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The Lead with Jake Tapper

Special Counsel Jack Smith Provides Never-Before-Seen Evidence From His 2020 Election Case Against Trump In New 165-Page Filing; Israel Vows Retaliation For Iran Missile Attack; FEMA Team Faces Challenges In Hard-Hit North Carolina; The Science Behind Living To 100. Aired 5-6p ET

Aired October 02, 2024 - 17:00   ET

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

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[17:00:50]

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to lead. I'm Jake Tapper. And we are following this breaking news with the 2024 election just one month away. We now have the clearest picture yet of how federal prosecutors, specifically Special Counsel Jack Smith, say that former President Donald Trump tried to break the law and undermine the 2020 election. It's a 165 page court filing that was just unsealed by a federal judge minutes ago.

The Office of Special Counsel Smith lays out this case for a trial judge in a way that they think would overcome President Trump's presidential immunity protections, as outlined by the Supreme Court earlier this year. Prosecutors say that Trump was directly involved in the plot to nominate fake electors. They also try to show that Trump was aware that he lost the election but told the staffer, quote, "the details don't matter," unquote. Let's bring in our team of intrepid reporters who have been combing through this filing. Let me start with you, Paula, walk us through the major headlines in this filing, the ones that we have not seen before, Paula. Are you ready?

PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, yes. I mean, no, not really it seem.

TAPPER: We're on right now. We're on right now.

REID: Oh, sorry. Yes, I mean --

TAPPER: I know you're so distracted by going over.

REID: Yes, no. I mean, I want to say there isn't a lot that we haven't really seen before.

TAPPER: What about all the -- I thought it was interesting to me, and maybe you were so steeped in this case that you might know about this, but I did not. But at least nine conversations that Vice President Pence in which he basically were saying, Pence, quote, "gradually and gently tried to convince the defendant to accept the lawful results of the election, even if it meant they lost." The conversations include November 4 and then there was another phone call on November 7. Pence, quote, "tried to encourage Trump as a friend," reminding him you took a dying political party and gave it a release on life. November 11 Pence said, you know, was asked when the lawsuits would be resolved, and he said, the week after Thanksgiving, over and over and over.

At a private lunch on November 12, Pence reiterated a face saving option, don't concede, but recognize that the process is over, and it goes on and on. That, to me, was new.

REID: It is new. But the larger theme, right --

TAPPER: Oh, yes, yes.

REID: -- was Pence was trying to talk sense, and that's what we're talking about. When the average voter hears this information, right, I don't think there's going to be a lot that really changes their hearts or their minds or how they feel about this investigation. The larger themes that Trump was going to declare victory no matter what, that he was going to try to sow chaos, right? We've known this because, of course, the January 6 committee investigated this, there were public hearings. So that's why we haven't seen too many enormous, right, headlines out of this.

I also want to underscore that this is extraordinary to have prosecutors investigate you and then be able to effectively release a summary of their case to the public well before a trial. I mean, this is highly unusual.

TAPPER: And 34 days before an election.

REID: Yes, and that's the argument that the Trump team will make, is that this is an effort to interfere with the election. But the extraordinary thing is that this case went before the Supreme Court.

TAPPER: Yes.

REID: The Supreme Court had to weigh in. They said that Trump has partial immunity. They tasked the trial judge with reviewing what should remain in this case, both the charges and the evidence, and that's why we have this filing. But it was a choice by the judge to make this public, again, about a month before the election.

TAPPER: So I referred earlier to what is I've now been schooled by somebody at the Justice Department. It's the 60-day rule about the Justice Department not releasing anything new 60 days before an election. But I am reminded it's related to new charges or overt investigative actions by the Justice Department. And this is not that because this is the special counsel, which is kind of somewhat independent, and also responding to the Supreme Court and responding to Judge Chutkan, and that is not in the hands of Attorney General Garland.

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: This is a case that was brought last year as well.

TAPPER: Yes. PEREZ: And obviously part reason why we're here is because Donald Trump successfully tried to make sure that this was delayed as much and as long as possible.

TAPPER: Right. They wanted to -- they wanted to do this in January.

PEREZ: They wanted to do this a long, long time ago, and here we are in October, in part because Donald Trump was that successful in delaying things. And one of the things that really comes through here is, you know, you can see not only those communications that you referred to with Mike Pence, right? And you can also see references to Chief of Staff, who we can assume is Mark Meadows, since he was the chief of staff.

