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Blinken Begins High-Stakes Talks In Beijing; Sudan's Rival Military Faction Agrees On 72-Hour Ceasefire; California Governor Eases Some Water Restrictions. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired June 18, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:00]

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN HOST: Hello and thank you for joining me. I'm Alex Marquardt, in today for Fredricka Whitfield.

We begin with a high-stakes meeting in Beijing. US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Qin Gang for more than five hours today.

Blinken is now the first secretary of State to travel to China in five years. It's a meeting that is meant to steer relations between the two countries back on course after months of inflamed tensions.

China's Foreign minister says that relations between China and the US are at the lowest they've been in decades. Despite that, however, he did decide to accept an invitation to visit Washington sometime in the near future.

CNN national security correspondent, Kylie Atwood has more on what this visit could mean for the world's two largest economic superpowers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Secretary of State, Antony Blinken wrapping up his first day of a two-day visit here in Beijing, his first trip to Beijing as secretary of State, the first Biden Cabinet official to visit the country.

The meeting today lasted for more than five hours followed by a working dinner. We talked to US officials. The primary goal of this trip is to establish regular communications between the US and China, particularly military to military channels.

Just in recent weeks, there were two incidents between the US and China in the South China Sea, in international airspace and in international waters due to aggressive Chinese military maneuvers.

So of course, that is one of the issues that lays the backdrop of the tension between the two countries right now. Blinken also said that he is going to raise US concerns on a number of fronts with China; globally, of course, when it comes to the war in Ukraine, locally in the region here when it comes to Taiwan, and bilaterally, the issues between the US and China. Those three Americans who are wrongfully detained in the country, the issue of the opioid crisis back in the United States, because fentanyl, the inputs for fentanyl largely come from China. And so that is something that the secretary is saying that he is going to raise with his counterpart.

Now, the US is also hoping that there are issues where the two countries can potentially work together. We have heard this from the Biden administration before on climate, on macroeconomic global stability, and for China's part, they had a rather aggressive tone leading into this meeting with the Foreign minister telling Secretary Blinken that he expects there to be respect, while he is here. He does not want the United States interfering in internal affairs in China.

So we'll have to see if that aggressive tone translates into how these meetings occur over the course of the next day or so here in Beijing.

And one more thing that US officials are looking ahead to is the potential for further meetings between US officials and Chinese officials. They want that to become more regular over the course of the next few months.

Of course, in addition to the possibility of President Biden and President Xi sitting down on the sidelines of some meetings between world leaders in the coming months.

Kylie Atwood, CNN, Beijing,

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUARDT: Our thanks to Kylie Atwood.

Earlier today, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee spoke on CNN's "State of the Union" about the ongoing tensions between US and China.

Congressman Mike Turner says he expects a markedly different tone from China as the two nations meet at the table.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MICHAEL TURNER (R-OH): China is definitely feeling the heat. I mean, this is not -- in addition to the spy balloon that the whole world watched go across the United States, the allegations of spying facilities in Cuba. You also have the police stations that have been identified by the administration that they raided.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: In the United States.

TURNER: In the United States. They're spying on Chinese-American citizens. And you also have Kevin McCarthy having established in the House on a bipartisan basis a China committee to look just at the issue of China and their threats to the United States.

If you recall, the first meeting that Blinken had with the Chinese counterparts in Alaska, they actually chastised him. They came out full bore criticizing the United States. I think you're going to see a much more tempered response from China

at this point because they're feeling the heat. They understand that the American public see China now as a threat, and the administration I think is turning up the heat.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: So will these meetings in Beijing be effective at bringing down the growing tension between the US and China? Let's get straight to our Ivan Watson in Hong Kong.

Ivan, both sides have tried to tamp down expectations of what could come out of these meetings, not predicting really any concrete outcomes or deliverables in diplo speak.

But we now have an offer from the Chinese Foreign minister or rather to the Chinese Foreign minister to visit Washington, which was accepted. So do you think that means that Washington got what it wanted here and what does Beijing want?

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Well, the State Department said that the number one goal of Blinken's visit to Beijing was to re-establish clear lines of communication with the Chinese government, so that if something went wrong in a place like the South China Sea between US and Chinese warships and warplanes, it wouldn't spiral out-of-control.

