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Quest Means Business
Bitcoin Price Retreats After Topping $100K for the First Time; Aftershocks Rumble Across California After Magnitude Seven Offshore Quake; New Image Show Person of Interest in CEO's Killing; U.S. Judge Rejects Boeing Plea Deal to 737 Crashes; Frommer's Names Best Travel Destination for 2025; Russia's Economy Better Than Everyone Expected; Tips for Remembering Passwords. Aired 4-5p ET
Aired December 05, 2024 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:10]
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST, "QUEST MEANS BUSINESS": Closing bell ringing on Wall Street. Darlene Love with the Tree Lighting, the 101st tree
lighting. It's a shame, there is a lot of red on the screen, but we shouldn't be too hard. This is going to be a good gavel. Let's just hope
they don't cut away from her.
Come on, let's see the gavel. Here we go one, two -- I knew it was going to be -- a gavel worthy of a Tree Lighting as we head to the holiday season,
even though the market by my reckoning, is at the low point of the session.
Those are the markets and these are the main events of the day. Bitcoin surges past $100,000.00 before dipping back. Investors are anticipating a
raft of crypto-friendly measures from the Trump administration.
New clues in the murder of a healthcare CEO. Words written on the shell casings could prove to a motive.
And if you use the same password for every website, Clare Duffy Has some advice for you.
We are live in New York. It is Thursday, it is December 5th. I am Richard Quest and in New York, I mean business.
Good evening to you.
Now, we are following developments in California over the course of the hour. We will bring you updates as necessary. A 7.0 magnitude earthquake
has hit off the Northern Californian Coast. A tsunami warning was initially issued and then it was canceled and within a moment or two, we will bring
you more details of exactly what that is about. So we -- just to let you know, we are aware of this earthquake, a tsunami warning, and we will bring
you details in just a moment.
To our business agenda now and it is a new era for Bitcoin. The price surpassed $100,000.00, dipping back just a tad in the last few moments. It
has been rallying of course, because of Donald Trump's election, where there is an expectation that the new president will lead a more crypto
friendly administration.
The milestone followed after the president-elect named crypto advocate, Paul Atkins to lead the SEC.
Donald Trump took the credit for the rally in a post on Truth Social.
Paul La Monica, Guru La Monica is with me. Look, let's be clear. Paul Atkins is not some fly-by-night who is going to run off to the races and
sort of sell the whole thing down the river. It is a nuanced development that is going to be less regulatory strict, isn't it?
PAUL R. LA MONICA, SENIOR MARKET ANALYST WRITER, BARRON'S: Yes, I think that you're right, Paul Atkins is by no means going to be a crypto cowboy
loosening regulations in a reckless way, but the important thing is that he is not Gary Gensler who, if you ask any Bitcoin fan what they think of the
current SEC Commissioner, there are probably words that we can't use on television that they would describe him with. So I think that is a
favorable thing.
But there was another factor at play that I find interesting, Richard, Jerome Powell in a "New York Times" DealBook Summit, also talked yesterday
about Bitcoin, and again, he didn't necessarily go out and sound like a crypto evangelist, but he did compare Bitcoin to gold talking that it is
being like digital gold, and I think investors also took those comments to be more favorable than what Fed members have typically said about Bitcoin,
it was off to the races.
QUEST: I mean, I am glad you mentioned gold. I think, you know, my views on gold. It ranks alongside the views on Bitcoin. But do we -- what do you --
I am curious.
LA MONICA: You and Warren Buffett, yes.
QUEST: Yes, I am curious. What do you think? Do you regard, Paul, do you regard it as an asset class. Do you regard it -- I mean, it is not a
reserve in a sense, but do you regard it as an asset class?
LA MONICA: Yes, I think that you could probably make the case that it is. I agree with the arguments that it is not really a store of value per se, and
it is not something that most people are going to use as a form of payment. I think if you were to ask any reasonable person in the crypto community
how much money they make a year, they probably would quote a dollar amount. Even Michael Saylor probably would do that.
They are not going to quote it in Bitcoin because Bitcoin prices change so rapidly and dramatically that, you know, it is very difficult to say that
crypto is like a fiat government currency.
[16:05:09]
But you know, that being said, it seems like it is becoming an emerging new asset class like stocks and like fixed income.
QUEST: Time for a bit of -- well, a bit of history. Do you remember this? Have a listen. Do you remember this, Paul La Monica?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: The goal here is very simple, we are going to attempt to buy a bit of a Bitcoin. Clearly, we are not going to buy that much. But with Nolan
and Paul, we are going to show you how easy or difficult it is.
