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Quest Means Business
Interview with Panamanian President Jose Raul Mulino; Israel Bombards Lebanon with Strikes for Second Straight Day; Tight Race in Georgia Could Come Down to Voters of Color; Stoltenberg: We Must Change Putin's Calculus to End War; Israel Bombards Lebanon with Strikes for Second Straight Day; New CNN Poll: Trump and Harris in Deadlock Six Weeks Out. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired September 24, 2024 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:05]
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: Closing bell about to ring on Wall Street. There it goes.
Ding-dong, ding-dong. The day's trading comes to an end. Little movements on the market. There is so much global politics taking place, but as you
can see, a bit choppy and changing, still we are up a hundred on the Dow, a quarter percentage point, get records all around. And one-two -- oh, dear.
Citizens Financial could have probably done better. That was a wimpy gavel.
Trading is over. These are the main events of the day.
President Zelenskyy tells the UN Security Council, Russia can only be forced into peace.
NATO's Chief Jens Stoltenberg is with me, and agrees.
CNN tests out Instagram's new restrictions for teenagers. It turns out, there are ways to cheat the system.
And our John King down in Georgia finds out what issues matter most to voters in the southern swing state.
Live from New York, Tuesday, September the 24th. I am Richard Quest and yes, I mean business.
Good evening.
We begin tonight with President Zelenskyy of Ukraine, who says Russia needs to be forced into peace. NATO Secretary General agrees.
In an interview tonight with us, Jens Stoltenberg says the alliance must change the Kremlin's calculus in order to end the war.
Ukraine's president has addressed the UN Security Council a short while ago. He will present a victory plan to US leaders this week and he echoed
Stoltenberg by saying, there is no bargaining with Vladimir Putin.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT: Some in the world want to talk to Putin. We know it, to meet, to talk, to speak, but what could they possibly
hear from him?
Russia can only be forced into peace and that is exactly what is needed, forcing Russia into peace as the sole aggressor in this war.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Now, Jens Stoltenberg is NATO Secretary General, stepping down at the end of this month. He told me he would speak to President Zelenskyy
today about that victory plan and echoing the words of the Ukrainian president, he said, Ukraine must define victory in its own terms.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JENS STOLTENBERG, NATO SECRETARY-GENERAL: We all want this war to end in one way, the quickest way to end the war is to stop defending Ukraine, but
that will not bring peace, that will bring occupation and that is not peace.
So what we need is to give more military support to Ukraine, so we can change first Putin's calculus that he understands, that he cannot win on
the battlefield, but has to sit down and accept that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation.
QUEST: Are you in favor of the allied nations -- US and UK et cetera -- allowing greater use of longer-range missiles deep into Russia?
STOLTENBERG: This is a war of aggression by Russia and that is a blatant violation of international law. According to international law, Ukraine has
the right to self-defense and self-defense includes also striking legitimate military targets over the territory of the aggressor, Russia.
Therefore, some allies have no restrictions at all; others have some restrictions, but even -- but also those allies have actually in the last
months, loosened up the restrictions on the use of their weapons and I welcome that. I welcome also that there is an ongoing conversation among
allies on further steps.
QUEST: In your view, does victory, does peace -- does it involve the return of Crimea?
STOLTENBERG: If I started to answer that question in detail, I will only make a peaceful solution to this conflict harder to reach because at the
end of day, it has to be the Ukrainians that decide what are acceptable conditions.
I don't believe that we can change ship Putin's mind, but I believe, we can change his calculus and then he realizes that he will not get what he wants
on the battlefield, the total control of Ukraine, then he may be willing to accept the solution, which is acceptable for Ukraine.
So it has to be for Ukraine to decide, our role is not to define what they can accept, but enable them to choose something which is acceptable for
them.
QUEST: You are not involved directly, in obviously the Gaza war. What is your message to Prime Minister Netanyahu as he seems to expand it and
escalate into Southern Lebanon?
[16:10:19]
STOLTENBERG: NATO is not, as said, directly involved and that is because NATO is the answer too many problems in the world, but NATO is not the
answer to every problem in the world, and therefore, NATO is not playing a direct role in the Middle East conflict. But we welcome and I welcome that
the United States and other allies are playing an active role to try to deescalate, to reach a ceasefire, and the release of the hostages.
QUEST: The NATO that you lead is very different from the NATO that you joined or when you took this job. Much of the -- well, a huge part of the
success is credited to your diplomatic and political skills.
