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Trump Campaigns in Battleground Pennsylvania; President Biden Prepares Speech For Opening Night Of DNC; Interview With Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) About Presidential Race; Middle East Braces For Potential Iranian Retaliation; Israeli Negotiators Cautiously Optimistic On Ceasefire Deal; Harris, Trump Pitch Voters On Their Plans For The Economy; Russia: Ukraine Likely Used U.S.-Made Rockets To Destroy Bridge; Ernesto Brings Dangerous Rip Currents To U.S. Coastline. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired August 17, 2024 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:32]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jessica Dean in New York.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto in Tel Aviv.

Quote, "cautious optimism." That is how the Israeli prime minister's office is now describing the possibility at least of a ceasefire hostage deal with Hamas. This as Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Israel tonight in an urgent push to finalize the deal, get it across the finish line. We'll also go live to Iran as that country vows to retaliate for the assassination of a Hamas leader in Tehran last month.

DEAN: Jim, we'll check back in with you for all of that. Back here in the U.S. right now, former president Donald Trump is set to speak at a rally in the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania. Trump is on the campaign trail after weeks of struggling to adapt to Vice President Kamala Harris entering the race. Allies and advisers pushing him to focus on their policy differences as the former president, though, continues to focus on personal attacks.

CNN's Danny Freeman is joining us on the ground in Pennsylvania.

Danny, a packed crowd -- a packed house there behind you. What can we expect from tonight's rally?

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, at the very least we can expect a raucous rally for the former president here in Wilkes- Barre, Pennsylvania. And just to note, this particular arena is actually filling out quite a bit here. It's like you said, a packed rally here at this arena. But the big question in terms of what we can expect is, will former president Trump stick to script? Will he be able to actually stick to the message of going after Vice President Kamala Harris on crucial issues of the economy, of crime, immigration?

Like you noted, Jessica, this has been something that Trump's campaign and his advisers and his allies over the course of the entire week have pleaded with him both publicly and privately to do, to stay on message, to hone these attacks against Vice President Harris. But there have been many distractions throughout the week. One, of course, has been focusing on his older opponent, President Joe Biden, quite a lot throughout the week.

Another issue has been being distracted by crowd sizes and then there was even just in the past 48 hours this issue of saying that the Presidential Medal of Freedom, this is something former president Trump said is, quote, "actually much better than the Medal of Honor." The Medal of Honor, of course, awarded to service members who have shown extreme valor in the line of duty,.

Now, but let's get back to where we are right here, Jessica, because, you know Pennsylvania well. We're in northeastern Pennsylvania in Wilkes-Barre in Luzerne County, a more broadly, I should say. And Luzerne County is very important because it's one of these spots that went for former president Obama twice and then went for former president Trump twice.

This area of northeastern Pennsylvania, really the heart of former president Trump's base. So if he has any hope of carrying the great commonwealth right here, he's going to have to drive up numbers in this exact spot. And that's what we're looking to see if he's able to hone these messages to really energize his base right here -- Jessica.

DEAN: Yes. Yes, the key to Pennsylvania for a Republican, Danny, is just turnout outside of those big cities, as you well know.

All right, Danny Freeman in Pennsylvania, thanks so much.

And just in former House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, is expected to address the crowd at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday. But up first, President Joe Biden. The commander-in-chief will be the featured speaker on night one of the DNC in Chicago. And he's expected to talk about his accomplishments of his presidency and then symbolically hand off the race for the White House to his vice president Kamala Harris.

Biden will also argue Harris is the best person to protect freedom and democracy, and the best way to keep former president Trump out of the White House.

CNN's Kevin Liptak joining us now.

Kevin, we kind of laid out the broad strokes there of what we're expecting to hear. What more do you know about his address on Monday?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, he is working on it this weekend up at Camp David with two of his senior most aides really trying to revise and refine what exactly he'll say. You know, this could be one of his biggest audiences before November, and he will want to think closely about what is essentially the start of a long political farewell.

