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Today: Biden, Xi Set to Speak on Sidelines of APEC Summit; CNN Gets Exclusive Access to El Salvador's Notorious Prison; CNN's Speaks to U.S. Pilots Who Shots Down Missiles, Drone Aimed at Israel; Giuliani Turns Over Luxury Assets to GA Women He Defamed; Recount Triggered in Tight Pennsylvania Senate Race; South African Authorities Block Supplies To Illegal Miners; Report: $108,000 Needed to Afford a Home in U.S. Aired 3-4p ET
Aired November 16, 2024 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. And we begin this hour with an impending and historic meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit in Peru.
China's President, Xi Jinping, due to have a final official face-to- face with outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden. This meeting comes at a time of building tensions over China's claims in the South China Sea and over Taiwan, as well as Beijing's growing support for Russia.
CNN's Kayla Tausche is joining us now from Lima, Peru. Kayla, what kind of message is President Biden expected to leave with President Xi?
KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, his message, Fred, is going to be twofold. When the two leaders of the most consequential great powers in the world meet in just about an hour and a half here in Lima, Peru, after the APEC summit has concluded. The message is going to first be one of cooperation and reflection on four years of attempting to manage this competitive relationship between these two countries.
And on that note of cooperation, they're going to talk about some of the action items where their interests overlap, like climate change, like curbing the trafficking of illicit fentanyl and having military level communication to avoid miscommunication in the Indo-Pacific, specifically in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Strait.
But there is also going to be a message of contention. President Biden is expected to deliver stern warnings on China's involvement in supporting Russia's war in Ukraine. He's going to also express concerns about the deployment of thousands of North Korean troops to Russia where they're training for potential deployment inside the Ukraine. And there will also be strong warnings on cyber security and cyber
espionage where the U.S. has been monitoring Chinese activity for quite some time. Of course, the subtext to all of this is that there are only so many assurances and warnings that President Biden himself can extend because of the nature of the incoming administration, which will begin in just about 60 days, Fred.
WHITFIELD: And then, Kayla, we have reporting that world leaders at the summit are privately expressing concerns over the incoming Trump administration. What are they saying?
TAUSCHE: Well, senior U.S. officials that I've spoken with have acknowledged that there's a certain awkwardness to both this summit and the preparations for the G20 summit where President Biden will be heading next because world leaders are trying to figure out how they need to posture toward the incoming Trump administration and how they can potentially insulate their own economies from the threat of broader trade wars, which Trump has threatened not just against China, but also allies like Canada and the European Union.
So there's a great expectation among those countries that they're going to need to have a change in approach to try and fortify that relationship with the incoming Trump administration, where, as we've seen in recent days, Trump has appointed very hardline officials to try to execute the America first agenda that he's campaigned on once again, Fred.
WHITFIELD: All right. Kayla Tausche in Lima, Peru. Thanks so much.
All right. More now with Global Affairs Analyst Jonathan Wachtel. He is the former Director of Communications for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
Jonathan, great to see you. So this meeting comes as President Biden, you know, prepares to exit the world state. President Xi continues to push to expand China's influence. How important will their discussions be on what potentially happens next between U.S. and China relations?
JONATHAN WACHTEL, FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST: You know, Fredricka, it's easy to dismiss, you know, that there are just two months left in Biden's administration and not a whole lot can happen over 60 days. The truth is a lot can happen over 60 days, including what's going on in the theater of war between Russia and Ukraine. Both sides trying to position themselves from a power position.
And the Russians having more territory gained of kicking the Ukrainian forces out of the Kursk region and then perhaps, you know, being forced to negotiating table or maybe not even forced, but coerced over to the negotiating team with the Trump administration to, you know, try to work out a ceasefire in that horrible conflict.
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All this connected to China, of course, because China has given the geopolitical cover for Russia that has allowed it in many places, including the United Nations, to be able to navigate relatively unscathed. Also, in terms of buying Russian oil and other things that have, you know, the robust trade between the two countries, it all matters. The Middle East, it also matters what happens here. China's on the Security Council.
The Security Council is meeting on Monday to discuss what to do about the war between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah. Where is that going? Big calls for a ceasefire.
