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CNN International: Blinken Makes Unannounced Visit To Iraq To Discuss Syria; Trump Could Pardon Jan. 6 Rioters "On Day One"; Biden Announces $500 Million And Package To Ukraine; U.S. Lawmakers Demand Answers On Unexplained Drones. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired December 13, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:41]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington. Thanks so much for joining me today on CNN NEWSROOM. And let's get right to the news.

The United States is expressing cautious optimism for the future of Syria, now free from the brutal dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad. And while many Syrians are celebrating, the U.S. is working to carve out a strategy that prevents the resurgence of the terror group ISIS in that country where it's still operating.

Earlier today, Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a previously unannounced stop in Iraq. Of course, a key partner in the fight against ISIS, where it's also present. Blinken said that after defeating the group years ago and putting it, quote, back in its box, we cannot let it out.

The top U.S. diplomat met with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al- Sudani for more than an hour in Baghdad as part of a lightning tour around the Middle East, seeking to build regional support for an inclusive political transition inside Syria.

CNN's State Department reporter Jennifer Hansler has been traveling with secretary of state.

And I wonder what sort of reception Secretary Blinken is getting to this and are the allies and the neighbors, et cetera, coming together here?

JENNIFER HANSLER, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT REPORTER (via telephone): Well, Jim, Secretary Blinken says there is general consensus about the need to have a coordinated approach to Syria. And throughout his meetings, he has been stressing the need for an incoming Syrian government, which is chosen by an inclusive and Syrian-led transition process, should adhere to key principles related to human rights, the need to prevent terrorism from relaunching from Syria, as well as the need to destroy chemical weapons.

And Blinken said throughout his meetings in Jordan and Turkey and Iraq over the past 48 hours, there has been acceptance of those principles. Now, notably, Jim, a U.S. official said, the part of this trip is not only to just go and get acceptance of those ideas from the regional partners, it is also to send a sign to the opposition forces, which include HTS, a U.S. designated terrorist group, that they expect this of any incoming Syrian government.

Now, all of the regional leaders are expected to convene here in Jordan on Saturday, tomorrow to further discuss how to move this ball forward, how they respond after this really stunning collapse of the Assad regime. And I would note, Jim, on his trip to Iraq today, in particular, this was an unannounced trip to meet with the Iraqi prime minister, and he called on Iraq to take advantage of the opportunity to exert its sovereignty over its territory, to make sure Iranian backed militias are not using this as an opportunity to launch strikes against U.S. assets, to not allow the transit of weapons back to Syria, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Other news we're learning that the American Travis Timmerman, he had been released from a Syrian regime prison, has now been handed over to the U.S. How do they make that transfer?

HANSLER: Well, it's really interesting. Opposition forces we're told were able to bring him to al-Tanf, which is a U.S. base in northeast Syria. From there, they handed him over to U.S. forces, who then flew him out to Jordan. And now we expect his family will be very happy to hear this news. We heard from his mother and stepfather overnight that they didn't even know if their son was still alive. So they will be welcoming him back to the United States.

SCIUTTO: Well, let's hope for the same kind of news for other others still waiting for their families, including the family of Austin Tice.

Jennifer Hansler, thanks so much.

Just remarkable scenes in Syria. People across the country celebrating the fall of the Assad regime. Thousands gathered after Friday prayers in cities across the country, including Damascus, Homs, Aleppo, Hama, cities that just fell in the last couple of weeks. The leader of the forces that overthrew the Bashar al-Assad regime, Mohammed al-Jolani, issued a video statement earlier today congratulating the Syrian people on what he said was their victory. He urged them to celebrate peacefully after gunfire into the air caused deadly chaos in the northern city of Raqqa on Thursday.

CNN's Clarissa Ward talked to Syrians celebrating in Damascus. Have a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CLARISSA WARD, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: People are flooding in to the central Umayyad square from around Damascus. They're flooding into squares across the entire country.