And I say the start because his aides are emphatic that we will see plenty of President Biden over the next five months. He will be campaigning for Kamala Harris. He'll be working to cement his legacy, but there's no question this is not the speech that President Biden was planning to give or was hoping to give. And certainly he does still have some scars from that prolonged effort to remove him from the top of the ticket.

[16:05:00]

But when you talk to Biden officials, they do say he wants to look forward and certainly the Democratic Party wants to look forward as well. And that will be the thrust of what he talks about on Monday night, really framing Kamala Harris as the most natural successor to this legacy that he's left in office. He will make the proactive case for her as president talking about her record, talking about her character.

But he'll also make the case against Donald Trump, continuing these warnings that Trump poses a threat to democracy and that electing Kamala Harris, in the words of one Biden official, is necessary to ensure democracy is preserved. So there's a lot that he's going to want to pack into that speech. Although it was interesting, when we saw him last night heading out to Camp David, he only had one word when he was asked to describe his message to Democrats, which was just win.

Now President Biden I think is very sort of proud of the fact that the Democratic Party was able to coalesce around Kamala Harris, in no small part because he was so quick to endorse her out of the gate. And I think Democrats will want to express their thanks to President Biden throughout the course of this convention. And you will see scattered throughout the week mentions of his record, his ability with a pandemic, his legislative accomplishments.

You'll also see certain quotes from President Biden broadcast on the larger screens inside the United Center in Chicago, where the convention is taking place, including the Biden-ism, spread the faith. It will include a quote that he used in that Oval Office address explaining his decision to withdraw from the race. History is in your hands. And we do understand that Kamala Harris will be on hand on Monday evening for this, you know, historic passing of the torch moment.

But for President Biden, that will be the last we see from him in Chicago. He will head out of town after Monday evening, essentially leaving the convention in Harris' hands.

DEAN: Yes, it just underscores how much has changed in one month, barely one month.

Kevin Liptak, thank you so much for that reporting.

And joining us now, Democratic Congressman Gerry Connolly of Virginia.

Congressman, nice to see you on this Saturday afternoon. Thanks for being here with us.

REP. GERRY CONNOLLY (D-VA): Great to be with you. DEAN: W e were just hearing from Kevin there about what to expect from

President Biden on Monday. He's going to symbolically pass this torch to Vice President Harris. He said earlier this week, he doesn't think she's going to try to distance herself from his economic policies. He's not really tried to separate herself from him and his administration.

Do you think that's right? And if so, is that the right move considering Americans don't seem sold on the economy under the current administration?

CONNOLLY: Well, I think it's going to be a combination. Obviously Kamala Harris is going to be her own person and has four years ahead of her, hopefully, in setting an economic policy. But I think President Biden and Kamala Harris have set a foundation that is robust and something both he and she can be proud of. You know, they brought inflation down to the lowest level in three years. We've got the most robust growth we've had in decades.

We've got, you know, the stock market, you know, really burgeoning. We've got retail sales high. We've got manufacturing coming back. You know, we've created more jobs, 15 million jobs than any presidency in recent memory. I think they've got a lot to be proud of, especially when you remember four years ago this economy was tanking. People were hoarding toilet paper. People were being laid off from their jobs by hundreds of thousands a week.

Small businesses were collapsing by tens of thousands a week. The GDP was contracted. So I think there's a lot to be proud of, a lot to build on, but obviously Kamala Harris is going to have her own ideas about which aspects of the economy she wants to focus on in particular, and I think she laid some of that out just a few days ago and I think that's something to work with and be very proud of.

DEAN: And yet this new poll from "The New York Times" and Siena College shows that the former president Donald Trump still holds an advantage when it comes to the economy, that voters saying they trust Trump more than Harris, 56 percent to 41 percent for Harris on who they trust more to handle the economy. So I hear what you're saying in your last answer.

How does she, though, take that, what you're saying, and convince the American people of it because those numbers show they don't trust her as much as they trust the former president.

