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Federal Workers Terrified Of Becoming Elon Musk's Target; Satellite Circling Earth In Search Of Super-Polluters; How To Make The Most Of Your Travel Points During The Holidays; NYC Prepares For Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired November 27, 2024 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:32:49]

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN HOST: Welcome back. Elon Musk is publicizing the names of government employees whose jobs he wants to cut, and some federal workers say that it's terrifying.

As the co-leader of the newly announced Department of Government Efficiency, Musk re-posted the identities and positions of four women. He also questioned the need for their government jobs.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Yes, the positions he targeted had titles like director of climate diversification and chief climate officer.

As you might imagine, on social media, all the women received a storm of negative comments. One even deleting her social media accounts.

Now, X did not respond to CNN's email for a response to this story.

CNN's media correspondent, Hadas Gold, is here with more.

Hadas, do we know exactly why Elon Musk highlighted these people in particular?

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Well, these posts came last week in the flurry of daily posts that Elon Musk makes on X. And he was re- posting an anonymous account that was highlighting screen grabs from a publicly available database of federal employees.

And in these screen grabs were the list of the names of the people who occupy these different positions. Those titles that you put up there, things like director of climate diversification, included their name, their title, as well as the city in which they are located.

Now Musk re-posted at least two of these posts, commenting things like, "so many fake jobs." And this is all in line with what they are trying to do in terms of what they say, making the government more efficient and likely cutting a lot of federal jobs.

Now, there is likely a lot of bipartisan support, including amongst federal employees, about cutting down the size of the federal government and making it more efficient.

And a lot of federal employees that I spoke to know that there's likely going to be job cuts as a result of this.

But what they we're not expecting is for the world's richest man, a close confidant of the president-elect, to be posting the names of what are otherwise unknown federal government employees who are not in public-facing roles -- these are not necessarily the spokespeople for these departments -- and putting them essentially on blast as a result.

And what this -- what he is doing is legitimately scaring a lot of federal employees who are fearful that in the process of trying to cut down on the size of the federal government that Musk will be highlighting the privacy or trying -- or in some way threatening the privacy of these federal government employees who are not public- facing people.

[14:35:06]

And he has done this before. When he's targeted people that, you know, he believes wrongs him or have gotten in their way, and he puts them on blast, his legions of followers often attack them.

I spoke to somebody who used to be on the National Highway Transportation Safety Advisory Board. And she said that when Elon Musk went after her, she got death threats. She had to temporarily leave her home before eventually moving.

And that is what a lot of these federal employees are so afraid is going to happen to them.

We have a statement from the union that represents the federal employees, and they say these tactics are aimed at sowing terror and fear at federal employees. It's intended to make them fearful that they will then become afraid to speak up.

Guys, I want to point out something else that really stunned me in the process of reporting this. I reached out to several experts and academics on cyber harassment and online abuse, trying to get an experts take on what's happening.

Several of them actually didn't want to be quoted on the record with their names, because they themselves are afraid of becoming the next target of Elon Musk's ire.

And that goes to show you how much fear is in people right now that they could become just randomly caught up in what Elon Musk is trying to do, especially if he blasts them online on social media where, keep in mind, he not only owns X, he has the highest number of followers.

Now, as you noted, X did not reply to our request for comment.

But we did speak to Vivek Ramaswamy, who is the co-leader of this new department. And he says, "Our opponent is not any particular individual. Our opponent is the bureaucracy," he said. SOLOMON: OK, we'll see how his followers, all of their millions of followers, interpret that.

Hadas Gold, thank you.

And right after that -- right after this, we're going to take a look at how a satellite could help fight the climate crisis. What it's hunting, coming up next.

SANCHEZ: Plus, what we're learning about the three Americans released in a prisoner swap with China. The latest details still ahead.

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[14:41:14]

SANCHEZ: This cutting-edge satellite is on the hunt for super- polluters. It's called MethaneSAT. And these are just some of the images that it has captured as it zooms around the earth 15 times a day searching for planet-warming methane leaks.

SOLOMON: It's also helping to hold oil and gas companies responsible for their impact on the environment.

Let's bring in CNN's chief climate correspondent, Bill Weir, to join us now with more.

So, Bill, what more do we know about the satellite?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's sort of a surveillance camera in the sky for super-polluters, as you mentioned there. It was built with the largesse of Jeff Bezos, The Earth Fund, about $100 million went towards this. The New Zealand Space Agency helped launch this thing.

And now that it's been up for a while, we're getting a sense of really the undercount of methane that we've long believed was leaking. Now, as you saw in that -- in those clips you just showed there, you can't see it, you can't smell it.

