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Florida Braces For Milton's Disastrous Impact; Israel Expanding Ground Offensive In Southern Lebanon; Harris Accuses Trump of "Political Games" Around Hurricane; U.S. States Sue TikTok, Accuse It Of Harming Younger Users. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired October 08, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:05:47]

LYNDA KINKADE, CNN HOST: It is 8:00 p.m. in London, 10:00 p.m. in Rafah, 3:00 p.m. here in Atlanta. I'm Lynda Kinkade. Thanks so much for joining me today for CNN NEWSROOM.

Let's get you right to the news.

We are tracking Hurricane Milton as it regained strength, barreling towards Florida right now, reaching winds of 155 miles an hour. That's about 250 kilometers an hour.

Right now, most of Florida, some 20 million people are under hurricane and storm warnings, just weeks after being slammed by Hurricane Helene. Milton, as you can see from the international space station here, is expected to make landfall tomorrow. Right now, grocery stores are empty, gas stations are running out of fuel, highways at jam as people try to evacuate. And parts of the Tampa Bay area will lose access to running water later today.

U.S. President Joe Biden warning of this severity of this storm.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This could be the worst storm hit Florida in over a century and God willing it won't be, but that's what it's looking like right now. If you're under evacuation order -- orders, you should evacuated now. Now. Now. You should have already evacuated. It's a matter of life and death.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: A matter of life and death.

CNN's Isabel Rosales is in Tampa.

Isabel, we have heard from authorities there saying leave or you will die. Are people heeding that warning?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. That was from Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, the most to the point language I have ever heard from the mayor. I used to live here for several years. The most to the point blunt messaging I have ever heard from the leader of this community in terms of evacuation.

She's talking about evacuation zone eight, where I'm at right now, Davis Islands, its neighborhood here in Tampa. And what they're looking at here is a one-two punch, right? They had Helene come in two weeks ago.

And this is the debris from that. It looks like a war zone. Take a look over there. Just says streets lined up with peoples homes, their furniture. These homes have been gutted and now they've got to worry about Milton. So, with Helene, that actually hit the landfall was further up north into the Big Bend area.

But with Milton, they're worried that this is the storm that they have been dreading for decades. It would be the first storm to hit the Tampa Bay area directly.

So what am I seeing today? Preparations, a race against time so many neighbors doing this trying to get rid of this debris that's just so dangerous. Installation, okay, but then you have pieces of wood, concrete, short pokey things that in hurricane force winds, these are going to be flying projectiles, so dangerous. They need to get the stuff out of the neighborhoods which is why the Governor Ron DeSantis has put out an executive order opening up all landfills in impacted areas.

And today, we saw dump trucks, heavy machinery just adding to this mountain of debris over at the Florida fairgrounds, something. I have never seen an all of the hurricanes that I've covered here in the Tampa Bay area.

I did also speak with a neighbor here in Davis Island, which is eerily quiet, so many of her neighbors had already evacuated. She was about to evacuate. This is what she told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: You've been through so many hurricanes.

NANCY TURNER, TAMPA RESIDENT: Yeah.

ROSALES: Have you ever seen anything like this before?

TURNER: No, when I was in high school, you know, we couldn't wait for hurricane because we have hurricane parties, wouldn't have to go to school the next day. Times have changed. The hurricane is much stronger and fiercer.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: And the National Hurricane Center has a storm surge forecast. If the tracks validate, the Tampa Bay could be looking at double the storm surge, 10 to 15 feet, double what they saw from Helene.

Lynd, serious situation.

KINKADE: Yeah. Hopefully, everyone gets out now.

Good to have you there for us. Isabel Rosales, thank you.

Well, I want to bring in Hillsborough County fire rescue chief, Public Information Officer Danny Alvarez.

Thanks so much for joining us today.

DANNY ALVAREZ, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY FIRE RESCUE CHIEF PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER: Yes. Thank you for having me.

KINKADE: Just take us through your top concern at this moment in time.

[15:10:04]

ALVAREZ: Well, our top concerns are quite a few actually. We did get hit by Hurricane Helene recently, as you know. And we have piles of debris in front of many homes in Hillsborough County. So, one of the significant concerns is the potential for that debris to become projectiles. We're going to be facing east with sustained winds of 120 miles an hour or greater and then another concern is the flooding of that the Tampa bay area may face.

