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Vice President Kamala Harris speaking in Douglas, Arizona after visiting the border, taking a gamble, say some, going to the border, focusing attention on her record on the border and the Biden administration's record on the border, but clearly believing it was worth it to try to distance herself somewhat from what President Biden has done, charting her own course, moving forward and what would be a Harris administration. If she's elected, Van, what do you make of what she just said? Bravo. I mean, Bravo.
I thought that was extraordinary speech for a couple reasons. First of all, that's the common herest that I know. She was, when she talks about prosecuting folks and putting folks in jail for heroin, that's what she was known for here in California. And you can have confidence that she will take that forward.
She also acknowledged the asylum system being gamed and ripped off and messed up by people who want to come up here and break the rules. She's not just talking about that, but what I like about it is you can be tough on the border without being terrible to people. You can be tough on the border without scapegoating people. You can be tough on the border without lying about people eating cats and dogs.
So if you want the poor leadership proven bipartisan leadership, proven prospear to our leadership, honest issue, common herest, gave you somebody to vote for. Gretchen, what she is saying is only the only asylum claims will be heard at legal border crossings, nothing in between, which is a shift from what we've seen over the last several years. Yeah, as I said at the top, she's going to be tougher than Biden in an effort to separate herself. But let me be blunt about this speech, Anderson.
This was for independence and undecideds. That's what this speech was about, including somebody like me as an independent. She used buzzwords and phrases like, I'm going to reach across the aisle. These are common sense approaches.
I'm putting politics aside. I'm going to find solutions. These are things that people who want to bridge the gap of our hyper-political environment want to hear. So we're in the weeds in this kind of stuff.
You and I and Van and Scott, we study this stuff on a daily basis every day. But for the average voter out there, if they're only hearing this speech tonight and they're undecided, they're thinking to themselves, wow, she wants solutions on this. And I would know something about this, having passed two bipartisan bills on the Hill in the last two years. Lots of people want to come together.
So this speech was for independence. And I think it was successful in that right. Scott, no surprise she blasted former President Trump for killing this bipartisan border deal that she pointed out, was drafted apart by Langford, very conservative Republican. What did you make of her?
What she says she wants to do on the border? Well, first of all, I think you got to understand these speeches are not taken in a vacuum independent of everything else you know and everything else voters know, independents are otherwise about the Biden-Harris administration is that they don't like what they've done on immigration. And everything else we know about Harris prior to this moment is that she has favored a more permissive immigration structure. She wanted to be criminalized border crossing.
She once compared ICE agents to the KKK. She tried to scapegoat border guards by claiming they were whipping people on horseback at the border, which turned out to be false. And so when you hear a speech like this and then you take it into account with everything else you know about Harris and everything you know what Biden and Harris did together, you might be saying to yourself, is this just another politician who's coming along and telling me something I want to hear in the shadow of an election? How can I trust that they'll actually follow through on you this after they get elected?
So if you're an immigration-focused voter and you think it's broken, who do you actually believe will be tougher? Trump or Harris, most people would tell you, definitely Trump and I don't think this speech despite trying to separate herself from Biden is going to change that. I don't think 100 speeches would change it. Then do you think it gets her, I mean to Gretchen's point about independence undecided voters, do you think it gives permission for some of those voters to say, oh you know what, I have some confidence in her on this?
I think so, and for a couple of reasons. Scott's exactly right and Gretchen's right. People aren't following this every day. When you get closer to the election people start listening.
And what she's saying actually does make sense. This system has been broken for a very long time. Trump did not fix it. Everybody keeps bragging on Donald Trump.
He didn't fix it. And then things were kind of good during the pandemic. The border was closed. Pandemics over.
People come rushing up here. The Biden-Harris administration did not respond early enough, appropriately enough. But then they did. And now they have.
So you don't have to wonder, I wonder if Colin Harris is not using something about the border. She literally just did. We have lower border crossings right now than we had on Donald Trump. And so this question of, you know, can you trust her, et cetera?
She was tough when she was here as our attorney general in California. She's tough in the speech and the Biden administration right now is tough on the border. But they're not scapegoating people. They're not being nasty to people.
