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Coast Guard Rescues People In Maui Trying To Escape Fire; Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-HI) Discusses About The Wildfire Condition In Hawaii; Sources: Atlanta-Area District Attorney To Seek More Thank Dozen Indictments In 2020 Election Meddling Case; Ohio Voters Reject Measure In Win For Abortion Rights; American Nurse, Daughter Released In Haiti. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 09, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:20]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: One witness is calling it apocalyptic, wildfires in Hawaii, forcing people to flee Maui, impacting 911 services as well. Next hour, we are expecting an update from officials there. And in moments, we're going to speak to a lawmaker who represents one of the hardest hit districts.

And happening this hour, President Biden touts what he's calling Bidenomics on his trip out west, the case he is making for his economic plan, as well as efforts to combat the climate crisis.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And details on a search warrant that we're learning the Special Counsel investigating Donald Trump got for the former president's Twitter account and new developments just coming in related to the Georgia election interference case.

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

SCIUTTO: One hour from now, officials in Hawaii will hold a news conference to provide an update on the devastating situation still unfolding on Maui and the Big Island. Dangerous wildfires fueled by winds from Hurricane Dora continue to spread around the state.

Hawaii governor, Josh Green, who is on his way back to the state after cutting his own vacation short, says he expects there to be "some loss of life due to these fires." Right now, there are still thousands without power.

Officials say hospitals, they're overwhelmed with burn victims, multiple evacuations and rescue operations underway right now. That includes the Coast Guard rescuing at least 12 people off of Maui, this after they jumped into the ocean trying to escape the flames.

CNN's Chad Myers, he's been covering the causes behind this, the strong winds from that hurricane. Well, 200-, 300 miles off the coast, but having an impact there.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, that's the thing. The hurricane is to the south and there's a big high pressure to the north. And those two things lined up from, laterally, all the way up and down the latitudes and the longitudes. And this is the area that we're going to see the winds funneling through these islands.

So here's Maui, Big Island down here, seeing hotspots in Maui, which is quite distressing right now. There's Maui itself. And these are hotspots from the satellite, not only the Lahaina fire, but there are also other fires up country here and then we would go to - down here would be Haleakala, but obviously the up country, a lot of people live there as well. And those fires are likely affecting those people as well. Even some fires on the Big Island.

But there's Dora, category four. There are the Hawaiian islands. It's this high pressure up here. That's squeezing the gradient of pressure right through those Hawaiian islands, 82 mile per hour gusts. I mean, that's a gust ...

SCIUTTO: Wow.

MYERS: ... equal to if it would be sustained, a category one hurricane. That's what they had last night. Still wind advisories in effect. The winds are still blowing. We're watching live shots from all the affiliates out there and the winds are still howling and that's what they do not need.

Now, by tomorrow we're down to about 40 miles per hour, maybe 30 and that's helpful. But when these fires are now so large, so many wildfire rings around them, so much land mass, so many fire lines to try to cover. That's the real problem at this point.

Now, so for tomorrow, yes, the storm moves away and it's gone and the winds die off and that's the good news. The high pressure will still be there, but it won't have the low pressure to play with to get this wind speed going through those islands like we had today.

And I'm afraid, Jim, now that we have daylight, we're going to see some pictures that we didn't see last night and they're going to not be very pretty.

SCIUTTO: Yes. All right. Listen, you showed that hotspot over Lahaina and Maui, I just spoke to someone from there who describes devastation in the fires' wake.

Chad Myers, thanks so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: All right. Let's talk now with Democratic Congresswoman, Jill Tokuda of Hawaii. She represents actually most of the Hawaiian islands, including Maui. And in particular this - where we're seeing all of these pictures come into. Congresswoman, I'm so sorry for what your constituents are dealing with. This looks horrific. What is the very latest that you can tell us?

REP. JILL TOKUDA (D-HI): Well, first of all, thank you, Brianna. And I can tell you, this has absolutely been heartbreaking, devastating for so many of us. Two of my islands and my district on fire, such fear overcoming so many individuals. And right now, as was mentioned, as daylight takes hold, we're really only now being able to really assess the damage.

