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Quest Means Business
Sam Bankman-Fried Sentenced To 25 Years In Prison; Maryland Requests $60 Million In Federal Relief Funds; Putin: Fears Of Russia Attacking Europe Complete Nonsense; Trump, Biden Court Deep-Pocketed Donors As Race Heats Up; Colombia Expels Argentine Diplomats After Milei's Comments; New Study Reveals Lower Fertility Rates Could Transform World By 2100. Aired 4- 5p ET
Aired March 28, 2024 - 16:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[16:00:11]
RICHARD QUEST, CNN INTERNATIONAL HOST: So, didn't make 40,000 today, but as you can see, there is a nice blip at the end of trading.
Women in financial markets ringing the closing bell, let's make sure we get a good gavel. Here we go. And there is a gavel worthy of all. Strong
gavels, good markets. The markets and the main events of the day: 25 years in prison for some Sam Bankman-Fried. Before the sentencing, the former
crypto king told the court, "My useful life is probably over."
Ukraine's targets, Russia's biggest source of funds, it is oil.
And the Eurostar chief executive tells me the dreaded post-Brexit queues are improving, and the lunch was rather good, too.
Live from London on Thursday, it is march the 28th. I'm Richard Quest, I mean business.
Good evening.
Tonight, Sam Bankman-Fried has been sentenced to 25 years in federal prison for orchestrating what the prosecutor say is one of the biggest financial
frauds in history.
The judge ordered the forfeiture as well of $11.2 billion, that money is to help repay the customers of FTX, the failed crypto exchange that Bankman-
Fried started and ran.
The prosecutor said, SBF as he is known, wiped out people's life savings. They asked for a sentence up to 50 years. Bankman-Fried told the court he
was sorry. He said he made a series of bad decisions and it haunts him every day.
Allison Morrow was in court. What was the mood like?
ALLISON MORROW, CNN BUSINESS SENIOR EDITOR: Well, I was in court for the trial and that was certainly tense. And then today, we know from our
reporters who were there that it was a much more somber kind of -- you know, we knew that Sam Bankman-Fried was heading to prison and it was just
a question of for how long and that was entirely in the hands of Judge Lewis Kaplan.
QUEST: So wait -- I mean, the judge struck a balance between the 50 demanded by the prosecution and the five or six demanded by the defense.
But what's interesting is this element -- two elements. Firstly, no remorse or not enough remorse. And secondly, if it is too short, he will do it
again.
MORROW: Yes, I think the judgment here, the sentencing for 25 years reflects the seriousness of the crimes. You know, these were brazen thefts
and that is something that the prosecution certainly tried to illustrate and that the judge agreed with.
And part of the problem is, Sam Bankman-Fried has repeatedly apologized for making mistakes as a business leader, and that was always part of his
defenses. You know, I am a business guy and I got out over my skis and I am sorry about that. But the judge was looking for a little bit more remorse
in the form of, I knew what I was doing was wrong and I did it anyway, and we didn't really see that from Sam today.
QUEST: Okay, so on this question of what he actually did, the more we heard about this, the more we realized it was just a scheme to get money in, put
it in the private company, do the investments.
I mean, it wasn't quite a Ponzi scheme, but there clearly was no intention to hold depositors or investors' money on trust.
MORROW: I think Sam is going to appeal and the defense would push back against that and say it was a legitimate business and they were trying to
do a new and inventive way of handling crypto trading.
But you're right, a lot of the money that came in, about $8 billion worth of customer funds was syphoned from their accounts without their knowledge
nor their consent obviously and used by Sam Bankman-Fried and his business partners to give political campaign donations and buy luxury estates in the
Bahamas and cars and all kinds of other things.
So of course, these were ill-gotten gains and that is ultimately why the jury found him guilty.
QUEST: Grateful, Allison, thank you very much.
MORROW: Thank you.
QUEST: The collapse of FTX cost as Allison was saying about $8 billion. It was a defining moment of the crypto winter. Bitcoin fell below $17,000.00.
By the way, it is over -- what are we today? Sixty odd thousand today, an all-time high. It got a big boost with the approval of Bitcoin exchange
traded funds, ETFs. Its opened the door to more mainstream investors.
A single Bitcoin, I beg your pardon, I am looking now, it is over -- it could be $70,000.00.
The former actor, Ben McKenzie wrote a book that was critical of the celebrities who endorsed it. it is called "Easy Money: Cryptocurrency
Casino Capitalism and the Golden Age of Fraud. He joins me now.
[16:05:23]
Ben, thank you. I am grateful.
Today's sentence. Do you think the sentence fits the crime?