What have you learned? What do you think you, you realize now that perhaps you hadn't fully appreciated before?
STOLTENBERG: I think the most important thing I learned was how important is that North America and Europe stand together. We are 32 different allies
from both sides of the Atlantic with different history, different political parties and goal, but as long as we stand together, we are 50 percent of
the world's military might, 50 percent of the world's economic might, so then, we are safe as long as we stand together.
I knew this before, but it is much more clear for me now than 10 years ago.
QUEST: Are you concerned, far-right movement on in Europe is growing. If the US election -- I mean, there are actually people here talking about,
you know, whether America democracy is in trouble. Do you buy that?
STOLTENBERG: There have been concerns about the outcome of different elections and political processes in different NATO allied countries since
this alliance was established 75 years ago, and democracies should never have hundred percent guarantees. But it has been striking how resilient
NATO has been in Europe.
Now, we have big concerns before the Dutch elections where a populist, right-wing party won, but they are committed to NATO, and committed to
supporting Ukraine. Italy got a new government not so long ago, remains committed to NATO and committed to support Ukraine.
And I expect the United States to be committed to NATO, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential elections, partly because it is the US
security interest to have a strong NATO. Russia and China has nothing like the US and NATO with 32 friends and allies.
Second, there is a strong bipartisan support to NATO in the United States, and thirdly, the main criticism, NATO in the United States has not been
primarily against NATO. It has been against NATO allies not spending enough on NATO, that has changed. Ten years ago, the allies spend two percent of
GDP on defense, today, it is 20 allies spending two percent of GDP on defense.
QUEST: Final thought, sir, the nature of today, as I say, is very different from the NATO of before, but what is NATO's biggest threat? And I don't
mean the war in Ukraine or even the war in Gaza. Wars come, wars go. The existential issues for NATO come to some extent, but the threat, what is
the biggest threat we face?
STOLTENBERG: The biggest threat is that we take NATO for a given -- for granted. NATO needs political commitment every day from all NATO allies. We
have seen that for 75 years, but we need to see that continued commitment over the next decades to ensure that we remain safe.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: Jens Stoltenberg, the head of the -- the outgoing head of NATO.
Israel says it will speed up its offensive operations against Hezbollah as it continues the bombardment in Lebanon. Airstrikes for a second straight
day and thousands of people are now fleeing to reach safety.
The damage is widespread. One UN agency is warning that many children are missing under the rubble and Israeli officials telling us that the
government will raise the level of military operations every day.
Hezbollah is firing back with multiple rocket barrages into Northern Israel.
Ben Wedeman is in Beirut to bring us up-to-date -- Ben.
BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Richard, well, today, the Israeli airstrikes were somewhat less intense than they were
yesterday.
Hezbollah for its part, claims to have launched 18 attacks into Israel. The Israelis saying that Hezbollah fired 300 projectiles into Israel, but
despite the fact that today, we've had a lower death toll, less strikes. Neither side, neither Israel nor Hezbollah seems to be backing down.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(UNIDENTIFIED MALES speaking in foreign language.)
WEDEMAN (voice over): Chaos and dust moments after an Israeli airstrike on South Beirut. Israel claimed the target was an important Hezbollah
operative. Hezbollah said nothing.
At least six were killed, 15 injured.
Hezbollah continues to fire unabated rockets over the border.
After Monday's punishing Israeli bombing, Lebanon suffered its highest daily death toll since the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre, a fourth of the
dead, women and children.
(PEOPLE chanting)
WEDEMAN (voice over) South of Beirut, the funerals have begun. The coffins draped with Hezbollah's banner.
What was a border war is looking like a full-on war, and like the last war, tens of thousands again are fleeing for their lives.
No easy task for the elderly and infirmed. To dozens of schools in the capital, turned into shelters for the displaced shades of Gaza. Most left
everything behind, some including their dead.
(ZAINAB speaking in foreign language.)
WEDEMAN (voice over): "It's true, we left, but material things can be replaced," says Zainab (ph). "Lives cannot. Losing someone is incredibly
hard, you can't change fate, but it is heartbreaking to lose a loved one."
Home for Abu Ali (ph) and his family of six, now a bare classroom. I ask him if, as Israel says, it was only striking Hezbollah targets.
(ABU ALI speaking in foreign language.)
WEDEMAN (voice over): "Liars. They are liars," he shoots back. "Entire families are gone. They're not Hezbollah targets. We live in the south. We
don't know where Hezbollah is, and I don't know where the Hezbollah fighters are."
