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Biden to Push for Assault Weapons Ban Today in Pennsylvania; Study Shows Greenland Ice Melt Will Raise Sea Levels by Nearly a Foot; Elon Musk Thinks Low Birth Rates Will Cause Population Collapse, Demographers Say it's Not Happening. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired August 30, 2022 - 10:30   ET

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

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[10:30:00]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: All right, audio problems fixed. We were just discussing President Biden's expected remarks, continuing to refine his midterm message, all this in Pennsylvania today.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: So, let's bring back in our wonderful colleague, John Harwood, who can now hear us, live from the White House. John, good to have you.

JOHN HARWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I got you, Poppy.

HARLOW: Good. That's always helpful in television interviews if the other party can hear.

John, so, the soul of the nation, I mean, that's what is at stake, Biden says, for this speech on Thursday night. Also, a big focus, as we understand it, is really going to be this administration taking on Republicans when it comes to crime.

HARWOOD: Poppy, this is a point in the campaign we were always going to get to. It's just that now President Biden and Democrats have gotten there in a much healthier place than they were just a couple of months ago. That's because of things that Republicans have done. The Supreme Court Decision on Roe v. Wade, that was energizing for Democrats, the January 6th hearings, various aspects of Trump's behavior and the investigation of documents and all that sort of thing. All of that is boosting Democratic enthusiasm and it's hard for Republicans.

At the same time, the president has got a whole bunch of legislative accomplishments through, so that, for example, when he. today, talks about how I'm not for defunding the police, that is a defensive play, fending off that Republican attack, and he says, but I'm for this very popular assault weapons ban. He can do that with the backdrop of having already passed some gun safety legislation. So, he's got more oomph behind the message that he's going to deliver. His numbers are up a bit. Democratic numbers are up a bit. We're going to see whether they can sustain that progress over the next two months until we get to those midterms. SCIUTTO: All right. A big speech planned, a primetime address to the nation, in fact, on Thursday, as well. What's the message there?

HARWOOD: The message is, here are the things that a Democratic government has accomplished, on climate, on the pandemic, on gun safety, on veterans' health care, various things that the president has pushed through, the semiconductor manufacturing, contrasted with what he calls this extreme MAGA Republican element. He's going to highlight Republican extremism.

Of course, the strongest demonstration of that was the insurrection but we've seen it in other dimensions, as well, Republican state governments pushing through various culture war issues. The president is going to try to paint this as Democrats being the reasonable party, looking to solve American problems and that Republicans are this extreme movement that is disdainful of democracy. That's the message that he delivered last week. He's going to keep delivering for a number of weeks.

HARLOW: And Pennsylvania, so key in so many ways, not just in the midterms in 2024, it's why you've got Biden there twice this week and you've also got former President Trump in the state.

HARWOOD: Poppy, it's an extremely consequential state for a couple of reasons, first of all, very difficult for Republicans to win back the Senate, if they can't hold that seat of retiring Republican Pat Toomey. If John Fetterman can beat Mehmet Oz, that makes the path to a Republican Senate majority much, much steeper.

You've also got a pretty extreme Republican candidate who has embraced Trump's election lie running for governor.

[10:35:00]

He is somebody who has made clear, Doug Mastriano, that he is willing to move against the will of the voters. So, that makes -- since Pennsylvania could be a swing state in 2024, that makes the election of the next governor a very consequential thing.

And so Pennsylvania has always been, in recent elections, a swing state, very important to Democrats, and the numbers are better there for Democrats and they've got to try to sustain that.

HARLOW: John Harwood at the White House, thank you for all that reporting.

SCIUTTO: Today marks one year since the last U.S. jet left Afghanistan, ending America's longest war. There's the film right there. But despite a massive airlift effort, the parting troops left behind tens of thousands of Afghans entitled to special immigrant visas, the opportunity to come here to this country. Their fates now left in the hands of the Taliban, along with an even more extreme faction of ISIS.

Joining me now is retired Green Beret Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann. His new book, Operation Pineapple Express, just hit shelves today, it tells the story how Mann and a group of retired green berets came together to save hundreds of Afghans in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal. Scott, it's great to have you back.