[15:05:01]

This is the first Friday since Bashar al-Assad left the country. And you can see, understandably, so many people here are celebrating what they see as the greatest victory of a lifetime. After 53 years of totalitarian rule under Bashar al-Assad, after hundreds of thousands of dead and disappeared into Syrian prisons, finally, Syria for these people is free. This is where you hear over and over. Syria is free! And the crowds are getting bigger and bigger here as people really just absorbed the magnitude of this moment.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So thank God. We're so grateful that we finally can speak freely. We can criticize, we can help. We can feel like this country is our country, you know?

WARD: What does this moment feel like?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's like a dream. It's like a dream at the end, I felt like I'm going to lose the hope that he's going to leave. And now we got back the hope. Honestly, it's like a dream came true.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now it's a great feeling. We are in Umayyad Square. We are in the middle of Damascus stating freedom, saying we are still want the same demands of democracy, of participation, of justice.

WARD: And everyone understands that there are a lot of question marks still about what comes next and what the new Syria will look like. And yet you see people from every --

(CHANTING)

WARD: At the very beginning of the uprising, in 2011, people would risk their lives to take to the streets to engage in these kind of chants.

(CHANTING)

WARD: This is the flag of the Syrian revolution.

And most of these people, they never imagined that they would be able to chant these chants and wave that flag right here in.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Seeing that just wasn't imaginable even a few days ago. Our thanks to Clarissa Ward and her team there inside Damascus.

We do have new details today on the planning of the Syrian rebels attack, including that it began apparently a full year ago. In an interview, HTS military commander, Abu Hassan al-Hamwi, said the operation, dubbed deterring aggression, began by slowly fostering ties with other rebel groups. Over time, the commanders of some 25 different rebel factions were able to come together to form a unified military plan as one homogenous force.

The new rebel alliance then waited for the right moment to strike, choosing when the Assad regimes key allies, Russia and Iran, were occupied with their own conflicts.

For a closer look at how the Assad regime fell and what is happening in Syria now, I'm joined now by Fawaz Gerges. He's professor of international relations at LSE, also the author of "What Really Went Wrong: The West and the Failure of Democracy in the Middle East". It's good to have you on. I might just begin with the subject of your

book is a departure point, because we've had other moments, as you well know, particularly following the Arab spring more than a decade ago, when dictatorial regimes toppled. But what followed was not necessarily better.

And I wonder, as you look at Syria now, do you see an opportunity for something better, even the possibility of a democracy in Syria?

FAWAZ GERGES, AUTHOR, WHAT REALLY WENT WRONG": Well, you know, Jim, it's a moment of hope for millions of Syrians, as you have seen images from Damascus. Syrians are rejoicing in their freedom, in their newfound freedom, 13 hellish years of war, 300,000 people killed, 500,000 injured, 6 million refugees, 24 years of brutality of Assad rule.

So this is really for them, it's like a new dawn. But there are major risks. And Syria could go really in multiple ways. It could go the Iraq way. It could go the Libyan way. It could go the Yemen way, descending into violence and social upheavals and civil strife.

But Syria could also go a different way -- social healing, state building, nation building. There's a third way that Syria could go middle of the road way that really instead of a leap forward, basically it continues on this kind of unstable, difficult process of transition. At the end of the day, if you ask me, what's the most important thing that the opposition could do? It's a unity government in which all opposition factions are representing and all, you know, Syrian communities, ethnicities, are represented in this government, an inclusive government. So far, I don't see it. And I am a bit anxious because all I see now is that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, dominating the scene in Damascus.

All of us, all we talk about is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and what Abu Mohammad al-Jolani says. Yet Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is only one faction among many. You have dozens of opposition groups.

Where are they? Where are the other leaders? Why is Abu Mohammad al- Jolani dominating the political scene and transporting his authority from Idlib in Damascus, as opposed to establishing an inclusive transitional government? I worry about that, and I'm sure many Syrians are concerned about that.

SCIUTTO: I mean, if it was 25 different factions that took part in the in the war itself, that speaks to how many different groups there are. So I wonder who could be a credible shepherd of that process, right? I mean, there are questions about everyone involved, right?

Because a lot of the neighbors have their own skin in the game, as it were. Declining confidence, for instance, in the U.N., the U.S. less involved in the region than it was in the past.

