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America's Choice 2022; Russia's War On Ukraine; Twitter Takeover; Biden In Asia For ASEAN and G20; Climate Change Is Worsening U.S. Water Crisis. Aired 4-5a ET
Aired November 12, 2022 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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LAILA HARRAK, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hello and welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Laila Harrak. And I want to get to our lead story.
Hundreds of thousand of votes still being counted in Arizona and Nevada but the control of the U.S. Senate dramatically shifted overnight in the Democrats' favor. CNN now projects that Arizona's Democratic incumbent, senator Mark Kelly, will win against Republican Blake Masters.
Masters had the backing of Donald Trump but there was little enthusiasm for him among the old guard Republicans like Mitch McConnell. While new batches of confirmed vote totals are being released daily and should be completed by early next week, Arizona still has several hundred thousand uncounted ballots yet to process.
Next shoe to drop could very well be Nevada, where Republican challenger Adam Laxalt has seen his lead evaporate to over about 800 votes ahead of incumbent senator Catherine Cortez Masto.
And some Republicans have complained the about the slow pace of the counts and hinting at nefarious motives behind routine glitches. But state law dictates how quickly the process goes.
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JOE GLORIA, CLARK COUNTY REGISTRAR: We're not purposefully holding this process back. We're doing everything in our power to move ballots forward as quickly as we can. But the statutory deadlines that we have in place, I can't do -- finish all the mail until it all comes in.
That's a very small number but, still, I can't finish until Saturday even if I wanted to. Monday, we have the cured deadline. I've got to wait for those voters, to give them an opportunity to get their ballot cured.
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HARRAK: Kelly's projected win in Arizona makes the Democrats and Republicans tied at 49 Senate seats apiece. One more win for Democrats, either in Nevada or Georgia's runoff, would give them control of the upper chamber.
Democrats continue to pick up House seats but there the math is against them. Republicans only need seven more seats to control the House, which they are widely expected to do. CNN's Gary Tuchman is in Las Vegas with the latest on the Nevada race. But we begin with CNN's Kyung Lah in Phoenix.
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KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR U.S. CORRESPONDENT: The vote count here in Maricopa County is still continuing. But CNN is now projecting that senator Mark Kelly, the Democratic incumbent, will defeat a challenge from Republican Blake Masters.
The vote count here is 82 percent complete, as workers, here you can see, are still going through the ballots. About 265,000 to 275,000 votes still remain to be counted.
The Masters campaign had hoped that this latest vote result would be the turnaround, clearing a path, a possible path to victory, where he could catch up and overtake the Democratic senator. That simply did not materialize.
Senator Kelly released a statement after multiple news organizations projected that he would indeed win, saying, quote, "I'm humbled by the trust our state has placed in me to continue this work."
And we're also getting reaction from Republicans here in the state of Arizona. The party here increasingly has seen a divide between the moderate McCain Republicans and the Trump wing.
Republican analyst and operative Barrett Marson tweeted, quote, "Arizona is a conservative state but not a Trump state and voters keep telling us that." -- Kyung Lah, CNN, Phoenix.
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GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The U.S. Senate race here in the state of Nevada is so very close. Let us tell you where the mail-in ballots are that still need to be counted in this state.
First of all, in Washoe County, that's northern Nevada, where Reno is located, there's about 11,000 ballots still to be counted.
And Douglas County, a small county in Western Nevada, the county seat is Minden; the population is 50,000. It's very Republican. That county hasn't elected a president -- a Democratic president -- since before World War II. They have about 2,000 ballots outstanding.
But this is the big prize, this building behind me. This is the Clark County election department. Clark County is where Las Vegas is. About three-quarters of Nevadans live in this county. There's still 23,000 mail-in ballots to count inside this building.
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TUCHMAN: And an additional 15,000 ballots are provisional ballots or ballots that need to be cured. What that means is some people don't put their signature on the ballot. As long as they put their signature on the ballot, it then gets counted.
So that's a total of 38,000 more ballots. So there's still a lot of counting to do in this race that's really tight -- this is Gary Tuchman, CNN, in Las Vegas.