And judging by the language that I'm seeing in the Chinese Foreign Ministry readout, it does appear that some progress has been made.

[15:05:05]

We're not hearing insults, we're not hearing accusations; instead, we're seeing China announcing its commitment to building a stable, predictable, and constructive relationship with the US, that it wants to be able to handle unexpected and sporadic events in a calm, professional, and rational manner that it wants both sides to kind of work in the spirit of the meeting that was held in Bali back in November between President Biden and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping.

So it does sound somewhat encouraging here and then you have these kinds of concrete agreements that have been announced by both the US and the Chinese sides that Anthony Blinken issued an invitation for Qin Gang to come to Washington, that he has basically said yes, and some other kind of lower hanging fruit agreements that, hey, we are going to try to expand people to people exchanges, academic and business exchanges, more passenger flights.

This is a sign that maybe both sides aren't again, hurling accusations and criticisms at each other, but as a State Department official said tonight, that they had substantive discussions, not the kind of reading from cue cards, and again, criticizing each other.

MARQUARDT: Right, agreements to have more discussions, which can certainly be a positive thing.

Among the many issues talked about, Ivan, Taiwan is probably the biggest sticking point, the biggest issue between the two countries.

Recently, the top Chinese military official literally said, mind your own business to the US. Is there any sense that anything could be resolved during this trip over how each side approaches the issue?

WATSON: Yes, I mean, this is the one that is one of the big head scratchers, because if you can get both sides to sit down and not be insulting each other, that's progress. But you have this kind of core disagreement effectively, where China says that Taiwan, even though it doesn't rule it and never has, Communist China, it says that it is effectively Chinese territory, and that any contact that the US government has with self-ruling Taiwan is meddling in China's internal affairs. So that's a fundamental disagreement that both countries do not look at the same way.

There are agreements that have been reached between Washington and Beijing in the past, the so-called One China Policy, where they kind of both agreed to say, okay, we're not going to call Taiwan an independent country, but it is very hard to see how both sides can come to a fresh re-understanding, if we can put it, of this status quo when you've got US government officials visiting Taiwan, and the Chinese government just hates it and will send fleets of warplanes flying towards Taiwan to show how much it disagrees with this.

And we'll just have to see if something can kind of be hammered out, where this first round of talks in Beijing could lead to more rounds of discussions down the road.

The military aspect is another big important part. It's just a couple of weeks of ago that the Chinese Defense minister refused to go beyond shaking hands with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in Singapore. That's another area that we have to watch closely because those are the fields where the war planes and warships are coming so close to each other, that you could really have a terrible accident that could lead to something worse.

MARQUARDT: Yes, major friction on the military front between the two countries.

Ivan Watson in Hong Kong, thank you very much.

Now it has been a violent holiday weekend across the country as communities from Washington State to Georgia grapple with gun violence.

In the Chicago suburb of Willowbrook, authorities now say at least 22 people are injured after shots rang out overnight during what witnesses described as a Juneteenth celebration. One person died from their injuries.

CNN's Camila Bernal joins us now live.

Camila, are there any suspects yet in custody?

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Alex. No suspects in custody at the moment, and authorities also saying they

don't have a motive just yet, but what we do know is that it is possible that it is multiple suspects because what police and the sheriff's department is saying is essentially that there are multiple suspects that fired or an unknown number of suspects that fired from multiple weapons and there were multiple rounds, so that is what authorities are saying right now in terms of these new details.

What they now say that this Juneteenth celebration began at around 6:00 PM And they say there was law enforcement presence at the time, but it was at around 12:25 PM when they received a 911 call and this 911 call reported an alleged fight nearby.

[15:10:04]

So these law enforcement officers went and responded to this other call and as this is happening, they begin to hear the gunfire. And of course, they immediately go back to the scene, and it was of course, chaotic. It resulted in one person dead, 22 injured and authorities even saying that more people were also injured as they were trying to get away from all of this.

I want you to listen to one of the witnesses and how she described it

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARKESHIA AVERY, WITNESS: It was supposed to be like Juneteenth celebration, and literally, we were actually getting ready to go.

As we were getting ready to go, we gathered everybody else that was with us. We just started hearing shooting coming from behind us, so we dropped down.

