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New Polls Show Trump Beating Biden in Key Swing States; Donald Trump Set to Testify Tomorrow in New York Civil Fraud Trial; US Military: Ballistic Missile Submarine Arrives in Middle East; China Space Ambitions. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired November 05, 2023 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:58]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington. Good evening.

We're only one year out from election day, and already there are warning signs for President Biden in his bid for re-election. A new set of polls from "The New York Times" and Sienna College show Biden trailing former president Donald Trump in hypothetical matchups in four key swing states. You see them there on-screen.

Trump appears to have an edge in Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan, all critical states that could hand the election to the former president. But legal problems continue to pile up for Donald Trump. Tomorrow he is expected to have to answer to some of these serious allegations of fraud that he's facing. He's set to take the stand in New York for a civil trial that could determine the fate of his business in that state.

So one year from election day, how worried should the White House be about these low poll numbers for Joe Biden at this stage of the campaign?

CNN's senior data reporter Harry Enten joins us.

Harry, I know you're on with us last night, I wanted to bring you back tonight to talk about these numbers. How bad is this for Joe Biden because the thing that you hear from Biden world -- we have talked to Isaac Dovere about this a short time ago, is they'll say, hey, it's a year out. Hey, Joe Biden has been in this position before. It feels different, though, with these numbers. What do you think?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA CORRESPONDENT: I think it does feel different, Jim. You know, a few months ago, I said if you looked at the national polls, let's wait for the swing state polls. Biden may be trailing in those important swing states. Let's talk about the sunbelt swing states first, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada.

Look, Joe Biden won all of those in 2020. Now he won them by small margins but he won all of them. Look at where we are today among likely voters. Arizona, plus five for Trump. Georgia, plus five for Trump. Nevada, plus 11 for Donald Trump. There wasn't a single poll at CNN's standard to put on air throughout the entire 2020 campaign where Joe Biden trailed Donald Trump in Nevada, and look at that. He trails by 11 points in this particular poll.

Perhaps it's a little bit of an outlier, perhaps not.

ACOSTA: Yes.

ENTEN: But the fact is when you look throughout the sunbelt states, these are much better poll numbers for Donald Trump than we saw throughout the entire 2020 campaign. It's just so much different, Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes, Harry. I mean, when I saw that Nevada number, the same thought flashed in my mind, that maybe that is a bit of an outlier. But, you know, when you look at what's happening in the Great Lakes states, places like Michigan, Wisconsin, what are we seeing up in that region?

ENTEN: Yes. You know, when you showed the earlier numbers, you were looking among registered voters. I'm looking among likely voters here. And with the exception of Wisconsin, Donald Trump is doing better in all Michigan and Pennsylvania than he was back in 2020. He's got a tie in Michigan, but look at Pennsylvania. Plus five for Donald Trump. That is a clear advantage at this point for Donald Trump.

And the fact is, he can't lose all of these states and win the presidency. You know, in that first slide, we had Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada. If he's losing in those and losing in Pennsylvania, adios amigos, goodbye, see you later. President Biden cannot win. And the fact is these are far worse poll numbers for Joe Biden than he saw throughout the entire 2020 campaign. There's just no other way around it. These numbers stink for the president.

ACOSTA: And what does the president have to overcome? What's the biggest problem right now?

ENTEN: It's age. Voters think he's too old. He's just too old to be an effective president. 70 percent of likely voters across these six battleground states say that Joe Biden is too old to be an effective president. Donald Trump, that number is 39 percent. If you look back at the 2020 numbers, Joe Biden's numbers didn't come anywhere close to approaching this.

This, to me, is the big problem. And I'm just not particularly sure how you solve that problem if you're Joe Biden. Perhaps you go and show that you can campaign. Perhaps you try and bring Donald Trump's numbers up a little bit.

ACOSTA: Right, I mean --

ENTEN: But the fact is --

ACOSTA: Trump is only three years younger.