[15:05:03]

The really hard part was as much of this happened at night and so you can imagine the terror and the fear. Literally, they're estimating a hundred people taking to the ocean for safety because of the flames whipping around them, the high winds and the gusts.

So this is really, the moment of reckoning when we are able to see just what happened last night. And quite frankly, the fires are still going. We're still not out of the woods yet. This is going to be a long recovery ahead of us.

KEILAR: Yes, we can see from the pictures, Lahaina sits there on the harbor. And as the flames came in so quickly, there were people who just were pushed towards the water and obviously sought refuge there.

What can you tell us at this point about casualties? We know there are a lot of burn victims. We know that some of them are being moved off of Maui to get better treatment.

TOKUDA: Right now we don't know of any casualties. But like Gov. Greene said, we're still waiting to really see what happened. We do know that there were life flights sent out, people taken to Oahu in critical condition. We know our hospital on Maui was overwhelmed with people showing up.

My big fear was so many homes, so many businesses were burned down. We will literally have to be combing through the wreckage to see exactly what happened. And we fear that there will be casualties as we comb through the wreckage of what's left of such a large part of Maui, such a special place in all of our hearts.

KEILAR: In a situation like this, there's always concern in particular for people who are immobile, for the elderly when these things move so quickly, We've heard stories about people who were helping to try to evacuate people in those categories. Is that your concern that we may not know what has happened to some of those folks?

TOKUDA: Absolutely. We are a tight-knit community. Everyone knows each other, is related to each other. We help each other in situations like this. We are all now worried about our friends, our neighbors, our loved ones that could have been caught in this chaos, in the fast- moving fire.

They think Hawaii is a sprawled out space, but we have a lot of tight- knit homes there, a hotel was taken out, so many different things, this literally will be about us going through piece by piece and making sure that we know exactly where everyone is. I'm praying for their safety and their health.

But sadly, we know that things just move so quickly. You've seen the footage. You've seen the videos. You've heard the firsthand accounts. These are scary times and I fear the worst that some were not able to make it out of their homes in time. KEILAR: We know the White House is monitoring the situation. What contact have you had with the federal government? What else do you need?

TOKUDA: Secretary Mayorkas called me a little while ago, pledged the full support of his agency. I thanked him, first and foremost. The Coast Guard was out there, as we know, literally pulling people from the ocean as they were rushing to safety. FEMA has already given the Green light, so we can get more firefighting resources.

We're going to need everything we can to stop the fire now, to really support people who are going to be in need right now, but it's the long-term. It's the loss that's been experienced from people who have lost everything, their homes, the clothes on their back, businesses, generational businesses, that no longer stand and exist today.

And so, we are going to make sure that we pull every resource possible from the federal government to stand by and support our community through what will be a long and difficult time.

KEILAR: Yes, it certainly will be. And I know that you are - this August recess, as so many members of Congress are, you are on a bipartisan trip. Are you going to be heading back soon in order to tend to your district?

TOKUDA: Absolutely. We're already making arrangements for me to cut it short, start flying home tomorrow. I just really need to be there in my community with our people. And I just ask everyone to send us your prayers, your good wishes. We need that so much right now in Hawaii.

KEILAR: Yes, I can't imagine you probably want to be there right now as you were watching all of this unfold back home. Congresswoman, thank you so much for your time. We are so sorry for what people are enduring there on the island of Maui and also on the Big Island as you're dealing with fires as well. Thank you.

TOKUDA: Thank you.

KEILAR: Jim?

SCIUTTO: Quite a situation unfolding there.

Well, now to Georgia where the Fulton County District Attorney could be just days away from presenting her case against Donald Trump and perhaps others to a grand jury. We do have brand new information this hour that the DA Fani Willis has been assigned additional security protection ahead of a potential fourth Trump indictment.

Today's sources also tell us Willis plans to seek more than a dozen indictments tied to, of course, alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia.

CNN's Sara Murray is here.

Sara, so a dozen indictments, that means a dozen people likely to be indicted here. [15:10:04]

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that means we are expecting more than a dozen people could face charges as part of this case. And we know it has been a sprawling investigation. She has gone far beyond just that Trump call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

She's looked at the voting systems breach in Coffee County, something that we don't think has really been part of the federal case and there are people that were involved in that who anticipate that they could face charges. She's looked at the sort of harassment campaign against election officials there. There could be people involved in that who could face charges. And then the things we've heard about on a national scale, the fake electors who assembled in Georgia.

