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NFL's Damar Hamlin: I'm Blessed To Return To Playing; Fighting In Sudan Spreading Beyond Capital; New Bodycam Video Shows First Responders Race To Save Jeremy Renner; Hollywood Writers Vote To Shut Down Film, TV Production; Ga D.A.: Fake Trump Electors Are Incriminating Each Other. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired April 18, 2023 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Bills general manager, Brandon Beane, said earlier today that Hamlin has met with three different specialists. And Hamlin said that the last appointment was actually on Friday. It was a checkup. He said that every doctor to whom he met spoken and with whom he has met, said the same thing that he's cleared, he's OK and ready to play.

Here was Hamlin just a bit ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAMAR HAMLIN, BUFFALO BILLS SAFETY: I doubt, on national TV in front of the whole world. You know what I mean? So I see it from all perspectives. And you know for them. To still have me around and for me to still have them. You know, it's like it goes both ways.

And you know, I lost a bunch of people in my life. I know a bunch of people who lost people. In their lives, and I know that feeling, you know, so that right? There is just the biggest blessing of it all is for me to still have my people and my people still have me.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: What an incredible return this will be. The NFL and the protocols that they had in place, and the team trainers and doctors and equipment folks who were there, they stepped in, and they saved his life.

And he's not taking that for granted. He says he wants to pay this forward.

And he said the doctor on Friday essentially recommended, Boris, that he goes back to playing because it would be good for his mental health. Being around the team, his family on the field and that camaraderie will do great for him. And say he still loves the game and doesn't want to be done playing.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Coy, I mean, it's remarkable, first of all, the emotion of saying, you know, I died in front of the entire world. But I think this resonates with you personally. You played nine years

in the NFL, many of those years for the Buffalo Bills. You took some hits.

How incredible is this that somebody who nearly died on the field months ago could be making this miraculous return?

WIRE: Yes, it is. Look, it's going to be really tough for him, Boris. Right now they're just working out. They're not playing ball. He says just taking it one day at time.

Doesn't want to look too far into the future because the hardest thing is the mental aspect, he said. He's riding a roller coaster of emotions, he said. He's trusting God, riding by faith.

And I had a titanium plate and four screws put in my neck and I didn't think I was ever going to play again. But I did get the opportunity to do so.

And the night before training camp, I mean, I was lying in bed. I did not fall asleep. I was thinking, man, one hit and I could be paralyzed, you know, and all these emotions are going through my head.

I actually packed my bags and was going to head home and not continue playing after that. So he's going to be feeling that, you know, and he mentioned that that meant mental and emotional roller coaster.

That first time he steps on that field and goes to have contact, he will replay and relive some of what he's been through.

But look, as I mentioned before, it's incredible. His heart stopping really caused the hearts of many around the world to beat as one. It's been incredible the show of empathy and grace and compassion and the love, the charity work that $9 million people raised for his foundation.

Again, he's not taking this opportunity for granted. He's going to go on and pay the blessings forward, as he said.

SANCHEZ: What a fantastic story, Coy. We're glad that you're on our team now. Thanks so much. Coy, always appreciate you. Take care, man.

Still much more news to come on CNN News Central. Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:37:30]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Chaos and fighting in Sudan for the fourth straight day. Now the fighting spreading beyond the capital of Khartoum to more surrounding areas.

Hospitals overwhelmed with the wounded. Some of those hospitals have even come under attack themselves.

Rival military generals fighting for control of the country. And there is now a desperate international scramble to try to get both sides to agree to a ceasefire.

CNN's Nima Elbagir has been covering this very closely.

Some talk on both sides of a ceasefire today. But I wonder, given the motivations are the folks packing both sides in this, do you see a ceasefire as realistic and can it be lasting?

NIMA ELBAGIR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think those are -- those are really important questions. Through the day, we had conflicting reports about whether we would even get to the point of the ceasefire. So far, we've heard of specific violations.

But I think it's important to state that nothing at the level of how intense the fighting got in the lead up to the ceasefire, which, of course, Jim, as you know, often happens where there's a jockeying for position so that they can claim territory and then you know the music stops.

The issue here is just how much is at stake. Just before I came on air, I was speaking to someone who, even though the ceasefire is not what people were hoping it would be, is going to risk it.

He's going to venture further afield from his house because there is no running water. There is no clean water anywhere near the home, and he has three young children.

And I think that's the story that's playing out across the capital. That people are growing so incredibly desperate.

So even though the ceasefire is not what people hoped for, the hope is that somehow this can be built on.

But we need the concern, on the other side, is what leverage does the international community have. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he spoke to both sides to urge for this.

But the problem seems that that we don't really know what the stick is that they're waving at either side. Is it sanctions? The U.N. Security Council is divided. What else can be leveraged against them?

And the problem is that while that's figured out the people of Sudan are growing increasingly desperate -- Jim?