BEN MCKENZIE, AUTHOR, "EASY MONEY": Yes. I mean, the judge took the recommendation by the prosecution, 40 to 50 years, weighted against the
defense which wanted five to six, and he chose the middle, 25. Sam was convicted of seven crimes, six counts of fraud of various kinds, and one of
money laundering.
What he was doing was perpetrating one of the largest financial frauds in American history.
QUEST: But his defense said that he was not a financial serial killer, and he was not Bernie Madoff in a sense.
Now you know, I mean, I don't know. Bernie Madoff made off, goodness knows how many billion. Bankman-Fried, he just didn't do it in quite the same
way.
In the scheme of frauds from Enron to Lehman to Madoff, where do you put Bankman-Fried?
MCKENZIE: Well, I would say in terms of the size of his Ponzi scheme, which I do believe it was essentially, it is slightly smaller than Madoff's, but
in terms of the size of the overall cryptocurrency industry, which is rife with fraud and market manipulation, if you were talking about that as a
Ponzi scheme, which I have in front of Congress, that's potentially the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
QUEST: Let's talk about that then, because in a sense, that's -- you know what I mean, it is a bit like tulip mania, obviously, in a sense that if
that is what people are prepared to pay for an asset that is not worth anything or it cannot be used, is it really that much different from gold?
MCKENZIE: Well, that's a great point and that way, it isn't if it is regulated the same way that gold is regulated or securities are regulated,
which are investment contracts, which I believe essentially all cryptocurrencies are or should be classified as.
We have rules in this country and around the world for how people are able to sell you on investments and to your point, if there is an investment in
essentially nothing, then at a minimum, these companies should have to follow the law and many, many, many of them are not.
We see indictment after indictment, lawsuit after lawsuit. The problem is not so much being able to buy a cryptocurrency, being able to sell a
cryptocurrency to a willing buyer and you see exchange after exchange fall apart.
You see crypto coin after crypto coin collapse, and all that is left are people and their life savings having been stolen.
QUEST: Is there a difference in your view now, between Bitcoin which has been around for a good few years, the algorithm seems to work, assuming you
don't lose your key to your wallet, and even then the ETF allows you another way, but Bitcoin has an element. You might launch yourself out of
your chair, as I say this.
Bitcoin has an element of legitimacy about it, but -- and yet, there are some stable coins, too. It is the others that don't.
MCKENZIE: Yes, I mean, we've had -- we've heard arguments of that nature for quite a long time in the last few years, it was this or that
cryptocurrency that wasn't a scam or this or that cryptocurrency that wasn't and then they would fall; a stable coin would turn out to be not so
stable.
One of them collapsed in 2022, which precipitated the collapse of Sam's environment, it was called Tara Luna. So, I think, you know, look, I take
your point, but honestly, if you get beneath the sort of the code and you get into the actual markets, they are deeply corrupt, deeply -- they are
full of fraud.
QUEST: All right, now, I am not saying it is fraud. My last question and you can file this away as the mischievous question, just to be provocative.
I am not saying fraud, please, let's be clear about that, but if we are talking about economic reality and regulation, is Donald Trump's Truth
Social, new SPAC vehicle worth billions, but has no revenues to speak of, loses money and is not really a worthwhile investment.
Where would you put that in the great scheme of things?
MCKENZIE: Well, I would say this. The book I wrote, "Easy Money," it is cryptocurrency, it is casino capitalism, turning all of our economic
capital markets into the equivalent of casinos and it is the golden age of fraud, and I think no one better embodies the golden age of fraud than our
former president, sad to say.
[16:10:09]
QUEST: Well, I am grateful to you for joining us tonight. Thank you, sir. We will talk more about this. It is a fascinating discussion. Thank you.
Now, news to bring you, news just in. Israel's Supreme Court has ordered the government, the Israeli government obviously, to stop funding religious
schools whose students refuse to go to with the military -- mandatory military service, the national service.
It poses a serious threat to Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition, which relies on two ultra-Orthodox parties that support some Yeshivas
refusal to send people for national service.
Young men studying in Yeshivas have traditionally been free from military service. In effect, rendering all ultra-Orthodox Israelis exempt. The
order is set to go into effect on Monday.
Ukraine is hitting Russia where it hurts mostly, its oil refineries. We will talk about that in just a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: The US State of Maryland is now asking for $60 million in what I imagine is initial federal relief funds for the collapsed bridge. The
governor says it is an initial amount, there we are, to help with debris removal and other immediate needs.
The salvage efforts to getting started now. Divers have paused their search for the four missing victims. It is simply too dangerous. There is too much
twisted metal superstructure and concrete that has been sheared off and they have got the boat itself, the ship itself, all mangled under water.
