Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Soon: Harris To Give Wide-Ranging Economic Speech In Pittsburgh; Hurricane Rapidly Intensifying As It Moves Toward Florida; Hurricane Helene Set To Hit Florida As Strong Cat. 3; IDF Chief: Preparing For Possible Lebanon Ground Invasion; Israel Carries Out "Extensive" Strikes On Lebanon; New Report Shows Secret Service Failures In First Attempt On Trump's Life. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 25, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:00:43]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Right now Vice President Kamala Harris is in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania where minutes from now she is expected right here to deliver a wide-ranging economic speech. Her goal to chip away at former President Trump's lead on this top issue among voters. We have CNN National Politics Correspondent Eva McKend live for us in Pittsburgh following the Harris campaign.

What's she going to say today, Eva?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna the goal here is for her to expand on her economic agenda. We know in part, we're still waiting for the details, of course, but that she is going to focus on American manufacturing. Perhaps no better place for that argument than right here in Pittsburgh in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. We're at the Economic Club on the campus of Carnegie Mellon.

We're hearing from senior advisors that this is going to be a pragmatic speech, that she is going to talk about the power in harnessing American innovation, that she understands the limits of government to again emphasize her support for public private partnerships. And to me, this seems to get directly at the criticism from the former president and some on the right that this former prosecutor, former law enforcement officer really is somehow a Marxist.

She on that stage today is going to say I am a capitalist and that really seems to be a message for some of those undecided voters to assuage some of those concerns. She's also going to make this character argument. We have part of her excerpts from her speech in which she's going to say, "For Donald Trump, our economy works best if it works for those who own the big skyscrapers. Not those who build them or wire them or mop the floors."

And this, of course, Brianna is not her first economic rollout. We were with her just a few weeks ago in North Carolina when she talked forcefully about going after price gougers and increasing access to affordable housing. So no doubt she has her eye really here on the most persistent issue for voters, the cost of living, Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes, the affordability of things always on their minds. Eva McKend, thank you for the update. We'll be watching. Jim?

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Thanks, Brianna.

I want to talk more about this with Roben Farzad, Business Journalist and host of NPR's Full Disclosure.

Hi, Roben. Thanks for doing this. We appreciate it.

Kamala Harris has given several speeches on the economy. The polls show she still lags behind Donald Trump on this issue. What do you think is contributing to that and what more can she put on the bone today, so to speak, in terms of specifics to kind of get those numbers moving in the right direction for her?

I mean, Brianna and John, and your correspondents, they all hit it. It's really capital I inflation, as I say, the likes of which hasn't really visited this country in more than 40 years. And it is brutally hard to distance yourself from that, even though there were so many things that went into it. A once in a hundred year pandemic, supply chain shocks, greedflation, they're going to put that at the feet of the White House and the incumbent administration. As you know, she's trying to present herself as a change candidate.

And so there are only so many levers you can pull. It's not like, you know, in Venezuela under Hugo Chavez, there was a call in show where if you couldn't afford cement, he would instruct people to ship you several bags of cement. It doesn't work that way. We have a gigantic economy. We have a globalized economy and a Federal Reserve. And she's trying to throw out red meat in the hopes of getting some swing voters to tip the election her way.

ACOSTA: Yes. And Eva was just mentioning a few moments ago, Harris is set to describe her economic vision as, quote, pragmatic instead of being bound by ideology. She's going to go further and talk about how, you know, she defines herself as a capitalist. That that is certainly a response to what the former president has been saying out on the campaign trail.

ROBEN FARZAD, BUSINESS JOURNALIST: Yes, to kind of, you know, position her as a Marxist. Meanwhile, the stock market yesterday -- well, the day before -- hit an all-time high. The economy is still creating jobs. It's very hard if you're the Harris administration to kind of really own this economy and go out there and run victory laps with it because of inflation and because you want to kind of make an overture to some of those disaffected blue collar workers who've been hit so hard.

[15:05:00]

The price of everything from insurance to daycare to housing, rents and real estate costs. So she's walking a really, really tricky tightrope. ACOSTA: I mean, we did just see, Roben, the Fed make a big interest rate cut. And, you know, from what I am reading, it sounds as though a lot of people out there are going back into the mortgage market, trying to get mortgages refinanced. Which candidate stands to benefit most from that?