SCIUTTO: And Nima, in addition to your years reporting from there, I know you have special vision into this because your family there. What are you hearing from them now?

ELBAGIR: Well, this morning we had a little bit of a shock. The building directly behind my parents' house was hit, which I think really goes to show how intense it got in in the hours today, leading up to the ceasefire. Luckily, no one was in the building, and my parents are fine.

[14:40:08] But again, that's just representative of, if you if you stay in your home, you risk death. If you walk out on the streets, you risk death. There doesn't seem to be a way through this for anyone in Sudan.

And I think for so many people watching from the outside, it's just, you know, it's just incredibly -- we all feel so incredibly helpless that nobody can do anything about what's happening on the ground.

SCIUTTO: I perfectly understand. We wish them the best. And we know many Sudanese going through those same fears right now.

Our Nima Elbagir, covering from London.

Boris?

SANCHEZ: Today, the world is remembering the millions of lives lost during the Holocaust. Ceremonies around the globe are marking this official Remembrance Day commemorating the more than six million Jews and five million others who were killed between 1933 and 1945.

In Poland, they held the March of the Living from the site of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Holocaust Remembrance Day is not only meant to remember the dead but also to honor those who survived and keep the memory of what happened alive.

Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Newly released body camera footage shows the bloody scene after actor, Jeremy Renner, snowplow accident. We're going to take you through it next.

And in Hollywood, writers are ready to strike if negotiations with the studios go nowhere. We'll tell you what the writers want and what it could mean for you if they don't reach a deal.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:46:00]

KEILAR: We're seeing newly released bodycam footage from the near deadly snowplow accident involving Jeremy Renner. It happened near the actors Nevada home back in January.

You can see here first responders racing to save Renner in these moments after he was pulled under that moving plow.

And as the chaos was unfolding, investigators spoke to witnesses on the scene. Take a listen to how one person described what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED WITNESS: I was inside the garage. I got my generator running. He came out the sun came up screaming. Come on, you know, and I'm like, I don't know who he is. You know?

Get back. Get back. Came out and I saw this and I came out. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was he laying on the ground?

UNIDENTIFIED WITNESS: The head moves. Try to get out girl where you are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: We have CNN medical analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, with us now. He is a professor of medicine and surgery at George Washington University.

And this is that clip that we were just showing here. What stands out as you're watching this moment as first responders are attending to Mr. Renner.

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Well, the first thing that stands out is that there was a very big response. There are a lot of first responders on -- on the scene.

And what this really highlights is maybe the most important aspect of his survival was that he was not alone when this happened. Because if he was alone, he would have just died in the snow.

But his nephew was there and his neighbors were around, and they rapidly called for not just EMS, they called for an air flight to take him to a trauma center and that generated this kind of massive professional response to stabilize him and then get him to the trauma center.

KEILAR: This is on a loop. There is also another video of the aftermath, and it is a little gruesome. But I will actually say, I'm surprised it isn't more. So there's a small amount of blood here.

And I wonder what you think about that and also what maybe it doesn't show because of potential internal bleeding. We're talking about eight broken ribs, a collapsed lung, a pierced liver, sort of a shattered eye sockets, so many injuries that he had.

REINER: Right, but he survived not just because he was insanely lucky. He survived because none of those injuries punctured one of the highly pressurized blood vessels in his chest or abdomen.

And because you don't see much in the way of blood on the snow, there's a little bit of blood on the snow, but not a catastrophic amount. And he apparently did not have much in the way of internal bleeding. That's why he had the time to survive.

Every mammal protects their major organs with protective cage and it's the rib cage. And although his ribs were shattered, think about what that -- what that really did for him, it protected his heart and largely his lungs and most and most of his liver.

And because those organs were not traumatically punctured or severed, he managed to survive this.

KEILAR: You're getting a sense of this is the snowplow. I mean, this is a huge, I think, 14,000 snowplow. Are you surprised that he was able to survive this at all?

REINER: I'm shocked that he said he was able to survive. That snowplow is three times the weight of your car. And he's just very fortunate that his spinal cord is intact, that he didn't have traumatic brain injury. That his heart wasn't punctured. He really has no business being alive.

It's thrilling that he has survived this. And from watching him on the red carpet as an intact person/ But a testament to just luck and a great response and the professionalism of the folks at the trauma center where he was flown.

KEILAR: Everything coming together that needed to.

REINER: Yes.

KEILAR: Dr. Reiner, thank you so much.

Boris?

SANCHEZ: Thousands of Hollywood TV and film writers have overwhelmingly voted to authorize a potential strike. Union leaders from the Writers' Guild of America met with studio heads negotiating how to avoid what could be a crippling shutdown of all sorts of productions. The guild hasn't staged a walkout since 2007.

