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CNN Projects Democrats Will Keep The Senate; Kherson Residents Celebrate City's Liberation; Campaigning For Georgia's Runoff; Biden In Asia. Aired 4-5a ET

Aired November 13, 2022 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

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ALISON KOSIK, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT: Hello and welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Alison Kosik in New York.

And America is inching closer to finalizing the midterm elections with control of the Senate now decided in the Democrats' favor.

But the House of Representatives is still depending on the outcomes of 20 undecided races in California, Oregon and Arizona. Today, however, Democrats are celebrating a hard-fought victory for control of the U.S. Senate.

As new vote totals were released overnight in Nevada, CNN was able to project that incumbent Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto would be the Democrats' 50th Senate seat.

Still one more race is to be decided in Georgia. But for now the Democrats know that they will control the Senate for the next two years, with the vice president as tie breaker. Here is Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer as the 50 seat threshold was crossed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER (D-NY), MAJORITY LEADER: The election is a great win for the American people. With the races now called in Arizona and Nevada, Democrats will have a majority in the Senate and I will once again be majority leader.

This election is a victory, a victory and a vindication for Democrats, our agenda and for the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: The Nevada win is on the heels of another Democratic Senate win in Arizona where, Mark Kelly prevailed against Blake Masters. But with the Arizona governor's race still hanging in the balance, some Republicans are falsely claiming that the vote counting is taking longer than it should even though it is not.

County election officials say the protests will not disrupt how the ballots are counted.

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BILL GATES, CHAIR, MARICOPA COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS: Folks here in the building, they are aware of what is going on outside. There is a crowd that is peaceful out there right now.

We have every reason to believe that they will continue to be peaceful. And, look, the people who are here, who are counting the votes, they believe in democracy, they believe in the First Amendment. And they acknowledge the right of those people to be out there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: As we mentioned, control of the U.S. House remains in flux with 20 races still undecided. Democrats have picked up some seats over the past few days. But the math still favors Republicans, who are just seven shy of a majority.

CNN correspondents are following every twist and turn of this historic election. Nadia Romero is in Atlanta, Kyung Lah is in Phoenix but we begin with Rosa Flores in Las Vegas.

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ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The stakes were high, the margins were razor thin but, in the end, the Democratic incumbent prevailed. Catherine Cortez Masto gets to stay as the senator from the state of Nevada.

And with that, the Democrats get to keep and maintain control of the U.S. Senate. Here's how it all went down.

The Republican, Adam Laxalt, was in the lead for days and then, on Saturday evening, Clark County released a batch of about 23,000 votes. And here is how those votes were divided.

Catherine Cortez Masto receiving about 14,000 of those votes or 60 percent of the vote. Laxalt received more than 8,000 votes or about 35 percent of that batch. Now that put Catherine Cortez Masto in the lead and CNN called the race at that point in time.

Her campaign taking to Twitter, saying, quote, "What did people get wrong about this race?

"The first Latina senator knows her community better than anonymous sources. The daughter of a Teamster knows how to fight for working families. And CCM's -- or Catherine Cortez Masto's -- a former AG and crime attacks couldn't stick."

Again, the Democrat here, Catherine Cortez Masto, keeps her seat and stays a senator of Nevada -- Rosa Flores, CNN, Las Vegas.

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KOSIK: Last hour I spoke about this important Nevada win with political science professor Fred Lokken in Reno.

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KOSIK: And I asked him how Cortez Masto was able to overcome a surprisingly strong Republican challenge. Here he is.

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FRED LOKKEN, TRUCKEE MEADOWS COMMUNITY COLLEGE: So this last four days has been a very painful period of waiting for this to happen.

Really what did happen is we saw the results of the Election Day but not 50 percent of the ballots that had been cast prior to Election Day and on Election Day. So we've been waiting for those to come in and be opened and processed and verified and counted. Very happy to be at this point.

KOSIK: Talk with me about voter turnout in Nevada.

What was it like?

What were the top issues that drove voters to the polls?

