60 Minutes - 3/1/2020: Mike Bloomberg, The Trial of a Navy Seal, Array of Hope

Episode Date: March 2, 2020

In an interview with Scott Pelley, Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg says his fellow candidates do not have his level of experience. For the first time, Eddie Gallagher, the Navy Seal, tells his story to David Martin, about the wounded ISIS prisoner he was acquitted of stabbing to death. After Ragged Island in the southern Bahamas was devastated by Category 5 Hurricane Irma, Prime Minister Hubert Minnis says the country can be an example as it embraces solar power. Bill Whitaker has the story. Those stories on this week's "60 Minutes." To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Suddenly, crisis management is an urgent issue in the presidential campaign. I have been training for this job for close to 20 years. There is nobody else running that has any management experience whatsoever in any of these things. This week, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg will appear on primary ballots for the first time. You told everybody who would listen that you're not running for president. I did. What changed? I started watching and listening to the candidates,

and they had ideas that made no sense to me whatsoever. Donald Trump's going to eat them for lunch. People either love you as an American hero... Or despise me. ...as a war criminal. Yes. Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher has never publicly answered questions about whether he killed this injured ISIS prisoner.

Until tonight. That's pretty incriminating. Yeah, it is. Exactly six months ago this evening, Hurricane Dorian slammed into the northern Bahamas. It was the fifth Category 5 Atlantic hurricane in the last three years. What can the chain of islands that sit in the heart of Hurricane Alley do to protect themselves? We found a ray of hope, specifically a solar array, designed to survive future destructive hurricanes spawned by the warming ocean waters.

I'm Leslie Stahl. I'm Bill Whitaker. I'm Anderson Cooper. I'm Nora O'Donnell. I'm Scott Pelley. Those stories tonight on 60 Minutes. There are very few things that you can be certain of in life. But you can always be sure the sun will rise each morning.

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calculating the chances of a recession. Into this, a new name will appear on primary ballots for the first time. Michael Bloomberg, the 78-year-old billionaire and former mayor of New York City, skipped the early contests, but he's already spent almost $500 million, much of it aimed at this week's Super Tuesday. We spoke to Mike Bloomberg yesterday and earlier in the week about how he would lead, his reputation with women and minorities, and the virus crisis. How do you view this emergency? I find it incomprehensible that the president would do something as inane as calling it a hoax, which he did last night in South Carolina. He said that the Democrats making so much of it is a Democratic hoax, not that the virus was a hoax.

This is up to the scientists and the doctors as to whether there is a problem. And it is just ignorant and irresponsible to not stand up and be the leader and say, we don't know, but we have to prepare for the fact that if it is, we have the medicines and the structure and the knowledge to deal with it. The president's proposed budget would have cut 16% from the budget of the Centers for Disease Control and about 8% from the National Institutes of Health. I should say that the Congress didn't allow that to happen, so the cuts didn't happen.

But what do you make of the effort to cut those budgets? We have to spend money to make us safe and protect this country. It's like saying I'm not going to fund the military. I'm not going to fund the local fire department. We're not going to have fires. I don't believe fires are hoaxes. This is about the level that he's talking. Spending money is what the Trump administration has in mind now. It's asking for nearly two billion dollars for a virus response led by the vice president. Despite that, markets plummeted about 10% last week. What about Wall Street? Wall Street does not do well with uncertainty. And it's the worst thing is nobody knows how bad this is going to

get. I can just tell you in my company, we're splitting in all our big offices into two different buildings. Even if it's just a temporary thing, if the flu does strike and strikes our employees, it won't strike all of them because we have to continue to provide a service. Friday evening, the president announced his selection for director of national intelligence. His principal qualification for that job appears to be fierce loyalty to the president. That's all of the president's appointees have that one characteristic. And I'm curious, how would you fill the top jobs in the government? Plain and simple.

