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CNN International: Sources: Ceasefire Talks Not Expected To Stop Iran Retaliation; Biden To Announce $150M In Grants As Part Of "Cancer Moonshot"; Harris Announces Plans For Major Economic Speech On Friday; Ukraine Officials: Forces Gain Wider Control In Kursk Region; Trump Sits For 2-House Meandering Chat With Elon Musk. Aired 3-4p ET
Aired August 13, 2024 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[15:00:36]
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: It is 8:00 p.m. in London, 10:00 p.m. in Athens, 2:00 p.m. in New Orleans, 3:00 p.m. here in Washington.
I'm Jim Sciutto. Thanks so much for joining me today on CNN NEWSROOM, and let's get right to the news.
We begin in the Middle East, where Israel remains on high alert, bracing for potential retaliatory attacks by Iran and its proxies in the region. The threat is not deterring mediators who will meet in Doha on Thursday for another round of ceasefire and hostage negotiations. Hamas wants mediators to compel Israel to accept a U.S.- backed ceasefire deal that is already on the table.
But two diplomatic sources tell CNN any progress on such a deal will not stop Iran from retaliating over the assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. You see his picture there. This took place in Tehran
In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes have continued to kill dozens of people over the past 24 hours, including three day old twins and their mother. This morning, the military wing of Hamas says it fired two rockets at Israel in response to the killing of civilians in Gaza, the IDF says, one of those rockets fell into the sea, the other failed across into Israeli territory. The cycle of violence, though, spinning on unabated.
CNN senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman is in Beirut for us.
Ben, mediators, they're going to return for negotiations under increasingly difficult circumstances. You and I have heard that mantra we're close. These talks are necessary. This is the final stage.
Where do they stand?
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, really, they are in a sense, already facing serious obstacles.
On the one hand, you have Hamas, which is now, of course, run by Yahya Sinwar, who is somewhere deep underground in the tunnels of Gaza. He's the man with the hostages. He makes the final call. Whether Hamas participates in these talks or not, or through Qatar, it's going to be very difficult to get messages back and forth to him.
On the Israeli side, you have this very fragile coalition led by Prime Minister Netanyahu, but it has those two hard line members Itamar Ben- Gvir, the national security minister, and Betzalel Smotrich, the finance minister, who have made it clear all along that they're opposed to a ceasefire. They want Hamas to be completely destroyed. And if Netanyahu agrees to some sort of ceasefire that they don't like, they've made it clear, they will resign from his government, his government will collapse and Israel will be back into that situation of political paralysis that was so common prior to October 7.
So there's a lot of good reasons why these talks should make progress. The death toll in Gaza is nearing 40,000. Those are the accounted for dead, not counting those under the rubble. The situation is only getting worse.
There's this looming possibility of Hezbollah in Iran retaliating for those twin assassinations two weeks ago. Now, Hezbollah has made it clear that if there's a ceasefire in Gaza, it will cease fire itself. But it's not clear if their desire for revenge for the killing of Fu'ad Shukr two weeks ago today is going to be put on the back shelf or not.
So there are many things that play and the outcome of these talks day after tomorrow very, very uncertain -- Jim.
SCIUTTO: Uncertain as ever. Ben Wedeman in Beirut, thanks so much.
Here to dive a little deeper, Beth Sanner, CNN national security contributor, and former deputy director of national intelligence, and Nic Robertson. He's our CNN international diplomatic editor.
Good to have you both.
Nic, you've been following this for some time. We hear again these phrases, the time has come, it's the final bridging in proposal on the table here.
Can you give us a sense of what carrots and sticks are being applied, offered behind the scenes to keep this from blowing up in the meantime? Because seemingly, every day, we've been on alert for a major attack, it moves off. And I wonder if that's a sign that there is at least some diplomacy behind the scenes that's working.
[15:05:04]
NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: I think as far as Iran and its escalation, which is sort of out with but pursuant to the talks, the carrot is very, very clearly success at these talks, then the stick is also partly clearly, Israel's response and the defensive shield provided by the U.S. Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group and the USS Georgia with all of its cruise missiles aboard the submarine.
As far as Hamas is concerned, there's a huge amount of pressure, I am being told, put on them, but precisely what are the carrots? I don't know, that the carrot that they're asking for of negotiators is that the terms of the talks stick closely to what President Biden endorsed in July, the framework approach, an agreement to the deal.
What precisely the carrots and sticks are for Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is we understand from diplomats in the region, ostensibly or would be under pressure from the United States to go softer on these talks just aren't clear. It's not quite clear what large enough carrot could -- could succeed there.
