Return to Transcripts main page

CNN Newsroom

The Science Behind Living to 100; President Biden Orders Deployment of 1,000 Soldiers to North Carolina; Eight Israeli Soldiers Killed in Combat in Lebanon. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired October 02, 2024 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:33:50]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: I'm Jim Sciutto live in Tel Aviv with the breaking news that seven additional Israeli soldiers were killed in Southern Lebanon today. That brings the total now to eight soldiers killed in Southern Lebanon since Israeli forces entered on the ground there, what Israel is calling a limited ground incursion, but appears to be growing by the day with more units assigned today.

This after we watched yesterday Iran launch close to 200 missiles at Israel. The U.S. Navy launched interceptors at that missile barrage, and here's a scene of that.

Joining me now is Alon Pinkas. He's Israel's former consul general in New York.

Thanks so much for joining.

I want to ask you, as we look at this early death toll in just the first two days of Israeli ground operations inside Southern Lebanon, it has echoes of the 2006 Lebanon war, when Israel went in on the ground, had greater losses among military personnel, and then left after a month and really an uncertain outcome to that war, and Hezbollah, of course, survived to live another day.

[11:35:11]

Are you concerned that this is a sign that victory is certainly not guaranteed in Lebanon?

ALON PINKAS, FORMER ISRAELI CONSUL GENERAL: Yes, very much so, Jim.

It's not only echoes of 2006. These are also echoes and very reminiscent of the 1982 war in Lebanon, which then resulted in security zone or a buffer zone. And what do I mean by that?

Israel says it's a limited incursions, a limited ground operations to cleanse, to search and destroy, to borrow the term from the Vietnam War. But these things, they -- in planning boards, they stay limited. In real life, there's also another -- there's always another hill, there's another village, there's another little valley, there's another little mountain. And before you know it, you're 25 kilometers north of Israel in

establishing a de facto security zone, and then you become sitting ducks.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

That was the concern U.S. officials expressed, according to CNN reporting prior, about the danger of mission creep. Speaking of mission creep, I want to talk and get your sense as Israel is now measuring its retaliatory attack for last night's Iranian missile barrage on Israel.

You have some in this country and some quite publicly now calling for strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities. They include Naftali Bennett, of course, former prime minister. Have a listen to his comments. Then I want to get your response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NAFTALI BENNETT, FORMER ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: Once-in-a-50-year opportunity. What Israel needs to do immediately, we need to take out Iran's nuclear program, we need to attack Iran's energy facilities, and we need to attack the regime itself.

So now is the moment. Sometimes, history knocks on your door and you got to seize the moment. If we don't do it now, I don't see it ever happening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: What's your response to that suggestion, not just attacks on nuclear facilities, but it seems on senior Iranian leadership, is his suggestion?

PINKAS: I think it's a reckless suggestion. I think he should have really thought about what he was going to say beforehand.

It's very easy to go gung-ho when you're not the prime minister, when you're not making decisions. And we are already -- Jim, we're already caught in an escalating spiral. And to begin with the fallacy of we control escalation and we dominate escalation is a flawed premise.

We don't, and nor do the Iranians. And if this is going to become a ping pong or retaliatory strikes, before you know it, you're going to have a full-blown war that may drag in the U.S.

Now, what Mr. Bennett is proposing -- and he's not the only one -- is that, oh, we have this unique opportunity. Circumstances, the stars are aligned. It's a perfect geopolitical constellation. Let's hit Iran.

Well, number one, Israel cannot take out Iran's military nuclear program without U.S. help. It just cannot. It could set it back, but there are repercussions. Secondly, the oil terminals? Did he think about the implications that might have on oil prices? I mean, where did these ideas even come from? We could talk about

retaliation. We talk about a barrage of missiles. But the way he presented it is an all-out war. And I think an all-out war is something that no one in his right mind would welcome.

SCIUTTO: And we know it's something that U.S. officials have sought to avoid quite explicitly going all the way back to October 7.

PINKAS: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Alon Pinkas, always good to have your expert point of view. Thanks so much.

PINKAS: Thank you, Jim. Thank you.

And, Pamela, that worry as expressed there is not one that is unique right now, concerns in this region about a broader war and certainly concerns in the U.S. about the U.S. being dragged in to such a broader war.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Yes, understandable concerns well beyond where you are right there, Jim. Thanks so much. I will take it from here. We're going to go back to you if more news breaks in the region, of course.

But still ahead this hour: The death toll from Hurricane Helene is rising. After this break, we're going to talk to a member of the Cajun Navy helping people in need.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:44:08]

BROWN: This just into CNN.

The U.S. will deploy 1,000 active-duty soldiers to help with Helene recovery efforts, this as the death toll has jumped to 180 people in six states. In North Carolina, power and cell service outages, along with blocked roads, are slowing down recovery efforts there. President Biden is heading there today to see the damage for himself.

And joining us now is the founder and CEO of the Cajun Navy Ground Force, Robert Gaudet. His organization is helping with aid, rescue and recovery.

Robert, thanks for joining us.

First of all, you're right there in the thick of it in Asheville. What is it like in the areas you have visited?

ROBERT GAUDET, FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, CAJUN NAVY FOUNDATION: It's really devastating.

And this is a tragedy nobody expected. And it's really impossible to put into words. We have done a lot of disasters. We went to Maui for the wildfires. We have never really -- we have never seen anything like this.