You get some experts, you put them in a room and say, OK, now who should we go hire to do this job? Who's the best person in the world? We'll start there. Asking what party they're a member of, how they voted the last time. It is so nonsensical. If you are sick, do you really want to go to a doctor who was politically correct or somebody that knew how to treat your disease? I'll rest my case. Nice to see you. Thank you. correct or somebody that knew how to treat your disease. I'll rest my case. Bloomberg is pressing his case after a late start and poor showing in his first debate last month. This past Wednesday, after a better second debate, he slept three hours before heading to his Times Square headquarters to phone voters. Hi, Mike Lumberg, how are you? He's opened more than 200 offices

with 2,400 staff. That same morning, he met us for a flight to his boyhood home. You told everybody who would listen that you're not running for president. I did. What changed? I started watching and listening to the candidates, and they had ideas that made no sense to me whatsoever. Donald Trump's going to eat them for lunch. That evening, he would head to South Carolina and Texas. The next president of the United States, Mike Bloomberg, for 2020. Bloomberg comes to politics like the electrical engineer he is, pragmatic, not charismatic. I have been training for this job for close to 20 years.

There is nobody else running that has any management experience whatsoever in any of these things. But you have to have somebody that's been there, done that, and will do it right, and will guide us through the tough times, particularly day one. What does the data today tell you about the voter that leads you to believe that you can win? Few years ago, there was a revolution against the intelligentsia. People said, you know, those people, particularly on the coasts, are trying to tell us what to do. They wanted a change. That explains Donald Trump. Now people seem to have changed this cycle. People want stability.

His political career began in 2001. He won the mayor's office three times, as a Republican, then as an independent. His strategy was the one he is using right now. He massively outspent his opponents in self-funded campaigns. In 12 years, Bloomberg helped rebuild Ground Zero, helped the city survive the Great Recession. He banned smoking in restaurants, improved schools, and balanced the budget. But there was controversy. Bloomberg expanded a police tactic called stop and frisk. More than 80% of those stopped were minorities.

Less than 1% were carrying guns. You defended stop and frisk right up to the point that you announced you were going to run for president. What have you learned? We should have, in retrospect, been more careful and keep the numbers from growing, and we did not. And for that, I'm very sorry. It was a mistake, the way that it rolled out. There's no argument about it was a mistake. I erred. It was a mistake. I haven't walked away from my responsibility for it.

Bloomberg is divorced with two daughters and two grandchildren. He still owns his boyhood home in Medford, Massachusetts. Your parents bought this house through an intermediary because the owner wouldn't sell to a Jew. Correct. 1946, and the guy who sold it to us said his sister would never forgive him. Do you think America is ready for a Jewish president? Nobody's, virtually nobody's mentioned it, and I think in this day and age, yes. We've moved on. It's a better world than it was back then. Mike Bloomberg is the ninth richest person in the world, worth about $60 billion. His success began in 1981. Before PCs or the Internet evolved, Bloomberg created a data and communications

network for Wall Street. Today, the Bloomberg Terminal is the central nervous system of world finance. But he told us if he wins the presidency, he'll sell the company. What does a multi-billionaire know about people who are living paycheck to paycheck and hoping that the car doesn't break down? When I lived in this house, my father made $6,000, the best year of his life. My parents took a mortgage out on the house. I think it was $11,000, if I remember, to help my sister and I go through school. I worked as hard as anybody. Not better. I wasn't any better or worse.

I was luckier, I think, than other people. He has 20,000 employees, but in early years, some found the office harsh. Allegations by women have challenged his political campaigns. In 1990, as a tongue-in-cheek gift, your employees immortalized some of your sayings in a booklet called The Wit and Wisdom of Michael Bloomberg. I don't think I ever saw the book, but I do remember it. One of them has you describing your Bloomberg terminal, and the quote in the book is, quoting you, it will do everything including give you a euphemism for oral sex. I guess that puts a lot of you girls out of business.

Well, I didn't write the book, so... Did you say these things? I don't remember saying them. I can tell you that years ago on the trading room floors, things were different. I apologize for that. I'm sorry if somebody was hurt. You don't remember. If I annoyed somebody or hurt somebody, I apologize. I can't go rewrite history.

I can only tell you now it's a different world. It's a different world, but the question is, is it a different man? Oh, I think for sure you evolve with time. We're all a product of the world we live in. Shame on you if you don't learn and try to be better. Bloomberg was named in lawsuits three times in the 1990s by female employees offended by his alleged comments. One suit was settled, two were dismissed. How can you be the standard bearer for a party that claims the high ground on the rights of women and minorities? Because I brought down the murder rate. I cut the gap between rich and poor education. I created 500,000 jobs, 175,000 units of affordable housing.