CONNOLLY: I think she's got to focus on the future, which I think she started to do just a few days ago. She made some emphasis on earned income tax credits, on child tax credits, on focusing on bread-and- butter table based items that most families are focused on when they think about inflation. She's talking about trying to make certain key investments that will create jobs.

[16:10:04]

I think those are the things she's got to emphasize in terms of the future, not the past. And I also think frankly, you know, Donald Trump is getting a lot of credit he doesn't deserve. But that's the fact of life. She has to talk about the future.

DEAN: And so she did do that on Friday, yesterday. Gosh, that was only yesterday, Friday. She did lay out some economic policies that she would enact. Again it's worth reminding everyone that it's going to come down to who controls Congress and how that all works out to see if you can get all of these things passed. But setting out what is essentially her vision for the economy, how she would like to see it work.

And some of those proposals, Democrats are very happy across the board about what they saw, but some of those proposals are getting some pushback from economists and the "Washington Post" Editorial Board out with kind of a scathing op-ed over that plan to fight price gouging at grocery stores. They say the times demand serious economic ideas. Harris supplies gimmicks. Price gouging is not causing inflation. So why is the vice president trying to -- promising to stamp it out?

Do you agree? What do you make of that?

CONNOLLY: I was surprised by the "Washington Post" editorial. They must have been in a pretty grumpy mood. A lot of people have described what Kamala Harris laid out yesterday as a populist economic message that was very exciting and that spoke to, you know, kitchen tables all around America. I think that's a good thing. I don't think that's a bad thing. Maybe the "Washington Post" should get out more.

DEAN: But there are some economists that say that is really not going after a problem that's causing high prices at grocery stores. That there's a lot of factors involved with that. And then point to something like the $25,000 down payment and say that they're concerned that's going to raise housing prices.

CONNOLLY: Well, remember that $25,000 down payment assistance is coupled with her initiative to want to build four million new housing units. So she is addressing both supply and demand. And as somebody who spent a lot of time on affordable housing and local government in my earlier career, I really welcome that initiative. We've got to focus on building more affordable housing all across America, and to hear the presidential candidate, presidential nominee of my party, laid that out in specific terms was a very welcome policy plank. And I think it's going to go a long way to addressing both the supply and the demand part of the housing crisis.

DEAN: And I want to go back to that "New York Times" poll that was out today. There's just a lot of new data in there that's kind of interesting to mind, but top lines, this extremely tight race between Harris and Trump for key states, Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada, and Georgia. No clear leader within that margin of error in most of those races.

My question to you is, this race, the dynamics have changed and she is -- she has some momentum. There's no doubt about it based on the numbers where they were when President Biden was still in this race and where they are now. What do you think is the message that voters most want to hear from her right now as we head into this Democratic National Convention, which frankly, she's going to be introducing herself in a way to a lot of voters who know who she is, but maybe don't really know her?

CONNOLLY: You know, generally, in our history, we elect people to the presidency who have an optimistic, uplifting message and vision for the country. Remember Ronald Reagan, it's morning in America in 1984? I do. It was a positive message. Gloom and doom messages generally fail. And I think she has a great opportunity to really cement her image as somebody who's joyous excited, optimistic, positive, competent, has a plan for the next four years to take America for.

The dystopian dark, you know, carnage in American urban areas vision of Donald Trump is just not a winning message, and so those polls you're describing I think have to be compared to where we were, say, three and a half weeks ago. The trajectory is one I really welcome. I think we're headed in the right direction. Where we were squishy, including my own home state of Virginia, we're now stable. And you're now looking at the battleground states expanding for the Harris-Walz ticket and in deep trouble for Donald Trump and his running mate, Mr. Vance, Senator Vance.

So I like our trajectory and I think this convention -- Harris has an opportunity to really cement and pivot with a positive message in contrast to her very dystopian and dark opponent, Donald Trump.

[16:15:02]

DEAN: All right. Congressman Gerry Connolly, thank you so much for your time. We sure do appreciate it.

