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Gov. DeSantis Gives Update As Idalia Gathers Strength; Officials: ISIS-Linked Smuggler Helped Migrant Enter U.S.; First 10 Drugs Selected For Medicare Price Negotiations. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired August 29, 2023 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): A as places like Nebraska, who will be ready to roll as soon as the storm passes. There are over 25,000 linemen already in Florida as of this morning, and by the end of the day, we anticipate that to be between 30,000 and 40,000 linemen that will be here prior to the arrival of the storm. And then we'll move in to restore power as soon as the storm passes.

Now, linemen are staging as far south as Tropicana Field and St. Petersburg. And as far north as the Florida-Georgia Line, and as far west as Chipley and the Panhandle. And additional linemen the power companies are also staging folks who will be ready to clear debris, set poles in lines, and augment the efforts done by Florida's Department of Transportation. Power restoration will be a joint effort, and all local municipalities should be ready to accept aid from other utility companies and their linemen to get power back on as soon as possible.

And that's the ultimate goal, rapid restoration of power. This is a major hurricane. There's going to be a lot of debris, particularly in that Big Bend area. You're going to see a lot of power lines that are going to be down. And there's going to be a lot of need for all hands to be on deck, so please accept that mutual aid.

We were able to, in Hurricane Ian, do a very rapid restoration of power in terms of affected customers. And I believe at times, it took a little longer either major structural damage close to this (INAUDIBLE) or more, some co-ops that didn't expect the mutual aid right at the beginning. And it took a little longer. So, accept so we can get the job done.

We are -- we want to be able to restore power to all the rural areas, in particular. And so, we do want to make sure that if you have rural -- (INAUDIBLE) folks, get the help they need and are willing to accept the help that they need. So, we know that this storm is going to hit the State of Florida tomorrow. It is going to be a major hurricane, possibly a category three hurricane.

There's -- it's been tracking into the Big Bend area pretty consistently with a little bit of variations. At the same time, I mean, we have to watch how this thing goes and where it can impact. It could go West and hit places like Tallahassee. It could be your further east and end up impacting more directly other parts of the Florida peninsula.

So, just make sure you're heeding the warnings from your local emergency management officials. Make sure you're doing what you need to do to keep yourself and your family safe. We have been working with the counties very closely over the past few days at the state level.

We've received more than 450 active mission requests that the state is coordinating. And those recent -- those requests have either been fulfilled or will be fulfilled sometime during today. We have staged a lot of gasoline, 420,000 gallons worth of gasoline.

Sometimes you get fuel interruption. Sometimes you don't. We're going to be prepared if there are fuel interruptions to be able to fill the gap.

We have all eight of our urban search and rescue teams activated, and that's close to 600 search and rescue personnel. We hope to not have to need those folks. We hope nobody ends up in distress once the storm hits.

But if there is, we're going to have folks that are going to go out there. Kevin Guthrie already mentioned earlier today that a storm that's hitting late morning or early afternoon, you will probably end up getting calls as we get into the evening hours. We're going to be doing rescues at night as well. That's typically not the way you want to do it. You want -- because there's going to be downed power lines, there's going to be certain hazards, it's going to make it more difficult for our personnel but we are going to be there and we're going to -- we're going to get the job done.

We're already delivering things like water, MREs, and tarps to local communities. Shelters are being opened or have been opened and are continuing to be open all across Florida's Gulf Coast and beyond. We are deploying the Starlink internet to homes -- 250 of those devices have been deployed and we have over 500 staged and ready to go as those are needed going forward in the future.

So, we want to just thank everybody who's a part of the power restoration efforts. We appreciate what our electric utilities from Duke FPL and TECO, as well as our Municipal Electric outfits and the co-ops. Thank you for taking this seriously. Thanks for the preparation.

And when you prepare and you're ready to go, you can make that -- you can accomplish that mission. But this is likely going to be a storm that's going to leave an awful lot of debris. I think there's going to be a need to do a lot of road operations.

You know in Hurricane Ian, there really weren't as many of the cut and toss operations. There were some. But when you look at where this storm is going to hit, there's a lot of heavily wooded areas.

[11:35:05] So, I think you're going to see a lot of these trees knocked down, you're going to see power a lot -- powerlines knocked down. And it's just going to require a concerted effort.

So, what Duke is doing, what the other companies are doing is recognizing that this is a significant task. And it really will impact how we respond to this, how quickly we're able to get all this stuff back up and running. So, I want to thank everyone for -- who has been involved.

