Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Dianne Feinstein Briefly Hospitalized After Fall; Abortion Rights Victory in Ohio; Secret Trump Campaign Memo; Hawaii Wildfires. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired August 09, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:33]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Winds from a hurricane fueling a devastating wildfire on Hawaii, forcing evacuations and overwhelming hospitals on Maui with victims, endangering one of Hawaii's cultural landmarks, people there even jumping into the ocean trying to escape the flames.

We are live from Maui ahead.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Plus, the never-before-seen internal Trump campaign memo detailing the plot to overturn the 2020 election. Details on the architect behind it and why they pushed the fake electors plan, despite believing the Supreme Court might not go for it.

And, later, we are live from the Florida store where someone defied the odds, scored an enormous fortune, winning the biggest jackpot in Mega Millions history.

We are following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: An extremely dangerous scene playing out right now in Hawaii. This is video from a popular tourist town and cultural landmark, the town of Lahaina, which is on the west side of Maui. You can see towering flames, smoke engulfing several buildings there. One residents saying it felt like the whole city is on fire and that they saw people jumping into the ocean trying to escape.

The Coast Guard says it just successfully rescued 12 of those people from the water. And this is coming as several wildfires are moving rapidly through Maui and also on the Big Island fanned by strong winds associated with Hurricane Dora, which is passing hundreds of miles to the south.

Right now, officials say multiple evacuations are under way. There are thousands of residents there without power. Hospitals as well are overwhelmed with victims.

Here's the state's lieutenant governor on CNN this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LT. GOV. SYLVIA LUKE (D-HI): They are overburdened with burn patients, 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.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Derek Van Dam is joining us now.

Derek, I think what's key is, Hawaii, the day is really just dawning there. So I think we're just going to be starting to get a sense there of the damage. But tell us how this happened.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, it's really becoming first light right now as you speak, sunrise roughly about 6:30 in the morning, local time.

And, really, with this satellite imagery, I'm going to zoom in to the island of Maui. And you see those little orange specks? These are the three active wildfires on the island of Maui as we speak. But as we go forward in time, closer towards their morning, we're starting to see that the hot spots aren't as bright as what they were overnight, when the fires were at their maximum.

So what we're concerned or what we believe is happening is that, with a little communication, these fires are starting at least to -- maybe their energy and their extreme, erratic fire behavior is starting to calm as the winds gradually calm in the coming hours.

So, that's good news. Latest wind reports there over 65 miles per hour, but, hopefully, that should be improving as time goes on. You're looking at Lahaina. This is on the ground. You saw the hot spots a moment ago from satellite imagery. Now this is what it looks like on the ground.

And you got to keep in mind this is the economic hub of Western Maui. This is where tourists go to vacation. This is where people live. This is where their businesses are located. This is another interesting satellite imagery. You can see hot spots on the Big Island of Hawaii as well and some of the smoke that is getting blown out to the Western Pacific because of these powerful winds that are being forced by what is an area of high pressure to the north and Hurricane Dora to the southwest.

It's really putting the squeeze on the Hawaiian Islands, that pressure gradient creating the strong winds, gusting over 85 miles per hour last night, and that is what's fueling these erratic fire behaviors. We have wind advisories and red flag warnings in place.

Now, similar to what we experience in Southern California, the Santa Ana winds -- we have heard of that term before -- the winds come up and over the mountains in Maui, similarly like they do in Southern California, and very simple thermodynamic processes occur. The air warms up, the winds increase, and the air dries out at the same time. So it's leaving those tinderbox conditions.

[13:05:05]

And, Brianna, we will see that continue at least for the next 12 hours until Hurricane Dora and that high pressure system I showed you on the map a moment ago moves west.

KEILAR: Yes, look, this clearly caught a lot of people by surprise, not the least because some of them were sleeping as some of the really bad stuff was happening there in Lahaina.

(CROSSTALK)

KEILAR: Derek, thank you so much for taking us through that.