Dr. Jihad Saadeh treated the injured in the 2006 war and here at this hospital in Beirut, he is doing it all over again.
DR. JIHAD SAADEH, BEIRUT, LEBANON: All of them are civilians, they are families, where their houses -- they are buried in their house, yes, in the
south.
Three of them had head traumas and the rest had different traumas of the body, like we see in every war.
WEDEMAN (voice over): It is happening again, all too familiar.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WEDEMAN (on camera): Now, Dr. Saadeh also told us that they were actually fortunate that they've been preparing for this exact eventuality, mass
casualties since October and keep in mind, it is not just the casualties from the last day-and-a-half, but in total, Lebanon has had more than 6,000
casualties since those pager blasts went off last Tuesday -- Richard.
QUEST: Ben, let us assume just for the purposes of my question that Prime Minister Netanyahu manages to degrade Hezbollah to a certain degree, he
gets his buffer zone across Southern Lebanon between Lebanon and the Northern Israeli settlement, what then?
WEDEMAN: Good question. I mean, Israel had a buffer zone in South Lebanon up until 2000, but what were they dealing with back then? They were dealing
with a guerrilla war against Hezbollah, and Hezbollah by launching attacks constantly on Israeli forces in Lebanon forced Israeli forces to leave
Lebanon in May of 2000. So, we would be going full circle.
And even though Hezbollah has taken hits, it could easily transform itself after all of this back into the guerilla organization that was the only
Arab of military force to ever be able to without negotiations push Israel out of its territory -- Richard.
QUEST: Ben Wedeman -- Ben, I have to hand it to you. I have no idea how you've managed to stay up for so many hours with such excellent coverage
and put two words together that makes sense. Sir, I tip my hat off to you or I would if I was wearing one.
Thank you, sir, Ben Wedeman, who is in Beirut tonight.
The US presidential race is in heat that is just Even Stevens, six weeks ago. The voters say the number one issue is the economy.
Now, we've got Donald Trump, who has just laid out a plan to attract jobs and businesses to the US. We will talk about that on QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:17:43]
QUEST: Donald Trump says that if he is re-elected, he will reward companies that relocate to the US and penalize companies that don't. The former
president has now outlined his economic plan a few hours ago in a speech in Savannah in Georgia, where he said, American companies would enjoy tax
breaks and other incentives while foreign manufacturers would face tariffs of up to 200 percent, and those measures will transform the US.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: With the vision I am outlining today, not only will we stop our
businesses from leaving for foreign lands, but under my leadership, we are going to take other countries' jobs. Did you ever hear that expression
before? Have you ever heard, that we are going to take other countries' jobs. It has never been stated before.
We are going to take their factories and we had it really rockin' four years ago. We are going to bring thousands and thousands of businesses and
trillions of dollars in wealth back to the good old USA. That's what we are going to do. We are going to be doing it.
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: And doing it fast.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Kamala Harris is to lay out more of her economic plan, in a speech in Pennsylvania. She has already given a large amount of details, but -- we
actually hear a plan, but not many details of how she is going to pay for it.
There will now 400 left-leaning economists and former US officials who have already endorsed her vision without waiting for the specifics. They say the
race is a choice between trickle-down policies that benefit the few and those that in their words provide opportunity for all.
There are six weeks to go and voters nationwide are evenly divided. It is Harris and Trump separated by only a point.
Our political director, David Chalian, he joins me now.
David, when we see that national poll, you've told me many times, you've admonished me --
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: I said, I would do no such thing, Richard.
QUEST: That it is not the national number that counts, it is where the votes are.
CHALIAN: Yes.
QUEST: And if we look at that, we are still none the wiser at the moment.
CHALIAN: Well, yes. You are right. It is a path to 270 electoral votes and it will be decided in seven battleground states and you are right. We see a
real divide in those battleground states as well.
But this national snapshot does allow us to see the different coalitions of support that each candidate is getting nationwide, as well as the different
issue sets that are playing to their strengths or weaknesses depending.
[16:20:16]
And so, it is valuable to see. This will be somebody who serves the entire nation, eventually. And as you noted, 48 to 47 percent, that is basically a
dead heat. There is no doubt about that.
QUEST: On the economic front, the polls suggest that more voters trust Donald Trump to have the stewardship of the US economy. His speech today
really summons around tariffs, penalize those that either export abroad -- send jobs overseas, or importers to the US. That is the thrust of it, isn't
it? To force manufacturing to stay-at-home.