ENTEN: Yes, he's only three years younger. It's not like he's --

ACOSTA: Yes. ENTEN: You know, this isn't a great difference. But the fact is it's

all about perception, Jim.

ACOSTA: Right.

ENTEN: It's not about the numbers in this particular case.

[19:05:03]

It's about perception, and the perception is that voters believe that Joe Biden is just too old at this point.

ACOSTA: And there is time to return it around for the president, right? I mean this is something that we've heard from numerous experts that we've had on this evening. Ronald Reagan was in this position. Barack Obama was in this position. This has happened before.

ENTEN: It has. Look, we're a year out. We're going to examine the polls as we know them now. I'm not Nostradamus, I can't tell you what's going to happen a year from now. If I were, I'd pick the winning lottery numbers tonight. And this perhaps gives you an idea, right? How much have the polls missed by in presidential campaigns since 1960? A year out on average, 11 points, versus a week out, two points on average.

There is time to turn things around. But the fact is the president clearly has an uphill battle at this particular point. Something needs to change. What that is, I don't know. But at this particular point, Joe Biden is at least, according to these polls, an underdog for re- election.

ACOSTA: All right. Harry Enten, we'll be talking a year from now, I suspect. Harry, thank you very much. Thanks for coming in two nights in a row. We appreciate it. All right, for more on this --

ENTEN: Jim, anything for you.

(LAUGHTER)

ACOSTA: I know. Exactly. Just not tomorrow night. You can count on that.

ENTEN: Thank you.

ACOSTA: All right, for more on this, let's bring in staff writer at "The Atlantic" David Frum.

David, I know you were posting about this on social media. You've been writing about this. What do you think about these poll numbers? What stands out to you?

DAVID FRUM, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Look, we all want to live in a universe that makes rational sense, where cause is connected to effect. So when you see polls like this, you say there must be some reason for it. Let's go hunt for the reason. Maybe it's interest rates. Maybe it's inflation. Maybe, as Harry said, maybe it's the president's age.

But I got interested in this question of, well, the last time there was a Democratic president in a first term, what did that president's numbers look like at this point in that president's presidency? And that's Barack Obama in the second half of 2011. His numbers look identical to Biden's now. Then -- not just for a week or two, but for almost the entire second half of 2011, Obama had a disapproval rate over 50 percent, which is what Biden has now.

He had approval rates in the low 40s like Biden now. And so the thought that occurred to me is maybe this isn't about the external world, inflation, interest rates, age. Maybe it's about the way the Democratic coalition works. Maybe there's something in the voters that is explaining this, not the candidate.

ACOSTA: Yes. But at the same time, David, I mean, you know, my experience being out on the campaign trail, you can have an intervening event, you can have stuff happen that changes the contour and the texture of the race. I mean, 2012, Superstorm Sandy. I mean that was it for Mitt Romney. Barack Obama had that event with Chris Christie in New Jersey. Certainly helped Obama's campaign in the remaining days of that race.

With Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, you saw the Comey letter coming out 11 days before the election. That certainly helped swing things in Donald Trump's election. Might the Middle East, what's happening right now, be a similar kind of event? Obviously it's happening a year out, so Biden has time to deal with it. But it does go to show you that sometimes things can happen. Stuff happens, can affect the race.

FRUM: Yes, I think the Middle East is a huge opportunity for Joe Biden because my basic theory about the race is that it's not driven so much by events. It's driven by deep stereotypes in voters' minds. And the deep stereotype that voters have is that Democratic candidates are weak and soft and they can't say no to anybody, and they especially yield to pressure groups.

Now, this is maybe a very false impression, but it's deeply rooted in the way we think about elections. I mean, as I said in the article, it's kind of crazy that Donald Trump is claiming to be the candidate of strength. This is a guy who can't walk down a slide. He can't open a jar of pickles without help. But that's going to be the stereotype.

