether he can really fulfill a second term, what's your response to that? >> people have made the mistake of underestimating joe biden all his life. he's been able to emerge victorious every single time. not too long ago i spent more than an hour one-on-one with president biden, talking about governors implementing bipartisan infrastructure plan, american rescue plan, inflation reduction act, c.h.i.p.s. and science act. he is on top of it. he asked tough questions. he wants to get this done on behalf of the people. joe biden has done a magnificent job as president. he's done more the first two years than most presidents could hope to do in two terms. and we've got a year until this
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campaign. we're going to be spreading this message across the country. and when you look at the best of joe biden and the worst of donald trump, that's going to be an easy choice for a lot of people. we're even going to win north carolina for joe biden. >> oh, really? i've heard that from democratic campaigns quite often. governor, we appreciate your time. i know it's a big day in north carolina for you on the policy front with the medicaid expansion. thanks much. >> thanks, phil. >> no skepticism in that oh, really? when antibiotics were not working on her dying husband, one woman took matters into her own hands. our dr. sanjay gupta shows us how she used a naturally occurring virus to save her husband's life. that's ahead.
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the power goes out and we still have wifi to do our homework. and that's a good thing? great in my book! who are you?
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no power? no problem. introducing storm-ready wifi. now you can stay reliably connected through power outages with unlimited cellular data and up to 4 hours of battery back-up to keep you online. only from xfinity. home of the xfinity 10g network. ♪ welcome back. growing concern over a reported spike in pediatric respiratory cases this china. the cdc director assured lawmakers yesterday that a new virus is not causing the surge. listen to this. >> we do not believe this is a new or novel pathogen. we believe this is aisting, meaning covid, flu, rsv. >> cnn chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta joins us now. what could be find this and how concerned schapeople be?
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>> well, you have to take the information come out of china with a bit of a grain of salt. i have been reporting on these outbreaks for 20 years, and going back to sars in 2003, this most recent pandemic. you have to try to figure out the story behind the headlines here, which i think is what dr. cohen is referring to. is this a virus spreading between humans? yes. are they spreading within the community? yes. the hospitals are overwhelmed in certain places. the last point is not a novel virus is really important. it's the novel viruses that quickly spiral into pandemics. so it's the swarm of viruses, flu, rsv, covid as she mentioned. by the way, we saw upticks in the winter last year here as well. all of a sudden you sort of see the viruses swarm and a lot of people get sick quickly. one thing that appears to be complicating things, especially in china, is also bacterial
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infections. they seem to be a large part of whatever is driving this as well, and they have a lot of antibiotic resistance in china. so this is something that we are really keeping an eye on. if you look at deaths associated with antibiotic resistance around the world, it's close to 5 million a year. people may not realize that. in china alone, 600,000. this is also, i think, further complicating things with regard to this uptick. they are likely to get it under control but they have to keep an eye on this problem. >> i am stunned by the numbers, to be honest with you. is there a way to dries the antibiotic resistance? >> texist thing is use fewer antibiotics. you know, in china, for example, many antibiotics are sold over the counter. that sort of fuels the problem. there is also a lot of antibiotic use in livestock. so there is all these different places we have to sort of curb the use of antibiotics, and i will tell you this. it takes a long time to develop
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new antibiotics. it can take 10 to 15 years, which is why there are people around the world right now who are trying to find alternative sources of antibiotics. they are scouring the bottoms of the ocean with ships and looking even within nature to see if something can serve as an antibiotic. i spent time with some of these folks. >> oh, there is some really good stuff here. >> today epidemiologist stephanie is taking me on a hunt for what are known as phages. naturally occurring viruses but they eat bacteria. in many ways, they are perfect predators. >> i drop it in and collect some water from a deep spot. there is a little bit. >> although they can be found almost anywhere, when it comes to phages, the dirtier the location, the better. how many in there? >> one drop of water can have a
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trillion phages in it. >> one could could be used to treat a bacteria for which we have no antibiotics. anybody watching this is going to have a different perspective on looking at what they would typically ignore, twaewaste the think has no value. it could be medicine. you probably never heard of phages and neither did stephanie. but eight years ago they became a deeply personal mission for her. what happened? >> it's something i fell into. >> while on vacation in egypt, her husband, tom, became very sick. >> the clinic diagnosed pancreatitis. it was caused by a gallstone that blocked his bile duct and caused a giant access to form. that wasn't the worst of it. that meade a nice department fo a superbug to move into. >> strains of bacteria, viruses,
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fungi that have developed antimicrobial resistance. that means medications designed to treat them no longer work. this is what tom's superbug looked like. asea considered one of the impossible ones. >> i put the key words like the name of his superbug and alternative treatments and up popped a paper that had buried in it phage therapy. it was a start. with trillions of phages in the world, finding the right phage for a specific infection is the real challenge. think of it as an endless number of keys for one lock. and to make it more complicated, despite being around more than 100 years, phage therapy has never been widely used in the west. >> when they were embraced by the former soviet union, that was seen as something that was soviet science, soviet medicine
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and what the enemy was using. >> stephanie and tom didn't care about that. he was dying and she, along with her colleagues a the university of california san diego, were on a mission to save his life. what are we looking at? >> where you see the bacteria are being killed like here and here, you know that you have got a phage from that wastewater that is killing that bacteria. >> when you see a plaque like that develop, that's a good sign? >> yes. it's a very good sign. it gets us excited. >> now, there were few labs in the united states actually studying phages, but scientists at the navy and texas a&m university stepped in to help stephanie scour the world. and it worked. here is where they found the phages for tom. sewage treatment plants. barn yards. all containing naturally occurring phaging that could do what no modern medicine would.
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>> he said we got to go because he is close. >> close to dying? >> yeah. after we injected phages into his bloodstream, even though he was in multistage organ failure, he woke up from his coma, lifted his head off the pill to owe and kissed his daughter's hand a couple of days later. >> gives me goosebumps. >> stephanie saved my life. without a doubt. as hard as it is to believe, spending nine months in the hospital, it was worth it. >> it's your legacy. >> it's your legacy. >> our legacy. >> there you go. >> a legacy born of this mother earth providing medicines for so much of what ails us. if we just take the time to stop, listen, and look. >> stephanie calls these phages perfect predators, and they are not going to replace antibiotics, guys, but that's an
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example of alternatives that we are going to need to look at given how much resistance to antibiotics is out there. >> dr. sanjay gupta, thank you. >> what a story. you're looking right now at smoke rising over northern gaza after the end of the humanitarian pause for hostage exchanges. wewe will get t an update e fro idf aheaead.
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