China, of course, is a veto-wielding nation on the Security Council, has tremendous sway within the United Nations. All this matters. So, you know, it is easy to kind of say, OK, let's just hold our breath and see what's coming when President Trump comes in. But a lot's going to happen between now and then.
WHITFIELD: So I hear you also saying, you know, a lot can happen in two months. And if you can only have one U.S. president at a time. And right now it's U.S. President Joe Biden. And if Joe Biden feels like there are things he still wants to accomplish as it pertains to China, and President Xi is feeling like, oh, wait a minute, we can hold off for two months, I think I hear you saying there are things that really cannot be delayed.
And so if President Biden is to take this opportunity today as he's talking to President Xi, Ukraine, I would imagine, is right up there at the top of the list. Does President Biden approach this conversation with potential offerings? Or is it advice? Is it, you know, trading of ideas on these things? I mean, what can be conducted in this kind of conversation that would result in something real concrete within a two-month period?
WACHTEL: I think President Xi would be looking at Biden as, you know, a guy on his way out, a guy who has managed to, you know, put the U.S. position as a strong one, of course, in trying to deal with conflict -- you know, what President Biden did essentially when he took over the reign from President Trump is he actually continued with a lot of the policies that he had inherited, not to the extreme measures that we saw, you know, through periods of the Trump administration, including the harsh tariffs that were put on China that caused a huge rift between the two nations. But firm nonetheless and speaking out against what was going on in China.
And, you know, the basic truth is that China is a massively influential country, the second largest economy on the planet. It is what would be referred to as autocratic capitalism versus the U.S. system, which is democratic capitalism. And they're just two types of systems that are going to inevitably be butting heads, no matter who is president of the United States. That rivalry will be there.
The question in Xi's mind, because he's looking at how he's managed to muscle his way in terms of geopolitics with the Biden administration, is what is he going to do with the Trump administration? Because we already are seeing and hearing signs that these tariffs will become one of the front burner issues as soon as Trump takes over. So, you know, China is vulnerable economically to things like this.
It does matter. What does it mean in terms of China's influence geopolitically and its relationship with Russia? I would think that you and -- you know, you're a well-read person, you would have read articles about how the Trump administration is going to try to create a wedge between Russia and China. And Russia and China have had a lot of alignment over the last years in all sorts of issues, global affairs, you know, siding with one another, supporting one another.
Is this something that Xi is looking at, the potential warming of relations between Russia and the United States under a Trump administration as some sort of threat that he needs to deal with?
WHITFIELD: All right. Jonathan Wachtel, thank you so much. Really appreciate your expertise. Thank you.
WACHTEL: My pleasure.
WHITFIELD: Still ahead, mass detention and the largest deportation operation in U.S. history. New details on how Donald Trump is planning to carry out his immigration campaign promises as soon as he takes office.
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Plus, a CNN exclusive will take a rare look inside one of the brutal El Salvadorian prisons that Donald Trump's pick for U.S. attorney general sees as the solution for America's jails.
And a home sale sticker shock. A new report revealing how much money you now need to have, earn to become a homeowner in America today.
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WHITFIELD: As President-elect Donald Trump continues to make more moves to fill out his administration, his hardline plans on immigration are also starting to come into focus. Sources tell CNN plans are under way by Trump's team to implement strict border measures, strike down Biden-era policies and launch a mass detention and deportation of migrants.
CNN's Steve Contorno is monitoring these developments from near Trump's home in Florida.
Steve, Trump's team is already planning executive orders on immigration. What more can you tell us?
STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: Yeah, unlike in 2016 when Donald Trump had all these plans about building a border wall and making Mexico pay for it and not necessarily knowing how to do that. This time around his team has been spending a lot of time figuring out just exactly how it will go about instituting his immigration priorities.
Let me walk through with you some of the ideas that they are putting together behind the scenes. One of them is expanding detention facilities for migrants as he plans to hold more people in detention facilities using private prisons in the coming months ahead. The return of the, quote, "remain in Mexico" policy in which people have to stay on the south side of the border while they wait for their immigration status to be determined. Mandatory detention of people caught crossing the border, not releasing them and letting them join family and friends while they wait to hear the status of their immigration determined. And then bringing back family detention, which was a controversial policy Trump put in place and Biden reversed.