But I think it's an -- Jim, I have to say, look, it's an absolute roller coaster at the moment of what's going to happen. But we are getting closer. So in diplomatic terms, that's positive. We have a destination, a location for the talks, Doha, and it seems by virtue of being just 48 hours away, more or less from the talks, there's a chance they could at least get off the ground.
SCIUTTO: Beth, looking at the Israeli side of this equation, you had Netanyahu's ally, member of his government, Itamar Ben-Gvir, visit the Al-Aqsa compound today, which is let's be frank deliberately provocative. It's been condemned by the U.S., by hostage families in Israel and elsewhere.
Do you interpret that as a deliberate effort by someone inside the Israeli government to undo these talks?
BETH SANNER, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Yeah. This is a short answer.
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
SANNER: No, yeah, absolutely.
I mean, Ben-Gvir has publicly come out along with Smotrich and others, saying that as Ben mentioned, that they will quit the government if this agreement, any agreement in those into force with Hamas. And this is a very provocative, pardon my phrase, middle finger at Netanyahu, just like we can do whatever we want.
I mean, Netanyahu's office says this breaks the status quo. Absolutely true, right? Like they're not supposed to do this, but is there ever a penalty that Netanyahu imposes on these right-wing activities.
I mean, these are the people where the cabinet ministers actually encouraged a mob to attack on, two weeks ago. All right, so like this is down of the rule of law and there's no penalty for them which tests show how much power they have over Netanyahu.
SCIUTTO: Yeah, a lot of people --
SANNER: Which causing a question whether they really want this deal or not.
SCIUTTO: No -- I mean, his own defense minister, Yoav Gallant, he's accused him of adopting an anti-Israel narrative. So you have divisions within the government. Nic, speaking on the side of Hamas here, Haniyeh assassinated in Tehran, presumably by Israel, though they have not confirmed that, he was central to these talks. Sinwar was the architect of -- architect of October 7, now leads Hamas.
Can Hamas make a deal under Sinwar's leadership?
ROBERTSON: Look, I think that's one of the principal tests here.
I mean, these talks have been packaged as a success at the talks or at least having the talks was going to hold off Iran from an immediate response for the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh.
If these talks have upon now after two weeks rather than what people had speculated could be months before Hamas would engage again, then by definition, actually that's a success. Now what will Hamas's engagement be? They certainly have political figures who, who are talking to negotiators and can step up and be present for part of the conversations following -- following the talks because, of course, they don't happen face-to-face with Israel, that could get engaged there if they're invited.
And if they decide to go, the indications on whether or not Hamas will go almost sort of change by the hour, but that's not unexpected given -- given the events. You know, according to the Palestinian health officials today, as Ben was reporting, you know, closer 30 Palestinians killed, twin three-year-old, a three-day-old children, and their mother killed all of these things mitigates against Hamas being prepared to go under these circumstances, a period of calm before would have been -- would have more likely got there better support.
[15:10:10]
It -- we're two days out. It can still happen. It can still go off the rails. I don't think anyone really has a -- has more clarity than that at the moment, Jim.
SCIUTTO: Yeah, that's sort of almost an evergreen statement. It could still happen. There could still go off the rails.
To just quickly that before we go, this delay has allowed the U.S. in particular, but its allies, to line up missile defense. I mean, a guided missile submarine. You know, all these things that are being put in place are part of this web of defense to protect Israel from a missile drone attack from Iran or elsewhere, could that be seen as intended to reduce the risk of escalation -- intended by Iran?
SANNER: Actually, I don't think so. I mean, I think that what the United States and everybody is doing here is what is called deterrence by denial. They're trying to make it such that Iran does attack, all those missiles would get shot down and the whole effort by Iran will look feckless. So then, Iran will accomplish anything.
But at the same time, you have Israel putting this pressure on deterrence by punishment, saying, if you even intend to hit us, even if it doesn't work out and we shoot them all down, we're going to do back to you what you did to us. So, 350 missile, back at you.
So I think that that really affecting the calculus. This doesn't have anything to do with the ceasefire talks. That's -- that's an excuse.
SCIUTTO: Interesting. Yeah. And listen, by the way, Israel's web of defenses probably better than Iran's, at least, based on the capabilities deployed now, can be tested.
Beth Sanner, Nic Robertson, thanks so much to both you.
Still ahead, President Biden working to solidify his political legacy. The announcement he is making today to help what he's called his cancer moonshot.