So Biden with the Middle East is showing strength. He's standing up for an ally. He's defying the extreme left in his own party. He's putting distance -- I mean, we saw it tonight, we saw it yesterday in Washington, violent extremist attackers trying to storm the White House to get Joe Biden because they hated him so much, because he was such a good friend to Israel. So that contradicts a lot of stereotypes that people might have about a Democratic president, national security, and his relationship to the far left.

It shows he is not a man of the left. He's a man of the center, which is where Americans, I think, want their president to be.

ACOSTA: And you recently wrote a piece comparing Obama's low poll numbers leading up to the 2012 election to Biden's popularity now. Obviously Obama ended up winning that election. But one of the problems with these comparisons, David, is that, you know, Obama wasn't running against Donald Trump. The stakes are just different.

FRUM: Yes. Well, the stakes are for sure different. You know, as Mitt Romney -- I mean I voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. He's a man of character. He's a man, obviously more conservative politics than Obama. But when he lost to Obama, I don't think many Romney voters thought it was the end of the world.

[19:10:04]

But here's what happened in that election, when you say what changes. So in 2012, Obama -- actually his vote dropped, which is a very unusual thing for a re-elected president to do. Usually if you're not going to lose, your vote goes up, not down. Obama's vote went down, and he went down across a whole range of categories. But what he did was he turbo-charged older black voters and got a level of turnout from older black voters never seen before.

ACOSTA: Right.

FRUM: In fact, 2012 is the only election in American history where black turnout was higher than white turnout. It didn't happen before. It didn't happen since. So Biden is going to have to activate parts of his coalition, and right now we don't see that because the Democratic coalition is always so wrangling and -- you know, and kind of a mess and made up of all these discord in parts that to activate them is hard. But Donald Trump will activate them.

ACOSTA: All right. David Frum, great analysis as always. Thanks a lot. Appreciate it, my friend.

FRUM: Thank you.

ACOSTA: Good to see you.

President Biden has also been facing questions about his age and ability to steer the country as David Frum was just talking about a few moments ago. But there's a lot more on all this.

I want to bring in host of "FAREED ZAKARIA, GPS" on CNN, Fareed Zakaria.

Fareed, great to see you as always. Your thoughts on these polls? Are they surprising to you, this "New York Times"-Sienna poll and all these battleground states?

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": They are surprising to me. And then I think about the kind of stuff that David Frum talks about that if you look at Obama's polls, I mean, I believe that if you looked at Ronald Reagan's polls at this point, John Anderson, the third-party candidate, was doing amazingly well, and Reagan looked like he was in trouble. But I do think there's something more to it than that here, which is worrying about Biden because I think that some of it is expressing -- some of it is the normal cyclical stuff, which is people are dissatisfied and the incumbent is the person you blame.

But when it becomes a one-to-one contest, in reality, the race always tightens. But I think some of it is the fear that Biden is just too old for the job. And I don't think that's going to get better in a year, and it could get worse.

ACOSTA: And the other place where these comparisons to Reagan and Obama kind of fall short -- and I talked about this with David Frum a few moments ago, let me bounce this off of you -- is that Obama and Reagan weren't running against Donald Trump, who is just a very different candidate to put it mildly.

Let me just show our viewers up on screen right now this new "Washington Post" story that's coming out this evening. Donald Trump plotting revenge should he win. The headline, "Trump and allies plot revenge, Justice Department control in a second term." The first line of the piece says Donald Trump and his allies have begun mapping out specific plans for using the federal government to punish critics and opponents should he win a second term, with the former president naming individuals he wants to investigate or prosecute, and his associates drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to allow him to deploy the military against civil demonstrations.

Fareed, I have to ask you. This is the part of Donald Trump that I think that the American people buy and large have forgotten about to a large extent. Progressives, they haven't forgotten any of this stuff. But folks on the right who might be willing to vote for Joe Biden and folks in the middle, have they forgotten all of this, that Trump has this capacity?