SCIUTTO: Understood. And timing-wise, because she's presenting next week, that's why folks believe that the decision will come next week.

MURRAY: Yes. I mean, timing-wise, we are expecting her to present her case before the grand jury next week. There are two that meet regularly. One is Monday, Tuesday.

SCIUTTO: Mm-hm.

MURRAY: The other is Thursday, Friday. She's been lining up these witnesses so that when she does go before the grand jury, she can present this sort of narrative around what happened around the 2020 Election. The witnesses are supposed to get a 48 hour heads up about when they're supposed to be in front of this grand jury and testifying. So hopefully we'll get some signals about whether it's looking like the first half of the week and the second half of the week.

SCIUTTO: Yes. A lot of signal reading going on.

Sara Murray, thanks so much. Brianna?

KEILAR: Major developments in the federal probe into 2020 Election interference as well. A newly unsealed court filing shows the Special Counsel got a warrant for former President Trump's Twitter account earlier this year and it was so sensitive, Twitter couldn't disclose it to Trump.

Also today, we're seeing the Trump team's roadmap for overturning an election. A December 2020 memo laying out specific steps to reverse Trump's defeat. The Special Counsel has the memo and the New York Times got their hands on a copy of it.

CNN's Jessica Schneider following it all for us.

First off, what can you tell us about this highly sensitive search warrant?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This is all just coming out in newly unsealed court records. So it turns out it was back in January that Twitter was served with this search warrant, that they wanted Donald Trump's records from his Twitter account.

And also crucially here, they wanted a non-disclosure order saying that Twitter, you cannot tell Donald Trump about this search warrant and that's where Twitter took issue. They said that this non- disclosure agreement would violate the First Amendment. So that really resulted in this month's long legal fight that Twitter has ultimately lost now at the appeals court.

Also, because Twitter was for some reason delayed in handing over all of this material, records, data, they were fined $350,000.

KEILAR: Wow.

SCHNEIDER: So it really does show just how extensive after the indictment's been handed up against Donald Trump, but it really does show, we're getting a glimpse of how extensive the investigation from the Special Counsel's team has really been for many months now.

KEILAR: And what about this December memo that the Special Counsel's team has, but that the January 6th committee did not have?

SCHNEIDER: Yes. This was revealed by the New York Times. This is a memo that was written on December 6th 2020, just one month before the January 6th Capitol attack, the certification of the election. This was written by Kenneth Chesebro. He's identified in the indictment as co-conspirator number five.

This is a six-page memo and it basically detailed how they could execute this fake electors plot. And what it really shows is that Kenneth Chesebro even had doubts about the legality of this, but still wanted to push it forward. And two of the things that were really crucial in this is that they mentioned that they want this to play out because it would guarantee that the public's attention would be riveted by this and it would also buy Donald Trump's team more time to try to contest the election and maybe put forward these fake electors, as they tried to do with the vice president, Mike Pence.

Of course, he did not go through with that plan, but this is going to be crucial key evidence for the Special Counsel's office and the prosecutors in this case. And we're moving rapidly in this case. We have that hearing on Friday morning about the protective order, things moving very rapidly in the 2020 Election case.

KEILAR: All right. We'll be watching it, so much going on.

Jessica Schneider, thank you. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Big in politics. Ohio says no to an effort that would have made it harder to amend the state's constitution. That vote, major impact on abortion rights. We're going to speak to a former Ohio governor who campaigned against the measure.

Plus, an American nurse and her daughter freed after their kidnapping in Haiti. What we're learning.

And later, one ticket, $1.6 billion. We're live outside where a lucky lottery winner scored the largest prize in mega millions history. That's next on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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[15:18:51]

SCIUTTO: A decisive victory for abortion rights. Ohio voters just rejected a measure that would have made it harder to protect access in an upcoming November election. The measure, if passed, would have required a super majority of 60 percent to make changes to the state's constitution instead of a simple majority, as is required now. That intended to stand in the way of a ballot measure in the fall on abortion rights.

But more than three million people showed up to what was thought to be a sleepy summer election, 57 percent voted no. This in a state former president, Trump, won by eight points.

