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Israel-Hezbollah Ceasefire Deal In Effect In Lebanon; Biden: U.S. To Make New Push To Secure Gaza Ceasefire; U.S. Secures Release Of Three Americans In Prisoner Swap With China; Trump Rounds Out Economic Team With New Picks; Federal Employees Terrified Of Becoming Musk's Targets. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired November 27, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:38]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Good evening. Thanks so much for joining me today. I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington.

Let's get right to the news. It's been 18 hours since the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect. Lebanon's prime minister is calling it a new day for his country, as thousands of residents began returning to their homes in the southern part of the country.

While there are celebrations today, there is a long road to rebuild after months of destruction from relentless Israeli airstrikes. The Lebanese army is beefing up its presence in the south to help enforce the ceasefire agreement. In the next 60 days, Israel's forces must withdraw from Lebanon while Hezbollah as well must move north of the Litani River. You could see on the map there.

Despite the truth, the IDF is ramping up a warning which would prevent anyone from moving to southern Lebanon. The big questions now, can it hold? Will it lead to a cease fire as well in Gaza?

CNN's Nic Robertson is in Jerusalem.

Nic, you know, big question throughout this has been would the ceasefire give enough confidence to the many thousands of Israelis who moved south since the start of the northern front of this war following October 7th to move back into their homes in those northern towns and communities? Are you seeing that already?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: There's hesitation, Jim. Look, undoubtedly people are going to move back. Restrictions on school closures have been lifted. But the message from government officials is, you know, move back in your own time, move back when you're ready, make the decisions yourselves. You know, it's -- it's I think the sense that this deal looks so much like the 2006 deal whereby as you say, the Lebanese army moves in, the U.N. moves in, and they're supposed to keep Hezbollah out, but they weren't able to do it before. It's the same deal, that's what people think as previously failed.

So there's a hesitancy. And it's not just sort of hesitancy of individuals because people do think collectively, they think as communities particularly in some of these tight knit little communities that are so close to the border. So there is a resistance.

But -- you know, people have no other choice. They recognize that. If they don't go back now, then there's nothing else in this equation is going to change at the moment. They'll likely wait and just see how it plays out over the next few weeks. But this is what it looks like right now, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this because, of course, we've had an election here in the United States, and we have a new president coming in, in less than 60 days of this agreement. When you speak to Israelis do they see this as a bridge agreement, as it were? In other words, this will hold the line for now but we might have a new negotiation, new rules of the game, perhaps even more support for the Netanyahu government once President-elect Trump is in.

ROBERTSON: You know, I think what they're expecting at the moment, and this may not happen for a number of reasons that, you know, that we're yet to see.

But I think there's this wide expectation that that President-elect Donald Trump is going to be tough on Iran. And Iran is behind all these different war fronts that are affecting -- targeting Israel at the moment. So I think most people feel this is going to be a net positive for Israel and it really depends how it plays out. There are bigger, broader perspectives in the region.

For example, Netanyahu, not moving in the direction of a Palestinian state, which is a prerequisite for a normalization with Saudi Arabia which is Donald Trump's favorite, or MBS, the crown prince. There is his sort of favorite go-to ally leader in the region. So there are broader issues other than -- other than Iran's threats to Israel.

But absolutely, by and large, people here are really hoping that this is going to make a difference and is this a holding pattern, yes, no, maybe so. The focus will be on Iran. That's what Netanyahu says. And if Trump comes in behind that focus on Iran, builds on that, does put some of the strictures on Iran that Netanyahu wants to see, then the Hezbollah deal will work just fine because Iran is the real issue that's how I think most Israelis see it at the moment.

SCIUTTO: And, of course, Iran has skin in this game as well. And we'll have to see how Iran reacts to all this.

[15:05:02]

Nic Robertson, thanks so much.

Well, the Biden administration believes the ceasefire deal for Lebanon could lay the groundwork for something similar for Gaza and Hamas.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is now with the president as he takes a vacation in Nantucket.

Arlette, I mean, is there a realistic renewed ceasefire and hostage release deal now between Israel and Hamas regarding Gaza? ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, President Biden sure is hoping that that is something that they can achieve. Yesterday, he said that they would make this renewed push to try to secure a hostage release deal in Gaza. This morning, national security advisor Jake Sullivan said that they really view this ceasefire in Lebanon as a fresh opportunity to potentially bring Hamas to the negotiating table, to try to put an end to the war in Gaza.

