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Floridians Survey Devastating Impact of Deadly Storm; Lebanon: At Least 22 Killed in Israeli Strikes on Beirut; Iranians Strike Defiant Tone in Face of Possible Retaliation; Zelenskyy to Pitch 'Victory Plan' to European Allies; Human-Caused Climate Change Fuels More Intense Storms; Critics Accuse Some Media of 'Sanewashing' Donald Trump; Britain's Princess of Wales Returns to Public Eye. Aired 12- 12:45a ET
Aired October 11, 2024 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KARA SWISHER, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR, "NEW YORK MAGAZINE": -- the wheel, and it drove into my local bodega. Right? I mean, this is the kind of stuff that has to be worked out and made into businesses.
[00:00:08]
And it's a slog. And it's very nice to have an event on a controlled sound stage in Hollywood, but it's another thing to get these things out.
I think the Cybercab is a good-looking thing, but it only has two seats. What if you have four people? What if you -- you know what I mean? Like I don't get -- I don't get the design of it in any way.
So, we'll see. We'll see.
Good luck. I hope -- I hope -- I hope he also does it along with all the others.
LAURA COATES, CNN ANCHOR: Well, there you go. Concerning to think about getting those kinks out while you're actually on the road. But Kara Swisher, important point, nonetheless. Thank you so much. Nice to see you.
SWISHER: Thank you. Nice to see you.
COATES: Hey, thank you all for watching. Our coverage continues.
MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello and welcome, everyone. I'm Michael Holmes. Appreciate your company.
Coming up here on CNN NEWSROOM, residents of central Florida begin picking up the pieces again after Hurricane Milton swept across the state with devastating winds, rain, and tornadoes.
More than 20 people killed, scores more wounded by an Israeli attack in central Beirut that collapsed an entire residential building.
And Israel's security cabinet meets to vote on the country's response to Iran's ballistic missile attack. Allies are cautioning Israel to keep it proportional.
ANNOUNCER: Live from Atlanta, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Michael Holmes.
HOLMES: We begin in Florida, where 10 million people are facing the lingering dangerous conditions in the wake of Hurricane Milton. Have a look at the scene there in Manasota Key. This is about 50 kilometers South of where Milton made landfall on Wednesday night as a powerful Category 3 storm.
It unleashed an extraordinary storm surge and torrential rain and spawned a swarm of tornadoes before moving offshore over the Atlantic.
Roughly 1,000 people have been rescued so far, and those search efforts are ongoing. Thousands of National Guard and hundreds of emergency crews have been deployed, with more help on the way.
The storm blamed so far for at least 15 deaths. More than 2.6 million homes and businesses remain in the dark. Electrical workers from around the country or in Florida to help get power lines up and running.
Flooding is expected throughout the weekend before water levels subside. Some places, such as St. Petersburg, were inundated with more than 18 inches of rain. That's half a meter or so, marking one-in-a- thousand-year rainfall event.
Guests and employees at a hotel in Plant City, about 20 miles inland of Tampa, were left visibly emotional and shaken after the storm flooded the hotel.
BRENDA COLEMAN, TAMPA RESIDENT: Just with the hurricane in the water, it just kept rising. And I've been here 14 years, and I've never seen it get this high.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're really emotional, yes.
COLEMAN: Yes. Sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Stressful?
COLEMAN: Yes, a little bit. Sorry. I have always -- the owners probably know. I always tried to treat this like it's mine. So, to see this happen, sorry. here?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: How are the customers here?
COLEMAN: Most of them are -- have been good. I've had a couple that were kind of upset, but they -- at the end of it, they're like, they know that there's nothing I can do. You know, it is nature.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Milton charged into Florida as people were still, of course, dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which made landfall less than two weeks ago as a massive Category 4 storm. CNN's Randi Kaye with the latest from Florida.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's really hard to see. It's kind of spooky to see all the damage.
RANDI KAYE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Hours after Hurricane Milton moved off the coast of Florida, Floridians are surveying the extensive damage across the state.
There were a number of confirmed dead in St. Lucie County, over 100 miles from where the storm made landfall, following tornadoes spurred by Milton.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The tornadoes we saw develop yesterday in Milton were really kind of supercharged compared to the typical tornadoes you see in a hurricane environment.
KAYE (voice-over): New drone footage shows Milton's destruction on the West Coast of Florida, where the hurricane made landfall as a Category 3 storm.
