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Race to Escape Hawaiian Wildfires; Key Win for Abortion Rights Advocates as Ohio Voters Reject Measure Making it Harder to Amend State Constitution; New York Times Obtains Previously Secret Memo Laying Out Strategy for Trump to Overturn 2020 Election. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired August 09, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: The memo and the new reporting on how it could be key evidence in the 2020 election case against Donald Trump. What one unindicted co-conspirator sent over exactly one month before January 6th.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A big win at the ballot box for abortion right, now how Democrats hope to take this trend nationwide.

BOLDUAN: People in Hawaii are waking up to a dire situation. Dire is exactly how the lieutenant governor is describing the wildfires raging out of control there right now. The unfolding disaster and the help that they need in Hawaii right now, we're going to get to it.

I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman. This is CNN News Central.

Right now, Hawaii is battling unprecedented wildfire. Strong winds are a big part of the problem, making it difficult for officials to control the spread. I'm going to show you video taken overnight. I'm going to show it to you when it comes up, this video overnight of just showing the wildfires moving quickly across Western Maui.

The drone operator estimated that the fire was moving one and a half to three miles an hour. There are currently three active fires burning on that island. Two other fires are spreading on the big island. We are going to show you flames -- you can see flames, large plumes of smoke encroaching on local communities in these islands.

Officials say several buildings there have been destroyed. Hawaii's lieutenant governor had said this about the challenges that they're facing right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. GOV. SYLVIA LUKE (D-HI): 911 is down. Cell service is down. Phone service is down. And that's been part of the problem.

Our hospital system in Maui, they are overburdened, people suffering from inhalation. The reality is that we need to fly people out of Maui to give them burn support because Maui Hospital cannot do extensive burn treatment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Yes, they are dealing with the situation, and it is still unfolding as we speak.

CNN's Derek Van Dam is joining us with more on this. Derek, how big of an impact is this hurricane out at sea having on what's happening in Hawaii right now?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's certainly helping or aiding in the fueling of the flames and the tight pressure gradient. We'll get to those details in just a moment. But listening to some of the interview we had and the direct reporting with the Hawaii governor, Sylvia Luke, she is saying this is all hands on deck.

And she's also just now issuing an emergency proclamation for wildfires at the Kohala Ranch region on the big island near Waimea Bay. So, that's another area that we're focusing our attention on. So, it's not just Maui. It is also on the big island of Hawaii way where we're seeing these fires continue to spread. We have got very erratic fire behavior. We've all seen the video.

So, let's get to space, show you what it looks like so to kind of get some contextual perspective on this. You can see hot spots from space. This is the big island, here is Maui, that's smoke, and you can see the direction of the wind and just how powerful it is, because it's pushing in it in this southwesterly direction.

[10:05:07]

So, the winds are coming from the east-northeast and it's all being fueled or helped fanned by what is Hurricane Dora to the south and west.

So, that's the high pressure to the north. That's Hurricane Dora. And both of these are working together to put kind of a squeeze on the islands of Hawaii, and that's allowing for the winds to pick up. And the problem is that this wind, similar to let's say, Santa Ana winds in Southern California, is that it dries out and it warms up as it passes over the mountains and it creates these very dry, timber-like conditions.

We had wind gusts in excess of 80 miles per hour on the island of Maui. Sustained winds still now over 25 miles per hour. And as we continue to see that funneling effect, we will see the impacts with the wildfires continue at least for the next 12 hours before Hurricane Dora moves well away from the islands.

BOLDUAN: 12 more hours. They really need help right now. Derek, thank you so much. He's going to be watching this. I mean, folks are clearly are just waking up or haven't even gone to sleep overnight for what they're dealing with. On the phone, I believe, joining us right now is one man who lives in Hawaii and has been dealing with exactly what we're talking about, Alan Dickar. Alan, can you hear me?

ALAN DICKAR, LOST HOME IN HAWAIIAN WILDFIRES (voice over): Yes, I can.

BOLDUAN: Thank you so much. The control room just told me that you've had to evacuate twice because of how these fires have been moving. Tell me what you've been going through. What's the situation?

DICKAR (voice over): Okay. So, I live and work in Lahaina Town and had to evacuate. I took some video that you may have seen already of Front Street when it really kind of exploded in fire, and then I evacuated. I grabbed some people I saw on the street who didn't seem to have a good plan. And I had told them, get your stuff, get in my truck, get in line.

And there's only one road that leads out of Lahaina, so, obviously, it was backed up. But that's okay. We made it through. And I dropped everybody else off and then I went to a place in another part of Maui that's far away. And as soon as I got there, that whole area had to evacuate because of a totally different fire in Kula that was, I guess, heading down toward -- I was in Maui Meadows near Wailea, if you have a map. And all of a sudden, just as I arrived, that whole area got evacuated.