The US Army Corps of Engineers needs to get to grips with all of it because it is a critical shipping channel.
So the bridge -- parts of the bridge must be removed from the ship, and then the ship will obviously rise a bit, then it can be towed away,
assuming it is enough, a lift crane is expected to arrive today.
Pete Muntean is in Baltimore. Pete is with me now.
Do we have -- do we have a timescale? I mean, obviously, the recovery of the bodies is significant, but if we look at the -- getting of the channel
open which seems to be the priority, now we know that they are not alive. How long would it take?
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: There is no firm timeline here yet, Richard, and that is really the harsh reality that is setting in here
at the port of Baltimore. Think about how big the Port of Baltimore is -- 18,000 jobs impacted directly. It is a huge place where sugar and salt
commodities are imported.
[16:15:12]
This is the home of the Domino Sugar Plant, but then also a place where cars are exported. So, this is going to have a worldwide ripple effect.
Still no sign of that heavy lift crane on a vessel being sent by the Biden administration here into the Patapsco River. They said it was going to
arrive sometime late Thursday. That will assist in pulling up the bough of the Dali that is now pinned under the collapsed Key Bridge here. There is
really so much delicate work that needs to take place, and they just can't do it overnight.
QUEST: So, if that's -- this initial request for funding. The federal government has already said that it is going to pay for the reconstruction
of the bridge and now we have had this initial request for sixty, seventy odd million in funding. I imagine eventually either the state or the
federal government will then subrogate to the insurance company and say, all right, pay us back.
MUNTEAN: Yes, and there is a bit of congressional tee up here about who will need to pay for this. And so lawmakers here from the state of
Maryland, both Democrat senators, have asked the speaker of the House to say, let us move this money along quickly, but they really want a lot of
federal money involved here, and then there is the state money. It is a 90/10 match.
And so, they are really trying to get the flow of money here, but that is primarily for the rebuilding of the bridge, and really the step one of all
of this is just getting the Dali moved out of the way and then they can continue the work.
But they really don't even know here, the Army Corps and other entities like the Coast Guard and the state don't know the full totality of what is
submerged here and they have only able to do sort of a partial search of the area using side sonar, but it is not fully clear just yet.
We know that the search has stopped, now, it is just salvage. And so they want to be able to get in there, move the things that they can without
creating more danger and more disaster, and then, clearing the port and then getting to rebuild the bridge.
QUEST: Well, lots to get through. Thank you. Pete Muntean, I'm grateful.
Russian President Vladimir Putin says he doesn't have any plans to attack NATO countries. He called the speculation that Moscow could attack Eastern
Europe is complete nonsense. He was speaking to military pilots about his ongoing war in Ukraine.
The Kremlin releasing the comments well, short -- a few hours ago.
The House Speaker spoke to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy about cutting off Russian sources of funding for the war. Ukraine has been stepping up its
attacks on Russian oil refinery.
Clare Sebastian is with me.
The US don't really want them to be attacking Russian oil refineries.
CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes.
QUEST: I am not sure why. I am sure you're going to tell me, but it is a very, very dicey situation.
SEBASTIAN: It is really, I think a new phase in this war, Richard, because we've seen sporadic attacks. There was a tanker last summer, a few oil
facilities attacked in these Ukrainian drone strikes, but it has really become a trend since about the middle of January, and the latest one was
this past weekend.
I think, look, clearly it is affecting inside Russia. Clearly, it is now affecting global oil markets as well. So, the key questions are, why are
they doing this now when it has been very clear since the beginning of this war that oil and gas are the key sources of funding for this war, that they
are using their refined products, literally to go into their tanks and logistical vehicles and things like that.
And the second question, of course, is how they're doing it. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SEBASTIAN (voice over): Flying straight for Russia's biggest moneymaker. This precise hit, one of more than a dozen Ukrainian drone strikes reported
on Russian oil refineries since the start of the year.
VASYL MALIUK, HEAD OF SECURITY SERVICES OF UKRAINE (through translator): We have already reduced both production and processing by 12 percent, so we
continue to work while the gas station country continues to burn.
SEBASTIAN (voice over): Attacks like this, which CNN has geolocated to the high capacity Ryazan Oil Refinery, many experts say do more harm than
sanctions to Russian energy.
HELIMA CROFT, HEAD OF GLOBAL COMMODITY STRATEGY, RBC CAPITAL MARKETS: From the beginning of the war, we made -- the US made the decision to try to
keep Russian oil on the market because no one would support Ukraine in a winter of discontent.
SEBASTIAN (on camera): And now, the weapons have stopped coming.