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[15:16:07]
SCIUTTO: In the next hour, President Biden and the first lady will be touring the facility, working toward their cancer moonshot goal of the policy, one very personal for the Bidens, aims to cut the nation's cancer death rates by at least half over the next 25 years. The White House says the president will announce $150 million in research grants this afternoon at Tulane University.
CNN's Kayla Tausche is there in New Orleans for us.
Kayla, this is central to Biden's legacy. It is very personal for him, given the loss of his son, Beau Biden. So tell us what we can expect today and how this fits into his broader legacy plans?
KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, the cancer moonshot is something that President Biden initiated back in 2016. He jumps started it back in 2022 when he became president. And since then, the policy arm of that cancer moonshot has disbursed some $400 million in funding to organizations around the world and Tulane University where President Biden is going to be announcing a new set of awards, is set to expect a $23 million in funding for increased access to cancer screenings, as well as new technology to remove cancerous tumors.
Now, you mentioned this is incredibly personal to President Biden after the death of his son, Beau, from brain cancer back in 2015. And its toward the top of the shortlist of what we expect President Biden to focus on during his final months in office from the Oval Office, just a few weeks ago, he mentioned the very cancer moonshot that we're discussing today, as well as reforms on gun control, the climate crisis, and bolstering alliances overseas, as well as reforms to the Supreme Court, which he announced just a couple of weeks ago, that rollout was planned even before he decided that he was going to exit the race.
His aides, Jim, note that anything requiring participation from Congress is going to be an uphill battle, if not impossible. But they say it's still important for Biden to put a stake in the ground in their words, for the policies that matter most to him.
SCIUTTO: No question. Kayla, thanks so much for covering.
So onto the race underway now for the White House. Vice President Kamala Harris, Democratic nominee, will deliver a major economic policy speech this Friday in Raleigh, North Carolina. While we await details on that plan, we know of at least one new proposal from her campaign and its one now shared by both candidates for the White House.
Here is Harris's pitch for no taxes on tips at a Nevada rally over the weekend, echoing Donald Trump, who made his own announcement just last month.
Have a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When I get to office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips, people making tips.
We're going to do that right away. First thing in office, because it's been a point of contention for years and years and years.
KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When I am president, we will continue our fight for working families of America -- including to raise the minimum wage, and eliminate taxes on tips for service and hospitality workers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: Imitation, sincerest form of flattery.
Let's dive deeper in the proposal with CNN's Tami Luhby, who's been reporting on this.
So, Tami, this idea has been around for a while.
TAMI LUHBY, CNN SENIOR WRITER: Uh-huh.
SCIUTTO: Who does it actually impact specifically? I mean, there's a reason they both announced this in Nevada, right? And how much does it cost?
LUHBY: Well, actually, details remain scarce, but as you note, they are now announcing in Nevada because they want that service workers and hospitality workers vote in that key swing state. And as we know, there are a lot of service and hospitality workers in Nevada. So what they would do is actually, as you say, eliminating taxes on -- federal taxes on tips.
And it sounds like a great idea, but politicians say that it's actually really bad policy.
[15:20:05] Part of it is because, there are actually very few tipped workers, only about 4 million, which is about 2.5 percent of all tipped workers. They do tend to be younger and lower wage, but they actually make up a pretty small share, like 5 percent of the among low-wage workers according to the budget lab at Yale.
And what's more, the key thing is, is that not all of these folks would even benefit from this policy because they make too little every year to owe federal income tax.
SCIUTTO: Ahh, interesting.
LUHBY: So -- but there's also more, there's a fairness issue because you would have workers like waiters and hairdressers and for-hire drivers and food delivery workers who wouldn't necessarily have to pay all of their income because they get a lot in tips. But you would have other workers who were making the same amount of money, but they would owe federal taxes on all of their money, on all of their wages.
SCIUTTO: Interesting, interesting.
So you basically have exempting the income of what tend to be lower income workers. Well, that's fascinating.
Tami Luhby, thanks so much for --
LUHBY: Sure/
SCIUTTO: -- lightning it up for us. So it's not just similar policy. Harris and Trump both announced their no taxes on tips plan in the same city, Las Vegas, Nevada, as we just said, that's not an accident. Nevada is a swing state powered by hospitality and service workers. It takes thousands to keep the lights on in Las Vegas as hotels, casinos, the money running, the service industry makes up a fifth of all employment in the state, many of those workers are, we should note Latino, a demographic Trump is hoping to make inroads with this September, this November.
With me now to discuss that is Chuck Rocha. He is Democratic strategist who worked on both Bernie Sanders campaigns and co-hosts the Latino Vote podcast.
Good to have you on.
I wonder --
CHUCK ROCHA, PRESIDENT, SOLIDARITY STRATEGIES: Thank you.