That is something that senior administration officials in the past 24 hours have really stressed that they really believe that trying to decouple these wars between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, and then Israel and Hamas in Gaza could apply more pressure on Hamas to return to the negotiating table, as those talks relating to Gaza have really stalled out in recent weeks. President Biden had noted that the U.S. would be working with Israel, Egypt, Qatar and also Turkey, which would be a new player in any mediations going forward.

But it's really unclear how exactly all of that could come together or when those negotiations could potentially pick back up in earnest. Earlier, Jake Sullivan had said that he would not make any predictions for when some type of deal could come together, but certainly they are trying to use this ceasefire in Lebanon as new momentum to reinvigorate those talks.

For President Biden, he really hailed that agreement in Lebanon as really restoring calm in at least one front of this multifaceted war in the Middle East. President Biden, in his remarks yesterday in the Rose Garden, had said that this shows that peace is possible. Of course, Biden has spent the last 14 months trying to find an end to this conflict, trying to return those hostages back to their families. But so far has not seen any real major movement on that front in recent months.

He also has an eye on having this greater peace situation in the Middle East, as he's trying to normalize relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel. For President Biden, as he's winding down his presidency, all of this will really be a key focus. But there are very real questions about whether this is actually attainable with Biden on his way out the door.

I spoke a few minutes ago with one of the families, Ronen and Orna Neutra, whose son Omer is still being held by Hamas in Gaza, and they said that they really want to see Biden and Trump try to work together to secure this release. They say that they don't have time until waiting until the inauguration to have their loved ones back home, as these hostages are still suffering in these dire conditions in Gaza.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. And listen, the track record has shown the more time the hostages are there sadly, the less likely it is they survive.

Arlette Saenz, thanks so much.

For more now I want to bring in Hanin Ghaddar, author of "Hezbollah Land" and senior fellow at the Washington Institute For Near East Policy.

Hanin, thanks so much for joining this afternoon.

HANIN GHADDAR, AUTHOR, "HEZBOLLAHLAND": Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: So I wonder when you look at this truce now how, if at all, is it different from the truce that ended the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war? Because there were a lot of common factors one of which is the Lebanese military's role in terms of securing that southern part of Lebanon, but also U.N. peacekeepers. And, of course, we've seen that U.N. peacekeepers have not managed to keep, for instance, Hezbollah from moving south.

So, how does this one survive in a way that that one did not?

GHADDAR: That's a very good question. (INAUDIBLE)

And actually it's very different this time. There are three things that make it different. One is the Israeli determination to take the place of any -- any violations.

Second, which is very important, and Hezbollah and Lebanon agreed to that, which is basically the mechanism, the committee will be led by U.S., a U.S. general, which means that they will be the U.S. will be present in the mechanism committee. The committee will be much more efficient the mechanism to actually monitor the army, the LAF, the Lebanese army, on the ground will be more efficient and the communication between this committee which will be led by the U.S. and with the along with the UNIFIL and the French will be responsible for sharing intelligence, sharing information and coordinating with Israel. So this is very different from last time.

The third and more and most important I think in my opinion, factor is that this time around, Hezbollah did not come out victorious and do not have the resources to actually reconstruct its infrastructure and reconstruct the damaged buildings and for compensations.

[15:10:15]

This time, Hezbollah will have to deal with many, many challenges before coming back to south of Lithuania.

SCIUTTO: So let me ask you now how Hezbollah uses this time, right? I mean, it will have a period of time, perhaps 60 days, if the ceasefire were to hold to potentially rearm, can Iran successfully rearm them, Netanyahu certainly has said he's not going to allow that to happen, and we've seen a whole host of Israeli strikes on those supply lines between Iran and Hezbollah.

GHADDAR: Correct. That's a very good factor in the implementation of 1701, which is the Lebanese-Syrian border. If the south of Lebanon is monitored and the implementation of 1701 works in the south it cannot be sustained without the monitoring and the really stopping Iran from transporting weapons to Hezbollah via the Syrian border. So this is a main factor.

And that's why if we want this implementation of 1701 to last to be sustainable, there's no way -- there's no way, we cannot move on without actually making a plan for the Lebanese-Syrian border. And we don't have now that kind of plan. We don't have enough army, Lebanese army to actually do that.

However, Hezbollah's next phase to answer your question is going to lay low. Iran is going to lay low because they know that the world is focused on them during these 60 days. And these 60 days are going to be very crucial in maintaining the what -- what they have left. They still have some missiles that they want to protect. They don't want the war to come back. They will lay low.