LT. COL. SCOTT MANN, U.S. ARMY GREEN BERET (RET.): Good to see you, Jim. Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: I got my copy right here. It tells a great story here. And you say on the positive side, this is when America showed up, you fellow veterans. And I want for folks at home to understand the kinds of people you were helping out here. I want to focus on one that you profile. Nazam Nazami (ph), a member of the Afghan Special Forces. In one battle, you describe he took three bullets to his chest, the kind of danger he faced. What did it mean to you to get him out of the country?

MANN: It just meant the world. I mean, for me and the small team that had formed around Pineapple in the beginning, whether he lived or died really became representative of our service in Afghanistan all those years. It really came down to whether or not this one young man made it out of his uncle's house and escaped the Taliban with his family.

And I think for so many veterans and so many volunteer groups, Jim, not just Pineapple and not just green berets, but that's how it felt to all of us because we had really given our youth, we've lost friends there. And now, having to leave our partners, our allies behind was just a moral injury that we couldn't stomach.

SCIUTTO: You described how, before you were able to get him out, he had to live in seclusion because of the threat from the Taliban. I've spoken to a person with a similar situation who is still there, stuck behind, fearing for his life every day. And the fact is, the vast majority, 96 percent, by some counts, are still left behind. What is the level of risk they face?

MANN: It's tremendous. The Taliban are really seeking retribution. ISIS, and you know what, Al Qaeda, talking to the Afghan special operators, Jim, that I'm talking to in-country, they are really making a play.

But I think what people, when they read this book, what they're going to see is the level of relationships, trust and human connection between these veteran volunteers and their Afghan allies. I think it was the thing that stood out most to me was at a time when our country is so divided, you have Republicans and Democrats coming together and no one was talking about that stuff. We were just talking about honoring a promise. And a lot of these groups, like Moral Compass, have continued to do it through the winter, paying for safe houses, medical care. It is a herculean task for these volunteers.

SCIUTTO: Yes, their time, their effort, their money as well, a lot of veterans donating it.

I want to describe a picture point for a question, because you describe how the warnings were there in advance of the collapse of the Afghan government, that every intel assessment you saw indicated that government would quickly collapse, perhaps as soon as the fall. Of course, it happened within days. Was there actually less surprise than acknowledged? In other words, do you believe the U.S. saw this coming or should have?

MANN: The veteran community that I've talked to certainly believes that the leadership saw this coming. And it's one of the things that we really are looking for is accountability and transparency. We need to go back. We need public hearings around this, Jim, because everything that I have found in my interviews around the book tells me that the warnings were there, the indicators were there. And, frankly, we could have done work on the front end to prevent this wholesale abandonment of our partner force. It affects our national security. It affects our children as they fight the next war.

And we really need to go back and look back at what happened here because we can't just turn the page on this. This moral injury is not going to go away. And the Afghan allies, like the commandos, the special forces, they still need our help.

SCIUTTO: So, let me ask you, and I have asked folks in your position, over the last several days and weeks, this question repeatedly, what, in your view, must be done now, today, to make this right?

[10:40:01]

MANN: We need immediate public hearings on this. And we need to really get clear on where we go from here, particularly with our Afghan allies, a pathway for those most at risk allies to find a way out of there, i.e. the Afghan special operators who risked so much for us.

I also think we need to take a very hard look at the mental health of our veteran population right now, Jim. These volunteers have been on the world's longest 911 call and the mental health issues that we're going to face with this, I think, we're just starting to scratch the surface. And I think we really need to address that moral injury.

We need our general officers, our flag officers, both past and present, to step up and help lead through that. So, it's really the leadership across all spectrums to step in here and look at a pathway for our at-risk allies and look at the mental health issues that have come along with this, because there's going to be a cost.

SCIUTTO: You've been open with that, right? That's not an easy topic to discuss about the stress that you've been through. What's it been like?

MANN: I mean, nothing compared to a lot of these volunteers who have been on the phone nonstop. But I can tell you, I had my own personal health issues coming out of a couple of tours in Afghanistan, nearly took my own life, 18 months after I transitioned. And for many of us, these events in Afghanistan brought it all screaming back.

