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New Day Sunday

Carolinas Face Days of Devastating Flooding; Mangkhut Slamming Southern China and Hong Kong; WSJ: Trump to Impose Tariffs on $200B in Chinese Goods; Millions of Carolina Residents Without Flood Insurance; Man Dies after Shark Bite in Cape Cod Waters; WaPo: Trump Has Made 5,000+ False Claims During His Term. Aired 7-8a ET

Aired September 16, 2018 - 07:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[07:00:01] COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: I think they wanted to make sure the kids knew they were still thinking about them, even at night time. So, you can imagine being there, the chills, I get the chills just thinking about what it, what that must mean to those young kids up there going through some of them.

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Fantastic. Coy, thank you so much.

WIRE: You're welcome.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you.

PAUL: Love that.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The wind has really picked up. The rain has gotten a lot heavier.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The beach is now up on the boardwalk. This is about a foot and a half of sand or so.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Someone yelled, shark! Shark!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is a ton of people screaming, asking for help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A nightmare at Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet, a young man bitten by a shark.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody had him underneath his arms sitting in the sand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A ten-year veteran of border patrol, he was a serial killer who was targeting his victims.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY WEEKEND with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul.

BLACKWELL: If you say, notify your next of kin. That's the message this morning from one mayor in North Carolina. His city and cities across the Carolinas are coping with catastrophic flooding from tropical depression Florence. Overnight, volunteers with the Cajun navy were called in to rescue hundreds of people stranded in neighborhoods.

PAUL: Florence is creeping across the Carolinas at 3 miles per hour. It's already claimed 13 lives. Meanwhile, 800,000 customers do not have power in North and South Carolina this morning.

BLACKWELL: The storm has dropped 40 inches of rain since making landfall on Friday. It could be three to five days before water levels peak posing a danger not just to coastal communities but to people living along the dozens of rivers stretching through both states. This morning, we know at least three of the killed by the storm died in flash flooding.

PAUL: And we know downed trees and power lines are still a big concern.

Kaylee Hartung is in Wilmington, North Carolina, for us right now.

So, Kaylee, what are people saying? I mean, I'm wondering if it is too late for people who stay to try and evacuate at this point.

KAYLEE HARTUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I don't think so, Christi. But something of a crisis situation has developed in Wilmington overnight. We knew when this storm, the eye of the storm barreled through Wilmington, that was just the beginning of the damage it would do taking down trees, power lines and taking the lives of a woman and her son in their home when a tree fell on it. But now we are in the next phase of the storm's damage as the waters are rushing in to neighborhoods that have never flooded before, people uncertain in some places where that water is coming from.

And so, the Cajun Navy was called into action overnight by the local fire department needing their resources to help get hundreds of people from their homes. Hundreds more in need of help over the course of today as this rain continues to fall. I spoke with one family yesterday just north of here in Pinder County, Rocky Point, North Carolina, they were packing up as many of their belongings as they could fit in an enclosed trailer because they recognized that everything they own could be destroyed by this flood. The fear that the Northeast Cape Fear River could rise as high as the second story of their home. The damage that this storm will do, it's told that it will take unknown at this point, but the caution from officials right now in this area is if you feel safe at home, it is OK to stay.

The priority right now is getting first responders where they need to. And if you are in trouble, 911 is a working number. Call that number and they will do their best to get help to you as soon as possible. And the emergency operations command center right now I'm told there are maps all over the table. They are trying to allocate their resources and get help everywhere that it needs to be, Victor and Christi.

BLACKWELL: So, that's a dire situation for so many and days more of it.

Kaylee Hartung, thank you.

PAUL: The United Cajun Navy is this group of volunteers from Louisiana that have worked to the point of exhaustion. They are rescuing people as the tropical depression is continuing on to make its way through the Carolinas. But the president of the Cajun Navy, Todd Terrell, is with us.

Todd, thank you so much for being with us.

What is the situation where you are? What kind of calls are you getting right now?

TODD TERRELL, PRESIDENT, UNITED CAJUN NAVY (via telephone): Right now, the water is coming up very fast and we are actually having to turn around, but we're seeing a lot of places that didn't flood, you know, then when the storm first came in that are flooding now.