ZAKARIA: Jim, you touched on what I think is a really, really important point, which is the problem with Donald Trump, I have some disagreements with him politically, but the reason that I am so worried about the prospect of a second Trump term is that really Donald Trump does not believe in the institutions of liberal democracy. He does not believe in the norms of liberal democracy. He does not believe in the practices of liberal democracy.

And as a result, to seek political advantage, he will mow down many of these laws, constraints, norms, and people, particularly kind of center right, tend to forget this. They lapse back into thinking, well, at the end of the day, I like lower taxes and less regulation, so I like Trump. When he does stuff like January 6th, they recoil in horror and they are opposed to it, to be fair to them. They're, you know, honorable people. But then somehow they forget, and then they start against lapsing back into low taxes, low regulation.

ACOSTA: Yes.

ZAKARIA: Hey, I don't like woke culture either. Look, I don't like a lot of the woke stuff either. God knows I would like to have my taxes lower. But we've got a much bigger issue here. This guy does not really respect and honor and cherish the institutions of liberal democracy.

[19:15:07]

In that sense, he is perhaps the most illiberal candidate that, you know, the United States has fielded as a presidential candidate in my memory. I don't know of somebody -- Andrew Jackson when you go back to the 19th century or something. But this is something very, very different.

And why this isn't top of mind to a lot of voters is the great mystery. I understand the 35 percent for whom this is a cult. They love him. You know, when the Republican convention takes place, you know, all he does is he puts on his family.

ACOSTA: Right.

ZAKARIA: He doesn't put on other Republicans. But what about the center of the Republican Party? What has happened to that world?

ACOSTA: Yes. And perhaps -- I mean that leads me to this question, Fareed, which is, do the Biden people have a point when you ask them about this, and Biden himself has said don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative, that when it comes down to a choice between Biden and Trump, these polls that we're seeing tonight are not going to make a whole hell of a lot of difference because people are going to be aware.

They're going to be conscious of what Donald Trump is capable of. The Biden people are going to be running ads with January 6th footage in them and so on. Do they have a point about that?

ZAKARIA: They have a point about it, but let's remember, lots could change between now and then. You know, Biden could have a health episode. You know, he could -- and some of it might be trivial. You know, he stumbles. Remember, Gerald Ford stumbled once. He was actually a very fit, athletic man. But that became the meme and it became impossible for him to quite get over that.

He could stumble in terms of something he says. He could have an actual, you know, health episode. The economy could, you know, worsen. I worry that it's very close. And you know, the strange thing about the way we elect presidents now is this will be, I don't know, the seventh or eighth election in which basically it's a foregone conclusion that the Democratic candidate will win the popular vote, will win it probably by -- I would guess Biden will win the next election by nine million votes. Not a small number.

ACOSTA: Right.

ZAKARIA: But what matters is the votes in four states maybe, Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia, maybe Pennsylvania. And not even those states because the cities will go blue. The rural areas will go red. And it's going to be this ring of excerpts. We're talking about, what, 150,000 people will decide the future of liberal democracy in America, the future of Ukraine and the international order, the future of the Middle East. It's -- you know, it's scary.

ACOSTA: It is. It really is. Fareed, stay with us. We're going to talk about what's happening between Israel and Hamas, how that might affect the president. But obviously the more important issue, which is how does the world get out of this jam that it's in right now with what's going on there. We'll talk about that on the other side of the break. Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:22:23]

ACOSTA: All right. Let's bring back CNN anchor Fareed Zakaria.

Fareed, thanks for hanging in there with us. Let's talk about Tony Blinken, secretary of state Tony Blinken. He's back in the region. He says there's, quote, "No doubt that everyone would welcome a humanitarian pause in Gaza." The Israelis are kind of playing semantic games about this, a cease-fire versus humanitarian pause. We heard the IDF spokesman a short time ago say that they've had humanitarian windows over the weekend for civilians to get out of those areas in the north where the Israelis are shelling pretty tremendously where they say that they're hitting Hamas targets. But putting that to the side, if there is a humanitarian pause, what happens then?