We dropped down until they stopped. They just kept going. After that, we literally scattered away and just started to check on everybody that we knew.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERNAL: She described being just so overwhelmed and really focused on the people that were with her, the people that were injured.

There were 12 ambulances on the scene. Some of the injured were transported by first responders while others essentially walked into the hospital.

The latest that we heard is that the conditions are unknown, but authorities had previously said that some of the injuries were minor while others, at least two were in critical conditions. So we are waiting to hear from that.

They say they're looking at surveillance video and cell phone video and trying to interview people that were involved in all of this -- Alex.

MARQUARDT: And that was just one of several mass shootings in this country over the weekend, which now number more than 300 so far this year.

Camila Bernal, thank you very much for that report.

BERNAL: Thank you.

MARQUARDT: Still ahead, after a years' long, intense drought, California's second largest reservoir is back at 100 percent capacity. We will explain the incredible rebound and what it means for the state's resources.

Plus, Pope Francis making his first public appearance since leaving the hospital, leading Sunday prayers at the Vatican. We will take you to Rome, that's ahead.

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MARQUARDT: For the first time since his recovery, Pope Francis led the weekly Angelus prayer at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome this morning.

The 86-year-old pontiff was released from the hospital on Friday after abdominal surgery earlier this month. During the prayer service today, the Pope thanked those who prayed for him during his surgery and recovery.

CNN's Barbie Latza Nadeau is in Rome for us and has the details.

BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Alex, Pope Francis looked good and sounded strong when he delivered his Sunday Angelus prayer for those who had gathered in St. Peter's Square here in Rome at midday on Sunday.

Of course, the Pope, 86 years old just released from Gemelli Hospital in Rome on Friday, he had undergone a three-hour surgery on June 7th and spent that 10-days convalescing.

He's got a busy schedule ahead in August. First part of August, he will be going to Portugal for World Youth Day, at the end of August, he is scheduled to go to Mongolia, so we're expecting him to take it easy, continue to get stronger so that he can keep up his commitments -- Alex.

MARQUARDT: Our thanks to Barbie Latza Nadeau there.

A controversial call today for a construction boom of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Israel's far right Finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich announcing plans to build more than 4,500 new homes in settlements in the West Bank. It would put settlement expansion at its highest levels in a decade.

But Palestinian leaders are blasting the decision, accusing Israel of taking another step towards annexing the occupied West Bank. Construction still needs approval by the Supreme Planning Council which could come as soon as next week. Most of the international community does consider Israeli settlements

in the West Bank illegal under international law, that is, of course something that Israel refutes.

Coming up, there is new evidence of the deepening ties between Russia's mercenary group and the relentless deadly fighting in Sudan. CNN's exclusive investigation, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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MARQUARDT: A 72-hour ceasefire in Sudan agreed to by the country's military and the paramilitary group, the RSF. It comes just hours after fighting intensified with airstrikes in the capital, Khartoum, which left at least 17 people including five children, dead.

Previous ceasefires haven't stopped much of the fighting between rival factions in various parts of the country. More than 3,000 people have been killed so far in the clashes. That is according to the country's Health minister.

Sudanese human rights organizations say that atrocities are being committed in Darfur and CNN has uncovered evidence that the Russian mercenary group, Wagner is complicit, continuing to support Sudan's Rapid Support Forces, that is the paramilitary group I just mentioned. They have been supporting them throughout months of fighting despite calls by the US and others for that support to end.

In an exclusive investigation, CNN uncovered the Russian supply lines prolonging the conflict between the RSF and Sudan's Armed Forces that has displaced around two million people since mid-April and pushed the country further into humanitarian crisis.

Now the RSF denies links to Wagner and any involvement in mass rape.

As part of this investigation, CNN verified and corroborated incidents of rape perpetrated by the RSF including one incident that was captured on video.

We do feel that it is important in the face of the RSF's repeated denials to broadcast part of that video.

We must warn you that it is both graphic and disturbing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The fighting on the streets of Sudan is relentless. Ceasefire after a ceasefire has not helped. Forces previously accused of genocide returning to a well-worn playbook -- terrorize, expel, and ethnically cleanse.

The paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, RSF, are currently engaged in a fight for dominance with Sudan's army, but years before that rivalry spilled blood in Sudan's streets, they were implicated in atrocities in Darfur.

Now once again, Darfur to the west of the country is stalked by the specter of genocide.

The damage brought by these forces so extensive you can see it from satellite images.

This is El Geneina, West Darfur. Hundreds killed, whole districts razed to the ground, and it's not only El Geneina that is burning. This is Andur and this, Kudumi.

[15:25:12]

(UNIDENTIFIED MALE speaking in foreign language.)

TRANSLATION: This is our livelihood. The market is destroyed.

ELBAGIR (voice over): On the ground, it looks like this. These scenes sadly familiar in Darfur.

Twenty years ago, the region descended into genocide. The same RSF leadership in place as their men were killed, occupied, and raped. Now, once again women's bodies are part of the field of war.

This video is too disturbing to broadcast in full, but it goes on to show a girl, believed to be just 15 years old, being raped. You see here a man in light-colored fatigues matching those worn by the RSF. We've paused the video just before the camera pans to show another soldier wearing the same uniform forcing himself on to the prone girl.

CNN verified and geolocated the area where this happened. We're not revealing the exact location in Khartoum to protect our sources and the young girl. This is not an isolated incident.

We received and reviewed dozens of cases where women say they were raped by RSF soldiers. Identifying them by their light-colored fatigues and the insignia on their right soldiers. So who is complicit in this pain?

(YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN speaking in foreign language.)

ELBAGIR (voice over): The RSF's key ally, the notorious Russian mercenary group, Wagner has been sustaining their fight and providing the impetus to slaughter innocent people by supplying arms.

We're going to show you.

This is an Ilyushin-76 cargo plane operated by Wagner sitting at a Libyan airbase. A previous CNN investigation exposed how this Russian cargo plane was providing the RSF with deadly arms from a Russian naval base in Latakia, Syria via Wagner controlled bases in Libya.

This pass then starts just days before the war begins in Sudan. Libya, Syria, and back and it picks up pace.

What's interesting here is the new focus on the city where it goes next. Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. After our exposure of the Libya route, a route directly from the Central African Republican into Darfur became crucial for the RSF.

Eyewitnesses at key transit points and intelligence active in the region told CNN, arms and supplies from this Ilyushin transported over land using the truck captured here and others like it.

First to a Wagner base in Birao and then into South Darfur to an RSF base in Um Dafuq. Warner putting their thumb on the scales here to secure access to Sudan's resources through Darfur, creating chaos and terror, helping tip the balance of power in their war in the Ukraine whatever the cost.

Nima Elbagir, CNN, Juba, South Sudan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MARQUARDT: Our thanks to Nima Elbagir for that fascinating report.

And we'll be right back.

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[15:32:29]

MARQUARDT: Thanks to an intense series of winter storms out west, the once drought-stricken state of California has been transformed.

Just take a look at Lake Oroville. It is California's second largest reservoir and just last year, a clear example of how critical the state's years long mega drought had become.

But now after several atmospheric rivers drenched California this year, Lake Oroville is now at 100 percent capacity. Just look at that.

Joining us now is the director of California's Department of Water Resources, Karla Nemeth.

Karla, thank you so much for joining us today.

This is such a remarkable turnaround. What do you make of it? Can we now officially say that the drought in California is over?

KARLA NEMETH, DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF WATER RESOURCES: Well, good afternoon, Alex. And it's a pleasure to be here, especially under these circumstances.

California is absolutely out of our hydrologic drought. We had no short of 16 atmospheric rivers, really pummeled the state of California from January through March, but we still have places in California, particularly the rural parts of California that rely on underground reservoirs. Those folks are still emerging from the drought conditions, which as you mentioned, was several years long and very, very intense.

MARQUARDT: For those who may not quite understand or know the state all that well, how critical is that reservoir, Lake Oroville to California.

NEMETH: It is essential. It provides a portion of 27 million Californians water supply. So, all the way from Silicon Valley down to San Diego and the border with Mexico.

So it is essential that we've been able to recover water supplies this year. And one of the things we need to do and do a lot more of in California is make sure when we have big water years like this, when we are able to store it in reservoirs like Oroville or put it underground, because we know that dry conditions are going to return.