[17:05:17]

TAPPER: Right.

PEREZ: He's redacted in this document, Jake. But what you see through here is repeatedly an effort by the Special Counsel to reinforce the idea that this was private conduct, that even if you're going to rely, and it appears they're going to try to rely on some of this evidence from Mike Pence, again, somebody, the vice president, his chief of staff, which the Supreme Court said, you know, you got to really stay away from anything that is part of Donald Trump's Official Function. But what they're doing here is trying to reframe all of this conduct as not official conduct. And one of the things you see in here is this reference to an effort to try to sow chaos --

TAPPER: Create chaos, yes.

PEREZ: -- in Philadelphia, right, where there was the vote counting going on, and they wanted to create chaos because they wanted to portray that their vote watchers were being blocked, which we reported on at the time. And it was not true, right?

TAPPER: Not true at all.

PEREZ: But it was part of a pattern that the Special Counsel is laying out here Jake, which leads us, of course, to January 6 and the chaos and the effort to disrupt the ceremonial counting of the electors by Congress. Again, part of the pattern here, and they're reinforcing that it is all an effort, illegal effort, in their view, a criminal effort to remain in office despite the fact that he lost the election.

TAPPER: And one of the things I remember from the Philadelphia case, well, two things. One of them is lawyers saying things publicly that were not true, and then coming before the court and then acknowledging the facts were that they did have --

PEREZ: And you see --

TAPPER: -- observers.

PEREZ: And you see they were repeated, right.

TAPPER: Yes.

PEREZ: You see them repeatedly in these documents, and including in Georgia where privately they're saying there's no proof that there's 10,000 dead voters voting here, but then they go out publicly and don't --

TAPPER: And say it anyway.

PEREZ: Right.

TAPPER: The other -- and the other case I remember from -- or the other anecdote from Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, is a car full of people with a bunch of guns coming up and being stopped, thankfully, before they could do anything.

Katelyn, what are you finding in there? You got your highlighter out. You got your pen (inaudible).

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes, working apart. It's nothing is in order anymore.

TAPPER: Give me some highlights. What is interesting? What's important?

POLANTZ: Yes, Jake. The joke so often is there's a tweet for everything. And actually, that's a cornerstone of what this case is. The cornerstone is that Donald Trump tweeted that Mike Pence should block the vote.

TAPPER: Yes.

POLANTZ: And the prosecutors in this -- we know the tweet, right? It was the tweet that everybody saw his rioters supporting him at the Capitol saw. But then in this document, we see how they're going to prove that at trial. Because when you're an attorney and you're in front of a jury, you not only have to connect all of the dots, you have to make sure the evidence can show that it was Donald Trump in the room with the cell phone --

TAPPER: Right.

POLANTZ: sending the tweet.

TAPPER: Little clue reference there.

POLANTZ: Yes. And so, the way that they're doing that is that they say that there is the other person, the only other person that had access to Donald Trump's Twitter account, would be called at trial and would testify. Yes, it was Donald Trump in the dining room at 2:24 p.m. on January 6 sending that tweet because it wasn't me, the witness, who was the only other person who could have sent that tweet. And so that's how they're going to show it. And then the other thing that they have this, as Paula was talking about, using Mike Pence as evidence.

They've got Mike Pence his book. They also have five pages of contemporaneous notes that Mike Pence took in a meeting on November 4 with Donald Trump, as they -- his -- he was being pressured, and Trump is starting to lay out that plan.

TAPPER: There is an anecdote in here that -- and we've heard similar things about Trump not caring really about Mike Pence, who felt, and his aides felt, and the Secret Service agents around him felt that his life was in danger because of the things, the comments that Donald Trump had said publicly and also tweeted. And there's an anecdote here where Trump is being told about the fact that Pence is maybe in trouble. You know, people are yelling, hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence, as we all saw. And he says, so what?

And Kristen, if you could talk for a bit like I understand the argument. This is 34 days before an election, but what facts in here do they specifically dispute? Specifically.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, as of now, we're not hearing them dispute any of the facts. They're saying the same thing that we've heard time and time again that this is a witch hunt, that this is a hoax, that this is all political. But it's not as though they are parsing through and giving us examples of what exactly is incorrect or not.

