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Biden, Xi Talk Taiwan, Economy and Ukraine in Last Meeting; Typhoon Man-Yi Hits the Philippines, Half a Million Evacuate; Attorney Says, Hegseth Paid Accuser But Denies Sexual Assault. Aired 3-3.30a ET

Aired November 17, 2024 - 03:00   ET

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

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[03:00:00]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and welcome, I'm Max Foster in London.

Just ahead, a last meeting between two world leaders, Joe Biden and Xi Jinping stress the need to maintain stability between the two great powers as Donald Trump waits in the wings.

A super typhoon battering the Philippines, half a million people have been evacuated.

And the U.S. president-elect's pick for defense secretary is embroiled in scandal just days after being named.

Candid, constructive and wide ranging, that's how one U.S. official described the final meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. Meeting on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Lima, Peru, the leaders agreed that A.I. should never be allowed to control nuclear weapons. President Xi said he hoped for continued stability and cooperation in the U.S.-China relationship. And Mr. Biden raised issues, including Taiwan, trade, the presence of North Korean troops in Ukraine, which he called deeply dangerous.

For more, let's go to CNN's Marc Stewart. He's joining us now from Beijing. I think a lot of people watching will be very thankful to hear that robots won't be allowed to fire nuclear weapons.

MARC STEWART, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Max, this was a concern that the Biden administration talked about just recently. The point is that there is an agreement in place, or will be in place, that will prevent as you mentioned, A.I., robots, whatever the phrase you want to use, to make sure that there is human control, if there is ever a situation where nuclear weapons would need to be used.

But that is one of the few deliverables, I guess you could say, from this meeting, because the big point of this meeting, especially for China, was to send a signal to the incoming Trump administration that China, in particular, values communication and stability that we have seen in this latter part of the Biden administration. It is a theme that's been emphasized here in mainland China, looking at the government readout, looking at some of the reporting that we're seeing in state media.

Let's take a quick listen to some remarks by Chinese Leader Xi Jinping.

Okay, we are having some trouble getting that sound in. But let me just say to you that some of the phrasing that Xi Jinping used was talking about the importance of preventing miscalculations and that there should be a need for responsible conversation between these two countries no matter what the differences may be.

And that may be important phrasing as China enters a very unknown period with the Trump administration. At one point, President-elect Trump and President Xi Jinping had a very amicable relationship. They got together in 2017. You may remember that chocolate cake together in Mar-a-Lago. But then some very difficult issues came up, including trade issues, including China's response to COVID.

If we look at where things stand now, there is diplomatic dialogue between these two nations under the Biden administration. We are seeing regular diplomatic visits. But, Max, you may remember it was just a few years ago after that balloon was shot down over the United States, that communication was cut off, communication did not occur, and that's something that China really does not want to see happen again.

FOSTER: Yes, there have been huge tensions between these two countries, and the responsibility for that we'll hand over to Donald Trump very soon. How do you think China's looking at that?

STEWART: Well, China is concerned in the sense that they reflect back to the first Trump administration when diplomats were lying awake at night wondering what was next. But, in a way, China is also trying to leverage this uncertainty to tell other nations that China is a stable power, a stable power, perhaps even more so than the United States, and that it may be worth having conversations with China.

A big example of that was just recently at this gathering in Lima, Peru. We saw China and Peru unveil this big underwater seaport. Beijing contributed $1.3 billion. It is a way for China to show its global presence to say if you have projects, if you have infrastructure, China could be your partner. So, that is something that China will likely try to leverage regardless of whom is in the White House, Max.

FOSTER: Okay. Mark Stewart, thank you so much for bringing us the very latest there from Beijing.

[03:05:01]

The fourth typhoon to hit the Philippines in less than two weeks, battering the country right now. Man-Yi is regaining strength and it's a super typhoon, once again, with sustained winds of 240 kilometers per hour.

Let's bring in Hanako Montgomery. She's in Tokyo. Hanako, I mean, the big concern here is that it could hit a very populous area. I think Luzon looks vulnerable right now.

HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Max, you're absolutely right. The island of Luzon, the country's most populous and actually the biggest island in the country, could very well see a lot of devastation. The typhoon is currently making its way to that area right now.

And of course, Max, we also know that Luzon has experienced a lot of typhoons in the past couple of weeks. That's partly what makes Man-Yi so destructive and devastating, the fact that the country has seen four typhoons in the past two weeks, as you described. Now, we know that, of course, this is a cause really by warmer oceans, in part, because we're burning more fossil fuels and now we're seeing a lot of devastating climate change occur in real time. We're seeing things that we've never seen before. This is very unprecedented.