PAUL: So, how many rescues do you estimate you have conducted?

TERRELL: We have conducted, I just got (INAUDIBLE) this morning, over 500 as of 5:30 this morning. So we're pretty proud of what we have done. We are not happy that we have to deal with the circumstances, but we're glad that we're able to help.

PAUL: You are such a value to people there, no doubt about it. Are you able, since you're talking about being on a road and having to turn around, once you rescue people, have you encountered any instances where you can't get them to a shelter?

TERRELL: Yes. In fact, we were having to bring most of the people we rescued throughout the night to our staging area. We were staging at a local church, our volunteers. So we have a couple hundred volunteers that were supposed to be housed there, we actually have to put the people that we rescuing in there. So, it became tricky last night. We had dogs and handicapped people, you know, people that needed their medicine all up in the shelter where we were. So, it became really -- it was definitely a crazy night.

PAUL: So, what conversations do you have with these people? When you get to them, as you're taking them away?

TERRELL: The people love us. Unfortunately, we're picking them up because their stuff is lost. But most of the people we're picking up, they have never flooded before. Many people have been in their houses for years and they have never flooded. So they are in shock right now.

PAUL: I mean, with over 500 rescues behind you at this point, how are all of you holding up?

TERRELL: We're tired. This is the third night we worked all through the night. We haven't slept. So, it's been definitely wearing on us. We are going to try to go throughout the day today and try to get back out there again. Right now, we're working on three days of no sleep. PAUL: Yes, Todd, god bless you all. Thank you so much for everything

you're doing. We're wishing you and your crew the very best. You are so, so needed there. And it's really inspiring to see the way that you all are stepping up. Take good care of yourself, OK?

TERRELL: All right, thank you.

PAUL: Absolutely.

BLACKWELL: Fantastic work they do.

PAUL: Yes.

BLACKWELL: That's amazing.

So at the height of the storm, Florence was a category 4 long before it hit the shore. Now it is a tropical depression, so the winds have died down, but still, much more rain is in the forecast.

PAUL: CNN meteorologist Jennifer Gray has her eye on that. How -- so, people are sitting at home, they're looking at this and they're going, how much longer do I have? To that you say --

JENNIFER GRAY, AMS METEOROLOGIST: To that I say, today should really be the last day. We should start to wrap up this rain within the next 24 hours. So, by tomorrow, you should start to dry out and heaven forbid, you may even see a few peeks of sunshine. Let's hope for it. We need to start drying out. But unfortunately, we are still going to see flooding all the way through them that are part of next week.

So, we are going to see those rain bands unfortunately continue to just feed in moisture across all of North Carolina, either northern section of South Carolina, and that's going to continue throughout the entire day today. So, maybe if you're in on a lull, it's not raining now. It could start up right again unfortunately.

So, we're still seeing quite a bit of rain and lightning strikes south of Wilmington, Morehead City still in the rain. And keeping in mind that tornado threat is still alive and well with the storm as well. You get a lot of rotation with these tropical systems.

Here's the forecast radar. By the time we get to midnight, you can see things looking much, much better. We do have a couple storms possible around Charleston, even north of Myrtle Beach, but all in all, by midnight, things do look much, much better. So we are still going to call for a lot of rain, especially as this storm travels to the west. We'll start to see the rain fill in in high amounts around Charlotte.

Keep in mind, once the rain keeps on, we're going to see all of this rain slow down into those rivers that try to go out to the ocean. That's where we're going to see incredibly high flood stages, river stages here. We're going to break records across North Carolina with the rivers, unfortunately.

Let's start with this one, little river in Manchester, the record is 29 feet. It's going to crest at 34. And that is not going to happen until late Monday. Some rivers wait until midweek to crest. This one, Cape Verde River, Fayetteville, it's going to crest at 62 feet. That's almost the record. That doesn't crest until Tuesday.

Right now, it's at 36 feet. It's going to jump up to 64. So it's incredible, Christi and Victor, to think this rain will be over. Yet days later, we're going to see these rivers possibly double in size.