The storm's monstrous winds ripping the roof of Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg to shreds. And downing several cranes in downtown St. Petersburg.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Things can be replaceable, but life cannot.
KAYE (voice-over): Just hours after the sun came up, water rescues taking place in Hillsborough County, where massive flooding due to the rain, not the storm surge, trapped people.
[00:05:04]
SHERIFF CHAD CHRONISTER, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA (via phone): I just happened to be on the airboat for that one. It's over 200 rescues we've done and are still actively conducting. He was franticly wailing his arms. We went over, and it literally was like a scene out of a castaway movie, how he's hanging on for dear life.
His mom evacuated him to a safer area last night. He was walking home, didn't realize the water was going to get as -- flooded as deep as it did. And he's not a good swimmer. Then hence -- hence the rescue. And he was visibly shaken.
KAYE (voice-over): In Fort Myers, Robert Haight says he got his pregnant wife and kids to a safe spot just moments before a tornado bore down on them.
ROBERT HAIGHT, SURVIVED TORNADO: I saw the tornado coming. I yelled for my wife to come look at it. It's cool. Kid and wife come look at it. Started to get close, hit the trees, and we all started going for the hallway. Didn't even make it there in time. Sort of toot-toot, and I heard a piece of glass crack, and sucked the whole roof off. And I felt the things suck me up. I grabbed my kid and my wife and hunkered down.
KAYE (voice-over): Another Fort Myers homeowner says the storm ripped his home apart in a matter of minutes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All this, this happened, like, instantaneously. Like, these windows blew out. I was about probably right here when it happened.
KAYE (voice-over): One Tampa business owner braved floodwaters to assess the damage to his commercial property Thursday.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know what to say. It's a lot. Born and raised, I've never seen anything like this.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With Helene, we -- for the first time, we had storm surge and took on water in the 20 bottom units. Now with Milton here, we've lost the brand-new car ports. Our dock is destroyed.
KAYE (voice-over): While many evacuees are hoping to soon return home, hard-hit Sarasota's chief of emergency management is urging people to hold on a little longer.
SANDRA TAPFUMANEYI, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT CHIEF, SARASOTA COUNTY (via phone): Still dangerous out there. So we're asking for residents just to stay put. You know, we know a lot of people evacuated, which we appreciate. But we just need some time to clear everything so that it's safe for them to return.
KAYE: And we made our way to Siesta Key, where Hurricane Milton made landfall. And this is what we found just at one of the homes here. All of this had been stacked up, we're told, by neighbors from Hurricane Helene. They had cleaned out their home from the damage after that hurricane, and now it is all over their yard.
There are mattresses. There are suitcases. There's a television. There's trees down. And this is what you find all over Siesta Key there. The streets are flooded. Some streets are blocked.
There is -- all of the -- all of the destruction from Hurricane Helene is in the streets. It is really a sight to see. And many people here say that they're afraid they can't stay here. They just don't believe that, unless you have a fortress, that it is survivable for a hurricane.
Randi Kaye, CNN, on Siesta Key, Florida.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: All right. Live now to St. Petersburg in Florida and storm chaser Jonathan Petramala. Good to see you, Jonathan.
Of course, most of us were watching this all unfold on television. Try -- try to give us a sense of what it was like to be there in the middle of it, you know, physically and emotionally. I mean, what did you see overnight? And how does it compare with what you've seen before? JONATHAN PETRAMALA, STORM CHASER: I'll tell you what. The lead-up to Hurricane Milton was probably the most frightening that I've seen, at least since Hurricane Irma here in this part of Florida, when they thought that that hurricane was going to come into the Gulf of Mexico and hook right back into Tampa Bay. Instead, of course, it went South, but it's just another close call.
We thought it was going to be a worst-case scenario here where the storm surge was going to be catastrophic, and it was going to devastate just the entire Tampa Bay area. Fortunately, it went to the South for the Tampa Bay folks.
But then you look further South. That's where I spent most of my day today, talking to people in, you know, the small communities just along the coast South of Siesta Key, where the majority, the most part of that storm surge went in.
And you saw in that report just a second ago, the Hurricane Helene debris stacked up on the side of the road, is now strewn about. I was talking with homeowners today who were telling me we don't recognize anything in our yard. That's how chaotic it became.
Because the officials just couldn't get through in time to pick up the debris from the previous hurricane, unfortunately, before Milton came in. And it came in with four or five feet more storm surge.
