Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

Biden: Israel Isn't "Going To Make A Decision Immediately" On Possible Iran Retaliation; One Million Displaced In Lebanon, 235,000 Flee To Syria; Trump Joins Georgia Governor Kemp For First Appearance Since 2020 Rift; Iran's Supreme Leader: Will Attack Israel Again "If Needs Be"; Harris Campaign Launches New Ad Targeting Latinos. Aired 3- 4p ET

Aired October 04, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:34]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: It's 8:00 p.m. in London, 12:00 p.m. in Las Vegas, 10:00 p.m. here in Tel Aviv.

I'm Jim Sciutto. Thanks so much for joining me today on CNN NEWSROOM. And let's get right to the news.

President Joe Biden just addressed the press for the first time in many -- in a long time amid the heightened tensions in the Middle East, one week after Israel assassinated Hezbollah's longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Biden defended Israel's right to defend itself.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Israelis have every right to respond to the vicious attacks on them, not just from the Iranians, but from everyone -- from Hezbollah, Houthis -- anyway. And -- but the fact is that they have to be very much more careful about dealing with civilian casualties.

REPORTER: So how should they respond? You express concerns about attacks on Iranian oil facilities. How should they respond?

BIDEN: That's between me and them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Between me and them, he says. Biden said how Israel response to Iran's ballistic missile attack early this week is, and this is crucial, he says still under discussion. But he did advise, and this is notable as well, that he doesn't want Israel to strike Iran's oil fields.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: If I were in those shoes, I'd be thinking about other alternatives than striking oil fields.

(END VIDEO CLIP) SCIUTTO: That's notable because yesterday, he seemed to leave the door open to that and that led to a jump in oil prices. So as Israel weighs how to respond to the Iranian attack, it is still continuing, it's ongoing war in Lebanon, eliminating targeting Hezbollah fighters and leadership overnight, Israel struck Beirut multiple times, once again, in one of those strikes targeting a potential successor to the late leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, unclear if that successor was killed.

For the first time in years, Iran's supreme leader led the country in Friday prayers, publicly vowing that Hamas and Hezbollah, he says will never be defeated.

We will go live to the White House shortly, first to Ben Wedeman, who is in Beirut, Nic Robertson here in Tel Aviv.

Nic, listening to President Biden's comments there, two things stood out to me. One, the president saying Israel has not yet made a decision, but to also some public discouragement there you might call it for Israel to attack Iran's oil facilities.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Yeah. And I think we got a sense of that today, Jim, from the deputy military commander in Iran, discussing how Iran might actually respond. He talked about how Iran is a vast country three, implying that it will be very hard for Israel to sort of land a knockout punch on it, so to speak. And he said he talked about Israel said they got three power generating facilities and a couple of oil refineries. And he said, we, Iran can hit all of those.

So I think the messaging coming back from Iran, they've been listening very clearly --

SCIUTTO: I'm sure.

ROBERTSON: -- to what the White House has been saying and the messaging coming from some people here as well that there's -- that their oil facilities could be -- you know, could be targets. And what they'll do about it.

So you've got the sort of military escalation point of view of it. So what is President Biden leaving on the table for Israel? And we know that he's already pushed back on targeting nuclear facilities. So what else does that leave? Well, military, political, maybe.

(CROSSTALK)

SCIUTTO: (INAUDIBLE) installations, air defense installations perhaps.

ROBERTSON: And it all leaves the door open again for continued escalations. But the fact that the discussion since have been going on for some time, and President Biden didn't really seem to give an indication that at all that the discussions between the White House and Netanyahu were really can concluded that it sounded a little open- ended to me. SCIUTTO: No question. There's still in progress, at least that's the

U.S. perspective. We don't know what Israel's view or characterization of that would be.

Ben, we should note that while Israel still considering its response to Iran, it is quite well into really an unrelenting campaign against targets across Lebanon. Tell us what you've been seeing there and what that has meant for Hezbollah both at -- both its leadership, but also its members, its fighters across the country.

[15:05:02]

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the other day, we were in the southern suburbs of Beirut going on a Hezbollah media tour and the message was clearly that we're still here. We're still in control. That we're still striking the Israelis and certainly the Iranian strike on Israel was kind of a morale boost for Hezbollah because increasingly, there was a feeling among many people, including supporters of Hezbollah that Iran had in a sense abandoned them, that they were being mauled by the Israelis starting with those pager attacks and everything they came after, and people were starting to wonder where are the Iranians who are our great allies.