I mean, is there one group or collection of nations that could help bring about the process that you're talking about?

GERGES: You know, Jim, the U.S. is not a credible partner. We know that the U.S. really has not played a major role in the past, you know, 13 years in the civil war, the U.S. basically cannot be trusted by either the Syrians or other, you know, conflict, post-conflict societies for a variety of reasons.

I think there is a process, as you know. There is a U.S. -- a U.N. Security Council resolution and a U.N. process. And I think the international community and most opposition groups in Syria would like for the U.N. Security Council resolution and the United Nations to shutter this particular process. Why? To help the various Syrian opposition groups and the Syrian communities establish a unity government, an inclusive government where all Syrians basically ideas and point of view are represented because it's for the sake of Syria. It's for the sake of social healing. It's for the sake of preventing fighting among the various opposition groups.

So far, we don't see this process happening on the ground because all we see, and im not exaggerating, all we see is that Hayat Tahrir al- Sham dominating the transitional phase of government in Syria.

SCIUTTO: No question, known as HTS by its initials.

Let me ask you about ISIS here. I wonder, how do you believe ISIS reacts to HTS's rise here? Of course, they still have a presence in Syria that explains the continuing U.S. military presence there in the northeastern part of the country. Does ISIS go to war with its HTS?

GERGES: Well, absolutely. Keep in mind, Jim, for your own viewers, between 2013 and 2017, one of the most fierce wars took place between Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIS, and between Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. It used to be called Jabhat al Nusra. Now it's called Hayat Tahrir al- Sham.

There's a blood vendetta. There was a blood vendetta between ISIS and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. So I have no doubts in my mind that ISIS will basically take seize this opportunity to try to strike back, to try to really trigger social upheaval.

And that's why the international community, the United Nations, and that's why the United States is very much is doing I mean, in the past, you know, couple of days the U.S. has carried out, I mean, dozens of attacks against ISIS cells in the Badiya and Deir ez-Zor, because obviously ISIS is trying to really seize this particular moment.

So there is a vacuum of power in many parts of Syria now. And this is a very dangerous moment. And that's why the international community and the United Nations and Turkey and Qatar and the Arab states should really play a major role in helping the Syrians fill the vacuum and create again, to come back to my really overarching aim, create an inclusive government where all communities are represented to prevent any vacuum of power and any kind of fightings among the various opposition groups.

SCIUTTO: Listen, I get -- I get the rationale and I certainly get the goal there. The trouble is, the U.N. Security Council is troubled, as it always is, by the veto power of the five permanent members and the competing interests of those five.

You look at Russia. I mean, Russia has just lost, in effect, a beachhead in Syria and on the Mediterranean. The U.S. and China and Russia are locked in a global power struggle amongst each other in a sort of zero sum game.

You know, the other sides gain is my loss. So I wonder, would it be possible to get over those conflicts to -- to find some sort of agreement on the way forward?

GERGES: You know, the reason why I say so, Jim, this is really an exceptional milestone for Syrians. I mean, I think if the Syrian people don't really seize this particular moment, it will never happen again.

And what I mean by that, Russia is out, Iran is out. The Americans are almost out. So you have a process, a constitutional process, an international process.

All the Syrians need to do is to really help -- I mean, work with the United Nations in order to really help them to bridge the divide, because the Russians can really no longer be a disruptive force anymore. They just packed and left.And Iranians also, the Iranian influence has disappeared from Syria.

So, that's why this is a very important moment and you asked me earlier about the Arab Spring uprising, what we are seeing in Syria is really the triumph, the climax of the Arab Spring uprising in Syria. The people, the Syrian people have triumphed. Assad is down and out.

So -- but the process of transition, post-conflict societies are extremely difficult to transition to a peaceful, inclusive, pluralistic order. And that's why the various opposition groups must really work with each other and bring in the United Nations to help them really, basically transition to a new moment, because the scars are very deep left to their own. I doubt it very much whether the opposition groups can really face.