You need special cameras to see methane, which is basically natural gas. It's marketed as natural gas. But it is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide when it comes to heating up planet earth.

And so the estimates from industry and the EPA, they had them -- they were big. We knew this needed to be contained. It's low-hanging fruit to cap these leaks and try to capture this stuff.

But when the Environmental Defense Fund launched the MethaneSAT and it made a few laps now, we're getting our first readings from some of the big oil and gas basins around the country. And the results are staggering.

Let's start in Appalachia. We spent a lot of time talking about Pennsylvania fracking wells, 226 tons an hour is leaking there in that corner of the country, West Virginia, Pennsylvania there, as well. If you go to the Utah basin in Utah, older, leakier, doesn't produce

as much gas, but still 60 tons an hour is coming out of some of these orphaned wells as well.

And then the Permian, the granddaddy of all the big oil patch in Texas and New Mexico, almost 300 tons per hour. That's nine to 15 times higher than the limits that the industry agreed to.

So the big question is now -- the theory was what the Environmental Defense Fund was, if we could see the stuff, countries, governments would do something about it.

But the Trump administration has been sort of openly scornful to all environmental regulations. It remains to be seen what kind of leverage this will -- these new pictures and this new data will -- will do towards pressuring any kind of regulation around these leaks.

SANCHEZ: Yes. So I guess it does remain an open question just how this satellite might help us fight climate change.

WEIR: Yes, it's sort of, if a tree falls in the forest, does anybody hear it? If a satellite points out our super-polluters and leaders don't want to hear that, does it make a difference.

It's so much now. We have the technology to measure and stop these problems. The question is, does the political will exist in the age of populism?

SOLOMON: Bill, have a happy Thanksgiving. Thank you.

WEIR: You, too. Thankful for you guys.

SOLOMON: Likewise.

All right, coming up next, we can't make your holiday travel less miserable, but we can try to make it more affordable.

SANCHEZ: Yes, the Points Guy shares how to find the best deals for Christmas as we look at lines live at Ohare Airport in Chicago. Not looking too bad just now, but we anticipate it's going to get very busy, very soon.

[14:43:29]

Stay with us.

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[14:48:55]

SOLOMON: If you are one of the tens of millions of people hitting the skies this Thanksgiving, you may have noticed it's costing a bit more. Domestic airfares are averaging near $284. That's up 9 percent from the same time last year. That's according to travel booking platform, Hopper. Now, the news doesn't get much better if you're heading overseas

because ticket prices to popular destinations in Europe have also jumped about 20 percent from Thanksgiving 2023.

Joining us now is travel expert, Brian Kelly. He is the founder of ThePointsGuy.com.

Brian, great to have you on this day.

Let's start with points. So many people, if they have not already traveled, they will be traveling in the weeks to come. How do people use loyalty programs to try to save money this holiday season?

BRIAN KELLY, FOUNDER, THEPOINTSGUY.COM: Yes, points are the key. You know, the airlines gouge last-minute travelers when it comes to fare prices. But you'd be shocked at how much award availability there is.

So my number-one tip is always make sure to check award availability. Right before the segment, point.me is a Web site that will actually check multiple airlines for the dates you want to go.

So if you've got credit card points with lots of different transfer partners, Point.me will actually show you what's available.

[14:50:03]

And they just sent me a bunch of deals. You can go for New Year's this year, Chicago to Nassau, New York to Bermuda, and even Europe.

And if you want to actually buy flights, I highly recommend Google Flights. So google.com/flights, they have an explorer button and you can put in your home city and then put in Caribbean or put in Europe, and it'll pull all fares to that entire continent or region.

SOLOMON: Yes, New York to Bermuda sounds really nice right about.

Now talk to me a little bit about the pitfalls, though, of using points. I mean, there are of course personal finance experts who warn that chasing points also encourages people to buy on credit.

KELLY: Yes. So using points is incredible for consumers because you can cancel and get your points back for free in most major programs.

Unlike airlines, which will give you a voucher, maybe, and have change fees, using points is like buying a fully refundable ticket. So that's what I can't stress to people enough.

Even if you're at the airport and your flight's getting delayed and you might be canceled and you've got to get home, pull out your points, book yourself on another carrier.

Even if you don't end up needing to use that flight, you can cancel and get all of your points back for free.

And but, to your point, never spend on a credit card if you can't pay it off in full every month because the interest you pay will negate the value of any of the points that you earn.