And one of the things that I just want to ask people is, check in on your fellow veterans, check in on your gold star families, your military families, because for many of them, they were the ones who picked up the phone when the institutional leaders didn't. They were the ones who stayed on the phone and they have given already so much. And now, they are having to relive so many of these traumas. And we need to be there for them as a society. We need to redistribute the emotional load and let them know that we have their back. Because two- thirds of Afghan veterans say if they would resettle our allies, it would demonstrably help with mental health.

SCIUTTO: And the experts say that those check-ins can sometimes mean the difference between life and death.

I want to direct folks to the book again. And, by the way, there're some happy stories in here. I love the one of you describing having a barbecue in Tampa, with Nazam (ph) and his family when they made it to the U.S. That must have put a smile on your face.

MANN: Yes. I tried to teach the kids how to fish but we didn't catch anything, but I think they still enjoyed it.

SCIUTTO: I'm sure they do. Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann, your credit to your service and we really do appreciate your all the work you've been doing.

MANN: Thanks for standing up for us, Jim.

HARLOW: Absolutely.

All right, a new study says it may be too late to stop a catastrophic consequence of climate change. More on that, straight ahead.

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SCIUTTO: A new study projects that global sea levels will rise by nearly a foot and, unfortunately, there's nothing that can be done to stop it. Researchers say widespread ice losses particularly from Greenland will push sea levels up at least ten inches this century, that is even if the world stopped releasing planet heating emissions today.

HARLOW: Our Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir joins us now. I mean, my concern obviously is, oh, my gosh, I can't believe this is a reality, but also on the other side that people are going to hear this and think, well, all is lost, and so I don't have to change my behavior now.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's the fine line to walk between hope and nihilism, right? And you don't want to be naive about it but this is the reality that these scientists have found. They're on the ground. I spent a week with one of the co- authors and a couple of the most respected ice scientists in the world.

And instead of the computer models you've seen in the headlines, where the IPC says, by this year, it will raise this many inches. These guys are just using satellite data to measure what has already receded. And, basically, they found there're trillions of tons of zombie ice that is going to turn into sea water regardless of what happens right now. The seas have risen and fallen over the past 4.5 billion years, but this time, it's happening so fast. And instead of a wobble in the earth's orbit or a super volcano that dims the earth that causes this, it's us.

And the forces are immense. Here is William Colgan, one of the co- authors.

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WILLIAM COLGAN, SENIOR RESEARCHER, GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF DENMARK AND GREENLAND: At this GPS station here, we can estimate that this one spot lost so much ice. It bounced up eight meters or so in the last century, just from unloading the weight of the ice on the earth's crust.

WEIR: Greenland is rising as it melts?

COLGAN: Yes.

WEIR: 25 feet? How?

COLGAN: Well, this one spot, yes, since around 1900, eight meters. Because it's losing so much ice here, the mass of ice on Greenland is getting smaller. The gravity is getting weaker. And because this area has also lost so much ice, the local sea level has actually fallen two meters since 1900 by weakening gravity. So, you have the ground popping up eight meters, the sea falling down two meters, the forces are huge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WEIR: And, really, the big point is that sea level rise are not even -- it's not like a bathtub that comes up evenly, it's going to vary around the world, so maybe in South Asia, Vietnam, for example, which is low lying and so much rice is produced. If that goes, even with a few inches, it will be different than what happens in Boston, Charleston, New Orleans.

SCIUTTO: So, folks may at home say, wait a second, over the next century would be, what, 78 more years, ten inches.

[10:50:05]

Break that up over those years, that doesn't sound as much as I might have thought. Put that into global terms, in terms of what effect that will have.

WEIR: Again, that's the global average. That's the whole world. So, in some places, it could be five feet. Basically, the bottom line is it's happening much faster than the models ever predicted, but there's still time to prevent the worst.

William texted me this morning it's 11 inches that's built in. But if the Paris agreements are met in time, it would avoid 2.5 feet of sea level rising. So, there's a lot of pain to be avoided depending on human decisions but cities should be planning for this.

And it's not just cities on the coast. They've got to think about they are going to have to rebuild shipping ports. That affects supply chains. That's food prices. That's climate migrants moving into your neighborhood. Nobody will be unscathed if all of these observations play out the way they think they will. And the bottom line is we're not cooling things off, it's business as usual, and it's only going to get hotter.

