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Today: Dana Bash Interviews VP Harris And Gov. Walz; WHO: Israel Has Agreed To 3-Day Humanitarian Pause For Polio Vaccination Campaign; Ukraine: U.S.-Made F-16 Fighter Jet Crashed On Monday; Severe Turbulence Injures 7 On United Airlines Flight. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired August 29, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:01:00]

RICHARD QUEST, CNN HOST: It is the top of the hour, but which hour? Eight in London, 10:00 in Kyiv and 3:00 in the afternoon here in New York.

I'm Richard Quest, in for Jim Sciutto today. I'm grateful for your attention and joining me on CNN NEWSROOM. The news as it stands at this hour.

Vice President Harris is in the hot seat on a bus tour in Georgia. She's sitting down with our own Dana Bash alongside her running mate, Governor Tim Walz, in what's the first exclusive interview with the Democratic Party presidential team since the historic switch from President Biden.

In an extremely close race every moment can and probably is pivotal and the polls show that the race is exceptionally close, with new battleground polling from Fox News showing no clear leader between Harris and former President Trump in the four major swing states, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, and where she is today in Georgia.

So, now, we're watching to see, of course, what she's saying and what the interview well have CNN's Eva McKend has more.

And, you know, we have a mixed, mixed feelings because on the one hand, she is the vice president. So she can put two words together without an um and ah and tripping over her shoelaces. But what do we expecting from her?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Richard, you know, from her time in the courtroom as a prosecutor to her time in the United States Senate in those committee rooms during those contentious hearings and even being vice president meeting with foreign leaders, she has a reputation for strenuously preparing for big moments. And this is a big moment to be clear, she will have to explain her evolution on some key policy issues and that she can thrive in these unscripted moments.

But this is also a really big test for her entire team. They have kept her from doing these types of interviews where she it would face intense scrutiny for quite some time and doing that allowed her to build a lot of momentum across the country reinvigorate these key Democratic coalitions that were sort of sitting on the sidelines --

QUEST: Right.

MCKEND: -- but this is a real test now, how she can do when pressed on certain issues.

QUEST: There have been a couple of interviews that she has done where I think the charitable would say it was not a rousing success and in that sense. And what is the barometer here do you think for success or failure?

MCKEND: Well, I think Republicans will pummel her no matter what, but I think she needs to walk away being able to really clarify her position on certain issues, on immigration, on the economy, on this issue of fracking where there has been a reversal, and then also how she distinguishes herself from President Biden. She's got to sort of outline the road map ahead for how she's going to run her own race.

QUEST: How can -- the trick is how you -- how do you say you were part of the good bits, not part of the bad bits, and then not disown everything you've done for the last four years.

I'm grateful, Eva. We'll wait for the interview. Thank you very much.

Now, as we go from Georgia to another key swing state Michigan, there Donald Trump is speaking to voters in an event that his campaign says has focused on inflation, on the economy. It's the swing through the so-called blue wall states this week. You can see them there.

In Washington, the fight is still brewing within the Trump campaign and the Army after an incident earlier this week, the Arlington National Cemetery. Now, the Army today backing a cemetery official who got into an altercation with Mr. Trump and his team over photography at the military burial site. Politicking and political photography on those grounds violates federal law and rightly so.

[15:05:03]

Our reporter, Daniel Strauss, joins me for an update on what we're learning.

The more I read about this, the less I seem to understand about who did what, and how -- what should have been a straightforward, respectful visit has turned into such a fracker (ph).

DANIEL STRAUSS, CNN REPORTER: Yeah. And look, it's still a developing story I think. We're getting more details every few hours, but essentially Arlington national cemetery is a place where its prohibited to take photos for political purposes, and Trump and his team went to Arlington National Cemetery to commemorate the Abbey Gate event, and those who died that day.

And there was an altercation there. The Army, as he said today, said that there were -- that participants there was some kind of scuffle. I'm going to read a little bit of the statement. ANC is a national shrine to the honored dead of the armed forces, and its dedicated staff will continue to ensure public ceremonies are conducted with dignity and respect. Earlier in the statement, participants in August 26th ceremony and subsequent Section 60 visit were made aware of federal laws, army regulations, and DOD policies, which clearly prohibit political activities.