CHALIAN: That is right. And as you know, many economists have looked at specifically the tariff piece of his economic policy and suggests that it
could be inflationary and actually drive inflation back up.
But you see the poll results there, among likely voters in our brand new poll today, who do you trust to handle the economy, which is issue number
one, four in 10 voters say so, far more than any other issue, 50 percent say Trump, only 39 percent say Harris.
So her mission is to narrow that gap over these next six weeks on the issue voters say is their most important one.
QUEST: Neither candidate has fully priced out. I mean, I know President Trump says that he will pay for it with the tariff revenues that come in.
That is questionable. Kamala Harris, we are going to have more of hers.
They are both making tax -- or they are both making spending promises without saying how they are going to really properly authentically pay for
them.
CHALIAN: Yes. Kamala Harris is going to pay for a lot of her proposals by trying to raise taxes on the very wealthy. She says, like Joe Biden has
said, nobody who earns less than $400,000.00 a year will see an increase in taxes, but she is clearly proposing substantial tax increases on the very
wealthy to help pay for her proposals.
Listen, neither of these candidates are going to be seen here as deficit hawks in any way. You are right. They are now about putting out all the
goodies to the American people before this election, not necessarily focusing on the fiscal restraint that may be required.
QUEST: In a sentence or two, have you ever seen an election like it?
CHALIAN: Well, no. First of all, I've never seen a candidate be swapped just a couple of months before the election. So all the dynamics here are
different, but in terms of the closest, I've never seen polling this close, this close to election day.
Now, to remind you, in 2020, it was only 44,000 votes in a few states that made the difference. That was a very close election when all the votes were
counted. But in terms of pre-election polling, in my time, have I seen an election with this kind of dead heat in the polls six weeks out.
QUEST: Well, I hope you weren't planning on sleeping much in the next six weeks, like the rest of us.
Thank you, sir. Always grateful.
CHALIAN: Thank you.
QUEST: Now, I want to take you to the United Nations. The Iranian, the new Iranian president is speaking at the moment, Masoud Pezeshkian is speaking.
We expect him to make remarks regarding the conflict in the Middle East. We are monitoring, we are listening. We have a busy agenda, so were not
bringing the whole thing to you, but we will get to salient bits as and when we need to.
Instagram started rolling out new features designed to make the app safe and we talked about it last week for teens, but now how we need to know
exactly how these things work or how they are supposed to work, and whether they do.
Instagram gave Meta, gave Clare Duffy a demonstration.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: For the millions of teens under the age of 18 who use Instagram, the platform is going to start looking a little
different.
Meta, the company that owns Instagram is rolling out a new teen accounts experience after years of criticism over the platform's safety risks for
young people.
They are, for example, going to make all teen accounts private by default.
So these settings were available before, but now you're -- if you're under the age of 18, you're getting put in that.
KIRA WONG O'CONNOR, YOUTH SAFETY POLICY MANAGER, META: Exactly.
DUFFY: Whether you like it or not.
O'CONNOR: Exactly.
DUFFY (voice over): Teens who are 16 or 17 have the option to manually change the settings back themselves, but 13 to 15 year-olds need to set up
parental supervision through the app and get their parents' okay to make their Instagram settings less restrictive.
O'CONNOR: For parents, we know speaking to them, three of their top concerns are with teens' online safety, who can contact them, the content
that they're seeing and time spent.
DUFFY: Okay, so this is a demo account for you a 14-year-old. I think the biggest or the most immediate thing they're going to notice, right, is the
private account.
So this is interesting. You go to settings and you see immediately teen safety settings.
O'CONNOR: Yes. And so here you see, Learn More. If you click on that, it takes you to a pop up that will tell you how a teen account works. So that
when your teen using teen accounts are only able to contact people that you are mutually following or that you've already been in contact with.
So a sleep mode anyone in teen accounts is defaulted into sleep mode. This means from 10:00 PM until 7:00 AM. A teen is not going to get notifications
in that time frame, and then they are able to still use Instagram, but they're not going to get notifications kind of pulling them back into the
app.
[16:25:28]
DUFFY: Got it. And again here, if I want to turn this off.
O'CONNOR: You can ask your parents.
DUFFY: I have to ask my parents because I am 14.
O'CONNOR: Yes. With the daily limit, same thing, you're able to change this only if a parent gives you the permission to, but we've set this at 60
minutes.