MARQUARDT: I, of course want to allow you to celebrate this moment, but at the same time, I want to ask how long can these gains actually be sustained? Is it just a matter of time, before that water level before Lake Orville sees that supply drop again?

NEMETH: Well, this year's recovery represents water supply for about seven million households for a whole year, so it is a significant amount of water.

But all Californians, we know just given conditions, given these warming trends that we have associated with climate change, all Californians need to use water a lot more efficiently, particularly in our landscapes, that's where we can do the best to become permanently a lot more efficient.

[15:35:17]

And it can still look beautiful with -- you know, we're having a super bloom here in California, which usually trails one of these really wet years, but that's the kind of landscape that we want to promote in California, so that water supplies like this one can make sure that we've got enough for all Californians.

But this supply source is essential to a majority of Californians and it really is great news that we're full again this year.

MARQUARDT: Well, what does efficient use mean, in practical terms? Because when California was going through the drought, you asked Californians to prepare for shortages and limited water supplies and you said that the state would need to adapt to a new era because of climate change.

Is that still the case? When you say efficient, how would you like to see Californians manage their water usage?

NEMETH: Well, first off, most of our residential use is actually used outside, about 50 percent of that is used outside. And a lot of that is lawns that nobody walks on, that's sort of a rule of thumb is if the only people who walk across your lawn is maybe the person who owns it and the mail carrier, then maybe you need to rethink, as beautiful as it can look, something else to do that is a lot less water intensive. So that's one thing that Californians can do, just generally to help us all adapt to a warming climate.

The other thing we're doing in California, which is -- and this is an outcome of this existing drought, which is all that lawn landscape in commercial and industrial parks, you know, you see it everywhere, we call it really just strictly ornamental lawn, all of that needs to come out so that we can make sure that we're putting water to the highest use.

So Californians, if you're in the business sector or residential sector, we can all start working to adapt to that.

The second biggest thing that residents can do is make sure you fix your leaks. Sometimes we don't know and especially in this automated age, when your water comes on and off, if you're watering the landscape, or even in your home and you really don't notice it unless you're really paying attention to your water bill.

And so most water districts have services that can come out if you see something unusual, a spike in your use, that typically means something is leaking, you can't always see it and that is really important to get fixed.

MARQUARDT: Terrific pointer. I just remember all winter long seeing friends out in California, posting these extraordinary pictures of incredible amounts of snow and having to shovel their way out of their homes. And now as it melts, we're seeing the effects of that.

Karla Nemeth, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it.

NEMETH: Thank you.

MARQUARDT: And just ahead, complications of childbirth. What an autopsy is revealing about how Olympic gold medalist, Tori Bowie died and the powerful message from her former teammate, Allyson Felix, do not let Tori's death in vain.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:42:46]

MARQUARDT: Three- time Olympic medalist, Tori Bowie died recently from complications of childbirth. That's according to an autopsy report released last week, which found that the 32-year-old US sprinter was about eight months pregnant and in labor at the time of her death back in May. The report also lists respiratory distress and eclampsia as possible complications.

Bowie's death was ruled natural, but it is now shining a spotlight on the tragic reality for women in America, especially women of color.

According to the CDC, the number of Black women who die during pregnancy or after childbirth is more than twice as high as that of White women.

Bowie's former teammate, Allyson Felix now sharing a powerful message. In an essay for "Time" Magazine, Felix says she also developed preeclampsia while she was pregnant with her daughter who was born in 2018. She says: "I hate that it takes Tori's situation to put this back on the map and to get people to pay attention to it. But oftentimes, we need that wake-up call."

Felix also says she is hopeful that Bowie will not die in vain.

Joining me now is Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi. She is a professor of Medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Services, and a medical liaison for the White House Medical Unit.

Doctor, thank you so much for joining me to discuss this extremely important issue.

Let's start with preeclampsia. Can you explain what it is and why it's so dangerous?

DR. GIGI EL-BAYOUMI, PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE: Sure.

I just want to make one correction. I'm now at Georgetown University School of Medicine.