Now, the Trump campaign and even its high command, including Trump's close advisers, one of whom is a veteran marine, have been pushing back that they did anything wrong. But this -- more recently, a statement from the sister of one of the family members at the near the graves that Trump visited had this to say: According to our conversation with our Arlington national cemetery, the Trump staffers did not adhere to the rules that were set in place for this visit to Staff Sergeant Hoover's grave sites in 60 -- in Section 60, which lays directly next to my brother's grave. We hope that those visiting the sacred site understand that these were real people who sacrificed for our freedom, and that they were honored and respected accordingly.

Now, this is something that -- this is increasingly something that's put the Trump campaign on defense.

QUEST: Right.

STRAUSS: Senator J.D. Vance has even addresses himself. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won't even do an investigation into what happened. And she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She can -- she can go to hell. I mean, you guys in the media, you're acting like Donald Trump filmed a TV commercial at a grave site. He was there providing emotional support to a lot of brave Americans who lost loved ones. They never should have lost and there happened to be a camera there, and somebody gave him permission to have that camera there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STRAUSS: This is something that the Trump campaign is going to be on the defensive about for the foreseeable future.

QUEST: How's this -- just briefly, Daniel, has this story got legs?

STRAUSS: Yeah. I think it's going to continue and we're going to keep hearing about it in the foreseeable future.

QUEST: All right. Daniel, thank you. Grateful.

To our senior political commentator, Scott Jennings, and the former Biden aide, Meghan Hays.

And let's start with you, Scott, today on that one. Let's just button that one up. If you are not supposed to take photographs, which are then -- it's illegal, by the way, which are then -- can't be used for political purposes, wouldn't the right thing for the Trump campaign be to say, I'm sorry.

SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think the right thing to happen here would be for Joe Biden and kamala Harris to say, I'm sorry for sending these soldiers to their death and then disrespecting their families all these years. Look at this situation.

(CROSSTALK)

QUEST: Mr. Jennings, Mr. Jennings, hang on, Scott, Scott, no, no, Scott, I'm quite prepared to let you make a political point, but only when you've answered the question that was asked.

JENNINGS: Sorry for what? They were invited to Arlington National Cemetery by these families. They asked the president to be there. He went. They then put out a statement later saying, we were very honored by his being there. We were glad he was there.

So look, I mean, they had a ceremony to honor 13 dead American soldiers who should never have died in the first place. And Democrats and media are losing their mind today, the scandal is Biden, not Trump.

I just -- I find this whole argument to be despicable and I think its indicative of how badly the Democrats know the Afghanistan issue is hurting Biden and Harris who remember, was the last person in the room before they made the decision?

I'm grateful, Scott. Let's turn to Meghan on this, and tonight's interview and you can also address the point that Scott has made elegantly. There tonight's interview for goodness sake, why didn't the vice president showed that she's quite capable of sitting down on her own and doing an interview with Dana Bash or anybody else, whoever it might be.

[15:10:03]

I mean, why give your political opponents ammunition when all she had to do was do it solo?

MEGHAN HAYS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't think they're giving her political -- I don't think we're giving our opponents political ammunition here. I think that she spent the last four or five weeks building her momentum, naming her VP nominee or candidate as well, and going to the convention and building momentum and why even blunt that momentum.

But also, they were meeting voters where they were there. They had millions and millions upon millions of views on social media and from other outlets that they were doing. And she's sitting down with her VP, which is very traditional to do after you name your VP nominee with you. So this is a very traditional thing.

Will she have to do interviews by herself? Yes, absolutely. Has she done them? Yes. Will she continue to them? Yes.

QUEST: Meghan, I know, I'm doing everybody a hard time today. I think I must have slept badly last night. Nobody -- Meghan, if you are the Democrats, if you know that there is an issue with the failure of the VP to do interviews so far, you know that is an issue, why would you stoke the embers by not doing?

Look, I don't doubt that she can put two words together without an um and ah in between them. She is vice president, she was attorney general in California, but it doesn't instill confidence.

HAYS: I don't think this is an issue and I don't -- I think this is a media issue and a media narrative that we are continuing to build upon. The only problem that they have now is that this has become part of the narrative and they're just making mistakes that much higher. So yes, they definitely need to sit down.

But this isn't an issue for voters. This is an issue for media, and this issue for people who watched the media who live inside D.C. bubble. So I just don't believe your premise there. I just don't think that they aren't reaching voters where they are.