DUFFY: How do you know if when I am a teen, I request to add parental supervision? Is there a way for Instagram to know that it is actually a
parent and not like an older friend or something like that?
O'CONNOR: While we don't verify who a parent is, we do have other safety technologies in place where we know if it is potentially a suspicious
account.
We don't allow teens to supervise themselves.
DUFFY: And what happens if I am a teenager and I sign up for an account and I just lie about my age?
O'CONNOR: For a long time now, we have required that when you sign up for Instagram, you have to input your age at that point. If you're under the
age of ai and we noticed that you tried to change your age above 18, we will put you through an ID check in order to verify and make sure that you
are the age that you're stating.
DUFFY: In other words, it may still be fairly easy for teens to evade these restrictions, if they sign up for an account with a fake birthday. But Meta
says it is trying to prevent that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: Clare Duffy.
QUEST MEANS BUSINESS tonight, when we come back I am joined by the president of Panama. Mr. President, it is good to see you, sir. Be
prepared. We are going to be talking the economy, how you are keeping up and the Panama Canal.
QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Hello, I'm Richard Quest. There is a lot more QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. In a moment, the president of Panama will be joining us on his country's
economic development and efforts to curb illegal migration. And John King is in the Peach State of Georgia. He'll speak to voters on what's on their
mind.
What's on my mind is what's on your mind. And that is, this is CNN, and on this network, what's on our mind is the news.
Florida is bracing for Helene, a storm that's expected to hit as a major hurricane in only a couple of days. It's formed as a tropical storm in the
northwest Caribbean a few hours ago. Once it reaches Florida, the state's Panhandle and the Gulf Coast could see life-threatening storm surges and
damaging winds.
TikTok is the latest social media company to remove the Russian state media accounts like Sputnik News and RT. U.S. officials say RT is involved in
covert activities and spreads Kremlin's propaganda. TikTok says the accounts engage in covert influence against its guidelines. Meta approved a
similar move last week.
A few moments ago, a federal judge sentenced the former girlfriend of the FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to two years in prison for her role in what
prosecutors called one of the biggest financial frauds in U.S. history. The judge credited Caroline Ellison's extensive cooperation with prosecutors
that led to Bankman-Fried's conviction for stealing to make billion dollars in customer funds.
Kamala Harris plans to visit the U.S.-Mexico border when the vice president heads to Arizona on Friday. Her record on immigration has been under
relentless attack by Donald Trump and Republicans. It's an issue that resonates across Central and South America. Migrants fleeing conditions in
countries like Venezuela travel north and they go to places like the Darien Gap that connects Colombia and Panama.
President Jose Raul Mulino is the president of Panama.
Mr. President, I'm grateful to you, sir, for being with us.
Thank you. Thank you very for this opportunity.
QUEST: This is an election like none other. We know that, but the significance to Panama because of the immigration question and the migrants
coming through your country gives you an outsized importance in this debate or in this issue, doesn't it? What do you want?
JOSE RAUL MULINO, PANAMANIAN PRESIDENT: Absolutely. As I have said several times in my country, the new border of the United States is in Darien, in
Panama, not only in Texas. I don't know who's going to win here. I will work with whoever wins. But anyway, that person should take a look very
closely to what is happening in our border with Colombia. It's an extreme humanitarian crisis.
In addition to all immigration problem it's an extreme and very sad humanitarian crisis that we are facing day by day. During these years, more
than 150,000 person have crossed. Last year was a number of close to half a million person that we have to provide help every day, every day, every
day. And with the cooperation of the U.S. Homeland Security Office, we are repatriating. We have already 11 flights repatriating people to Ecuador, to
Colombia, to India, and suddenly we will have a repatriation flight to China.
QUEST: We know that the real solution is long term economic growth and reform of economic policies in many of these countries which may or may not
happen. And that's the problem, isn't it? You're dealing with an issue that does not have an easy solution, and you're having to pick up the
consequences. So what do you want from the U.S.?
MULINO: The necessary support to help Panama to finish that crisis. It's not our fault. We are not promoting that crisis. That crisis started years
ago with a Venezuelan problem. And today, due to the Venezuelan crisis more and more people are crossing or trying to cross through the jungle of
Darien coming to work in the United States, looking for the American dream. That's the place they want to be.