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HARRAK: Inderjeet Parmar is a professor of international politics at City University, is joining us live from London.
So good to have you with us, Professor. The fate of Congress still up in the air but we understand two states could determine the fate of the Senate. Nevada and Georgia could potentially make or break the Democrats' control of the Senate.
Are you surprised by that development?
INDERJEET PARMAR, CITY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON: I think normally in midterms there is a bit of a backlash against the incumbent party, the incumbent president's party. And to some extent that has happened. It will happen in the House. As you said the Senate race is very tight, a lot tighter than people expected.
But I think that there is a big problem with opinion polling in general. There is a vast range of very unreliable opinion polls, which have become part of the battleground over hearts and minds.
And I think Democrats were partly guilty, where they suggested that they would be routed as a project fear to get their voters out. And I think that Republicans were commissioning polling, which is overoptimistic.
And the two combined actually created the position where we now are, which is a little surprise. I think many people had seen this outcome as well, that it wasn't going to be such a big defeat for the Democratic Party.
HARRAK: A lot of people are debating the usefulness of polls. But I want to focus now on the races. A lot of close races, wins with very small margins, few or no refusals to concede defeat for now.
What does this tell you broadly speaking about the state of the race, mindset of the American electorate?
PARMAR: I think that this midterm election has its ebbs and flows in specific micro areas. But the big picture is nothing has changed. Nothing has been resolved by these midterms in the big picture, in terms of the mind of the electorate and the kind of state, if you like, of American politics and of the American political system. It remains deeply divided, large proportions of the electorate are
very disappointed in general with both main political parties. And there is a kind of fear among many scholars of civil laws and of civil unrest and so on and state breakdown, that the United States continues to hover around what Barbara Walter said in her book in 2021, which is that it is hovering around the area of a civil war.
So overall, this -- only way this election could have done something really decisive was a decisive defeat for Trump and Trumpism and a transformation of the GOP this election, 2024 and into the 2030s.
I don't think that will happen. The second thing is I think, to some extent, elements of Trumpism have gone into Bidenism as well. And so I believe then that the two parties are not sure that they have the solution to the kind of illegitimacy crisis which exists in the United States and on the electorate itself.
HARRAK: Well, whoever ends up taking the Congress -- and it looks like it is leaning Republican -- takes the House with a very slim margin.
What will it mean for the Biden administration going forward but also the GOP?
Will anything get done?
PARMAR: I doubt it because they have the power now to block the Build Back Better agenda and the very large scale industrial policy, which President Biden had inaugurated and so on. And so I think that that will be halted.
But even more, I think that spending and so on will be scrutinized -- Social Security, health and other things. But also I suspect a lot of investigations and possibly impeachment processes which are going to then further derail American politics.
And what is going to happen is the deepening of that very crisis which this midterm election if you like is symptomatic of. And the only things that I can see which might really change things in the big picture is, if you like, if there is transformation of the Republican Party, which in European terms, is a far right party that no longer appears to be committed to democracy.
A transformation of that, a far more radical agenda for the Democrats, also mass mobilization of people on the ground in order to create a different context within which party politics take place.
Because the two main parties and their leaders are very far out of touch with the electorate as a whole. Really, the Democrats ought to have been sweeping this election, if truth be told.
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PARMAR: But the fact that they haven't suggests that people are dismayed about inflation, the economy, their livelihood and their future. And so when the two main parties don't appear to have decisive answers to those big questions.
HARRAK: I'd like to get your take in conclusion; arguably, the man of the moment right now is reelected governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis.
If he were to decide that he wants to run for president, is he someone that can bring people together?
PARMAR: No. I think he is, if you like, he is a disciple of Trumpism without Trump. You can get rid of Trump and the whole kind of personal style and so on. You can institutionalize Trumpism within the GOP, which has already been done.
Ron DeSantis if you like doesn't have the taint of going on and on about the stolen election and so on. A lot of Republicans are fed up with that altogether. It is all about Donald Trump.
And he has not been particularly successful with his election denying candidates. So Ron DeSantis has all the elements of Trumpish.