PAUL: No doubt about it. Jennifer Gray, thank you so much.

BLACKWELL: Hey, listen, if you're watching this and you want to help the people impacted by Hurricane Florence, there are ways to donate, give blood, get in touch with charities responding. I spoke with someone from the Red Cross a couple days ago that said there's no call at the moment for blood donations to respond to this emergency, but because of all the shutdowns there, they are losing about 4,200 donations a day from people who could be going during this time across the Carolinas to donate. So you can do that.

There are lots of ways you can help. Go to CNN.com/impact for more ways to help.

This deadly typhoon, have you heard about this one, now headed to mainland China.

PAUL: It's expected to make landfall in southern China late night. There's one city alone where more than 100,000 people left their homes trying to find an area to be safe.

[07:10:005] In Hong Kong, residents stayed inside, but look at some of the pictures of the strong winds and heavy rain. It tore roofs off buildings and snapped trees and downed power lines.

As we understand, the worst apparently passed through. And when that happened, some people were going for walks or swims in the streets, which we know is dangerous because we don't know what's in the water.

BLACKWELL: Yes, don't do this.

Kristie Lu Stout is live for us in Hong Kong.

Kristie, what are condition like now where you are?

KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Victor and Christi, believe it or not, the conditions are much better right now than what we saw earlier today. It is 7:00 p.m., past 7:00 p.m. here in Hong Kong. This major metropolis is home to 7 million people. This place has been effectively shut down because of Typhoon Mangkhut.

Earlier today, we reported on the conditions and feeling it as well, pounding rain, huge gusts of wind, clocking at speeds anywhere between 60 miles an hour to 130 miles per hour. That also introduces a threat of storm surge, peak storm surge today on the iconic Victoria Harbor as well as outlying areas in Hong Kong.

Now, Hong Kong is Chinese territory and no stranger to typhoons. Every season, every summer we get big storms, but this storm Mangkhut is different because this storm was big. At the peak, it was equivalent to a category 5 hurricane. As you have been reporting, it wreaks havoc and left a trail of destruction in Guam, in the Philippines, and sweeping through here in Hong Kong.

The danger is not over yet. Hong Kong, we have been bracing for the impact of this storm. Meteorologists have said that this is the biggest storm to hit Hong Kong since they started to record activity in the 1946. And we know that Mangkhut is also a big rainmaker. At its peak, it has a rain band of about 500 miles wide.

It's going to keep churning out rain. And with more rain, that's going to increase the threat of flash flooding as well as landslides. And we're already hearing about disturbing reports of areas in southern China and in Hong Kong, including one report of a house being swept away. And villages and outlying areas in the southeastern part of Hong Kong with waist-high water.

We're going to be reporting on the aftermath next, but the storm is still at the highest level. The alert is out. We'll keep reporting for you right here on CNN.

Victor and Christi, back to you.

PAUL: Kristie Lu Stout, thank you so much. Take care of yourself there as well, you and the crew.

BLACKWELL: President Trump is planning tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of Chinese goods. We'll tell you how that impact you if you're looking to buy a car, a TV or pretty much anything imported from China.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:16:52] BLACKWELL: A new report from "The Wall Street Journal" says President Trump is planning to hit China with another round of tariffs, this time on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods and he's going to do it before the trade talks start at the end of this month.

PAUL: Yes, and the tariffs could result in higher prices on goods because companies usually pass on the cost to consumers. And look at your calendar, the holidays are just around the corner. So, the impact could be felt by millions of American consumers.

CNN White House reporter Sarah Westwood with us right now.

What else do we know, Sarah, about these tariffs? And good morning.

SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Good morning, Christi.

And we know that these tariffs are to increase pressure on Beijing as the U.S. and China discuss the possibility of renewing those high- level trade negotiations. The tariffs are set to be around 10 percent, although officials have discussed setting those duties as high as 25 percent. And these new tariffs will hit goods like dishwashers, food seasonings, televisions and make those products potentially more expensive for American consumers.

