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Quest Means Business
The Authorities Are Telling Everyone In Alaska To Shelter In Place After An Earthquake Struck Near The City Of Anchorage; Marriott Hotels Says Its Massive Guest Reservation System Has Been Breached; It's A Fairly Unhappy Family Photo At The G-20. Trump, Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Exchange Pleasantries at G20 Summit; Marriott Reveals Data Breach of 500 Million Starwood Guests; DJ Khaled, Floyd Mayweather Jr. Charged with Crypto Fraud; Facebook Defends Sandberg Amid Soros Accusation; Branson Promises Space Mission By Christmas; Dow Rises on Optimism About Trump-Xi Meeting; Ignorance of Holocaust Mirrors Rise in Anti-Semitism. Aired 3-4p ET
Aired November 30, 2018 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RICHARD QUEST, HOST, QUEST MEANS BUSINESS: We are in the last hour of trading on Wall Street. At the end of a week and look at where the market
has moved up and down throughout the course of the day. Now a strong, good, maybe not too strong, but a rally is well under way. This is just
about the best of the day. And it's not just confined to the narrow 30.
The S&P is also up, the NASDAQ which again had been bouncing up and down throughout the session. That's now positive. We may end up at 7,300 may
arrive on the NASDAQ. If you need to understand, this is what's been moving the markets.
Marriott shares are down after one of the biggest data breaches in history. It's a fairly unhappy family photo at the G-20. Investors are waiting for
trade talks, which will take place in the next few days. And Facebook is defending Cheryl Sandberg after a new twist in their spat with George
Soros. We are live in the world's financial capital, New York City on Friday, November 30th. I'm Richard Quest. I mean business.
Good evening. Before we bring you the business news of the day, there are chaotic scenes in the US state of Alaska right now. The authorities are
telling everyone there to shelter in place after an earthquake struck near the city of Anchorage. One of CNN's affiliates was knocked off the air
when its ceiling came down. A declaration of disaster has been issued by the governor of Alaska. This is what the moments of terror were like in a
nearby courthouse as the earth shook.
Power lines down, roads are closed, flights have been disrupted. This is security camera footage. As you can see, there you go, shows a family and
her dogs scrambling for cover. One witness tells CNN it was unlike anything they'd seen before.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It shook like I have never felt anything shake before. I mean, it was -- it just didn't stop. It just kept going and it
got louder and then louder and then things just fell everywhere. Just everything off my dresser, off my bookcases, my kitchen cupboards. There
was broken glass everywhere, photos off-the-walls. Very violent feeling.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Nick Watts has the latest and the report that I saw, Nick, said that the police in Alaska said that there was infrastructure damage.
NICK WATTS, CORRESPONDENT, CNN: That's right, Richard. They told us a little while ago major infrastructure damage. They have teams out. The
transportation have teams out trying to assess just how bad that damage is. And we are getting the first reports coming in now. Apparently there is a
road in downtown damaged by a sinkhole. There is a road near the airport that shutdown due a partial collapse of the roadway. There's another
highway closed at Potter's Marsh in Anchorage due a rock slide. Another highway that I'm thinking is about 30 or 40 kilometers from the epicenter
also closed down.
Power outages of course across much of the city, phone lines down. But we have heard from the two major hospitals in Anchorage, Richard. They say
that they have some isolated damage, some water leaks, some cracks in walls and floors, but nothing major and their emergency rooms are still open.
But listen, we have had at least eight aftershocks after the initial 7.0 quake which hit just before 8:30 this morning in Anchorage when of course,
this time of year, it is still dark.
And we hear from seismologists her at CalTech that after an event like this, these aftershocks can go on for months perhaps even years. We've had
one so far that's been about a 5.8. That will apparently be about the average power of the aftershock that we're going to see in the wake of this
event.
So Richard, no deaths or injuries to human beings, to people reported so far. But as we said there are reports of major infrastructure damage,
which is still being assessed and of course planes that were flying on their way to Alaska have been turned around. Any planes bound for Alaska
that were still on the tarmac elsewhere have been grounded. There is a stop order on that, but the one sliver of good news, Richard, there was a
tsunami warning in effect earlier today. That has now been lifted and of course, a tsunami can often be the devastating thing after an event like
this.
[15:05:06]
WATT: The tsunami warning has been lifted, but the damage still very much being assessed. Cheers, Richard.
QUEST: Thank you, Nick. As we continue now, let's turn once again to our business agenda. Tonight, it could be the biggest financial hack ever.
