tv CNN Newsroom CNN November 10, 2024 8:00pm-9:00pm PST
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hello, thank you so much for joining me. i'm jim sciutto live in washington where it's 11:00 p.m. on the east coast. 8:00 out west. right now, the eyes of the political world are focused squarely on florida and donald trump's mar-a-lago estate. that's where the president-elect is seeing a stream of visitors now, including many seeking jobs in his new administration as well as those looking to influence his choices for those top spots. trump is expected to announce several key positions in the coming days as he prepares for inauguration. a source tells cnn trump has offered new york congresswoman and campaign surrogate elise the ambassador to the united nations. it's also possible
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todd homan could serve in a czar-like role to carry out the largest mass deportation in u.s. history. this week trump will travel to the white house for an oval office meeting with outgoing president joe biden. here's the details. >> reporter: this is a big moment for the incoming and outgoing president when the two men are set to meet here at the white house on wednesday. and this is a tradition at that notably was not afforded to president biden when he beat donald trump in 2020 as trump then really was challenging the election results. so the white house going into this meeting being very clear and explicit that biden is going to emphasize the smooth transition of power, emphasize that the transition will be peaceful, and also talk about the importance of working to bring the country together after the election season. here's national security advisor jake
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sullivan. >> president biden made it clear that we would spend all times resources provided to us by congress on time and in full. and of course president biden will have the opportunity over the next 70 days to make the case to the congress and to the incoming administration that the united states should not walk away from ukraine. that walking away from ukraine means more instability in europe. >> reporter: and that is certainly notable there that president biden plans to really push incoming president trump on some of his top domestic and foreign policy issues. many issues where the two men certainly have diverging viewpoints. the white house saying this is something biden will make the case about the future of ukraine, especially making sure that ukraine continues to receive aid from the u.s. certainly president biden's legacy is at stake here as he focuses both domestically and on the world stage in the last 70 days he
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has in office. cnn at the white house. >> a great deal at stake for ukraine as well while donald trump works on building his next administration. career, government, and military employees are bracing for how his presidency will impact them. officials at the pentagon are said to be gaming out various scenarios, quite serious ones, as they prepare for the return of a familiar, yet quite controversial commander in chief. >> reporter: pentagon officials have begun to have informal and preliminary discussions about just how the department would respond if president trump issued an unlawful order to the military or if president trump deployed active duty u.s. troops to american cities for domestic law enforcement purposes as well as to help with his mass deportation plan that he's promised to enact when he is in power. now, top of minds for defense officials here is of course just how the future president plans to
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deploy the u.s. military domestically, something that's highly controversial here within the pentagon. and, you know, trump has hinted many times, and he's outright said at times, that he does intend or he would support the use of the u.s. military to conduct domestic law enforcement here in the united states. so the u.s. military officials that we have been speaking the say that they are gaming out scenarios under which that would occur and how they would respond. for example, what that change of command would look like, and how they would push back or accommodate other requests made by trump deemed more controversial. another aspect of this, of course, is schedule f. which is an executive order that trump issued in his first term that essentially would reclassify a huge swath of apolitical government employees to make them more easily fireable. that's something the pentagon is also bracing for and has been scrambling to try and address before president trump takes office on january
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20th so. the bottom line here is given the very hostile relationship the pentagon had with donald trump during the first trump administration and the fact that so many of trump's former senior military officials have spoken out against him in the recent weeks, months, and years, some going as far as calling him a fascist, some at the senior level are preparing and bracing for a similar relationship with the incoming administration. joining me is retired air force colonel cedric clay clayton. you have the folks surrounding the president-elect in his first administration, esper, pence, milly, none of which supported him in this election, and some had quite critical comments about how he