These tariffs are designed to give Trump leverage in his efforts to end the Chinese practice of demanding American companies turn over their intellectual property in order to gain access to China's markets. And it will be on top of the $50 billion worth of Chinese imports that are already subject to tariffs, and that first round of tariffs have hurt key Republican constituencies like farmers and manufacturers.

China has been matching Trump's tariffs dollar for dollar so this new move is only likely to increase economic tensions, Victor and Christi.

BLACKWELL: As President Trump was on the Twitter machine talking about his poll numbers, and why he thinks they are so low. What did he say?

WESTWOOD: That's right, Victor. No surprise here but President Trump is attributing his falling poll numbers to the Russia investigation last night, saying that the Russian probe could be hurting Republicans heading into the midterms writing, while my, our poll numbers are good with the economy being the best ever, if it weren't for the rigged Russian witch hunt, they would be 20 points higher. Highly conflicted Bob Mueller and the 17 angry Democrats are using the phony issue to hurt us in the midterms. No collusion.

Now, this comes on the heels of the guilty plea of President Trump's former campaign manager Paul Manafort. Republicans have been using the spectrum of impeachment to motivate Republicans to get to the polls so Russia has been the key factor in Republican messaging. And this comes as Trump's legal team and his allies have been railing against Mueller to try to get him to end the investigation before the November elections -- Victor.

BLACKWELL: Sarah Westwood for us in Washington -- Sarah, thank you.

PAUL: I want to bring in Daniel Lippman, a reporter and co-author of "Politico's" "Playbook" now.

Daniel, good to have you this morning. I want to circle back to --

DANIEL LIPPMAN, REPORTER & CO-AUTHOR OF PLAYBOOK, POLITICO: Good morning.

PAUL: Good morning -- to China tariffs. And we know the Secretary Treasury Mnuchin is reaching out to leaders in Russia to try to deescalate this whole thing. Where do these new tariffs leave him?

LIPPMAN: It makes it much harder for Mnuchin to do that because I think the Chinese feel like Trump and the American government is going way too hard against them. And that does not breed great trust amongst the trading partners.

[07:20:03] I don't think that Trump understands the critical role that China and free trade plays in making an American economy prosperous. So this also hurts U.S. efforts to get the Chinese government to cooperate on North Korea and preventing nuclear proliferation and enforcing the sanctions.

PAUL: I want to switch real quickly to Brett Kavanaugh, because the Senate Judiciary is expected to vote on this on Thursday, President Trump's nominee, of course, Supreme Court. And there's this new acquisition out from someone who does not want to be named, who went to high school with him and says that in high school, he assaulted her. And Senator Dianne Feinstein had this letter did not give to the Senate Judiciary Committee. There has been no discussion on it.

Do you believe that a discussion can move forward or that the vote can move forward without that conversation being had?

LIPPMAN: I think it all depends on what Senators Murkowski and Collins do. Whether they believe the accusations, you know, whether the woman comes out publicly. If she comes out and she doesn't want to, to defend her -- this allegation and say exactly what happened, then the confirmation may be in doubt. Right now, it seems like it's all steam ahead.

And Republicans are kind of using the same playbook as a couple decades ago with Clarence Thomas and saying, well, these are unverifiable. You know, we don't trust this woman. You know, they have released a letter from Kavanaugh's female classmates attesting to his good character.

And Democrats seem to have bugled this accusation by, you know, injecting it so late in to the game.

PAUL: Is there going to be some political push-back against Feinstein for it?

LIPPMAN: I think she's already seen as the past. And she doesn't have that credibility on the left anymore that she used to. She's been -- she's now part of the establishment. And it doesn't seem like she handled this well, both Republicans and Democrats say this would have been better information to have when she first received this letter and you could have protected the woman's name, but to release it now when it's become an open secret on Capitol Hill, it just feels like, I don't know, why couldn't the American people hear this before the confirmation hearing, so senators could have asked Kavanaugh on the stands?

PAUL: All right. Daniel Lippman, we appreciate it so much. Thanks for being here.

LIPPMAN: Thanks, Christi.

BLACKWELL: Let's bring in Michael Moore, former U.S. attorney for the middle district of Georgia now.

I want to talk about Manafort, welcome to the show.