CONNOLLY: My pleasure, Jessica.

DEAN: We have more to come in the CNN NEWSROOM, including Jim Sciutto live in Tel Aviv -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: That's right. Thank you, Jessica.

Straight ahead, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is traveling here to Israel tonight as mediators and diplomats urgently push to get a ceasefire and hostage deal done. There are still obstacles.

And the Middle East braces for a potential Iranian attack on Israel, something the U.S. has said could come at any time. We're going to be live from Tehran.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:20:25]

SCIUTTO: Israeli negotiators are cautiously optimistic about a ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas. That is according to the Israeli prime minister's office. The U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is heading to Israel tonight where he will meet with the prime minister on Monday. And Blinken is just one of many diplomats racing to get a deal done as the potential for an attack from Iran continues to loom over these talks.

Nic Robertson is with us here in Tel Aviv, as well as Fred Pleitgen in Tehran.

Fred, I want to begin with you. What are you hearing in Tehran? Do Iranian officials continue to echo the threat that they will retaliate for the killing of the Hamas leader in Tehran?

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, they certainly do continue to echo that. And that is something that they say will happen or could happen no matter what happens in those hostage negotiation or in those ceasefire negotiations, I should say. And the Iranians also, Jim, say that they're not very optimistic about the talks that have been going on in Doha, and of course are going to continue next week as well. And there's two things that the Iranian acting foreign minister pointed out in all of that.

He said on the one hand, the Iranians don't believe that the Israelis are serious about the talks, but they also believe that the United States is not an objective mediator in all of this because the United States is obviously so firmly in the corner of Israel.

I was able to speak to a very prominent political analysts here in Tehran who's very close to Iran's power structure. I want you to listen to his take on all this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MOHAMMAD MARANDI, POLITICAL ANALYST: They put in new conditions which are unacceptable. If they go back to what the Americans agreed upon a couple of months earlier, then I think the talks could succeed. But they've shifted --- the Americans and Israelis have shifted the goalposts and Hamas is not going to accept that. So I'm not optimistic about the ceasefire. But even if there is one, the Iranians will still have to strike the Israeli regime because again this is an issue of deterrence.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: So an issue of deterrence for the Iranians. Obviously, the Iranians at one point already struck Israeli territory directly from Iran. That was after their embassy compound in Damascus, Syria was bombed. And now the Iranians say something happened again here in Tehran with obviously the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, so the feeling here is that revenge is still very much on the table -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Fred, that retaliatory attack and as is so familiar each retaliatory attack follows the last one, was quite large back in April. Many dozens of missiles and drones unprecedented in its scale. Is there any sense of how big an Iranian retaliation this time could be, similar scale?

PLEITGEN: Yes, well, one of the things that that political analyst told me is he believed that the next retaliatory attack by the Iranians will hurt even more as he put it. Whether or not it would be larger is certainly something that is really unclear at this point in time.

I think there's several things, though, that we can discern from what we're hearing in Tehran, but also in general in the region as well. The Iranians appear to want some sort of coordinated response, coordinated retaliation. That would mean obviously them at the very least Hezbollah as well and possibly some of the groups that are allied with Iran in the region, for instance, in Iraq.

Now that does not mean that such a response would be simultaneous, that would happen at the same time. It could be a different points in time, but certainly the vibe that we're getting here from Iran is right now they have that revenge or retaliation is still very much on the table. They have not said when, where, and how but one of the things that they do say is they do believe that they have the means for a crushing blow.

And it was quite interesting because you were mentioning that retaliation last time that it was pretty big. The Iranians are saying, Jim, that in that retaliation back then they used a lot of their older gear, a lot of their older weapons. And right now they have much more formidable weapons at their disposal, which they can launch at any point in time -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yes, it's a great point because most -- the vast majority of those weapons were shot down in that previous attack.

Fred, in Tehran, thanks so much.

Now to Nic Robertson, joins me here in Tel Aviv again.