QUEST: I do enjoy having both of you the same time because -- turning back to you, Scott, the Republican vice president nominee, J.D. Vance, spoke at the National Firefighters Union, and well credit to him. Tim Walz was there yesterday. However, listen to what happened when it started.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VANCE: Thank you, guys. Thank you so much.

(BOOS)

VANCE: Semper fi guys, we've got some -- it sounds like we got some fans and some haters. That's okay.

President Trump and I are proud to be the most pro-worker Republican ticket in history. And I want to talk about why we're fighting for worker.

(BOOS)

VANCE: Why we're going to fight for unions and non-union alike.

(BOOS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

QUEST: I sort of always enjoy hearing politicians being booed, respectfully booed, or criticized because that's what it's about, isn't it? But I think more important part is that going there and trying to put up the forward the argument, Scott, that they are pro- union.

JENNINGS: So a couple of things. Number one, you know how unusual it is for an American politician to speak before a crowd that is non- sycophantic. It is almost unheard of. You almost never see a presidential candidate go before a mixed crowd where you have some supporters and some detractors. So, credit to J.D. Vance for doing that.

The Republicans here are playing on the Democrats side of the field. They're going into a union hall and do a union convention. Unions for decades have been one of the biggest constituencies of the Democratic Party, and here you have the Republican vice presidential nominee going into a union hall and saying we're pro-worker and we want to ask for your vote.

To me, I don't care if a few people booed. I just think the fact that there are lots of union members who are looking at the Republicans is noteworthy and credit to J.D. Vance for giving it a try.

QUEST: The fascinating part of what you say is that both sides are trying now to peel off.

I mean, Meghan, your side is trying to peel off those Republican voters who frankly do not like Donald Trump, and are trying to appeal, trying to find some middle ground or easy ground.

HAYS: Yeah, I think -- I mean, I agree with Scott. Him going to the IAFF was that -- I give him kudos for that. He's been -- the IAFF has been a longtime supporter of Joe Biden. That was major part of his coalition. I think it was the first union to endorse him in 2020.

So I do get him a lot of credit for going into that room, but just like, you know, kamala Harris and Tim or Governor Walz are going into Georgia, into very Republican territories, people understand how tight this races and every vote counts. So they don't, they can't leave any stone unturned on either side. And I think that you are now seeing the campaigns realize that and going to places that not traditional for them to get votes.

QUEST: I'm going to be murdered for asking you, Scott, one more question. And, Scott, Donald Trump keeps railing against mail-in voting. Wouldn't he be better to co-opt mail-in voting for Republicans' benefits? If he done that for years ago, arguably, he'd have won.

JENNINGS: He's always been skeptical of it. He would be better off supporting it, not wailing against it.

I will point out that the campaign has launched a massive mail-in voting effort, including in the critical mail-in voting state of Pennsylvania.

[15:15:03]

And so I think the campaign and the guts of the mechanics of his campaign to exactly what they have to do. But look, I'll just tell you -- a lot of Republicans are sort of hotwire to be skeptical of early voting and mail-in. They'd like to vote on election day. I think Trump's that kind of Republican, but I have confidence that campaign knows what it has to do.

QUEST: I'll tell you, it's my first -- it'll be my first election voting as a U.S. citizen and assuming -- JENNINGS: Hey --

QUEST: -- assuming I'm in this country and not on assignment elsewhere, I'm looking forward to doing it in person, but I think I'm going to have to probably register for it.

JENNINGS: Congratulations, you're great. That's terrific.

QUEST: Thank you. Thank you both of you. Grateful.

HAYS: Thank you.

QUEST: And another, you can watch Vice President Harris's first sit- down interview since President Biden dropped out of the race. The two of them, you know, there'll be with Dana Bash together. It's at 9:00 tonight East Coast time.

As we continue, tonight, a pause in fighting in Gaza from mass vaccination campaigns are coming with the first case of polio there in 25 years has now been confirmed.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

QUEST: And a warm welcome back.

Days after Gaza's first confirmed case of polio in 25 years, now, Israel has agreed to a limited pause in fighting to administer polio vaccines. The WHO, the World Health Organization, as you know, has announced a three-day vaccination campaign to start on Sunday in central Gaza. The U.N. secretary general has called for an immediate end to Israel's occupation in the occupied West Bank.