ZAKARIA: It's a good question. First of all, it's worth pointing out that this is a really important test of American diplomacy. The premise behind Joe Biden's strategy in this crisis has been one that I completely understand and largely agree with, which is the only way you're going to have any influence on Israel, which is the dominant military power here, the overwhelmingly dominant military power, is to hug them close, to tell Israel that you support them, you have their back, you understand the toll, you understand what the devastation of the attack.

And then to use that political capital to counsel them on a wise course, on a restrained course, on a strategic course. Biden has gotten the first part right. He's tried very hard on the second part. As my understanding is that the Biden administration basically counseled the Israeli government not to do a ground offensive, to do a more targeted, selective series of incursions. But it doesn't seem to be working.

So what the Biden administration has to ask itself is now that it has called for these humanitarian pauses -- and you're right. This is all semantics. The Israelis are in fact doing none of that. What is the Biden administration going to do? Are they going to be more public, more vocal? Are they going to make clear that this is very important to them? You know, Bibi Netanyahu has a history of pocketing American support and rebuffing any American pressure.

He did this with Obama. Remember he famously went around Obama's -- you know, around the Oval Office and lobbied against the Iran deal. So this is a real challenge for the Biden administration.

ACOSTA: Yes, there's no question about it. There's been tons of friction between the Obama-Biden teams and Netanyahu for years now.

[19:25:03] And you mentioned Obama. He weighed in on what's taking place in Gaza right now during this interview on the podcast "Pod Save America." Let's play a clip and talk about it on the other side.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: If there's any chance of us being able to act constructively to do something, it will require an admission of complexity and maintaining what on the surface may seem contradictory ideas, that what Hamas did was horrific and there's no justification for it, and what is also true is that the occupation and what's happening to Palestinians is unbearable.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Obama went on there to criticize the discourse on social media about this issue, which, Fareed, as you know is just totally out of control about this issue right now. How do we get back to this place that Obama seems to want everybody to get to, where people are having a constructive conversation about this? It is just -- the tempers are just flaring. It's just white hot right now.

ZAKARIA: It's white hot right now. Look, at some level, you want to have a vigorous political debate in a free country. There's nothing wrong with that. What I think is the saddest part about it is that some of the anti-Israel rhetoric is morphing into antisemitism, which I think is appalling and should be condemned.

Look, it's completely fine to criticize the Israeli government, to criticize them, for example, for excessive use of force, for not worrying about civilian casualties and all that. But if you're going to do that, you have to condemn it when people paint swastikas or even Stars of David or, you know, desecrate synagogues. These have nothing to do with the Israeli government's policies. Those are expressions of antisemitism.

So that's, I think, a very, very important area, a red line that we should be trying to police and condemn when we can. But this is a very tough issue as Obama correctly says. But it doesn't mean you have to be paralyzed. You know, sometimes there's a danger to that kind of Obama complexity. There is something the United States can do here, which is to take advantage of this opportunity.

Because one of the things that this crisis has revealed is that you cannot ignore the Palestinian issue forever. You know, it just won't work. There are 5.5 million Palestinians living in greater Israel, in land that Israel controls in the West Bank and Gaza. They don't have political rights in Israel. They don't have a country of their own, and that can't go on forever. At some level, that is going to have to be solved, and maybe this allows for the impetus to finally try to get that moving.

ACOSTA: Yes. And international support for Israel, I mean, you have to imagine that it is going to erode as we continue to see these images of carnage in areas where civilians are being hit in Gaza. This refugee area, this U.N. school where refugees were taking shelter that was hit over the weekend and so on. The Israelis say they're not targeting civilians. They're hitting civilians. This has been going on for weeks now.