Marriott Hotels says its massive guest reservation system has been breached. Here's what we know, it goes to their Starwood Division, which
of course they bought in 2016, Starwood Hotels. Five hundred million guests may have been exposed. It includes their names, phone numbers, e-
mail addresses, passport numbers, dates of arrival, arrival departures. It could all have been taken and in some cases credit card numbers and
expiration dates were also potentially compromised. They don't know whether codes - CVS codes - were taken as well.
This affects the Starwood Group of hotels which Marriott purchased in 2016. St. Regis, Westin, Sheraton, and W Hotels. Marriott says the hackers had
access to the Starwood system going all the way back to 2014. The company learned though only last week, and the New York Attorney General wasted no
time and is opening an investigation. Marriott stock fell literally out of bed when trading began. It's now down some 6%.
The CEO, Arne Sorenson said in a statement, "We fell short of what our guests deserve and what we expect of ourselves." Anna Stewart is in
London. It's a very wide breach, and you were telling me earlier on "The Express," this is potentially the largest of such breach.
ANNA STEWART, REPORTER, CNN: The scale is incredible, not just due to the number of customers potentially breached, half a billion and that would be
the second after Yahoo which was three billion in 2013, but also because of the duration of it. Since 2014 up until September 2018 and as you said the
level of detail in there, which was huge.
It's people's names, their passport information, and their date of birth. It's everything you would need to commit identity fraud, Richard.
QUEST: So Marriott is basically doing what everybody seems to be doing now which is provide some form of reference agency, identity theft agency, but
is there anything more they can and should be doing do the experts think?
STEWART: Yes, I mean, there's a call center, there's a fantastic website I've been on that gives you a lot of information. There's all sorts of
helpful tips about changing your passwords and stuff. But Richard, I think what is going to interesting is what kind of finds will be coming up. You
mentioned the New York Attorney General opened up an investigation or will be. The British data regulator, the ICO has now said, it will now launch
an investigation, and this falls under the new GDPR regulations and that means potentially mega fines, up to 4% of global annual turnover.
QUEST: Anna Stewart in London, thank you. As we head into the holiday busy holiday season, as if you needed to worry more about this, it's clear.
No matter where we travel cyber security is in jeopardy. It could be the book tripped with a Yahoo e-mail. Yahoo revealed last year that three
billion of its accounts were stolen or perhaps somewhere in Asia. Well, the breach at Cathay Pacific revealed last month put nine million
passengers' details in jeopardy.
British Airways and Delta already disclosed hacks earlier this year, and now the hotels themselves Starwood spans the globe, probably the largest
hotel group, and now half a billion guests have been compromised in the past four years.
Larry Clinton is the President of the Internet Security Alliance, he's in Washington. The Marriott breach is serious because by the time these
events are happening, companies should be more alert, more on guard. It's not as if we haven't known about this for the past few years.
LARRY CLINTON, PRESIDENT, INTERNET SECURITY ALLIANCE: Absolutely. We've known about it for at least 20 years, as long as the Internet Security
Alliance has been operating and even before that. The problem Richard is that the system is inherently insecure. So there's much, much more that
organizations ought to be doing in order to address these issues on the front end. What we were just talking about is all the things they can do
on the back end, put up call centers and stuff like that, but there's much more that needs to be done. And what the board needs to be focusing on is
the front end. How do we prevent these? How do we do better internal research on what's going on in our networks? Not just on the perimeter,
but internally.
QUEST: Okay, so Larry, let's agree on one thing, that no company, least of all a consumer facing company like Marriott or British Airways or Delta
Airlines, would ever willingly wish to have something like this happen to them, or indeed would ever think of themselves as being negligent. They
think they're doing the best they can. So where are they failing?
CLINTON: Well, we have to understand at the beginning, Richard, the system itself is inherently insecure. It was built to be in an insecure system.
There's lots of things that we need to be doing in order to protect not just the individual company, frankly individual companies can't protect
themselves.
[15:10:07]
CLINTON: They're interconnected to hundreds and even thousands of other companies. We need a system wide effort to protect us. This is not as
easy as just coming up with a set of regulations and saying everybody meet these minimum standards. That doesn't work in the cyber security space.
The system itself is too vulnerable. We need a comprehensive effort that deals with education of people, that deals with much more aggressive
government policy, and I mean economic government policy. And we need much better law enforcement.
We successfully capture 1% of cyber criminals. So the criminals are going to continue to attack because they never get caught.
QUEST: Right ...
CLINTON: So we need a much more comprehensive effort.
QUEST: ... but that's because they're out of jurisdictions. They're in jurisdictions where there's no extradition treaties or where there's
different legal backgrounds, you can't get them. So look, if I understand you right you're saying there's inevitability in all of this. I mean, and
all of this nonsense about getting me to change my password every three days or every five minutes an added letter, and another this and a capital
that, does it do any good?