I do want to touch on one thing here when it comes to the political part of this, because as Paula mentioned, there's not a lot of headlines coming out of this in terms of the stuff we didn't know, maybe from previous filings, maybe just from reporting at the time. But the time frame does matter, because one of the things that we talk about a lot more covering politics is that people aren't paying attention until roughly 60 days before the election, until roughly 30 days before the election. So while this isn't new to us, while this isn't new to people who are following this very closely, this might be new to a lot of Americans who are tuning into this election right now and trying to hang on every single word and trying to figure out exactly which candidate they want to vote for or why they're voting for Donald Trump. So some of this could be a stark reminder to people just days before they go to the polls.

[17:10:40]

TAPPER: And in fact, if the folks in the control room could get the bite from the Vance town hall from earlier today, in point of fact, people tuning in to the debate, the vice presidential debate last night, saw a smooth and slick performance by J.D. Vance, except for when he was asked to acknowledge the reality that Donald Trump lost in 2020 and when he refused to acknowledge that it was not a peaceful transfer of power. I want to bring in CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig.

Elie, do you think this approach by the Special Counsel could actually circumvent the presidential immunity protections that the U.S. Supreme Court outlined?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think Jack Smith is going to succeed in defending most of what's already left of his indictment. Important to remember, Jack Smith first indicted the case a year ago. It was a very broad indictment. The Supreme Court then pulled certain parts out of it or told Jack Smith that certain parts of his indictment were going to be subject to immunity. For example, Jack Smith removed the part about Donald Trump pressuring the Justice Department.

I think with respect to what's left, Jack Smith makes a fairly compelling case here, that it was not official action, that it was done for private purposes, for criminal purposes, and therefore should stay in the case.

TAPPER: If this argument does not pass muster, does that mean that special counsel Jack Smith's case against Trump is effectively dead? And so, I mean, ultimately, Donald Trump did what he did. We all saw what he did. The reason why there are so few headlines about this is because he did so much of it right out in the open, in front of us, on Twitter, in speeches?

HONIG: I do think --

TAPPER: Yes. I mean, is that it? He -- that's -- there's no accountability?

HONIG: Those are exactly the stakes, Jake. If Jack Smith fails on this argument, if Judge Chutkan rejects it, or if the Court of Appeals or the U.S. Supreme Court rejects Jack Smith's argument, this case is essentially over or entirely over. And you're right, that could -- it's hard to even fathom, but it could be the end result of this that because of the breadth of the immunity decision, this case never even reaches trial and there's no criminal consequences for Donald Trump.

TAPPER: Paula, you wanted to say something?

REID: Yes, just wing it. A reminder, we talk about the future of this case, as Evan said, is lawyers have been very successful in delaying things, but the reason that this case never went to trial is largely because the Supreme Court delayed it. They had the opportunity starting last December to weigh in on this case, these issues of immunity. They waited until the very last case in July to weigh in here. So, as successful as the Trump team has been in delaying these cases, most of the credit here goes to the Supreme Court for this never going to trial, not going to trial before the election.

And this, again, the last opportunity really, for voters to hear the evidence that the special counsel has collected before they go to the ballot.

TAPPER: All right, everyone, stick around. Our teams are still parsing through this long and detailed court filing in the Trump case. We're going to bring every detail as we learn them. Plus, we're going to check back in with some young voters from whom we've heard before. They're in one of the most crucial battleground states. What do they think about the state of the race today, 34 days until the election? Stay with us.

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[17:17:43]

TAPPER: Next up in our 2024 lead battleground Michigan, where CNN John King recently revisited a group of young student voters for his "All Over the Map" series. This group is passionate about the Israel-Hamas war, and previously voiced hesitation about voting for President Biden. So where do they stand now that Vice President Kamala Harris is on the top of the ticket. Here's John King.

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JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Jade Gray and Anushka Jalisatgi are former presidents of the College Democrats. Jalisatgi is now a first year law student born in Missouri, but this time voting in Michigan.

ANUSHKA JALISATGI, MICHIGAN VOTER: A lot of my out of state friends are switching their registration to Michigan because they know it's a battleground state.

KING (voice-over): The University Art Museum doubles as a voting hub, outside this registration desk stands out as does this school day concert.

That very spot on our last visit in May was home to a student encampment protesting Israel's response to the Hamas terrorist attack and Biden administration weapons shipments to Israel. The university won't allow another encampment, so it's harder to judge the depth of student anger. Gray now works in digital organizing and see the dramatic shift.