SCIUTTO: -- when you look at this proposal, given that both Trump and Harris are doing it, they must see some political advantage in this here. Is this purely about hospitality workers or is also a play for Latino voters?
ROCHA: In this case, it can be both at the same time. You need to, in these focus groups that we've been in, deliver a message directly to workers that says one thing, Jim, it says, what are you going to do to help me and helped me now?
Sure. Everybody wants to hear your plans down the road, but what I hear in focus group after focus group with Latino voters, what are you going to do today? That's why gas prices are important. Bread prices are important.
And if you're going to not make me be taxed on my wages. If that our tip, it's a big deal.
SCIUTTO: Yeah. People see that right away.
So inflation, cost of living concerns, they hit the Las Vegas area really hard. It's part of the country there was slow to recover out of the COVID pandemic. A lot of people weren't making the trips there, right, spending the money in the casinos, that kind of thing.
So I wonder if we could see that as a piece of the broader economic message for both candidates.
ROCHA: I think it's a bedrock of what you're going to see. And specifically in Las Vegas, where I have run a lot of campaigns that are doing this a long time and there's one thing about Latinos and the Nevada working class, which in this instance is the same, is you have so many transient people that are moving in and out of Las Vegas particularly cause of these service sector jobs.
So there's lots of people there who've never voted for anybody or never been in a battleground state because they were living in California, they were living in Utah, they were living in other places who came here specifically for the work. That's what makes this so much different than places like Philadelphia or Phoenix, Arizona, or L.A., because lots of folks, they're younger and haven't been there as long.
SCIUTTO: So let's -- I'm curious where you think the Latino vote stands now in the general election race. One Democratic pollster said polls done right before Harris took over show real movement in Nevada with Latinos moving back towards, but while moving to Trump from Biden. Is Harris better position than Biden was among Latino voters?
ROCHA: Definitely. Def -- let me say that again, definitely, because what we are seeing now is a move and a shift in not just one poll, but in polls where I'm working, I'm one of those rare political people that come on TV. That's still running campaigns every single day. So when congressional races and Senate races where there's Latinos, I've got new polling since she's been on the ticket at the top, that shows a shifting.
That doesn't mean that -- oh, my God, we're going to win over not, it's just the movement. And when you see it in poll after poll, something's happening in that electorate where you see it moving back towards the Democrats when it was moving towards Donald Trump.
SCIUTTO: Does that include male Latino voters? Because there have been a lot of talk among Republicans that Trumps on opening with Latino males. ROCHA: It does include males, but males were already and are still behind their female counterparts. It's a great point. You're making there, Jim, is that we have seen a shift, but to shift doesn't mean that we've made up the ground with the men that we've lost, it just means that they're getting better, but they're still way under- performing the Latinos and the head of these households like are upwelling.
[15:25:03]
SCIUTTO: Does the -- does the vote -- Latino vote change the status in your view of some of the key battleground states in a notable way? Nevada among them, but not just Nevada.
ROCHA: It is probably the single biggest factor. Let me give you this talking point. That's really, really based in real numbers, which is coming up in the election, 40 percent of the Latino electorate in battleground states will be voting in their first election since 2016.
SCIUTTO: Wow.
ROCHA: That means there's 40 he percent of new electric, one participated in a few elections. And if you look at the Latinos that are in Philadelphia and in Detroit, and in Milwaukee, there much different than the Latinos that you see in Phoenix and Las Vegas. So you have to run separate Latino outreach operations back to that, saying we're not -- we're not a monolith.
SCIUTTO: Chuck Rocha, good to have you on. Let's have you back, you know, as we get closer to the election and see where these polls stand as we get closer to November.
ROCHA: Thanks for having me.
SCIUTTO: Coming up, overseas, Ukraine's advance. Its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, just announcing his country has taken control of 74 settlements inside Russia. We're going to be back on what exactly this means for its defense against the ongoing Russian invasion. And concerns about how Putin might respond.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCIUTTO: Ukrainian forces are advancing further in the first military incursion inside Russia since not just the start of this war, but since World War II. The invasion of the Kursk region started about a week ago, but Ukraine has already gained as much ground there as Russia has gained in Ukraine over the entire last year.
[15:30:03]
CNN's Fred Pleitgen is monitoring developments from Berlin.