But then eventually I think Iran will continue to try to send weapons to Hezbollah. They will continue to try to send missiles and kits for missiles, ballistic missiles, long range missiles, precision missiles, because they have lost all of them or most of them. That -- they cannot send them a lot of money and cash. That's why that border is important.

However, border security is always a matter of sovereignty. That's why, you know, the LAF cannot do its job. The borders cannot be monitored. The port and the airport will not be efficiently monitored without a sovereign, independent government, which will give the authority to all these authorities to actually do their job well. So that is going to be very critical.

SCIUTTO: Well, it's clear though -- it's clear, though, that Israel does not have confidence, shall we say and that's why they've been for instance, carrying out strikes on those borders inside Syria, et cetera.

Hezbollah officials have said they're making preparations for the funeral of Nasrallah, the deputy head of Hezbollah, the political council said it will serve as a clear, popular and official referendum on support for the resistance of Hezbollah. Let me ask you this, there were already people in Lebanon as you know, who were sick of Hezbollah.

They want Hezbollah gone, right, or at least have a reduced role following this war that brought so much suffering on the Lebanese people. Is Hezbollah more or less popular today than it was prior to this war?

GHADDAR: Definitely less popular. And they lost popularity a long time ago within the Lebanese community. They still had some support by the Shia community. Most of the Shia community and some other people within other communities that are considered allies to Hezbollah.

Today, it's different. The Shia today are asking a lot of questions. They're going back home -- happy to go back home. They are definitely celebrating.

That's why we're seeing a lot of celebrations today, because they're happy to go back home. But when they realize that there's no money like 2006 for reconstruction and rehabilitation and basically Hezbollah will not be able to take care of them and compensate for everything they've lost. They will realize eventually that they have lost the father figure and they're already seeing that happening. They've lost the father figure who promised them that they will

protect them, and they are going to rebuild. That's basically Hezbollah's slogan, so protect and build. So today they are not protected. And they were not rebuilt.

So today, the Shia will realize or starting to realize, actually, that the only alternative they have is the state. So they are interested in a state that will protect them. And this is a great opportunity because Hezbollah will not be able to satisfy the needs of the Shia in the coming weeks and it will be very challenging for Hezbollah to do that.

SCIUTTO: Okay. So let's talk about Iran then. Iran needed Hezbollah or used it in effect as a way of exerting power in the region and pressure on Israel from the north.

[15:15:05]

Is Iran weaker now without a strong Hezbollah?

GHADDAR: Yes, absolutely. It's -- it's not weak. It's weaker.

So they still have strong proxies in the region. They lost a lot of them. They lost Hamas. Don't forget that. Hamas is also weakened in Gaza. Hezbollah is extremely weakened.

But they still have the Shia militias in Iraq. They still have Syria, and they still have the Houthis, which proved to be much more efficient than any of the rest.

So they are going to focus on the Houthis. This is something that is obvious. The Houthis are going to become their crown jewel instead of Hezbollah for the time being until they can actually go back and rebuild Hezbollah from scratch.

But it's going to be very difficult, and it depends on what kind of strategy Lebanon will have regarding all its points of entries whether Hezbollah will be besieged or not. But meanwhile, Iran will try as much as it can to send weapons to Hezbollah. The thing is that Iran doesn't have the resources.

In 2006, Iran had a lot of money. Victory was made with U.S. dollars. That's why people were satisfied the divine victory of Hezbollah back in 2006 was made with U.S. dollars coming from Iran. Today, Iran lost -

SCIUTTO: Doesn't have that money, yep.

GHADDAR: Access, yeah, access to hard currency is not easy as it was and now with the Trump administration and maximum pressure, probably this is going to become an issue. So Iran will have to leave it there.

SCIUTTO: We'll have to leave it there. Unfortunately, given the time. But, Hanin Ghaddar, we do appreciate your analysis. Thanks so much for joining.

GHADDAR: Thank you. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: China has now released three Americans whom it had detained for years, this in a prisoner swap between Beijing and Washington. In exchange, Washington freed several unidentified Chinese nationals.

Let's go to the State Department. CNN's Jennifer Hansler has been covering this story.

Do we know how this exchange came to be? Because, well, the U.S.-China relationship has been quite difficult.