So, now, I'm in a totally different part of Maui in a rain forest because I figured that was enough, and I'm safe here at least from a fire evacuation because it's a rain forest.

BOLDUAN: I mean, Alan, the video that we're showing our viewers, as you're talking, some of the video that you sent in, the winds of the fire -- the winds -- this just looks terrifying. You've lived there a really long time. I mean, have you ever seen anything like this?

DICKAR (voice over): Yes, never seen anything like this. The winds started overnight and there wasn't any real warning about this. So, there was -- sometimes there's a warning about an upcoming storm. Certainly, we get lots of hurricane warnings about hurricanes that will come close, but not hit us, but nothing like that.

And the thing about this wind is it was a lot of gusts, 40 or 50 miles an hour, and this is in the middle of the night, because things were breaking, branches were coming down. And I went outside at one point and I had trouble standing up against the wind, but it was gusty. It wasn't a constant wind. And it was hot. That's the other thing. I've never seen a hot wind like this. It's called a wind but I've never experienced one where it felt in my house when the wind blew and a little bit of wind came into the room, it felt like there was a heater because we don't have heaters. So, it was a weird sensation, and I've been here for 24 years, never had that here before. So, this is different.

BOLDUAN: This does seem different. Talk to me about, also, you have a business, and I believe you have three -- maybe three properties. Do you know how your properties are?

DICKAR (voice over): All three of my properties are in the same neighborhood in Lahaina Town. One of them -- one of the tenants had already come to me earlier, like in the very early afternoon, because a tree from the resort that's right behind my property had blown over and destroyed everything in my backyard. And she has guests coming tomorrow, now today, and she had set up a bunch of things for them and we were trying to figure out backup plans.

And then she came back a half hour after that in tears really frantic, and all she could tell me was she didn't have time to do anything.

[10:10:00]

She just grabbed her mom and her dog. The house was on fire because the resort was on fire and it had come across the tree.

So, one of my houses definitely caught fire. The other houses are each a block away and I did not see them burn, but I recognized there's a very good chance that they are not there anymore. Both of them were completely covered in smoke after I started to evacuate.

I went back to just check to see if the house was on fire or not. It wasn't, but I was standing at the street looking at my house, and I couldn't see my whole house because of the smoke, but the smoke was coming from another property that was a few buildings away.

And then I went down to Front Street right after that and wanted to check on my gallery. I've had a gallery in the center of Front Street for 23 years. And as I began walking that way, there is a historic building on Front Street, in Dickinson, the old Baldwin house, the roof was on fire. And I started taking a video of it because I was amazed that there were no fire trucks there.

And then as I turned and looked down Front Street, Front Street exploded in flame. And I took the other videos that I posted from Dickinson on Front Street looking right into the heart of the business district. And there's about a two-block stretch, two long blocks of Front Street that are the economic hub of Maui. And there -- that's what you see in the video.

BOLDUAN: I think this is the video that we're seeing right now. Alan, I am -- thank you so much. I'm so glad to hear that you seem safe right now. I am so sorry for what you're going through and what is quite honestly very much unfolding as we speak still, as the officials in Hawaii saying that these fires are absolutely burning out of control still. They just told us earlier this hour. Please be as careful as you can and we will stay in touch with you. Alan Dickar, thank you so much.

This sounds just horrible, John.

BERMAN: And, look, listening to him and seeing the pictures that he sent back, you see those flames there, I get now what we heard from officials and say, oh no, this is not at all under control right now.

BOLDUAN: The winds are just tearing through, just blowing it over to the next street and blowing it across the highway.

BERMAN: And it's before dawn. I mean, wait until they get a chance to wake up and see some of the damage that happened overnight. All right, Kate, thank you.

This morning, what is being seen as a huge victory for abortion rights. Now, this is nuanced. This is over a ballot initiative in Ohio. Voters there rejected a measure that would have made it harder to pass abortion rights measures in the upcoming November election, and they did it resoundingly, 57 percent to 43 percent. That's a 14 percent margin in a state that Donald Trump, a red state, Trump won it by 8 percent.

CNN's Jeff Zeleny is in Columbus, Ohio, this morning. This was a big result, Jeff, with potentially national implications.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It definitely was, John. It means one thing. Ohio is going to be the only state in the country with abortion on the ballot in November, this November. So, all eyes in the state-by-state fight over abortion rights will be here in Ohio. And it would have been regardless, but the rules will now be a simple majority will be needed to pass this bill.

If the Issue 1, as it was called, would have succeeded yesterday here in Ohio, it would have required a supermajority of 60 percent and that was at issue in this. Voters were asked whether they wanted to essentially change the rules of how difficult it is to change the state's Constitution and they resoundingly said no.