ZAKARIA: Yes. First of all, you're going to erode international support. But perhaps even more importantly, you're going to completely radicalize generations of Palestinians who are living there and who are going to be living there for the next -- for generations, right? This is what it feels to me where Israel is being really unwise.

The Israeli defense minister has said, we're going to lay siege to Gaza. No food, no water, no electricity. We're dealing with human animals. He was not talking about Hamas. At least he didn't seem to be.

ACOSTA: Right.

ZAKARIA: And the siege applies to everybody. 2.2 million people, half of whom are children. An Israeli minister talked about using a nuclear bomb to lay waste to the entire population and said, you know, non- combatants are legitimate targets now. Netanyahu has suspended him, but it tells you something about the mood, particularly on the far- right of Israel. Remember, this is a far-right government.

And it feels to me like, you know, if you listen to General Petraeus and all those people who fought these kind of insurgencies, they always say the most important thing is don't alienate the vast majority of the locals. Isolate the insurgents.

ACOSTA: Right.

ZAKARIA: It feels to me like there's a danger that you're lumping them all together, and, you know, Petraeus had a sign above his Mosul headquarters saying, have our actions today killed more terrorists or created more terrorists? I think the idea of the Israeli military should put that sign up on their headquarters as well.

[19:30:00]

ACOSTA: Yes, that question is very much back with us, no question about it.

Fareed Zakaria, thank you so much. Appreciate the time, as always. Nice talking to you.

All right, in the meantime, tomorrow, former President Donald Trump is set to take the stand. The future of his businesses in New York on the line, a preview of his testimony, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIC TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP'S SON: The last couple of days have gone great. You know why they've gone great? Because we haven't done a damn thing wrong, and they dragged Don and I into it as collateral damage. You know why? Because if you can line up as many Trump's as you possibly can, she can sit in court for an extra couple of days and then she can send fundraising e-mails every single day to her donor base saying, "I'm going after Trump."

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: That was Eric Trump saying he has done nothing wrong after wrapping up his testimony in the New York civil fraud trial. Of course, the judge has already ruled Donald Trump and his co-defendants are liable for "persistent and repeated fraud."

[19:35:04]

Next up on the stand, the former president who is set to testify tomorrow followed by his daughter, Ivanka later this week.

Let's discuss with former Nixon White House counsel and CNN contributor, John Dean. John, great to see you. How much trouble might Trump get himself into when he takes the stand, do you think

JOHN DEAN, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It's infinite, the potential for trouble that he can make for himself because not only what he says, but the way he says it is going to play out in this testimony. What he says is going to affect the judge and how he deals with the case. As you said, he's already found liability, they are really looking at the other counts and potential damages that can be assessed against the Trump Organization.

So his testimony can influence that, but also the theater of it, and the way he handles himself is going to have a political impact. People don't like witnesses who try to get nasty with judges, maybe a few hard right radicals might, but the general public does not. So, I think he's got to behave himself as well, tomorrow.

ACOSTA: Yes, and that's not likely to happen. And I mean, that leads me to this question, what if he lies under oath? And I mean, could he be prosecuted for perjury?

DEAN: He certainly could be and it would be a question of how far out he goes, how far he reaches, how distorted he gets, and Letitia James, the attorney general who brought this civil action and it could have been brought as a criminal action, but she decided to proceed in a civil manner. She can certainly initiate a perjury charge against anybody who does perjure themselves in this civil case.

These are rare, but Trump creates the rarities, if you will, and if he gets way out on a limb and fabricates beyond belief, I think she might bring him up short and let him know.

ACOSTA: Yes, and what do you make John of the argument that we heard from his sons, who testified that they were not involved in preparing the financial documents, this was all about the accountants and the lawyers and so on. I suspect that Donald Trump may try to offer similar testimony. What do you think?

DEAN: The sons did try to say that they knew nothing until they were confronted with some e-mails that showed they were very involved in the development of the statements and they kind of backed off. When they signed things, they said they didn't really understand what they were signing, notwithstanding the fact that right above their signature, they had said they fully understand what they're signing.