And I can tell you. The people of Florida really appreciate these linemen being out there. I can tell you after hurricane Ian it was like, they'd see the folks racing into Fort Myers and these other areas. And they were very, very appreciative of all the hard work that was being done.

This is not easy work, especially in late August in Florida. It's going to be nasty, it's going to be hot, there's going to be a lot of moving parts, and so this is really important work. The state of Florida very much appreciates everybody, particularly those who've come from out of state to help the people of Florida. And I know the Floridians very much appreciated it as well. So, thank you, and God bless you. OK, we're going to hear from Kevin Guthrie.

KEVIN GUTHRIE, DIRECTOR, FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Thank you, Governor. And again, thank you for your leadership. Thank you, CFO Patronis. I think I want to start with picking up where the governor was going with you know electrical companies being willing to accept assistance from each other. That is something that has not really happened very well underneath any other governor. This governor was able to pull it off with his leadership. And I'll tell --

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN HOST: You are just listening to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis there. This is his second press conference this morning, at least according to our estimation. You give one at 9:00 a.m. as well. But essentially just saying that, look, this is intense -- this looks like this will be a major hurricane event, talking about the potential for power disruptions and saying for those that are in evacuation zones, at least mandatory evacuation zones, heed the warnings.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Yes, he's warning that this is going to be a major hurricane, one that's headed in a direction that is a bit unusual for storms of this magnitude. He pointed out there are already some 25,000 linemen on the ground in Florida. That number could balloon to up to 40,000. So, they're preparing for potentially the worst.

SOLOMON: And Florida officials have been pleading with residents to listen to the warnings and evacuate ahead of Hurricane Idalia. And that also includes our next guest. Joining us now is Ken Welch. He is the mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida.

Mayor, we appreciate the time today. You know, we heard the police chief of St. Petersburg tell us this morning that the message for people in the flood zone there is to use this time between now and 4:00 p.m. to do what you have to do and prepare. What more can you tell us? What more do you want people to know?

KEN WELCH, MAYOR OF ST. PETERSBURG, FLORIDA: Well, you know, we have so many -- first of all, good morning. We have so many new folks in Florida that they might not be aware of how unpredictable these storms can be. And you know, a recent example is what happened with Hurricane Ian just last year. It was at the real -- really the edge of the cone and the projected track changed in the last few hours, and they had devastating results. That's just a hundred or so miles south of us.

So, our message to folks is if you're in an evacuation area, heed the call to move to higher ground. And you don't have to move a hundred miles. You can move, you know a few miles and move into safety. And that's the message we're trying to get out to the folks in our area.

SANCHEZ: Mayor, I remember we spoke, you and I, last year around Hurricane Ian. And you're right, it moved in a direction that was just outside of the cone of uncertainty. It really caught a lot of people off guard. I'm wondering how you prepare for something like this, another large storm that's headed in your direction, close to your direction, and in an area that often doesn't see storms of this size?

WELCH: Well, I do remember that. And that was just about a year ago when we were talking about Ian coming in. And we still -- you know our thoughts and prayers go out to our brothers and sisters in South Florida.

We've visited there and talked to them about their recovery. But their example I think is one of the best things that we have to show people what can happen with these storms, how the storm surge can really devastate neighborhoods. And folks have seen that example on video and I think are responsive to that. So, it's a great object lesson there.

SOLOMON: Is that the primary concern right now, Mayor, the storm surge?

WELCH: Yes. And you know, our saying is run from the water and hide from the wind. And folks in our area in Pinellas County, we're sitting with about 260,000 in a county of almost a million. Out of that million folks, about 300 and 38,000 or so have been asked to evacuate from those areas because we are a peninsula within a peninsula. We're very susceptible to storm surge. And we just -- folks need to move now because, over the next 12 hours, we're expecting to see four to seven feet of storm surge.

[11:40:06]

SANCHEZ: Yes. Mayor, for those folks that are not in mandatory evacuation areas and are deciding right now to hunker down, and they're probably headed out to a store to get water or other basic goods, what would your advice be to them? What should be on the top of their list?

WELCH: I think -- I think we lost them. SANCHEZ: Mayor, can you hear us, Mayor? Mayor Welch? Unfortunately, technical difficulties.

SOLOMON: It has to be expected.

SANCHEZ: The second official we've spoken to today that had -- has had technical difficulties in that area as we start to see some of that wind get closer and closer to Florida. Obviously, a major concern, is folks having to decide at this very moment whether they're going to stay or get out of harm's way.