SCIUTTO: Well, and then to Poppy's point there, right, I mean, it would be more than three-times worse, right, if we did nothing.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: So, there's our incentive. Bill Weir, thank you.

HARLOW: Thank you, bill.

All right, the United Nations this morning calling for $160 million in emergency funding to try to help Pakistan right now following record floods that have killed more than 1,000 people in the country this summer alone.

SCIUTTO: If you haven't seen the video from this place, and there's some of it here, it is just mindboggling. Some 33 million have been impacted in one of the worst monsoon seasons there in more than a decade.

CNN's Anna Coren has more on the ongoing relief efforts.

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ANNA COREN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Countless townships are already submerged, leaving millions of Pakistanis destitute and homeless.

We are poor people, says this woman. Our home was destroyed, our belongings disappeared in the big flood. Our children are waiting on the bank with no food, no shelter.

The government says the historic floods across Pakistan that have claimed the lives of more than 1,100 people are estimated to have caused $10 billion in damage. For a country that already received a bailout from the International Monetary Fund, this calamity could push its fragile economy to the brink.

AHSAN IQBAL, PAKISTAN PLANNING MINISTER: Until water completely recedes, they will not be able to go on physically do the survey. But my hunch is that this is going to be two to three times higher than what we are estimating.

COREN: The prime minister has set up a national flood response and coordination center and the military has been mobilized to help with evacuations.

Tent cities have sprung up and humanitarian aid is slowly trickling in. But it's a drop in the ocean considering the magnitude of this climate change-induced catastrophe.

PETER OPHOFF, INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF RED CROSS AND RED CRESCENT SOCIETIES: I've been in the red cross presence for the last 24 years. I haven't seen anything like this. It is a serious situation, Pakistan is in dire need and the damages are here and we will be in this for a long time. It's not months but years that we're talking about.

COREN: A timeframe unfathomable to these desperate people whose only priority right now is survival.

Anna Coren, CNN, Hong Kong.

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HARLOW: Anna Coren, thank you for that reporting.

Ahead, Elon Musk saying low birthrates are a bigger risk to civilization than climate change. We'll break down the numbers for you, ahead.

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SCIUTTO: Billionaire Elon Musk is expressing concern that the world is not have enough children to sustain civilization, in his view.

HARLOW: In a tweet, Musk claimed that, quote, population collapse due to low birthrates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming.

Let's fact-check that with Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen. So, what are the facts?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: The facts are that we couldn't find anyone who agrees with Mr. Musk, that this is not a big deal. Are birthrates going down? Yes, they are going down, but that doesn't mean a collapse of civilization. It doesn't mean that it's worse than global warming, as one demographer put it, and this is someone that worked at the U.N. He said, essentially, Mr. Musk ought to stick to engineering cars and not predicting population trends.

So, the number of babies being born is indeed going down. If you look at data now, it's about 134 million worldwide and it's going to go down to about 11 million in about 80 years. That is a dip. But it doesn't -- will that affect something? Sure. Does it mean civilization is going to crash? No.

A lot of it is driven by the fact that teen pregnancies, at least in the U.S, are going down. That's a good thing. The number of births per women is going down. If you look in the United States in the '50s, it was 3.6 births per woman. Now, it's about 1.6 births per woman. So, a lot of that, again, teen birth going down, better birth control options. I don't know if Elon Musk is in favor of teen births or maybe in favor of having fewer contraceptives, but those are two of the big trends that are driving these numbers. HARLOW: That's what's making it happen.

COHEN: Right.

HARLOW: That is very interesting. But I would note that his company, Tesla, actually helps on the climate change, just to note. There's that, as well.

SCIUTTO: And, Elizabeth, people are living longer, right?

HARLOW: That's a good point.

SCIUTTO: So, fewer births but longer life lifespans, so the population doesn't fall as much. Do I have that right?

COHEN: You do have that, right. But that's a bit of a concern because what that means is that you have got more older people. And so we need to take care of those older people. And so what we really should be focusing on, the experts tell us, is things like better health care for older people, universal access, all of those things.

[11:00:03]

That's what's going to help, not telling women they should have more babies.

HARLOW: Solvent social security as well.

COHEN: Exactly, all of that.