But, John, this is reverberating, as you said, state-by-state. Other states are looking at this, some initiative. Folks want to put this on the ballot next year in Arizona, of course, a key swing state. The White House weighing in as well, the president saying overnight that, quote, this measure was a blatant attempt to weaken voters' voices. So, yes, this was about abortion, even though the word was not necessarily even directly on the ballot, but the issue absolutely was.

And it really is the continuation of what we saw just about a year ago, last summer in Kansas in the wake of that Supreme Court decision overturning Roe versus Wade. It has gone to a handful of states. Ohio will be the latest one.

But, John, this certainly is a warning sign also for Republicans going into 2024. If you look at the map in the suburban areas, places where Donald Trump won handily, the no-vote won yesterday. This certainly does have ramifications far beyond Ohio and far beyond this year.

[10:15:00]

John?

BERMAN: All right. Jeff Zeleny in Columbus, Jeff, thank you very much.

Standing between Jeff and me at this moment, you can see CNN Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten. Harry, I mentioned that basically the proxy for abortion rights won by 14 in Ohio, in a state that Donald Trump won by eight. You have got another way to look at this swing.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Jeff was talking about those counties that swung right from Donald Trump over to the no side. This will give you an understanding of what's going on. So, this is counties won in Ohio. Look, Joe Biden won, get this, just seven counties in Ohio in 2020. Look at no on Issue 1, won 22 counties, so a bunch, a ton. Triple the number of counties, no one compared to Joe Biden, that's something that Democrats definitely like looking at.

BERMAN: And, again, this is a proxy for abortion rights outperforming basically Joe Biden or the baseline for Democrats. And you've seen this, Harry, in lots of measures over the last year or so.

ENTEN: Absolutely right. So, we've had six ballot measures that were abortion right side, on these ballot measures since July of 2022 when Roe v. Wade, of course, was overturned. Look at what they did, the pro-abortion side. They won every single one of them.

Look, Vermont, not a big surprise, right, 77 percent, blue state there, blue state, California. But look at Kansas, a red state, 59 percent. Look at Montana, a red state, 53 percent, Kentucky, another red state where the pro-abortion rights side one.

And that, to me, is not surprising given what we saw in our CNN poll yesterday, disapprove of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, 63 percent of voters overall, the vast majority of Democrats at 93 percent. Look at independents, 69 percent. Boy, wouldn't that be a nice percentage for Joe Biden to get in 2024? And even Republican, nearly a third Republicans disapproved of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade. I wouldn't be surprised if some of them voted no yesterday too.

BERMAN: So, obviously, Harry, what Democrats want is to figure out a way to take this, to take this obvious support on balance for abortion rights nationwide and see if they can expand it just beyond the abortion issue. Any evidence there?

ENTEN: Yes. I mean, take a look at the special elections. The average special election the Democratic margin compared to Joe Biden's margin. Look, in 2021-2022, pre the Roe reversal, those average Democrats did three points worse than Biden. Look at the post-Roe, six points better than Biden. Clear sign that it's not just abortion, it's transitioning over to the ballot box as well.

BERMAN: So, expect Democrats to talk about this more. Harry Enten, great to see you.

ENTEN: Thank you, sir.

BERMAN: I appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: All right. Coming up for us, a never before seen memo detailing the scheme to overturn the 2020 election. What this now could mean for the case against Donald Trump.

And top U.S. and Mexican officials are meeting to talk about the southern border. At the top of the agenda, the controversial barbed wire and buoys that Texas has put in the Rio Grande. We are going to talk to a Democratic congressman who got a tour of that floating barricade and hear what he saw and sees now.

And the American nurse and her daughter kidnapped in Haiti, they are now free, we are told. More details we are now learning about their release. We'll be right back.

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BOLDUAN: The memo and the alleged elections scheme. The New York Times has obtained this previously secret memorandum that could be central to the prosecutor's case against Donald Trump. It's a key piece of evidence that is talked about in the indictment. And it describes the alleged conspiracy to appoint fake electors after the 2020 election.

The document, which has not previously ever been seen, explains and goes into detail how this could swing the election, the actions they would take in this memo, and if not that, at least muck things up and buy the Trump team more time.

The memo was written by Lawyer Kenneth Chesebro. He's listed as co- conspirator number 5 in the election interference indictment. And remember that none of the co-conspirators that are named in the indictment have been charged.

CNN's Jessica Schneider, she is following this. It is very interesting what is coming out in this memo. Walk us through what you see.

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It's interesting. It's revealing and, of course, it is known to prosecutors it will likely be a key part of the case. And it really lays out that even the man outlining this fake electors plot, Kenneth Chesebro, this is his memo, he knew it was farfetched, knew it was likely illegal but he kept pushing this plan. And it's clear that Cheseboro really wanted to create confusion in hopes that the fake electors could, in fact, be substituted for the real electors on January 6th.