They don't want to stay in Panama. They want to be in the United States and they started crossing through a tremendous and very dangerous path, that is
Darien jungle. So what I want to have is more attention to resolve that crisis with the necessary economic resources to help Panama to provide a
happy ending to all of these, because it's too complicated for our country, for our economy to pay more or less $100 million per year to try to solve
this problem.
[16:35:15]
QUEST: In terms of your own country, you very badly hit by the Panama Papers scandal and Mossack Fonseca, and it really tainted, I mean, it
really tainted the country and its financial industry. You've done a lot of work to, putting it crudely, clean it up. And you're now starting to see
evidence of being removed from gray list and dark list and (INAUDIBLE), and things like that. How much more work do you think you need to do?
MULINO: A lot more. My speech tomorrow at the U.N. will be addressed to this. Panama Paper was a very unjust attack to Panama. The majority of
those cases were outside Panama in some other jurisdiction. An important law firm Mossack Fonseca closed overnight, already one of his founders died
a few weeks before the trial and that trial finished with a non-guilty sentence on Mr. Fonseca and Mr. Mossack.
So it was a very unjust, it caused a lot of damage to our financial center, and of course Panama have been working together with international
community to comply and comply and comply with many of the requirements they are making. But we are still in some of the gray list of European
community.
QUEST: So there's still more work to be done, and you're economy is sort of picking up steam and is becoming -- the Panama Canal, which interestingly
makes up about 3.5 or so percent of your GDP. I want you to watch, sir. I was very privileged to visit the canal a few years ago, and I actually got
to push the button opening those famous locks. Have a watch and my question follows.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Click. OK.
QUEST: They're opening.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. It started.
QUEST: Yes, let's go.
(Voice-over): With the same action that posts a tweet I'm moving hundreds of tons of concrete and steel, shifting thousands of cubic meters of water
but allowing millions of dollars' worth of commerce to continue.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: It's an extraordinary thing, Mr. President, but the Panama Canal is in some trouble in a sense. There are a number of ships going through
because of low water. And it's down by 5 percent to 7 percent. What can you do about this? Because it's so crucial to your economy.
MULINO: As you know, the Panama Canal is independent from the government. They are working hard today to increase the level of water in the canal, in
the lake of the canal. They are trying to channelize an area that we called Rio Indio to produce unnecessary water in order not to suffer where we
suffer this dry season in Panama in the canal had to diminish the number of vessels that were transit in Panama.
Now, everything is back to normal. Panama, the Panama Canal is already handling 36, 37 crossing per day, which is the normal activity for the
canal. So the water is crucial. Absolutely. And the canal has taken the necessary measures to expand the capacity of the lake to have more water,
bringing water from the mountains in Rio Indio to the lake.
QUEST: Right. I have to say when I got to open those doors, those locked doors, that was a bucket list moment.
Mr. President, I'm grateful for your time and I look forward to seeing you next time we speak --
MULINO: 52 million gallons of sweet water the Panama pump to the sea with every transit. It's a tremendous contribution for the international
commerce from my country.
QUEST: And we look forward to talking to you again hopefully in Panama, sir. I'm grateful. Thank you.
MULINO: Be my guest. Thank you very much.
QUEST: Now, Lebanese officials, well, the number we're hearing have been killed is rising, 550, as a result of Israeli strikes.
I'll return to the top story in just a moment. It's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS with you tonight.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:42:03]
QUEST: Let me return to our top story. And Israel is hitting Lebanon with extensive airstrikes for the second day in a row. More than 500 people have
been killed since the bombardment began on Monday. Tehran's warning that Israeli strikes on Hezbollah will have a dangerous consequence. Iran's new
president Masoud Pezeshkian discussed the situation in an exclusive interview with Fareed Zakaria.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": Will you counsel Hezbollah to restrain itself? We know that Iran has a lot of influence over
Hezbollah.
MASOUD PEZESHKIAN, IRANIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Hezbollah my herself cannot stand against the country that is armed to the teeth and has
access to weapons systems that are far superior to anything else. Now, if there is a need, Islamic countries must convene a meeting in order to
formulate a reaction to what is occurring.
Now, if we're speaking of Hezbollah alone, what can Hezbollah do alone. The regional countries, Islamic countries must sit together and prior to
anything more severe taking place, I do believe that international organizations today, we did have a meeting with -- at the United Nations
with Mr. Guterres. And tomorrow we will see such discussions and topics taking place and we must not allow for Lebanon to become another Gaza at
the hands of Israel.