I mean, the 24 years of brutality, the deep scars, broken economies, 70 percent of the Syrian people require humanitarian aid. You have multiple powers in Syria now. Turkey, you have the United States, you have the Kurds. I mean, it's a very, very complex situation.

And that's why the un process is really very critical to help Syrians, to help shepherd Syria into a the new phase, the post-conflict Syria pluralistic and an inclusive government.

SCIUTTO: Well, the Syrian people certainly deserve no less.

Fawaz Gerges, thanks so much for joining.

GERGES: Thanks.

SCIUTTO: Coming up, the families of January 6th rioters, those who attacked the Capitol on January 6th, are struggling now to parse through President-elect Donald Trump's promises to pardon their loved ones. We're going to look at how his commitments to the MAGA faithful have changed since the election.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:21:26]

SCIUTTO: New reporting from CNN today, the complicated and confusing pardon process that has already begun for a group of convicted criminals. That is the January 6th defendants eager for Trump to fulfill his campaign promise to pardon many, or even perhaps all of them on his first day, maybe even first hours in office.

Here he is reiterating -- reiterating that promise on Sunday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: But I'm going to be acting very quickly.

KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: Within your first 100 days, first day?

TRUMP: First day.

WELKER: First day.

TRUMP: Yeah, I'm looking for --

WELKER: To issue these pardons.

TRUMP: These people have been there -- how long is it? Three or four years.

WELKER: Right.

TRUMP: You know, by the way, they've been in there for years and they're in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn't even be allowed to be open.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: They were convicted of crimes.

A lawyer for several of the rioters told CNN, quote, the statements change every day. The latest is everyone is nonviolent, but who knows what that means?

Well, CNN correspondent Katelyn Polantz has been looking for answers -- Katelyn.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: So Donald Trump, in these recent interviews, is indicating he wants to pardon nonviolent rioters, and he wants to do it immediately in office. But what our reporting, our sources are telling us is that it just isn't clear who is going to be pardoned and how, among these January 6th rioters, will it be all of them? Will it be done in a blanket fashion?

Well, rioters or the defense attorneys have to apply to someone, or somehow within the Trump administration or the Trump transition to get individual names included in that list? And there's other questions about, do they draw a line somewhere on who is technically a nonviolent rioter? There are many, about 200, that have been convicted of assault, but those assaults range in the severity. Some of them are deeply violent assaults that some of these January 6th rioters had toward police, where they were beating police officers.

There were others where the assault is much less aggressive, sort of pushing over a barrier, slamming a door in the face of someone. So there are a lot of questions. And the Trump transition, it appears that they just haven't figured it out yet. That's what our sources have been telling us, who are in touch with at least one Trump transition staffer all at the same time. There's this anticipation of the pardoning of January 6th rioters.

But judges who have handled these 1,500 or so cases in the D.C. district court, they are making clear that they believe that these people who are Capitol rioters are being brought to justice and should be even if the president wants to pardon them.

Judge Royce Lamberth, on the bench in Washington, D.C.., he said at a hearing I was at last Friday. These people chose to pass on restricted grounds, destroy public property, assault law enforcement officers and attempt to subvert the will of an electoral majority. Conduct such as this is light years outside the egis of the First Amendment. Every rioter is in the situation he or she is in because he or she broke the law and for no other reason.

There's another judge, a Trump appointee, Carl Nichols, at a hearing for another January 6th defendant, he said that he believed blanket pardons would be beyond frustrating and disappointing. So a lot of questions exactly how this is going to play out when Trump may or may not fulfill his campaign promise of pardoning the January 6th rioters.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Katelyn Polantz, thanks so much.

Well, Donald Trump is also pledging drastic changes to the nation's immigration system, including challenging a core American idea that anyone born in the United States is a citizen.

[15:25:15]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We're the only country that has it.

WELKER: Through an executive action?

TRUMP: You know, we're the only country that has it. Do you know if somebody sets a foot, just a foot, one foot, you don't need to, on our land -- congratulations, you are now a citizen of the United States of America. Yes, we're going to end that because it's ridiculous.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: In fact, the U.S. is not the only country that has it. But more importantly, what he is saying is challenging the 14th Amendment, which says, quote, all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States. It was ratified to ensure citizenship for children of enslaved people after the abolition of slavery.