We're going to be speaking as well to a reporter in Maui here in just a few minutes, as the day, again, is just starting to dawn and we're just starting to get a sense of how bad the damage really is there, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Back here at home, today, we are learning about a potentially significant piece of evidence in the election interference indictment facing Donald Trump.

Special counsel prosecutors have a campaign memo from one month after the 2020 election laying out a step-by-step plan to overturn Biden's victory, interfere with the Electoral College. "The New York Times" obtained a copy of that memo written by the lawyer Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney who was advising the Trump campaign at the time who is now an unindicted co-conspirator in the special counsel's case.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is here now.

Katelyn, before we break down this memo, which is remarkable, because it does lay out point by point what they were trying to do here to overturn the election, let's go to another decision regarding the special counsel and access to Trump's Twitter account. Why Trump's Twitter account?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes, well, we didn't know about this before, but it was something that the special counsel's office did and had access to back earlier this year.

They went to court, and we just got this unsealed court filing revealing this, where the special counsel's office in January got a search warrant for Donald Trump's Twitter account @realDonaldTrump. Remember this?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

POLANTZ: This is what it looked like, right? He's tweeting all the time.

They got that search warrant. What they were looking for, according to the court filing, was evidence of a criminal offense. And then, on top of that, they were telling the court that they didn't want Twitter to tell Donald Trump that this search warrant was coming through the criminal process. Because they were still investigating, the judge did say that Twitter

could not tell Donald Trump about this. And one of the reasons was that there was a fear he could jeopardize the investigation. He might tell other people, chill witnesses, potentially destroy evidence, change his own behavior.

And so that...

SCIUTTO: Evidence of a crime? What crime specifically today expect to find evidence on Twitter?

POLANTZ: Well, he has been charged with four crimes here related to January 6.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

POLANTZ: And so it's clearly part of that investigation.

SCIUTTO: Got it.

POLANTZ: We don't have the underlying documents yet on exactly what things they had probable cause to go and get the search warrant and get access to this Twitter account.

But they did. Twitter was not that easy to work with for the Justice Department. They took a few days to turn things over, got a $350,000 fine for that delay, didn't tell Trump about this as it was taking place. But now we do have this criminal case, and we have this newly unsealed opinion.

SCIUTTO: We will how it works into the case.

OK, let's go to the memo that lays out this plan to basically block the electoral votes they didn't like, the ones showing Trump won, and putting fake electors that would turn the result over.

POLANTZ: Yes, so this is a memo that has been out there, but that no one has seen until now.

This is not a memo that the January 6 Committee was able to get their hands on, apparently. But then the Justice Department did quote from it whenever they filed this indictment against Donald Trump in federal district court last week. It's a memo written by Ken Chesebro, who is a lawyer who was working on this fake electors scheme.

He was writing multiple memos about how to use fake electors to help Donald Trump. And then what happened was, initially, they wanted these fake electors to come together on December 14 just in case one of the battleground states would fall in Trump's favor, even though he didn't look like he was going to win.

But then, when Ken Chesebro wrote an additional memo, this memo that "The New York Times" has now made public that is cited in the indictment, at that time, he's saying on December 6 that we want it to look like a routine measure that the fake electors are coming together, but, actually, we need these because it'll create confusion, and people will start to believe that maybe Mike Pence can overturn the outcome of the election.

So, prosecutors have really zeroed in on this as something where...

SCIUTTO: That's notable because it brings the January 6 moment, when they were applying pressure on the vice president to not count, again, votes they didn't like because it showed they lost, shows that, weeks before, they were talking about this plan, in effect, to kind of build the confusion, create some sort of justification.

POLANTZ: Right.

And the justification even expands to using the court system. One of the things Chesebro writes in this memo now that we have on December 6 is, he says that perhaps the Supreme Court won't rule in our favor. They will go with Congress, not Mike Pence, but it will help us because it will create confusion. It will create a public sphere. It will buy us time for the Trump campaign.

[13:10:00]

And then he writes: "I recognize that what I suggest is a bold, controversial strategy and that there are many reasons why it might not end up being executed on January 6."

SCIUTTO: Right

POLANTZ: He's putting the plan in place.