So they seem to have had a resurgence of confidence also, given that they are inflicting heavy casualties on Israelis in South Lebanon. But there's lots of questions swirling around here in Beirut. For instance, Hassan Nasrallah, is he ever going to have a funeral? Has he been buried? Has he not been buried? And who's this successor?

You know, there's two names swirling around. There's Hashem Safieddine, who's the head of the political council, or rather the executive council which deals with political matters, somebody pretty much the same age as Nasrallah, same background, they studied together in Iran. And then there's Naim Qassim who we actually saw speaking in the southern suburbs for the funeral of Ibrahim Aqil, one of the senior military commanders who was assassinated by the Israelis some two weeks -- ten days ago, roughly.

And so, certainly, Hezbollah has sort of seems to have regained a bit of confidence, but the question is, are they going to name a leader or perhaps? Because Israel's relentless campaign of killing senior members of the organization, they might just keep it on the low down until perhaps there's a ceasefire or end of the war. God knows when that's going to be. But they seem to be able to function.

And what's interesting in all of this? This is despite the blows Hezbollah has received here in Beirut, they seem to be still functioning in the south of the country with their attacks on Israeli forces that are trying to enter the country. There still firing rockets into Israel. They put out a statement saying that some of those rockets had reached as many as 150 kilometers inside the country. Now, take it all with a pinch of salt. But they may have been beaten, but they're not out of the game yet, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, and one might imagine that whoever replaces Nasrallah he might not want his name out there either. Nic Robertson, President Biden describes a lengthening timeline for a

decision on Israel's response, that's his view. Is it your sense from speaking to Israelis that they have the same lack of urgency?

ROBERTSON: I don't think so. I think there's a sense here that are responses required and the window opportunity to do it should be fan pretty quickly. When were back in April, when Iran struck, there was a sense that if Iran was to do that again, Israel would fire by even before the incoming missiles have landed.

Well, they didn't do that. They kind of miss that window but I think the sense is here you're going to have to do that in fairly short order to have that convincing and credible deterrence. I mean, this is, this is the mantra that's -- that underscores Israel's fundamental understanding of survival in the region. You have to be the meanest actor --

SCIUTTO: Right.

ROBERTSON: -- to deter the others although the other players, they have their own measures of their own deterrence as well. And there's a constant back-and-forth.

Nic Robertson, Ben Wedeman in Beirut, thanks so much.

Joining us now from the White House is CNN senior White House correspondent, Kayla Tausche -- actually, we'll hold off on going to the White House.

First, I want to go to retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, CNN military analyst, former commanding general for U.S. Army Europe, also commanded forces in Iraq.

So, General Hertling, it's interesting. You have President Biden here and clearly, not just the White House, but U.S. military officials are talking to those Israeli counterparts on the way forward, at least given their recommendations, they don't have veto power, but they're giving the recommendations.

And we know the U.S. is trying to guide Iran -- Israel away rather from both nuclear sites, and now it seems oil facilities. So what consequential targets does that leave in your view for Israel to strike in retaliation in a proportional way or a way that re- establishes deterrence?

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: A couple of things, Jim. First of all, I'd say that, you know, having done targeting processes, it's a very difficult requirement to get just the right targets, especially in response to this kind of action.

[15:10:04]

I think it was interesting to hear President Biden say that he wouldn't advise them to go after the energy facilities, but there's a whole lot more than just the oil fields. And as we all know, Iran depends on their energy infrastructure for most of their GDP. So what we're talking about is the potential for going after other

resources. And I'd say, if -- you mentioned air defense, they have to do that in order to strike any other targets. So they have to go against a limited air defense capability and limited electronic warfare capability to allow for a path for their fighters.

What then?

Well, weapons manufacturing facilities, the places that make the rockets and the missiles, and the kinds of things that they're not only using but shipping to their proxies Hezbollah and Hamas, as well as the Houthis. So you could see the potential of a destruction capability against drone manufacturing or missile or rocket manufacturing. And in my view, that would be a great target because as Israel goes after the proxies and literally damages the capability for Iran to go forward with those forces that are based closest to Israel and continue the action, they're not only striking the leadership, and the individuals that are part of those organizations to get their supply chains would be a very good thing as well.