We did all the things to reduce poverty that anybody could possibly do. And when I left, I think it's fair to say most people, women, minorities, they would say it was the best 12 years the city has had in modern memory. Since leaving City Hall, Bloomberg has been giving away his fortune. He has donated billions to reduce gun violence, smoking, and greenhouse gases. He spent more than $100 million helping Democrats in 2018 when they retook the House. You got my vote. when they retook the House. He's telling voters he would expand Obamacare while keeping employer-provided insurance and provide eventual citizenship to the 11 million residents who immigrated illegally. He's for control of the borders, but doesn't think a wall will do it.

Who's going to get a tax increase in your administration and who's going to get a tax cut? We're going to have to raise taxes on me and people like me. He means a 5% surtax on household incomes over $5 million and a rollback of President Trump's 2017 cuts for the wealthy. You have already spent twice as much on this campaign as President Trump has raised. How much are you willing to spend? Well, I'm making an investment in this country. My investment is I'm going to remove President Trump from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue or at least try as hard as I can. So it's a blank check? You'd spend a billion dollars?

Well, I don't know if it's a blank check, but when they come to me and they want to spend more, I've so far said yes. Like if we have a link that's already been posted before. He said yes to starting a new company to analyze voter data for targeting ads and social media. This was President Trump's big advantage in 2016, and Bloomberg is spending heavily to catch up. If you're not the nominee, will you support the nominee of the party? It's an easy commitment for me to make because the alternative is Donald Trump. So yes, I would support the nominee. If you don't finish in the top three on Super Tuesday, is that it for you?

No, of course not. You'll keep going? Yeah, sure. There's an election seven or so days later. There's another one 14 days later. There's a number of elections after that. Despite Joe Biden's win yesterday in South Carolina, Billionaires think they can buy elections.

Bloomberg believes Bernie Sanders is the candidate to beat. He's counting on voters to move toward a centrist who believes government should be effective and dull. Not a blood sport for TV. The middle of the road doesn't want extremism. They want evolution rather than revolution. And if Bernie Sanders is the candidate, Donald Trump will win. Donald Trump not only will win, but the House will go back to being in Republican hands. The Senate will stay in Republican hands. Downstream, a lot of the state houses will flip back Republican. And when that happens, you're going to have gerrymandering at the local level and judicial appointments at the federal level that will last for decades.

And so what's really at stake here is the future of this country for a very long time. And that's why I'm running. chopper and delivered to your door. A well-marbled ribeye you ordered without even leaving the kiddie pool. Whatever groceries your summer calls for, Instacart has you covered. Download the Instacart app and enjoy $0 delivery fees on your first three orders. Service fees, exclusions, and terms apply. Instacart, groceries that over-deliver. Sometimes historic events suck, but what shouldn't suck is learning about history. I do that through storytelling. History That Doesn't Suck is a chart-topping history-telling podcast

chronicling the epic story of America, decade by decade. Right now, I'm digging into the history of incredible infrastructure projects of the 1930s, including the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and more. The promise is in the title, History That Doesn't Suck. Available on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Now, David Martin, on assignment for 60 minutes. The trial of Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher was a riveting courtroom drama in which a decorated warfighter with four combat tours faced life in prison

for crimes prosecutors said he committed on the battlefield. When President Trump used his powers as commander-in-chief to intervene, it mushroomed into a full-blown political controversy. Gallagher was acquitted of the murder charge last July, but he never took the stand and has never publicly answered questions about what happened on the day he was accused of stabbing a wounded ISIS prisoner to death, until tonight. We warn you, it's a story of combat at its ugliest and military justice at its worst. People either love you as an American hero or despise me as a war criminal.

Yes. Navy SEAL Edward Gallagher was charged with the premeditated murder of an ISIS prisoner in Iraq. Did you stab that fighter? No, I did not. The ISIS fighter had been wounded in an American airstrike during the battle for Mosul in 2017. Iraqi soldiers brought him to a compound they shared with the Navy SEALs. A half hour later, he was dead, and Gallagher posed for this photo holding his knife.

That's a trophy photo if I ever saw one. Yeah. Yeah, that's what it was taken as. And you were trying to make it look like he killed him. I was trying to make it look tough, yeah. You know how bad that looks. Yeah, I know how bad it looks when it gets out into the public, which it never was supposed to. It looked even worse when he sent it to a buddy with this text. Good story behind this. Got him with my hunting knife.