CROFT: Right. That is the question. Has the bargain broken down? Because aid for Ukraine is being held up in the United States Congress, and then
does this mean that Ukraine has a limited window to try to change dynamics on the ground?
SEBASTIAN (voice over): Russia has admitted oil refining output is down and it has temporarily banned gasoline exports to preserve supplies.
[16:20:02]
Meanwhile, global oil prices have risen around 12 percent since the start of the year. A US official telling CNN these attacks are now being
discouraged.
CROFT: Yes, but why is it an election year, there might be more willingness to endure this? Like that's why Washington is Ukraine right now.
SEBASTIAN (voice over): Two years ago, Ukraine would not have had the technology to do this. Some of the refineries hit are over a thousand
kilometers from its territory, a big leap in terms of range. This puts around three-quarters because of Russian refinery output in Ukraine's reach
according to RBC Capital Markets.
As to their ability to avoid this fate being downed by Russian jammers, a source close to Ukraine's drone program telling CNN artificial intelligence
is now in use in some of the refinery attacks.
NOAH SYLVIA, RESEARCH ANALYST, ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE: They have this type of thing called machine vision, which is a form of AI to our
understanding. All you have to do is you take a model and you have it on a chip and you train this model over time to be able to identify images,
geography, and the target.
SEBASTIAN (voice over): It also allows for a high degree of precision. Look at this strike, geo-located again, to the Ryazan Oil Refinery, the second
hit on one specific tower.
SYLVIA: From what we've seen, some of it is, they are striking targets that need a lot of western technology, and Russia has a much more difficult time
procuring this technology.
SEBASTIAN (voice over): And yet experts say Ukraine, it is still exercising some restraint. These blue dots are Russia's key western oil export
terminals, around two-thirds of its oil and oil product exports pass through these ports according to RBC.
CROFT: If we simply had one major export facility hit, I think the impact on markets would be substantial.
SEBASTIAN (voice over): For Ukraine, the risk here is not just US disapproval, but Russian revenge amid signs Ukraine's own energy sector is
once again in its sights.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SEBASTIAN (on camera): So we don't know, Richard, exactly how far they are going to go with this. As I said, the latest strike was this past weekend,
which came after the news came out that the US had reportedly been warning them of this.
They did endure last Friday some of the worst attacks, crippling attacks on their energy grid that we've seen in months. They are still cleaning up the
damage, but it is interesting that Ukraine is talking about this public view, that phone call that happened between President Zelenskyy and US
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who of course holds the key to the future of US funding for Ukraine, saying they discussed the importance of cutting off
Russia's sources of funding for its war as soon as possible.
A very clear hint, I think that this is sending a message not only to Russia, but for the US as well.
QUEST: Thank you.
The chief executive of Eurostar says the real companies investing heavily to ease the pains of post-Brexit bureaucracy and get travelers moving
again.
Of course, Eurostar now includes the former Tales in Belgium. It is a much bigger operation, and whether from Belgium or Germany, or indeed, the UK,
millions of tourists are heading for the Paris Olympics this summer.
Eurostar CEO, Gwendoline Cazenave told me, Eurostar will be ready.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
GWENDOLINE CAZENAVE, CEO, EUROSTAR: Our major talent is to minimize this cross-border issues for our customers, so we are working hard with police
and border offices so that they put enough border policemen, you know, to check the passports, so it is about human resources and it is about
automization.
We have invested a lot in automatic doors to check biometric passports so that you know, our throughput is really improving and the queue are not so
long and so on.
QUEST: But would you agree that the current status is not satisfactory? There are still too many lines, too much bureaucracy.
CAZENAVE: We are dealing with these. You know, Eurostar as a European company, as I said, we are the link between the UK, Continental Europe, and
we deal with these. What we do as a company is to minimize the pain points for our customers. We put a lot of money on these and that's what we do.
That's our job. I mean. That's our role.
CAZENAVE: Hello.
QUEST: Thank you. Right. After you, please?
CAZENAVE: Thank you.
QUEST: Right.
CAZENAVE: So welcome on board.
QUEST: This is very nice.
CAZENAVE: It is.
QUEST: The Brits like to think of Eurostar as sort of British. It is all very British. It takes them to the continent and that.
How do you keep that feeling that it is a British company?
CAZENAVE: That is an interesting question. You know, Eurostar is now a very European company and I mean, geographical European company, cultural
European company.
[16:125:12]
The nationality of the company is Belgian. Our shareholders are French, Belgian, Canadian, and British.
QUEST: You know what I am asking here. You know, in the post-Brexit world --
CAZENAVE: Yes.
QUEST: Does this company become more Continental European? Or does it still have a very solid anchoring in the UK?