Trump and his allies want to say that does not apply now to children of undocumented immigrants. But will lawyers, will courts agree? What's the legal basis of their argument?

Dara Lind is a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council and joins me now to discuss.

Dara, thanks so much for joining.

DARA LIND, SENIOR FELLOW, AMERICAN IMMIGRATION COUNCIL: Thank you, Jim.

SCIUTTO: So first let me ask this basic question. Is there a real legal debate on whether the 14th Amendment, an amendment to the Constitution ratified and the law of this land for 150 years, is there any legal debate today that that does not apply to the children of any immigrant to this country?

LIND: To the extent that there is a debate, its the product of a campaign that's been waged over the last decade or two to advance an interpretation that would exclude children of unauthorized immigrants from this. As far as actual U.S. law, the law is very settled. There has been a case challenging whether -- whether, you know, birth or like birth to parents who were not U.S. citizens and who were ineligible for citizenship, constituted, constituted someone not being subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

That was the case of U.S. versus Wong Kim Ark. And it was resolved over 100 years ago, with the Supreme Court saying definitively that if you were born on United States soil, you are in fact a citizen of the United States, pretty unambiguous. However, there is an argument -- you could hypothetically argue that, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, does not apply to the children of unauthorized immigrants because their parents are here in violation of U.S. law.

That's not necessarily an argument that, you know, that has its not been tested in the courts, and it's not an argument that most serious legal scholars have really, you know, cottoned to. But the thinking here is that the current setup of the federal court system might be favorable enough to the Trump administration to allow them to get their way on this, because it isn't something where there's a huge body of precedent they'd be overturning because no ones bothered to test it in over 100 years.

SCIUTTO: OK, that said, it has been the law of the land for a century and a half. And by the way, many, many millions of immigrants to this country have taken advantage of this. If that's the right word or earned the right to citizenship by pure fact of being born on the land.

I do want to ask one big picture question and a specific one about the jurisdiction of line. But first big picture question. We have seen this conservative Supreme Court depart with precedent on a number of cases. What is your best read as to way the federal courts and the Supreme Court might view this?

LIND: I absolutely hate making predictions about court rulings in general in this court in particular, I think that what's -- what's good to bear in mind is that there's a really big -- the federal court system is set up so that you don't get an immediate resolution on a case, but you do get some immediate rulings that will allow whatever is being challenged to stay in effect or not. And that's really what happened to most of the Trump administrations first term immigration actions. They weren't struck down in full. They were just temporarily enjoined. And then they ran out the clock on them.

I think that the question is really going to be whether if something is put down via executive order and there is a lawsuit, whether the Supreme Court will step in and say, no, this cant go into effect during the years through which it makes its way through the courts, or whether they say no, this can go into effect even though it would be a massive disruption of the status quo and potentially cause harm to a lot of people, which is generally a thing that the federal courts don't like doing.

SCIUTTO: So let me ask me my more specific question. If one were to decide legally that undocumented immigrants are not, as the 14th Amendment is written, subject to the jurisdiction of the U.S., then how do you charge them for crimes they commit on U.S. soil?

[15:30:09]

LIND: This is a terrific question, and one that is generally the argument that, yes, that's why they are, in fact subject to the jurisdiction. Unauthorized immigrants are arrested under U.S. law, are subjected to, you know, both criminal penalties if they qualify for them and the civil penalty of deportation under U.S. law, all the time.

The traditional interpretation of subject to the jurisdiction is that it applies to, like ambassadors and other, you know, embassy and consulate employees who are employees of a foreign government and who even while living in the U.S. are not in the same ways subject to U.S. law.

It's not intended, it has not traditionally been intended to refer to whether someone entered the United States with a valid visa, or whether that, you know, status has since expired or not. It's a very attenuated reading of the law.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this then. Is this the kind of case that should be decided in the courts or via constitutional amendment? Because it was, the result of a constitutional amendment in the wake of the civil war, should that not be the -- by the way, the bar for that is much higher, you know, given you would need in most states, a large majority of states and ratification at the state level, et cetera. Should that be the way a question like this should be decided? If one were to overturn all that precedent?