MICHAEL MOORE, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY, MIDDLE DISTRICT OF GEORGIA: Thanks.

BLACKWELL: All right. So, Manafort, with his new guilty plea and the cooperation agreement, he was there at the Trump Tower meeting in 2016 with the Russians. Old friend and business partner Roger Stone who says that he may be indicted by Mueller soon. He was chair of the campaign when the party changed its stance toward Ukraine at the convention. List off the value, in addition to what I just did, of Manafort in this cooperation agreement.

MOORE: Watching last week was watching an old western movie when there's an attack in the prairie and they say the fork has fallen. Manafort fell last week. That is really what happened.

What you see is we have gotten to a level so close to the president and so close to his administration, at the top of the administration, that you can't overstate that the importance of having this cooperation. You know, there's been a lot of talk about whether Manafort would hold out for a pardon, whether or not he had other information, whether or not he was just kind of getting the cues from the Trump tweets about holding some -- maintaining the level of confidence.

But he decided that he's not going to be the sacrificial lamb at this point. So he knows what went on in the meeting, he took notes in the meeting, he knows -- remember, he's been a player in Ukraine and he was used to sort of eviscerating the political opponents. I think they're looking for that and they have already that information as it relates to WikiLeaks and the Clinton campaign. So, you can't overstate the value.

BLACKWELL: Well, if you asked the president's personal attorneys, they say too bad for Manafort that has nothing to do with us. Let me read this tweet from Rudy Giuliani. I'm going to read it, but there are spelling mistakes and words screwed up here.

But according to sources close to Manafort's defense, the cooperation agreement I think he's trying to say does not involve the Trump campaign. There was no collusion with Russia. Let's put up a snip-it of the actual cooperation agreement.

Your client shall cooperate fully, truthfully, completely, and forthrightly with the government and other law enforcement authorities identified by the government in any and all matters as to which the government deems the cooperation relevant.

Reconcile those two.

MOORE: I think Giuliani is probably getting his statements, inside information from the folks that told him that the investigation would be over by this point and I wouldn't put a lot of stock in that all.

[07:25:08] This plea agreement, this cooperation agreement was buttoned up so tightly that it locks Manafort into giving full statements about what went on the past, what went on in the campaign, not just about what he pled guilty to. But he's now under an obligation if he's going to receive the benefit of the plea bargain to come forward with all information that he knows about any possible wrongdoing that's happened, basically, in perpetuity, that he'll have to share that with Bob Mueller's team. So I think Giuliani wants to put a spin on it. I don't think he's

going to be successful at that. There's no way that you can look at his tweets and the fact that he had to retract some language out of the early tweet. You look at the president's sort of rant, there's no way you can look at those things and say they don't realize just how grave the situation is at this point.

BLACKWELL: You talk about the president's rant and I assume you're talking about this tweet that came out last night in which he said that the Democrats are using this, as he calls it, rigged Russian witch hunt that's an investigation by Bob Mueller to hurt them in the midterms. You're a former Democratic state official here in Georgia, is this politically potent for the Democrats headed to November, the narrative of this investigation and the men close to the president who have now pleaded guilty but found guilty?

MOORE: I think probably the thing for the Democrats to do is not to hang their hat on this investigation. There's enough going with the president and what happened, but they ought to be talking about things they can do positive, things they can do for the country, things they can do for their state, whatever the case may be.

Here, though, I think that, you know, Trump wants to repeat the narrative to gin up his base. It's clear to me that you got a Republican deputy attorney general who's overseeing the investigation. He's allowing the thing to go on as he said he would do. That ought to tell people something.

We also can talk about the credibility and the validity of the investigation, when you simply look at the number of people and the level of the people that have been charged and now pled guilty. So, we've got all these pleas, we've got all these convictions, we've got all these indictments. And the indictments are heard by a grand jury, I mean, they are handed out by a grand jury.

So I think the idea to say it is a witch hunt is just a fool's errand by Trump as we move forward. He wants to spin it again to get off the midterms.

BLACKWELL: The president would have you believe that it's up to these, quote, seven angry Democrats.

MOORE: Well, he said some things, too. But as I say, I don't have much stock in the information he's passing out either.