They aren't making up nonsense. They aren't coming up with racist lies about people eating dogs and cats. You can be tough on the border without being terrible to people. And that's common here.
All right, Ben Jones, Gretchen Carlson, Scott Jennings. Thank you very much. We're going to return to our storm coverage after the break. And here from Michael Bobbitt who saw the island he lives on, he says devastated.
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Just some sticks. This is the worst probably we've seen in our area in 100 years. I know I've been in Sarasota for 22 years and I've never seen anything like this. Heavy rain bringing historic flooding, forcing water rescues.
Holy cow, that storm surge. The whole lower level of my home is filled with water. I ended up hopping on to one of my little kayaks that flew around in my living room. This has been just a heck of a storm surge.
It's wiped out all my neighbors. I see just the destruction going all down the road. Boats thrown about power lines down homes and businesses destroyed. Some of its out-tyre, some of its in here.
This is by far the worst I've ever had. And even amidst the flooding, massive fires, rescuers, pass a burning home. Using their resources instead to search for survivors. Boats devastating.
I've never seen something like this. I've known people that lived here 20 years. I've never seen anything like it. After slashing Florida, Helene pushed north, battering Georgia and the Carolinas, also leaving life-threatening flooding.
In Atlanta, communities left underwater as Helene held its strength as a hurricane until halfway through the state of Georgia. This is the worst I've ever seen. I've seen the see the creek high, like right up to the bottom of the bridge, but nothing like this. But it wasn't finished yet.
Helene's massive size spread the rain and misery into North Carolina, where a relentless, daily cause to historic flooding in Asheville just one day after a one in one thousand year rainfall saturated region. This is one of the worst storms in modern history for parts of Western North Carolina. And Helene continues to move. Now into Tennessee, bringing rising water and dangerous flooding.
In Irwin, Tennessee, more than 50 people were stranded on the roof of a hospital surrounded by raging floods. Helicopters were sent to save them. They're currently taking patients and staff off of the roof of the hospital and then transporting them back into the city of Irwin. This is a serious situation, I would say this is a life and death situation.
And Carlos, where are the storms in the Gulf of Florida? So what are you hearing from people about the frequency and size of these storms and what kind of help they're getting right now from Florida's? Well, Anderson, the folks out here really are resigned to the threat of a hurricane. This is my third storm in as many years that has threatened Pinellas County, and it's never been a direct hit.
And yet this time around, the damage was more significant. Just about everyone that we talked about here readily admits that these hurricanes are growing in number, they're larger in size, and they're just as more powerful as the one that came before it. And yet all of them tell us that they plan on staying put, they plan on rebuilding and moving forward with their lives as for what happens next out here and the help that these folks are getting. The National Guard is already on the ground that they got here earlier today.
They're the ones that are organizing the safety and recovery effort moving forward. They're the ones that have to figure out how they're going to remove the nearly half a dozen sailboats that crashed ashore yesterday, including the one right behind me. Anderson? Carlos Suarez, thanks very much.
We intended to speak with the Asheville Assistant Fire Chief Jeremy Knighten right now, but he's been called away from emergency response briefing. Let's go to Keaton Beach, Florida. Earlier today, Florida got around to Santa's toward the area and said that the vast majority of homes were destroyed all because of massive storm surge. Seen inside in Rodriguez is there tonight.
What are you seeing? Anderson, just 24 hours ago, communities like this went along Florida's Big Ben. We're getting hit by Hurricane Helene, feeling those impacts. And now we're here standing in this field of debris.
To my left, used to be a gas station and to my right here behind a market. Now you can see parts of shelving, cash register, microwave refrigerator, and really just destruction here all across this area of Keaton Beach. I want to show you a bird's eye view to get a better sense of where we are. This actually also used to be a neighborhood in Anderson.
I spoke with one person who lives here in this area, and they told me that there's one home still standing. The couple who lived there was able to evacuate early, but the rest of the homes that were surrounding the homes still standing, they are now gone. And it's hard to even picture exactly where those homes used to stand because it's just now a field of debris. And on top of all this devastation, a lot of Florida's big bent still dealing with power outages here where we are in Taylor County, 99% of the county still here without power.