LOKKEN: Well, the senator is a very popular first-term senator. It seems like a close election and seems very dramatic. But this is the record-breaking election in Nevada. Over $200 million were spent on this campaign. And much of it was from outside the state and much of it was incredibly negative.

So the senator dealt with a barrage over the months, dating back to spring, of very negative attack attacks. Crime emerged as a topic. We were wondering about whether or not abortion was still relevant.

Certainly the economy has been a major issue over all of us. But as you indicated in your reports, it ultimately did not stick. People thought that she was a very sincere candidate and that the attacks were unfair. And she weathered it, she made it.

KOSIK: There was so much talk of a red wave in the midterms.

Why do you think that didn't materialize?

LOKKEN: I don't think it existed. I sometimes am skeptical enough to think that we live in an age now where the United States where to say something seemingly makes it true. Perhaps there were those who thought, if they said it enough and loud enough, it would materialize.

But Nevada has been emerging as a blue state. If you look at the results of the elections, very few Republicans actually won top spots in the state. So there never really was a wave here.

And I think that we also saw Democrats motivated. Their enthusiasm peaked right at the election, matching the Republicans'. There are a number of things that really helped out the Democrats.

(END VIDEOTAPE) KOSIK: On Saturday, sheriff's deputies were called to an elections

office in Maricopa County, Arizona, after a group of protesters showed up outside the building where votes are being tabulated, saying they wanted quicker results and hand counts.

This follows CNN and other networks calling the Arizona Senate race for Democrat Mark Kelly. But it is still early to call the governor's race. Kyung Lah has more from Phoenix.

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KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR U.S. CORRESPONDENT: The count continues in Maricopa County; 85,000 votes released here in the county, still more votes to be counted. And still no clear answer on the governor's race here in the state of Arizona.

Republican Kari Lake did manage to close the gap just a bit on Democrat Katie Hobbs, who remains the leader. If you look at the numbers, the margin has shrunk just a tad but not enough to determine if there is a clear winner at this point.

But the Lake campaign releasing a little information about what it's inside their campaign headquarters, saying they believe these numbers offer a glimmer of hope, the campaign saying, "There is 100 percent a path and because the vote is still going on, that there is so much we do not know at this stage."

We do know CNN has projected a winner in the U.S. Senate race in Arizona. Mark Kelly, the senator, will maintain his seat. The race was called in his favor by CNN. Today thanking his supporters who backed his race.

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SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): You are all the reason that we are successful. I also want to thank our state's election officials, honorable Republicans and Democrats, who were doing the important work of making sure that Arizonans' votes and voices are heard, their votes are counted as quickly and as transparently as possible.

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LAH: Blake Masters has not conceded but indicated in a tweet he would be open to it after every legal vote is counted.

How many votes do remain?

In Maricopa County there's about 185,000 to 195,000 votes remaining. The anticipation is, on Sunday evening, another release of votes of about 80,000 here in this county -- Kyung Lah, CNN, Phoenix.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSIK: After the Republicans' much anticipated red wave turned out to be barely a ripple, many of them are trying to figure out just how it went wrong. [04:10:00]

KOSIK: Our panel of experts breaks down the results and what it means for the Republican Party.

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GLORIA BORGER, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: This may be the moment that we discovered that Donald Trump is not a kingmaker any longer. This is it. His candidates did not do well.

His election denial was not a big issue in this campaign. And I think that Republicans are going to have to do an awful lot of soul searching about whether they actually ran on issues that were geared to them and how they could have lost the senate with an election that was about inflation that was about crime that was about immigration.

Yes, it was also about abortion rights. But I and democracy, but I think that the fact that the Republicans couldn't pull this off is going to force them to go to the couch and have a little bit of therapy and say, why did we do this? Were we following the wrong leaders? And how can we fix this?

One short term answer might be to tell your voters that they should vote by mail, because maybe it's easier and maybe more people do it. And, you know, if you don't want to show up on Election Day, as Donald Trump wants you to show up, just vote any way you want.

MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: You know, I think what's interesting, too, is we talk about the problems that Kevin McCarthy is going to have over in the House of Representatives regardless of what happens in Republicans. But look what's happening in the United States senate right now.