So Secretary Blinken with yet another instance of shuttle diplomacy, coming to the Middle East, trying once again to get these talks across the finish line. What will he be emphasizing as he meets with the Israeli prime minister?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, it's the United States has put forward the bridging proposal and the bridging proposal is designed to get across the sticking points between Israel and Hamas. Hamas, we already know is pretty much sticking on all those sticking points already. So therefore it requires more pressure from Secretary Blinken on the Israeli side would be the logical assumption to push forward and look for concessions that are going to meet Hamas part of the way forward.

[16:25:09]

Look, Secretary Blinken's track record here and he'd probably be the first to admit it has been sadly lacking in concrete results. I mean, we've both probably been here and seen many of these visits and he'll come back two months later, for example, the humanitarian crossings into north of Gaza that he asked for in January, a few months later, he was still asking for it again in his following visit.

It is not clear that Secretary Blinken can really shift Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's strategy and thinking at the moment on this. And that is, that is entirely on the gift of Prime Minister Netanyahu.

SCIUTTO: No question. All right. So we have the outside pressure from the U.S., Israel's prime ally. But we also have internal pressure here and there were protests just tonight and you see the pictures all over Israel, like the faces of those hostages still held there. How much of a pressure point is that for Netanyahu today to get a deal across the finish line? It's 10 months into their captivity in Gaza.

ROBERTSON: He's resisting all that public pressure. He's resisting the pressure of the hostage families. They made this incredibly clear. 316 days now they've been held hostage and that's what the protesters on the streets, perhaps several thousand of them tonight, were talking about. They've been coming out many times in the week, often always on a Saturday night, always pretty much in the same place. These are largely peaceful protests. The police sort of stopped making arrests I think probably a couple of months ago, realistically. Fires are set in the road.

This is something that the city and the people of this city have become used to, but it's also something that the prime minister is absolutely weathering. I mean, look, let's look at it this way. For example, if you go back three or four months, everyone thought Benny Gantz, principal opposition politician who was in the war cabinet with Prime Minister Netanyahu, the thinking was if he pulled out of that cabinet then that would collapse Netanyahu's government. There'd be elections.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ROBERTSON: Benny Gantz says today standing at the protest tonight with all those other protesters calling for the hostages to be released now, to seal the deal for Netanyahu to do that, it's not happening. So that internal pressure is something that Prime Minister Netanyahu is weathering.

SCIUTTO: He's defied expectations before. His political death often exaggerated, right, and he managers to survive.

Nic Robertson, thanks so much.

Let's send it back now to Jessica Dean in New York tonight.

Of course, Jessica, we're waiting for hopeful news out of here. We'll see where these negotiations go.

DEAN: Absolutely, Jim. Thank you so much. Our thanks to Nic as well.

Still ahead, we're talking to Kevin O'Leary, who's out of the "Shark Tank" for us tonight. We're going to get his take on former president Trump and Vice President Harris' plans for the economy,

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:32:22]

DEAN: Kamala Harris and Donald Trump delivering dueling economic addresses last week, both in the battleground state of North Carolina.

The vice president outlining her plan to bring down costs for American families.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: More than 100 million Americans will get a tax cut.

We will end America's housing shortage by building three million new homes and rentals.

(CHEERING)

HARRIS: And I will work to pass the first ever federal ban on price gouging on food.

I'll lower the cost of insulin and prescription drugs for everyone with your support.

(CHEERING)

HARRIS: Not only are we seeing --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Harris' proposal, specifically on price gouging, prompting some mixed reviews.

The former president, however, veering so far off script that his campaign later released this TikTok to get out his economic message.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This is the cost of food. This is the cost of your basics. Every single thing is up. Eggs up 48 percent. Cookies up 27 percent. Look at what's going on. Butter up 31 percent. And this is just the beginning. It's a disaster.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Joining us now, cast member of "Shark Tank" and chairman of O'Shares ETFs, Kevin O'Leary.

Hi, Kevin. Thanks so much for being here with us. We sure do appreciate it.