I want to buy a Bitcoin. Have you ever bought a Bitcoin?
LA MONICA: I have you ever bought a Bitcoin before.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: There is only one problem, isn't there? We bought a bit of a Bitcoin and neither of us has the key to it.
LA MONICA: That was my retirement money. I mean, what am I going to do now, Richard? I guess, I am working for the next 20 to 30 years, however long I
am lucky enough to still be doing this.
QUEST: I know. Can you believe it? None of us wrote down or at least if we did write it down what the key to that bit of a Bitcoin is. Can't even
remember how much of a Bitcoin we actually bought? But anyway, Paul La Monica, I am grateful.
LA MONICA: Luckily now, you've got Bitcoin ETFs. It is pretty easy to buy one on Coinbase or Robinhood, so it is a lot easier to buy Bitcoin now than
it was a few years ago when we did that video.
QUEST: Good to see you, sir. I am grateful of Bitcoin ETF.
LA MONICA: Thank you.
QUEST: Now, there is a thought.
Now that rally over the past two years marks a stunning reversal from the crypto winter, where doubts were high when the exchange, FTX collapsed. Its
fortunes started to change earlier in this year when the SEC approved several ETFs that Paul was just talking about there, and the election of
Donald Trump has supercharged it.
Kristin Smith is with me, the CEO of the Blockchain Association. Where do you think -- what do you think the role, the proper role for Bitcoin is?
KRISTIN SMITH, CEO, BLOCKCHAIN ASSOCIATION: Well, I think that is really up to the individuals and organizations that own Bitcoin, but what we are
seeing today is, as we were just hearing, Powell had commented on earlier this week, is a lot of people are looking at Bitcoin today as a digital
gold. It is a way to store value. It is a scarce resource, so as more people want to have a part of it in their portfolio, the value of the asset
increases over time.
And so that seems to be where we see it today, but you know, we were just talking about, it is really a new time for Bitcoin and other crypto assets.
It is the first time we've had a proactively positive pro-Bitcoin pro- crypto president in the White House in the US and we also have the most pro crypto-Congress we've ever seen.
And so I really think we are going to see a tremendous amount of innovation around Bitcoin and around other cryptocurrencies in the years ahead as
people feel freedom to innovate and as we start putting the rules of the road in place so that everyone knows how this is going to be regulated in
the long run.
QUEST: Give me an idea of what that looks like. What would you wish to be able to do regulatory-wise that you can't do now?
SMITH: Yes, well, I think the first thing we would like is to have an open dialogue with the potentially relevant regulators for crypto and Bitcoin.
The problem we've had with SEC Chair Gary Gensler is that he hasn't been having that dialogue with the industry, and instead is going out and doing
regulation by enforcement lawsuits to try to guide company behavior in that way, and it has been very, very stifling.
So what we would like to see is a place where exchanges can go and register and have appropriate oversight. We want to have more pathways for new
projects to launch and to issue new tokens, and do so in a way where all the disclosures are there.
And so I think this is the type of thing that we can do. Some of this with the SEC's existing authority, but we will probably need Congress to step in
and fill the gaps, because the reality is the federal agencies in the US just don't have the full authority that they need today to do the job
right.
QUEST: There is a difference, though between in previous times and this is the international nature of it, the fungibility, if you will of crypto to
be used and therefore manipulated across jurisdictions and more difficult to track, trace, and to manage. And the size of it, and you know this
better than anybody else. The size now of crypto and Bitcoin does lead worries of systemic risk, never mind widows and orphans. I am talking about
widespread systemic risk.
SMITH: Well, I don't think there is systemic risk with something like Bitcoin or most sort of everyday cryptocurrencies and the reason is, is
because individuals have the ability to hold those tokens themselves and they don't have to worry about relying on a third party institution to
manage it on their behalf.
[16:10:03]
I do think there is a question about how to properly regulate stable coins that are pegged to the US dollar, because you have to have the right kinds
of Treasuries and dollars sitting in bank accounts, and you want to make sure that those type of products are fully reserved.
And so this is why we need to have these discussions and we are having these discussions with Congress. But I think for the first time when the
new administration takes power and the new Congress is sworn in next year, you know, we really have the opportunity to get those rules right and make
sure that users are protected, but also that we bring developers back to the US that have been scared away.
I feel like the rest of the world has greatly taken advantage of the fact that the US has been so hostile. And so, you know, we want the innovation
to occur everywhere around the globe, but we really also want it here in the United States.