JADE GRAY, MICHIGAN VOTER: Huge is an understatement. I think there's a drastic difference in support amongst young people for Vice President Harris versus President Biden.

KING (voice-over): Attendance at College Democrats meetings is strong. This night, spent phone banking --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm with the Michigan Democratic Party.

KING (voice-over): -- after a little pep talk from Michigan's Democratic governor. But resentment lingers. The October 7 anniversary is at hand, the election just a month away now.

This is a meeting of the Syrian Students Association at Wayne State in Detroit.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: How many are hesitant having a hard time voting for Harris because of these policies? That's just about everybody.

KING (voice-over): Trouble for Harris is also easy to find in majority Arab-American, Dearborn. Wahbeh Nuseibeh is Palestinian, a 26-year-old Wayne State student who voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden.

WAHBEH NUSEIBEH, MICHIGAN VOTER: I'm not voting for Kamala Harris. I cannot in good conscience. I cannot vote for someone that uses my hard earned tax dollars to kill my friends and families overseas. KING (voice-over): Nuseibeh plans to vote third party.

[17:20:01]

NUSEIBEH: Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy and threat to our society.

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KING (on camera): You notice that last point, Jake, there is not a groundswell for Donald Trump on any of these college campuses. But, and it's an important but these young voters, 18 to 29 absolutely critical in Michigan, critical in Wisconsin, critical in several of the battleground states, Harris is doing better than Biden was back earlier this year, but at the moment, she's not doing as well as Biden did in 2020 on election day, she's trailing Biden in 2020 The question is, how much can she afford to trail him? And now, with the anniversary coming and the continued violence --

TAPPER: October 7, yes.

KING: -- not only in Gaza, but up into Lebanon, does the student anger get restocked? Giant question.

TAPPER: Wow. Huge issue. And latest I heard is that Michigan, right now, a Democrat told me earlier today, after the election was held today, Donald Trump would win Michigan. Of course, the election is not being held today.

KING: Right. Some polls show her a little ahead. Something a little ahead. It's right there. That's why this matters.

TAPPER: All right. John King, thanks so much.

President Biden is urging restraint as fears grow of a wider war in the Middle East. We're live on the ground in both Israel and Lebanon. That's next.

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[17:25:16]

TAPPER: We're back with the breaking news in our law and justice lead, former President Trump now reacting to the bombshell court filing from Special Counsel Jack Smith, who goes into so many new details about how Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes to undermine the 2020 election. Let's bring in CNN Kristen Holmes.

Kristen, what is former President Trump saying?

HOLMES: Well, look, unsurprisingly, he is denying everything, saying that it's a hoax and linking it to the election. So this is again, the same playbook that we have seen. The only difference now is that we are actually 34 days from the election.

TAPPER: Right. He was saying it like years ago. HOLMES: We have this -- he was saying it two years ago --

TAPPER: Yes, yes, yes.

HOLMES: -- he announced his president -- or his candidacy. So here's what he says. He wrote this on Truth Social, he says, the release of this falsehood written unconstitutional January 6 brief immediately following Tim Walz's disastrous debate performance. And 33 days before the most important election in the history of our country is another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine and weaponize American democracy and interfere with the 2024 presidential election. He goes on to talk about Jack Smith calling him name, saying the handpicked Prosecutor of the Harris Biden DOJ and Washington, D,C, based radical Democrats are hell bent on continuing to weaponize the Justice Department in an attempt to cling to power.

Then he says that this is all because of the fact that he is winning, and that this is because Democrats want to stop him and Republicans from winning.

As we've discussed, this has been his strategy for the last two years, since he announced his candidacy, really even before that, because he was toying with the idea publicly of running for office. Again, the only difference now is the fact that we are so close to the election, and the fact that the Trump team is very well aware that people might be tuning in for the first time, and some of these details that were reported in detail at the time or in the last two years are things they might not have heard.

One of the ones I just want to quickly get to is one that we just put out as we're going through this document. It was about Bill Barr and his decision to come forward against Donald Trump essentially stemmed from an appearance that he saw Donald Trump made where he was lying actively about the election. So it says here that then Attorney General, Bill Barr, decided in 2020 to publicly rebut President Donald Trump, or he was outgoing president, false claim that the election was rigged after watching Trump spread these lies on Fox News. These are the kind of details that, one, can be used against him in this campaign, saying these people who are the closest to you were watching you lie. They were coming out against you.