KEVIN O'LEARY, CAST MEMBER, "SHARK TANK" & CHAIRMAN, O'SHARES ETFS: Thank you.

DEAN: Yes. I want to talk about former Vice President Harris' proposals first. A handful of her proposals in what she laid out yesterday, including stopping corporate price gouging on food, a grocery stores.

"The Washington Post" editorial board called that a gimmick. There's also fears from economists that a $25,000 tax credit for home down payments could actually drive up home prices.

What's your take?

O'LEARY: Well, let me set the table first. I don't actually care who wins the White House. But I care about what the policy is. Because I'm an investor. I have to put capital to work regardless of who is in the White House.

So I really, really care about what Harris says and what Trump says about potential policy.

Let's take her price gouging idea first. They tried that in Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, the USSR. No, that's not going to work. It's impossible to understand how a corporation would set pricing based on gouging. What does that even mean?

That's why it's being ridiculed. But I cut her wide berth. She's not answering reporters' questions and she's got great momentum. So throw anything at the wall you want, free money for everybody, that's what every politician does. But it has no merit in reality.

At some point, she's got to put forward policies that she can be questioned on in front of a reporter. And I'm not sure when that's going to happen. That's what I'm concerned about right now.

[16:35:03]

DEAN: What about the plan to build three million new homes using tax incentives and other policies to try to ease the housing crisis -- crisis in this country.

It's been more well-received by economists.

O'LEARY: Again, let me just look at the policy, not criticizing her. There are bad ideas, bad, bad ideas, and really bad ideas. And that falls in this category.

When you give $25,000 to anybody in a constrained market, you cause inflation.

So if there's three houses, say, on the street and everybody is bidding on it, it gets another $25,000, all of that attributes to the seller. And you cause the price of the house to go up because there's no supply.

Everybody knows in real estate -- that's what I do for living -- it is not controlled by a federal mandate. Housing is state-by-state.

She can do nothing to solve that problem. There's no way she's building three million houses. Where? Which state is going to give her that mandate?

I mean, look, I will not --

(CROSSTALK)

DEAN: And, again, she said that she wants to work with state and local -- she acknowledged that she's going to have to work with state and local entities, that this is a broader problem than her just waving a want.

I guess what I'm getting at is, there is an affordable housing crisis this country. If she could do those things, if she could work with state and local entities to build more additional housing to help spur that growth.

Though the federal government wouldn't be doing it, they would be doing it -- could that help?

O'LEARY: Really? Then what has she been doing for the last three-and- a-half years? They haven't solved that problem. What have they've been doing at all?

You know, you can't solve this problem. Go to California, 50 percent of the price of every house built in California is the cost of regulation.

It has nothing to do with the building cost. This is a problem in almost every state. Because most of those people have mortgages at 3.70 percent for another two-and-a-half years. They're never going to sell their houses.

This is supply issue. Again, that policy will be ridiculed unless you can somehow win total control of the Hill, which she can jam the policies down.

DEAN: I do think -- I do think it's worth underscoring that neither of them, Trump or Harris, can do anything that Congress isn't going to go along with. It's going to depend a lot about how Congress is made up after this election.

(CROSSTALK)

O'LEARY: You're 100 percent, right.

(CROSSTALK)

O'LEARY: And again, I want her to be successful. I want her, should she win, to be a great president with policies that let me, as an investor, invest.

But I really hate this rhetoric, this political theater. I want her to put her policies in front of you, a reporter, that would ask her how she could actually implement it.

I'm waiting for that. And so are millions of other investors. And by the way, lots of voters in swing states. We need some meat on the bone.

DEAN: OK, so I want to ask you about former President Trump, some of his policies. He says he wants to lean heavily into tariffs, 10 to 20 percent.

Economists say that's going to drive up inflation. It could eliminate millions of jobs. They're very concerned about what that could do to the economy. O'LEARY: We already have all those tariffs in place. I'm not a fan of tariffs. They should be used as weaponry to bring people like China to the table to have a reciprocal placemat. We don't have that yet.