JENNIFER HASLER, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT PRODUCER: Well, Jim, the release of Mark Swidan, Kai Li and John Leung came about because of years and years of quiet, diplomatic efforts by the Biden administration. Were told that basically every encounter between the U.S. and Beijing, this was brought up, be it Secretary of State Antony Blinken bringing it up to Wang Yi on the sidelines of a meeting in Laos, or the un general assembly, national security adviser Jake Sullivan when he was in China in August, brought this up. And then in recent weeks, it was driven home again by President Biden when he met with President Xi on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru.

Now as you mentioned, of course, the relations between Washington and Beijing are rocky at best. But this was something that the U.S. said they continued to hammer home the need to bring home these Americans, two of whom had been designated as wrongfully detained. And notably, Jim, a lot of this was done very quietly about two months ago, a fourth American had been released from Chinese custody.

David Lin, who was also designated as wrongfully detained. And that was kept very quiet. We're told that this was done so as not to derail sensitive, ongoing negotiations here. So, of course, we have the happy result today of getting those other three Americans coming home.

And, of course, the families have in the past spoken out about their frustrations over the fact that this seemed to be taking so long. There seemed to be very little progress. And, of course, there's a lot that was going on behind the scenes that wasn't evident to the public eye. And all of those results paid off today, and they will be able to be reunited with their loved ones in time for Thanksgiving.

SCIUTTO: Yeah. The timing, let's think about that. But that's often the frustration with these negotiations, right? Is that the bulk of the work is done in private, families may not even know, right? The extent of those negotiations until hopefully they get the good news.

Jennifer Hansler, thanks so much.

Still to come, how will China, America's top global economic competitor, respond to President-elect Trump's vow to increase tariffs on day one of his administration? Are they ready? We'll take a look next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:22:19] SCIUTTO: President-elect Donald Trump is rounding out his economic team, appointing Jamieson Greer as U.S. trade representative, and Kevin Hassett, a familiar face, as director of the National Economic Council. Both served in Trump's first administration, implementing across the board tariffs on China and crafting the USMCA trade agreement with Mexico and Canada.

This week, Trump put those three countries, China and U.S. allies Mexico and Canada, on alert, threatening higher tariffs on day one of his administration and then unleashing corporate fears of a trade war.

So who better to break this all down than CNN's Richard Quest, business editor at large.

Richard, I mean, there's a lot to this. I mean, for one, the MCA with Mexico and Canada, something Trump himself negotiated, right? So here we are, he's not even assumed the office yet, and basically already creating this policy.

RICHARD QUEST, CNN BUSINESS EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Oh, let's call it -- let's call it, as we say in Britain lets call a spade a bloody shovel and Donald Trump is now effectively setting U.S. policy.

You know that famous line that -- those who've won elections say, America -- Obama said it. America only has one president at a time. Bill Clinton said it. George Bush said it. It's a rubric of the winning president.

Donald Trump has not said it. Donald Trump has not said America only has one president at a time when he put out those social truth tweets, he essentially started running U.S. foreign economic and trade policy. And my evidence for saying this, Jim, is that within 24 hours, he had held a negotiating session with Prime Minister Trudeau of Canada and the new president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum had already written him a letter threatening him back, tariffs tit for tat.

Now, if that is not setting policy, now I don't know what is.

SCIUTTO: Well, listen, I mean, we talk about norms and laws and a whole host of things that have gone by the wayside. But, well, the Logan Act, there goes the Logan Act.

Let me ask you this because Trump, by his own description, is a negotiator. He's a deal maker. He could always make a better deal than the next guy. And as always arguably open to a deal seems to indicate that.

Is there something that these countries can offer him to reduce or remove those tariffs?

[15:25:02]

QUEST: All right. So what does he want? He wants, number one, to stem the flow of immigrants. And number two -- in the case of the borders. And number two, in many cases to stem the flow of drugs, particularly fentanyl. All right. So how is he going to measure this? What is the barometer

of success? How are they going to know whether between now and January the 20th, those goals have been achieved.

Now what he wants is commitments. What he wants is those leaders to say, we're going to do this. We'll put in place that. We'll spend this money. You're right, Donald Trump.

But that's negotiating foreign policy before he's become president. If they say to him, Donald Trump, we will do this X, Y and Z beforehand. And when we come in it will all be in place, then he may relent.

If they don't, w we now essentially have -- and let me -- I'm, you know, I'm American by citizenship and British by birth. Let me give you a turkeys voting for Thanksgiving or Christmas analogy. These tariffs are essentially turkeys voting for Christmas because everybody is going to suffer.