He does have the culture war style on all sorts of fronts. He also believes in deregulation of big corporate power and so on and he believes in tax cuts for the very wealthy. That is the core elements of Trumpism. He has them all.
So if he were to run nationally, I'm not even sure that he would defeat Donald Trump because Donald Trump still has a lot of support among the Republican electorate.
But if he were to run, I don't think he would be anymore -- he wouldn't be unifying the country; he would further divide the country along all the fault lines that Donald Trump has already carved out, identified and deepened in all sorts of ways.
So I don't think that the answer to the big questions really lies in the politics of the Republican Party at the moment at all.
And I think, in terms of unifying the country, I would say, as an outsider but an observer, a decisive defeat over several elections of the Republican Party would be the healthiest thing for American democracy or American oligarchy with Democratic characteristics going forward.
HARRAK: Inderjeet Parmar, Professor, thank you for sharing your views with us.
PARMAR: Thank you very much.
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HARRAK: Well, Republican lawmaker Kevin McCarthy is facing tough hurdles in his bid to become House Speaker. If his party takes the House with a slim majority, he may not have enough votes to secure the job.
That is because conservative hardliners are withholding their support until some of their demands are met. To win them over, some say that he will need to adopt the far right policies of former president Donald Trump.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I do think that Kevin McCarthy, if he wants to have a chance of being speaker, he needs to be much more declarative that he is supporting Donald Trump. I thought what Elise Stefanik did yesterday was very smart.
And it will be a MAGA centric caucus for the Republicans in the House and even from the Senate with leadership to match.
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HARRAK: Mr. McCarthy needs 218 votes to become speaker and right now no one in the party has that kind of support.
Now to a story we first brought you earlier this week. Days after suspicious letters were sent to the headquarters of Arizona's Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake, police have concluded that two of the envelopes did not contain any powder or harmful substances as was feared.
A campaign volunteer had found the letters and placed under medical supervision but the campaign says that that person is now doing fine.
A day of freedom in the Ukrainian city of Kherson after months of Russian occupation.
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HARRAK (voice-over): Still ahead, Ukrainians rejoice after Russian troops leave their city.
And U.S. President Joe Biden is in Cambodia attending the ASEAN summit and meeting with Asian leaders. We'll have a live report after the break.
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HARRAK (voice-over): Now that is how the people in the city of Kherson welcomed Ukrainian troops Friday following months of Russian occupation. Hours earlier, Moscow announced it had pulled out from the west bank of the Dnipro River, conceding 40 percent of the Kherson region to Ukrainians, including the city itself.
Ukrainian troops also swept through other towns in the area, holding up their flags to mark the end of Russia's occupation. At the same time, they also displayed ammunition and other military gear that the Russians left behind.
That contradicts Russian claims they took all their equipment with them. Ukraine says Russian troops did destroy critical infrastructure on their way out, including at least seven bridges. President Zelenskyy said Ukrainians endured hardship because they always knew the Russians would be driven out.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The people of Kherson waited. They never repudiated Ukraine. They were right to pin their hopes on Ukraine. And Ukraine always returns its own.
I'm glad to see those people, despite all dangers of repression and suffering inflicted by occupiers, held onto Ukrainian flags, believed in Ukraine.
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HARRAK: And Sam Kiley is joining us now live from the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
Sam, Ukrainian flags flying once again over Kherson.
Was this Russian retreat inevitable?
SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was inevitable in that this was a campaign that began a few months ago before the very rapid advances made in another campaign to the east of the city of Kharkiv. That was a rout of Russian forces; whereas, this has been a pretty professional retreat, frankly.
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KILEY: They have been able to get out without substantial loss of their own lives, although they have left some equipment behind. They have substantially been able to remove most of their military materiel and that is very significant.
And also the Russians will now be digging in on the other side of the Dnipro River and returning to pre-prepared artillery positions, using that river as a natural defensive line. So, yes, they have been driven out. This is a very successful military operation by the Ukrainians, a very important strategic bound forward from the Ukrainian perspective.