CAZENAVE: I would say it this way. We are a European company, we are the link between Europeans. It is about geography, it is about the link between
countries. It is about the link between London, Paris, Brussels, Cologne, and Amsterdam. It is about, you know, this backbone.
It is really about -- there is no, the UK on one side, the continent on the other. It is really about the way European cross borders.
QUEST: Let's do the Olympics. Are you ready for it?
I was in Paris last week and I was with the CEO of the Olympics who says, yes, we are ready. There is going to be problem with this, that, and the
other.
Are you ready?
CAZENAVE: Eurostar is one of the only company being part of four teams. We are the official traveling company of Team B -- Team Belgium, Team
Netherlands, and Team Germany.
All the athletes, 1,500 athletes are going to go to Paris with us in our trains, and on the way back, I bet there will be special trains for them.
Trains will be heavier because we will have medals -- gold, silver, and bronze, so that's what we do.
QUEST: I have no doubt that you can get the trains carrying the athletes and please, their medals to run easily.
CAZENAVE: We will.
QUEST: What about the millions of visitors, tourists, people going to work?
CAZENAVE: We are --
QUEST: Are you ready?
CAZENAVE: We are expecting two million travelers this summer for Olympics. So it is a huge amount of customers. Like athletes, we are getting
prepared. We are getting prepared with all our staff. We are getting prepared with our train sets.
So everything will be ready.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: More of my conversation with Eurostar CEO tomorrow. We will talk about plans to expand the network and I will sample the cuisine properly.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Oh, very tasty.
CAZENAVE: It is designed by a French chef.
QUEST: Which is why I decided to go for the richest, most calorie intensive, heavier sauce.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: It was excellent.
In a moment, the former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton join the current president at a star-studded fundraiser in New York. A front row
seat, half a million dollars. Now, that's a bit more expensive than the Eurostar.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:31:49]
QUEST: Hello, I'm Richard Quest for more QUEST MEANS BUSINESS.
President Biden is raising expected huge amount of money tonight. We'll take a look at where the donors are putting their dollars. A new research
says the global economic order could be turned on its head by a potential demographic crisis. I apologize. We'll get to it all after these headlines
because this is CNN, and on this network the news is first.
A judge will decide whether to dismiss the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump. The former U.S. president's lead attorney argued
that remarks Trump made about the 2020 election constitute free speech and the case should be thrown out. We don't have any idea really on when the
judge will rule.
A bus crash in South Africa has reportedly killed 45 people who are heading to an eastern conference. According to state media, the bus lost control
along a mountain road and fell off a cliff. An 8-year-old girl has survived the crash and has been airlifted to a hospital. South Africa's transport
minister says the victims will be repatriated to neighboring Botswana.
The Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman has died at the age of 90. His work revolutionized the field of behavioral economics. He argued
people are driven more by instinct than reason. His book "Thinking Fast and Slow" came out in 2011. It was an instant best seller.
President Biden will raise millions, tens of millions of dollars arguably, with a fundraiser in New York. The campaigns says the event has raised $25
million so far. 5,000 people expected to attend and the cheapest ticket is $225. The most expensive, half a million. Celebrity performances and the
discussion with former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Joe Biden and Barack Obama arrived in New York together earlier. They had already
campaigned together last weekend.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: He made it a priority to strengthen and build on the ACA. And because he has more Americans are covered than
under any other president, including when I was in office. Now we have a chance to do even more but that only happens if we send Joe and Kamala back
to the White House in November.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: And who gets to go back to the White House in November may well depend on the wealthy donors who are already lining up behind Joe Biden and
Donald Trump. Think of it as a field, if you will. On the Republican side, so you have the billionaire and former Trump cabinet member Wilbur Ross,
who was in commerce. Hedge fund manager Robert Mercer and the casino mogul Steve Wynn. That's on that side of the field.
[16:35:00]
For the Democrats, there you have the director Steven Spielberg, the billionaire George Soros, and the video game maker, Mark Pincus. The famous
names who have not yet committed or won't commit, Bill Ackman is debt- backed in Democratic challenger Dean Phillips before Joe Biden clinched the nomination. Citadel is the market-maker, Ken Griffin, was backing Nikki
Haley and Elon Musk, who probably has the deepest pocket of them all, says, some days ago, he's not giving money to anyone.
But there is no doubt -- we're doing the color of green, the color of the dollar bill. There is no doubt that it really is going to be about the
dollars who gets them. And Harry Enten is with me in New York.
Harry, one of the core questions here, how significant are the big donors, or if you like, Trump, for example, who managed to do rather well with lots
of small donors from ordinary Americans.
HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, first off, I want to point out that if you were doing that magic wall on this side of the Atlantic,
you of course would be doing a grid iron football field instead of that soccer field which I just tremendously disagree with, Richard. But in
answer to your question, look, even Trump in the month of January, the majority of his donors were not in fact small donors. They were big donors.
And this is something that I think he's probably going to have to rely on going forward because those small donors that Trump has had have been
drying up. He's been getting less and less bang for his buck. You've seen that in fact with these court appearances, which in the beginning of the
cycle are really a big bang for Trump's fundraising capabilities, that money has been drying up, and that's part of the reason why, in fact, next
month Trump is going to try and fund raise in front of big donors and he claims that he may be able to raise $33 million from those big dollars
instead of that just $25 million that Biden has had. So big donors will in fact be playing a major part in both of these campaigns going forward.
QUEST: I shall ignore your ignorance of soccer when it's actually football.
ENTEN: No, no. No, no.
QUEST: We could just stop there. And, OK, who's got most at the moment? And is this going to turn on who raises the most amount of money or, I mean --
and the reason it's so significant, of course, is because of Trump's debts, the cases against him, the PACs and their ability to raise. So the
significance of the ability to spend on advertising becomes all the more important.
ENTEN: It does. You know, right now, Joe Biden's campaign is vastly outraised Donald Trump's campaign by tens of millions of dollars, and more
than that the Democratic National Committee has outraised the Republican National Committee and the cash on hand by again tens of millions of
dollars. So the Democrats have the money on their side. All right? But right now the polls are actually favoring Donald Trump. So Joe Biden has to
use that cash advantage going forward, spending that money in those swing states, spending on that advertising, trying to get those sliver, that
small sliver, those independents in the middle, who don't like either candidate and are probably going to make up their minds at the very end of
the campaign.
That's what Joe Biden is hoping to use that money for. And you mentioned, of course, Trump in the courtroom, he has of course a PAC that's been
spending money for his legal fees and that PAC is getting less and less money. That cash on hand is less and less and less. So for Trump going
forward raising that money is going to be very significant, not just for the television, but for the courtroom as well, where of course he's going
to be spending a lot of time going forward, most likely.
QUEST: Excellent. Thank you. Now one final point. One day, I will explain cricket to you and you can attempt to explain baseball.
ENTEN: It's opening day here. Any day you want to go to a Yankee game, Richard, you will be my guest. We'll have a fun time.
QUEST: Have you got tickets?
ENTEN: I will find tickets. I have good connections, Richard. Don't doubt me.
QUEST: Never. You got a bell for that. Thank you. Good to see you, Mr. Enten. Thank you very much.
ENTEN: See you later, buddy.
QUEST: The Colombian government expelled all, all Argentine diplomats from their embassy in Bogota. Now that follows Argentina's president the
previous day Javier Milei, who sat down with CNN, one of my colleagues in CNN, and called his Colombian counterparts a terrorist.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAVIER MILEI, ARGENTINE PRESIDENT (through translator): The slaughter that is Venezuela is truly unprecedented. The same with the jail that is Cuba.
Then there's the other cases that are heading in that direction. Like the case with Colombia with Mr. Petro. Not a lot can be expected from someone
who is a terrorist killer, a communist.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
QUEST: Now Gabriela Frias is with me, from Mexico City.
When he says that the Colombian president is a terrorist and a killer, I mean, he's referring to allegations of many years ago.
GABRIELA FRIAS, CNN ESPANOL ANCHOR: Yes, Richard. He is referring to Petro's militancy in the left-wing guerrillas. This is seen 1970s.
QUEST: Right.
[16:40:06]
FRIAS: It's a very violent and bloody period in Colombian history. And that has always been part of Gustavo Petro's political and public history
because he was a senator and then he was the mayor of Bogota, Colombia, the capital of Colombia, and everybody criticized exactly that same past.
What's happening here, Richard, this is Argentina, so we're talking about 200 years of a bilateral relationship between these two countries that's
being put to the test with the words of these presidents. As you said, President Milei sat down with our CNN's Andres Oppenheimer to talk about
many topics. The war in Gaza, Milei's recent meeting with Donald Trump at a CPAC event last February, and then his reaction to these criticisms that he
has received from the presidents of Mexico and Colombia, Richard.
QUEST: So is there an event coming up, a summit, an America summit or whatever summit? Is there an event when they may all have to be in the room
at the same time and look each other in the face?
FRIAS: We need to look for confirmation on these events because this is a very polarized continent. These are very ideologically opposite sides types
of leaders. This is only one -- this is the latest chapter of a series of harsh words from these opposite leaders. Milei is a libertarian who said in
November that to be a socialist is to be garbage. Petro then replied, that's what Hitler said. And when Milei won the election in November,
President Petro said and wrote on social media platform X that it was a sad day for Latin America.