BLACKWELL: Mike Moore, always good to have you.

MOORE: Glad to be with you.

BLACKWELL: And do not miss Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, the Democratic congressional nominee for the 14th district in New York state. She's on "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER". That's at 9:00 a.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

PAUL: So once tropical depression Florence finally gets out of the Carolinas, there are a lot of people who may be upset to discover, hey, this flood is not covered in my homeowners insurance. We have an expert in the insurance field with us next. He's got some really valuable information for you, whether you live in a floodplain or not.

BLACKWELL: Plus, a man has died after a shark bite at Cape Cod Beach. Officials have not seen this kind of an incident in about 80 years.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:32:58] VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, Hurricane Florence, now downgraded to a tropical depression, has claimed the lives of at least 13 people. Heavy rain is continuing too to pummel the Carolinas.

The storm is moving really slowly, saturating the Southeast coast with Florence expected to produce catastrophic flooding. That's coming from the National Hurricane Service.

This is going to go on for days.

CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: And think about it, nearly 800,000 people are waking up this morning and they have no power. And they have no idea when they are they going to get it back.

Here's a look at what people living there are dealing with.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The wind has really picked up. The rain has gotten a lot heavier.

MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The beach is now up on the boardwalk. This is a foot and a half of sand or so.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is one of the largest ones we have seen. This one completely uprooted.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are going to a place where there's some high- water rescues that are necessary.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: As the family who lives here tells me, they expect the water to come to their door of their home on the second story of that home.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAUL: So, obviously, one of the biggest concerns for people in the Carolinas is going to be rebuilding after this. And people with property damage by flooding may not actually be as protected as they thought.

Standard homeowner insurance policies do not cover floodwaters.

[07:35:01] They cover wind and rain damage, but according to a disaster research group, Enki Research, less than a quarter of homes at risk in the Carolinas have private flood insurance. And only about 5 percent of them have flood insurance offered by FEMA. Chuck Watson, analyst for Enki Research, is with us.

Chuck, I appreciate you being here. Thank you.

OK. So, as I understand it, I just want to reconfigure this again, Standard homeowners policies do not cover floods, it's separate. You have to get it -- it's a federal program, is that the only availability of flood coverage is through FEMA?

CHUCK WATSON, FLOOD INSURANCE ANALYST: Good morning. Yes, there's some private insurance but it is pretty expensive and specified for the homeowner. You can still get it through the normal insurance agent, but it's actually a federally back program called the national flood insurance program.

What's happened back in the '70s after a number of floods the insurance industry decided that the insurance flood was too risky and too expensive so they pulled out. So, the federal government stepped in.

And the program has a long history of having problems, but for the consumer, the real problem is, it's kind of odd. If your roof is damaged and water comes in by rain, damages your TV, insurance covers it. If the stream next to your house overflows and damages your TV, it's not covered by your homeowners policy. You have to have the extra federally-backed program to have insurance over it.

A lot of folks in North Carolina and South Carolina are going to get a nasty surprise if they don't have flood insurance.

PAUL: If they don't have a separate flood insurance. But I was reading that you were saying, and you just said how expensive that it is, that the National Flood Insurance Program itself doesn't necessarily have a lot of money to help people. Is that right?

WATSON: That's right. Ever since Katrina, it's been in debt to the U.S. Treasury. And, in fact, last year because of Harvey, Congress had to forgive, basically write off $16 billion worth of debt. Even doing that, the program still $20 billion in debt.

They did a little bit of a (INAUDIBLE) reports, one of the things they did is now (INAUDIBLE) the Federal Flood Insurance Program that buys reinsurance, it actually buys insurance from private (INAUDIBLE) companies. And so there's a little extra margin there.

But remember, it's not Florence, we have had Hurricane Lane that hit Hawaii. So there are losses there that are covered by the -- against a small number of people that do have flood insurance. So, even though there's not that many that are covered, only people that are in the federally designated zones tend to have it. And again, just if you heard earlier, only about one in four homes that should have flood insurance actually have it. So, it's just a bad situation all around.