Helene brought anywhere from five to nine feet of flooding, storm surge. We are expecting anywhere from ten to 15 feet. So it's going to be quite the quite the impact for the Bay Area.

KINKADE: And this, of course, is already one of the strongest hurricanes on record in the Atlantic basin, reaching a category five status on Monday.

Just talk to us about the other preparations underway. I mean, you mentioned some of the debris and the issues with that. What else are people doing?

ALVAREZ: Well, as far as the fire department, we are staging our equipment, we kind of obviously with Hurricane Helene, we had all these preparations in place. So, we just -- we have just continued what we had already prepared for Helene. All our equipment is staged, all our specialty teams are ready to go.

We've been in contact with state officials, as well as federal officials from FEMA. So as far as first responders go, we are ready to go. Our biggest concern, obviously, as the residence of Hillsborough County and what they mean maybe facing especially those in the low lying areas that were evacuation orders have been given.

KINKADE: And I understand some of the emergency vehicles that will land to other states in the wake of Hurricane Helene are being recalled to deal with this pressed potential disaster.

What are authorities doing right now to reduce that debris from Hurricane Helene? Because there really is a little over 24 hours really to go. ALVAREZ: Right. So it's pretty much all hands on deck. We've opened up a resource center where it's 24/7. You could take your debris and if you have the means to do so, you know, this is going to be a community event, a community coming together. And if you have the ability to transfer your debris to these centers, we ask you please do so.

As far as the county goes, we are working diligently to try to get to every home. However, it would be -- it would be unrealistic to say that we are going to get to everything and go home and completely clean all these piles of debris.

KINKADE: All right. Well, Danny Alvarez, stay safe. Appreciate your time today. Thanks so much.

ALVAREZ: Thank you very much.

KINKADE: We will, of course, have more hurricane coverage later in the program, but now, I want to turn to the Middle East, where at least seven people have been killed by an Israeli attack on a residential building in Syria. That's according to its state broadcaster. Women and children are among the dead as rescue has continued you need to try and pull people from the rubble.

Now, this comes as Israel expands its ground incursion in southern Lebanon. For the first time since the war began, Hezbollah publicly supported Lebanese efforts to achieve a ceasefire. In a video message, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said they had eliminated Hezbollah's successor and doubled down on the war effort.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU, ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER: We've decided to do whatever is necessary to return our people safely to their homes. Israel has a right to defend itself. Israel also has a right to win and Israel willing, you have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza. It doesn't have to be that way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: Our Nic Robertson joins us now, live from Tel Aviv.

Nic, good to have you with us.

So Netanyahu says that they have eliminated the successes and the successors to Hezbollah's leader. What is Israel's next step?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: It's not clear. We do understand because of a development this evening that the prime minister has asked the defense minister not to go to Washington tomorrow. That's something that we've learned from the Pentagon. The Pentagon says that a Yoav Gallant has delayed his trip to go see Lloyd Austin in the United States and one of the reasons we understand this because the prime minister wants the cabinet to have a vote on the type of response to Iran, not the response per say, but the type of response.

So it appears that this may be part of the next thing that Israel plans to do. We also know that the prime minister said that he doesn't want Yoav Gallant to go because he wants have a phone call from President Biden, who has been quoted in a book soon to be released by Bob Woodward, indicating his displeasure, dissatisfaction, and some swear words about his thoughts about Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

[15:15:15]

So, the prime minister here putting his foot down and not letting the defense minister go until he gets that call from President Biden. That's what Israeli sources are telling us.

But precisely what does Israel plan next, we don't know. We anticipate from the words of the prime minister more of the same in Lebanon, we've seen an increase in military operations along the border with Lebanon. They've moved over to the west as well.

Troops seen raising a flag above -- an Israeli flag above a southern Lebanese border town very, very close to the border, and the State Department saying that this is not what they would be expecting. They think its inappropriate and that Israeli troops should be doing what they said they would do, which is limited incursions are not giving the impression that they are taking territory inside of Lebanon.

But do they push more troops and precisely what happens when is around struck as is expected, all of those are unclear, but they are likely the next moves.

KINKADE: All right. Nic Robertson for us in Tel Aviv, Israel, good to have you there for us. Thank you.

