good saturday morning. it is april 29th. good to have you along. i m victor blackwell. i m amara walker. you re in the cnn newsroom. we begin with ukraine and a deadly russian missile strike on an apartment complex. the attack killed almost two dozen people, including six children. and it s believed to be the deadliest strike on civilians since january. it happened 4:00 a.m. local time when most people were asleep. ukraine s air force says russia fired a barrage of long range cruise missiles from the aircraft in the caspian sea area. president volodymyr zelenskyy says his forces shot down 21 of the 23 missiles fired. cnn s nic robertson has been on the scene since shortly after the strike, joining us now from uman, ukraine. hi, nic. what s the latest there? it is bad news from here. the death toll is now 25. you can see the recovery efforts still going on. but this is really just pulling out the debris, getting that off the site here. and we ve been talking with firef
Military are operating without Senate Confirmed leaders. Or Chief Of Staff. 300 top nominees are also on hold. Because of this one lawmaker. Alabama senator, Tommy Tuberville. His objection to the new policy that will reimburse Service Members or their families for travel. If they have to go to another state to get an abortion. After six months of frustrating paralysis. The secretaries of the army and the navy and air force wrote this opinion piece. Officers in the millions of service they lead are the foundation of americas enduring military advantage. Yet, this foundation is being actively eroded by the actions of a single u. S. Senator, Tommy Tuberville. Joining us now is the secretary of the air force. Air force secretary frank kendall, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth , and Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro for this joint interview. Let me start with you. Air force secretary frank kendall,. How is america less safe and less prepared than it was just six months ago . First of all, we
maybe they re not using the word negotiate specifically, but that there is a time to sit and talk. is there any consideration, are you seeing any cracks within the white house, to say at some point, we may have to sit down with republicans and come to something more than just no negotiations at all? so far, no. and what the white house says is that they re willing to talk and have negotiations around spending cuts, but they re not willing to tether that to the debt limit. they argue that the debt limit was raised three times under former president trump, with republicans, when it was a clean debt ceiling increase, and that republicans should be willing to do that again now, rather than risk a recession. or risk going over the cliff, which can lead to cuts to social security and medicare. it can lead to military paychecks not going out. and so the white house still feels very firm in this, and they re backed by democratic leaders and a majority of democrats, in both the senate
critical it is that congress address this issue. america must pay its bills on time and in full. if we do not, we will eviscerate our current recovery. in a matter of days, the majority of americans would suffer financial pain as critical payments like social security checks and military paychecks would not reach their bank accounts and that would likely be followed by a deep recession. aren t all members of congress, come on, aren t you embarrassed by the silliness of this debt limit thing, this shenanigan. just shame on all of you, shame. come on. particularly republicans, you re playing games this time. i know democrats play games but enough of this. this is stupid. enough of it. meanwhile powell also testified on the state of pandemic-related supply chain issues and inflation warning that the new omicron variant could push back the recovery. the recent rise in covid-19