But they are very unlikely to be able to advance any further across that part of the front line because of the natural barrier and, of course, as winter is setting in.
But from the Ukrainian perspective, they will now want to consolidate those gains and protect themselves from what will inevitably be a campaign of bombardment. As soon as the Ukrainians start to get into fixed positions there, the Russians can be relied upon to attack them from the other side of the river.
HARRAK: Sam, what does this defeat change?
KILEY: Well, I think first of all, it is strategic in that it gets rid of the major bridgehead that the Russians had for further advances into Ukraine. Back in March, when this city fell, this was the first of any regional capital that the Russians had captured.
If they could have consolidated that and moved forward from there, it would have been part of their campaign to try to capture the rest of the country and create a pressure point toward Kyiv and elsewhere in Ukraine.
And secondly, of course, this also means that now the Russian -- sorry, the Ukrainian forces now have their HIMARS, their long range missiles now within range of Russian locations on the Crimean Peninsula. That is an area captured by Russia in 2014 and illegally annexed back then.
The Ukrainians are absolutely clear that they want to recapture and drive all of the Russians out of all of the territory that they have laid claim to inside Ukraine. And perhaps now that they have had some strategic success, to perhaps start thinking about talks.
But that from the Ukrainian perspective is ruled out entirely because they are on the front foot. The benefit of the NATO type weapons that they have been supplied by, led by the United States and the United Kingdom and others, have been very, very important in prosecuting this war.
And that is what we've seen the significant use of down on the Kherson front. Without that NATO weaponry, it would have been impossible for the Ukrainians, who were very heavily outnumbered by Russians on the ground.
HARRAK: Sam Kiley reporting from Ukraine. Thanks so much.
And we're more than 8.5 months into the war in Ukraine with no clear end in sight. And Ukraine's first couple is now talking to CNN about what motivates them to keep going. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the first lady Olena Zelenska spoke exclusively with CNN's Christiane Amanpour.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): You asked whether I thought this war would last so long.
No, because I didn't start this war and I'm sure there isn't a single Ukrainian who knew what this will be and what tragedy this would bring to every home in our country. Because, I repeat, we did not start this war.
But Ukrainian society united and showed that it was ready for what, unfortunately, was such a tragedy showed that it was ready for these challenges.
I was really impressed by the power of one nation. And was impressed by the swiftness of the response of Europe, the whole world and the whole international community that rallied around Ukraine for this challenge.
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: First Lady, what motivates you to get up in the morning?
How do you feel that you have endured this war?
OLENA ZELENSKA, UKRAINIAN FIRST LADY (through translator): Well, thank you. It's a big question. It covers many spheres of my life. And what helps me get up in the morning, surely as you said, is my husband's example.
I know that if he endures then I have to endure.
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HARRAK: We want to take you to Kherson now, a city that Vladimir Putin once said would be Russia's forever. Nic Robertson is in the liberated city and he is joining us now live.
Nic, take us with you, you are walking in the streets of Kherson.
What are you seeing, what is the mood, what are people telling you?
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NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Absolute euphoria here at the moment. We're using the phone and we're communicating by the camera and by satellite. It's a bit of a Celtic message. No phone signals here. The Russians have taken all that down, destroyed the electricity, the water, the gas.
Everything here is in a bad situation. But everyone here is out celebrating in the square here. People are wearing the Ukrainian flag. They are hugging the soldiers. They have come out to see how it is to have freedom. And I'm joined here by Yulia (ph) and Olga (ph) and we'll have a quick conversation about how it's been.
Tell us about the last eight months under occupation.
YULIA (PH), KHERSON RESIDENT: It was a really hard time for everyone. Every Ukrainian family waited for our soldiers, for our army.
ROBERTSON: How does it feel now today to see them?
YULIA (PH): It is amazing, wonderful. Thank you very much for supporting us. We feel every day your support. Thank you so much.
Can I huge you?
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ROBERTSON: Thank you very much.
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ROBERTSON: Olga (ph), can we talk?
OLGA (PH), KHERSON RESIDENT: Yes, sure.
ROBERTSON: Can you tell us about your experiences over the last eight months?