And now there's a major question as to how Trump will pay for all of this, getting these new facilities up and running and deporting so many people en masse. Well, one of the ideas is to declare a national emergency, which Trump's transition team believes will allow him to tap into Pentagon resources. Now, there is some controversy and legal dispute over whether that will be allowed, but that is something that they are considering.
And he has already put together the team of individuals who will be leading this effort. It starts with Tom Homan, who will be Trump's quote, "borders czar" overseeing all these operations. Stephen Miller, one of the architects of Trump's immigration policies, will serve as a Deputy Chief of Staff in Trump's White House. And then Kristi Noem will be the Secretary of Homeland Security. She will be confirm -- she'll be going through a Senate confirmation process. The other two individuals, though, will simply be advising the former president.
Fred?
WHITFIELD: All right, Steve Contorno, thanks so much for that.
All right, President-elect Donald Trump's pick to run the Department of Justice recently visited one of the world's most brutal prisons. Matt Gaetz took a tour of the facility in El Salvador, suggesting it should be a model for cracking down on crime in the U.S.
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REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL) (Resigned): There's a lot more discipline in this prison than we see in a lot of the prisons in the United States. This is the solution.
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WHITFIELD: CNN was given exclusive access to the prison where El Salvador says it keeps the worst of the worst. CNN's David Culver shows us inside.
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DAVID CULVER, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: All right. I'm going to go in here.
CULVER (voice-over): Even as I'm stepping through these doors, I don't fully grasp what we're about to walk into. Suddenly, you're hit with the intense gaze of dozens locking on to you. These men described as the worst of the worst, tattooed with reminders of El Salvador's dark past. It's tense and uncomfortable. But here, officials say comfort isn't meant to exist.
CULVER: There's no mattresses. There's no sheets. You've got a toilet over here for them to go to the bathroom. You've got this basin here that they use to bathe themselves. And then you can see there there's a barrel of water that they can drink from.
CULVER (voice-over): This is a rare look inside El Salvador's terrorism confinement center known as CECOT.
CULVER: And he says there's always somebody standing here in front of the cells. And then if you look up, there's another corridor with more security personnel (foreign language), 24/7 light.
CULVER (voice-over): The prison sits like an isolated fortress nestled in mountainous terrain about an hour and a half drive from the capital. Even with government officials on board with us, we're stopped a mile out.
CULVER: OK. he's going to inspect bags now too. OK. we're clear to get back in.
CULVER (voice-over): Only to hit another checkpoint. Approaching the main gate, our cell signals vanish.
CULVER: They want to do a full search on us before we enter.
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CULVER (voice-over): Once cleared, we tour the vast campus.
CULVER: It's been equated to seven football stadiums. It's almost multiple prisons within the prison. You can see off to the distance, there's three different rings as they describe. The far end, you have one that's nine meters high of concrete, and then above that, three meters of electrified fencing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 15,000 volts.
CULVER: 15,000 volts.
CULVER (voice-over): More than a thousand security personnel, guards, police, and military are stationed on site. Inmates are assigned to one of eight sectors.
CULVER: The director tells me the inmates, once they're inside one of these sectors, they never leave. Everything is done within, including doctors, as well as legal visits or court hearings.
CULVER (voice-over): Each sector holds more than two dozen large cells.
CULVER: Roughly 80 inmates per cell, but it can fluctuate.
CULVER (voice-over): Most bear the markings of the gangs that held this nation hostage for decades, committing brutal acts of violence.
MARVIN VASQUEZ, PRISONER: You got to kill people. You got to rob. You got to do what you got to do to survive.
CULVER: You have to do those things.
VASQUEZ: Yes, you got to do that.
CULVER (voice-over): We meet 41-year-old Marvin Vazquez, shackled and heavily guarded.
CULVER: What gang were you part of?
VASQUEZ: MS-13.
CULVER: And do you have any gang affiliations?
VASQUEZ: Yes, I'm tattooed up.
CULVER: What is this?
VASQUEZ: Crazy criminal. Say crazy criminal. Yes, I made this click in 2011.