SOLOMON: Is there a good rule of thumb, Brian, about when the best time is to buy travel tickets? I feel like every time I'm looking to buy a flight, I wonder, wait, when am I supposed to buy it again? Like, what is that time frame? What's a good rule of thumb?

KELLY: A good rule of thumb is four to six weeks prior for domestic, and basically three months, two to three months, and prior for international.

Now note the airlines will take advantage of you if you want to book a year in advance. They charge a premium. But most airlines will release frequent flier mile awards for most of their flights at 11 months or so in advance.

So if you can plan a year in advance and have miles, book as soon as the calendar opens up for that airline. That's how a lot of people in the points and miles world will snag those really hard-to-get tickets, like to the Maldives or Hawaii.

SOLOMON: Oh, OK.

Brian Kelly, great advice. Thank you.

KELLY: Thanks for having me.

SOLOMON: See, the issue is when you want to buy your tickets like 11 months in advance, like me, but your husband wants to buy it the week before the trip.

(LAUGHTER)

SOLOMON: That's -- that's where the issue is.

SANCHEZ: Push and pull.

SOLOMON: Yes.

SANCHEZ: For sure.

SOLOMON: For sure.

Well, it's a holiday tradition that's been around for nearly a century. We're talking about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.

SANCHEZ: Yes, the famous character balloons are being inflated literally as we speak.

And look at this character right here. CNN's Harry Enten is in the middle of the action, looking absolutely thrilled to be in that turkey costume.

Harry, how are things looking right now?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: I got to tell you, Boris, I think I look absolutely delicious. That's what I think. SANCHEZ: You do.

ENTEN: Look, last hour, we came to you, we didn't have that many people around. Now we have a ton of people who are making their way through the crowds, getting a look at the balloons a day before, in fact, less than 24 hours before the parade starts.

Of course, we'll be having coverage here on CNN starting at 8:00 a.m. Eastern time.

But the bottom line is, I think excitement, excitement is in the air. Dare I say we're all looking forward to turkey day.

SOLOMON: Harry, I can't say that you look delicious because I would get in trouble for saying that, but I'm glad you said it.

Talk to us about how Americans are telling you that their favorite part of how they dress up their Thanksgiving meal.

ENTEN: Yes, I mean, look, I am actually not a big turkey fan, but interestingly enough, we have a poll for everything.

We asked, do you favor turkey as your main Thanksgiving meal? And the vast majority, nearly three-quarters of Americans say, yes, turkey is what they want on Thanksgiving.

I am part of the quarter of Americans who are opposed to it. I don't want to eat myself. I would much rather eat a piece of fried chicken. So I think that three-quarters of Americans on this are wrong, wrong, wrong.

SANCHEZ: Harry's also a big frozen custard guy. I don't know if folks know this, but he will give you an entire dissertation on frozen custard if we get him started on that.

So let's stick to turkey. Harry, how do people like to prepare their turkey on Thanksgiving?

ENTEN: The vast majority, the clear majority say they want it roasted. We're talking about 60 percent, a little bit north thereof.

I disagree with that. I think your turkey gets so dried out if you roast it. But who am I to say? I never cook the turkey myself.

I'm actually a big, bigger fan of the number-three option, which is a piece of fried turkey. I actually did that last year for CNN. I think you keep it far more juicy that way.

So if you're going to eat me, you should get me as hot as possible, fry me. And I think that would be the best.

But my dear friend and I over there, you know what, we prefer if you stuck to chicken, maybe be a little unorthodox, as I think a lot of people would describe me as being, Boris?

[14:55:07] SANCHEZ: Fried chicken. Yes, I don't know about fried chicken for Thanksgiving. But, Harry, next year maybe we will try to fry you. We'll see how it goes.

(GOBBLING)

SANCHEZ: Harry Enten, live for us in New York City.

SOLOMON: I feel like this has been so insightful. We have learned so much about Harry Enten --

SANCHEZ: Oh, yes.

SOLOMON: -- in the last two hours.

SANCHEZ: Harry Enten revealing so much of himself.

SOLOMON: Yes.

SANCHEZ: And now we see him dressed as a turkey. Its magnificent.

Thanks, Harry.

ENTEN: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Hey, just a quick reminder. You can join CNN for the ultimate Thanksgiving morning watch party, featuring celebrity appearances and a live view of parades across the country.

Our friends, John Berman and Erica Hill, are hosting "THANKSGIVING IN AMERICA," starting at 8:00 a.m. Eastern tomorrow. It's also going to be streaming on Max. You do not want to miss it.

We'll be right back with CNN NEWS CENTRAL in just a few minutes.

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