That's pretty incriminating. Yeah, it is. It was like a joke text, dark humor. It's not often you see a photo of the accused murderer holding the alleged weapon at the throat of his victim. That is true, yeah. But they ran a test on the knife, the sheath, no blood anywhere on it. And if you look at the picture close, there's no blood on the knife. There's no blood anywhere on me.

When he was brought in, the fighter was barely conscious, probably suffering from internal injuries caused by the blast which struck the building he was in. Do you feel sorry for this kid? No. That's war. He was out there trying to kill us. Gallagher was a trained medic. And if you listen closely, you can hear him say, I got him. What did you mean, I got him, I got him? I got him. I'm going to treat him. He grabbed his medical bag and started working on the prisoner, none too gently. You know, he's a nicest fighter. I don't want his hands anywhere near me.

So I pushed him back down forcefully. So what kind of procedures did you perform on him? He wasn't breathing properly, so I performed an invasive procedure, which is a crike. A crike, and that's basically sticking a breathing tube in his throat? Correct. There's no video of that because the SEAL recording the scene turned off his helmet camera. But you can clearly see the breathing tube in this photo taken after the prisoner died, along with several other medical devices implanted by other SEALs.

Over the next few hours, the team mistreated the body, buzzing it with a drone, posing for their own trophy photos, then for a group shot with Gallagher front and center. But you knew this was wrong. It's wrong. I'll say it's wrong now. I've definitely learned my lesson. Yeah, it's distasteful. Well, it's more than just bad taste. It's against the law of war.

It's illegal. I'm pretty sure I'm the first person ever to go to a general court-martial for it, for taking a picture. It's been done on previous deployments. On a 2010 deployment to Afghanistan, Gallagher was investigated for killing a little girl when he shot a Taliban commander who was holding her. According to his command to Afghanistan, Gallagher was investigated for killing a little girl when he shot a Taliban commander who was holding her. According to his commanding officer, Gallagher was absolved of any wrongdoing.

Seven years later in Iraq, some members of his platoon claimed he was taking potshots at civilians. They may look like a band of brothers, but some of them hated Gallagher. Craig Miller told investigators he was freaking evil. Gallagher's men complained he was needlessly exposing them to enemy fire. Were you a hard ass? I definitely didn't take any, like, guff or anything. If they had complained or were saying, you know, I was working them too hard, you know, I didn't really take any pity. Did you call them cowards? I did. I told them they were acting like a bunch of cowards. You know, not saying it directly to my face,

to me, that's cowardice. Nobody likes to be called a coward. No. And I bet you that's doubly true for a Navy SEAL. Oh, for sure. And that's what really, I think, sparked them. Eleven months after this picture was taken, Corey Scott told the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, NCIS, he saw Gallagher stab that ISIS prisoner. Charged with war crimes that could send him away for life without parole, Gallagher hired Naval Academy graduate-turned-sm smash-mouth lawyer Tim Parlatori. If you want to put my client in jail for the rest of his life, you're going to need to come through me. By the time Parlatori signed on, Gallagher was already in the brig,

and the full weight of the federal government had descended on his family. NCIS agents executed what they call a standard search warrant at his home when only his two sons, ages 8 and 18, were there. They dragged the kids out of the house at gunpoint in their underwear. Didn't give them the opportunity to get dressed. Searched the house. Did they have a valid search warrant? They did.

But the way that they did it was excessive. This was a murder case. Yeah. That the suspect was already in custody. It's pure intimidation. Did it work? No. It just made Eddie mad. And more importantly, it made Andrea Gallagher mad. They came out with assault rifles, fully kitted up like they're going to war, to, I guess, assault a house with two kids in it.

Gallagher's wife, Andrea, was out at meetings promoting her website, The Better Business Babe. I took my background in marketing and business and branding, and I pretty much made a brand out of him. The brand was hashtag Free Eddie, and the campaign to get him out of the brig included petitions signed by members of Congress and appearances on President Trump's favorite network, Fox News. And it worked. After Gallagher had spent six months behind bars, the commander in chief tweeted, Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher will soon be moved to less restrictive confinement while he awaits his day in court. And that's when we felt like we had finally broken the barrier. The president had finally intervened. There were reports the president would intervene again and pardon Gallagher before he ever went to trial. We didn't want to be pardoned. I wanted to go to trial.