And like the other typhoons before it, Max, Typhoon Man-Yi is just as destructive and very, very powerful. We've seen entire homes getting ripped apart, roads and power lines destroyed, and also trees uprooted, especially along the eastern coast of the country, which is where the typhoon made landfall on Saturday. In fact, the governor of Catanduanes, one of the areas worst affected by the typhoon, said in a statement on Facebook, quote, most importantly, we pray you do not forget about Catanduanes. We appeal for your power restoration teams, free calls and text booths, in kind donations, help and attention, especially after the typhoon leaves the country.

Now, Max, in response to this typhoon, the government has evacuated more than half a million people. It also preemptively evacuated thousands, those living in the direct path of the typhoon and also in areas susceptible to landslides. Of course, landslides are devastating no matter when or where they occur, but the government has warned that these landslides could be more devastating, more destructive because these consecutive typhoons has made the land just that much more saturated.

And also interestingly, Max, these consecutive typhoons is causing something called typhoon fatigue, according to local media. Essentially, residents in these affected areas and emergency workers on the frontlines are experiencing a lot of exhaustion, a lot of really just fatigue for, you know, dealing with these typhoons week in and week out. Imagine if you're a resident in these in this area and you have to live out of these shelters, you have to evacuate every single week. And for frontline workers, they come face-to-face with this. destruction, this devastation, and health officials have worried that they could experience burnout and potentially depression.

So, of course, Max, this typhoon is making its way across the island of Luzon. So, unfortunately, for the Philippines, it could still see a lot of devastation up ahead. Max?

FOSTER: Okay, our thoughts with everyone there. Hanako, thank you so much for joining us.

Apocalyptic scenes out of Spain, authorities working to restore order after deadly historic flooding devastated the Valencia region and killed more than 200 people. But thousands of damaged vehicles are making that job difficult. As you can see, wrecked and muddy cars are everywhere, lining residential streets and scattered across parking lots.

The Valencia Chamber of Commerce says 137,000 vehicles were damaged or destroyed in the very destructive floods.

New information about a scandal involving Donald Trump's choice to be the next secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth's attorney says Hegseth paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault. More on this developing story next on CNN Newsroom.

Plus, Iran reacts to reports that one of its top diplomats met with Elon Musk, but its version of events is entirely different from what's been reported so far.

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FOSTER: A developing story now about a scandal involving Donald Trump's pick to be defense secretary. Pete Hegseth's attorney says Hegseth paid the woman who accused him of sexual assault, but he denies assaulting her. The payment was part of a settlement that included a confidentiality agreement. Hegseth's attorney says the incident was a consensual sexual encounter.

Hegseth hasn't been charged in any criminal case or named as a defendant in any civil lawsuit in connection with the incident. Trump spent Saturday night in New York at an ultimate fighting event. He was with several of his cabinet picks as well as Elon Musk and Kid Rock.

Now, earlier in the day, Trump selected the head of a fracking company to be his secretary of energy. He's a man who's expressed doubt that climate change is linked to extreme weather.

CNN's Steve Contorno has more from West Palm Beach, Florida.

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: Donald Trump on Saturday continued to build out his cabinet, naming Chris Wright as his secretary of energy. Wright is the CEO of Liberty Energy, a company that services oil and natural gas exploration and production companies along with his wife. He is also a major Republican fundraiser. And he's also someone who does not necessarily believe in manmade climate change. In fact, he has said, there is no climate crisis. Of course, that is a belief that Donald Trump also holds, though it is notable given the department that he will oversee.

He will also be named to the newly formed Council of National Energy. That will be chaired as well by Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor, who is also named by Trump as his secretary of the interior.

Even as Trump builds out his incoming administration, he continues to face questions about some of his picks that he has already made, including Matt Gaetz as attorney general. Gaetz is a figure who has many enemies on Capitol Hill for starting intraparty fights over the years. He is also the subject of multiple investigations into alleged sexual misconduct. And Trump remains steadfast in his determination to get Gaetz across the finish line, despite concerns that he cannot get the 51 votes in the U.S. Senate to be confirmed.

A source telling CNN on Saturday that Trump remains, quote, 100 percent committed to seeing Matt Gaetz through and believes that he is one of the most important, if not the most important appointments of his cabinet. This source telling CNN he is not going to back off. He's all-in on Matt Gaetz.