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plans to exercise power. i want to drill down on one of the scenarios the pentagon is preparing for, and that's that trump issues potentially an unlawful order such as using troops against u.s. citizens. first of all, how seriously do you take that possibility? >> oh, jim, i take it very seriously. it's an area where there's two different sets of laws, at least two different sets of laws you can look at. one is an act done in the 1870s that basically prohibits the use of the military in a law enforcement capacity. now, there's an exception to that. there's actually several exceptions, but the one most commonly cited would be the insurrection act which would allow the president to use the military in a, in an emergency, say a riot situation or something like that. i think the last time it was used was the los angeles riots in 1992
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when they deployed active duty troops in the area. turned out the local law enforcement and california national guard had to actually take care of that situation at that particular moment in time. but this is a very serious issue, and it should not be taken lightly because the way the military is set up here in the united states, it's a professional military designed to deal with outward facing threats, not inwardly perceived threats. and that's a major difference between us and many other nations. >> trump is currently building an administration that his team says is quite, you know, intently focused on loyally. and not just at the cabinet level, but right down to the civil service. he talked quite publicly about changing the bipartisan or the nonpartisan civil service that's been the tradition of this country for many decades and longer. let me ask you this. inside the
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pentagon, what is to stop the president-elect from appointing folks to senior positions who would not, um, disobey an unlawful order and would just do, well, the president's bidding? >> well, it's certainly a big risk. and of course when you look at loyalty as being one of the criteria, that's one thing in a private business. but in this particular case, the thing about loyalty is that it is also, should also be the kind of loyalty that speaks truth to power. and if that is not the kind of loyalty that they're seeking, if it's blind obedience they're seeking, there's a considerable danger in that because then you get into scenarios where there's no adult in the room, and everybody just does what one individual, in this case a future president, is actually saying and is actually ordering. so if that happens, what that does is it deprofessionallizes not only the civil service, but also the military forces. and when those
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forces are deprofessionallized, then it becomes a real problem because those forces are considered the instruments of that individual and not supporting the constitution, which in fact they're sworn to uphold, and that's the danger in that. >> you, you of course served in the military and speak to a lot of folks who did and who currently serve in the military, would you describe this concern about a president trump overstepping the the bounds of the law and norms as serious or do they view it as an out lier? >> most of them view it as serious because, you know, once you get into a senior position whether it's in the civil service or in the armed forces, you understand some of the ramifications. you're made to understand some of the ramifications of various scenarios. and scenarios such as the ones being discussed in the pentagon are ones that are
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kind of the nightmare piece where you have somebody who is potentially doing something that is just in their own personal interest and not in the interest of the nation and not with the laws of the nation. if that's the case, then there are some significant issues that basically could lead to a constitutional crisis, and that's the kind of thing that a lot of people in the military strive very hard to avoid. i think the same is true for the civil service. certainly for the civil servants i know, it's extremely true. >> do you see president-elect trump as president as employing the military in some capacity along the border? to carry out his border policy, but also potentially deportation? mass deportation plans? >> well, it's certainly possible, but there are a lot of law enforcement agencies, in particular border patrol and i.c.e. that would be better equipped to handle that kind of thing. the u.s. military has
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had a role on the border for several decades. they've provided intelligence about border crossings and transnational threats along the border. there's an intelligence center in el paso that's manned in part by the military and does help with those kinds of things. and that's the role that the military, you know, likes to have in a situation like this. one of support and not basically be the mission lead in a case like that. so when you're looking at law enforcement type actions, with the exception of the national guard, which is a big exception to all of this, the basic rule should be that the military stays out of it because it's not the kind of threat that the military is designed to deal with. the military is designed to deal with a major war contingency or counterinurgency. none of those situations exist at the border. >> well, we'll see if that's a norm that survives or does not survive. cedric, thank you
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election was the economy. by several major metrics, the u.s. economy is strong, but poll after poll shows americans have a largely negative view of the state of the economy. it's not surprising, for example, home prices have reached new record highs for 15 straight months. and although inflation has come back down to earth, prices on goods are roughly 20% higher now than they were when joe biden took office. those price rises make a difference over time. ultimately a significant amount of voters blame biden and vice president harris for not doing enough to change all that. joining us now out of new york is a cnn global economic analyst, columnist, and associate editor at the financial times. good to have you on, ronna. set the election aside, it's happened, the results are in, trump is the president-elect. trump's policies, though, tax cuts, stopping tax on tips, for instance, et cetera, those are