QUEST: Kristin, I am very grateful for you.
Can you believe Paul La Monica and I seven years ago, bought a bit of a Bitcoin and we lost the key. We have no idea.
SMITH: Well that is why you know self-custody works for some people, but not for everyone. So you know, we want to have other alternatives for those
who do want some help, who do want an institution in between. And so it is good to have choice.
QUEST: Absolutely. Don't trust me with a pint of milk, never mind a Bitcoin. I am grateful to you. Thank you very much indeed for joining us
from Miami. Thank you.
Now to the story I started, I told you about it right at the beginning of the program.
At least a dozen aftershocks rumbling across Northern California after a seven magnitude earthquake struck off the coast. There was a tsunami
warning issued, which has now been canceled and tens of thousands of people are without power.
Chad Myers is with me. Tell me more about this.
CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: When it first happened, Richard, we didn't know which way the earth moved under the ocean. Did it move side to side or
did it move up and down? The up and down was going to be the problem.
The vertical motion, whether the land goes up or whether the land goes down, that will create waves along the ocean top and those waves have to
propagate somewhere. They go out in big circles, like throwing a stone in the lake. So we didn't know at the time when the tsunami warning went out
how big it could be.
Well, now we know that it actually wasn't anything at all because it wasn't an up and down quake. There wasn't a lot of movement up to push the water
out of the way. It was just all side to side, so what was those tsunami warnings, all those tsunami warnings now are completely gone.
This was a big quake, but only 15,000 people actually felt very strong shaking. This is not a hugely populated coast here in California. In fact,
the joke is that this is bigfoot territory, the Redwoods of California are here and there are likely sasquatch, yeti whatever you want to call them,
possibly walking around if you believe.
But here you go. This is the thing.
This was a strong to a very strong quake and there is about 15 of these per year, one per month or so. But they're not usually this close to land. And
when they are over land, that is when we see all of the damage.
So the good news is, this was a shallow quake. It was close to the ocean floor, but it did not go up and down, it moved back and forth and it was 50
miles or so away from really a populated area.
QUEST: So, I am grateful for all of that. But just humor me, if this had -- bearing in mind it is a magnitude seven. If this had been if, if, if, if
close to shore or even onshore or whatever, any one of those, is this the sort of quake that buildings and bridges and interstates are designed for?
MYERS: Not all of them. Anything built, you know, after the 1990s-2000. Sure. You would get some motion, you'd probably get some cracking, but you
could be able to rebuild it.
But this was an infrastructure breaking quake in a major city. The good news is the Petrolia, the areas there really did not have major cities in
the quake zone. But you put this quake in a metro area and you're going to break things and people are going to die, no question.
Luckily, that didn't happen today.
QUEST: I am glad. Thank you. Thank you. That's exactly what the information I wanted to hear or to understand. Thank you, Chad Myers, grateful.
And so police are now releasing some pictures showing a person of interest in Wednesday's shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO. We will show you the
pictures and discuss it after the break.
QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:17:02]
QUEST: Police have released new pictures showing what they call a person of interest wanted for questioning in Wednesday's shooting of the
UnitedHealthcare CEO.
The images come from inside a hostel in New York City. The police say the gunman may have been staying there. They also found the words "delay" and
"depose" on a live round of shell casing. The police are exploring whether the words are indicating a motive.
John Miller is with me.
Now, I look at those photographs with my untutored eye and I think, well, hang on a second. I mean, you can see his face. Somebody will recognize
that. Tell me what your tutored eye sees.
JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: the same thing which is, I think if you passed him on the street yesterday or bumped
into him in Starbucks, you might not remember him. But if you saw this picture and he is a coworker, he is a relative, he is a friend, you're
going to recognize him and that is what police are counting on.
QUEST: I mean, they are pretty much clear pictures of --
MILLER: They are. And you know, Richard, yesterday when they came into these photos, they did a lot of work with different applications, including
facial recognition and they are just not full face enough. They are not granularly quality enough to be good matches for facial recognition that
would give you a narrow enough pool. So that is why they are crowdsourcing it with the public, which is let's put a million -- let's put millions and
millions of eyes on it and see how many people come forward and maybe come forward with the same answer.
QUEST: All right, these words "delay" and "depose." They may mean nothing. My guess is that they are telling us some of the motive. Look, I am just
speculating here, John. Forgive me, but delay, who knows what that meant. It sounds like a disgruntled client, customer, patient whatever. Depose
sounds like let's find out the truth. What really happened?
Am I up the wrong tree here as well?