Steve Contorno, CNN, West Palm Beach, Florida.

FOSTER: Richard Johnson watching this unfold from London. He's a lecturer in U.S. politics at Queen Mary University. Thank you for joining us.

I mean, we've got a climate skeptic now potentially running you know, the energy brief. You've got a vaccine skeptic running the health brief potentially as well. What do you think Donald Trump is trying to say and do here?

RICHARD JOHNSON, LECTURER IN U.S. POLITICS, QUEEN MARY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON: Elections have consequences, and Trump is using probably the moment that he has maximum political influence, I would say, much more so than eight years ago when he came into the White House to try to put in and install people who are of his mindset in top positions.

This is going to be very difficult for some Republican senators. He has a different Senate now than he did eight years ago. And what I mean by that is that Republican-elected officials have learned that if they cross Trump, they jeopardize their position.

[03:15:03]

Because many of the Republican senators and congressmen and other officials who went against Trump in the days gone by, they lost primary challenges.

And so even those Republican senators who may have serious reservations over some of these nominees and more is coming out about them day-by-day, they're going to be under intense pressure from the Republican grassroots to stay loyal to Trump. And that's the test that they'll be under over the next couple of months.

FOSTER: And if we look at the Senate, it is much more MAGA than it was last time Trump came to power, of course. I mean, what sort of numbers are we talking about of moderate Republicans who could be swayed or go with their own conscience?

JOHNSON: Well, the two that immediately come to mind are Susan Collins in Maine and Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, who have demonstrated at various intervals some degree of independence from Donald Trump. They were part of the trio that killed Trump's attempt in his first term to repeal Obamacare, along with John McCain, who, of course, has passed away. Trump can afford to lose those two votes. He can afford to lose a third vote. If the vote is 50-50 in the Senate, then J. D. Vance, as the president of the Senate, casting the vote. I think there are other senators who are not died in the wall Trump supporters, but have, as I was sort of saying before they're going to be much more reticent and directly challenging Trump, at least publicly.

But I think one thing that's interesting, if I may say, is that if we look at the leadership election for the Republican leader, the stated preferences of the senators are somewhat different from the revealed preferences. And what I mean by that is that John Thune, who is a more moderate figure than Rick Scott, won the election in a secret ballot. And, of course, these nominations, these confirmation votes are not a secret vote. And I do think that if it was a secret ballot, Trump would probably lose a lot more of these confirmation votes than he will when it's on the record ballot, because the Republican grassroots voters who voted the primaries will be able to follow along and put pressure on their senators.

FOSTER: And what about the idea that people are being put in charge of departments who don't believe in what those departments have been doing? It's going to be a challenge, isn't it, keeping the departments on board for a start? But, you know, there are issues with the way these places are often run. There always are, because they're big organizations. And a lot of people will be thinking they do need to be disrupted.

JOHNSON: Well, this is actually a much longer standing tactic of the sort of conservative political movement in the United States. So, you can go back to the Reagan administration, when President Reagan installed people as the head of the Housing and Urban Development or in the Justice Department or in the Economic Opportunity Office who weren't really believers in what we might call the kind of founding mission of many of these departments was certainly felt these departments were much more proactive than they ought to be.

Trump in his first administration also installed people whose personal politics often went against the sort of historic mission of agencies like, say, the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency. And so we're seeing a continuation and an intensification of that.

In the last administration, there was some internal pushback from career civil servants. And there are accounts of the first Trump presidency where career civil servants did, in some cases, seem to soft pedal some of the moves that were coming out from Trump and his closest advisers. This time, the Trump administration is going to be, I think, much more determined to root out internal dissidents as they would see it. And what that probably means is removing some of the employment protections that some civil servants have, or at least threatening that as a way of ensuring compliance with the mission of the agency heads.

FOSTER: Okay. Richard, as ever, thank you so much for joining us today with your analysis.

Now, Iran says it was caught off guard by reports that his U.N. ambassador recently met with Elon Musk. Tehran categorically denies the meeting ever even happened and says it was surprised by the coverage in the U.S. media. The Associated Press and The New York Times said the two men met earlier this week, allegedly discussing ways to dial down the tensions.

The alleged meeting raised questions about Musk's influence on future U.S. foreign policy. He's already been picked as a co-leader of what's been called the Department of Government Efficiency.

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Russia has launched one of its largest air attacks across Ukraine over the past few hours.