HOLMES: Yes. I remember being down there for Irma.
Tornadoes were a major characteristic of this hurricane. More than a hundred tornado warnings issued, according to the National Hurricane Center director. They were super charged -- that was the word he used -- compared to regular tornadoes you see in a hurricane environment.
Speak to how unusual that was, as somebody who deals in storms all the time.
PETRAMALA: I don't know if I'd call it super charged, but it was definitely a favorable environment for tornadoes.
It was odd, because the night before, the -- the models that a lot of meteorologists look at, it didn't really look necessarily as it was the perfect environment. And then that morning, everything just kind of came together.
It's just -- it's kind of like baking a cake. Sometimes the ingredients are -- are just perfect, and you have an amazing cake. Sometimes you might forget an egg, and you have everything else. It looks like a cake --
HOLMES: Yes.
PETRAMALA: -- but it doesn't really taste like a really good cake.
[00:10:10]
And so, the ingredients were just all there for those tornadoes to form. And they were very visible. That was one of the things that is kind of tough to see when you have a tropical system and you're this far South. It's difficult to get very visible tornadoes. You have usually the rain-wrap[ed tornadoes, because we have so much moisture in the air, and those form in a very high, high moisture environment. And so, it looks just like a wall of rain coming at you and so, you have to really look at radar and visual clues to even know that a tornado was coming towards you often.
But these tornadoes that you saw there closer to Fort Lauderdale, those -- those look like a tornado you would see an Oklahoma.
HOLMES: Wow. Wow. There's always, at a time like this, quite rightly, really, discussion of climate change impacts. I mean, over the years of witnessing storms and the damage they've done, what are your thoughts on how things have changed? I mean, in terms of frequency, intensity, and so on?
PETRAMALA: I don't know necessarily that I'd say that anything has been different or changed.
I think that the -- the Atlantic basin has historically been unpredictable. There's been years in the 1930s that, if you were living in Miami, you would probably think that we have a bull's eye on us. Hurricanes like the 1935 Labor Day hurricane, which is one of the strongest, if not the strongest to ever come ashore here in the continental United States.
So, hurricanes have been around. They're always strong. But you have to imagine, with the environment that exists right now, you have very warm waters, which is like the battery that we use to charge our phones. That's the energy that these storms need to really produce and get strong.
And we saw with Hurricane Milton just how quickly it was able to strengthen in that Category 5 status. Last year over in the Eastern Pacific, which is right along the Mexican coast. Hurricane Otis did the same thing, just rapidly strengthened, right before landfall, and devastated Acapulco.
That was a storm that -- as someone who obviously goes in and tries to get ahead of these storms, we couldn't even make it in in time. That's how quickly that storm reacted to whatever was perfect in the environment for it.
And, you know, this was all along -- this was a prediction that this was going to be a very serious hurricane season, and it has.
HUNT: Yes, yes. Good to get your thoughts. You're an experienced man, at this sort of thing. Jonathan Petramala, thank you. Thank you so much.
PETRAMALA: Thank you. Good night.
HOLMES: All right. Now to Lebanon, where the Health Ministry reports at least 22 people have been killed and 117 wounded in Israeli attacks on central Beirut. Hezbollah says a senior official who was the target of the attack has
survived, witnesses telling CNN one building was filled with recently displaced civilians.
More now from our Ben Wedeman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Israel struck twice Thursday evening in central Beirut, hitting the third floor of an eight-story building.
The other strike flattened a four-story residential building in a densely populated area in what one security source told CNN was a mass casualty event.
Neighbors say many of the people in that building had fled there from other areas, assuming they would be safe.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health updated its casualty figures multiple times during the evening, the death toll rising steadily.
Over the past two weeks, Israel has daily and nightly pounded Beirut, Southern suburbs where Hezbollah has a strong presence. But central Beirut has been bombed only a few times.
Reports in Israeli media speculated that the target of the strikes in central Beirut was Rafiq Saffa (ph), a senior Hezbollah official responsible for external affairs, basically, the group's top diplomat.
A Hezbollah source tells CNN, however, that Saffa (ph) survived the strikes.
I'm Ben Wedeman, CNN, reporting from Tyre, South Lebanon.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Iran's president is scheduled to meet with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Turkmenistan in the day ahead. The talks follow an Israeli security cabinet meeting where officials tell CNN a vote was expected on how to respond to Iran's missile attack last week.