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by all accounts inflationary ones. so first of all, do you share that view. second of all, i mean, how does this then play out? if he follows through on the policies, are buyers going to see prices going up again? >> well, jim, one of the things you have to start from is the fact we actually have a strong economy. that's one of the great ironies. there is an inflation issue. as you pointed out, it's been cumulative over time. it hurt working people in important ways. and it's very rare for an incumbent to be able to, um, come back after a big inflation hike during their tenure. and if you think about the biden-harris administration as one, that's the case. now, how did trump's policies look going forward? yes, they are inflationary. what's interesting is that it's possible you could see now this good economy that we have start to overheat because of some of the things that trump wants to put into place. let's assume
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he were to put his tariff proposal into place. that's immediately inflationary, hits consumers right in the pocketbook and makes goods more expensive. unlike if biden administration, the trump administration doesn't really have an industry strategy to bolster american exports, which would be the whole paint of having a tariff. to try and make american goods for competitive. but there's not that kind of growth plan. on the other hand, there is a plan to use debt and deficit spending to bolster kind of what i could call a saccharin growth, a sugar high. the markets like that, they like the idea of tax cuts. but again, that just kind of creates a stock bubble, an asset bubble. to be honest, that's one of the things i think is really in play with working people in this country being so angry. if you make your money from the stock market, you're doing great. if you make it from a paycheck, you're not. and so, um, this,
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this terrible irony for me is that swing state voters that thought trump was going to make inflation better, their lot my really end up being worse in the next year or two. >> yeah, listen, pumping sugar into a stock market that's already at a record high? does seem risky by historical standards. i wonder, do you see potentially a repeat just in different form of the mistake, one could argue, the biden administration made at the beginning of its term which is adding too much stimulus money -- >> oh, no, no. >> at this point, the stimulus would be a very different form. >> very different form because stimulus is all about the productivity it increases. i would argue that the biden administration's plans were working. we had the best recovery in the post-covid era in the world in rich countries. i mean, it was working. i mean, it wasn't working perfectly for every, but there was a lot
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of facts to back that up. if you pump money into the stock market, that's not building a new bridge or creating new chip factories in america. that's not helping us make the clean energy transition. that's making the top 10% of the population that owns 85% of the stock richer. it's also creating a lot of froth in the market at a time that we are due for a big correction. if you look historically, we're six years overtime for a recession if you discount that covid, you know, blip that we saw. so if you pump more money into the market at this time without actually doing anything in the real world on the ground, you know, really fixing main street, boy, you could be in for a real, real trouble. a market collapse and recession at the same time. >> anyone i talk to in the markets, economists, et cetera say the number one issue for this country is skyrocketing
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national debt. historical highs, 130% i believe of gdp. and any reasonable discussion of that would involve both raising revenue and cutting spending. of course, the trump approach seems to be to decrease revenue via tax cuts. is there any, i mean how concerned are you about the bill coming due in effect on the u.s. national debt? >> oh, very concerned. very concerned. and, you know, i mean, i have been sounding this alarm for some time. it's particularly dangerous if you think about what's happening in the rest of the world right now. china has just launched its own fiscal stimulus program designed to pull capital back into china and out of dollars. you have the europeans who are completely freaked out about trump being elected. they're going to start bolstering their own industrial strategies. i expect that their, i guess one silver lining if there is one of trump's election is that the europeans may finally say we have to pull together here because the americans are not
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going to necessarily save us. they're not going to support ukraine, they're not going to, you know, continue to support our defense spending. so the rest of the world would be moving on at a time when the u.s. needed dollar assets and needed that sense of like the the dollar is the global reserve. that's not a good time to be running high debt and deficit because then you start to look like an emerging market that can't pay its bills. >> ronna, thank you so much. >> thank you. well, speaking of europe, at least 10,000 north korean forces, troops are now in russia. we saw them deployed in western russia ready to engage and fight against ukrainian forces there. we'll have that story right after the break.