MILLER: You're in the neighborhood.
You know, there is a legal maxim which is "deny, delay, and defend," which basically means deny the claim, delay the process, maybe you can wear the
customer down, defend, meaning take it to court, try and get that lower settlement. Even a book was written with that as the name of the book by a
Rutgers professor.
But when you go into the blogs, into Reddit, and to places like that, you see variations on "deny, delay and defend" and I think "depose and delay"
could be a different variation of the three Ds of insurance as critics frame them and the question is okay, but that's only two Ds, where is the
third? Did that bullet remain in the gun unfired? Is there another word somewhere with that weapon? Was it burned off one of the fired shell
casings that was recovered? We don't know whether it was etched in there or written with a Sharpie.
[16:20:07]
But, you know, there are conditions where it could have disappeared but the fact that someone went to the trouble to take, you know a nine millimeter
round, which is not a very big bullet and to spend the time to write something legible on an item this big shows that they wanted the forensic
investigation of that crime scene to discover this. Now, is that a red herring to throw them off the true motive? Did this killing have nothing to
do with the CEO's work or company? Or is that a message from a really angry customer?
QUEST: So give us -- this is fascinating. I mean, this is -- how do they find where he stayed? I mean, in a sense, you know I realize this is good
old fashioned, and I don't mean that in a derogatory sense. I actually mean it as a compliment, it is good old fashioned police work using modern
technology, I get it.
But to have found where he is staying and then locate that photograph, it is quite extraordinary.
MILLER: Well, this is the face of modern detective work and what is ironic, in her first week on the job is that New York City Police Commissioner
Jessica Tisch was actually the key designer of most of the modern technology backbone of the NYPD, including its own network of video cameras
that all come into a central place and record.
But what they do, Richard, is they start at the scene of the crime, and they do that video canvass -- every ATM, every bank, every store, every
building that has a camera that the killer might have passed by and they follow that trail until the trail goes dead. Then they go in two different
directions to see if the trail is picked up again on a cross street or another avenue, and if they pick it up, they continue it.
In this case, they follow the trail from the shooting till he gets on the e-bike, he goes into Central Park and the next time they pick him up, he is
coming out at 77th Street. They pick him up at 85th Street on a different video camera and at 103rd Street and Columbus Avenue, they then at the end
of the trail start to go to the different buildings there and say, who recognizes this guy? And it was the youth hostel just a block away or so
that said wait a minute, we had a guy with that hood, who wore that mask, who looked the same and he was here for two days just this week. That's how
they got there.
QUEST: And by the way, sir, just one quick question. All of these cameras, the ATMs, the various ones -- are they linked in some way to a central
database or is it literally knocking on the door and saying, can we have access to that video, please?
MILLER: So the NYPD has a network in excess of 20,000 cameras that include thousands of police cameras, but thousands more of cameras that belong to
private industry where they've given the permission to view them. But in this case, it is much more like what you said, which is they will exploit
all of the cameras they can do automatically, but they'll go door-to-door and they will say, we see you have a camera, can we look at the video for
the last, you know, 24 hours or four hours or 48 hours? Whatever it is, and they'll find their subject because they start to know the times that that
they're looking for.
QUEST: Fascinating. Thank you very much.
I always -- I so love talking to you, John. I get real insight and it helps us understand. Thank you. I am grateful. Thank you.
MILLER: I appreciate it, Richard.
QUEST: Now to France. More insight time.
French President Emmanuel Macron says he hopes to appoint a new prime minister in the coming days. Michel Barnier was kicked out by lawmakers
after a no-confidence vote. He will now run a caretaker government, but for Macron, finding a suitable replacement will not be easy.
Think about how we got here. The left and the right basically combined to kick out Barnier, so to put another person in is going to face opposition
from both sides and the president is defying calls to step down and the chaos is just going to get worse.
Joining me now is Jim Bittermann in Paris.
Last night, on our program, besides talking about the events, we also had a member of the French Parliament who basically said look, Macron has no
legitimacy and anyway, we have offered a perfectly reasonable alternative prime minister who will make all the same cuts or whatever and bring the
budget deficit down as he wants.
So what's the problem -- Jim.
JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the problem with that is that there is about two-thirds of the Parliament that wouldn't
agree with that.
Basically, you had on a parliamentarian from, I believe, on the extreme left and the extreme right of course, wouldn't go along with that and the
centrists wouldn't go along with it. The Parliament is a hung Parliament, that is something that in fact, Emmanuel Macron sort of apologized for this
evening. He said, I will take responsibility for dissolving the Parliament and then calling for elections that it ended up with this one-third, one-
third, one-third division that we have.