Preeclampsia is high blood pressure and then eclampsia is high blood pressure during pregnancy. Now, high blood pressure during pregnancy has worse ramifications because it affects the placental blood flow that affects the health of the baby, the developing baby and of course, the mother. It is treatable. It's better when it's treatable in the pre-eclampsia stage, but there's really no reason in 2023 where we have the best technologies in the world to have women dying, that's just not excusable.

[15:45:03]

And you know you mentioned at the top of a story that twice as many Black women die from childbirth and after childbirth than White women, but that doesn't really tell the whole story.

Did you know that Black women who are college educated have worse outcomes than White women who are high school dropouts?

Why?

MARQUARDT: Yes. Well, let me ask you that. Why is it affecting Black women more than White women?

EL-BAYOUMI: For the same reason that there are disparities in every other single health issue. I mean, I think that the analogy that I'd like to make and really call attention to, we talk about the serial murders of mostly Black men.

I mean, there are other kinds of killings, Black women dying in childbirth, Black people dying from cancer, from end stage kidney disease. We're in a crisis, we've been in a crisis for quite a while and isn't it interesting that tomorrow is Juneteenth and really, when we talk about the differences between White and Black people, we've made some progress in that people are not in shackles, but we, boy, it's embarrassing, and it's shameful.

So the reasons why it has to do with not just access, you know, I'm here in Washington, DC and we're only number two to the state of Massachusetts in terms of coverage by insurance.

So it is the other social determinants of health, the economic health of your neighborhood where you live, the quality of care that you get, are people actually listening to you when you go to health care -- to the health care system? The food that you eat, the water you drink, the air that you breathe, your own level of education.

MARQUARDT: Doctor, according to the CDC, maternal death rates here in the United States, they have been steadily climbing over the past three decades that really is stunning to see, in this day and age.

Right here in the United States in 2023, why are we seeing this upward trend?

EL-BAYOUMI: We're seeing it because despite all the slogans of DEI, Black Lives Matter, you know, implicit bias and all of that, we are in a structure, okay, that does not support women, families, and certainly not marginalized communities and racism is at the root of this. I mean, it is just that simple.

And anybody that wants to say otherwise, let's just look at the articles. There is a great article written back in 2018, on an entire issue of "The New York Times" Magazine that was dedicated to this, and then again in 2021, and 2020. It's the same story.

So what are we going to do about it is really the key.

MARQUARDT: Doctor, thank you so much for joining us. We really appreciate your expertise. Apologies for putting you at the wrong university as an alum of Georgetown. We are very lucky to have you in our Georgetown University community, Dr. Gigi El-Bayoumi.

EL-BAYOUMI: Thank you.

MARQUARDT: Thank you very much.

EL-BAYOUMI: And if I could just say one thing, all we need to do is to look at the models that have worked, which are led by midwives, doulas, and nurses who listen and pay attention to the woman.

There are better outcomes with those women taking care of uncomplicated births than physicians, and I'm a doctor.

MARQUARDT: And so we should listen to you. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Now from tractors and trailers to drones and AI, technology is rapidly changing the field of farming.

Vanessa Yurkevich has the story in today's "Innovate."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT (voice over): The USDA estimates that farming production could cost more than $450 billion this year. Rising costs in fuel and equipment have some farmers turning to drone technology as a way to cut costs while also providing a better option for the land.

JOHNNY VILLANUEVA, BUSINESS MANAGER, HARRELL FARMS AND FLINT RIVER IRRIGATION: Your one less footprint and less track in the dirt. We use drones to spray. We're able to precisely spoon feed our fertilizer. We wouldn't be able to do that with any other technology that's available today.

Drones definitely save us time and money on the farm.

YURKEVICH (voice over): With almost 900 million acres of farmland in the US, agriculture companies like Taranis are now using drones, satellite imagery, and AI to track lands conditions and provide growers with more information about their crops help.

MIKE DIPAOLA, TARANIS: Ten days ago, look at the growth.

Tech is now at a point where we can take drones and leaf level imagery combined with artificial intelligence to really understand what's happening on the acre.

We're looking for things like weed pressure, disease pressure, nutrient deficiencies. It's game tape for your acre. We're using the best in tech and science to help farmers and communities raise a better crop and that's good for everybody.