LIND: So as of 10 or 15 years ago, the opponents of birthright citizenship were, you know, that was the tactic. There was actually at one point, a compact of states that were agreeing to ratify a constitutional or, you know, the governors were agreeing to support a constitutional amendment if one were drafted. And it's been interesting to see over the course of the first Trump administration and now into the second, that that has shifted first to, oh, well, we could accomplish this via legislation.

Lindsey Graham, for example, has a bill that would abolish birthright citizenship. And now to the idea that you could simply declare that the U.S. government is interpreting the 14th amendment to mean this totally different thing and force it to the courts, whether it should be is, you know, that that is the sort of question that arguably a court itself would be deciding, right? Whether it's a political question or not, but it is a little bit irrelevant, because it certainly looks like unless the Trump administration is going to break these promises that the president elect is making, they're going to do the, you know, will seek forgiveness instead of asking permission route and force the Supreme Court to step in.

SCIUTTO: Dara Lind, lots of questions to answer. Thanks so much for joining.

LIND: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead, with nearly one month until Trump's inauguration, why the Biden administration is surging deliveries of weapons right now to Ukraine in its continuing defense against the Russian invasion?

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[15:36:19]

SCIUTTO: Ukraine was forced to cut off electricity to some parts of the country after a massive Russian drone and missile strike intended to take down its power system. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said it was one of the largest attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure since Russia invaded a little over two -- two and a half years ago.

This latest attack on Ukraine comes as the Biden administration says it is now accelerating weapons deliveries to Kyiv in the final days of Biden's presidency. It's not clear that Trump will continue that aid.

Last night, President Biden announced a new $500 million aid package that will pull military equipment from the U.S. military's inventory. A senior administration official tells CNN it is part of an effort to boost Kyiv's standing in its fight going into 2025.

CNN Pentagon producer Haley Britzky has been following these developments.

I mean, this is intended to blunt, I imagine, concerns about what Trump does about this aid. But -- I mean, how much is actually getting in because these are quite small doses, given how much Ukraine is using on a daily basis.

HALEY BRITZKY, CNN PENTAGON PRODUCER: Right, Jim. So, I mean, the senior administration official that we spoke with saying that they are planning to deliver hundreds of thousands of artillery rounds, rockets, hundreds of armored vehicles. So again, this is to deliver aid that has been previously announced under presidential drawdown packages, meaning that aid is being pulled from U.S. military stocks.

So certainly the administration, realizing they still have a lot more to deliver. This effort is being led by national security advisor Jake Sullivan, who just informed the Pentagon last month on behalf of the president to accelerate this delivery. So the Pentagon now conducting sea lifts and air lifts in an attempt to meet that deadline, certainly happening while in the background, we know there are concerns of what continued aid to Ukraine will look like under the incoming Trump administration.

Trump's pick for his national security advisor, Mike Waltz, has been weighing those proposals of sort of what the end of the war could look like, which we know that president elect Trump is intent on, on seeing part of one of those proposals, possibly tying continued aid to the requirement that Ukraine enters into peace talks with Russia. So certainly doubt there of what that would look like. And the Biden administration trying to ensure that Ukraine will be on a strong footing as possible going into the New Year.

SCIUTTO: Deep concerns in Ukraine about whether there will be abandoned.

Haley Britzky at the Pentagon, thanks so much.

Coming up, what is behind the high number of drones flying above New Jersey that have been raising hard questions among government officials and residents.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:43:05]

SCIUTTO: Still, a lot of questions about unexplained drone sightings over the state of New Jersey in recent weeks. And now, we're learning more about drones spotted over communities in the New York metropolitan area. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI say there is currently no evidence that the drones pose any threat to national security or have any connection to foreign powers or entities.

A White House spokesman says some of the objects may actually be manned aircraft operating lawfully.