Meanwhile, the IDF says they've killed five militants, including an Islamic Jihad commander in a gun battle within or near a mosque. The troops backed by bulldozers, armored carriers, and drones are being used to target what Israel calls Islamic Iranian terrorist infrastructure.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society is reporting a severe shortage of drinking water in the cities being targeted.

Our diplomatic international editor, Nic Robertson, is with me.

Let's do, first of all, let's do the Gaza and the polio.

[15:20:04]

I mean, Israel has to own this in a sense. It's fine now to let the polio vaccines in. But this thing wouldn't have happened if but for.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: And that's the position I think that Secretary of State Antony Blinken was pushing with Prime Minister Netanyahu when he was here just a few days ago, that this is on Israel, this is something that the U.N. has been putting on Israel as well. The prime minister here did seem to object to the idea that you can

have a full-on humanitarian pause across the whole of Gaza, which is what the U.N. secretary general wanted, that has now agreed to this sort of sectional area by area, pause over three days. First polio vaccines will be distributed in the center and then in the north and the south. And this will be a phased approach. So you won't have -- you won't have a pause across the whole of the area, 1.26 million vaccines.

And that we're also understand that the very important thing for the U.N. here is that in the short window starting in a couple of days, these three days, that they have to get to 90 percent of the target population that's -- that's all children, ten years and younger. Vital that they get to that number because if they don't, that's not enough vaccine spread to -- around the community to prevent and carrying on and further outbreaks.

And by the way, the IDF has already begun already begun vaccinating its own troops because they are in that environment. And they are at risk as well.

QUEST: Nic, I'm grateful. Thank you. Keep watching and come back when there's more on that.

Weeks after receiving the long-awaited F-16 fighter jets, Ukraine's military says one of its top pilots has been killed in a crash. Source telling us the defense forces do not believe the crash was pilot error and, saying instead, they were repelling the largest aerial attack Russia's launched against Ukraine.

Our correspondent Nick Paton Walsh reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: The loss of the first F-16 jet certainly a moment of great symbolic importance for Ukraine. Remember, they only have six of these delivered so far out of 80 that the European allies have pledged to supply.

This is something that the Biden administration prevaricated yet again over for months about whether they would provide a clearance needed for these U.S. made jets to be given to Ukraine. Six are there, one is now out of action, crashed. It seems according to Ukraine defense officials, whilst repelling what they referred to as the one of the biggest Russian onslaught against Ukraine of the war for so far, over 200 missiles and drones fired on Monday night, part of over 400 that we've seen over the past days.

That Ukraine defense official saying that the pilot named as Oleksiy Mes call sign Moon Fish seems to have taken out three missiles and a drone in the hours before his plane went down. And what they refer to as a crash, scant details as to how this happened and international experts, Ukraine says, will be invited to probe the details here, but it forms part, I think of questions that may start growing around the compressed nature of the training regime for F-16 pilots. Oleksiy Mes, one of Ukraine's most celebrated and skilled sent to the U.S. to advocate for the delivery of F-16s, and of course, to the very complex nightmare of maintaining these Western aircraft in a war zone where they are target number one, frankly, for Russia.

But the loss of this aircraft comes at a time when Ukraine is desperately trying to turn the narrative in its favor, launching that surprise incursion into Russia's border areas, Kursk region, for three weeks now, taking over 100 settlements with pressure now put on the Belgorod region to Kursk south. Local officials in Russia saying they're actually starting to evacuate people from those border areas too, suggesting Russia may be trying to -- maybe receiving Ukrainian pressure from there as well.

The same time, long-range strikes by Ukraine against oil depots, ammunition sites, airfields, deep inside Russia, even up as far as the Arctic Circle, aviation warnings last week near Murmansk.

And so this forms part I think of a bid by Kyiv to project strength deep inside Russia while at the same time too, asking its Western backers, namely the White House, to provide specific authorization to hit time nuggets inside of Russia, a list of those targets given to the White House. They want to use U.S. supplied longer range weapons to hit certain parts of Russia's infrastructure. Not yet disclosed, but that list also, given to Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, a bit, I think to turn what red lines are around Russia and being a Russia hawk into part of the conversation of the U.S. election campaign.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, throwing everything he can, it seems into the battlefield and the political arena here, trying to seize on the months ahead, ahead of the U.S. election, and likely grueling winter, which may alter Ukraine's fate if indeed someone new comes into the White House or old, who may have a different thought as to how much support Ukraine could be giving. But bear in mind, too, Ukraine seeing setbacks on the eastern front as well near Pokrovsk, with Russia continuing to push forward towards that vital Ukrainian military hub.