My personal opinion about the Chinese economy, which is the big one we're really hitting tariffs with, increase the pain even higher until they come to the table and then get rid of all these tariffs.

Because that's really what we need is a fair-trade agreement with China that's reciprocal. Access to their markets, access to their litigation, access to policy and I.P. control. We don't have that.

I'm an investor in China. And just to let you know, they have really screwed me in the last 10 years. I'm not a fan of the situation we have now. It's like -- it's like a football field tilted towards the Chinese.

We should ban them in America until they play with a level playing field. That means a catalyst on our markets. They have to play by our rules. And they list their companies on the NASDAQ and New York Stock Exchange.

I am very hawkish on squeezing their heads because I live it. This is not rhetoric from academic. They have screwed me.

DEAN: And the fact is, though, he wants to put additional -- I hear you on the tariffs that exist already. He wants to put additional tariffs on exports and imports -- I'm sorry, on imports.

And he -- that is going to get passed on to Americans. They're going to have to pay that price.

O'LEARY: No, look, I told you I'm not a fan of this. But what I'd rather do is to say the Chinese, look, let's -- it's like the TikTok situation. They have until Jan 19th. We know they're using spyware.

I have a separate phone for TikTok. This is a TikTok phone. There's nothing on it. It's a burner. I don't trust the Chinese at all as far as I can throw a stick.

But it's not the Chinese people I don't like. This is about China. There's no other country. They're competing with us for I.P., for technology, for markets, and they're not playing fairly.

Listen, we've been talking about this for 20 years. Trump's the first squeeze their heads. Not a fan of tariffs. I'd rather shut them down in our markets.

[16:40:01]

I can't litigate when I lose market share to one of my I.P. products in China. I can't sue them. And they can use the courts to sue me here. Let's shut that down.

I can't list in Hong Kong. They can list on the New York Stock Exchange. But shut them down. Let's find a way to squeeze their heads until they play ball fairly.

Squeeze -- they look understand the stick. Let's give them the stick.

DEAN: All right. Kevin O'Leary, thanks so much. We appreciate it.

O'LEARY: Thank you.

DEAN: Ahead in the CNN NEWSROOM, Russia says Ukraine likely used American made rockets to destroy a key bridge as Ukraine's forces pushed deeper and deeper into Russian territory.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:45:03]

SCIUTTO: New video of Ukraine striking deep inside Russia, annihilating a key supply bridge in Russia's Kursk region. You see the blast there.

Russia says Ukraine likely used U.S.-made HIMARS rockets in this attack. Potentially the first time such rockets have been used to hit inside the Kursk region.

Let's discuss now with retired U.S. Army lieutenant general, Mark Hertling.

Always good to have you on, sir. Thanks for joining me.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Great to be with you, Jim. Great afternoon for you.

SCIUTTO: Let's start on this attack. And I do want to go more broadly to the Ukrainian incursion inside Russia.

Russia saying this is a U.S.-supplied weapon. Of course, we don't have any reason, based on a track record, for taking Russia at its word.

But there has been concern among some U.S. officials about the use of U.S. weapons for attacks inside Russian territory. This goes back months to the start of the war.

Are those concerns warranted in your view?

HERTLING: They are not, in my view, Jim. And what we're talking about is the use potentially of U.S. weapons, which I agree with, in a tactical fight against military targets, a bridge that was being used to resupply Russians as they we're trying to counterattack against the Ukrainians that went into Kursk.

Not a strategic target, not something like an apartment building or a school or a hospital that Russia has hit so many of inside of Ukraine to cause civilian casualties, infrastructure damage, against a violation -- it is a violation of the laws of land warfare.

So what we're told talking about is using tactical weapon systems, not strategic systems and long-range, to contribute to what Ukraine is trying to accomplish on the battlefield.

And that is to stop Russia from continued invasion and continued criminal activities against Ukrainian soil.