You have the head of the of the campaign arm calling, questioning Mitch McConnell and in the future of the conference, you have Josh Hawley doing the same thing in Missouri Senator, you have Marco Rubio from Florida as well, somebody who you would think would be lining up behind Mitch McConnell.

Republicans are going to have their own issues in the senate right now, just trying to stay together and Mitch McConnell who has been bulletproof now for decades.

Because he has really done such a very good job of keeping the Republican conference. And he has done an amazing job getting judicial nominees through now, he's going to have a fight on his own hands.

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KOSIK: With us now from London to discuss the midterm results thus far is political science professor Thomas Gift from University College London.

Thanks for being with us.

THOMAS GIFT, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: Great to be here.

KOSIK: Let's talk about all the analysts whose forecasts were wrong. No red wave but Republicans are expected to regain the House.

What do you think happened here?

GIFT: Democrats controlling the Senate confirms even more the totally anemic performance of Republicans in these midterms. About 38 had the odds of Democrats retaining the Senate.

But all the headwinds seemed to be trending against Democrats. Inflation at its highest level since the early '80s, crisis at the border, violent crime in certain cities, a president with a popularity rating in the low 40s.

For Republicans to not take advantage of those conditions, it is hard to spin the results positively. And I think it really does distill down to candidate quality. Americans rejected election deniers, politicians with fringe positions and Trump endorsed candidates.

We didn't see a red wave but I think that we did see a wave of self moderation from the electorate that has been missing.

KOSIK: And so you are saying that Trump impacted the Republican performance in the midterms.

So is Trump still Teflon?

I'm curious how you see Ron DeSantis in this.

GIFT: The Trump-DeSantis feud is over the future of the Republican Party. I think reports of Trump's demise are exaggerated. Clearly he didn't have the kind of night he hoped and it will hurt him politically.

But we've heard, this time it's different with Trump, over and over. From Russiagate to the Zelenskyy phone call January 6th, multiple impeachments, the base sticks with him and I think that Trump still has to be considered the odds-on favorite in 2024.

That is especially true if the GOP field fractures with more than one opponent against Trump and they kind of split the vote. But certainly DeSantis is trending, nearly winning by Florida 20 percentage points.

And so establishment Republicans still are looking to that state to say, yes, we underperformed but it didn't have to be that way. So I think that this is DeSantis' moment. And we'll see what happens.

KOSIK: So you think Trump could wind up trumping DeSantis as being the Republican nominee, despite the negative influence that Trump had on the midterms?

GIFT: I just think that Trump's strength on the Republican base is so durable. And I think in some respects the base has even become more extreme than Trump himself. But there are a couple reasons why I think that lot of Republicans -- certainly not all.

[04:15:00]

GIFT: But maybe 30 percent of Americans just stick with Trump regardless. One is they really do like his policies and his bravado. And they like the fact that he really takes it hard to Democrats.

Many Americans, of course, still believe that Trump won the 2020 election, despite no evidence. And as a result, they think that the very least Trump is owed going in 2024 is another opportunity to rematch against Joe Biden or whoever the Democratic nominee is.

So the belief and the Big Lie is still resilient. And I think one lesson Republicans might take from 2022 is to say, yes, we didn't do as well. But that is because Donald Trump was not at the top of the ballot.

So maybe that is becoming more of a difficult case to make and maybe his grip on the GOP is loosening. But again, we've just heard it so many times before that I'm skeptical to make too many predictions that his allure is over.

KOSIK: How about this prediction, how do you think Republicans use an expected gridlock situation, even if Republicans in the House have a small legislative majority?

What issues do you think will be affected most?

GIFT: Well, I think Republicans are really going to zero in on federal spending. They will try to rein in some of the expenditures that the Biden administration would like to push through.

So it is likely that we'll see a showdown over the debt ceiling, in which Republicans will try to force Democrats' hands and say we are going to request that we reduce some spending, particularly on Medicare and Social Security.

Whether Republicans are able to do that effectively really depends on how well the party can stick together. Yes, it looks like they may have a majority in the House, although even that is not certain at the moment. But it will be a very slim margin.