[15:25:04]

So a mixed picture Ukraine, but one where its desperately trying to restore control of the narrative.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST: As you and I continue flying the friendly skies, dangerous turbulence forces an emergency landings in Memphis. Some people are injured.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

QUEST: Seven people were injured after severe turbulence forced a United Airlines plane to make an emergency landing on Wednesday.

CNN's Pete Muntean, who's our aviation transportation expert, and also a pilot joins me.

This is the latest instance of dangerous turbulence. How bad was the turbulence? And do we know actually whether it was turbulence? I mean, was it just people not being strapped in?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, United Airlines says that the seat belt sign was on during this case, at 34,000 feet. This flight was over the state of Louisiana on its way from Cancun, Mexico, to Chicago O'Hare, when the crew experience this turbulence, according to United Airlines, and had to divert into Memphis, in Tennessee there.

You can see the fire trucks there in the video just a second ago that met the plane with paramedics at the gate there in Memphis, seven in total, injured, one taken into the hospital, although six of them refused treatment, according to the paramedics.

Here is what is interesting, Richard, and you allude to this in your toss to me, these incidents keep happening with what seems like regularity and there's a lot of question here about whether or not climate change is triggering some of these incidents.

The headlines simply keep happening over and over. Singapore Airlines back in May, 70 injured, one person killed on board a flight that hit severe turbulence in July.

[15:30:06]

An Air Europa flight, 30 injured. And just 10 days ago, an easyJet flight, two crew were injured on that flight. You know, they are some of the most at risk because the flight crew is typically a man walking around and airlines are really trying to beef up their policies when it comes to these incidents, when a flight crew is up and walking around and turbulence happens.

QUEST: It's difficult because particularly on the full-service carriers, all carriers, they want to serve booze and they will serve meals and they want to do a lot. And if I remember, Singapore introduced this idea that when the seat belt signs on, there'll be no service or something like that.

That's not workable over the longer period because -- and the other thing, Pete, which I know is going to enrage pilots all around the country as well as that is captains and first officers forget it switched on and the longer its left on, the more complacent the rest of us becoming think, well, he's forgotten about it. I'll just get up and go to the loop.

MUNTEAN: It's a double-edged sword, right?

QUEST: Yeah.

MUNTEAN: And so I think that people really need to just sort of hear this over and over again. If the seat belt sign is off, keep your seat belt on and tied. It doesn't matter. If you're in the seat, click it. You know, I have to wonder if there was a better way to do this, if you cut off the in-flight entertainment system. If the seat belt zone is on and you're not buckled in or something. There has to be some incentive, some way to sweeten the deal for folks to make it so that they say clicked in.

Even on a short flight. I tried to think about even trying to go to the bathroom ahead of time. So I don't open up the risks of myself. I small airplanes they are buffeted around by turbulence all the time. You're really sort of mandated by the FAA here in the United States as a pilot and the controls to be buckled in.

But really the thing here is for passengers to be buckled and secure. And, of course, there's going to be a question here about what caused these injuries. Was it bags were worried carry on bags or other items. Some of these airlines are issuing glass dish where than if it clocks you in the head, it can make a pretty big bump.

So there are some really big questions here. And, of course, there needs to be some technological advance to make it so that airlines can avoid this and they are pouring more and more investment all the time in the trying to forecast and avoid turbulence so these things don't happen.

QUEST: Under what worst of all, your champagne could spill at the end.

MUNTEAN: That would be a real trend.

QUEST: That will do.

Pete Muntean, very grateful to you. Thank you, sir.

Now, flight attendants at United Airlines have voted to authorize a strike -- and wait for this -- 99.99 percent of them voted yes. I think they're pretty clear on this. The United Flight attendants want better paying and working conditions.

It's not unique to United. American Eagle and Frontier, they're also considering similar action. Don't forget, the job number one for flight attendants, as we've just been hearing is not the champagne at the front. It's to keep you safe.

Look at the flight attendant job description that Delta. The first word you see, safety. Now, "The Washington Post" took a look at pay and working conditions at flight attendants across the industry, and found some facts. Some are facing homelessness and hunger.