CLINTON: Well, passwords are kind of skeleton keys at this stage. It's a good thing to do, but it's not going to protect you. We need much more
sophisticated activity. And yes you're right about the legal systems not being in place but we're also not funding our law enforcement agencies,
we're not training them enough. We're not doing a lot of things.
QUEST: Larry, listening to you speak remind me of listening to the IMF and the World Bank when they tell countries what they should do to make their
economies structurally sound. Everybody knows it's never going to happen until a crisis befalls. And that's what you're saying here, that frankly
the really hard stuff of structural reform, it ain't going to take place.
CLINTON: Well, I think it's beginning to take place. So there are advances being made. We're doing much better in terms of how we do cyber
risk assessment. The Department of Homeland Security here in the US has just started a sophisticated program on economics of cyber security, which
is where we need to attack this on a structural level. And even, Richard, I have to point out to you, even when we have catastrophes, we don't seem
to do enough. We need to be doing things on a much more ongoing basis. We already had Yahoo several years ago, now we're having Windham, we're going
to have more until we get serious about solving this.
QUEST: It'll probably keep you on the job that you rather wish under those circumstances. So I mean, there's --
CLINTON: A good side to everything.
QUEST: A good sight, right, yes, absolutely. All right, good to see you, Larry. Thank you very much indeed. And now, one trade deal is already
signed. It's between the United States, Canada and Mexico. It's NAFTA reducts. What more is possible if President Xi and President Trump can
find an agreement and they are doing it at Argentina.
[15:15:00]
QUEST: So the leaders are gathered of a fashion in the Buenos Aires G-20. It's properly under way now, and the heads of US, Canada and Mexico have
already signed their own agreement. The USMCA.
While Wall Street is waiting for Saturday's high stakes meeting dinner between President Trump and President Xi. It's a packed schedule.
However, as you can see it's often not so much not about the meetings that do take place but those that do not.
And anyway the G-20 at the moment could hardly, hardly be described as happy families. I mean, let's just look at some of the rifts that are
taking place. You've got Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau over tariffs on aluminum and steel. Donald Trump who's not going to be meeting Vladimir
Putin because of Putin's actions over with Ukraine. Donald Trump with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.
Well if that was simple enough, so be it. But then you've also got of course the President of Turkey, President Erdogan, again with his problems
with the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. You've got Theresa May with Macron and with Jean-Claude Juncker. Wherever you look - and by the way missing
in all of this is Angela Merkel because her plane as you know had problems.
So as you can see, there's just a wealth of issues, conflicts, potential disagreement, oh, of course, I forgot the other big one. President Trump
and President Xi of China. Latest in Buenos Aires, Nic Robertson is there. Wherever I look, Nic Robertson, on my chart I just see disagreement,
dispute and conflict.
NIC ROBERTSON, INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR, CNN: You see diplomacy on steroids, aren't you? Look, one of the biggest disagreements and conflicts
that's going on behind the scenes here is the very nature of what the G-20 is all about which is getting a joint communique, getting everyone here to
agree to something which is sustainable growth and development in the economy and jobs and in the planet, of course.
Now, that was addressed by President Macri, the Argentinian President who opened the session here by calling for a dialogue, dialogue, dialogue. He
called for the leaders here to act the same way they did at the G-20 in 2008. And of course, we all remember the energy that went into that
because the global economic crisis, he is calling them to do that.
And pardon away, this was chastising what we are hearing behind the scenes, President Trump wants a final communique that doesn't involve the use of
free trade. He wants fair trade. He doesn't want to hear about the global climate accord or about controlling emissions. These are things he doesn't
want in that final communique. So why is this so important to the Argentinian President? Yes, it's on his territory. Yes, he's hosting this
G-20. The last two big global summits APEC just a few weeks ago and the G- 7 Summit didn't get a final communique in part because President Trump taking the same positions he seems to be on track to take here.
So, yes, you can look at all these different little meetings here and then the overarching one isn't agreement yet it appears about the communique
that may or may not, we're always in suspense about that, coming out of the end of this, Richard.
QUEST: Nic, thank you. Thank you very much for setting that picture for us. So lots of meetings and none of them taking place or somehow, but the
meeting we're watching most closely is that between President Trump and President Xi. The US and China, where of course trade has been so much an
issue.
And in this case the trade war room, our map table has gone. Instead the dinner table. Yes, come and have dinner. Oh and by the way, not only
President Xi and President Trump, but there is a third seat or another seat for Peter Navarro whose hard line trade stance makes him an awkward dinner
guest, at least as far as the Chinese are concerned.