And so the Republican Party is, to an extent, splintered between fiscal hawks as well as more populists, who may be OK with some of this big spending. So they may not be as effective at blockading that particular agenda item.

KOSIK: And what do you think are the issues that drove voters to the polls in terms of the midterms and will it be the same issues in 2024?

GIFT: That is a great question. Going into the midterms, I would have said inflation and the economy was the number one issue. And I still think that lot of voters, despite the fact that Democrats did better than they anticipated, they were voting on the economy and they were dissatisfied with inflation. However, it does seem like some other issues became kind of even more

salient than I anticipated. One, of course, was abortion, which galvanized suburban educated women. But I think the big issue on the ballot really was the future of democracy.

Democrats were able to frame 2022 as about kind of the future of democracy itself, respecting free and fair elections.

And I think that the fact that so many election deniers and those who had rejected the outcome of the 2020 election, they lost, I think that that is in large part a reflection of the fact that, you know, the electorate by and large are just kind of tired of the circus.

They want something returning to normalcy. And they weren't buying into some of these lies.

KOSIK: Thomas Gift, great to get your perspective. Thanks very much.

GIFT: Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSIK: Still ahead, scenes of jubilation in a freed Ukrainian city. How residents of Kherson are thanking their liberators and celebrating their latest victory.

Plus, seeking peace talks between Russia and Ukraine. How Turkiye wants to use a grain shipment agreement as a blueprint for dialogue.

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KOSIK: After a long campaign to liberate Kherson, some Ukrainian troops are returning to the city and reuniting with their loved ones.

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KOSIK (voice-over): This video shows a soldier rushing back to his grandmother's arms as she falls to her knees and breaks down in tears. It is one of many uplifting moments we've seen over the past few days.

Just yesterday the Ukrainian flag was once again raised at the city square. Hundreds of residents joined in the celebration, waving flags of their own and cheering for the troops who freed the city from the Russians.

So far Ukraine says it has liberated more than 60 settlements in the Kherson region, mostly in the area west of the Dnipro River. Now authorities are trying to restore normality to those places. But they face a daunting task because they still have to clear a lot of mines that Russia left behind. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KOSIK: Crews have been deployed to remove the explosives from Kherson to a town in the neighboring Mykolaiv region. Meantime in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhya, officials are also trying to clear unexploded cluster munitions that landed in a residential area after a Russian attack. Residents of six buildings have been evacuated as a precaution.

As the turmoil rages, Turkiye's president is reportedly trying to mediate peace talks between Russia and Ukraine, just like it mediated a grain shipment deal between both countries. For more, let's go to our correspondents. Sam Kiley is in Kyiv. And Scott McLean is joining us from London.

Sam, to you first.

What is next for the settlements that have been liberated?

SAM KILEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is a humanitarian issue that needs to be addressed first of all. You mentioned the issue of mines and booby traps. The Russians have left many thousands of IEDs, homemade explosives, and booby traps.

And they also destroyed the power generating capabilities, the communications infrastructure.

[04:25:00]

KILEY: And obviously a number of bridges deeper into the area of the west bank of the Dnipro. So that is something that the authorities of the Ukrainians will get on to the front foot on immediately as they then also consolidate their positions there and try to focus a lot of their fighting in the east.

Last night, President Zelenskyy drew attention to the importance of that battle in the east, because this war is by no means over. The Ukrainians have had a strategic and important bound forward, both in terms of the military reality on the ground and indeed the symbolic truth, that this was the only regional capital that the Russians had captured.

They captured it in the early days and now they have lost it. And they are now beginning, they say, to evacuate civilians from the other side of the river, because that is likely to become deeply and violently contested at least with artillery.

And it is important for the Russians to maintain control of the headwaters of the freshwater canal which comes off the Dnipro on the east side there and supplies their troops and civilians in the Crimean Peninsula.