This was your inner circle at the time --

TAPPER: Yes.

HOLMES: -- and they saw that you were wrongdoing. And two, for the American public to see that these people who were really at the time rallying around Donald Trump, were watching this unfold in real time. Thought that he was lying, thought that he was spreading these lies, and that it was dangerous, and then we're coming forward.

TAPPER: Yes, that's an important thing for our viewers and for the American people to remember is that the evidence for the alleged crimes outlined in this document comes from not just Republicans, but the most stalwart Trump supporting Republicans who were still working for him at the end of his administration after that term. HOLMES: Well, that's one thing --

TAPPER: That's who provided this information and testimony.

HOLMES: We also -- one -- you know, we forget about this a lot because we think about Vice President Pence as so fractured from the former president and in his own, you know, dimension now of the Republican Party. But one thing to pay attention to is that he was the most loyal Trump supporter. He stuck by him for four years.

TAPPER: Yes. Until a bunch of Trump supporters tried to kill him.

HOLMES: Yes, exactly.

TAPPER: All right. Kristen Holmes, thanks so much.

To our world lead now and waiting for Israel's next move, a day after Iran launched its largest ever ballistic missile attack on Israel, despite some strikes on Israeli bases, the damage was, thankfully minimal. Still, Israel is vowing retribution as President Biden implores the Israelis to not retaliate against Iran's nuclear sites. All of this as Israel continues its campaign to the north in Lebanon trying to dismantle the Iran backed organization Hezbollah, which the United States considers to be a terrorist group. Let's bring in CNN's Jim Sciutto who's in Tel Aviv, and Ben Wedeman in Beirut, Lebanon.

And Ben, let's start with you. Your team just heard several loud explosions in Beirut. What exactly is going on in Lebanon right now?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we heard is, just a few minutes ago some sharp blasts. And I'm going to step out of the way, I think you can still perhaps see some of the smoke that's still there. This is the heart of Beirut. This is not the southern suburbs. This is the general area where you will find the prime ministry, and you will find the fortunately, currently empty CNN bureau.

[17:30:08]

As I said, this is the second time since Sunday night that there have been Israeli air strikes outside of the heart of Beirut. And just about 40 minutes before that, we heard three very large explosions from the southern suburbs with smoke just wafting all over the city.

We haven't the -- we did the first strike. That was about 40 minutes ago. The Israelis did put -- put out a statement that they have struck a target in Beirut. Details to follow the statement indicated. But this comes after a day in which we've seen intense fighting between Hezbollah and Israeli forces on Lebanese soil.

And we've -- we've heard that at least eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in those clashes. And so we haven't seen sort of the kind of full scale ground presence by Israeli forces in South Lebanon. Perhaps they're probing at this point. But clearly, despite Israel's severe pounding of the southern suburbs of bay -- of Leb -- rather the southern part of Lebanon along the border. Clearly, Hezbollah has a sizable presence and is able to challenge Israeli forces.

Just one last detail, the Ministry of Health has come out with its total death toll over the last 24 hours, 46 dead, 85 wounded as this war continues. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Ben, thanks so much. Jim, what are your sources telling you about how Israel might retaliate?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, there was a sense, Jake last night, that that retaliation might come within hours of the Israeli -- of the Iranian missile barrage on Israel, including here in Tel Aviv that passed, of course, last night passed. And -- and we're getting quite late here as well.

It appears that Israeli leaders may have taken a pause on this decision as they decide the next course they made -- they made it quite public that they attend a response serious consequences. But there is also some communication going back and forth between Tel Aviv and Washington about how that retaliation takes shape, with both private and very public messaging right up to President Biden indicating the U.S. does not want Israel to go so far as to attack Iran's nuclear facilities that the U.S. fears that strike. And by the way, this is not a new fear of the U.S., that that strike would greatly expand this war and might, frankly, drag the U.S. into an open conflict between Israel and Iran that the U.S. does not want to be a part of.

And it's quite interesting, Jake, because just as U.S. officials were telling me when Israel sent those ground forces into southern Lebanon, or when Israel took out Hassan Nasrallah, just as they were telling me then they were not involved in those strikes. They're -- they're signaling quite clearly now that the U.S. would not be involved in an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear facilities if it were to choose that path.

TAPPER: All right. Jim Sciutto, Ben Wedeman, thank you so much to both of you. Stay safe.