[16:25:10]
He took responsibility for that, but he also went on television tonight in a very short speech, in less than ten minutes, to really criticize --
sharply criticize the other factions that teamed together to bring down his government, he said I will never assume the irresponsibility of others
especially the members of Parliament, who consciously chose to bring down France's budget and government just a few days before Christmas, he said.
The National Rally, that's the extreme right party, the deputies chose to vote a motion of censure, which what they were doing was simply choosing
disorder.
This, of course, has not been going down well with either of the parties, but especially the National Rally Party on the extreme right and he had
kind of an almost scolding tone in his speech tonight and one of the things, as you said, that everybody or not everybody, but certainly the
leaders of the right and left parties are calling for is his resignation, and he just made it very emphatic tonight that he is not going to do that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
EMMANUEL MACRON, FRENCH PRESIDENT (through translator): The mandate you have democratically entrusted to me is a five-year term, and I will
exercise it to the full.
My responsibility is to ensure the continuity of the state, the smooth running of our institutions, the independence of our country, and the
protection of all of you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: So Jim, how do they solve it in a sense? Barnier continues as a caretaker government. They will find a fudge to get something through in
terms of budgets or whatever.
But at some point, I mean, how long can this last?
BITTERMANN: Well, there is no time limit actually and Emmanuel Macron doesn't have any kind of a limitation constitutional restriction on the
number of days or weeks or months that he has in order to name a new prime minister.
And in fact, Michel Barnier himself was only named in September after the government went into caretaker mode in June. So it was about three months
that France went without a government, basically they had this caretaker government that could address the kind of day-to-day problems, like for
instance, the Olympics, which happened during those three months, and take care of the day-to-day business, but no initiatives.
And so the first thing that Michel Barnier did when he got into office in September was to come up with a budget, that is an initiative that the
prime minister has to take and that, of course, is what eventually brought down his government.
So it can go on for a long time. The president said tonight that he is going to be putting a bill before the Parliament. This is something that
they probably will vote for and that is to reuse last year's budget, the 2024 budget next year. That's not going to make anybody very happy because
it, among other things, will increase the debt for the financial markets. That is not a good thing.
But there are also some plums in there for example, the farmers and one of the farmers unions said they want to go back -- go and track down these 331
deputies who voted for dissolution of the government, track them down and go after them in their homes.
QUEST: Well, there we are. Happy Christmas to you, too. Thank you. Jim Bittermann in Paris for us tonight.
A plea agreement linked to the crashes of the 737 Max is now in doubt. A US judge rejected the deal, Boeing would have admitted to wrongdoing in the
plane's certification. But the judge said that's not enough.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:32:02]
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Richard Quest. There's so much more QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
You've heard me talk about how much screen time I log on to my phone. Half of that is trying to remember my passwords. How often have you had to do
that? Clare Duffy is going to be here to talk about that. And Pauline Frommer is with me to talk 2025 travel trends. Before that this is CNN, and
here the news always comes first.
Syria's rebels have claimed a second major city in their recent offensive. The country's military says it's now pulled out of Hama, a strategic hub
between Damascus and Aleppo. They seized Aleppo last week. The rebels are now pledging to move south, telling people in the city of Homs that their
time has come to rise up in revolution.
In South Korea, the police are investigating the president over for treason over his declaration of martial law. A motion to impeach President Yoon
could be voted on as early as Saturday. The head of the ruling party says he's opposed to impeachment but wants President Yoon to leave the party.
Federal prosecutors in New York have charged the woman who stowed away on a Delta flight to Paris last week. She's 57-year-old Svetlana Dali. She made
her first court appearance today. She was not asked to enter a plea but will be temporarily detained until Friday afternoon. She could face up to
five years in prison if convicted.
A U.S. judge rejected the plea agreement that Boeing made after the two crashes of the 737s. Boeing was to plead guilty to deceiving the FAA during
the process of certification. Two of the planes crashed at about six months and it killed 346 people.
Now in exchange for the guilty plea, Boeing was to pay up to $487 million in fines. The families of the victims say that amounts to a slap on the
wrist. They want fines of roughly $24 billion.
Vanessa is with me. Vanessa Yurkevich.
Why did the judge reject it?
VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: This is interesting. The judge rejected this deal between the DOJ and Boeing,
which, by the way, DOJ billed as the best deal that they believe that they could get, not because of what Boeing admitted to, which was pleading to
conspiracy charges to defraud the FAA, not the sum of money, and it wasn't because they decided not to throw executives in jail.