This was a plot he planned to execute through the vice president, Mike Pence and Mike Pence's role as president of the Senate. And that way, he believed, Trump's team could then steal the election.

So, this is a six-page memo where Chesebro lays out the court challenges that were happening in the states and then talks about the Supreme Court potentially getting involved, putting it this way, saying, even if in the end the Supreme Court would likely end up ruling that the power to count the votes does not lie with the president of the Senate but instead lies with Congress, letting matters play out this way would guarantee that public attention would be riveted on the evidence of electoral abuses by the Democrats and would also buy the Trump campaign more time to win litigation that would deprive Biden of electoral votes and/or add to Trump's column. I recognize what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy. And now this bold strategy does seem to be at the heart of this indictment against the former president. This memo will play a key part in the case.

[10:25:00]

And, Kate, it is really a case that is moving forward at a fast clip. We got word last night that there will be that hearing on Friday morning about prosecutors' plan to restrict which evidence Trump and his team can get and share once prosecutors have handed it over. So, we're seeing a very active judge in this case with Tanya Chutkan, who has really taken control of this case very early on in the process. That hearing is scheduled for 10:00 A.M., Friday, just about two days from now. Kate?

BOLDUAN: All right. Jessica, thank you.

Joining us now for more on this is CNN Political Analyst Laura Barron- Lopez, White House Correspondent for PBS Newshour, and CNN Legal Analyst Elliot Williams.

So, Elliot, let's talk through this memo. They see this memo as showing that this wasn't just ideas and advice, if you will, that this was a criminal scheme. That's why it was included in this indictment. Where do you see it crossing the line into that? What do you see here?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, the acknowledgement, as Jessica noted a moment ago, the words, this is a bold, controversial strategy, which is itself a recognition of the fact that they certainly know they're testing the bounds of the law, if not stepping over it. And, look, that's going to be for a jury to sort out.

A line that struck me in particular, and they use it a few times in the memo, is sort of toward the end where he says, there should be messaging that presents this as a routine measure. It's this idea that they wanted to make clear to the public that whatever they were doing was sort of the natural order of business. And that itself, I think, could come in as evidence sort of how exactly how controversial it was, that they needed to present to the public how routine it was or at least that they thought it was routine.

So, there's a lot in there and I think it's not great evidence for Ken Chesebro as it comes out.

BOLDUAN: I also want to ask you about this element of it, Elliot, before I bring you in, Laura. There are parts where Chesebro says things like, I'm not necessarily advising this course of action. And in another spot, he writes, I recognize that what I suggest is a bold strategy, as you said, and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on January 6th. I don't know if you see it as like caveats or doubt or -- what does this do?

WILLIAMS: Oh, absolutely caveats. And, look, to be clear, this is why I was careful to say a jury is going to have to sort this out and a central part of the Trump team's defense is that we were just batting ideas around and this was just sound, legal advice, as any responsible lawyer would do, presenting ideas to the client. And so that's how they're going to frame it.

It's an open question that will have to be sorted out at court, but that's how he sort of steps away from it saying, just, look, I'm putting it out there, this is what lawyers do, and we'll see what happens.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Laura, we know that one question, as Jess Schneider was just laying, one question that the judge overseeing this case needs to -- will be deciding on likely this Friday is how much evidence can be discussed, what boundaries there will be around public disclosure of evidence ahead of the trial.

Donald Trump last night in New Hampshire, he went after prosecutors, he went after his legal troubles. Let me play a little bit of this for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: We won the election by a lot. Then they have this crap going on. I never even thought of this one. Trump didn't really believe he won the election. Let me tell you, people did -- nobody is saying -- that's one thing, I'll tell you, there was never a second of any day that I didn't believe that that election was rigged.

I consider it a great, great, great badge of honor. I do. I do, because I'm being indicted for you. I am being indicted for you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: And I wanted to make sure we played that last bit, because that seems to be kind of the new mantra when he is talking about his legal troubles, right, Laura? I mean, what do you think this does?

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: That is certainly what the former president is running on in his bid for a second shot at the White House. He has repeated over and over again that if they are going after him that this means that they can go after his supporters.

It doesn't quite make sense, of course, because his supporters weren't carrying out a fake electors scheme. And just on this fake electors scheme in particular, that was the most sprawling out of all of the former president's efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. And it involved lawmakers across different states. It involved dozens of these people who decided that they were willing to be fake electors.

But right now, I mean, the former president is still really strong in the primary. So, the result of this indictment, as well as the prior two is that the base is rallying around him. He's leading Ron DeSantis by more than 30 points. He's leading the rest of the field by more than 40 points.

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And so this is something that he is just continuing to make his entire campaign about.