And then prosecutors use this really sharp word here, a sharp departure. This is a sharp departure for this memo, where Ken Chesebro removes it from just a theoretical plan to a real one.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

And this is key, setting up a fake controversy that would derail the proper certification January 6 of Biden as president-elect. And that's the idea here, is that they want to create a fake aura of fraud that would allow the vice president and to say, hey, I'm not counting those votes and then move Joe Biden below 270.

POLANTZ: Yes, and deceiving the American public really is crucial in this accusation.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

Katelyn Polantz, thanks so much for breaking it down -- Brianna.

KEILAR: Let's bring in CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen to talk more about.

This memo is new to us, Norm, right? We have not seen this before. What makes this so egregious? Why is this a departure from the previous explanation that these were electors just been in place to safeguard in case the Trump team won these legal fights they were fighting?

NORMAN EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Brianna, this Ken Chesebro memo represents the missing link. Prosecutors had it.

We didn't have it before -- the missing link between the benign planning before this memo, for example, in Wisconsin, where there really was litigation going on and there was a genuine question, and they weren't thinking about how to preserve the electors, and, as Mr. Chesebro says, the bold and unconventional plan -- actually, it's an illegal plan to use...

KEILAR: Controversial, he says, yes.

EISEN: ... to use -- it's beyond controversial. It's blatantly unconstitutional.

That's the word he should have used. Why? Because the Constitution does not provide for when electors are not actually representing the winner in a state to have electoral states. The Constitution does not provide for the vice president to do the things that he's called to do on January 6 presiding over the meeting of Congress.

So this is the memo where we jump into the illegality that the special counsel charges constitutes these three conspiracies.

KEILAR: The memo says -- at one point, he's writing: "I'm not necessarily advising this course of action."

He's covering himself with some of this language. Is that enough? Are some of these caveats enough to do that?

EISEN: If this were the only memo, it probably would not have been enough to constitute a basis for criminal prosecution.

But we know it's not the only memo. We have seen, according -- these are allegations from the special counsel. But we also saw them from the January 6 Committee. We have seen the step-by-step progression here to this plot that is a blatant violation of the constitutional terms and therefore sound basis for allegations of these violations of federal criminal law.

So, in the context, it is not enough. It's not even close.

KEILAR: Trump didn't write this memo. Right now, we don't know if he saw it. Obviously, it's possible. We don't know that, though. How important is it for the special counsel to prove that Trump saw it and endorsed it?

EISEN: The special counsel does not need to prove that Trump saw the memo. He needs to prove that Trump participated in the illegal activity.

But, Brianna, in the very next paragraph in the indictment, after this memo is discussed, the special counsel points out that, contemporaneous in time, Donald Trump and John Eastman, another one of the lawyers who's -- we have identified as an unindicted co- conspirator, they called the head of the RNC, Ronna Romney McDaniel, and asked her to help procure these false electors in states across the country. So there's that contemporaneous evidence and a lot of it throughout

the trajectory of the conspiracy, more than enough to charge Donald Trump. And it seems like he's facing a very overwhelming amount of evidence.

KEILAR: Norm, thank you so much for taking us through this.

EISEN: Always.

KEILAR: We appreciate it -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Voters in Ohio deliver a critical victory for abortion rights activists. We're going to speak about the wider political implications for 2024 just ahead.

Plus, Senator Dianne Feinstein hospitalized briefly after a fall, the latest in a series of health issues for the California senator. We will have a live report from Capitol Hill.

And, later, you might want to check with some family and friends in Florida. Someone there won the billion-dollar lottery. I think that's where Boris is right now.

You're watching CNN NEWS CENTRAL. And we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:18:58]

KEILAR: To Capitol Hill now, where lawmakers are reacting to news that Senator Dianne Feinstein was briefly hospitalized yesterday after a fall at home.

Feinstein is the chamber's oldest member and has faced an increasing number of calls to step down as her health challenges mount. And she has pledged to not run again in 2024.

We have CNN's Lauren Fox on Capitol Hill for us.