And, Fred, I'm sure like you a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't speaking to anybody who was expecting this kind of operation in this kind of progress inside Russia by Ukrainian any enforces. I understand Russia's ordering evacuations now. How -- how -- I don't
-- maybe "panic" is too strong a word, but how concerned is Russia by this incursion?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I think -- yeah, I think Russia is extremely concerned. First of all, I think you're absolutely right. I think no one was expecting this. Ukraine's allies weren't expecting this. Certainly, the Russians very much weren't expecting this either because, of course, it's really a war where intelligence is pretty easy to gather. You can see the troop movements with satellites that, of course, the Russians have with drones, that the Russians have, and still they absolutely apparently did not see any of this coming.
And I think one of the things that's extremely concerning for the Russians is that the Ukrainians still appear to be making quite a bit of headway. You were just mentioning some of the areas that the Ukrainians have been able to take. The chief of the general staff said today that they were able to take another 40 square meter -- square kilometers in the past 24 hours.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he came out today and said that Ukraine now controls 74 towns and villages on the Russian side in the Kursk area. Yesterday at this point in time, it was only 28.
So it certainly seems as though the Ukrainians continuing to make that headway. We've heard from Vladimir Putin. We've heard him berate, is generals and some of his advisers well telling them that they need to push the Ukrainians out. But so far, it really doesn't appear as though the Russians have much of a solution to all this. It's been quite interesting because one of the things that we've been doing is we've been monitoring the Russian military's feeds and some of the stuff that they've been putting out and they keep showing their troops allegedly bombarding the Ukrainian forces.
But then you have those evacuations that are going on and the towns that are being evacuated now are further and further to the east, close to the city, of course. So that's got to be a troubling development for the Russians -- Jim.
SCIUTTO: No question.
As you watch it now, I wonder from the Ukrainian side, have officials there describe to you what the overall goal of this operation is. I know that Ukrainian officials are saying they have no intention of annexing territory inside Russia. Of course, as Russia has done inside Ukraine. But if they let on as to what the ultimate intent is?
PLEITGEN: They haven't really yet. And one of the interesting things is going to be a do the Ukrainians believe that they're going to be able to hold that territory. Do they believe that they are in the longer-term going to be able to hold that territory because we know that the force that they currently have fighting there is very small, very agile, definitely not one that would appear to be one that you would keep them on hold those areas, especially when the Russians do start bringing in their heavier weapons, or that Ukraine is going to be able to fortify that.
One of the things that we've heard from several Ukrainian officials so far is they seem to want to create some sort of buffer zone between Ukraine and at least the Russian military in that border area to try and make sure that that northeast Ukraine doesn't get bombarded to the extent that it has been in the past.
One of the other interesting things that we've also heard from Volodymyr Zelenskyy today is that a lot of the Russians that are being taken prisoner by the Ukrainians, the Ukrainians obviously want to get as many as possible of their own people back down as fast as possible in exchange, Jim.
SCIUTTO: No question. That's leverage to get their people free.
Fred Pleitgen, thanks so much.
Well, just a short time ago, President Biden was asked about this Ukrainian incursion inside Russia as he arrived for his event in New Orleans. Here's what he had to say.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Anyone in the Ukrainian government?
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I've spoken with my staff on a regular basis probably every four or five hours for the last six or eight days. And it's creating a real dilemma for it and we've been in direct contact, constant contact with Ukrainians. That's all I'm going to say about it, while it's active, okay?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: President there just moments ago discussing Ukraine's ongoing offensive inside Russia.
Well, coming up, what was billed by some as an interview ended up being a friendly back-and-forth between X owner Elon Musk and former President Trump. The takeaways on some of the lies, some of the misleading statements and technological glitches coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:37:27]
SCIUTTO: For two hours last night, the richest man in the world and the Republican presidential nominee he has endorsed live-chatted like friends about crime, dictators, immigration, and climate change. What was billed by some as the interview of the century was really not an interview at all.
Here's one moment from what was sometimes meandering livestream between Musk and Trump on Musk social media platform X. Trump here talking about his opponent, Kamala Harris.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) TRUMP: Kamala wouldn't have this conversation. He can't because he's not smart. He's not a smart person, by the way.
She's getting a free ride. I saw a picture of her on "Time" magazine today. He looked like the most beautiful actress ever to live. It was a drawing and actually, she looked very much like a great first lady, Melania. She looked, she looked, didn't look, she didn't look like Camilla. That's right. But, of course, she is a beautiful woman. So we'll leave it at that, right?
(END AUDIO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: He does have a tendency to say that successful women are not smart, not clear why. With less than three months before election day, polls show Harris closing the gap in the race, some show her head. You might be wondering why would Trump then spent his evening speaking to Elon Musk.
CNN's Kristen Holmes, she follows, of course, Trump campaign. He joins us now.