So, you know, again, the targeting process is difficult because he said, don't go after the oil fields, doesn't know, doesn't mean he's not going after the oil storage facilities or some of the other energy systems within Iran. But I don't think we're going to see the Israelis go against any of the nuclear capability, you know, the attempts for Iran to drive nuclear weapon happens productions.

SCIUTTO: There is definitely a camp inside this country that would very much like to go after the nuclear facilities. And it does seem just in my own conversations with Israeli officials, that's at least -- and those an extreme option, certainly, that's at least on the table.

It had long been my impression that Israel needed American help, military help, to go after Iran's nuclear sites, in a decisive way. But the more I speak to folks both here in back in the U.S., it doesn't sound like that's the case anymore. Could -- could Israel move forward in a decisive way against Iranian nuclear sites without any U.S. military support?

HERTLING: Well, what I'd say given the intelligence I know, Jim, and I'm limited in having a read of this classified documents, but there's an indicator that Iran is going away from nuclear weapons capability development and even if they were continuing their development, which many intelligence sources says they're not, it could be possible that, you know, they're just -- the targets are too tough to hit with kinetic action. And what I mean by that is aircraft or missile capabilities.

So, you know, just because there's no bombs going off right now, are no strikes going on, doesn't mean that Israel's been silent. They have other ways, other covert means, and perhaps even cyber means to go after Iranian capabilities.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, it's a great point. Let's talk for a moment before you go about what is already very well

underway, and that is a greatly expanded Israeli war inside Lebanon, both from the air and on the ground. We're seeing strikes across Beirut going after Hezbollah leadership in quite populated areas. We saw a strike on the Syria-Lebanon border, going after what Israeli said was a transit point for weapons to Hezbollah. And, of course, you have a ground -- a ground operation in the south.

You know, that ground operation was described as limited. What I'm seeing take place in Lebanon right now and look at those pictures. It does not look limited to me. I mean, Israel waging war on Lebanon right now to attempt to debilitate Hezbollah.

HERTLING: I think they are certainly attempting to debilitate and destroy the capabilities of Hezbollah. What we're looking at now, Jim, that picture that's going back and forth as well, we in the military call a soda straw. You're seeing one point of the battlefield some people will draw conclusions from that one point, but what we've also seen is Israel has been Wedeman said, Hezbollah has launched over 100 missiles and drones at Israel today. They have struck different targets within Israel. They -- as Israelis go across in these limited operations, they're finding arms cache, and supply caches in various neighborhoods in residential houses and in hospitals, and in schools.

So what were seeing that looks like devastation and it's certainly is, is more of Hezbollah's use of civilians -- civilian facilities to house their ammunition and supplies. I saw that in combat in Iraq, it's the same kind of thing terrorist organizations do around the world.

[15:15:04]

They use civilian infrastructure so they can blame the aggressor in this case, Israel, on damaging and harming civilians, when in fact, they are putting their equipment in these facilities. The one other thing you didn't mention, Jim, is Israel, which I found very interesting is Israel attacks on Syrian supply dumps where Russians were involved just a few days ago. And I think that's a very strong signal to the Russians.

To quit taking Iranian arms and shipping them to different locations that support terrorist organization.

SCIUTTO: That stood out for me as well, and it was an example to of a potential escalation, right, because that was quite close to Russian forces in Syria.

General Mark Hertling, thanks so much.

All right. So we will go to the White House now, CNN senior White House correspondent Kayla Tausche.

And, Kayla, it was unusual to see President Biden walk up to the podium there, sounded like he wanted to tout the job numbers, but was there a deliberate effort there to walk back his comments yesterday regarding Israeli potential strikes on Iranian oil facilities. KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, certainly, I think the White House was aware of the chaos that was taking place in the markets after he appeared to leave the door open to that price of oil spiked, stock market cratered for a time there. And so, yes, he did field a number of questions about the situation in the Middle East and the potential for escalation or further inflammation in the region.

But he talked at length about what he saw is an appropriate response. And he suggested that the Israelis looked for what he described as alternatives to striking Iran's oil reserves, in the same way that he appeared to be completely opposed earlier in the week to Israel striking Iran's nuclear facilities.