CNN's Polo Sandoval has more. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In a joint statement from the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the federal government is announcing that they are still sending personnel and equipment to parts of New Jersey where these sightings have taken place, as they try to learn a little bit more about what's been happening for just over three weeks now. DHS and the FBI saying that thus far, they have not been able to corroborate any drone sightings with electronic detection, I should say.

So we did some digging into what that actually looks like and how that can actually happen. I had an opportunity to speak to a representative of D-Drone, which is a private aerospace security company that basically helps their clients prevent and detect any unauthorized drone -- drone flights. That representative telling me that there are at least four ways that you can actually detect some of these flights.

The first, using radio frequency, you can actually pick up some of that chatter, some of that, some of the signals that are sent and dispatched between the drone and the remote control on the ground. There's certainly cameras. A simple surveillance camera often does the trick, though, with more advanced cases, more advanced technology is needed. Radar, we all know how that works.

And then finally, acoustics. You can quite literally use equipment to listen for some of these drones, though. That representative told me that that is becoming less reliable since drone technology has evolved. And oftentimes these drones are much quieter.

But overall, these are the kinds of resources that authorities on the ground in New Jersey, at the state and local level, are asking the federal government to provide.

[15:45:06]

In fact, on Friday, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy sending a letter to President Biden, and in it, not only does he express growing concern about these drone sightings, but also is asking for more federal resources to be sent to New Jersey to help them try to get to the bottom of this. The governor also adding that the residents in his state deserve more information, that it's not enough to simply be told that this is not a matter of any sort of public security or public safety, they want to find out what's behind these drone sightings.

And finally, the governor saying expressing concern about conspiracy theories that we have seen and heard for the last several days. It was just a few days ago that there was an official that was publicly speaking out about this, saying that it was his theory that it was likely an Iranian mothership off the east coast that was sending these drones in -- of course, the Pentagon quickly denying that claim.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCIUTTO: Polo Sandoval. Thanks. Important to stick to the facts there and not to the wild theories. After the break, Army and Navy are preparing to clash for the 125th time in college football's most unique rivalry. Our Coy Wire spoke to some of the players and we'll have a preview.

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SCIUTTO: So you might think aging faster is a bad thing. Sounds right to me.

That seems to be what happens when you're in space as well. But scientists are hoping that studying the phenomenon in space could lead to breakthroughs down here on Earth and beyond.

CNN's Nick Valencia has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In the spirit of exploration.

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Outer space may hold the answer to some of humanity's greatest questions. What causes aging, and can the process be altered? Human tissue samples, called organoids, are now in orbit at the International Space Station, and identical samples are back on earth at Oxford University Space Innovation Lab.

This experiment will allow researchers to compare and analyze data from both samples to study the aging process and the impact of microgravity on it.

GHADA ALSALEH, SPACE INNOVATION LAB: So this is in a very new project where we work between actually the frontier, between the space and biology.

VALENCIA: Inside the International Space Station, a box containing human tissue samples serves as a controlled environment.

ALSALEH: The books have a small computer and all the detection material that we need to get the measurements we wanted. And we can actually control that and see all the data coming all the time.

[15:50:05]

VALENCIA: Researchers don't require assistance from the astronauts aboard the space station, as they can automatically gather the information from their laboratory on earth.

ALSALEH: It could be able to measure a few things without interacting anyone.

VALENCIA: Over the years, astronauts have suffered from muscle loss, joint and bone issues, and problems with their immune system. Researchers found that this is similar to an age-related disease.

ALSALEH: And this leads us to ask the question if the space might provide us with an accelerating aging model, and if it is the case, that means we can actually be able to study aging very faster because this has happened in very short time. While aging in earth, we needed different years.

VALENCIA: With future missions planned to send humans to Mars and beyond, the impact of space travel on aging will become a key issue.

Nick Valencia, CNN.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good luck. We estimate you've completed your marathon right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE_)

SCIUTTO: We'll be waiting for what they find.

Well, before we go, a football game like no other. Lots of history. Army and Navy, they're going to face off tomorrow for the 125th time. That matchup between the two service academies, it is always more than just a football game. There's history, lots of pride on the line as Navy's linebacker Colin Ramos put it, quote: It's unlike any other game where both sides are going to end up serving this country.