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you're watching cnn newsroom. i'm jim sciutto. in washington it's been yet ordinary deadly weekend in lebanon and gaza. israeli strikes have claimed at least 80 lives in lebanon. this is video from central lebanon, north of beirut. outside of hezbollah's usual strongholds in the south and east. on saturday alone, israel struck more than a dozen separate locations in lebanon. israel
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also continues to strike gaza. the idf hit two homes there killing at least 41 people. this is video of the aftermath of a strike in central gaza. ngo says parent, children, and grandchildren were among the killed. the idf says they were targeting terrorists, but as so often happens civilians killed as they do so. the israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu is eager to see donald trump, a close ally back in the white house. he and the president-elect have already been speaking about what lies ahead for the u.s. and israel. >> reporter: well, the israeli prime minister say he and president-elect trump have spoken three times in recent days. a sign of just how closely the two figures are now collaborating. netanyahu described the collaborations as very good and important and
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aimed at strengthening the alliance between israel and the united states. he said he and trump see eye to eye on the iranian threat and the danger it poses. netanyahu was one of the first world leaders to congratulate trump on his victory, calling it the world's greatest comeback. many israelis expect the trump administration to offer full throated support amid the confrontation with iran and its allies in the region. matthew chance, cnn, jerusalem. and the ukrainian president zelenskyy says russia launched a record number of 145 drones on saturday night in the port city of odessa. those strikes hit residential buildings and shops as well. as so often happens, civilians are the targets of russian bombardments. zelenskyy says in
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the last week russia has launched more than 800 drones and guided missiles. ukraine launched its largest drone attack on moscow overnight. all 34 of the drone were shot down. shrapnel is blamed for the damage seen there. the attack also disrupted flights from two moscow region airports on sunday. a massive number of russian troops are preparing to launch an assault on ukrainian forces in the coming days in an attempt to push the forces along the border with ukraine according to a u.s. official who says joining those russian forces will be many thousands of north korean trumps. will ripley is following that story from taipei. this is quite a moment. we already have the largest war since world war ii prompted by the full scale
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invasion in 2022, and now we have north korea in europe as well. i wonder what the reaction is in asia to see north korea, a nuclear power, already considered a threat by so many of its neighbors, principally south korea, to see them deploys forces for a war in europe. >> reporter: well, kim jong un has not only been deploying thousands of russia where they'll be gaining real time combat experience, hypothetically, also intelligence about how the north korean weapons that have been supplied to russia are operating on the battlefield. so they're gaining all this tactical experience making their army, in the long run, more experienced, and perhaps a greater threat on the korean peninsula where tensions have ratcheted up to their highest level since the first trump administration that ended somewhat dramatically in hanoi
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with a huge loss of face from if kim jong un when president trump and his team decided there was nothing to be said. heads rolled after that happened, and kim regrouped and has now made a pivot to vladimir putin where they've had high profile meetings between kim and putin and thousands of north korean troops, around 10,000 estimated right now. there could be additional troops deployed to assist russia with the war in ukraine. even though president trump has claimed that kim jong un misses him, they have had a personal relationship and exchange of letters, but that relationship, towards the end of it, kim jong un's letters expressed some real frustration with president trump at that time. now the question is going to be will president trump try to reengage with the north koreans, would kim jong un even be willing to do that, and how
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much leverage does the united states have over denuclearization that now seems almost completely off the table. even a freeze deal might be difficult to orchestrate at this point. >> yeah, listen, north korea's nuclear arsenal grew during trump's presidency, it's grown during biden's presidency, and now you have this growing alliance among china, russia, north korea, and iran. it's a different world, is it not, in a second trump term than it was in his first term? particularly in asia? >> it's a very different world. particularly here in asia, which, you know, let's not have this fact lost on any of the viewers, this is a heavily nuclear armed region as well. so all this uncertainty, potential volatility, it does have a lot of nerves rattled. you also have south korea, one of the world's largest weapons suppliers in and of itself along with, of course, the united states. south korea talking about sending its own weapons over to ukraine and assisting in the fight there.