The U.S. will suffer because of the sheer amount of cross trade. Canada will be decimated. Mexico will be blown out of the water. There is no winner in any of this.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, listen, I mean, people should remember the 19th century. Remember, we've tried this before, right? Didn't work so great, so great then.

And, by the way, we've already seen pushback. I mean, the Mexican president on the drug issue has said, all the guns of those cartels or most of them come from the U.S. And she talked to a lot of countries will that it's U.S. demand that is at least part of the equation.

QUEST: Think of a car that's now made. The part comes from here. It goes across the border. It then goes back across the border. Then it goes back across the border.

And then a bit comes in from Canada and another bit comes from here. Bit comes in from China and doesn't really matter where it's assembled. The USMCA basically puts it all together and it's sold.

If you disrupt that very finely balanced supply chain as will happen, which is why you're seeing Stellantis, GM and Ford, the three big car companies being the hardest hit. It is a bull in a china shop. But that's what Donald Trump wants because he's negotiating trade policy now. So on January, the 20th, he knows where he stands.

SCIUTTO: Richard Quest, always illuminating, thanks so much.

QUEST: Thank you, sir.

SCIUTTO: Do stick around next hour for more from Richard on "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS".

Well, China, America's top global economic competitor, has long been readying for higher tariffs in a second Trump administration. You'll remember both Trump and Biden actually imposed tariffs over the past several years. These new tariffs would be added on top of those existing tariffs.

Beijing responded to Trump's threat this week saying, quote, no one will win a trade war. That's what Richard just said in fact.

For more on that, I want to bring in Keyu Jin. She's an economist and author of "The New China Playbook".

Thanks so much for joining.

KEYU JIN, ECONOMIST & AUTHOR, "THE NEW CHINA PLAYBOOK": Good to be with you.

SCIUTTO: Your prediction interestingly, somewhat contrarian, is that U.S. tariffs on China might actually strengthen the Chinese economy. Why?

JIN: Well, China has long been preparing for more U.S. truculence and it hasn't been just sulking after the first trade war. It has been reacting. Chinese companies have been going global. There has been a total craze. Exporters are getting so much more support from the government.

And you know, they are seeking more opportunities abroad. In fact, China has maintained its export status to pre-trade levels. Why? Because they're simply exporting to more countries and they're going to continue to do that. So it makes really little difference. You know whether it's a Trump presidency or a Harris presidency.

SCIUTTO: Interesting. So you say China gains I wonder in your view, is the U.S. in danger of losing from this? I imagine China might respond with its own tariffs. And then I think about particular industries where China dominates today, particularly in renewables for instance, solar panels, essential parts of electric vehicles.

Does China have the ability to inflict some pain on the U.S. economy?

JIN: Well, the question is even with the tariffs, are Chinese renewables batteries EVs going to be competitive? And it seems like they still will be.

But we have to remember that less than 5 percent of Chinese exports are in these sectors. And even less of that is going to the U.S. They have already started shipping much more to Europe and seeking, you know, other partners. So U.S. is not really their key export market for these things. But I would also argue on the other hand, that this is going to significantly slow the green transition in the U.S. because they're shutting themselves off from international competition.

SCIUTTO: Yeah well, it'll be interesting to see what Elon Musk thinks of that, given how essential the China market is to -- is to Tesla.

[15:30:01]

There are some warning in addition, that a tariff war, a trade war could then lead to a currency war with China, with China letting its currency lose value against the dollar to make Chinese exports less expensive.

This, by the way, is something that Trump and the first administration frequently accused China of doing. Is that another potential front of this trade war?

JIN: First of all, it's important to say that China is not interested in engaging in a trade war. They weren't really sure of what's going on in Trump 1.0. They didn't know the parameters, so there was some aggressive response.

I think the large retaliatory responses will be symbolic this time around. So, you know there -- I think that's not really their angle. But the response is not going to be a currency manipulation because a strong Yuan is important as a signal for China's economic strength. Instead, the response would be more fiscal stimulus more support for export.

SCIUTTO: So I wonder what us how us companies with presences in China react to this. We already saw one, for instance, Steve Madden, leave China. But when I think of companies that are so tied to China, particularly in terms of manufacturing, I think apple is one, right, where iPhones made principally, but also Tesla.

Do those companies stand to lose I mean, lose. I mean, these are major, major companies in the U.S., but also in the U.S. stock market.