He also said that he does not believe that Israel has concluded how they're going to respond. And then he believes that there's going to be a little bit more time.

And, Jim, he also bristled at the suggestion by a reporter that he was wanting to talk to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and had not been able to and suggested that they would talk when it was time and when Israel had concluded how it was going to respond. He said that there has been no better friend to Israel than his administration.

When asked whether he thought that the reason why Israel was pumping the brakes on ceasefire talks both in Lebanon and in Gaza was because he, Netanyahu, wanted to put his thumb on the scale of the U.S. election and President Biden did not engage in that line of questioning. And that's when he said that there's been no better at her friend than his administration.

So we covered quite a bit of ground as it pertains to the Middle East, even as you mentioned the purported purpose of him stepping out behind the lectern in the briefing room for the first time in more than 3.5 years, was to talk about the economy, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Kayla, I wonder, on that point, he didn't answer the question there. But when you speak to others in the White House, do they suspect that the Israeli -- privately that the Israeli prime minister might be trying to influence the election based on decisions here and the course of the war here?

TAUSCHE: It's sort of an unspoken suggestion, Jim. But the more discussed dynamic is that Netanyahu has simply has his own domestic political situation to contend with. And that it's simply not popular for him and the farther right flank of his government to stop the conflict or the multiple fronts that they now have ongoing in the region and that its his own political calculus in his own country that's driving him, not necessarily what happens here.

SCIUTTO: And there are some Israelis who say quite the same thing.

Kayla Tausche, thanks so much at the White House.

Well, for every airstrike, the lives of many thousands of people are irreversibly changed. For those in Lebanon, the images of Gaza and the war there are certainly not far from their minds as the scenes from their own country mimic the destruction we saw there, 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon in the past three weeks. That surpasses the entire death toll from the 2006, Israel Hezbollah war. A fifth of its population has now displaced, at least 235 people have fled into Syria -- 235,000 people have fled into Syria to escape the chaos and carnage, a route that is now significantly harder looking at those pictures there after an Israeli airstrike on one of the key border crossings.

Arwa Damon is the founder and president of in INARA, an International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance. She's currently in Beirut.

I wonder, and it's good to have you. It's good to have you, Arwa.

An air warfare expert told CNN that Israel's bombardment of Lebanon is the most intense aerial campaign outside of Gaza in the last two decades. You did a lot of work in Gaza. You saw the enormous human toll there.

[15:20:03]

Are you seeing something that is close to a repeat now in Lebanon?

ARWA DAMON, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, INARA: Well, there certainly a lot of echoes of what Gaza has been through and that is obviously the prevalence fear here, because even though the Lebanese have a variety of diverse opinions about everything, there is one thing that they all do agree on and that is that no matter what it is that Israel does, the U.S. and the West continue to support it, and it's not just in the intensity of the bombing, it's also what many will point to as being what is actually struck.

And Israeli's choice of use of bombs. You know, we've seen a number of strikes on the city of Beirut that have actually been very targeted where its just the apartment that is struck in the entire building doesn't come crumbling down. But then you look at the vast majority of the bombs that are being dropped here, and they're massive. They're bringing down entire apartment buildings, and just about everything else that is around it.

We also see it in some of the other things that Israel is targeting. For example, water pumping stations, four of them have been targeted according to UNICEF. And then at least one instance, a team of mechanic that went to try to repair, one of them was targeted as well. If we look at what's happening (VIDEO GAP) at least ten medical facilities have been targeted. Some of them have been damaged.

You have more than 100 health care workers that have been killed. One of my INARA staff actually, two of her cousins worked with Lebanon's civil defense and they were killed while they were on their way to try to help and rescue others.

So there are so many instances here (AUDIO GAP) is Gaza that is happening again, people are terrified. SCIUTTO: A hundred twenty-seven children killed in less than three weeks in Lebanon, nearly half of the people in Lebanon's emergency shelters are children, as we said earlier. The death toll of these three weeks of this Israeli operation already exceeds what we saw on 2006 along the Lebanese population. Tell us how INARA is managing to help you and other humanitarian organizations.

How do you manage in the midst of all this?

DAMON: It's extraordinarily difficult because no matter what you do, it's -- it's never enough. Look, I just got back from southern Lebanon actually. I was inside that all day delivering mattresses delivering them to people who are especially vulnerable, so people who were actually sleeping the orchards, people who were crammed and had managed to find a room, but they were sleeping on a concrete floor.