Joining us now to discuss retired U.S. Air Force General Philip Breedlove, the former NATO Supreme Allied Commander of -- of Europe. General, thanks so much for joining us. So Israel is warning that it has the means to strike anywhere in the Middle East. What do you see as Israel's most strategic next step? What would you advise Israel to do?

GEN. PHILIP BREEDLOVE, U.S. AIR FORCE (RET.): Well, thanks for having me on. And I think we have to go back to the first set of strikes earlier in the year, where they shot 110 missiles in and because the U.S. and others help Israel intercept those, the effect was low. And the United States implored Israel to not respond in a big way, and Israel led a very, very measured response.

So now Iran is back with a much larger strike. And I think what it's going to be hard this time to convince Israel to not have a more forceful reply. There are multiple things. They could strike. They could strike the petrochemical infrastructure. They could strike military targets. And, of course, they could strike the nuclear program.

TAPPER: The U.S. assesses that Israel has destroyed about 50 percent of Hezbollah's arsenal. What's your assessment of Iran's overall military strength, including -- including its proxies such as Hezbollah, such as Hamas, the Houthis and the militias in -- in Syria and Iraq. How -- how strong are Israel's im -- immediately surrounding enemies right now?

BREEDLOVE: Well, clearly, Israel has struck a blow. And the most important blow is have eliminated, essentially the top three echelons of leadership. And so the program is in disarray because the leaders are gone. But if you remem -- if you believe the numbers that people have quoted about Hezbollah's arsenal and Iran's arsenal, there is quite a few weapons left that could be sent Israel's way.

[17:35:23]

TAPPER: Today, we -- we learned that eight IDF soldiers have been killed in Lebanon since the offensive began. Is that -- would you assess that to be an unusual number for Israel in -- in an offensive like this?

BREEDLOVE: Well, it's a tragic number, but remember that urban warfare is the worst. We encounter this in Iraq and other places. When you're doing urban warfare in the modern world, this is the toughest mission you can throw at a land force. And so in some places, Israel is going in and very clamp -- cramped, confined spaces, and it makes it very tough on their soldiers. So this is not unusual, in fact, frankly, I would have expected the numbers to have been higher.

TAPPER: I also want to get your take on Israel's strategy at this stage. IDF forces are making a quick, targeted incursions into Lebanon urban warfare, as you note, than withdrawing. The IDF said today it also clashed with Hezbollah's forces at, quote, close range. Why do you think Israel is avoiding a full on ground invasion right now, doing more of these targeted strikes?

BREEDLOVE: Well, I think that we should be happy that that's the tack that they're taking. They're being very surgical, as you said before, they have hit some of the largest caches of weapons, and they have hit some of the command and control targets.

You were talking at the top of the hour there with -- with folks about the strikes into the heart of Beirut. And -- and may I assure you that if they're doing that, they are targeting a very specific target and trying to minimize collateral damage. But remember, just like Hamas, Hezbollah wraps itself in innocence, it intends for an innocence to die that way the world will control Israel for them.

TAPPER: Retired General Philip Breedlove, thank you so much, General. Appreciate your time.

A CNN exclusive look at the danger and difficulty of the search and rescue missions that are still underway after Hurricane Helene. CNN traveled with FEMA to some of the hardest hit areas. Stay with us.

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[17:41:29]

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The assessment of the damage is being done across the board. And of course, the -- the highest priority is to locate and determine individuals, people who are in need, and making sure we're getting to them as quickly as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAPPER: Vice President Kamala Harris, just moments ago, touring storm damage in Georgia. Helene is -- is now, believe it or not, it's the second deadliest hurricane to hit the mainland United States in the last 50 years, trailing only behind Hurricane Katrina. Helene is -- is blamed right now for killing 189 people in the United States, across six states.

Earlier today, President Biden tour damage in the Carolinas and -- and ordered 1,000 active duty soldiers to deliver critical aid, food, water. FEMA is still struggling to reach some of the areas that were hardest hit in a region where small towns along winding, mountainous roads can be hard to reach when conditions are even optimal.

CNN's Isabel Rosales got exclusive access with a team heading into one of the most remote locations in North Carolina on search and rescue missions.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Rare and exclusive access. CNN guided up the Blue Ridge Mountains by one of FEMA's 24 deployed urban search and rescue teams. We're deep in hard hit Avery County, North Carolina.

ROSALES: It just collapsed on the sidewalk.