CULVER: You made the click?
VASQUEZ: Yes.
CULVER: You were a gang leader?
VASQUEZ: Yes.
CULVER: What is it like to live here?
VASQUEZ: It's probably not a hotel five-star, but they give you the three times the food. They give you some programs. You go to do exercise. Some church or religion programs too.
CULVER: But that's limited to just 30 minutes a day. The other 23 and a half hours, they're kept inside and locked up.
CULVER (voice-over): For inmates who get violent with other prisoners or guards --
CULVER: They're going to close the door. I just want to get a sense of -- wow.
CULVER (voice-over): Solitary confinement awaits.
CULVER: The only light you get is through this hole, and it can be in here for 15 days, potentially. All right. I'm ready to get out. The director brought up that a lot of folks will raise concerns from a human rights perspective and an abuse of human rights, that he's calm hearing that because he sees it day to day, the process they go through to maintain, as he sees it, proper punishment.
CULVER (voice-over): While you're cut off from society here, whispers of life on the outside make their way in.
VASQUEZ: I've heard about it, that it's a new El Salvador. It looks different.
CULVER (voice-over): That new El Salvador has emerged under President Nayib Bukele, who took office in 2019 and declared a controversial state of emergency more than two years ago. It sparked an aggressive crackdown on crime. We see that firsthand as some 2,500 police and soldiers deploy into one neighborhood.
CULVER: It's going to go on through the night for however long it takes for them to root out any suspected criminal elements.
CULVER (voice-over): Critics argue Bukele's strategy has given him far-reaching power to suppress dissent and silence any opposition. Late last week, as the U.S. State Department lowered its travel advisory for El Salvador, citing a significant reduction in crime, it also warned that Bukele's emergency measures allow authorities to arrest anyone suspected of gang activity and suspends constitutional rights. And yet, most we meet seem unfazed by the added show of force.
CULVER: I asked him, I said, how do you feel with all these soldiers? I mean, there's a couple of dozens just even right outside his door. And he said, no, I feel safe.
CULVER (voice-over): El Salvador now has one of the world's highest incarceration rates. The most heartening criminals brought the CECOT, where inside a life sentence awaits.
VASQUEZ: We did bad things. We pay it the rough way, doing time.
CULVER (voice-over): And yet for many on the outside, the prison now a symbol of newfound freedom. The new El Salvador as they see it.
David Culver, CNN, El Salvador.
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WHITFIELD: The U.S. Air Force pilots who raced into action the night Iran attacked Israel earlier this year are speaking only to CNN. Those pilots jumping into action just minutes after the attack began, helping take out more than 300 drones and missiles headed to Israel. CNN's Natasha Bertrand has this exclusive behind-the-scenes look.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Come on, let's go, go, go, go.
NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): As missiles and drones exploded overhead, U.S. troops scrambled to get fighter jets in the air.
MAJ. BENJAMIN "IRISH" COFFEY, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE: The scale that we expected for the most dangerous was vastly under, probably four or five times under what actually occurred on April 13th. BERTRAND (voice-over): Iran had fired over 300 missiles and attack drones at Israel, an unprecedented strike. In their first interview since that night, F-15 pilots and crew call signs Irish, Sonic, Rifle and Voodoo describe trying to hit dozens of missiles and slow-moving drones while flying over a thousand miles per hour.
CAPT. LACIE "SONIC" HESTER, U.S. AIR FORCE: It just took a few seconds that, all of a sudden, the next sweep of our radar, we just see all of these dots. And I think that first picture was a little overwhelming, I think, for me in the backseat, just seeing how many are airborne and how many are tracking in our direction.
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BERTRAND (voice-over): For the F-15 squadrons shown here at their home base in Lakenheath, England, this was the first real test against a large-scale drone attack.
BERTRAND (on camera): Can you talk a bit about how difficult that was to take down these very small, slow-moving drones?
COFFEY: You're talking about something that's on the very edge of a fighter aircraft's ability to detect. It's what we call find, fix, track, target, and engage. We weren't sure if our radar, the best radar in the inventory, is in this airplane behind us. No one really knew whether or not its capability to find these things even existed.