So, Kristen, how does the Trump campaign explain this event and exactly what kind of voter they were aiming for with this event?
KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, they talk about this group of voters that they call persuadable voters. And essentially, if you talk to either camp, but either Harris or Trump, they believe that the margin, but in this election is going to be very narrow. And for Donald, Trump, they believe that means reaching out to voters who are more susceptible to voting for Donald Trump and are not necessarily avid political engages, meaning they aren't going to watch every interview. They aren't going to watch every press conference or rally, but these are the same people who might watch an interview with Elon Musk or might watch interview with Adin Ross on streaming, which is something that he did two weeks ago.
So, they believe this is a strategy to kind of try and expand the electorate, expand the base with Trump's supporters. Now, whether or not that works, obviously, a big question here, Donald Trump is that most of the time, as you said, meandering and even gotten to some hot water when he talked about Elon Musk cutting or firing of striking workers.
Here's what he said.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
TRUMP: You, you're the greatest cutter. I mean, I look at what you do, you walk in and you just say you want to quit, they go on strike. They, I won't mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, that's okay, you're all gone, you're all gone.
[15:40:03]
So every one of you is gone and you are the greatest. You would be very good. (END AUDIO CLIP)
HOLMES: Now, in a sense, the United Auto Workers has filed federal labor charges against both of them. Donald Trump's team says that that is a frivolous lawsuit and a shameless political stunt.
But overall, they are viewing this as a success. This the interview they say that they reach a targeted audience and they are boasting about the number of people who tuned in.
SCIUTTO: There are, as you know, questions as to whether their billion dollar -- their billion user or viewer figure is accurate. I just wonder though, and you and I talked about this off camera, do they have the data to back up that this is a reachable audience? And more, and more importantly, arguably, do they have the organization on the ground to not just to convince folks on the X platform, but to drag him into register and to vote on election day?
HOLMES: Well, that's the big question. So in terms of ground game, they're really relying on these out side groups. Earlier this year, the FEC lifted restrictions saying that campaigns couldn't work with outside groups. And so they're trying to work with these groups that have an infrastructure in Arizona and Michigan and Wisconsin to have those be the people who actually drive the people to the polls.
But whether or not this whole system works remains to be seen. This is really unprecedented and it is high risk, potentially high reward, but we just don't know what that, quote/unquote, reward is going to look like in November. They right now are doing the work to try to reach these outside groups in terms of outside voters, these persuadable voters, but bringing them to the polls.
If you're leaving that to outside groups, some of the questions are, they actually doing it? How are you monitoring it? What does that system look like? And that's really where the murkiness comes in.
SCIUTTO: Yeah, it's the ultimate subcontracts, right?
HOLMES: Yeah.
SCIUTTO: We're in the presidential election state.
Kristen Holmes, thanks so much.
Well, last night's Trump-Musk live chat caps off the transformation of Twitter , now X under Musk's leadership, once the go-to place for breaking news is now often mired in lots of false claims, hate speech, conspiracy theories. Many of the mechanisms to combat those problems were dismantled when Musk took over deliberately.
And yesterday, we saw a litany of conspiracies and falsehoods from Trump go entirely unchecked by Musk. And even Musk Spread of view himself, for example, on immigration.
To discuss all this, I'm joined now by Graham Brookie he tracks mis and disinformation at the Atlantic Council where he's vice president for technology programs.
Graham, thanks so much for coming on.
GRAHAM BROOKIE, VICE PRESIDENT FOR TECHNOLOGY PROGRAMS, ATLANTIC COUNCIL: Thanks for having me, Jim.
SCIUTTO: So, CNN itself counted at least 20 false claims by Trump in the live stream last night, including about global warming. He continues to come up with things like, well, it'll mean more beachfront property, where he gets that from. But you all of it really unchecked are only mildly push back on by Musk himself.
When Musk bought Twitter he said it should be a neutral platform. Is it actually neutral?
BROOKIE: Well, what we've seen, we think about this from a technical standpoint. What we've seen since Elon Musk took over Twitter, to your point on -- well, to the former president's point on Elon Musk being a terrific cutter, when he did take over Twitter, he cut all of the robust trust and safety teams that are there to make sure that the platform is at least looking at things like mis- and disinformation, upticks in hate speech, violent and graphic content, those teams which used to be really, really large at Twitter are wildly diminished. They're much smaller than they used to be.
And in live fact-checking, so on the platform itself, there's a function called the community notes --
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
BROOKIE: -- where users are encouraged to fact-check. And that doesn't really work, that well for livestreams because as you noted, there were 20-plus false claims throughout that livestream and community notes is not a novel writing process, meaning it's very, very short and it's hard to cram a lot of information into them.