Lauren, can you tell us what's happening here and how the senator, the senator's office is responding to this?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, her office says she's fine, that she went to the hospital yesterday after a minor fall and she had some routine tests, but they were all clear.

I will read the statement from her office directly, saying -- quote -- "Senator Feinstein briefly went to the hospital yesterday afternoon as a precaution after a minor fall in her home. All of her scans were clear and she returned home."

Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also said he spoke with the senator from California this morning, that she said she was doing fine, that she's recovering at home.

[13:20:00] And I think that it's important to point out that she was absent from the Senate for several months. If you will remember, back in February, she was hospitalized because of complications from shingles. She then returned to the U.S. Senate in May, but she did face calls from Democrats saying that she should step aside.

When she returned in May, it happened after there was some pressure because her vote on the Senate Judiciary Committee was so key to moving forward many of the president's judicial nominations. There have been some moments over the course of the last several months in which she has seemed confused at times, including right before the recess, when she was on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

They were voting to approve a defense spending bill. And she seemed to start to read a statement as to why she supported that piece of legislation, instead of just simply voting aye. She was then reminded by her staff that it was time to vote and reminded by Senator Patty Murray, the chairwoman of that committee, just to say "Aye." She then did.

And at the time, her office that it was just a confusing set of circumstances, that they were switching back and forth between the vote and having statements on why senators were backing the bill. And she just had a momentary lapse, wondering what to do next. So she voted yes. And that was the last of it.

Obviously, lawmakers are on recess right now, Brianna. So we will be keeping a close eye on the senator's health as lawmakers return in September -- Brianna.

KEILAR: All right, thank you so much for that, Lauren Fox live on Capitol Hill for us -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: This is some big political news with some potential national implications.

Voters in Ohio just rejected a measure that would have, among many things, made it harder to protect abortion rights in that state. It would have normally been an under-the-radar special election scheduled in the middle of summer. Three million people showed up to the polls, and they rejected a constitutional measure that would have raised the threshold for referenda.

The White House says it is -- quote -- "a win for democracy."

CNN's Jeff Zeleny has more from Columbus.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Jim, the results of this special election here in Ohio are reverberating in states across the country, as they look to Ohio as other potential avenues to protect abortion rights in their own state Constitution.

But as for that vote in this special election yesterday, some three million people turned out, certainly not becoming the sleepy August election that some Republican leaders may have hoped when they scheduled this one to election. Now, of course, yesterday's vote was to change the rules to make it

more difficult to amend the state's Constitution for that abortion rights question that will be on the November ballot. But it was about far more than that as well. It was about the petition process, how difficult it will be to get some of these petitions on states across the country and other states that allow it to protect abortion rights.

Of course, all of this comes a year after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, sending the issue back to the states. And we have seen one state after another since then, beginning with that surprise decision in Kansas last summer, on to Kentucky, Montana, Michigan as well, protecting abortion rights in their states' constitution.

Now, this is going to be a full on campaign here in Ohio. This is going to be the only state where abortion will actually be on the ballot this November. So, look for both sides to pour an incredible amount of resources in. But there is no doubt, with a simple majority needed to pass that, abortion rights proponents believe that this is something that they can do.

Abortion rights opponents believe that Ohio is still a place that this can be stopped. But, Jim, there's no doubt abortion will be front and center in the 2024 presidential race as well, perhaps even here in Ohio -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: Jeff Zeleny, thanks so much.

And, certainly, Brianna, implications for 2024 if you see results like this in remarkably red states, like we saw in Kansas, like we saw in Kentucky.

KEILAR: Yes, huge implications.

So, right, now there are evacuations under way in multiple parts of Hawaii, as fast-moving fires are fueled by strong winds that are moving across Maui and also across the Big Island. This was the scene in Lahaina, which is a popular tourist town, a cultural landmark on Maui, multiple buildings on fire, flames and smoke billowing into the air.

One resident comparing the devastating scene to an apocalypse. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIARE LAWRENCE, RESIDENT OF LAHAINA: It's just so hard. I'm currently Upcountry and just knowing that I can't get ahold on any of my family members. I still don't know where my little brother is. I don't know where my stepdad is.