Tehran launched around 200 ballistic missiles last Tuesday, targeting Tel Aviv and military sites. Most were intercepted by Israel and the U.S., although some did get through.
Iran's foreign minister is on a diplomatic mission to enlist the support of Gulf Arab states ahead of the possible Israeli retaliation.
He visited Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, a regional diplomat telling CNN the United Arab Emirates will not allow its airspace to be used for any attack on Iran.
The Israeli defense minister says Israel's response to Iran will be powerful, precise, and above all, he says, surprising. Despite that threat, some Iranians are striking a defiant tone.
[00:15:11]
CNN's Frederik Pleitgen reports from Tehran.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): After Iran's massive missile strike targeting military installations inside Israel's territory, Iran is now bracing for what the Israelis say will be a strong response.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Whoa!
PLEITGEN (voice-over): On Tehran's streets, some concern and a lot of defiance.
"Everyone's mind is busy thinking of what might happen," this man says. "And if Israel makes a move, we will certainly respond to it."
And this woman says, "I am not concerned about war, because I believe in my country and our leadership. I know if anything happens, nothing will threaten the Iranian nation."
"If there is a need to protect our soil and our land, like our fathers and brothers who participated in the eight-year war, we will go to war, as well," this man says. "And you will see the result of the jihad that has been ordered."
"If you want war, we are the masters of war," this poster in Revolution Square reads, both in Farsi and in Hebrew.
Iran's capital is also plastered with billboards pledging to stand by Hezbollah after the killing of the group's longtime leader, Hassan Nasrallah.
PLEITGEN: The Islamic Republic of Iran and its leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are making very clear that, despite the current struggles of the Hezbollah organization, they will continue to support Hezbollah against Israel.
PLEITGEN (voice-over): Israel's government has vowed to hit Iran hard after last week's missile attack, when the Revolutionary Guard used around 200 ballistic missiles, some hitting Tel Aviv and an airbase inside the country, sparking fears of a wider conflict, possibly pitting the U.S. and Iran directly against one another.
An Iranian member of Parliament sending a warning to the U.S.
"The U.S. is aware of everything the Zionist regime does," he says. "We would suggest that, firstly, the U.S. stop the military help. Stop the arms and the backing of the Zionist regime. And then secondly, for the U.S. to force Israel into a ceasefire."
So so far, the risk of escalation continues in a region already on edge. Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Tehran.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Ukraine's president trying to convince European allies to support his victory plan, and his toughest discussions might happen in Berlin. We'll explain when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HOLMES: The Ukrainian president is trying to sell his victory plan to European allies as Russia makes grinding progress on the front lines.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy met a string of European and NATO leaders on Thursday, including the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni.
[00:20:00]
In about two hours, Mr. Zelenskyy is set to arrive in the Vatican before heading to Germany later in the day. As Melissa Bell reports, he'll have a tough sell to make in Berlin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: A whistle-stop tour of European capitals at which President Zelenskyy has been outlining his victory plan to allies. Something he'd done in Washington before he had been due to present it as well in Ramstein, Germany as part of a summit on Ukraine over the weekend, canceled because what President Biden needing to stay in the U.S. because of Hurricane Milton.
Instead, a whistle-stop tour, not just to outline that plan, but to continue to put pressure on Western allies for their continued support of Ukraine. Here in Paris, meeting with President Emmanuel Macron, the French president, speak to Volodymyr Zelenskyy about his visit in the Eastern France.
So yesterday to meet with some of the Ukrainian soldiers that are being trained by the French military there, support that he pledged would be ongoing.
It is the German leg of the Ukrainian president's tour that's likely to be the most difficult, though. Already, President Zelenskyy under a great deal of pressure for the outlook for 2025, not just because of the forthcoming American election, but of course also because Olaf Scholz's government is expected to half its military spending to Ukraine in 2025.
Fears over what that could mean, not just for President Zelenskyy's hope of pushing his victory plan, but also of withstanding the continued pressure that comes from Russian forces, specifically in the East of the country.
Melissa Bell, CNN, Paris.
(END VIDEOTAPE) HOLMES: Some stunning casualty numbers for Russia in its war on Ukraine. A senior U.S. defense official says more than 600,000 Russian troops have been killed or wounded since the beginning of the war. Incredible numbers.
September was especially brutal for those troops. The official says more Russian forces were killed or wounded last month than at any other period of the war.