OLGA (PH): We were waiting so long. But we were sure that this day will come. And we will celebrate together with our people here and everywhere in the world.
Thanks for all the world that supported us, that help us. And this day we're so happy to be here. We are so happy with our people to celebrate this day. This is something amazing. But it was hard but we always knew that this day will come.
ROBERTSON: And I think what everyone wants to know now, who is outside of here, what is the situation here now?
Please tell us about that.
OLGA (PH): The situation is very terrible. No gas -- no, sorry; gas we had. Electricity, no; power, no. Connection, connection, this is very important for people. People are lost. We don't know that --
ROBERTSON: No internet connection?
YULIA (PH): No internet connection, right. No water. But it is OK. We can wait. We can wait but, more important, Ukraine back here. We can call to our families, to our relatives and friends, and we want to say we are together.
ROBERTSON: And I think a lot of people were worried and the government was worried about, if the Russian soldiers would stay behind, if there would be a battle here.
Do you feel the city is safe now?
YULIA (PH): Yes, the city is safe for us.
ROBERTSON: And tell us how it was, because, again, we haven't had good information here.
What was the situation like, living with Russian soldiers in control?
OLGA (PH): The people you can see here now, I think that many of them were hiding. They are hiding their Ukrainian flag somewhere in the corner. We were terrified by Russian army.
We were terrified by soldiers that could come any moment in our house, in our home, just open the door like they are living here and steal, kidnap, torture. And this was very, very terrible. I have (INAUDIBLE). But we did that, we wait and we celebrated now. ROBERTSON: And what now, what are your hopes?
Now you have liberation and freedom.
What are your hopes?
OLGA (PH): We feel free.
YULIA (PH): We are not slaves. We are Ukrainians. We are proud.
OLGA (PH): Yes. I agree, I agree.
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ROBERTSON: Thank you both very much indeed.
OLGA (PH): Thank you, thank you.
YULIA (PH): Thank you.
ROBERTSON: (INAUDIBLE), they are saying, freedom for Ukraine. I tell you a little bit about our journey down here, because it was quite the journey, driving through vast areas of countryside, going through -- there were mines on the road. There were blown bridges on the road to get here.
The Russians really made it hard for Ukrainian forces to advance down here and liberate Kherson. That said, the countryside is almost entirely deserted; very, very few vehicles on the road. And the road is badly damaged.
So I think for this city, to get the restoration of power, to get the internet connection again -- and everyone has been coming on here to use our internet connection that we're talking to you on right now -- to get these things established, there is clearly a lot of damage that has happened. And it's clear that it will take a long time.
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ROBERTSON: But this is just a moment of euphoria here, just a moment of celebration, where people can come in the square and show their flags.
Remember, back at the beginning of the war, this was the city, back when the Russian troops rolled in here. The beginning of the war, this was the city that tried to resist. They had protests --
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ROBERTSON: -- and celebration.
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ROBERTSON: People --
(MUSIC PLAYING) ROBERTSON: -- this is what liberation looks like and feels like. The people of this city tried to resist the Russians. The Russians suppressed them. This is what Ukrainians are like when that suppression comes off.
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ROBERTSON: I think it might surprise many -- it would surprise, I think, many of those Russian soldiers, who were here, to know that these passions and these feelings were just hidden beneath the surface.
This was a city where people were taken away, where they were tortured, where they were disappeared. But this is the spirit -- this is the spirit when the Russians are gone and they can be themselves.
It is quite remarkable to witness, that this was the square where people began when the Russians invaded, to try to resist them eventually, beaten back eventually, shot back, eventually driven into their homes essentially underground. Now they are out and this is a new day of liberation.
HARRAK: A new day indeed. Nic Robertson there, surrounded by a jubilant crowd in a newly liberated Kherson, talking to very relieved residents.
We'll be right back.
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HARRAK: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. I'm Laila Harrak and this is CNN NEWSROOM.