BERTRAND (voice-over): Several of the F-15's air-to-air missiles failed to launch, leaving live munitions hanging on the wing.
BERTRAND (on camera): I mean, was there anything that really surprised you about that night? Anything that went wrong?
MAJ. CLAYTON "RIFLE" WICKS, U.S. AIR FORCE: I mean, a lot of stuff went wrong. We had lots of jets that were coming back with hung ordnance.
BERTRAND: Yes. And that's treated as an emergency, isn't it?
WICKS: Yes, it is. So, they are by default an emergency aircraft.
BERTRAND (voice-over): Rifle was managing operations at an undisclosed base in the Middle East, where missiles and drones were exploding overhead. The chaos is shown here for the first time. Pilots called in asking what to do as debris fell on runways.
WICKS: Really all we could tell them was like, hey, stay airborne as long as you can with the gas that you have. Don't divert because even our, you know, divert airfields, we don't know what's going on there either. So, stuff's blowing up over our heads. Very likely stuff's blowing up there too.
BERTRAND (voice-over): Many troops refused to head to bunkers.
LT. COL. CURTIS "VOODOO" CULVER, U.S. AIR FORCE: There was an airman at one point standing next to a fuel truck with tons and tons of jet fuel in it, just pumping gas into the jet with stuff exploding over the base. I mean, the courage of that person, to stand up and do that for an ally is incredible.
BERTRAND (voice-over): Almost every single plane that landed had to be reloaded.
BERTRAND (on camera): So, had you ever seen that situation before where these jets are using all of their munitions and then they have to come back and get, you know, all of those replaced at once?
WICKS: We trained to it. I'd never actually seen it.
BERTRAND (voice-over): Ultimately, U.S. and allied forces shot down nearly every projectile Iran launched at Israel. Sonic, Irish, Voodoo, and Rifle all received awards this week for valor in combat.
Natasha Bertrand, CNN, Lakenheath, England.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: Amazing. All right, coming up, watches, a diamond ring and a Mercedes-Benz. Details on the treasure trove that Rudy Giuliani turned over to the Georgia election workers he defamed.
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WHITFIELD: All right it's time for Rudy Giuliani to pay up and begin handing over luxury assets to two Georgia election workers he defamed. Some of those items include a Mercedes-Benz convertible, his Manhattan apartment, and a luxury watch collection. The former New York mayor owes nearly 150 million dollars for falsely claiming Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss tampered with votes in the 2020 election.
CNN National Correspondent Gloria Pazmino is following all of this. Gloria, how close do these items bring Giuliani to the full amount that he owes?
GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred it's really not going to be a whole lot when you consider he's trying to pay off a $148 million judgment against him after he was found to have defamed Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman, accusing them of having tampered in the 2020 election. They sued him for defamation, they won, and they are now trying to collect.
Now this past Friday was a critical deadline which is when Rudy Giuliani finally began to ship some of the items over to these two women including that luxury watch collection that you just saw there. These are some of the items that Rudy Giuliani has to turn over to Ms. Moss and Ms. Freeman in order to pay up.
Now, this is only a small number of items that are being considered in this entire lawsuit. He is still trying to delay and has tried to say that certain items he should not have to turn over. But this is a stunning fall from grace for the former mayor of New York City, America's mayor as he became known after 9/11, and of course someone who not until that long ago was the former president's lawyer. So he is in the process of turning over these items, including his $6 million apartment on Madison Avenue, pictures of which you are seeing there.
But we'll see. It is unlikely that he will be able to fully pay off the amount that he owes Ms. Moss and Ms. Freeman.
Fred?
WHITFIELD: All right, Gloria Pazmino, thank you so much.
Republicans have already won control of the U.S. Senate after picking up three seats from Democrats in the 2024 election, but there is still one seat up for grabs and it's triggering a fierce fight in battleground Pennsylvania.
Now a controversial move by one county as Republicans looking into possible legal action. CNN's Marshall Cohen has more.
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MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: In the critical Senate race in the state of Pennsylvania, incumbent Democratic Senator Bob Casey is about 21,000 votes behind the Republican challenger Dave McCormick. There was an automatic recount in that state because of the narrow margin.