SCIUTTO: Yeah, it's not -- it's not unlike frankly, live television interviews with Trump. We've seen that town halls debates, et cetera.
As you know, Musk, he formally endorsed Trump one month ago on the day of the attempted assassination, he was hovering around the possibility of an endorsement, big donations, et cetera. But he did it on that day.
And you said that that post got the most engagement of any post on X related to the assassination. Tell us why that is and the significance of that?
BROOKIE: Well, he's a major, major influencer on the platform he owns. And here I'm talking about Eon Musk, of course.
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
BROOKIE: And that post in particular, it got the most amount of engagement on the day of that attempted assassination attempt. And what we've seen on Twitter writ large over the last few weeks is an uptick in users. Now, that's a really, really hard thing to measure at this point, because Twitter has cut down the amount of data that is available to the public, and specifically research teams all around the world.
[15:45:04]
But generally speaking, Twitter has kind of gone back to the old Twitter of at least breaking news, and where users can engage in breaking news. That said, it has not gone back to the old Twitter in that it's not a robust place to engage in nonpartisan way.
SCIUTTO: Yeah, yeah.
BROOKIE: We have seen a tick of users, but towards one side of the ideological spectrum.
SCIUTTO: So, you -- by the way, I've seen that, you know, you post anything sort of vaguely controversial to one side and you we were attacked sometimes from the left as well as from the right. But you're saying that the new users trend towards the right?
BROOKIE: Generally speaking, that's backed up by any number of academic research or research teams that are looking at this base not to say ideologically to the right, but upticks in what we would see is really, really high rates of engagement from that side of the ideological spectrum.
SCIUTTO: Understood. And I see that some of that in my X feed as well.
Graham Brookie, thanks so much for joining.
BROOKIE: Thanks.
SCIUTTO: Well, staying on the Trump campaign, multiple sources tell CNN that the FBI believes hackers breached the campaign in a cyber attack via Roger Stone's personal email account. The FBI is also looking into the claim by the Trump campaign that Iran is responsible for the hack. We should note the FBI has, it seems detected attempts to hack the Harris campaign as well.
To discuss this, and the overall threats to our elections from foreign adversaries, I want to bring in David Salvo. He is the managing director for the alliance for securing democracy and malign autocratic influence, all this at the German Marshall Fund.
Good to have you on. It's important work you do.
DAVID SALVO, ALLIANCE FOR SECURING DEMOCRACY AT THE GERMAN MARSHALL FUND: Good to see you, Jim. Thanks.
SCIUTTO: So interesting for me as I -- as I followed this latest attempt because it reminded me of 2016, Russia, and simple thing is spear phishing. You know, sent an email from a fake account and if you click on the wrong link, they are in your system. It happened to John Podesta, 2016, opened up all the Clinton information and now you have this. It seems to be Roger Stone.
What does that show you if -- if someone like Iran, if it doesn't turn out to be Iran, that they're still using such kind of blunt tools.
SALVO: It's easy.
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
SALVO: It's easy. It's low cost. There's presumably plausible deniability. I mean, I think it's obvious that we're going to be able to well trace us back to a nation state actor. But let's let the investigation take its course.
But from Tehran's perspective it's -- this is the cheapest tool in the tool box, and it's easy to try to get embarrassing, potentially denigrating information. This happened in 2016, as you said, with the Hillary Clinton campaign.
It could have happened again. Fortunately, newsrooms haven't reported on the content. That's important.
SCIUTTO: That's important. I wanted to get to that right now because folks don't talk about this enough in 2016, all of us took part in a Russian disinformation campaign because it was stolen, hacked in information, emails, et cetera. They were the headlines every day for weeks and arguably had some, we don't know what it is, but arguably, at least influence the conversation about the election. We don't know if it influenced the outcome.
This time around, you had a deliberate it seems effort not to report the stolen information. How important is that?
SALVO: Usually important. This is the one of the biggest defenses we have against our adversaries' intentions. I mean, in 2016, we learned the hard way, right?
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
SALVO: Mainstream media outlets sort of writ large, covered, leaking material from the WikiLeaks in Russian intelligence operation. That was hugely damaging to the Clinton campaign. This time around "Politico" and "The New York Times" have sat on this content.
That's incredibly responsible journalism, frankly. This is a hack-and- leak operation, likely by a nation state adversary we should not be reporting on that content. That's damaging to our democracy.
SCIUTTO: Is it always, always clear who a foreign adversary wants to help --
SALVO: No.