So if Trump tries that, and that's possible, he is somebody who always blame somebody else. It's not clear who he's going to blame. He may run his children under the bus for all I know. That's about the ethics he has. And so it's hard to know where he'll go with this, but I do not expect him to take responsibility for anything, Jim.

ACOSTA: Well, that's for sure and the judge has already found Trump liable. We know that. He is now considering how much Trump will have to pay in damages, which could include the dissolution of his business in New York. That sounds like a scenario that's just sort of beyond the realm of possibility that you wouldn't see Trump doing business in New York State. I mean, after he has been a sort of synonymous with New York business and real estate for decades now. But could we see something like that happen do you think?

DEAN: We could well, that issue really has already been decided and the judge has said, he is going to lose his licenses. What's happened is they've got to stay on that as they are appealing it. And Trump is kind of playing this entire case for the appellate level where he seems to think he's going to do better than he is with this judge.

But I think this judge has been very careful to build a record, the judge knows exactly what's happening. The judge is savvy to the law, Trump is not, who keeps saying I'm being convicted before I've even been tried.

The summary judgment that he is subject to is based on the fact that he provided no evidence against the government -- New York state government's case that he was liable, and that's the reason he has been found liable. The judge had no choice in the summary judgment filing. So this is still early, and it's going to go on for a number of years.

ACOSTA: And John, has there been a huge opportunity missed here to have these proceedings not televised? I mean, yes, the cameras will go in and get some -- you know, snap a few pictures and so with Donald Trump sitting in the courtroom, but that'll be it. We're not going to see testimony on camera as far as I know. Isn't that a huge opportunity missed from a historic standpoint?

[19:40:03]

DEAN: I think it is. This is a very rare situation where a former president of the United States and a would-be future president has got to go in under oath and testify, and it is testimony about the very fabric of the man who claims he is this very successful businessman and that is just being shattered. He is not only losing his empire, he's losing his image, and to see that melt down, it would good to have it on camera for historical reasons.

ACOSTA: Yes, well, I can only imagine what would have happened, you know, with your old boss, Richard Nixon, if he had been put up on charges and hauled into court, had to stand trial and if there had been cameras in the courtroom for that. That would have been must see TV back in those days as well.

John Dean, great to see as always, thanks so much.

DEAN: Thanks, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, and coming up, the US military tends not to broadcast the movement of its ballistic submarines. Why they just made a rare announcement that one has arrived in the Middle East. We'll tell you about that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:45:07]

ACOSTA: In a rare announcement, the US military said a ballistic missile submarine has arrived in the Middle East. This comes as CNN is learning the CIA director is traveling to the region. CNN's Jim Sciutto is on the ground in northern Israel.

Jim, how significant is it that the US military is making this kind of announcement about a ballistic missile sub? You don't hear this very often.

JIM SCIUTTO CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you don't. I mean, this is deliberate. You've got two kinds of subs, attack subs, ballistic missile subs. A ballistic missile sub, you keep their movements quiet because they are part of the US nuclear deterrent. They carry -- some carry nuclear warhead top missiles, other cruise missiles regardless.

They are part of the nuclear deterrent, the triad that includes ICBMs, as well as nuclear weapons carried by aircraft. You keep those quiet because they're part of keeping the homeland safe. They're deliberately telegraphing this because it appears to be part of a broader deterrent message from US forces now deployed in the region.

You have those two carrier groups and the Eastern Mediterranean, carrier strike groups, each with a number of chips and they were deployed deliberately as well as part of this broader message you've been hearing from US officials right up to the president since October 7th, which is in various phrasing, if you're thinking about getting involved in this war, don't, to paraphrase how the president has spoken and the Secretary of State spoke today.

So they are packing up those words with deployments and to announce the arrival of the submarine with that picture of the submarine as it appeared to transit the Suez Canal. It's significant, and it is part of that deterrent message.