Hezbollah cannot do that alone. Hezbollah cannot stand alone against a country that is being defended and supported and supplied by Western
countries, European countries, and the United States of America.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: That full interview can be seen on "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS" on Sunday at 10:00 Eastern Time, 3:00 and 4:00 of course in Europe.
The Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, spoke to us earlier. He says Iran's Supreme Leader could help stop the conflict if he really wanted to.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ISAAC HERZOG, ISRAELI PRESIDENT: It's very clear, the onus is on him. And mostly the onus is on his regime because the one who calls the shots in
Iran is the supreme leader and because the Revolutionary Guards don't ask the president a word and they don't adhere to his authority, and they
spread terror cells all over the world.
If he wants to change the course in the region he's got to get these guys, these proxies, these terror organizations out of the way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Now with me is Maha Yahya, the senior director of the Carnegie Middle East Center, joining me tonight from London.
Good evening to you. Thank you.
[16:45:00]
The situation, I mean, well, you don't need to be a geopolitical scientist or expert to see it's deteriorating and it's deteriorating fast. But I
can't necessarily see how you -- how one gets an improvement.
MAHA YAHYA, DIRECTOR, CARNEGIE MIDDLE EAST CENTER: Good morning, Richard. Thank you for having me. Basically, there has to be a lot of pressure on
Israel today to stop the carnage. The intensity of the bombing yesterday in Lebanon upward of 500 dead, which is one-third of the number, total number
of people who were killed in one month bombardment in 2006 during the Israeli-Hezbollah war at the time. It's much higher than when Israel began
in Gaza.
QUEST: Right.
YAHYA: It's been relentless, and I think what needs to be done right now is a lot more pressure has to be put on Israel to dial down its offensive on
Lebanon and to get the diplomatic option back on track.
QUEST: You see here's the problem, though. The Israeli view is, listen, we're going to get excoriated if we continue. And if we don't, we'll end up
with terrorist organizations that are committed to the destruction of our country. So we are damned if we do, and we're even more damned if we don't.
Therefore, since nobody really wants us or likes us, we might as well just do what we have to do.
That's the argument. You're familiar with it?
YAHYA: I'm very familiar with that argument. The flipside of that argument is you're going to end up at the diplomatic table whether you do it with
thousands of people that on either side, or you do it -- you know, you go for it now. Both routes are going to lead you towards a diplomatic option.
You're in a region where, you know, these are your neighbors. You're going to have to get along with your neighbors sooner rather than later. So the
first step has to be a ceasefire in Gaza, get back on a diplomatic route with Lebanon and that diplomatic route is there. It was being brokered by
the United States with France. It's not a pipe dream or blue-sky thinking. It's there, it's on the table, and it can be activated very quickly.
QUEST: So when you have the Israeli spokesman, Hagari, saying that, you know, that what's prompted all of this is that a similar October 7th plan
from Hezbollah that would have been worse and intended to kill more. Can you -- what would your response be to that if there is such a plan? And we
don't know, we can't know whether he's right or not. We can't independently confirm, but just for the purpose of my question. If he's right, then
Israel has a right to defend itself.
YAHYA: Well, Israel has a right to defend itself if and when that happens. I sincerely doubt that Hezbollah would have been planning an operation of
that scale. They've had, I mean, there's been a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon since 2006. It's been the quietest period along the border
area. They had no reason to provoke an October 7th style attack.
QUEST: Right.
YAHYA: And I'm not sure they were even happy with the October 7th, you know, the horrific attacks that happened on October 7th.
QUEST: So, I'm curious from your point of view, from your side, why do you think Netanyahu is doing it? And let's just put aside any sort of
conspiracy theories about his own political, you know, he's doing it so it doesn't get locked up for corruption. Put that to one side unless you think
that's the main reason. Why do you think he's doing it?
YAHYA: No, I'm sure that his personal agenda is playing a role, but that's not the only reason.
QUEST: So why?
YAHYA: He has a cabinet that is backing him. This is the most right-wing cabinet Israel has ever seen. There are serious security, I mean, October
7th really shifted the security, the sense of security amongst Israelis so it's a sense of trying, yes, we want to try and address this. Hezbollah is
a big threat to us and therefore we need to get them out of the way.
You can also get them out of the way diplomatically without bombing Lebanon back to the Stone Ages and killing hundreds of innocent civilians in the
process.
QUEST: I'm grateful to you. Thank you very much.