SCIUTTO: -- in terms of -- because in this case, for instance, it seems they were successful in the Trump side, but also tried on the Harris side.
SALVO: That's a huge point. The macro goal of these operations, it's often just a de-stabilizing, denigrate our democratic process.
I'm sure Iran has a preference in this presidential election, but the fact that it is likely probed both campaigns infrastructure, that's very telling. These operations are targeted to undermine Americans' confidence in the electoral process, into campaign process, and to embarrass and denigrate candidates wherever the adversary can find that information.
SCIUTTO: And a big portion of this is it not is just to dive into controversial spaces and throw fuel onto the fire, whatever the divisive issue of the day is.
SALVO: Absolutely. And we see that in formation domain, literally every day. And here, it's Russia, it's China, it's Iran. All these nation-state adversaries of ours are on social media. They're creating faux U.S. local news sites pretending to be authentic American voices, amplifying discord over issues like Israel, Hamas war, LGBTQ issues, religious and cultural issues.
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
SALVO: Any sensitive political issue, they're amplifying that discord among Americans.
SCIUTTO: Have we -- is there any evidence of attempts to penetrate actual voting systems by foreign because that has been the real concern, right? And doesn't even have to be across the board. It could just be a couple of places create confusion and doubt.
[15:50:04]
SALVO: Right. And the answer to that is yes. I mean, some of this information is publicly available. Some voter information, and even Iran did this in the last -- in the 2020 election cycle when they sent out emails purporting to be Proud Boy representatives.
SCIUTTO: Yeah.
SALVO: They got that voter information from publicly available sources. But there have been -- there have been attempts. Russia did this back in 2016 to penetrate actual voting systems, voter rolls online.
They did not change any votes. The outcome of the election was not changed by these attempts, but the ideas that give Americans the impression that they can.
SCIUTTO: Right.
Yeah, it's kind of like casing the place before you go in.
David Salvo, thanks so much. I appreciate it.
Some progress perhaps on fighting a wildfire near Athens, Greece. We're going to take you there right after the break.
Thanks, man.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCIUTTO: Firefighting crews in Greece say they have made progress containing a wildfire that erupted near Athens. Six other European countries joined forces to help fight the flames, sending helicopters, planes, hundreds of firefighters. The wildfires started Sunday and has torn through communities, killing at least one person.
Firefighters say smaller outbreaks are still popping up near the capital.
CNN's Eleni Giokos, reports from Penteli near Athens.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ELENI GIOKOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As morning breaks in Greece, a moment of reckoning, residents return to their homes not knowing what they'd find.
Seventy-year-old Sake Monfils (ph) ran away, taking only his beloved dogs. Everything else is now gone.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My house it was utterly destroyed. Even the walls fell down.
GIOKOS: But Monfils lost more than his home. He also lost a colleague, a 65-year-old woman who went missing after the evacuation orders.
Her friends and colleagues say that they were looking for her. She went missing, and eventually her body was found here at a place of work. She spent over 20 years of her life at this business and her co- workers are saying how she was talking about going back to home country, back to her daughters at the end of this year.
And sadly, they say she just didn't make it. And today, we find a rose left here by someone that says we'll remember her dearly.
More than 700 firefighters, almost 200 vehicles and 35 water bombing aircraft have now managed to control the blaze.
[15:55:07]
But 100,000 acres of land were lost. The extent of the damage so great, it can be seen from space.
A scenario of destruction, just a few miles from Athens. Experts say the last few years of fires are drastically changing the city's climate, the loss of trees making winds and temperatures rise along with the risk of fire.
A tough challenge ahead, local officials are well aware of.
MAYOR VASILIS XYPOLITAS, KIFISIA, GREECE: At some point, he filed what's faster than the cars and trucks, and we are trying to catch the fire. We must find solutions in the way of evacuating and in being first at the time of the start of the fire.
GIOKOS: Miles of beautiful green virgin forests reduced to charred barren hills.
For residents like Sofia, the feeling of loss is beyond words.
SOFIA, LOCAL RESIDENT: I feel terribly -- I can't explain how I feel this morning. We had sat a green grasses here. Now, I don't know after how many years its going to be again, and if it like before. It was great.
GIOKOS: Many like her now point the thing at the government, blaming the lack of prevention and care as part of the fuel feeding the fire that spread nothing in its path.
Eleni Giokos, CNN, Penteli, Greece.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SCIUTTO: Goodness, just shocking images from there.
Eleni Giokos, thanks so much for that report. We wish the people of Greece the best.
Thanks so much for joining me today. I'm Jim Sciutto.
"QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is up next.