FARZAD: In theory, the incumbent. That's why you've historically seen the Fed not want to cut so close to an election. I mean, we had intervening scenarios in 2008. You remember, we were in the throes of a financial crisis. George W. Bush was very unpopular and that helped Barack Obama, but then he owned the financial crisis going into the first hundred days of 2009.

Yes, that's a headwind that you really want, that we - you know, this really does help you. But it's so far been cold comfort for those on the sidelines who cannot possibly afford a home. Even if you take a point off the prevailing mortgage market rate, there's still so many Americans with a 3 percent mortgage out there and appreciated homes that are in no mood to give that up to younger buyers.

ACOSTA: You know, and speaking of interest rates, Trump this afternoon said if he's reelected, he's going to put a temporary cap of 10 percent on credit card interest rates. Can he do that?

FARZAD: No, the financial services industry, the Wall Street lobby, I mean, this isn't, you know, the Middle East or other places where you could actually cap, you know, usury. You can have the consumer protection financial people, but the interest rates are set by the market and you can't dictate how banks lend to other people and banks lend to each other. Those are led by economic forces and hardwired to the main interest rate that the Federal Reserve controls.

So it makes for great rhetoric and red meat in saying that I will force these jobs or force these interest rates to come back. But in practice, it doesn't happen.

ACOSTA: All right. Roben Farzad, thank you very much for your time. We really appreciate it. Brianna?

KEILAR: Preparations are underway as Hurricane Helene rapidly intensifies on its track toward Florida's Gulf Coast. It's expected to make landfall tomorrow night as the strongest hurricane to hit the U.S. in over a year. And this hour, we're getting a new perspective from the air as hurricane hunters flew through the eye of this huge storm this morning. We are covering this from all angles with the latest forecast and also what is happening on the ground in Florida.

First, though, let's go to meteorologist Elisa Raffa.

Elisa, what more do we know right now?

ELISA RAFFA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: We know it is a category one hurricane that already has rapidly intensified and it can do it again. It's got winds right now at 80 miles per hour. Some gusts already upwards of a hundred miles per hour sitting 480 miles south southwest of Tampa Bay. We've had tropical storm force winds and even hurricane force winds lashing Cancun and even Havana all day today because this storm is already so wide and it's going to grow even wider.

Ocean temperatures has been something that we've been talking about all season. These ocean temperatures are so warm. We're looking at it intensifying again as it gets to the Gulf Coast. That's why we're worried about a category three hurricane as it makes landfall somewhere in that big bend of Florida. You could see the red. Those are hurricane warnings in effect.

But look at the blue. Those are tropical storm warnings in effect for the entire peninsula of Florida. Again, this thing is really wide, so the impacts are not just going to be Florida. We have tropical storm watches in effect for Atlanta, even going into the Carolinas because this thing will really keep itself together as it pushes itself north.

Storm surge forecast has been updated. We're now worried about 12- to 18 feet of storm surge around Cedar Key and that big bend. That is unsurvivable, 18 feet of water. Again, just incredibly catastrophic what some of the storm surge can do here, 8- to 12 feet around Spring Hill, still 5- to 8 feet in Tampa.

The wind field will continue to grow pretty large, again, about 400 miles for tropical storm force winds, which is why we're finding impacts for Miami to Atlanta with the gusty winds. Look at the winds, how they stretch as far north as Atlanta gusts up to, you know, 70 miles per hour possible. The core of where it can make landfall in that big bend area. You're looking at winds over 110 miles per hour could be incredibly damaging. But again, power outages will be widespread.

We'll also have a footprint of rain. That is pretty huge, too. It's sucking in a lot of tropical moisture. So we're looking at heavy rain 4- to 8 inches for a lot of Georgia into the Carolinas. But look at this pocket right here in the Appalachian Mountains, North Georgia and the Carolinas, where we could find some totals over a foot in the highest terrain that could cause some problems with landslides.

We're increasingly worried about that. That's why we have a high risk of excessive rain and flash flooding two days in a row. That is the highest warning that the Weather Prediction Center gives for some flash flooding. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. Elisa, thank you for that.

And CNN's Carlos Suarez is live for us in St. Petersburg.

[15:10:00]

We see people there getting ready for this. Carlos, what's it like on the ground?