Natalie Compton reports on airlines for "The Washington Post". She joins me.

The deep dive of flight attendants, this is all about the fact that they get paid by the amount of -- well, first of all, they're not paid very much to begin with. Secondly, they'll get paid by the amount of time that they are in the air, not sort of sitting around. And if your own reserve not flying, you don't make much money.

What can be done to change that? NATALIE COMPTON, TRAVEL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, right now, the major flight attendant union is bargaining with 14 different airlines to answer just that. They're looking into increased wages. They are also trying to get that pay for when they are working either at the airport or at least during boarding. That's a huge fight for the unions, but it's a multi-front issue for these unions to try to improve working conditions for flight attendants.

QUEST: I'm going to be devil's advocate here. Higher wages for flight attendants has to be paid for either profits from investors or higher fares, the things I know which will pay for it, higher fares?

COMPTON: Well, some of the people that I interviewed did bring up the fact that some of these airlines CEOs are looking at double-digit million dollars bonuses and wonder maybe some of that money be could be used in it in a different way. Of course, that's not a perfect solution, and yes, this could end up being something that travelers are paying for, but ultimately, the unions are saying the airlines have the money. This shouldn't be a problem.

QUEST: As I read your article, excellent article, I was so struck by the tales of just hardship, homelessness, hunger, three, four jobs that people are working. I'm not sure I want the flight attendant who is going to have to get me off the aircraft in an emergency to have been driving all night for Uber and then been doing a Deliveroo.

COMPTON: That's exactly the point. And as you mentioned, the number one responsibility of a flight attendant is safety and it's not to be providing hospitality on a plane. It's to react in an emergency, to react during that severe turbulence and help passengers.

So if you do have a flight attendant who has been driving Lyft all night, hasn't slept and gets called for a flight or just has to do that to make ends meet, you're not having somebody who is at their fresh us to be able to jump to an emergency and you're having a very tired Lyft driver at the same time. So it's a problem all around.

QUEST: And is this, is this predominantly at the regional carriers, the Eagles, the feeder airlines, or does this transmit right the way through due to the main line and really, it's not until you start reaching seniority that you can be making some seriously decent money.

COMPTON: I talked to any flight attendants who kept thinking, if I can suffer through the first 12 years, 11 years of this job, eventually this becomes an amazing career. Some flight attendants, though, they've been in it for 14 years at Alaska airlines or people who have been working for Delta who say, I'm years into this job and I'm still not making it work.

People who have support in another way maybe their spouse has another income or they have income from other streams, it might work out for them in the beginning, but for most people across airlines, this is not just a regional carrier issue. I talked to 18 current and former flight attendants spanning most of the major airlines that you can think of and I found people suffering from just about all of them.

QUEST: Natalie, I'm grateful for your reporting and for bringing it to our attention. Thank you so much. Thank you.

COMPTON: Thank you.

QUEST: As you and I continue our investigation revealing the black market for marijuana. The growing houses popping up in suburban family neighborhoods.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:40:15]

QUEST: Warm welcome back.

A new CNN investigation I want to bring to your attention. Authorities across the USA, family homes in suburban neighborhoods are being used to grow and fuel the black market for marijuana. It's creating a major problem for enforcement, particularly in a state like California, where the growers faced little by way of criminal penalties.

CNN's Kyung Lah reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYUNG LAH, CNN SENIOR. INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This upscale California suburb is a glimpse into an underground world where authorities say a Chinese crime ring feeds America's black market.

Doors and windows heavily fortified at three different homes on the same block in this bedroom community of San Francisco. When officers finally break through, inside, it's a massive marijuana farm. These are family homes worth nearly a million dollars, the interior unrecognizable. Every part of the home used to grow weed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This was probably a nursery is my guess. Just based off of the way it's set up.

LAH: Windows boarded up to control the light. A massive ventilation system running full blast. Intricate electrical setups to power lights and fans. A generator in the laundry room.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody hold that up here.

LAH: Mold can be seen growing on walls and ceilings. Runoff into makeshift drains. And room after room after room filled with marijuana.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can't even tell this is a master bedroom.

KEVIN MCINERNEY, COMMANDER, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CANNABIS CONTROL'S LAW ENFORCEMENT DIVISION: It's easy to disguise it here. You're not growing outside, you're growing indoors. And as long as the house looks nice and the yard's taken care of, nobody's going to question what's going on inside.