Now, in all of this, we need to think about what they're actually going to be eating. Well, we have a menu on hand that may might like to follow.
The menu - they've already had the appetizers, by the way. Billions of dollars' worth of tariffs on either side has hastened the appetite and the
digestion. So now they need to agree on the main course.
According to Goldman Sachs, in the research note out today, escalation is the most likely coming into this summit. That's because the blend of tit
for tats so you can have a rise in the ...
[15:20:10]
QUEST: ... tariff rates from 10 to 25, you can now tariff all of China's goods. That could b be - that is likely be the most obvious choice for the
main course. The second option, of course, negotiation. Now, if that happens escalation stays back in the kitchen, ready to come out if
negotiation fails to please or goes sour.
And finally, potentially, agreement. A harmonious fusion of east and west. Donald Trump says he might pick this. A Chinese official speaking to
Reuters says his country is leaning that way, too, leaning towards agreement. And that's how it lifts stocks on Wall Street.
Of course, there's always the possibility that they'll just rip up the menu and ask the chef to come up with something else.
Joining me now, Greg Autry, who co-authored "Death By China" with Peter Navarro. Greg is now a professor at the Marshall School of Business in
California. You heard my menu choices. Which do you think they're going to go for?
GREG AUTRY, PROFESSOR MARSHALL SCHOOL OF BUSINESS IN CALIFORNIA: Well, I love the dramatization, but in the end I don't think reaching an agreement
with an entity, the Chinese Communist Party and Dictator Xi that has never lived up to a previous commitment is a particularly useful thing to do, so
I'm inclined to expect that escalation will be the outcome. But it's always good to talk. I think in the end we need to see behavioral change,
not words or documents.
QUEST: And reading your latest article on exactly this point, you have great difficulty with the idea of reaching agreement with the Chinese,
which in your - you basically say as you just said they've never kept an agreement, but in your recent writings you say they're incapable of keeping
to an agreement.
AUTRY: Honestly, the Chinese Communist Party is a system which is designed to promote whomever the best back stabber and liar is to the top of the
heap. You know, he can call himself President Xi but I don't know when that election took place. So we don't have a system that allows for people
who are honest and forthright to get into leadership in China.
Consequently, we've got brutalization censorship and the need to rewrite history and the truth in every possible way. So I am not looking forward
to seeing any handshakes or documents.
QUEST: So put aside, if you will, for just one second your dislike of the regime in Beijing and your philosophical disagreements. They have to do a
deal at some point. Now the question is, how much pain do you believe the Chinese economy will be prepared to suffer? I am talking about realpolitik
not theoretical, before Xi would either give in to the US President or make significant concessions?
AUTRY: That's what it comes down to, and frankly I think they're already pretty desperate. The US economy is hitting on all cylinders, we've got
better global growth than any developed country and low unemployment and at the same time China's manufacturing orders are collapsing.
Companies are running if the gates to find ways to either change ship or move their production to another country as quick as possible. He knows
that, so he doesn't have a lot of time. I think he wants to buy for time, which is consequently why he would be happy to make an agreement or deal
and why I think that would be bad policy for the US. Just keep pushing.
QUEST: If you look at the companies that will be affected besides Apple, but you look at everything to IO Smith to the various tech companies, to
the various manufacturing companies, all the companies that would suffer if this escalates, not least of course Boeing, is it worth it in your view to
push this disagreement as far as it's gone?
AUTRY: Yes, I mean, I guess you're implying that you think Apple is a US company. I wouldn't understand why you think that since most of their jobs
are by far in China and they put their money in Ireland so they don't pay taxes. I don't think that's too relevant to the US economy except for an
elite group in San Francisco.
For Boeing, I don't think it's a problem because frankly China can't build the planes yet that they need to meet their orders. And if they buy
Airbus, then Airbus will have to pull those orders out from people in the Middle East or somewhere else and Boeing will fill those orders. There's
way more demand in that market right now than there is supply, so I don't see a problem.
QUEST: And if you were - would you wish to be dining with these gentlemen tomorrow night? If so, what would be your choice of dinner?
AUTRY: I'd like to be a fly on the wall, frankly. I don't know if I would choose to sit down with Mr. Xi, but my choice would be that the US continue
the path until we see behavioral change. Again, there's no point to signing documents or shaking hands with people who are notorious for not
honoring their agreements.
QUEST: Good to see you, Greg. Thank you for joining us.
AUTRY; Thank you.
QUEST: The dow is at the best of the day during the final hour of trade. While you and I were talking trade, talking Turkey and China, look at this.
Up like - not like a rocket more like a strong performance.