Now, you can say that that's a nuanced approach, and it is. But what we're seeing is Ukraine is applying force on a battlefield to counter the kinds of attacks that they've been susceptible to by Russian forces from a safe position across the border inside of Russia.

So they're striking not only bridges. It's stopping reinforcements, but also airfields, radar sites, and the kind of military targets that the U.S. military would call -- we call deep strikes.

And at the same time, you've got to remember, if this is a U.S. weapon system that Ukraine is using, we have to remind ourselves that Russia is using Iranian drones massively. They're using North Korean artillery and rockets.

And of course, some other equipment supplied by other members of their alliances.

SCIUTTO: OK. So let's talk about goals here, because this is clearly not a raid, right, not a quick cross-border raid where they come across, do some damage and go back.

And we're coming up on two weeks here. What is the goal, in your view? Is it to take and hold territory, if it can, right? I mean, it's difficult to hold territory inside Russia. They don't have the defensive positions lined up yet, the trenches dug, et cetera.

But is the goal to take and whole territory, do you believe, to present the possibility of an exchange for Russian-held territory in Ukraine?

HERTLING: That's a possibility, Jim, and there's a lot of analysts and pundits talking about what could be the objective of this campaign by Ukraine.

I said, a few -- I said 12 days ago, this was not a raid. There was too much forces to be in a raid and they were planning on staying there a long time? It could be a demonstration, first of all, that they can do it.

But it had a strategic purpose to it. And the strategic purpose was to strike targets that are -- that are contributing to Russian assaults inside of Ukraine. Like I said, the airfields, the radar sites, the EW sites.

Could it also be used to -- as a potential bargaining chip eventually? To show Russia, hey, you're not going to get away with saying we're just going to take your territory and end this war.

You know, now Ukraine has a tit for tat, if you will. And they also have the capability to further embarrass not only Mr. Putin but also the Russian military that doesn't seem to be able to defend itself in these kinds of offenses. SCIUTTO: Yes, and those electronic warfare sites, Q2, because Russia has had some success in neutralizing some of those Ukrainian weapons systems.

Retired lieutenant general, Mark Hertling, always good to have you on.

HERTLING: Thanks, Jim. Appreciate it.

SCIUTTO: I do want to send it back to Jessica Dean in New York, where there is lots of other news this weekend.

DEAN: Yes, there is.

Jim, thanks so much.

[16:50:51]

Hurricane Ernesto already being blamed for at least two deaths as the storm triggers rip tide warnings up and down the east coast.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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DEAN: Right now, Hurricane Ernesto kicking up rip currents and high surf all along the east coast. Warnings are in place up and down the east coast from Georgia to Maine.

CNN's Elisa Raffa is in the Weather Center with more on Ernestos impact.

So, Elisa, what are you tracking?

ELISA RAFFA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It's still a category one hurricane right now. Jessica, Still sitting very close to Bermuda, giving them tropical storm-force winds. It's been inching very slowly away from the island today.

It continues to pull away tonight into tomorrow as a category one hurricane and then brushing these islands of Canada here as we go into the world workweek with some of the intense winds and some heavy rain.

[16:55:03]

Look at the way that the wind gusts continue to kick over the open ocean as we go through the weekend and into early next week.

And that's going to continue to kick up significant wave heights. We've already seen some swells up and down the east coast, causing some coastal erosion. And it will continue as we go through the work week here.

This is ripping up some dangerous rip currents. We're talking about very rough surf, large swells and rip currents from Miami to Maine. Look at all that red outlining the east coast there. And I want you to know that if you get caught in a rip current, you

need to swim parallel to the shore to get out of it. You cannot swim opposite it's a rip current here. That's just not going to work.

If you see double red flags on the beach, just don't go in the water -- Jessica?

DEAN: Good tip there.

Elisa Raffa, thanks so much for that.

The Trump and Harris campaigns both laser-focused on the battleground state of Pennsylvania as Vice President Harris looks to repeat President Biden's 2020 victory there . And former President Donald Trump taking the stage there in Pennsylvania tonight.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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