JIN: Absolutely. We've seen already the stock market responses to some of these that are very exposed to the China market. I mean, China is the second largest economy in the world. It's still growing, offers good growth.

And these -- this is a really important market for American businesses. I think for most of that community, pragmatism, practicality is still essential. So, yes, they do have a lot to lose. And it's important to understand that actually both economies have much to lose in the short run.

What we've seen really interestingly, is that it's actually benefited a lot of other countries especially the likes of Mexico, Vietnam, Thailand and Korea. And in fact, it actually spurred global exports by 3 percent. Why? Because these countries have actually used this export platform to do much more exporting around the world, not just to U.S. and China. So, really, the, you know, the victims are really U.S. and China here.

SCIUTTO: Before we go, is there a deal that you could see China and the U.S. making under Trump? I mean, in the last administration, you remember he got China to buy a lot of us soybeans, right. Its kind of payback for concessions, as it turned out China didn't buy many of those soybeans as promised. But do you think there's something China could offer to pull Trump back from at least some of these tariffs?

JIN: I think that the Chinese believe that these tariff posturing is just the start of a deal making process, and they are prepared for that. So, buying more U.S. goods. Look, you know, we should think about stuff that can be negotiable and stuff that is a no go zone. And they're going to keep it very clear. But I do believe that there's

room for negotiation. And look, you know they want to maintain a relatively reasonable relationship with the U.S.

SCIUTTO: Well, that's nice to hear.

Keyu Jin, thanks so much for walking us through it.

JIN: Great. Good to be with you. Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Still to come, Ukraine says there are now 12,000 North Korean troops fighting alongside the Russian army against Ukraine. This is Donald Trump picks a new special envoy for Ukraine and Russia. We will have more on what that pick means for Ukraine and what plans he might have. That's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:36:55]

SCIUTTO: A growing number of North Korean troops are aiding Russia now in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainian defense minister said today that number is now up to 12,000 North Korean troops. That news is President-elect Trump has announced General Keith Kellogg will serve in his second term as special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, a new position.

You may remember Trump promised on the campaign trail to end the war in Ukraine somehow, without offering any specificity before he took office. Oren Liebermann joins me now from the Pentagon.

Oren, can you tell us about General Kellogg his views on Ukraine and how he fits into Trump's aspiration to end the war there? Do we know the outlines of his proposed plan?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Only in perhaps the roughest sense. But it's at least some sort of an idea on how to make progress if President-elect Donald Trump is serious about trying to end the war in Ukraine. First, a bit on retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg. He has been in Trump's orbit for quite some time in the first administration. He was a chief of staff on the National Security Council. He was the national security advisor to then Vice President Mike Pence.

So he has been in this orbit for quite some time. When it comes to Ukraine. Kellogg is one of several members in Trump's orbit who have put forward ideas or plans, or perhaps outlines is a better word for how to handle Ukraine and presented those to Trump's pick for national security advisor Mike Wallace.

Kellogg's idea, according to sources familiar with the discussions, is to condition Ukraine aid on them coming to the negotiating table and being willing to take part in a negotiating process. Now, that's not likely to make Ukraine happy, of course. But it is the plan that or the idea I should say, that Kellogg has put forward: Tell Ukraine you will only get continued us military aid should you negotiate in good faith here.

Now, that's one of only a few ideas. One of the other suggestions or possibilities for this pick of special envoy to Russia and Ukraine was former U.S. ambassador to Germany in Trump's first administration, Ric Grenell and his idea was to create autonomous zones within Ukraine. Now, of course, it could be a signal that Kellogg was picked that Trump is leaning in that direction but its also worth noting that there are other ideas out there.

Sebastian Gorka, who was picked to be one of the chief deputies on the National Security Council, recently called Russian President Vladimir Putin a thug and said that Ukraine will get even more aid in a new administration. So there are a lot of ideas floating around there. Sources close to Trump have cautioned that Trump could go one direction or another here very quickly, but at least Kellogg has put forward and communicated to Trump's national security advisor, soon to be, an idea for how to at least bring the sides to negotiations.

Jim, of course you don't need me to tell you this. We'll see which direction Trump goes, at least fairly soon here.

SCIUTTO: No question. And autonomous regions sound a lot like -- well, what Russia has attempted in other countries as ways to take land and territory that is not theirs. Oren Liebermann and the Pentagon, thanks so much.