You wanted to go to trial for life without parole? Yeah. That's a big risk. It is, but... No matter how convinced you are of your innocence? If I had been pardoned, I would have had that presumption of guilt the rest of my life. And Eddie never, not once, said, I'm going to fold. Never. Mark Mukasey, an attorney for the Trump Organization, joined the Gallagher defense team two months before the trial began. I sent an email to the prosecution team and said, my name's Mark Mukasey, and I look forward to working with you guys. That went to the lead prosecutor, Navy Commander Chris Chaplack. I got an email back saying, we look forward to working with you too.

Turns out that that email that they sent back to me had a beacon on it, a tracking device on it. For what purpose? Obviously, they were looking to see who we were communicating with. In my view, it is unforgivable. Chaplak was removed from the case and, along with two other lawyers, remains under investigation for his professional conduct. But the charges and all the evidence against Gallagher remained. And this is why we have trials.

The trial transcript runs thousands of pages, but it all came down to one word spoken by Navy SEAL Corey Scott, the prosecution's star witness, who testified he saw Gallagher stab the ISIS fighter and was there when the prisoner died. He used an interesting word. He said, I continued to monitor him until the terrorist asphyxiated. And it went right over the prosecutor's head. The word asphyxiated means what? It means deprived of oxygen. The prosecutor wanted to hear, stopped breathing.

You heard, asphyxiated. Oh, yes. Paula Toy rose to cross-examine Scott, who was testifying under a grant of immunity. You said asphyxiated. As a combat medic, you know that word means deprived of oxygen. He said yes. Why'd you use that word? Because that's how he died.

And then the question is, who deprived him of oxygen? Correct. I said, you didn't say Eddie Gallagher suffocated him, did you? No. Did you? Yes. Protected by his immunity, Corey Scott had just confessed to the murder. I just can't believe that this just happened. And so as soon as I composed myself, I look back up at him and say, how? Here is courtroom

audio of Scott's response. After Chief Gallagher left the scene, I was left there monitoring him. I thought he would die. He was continuing to breathe normally as he had been before. So I held my thumb over his ET tube until he stopped breathing. Did he say why he put his thumb over the breathing tube? Yes, he did. He did it because he knew that the Iraqis were going to torture, rape, and kill this terrorist. And he just didn't want to hear the screams anymore. The jury deliberated for eight hours before reaching a verdict. It was definitely the scariest moment of my life. I could feel my heart just like leaping out of my chest over and over and over.

When Gallagher and his defense team burst out of the courtroom, the verdict was written all over their faces. Not guilty of murder. President Trump tweeted, Congratulations to Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher. Glad I could help. The case was closed, but the fight was not over. Gallagher had been convicted of posing for the photo and demoted

until the president ordered his rank restored. Next, the Navy moved to strip him of his trident pin, the symbol of his elite status as a SEAL. President Trump said, no way. Well, they wanted to take his pin away, and I said, no, you're not going to take it away. He was a great fighter. He was one of the ultimate fighters. Tough guy. Gallagher kept his pin, but the Secretary of the Navy, Richard Spencer, lost his job. Abruptly fired from going behind the Secretary of Defense's back in an effort to stop the president from intervening.

Now retired and living in Florida, the 40-year-old Gallagher still looks fit. But his years as a SEAL have taken their toll. Two bulging discs and 18 documented concussions. The glory wall in his garage gym tells the story of his career, including that last ill-fated deployment to Iraq. There's the motto of the platoon he led, kill them all. Kind of has a different meaning after what you were accused of. Yeah. There's one thing not on the wall.

Did you get the knife back? I did. Why don't you put it up here? It's actually right there. Is it really? Yeah. This one here? Yep.

No blood was ever found on the knife, although it has become tarnished over time, much like the reputations of so many involved in this case. In addition to the three lawyers under investigation for their conduct, seven NCIS agents have either left, been reprimanded, or demoted for their handling of the Gallagher case. Exactly six months ago this evening, Hurricane Dorian slammed into the northern Bahamas. It was the fifth Category 5 Atlantic hurricane in just the last three years. Before that, there hadn't been a single Cat 5 storm in nearly a decade.