[15:25:08]
QUEST: It's getting a lift from the US Trade representative Robert Lighthizer who predicts success at Saturday's G-20 dinner. As we continue
in a moment, more damage control at Facebook. Cheryl Sandberg wanted to know if George Soros was betting against the tech giant, and as for this
dinner. Well, I suppose the worst that can happen is that it all ends in disagreement and they blow out the candles eventually.
Hello, I'm Richard Quest. A lot more "Quest Means Business" in just a moment. When there's more uncomfortable headlines for Facebook's Cheryl
Sandberg. I'll be speaking to the activist who met with her on Thursday to put it into perspective.
And if you thought your plans for the festive season was still up in the air, Richard Branson tells us he can get a ship into space or even a
spaceship into space if you like, before Christmas. But before all of that, this is CNN and here on this network the facts always come first.
We'll start with breaking news. Chaos after a 7.0 earthquake near Anchorage, Alaska. The state's governor is issuing a declaration of
disaster as emergency teams deal with significant damage and power outages. Officials are beginning to provide shelters to those who can't reach their
homes.
Now we have a statement from President Trump on the earthquake in Alaska and he says, "To the great people of Alaska, you've been hit hard by a big
one. Please follow the directions of the highly trained professionals who are there to help you. Your Federal government will spare no expense. God
bless you all."
The class photo at the G-20 that is under way in Buenos Aires and President Trump says nothing was discussed when he briefly spoke to Saudi Arabia's
Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman. The Crown Prince and the Russian President Vladimir Putin greeted each other with smiles and enthusiastic
high fives ..
[15:30:10]
The New York Attorney General is opening an investigation into Marriott after the hotel chain disclosed a massive data breach.
The personal information of up to 500 million guests and its starwood brands has potentially been exposed. Marriott says the systems has been
compromised since 2014. The music producer DJ Khaled and the boxing champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. have been charged with cyber currency or
crypto currency fraud.
The Securities and Exchange Commission accused them of breaching federal security laws by not declaring payments. They've reached a settlement with
the SEC. Facebook is defending its Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. The social media giant confirmed reports that she asked for
information about the billionaire George Soros and his financial interest in Facebook stock.
Facebook says research was already under way when Sandberg asked if Soros had shorted the stock. The President of the racial justice group Color of
Change has met Sheryl Sandberg many times, the latest being on Thursday and before these latest reports emerged. Rashad Robinson was named in the
research commissioned by Facebook concerning George Soros becoming -- just before coming on air, I asked him how the meeting went.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RASHAD ROBINSON, PRESIDENT, COLOR OF CHANGE: First of all, we are pleased that they finally agreed to release the findings of the civil rights audit,
which we and many other groups have been demanding for some time, a full audit.
And they haven't agreed previously to actually make that information transparent. But the devil will be in the details, and they agreed to
release that by the end of the year. Unfortunately, they weaponized an organization called Definers to go against our organization and pitch nasty
and horrible stories about us while we were at the negotiating table working with them.
And they still --
QUEST: So you're accusing --
ROBINSON: Yes --
QUEST: You're accusing Sheryl Sandberg and Facebook not only of having disreputable policies in the past, but also of duplicity in negotiating
with you while still attacking you through this other company?
ROBINSON: Well, it was -- it was reported in the "New York Times" and they haven't denied that this group has done this. So in fact, it's not so much
an accusation, it's us actually seeing the facts of the matter and then not actually them reporting back what they've done.
QUEST: What about this process of Sheryl Sandberg; the COO asking her staff to look into George Soros who had criticized the company, and she
wants to know whether he's shortening it and do basically doing negative research?
ROBINSON: Well, that's her prerogative. What she then did with the information, what they did with the information and deciding to use that
information to accuse my organization, a black civil rights organization of being some sort of puppet of George Soros is very different than deciding
whether or not you're going to have a back-and-forth with a critic, and a public back-and-forth with a critic.
For months and months, while we were at the negotiating table in good faith talking about civil rights with Facebook, they were behind the scenes going
to reporters with this idea that this Jewish boogeyman is secretly controlling this black organization, that we don't have our own ideas
about civil rights.
That we don't have our own ideas about social justice, that we must be controlled by someone else. And that for us is the deep problem.
QUEST: Somewhat extraordinary in this day and age and we're talking about whether Facebook adopted almost racist and-or anti-Semitic policies.
ROBINSON: Well, it's crazy to think that, but this is a huge multinational platform that really lacks a moral compass. They have not had the type of
regulations that institutions of that size has --
QUEST: Well, hang on. Moral compasses usually don't require regulations. Moral compasses --
ROBINSON: So but --
QUEST: Require moral background.