I'm joined now by former Ohio governor, Dick Celeste. He's a Democrat. He traveled the state with former Republican attorney general, Betty Montgomery, to lobby against this measure.

Governor, thanks for taking the time today.

DICK CELESTE, (D) FORMER OHIO GOVERNOR: It's great to be with you, Jim. Thanks.

SCIUTTO: So I wonder, as you were touring the state with Betty Montgomery lobbying against this, did you hear bipartisan opposition first to complete abortion bans?

[15:20:00]

Was that a unifying message you heard?

CELESTE: Well, we weren't talking principally about the abortion issue, although that was a very important subtext on this ballot issue. What we heard was a strong feeling on the part of Ohio citizens that they really want to keep their voice as intact in order to hold politicians in Columbus to account. And they saw this effort to amend the Constitution as really a way of silencing or muzzling the voice of the people and that's what we heard over and over.

I think much of the passion came from people who saw this as a kind of a referendum, let's say, on the upcoming vote on reproductive freedom.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Do you see that? Because this, of course, is a tactic not confined to Ohio. We've seen GOP-led legislatures in other states attempt to pass measures that - well, listen, from the Democratic side or criticize as ways to enforce, in effect, minority rule. And I wonder if you think that is a unifying message, a bipartisan message, the one that you pursued here, right, was the idea about preserving rights.

CELESTE: I think so and it's interesting. In Ohio, a lot of people didn't know this, but four times an effort to draw fair districts was produced to the legislature. The legislature, in effect, turned it down. The Supreme Court said go back and redraw the maps.

So for Ohioans, we had a real taste of what it's like when a supermajority and I think this might be true of either parties, but certainly right now with the Republican supermajority, trying to, in a way, prevent any reduction in their power, let's say.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, understood. Now, of course, for many voters, this was about women's reproductive rights. And given your long experience in politics, having served as governor of Ohio, seeing results like this in states that - if they're not true red states, they trend red in Ohio, in Kansas, in Kentucky, do you see that as an indicator as to how abortion rights, reproductive rights will play out in the 2024 Election?

CELESTE: I think what we see, if we look closely at where the very strong no votes came here in Ohio, it showed a real swing from the Trump vote to this no vote on the issue in suburban districts and in the - in what I would call the kind of outskirts of the big cities. I think that this pattern is likely to continue and we're going to see particularly women and young voters turn out - in turn out in 2024, particularly if policies are repeated along the lines of what we see on the choice issue.

SCIUTTO: Yes. The margin, for instance, I know among voters around Ohio State University in Columbus was particularly high against this measure. Given that you and a Republican, and that was deliberate, I imagine, to go out as a bipartisan pair, and this has been talked about - it's talked about all the time here in Washington, but boy, it seems hard to make work. Do you see that as a sign that folks respond to it when they see a Republican and a Democrat out there finding common ground?

CELESTE: Absolutely, Jim. The reality is, if you look, we tend to define politics in red and blue, but the biggest political party right now are people who are undeclared voters.

SCIUTTO: Yeah.

CELESTE: That's almost 5 million voters in Ohio who really - party is secondary to them than their concern about issues and what government means in their lives. To see experienced Democrats and Republicans join hands on a policy makes a big difference. And it does, I think, hit a sympathetic chord with people.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I think you're right. There's certainly a lot of indicators like that in polling.

Former Ohio governor, Dick Celeste, it's a real pleasure speaking to you. Thanks so much for taking the time this afternoon.

CELESTE: Thank you, Jim. Thanks.

SCIUTTO: Brianna?

KEILAR: New pressure on Ukraine to make progress in the counteroffensive against Russia. We will break down the state of the battlefield and what may be holding the Ukrainians back next.

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[15:29:43]

KEILAR: The State Department welcoming the news that American nurse Alix Dorsainvil and her daughter held hostage in Haiti now been released. Her employer saying they were kidnapped in Port-au-Prince last month while working with a community ministry.

CNN's Rafael Romo is joining us now.

Rafael, can you tell us a little bit about what you were learning about the kidnapping and the release?

[15:30:07]

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Brianna. It's not clear why mother and daughter were held hostage in Port-au-Prince last month.