The ASEAN summit is underway in Cambodia. And U.S. President Joe Biden is there. He arrived earlier with a full agenda and plans to boost the strength of U.S.-Indo Pacific relations. He is meeting with Cambodia's prime minister and, while he is there, he will also meet with Japanese prime minister and South Korea's president.
Next week he will meet with China's leader Xi Jinping at the G20 summit in Indonesia. CNN International correspondent Will Ripley is there for you and joins us live.
President Biden at ASEAN and he will meet with Chinese leader Xi.
Will it be more than a handshake and a photo-op?
WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We certainly hope so. I believe that the answer is yes, given the fact that the White House has been planning this bilateral meeting for some time.
And this is really significant because it will be the first face-to- face meeting for Biden and Xi since Biden became president. They have had virtual talks during the pandemic. But President Biden has always stressed the importance of meeting face-to-face.
And president Xi is just now dipping his toe back into international travel after spending most of the pandemic inside China, managing the situation there. So they certainly have a lot to talk about, one of them being the issue of climate change, which Biden was just talking about in Egypt.
Talking about the issue of Ukraine; China continues to refuse to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine. You saw Nic Robertson's powerful reporting from Kherson, on the other side of the break. We're all captivated here, watching his report.
And in fact the U.S. secretary of state, Antony Blinken, reaffirmed the United States' military and financial support for Ukraine, saying it will last as long as it takes, which is statement from the Biden administration, which some have received as being divided over what should happen in Ukraine, with the top U.S. general calling for diplomatic options with the Ukrainians showing resistance to doing that.
So certainly the Ukraine issue will come up. The North Korea issue will come up, with the seventh underground nuclear test expected at anytime. And then, of course, the rising tenses with China, which Biden will be addressing directly with Xi, and talking with key U.S. allies getting their input ahead of that crucial meeting.
So a busy agenda. President Biden just left his hotel minutes ago and he will be arriving at the summit venue at the hotel you see behind me. And so we'll be listening for his remarks, happening in the coming minutes.
HARRAK: Will Ripley there in Cambodia, thank you so much.
And we'll get more perspective on the U.S. President's trip to Asia next hour from Aaron Connelly. He is a senior fellow for Southeast Asian politics and foreign policy with the International Institute for Strategic Studies. So stay with us for that.
Coming up, the turmoil builds at Twitter. Why the company could be in hot water with the federal government just weeks after Elon Musk took it over.
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) HARRAK (voice-over): Optimism is making a comeback on Wall Street after this week's encouraging report showing inflation cooling. Investors are hoping it means that the Federal Reserve may opt for smaller interest rate hikes going forward.
At the closing bell on Friday, the Dow was up about a 10th of a percent while the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 saw even bigger gains. This was the best week for the S&P since June and for the Nasdaq since March.
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HARRAK: The trillion dollar crypto industry may see more regulation in the future with a leading crypto executive warning of a possible regulatory crackdown. The industry is in chaos due to the implosion of the exchange FTX.
The firm announced that it was filing for bankruptcy. And its chief executive, Sam Bankman-Fried, resigned from his position. The 30-year old was behind the early success of FTX.
On Friday he apologized for what happened at his firm and said he hoped the company could recover.
And Twitter could be facing some legal trouble just weeks after Elon Musk took it over with the billionaire now warning the platform could even go bankrupt.
Experts say the company may have violated the consent agreement with the Federal Trade Commission. And that could result in legal and financial penalties. As CNN's Brian Fung reports, it's one more issue hitting the Twitter since Musk assumed control.
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BRIAN FUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The chaos continues. Elon Musk has now owned Twitter for two weeks and the company's future has never seemed so in doubt.
In recent days, Twitter has seen an exodus of top level executives, alienated powerful advertisers, blown up key aspects of its product and it has launched and then unlaunched other features designed to compensate for those choices repeatedly.
Also in the early days, Twitter has battled a wave of fake, verified accounts posing as Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani, LeBron James, Nintendo and others. Impostors have even forced Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical company, to apologize for misinformation spread under parody accounts it didn't create.
In response, Twitter has temporarily stopped taking assignments for Twitter Blue.
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FUNG: The new paid subscription service it launched just days ago, offering a verified blue check mark to anyone who pays $8 a month, no questions asked.