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so you could have a dynamic with north korean troops, south korean weapons, and north korean weapons, and the united states and president trump who, you know, has been known to make decisions on the fly, to say things without necessarily giving too much thought as to the implications of the words. you know, words are very important and cautiously spoken out here, but that's not going to be the case, as we know, in this second trump term. so there is, you know, look, what could happen next jim is really anyone's guess, but people are buckling up for what's likely to be a bumpy four years ahead. >> will ripley in taipei, thank you so much. in the coming hours the climate summit will get underway. when we come back, i get an expert's opinion on what a trump presidency means for the u.s. and global fight against climate change. trump himself has questioned whether
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and you'll remember he withdrew the u.s. from the 2015 paris climate accord. president biden reentered that agreement. trump has vowed, though, to withdraw the u.s. once again. >> trump winning the election is a huge setback to not only climate talks but global cooperation in general. we know he's likely to reverse all clean energy policies and incentives in the u.s. we know he'll go for fossil fuel extraction much more which will be devastating for the planet, and he's not going to provide any climate finance that's so vital for developing countries to transition from fossil fuels. >> 2024 will almost certainly end as the hottest year on record. some climate experts say without cooperation from the u.s., of course, the world's biggest polluter, pushing for more investment in climate action will be difficult to negotiate. lee stokes is joining us now, host
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of a matter of degrees podcast and professor. good to have you on. >> thanks so much for having me on. >> tough time to have a summit given trump, i mean, he denies the science behind climate change despite the facts and has vowed to pull the u.s. once again from the paris climate accord. this was meant to be a deadline for nations to provide updated plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. what does that mean for the summit? >> yeah, you know, this isn't the world's best news going into the summit. the fact that we have a president-elect in the united states on the record as recently as a few months ago saying climate change is a scam in the wake of hurricanes. and, you know, he previously when he was president did remove the the united states from the paris climate agreement, and i have no doubt he'll do that again. so this is not exactly great news for the global leaders around the world and
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also the activists, front line activists trying to make progress on the climate crisis given that, as you said, this is the warmest year on record. >> not great news. i like the way you manage the understatement there perhaps for diplomatic effect. we already know that the court, that the world is already on course not to meet that, that one and a half degree goal to keep the earth heating by one and and a half degrees by the end of the century. currently it's on the path for a 2.6 to 3.1 degree rise by 20100. so is the world just going to throw up its hands in effect? >> look, we'll see what future president trump is able to do in the time that he has. you know, right now he's likely to have the the united states senate, and we don't yet know the house, but it's likely to be republican controlled by just a few votes. and the fact
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is these landmark policies the biden-harris administration passed, many of which were done in a bipartisan way with votes from republicans like the bipartisan infrastructure law, those laws are sending billions of dollars into republican districts. so for example, you know, 75 to 80% of the funding for things like electric vehicle plants and battery manufacturing and solar manufacturing is going to red, republican districts. so are those republicans in the house who may have, let's say a five-seat majority, are they actually going to be able to get everybody to vote to punish their own constituents? and i think they'll have a really hard time repealing a lot of the climate progress that's been made over the last four years. >> so let me ask you a business question, both big and small picture. start with big picture. there's a lot of business behind this. folks are making a lot of money on solar