ROBINSON: Absolutely, but without moral compass, you do need regulation and we have regulation because we can't always trust institutions --
QUEST: What do you -- what do you want from Facebook now?
ROBINSON: Well, what we want from Facebook is to come fully clean around their civil rights policies, and then to put in place real structures to
deal with everything from how their algorithms on their platform can allow you to market housing to folks and say I don't want to market housing to
black people.
How race was weaponized during the 2016 election and truly come clean about that. To stop making a moral equivalency on their platform between
conservatives maybe not feeling like --
QUEST: Right --
ROBINSON: They're heard around --
QUEST: So --
ROBINSON: Climate, which is not the same as black people or gay people or women being attacked.
QUEST: Fundamentally, are you accusing Facebook of being racist? And by that it goes to the senior management?
[15:35:00] ROBINSON: I'm accusing this platform of being a platform that puts its hand on a scale of a culture that is deeply racist. I'm accusing
them of not giving the type of time and attention to the things that bubble up that are clearly racists. I'm accusing Facebook of not living up to its
full potential --
QUEST: So racism by -- racism by neglect rather than by overt actions?
ROBINSON: Yes, because this is not about whether or not Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg are nice people. I've sat with them, I've met with them,
they're nice people. This is about whether the structures and systems inside of that institution actually live up to what we need them to live up
to, whether they're fully accountable.
I don't really care whether or not they're nice people or not, this is about the systems and structures and them being accountable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: More to come tonight on QUEST MEANS BUSINESS. To boldly go where no tourists has gone before, and soon many things. Sir Richard Branson is
making some big promises about space travel. We're inside Virgin Galactic next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: "We choose to go to the moon not because it is easy, but because it is hard." Familiar words in 1961, John F. Kennedy promised to send humans
to the moon by the end of the decade. Sir Richard Branson is promising to put astronauts into space by the end of the year. Rachel Crane has been
given exclusive access to the Virgin Galactic base which is preparing for a new generation of space tourists.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Three, two, one, release.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire.
RICHARD BRANSON, FOUNDER, VIRGIN GROUP: I've always wanted to be an astronaut, and I got frustrated with the fact that I couldn't go up with a
NASA spaceship or a Russian spaceship, so I decided to build a space line.
RACHEL CRANE, CNN DIGITAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): That's when Virgin Galactic was born.
(on camera): It's no secret that you are one of several companies and billionaires looking to put regular people in space. Is Virgin Galactic
going to be the first to pull it off?
BRANSON: I'm pretty confident that before Christmas, Virgin Galactic will be the first to have astronauts in space. I mean, astronauts are
incredibly brave people, and obviously the first few flights are the dangerous ones.
CRANE: So when you get behind the wheel of the vehicle, how risky do you feel it is?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I take it very seriously, but I don't feel like I'm flipping a coin on whether I'm going to live or not.
[15:40:00] CRANE (voice-over): That's because engineers here at Galactic Space Port in Mojave, California have spent countless hours testing and
improving this passenger vehicle Spaceship 2.
It's flown into the sky under the wing of this carrier aircraft, then detaches and blasts off into space for several minutes of weightlessness.
Galactic's first few hundred customers have already paid around $250,000 to reserve a seat.
(on camera): There is a pretty high price point.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I actually think that the price will probably go up at the start, just because this is an expensive program. But then over time,
long-term, you'll see that price go down.
CRANE (voice-over): In recent years, Galactic and other private companies have emerged in leaders in manned space flight as government agencies like
NASA have shifted focus to deeper space exploration.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Commercial activity is really good for efficiency, for innovation, for cost savings.
CRANE: The company is already eyeing ways to expand its services further across the globe with high-speed point-to-point travel and even deeper into
space.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Potentially, orbital flight or even, you know, staying a week on a space station or going around the moon or going, you know, even
further than that.
BRANSON: Virgin loves to take on seemingly insurmountable problems and try to overcome them.
CRANE: But new endeavors like these don't come without risks. In 2014, a pilot died in a test flight crash that also destroyed the spaceship. Do
you ever wonder if this pursuit is irresponsibly risky?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No great cause, no great movement, no great exploration comes without risks. That's how we -- that's how we improve.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I believe very much that exploration is in the soul of humanity. Sometimes that exacts a very high price, but I feel that those
sacrifices ultimately will make a big difference for the future.
BRANSON: Every single astronaut and every single person I know who's been to space says they're -- you know, they're completely changed as a result,
and so I'm looking forward to it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: Rachel, whenever I've asked Sir Richard on this, he says he and his family are going to be amongst the first. If he's planning to fly before
the end of the year, astronauts, is it likely he's going to be one of them?