The judge said that he is throwing out this plea agreement because of the fact that he does not have any say in the appointment of the safety officer
that is going to be instituted in Boeing to make sure these things don't happen again.
And especially, Richard, because DOJ and Boeing agreed that DEI, diversity, equity and inclusion, would be involved in this sort of hiring process to
appoint this independent safety administrator.
[16:35:08]
The judge said he did not like that. He wanted more of a role in the say of who would be there. And also he did not think that DEI should be included,
Richard, in this process.
QUEST: OK. Now you have wade deep into political territory in about 30 seconds.
YURKEVICH: Yes.
QUEST: I'm going to split this off. First of all, we'll deal with DEI in just a moment. Arguably this is quite easy for the parties to remedy by
saying to the judge, fine, you can have a say.
YURKEVICH: Sure. Easier said than done, Richard, but you're going to be dealing with a different DOJ when this deal gets hammered out. This deal
was hammered out with the Biden administration's DOJ. Now it's going to be the Trump administration's DOJ.
We spoke to a professor who studies this kind of law and he said, quote, "Be careful what you wish for." And that was mostly directed to the
families who did not like this deal to begin with, Richard. They wanted, as you said, closer to $25 billion from the company. They wanted executives to
be charged and put in jail.
QUEST: Right.
YURKEVICH: But now you're dealing with a different playing field here. You might not get exactly what you got before and who knows what the Trump
administration will be able to work out with Boeing. It may be a worse deal for the families.
QUEST: Right. But --
YURKEVICH: And we'll see if they end up agreeing to appoint someone at the judge's request, not at the company or the government's request.
QUEST: So the DEI component, bearing in mind the controversy of that at the moment, how much of this was a political decision?
YURKEVICH: Well, listen, this judge, Judge O'Connor in Texas, a conservative judge appointed by President Trump at the time, it's obviously
not apparent that he was making any specific opinions on whether or not he liked or did not like DEI. It's just so interesting that this was the one
issue out of all the issues on the table that he really hung on to. It wasn't about the families getting more money. It wasn't about greater
charges. It wasn't about more responsibility.
It was about this single and specific issue so one might argue that this was something that the judge may have felt more personally about. But of
course the judge is not going to come out and say that, Richard.
QUEST: Fascinating. It's going to run and run. Thank you. Come back when there's more.
YURKEVICH: Thanks.
QUEST: Today it's about three degrees Celsius in New York. It's cold. I know I rode my bicycle here. Well, it wasn't my bicycle, but you get the
point. It feels well below freezing. On days like that, I start to think about changes of scenery.
Frommer has just put out its top destinations for 2025. The list includes Ghent in Belgium, which is a beautiful place. There it's a mild 11 Celsius.
And then Osaka in Japan, where of course, as you'll be well familiar, I visited in June and tried my first Takoyaki. Those fried dough balls that
are filled with octopus and are boiling hot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: How hot is it?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's really hot.
QUEST: Too hot to eat.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Maybe. Just be careful. Not the whole thing. You ate the whole thing?
QUEST: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, no, no, no, it's hot.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Pauline is with me. Pauline Frommer, and she is the editorial director of Frommer's Guidebooks and the co-president of Frommer Media.
I look at the list, and it's interesting the list. What was your guiding principles for it this year?
PAULINE FROMMER, EDITORIAL DIRECTOR, FROMMER'S GUIDEBOOKS: Well, there are Frommer journalists around the planet, and so we asked them what
destinations will be most visit worthy in 2025. So, for example, what will be a place that's suddenly accessible that was hard to get to before or is
going to be much less expensive than it used to be like Japan, like Osaka, because the Japanese yen is so weak. Or is going to have an incredible
celebration with lots of events that will make it worth going to?
So one of the places we picked, believe it or not, is Greenland. Greenland's airport is finally going to be big enough for large jets. And
so for the first time, pretty much ever, there are going to be commercial flights regularly going from many parts of Europe, from New York. And
you're going to be able to go to this country where 80 percent of it is covered with a thick layer of ice, a kind of ecosystem that's becoming very
rare sadly at this time of climate change.
QUEST: We've talked about it on this program, the Greenland, the Nuuk, the new Nuuk Airport and the way United Airlines is one of the first. We had
Patrick Whelan from United talking about it.
Let me ask you, though, this is an interesting one because the issue of new destinations and this search that we're all trying to find the place that
nobody else has gone to and for good reasons.