And as we're out there and people see us with mattresses more and more, just keep coming at you because nobody here right now can keep up with the humanitarian need and it ranges from, you know, mattresses to food, to clean water, to hygiene kits, to clothing. So many people have fled with just the clothing on their backs and many of them are also carrying with them deep, deep, deep psychological trauma, not just the fear of what they went through, but also, again, it all goes back to Gazans saying, what happened in Gaza. And this already is a country that over the last five years has been through so much.

And it's still very much (AUDIO GAP) right now, is shelter (AUDIO GAP) there's another challenge --

SCIUTTO: I think we're losing the audio there a bit from Arwa Damon.

Apologies, but it's important report from Arwa on the human cost of all this. We appreciate it her joining and we certainly appreciate the work of INARA, the organization she now leads.

Please do stay with us. We'll be back with more news

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:27:04]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back.

Former President Trump is in Georgia today, being briefed on Hurricane Helene damage and recovery efforts. The storm killed at least 33 people in that state. Trump will also hold a news conference shortly with Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. He will then attend a town hall in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which is where we find Steve -- CNN's Steve Contorno.

Steve, notable for Trump to appear alongside Kemp given they have quite publicly been at odds about the 2020 election Trump lying that he did not lose. Kemp steadfastly and as Republicans saying that, well, in fact, you did lose the state.

Tell us about their meeting today. Have they buried the hatchet? STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: Yeah, Jim, this is actually the first

time they're going to be in a room together since Trump tried to pressure Kemp and other Republicans in the state of Georgia to overturn the 2020 election. He has had a very fractured relationship with Kemp and the other Republicans in the state ever since. In fact, just this summer, Trump at a rally called Kemp, a quote, bad guy saying he is a disloyal guy and he's a very average governor. I can't think of a bigger insult that Trump can use for someone then it called them disloyal.

But they have very the hatchet in the name of winning this election, Trump has been using Kemp's political apparatus to try to help his campaign in Georgia, which is in a tough fight there and now they're having this event side-by-side. As you said from there, he will come to Fayetteville for a town hall. This is a military community. This is close to Fort Liberty and you can expect that a lot of the country sirens in the audience will be from military families.

Of course, this is also home to, like I said, Fort Liberty, which has been changed, which was formerly known as Fort Bragg, named after the disgraced former confederate general. Trump when in office blocked a bill that would have changed it away from that confederate general's name, and he has promised as many Republicans have urged him to change it back if he is elected.

SCIUTTO: Tomorrow, Trump's going to return to Butler, Pennsylvania, of course, the site of that first quite close assassination attempt when he was wounded. Lots of guests going to be there, including Elon Musk, as well the family of the man who was killed during that shooting. What does the campaign have planned for that visit?

CONTORNO: Yeah. That's right, Jim. Elon Musk will be there who notably endorsed Donald Trump publicly soon after the attempted assassination back in July. In fact, Musk has since then really turned X, his social media platform, into a very pro-Trump platform ever since that event, doubling down on Donald Trump's campaign.

He will also be joined by J.D. Vance. This will be Vance's first time at the site since he was chosen to be the Republican nominee, and since the assassination attempts and as you said, the family of the victim who was killed in that attempt will be there as well.

[15:30:03]

So Trump has been vowing for weeks to return to this site. He has said he will not be deterred by the attempt on his life there. And this is him saying that he can he will not back down in the face of threats and it's notable as well because this is occurring just one month until the November 5th election, Jim.

SCIUTTO: That's right. Steve Contorno, following the campaign, thanks so much.

Well, Vice President Kamala Harris returned to the swing state of Michigan today, where she held an event in just the last hour in Detroit. She's now on her way to Flint in this visit. Her focus on the economy as well as the cost of living particularly she says for the middle-class.

Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will always put the middle-class and working families first. I come from the middle-class and I will never forget where I come from.

(APPLAUSE)

HARRIS: I will never forget meet where I come from.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Later in the day, Harris is going to meet with Arab American and Muslim leaders in the state. That's, of course, quite key because there has been a great deal of criticism from those voters of the Biden administration policy here in the Middle East.