ACOSTA: And what is happening with the CIA director?

SCIUTTO: Yes, so I learned earlier tonight that Bill Burns, the CIA director is traveling to the Mideast, as well. This is significant that president intends to dispatch him to difficult situations around the globe. He was the one the president dispatched to Russia before Russia's invasion of Ukraine to communicate US concerns, get a sense of where Russia stood on this. So here he is in the Mideast.

I'm told by a US official that the function of his visit is a couple of things. One, certainly to advise on Israel's ongoing military operations in Gaza, also, to offer help, continuing help on the search for hostages held by Hamas inside Gaza. But also part of this broader message, this US official tells me that he's here in this region to help communicate, again, that message of deterrence that the US does not want this war to expand.

We heard Blinken say similar during his visit to Baghdad today, and you could look at the CIA director's visit to this region, meetings here in Israel and elsewhere in the region as part of that broader message. The words, the visits, the diplomatic statements and efforts and of course, those force deployments as well.

ACOSTA: Yes, Jim, they are really scrambling to keep a lid on this region right now, at a very delicate time.

Jim Sciutto, thank you very much, much appreciated.

In the meantime, for decades, the US has dominated space exploration, but is China nipping at America's heels? That's next.

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ACOSTA: China has its eyes set on the moon and beyond. This week, one team of Chinese astronauts landed safely back here on Earth and just days later, China blasted off a fresh team of three astronauts to its space station.

China says it's not interested in space dominance, but once the International Space Station is retired in 2031, China's space station could be the only one left in orbit.

Our Marc Stewart joins us now.

Marc, you just returned from the launch at what's been called China's version of Cape Canaveral. That must have been fun. What was that like?

MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jim, it's good to see you.

Let me just start by saying that first of all, access to the Space Center, the Jiuquan Space Center in the Gobi Desert, it's very rare for Western journalists to even be able to go there.

It is quite a hike from our base here in Beijing, like 1,200 miles, so we had to take two flights and then some very long bus rides, but as you mentioned, in many ways, it's being compared to Cape Canaveral. It's very much like a small city or town. Everything is very self- contained in the middle of the desert. It actually made me think of the Johnson Space Center in Houston. There's just a lot of research that takes place there. It's where the astronauts are prepped and we really went there for two reasons. One to learn more about the Chinese space program; but two, we were able to witness the launch of the Shenzhou-17 spacecraft, and it is the spacecraft that just took three taikonaut as they are known here in China, Chinese astronauts to the space station, and they will be there for a maintenance mission, but as we look big picture, as you mentioned, China will likely be the only ones with a space station operating in the years ahead.

The International Space Station is supposed to be retired in 2031. So China is really going to expand its presence with a space station. Right now, it has three modules. The goal is to grow it to six. That's in addition, Jim, to its interest in Mars and China has also been very forthcoming that it would like to have a manned mission to the moon sometime around 2030.

ACOSTA: Fascinating, and I mean, Marc, why do you think the Chinese allowed Western journalists to go out there? It sounds like they want to flex their muscles a little bit. What's behind that?

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STEWART: I think, that's part of it. I mean, this is a big source of national pride. When the astronauts left, we were there to witness it. They were greeted in almost like a ticker tape parade. I mean, these astronauts are viewed as national heroes. So there's certainly a lot of national pride.

And I think if we think back to when we were kids, when the space shuttle took off, look how much excitement it created in the country. So that's something that China certainly would like to replicate here.

ACOSTA: All right, fascinating stuff. What a trip.

All right, Marc Stewart, thank you for sharing that with us. We appreciate it very much. Good to see you.

All right. In the meantime, brand new polling may be worrying for the Democratic Party when it comes to President Biden's reelection hopes in 2024. Obama's former senior adviser, David Axelrod, he will join us in just a few moments. He has been talking about tremors of doubt inside the Democratic Party right now. He'll join us live in just a few moments to explain. Stay with us.

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