[16:40:06]
But overtourism, and I do not see, I do not see any satisfactory solutions yet. Post-pandemic, which I believe was a missed opportunity to put in
place certain policies to deal with these in some cases. How concerned are you about it?
FROMMER: I'm very concerned with overtourism. If you go to a place in Spain, for example, you're going to be shot at with water guns and made to
feel not welcomed, but more than that, you could be damaging the local economies and the infrastructures when you have Airbnb, for example taking
over the housing stock.
And so we actually made the last part of our list which you can see at Frommers.com/bestplaces2025, the last pick is the town next door. Often
there are really great destinations that are right next to the iconic destination, and while the iconic destination is getting over-loved the
next door place is just as interesting but gets no tourism. So that might be a solution.
QUEST: Yes. That's a fascinating way of doing it, to disperse the people. And may I just sort of say, your late father of course was who I had the
privilege of interviewing. I mean, Frommer's the guide, if I have any -- if I have a love of travel and have been a travel correspondent for some
years, it's largely because of people like your late father and who gave us that love. I mean, yes, all right. So you can have an app, but there's
nothing like one of these.
FROMMER: I agree.
QUEST: There's nothing that you can make a note on.
FROMMER: Yes.
QUEST: You can thumb it. You can spill coffee on it.
FROMMER: And that are --
QUEST: Go ahead.
FROMMER: That are created by actual journalists. You have a media landscape right now where so many people are getting their information online. But 90
percent of what you read online is marketing. It's not journalism.
QUEST: Yes.
FROMMER: And so our books are written by journalists.
QUEST: And you'll find -- you will find spaghetti and every other bit of food I've eaten all over my copies.
I'm grateful to you. Thank you so much.
FROMMER: Thank you.
QUEST: It's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: The head of one of Russia's biggest banks says the U.S. is putting the dollar at risk by wielding it as a weapon. Andrey Kostin is the chief
exec of Russia's state-controlled VTB Bank. He spoke to Fred Pleitgen about the dollar's unique role in trade. And we should note that Mr. Kostin has
been sanctioned by the United States.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDREY KOSTIN, CEO, VTB BANK: Look, there is a war, lasted for nearly three years now, and there is a 6,000 or 7,000 different kind of sanctions
against Russia. So you can hardly expect that everything is just as normal by taking into the account, I think the results or the performance of the
Russian economy is much, much better than everybody expected.
The last sanctions and the actually election of Mr. Trump, which strengthened dollar, by the way, right, led to association that the ruble
is weaker. But today it's already so much lower than it was yesterday or the day before. So I think it's more or less stabilizing.
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What do you make of his threats against BRICS countries that if they try to replace the
dollar as the leading currency in the world?
KOSTIN: We all enjoyed using dollar, but the American side decided to put sanctions on Russia and other countries, not to allow us to trade with
dollars. So it not depends on us very much. You know, we can use dollar, but we have no chance now to do it. So I think the American administration
should think more about this because it's really create I think a big threat to the dollar itself because, you know, if you don't feel safe with
using dollar you will find other ways how to make your investment, how to make your payments.
So I think it should be, if it's international currency, it should be reliable. It should be nonpolitical. It should not be used for punishment
of any country or whatever American administration thinks about it. Otherwise people will run away from dollar and they will find a way. What
we're doing now, where we're trading in rubles and yuan, in digital currency, whatever.
PLEITGEN: Your economy is also driven by defense spending. I think about a third of the new budget will be spent on defense and military. How
concerning is that for a lender? Because that also drives up prices, drives up inflation, and right now controlling inflation while trying to keep that
economic growth going has got to be a difficult thing.
KOSTIN: Yes. We believe that we're forced to make such a big spending on the defense because this was not basically our idea, but we have no choice
at the moment. And that also contributed to inflation. It's also contributed to the lack of workforce, which we experienced. You know, we
have a very low unemployment, about 2.3 percent at the moment. And actually mainly because of the very big increase in the production of our military
products.
So, yes, I mean, the answer is yes, but I'm afraid we have to live with the situation for some time and even when the war ends, you know, there will be
more spending on the restructuring military production. So basically, that's what we have, you know, nothing to add.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: Andrey Kostin talking to Fred Pleitgen.
Now, members of my staff, of QMB, they know all too frequently I'm not the best with passwords. So after the break, Clare Duffy will help me remember
some passwords when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:51:33]
QUEST: If I had a dollar for every time I have been through this experience, you know, typing the password and then of course getting it
wrong and then you decide to have another go, and guess what? And before long you've been locked out.