Back in Washington, Harris got a boost from President Joe Biden, who called her a major player on everything during that visit to the briefing room, we were discussing earlier. He said on the current crises, both here in the Middle East, but also the hurricane aftermath in the U.S. their offices are in lockstep saying, quote we were singing from the same song sheet, talking about the vice president.

We will be right back on what Iran is saying about possible Israeli retaliation. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:35:06]

SCIUTTO: Welcome back.

As the Middle East braces for Israel's response to Iran's missile attack early this week, Iran's supreme leader issued yet another stark warning to Israel. It will attack again he says, if need be.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen, he's made multiple reporting trips to Iran and he filed this report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's certainly a big deal for the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to himself be holding and leading the Friday prayers in Tehran. We certainly saw on some of those images that were coming in from the Mosalla compound in Tehran with the grand mosque that they were thousands of people apparently in attendance there, a lot of them, of course, with Palestinian flags, a lot of them also with Hezbollah flags as well.

And if we look at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, one of the things that we have to keep in mind is that he was very close to the leader of Hezbollah, to Hassan Nasrallah, and certainly over the past couple of years, we've heard a lot of support coming from the supreme leader for the Hezbollah organization, and specifically for Hassan Nasrallah, one of the interesting things about all this is, this is the first time that the supreme leader has held the Friday prayers, himself at that compound since 2020, with the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, who, of course, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad.

And Soleimani and the Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah and the supreme leader were known to have extremely close and extremely important relations. And so, therefore, the supreme leader also said that he wanted to rally support among Muslim nations against Israel, and again, since the United States. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AYATOLLAH ALI KHAMENEI, SUPREME LEADER OF IRAN (through translator): I'm stating that the enemy of the Iranian nation is the enemy of the Palestinian nation, the same enemy of the Lebanese nation, the same government is the enemy or the Iraqi nation, the enemy of the Egyptian nation, the enemy of the Syrian nation, the enemy of the Yemeni nation. The enemy is one, the ways of the enemy in different countries is different.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PLEITGEN: Now, all this comes as tensions remain extremely high in the Middle East and the Iranians certainly are bracing for what could be a massive strike by the Israelis in retaliation for those Iranian missile strikes on two Israeli territory.

And the supreme leader picked up on that as well. He said that he believes that the strikes that Iran conducted, whereas he put it legitimate and were in self-defense. He also warned the Israelis that there would be a severe response from Iran if they did strike back at Iranian territory. And the deputy commander of the Revolutionary Guard also said that if the Israeli strike Iran's energy infrastructure, the Iranians might in turn strike Israel's energy infrastructure.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Berlin.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Coming up, former President Trump's newest false claim. He says FEMA is running out of money as recovery efforts are underway following the destruction from Hurricane Helene in the Southeast. We're going to fact check his claim.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:41:21]

SCIUTTO: As Donald Trump surveys hurricane damage in Georgia, he and his right-wing allies are pushing yet one more false debunked claim. This one about federal emergency relief dollars.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They've given over a billion dollars to illegal migrants had came in and now they have no money for North Carolina, for Georgia, for South Carolina, and Alabama, Tennessee, and Florida

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: To be clear, that's not true. The latest though, in the escalation of rhetoric by Trump and the GOP targeting immigrants, most notably with Trump and his running mate J.D. Vance's false claims about Haitian migrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio. That was never true, but it's led to Trump now saying that he would revoke temporary protected status for Haitians fleeing a country that's becoming engulfed in gang violence.

Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We'll have to remove the people and you have to bring them back to their own country.

They are in my opinion, it's not legal.

REPORTER: So you would revoke the temporary protected status.

TRUMP: Absolutely. I'd revoke it, then I'd bring 'em back to their country.

REPORTER: What if they won't receive them, if they do not?

TRUMP: They will. Well, they're going to receive them. If I bring them back, they're going to receive them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: All right. So the facts, with me now, Aaron Reichlin- Melnick, he's a senior fellow at the American Immigration council, an expert on immigration law.

Let's start first with the essence of the claim that FEMA is broke because this administration spent billions of dollars on migrants. Is that true or false?

AARON REICHLIN-MELNICK, SENIOR FELLOW, AMERICAN IMMIGRATION COUNCIL: This is completely false. FEMA has said that it has sufficient funds to address the immediate emergency needs of North Carolinians and Appalachians who are suffering from Hurricane Helene. And it is not out of money because of supporting migrants.