So you could say it was a matter of time to see what's happening unfold. Milei also criticized Mexico's President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
calling him ignorant, and Lopez Obrador replied via X saying, you're right, calling him also a conservative, fascist.
Now, Richard, let me tell you. I've already talked to some business leaders in Colombia who told me it's regrettable that these leaders are trying to
create populism locally, but then internationalized the polarization and maybe then we should not be surprised, although, yes, disappointed at the
level of interaction between our leaders.
QUEST: There's plenty of events. Just looking maybe at the Summit of the Americas. Thank you. Grateful to you. Thank you.
Coming up, "Call to Earth" this week. The guest editor talked to Austin Gallagher who works with sharks and turtles in the Bahamas. Understanding
their ecosystem is what it's all about.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:45:12]
QUEST: Throughout this week, "Call to Earth" is turning the spotlight on the Bahamas and the organization working to advance social research and
conservation. So today join Dr. Austin Gallagher on an expedition working with sharks and sea turtles learning more about their relationships with
seagrass meadows.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ZAIN ASHER, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Following an epic day, getting up close and personal with sharks, the team from Beneath the Waves is trying
to get back out in the field. Today, they're setting out to the Exumas, a chain of 365 largely uninhabited islands.
DR. AUSTIN GALLAGHER, FOUNDER, CEO, BENEATH THE WAVES: We're going to get set up a little bit closer. Like the first one in the Channel Mountain.
ASHER: Here they hope to tag some sharks, an essential part of their mission in helping protect the animal and their habitat.
GALLAGHER: In order to get these sharks close to the boat to get the data we need on their movements, on their habitat use, what their diet is, we
actually need to catch the sharks, so we need to put out these apparatus we've designed. They're called drum lines and actually really good for
shark tagging because it doesn't harm them and they can still be, you know, swimming and breathing.
ASHER: The work-up includes taking measurements, blood and tissue samples, and I.D. tagging the sharks. There are very strict rules on the capture,
sample collection and tagging of animals set forth by numerous institutional animal care and use committees.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is the type were going to be putting into the animal.
ASHER: In addition to following those procedures, Beneath the Waves has also obtained all of the required permits for this expedition.
GALLAGHER: It's a blacknose shark. It's a beautiful shark. Total length is 116. Now we're going to take a little sample here for genetics. We're going
to be able to trace the DNA, the heritage of this animal just from this sample. So now we're putting in an identification spaghetti tag, run it
through the dorsal fin. One, two, three, just like that. Now we're going to take a muscle biopsy. You can see we move really fast.
OK. I'll take a blood sample and then we're going to let it go. One, two, three. It worked. Very quick work-up. Nice little blacknose shark. We want
something bigger so let's go to the next one. That's a big nose.
ASHER: The larger sharks are kept off the side of the boat.
JEFFREY PANKEY, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, BENEATH THE WAVES: Right now I'm putting in all the information so, fin clips, muscle clips, blood, and all
the different pieces that we're getting. We're jotting down the pit tags and the spaghetti tags so that when we look up the data, they'll be able to
retract where we got the information from.
ASHER: On this trip, the team is also hoping to expand their research to a different kind of tropical sea dweller.
GALLAGHER: I really want to embrace a partnership with sea turtles similarly to what we did with tiger sharks. So on this expedition we're
trying to apply tags to sea turtles to see if they can serve as sentinels for seagrass health. On this expedition, we're going to start some of that
work for the first time.
Yes. Turtle.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
PANKEY: Turtle.
GALLAGHER: Oh, my God, it's a big one, too.
PANKEY: Big one, too.
GALLAGHER: Are you sure that's a turtle, not a ray?
PANKEY: False alarm.
ASHER: As is often the case when attempting to work with wildlife, they don't always cooperate.
GALLAGHER Obviously, it's a little bit of an exercise in patience. This is completely new ground for us. So of course you can't expect to hit a home
run first time every time. Just not reality.
ASHER: Part of the team did eventually track down some turtles. Following established protocols, they were able to attach satellite trackers on their
shelves and I.D. tags on their flippers.
GALLAGHER: And that will then help us with target specificity for our seagrass work, for the coring. Now let's go to the places that the turtles
are deeming are most important. How does that compare to the tiger shark? So it's really about examining these relationships as holistically as
possible. And that turtle link between the tiger shark and the seagrass meadow is really where we want to go in the future.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
QUEST: I could watch those turtles and sharks all day.