CRANE: Well, Richard, just to clarify on that flight that he's saying is going to happen before Christmas, it's just going to be test pilots. It
will not be Richard himself. That won't happen for several missions after that. They have to do several test flights.
But what they are hoping, and it really does feel like here that they're on the cusp of pulling off is space flight, that in a couple of weeks that the
test pilots that are in that spaceship, that they'll hit the 50 mile mark, meaning that those test pilots if they're not already astronauts will get
their astronaut wings.
And here at Virgin Galactic in Mojave, they're already building two additional spaceships to plan for the influx of flights that they're going
to have to deal with. But take a listen to just how confident Richard Branson is about pulling this off.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BRANSON: The advantage of the three of us, you know, working on space projects --
CRANE: Meaning Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and yourself?
BRANSON: Yes, you know, we can do it for a fraction of the price that governments can do it. So the environmental costs for instance of Virgin
Galactic, putting somebody up into space is not that much different than, you know, a business class return ticket from London to New York.
And you know, that's a tiny cost compared to what NASA would spend, that I heard the private sector can bring the price of deep space exploration
right down.
CRANE: Why is the virgin brand so flexible? How do you guys have brand permission to start a spaceship company and a hotel chain and airlines, a
hyper-loop company?
BRANSON: Well, first of all, I'm inquisitive, I love challenge, I love learning about things I know little about. I love surrounding myself with
wonderful people to go and then try to, you know, improve a sector. All you have in your life is your reputation. Virgin has a strong reputation.
Reputation is as good as, you know, as good as the last thing we've done almost, so as good as all the things we've done in the last 50 years in the
case of Virgin. And I think the fact that, you know, somebody saved lives on a Virgin Atlantic plane has a good experience, jumps on the Virgin
train, has a good experience.
You know, goes to a Virgin hotel, has a good experience. You know, that then gives us permission to build a cruise ship with Virgin voyages because
you know, people have -- already have all these great experience with Virgin around the world, they'll give the next venture that we do a try.
What we -- what we try to make sure that happens is that in everything new that we do enhances the brand even further which then gives us permission
to do other things.
CRANE: Richard, are you ever going to retire?
BRANSON: What's this retire mean? I'm not very -- I'm dyslexic.
(LAUGHTER)
CRANE: So that's a no, then?
[15:45:00] BRANSON: That's a no. No, I enjoy life -- I don't ever see myself as working, I just love life, love challenging myself, love
challenging people around me and mixing it with pleasure as well. I'm in the middle of a tennis tournament, I mean, I just -- life is pretty good.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CRANE: And Richard, what Richard Branson and also some of the executives here at Virgin Galactic said is that Virgin already is eyeing deeper space
missions, possibly going to the moon and to Mars. Now, that's very far down the line, but that is something that, you know, they are -- that is a
goal of theirs.
But when it comes to the price tag of these suborbital missions, it's still pretty high. I mean, $250,000, but they've already managed to sign-up 600
people, passengers that are you know, willing --
QUEST: Rachel --
CRANE: To do this, excited to do this, I just spoke to one of them that said we're saving up for years to do this -- yes, Richard.
QUEST: Assuming I was in a generous mood, which I'm not, but assuming I was in a generous mood and was going to write a check for you to go on one
of those early missions, would you go?
CRANE: Oh, I mean, I would go in a heartbeat, Richard, so please let's start like a GoFundMe, like let's go --
QUEST: No, let's not --
CRANE: I will go in a heartbeat.
QUEST: Good --
CRANE: Or maybe let's get Cnn to cover my bill.
QUEST: You send --
CRANE: But absolutely, I would go with you --
QUEST: You send a memo, you send a -- I probably would. You send a memo to Jeff Zucker and let's see what you get -- we pull at the end of the day,
good to see you, thank you, thank you very much indeed. We have just about 15 minutes left of trading.
Goldman Sachs is the laggard on the market, not surprising with what's happening there. Disney's down, Apple obviously is off as well.
Caterpillar roaring ahead, and this is on economics. This is good economics. The economy is looking good, China's looking better.
You see the China-play with Boeing, which is why Boeing has just put on a bit of weight, not much more. But what is interesting, you've got to --
it's a big chart that tells the big story, frankly, a lot of that gain by the way is in Caterpillar, Intel, and Boeing, the three biggest.