ROSALES (voice-over): Portions of Beach Mountain, a remote ski resort town, left unrecognizable by Helene's wrath.

ROSALES: Signs of road just like washed off.

ROSALES (voice-over): These winding mountain roads made further difficult to navigate by obstacles.

ROSALES: We are entering an area that's closed off to regular people. Only first responders are allowed. And it is because it's so treacherous. We're seeing it for ourselves, like thick mud all over the place, trees that are down, portions of the road has crumbled down. So I'm -- I'm really concentrating here. This is difficult to drive.

ROSALES (voice-over): And even when debris and fallen trees are cleared by chainsaw and manpower to make way for rescuers, another major barrier.

ROSALES: As FEMA supervisor, who's been on his cell phone trying to get in touch with his team to figure out where they're at.

ROSALES (voice-over): Division group supervisor, Colin Burress, pulls us over.

ROSALES: Can't get a signal. We're seeing for ourselves everything that the governor has been talking about, issues I've been talking about the -- how big of a challenge communication is not just for civilians, but you guys trying to do these rescue operations.

COLIN BURRESS, FEMA DIVISION GROUP SUPERVISOR: It is. You know, when you don't have cell service, e-mail, text, all of that becomes a challenge, and it kind of slows things down.

ROSALES: Tremendously, you agree? How frustrating is that?

BURRESS: Oh, you get -- get used to, you know, you get out on enough of these, but you just kind of adapt and overcome.

ROSALES (voice-over): Then by pure luck, a few of his men spot us.

ROSALES: They found him just out of the blue. So this is great. We're being reunited. And here's a command post right here.

ROSALES (voice-over): The Sadie member FEMA team assisting the North Carolina National Guard. Now on day six of rescuing survivors stranded and cut off from help.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So each is trying to find live people, of course, they're trying to find human remains.

ROSALES (voice-over): They huddle over maps.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Beach Mountain and Seven Devils must have a priority.

ROSALES (voice-over): Working out the next day's urgent search.

ROSALES: How does this work? You guys are doing grids? I see this black -- black line right there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. It's just easier for us to keep up. And so we'll send squads. We'll say, you know, get grid one or good two, grid three, grid four.

[17:45:05]

ROSALES (voice-over): Before sunset, we roll out.

ROSALES: We came up about three miles. But honestly, it feels like 10.

ROSALES (voice-over): Back down the mountain, a second look at what Helene laid to waste. Before we can make it down, another danger getting through these torn and treacherous roads. JASON STUART, TASK FORCE LEADER, TENNESSEE 1: This is a special case. Typically, the roads washed out, you know, in a mountain atmosphere like this, you know, hurricanes usually happen towards the coast. But this is definitely more challenges for us that we haven't faced before.

ROSALES (voice-over): Regardless, first responders across the state push on. More than 400 people rescued so far, says the governor's office, but the work nowhere near done until all the missing are found.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROSALES (on camera): And Jake, we're about a week into this thing, and by this point, we have been to so many parts of western North Carolina by car and by chopper, Avery, Mitchell, Henderson Counties and much more. And what has really stuck out to me is how widespread this devastation is just utter destruction spanning miles and miles geographically.

Now back here in Asheville, October was supposed to be their busiest season for tourists, but just look at this. This is Biltmore Village. This is their busy historic district, with so many small businesses all over the place that are absolutely destroyed. That's a power pole over there.

This will not be ready for tourists. And that's not to mention all of the loss of life that has happened here and the very, very active search and rescue operations happening as we speak. But despite all that, I will say that there's been progress made. Linemen all over the place, fiber trucks, regular people shoveling mud, they're working together on this, and they will get there. Jake?

TAPPER: All right. Isabel Rosales, powerful piece. Thank you so much.

What we're learning about a major disruption to banking today and customers logging in to find their accounts showing $0. Stick around.

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[17:51:00]

TAPPER: And we are back with our Health Lead. And an incredible milestone, President Jimmy Carter turned 100 years old yesterday, becoming the first American President to reach triple digits in age. We're all hoping to live long, healthy lives, of course. And CNN chief -- CNN chief correspondent -- medical correspondent, Sanjay Gupta is on call right now to tell us how we can make that happen. Sanjay, first of all, how common is it for people to reach 100 years old?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: I -- I -- I love this topic because it's some -- some good news here, Jake. The -- the numbers have been going up. The -- the number of centenarians has been going up since sort of, you know, 1950s or so, incrementally. And important to note, because life expectancy has trickled down a little bit over the last few years, but still, centenarians going up. But take a look at the -- the projection, Jake, over the next 30 years, they expect it will quadruple, roughly. So all the conversations we have about longevity, that's where you may see some of that impact. By the way, the United States fares pretty well when it comes to centenarians compared to the rest of the world.