KOSIK: Sam Kiley in Kyiv, thanks for that great context. More now from Scott in London with a different angle here, related but different. Russia has been pretty unpredictable, to say the least, concerning the

agreement allowing the shipment of Ukrainian grain that goes through the Black Sea. Now Turkish President Erdogan is going to discuss with Vladimir Putin the possibility of a peace deal. I'm curious what the likelihood is that he will actually make any headway with this idea.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ostensibly not good but, of course, Turkiye will try anyway. The grain deal was brokered by the U.N. and Turkiye back in July, at first to guarantee safe passage of ships carrying the exported Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea.

Russia pulled out of that deal and then rejoined it earlier this month. It pulled out over -- after attacks on Crimea. Turkiye and the U.N. got them to successfully rejoin the deal.

And so now Turkiye's president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told a state broadcaster that he was hoping to parlay the success of that into a peace deal, saying that he had hoped to speak with President Putin at the G20 summit this week in Indonesia.

Of course President Putin is not attending that summit. So perhaps that conversation can happen in a different format. The problem for Erdogan right now is that the prospect of peace talks seem pretty dead and buried.

You have the U.S. privately urging Kyiv to publicly say that it is open to the possibility of renewed negotiations. But you have the Ukrainian presidential adviser, conflating the word "settlement" with "surrender." You have President Zelenskyy saying that he would only hold talks if President Putin were no longer in charge in Russia.

And Moscow is saying that, yes, it is open for negotiations but it is not possible because President Zelenskyy signed this formal decree, ruling out the possibility of any kind of negotiations after Russia illegally annexed four regions of Ukraine.

So not exactly a great situation to lay the foundation for any kind of peace talks. But if there were to be talks in the future, you'd have to imagine that Turkiye could be in a good position to play a role in brokering those talks.

Not only has it helped get this grain deal off the ground, it also helped broker a large prisoner swap back in September. It is looking to become sort of a gas hub, to broker gas, the movement of gas between Russia and the rest of Europe.

The problem, though, is that President Erdogan needs two willing partners. And right now he doesn't even have one.

KOSIK: One can always hope, right?

Scott McLean, thanks very much.

Still ahead, Israel's president set to meet with the country's largest serving prime minister and it could pave the way for another leadership term for Benjamin Netanyahu. Plus we'll look at where the balance of power stands in the U.S.

Congress as results in undecided races continue to come in. Stay with us.

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KOSIK: Welcome back to our viewers here in the United States. I'm Alison Kosik in New York and you are watching CNN NEWSROOM. Let's return to our top story, the results from Tuesday's midterm elections.

And we now know that the Democrats will keep control of the U.S. Senate. CNN can project that Catherine Cortez Masto will win re- election, defeating Adam Laxalt. That gives the Democrats at least 50 seats, enough to control the chamber with the vice president casting tie tiebreaking votes.

And in Arizona, Democrats had a big victory with Mark Kelly winning re-election to his Senate seat. And in the lower chamber, Republicans are just seven seats away from taking the majority there. But the race is far from decided.

While the victory in Nevada seals Democratic control of the Senate, they still want to boost their majority with a win in Georgia. Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock will face each other again in a runoff December 6. Nadia Romero has more.

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NADIA ROMERO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: With the runoff on December 6, both candidates have to do everything that they can to re-energize their supporters, letting them know, hey, you've got to come out and vote for me again.

And then also trying to woo some of those people who voted for the third party candidate, who was able to receive about 2 percent of the vote in the last election.

And so now you are trying to bring your supporters back and potentially take some from the other two candidates previously on the ballot. We expect some political heavyweights to make their way here to the state of Georgia, even some celebrities to come out.

We already saw senator Ted Cruz out in Georgia, rallying for Herschel Walker. On Sunday we expect to see one of the biggest rappers in the industry come out in support of Raphael Warnock. That is what we expect to see throughout the next couple of days.

But the question is for Herschel Walker.

Who will he ask to come and rally for him? Will it be former president Donald Trump, the person who gave him the

nod for this position?

Or will it be someone like Georgia governor Brian Kemp, who has been feuding with president Trump over the past few years?

[04:35:00]

ROMERO: But was able to win his re-election bid with a wide margin and is very popular still here in the state of Georgia.