There's a growing consensus among scientists that climate change is what's making hurricanes stronger and more destructive. That's very bad news for the Bahamas, a string of more than 700 low-lying islands stretching from Florida nearly down to Cuba, in the heart of what's come to be known as Hurricane Alley. But the Bahamas has found a ray of hope, specifically a solar array, that can help its island survive future hurricanes. And in the process, it may have important lessons the rest of the world should learn as Mother Nature continues to brew devastating storms like Dorian. With sustained winds of 185 miles per hour, gusts above 200, and a storm surge well over 20 feet in some spots,

please pray for us. Hurricane Dorian wreaked unimaginable havoc on the Bahamian Islands known as the Abacus. There's not enough words in the dictionary to describe what Hopetown looked like after that storm. Hopetown has been Vernon Malone's home for all of his 82 years. His family has lived here since 1785. He's the town baker and grocer, and he and his wife rode out the storm in his store. It survived, but their home just up the street did not. The entrance went right in there. Vernon's son, Brian, had a home just around the corner. Had a home.

That pile of rubble we see there. That's actually two and a half houses. Mine's on the bottom. Hopetown is a Bahamian landmark. Its candy-striped lighthouse dates to 1863 and is pictured on the country's $10 bill. The lighthouse stood up to Dorian, but as we saw coming into the harbor, not much else did.

I hear generators everywhere. Is this how you guys are getting through? Yep. Brian Malone and Matt Winslow, an American who owns a vacation home on the island, told us why all those generators are still running. The substation in Marsh Harbor, which feeds us the power, is destroyed. And then, of course, you can see all the utility poles are pretty much destroyed. So this isn't a case where you come in and replace some poles and you flick a switch. This is months and months and months of work.

Hopetown is on one of several small islands ravaged by Dorian, which then moved across seven miles of open water to Marsh Harbor, the largest town in the Abacos. At least 60 people died in Marsh Harbor, and destruction is still everywhere. Total damage and loss from Dorian is estimated at $3.4 billion. When you see the extent of the destruction, where do you even begin? How do you even begin? That's always the question. Where do we begin? Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Minnis and Vianna Gardner, a top aide, visited Marsh Harbor with us and pointed to one huge priority, restoring electric power. How do you bring this back? The power, we had to make determination to set up microgrids.

The microgrids Prime Minister Minnis is talking about are small-scale systems. More and more, they're solar arrays with battery storage for when the sun's not shining. They can either feed electricity into the larger grid or operate independently to power a single facility or a neighborhood. The way electricity has been produced in the Bahamas is with diesel-fueled generating stations on each inhabited island, about 30 in all, feeding power to everyone through overhead lines. The main power plant for this island is literally 25 miles south of here.

That's 25 miles of line that has to be rebuilt. Chris Burgess and Justin Locke run the Islands Energy Program for an American nonprofit called the Rocky Mountain Institute. They have solar projects throughout Hurricane Alley. After Category 5 Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017, they put microgrids on the roofs of 10 schools. Maria also brushed St. Vincent. This is its first microgrid. Now the island's energy program has come to Marsh Harbor. So how big will this solar array be? 15 acres, right through here.

That microgrid will satisfy 10 percent of Marsh Harbor's total power needs and will be built right between its government center and hospital. Both were without power for weeks after Dorian. This is high ground, which makes it less vulnerable to storm surge or other types of disaster events. So if a storm like Dorian hits again, the power to these two critical facilities stays on. Correct. The push to build storm-proof solar microgrids in the Bahamas began in 2017

after Hurricane Irma, another Category 5 storm, tore through tiny Ragged Island at the southern tip of the island chain. After Ragged Island was devastated, I made a statement. Let us show the world what can be done. We may be small, but we can set let us show the world what can be done. We may be small, but we can set an example to the world. So it's your goal to make Ragged Island a green island? Absolutely. Absolutely. After which, we can expand it. We can expand it.

To see the Prime Minister's green experiment, we flew to Ragged Island with Whitney Hastie, CEO of government-owned utility Bahamas Power and Light. Engineer Burlington Strawn met us there and took us to what he calls the very first hurricane-proof solar microgrid being installed in the Bahamas. Unlike other solar designs, it's very low to the ground. So this installation is rated to withstand 180 mile an hour winds. Which is an even harder punch than Irma landed back in 2017. There was significant devastation on this island. As you can see, some of the poles snapped right at the very base of the pole.