Well, still ahead, politics and the weather collide with exactly four weeks to go until the election. Hurricane Milton comes amid voter registration deadlines and with early voting already underway.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KINKADE: Hurricane response and disaster recovery now a political issue in the final weeks of the presidential race. Take a listen to Harris on "The View" this morning, taking aim at Donald Trump's repeated false claims about federal emergency relief dollars and personnel in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

[15:20:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's profound and it is the height of irresponsibility and, frankly, callousness.

The idea that somebody would be playing political games for the sake of himself, but this is so consistent about Donald Trump. He puts himself before the needs of other, I feared that he really lacks empathy on a very basic level to care about the suffering of other people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KINKADE: So, could a hurricane sway an election that is already so close where early voting is underway?

Well, the new poll out today from "The New York Times" shows Donald Trump with a safe lead in Florida, up 13 points. Harris is narrowly ahead nationally by just four. That's just outside the margin of error, extremely close.

With me to discuss all of this is NPR's senior politics editor and correspondent, Domenico Montanaro.

Good to have you with us.

DOMENICO MONTANARO, SENIOR POLITICAL EDITOR & CORRESPONDENT, NPR: Thanks for -- thanks for having me.

KINKADE: So Trump has repeatedly claimed the Federal Emergency Management Agency is no way to be seen on the ground in the disaster zones. He falsely claimed that FEMA is broke because it spent more money on migrants. I just want to play some sound from Trump on the Ben Shapiro show.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: They said that there was just no FEMA. You virtually don't see anybody from FEMA. You're seeing a lot of private people going around and helping, but they can help like FEMA could if they did it right.

Now, you look at this one coming in and the woman doesn't know what she's doing. I watched her. I've got to watch last night, "60 Minutes", and she's -- she answers questions like a child. This is not a president.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KINKADE: Do those lies hurt Donald Trump, but not just in states impacted by the hurricane, like North Carolina in Georgia, but nationally?

MONTANARO: You know, not much has really moved the needle on anything in this presidential election. So I doubt that anything will really do so this time around, but I think it reinforces for the people who really have strong opinions in disliking Donald Trump, you know, that it just reinforces for them, you know, what his style is, what his governing was like, the chaos that he sort of brings to the situation. Whereas the people who have very strong opinions in favor of him, you know, will continue to feel like he's the one who's championing their causes.

Of course, what he's saying is false there. I mean, if you listen to the governors of those states saying that they're getting what they lead from FEMA at this point of course its difficult situation for anybody to have to try to respond to these increasing multi-billion- dollar disasters in the face of climate change and this is continuing to happen over and over again. We know that the counties that Donald Trump won in 2020 are -- many of them are in these affected states. I mean, 57 percent of the counties in Georgia went Donald Trump's way in 2020, that were affected, that FEMA said were affected. And about 52 percent in North Carolina, if you take out Charlotte area, which Mecklenburg County, 62 percent went for Trump.

So clearly, he has lot on the line here and trying to make sure that his folks can get out to vote.

KINKADE: And, of course, Harris's interview on "The View" and "60 Minutes" as part of this week long media blitz. She was on Howard Stern today. She's on Colbert tonight. She also did the popular "Call Her Daddy" podcast last week.

Her running mate Tim Walz is going on the "Smartless" podcast and we just heard Trump birth calling into "Ben Shapiro Show". He, of course, has been on the podcast circuit for quite a while. Are there any signs that that is helping him? And what do you make of the Harris media blitz? Is she reaching undecided voters?

MONTANARO: I mean, if you think about what both candidates are really trying to do, it's trying to mobilize really their voters, get out the base, get out people to go vote. I mean, Trump doesn't really do a lot of mainstream media interviews. I can't remember when he's really done one recently. Of course, Harris hasn't done many either, so I can "60 Minutes" interview. Of course, she's going to be campaign far less time and now they're both sort of pushing out their message in this media blitz.

Trump in particular, feels like he has to get out white voters without college degrees, a lot of his base who listened to this podcasts going on right-wing media, on Fox News, et cetera. Harris, on the other hand, trying to be able to reach the broadest audience that she possibly can. Less than 30 days to go until Election Day here, they need to get out everybody that possibly can and trying to reach as many voters as possible.