To my left is a highway to get in here to Keaton Beach, Florida. It's been heavily trafficked all day long. Power lines were moved off to the side so that first responders and crews could get in. I spoke with the deputy as well a couple hours ago.
And he mentioned to me that before the storm, residents here were actually given permits to then be able to return a little bit easier. And the people who I've spoken with so far Anderson, many of them, as you can imagine, heartbroken seeing images like these telling us that they really have nothing left, everything that they have is now gone. And this is just one picture of that widespread devastation we're seeing here in Keaton Beach. And are there rescue teams out there working overnight?
Is there a need for that? What's happening at this hour? At this hour, a lot of crews were beginning to see leaving, like this vehicle you see behind me here. During the early afternoon hours, we did see a lot of search and rescue crews going in, as well as different first responders from across the state of Florida.
National Guard also had a presence here, flying helicopters over Keaton Beach. For right now, though, it's so dark, it's pitch black anywhere. You really travel. Conditions are pretty dangerous.
A lot of that traffic, as I mentioned, down moving outward. The recovery, as you can imagine, will resume again tomorrow. All right, Evan Rodriguez, thanks very much. We're going back to Florida.
And some we met last night. Michael Bobbitt, who lives in hard hit Cedar Key, he told us he stayed behind to help his many elderly neighbors who refused to leave. Michael, I'm glad you're for a while you're okay. Tell us what you have been seeing there.
How have the last 24 hours been? Thank you for having me, Anderson. As bad as we thought the storm was, when we fought it during the night, these images that you're seeing here, when we woke up to the morning, it was so much worse than we could have ever imagined. Just our little island is largely just gone.
There are no commercial buildings of any note left. The vast majority of our homes were completely inundated with water. Streets where we know houses should be, there would just be missing houses. Sometimes like this image that you're seeing here, this house is supposed to be in another part of town.
And then we would see just blank spaces where buildings used to be. The power of the storm was just magnificent and terrible. I've never seen anything like it. We're just totally gobsmacked with the level of destruction here on the island.
We're situated three miles out into the Gulf of Mexico, so we're totally exposed. And so we're really at the whims of the Gulf here. And when the water started to rise, they closed in on all sides. And they don't just trickle in like a gentle creek.
They're a raging torrent. And with the force of a locomotive, it's just the most powerful, humbling, terrifying force I've ever seen. Yeah, these images that you took, they're just the nighttime ones are just terrifying. You know, you were staying behind, in part, your house is, I think, a little bit higher ground.
You have boats, you have people who you were wanting to check on others, who weren't leaving, staying behind to help them if they needed it. Have you been able to check in with your neighbors? Is everyone doing okay? We were.
And in fact, we were able to get two elderly residents out of their low lying house in the middle of the storm before the floodwater has got their home. And I brought them to my house and they spent the night in my front bedroom. Until just a few hours ago, we had two folks missing here on the island. But thankfully, they've been accounted for.
So it looks like we've had no loss of life. We've had a few injuries. But you can see from these images, our post office is gone, our hardware store is gone, the bank is gone, our market, our little lifeblood of the tower, our little mom and pop supermarket is just doesn't exist anymore. This recovery is going to be measured in years and years, not months.
So right now, I mean, are there authorities on the ground, recovery services on the ground? What's happening there right there? Sure. So the governor just left, we have the national guard here, we have the army here, the folks that wisely evacuated have not been allowed back on the island yet.
We need another full day to get the island secured. We're going to welcome them back on tomorrow. So I spent the day taking photos of 75 different homes, people who weren't allowed back on the island, but just terrified about how their home might be. In other 75 homes, 60 of the photos and the messages and calls I made were to deliver the worst news those people had ever heard in their lives, that their home was just totally destroyed.
There were very few happy stories today. Our island is just totally devastated. Wow. Well, I'm glad you're there and helping out with people and getting people worried about their homes.
But I mean, 60 out of some 70, that's just awful. Michael Bob, I really appreciate talking to you. Thank you. Godspeed, Cedar Key, thank you, Anderson.