But to be up 165 when we were down quite sharply earlier in the session, that's quite remarkable. And it's all because of the potential of Chinese-
American officials striking a more optimistic tone about meeting Presidents Trump and Xi on Saturday, where an agreement was far from
certain. We will have more after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[15:50:00] QUEST: All this week, Cnn's been reporting on the shocking levels of ignorance and prejudice towards Jews and the rise in anti-
Semitism. A shocking 34 percent of Europeans survey said they knew little about the holocaust or have never even heard of it.
Well, when I was in Berlin earlier this year for World of Wonder, I traveled to a Wannsee house, a Wannsee house is the place where the
holocaust horrific operations were conceived.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: Fifteen Nazi officials met for 90 minutes to plot the murder of Europe's Jews. And as the meeting invitation said, it would be followed by
breakfast. No one in this room was in any doubt about what was being planned. They had already identified 11 million Jews to be exterminated
across Europe.
And the Wannsee Conference was about how to actually do it. So in the final protocol, it says "in the course of the practical implementation of
the final solution, Europe will be combed through from west to east." Doesn't get much clearer than that.
There's a feeling of, you know, the sadness all of a sudden overwhelms. This was the elevation of random murder into systematic, mechanical killing
on an industrial scale, and it started -- the planning for that started here. I don't know how you -- makes you want to cry, I mean, to be honest,
it makes you want to cry.
It makes you want to cry that so many people had to die because of what these bastards did here. And when you see who was here, you realize this
was -- this was the equivalent of a middle management meeting to discuss the logistics.
In a house that begat such horrors, I cannot stay any longer. The only way to make sense of this awfulness is to speak to those who survived it.
MARGOT FRIEDLANDER, HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: Three times, I guess that book came.
QUEST: Margot Friedlander is a holocaust survivor. She was 13 when Hitler came to power, 21 when she went into hiding.
FRIEDLANDER: In Berlin that was bombed --
QUEST: Exactly one year to the day after the Wannsee Conference, Gestapo came --
FRIEDLANDER: From hiding --
QUEST: For Margot and her family.
FRIEDLANDER: And then they walked home, towards home, I saw a man going in front of me and he looked different. I got a funny feeling in my stomach,
be careful if you go into the building, be careful. And I walked up the stairs up, per block until -- and then I walked around, I saw him standing,
this man, in front of our building, leaning, I suspect -- against our door.
QUEST: So your brother had been taken.
FRIEDLANDER: Yes.
QUEST: Your mother eventually went to find your brother.
FRIEDLANDER: I went to the neighbors two hours later, I expected my mother to be there, to wait for me. And a woman said to me, your mother left.
She didn't leave a message for me in writing, but said if you see my daughter, because she didn't know --
QUEST: Yes --
FRIEDLANDER: If they would see me. If you see her, tell her she should try to make her life.
QUEST: She should try --
FRIEDLANDER: Try to make her life.
(SPEAKING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE)
Just these words. And then the woman hands me something my mother left for me. It was her handbag, and in the handbag was the necklace and her atlas
book. I knew I would have to go into hiding.
QUEST: When you go into bed at night, do you sleep well?
FRIEDLANDER: No, don't ask. I can show you my sleeping pills.
QUEST: At 96, Margot is still formidable. A woman who made it alive out of the Trostenets Concentration Camp. Now she's back in Berlin with a
message lest we forget.
[15:55:00] FRIEDLANDER: It should not happen again. It could happen again, at least that I made it, I can thank my mother for it. Because if I
would have gone, missed her, I would have ended up like she did into death.
And at least, I can now talk and say be careful for millions and millions and millions who couldn't make it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: You can see the full results of Cnn's exclusive survey into anti- Semitism at our special website including stories from holocaust survivors and reaction from leaders across Europe. It is at cnn.com-slash-anti-
Semitism. This is Cnn.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Tonight's profitable moment, when these two gentlemen have dinner tomorrow night, much will hang in the balance besides what's on the menu
and any indigestion from wines and good food -- no, much more important will be, can they do a deal, can they actually reach some sort of
compromise if nothing else to mean that the existing trade tariffs don't get worse, no escalation.
Or are we destined and doomed to see the world go into a deteriorating situation even more so? The market seems to think things are going to go
well. All of a sudden, the Dow has roared up nearly 200 points, and it's all because the market believes that these two gentlemen will want to
compromise when they have dinner in Buenos Aires on Saturday night.
We just don't know, each has reasons for doing a deal, but then each also has reasons for standing their ground. And who has most to lose or gain?
Who can take most of the pain? that will determine eventually which one wins. But for the time being, the market seems to suggest they will do a
deal or at least things won't get worse.
And that's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS for tonight, I'm Richard Quest in New York, whatever you're up to in the hours ahead, I hope it is profitable.
(BELL RINGING)
The bell is ringing, the day is done.
END