KINKADE: All right. Domenico Montanaro, appreciate your time today. Thank so much for joining us.

MONTANARO: Thanks for having me.

KINKADE: Well, it was just over four weeks to go until the election, it is time for our battleground breakdown every week on this show until November 5. We're talking to experts in the seven toss-up states that will decide at this race. The states, of course, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

[15:25:06]

Well, this week, it is Arizona. It's a border state, home of John McCain, one-third Latino, and four years ago, it was ground zero for election fraud shenanigans. Abortion is on the ballot here, as well as a high dollar, highly contested Senate race.

With me to talk through all of it is yvonne, we jet Sanchez. She is a longtime Arizona reporter who covers democracy and voting issues for "The Washington Post".

Great to have you with us.

YVONNE WINGETT SANCHEZ, DEMOCRACY REPORTER FOR ARIZONA, THE WASHINGTON POST: Thanks for having me.

KINKADE: So, four years ago, Biden won Arizona by roughly 10,000 votes and Republicans in the state worked very hard to challenge those results.

But after multiple investigations, they found nothing, even when they're Republican-led Senate commissioned a hand recount on of Maricopa's county ballots by a partisan firm. They still didn't find a thing.

This time, do you expect an equally close and potentially contested race in Arizona?

SANCHEZ: When people ask me this question, not just here in Arizona, but around the country and around the world, they've sort of been describing it as a knife fight, and that is very much what it feels like. It feels like it is going to come down once again to the narrowest of margins. Both parties and, special interest groups everywhere in in-between have been spending the last four years, the last year very urgently trying to register voters and remind people of the stakes of this race.

Arizona is very much a battleground state. And even though we have seen a lot of Democrats win some of these key statewide races over the past couple of cycles from the presidency in 2022, to U.S. Senate races and the governor ship. Since then Arizona is still very much a center right state. It's a state where Republicans still have the advantage when it comes to voter registration and polls very clearly show that this is going to be a neck and neck race, and that former President Donald Trump has the advantage.

KINKADE: And, of course, Republicans are pushing to make border security a key issue and a winning issue for them in this race. What sort of an issue do you think that will be, this election in that state? Because we know last week, the Arizona GOP put up billboards that read gang members for Harris. Do you think that messaging is working?

SANCHEZ: I don't know about that messaging specifically. What I will say is that Arizona is acutely aware of the consequences of living on the border, sharing a border with Mexico. This is a conversation that we have been having for decades, long before Donald Trump's rise, long before we started to see this sort of pretty specific and explicit messaging about gang members and drug traffickers and that sort of thing. John McCain was talking about this during his campaign the pains decades ago.

And I think what has changed is the conversations around what is the best way to fix this problem to solve this problem.

And we saw an attempt by the former president, by Donald Trump, to build a border wall that really sort of deepens the conversation and maybe raised the stakes of the conversation in a way that we hadn't seen before. And that is clearly an issue so on the minds, especially of Republican voters and independent voters here in Arizona. And this is something that they are very concerned about. I mean, this is being explained to them as an existential crisis for Americans and for our country, and the trend lines of the diversification of America. And what that could look like and what that will look like maybe for a long, long time American citizens is being talked to wait in a much more explicit way than it had been in the past.

And it's very clear that Republicans think that that could be a winning recipe in 2024. And it's something that has forced Democrats and Kamala Harris and her running mate to address in explicit terms as well. I mean, we are seeing them traveled to the border. We are seeing them talk more about border security than we have in previous months, and I think that that's a very telling trend.

[15:30:03]

KINKADE: And, Yvonne, just really quickly if you could, when the D.C. political class looks at the state of the race in Arizona, what do you think they're missing?

SANCHEZ: I'm sorry. Could you repeat your question?

KINKADE: When the D.C. class, the political class, looks at Arizona and tries to figure out how this state is going to play out at the election, what do you think they're missing right now?

SANCHEZ: I think the biggest thing that they are missing is the depths of the mistrust and the distrust and the skepticism towards democratic institutions, from Congress all the way to state government, all the way down to the local level government. The deep suspicion and the deep mistrust and the depths that people dislike, the noise and the confusion and the chaos. And that is causing them to not participate in their system anymore.