Ukrainian air defenses could be seen shooting down incoming missiles in the skies over Kyiv early on Sunday. At least two people have been killed and eight wounded. Officials in Ukraine say the targets -- the attacks targeted energy facilities using both drones and missiles. Blasts could be heard across the country, including the western regions.

Ukraine's foreign minister slammed Russia for launching air attacks against, quote, peaceful cities, sleeping civilians and critical infrastructure.

Lebanon's capital is seeing the scenes that have become all too familiar in recent weeks.

Still ahead, Beirut takes a pounding from Israeli strikes, just as we're getting word about possible progress on the ceasefire front.

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FOSTER: Beirut keeps taking fire from Israeli strikes, which are now pummeling the city for a sixth day in a row. At least two explosions rattled the Lebanese capital earlier today. That's happening as Israeli ground troops push further into Lebanon. But sources are also telling us that the latest ceasefire effort is getting traction in Beirut.

Nada Bashir monitoring those developments. Well, it's sad, isn't it, that all wars end with negotiations. So, some positivity coming out of Beirut?

NADA BASHIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Potentially we are hearing from sources that discussions between political officials in Lebanon are ongoing with regards to this latest ceasefire proposal put forward by the United States, a real hope that this could be the push really to bring an end to the hostilities that we are seeing in Lebanon sources had previously told CNN that Hezbollah officials are considering the ceasefire proposal on the table, that there was some optimism around this latest agreement that has been put forward.

And there has been some suggestion that we may see an official response from Hezbollah as early as Monday night with regards to this latest proposal, which, according to officials, has put forward the terms for a 60-day cessation of hostilities with the hope that this would then eventually lead to a lasting ceasefire. One Lebanese official also told CNN that the current proposal on the table lies within the parameters of U.N. Resolution 1701, which brought an end to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war. But, crucially, this resolution stipulates that only the Lebanese army and U.N. peacekeeping forces should be present south of the Litani River on Lebanon's southern border. This is a crucial stipulation of the Israeli army as well, of course, of the Israeli government.

They want to see Hezbollah forces completely removed from this parts of Southern Lebanon. So, this would be a significant development and also a significant concession on Hezbollah's part if indeed they do agree to these terms. But, of course, this comes as we are seeing really the ramping up of Israel's military assault on Lebanon. As you mentioned, we have seen Israeli forces now deepening their incursion. The deepest we've seen them pushed into Southern Lebanon since their incursion began at the beginning of October.

[03:25:05]

And, of course, we are still seeing airstrikes targeting parts of the southern suburbs of Beirut on Friday, at least 59 people killed across Lebanon as a result of this Israeli military operation, and, of course, a mass displacement crisis that is only getting worse.

So, certainly mounting pressure on all parties for this war to come to an end, for some sort of peace agreement to be reached, at least at a temporary state, as put forward by this agreement in the hopes that this could last to a lasting ceasefire.

FOSTER: Okay. Nada, thank you for the update.

In Gaza, ten people are dead after an Israeli strike on a school near Gaza City on Saturday. That's according to Palestinian paramedics, who say most of the victims are women and children. The school was sheltering displaced families at a refugee camp. UNICEF says that more than 95 percent of schools in Gaza are either damaged or destroyed and that there were more than 60 strikes on schools in the last month alone. Israel claims Hamas uses schools as a cover for its operations as justification for such attacks.

A stabbing attack in Eastern China has killed eight people and injured 17 others. It happened on Saturday night on a college campus. A suspect was taken into custody at the scene. Police said the suspect is a recent graduate of the college who failed an exam, didn't receive a graduation certificate and was dissatisfied with internship compensation.

This is the latest mass casualty incident in the country. Last Monday, 35 people were killed and 40 injured when a driver plowed through a crowd in Southern China.

Now, the beauty of India's Taj Mahal obscured by toxic smog over the past week. Air quality in Northern India has been deteriorating with no relief in sight. In the capital of New Delhi, the India Gate War Memorial was also shrouded in smog, and residents were forced to cut their workouts short.

Every winter, cold air traps dust, emissions, and smoke from illegal farm fires, creating a toxic mix of smoke and fog. And it's affecting more than just the air quality. It's created a rise in acute asthma, particularly in children. It also disrupted air traffic, causing flights to be diverted due to zero visibility.

Thank you for joining us here on CNN. I'm Max Foster in London.

And Marketplace Europe is up next and I'll be back at the top of the hour with CNN Newsroom. That's about 30 minutes from now.

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