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And as they work through some of those final ballots and provisional ballots, something that happened Tuesday and Thursday in Bucks County, a critical swing county near Philadelphia, is catching a lot of attention.
On Thursday, the Democratic election board in Bucks County voted to count a batch of 114 provisional ballots that are missing some signatures. When you cast a provisional ballot in Pennsylvania, you need to sign it twice. And the election board there counted any ballot that had even just one signature.
This is a problem because before the election, the state Supreme Court ruled that that can't happen. The state Supreme Court said before the election that provisional ballots must have both signatures to be counted.
Now, the Democrats on that panel who voted to count these ballots said that they were doing so because they were afraid that voters may have been following instructions from election workers, may not have intended to make any mistakes, and they really did not want to disenfranchise anybody who would be otherwise eligible.
But the comments from one of those Democratic commissioners, very controversial comments, have caught the attention of folks like Elon Musk and the Republican National Committee, other Trump supporters that have said that her comments were way out of line. Take a listen to what she said on Thursday.
DIANE ELLIS-MARSEGLIA (D), COMMISSIONER, BUCKS COUNTY, PA: Not going to second that, mostly because I think we all know that precedent by a court doesn't matter anymore in this country and people violate laws any time they want. So for me, if I violate this law, it's because I want a court to pay attention to it.
COHEN: Now, look, everyone on all sides of this situation expects there to be possible litigation based off of this decision. So this was not the final word, but her words causing quite a stir in this Pennsylvania Senate race that is still uncalled and could affect the power of the Republican Party in Washington when they take office under President Trump next year.
Marshall Cohen, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WHITFIELD: All right, Marshall, thank you so much.
Hundreds of people are believed to be trapped in an illegal gold mine in South Africa. We'll tell you why they haven't received any help, next.
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WHITFIELD: Welcome back. In South Africa, hundreds of illegal miners are holed up in an abandoned gold mine without food or water. Local authorities are blocking access to vital supplies for the past three months in an effort to crack down on their criminal activity, but at the same time, creating life-threatening conditions.
Here's CNN's Victoria Rubadiri.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VICTORIA RUBADIRI, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Exhausted but finally above ground, an illegal miner in South Africa forced to return to the surface and into the hands of police. At the bottom of this mine shaft, hundreds of others like him holed up without food or water. A bid by South African authorities to cut off and flush out workers illegally operating in a disused gold mine.
Any miner who leaves is searched for gold dust as the government continues its crackdown on illegal activity in the industry. Nearby friends and relatives left to wait anxiously to see if their loved ones resurface alive.
One worker has a wife here. This family member says she's just crying. We don't know how to help her. Her husband went underground in April and has been down there until now.
Many clearly angry with the ANC-led government's hardline approach. One decomposed body was brought to the surface on Thursday. It's not clear how many others may have already died.
We are asking for help from the government, this woman says, so our children can come out of the mine. All we are asking is for their remains to come out.
This is one of several abandoned mines where illegal workers, many from neighboring countries like Zimbabwe, can travel up to four kilometers underground and sometimes spend months beneath the surface.
Authorities are physically blocking any supplies from going into the mine shafts and detaining anyone who comes out. A mining community group told CNN food replenishments had been halted for as long as three months, with supplies now running dangerously low.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want by the end of the week to hear positive news. We can't say by the end of the week they will have been moved out, but we want to see results within the shortest possible time, and it must happen because it is dangerous to stay like that. So the sooner, the better.
RUBADIRI: Extreme measures to tackle a practice the government says cost South Africa a billion dollars a year. Victoria Rubadiri, CNN, Nairobi.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
[15:50:02]
WHITFIELD: And police say they hope to bring the situation to a safe and lawful conclusion.
And if you want to be a homeowner in America today, a leading economic group says you'll need to earn six figures to afford a house. The new report on skyrocketing costs, next.
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WHITFIELD: A new report is painting a bleak picture of America's housing crisis. Oxford Economics says that you need a six-figure salary these days to afford a home right now.
[15:55:08]
The group says buying a new single-family home along with property taxes and insurance now requires nearly $108,000 yearly income. That's nearly double the household income needed just five years ago.