KINKADE: Interesting perspective. Great to have you on the program, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez, thanks so much.

SANCHEZ: Thank you.

KINKADE: Well, still to come after the break, preparing for Hurricane Milton. We're tracking the category four storm that is making its way towards Florida as a major hurricane.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KINKADE: Welcome back. I'm Lynda Kinkade. Hurricane Milton continues its march towards Florida as a category four storm. Many Floridians on the state's west coast to being told to evacuate now. Milton has been changing rapidly over the last few days. So we're going to get a check on the forecast right now with CNN meteorologist Elisa Raffa.

[15:35:05]

Elisa, good to have you with us.

So, just give us a sense of what strength this storm is expected to be by the time it makes landfall and is it a possible the trajectory of this storm could change like we saw with Helene last time, when it veered more to the east.

ELISA RAFFA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yeah. So the intensity will come down a little bit from where it is right now. It will still pack a punch with the storm surge no matter what. When it comes to the track, that trajectory, any little wobble could change that storm surge forecast for better or for worse. So that's something that we need to watch, but we are confident it is going into the west coast of Florida.

There's a front in the way to the north where that's going to stop it from going anywhere else, 155-mile-per hour winds right now in this center, you have a clear crystal clear, perfect circle, donut eye. This is a textbook as it gets for what a satellite image looks like.

We are teetering on a category five right now. You need 157 mile-per- hour winds to hit that definition. So we're only two miles per hour away. You were kind of splitting hairs at this point when it comes to the street. It is incredibly strong.

As it gets towards Florida, there's some dry air and some wind energy upstairs in the atmosphere that try to eat away at the intensity. But as that happens, were going to find this storm gets wider, fatter, could double in size, and that will send those wind impacts stretching farther miles, right? More people impacted. That's where the hurricane warnings now stretch from coast to coast, from Tampa, all the way through a window to the east coast.

We could still be looking at hurricane force winds, category two, possibly cutting through Orlando as we go through the overnight. I mean, look at these wins in the purple here, 110 plus miles per hour from Tampa, down towards Sarasota, hurricane-force winds stretching to the other side of the state.

Here's what I was talking about. The expanding of the wind field to even as the intensity shaved a little bit as a result of that, it gets wider. That impacts more people. That is what gives you the more widespread power outages.

And when you have the tropical storm force winds and it taking in the entire peninsula and you can see the hurricane force winds going from coast to coast. That is what's going to pull in the storm surge. The storm surge is the push of the ocean from the intense winds in the center of the storm, ten to 15 feet from Tampa down toward Sarasota. This will be unprecedented for them. They broke records in Helene and

we are expecting it to be double in Milton, down to six to ten feet from Fort Myers and Naples. Again, this is the part that's unsurvivable. It is that water that comes in and we are expecting it to peak as we go into Wednesday night -- Lynda.

KINKADE: All right. Elisa Raffa, good to have you there. Keeping an eye on it for us, we will chat again soon. Thank you.

Well, U.S. President Biden is warning that Hurricane Milton could be quote, one of the worst storms in 100 years in Florida, adding that anyone in the storms path and under an evacuation order should leave immediately, calling it a matter of life and death.

Well, MJ Lee joins us now from outside the White House.

Hey, MJ, how is the administration preparing for Hurricane Milton?

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all, Lynda, just to give you a sense of the severity of the situation and the severity of the damage that the federal government is expecting.

We saw earlier today, the White House actually making the rare move of postponing, it said President Biden's foreign trip. He was supposed to leave on Thursday actually, to go to Germany and to go to Angola, but that trip again is being postponed, really gives you a sense of how much work, urgent work they think lies ahead for the president as he is directing all federal resources necessary deal with the storm recovery efforts.

We know that President Biden, as you said, is describing this storm as he is getting briefed by all of his officials that are working on this as potentially the storm of a lifetime. He basically had one message that he wanted everybody to hear and that was anybody that is under an evacuation order. He said must actually evacuate that they have to take that seriously.

And according to FEMA, there are currently some ones thousands staff that have been deployed to the state of Florida. The agency is making clear that that doesn't include the additional people between now and Wednesday, which is why that landfall is affected to make take place in the state of Florida. That doesn't count the additional people that are headed that way and additional resources we are talking about searching rescue teams, health assessment teams, and the army corps of engineer as well, all involved to try to deal with and prepare for the storm that is to come.