[11:45:10]

BROWN: When you say you have never seen anything like this, paint a picture for us.

GAUDET: When there's feet of mud filling up properties and homes and an entire town is washed into a lake, and it's not just what you see, but it's where you can drive for hours and hours and see the destruction and damage, you lose a sense of, I think, how life has been and how it is for you really quickly.

And when you exit it, you exit it with a sense that something's not right. It's personally hard to deal with. We do a lot of them. And to hear that over 100 individuals have lost their lives, and those are the ones that have been recovered so far, is really -- it's horrible. This is a beautiful area. And they were enjoying their day, enjoying what they were doing, maybe (AUDIO GAP) fall.

Experiencing Mother Nature's worst at the same time, and then losing their life to this is unimaginable.

BROWN: Yes, it's so interesting, like, the dichotomy of right now beautiful skies behind you. You hear the birds chirping.

And yet, as you point out, that area and so many other areas saw the worst of Mother Nature and just this destruction and the death, more than 180. It's just -- it's hard to even comprehend and wrap your mind around it.

What supplies have been the most needed by these communities? I know a lot of people are standing on the sidelines wondering, how can they help? What do people need right now?

GAUDET: You know, our organization is taking a measured approach here.

The initial response for a lot of people is done where it's rush, rush, rush and deliver services. We're building up a volunteer movement. We call it Operation Kaleidoscope. Our logo is a kaleidoscope. We help everybody.

And what we're doing and the supplies we're being offered will require a large, organized force of citizens to move them forward. There's two approaches to this. There's two worlds in the disaster relief area. There's the government approach and there's repairing infrastructure and bridges and cell towers and telephone poles.

There's the human approach. And what that takes is you and me. It takes every citizen to bring their best to the scene. And that's what we're preparing to do. We have an offer of 125 pallets a day of supplies. That's an incredible amount of supplies.

We will go a whole disaster and not see 125 pallets. How does a nonprofit organization handle that? It takes logistics. It takes technology. It takes smart people. It takes collaboration. It takes good people, no drama, and incredible effort. And that's what we're building right now at Cajun Navy Ground Force or Ground Force Humanitarian Aid, as we're known now and it's Operation Kaleidoscope.

BROWN: Well, we thank you, and with all of the other people down there giving this humanitarian aid, helping those in desperate need right now.

We just thank you so much from the bottom of our hearts, because so many of us can't be there to do that, Robert Gaudet.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:52:37]

BROWN: Well, President Jimmy Carter made history this week by becoming the first American president to reach the age of 100.

CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta is on call today.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi.

BROWN: Sanjay, first of all, how common is it nowadays for people to reach the century mark?

GUPTA: It's becoming more common. I mean, I love this topic because it's a little bit inspiring.

We have had some trends down overall in life expectancy, but centenarians, take a look, have been going up incrementally for the last 50, 60 years or so. What's kind of incredible is where they project things to go over the next 30 years.

All that discussion that we have been having about longevity, it's got -- we're going to see the impact of that over the next few decades. Incidentally, the United States doesn't fare too badly when it comes to centenarians overall. Japan, still the most centenarians per capita, but then the United States, and then you can see China, India and Thailand come after that.

Hawaii, incidentally, Pamela, in case you're curious, it's the state with the most centenarians per capita.

BROWN: So you're just saying we need to just move to the beach in Hawaii and we would live longer.

GUPTA: That helps.

(LAUGHTER)

BROWN: All right, I'm sold on that.

I actually just am sort of surprised that the United States was second on that, just given...

GUPTA: We spend a lot of money on health care, Pamela, yes.

BROWN: That's true. We do. We do spend a lot, but we also have a B.C. epidemic and all kinds of other issues.

GUPTA: Yes.

BROWN: But that's really interesting.

But from a scientific standpoint, curious what you have to say about how we define aging.

GUPTA: Yes, this, I think, is the most salient point, because people think obviously the number of years, revolutions of planets.

The reason they're making such progress, I think, when it comes to longevity is because they define aging a little bit differently or more precisely, I should say. So it's not just the number of years, but how well does your metabolism sort of work as you get older? Are your cells continuing to replicate at the same rate?

Stem cells, which actually replace bad and old cells, are they becoming exhausted? And your immunity overall, those are some of the hallmarks of aging. And there's all sorts of different strategies scientists are now using to try and target those hallmarks of aging.

One other thing I will throw into the mix is what you're seeing on the screen there. We don't age linearly, OK? We don't age year to year the same. There are a couple of different bursts of aging that we have throughout our life, around age 44 they have found and around age 60.

So, those are the times when scientists are really starting to pay attention to what is happening at that time and, again, possibly intervene to increase longevity.

[11:55:08]

I just got to say, Pamela, you mentioned Jimmy Carter. I had a chance to interview him a few years ago. He was in his mid-90s at the time. I don't know if you could see right there, but I have always been taken by the fact that he would just get up out of chairs so easily because he preserved that muscle mass, such a key ingredient towards longevity as well.

BROWN: I'm so glad you showed that video and talked about that.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thank you so much.

GUPTA: You got it.

BROWN: And don't forget to submit your questions. You can use the Q.R. code on your screen, and we will have Sanjay back to answer them later this week.

Thank you so much for joining us. I'm Pamela Brown. You can follow me on Instagram, TikTok and X @PamelaBrownCNN. I want to hear from you.

Stay with us. Dana Bash will speak with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on "INSIDE POLITICS."

That starts after a quick break.