LAH: Investigators say this bus snagged more than a million dollars' worth of illegal weed cultivated by unlicensed growers, using chemicals without regard for safety that end up in the plants. Despite the growth of the legalized marijuana industry, most pot is still sold on the illegal black market.

California produces about 40 percent of the nation's weed. Much of what's grown here will be shipped across the country and sold far cheaper than legal weed.

LAH: How many houses have you hit in Antioch?

BILL JONES, CHIEF, CALIFORNIA DEPARTMENT OF CANNABIS CONTROL'S LAW ENFORCEMENT DIVISION: About 50.

LAH: How many more might exist in Antioch?

JONES: Somewhere between one to 200 houses.

LAH: Up to 200 that they think they know of. Law enforcement says this criminal enterprise can operate in California more easily than anywhere else in the country. Because California law says illegally growing weed is just a misdemeanor in most cases.

MCINERNEY: It's relatively low risk, huge reward.

LAH: This whether you have one plant or a truck full of plants, what is the penalty in California?

MCINERNEY: It's a misdemeanor in California.

LAH: And that offers an opportunity, says law enforcement, for organized crime. Inside these suburban grow houses on walls and doors, instructions in Chinese.

CNN reviewed Antioch search warrants as well as online property records and found that in nearly every grow house busted in Antioch, almost all of them go back to a Chinese owner or occupant.

JONES: It's really the Chinese criminal syndicate that's dominant.

LAH: Why would the Chinese cartel care about marijuana?

JONES: Because it's so lucrative. It is a very profitable crop.

LAH: And it's not just in California.

CHRISTOPHER WRAY, FBI DIRECTOR: We are starting to see, as we unpack this, more ties between a lot of these growing operations and Chinese organized crime.

LAH: Twenty-two states have illegal grow operations, says Senator Susan Collins, a member of the Intelligence Committee, including her state of Maine.

SEN. SUSAN COLLINS (R-ME): Why are Chinese transnational criminal groups here in the United States, buying up these homes and growing illegal marijuana in them? It's difficult for me to believe that there isn't some sort of plot involved. LAH: How much of this bleeds into a national security issue?

COLLINS: I believe it does pose a serious national security threat as well as a public health risk.

LAH: Back in California, we learn there's even more financial incentive for illegal growers.

LAH: It's been about two months since the grow houses were busted. We've learned that one of the houses is going back on the market.

[15:45:00]

And today is the open house.

A manicured home with the "for sale" sign listed for just under a million dollars, flipped, since that day, we watched law enforcement swarm in.

Hello. Hi, are you Susanna Huang?

Susanna Huang is a real estate agent listing this open house, and the agent who sold three other suspected grow houses in this area. She owns one of those homes, where authorities found more than $900,000 of marijuana last year. Her attorney tells CNN a house she owns was busted by the state, but it was being rented at the time and she was not involved in any illegal activity.

My name is Kyung Lah and I'm a correspondent with CNN. We're recording here. I just wanted to talk...

SUSANNA HUANG, REAL ESTATE AGENT: No, I'm not feeling comfortable.

LAH: Huang did not want to speak on camera, but she did invite us to come inside this home she's listed, to record video on our cell phone and take a look at this immaculately cleaned up space, the dramatic makeover seen in the master bathroom before and after. The house is listed for $200,000 more than the owner paid for it.

BILL TILSON, RESIDENT: Now they're going to make money off the houses as well as they resell them.

LAH: Bill Tilson lives on this block.

TILSON: What's deterring them from setting up shops someplace else? They got to recover their equipment. So now they just pick another location and do the same thing. Oh, bummer, we got a misdemeanor and then they'll do the same thing and on and on and on. So it's, you know, whack-a-mole.

LAH: One of the houses we saw raided that day is owned by an Oakland police officer, Samson Liu. Cannabis Control tells us that what they found inside the house was 80 pounds of illicit marijuana trimmings and they were stuffed in garbage bags.

The home had been extensively modified for cultivation and it also had been fortified from the inside. Cannabis Control adds that it doesn't know whether Liu was living in the home at the time or it had been rented out to tenants, citing an ongoing investigation.

We reached out to the Oakland Police Department who says that since the raid, Samson Liu has been placed on administrative leave. They are cooperating with outside law enforcement and treating this as a personnel matter. We did try to reach Officer Liu both in person, over the phone, as well as in email. We did not hear back.