There is a small fund which provides some reimbursement. The state and local governments that are responding to migration, that money comes actually out of Customs and Border Protection, and it only administered by FEMA. And it's less than 1 percent of what FEMA has budgeted every single year for the disaster relief fund. SCIUTTO: Yeah. I mean, that's a classic conspiracy theory, right? You think a small facts, maybe there's a grain of truth in there, elevated into something bigger which is not true.

Okay, let's -- let's talk to -- talk about Trump saying he would revoke temporary protected status for Haitians. Now, to be clear for folks watching, that's a legal program. It's been around for decades. In fact, it was passed with bipartisan support.

It provides people with the ability to temporarily live and work legally in the U.S. when it's unsafe to return to their home countries. We should note, 16 countries are now eligible.

I want to ask you first, what latitude would Trump have if you were to be elected president to remove Haiti specifically from what we should note is the list under the law today of those who are covered by this program, could he just say, hey, you guys are off the list, go home?

REICHLIN-MELNICK: Crucially, a temporary protected status is an executive authority. Congress created the program and gave it the authority to the executive branch to decide who gets temporary protected status and when it should end.

So right now, the more than 200,000 Haitians who are in the country with PPF are set to have that status expire in February of 2026. So the administrate any administration could simply choose not to extend the program after which everybody who has the status would lose and become potentially undocumented.

[15:45:07]

So far, we have actually never seen in the 24 years in which TPS has existed, an administration simply revoked PPF before it expired. And it would likely draw immediate legal challenges.

But in short, it is an executive authority and any president could direct the secretary of DHS to potentially terminate the program.

SCIUTTO: So, the fact of this, though, would be that he would send them back to a country Haiti right now. And by the way, CNN has done a lot of reporting of the situation on the ground there, which is basically run by violent gangs, right? But would he then have to deport them, walk them out of the country by force?

REICHLIN-MELNICK: Yeah, crucially, if people lose TPS, they don't immediately go home.

They become undocumented. And so, what would happen is you'd have potentially up to 250,000 people who would lose their status and become undocumented. These people, many of whom entered the country legally and have never been out of status, would then happen to be placed into immigration court proceedings where they would face backlogs up to four years long before the U.S. government could get a removal order and legally deport them.

So it's not as simple as revoking the status. SCIUTTO: Interesting.

REICHLIN-MELNICK: Some people, of course, could go home, but most people would probably just become undocumented.

SCIUTTO: That's notable. Sometimes, it's not as simple as Trump says. Some, some in the U.S. have said, well, why don't Haitians just go to the Dominican Republic if they need refuge? This week, the Dominican Republican said they would actually begin deporting Haitians already there, citing an excess of immigrants.

So what's happening between the Dominican Republic and Haiti right now?

REICHLIN-MELNICK: Well, Dominican Haitian relations have been strained for a very long time, especially on migration. Last decade, the Dominican Republic carried out mass deportation campaigns against many Haitians within the community revising their birthright citizenship law, effectively, meaning that there were tens of thousands of people who had been born in the Dominican Republic of Haitian descent, who ended up facing deportation and being forced to go back to Haiti.

So their relationship between those country and the animosity between those nations is longstanding. And the idea that patients could simply go to the Dominican Republic is not really accurate.

SCIUTTO: Well, that's why we brought you on. Give us the facts.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, thanks so much for helping us out.

REICHLIN-MELNICK: Thank you for having me

SCIUTTO: Please do stay with us. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: More than 1 million Americans across 30 states have already cast their ballots for president. This election is already very much underway and it is time now for our battlefield -- battleground breakdown.

These are seven toss-up states who will decide who is in the White House for the next four years. They are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Every week from now until the big day, November 5, we're going to be speaking to experts across those states.

Today, it's the Silver State.

[15:50:00]

Nevada that has gone blue in the last four presidential elections, but by smaller and smaller margins. Biden only won by two points. And in the midterms, voters actually sent a Republican, the governor's mansion there. That GOP win was fueled by economic concerns. This time, both Trump and Harris are fighting to win voters over on that key issue.

One pitch, they both embraced: ending taxes on tips. That is a play very much for those Nevada swing voters. So, who will win them in November?