PAUL: All righty. Chuck, it sounds like it's a program that just is unsustainable at this point unless they try to figure something else out. Chuck Watson, thank you so much for sharing your expertise with us.

We appreciate it.

WATSON: You're welcome.

BLACKWELL: An alleged serial killer in jail this morning. Texas authorities arrested a U.S. Border Patrol agent in connection with four murders. Those details, ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:42:34] BLACKWELL: Four people were killed and nine others hurt after three men dressed as mariachi musicians started shooting at a town square in a popular tourist area in Mexico.

(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)

PAUL: You watch this video and think this is perplexing. Yes, those were gunshots. We are assuming that the musician did not realize they are gunshots because he just kept playing. But there were dozens of shots you can hear there. Surveillance video shows the suspects riding off on motorcycles after the shooting and there have been no arrests yet.

Texas authorities say that there is a serial killer that they have caught. Part of what shocked me about this whole thing is that the U.S. suspect is a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

BLACKWELL: Police arrested Juan David Ortiz. According to a criminal complaint, he confessed to killing four people whose bodies were found over the past two weeks. Now, officials are not ruling out the possibility of more victims.

Ortiz was arrested in Laredo yesterday after a woman he allegedly kidnapped escaped and called police. He's been charged with the four murders and a kidnapping. A spokesperson from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agency told CNN that they are fully cooperating with the investigation.

Officials believe that what they have seen over the last 24 hours is the first fatal shark attack in about 80 years on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

PAUL: Yesterday, 26-year-old Arthur Medici was attacked by a shark boogie boarding 30 yards from Newcomb Hollow Beach. People try to carry him, look at this. They were trying to get him to safety after that incident. He did die at the hospital, though.

Reporter Jim Smith from CNN affiliate WBZ has more for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of a sudden, somebody yells, shark! Shark!

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There are just a ton of people screaming, asking for help. JIM SMITH, REPORTER, WBZ: A nightmare at Newcomb Hollow Beach in Wellfleet. A young man bitten by a shark, and this time it's fatal. Witnesses say the victim was boogie boarding and suddenly attacked.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A woman was just going like this and waving to us, and I ran up. I ran up. So many had been by, like, underneath his arms sitting in the surf. You know, they had him supported up, his head up, in the surf and other people came down with towels around and wrapped his legs in towels.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A report of an unknown shark bite.

[07:45:01] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have an unconscious male with severe leg injuries.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Around noontime today, our department received a 911 call about a possible shark attack in the water, a male party in his mid-20s was brought out of the water and CPR was in progress.

SMITH: The 26-year-old victim was from Revere. His family has been notified. A long-time surfer says people did everything they could, but there were severe leg wounds.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There were half a dozen people trying to stop the bleeding with towels and the, I guess the cord from the boogie board. They were amazing. They did a great job.

SMITH: Police closed the beach on one of the busiest weekends in the September season. Even long time Cape Coders now realized things have changed, thanks to a surging shark population.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's just crazy. I mean, I come to this beach all the time. So, it's a little -- you know, it is scary and really sad. And my heart goes out for that family.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: "The Washington Post" now counts more than 5,000 false claims since President Trump has taken office. Up next, why the president's increasing willingness to spout falsehoods is concerning so many people.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:50:34] BLACKWELL: Ten minutes to the top of the hour now.

According to "The Washington Post's" "Fact Checker" blog, President Trump has now made more than 5,000 false claims or misleading claims during his time as president. By their counts, that's more than eight every single day.

PAUL: Now, CNN senior media correspondent and host of "RELIABLE SOURCES", Brian Stelter, is with us here.

When you heard this number, I almost feel like there were people who were thinking how long is it going to take to get to this number based on how quickly he was going already?

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Right, and because the pace has been speeding up, Glenn Kessler who does this work for "The Post" says he's surprised they're already at the 5,000 mark. It's something "The Post" started doing after inauguration day, they decided to fact check every statement President Trump said to decide if it was false or misleading. They usually don't call things lies but they look into each statement the president says and they the rate of mistruths or falsehoods has really been picking up really rapidly.