Inside Ukraine, the fighting grinds on its deadly. The war is now approaching its three year mark. In February the outlook seems bleak for one unit in Pokrovsk that is so low on infantry. It is now relying on drones instead. Nick Paton Walsh has more.

A warning that some of the video in this story is graphic.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): They're running out of time, space and people. Night is killing time for drones.

They've switched on the anti-drone device because of the threat around here.

This Ukrainian drone unit of just two hunting, but also hunted.

I think I hear a drone inside, inside, inside.

Is that a Russian drone? Is it one of theirs? They don't know, but they have to carry on.

Dogs are not friends. Their heat signals can give their launch spot away to Russia's thermal cameras. They close in on the target. A house jamming hits the signal but they fire anyway.

Russia advancing too fast here, south of Pokrovsk in the east to miss any chances. The skyline speaks of how Pokrovsk is in Russia's crosshairs. Ukraine is short of manpower, but it is so bad here. They say they must rely on drones, not infantry, to slow a brazen Russian daylight assault like this one.

"EAST", DRONE COMPNAY COMMANDER, 15 NATIONAL GUARD (translated): The situation is very critical. We lack infantry to fight and hold out for some time wile the attack drones do their job. That's why we often see the enemy uncomfortably penetrating vulnerable areas.

WALSH: This Russian tank here is relentless. As Trump presidency and possible peace talks loom. do they even have time for that here?

"KOEHEI", RECON UNIT, 15 NATIONAL GUARD (translated): I cannot say how much time we have. If there is ay time at all. Because now they are pushing their troops to the front as much as possible. At then at one point they will go for an assault. They can go very far in one moment.

WALSH: Talk here is abnormally negative, with weeks of costly and chaotic retreat on film, like these Ukrainians hit when they're mistakenly told this building didn't have any Russians in it.

This house has an encircled Ukrainian drone unit without any infantry to help fight advancing Russians. So they send a drone to fly just 30 meters across the street.

"KOTYA", RECON UNIT, 15TH NATIONAL GUARD (translated): I'm (EXPLETIVE DELETED) alone. I'm (EXPLETIVE DELETED) tired. Our country is awake, but people in it are (EXPLETIVE DELETED) not. Guys are dying here. This is trash. Freezing this war is a double-edged sword. If these two old me (Trump and Putin) start measuring dicks, Ukraine will be the middle of it all.

WALSH: Russian troops savage in the assault. This footage shows a local in orange who's shown Russians where Ukrainians were hiding. They are led out -- and shot while face down, part of a pattern of surrendering Ukrainians executed, say prosecutors investigating this incident a fortnight ago.

Pokrovsk key sites bombed, but so far spared Russia's trademark devastation. It is possible, some say Moscow is moving so fast, it thinks it will spend the winter here.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, outside Pokrovsk, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Just so much suffering on the front lines there.

Well, still to come, Thanksgiving, you'll remember it was just a day away. It's tomorrow. Millions of Americans are hitting the road or heading to the airport. I'm one of them. So how's it all going? Our Pete Muntean will be live with the latest, next.

I will be listening. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: So another record apparently this is expected to be the busiest Thanksgiving travel season ever. More people flying means, of course, more planes in the air lots of people in lines for security, all requiring FAA controllers in the towers and on radar decks for years. There's been a shortage of air traffic controllers. That continues today, sadly.

CNN's Pete Muntean joins us now from Reagan National Airport here in Washington, D.C.

So, Pete, you know, there's been talk about this shortage and attempts to correct this shortage as you well know, for a number of years. So how is that going to affect things in the coming days?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Well, the issue right now is the shortage of controllers at Newark, and that is a particular pain point for the FAA really a microcosm of this much larger issue. Not totally known how deep the controller shortage is for the Federal Aviation Administration.

We know they have hit their hiring goal of 1,800 controllers this year. They're planning to hire another 2,000 next year. But the problems were so bad at the facility that controls the airspace at Newark that the FAA moved that facility from New York to Philadelphia.

They say they have a pipeline of 28 new controllers going in there. But because of the staffing issues, the FAA has put into place, essentially rolling delays that they've had for flights coming to Newark. The average delay right now for a flight to Newark is about 95 minutes. So an hour and 35 minutes, according to the FAA.

Speaking of delays things are actually relatively smooth at TSA lines around the country and the TSA says that they will anticipate about 2.8 million people at airport checkpoints today, 2.7 yesterday. So far this week, they've seen about 7.8 million people pass through security at Americas airports. In total, its about a 2 percent increase compared to a year ago.