The official adds that most of the Russian casualties of the two years -- two-and-a-half-year-long campaign were in Eastern Ukraine, where tens of thousands of troops are packed into a relatively small area.
The U.S. official also says Ukraine has destroyed, sunk, or damaged at least 32 Russian navy vessels in the Black Sea and destroyed two- thirds of Russia's prewar number of tanks.
People in Florida are assessing the damage from Hurricane Milton and perhaps filing insurance claims for financial losses. Coming up, a new estimate of the full cost of the storm.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[00:25:06]
HOLMES: Welcome back. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM with me, Michael Holmes.
More now on one of our top stories, as officials in Florida continue to assess the damage and the losses from Hurricane Milton.
According to CNN's tally, the death toll from the storm has risen to 15 across six counties. Hours of fierce winds and heavy rains knocking down trees and power lines. And more than 2.6 million homes and businesses still without power across the state, according to PowerOutage.us.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says nearly 1,000 people have been rescued since Milton made landfall. More than 100 animals have also been brought to safety.
Now, the devastation from Hurricane Milton likely caused between $30 and $50 billion worth of insured losses. And that doesn't include losses that were not insured. And a lot of places in Florida aren't.
The estimate comes from Fitch Ratings, one of the biggest credit agencies in the U.S.
Virtually all climate scientists believe devastating storms like Milton are the result of human-caused climate change, but not everyone is convinced, as CNN's Bill Weir found.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): As Earth overheats, these are the kinds of storms that take lives and livelihoods.
But as families reel in private grief, it's the material loss that is so obvious everywhere in Pinellas County: from the tower construction crane that crashed down on neighboring buildings, to Tropicana Field, peeled like an orange by Milton's winds.
The Tampa Bay Rays already have plans in the works to build a new stadium, with taxpayers kicking in hundreds of millions of dollars. But what happens now is anyone's guess, especially after the loss of entire neighborhoods, retirees, and working-class American dreamers.
SANDY DAUGHTRY, FLORIDA NATIVE, PINELLAS COUNTY RESIDENT: I'm just really concerned for all these people. It's just still standing. It's like World War Three or something, you know?
WEIR (voice-over): Sandy Daughtry hid in a closet during landfall and the day after rides her bike through the mingled wreckage of back-to- back hurricanes, praying for neighbors she knows now have nothing.
WEIR: Long after all of these pieces of people's lives have been picked up, what will remain in Florida is a massive insurance crisis.
In just the last couple of years, dozens of different carriers have gone insolvent or stopped accepting new customers or been placed on state watchlists. So as a result, flood insurance for a home like this can be over $20,000 a year, way more than the mortgage.
So, most of these families have no coverage at all.
So many folks are uninsured, right?
DAUGHTRY: Yes. Yes, I know. That's why I -- just like, it breaks my heart. I'm riding through here just like -- my heart is just shatters. I just can't even -- it's just unbelievable, really.
WEIR: What do you think becomes of communities like this?
DAUGHTRY: I don't know. I really don't. I'm -- I'm hearing a lot of people saying they're going to leave the state and head back up North. But I don't -- I don't know if that'll happen.
You know, maybe a mass exodus or something.
WEIR: Do you connect all of this to a changing climate, a warmer planet?
DAUGHTRY: You know, I don't -- I'm not sure. I couldn't -- I can't really answer that.
WEIR: Really?
DAUGHTRY: I just -- maybe it's just a hundred-year cycle or, you know, some kind of a cycle that we go through.
WEIR: even though all the scientists are telling you this is what climate change looks like? DAUGHTRY: And that's the point. I'm not sure all the scientists are in agreement with it.
WEIR: They are. I can tell you they are.
DAUGHTRY: So that's why I'm, like I'm here to tell you they 99 percent of them absolutely agree.
WEIR: You can ask anybody at NASA.
DAUGHTRY: I can definitely tell you our beaches are eroding in my lifetime. All the beaches have -- I've seen the water come up a lot higher than it ever has before. So --
WEIR: Thank you so much.
DAUGHTRY: Thank you for talking.
WEIR: Yes, thank you for talking. Really. You're a great neighbor. If there's a heaven, you're getting in.
DAUGHTRY: Amen, amen. And that's -- honestly, that's what I do. I ride around and just pray for people and just pray, you know. I just --
WEIR: You're a first prayer responder.
DAUGHTRY: Yes!
WEIR: That's very sweet.