Clare Duffy is here to help me all go through this.
All right. What's the answer to this dreaded keyboard type password problem?
CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Yes, Richard. I mean, look, while it might seem like it's easier to have just one password because then you
don't have to remember all of those different passwords, that's not actually a good idea because here's the thing. If one site where you use
that password gets hacked, an employee makes a mistake, it's not your fault, but your password gets breached, bad actors could then use that
password to open all of your other accounts.
But it's not actually that hard to create passwords and remember them for all your different accounts. Here are the top tips that experts say will
help this situation. So, first, you should have a unique random password for all of your accounts. And to do that you can download a password
manager something like One Password or Bitwarden. You can make that a data or your browser extension. You can put it and use it as an app on your
phone, and that will create and securely store all of your passwords.
You can also -- you should also turn on two-factor authentication so you're getting a text message or you're using an app to confirm that it's really
you in addition to using that unique password. And I know this sounds sort of obvious, but there is research that shows that a lot of people aren't
doing a good job at having good cyber hygiene. That's what experts call it.
But look, if you are feeling overwhelmed trying to think about how you're going to change all of your passwords here is the advice that Rachel Tobac
gave me. She's the CEO of SocialProof Security. Here's what she said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RACHEL TOBAC, CEO, SOCIALPROOF SECURITY: You don't have to be completely freaked out by this. You can change another password every day or once a
week. Think about this like harm reduction. You are helping yourself become safer every day, every week, every quarter as you go. You don't have to
boil the ocean. You don't have to do everything at once.
But change the password for your e-mail addresses, change it for your bank, then maybe next week you'll change it for your dog's Instagram. Then you
change it for your Slack. You know, you don't have to do everything perfectly all at once, but you will be safer once you do it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DUFFY: I really love that. It's like harm reduction and she gives some good advice there, too. If you're thinking about starting to try to change your
passwords, update your passwords, make yourself more secure, it's a good idea to start with things like your e-mail because that's how you change
all of your passwords, your bank, some of these more sort of important and secure areas.
QUEST: Clare, I'm really bad at this. I mean, I'm just listening to what you say and I've committed every offense you can possibly think of and a
few that you haven't even mentioned. Help.
DUFFY: Yes. I mean, I think, look, I think first start with downloading the password manager because that is going to help you create the passwords,
new passwords for all of your different accounts. And then you're not going to have to remember all of those various passwords. The password manager is
going to do that for you, and it's going to in many cases automatically populate it.
So if you're using your regular computer, you have the password manager as a browser extension. And you go to try to log on, say, to Facebook, your
password manager is going to know your password.
[16:55:04]
It's just going to automatically pop it right in there for you so you don't have to be the one typing it and getting it wrong.
QUEST: Clare, I'm grateful. Fascinating podcast. I think I'm going to need a little more help before we're finished on this.
DUFFY: I'll come by your office, I promise.
QUEST: I think -- no, please, don't. No, no, no. You would be horrified. You will be in therapy for the rest of the year and beyond. Thank you.
We'll have a "Profitable Moment" after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Tonight's "Profitable Moment," I wasn't joking when I was talking about Frommer and the Frommer's guides earlier. When I first started
traveling, well, you never went anywhere without having a Frommer's guide. And now of course online and apps, the amount of information available to
you is just so enormous. It's vast. But a lot of it is suspect in a sense that it is sponsored or it is -- has been to some extent twisted or altered
with a view to a particular point of view, which is the beauty of the unbiased, whether it's lonely planet or indeed it's Frommer's.
It's those guides because there's still something delicious about sitting down on a plane and opening a book rather than worrying about Wi-Fi and
things like that. And actually looking and seeing what's available and making a note. And then making another note and then spilling your coffee
on it, and then remembering that that's where you did this, that's or the other.
Look, I'm not trying to be an old fogy about all of this. I understand the online travel, the OTAs, there's a full roll for it everywhere and anywhere
but don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Whether it's Frommer's or some other guide, there is nothing better than when a trip is starting that
you have your guidebook and you read it on the plane and on the train, and you get to grips with where you're going because that's part of the
experience.
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. I'll see
you tomorrow.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to THE LEAD. I'm Jake Tapper.
We're going to start this hour with breaking news. CNN has just obtained new video that appears to show the gunman who killed the United Healthcare
CEO yesterday. New York police confirmed they have seen this video as part of this investigation showing someone riding a bike around 7:00 a.m.
yesterday. This video is from after the shooting outside the Manhattan Hotel. It marks the latest in the day that we saw --
END