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, we are in Pinellas County, in an area that is known to flood. We are at one of two sandbag distribution sites that have opened here in the city of St. Petersburg, all in anticipation of Helene's expected rainfall as well as the 5- to 8 ft of storm surge. You can see the work that is well underway out here. The line of cars

stretches around the block. Folks line up here and they're able to get their sandbags and take them to their homes, to their businesses, all in an effort to try to get all of this expected rain out of their homes and their businesses.

Over a dozen counties across the state of Florida are under a mandatory evacuation, including right here in Pinellas County, over in Hillsborough County, just to the east of us. That is home to Tampa. That area is also under a mandatory evacuation. Folks that live anywhere along the coast, the southwest coast of Florida are being told that they need to seek higher ground.

A lot of these storm preparations have been underway for the last couple of days now in anticipation of this hurricane. In fact, about 3.5 hours north of where we are in Perry, Florida, folks there began boarding up their homes and their businesses earlier today. That part of Florida is still recovering from Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall last year. And then up in Leon County in the city of Tallahassee, state emergency officials there are warning folks to please take this storm serious as you all were talking about.

The sheer size of it means that no matter where you live in Florida, chances are you will be impacted by the storm. Brianna, even if Helene manages to stay on the current path that it is in when it comes to the Tampa Bay area, even if it stays to the west of here, we're still looking at a storm surge of anywhere between 5 to 8 ft. It's something that we saw last year during Hurricane Idalia when we were in this very same neighborhood and over 1,500 homes were flooded. Brianna?

KEILAR: Yes, they keep getting hit. Carlos, thank you so much. We'll keep an eye out there.

Israel's military chief telling troops to prepare for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon as the IDF pounds the country with airstrikes and shoots down a Hezbollah ballistic missile over Tel Aviv. Plus new CNN reporting revealing internal strains within the Secret Service as the agency faces a busy campaign season and what its director calls an unprecedented threat environment.

And Alex Jones' Infowars platform now set to be split up and sold off to help pay the more than $1 billion that he owes Sandy Hook families. Those stories and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:17:09]

ACOSTA: Troubling new developments in the Middle East. Israel's army chief says his forces are preparing for a possible ground invasion of Lebanon. And the Israeli military has announced it will call up two reserve brigades as the conflict with Hezbollah intensifies. This all follows a dangerous escalation today when Hezbollah fired a missile that, for the first time, came close to Tel Aviv before Israeli air defenses shot it down. Hezbollah says it was targeting the headquarters of Israel's intelligence service. The two sides have traded waves of cross-border attacks with Israel, unleashing three consecutive days of strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon. CNN's Jomana Karadsheh joins us live from Beirut.

Jomana, give us a sense of how this violence has impacted the people there.

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You know, Jim, you know how the Lebanese people have gone through so much over the years. This is a country where people would tell you it feels that it is a constant cycle of conflict and crises that they go through every few years. And people here are absolutely terrified of what might be coming, what they are seeing happening right now, neither Israel nor Hezbollah is calling this a war, but for many people this certainly feels like a war.

You see the escalation over the past week or so, the walkie-talkie, pager attacks, the different airstrikes that took place here in Beirut, and then you have this wave of intense Israeli aerial bombardment, airstrikes targeting mostly southern and eastern Lebanon. And that has had a devastating casualty toll for the country, with more than 600 people killed just this week in these strikes. You have thousands of people who are injured, and that has really overwhelmed an already struggling health sector in this country.

Now, we don't know how many of those who are killed are civilians, how many of them are Hezbollah fighters, but according to Lebanese authorities, many of the casualties this week and that deadly, deadly day on Monday, the deadliest day for Lebanon in decades, were women and children.

So what you are seeing right now is people are fleeing, trying to find safety and this is because they are worried about what they are seeing happen. They have also received warnings from the Israeli military in the south to move out of their towns and villages in those areas. And right now, the Lebanese foreign minister says that the number of people who have been displaced is reaching - is approaching 500,000. Half a million people, Jim.

[15:20:00]

That's nearly 10 percent of Lebanon's population. And this is a country that has gone through - its economies is - has been on the verge of collapse for a few years, so it most certainly is struggling to deal with that crisis. You have people who have nowhere to go, who are moving into war-torn Syria across the border. Lebanese and Syrian citizens who say that they have no idea what they're going to do, but they're just searching for safety and they're crossing the border into Syria.