DAUGHTRY: OK.
WEIR: All right. Good luck to you.
DAUGHTRY: Thank y'all.
WEIR: Thank you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HOLMES: Vice President Kamala Harris campaigning in Arizona and Nevada on Thursday. She praised the late Senator John McCain during her Arizona stop and told the crowd that the presidential race will be tight until the very end.
Harris, also courting Latino voters. A town hall in Las Vegas there, hosted by the Spanish language channel Univision. Outlining her plans on immigration reform and border security. Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama kicking off a 27-day campaign sprint for Harris in Pennsylvania on Thursday. He headlined a rally in Pittsburgh, delivering his most personal and a furious critique of Donald Trump yet.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[00:30:11] BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And the reason some people think, wow, I know. I remember that economy when he first came in, being pretty good. Yes, it was pretty good, because it was my economy.
We had had 75 straight months of job growth that I handed over to him. It wasn't something he did.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Former President Trump, meanwhile, speaking at the Detroit Economic Club in the battleground state of Michigan, where he compared that city to a developing nation.
He said that the U.S. would end up like Detroit if Harris is elected president.
Yes, he said all of that in front of the locals whose votes he's presumably trying to get.
Trump also unveiled another set of tax break proposals, promising to help Americans living overseas. And those trying to buy a car.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Today, I am also announcing that, as part of our tax cuts, we will make interest on car loans fully deductible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Critics are accusing some in the media of "sanewashing" Donald Trump, using small soundbites from his usually long-winded remarks, and rambling ones, that make him sound more coherent than he actually is. Here's just one example from Trump's speech on Thursday, where he talked about Elon Musk.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: He gets the engines back. That was the first I really -- I said, who the hell did that? I saw engines about three or four years ago. These things were coming, cylinders. No wings, no nothing.
And they're coming down very slowly, landing on a raft in the middle of the ocean someplace with a circle. Boom. Reminded me of the Biden circles that he used to have, right? He'd have eight circles, and he couldn't fill them up.
But then I heard he beat us with the popular vote. I don't know. I don't know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOLMES: Well, joining me now is Parker Malloy, media writer and blogger.
It's good to see you. First, briefly, what is sanewashing when it comes to Donald Trump and how does it manifest?
PARKER MALLOY, MEDIA WRITER: Sure. So sanewashing is another term for what I like to call coherence bias, or essentially the tendency of journalists to find sense in rambling, sometimes incoherent messages.
In the case of Donald Trump, this might take the form of him giving a speech in which he talks about electrocuting sharks, Hannibal Lecter, his hatred of windmills, and then seeing it framed as an economic address in the next day's newspaper.
HOLMES: Yes. Yes. Yes. You -- you call -- I mean, you've got a great article in "The New Republic." And you call these sorts of omissions journalistic malpractice. And in your "New Republic" article, you said, quote, "This sanewashing of Trump's statements isn't just poor journalism; it's a form of misinformation that poses a threat to democracy."
Just explain that for us.
MALLOY: Yes. So, most people don't have time to sit down and watch a Trump speech live.
They rely on journalists to do -- to do this for them and to inform them of what's being said. If dangerous and unhinged claims are being made but are little more than a footnote in a story that frames Trump's speech as a normal one focused on, say, immigration policy, most people aren't going to truly get the essence of what was said. It's journalists' jobs to inform, not obfuscate.
HOLMES: Yes. So, why do you think there is this sort of, you know, excusing of Trump in many ways? You know, people saying, Oh, that's just Trump being Trump, rather than making his cognition issues -- the rambling and the lies, quite frankly -- more widely known and covered? Because that -- that has impact.
MALLOY: yes, of course, AND I think that that's part of it. It's that, for a lot of journalists, Trump being Trump, Trump's rambling and incoherence, is just baked into how they see him.
You know, day in and day out, journalists are exposed to this. And so, as a result, he's sometimes graded on a curve that doesn't exist for other politicians.
If -- if, say kamala Harris came out and gave a ten-minute speech about windmills, people would be very confused, and it would be news. But when Donald Trump does it, it's kind of just, well, that's Donald Trump.
HOLMES: Yes. Yes, you're right. Graded on a curve. I know that you've written that there needs to be, quote, "a paradigm shift in political reporting." So, what would that look like? What -- what should the media be doing if it's going to serve the public with a few weeks to the election?