Japan has sort of consistently led the way, but the United States number two in terms of per capita centenarians, then China, India and Thailand, Hawaii. Jake. Hawaii is the United States that has the most centenarians per capita of any state in the country.

TAPPER: That doesn't surprise me, honestly. It seems like a lovely place to live.

GUPTA: Yes.

TAPPER: And -- and a lovely reason, like a lot going on there, that you would want to stick around. A reminder to our viewers that you can scan the QR code on the screen and submit your questions. Sanjay, from a scientific standpoint, how do we define aging?

GUPTA: Yes. This -- this is really interesting, because most people just think of it as years, years of the calendar, but I think scientists look at it differently, and they focus on what are called these hallmarks of aging. And as you look at this list of -- of these hallmarks, keep in mind this is what scientists will sort of target to try and increase not only lifespan, but health span, how healthy you are for those years.

Your metabolism changes as you get older. They target that. Your cells for reasons that aren't entirely clear, stop replicating as well as efficiently. That's another area. Stem cell exhaustion is -- is the term that they use. And also just declines in immunity so you become more susceptible to certain diseases.

But it's important, because the -- these hallmarks of aging provide targets for scientists, and I think that's in part, leading to the optimism of how much health span will be pushed over the next several decades.

TAPPER: And is all of this happening gradually?

GUPTA: No. The -- this is the most fascinating part for me. I mean, people think of aging as sort of a linear process, but in fact, there's been recent data showing that there's a few different points in life where you suddenly have a burst of sort of aging molecular changes, ages 44 and age 60, which I thought was just really interesting. I'm right in the middle of that right now, Jake.

But that -- that's -- that's important for -- from a medical perspective, because those are times in life where you could pay more attention to aging, things like muscle mass, decreasing fat, watching your diet, things like that, in particular at those times to again, try and increase your health span overall.

TAPPER: I remember hearing one time from a -- from a doctor, that 40 is when the warranty on your body runs out, age 40.

GUPTA: The Darwinian warranty, for sure. I got to -- I got to just tell you quickly. You know, you mentioned Jimmy Carter at the beginning. I had a chance to interview him a few years ago, and, you know, he -- it was incredible. I remember at the end of the interview, he was able to just get out of the chair so easily. It was in his mid- 90s at the time, but the muscle mass and the balance and all that that he still had at that age, it bode -- it was boding well for him in terms of his overall longevity. And he's now a centenarian, as you know.

TAPPER: Indeed. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, thanks so much. And don't forget to submit your question to Sanjay. You can scan the QR code on your screen right now. He'll be back tomorrow with answers.

[17:54:49]

The breaking news this hour, a new court filing in Donald Trump's election subversion case filed by Special Counsel Jack Smith, our teams have been combing through the more than 160 pages. They've got some new reporting, next.

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TAPPER: Starting off, our last leads with the Law and Justice Lead, New York City Mayor Eric Adams was in court today. Adams currently faces five counts, including bribery, corruption and wire fraud. Federal prosecutors now say they have evidence that Adams attempted to tamper with a witness in the investigation. Adams is due in court again on November 1st. We will continue to cover that trial.

On our Money Lead, Bank of America customers are reporting a widespread outage that's leading to some having issues accessing their bank accounts. Many customers complained they could not access their accounts at all, while those that could were shocked to see a balance in of zero. Bank of America says the issues have, quote, largely been resolved, but they did not specify what caused the glitch.

[18:00:07]

To our National Lead, and another consequential election, but maybe not what you think. I want to make sure that you all know Fat Bear Week is back. In case you've been hibernating these past few years. Fat Bear Week is when a National Park and Preserve in Alaska asks the simple question, which bear fattened up best? The once friendly competition turned a little bloody this year when bear 469 killed bear 402 in a violent clash on Monday, delaying voting until today, which brings up an important reminder that no matter how big and fluffy they may look even fat bears are dangerous. I'm sorry to anybody who had money riding on fat bear 402.

The news continues on CNN with Wolf Blitzer right next door in The Situation Room.