Kyung Lah, CNN, Minneapolis.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

QUEST: As we continue to go, the significance of the chip-making giant Nvidia's quarterly earnings report, 122 percent increase in the share price is down. Now, either the market is contrarian or they know something the rest of us don't.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

QUEST: A warm, welcome back.

Now I can escape to some thicker ice. The tech company in the videos, second quarter earnings, they were up dramatically 122 percent compared to the previous. Nvidia works in A.I. and their chips are amongst them -- the most popular, propelling companies to new heights and becoming Nvidia only one of three U.S. companies valued at more than $3 trillion.

Rana is with me, Rana Foroohar, CNN's global economic analyst and columnist for "The Financial Times".

Okay. All right. Let's be clear here. Let's just be clear.

Good results. Not strong kingly brilliant. Beat expectations and the market put marks down the stock which has been overhyped. It's depressing in a sense.

RANA FOROOHAR, CNN GLOBAL ECONOMIC ANALYST: Oh, it is. I mean, we've talked about this before. I thought that Nvidia's price signaled certainly a short-term bubble in A.I.

I mean, I think its really hard to argue when you get earnings outperforming expectations, even if its just by a little bit and, all right, there's been maybe one or two problems. There has been some delays and one of the key chips, it's not enough to send share prices down in this way.

I think what you've got is peak hype over A.I. having already passed, in fact, I saw an interesting just to say, I saw an interesting chart the other day showing that news media reports about A.I. actually peaked months ago.

So I think that we're on the tail end of a hype cycle here.

QUEST: Right. There are two sides, is what it tells us about A.I. and what it tells us about Nvidia per se.

Now what it tells us about A.I. is that companies are cutting back. They're not making money that they thought they were going to make. No one doubts that they will and that the thing will well look better in the future.

FOROOHAR: Right.

QUEST: But this is really classic and it's not -- it's not even tulip mania because that was nonsense. This is just hype that's being unwound.

FOROOHAR: Right, right, absolutely. I think about it more like a dot- com bubble in the sense that okay, way back when and you and I cover these things in the late '90s, you had pets.com, but you also had millions of miles of new fiber -- fiber optic cable being laid. And so there was a "there" there but there was also a lot of hype on top of it.

And then there was something in the middle which is stories and technologies that were, as you say, going to be profitable eventually but were not worth what they were trading at in the short term. And eventually the market shakes that out.

QUEST: I want to turn to Kamala Harris, her economic policies. We'll hear later the interview.

How much of her economic policies needs fleshing out? The raw bones, the principles are all there, but we don't know how she's going to pay for the tax cut, you know, the spending increases. We don't know the detail and at the moment it seems like it doesn't add up.

FOROOHAR: Yeah. Well, it's interesting, you know, this is actually the topic of my Monday column in the "FT" upcoming. I think there's a couple of things going on.

One, she's not going to give us a lot more detail on the campaign trail because I think this may be politically astute that she simply doesn't want to lose swing voters at this point that she wanted to wants to be above the fray. It's a short cycle. This is a matter of days to campaign.

All right, that's understandable. What I think the deeper issue is, is that is she going to be a systems thinker? Is she's somebody that's going to connect the dots? Because I look at something like her price gouging plan, for example, which is saying, you know, it's kind of a nod -- a populist nod to consumers that have been halted by food inflation, which by the way has gone down recently.

But it doesn't get at the deep problem, which is to my mind really not in grocery stores. It's in a handful of global commodities traders that have these periods of financial speculation every time there's an opportunity, be at a pandemic with supply chain issues, be at war in Ukraine. That's a systemic issue. That's a financial issue.

I could go on and say (INAUDIBLE) QUEST: Right. Thank you very much. Rana, good to see you. I'm grateful. Thank you very much.

Now, before we go, in just a few hours time, you can watch Vice President Harris's first sit down interview since President Biden dropped out of the race. She and Tim Walz, her vice presidential nominee, will be with Dana Bash together. The program airs, of course, at 9:00 Eastern -- East Coast Time, and you could walk it out where you are as five hours to you at U.K., six hours to Europe, so on and so forth.

I thank you for your kind, generous attention today. I'm Richard Quest. I'll be back in just a few moments. More "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" after this.