MALLOY: Sure. I think one thing news organizations can do is to -- to focus on front-loading stories with the most important information. You know, there's some outlets that are trying to do this to adapt to
people's shorter attention spans, such as Axios.
[00:35:05]
You know, another thing would be to try to treat each story as though the headline is the only thing that people will read. Because often that is the case. You know, and maybe this means longer, more descriptive headlines.
HOLMES: Yes, and I wanted to ask you, too, I mean, how does coverage, or non-coverage, of these issues with Trump look when you consider, you know, the apparent cognitive issues of Joe Biden, which were covered with such fervor by the media? It was almost a feeding frenzy after the debate. How does that balance out?
MALLOY: Yes. So, I think the coverage of Biden's campaign, you know, after that debate was, for the most part, fair. You know, after his poor debate performance, age was unquestionably an issue. And on his stumble from a relatively solid performance at the State of the Union to how he came across at the debate was a shock to people. So that was undeniably newsworthy.
And in Trump's case, I think his decline has, over the past eight years, has been so steady that it's easy to miss. You know?
HOLMES: Yes.
MALLOY: It's -- it's -- especially for people who spend all day in political media. We're so close to it.
And so. do I think coverage of Trump should more closely resemble what Joe Biden had earlier this year? Probably. But do I understand why that hasn't been the case? Yes.
HOLMES: At the same time, Trump is -- is now the oldest candidate ever for president.
That -- that -- that sanitizing of what he says -- and I know we've touched on this -- but it could obviously help Trump in the election. Because, as you said earlier, a lot of people don't see the nonsensical comments or examples of decline.
That sanitizing is dangerous, isn't it, in that people don't actually know the man they might be voting into the White House, unless they were watching all that?
MALLOY: Yes, I think that that's one of the problems. Shor- term. The short-term problem with this is that voters go to the polls with the belief and a version of Donald Trump who simply doesn't reflect reality.
And long-term, this becomes an issue in the sense that more and more in the United States and around the world, I feel like people are kind of going into this choose-your-own-reality type of existence. And if we -- if they can't count on mainstream news organizations to
really tell it like it is, they're going to go searching for information elsewhere. And as that happens, trust in media goes down, and trust in journalism goes down as a whole. And it's already pretty low. And I think that that's something that we want to avoid.
HOLMES: Fascinating. A terrific article. And great writing. Parker Malloy, thank you so much. Great to talk to you.
MALLOY: Thank you.
HOLMES: A surprise visit from the Princess of Wales, appearing in public for the first time in months and for a very somber occasion. We'll have the details.
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HOLMES: Elon Musk has unveiled his vision for the future of autonomous cars. The Tesla CEO showing off his Cybercab robotaxi. It's part of the "We, Robot" event in Los Angeles.
The self-driving vehicle has no steering wheel or pedals. That's because there's no one sitting there driving it.
Musk rode in the futuristic car during the event, which was livestreamed to millions of viewers on the social media platform he owns, X.
Musk said the Cybercab will be available in the next few years, although he could be over promising. He does that. Five years ago, he said robotaxis would be available in a year.
Even he said he over promises that.
Britain's Prince William made an unannounced visit to a community grieving the murder of three children several months ago. And in her first public appearance since ending cancer treatment, his wife, Catherine, joined him.
CNN's Anna Stewart with the details from London.
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ANNA STEWART, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It was a surprise visit by the Prince and Princess of Wales --
STEWART (voice-over): -- and the first public engagement for the princess since she announced she had finished her cancer treatments.
They're seen here in Southport, a town in the Northwest of England, which experienced a shocking incident in July. A man attacked young children with a knife at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class.
The prince and princess visited the bereaved families of the three children killed in the attack. They also met with members of the emergency services who responded on the day to offer their support.
The king visited Southport back in August, and it's clear today that the royal family don't want the town to feel forgotten as the weeks and months pass.
STEWART: The Prince and Princess of Wales posted a message on X after their visit, saying, "We continue to stand with everyone in Southport. Meeting the community today has been a powerful reminder of the importance of supporting one another in the wake of unimaginable tragedy. You will remain in our thoughts and prayers."
The Princess of Wales is back at work but is expected to keep her workload light as she continues to recover.
Anna Stewart, CNN, London.
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HOLMES: Thanks for watching, spending part of your day with me. I'm Michael Holmes. I will have more news in about 20 minutes or so. WORLD SPORT coming your way in the meantime.
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