Joining us right now, Chief Economist for Realtor.com, Danielle Hale. Danielle, great to see you. So you hear that number. I mean, that just makes a lot of hearts sink. $108,000 yearly income. So what's this going to do to the whole housing market? Does this mean that it's going to be harder to move houses? What's going on?
DANIELLE HALE, CHIEF ECONOMIST, REALTOR.COM: Yes, it is harder to move houses. And as a result, we see existing home sales are very close to 30-year lows. The market has really struggled because home prices have risen so much. At the same time, mortgage rates have gone up. And that's really pushed up costs. And this is especially true for entry- level buyers.
Anyone trying to become a first-time home buyer, a brand-new homeowner, the market has been particularly challenging for them. And data from the National Association of Realtors actually shows that we're seeing a historic low share of first-time home buyers in the market because it's really, really tough for those buyers.
WHITFIELD: Yeah, we had a really important graphic there. You know, you've got to make $108,000 a year. And that really is only representative of about 36% of households out there right now in America in order to afford buying a home. So what is driving the prices to be so high?
HALE: And there are a lot of different factors. One of the things that has been really important is that we haven't done a great job as a country of building enough homes relative to the number of people that we have in this country. Some areas are doing better than others, which is why in that report, they talked a bit about the variation in home prices across areas.
And that's driven in part by the supply of homes that are being built, also in part by local economic factors like the jobs and typical incomes in an area and how much people are coming into a market. So there's substantial variation in price across the country, but we haven't done a great job of building enough homes nationwide. It's something that was actually part of both of the presidential campaigns in the most recent election cycle.
So it's an issue that has really gained a lot of attention. It's a tricky issue to solve. So hopefully the attention that it's getting right now will help us take some steps to see more houses built and start to make some headway against this issue.
WHITFIELD: Many economists expect, you know, the Fed to issue another rate cut next month. Might that help with the affordability issue?
HALE: It will and it won't. So the Fed controls its policy rate, but it doesn't actually directly impact mortgage rates. Indirectly, what the Fed does affects the entire yield curve. What's interesting is that since the Fed started cutting rates back in September, we've actually seen mortgage rates increase by 70 basis points. And that's because, in part, the long-run outlook has improved. In part, we've seen some better-than-expected jobs data and higher-than-expected inflation data.
So we really need to get inflation totally under control. We're very close. But also, we need to see -- we need to see more balance in the long run. And big government deficits are part of that factor. The more those grow, the more likely it is that interest rates will rise in the long-term.
WHITFIELD: Right. All right, Danielle Hale, great to see you. Thank you so much.
HALE: Thank you.
WHITFIELD: And catch an all-new episode of "Have I Got News For You" with host Roy Wood Jr. and team captains Amber Ruffin and Michael Ian Black this Saturday. That will be today at 9 p.m. Eastern time. Here's a preview of what you can expect from this week's show.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROY WOOD JR., COMEDIAN AND ACTOR: Of course, we're talking about Trump, who at the latest count won the 2024 election by about 2%. But how has the media been framing Trump's victory?
MICHAEL IAN BLACK, ACTOR AND WRITER: Landslide. Overwhelming majority. Democrats are without hope. Everything's a disaster for Democrats.
WOOD: Let's hear it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First, we saw President-elect Trump with a landslide victory.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Landslide.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Landslide.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Landslide.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Landslide.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is why Donald Trump wanted a landslide.
WOOD: Ronald Reagan dishrag Mondale won 49 states.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Lost Minnesota.
WOOD: He landslided. Mondale then landslided the black community. That is a landslide.
BLACK: Stevie Nicks. That's a landslide.
WOOD: I like Fleetwood Mac. It took me a second. I had to go through my white music folder. And then I got it. I had to open up the white folder and move to Elton John.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WHITFIELD: Be sure to tune in a new episode of "Have I Got News For You" tonight, 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, right here on CNN.
[16:00:00]
And before we go, a reminder that Dr. Sanjay Gupta is venturing across the globe to see how the new weight loss medications are transforming lives. Dr. Sanjay Gupta reports, "Is Ozempic Right For You?" That premieres tomorrow, 8 p.m., right here on CNN.
Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. The CNN Newsroom with Jessica Dean starts right now.