Everything we have been talking about tonight on QUEST MEANS BUSINESS at the moment and for the next six weeks has to be seen through the prism of
the U.S. election. There's no getting away from it. So we're taking the train down to Georgia. That's Georgia in the southern United States. Well,
John King did to see what voters are thinking in the crucial swing state.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:52:35]
QUEST: We're turning to U.S. politics now where the latest polls show the race between the two candidates are deadlock, and things are especially
close in the battleground state of Georgia, where it could all come down to voters of color.
John King, who else, has been to Georgia to get the thoughts on the two candidates.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Loyalty to President Biden runs deep in the black community, but the switch to Harris
flipped the 2024 vibe here.
LAKEYSHA HALLMON, GEORGIA VOTER: It doesn't feel so doomsday anymore. It actually feels hopeful and there's excitement.
KING: Four in 10 Georgia voters in 2020 were people of color, and Biden won 80 percent of them en route to his razor-thin win here. Harris needs to
match that, maybe more, beginning with giant black turnout.
HALLMON: "Support is a Verb." It really takes us to do something. That means if it rains, get out and vote. That means if you have a car and your
neighbor doesn't have a car, take them to the polls with you.
KING: Chanta Villano-Willis isn't sold, isn't sure the vice president is up to the top job.
CHANTA VILLANO-WILLIS, GEORGIA VOTER: I've been a Democrat my entire adult life. This has actually been the first year where I was considering voting
Republican.
KING: Her mother isn't happy.
VILLANO-WILLIS: Never thought she'd see a black person president in her life. She did. Now, Kamala Harris is for president. My mother says she
don't care what she does. Let's just get her in there. And I simply don't feel the same.
KING: Villano-Willis works a mix of gig jobs so she can care for her mother and a son with special needs. She likes when Donald Trump promises more oil
drilling and to promote cryptocurrencies. But she sides with Harris on abortion rights and says Trump often talks down to blacks.
VILLANO-WILLIS: Oh, and his favorite color is black, Boy, please, no. We don't have the choices, period.
KING: Will you vote or the circumstances where you might skip it?
VILLANO-WILLIS: I'm going to vote because that's my civic American duty. Too many people fought for me to vote.
KING (voice-over): Suresh Sharma lives in suburban Cobb County, calls himself a textbook independent, has a three-step test to pick a president.
Ability to govern is step one. And Sharma says Harris is a blank slate, and he calls Trump a failure because he didn't keep big promises like replacing
Obamacare and shrinking the debt. Ability to manage large projects is test two, and Sharma says neither candidate has done that. He leans Harris
because of test three.
SURESH SHARMA, GEORGIA VOTER: Remember, president is a role model.
[16:55:01]
Therefore morals matter, and what you see and what you do has a real-life implication. I can tell my son that, hey, would you like to be president
like her?
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: John King in Georgia. And just being grateful that I don't sing "Midnight Train to Georgia" or anything similar to that.
Just show you what happened on the markets. You've got obviously the Dow and you have the triple stack, and it's half a percentage point. Markets
are up, records all round, slight gains despite a drop in consumer sentiment.
We will have a "Profitable Moment" after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Six weeks to go and it's no exaggeration to say just about everything at the moment seems to depend on the outcome of the U.S.
presidential election. And that's largely because, first of all, obviously whatever happens will be historic with the return of Donald Trump or the
first female president.
But I think also just look at tonight's program. You've got Ukraine, clearly very different results for Ukraine depending on the outcome. You've
got Israel and the way in which the U.S. will deal with Israel and Gaza and et cetera, dependent upon it. You've got Panama, the president of Panama
tonight on the program want the immigration front as it relates to it, on the regulation front, all these issues.
Again, all dependent on many ways on the election. And even tech and Instagram dependent on who wins, depends on the outlook for tech. So you
will forgive me if I say we're going to keep watching this election very closely for the next six weeks.
And that's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS for tonight. I'm Richard Quest in New York. Whatever you're up to in the hours ahead, I'll have a second, I hope it's
profitable for too long.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.
This hour we're just moments away from a big update on Tropical Storm Helene, which is expected to become a major hurricane before slamming the
United States later this week. So where is it headed? The CNN Weather team is gathering all the new details. They'll bring us the new forecast and
track.
Plus, the state of Missouri is just two hours away from executing a man convicted of murder despite new evidence and the fact that the office that
prosecuted him says they want his conviction overturned because they think he might not be guilty. The last-minute efforts to spare the life of
Marcellus Williams is ahead.
But we start this hour with the breaking news.
END