I think there is a recognition hear that in addition to, of course, the preparations that are underway, so much of the work and perhaps the more important work is actually going to come once the storm has actually passed through the state of Florida. Now, of course, as you have been talking about a lot, the reason that this is going to be seen as even more devastating than it could be is because this is an area of the country that already saw a lot of devastation, just some days ago from Hurricane Helene.

[15:40:14]

So again, this is a situation where President Biden and everyone on down taking what is to come in the coming days very seriously. And the FEMA director, when she was on our air within the last 24 hours, she said that the message that she would have for any Floridian that is in the storm's path is they need to get out, they need to evacuate.

Basically, the order is get to higher ground if you're going to be in the storm's path and just stay there until the storm has at least path pass through wherever you are living. That, of course, indicates to anyone that is listening that this is very much a life and death situation, Lynda.

KINKADE: Yeah, it certainly is. The Florida governor, again, reiterating, if you're going to get out, get out now.

MJ Lee outside the White House, thanks very much.

We're going to take a quick look at the conditions inside Gaza when we come back, one year into the war between Israel and Hamas, as Palestinians deal with displacement, hunger, and death.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KINKADE: An unrecognizable sea of rubble. That's what the U.N. calls Gaza after a devastating year of war. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees says displacement, disease, hunger, and death have become the daily norm for families and calls Gaza a graveyard for tens of thousands of people. Every day, the death toll continues to rise, 56 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes in just the last 24 hours.

I want to bring in Sarah Davies, spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Appreciate your time today, Sarah.

SARAH DAVIES, SPOKESPERSON, INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF THE RED CROSS: Thank you for having me.

[15:45:01]

KINKADE: So, it's one year into this conflict. We now know that the U.S. is no longer pushing to revive a ceasefire deal.

Just describe the situation on the ground right now, and what that all means for the people of Gaza.

DAVIES: The situation on the ground for the people of Gaza, it's really only going from bad to worse. As you said, for 12 months now, people have lived with death. They've lived with being wounded, injured, displacement, hunger, thirst, lack of access to health care facilities. There's a main street that you go down here, a dirt road, and it is on either side, just makeshift shelters that are haphazard. They are tilting, even the shelters look exhausted here, let alone the people. There are children who line up for hours with containers for water trucks to get water for their family. I saw a toddlers carrying five and six liter containers that almost bigger than them tottering along, trying to get safe drinking water for their family.

We unfortunately get constantly asked when will this end and what is going to happen next, and we don't have an answer for people here.

KINKADE: And, Sarah, talk to us about how much aid is getting into Gaza right now compared to the need and just talk to us about the dangerous trying to distribute that aid.

DAVIES: I think, regardless of how much aid comes into Gaza, and we have seen that it has fluctuated over the last 12 months, the needs are so huge, it is -- it would be almost impossible to right now reach everyone and fill every need.

There are things from medical supplies, health care facilities, gauze medical equipment, to diapers for children, two different food staples, dietary the diversity required for people. There are no schools. There are -- there are makeshift schools in displacement camps. There is very little jobs.

What food is available on the market, it's at a very, very high price and is very -- is pre-packaged. It's a very small range of food.

To reach all the people, all the civilians who are currently need support and assistance in Gaza, it's incredibly challenging. In the south, it is -- we are able to move from different areas, but some areas of Gaza have been so damaged by the hostilities that the roads are impassable. The rubble piles over it, as well as other risks like explosive remnants of war, which our ammunition that have not yet detonated or exploited.

This is a huge risk for the civilian population as well as, of course, organizations who are trying to reach those most in need.

KINKADE: And, Sarah, throughout this war, your organization has been in talks with both Israel and Hamas in order to try to minimize harm to civilians. Are you still in talks with both sides?

DAVIES: We are constantly in discussion with both parties to this conflict. The level of human suffering seen on both sides for the families of hostages in Israel, for the hostages themselves, and entire communities who have now lived under the sound of sirens who have also dealt with death, who have also dealt with displacement and injuries, as well as the people of Gaza, the civilians in Gaza who have, as we've heard, dealt with so much -- so many challenges.