Those are questions that both sides of the aisle have to figure out as they continue to pour in more and more money.

When you look back at the last election, Georgia was number two on the list for spending for Senate races, only second to Pennsylvania. So many of the voters who I spoke with, who were Republicans, who were Democrats, were hoping that things would be wrapped up on Election Day so that their airwaves would get back to normal.

But that won't likely happen. More money coming to Georgia, more ads will be hitting the airwaves and more conversations about this particular race, not just in Georgia but for its national potential as well.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KOSIK: Nadia, thanks very much.

And in Israel, officials are trying to form a new government of their own. In the next hour, Israel's president is expected to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu and ask him to do just that.

If he can do so by next month, he could become the nation's prime minister for a sixth time. That would further extend his record as Israel's longest serving leader. We get more now from Elliott Gotkine.

He has 28 days to form this new government.

I'm curious; what are the obstacles that you see in his ability to actually pull this off?

ELLIOTT GOTKINE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That is a huge number of obstacles, to be honest. Netanyahu has made his bed with his right wing coalition, his putative partners. And in just under half an hour, president Isaac Herzog is set to meet with Netanyahu here at the president's residence.

And we expect both men to be up on the podiums behind me. They are just preparing things as we speak, to confirm that president Herzog has indeed invited Netanyahu to form a government.

It is expected to be a government that is the most right wing in Israel's history. And because of the extreme proportional representation system here in Israel, pretty much any one them, if they don't get what they want in the coalition negotiations, due to kick off in earnest today, they could effectively bring the coalition down or prevent it from forming in the first place.

So there will be a lot of haggling, a lot of horse trading over the next 28 days, to see who gets what ministry and what this new government's priorities will be.

We already know for example from the religious Zionism, which put on an astonishing show, one of its components, Jewish Power, its leader has a conviction for inciting racial hatred against Arabs and also for supporting terrorism.

He wants to be public security minister. And so for now we're waiting for president Herzog and Netanyahu to come out here to make the announcement.

KOSIK: And we'll be watching all of the action. Elliott Gotkine, thanks for your reporting.

Hundreds of cruise line passengers infected with COVID have disembarked in Sydney after their ship docked in the city. The cruise line says about 800 people aboard the Majestic Princess tested positive, including passengers and crew.

All positive cases were mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic and the guests were isolated in their state rooms. The affected guests were eventually escorted off the ship from a separate exit.

A busy week for the U.S. President. In a few moments, we'll have live reports on his stop at the ASEAN summit in Cambodia and a preview of his high stakes meeting on Monday with Xi Jinping.

And millions of people across the U.S. will be hit with freezing temperatures this week. We'll tell you just how cold it will get.

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KOSIK: Want to go to live pictures of the summit happening right now, President Biden taking part in a meeting with the presidents of Japan and also South Korea. These are live pictures from Cambodia.

As the election drama plays out here in the U.S., President Biden is wrapping up his latest stop on a week long trip overseas. He has been in this meeting in Cambodia with Asian leaders at the ASEAN summit where he sought to counter China's growing influence in the region.

And he is expected to leave for Indonesia shortly. Mr. Biden, who you see here, is in Cambodia after attending the COP27 climate summit in Egypt on Friday. His next stop is the G20 summit in Bali.

And that is where he will hold his first in-person meeting with Xi Jinping since taking office. And we have two senior international correspondents, Will Ripley live

in Phnom Penh and Ivan Watson in Indonesia.

Will, I know you've been listening in on these meetings happening in Cambodia.

What have you heard, what are the issues that the ASEAN members have been focusing on as far as their regional priorities go?

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: First, I'd like to speak to the significance of the live pictures that we were just showing you, although I believe they might have pulled the feed as they get ready to now have more candid conversations without the prying eyes of the international press.

But to see the president of South Korea, sitting in the same room with the president of Japan and the United States President Biden sitting there in the middle.

It is significant because of the historic and long-standing rivalry between South Korea and Japan that centers over largely the historical issue of the way the Japanese soldiers treated the South Koreans during the occupation and leadup to World War II and during the war as well.