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panels and electric vehicles. the markets are growing. renewable energy is growing as a source of electricity. even a place like texas, deep red texas, i think about a third of its power comes from renewable sources. that's because the economics work more today than they did in the past. is the economic momentum strong enough to overcome the political pushback from someone like a president-elect trump? >> well, we have to break down the policies in the kind of different categories. i think when it comes to subsidizing the oil and gas industry, we should expect trump will be full steam ahead. so he's said, for example, he wants to be a dictator on day one to drill, drill, drill. his words, not mine. so we should expect him to do that. i also think when it comes the regulations, you know rules about how much pollution can be put into the atmosphere from power plants, he's going to work to roll those things back. the thing is that environmental groups have a very good track record of
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taking him to court. and even under these, you know, federal judge and the supreme court that have moved so far radically to the right due to trump appointments, they're still losing those cases. the trump administration under the first administration lost 90% of cases almost. then there's the third bucket that's really funding for companies like you're talking about. you know, incentives to build manufacturing in the united states. and that's the thing that i think the trump administration is really going to struggle to do. just think about the fact you have elon musk, a person who's made billions of dollars in the electric future. do you really think that he, in trump's ear, is going to up -- support repealing all these investments? >> the question is does elon musk seek benefits for electric vehicles in general or just tesla electric vehicles. >> yes. well, there's so many different investments right?
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that's just one. maybe he repeals that because he doesn't want other cars to get subsidies. what a world we live in discussing elon musk's personal opinions on public policy. >> lee stokes, thank you so much for joining us. little bit of fun now. rome's famous trevi fountain is getting a makeover, and tourists can get a bird's eye view of the restoration from a walkway over it. coming up, what visitors are saying about that.
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another story we've been following this sunday evening, nearly half of the 43 monkeys, you heard that right, that escaped from a south carolina research facility have been successfully return unharmed. police say 18 monkeys remain on loose with a sizable group seen jumping back and forth over the facility's fence. local residents are being asked to keep their doors and windows closed to prevent the monkeys from entering their homes. if you're planning a trip to rome soon, one tourist site will look a lot different. the famous trevi fountain is under restoration. while workers clean the masterpiece, tourists
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request get a bird's eye view from a metal walkway installed over the fountain. here's more from rome. >> reporter: the trevi fountain is normally gurgling with water into which millions of tourists throw coins in each year. but thanks to a massive renovation project that includes cleaning and scrubbing off calcium and dirt, the iconic fountain is dry. where the water should be is this metal walkway that will offer the tourists a rare opportunity to take an intimate look at the 18th century masterpiece. the walkway will also allow the city to study a proposed ticket system by tracking the ebbs and flows of the tourists throughout the day. >> by improving the experience of visitors to make unique experience to admire the fountain and avoid overcrowding, that's where there's a limit to the number of people that can stay on the walkway. but also there will be a cap on the people that could
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at the same time be inside the fountain to admire it in order to avoid the fact that overcrowding make the experience worse. >> reporter: rome sees some 35 million visitors a year, and around 4 million are believed to visit this site. the the city believes by eventually charging a small entrance fee, they can better control overtourism and protect the ancient stone. >> it's one of the things i couldn't wait to see, and i'm kind of disappointed, but i still get to see the beauty of it. so yes, i would pay. >> reporter: the fountain's last cleaning and repair began in 2014 and took more than a year. but increasingly hot temperatures and a steady growth in tourism traffic have also led to the erosion of some of the basin. the trevi project is one of many conservation and renovation projects scheduled to finish in time for the vatican's holy jubilee year of 2025 which will draw more
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visitors than usual. and for those that have come during the roman construction season, all is not lost. they can still throw a coin into the smaller basin for luck. and they get the opportunity of a lifetime to see this fountain up close. cnn, rome. >> a lot of great movies shot there. thanks for watching cnn newsroom, i'm jim sciutto in washington. i'll be back with more right after this.
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