Joining me now to discuss is Tabitha Mueller, a politics reporter for "The Nevada Independent". Good to have you on, Tabitha, based on what you're seeing there and talking to the campaigns, is it a toss-up? Or someone winning right now? And why?

TABITHA MUELLER, POLITICS REPORTER, THE NEVADA INDEPENDENT: It's definitely a toss-up. Anybody that tries to tell you that someone is going to win here this early in the game is lying to you or selling something, maybe both.

And I think that we're seeing here is definitely a toss-up. There's some key voting groups that Democrats and Republicans need to try and win over because like you mentioned, when you introduced this segment, there are some very, very narrow margins that we're seeing in polling. The polling is showing that Harris up slightly, but well within the margin of error for most of the polls.

SCIUTTO: Harris, she has a new ad out today specifically targeting Latino voters. It's going out in Spanish and English and focused on her record fighting for the middle-class.

Here's a clip of it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AD NARRATOR: She fought for a carwash workers cheated out of their pay.

AD NARRATOR: She fought corrupt banks that kicked families out of their homes.

HARRIS: We're ready to fight for it.

AD NARRATOR: She fought giant drug companies to lower the cost of insulin.

AD NARRATOR: And she won.

AD NARRATOR: So we know she will take on the corrupt companies that overcharge our families for food and rent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Latino voters, they've long been key in Democratic victories in Nevada, particularly via the culinary union which represents many thousands of hospitality and service workers in the -- in the strip. But as you well know, Trump's been making a lot of progress with Latino voters.

Are you seeing that migration or move towards Trump in Nevada as well? MUELLER: Yeah, I think that we're seeing a lot of outreach from both

Republicans and Democrats to the Latino population, about one in five voters here are Latino. And I think that Trump is making some inroads and I think that taxes on tips is one of the things that he's really heavily emphasizing.

Harris has also been emphasizing that as part of her campaign. So well see how that plays out once we hit November. I do think it's important though that when were talking about this economy issue, that we also bring up, that abortion is also a key player here in the state, right?

We do have a ballot measure that's going forward that voters are voting on in 2022, when Catherine Cortez-Masto, Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto running for office, her opponent, Adam Laxalt, actually really hammered her on the economy. She ended up winning. Her response to him was to really push forward on abortion messaging, but she ended up winning by a very, very narrow, less than 1 percent margin.

So I don't think that economy is always, it's really important factor here, but I think there are also other factors that voters and pendency to keep in mind.

SCIUTTO: No question. We're seeing that in other states as well, particularly states that have abortion referenda on the ballot in November.

Another big powerhouse in Nevada, Asian American voters that make it 10 percent of the electorate in the state. How are the candidates attempting to appear -- appeal to Asian American voters?

MUELLER: We've seen a lot of events. I mean, there have been some billboards and signs, community rallies. I know that in similar ways to how the Harris and Trump campaigns are reaching out to voters, Latino voters are doing that, but Asian American voters.

And I think that, that voting population, especially, really relying on community advocates existing infrastructure. There are some pretty amazing organizations in Las Vegas in particular that are really focused on turning out Asian-American and Pacific Islander voters this year.

SCIUTTO: Speaking of turnout, how much does having an abortion rights ballot measure on the ballot in November, how is that -- how were the campaigns, I imagined Democratic campaign in particular, trying to use that to motivate, motivate voters. And are we seeing that in some of the numbers, for instance, new registrations?

MUELLER: Yeah. I think that up and down the ballot, Democrats are really emphasizing abortion, right? We're seeing that in the state legislative races. We're seeing that in the Senate race and we're seeing that at the presidential level as well.

And I think that a lot of, I mean, across the board regardless of party affiliation -- if there's very, very, very high percentage of voters that support abortion -- that support abortion access.

[15:55:01]

And so, I think that's going to be a key issue along with the economy, like I mentioned earlier, and really emphasizing that abortion and the economy were the two main issues that played a big role in the 2022 U.S. Senate campaign here with Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto, a Democrat actually eking out that victory by a very, very slim margin.

And the state is always changing, right? We have a very transient population that something we need to keep in mind as well.

SCIUTTO: No question. Tabitha Mueller, thanks so much for walking us through it all.

And thanks so much all of you for joining me today.

I'm Jim Sciutto reporting from Tel Aviv.

"QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is up next. Please do have a good weekend.