According to multiple reports Musk has canceled the company's remote work policy and even warned the company could potentially face bankruptcy.
That's not all. According to legal experts, Twitter's layoffs and resignations have jeopardized its ability to comply with government regulations that protect the security and privacy of user data.
Violations could lead to hefty fines and even personal liability for Musk that would tie his hands at Twitter and wherever he may go next -- Brian Fung, CNN, Washington.
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HARRAK: All nations have a responsibility to fight climate change. That is the message U.S. President Joe Biden delivered at the COP27 climate summit. We'll have a report from Egypt.
Plus a new report paints a dire picture of the climate crisis in the U.S. What the experts are saying -- straight ahead.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If we're going to win this fight, every major emitter nation needs to align with the 1.5 degrees. We can no longer plead ignorance to the consequences of our actions or continue to repeat our mistakes. Everyone has to keep accelerating efforts throughout this decisive decade.
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HARRAK: U.S. President Joe Biden there, addressing delegates at the United Nations COP27 climate conference in Egypt. He called the crisis a matter of security and said all nations, including the U.S., must rise to the challenge. And correspondent David McKenzie has more.
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DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The message that President Biden clearly wanted to give at the Sharm El Sheikh meetings here in Egypt was that the U.S. is ready to lead again on climate change.
He's touted his own legislative achievements and also, with a view possibly to a domestic audience, said good climate policy is good economic policy, saying the U.S. is ready to make deep cuts in their emissions in the years ahead. He said countries that are looking, particularly with the crisis in
Ukraine, for fossil fuels elsewhere should instead move to a green transition.
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BIDEN: It's more urgent than ever we double down on our climate commitments. Russia's war only enhances the urgency of the need to transition the world off its dependence on fossil fuels.
No action -- no action -- can be taken without a nation understanding that it can use energy as a weapon and hold the global economy hostage. It must stop. And so this gathering must be the moment to recommit our future and our shared capacity to write a better story for the world.
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MCKENZIE: Some developing nations will likely be disappointed that President Biden didn't give enough attention to the issue of loss and damage.
That's a concept that they need billions, if not trillions of dollars, to deal with the worst impacts of the climate crisis from rich countries. That's a major theme of this conference. They will hope perhaps that this is an issue that is dealt with at the G20 meetings next week -- David McKenzie, CNN, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.
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HARRAK: The ASEAN summit is underway and U.S. President Joe Biden is there, you can see him here, he is meeting with the ASEAN chair and Cambodian prime minister. And these are live pictures that we're bringing to you.
Just three days after winning re-election, Florida governor Ron DeSantis toured some of the area's worst hit by hurricane Nicole. The storm made landfall on the East Coast, killing at least five.
Dozens of beachfront homes and hotels have been declared unsafe. And thousands of homes and businesses are still without power. One resident spoke with local news shortly after returning home. Take a listen.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was hoping it would be a little bit better of a sight. I was hoping just the two back bedrooms fell this morning but it tore out the living room walls and the ceiling. So there's going to be some major rebuild going on.
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HARRAK: Remnants of Nicole continue to move north. High winds and significant rainfall are expected in parts of the U.S. East Coast. A new report is painting a dire picture of the climate crisis in the
U.S. The national climate assessment released this week found that disasters like wildfires are getting worse and that the country is warming faster than the global average.
And the federal report says that the burning of fossil fuels is also contributing to the country's ongoing water crisis.
(WEATHER REPORT)
[04:55:00]
HARRAK: And before we go, a look at this year's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, which is due to arrive today in New York City.
The Norway spruce weighs some 14 tons and stands 82 feet tall, just look at the size of the people compared to the tree. And it was cut down in a small town about 200 miles north of New York City.
The gigantic tree will be decorated with about 50,000 LED lights and also topped by a 900 pound star made of 3 million crystals. When the tree is removed in January, it will be donated to Habitat for Humanity to be turned into homes.
I'm Laila Harrak. Thank you so much for your company. I'll be back in a moment with more CNN NEWSROOM.