The issue of comfort women being one that has been a key source of friction between Japan and South Korea. So simply the fact that they are now here in Phnom Penh in the same room, trying to work together on the shared issues of concern.

It does speak to the level of tensions that are in this region right now that are alarming enough for these two very important allies to be able to come together and try to work with the United States, to work, you know, kind of in a joint way, concerted effort, united front if you will to face some of these challenges.

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RIPLEY: Challenges that include the North Korean nuclear and missile threats, the possibility of a North Korean underground missile test at any moment; of course, the major issue of climate change which affects not just this region but the entire world.

That potentially puts the entire future of future generations at risk depending on what happens with the planet's climate.

And, of course, U.S. officials also telling us here that President Biden will be seeking input, candid input, from the leaders of Japan, South Korea about how he should proceed with this meeting, what they are hoping that he can get out of this meeting with president Xi tomorrow.

KOSIK: Will Ripley in Phnom Penh, thanks so much. Let's go to Bali now and Ivan Watson.

I want to ask you about what Will alluded to there. President Biden meeting with president Xi coming up in Bali where you are. And this is as relations have been pretty strained between the U.S. and China.

So what then are the expectations or maybe the hopes that come out of this meeting when first they have to get past the strained relations?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The White House has been lowering expectations. For example we're not expecting a joint statement to come out from both China and the U.S. after this expected meeting on Monday here in Bali.

This will be the first time that President Biden and Xi Jinping will meet face-to-face in person since Biden was elected president. We knew Xi Jinping would be coming in politically strengthened having just secured a precedent-breaking third term in office after last month's Communist Party congress.

What we didn't expect is that President Biden would come in with some political wind in his sails after the unexpected results of the midterm elections in the U.S. And that is something that he alluded to directly in statements that he made recently in Cambodia. Take a listen.

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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know I'm coming in strong but I'll need it. I know Xi Jinping. I spent more time with him than any other world leader. I know him well; he knows me. There's no -- we have very little misunderstanding.

We've just got to figure out where the red lines are and what are the most important things to each of us.

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WATSON: So this is how the White House is trying to frame this. They are saying that, yes, the relationships have deteriorated. The U.S. and China are competitors but they are trying to argue, let's have a healthy competition and establish guidelines to ensure that that condition doesn't deteriorate into conflict.

From Beijing's point of view, the Chinese government has been promoting the narrative that China's risk is greater than it's been in some time, that it is facing security threats and has accused the U.S. of creating what he describes as dangerous cliques, basically alliances that seek to isolate China.

The biggest flashpoint between these two governments is the island of Taiwan, which China views as a breakaway region of China, even though the Communist Party has never ruled directly Taiwan, this self- governing democracy.

Biden, meanwhile, on record has said that he believes the U.S. should defend Taiwan if China was ever to attack it militarily. It is hard to see where these two leaders can find compromise on this issue.

There are other flashpoints as well: the South China Sea; China's ongoing kind of moral and political support to Russia in its war with Ukraine, though it seems to have stopped short of providing weapons to Russia in that grueling conflict.

Again, expectations have been set low. But the White House believes that this is a good chance for the two leaders to meet face-to-face, to try to find some common ground to avoid a flare-up in the years ahead.

KOSIK: Ivan Watson, thanks so much.

Still ahead, people across the United States are in for a dose of cold weather in the days ahead.

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KOSIK: Cold weather hits the U.S. More than 200 million people will experience temperatures at or below freezing this week. There are winter storm advisories in the Great Lakes region, in east Texas and neighboring states and along the East Coast in Washington, D.C. and Philadelphia metro areas.

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KOSIK: Christmas is still six weeks away but one big sign of the holiday season has arrived here in New York City. This year's Rockefeller Center Christmas tree arrived Saturday. The Norway spruce is 82 feet tall and weighs 14 tons.

The massive tree will be decorated before the famous lighting ceremony happening on November 30th. After the holidays it will be donated to Habitat for Humanity, where its wood will be used to build houses.

Love this time of year.

And thanks for your company. I'll be back in just a moment with more CNN NEWSROOM.