[14:50:05]

CNN business and politics correspondent, Vanessa Yurkevich, is here with more on the negotiations.

Vanessa, there is a May 1st deadline that is looming over as the potential strike might unfold. What are the sticking points between these two groups?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS & POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, if there was a potential strike that would happen on May 1st, what that means for all of us is that means no late-night TV. No "Saturday Night Live" and potentially pauses on all of our favorite shows and movies.

But what this vote yesterday signified was the resilience and the resounding yes from the members signaling that they want to go on strike if the studios and the writers' guild cannot come up with the agreement by May 1st.

So here's what's on the table. The Writers' Guild of America, they are calling for residuals from streaming services. This is the key sticking point that they want to make sure that their writers get paid from any shows or movies that go direct to streaming.

They also want increased compensation. And they want increases to their pension plan and health fund. And they want to regulate the use of artificial intelligence as it relates to writers. As we know, AI can be a big job taker.

But the studios -- and these are made up of studios and streamers that we all know, Amazon, Apple, CBS, Disney, NBC, Netflix, Paramount, Sony and Warner Brothers Discovery, which is CNN's parent company.

They say, hey, listen, we have had to do a lot of layoffs in just the last year and we've also had a lot of cost cutting measures that we've had to implement.

Now both sides seem to want to come to an agreement. But a source tells me that, in recent weeks, there hasn't been a lot of movement until just Friday.

And yesterday, they started talking. They've started trading proposals -- Boris. But two weeks, until May 1st. That's actually an eternity for a negotiation.

A lot of these deals come together in just the last hours before these key deadlines, Boris. Yet another sign of disrupting -- disruptive technology like streaming and AI potentially interrupting workflows.

Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you so much for that.

Jim?

SCIUTTO: All right, listen to this. There are new developments just into CNN about the Georgia investigation. This into Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election in that state.

The Fulton County district attorney's office says that some of the fake electors involved in this scheme have now implicated each other in potential criminal activity.

CNN's Sara Murray joins us now.

I mean, this is obviously a highly closely watched case, but this could be significant, not just turning on each other but becoming witnesses, it seems, to criminal potential criminal activity.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Potentially. I mean, what we're learning in this filing is that they've had fake electors meeting with investigators as recently as this month, and that some of them are offering potential evidence that others may have been committing crimes.

This is an issue because the same attorneys representing them the D.A. is trying to break up that bloc.

But it gives you some insight into the jockeying that's going on behind the scenes after the special grand jury completed its work before charges are filed in this case.

And it raises the potential that there are still these community offers that could be in the works.

SCIUTTO: And that means progress from the people you're talking to towards the ultimate decision here as to whether to charge and indict?

MURRAY: Right. This is the big thing we're waiting for. When is she actually going to bring charges? She said months ago that these decisions about who, if anyone, she would charge more imminent?

We still haven't seen these from the D.A. We've been saying she could make these announcements as soon as this spring.

I think the question is, are people taking these immunity deals now? And if so, what kind of evidence are they offering? And how much evidence? How long does it take to go through that? Is this something that could potentially delay it? Or could we still see indictments potentially in the coming weeks?

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this, too. For a fake elector to implicate a fake elector does not necessarily mean the former president implicated. Is that right?

MURRAY: No. But I think one of the things that we've seen in the sort of fake collector scheme both nationally as well as in Georgia is the big question for investigators is, how high does this go?

You know, is this you guys coming up with this scheme with other folks in Georgia? Or is this you guys talking to people at higher levels of the Trump campaign who are around the Trump campaign at that point who are kind of directing you to do this?

And that's the kind of information the D.A.'s office is really going to want to know, is sort of who was working behind the scenes to set this up and to push this forward, knowing that these court challenges in Georgia aren't going to go anywhere, knowing that this is an effort essentially to overturn an election.

SCIUTTO: Your impression so far is that the district attorney in Fulton County, which, of course, is in the Atlanta area here, has been proceeding through this methodically?

MURRAY: She has been. You know, we know the special grand jury met spent months having witnesses come before them digging through evidence. They completed their work last year.

They completed their work before we saw everything the January 6th committee put forward. So we know investigators have been looking through that.

And frankly, they've been looking at everyone, the special grand jury recommended for charges. We don't know who that full list is and saying, OK, can we, as prosecutors, make this case stand up in court?

[14:55:01]

And they want to make sure that solid, especially if they move forward with racketeering charges.

SCIUTTO: It's quite a standard to meet.

Sara Murray, thanks so much. Something to watch.

Boris? SANCHEZ: One wrong term costing a young woman her life. A homeowner opening fire when a group of friends took a wrong into his driveway. We'll bring details on those charges from Upstate New York next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[14:59:54]

SCIUTTO: After days of community outrage a homeowner accused of shooting a 16-year-old boy turned himself in. The 84-year-old suspect is now facing two felonies.