Snapped right at the base. Is that what happened all over the island? That happened throughout the island. This microgrid will produce enough electricity for Ragged Island's roughly 100 residents. The prime minister calls it a laboratory for the solar future. The past is a diesel generator needing boats to deliver fuel from hundreds of miles away. A system Whitney Hasty says is a nightmare. In summer, we're almost on the verge of running out of fuel in some of these islands

because bad weather sometimes prohibits the ships from actually getting to some of these locations. The Bahamian government spends nearly $400 million a year on imported fuel to keep its power plants running and passes that cost along to its citizens. They pay three to four times what we pay on the mainland U.S. for electricity here. Right, and that isn't price gouging. I mean, that's just inherent cost. Everything costs more in the islands. The bill to install this new solar microgrid is $3 million. Hasty insists it's money well spent.

So you have this initial big outlay to build these panels, but over time, the cost of generating power actually goes down. Absolutely, absolutely, by using what God has blessed us with, which is the natural sun. the cost of generating power actually goes down. Absolutely. Absolutely. By using what God has blessed us with, which is the natural sun. It's not a perfect solution on Ragged Island. Notably, the power from these panels will still feed into the vulnerable overhead power lines. The money's not there yet to bury them. One of the first things that I think everyone can agree on is everything has to go underground. Back in Hopetown, Matt Winslow says they have the funds to bury their lines.

Americans with second homes here add a lot to the economy. Winslow's family foundation has donated nearly a million dollars to rebuilding efforts. They already have a makeshift microgrid powering the fire station and health clinic. And Winslow has hired engineers to help plan a much bigger one on a nearby island. It's possible that over in Great Abaco we could put a solar array, 18 acres, and that power is piped through, preferably a new undersea cable to the island.

And that could be a main source of our power. That would be enough to power this island? Absolutely. The Bahamas' goal is to produce 30 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2030. Justin Locke and Chris Burgess of the island's energy program believe the country can do even better. The price of renewables have come down to the point where they're now very, very competitive with diesel,

and in most cases, way cheaper than diesel. The key game changer has been battery storage. Battery storage has decreased in cost over 60% over the last five years. And what battery storage does is it enables the sun to shine when the sun is not shining. Renewables make more sense here than anywhere else in the world. And microgrids in the Caribbean are starting to show their value. When earthquakes struck Puerto Rico in January, the entire island's big electrical grid was shut down for days. But remember those solar microgrids installed at

schools? They kept providing power. The lessons can really apply anywhere. California has the same system architectures here in the Caribbean, right? Fossil fuel, long transmission distribution lines, right? And you see that PG&E had to proactively shut off power to millions of people in order to prevent fire. If there had been these microgrids, might it have been that PG&E would not have had to cut off power to millions of consumers? Correct. Here in the Bahamas, there are still huge economic obstacles. Losses from Dorian equal nearly 30 percent of the country's entire annual GDP. You've got this incredible outlay to rebuild these islands that were devastated by Dorian.

Can you afford to bring on a new form of electrical generation? We cannot afford it. We recognize from day one that we cannot do it alone. Just weeks after Dorian hit, Prime Minister Minnis spoke at the United Nations. He emphasized that most of the Bahamas was not damaged and eager for tourists, the lifeblood of the economy. Then he said that first world countries and their pollution are at least partly to blame for the threat of ever stronger hurricanes. It is a threat which we cannot survive on our own. First world nations, and this is what I said at the UN, I said first world nations make the greatest contribution to climate change.

They are the ones responsible for the changes that we see, the increase in velocity and ferocity of the hurricanes and the changes, typhoons that we see today. But we're the innocent victim. We're the ones that are being impacted by what you have created. Minas and leaders of other island nations have proposed that the U.S. and European countries contribute to an insurance fund. Think of it as a really rainy day fund to help rebuild from future storms. That's what you say and what you said at the U.N. the First World Nations should do. Absolutely.

Are they doing it? It's an ongoing discussion. It's an ongoing discussion. Does this make the change to renewable energy that much more important, imperative, urgent for you here in the Bahamas? It is. Because even though our contribution to climate change is minimal, it's minuscule to compare with First World Nation, but we still have a responsibility. I'm Bill Whitaker. We'll be back next week with another edition of 60 Minutes.