Everyone I know in Lahaina, their homes have been burned down. Luckily, some of my family made it Upcountry tonight with, like, my cousin, Dustin, who is sitting up here. But they lost everything. The house is gone.

And just please pray for Lahaina. (END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: And with us now, we have Hawaii News Now reporter Chelsea Davis, who is live for us there on Maui.

[13:25:04]

Chelsea, it seems like this really caught folks there off guard overnight. Tell us what you have seen and what is going on.

CHELSEA DAVIS, HAWAII NEWS NOW: Yes, Brianna.

Well, I want to first explain exactly where I am, because I am the closest, safest place I can be to those wildfires that are raging in West Maui right now. I'm in a town called Maalaea.

And you can see that police have this area completely shut down. They're not letting anyone through. No one is allowed on the west side of the island right now, because it is not safe. The fire first broke out yesterday morning around 6"30. So it's been over 24 hours here in Hawaii that firefighters have been battling this blaze.

And they're battling multiple brushfires throughout the entire island. This one here on the west side, as well as in the Upcountry area, you heard from that resident -- there's people Upcountry as well. Last night, there were fires on the south side of the island.

And so firefighters, first responders absolutely have their hands full right now. Maui police are not letting anyone in, but they are allowing people out. You are only allowed in if you are, like, official or a first responder. As you can see, the wind sure is roaring right now. A lot of times, in the morning, the winds are normally calm. In the afternoon, it picks up again.

But this is an indication that there is no sign of this fire stopping or there's no sign of relief because of the winds are just whipping right now. And you can see also this line of cars. These are residents or visitors that are trying to get into the west side. There's no indication that police will open up the road anytime soon.

But as we have been talking about, the west side of the island, behind Lahaina, Kaanapali, Kahana, that is a very popular tourist destination. We have been seeing videos that have been sent to our newsroom all morning long and all throughout the night of just structures that are damaged, businesses that are destroyed.

It's difficult to talk to people out there because phone lines are down, cell towers are down. So it's hard to get in touch with loved ones to see how they're doing. But we know that shelters have been opened. The Red Cross has opened shelters. But they have also been evacuating that -- shelters as well.

They're just leaving the west side and heading into the town location here where we are, where it's much safer, so no signs of this fire stopping anytime soon. KEILAR: Chelsea, we have heard officials talking about burn victims,

burns that are so severe that folks need to be taken off of Maui so that they can get better treatment than is available on the island.

What can you tell us about casualties at this point, and also the difficulty of just knowing exactly what those numbers are? Because it is just about 7:30 a.m. where you are this. The sun has not been up for that long.

DAVIS: Yes.

First off, in terms of the casualties, information from the county has been real limited again, as I mentioned, because phone lines are down as well. So I'm sure they're having a hard time getting in touch with first responders on scene.

They obviously have their hands full battling the blaze as well. But communication is hard to come by because the phone lines are down. So we don't know numbers at this time. We have heard from the chief communications officer for the county of Maui that evacuations are extensive and multiple structures have burned.

But she doesn't have an exact number for us, because she said they're just still trying to focus on just getting people to safety. This is still a very active scene. A lot of people -- as a matter of fact, we just learned that a shelter on the west side, they're being evacuated from that evacuation shelter.

So they're leaving the west side, getting out of the area completely. So, to answer your question, we don't have exact numbers because officials are still trying to work to get that information.

In terms of the burn victims, we -- they are being flown to Oahu, to Honolulu, to Straub Hospital. And that's kind of a specialized hospital that is focused on critical burn victims. And a huge reason for that is because we only have one acute hospital here on the Valley Isle.

For this entire island, there's just one main hospital. And so they are overwhelmed. Doctors, nurses, staff members, they can't take -- they're already at their max before this started. So they need help.

So, they are flying people over to Honolulu, where there are much more resources, a lot more hospitals, doctors, nurses, staff that can take care of those burn victims. But we don't have an exact number of how many there are.

KEILAR: All right, Chelsea Davis live for us on Maui.

[13:30:00]