The issue here is that the goal that TSA has is pretty tight. It's about 30 minutes to get you through standard screening, about ten minutes is the goal to get you through TSA pre-check.

I want you to listen now to TSA administrator David Pekoske he told me that some airports are simply going to be at capacity, and the TSA may not be able to meet its goal. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID PEKOSKE, TSA ADMINISTRATOR: Every time this happens in some airports is you're just at capacity. In other words, you can't add any more lanes. That's physically no more lanes can be put in a checkpoint and you can't -- you can only put a certain number of people in the checkpoint operation itself. And so there are there are going to be days where we are just at full capacity. And that might cause some of those wait time standards to be exceeded.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[15:50:05]

MUNTEAN: Back to the air traffic control shortage, the FAA is now firing back after United Airlines put out a memo yesterday saying the air traffic controller shortage is causing really significant delays there in Newark 343,000 passengers, United says has been impacted, have been impacted by the air traffic controller shortage at Newark just this month alone, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Well, I'm going to go test those TSA lines myself shortly.

Pete Muntean, thanks for the advice.

MUNTEAN: Good luck.

SCIUTTO: And we'll be back with more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SCIUTTO: Federal employees now have something new to worry about becoming personal targets of the world's richest man, and therefore his many millions of followers. Elon Musk, prompted by Donald Trump's recommendations to make major cuts to the federal government, is now publicly going after individual federal workers shaming them before his millions of followers on X.

CNN's media correspondent Hadas Gold joins me now.

Hadas, I mean this is ironic to say the least for Musk, given that he has complained about doxxing before. How are federal agencies responding to this?

HADAS GOLD, CNN MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: The federal agencies so far are staying pretty quiet, but federal employees that I've been speaking to have been expressing fear. They're not only fearful of job losses that they know will likely come as part of this effort to make the government more efficient and actually some of them even support the idea of trying to cut the extras in the government and make it more efficient.

But now what they're fearful of is becoming a personal target of Elon Musk and his followers after what Elon Musk did last week. And that's when he reposted an anonymous user, also ironic, who was posting screenshots from a publicly available database of federal employees. But these screenshots included the names and titles and the city where these people work. These were all climate related jobs.

Now, some of the titles might sound sort of interesting, director of climate diversification, senior adviser on environmental justice and climate change. And Musk reposted at least two of these, commenting things like so many fake jobs. Now, whatever you think of these jobs and their titles and whether

they should exist or not, all those people who work for them, they're actually for women. They all are in rather sort of unknown inward facing positions. These are not the public spokespeople for these agencies. They are relatively unknown federal workers.

But Elon Musk is the richest man on earth. He has a major platform. He's the most followed person on X. He is the confidant of the president-elect and he essentially put them on blast.

[15:55:02]

And these posts have received tens of millions of views. There's been a torrent of negative posts, some of them directly targeting by name, these employees. We know that at least one of them has deleted all of her social media accounts, and we've seen that when he has done this before, either, you know, we've seen it, he's done it to journalists or to other people that he has a beef of some sort of with. They often receive threats, some of them death threats. I spoke to one woman who was targeted by him in the past, and she had to leave her home temporarily before she eventually moved and that's a major fear from these federal employees right now.

We have a statement from the union that represents federal employees. Everett Kelley is the president of this union. He said these tactics are aimed at sowing terror and fear at federal employees. It's intended to make them fearful that they will become afraid to speak up.

And, Jim, something really sort of stunning that happened while I was reporting this is I was reaching out to experts on cyber harassment and sort of online abuse, trying to just get their expert take on this. Two times, at least two times in a row, these experts who are you know, academics or lawyers, things like that, didn't want to speak to me on the record using their names because they themselves didn't want to find themselves in the crosshairs of Elon Musk and his followers, goes to show you the fear that is out there.

Now, we reached out to X for comment. We didn't hear back from them, but our colleague Rene Marsh did speak with Vivek Ramaswamy, who is, of course, the co-leader of this Department of Government Efficiency. And he said, our opponent is not any particular individual. Our opponent is the bureaucracy.

But tell that to the millions of people who follow Elon Musk, who have now been posting negative comments on these otherwise private individuals.

SCIUTTO: Those individuals are quite clearly public targets now.

Hadas Gold, thanks so much.

And thanks so much to all of you for joining me today. I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington, wishing you a very happy Thanksgiving.

"QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is up next.