Watch the special half hour program "Call to Earth: Expedition Bahamas." It's this Saturday and Sunday, on the weekends, on CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[16:52:09]
QUEST: New research projects that low fertility rates will upset the global economic order over the next century. The study was conducted by the
University of Washington. The projection is that the population of nearly every country on the planet is expected to be in decline by 2100. It's the
cost of raising children, gender equality could all play massive roles and Sub-Saharan Africa is expected to account for one in every two children
born and then (INAUDIBLE) by the next century.
Christopher Murray is the director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Devaluation. He's with me now from Seattle.
This is a fascinating, looking to the future, and to a large extent nobody doubts that you're correct. We will not be replicating the population to
keep up. But what's the implication of that?
DR. CHRISTOPHER MURRAY, CHAIR, HEALTH METRICS SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: Well, it's not just that populations decline, it's that as
fertility gets to be at such a low level where women are having on average, let's say, 1.4 children in their lifespan. It means that there's always
more people in the older age group ahead of you and behind you. So you get this complete inversion of population age structure. And that's a real
challenge for paying taxes, running government permits, security, lots of challenges.
QUEST: And even today, you know, we've got a case where China has a greater population decline issue or at least not growth that make keep up with, and
a failure on an immigration issue, say for example, in the United States, which is still drawing in populations for immigration.
MURRAY: No, China has already hit peak and is going down and we expect its working age population be dropped almost 70 percent over this century. So
the speed with which this (INAUDIBLE) starts to impact the workforce, impact economies is really quite astonishing.
QUEST: Dr. Murray, how do you get policymakers who will turn to you and say, yes, it's all very important, I agree with you completely. Now, what
would you like me to do about it?
MURRAY: Well, those countries like, you know, Singapore, Korea, Japan, that are already living and breathing many decades of very low fertility are
really struggling to think about what they can do. They know they have a problem. And then as other countries start to come to grips with this
problem, it's really a down -- comes down to sort of two things you can try to do. You make it easier for women to pursue their careers and have
children.
You know, subsidized childcare, subsidize education, you know, maternal, paternal leaves, things like that.
[16:55:05]
That have had a small effect in Europe, or, at least for a while, you bring in migrants to help bolster your workforce. And that's about it. That's
about the only options I'll offer.
QUEST: Yes. The migrants is a zero-sum game there, isn't it? Because bringing the migrants to the U.S. and all that happens is you deplete the
population in the home country.
MURRAY: Well, that's a real issue. And so that's why I think the only part of the world, at least towards the latter, you know, two-third, two-
quarters of countries that will have, you know, quite substantial population growth is much of Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly West Africa,
and so those will probably be the source of a lot of the migrants in the future, given exactly what you just said.
QUEST: Fascinating. Thank you, sir. I'm grateful for your time. I appreciate it. Thank you.
MURRAY: Sure. Thank you very much.
QUEST: So the S&P 500 reached a new record high to finish its best Q1 since 2019. Wall Street is close for Good Friday so this is where we are. We did
not make 40,000. I'd tell you, the Nasdaq fell into the red.
This is an interesting graph today. Don't often -- it's not often -- can we see the Dow 30? I don't know if we can. If you look at the Dow 30, you'll
see 3M is on the top. Don't often see that. When Verizon is on the top, you know something weird is going on. Disney, while that's largely from what
results we've seen. Chevron, Intel, Goldman Sachs. There's no thematics across those three.
Look at the other end, and again a weirder one. Apple, Walmart, not quite as synergy there, tells me that the market is struggling, it's struggling
to find a reason. And I'm going to talk about that in our "Profitable Moment" next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
QUEST: Tonight's "Profitable Moment." So the Dow is teetering on 40,000. And you might ask yourself, why is it having such difficulty? Well, there's
a phenomenon when we get to these psychologically important barriers. I can't prove it. I can't give you the stats necessarily after that code, but
the reality is over three decades of covering markets I've seen it again and again. When you get to these important barrier numbers up or down then
the market has this psychological inability to break through without a hoonth (PH) in some shape or form.
Now that hoonth (PH) can come in all sorts of ways. It might be economic news, a particular announcement from a tech company. There's a reason why
all of a sudden it will go through that barrier, and you can feel it testing it and testing it and testing it. Are we ready to go? The chartist,
I've never been a chartist, by the way, but the chartist will have a field day with 40,000. They will be analyzing every intricacy, a bit and bobs of
it, to try and make sense of it.
Yes, we will go through 40,000 before the end of the year. That's about the only thing that I'd say to you tonight that you can take to the bank,
crypto or otherwise.
And that's QUEST MEANS BUSINESS for tonight. I'm Richard Quest in London. Whatever you're up to in the hours ahead, I know it's going to be
profitable. Markets are closed tomorrow.
END