And you take care of there's more breaking news this busy night. This is live video from Beirut, more explosions there as you see some extensive fires burning as well. This is way away confirmation whether the leader of Hezbollah was killed in a massive strike earlier today in Israeli official confirmed to CNN that Hassan Nasrallah was in fact the intended target. You see the explosion there.
Multiple Jeremy Diamond joins us from Tel Aviv along with her target of the General Mark Hurdling, Ben Wiedemann in Beirut. Ben, what do you see in Beirut and what can you tell us about this intended target of Hassan Nasrallah? Well, we understand from Israeli sources that that was the target, but we don't know anything from Hezbollah. I've tried to contact them throughout the evening, but they do not respond to phone calls or messages.
But what happened was that that strike was massive, apparently using 2,000-pound bomb, buster, bunker busters provided by the United States. And as far as we know at this point, according to the Ministry of Health, six people killed 91 injured, but with six buildings flattened in that strike. And we assume that the death toll will rise as they can recover bodies from underneath. But what we've seen, Anderson, in the last three and a half hours is well over a dozen strikes.
What you can see in that other pictures we're putting out from here are some of the fires left from those strikes. Now, what's interesting is that Arabic spokesman for the Israeli military has been putting out tweets with specific locations, warning people to leave those, that specific building and get away as much as 500 meters. But we noticed, for instance, one of those warnings came out at the top of this hour. And 12 minutes later, there were airstrikes.
And on an area, Borjil Barajne, which is a Palestinian refugee capital, wider area, which is one of the most densely populated parts of Beirut, home to Palestinian refugees, Syrian migrant workers, and workers from South Asia and Africa. Probably the most deprived people in this country who don't have the means to evacuate, even if they wanted to. But what we've seen is that thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of people, have streamed out of the southern suburbs of Beirut, basically camping out on the sidewalks in other parts of town desperate to get away from this series of Israeli airstrikes that has rocked Beirut for the last three and a half hours. Anderson.
And Jeremy, what do you know about why Israel also decides to launch this strike? Well, Anderson, over the course of the last week and a half, the Israeli government and the military have been steadily escalating this conflict. And they've been doing so very intentionally. Effectively, the Israeli government made a decision that they believe it is now necessary to go and strike Hezbollah even harder in order to try and get Hezbollah to stop firing rockets into northern Israel.
And tonight certainly marked the most significant escalation that we have seen over the course of the last week and a half. And it appears to have been born out of a target of opportunity. We saw the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approving that strike while he was in New York, attending the United Nations General Assembly. The Israeli military then came out, talked about hitting this central headquarters of Hezbollah underground.
I then confirmed with an Israeli source that Hassan Nasrallah was indeed the target. But so far, we don't know that this strategy of de-escalation through escalation as Israeli officials have called it is showing any signs of working. So far, Hezbollah has shown that it is also willing to escalate on its side as well, firing deeper into Israel over the course of the last week, Anderson. General Herling, in terms of Nasrallah as a target, why is he so important?
Leader of Hezbollah in Lebanon, of course, if you're seeing pictures of Prime Minister Netanyahu approving a strike with the military, we call it time sensitive targeting, it means that they have very good intelligence on a direct location of where Nasrallah is. Over the last week, after the beeper, Waukey-Paukey chaos that incurred within Hezbollah, I think we've seen a lot of turmoil in that terrorist organization. They've been attempting to find other ways to communicate. And when they do that, they give up positions of some of their key targets.
And what we've seen over the last couple of days is multiple leaders of the Hezbollah organizations from area commanders to missile strike commanders to rocket commanders to the team for the Hezbollah, becoming targets because they are in a bit of turmoil. Communication opens up the targeting and intelligence collection by the Israeli defense forces. And that's what's happening. I'd add to the point that on October 8, the day after the October 7 attacks by Hamas, Hezbollah started firing rockets.
There have been over 3,000 rockets fired into northern Israel. And I think what Israel has been attempting to do is find intelligence to strike the leadership of Hezbollah during that entire period of time. That's what I would do as a commander. I think that's what the Israel press forces are doing as well.
General Herling, Ben Wiedem and Jeremy Diamond, thank you. That's it for us. The news continues. The source of Kalingan starts now.
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