So, you know, you speak to people here, they don't know what's coming, but they really fear that what they are seeing happening right now is only just the beginning.

ACOSTA: All right. Yes, very desperate situation, getting more so by the day. Jomana Karadsheh live in Beirut for us. Thank you so much. Let me go to CNN International Correspondent Jeremy Diamond.

Jeremy, you're in northern Israel for us right now. I mean, how imminent could this Israeli invasion - this ground invasion be? What are you hearing?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, we don't know yet, Jim. But what is clear is that the Israeli military tonight is sending a very strong message to Hezbollah and to the world at large to say that the Israeli military is preparing for that potential scenario. They still aren't saying that they will carry out this invasion or incursion of Lebanon, but they are distinctly raising that possibility after several days during which we have seen the Israeli military carrying out these devastating strikes in southern and eastern Lebanon.

One of the main questions has been whether or not this could all be a preparation for a potential ground invasion of Lebanon. And tonight, the Israeli military's top general, the chief of staff, Gen. Herzi Halevi, is saying that those strikes are indeed designed to debilitate Hezbollah, but they're also designed to prepare the terrain for a potential action of ground troops. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GEN. HERZI HALEVI, IDF CHIEF OF GENERAL STAFF (through interpreter): You can hear the planes here. We're attacking all day, both to prepare the ground for the possibility of your entry, but also to continue striking Hezbollah. Today, Hezbollah expanded its firing range, and later today they will receive a very strong response. Prepare yourselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And tonight, the Israeli security cabinet is indeed meeting to discuss the potential next steps for the Israeli military in Lebanon as it acts against Hezbollah. And so the question will be, will they green light a ground offensive? And also, how does this all fit into the context of these diplomatic efforts that we are learning about from the United States, which is clearly pushing to see if they can establish some kind of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah.

But one thing is very clear, over the last several days, we have seen Hezbollah firing several hundred rockets into northern Israel. Earlier today, we saw the first ballistic missile fired towards Tel Aviv, this conflict. But it hasn't been the kind of all-out barrage of hundreds of rockets being fired simultaneously, thousands of rockets a day that Israeli officials had expected.

And so it is clear that Israeli officials are not waiting to see what kind of next steps Hezbollah will take. They are showing a very clear willingness to continue to escalate this conflict, even if they are doing so themselves with the potential option of sending ground troops into Lebanon. They say it's with the goal of stopping Hezbollah from firing rockets into northern Israel to allow for the return of 10s of thousands of displaced Israeli civilians in northern Israel. Hezbollah, for its part, has said that if the war in Gaza ends, they will stop firing rockets on northern Israel. But this Israeli government clearly choosing the option - the military option here of continuing to escalate this situation, whether or not those diplomatic efforts led by the United States can succeed remains to be seen, as this situation is quickly, quickly escalating in a very serious and very deadly way. Jim.

ACOSTA: Absolutely. All right, Jeremy Diamond, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Still to come, a lack of planning and scattered communication, just some of the issues highlighted in a new Senate report about the first of two assassination attempts targeting Donald Trump.

And officials have long warned about foreign attempts to interfere with U.S. elections. In minutes, lawmakers will hear for - from top intelligence chiefs behind closed doors about all of this. Stay tuned for that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:29:13]

ACOSTA: A new Senate report reveals stunning failures by the Secret Service that directly contributed to a gunman's ability to carry out the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. The bipartisan report identifies failures relating to everything from planning for the event to communications and crucial decision-making for security at the Trump rally. The report says the mistakes were foreseeable and preventable. And joining me now to talk about this is CNN Senior Justice Correspondent Evan Perez and CNN Senior White House Producer, Betsy Klein.

Evan, this is not a good report.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Not a good report, it's astonishing.

ACOSTA: Detailed (INAUDIBLE) ...

PEREZ: Yes.

ACOSTA: Yes.

PEREZ: Some of the details are truly astonishing.

ACOSTA: Yes.

PEREZ: I mean, one of the basic things is the report found that, you know, of all the people who were supposed to be in charge, nobody really is taking the blame or responsibility for the many, many failures.

[15:30:02]

You know, there were the fact that there were visual barriers that could have been put there.