This is our priority to civilians, the ability to live life in a dignified way. And this is something we continually discussing directly with both parties to the conflict as well as other actors of influence all about networks we are using, all about resources to reiterate that international humanitarian law must be abided by people. Parties have obligations and there is a reason for this obligations and it is the protection civilians across the board in this conflict.

KINKADE: And Palestinians fleeing the renewed hostilities are again being shot at as they try to evacuate many of these people, of course, have already been displaced multiple times.

How was that constant movement taking a toll?

DAVIES: I've spoken to people personally who from displacement camps in the last few days who have moved within nine children multiple times more than six times? I think it takes a physical toll. I think people are physically exhausted, but they are also mentally and emotionally exhausted, you maybe have hours to move or you don't feel safe and you have to pack up your children. Everything that you are and carry it on foot often through night with the sound of explosions, constant, constant around you, not knowing where you will end up if that will be safe, if you have security that end when you may have to move again.

[15:50:07]

This is not living it for people. It is simply surviving hour by hour and day by day.

KINKADE: Sarah Davies, we appreciate the work you and your organization are doing there in Gaza. Thanks so much for your time today.

DAVIES: Thanks, Lynda.

KINKADE: Well, still to come, why more than a dozen states say they've launched a new lawsuit against the social media app TikTok. We'll have more on that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KINKADE: Welcome back. I'm Lynda Kinkade.

The popular social media app TikTok is being sued by multiple states across the U.S. A bipartisan group of 14 attorney generals from all over the U.S. filed lawsuits against TikTok earlier today, alleging that the app has addictive features that negatively impact the mental health of its young users.

CNN's Clare Duffy is covering this story.

Clare, good to have you with us. It's certainly not the first time TikTok has faced lawsuits.

What features of TikTok these lawsuits focusing on?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Yeah. Lynda, these lawsuits take issue with really a wide range of TikTok's, business practices and features, things like its endlessly scrolling feed which these attorneys general say can keep users hooked and scrolling to see what the next video is going to be, late night notifications that could interrupt teens sleep. And they claim that TikTok has failed to do enough to address TikTok challenges.

These viral video trends were teens tried to replicate videos created by others and can sometimes engage in dangerous behavior like riding on the outside of a subway train. This is a stunt known as subway surfing. And the complaint alleges that a New York teen was killed doing this earlier this year, and that his mom actually found videos on his TikTok feed promoted bring this kind of behavior.

And, of course, you're right that TikTok, this is not the first time that TikTok has faced these kinds of claims. We've seen other state actions related to children's safety and a U.S. DOJ lawsuit recently over children's privacy violations that they claim TikTok has engaged in, Lynda.

KINKADE: And so, Clare, what sort of response are you seeing from TikTok and what sort of potential punishment could they face if found to be -- if the lawsuit finds against them?

DUFFY: Yeah, TikTok has repeatedly claimed that its app is safe for children. Again, a spokesperson told me today that they strongly disagree with the claims in these lawsuits and they pointed to changes that TikTok has made, introducing features like default screen time limits for teens and parental oversight tools. But these state attorney general say that this is not enough and they're seeking financial penalties against the company, including potentially requirement for TikTok to pay back any revenue that it earned from ads shown to teens, which could amount to billions of dollars, Lynda.

KINKADE: I mean, we have seen Instagram try to roll out features for young users. Is TikTok making any efforts to improve its app?

DUFF: Yeah, TikTok has rolled out, again a number of these features, things like default, privacy for teen accounts. And this is sort an industry-wide effort by lots of social media platforms to take more action, in part because you're seeing this sort of regulatory and legal crackdown lawsuits as well as action from lawmakers considering potential new laws that could force these companies to take this kind of action.

So we're seeing some of the platforms try to get the head of that with these new features.

But clearly, these attorneys general don't think that it's enough.

[15:55:08]

KINKADE: Yeah, major lawsuit. We will be following this closely. These 14 states trying to sue at TikTok.

Clare Duffy for us in New York, good to have you with us. Thanks so much.

DUFFY: Thank you.

KINKADE: And thanks so much for joining us today. I'm Lynda Kinkade coming to you live from Atlanta. "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is up next, and I'll be back in about two hours

with much more news. Stay with us. You're watching CNN.