So, they hit 5,000 just the other day, it was as Florence was approaching land, so it didn't get a lot of attention. So, I asked Kessler about it for today's "RELIABLE SOURCES" and he told me that the turning point for his count was right after Labor Day. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENN KESSLER, WRITES "FACT CHECKER" BLOG, THE WASHINGTON POST: What happened after labor day was the Bob Woodward book came out as well as the anonymous op-ed in "the New York Times." he went to a rally in Montana, couple of fund-raisers in North Dakota and over those two days, he made about 200 false or misleading claims, just in two days. And, in fact, on the second day, it was 125 false or misleading claims. He had a few local interviews. He spoke to reporters on Air Force One and he tends to increase his frequency when he feels under pressure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STELTER: And certainly, this month, a lot of reasons for the president to feel under pressure. So, that was Kessler's explanation for why his count reached 5,000 so soon is because the misstatements and mistruths has been happening more often.

Now, this week, actually the last few days, President Trump has been laying low, he's focused on hurricane recovery efforts and hasn't been saying a lot in public, and hasn't been tweeting a lot off topic. So, maybe this week the number won't be quite as extreme as in the last couple of weeks.

But like you said, Victor and Christie, that's eight falsehoods per day in the Trump presidency.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

STELTER: And as Kessler said, the numbers really rapidly increased recently.

BLACKWELL: You know what Glenn did not say here, but he wrote in this, in the write-up for the "Fact Checker" blog, is that 125 false statements made on September 7th, that was made in a period totaling about two hours.

STELTER: Two hours, right. So, one giant rally and maybe a couple of interviews as well. BLACKWELL: That's more than one per minute.

STELTER: It is astonishing. It really is astonishing.

And unlike many other politicians who, when they read the fact checks, when they see the Pinocchios, they change their tune or change their ways. President Trump continues to repeat some of the same falsehoods over and over again.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

STELTER: Which leads me to wonder, is it on purpose? Is it propaganda? Or does he not believe the people around him who tell him when he gets it wrong?

In any case, we do know this is having an effect. CNN's newest poll shows only 32 percent of Americans feel the president is trustworthy. That is a sad state of affairs whether you're a Republican, Democrat or whether a Martian. It doesn't matter what you are, we should all be able to trust the president.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

STELTER: But right now, with that 5,000 mark, it's very difficult.

BLACKWELL: One hundred twenty-five false statements in roughly 120 minutes. Brian Stelter, thank you so much for being with us.

STELTER: Thanks.

PAUL: Thank you, Brian.

Listen, he's not going anywhere. You catch him later this morning on CNN, "RELIABLE SOURCES," 11:00 a.m. Eastern.

BLACKWELL: All right. The glamour of the Emmy Awards is officially here. HBO's "Game of Thrones" leads the way with the most nominations. What we can expect at the show.

(COMMERCIOAL BREAK)

[07:58:49] BLACKWELL: Monday night is a big night.

PAUL: Yes, you might see your favorite star. Seventieth annual Emmy Awards on Television, "Game of Thrones", one of Victor's favorite "This is Us".

BLACKWELL: Cry every week. Not ashamed of it. I'm not ashamed.

PAUL: And you should not be. "Game of Thrones" is leading with most nominations of any show. But those are two of the shows really shaking things up. Although the new series "Killing Eve" was overlooked, it stars Sandra Oh, making story, the first Asian woman nominated for lead actress.

BLACKWELL: Plus, you can expect, of course, some laughs this year. The show ill be hosted by "SNL Weekend Update" anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che.

And some of the awards presenters ranged from Jimmy Kimmel and Elizabeth Moss, you've got Ben Stiller, Alec Baldwin and so many others.

PAUL: It's going to be a good show, essentially, if you got time to sit down tomorrow night and watch.

Good luck to everybody who is nominated.

We want to thank you so much for starting your morning with us here. We always appreciate knowing that when we look into that camera, even if you're sitting in your PJs, it's OK. It's all good. Sunday morning, you're allowed.

We hope you're making good memories today.

BLACKWELL: Really nice.

PAUL: Well, it's true.

BLACKWELL: Yes, it is.

"INSIDE POLITICS WITH JOHN KING" starts right now.