[15:50:05]

VILLANUEVA: Precision Ag technology is intertwined in everything that we do.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

[15:54:30]

MARQUARDT: The 2010s was one of the most consequential decades in recent history with political, social and technological upheaval that really redefined American culture.

This week, the CNN Original Series: "The 2010s" is back with an all- new episode examining the wide ranging influence of social media during the decade.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm going to make history here as the first president to live tweet.

ELIZABETH DWOSKIN, JOURNALIST: He used social media in a way that was clever and got him attention.

OBAMA: It's out there, baby. Follow the tweets.

Thank you so much, Facebook, for hosting this, first of all.

[15:55:08] SHEERA FRENKEL, REPORTER: With the Obama administration, we really saw

this love affair kind of blossom between Washington, DC and Silicon Valley.

OBAMA: My name is Barack Obama and I'm the guy who got marked to wear a jacket and tie.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Social media was originally seen as a way for people to come together to debate the issues of the day, and the internet had opened up so much information to people across the world, and people could now see their leaders for what they were potentially and move away from authoritarianism.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MARQUARDT: Joining us now is Molly Roberts. She's an editorial writer and columnist focusing on technology and society at the Washington Post.

Molly, thank you so much for joining me today.

We now know all too well, how complicated and really quite problematic social media can be, but when you look back to the beginning of the 2010s, when social media platforms were really coming online, people were joining them en masse. There was a lot more positivity, it seemed around them, more altruism, more optimism, remind us what that timeframe, that period felt like, those early hopes for social media.

MOLLY ROBERTS, EDITORIAL WRITER AND COLUMNIST, "THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes, absolutely.

I mean, this brings us back to the days, of course, of Barack Obama using social media to mobilize people for his campaign. It brings us back to the days of the Arab Spring where activists were communicating with each other over Twitter.

The sense was really that this was a power to the people technology. This was a way that folks could organize, could communicate, and authoritarian regimes couldn't shut them down.

So Silicon Valley has always been interested in disruption. Disruption back then felt good, it felt like there's kind of a tired old status quo and this is going to allow young people in particular and marginalized people in particular, finally to change it.

MARQUARDT: And Molly, while you're speaking, we're showing scenes of Tahrir Square, the Egyptian revolution back in 2011. I was there. Many people were calling it the Facebook revolution. It certainly played a key role in the downfall of President Mubarak.

But one problem with social media that really did become apparent, you know, notably, during the 2016 presidential election was platform's ability to quickly spread fake news, false information, disinformation, misinformation.

Now this 2010 series talks about how algorithms were designed to specifically spread many kinds of false posts. So why did they do that?

ROBERTS: Well, you know, it's really the same mechanics that allowed things that we like to go viral when we talked about the Arab Spring, or when you just think of a really fun meme.

There just were very few checks on the content that got the most engagement, spreading the farthest and the fastest. This all goes back to the platform's advertising based business models. They wanted to be able to tell the companies advertising with them, hey, people are spending a lot of time here and the way to get people to spend time there was to elevate content that they found really interesting, really exciting.

Of course, that means that sensationalistic content, got a big leg up and fake news often tended to be quite sensationalistic.

MARQUARDT: Because these social media platforms have now been around for some time, do you think we've really figured out what the biggest challenges, biggest difficulties with these platforms are? And how do you see them playing out over the next several years?

ROBERTS: I think we have a much better sense of what the algorithms are doing. I think people understand now just what I was saying about how the most engaging content is rarely going to be the most wholesome or useful content.

To some extent, we've improved the situation, platforms, but factchecks on, they have far more developed content moderation apparatuses than they had before.

But I would say there is a long way to go, and the problem, of course, is that technology keeps evolving.

Right now, people are extremely worried about AI large language models generating disinformation at a scale we've never seen before and can platforms keep up? They're worried about deepfakes.

So we probably would be better at rooting out the Internet Research Agency of Russia's 2016 operations these days, but something different, something new, I don't know.

MARQUARDT: Yes, we certainly have a long way to go. There's a lot of distrust out there. It is certainly growing and there are major questions over verification of people and all kinds of things that we see on these different platforms.

Molly Roberts, really appreciate it. Thank you.

ROBERTS: Thanks for having me.

MARQUARDT: And be sure to tune into an all-new episode of the 2010s that airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on CNN.

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