Joining me now is CNN sports anchor Coy Wire. He's going to be there.

It's a big game. I've been to it before. I love going. I mean, you see all the guys in uniform, men and women in uniform, in the stands as well, cheering as it happens.

What's different about this year is both teams actually are really darn good.

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: They're very good. We're talking top 25 for army. This is the most combined wins these teams have had in the history of this game, dating back to 1890, Jim.

And this is one of the greatest sports rivalries in the world, in large part because of some of that tradition and the pageantry. You talked about, but also because it features some of the most disciplined, the brightest young people this country has to offer. We're talking about athletes who are majoring in thermal dynamics, cyber ops, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, balancing the rigors of these really tough academic courses and being an athlete.

And while they are bitter rivalries on the field and they want to put a hurting on the other team, they talked about the shared respect they have for that man lining up across from him on game day. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I respect Army because they're going to serve this nation.

BRYSON DAILY, ARMY QUARTERBACK: I respect Navy because they have a similar military service commitment as us.

DABA FOFANA, NAVY FULLBACK: I respect Army because they're going to be our future brothers in arms.

BRIAN NEWBERRY, NAVY COACH: I know the young men are doing the same thing that our young men are doing. They took the hard path, and they're going to serve their country when they're done here. And so just a tremendous amount of respect for who they are and the way they do things.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: All right, Jim. Now another example of how impressive these young men and women are at these service academies, I caught up with Alma Cooper just a bit ago, first lieutenant, military intelligence officer, West Point class of 2023. She was just crowned Miss USA, Jim. She -- a few months ago.

She is smart. She is kind. She is humble. She is an inspiration. And I asked her, Jim, about something that she likes to say and that is that our circumstances never define us. Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALMA COOPER, MISS USA: It's so important to me because my mother grew up as a migrant worker in the beet fields of Idaho, and now is on a path to empower me, my sister, our whole family to just continue to serve and to be a part of something again, bigger than who we are as individuals.

I'm a firm believer that the only limits you face are the ones that you accept, and that definitely stems from my -- my mother and my father.

WIRE: All right. I got two, two quick things. When I say go Army, you say --

COOPER: Beat Navy.

WIRE: And got to teach me the perfect wave. Like the stage wave.

COOPER: There you go. You got it. You got it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: Now, Miss USA Alma Cooper's awesomeness and her determination, her pursuit of excellence is kind of a microcosm, Jim, of all of those young leaders at the service academies, including the football players.

We'll be watching tomorrow. Kickoff is set for 3:00 p.m. Eastern. It's going to be awesome.

SCIUTTO: And, of course, there's your pursuit of excellence, which we witness every day. I'm told you have some fun facts on the history of this matchup. What do you got there?

WIRE: There's some wild nuggets about this. I mean some inventions that we still enjoy in today's game of football were started in the Army-Navy game 1893. The first helmet was worn, Navy midshipmen eventual Admiral Joseph Mason Reeves. He had it made by his local shoemaker.

And in 1944, that Army-Navy game did, you know, helped to fund World War Two.

[15:55:02]

Then-President Franklin Roosevelt, he had the attendees purchase war bonds. They raised $58.6 million for the war efforts all through the game. Army won that game eventually went on to win the national title.

And lastly, another invention. 1963, Army-Navy game featured the first instant replay that we still see, of course, in every game and every sport nowadays.

So, incredible history, tradition, and such a huge part of the American fabric of sports culture. Right? And it will be on full display yet again tomorrow.

SCIUTTO: No question. Fun game to go to. I'm jealous you get to go tomorrow. Enjoy it, and let us know how it goes.

Coy Wire, thank you and thanks so much to all of you.

WIRE: And I'll take you up on that offer for a drink later. Thank you so much. You know how to find me.

SCIUTTO: Calling me out.

Thanks, Coy.

And thanks so much to all of you for joining me today.

I'm Jim Sciutto in Washington.

"QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is up next. Please have a great weekend.