SOLOMON: With every hour mattering with, as we said the police chief earlier saying you have until about now until 4:00 p.m. in that -- in that area -- in that region to decide and to make your preparations.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

SOLOMON: So, every hour matters.

SANCHEZ: Yes. A story we will keep an eye on. Still, a lot more to come this morning. Up next, we have new CNN exclusive reporting. A smuggler with ties to ISIS, the terror group, helping migrants enter the United States from Mexico. Details on this report when we come back.

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[11:45:44]

SOLOMON: Welcome back. A company owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin says that the Russian mercenary leader's funeral has taken place. Local media says that the service was held earlier today and the company described it as a closed format. They also said that he was buried in an old small cemetery on the outskirts of St. Petersburg, which is what his family wanted. Heavy security presence surrounded other cemeteries in the city.

Russian President Vladimir Putin had said earlier he did not expect to attend any service for Prigozhin. And CNN cannot independently verify the reports. The Russian government says that Prigozhin was on a plane that crashed on the outskirts of Moscow last week. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Now, to a CNN exclusive. We're learning that a smuggler with ties to ISIS helped migrants enter the United States from Mexico, setting off alarm bells across the government. The FBI is now working to identify those individuals who enter the country. Officials say that some migrants are also being closely watched as possible criminal threats.

CNN's Katie Bo Lillis joins us now with more on this exclusive reporting. So, Katie Bo, when exactly did this happen, and what are officials learning?

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: So, Boris, this was essentially a case of bad timing. Months ago, this cohort of Uzbek nationals entered through the southern border presented themselves for asylum, were vetted according to standard U.S. procedure, and then were released into the United States pending a court date. It wasn't until later, just in recent weeks, that the U.S. intelligence community received information that allowed them to understand that this group of migrants had traveled to the United States with the help of a human smuggling network that included a member with troubling ties to ISIS.

Now, this obviously set off some big alarm bells across the U.S. government. It set off a scramble. The FBI immediately moving to try to locate, investigate, and assess all of the different migrants who had traveled to the United States with the help of this group.

The U.S. also moved to try to break up the smuggling network. Turkey at the U.S. behest, arrested members of this smuggling network, including the ISIS-linked facilitator. This allowed the U.S. government to pretty quickly get a sense that this person wasn't actually a member of ISIS, he's more like an independent contractor who had some personal sympathies with the group.

So, pretty quickly, the Biden administration was able to understand this more as a case of kind of run-of-the-mill human smuggling less than a potential terrorist threat. U.S. officials now say no evidence that any of these migrants are involved in any terrorist ISIS plotting, ISIS planning, but still deeply troubling evidence for some intelligence officials of a potential vulnerability along the U.S. southern border, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yes, important context around that headline. Katie Bo Lillis, thanks so much. Rahel?

SOLOMON: All right, Boris. Still ahead for us. The White House announcing the first 10 drugs subject to Medicare price negotiations. Drug manufacturers have already filed multiple lawsuits against the program. We're bringing the details when we come back.

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[11:53:02]

SOLOMON: Welcome back. In a historic move this morning, the Biden administration named the first 10 drugs that Medicare will target for price cuts. It's a move that'll help lower the cost of prescriptions for older Americans. It was also a key provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that was passed last year.

Let's bring this in as Arlette Saenz. She is live from the White House. So, Arlette, this is the first time that Medicare will be able to negotiate directly with these companies. What prescriptions are on the list?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Rahel. This is really a significant step from the Biden administration, as the president has tried to show the he is aimed at lowering prescription drug costs. And it's really is targeting some very common drugs that people know well, including blood thinners and diabetes medications. If you take a look at this, 10 names that's included in these Medicare negotiations that it will include drugs like Eliquis, Jardiance, and Xarelto. HHS says that nine million Medicare enrollees used these 10 drugs in the last year and paid a total of $3.4 billion in out-of- pocket costs. So, the hope is that it -- as the administration enters into negotiations with these drug companies, they will be able to lower the price of this.

Now, how exactly this will work? Heading into next year, the goal is for these negotiations and prices to be set by September 1st of next year. But the actual new negotiation -- negotiated prices won't go into effect until 2026, well after the presidential election.

Now, the CBO has estimated that this could save Medicare around a hundred billion dollars. But still, there are a number of lawsuits that are currently underway from both drug manufacturers and the pharmaceutical industry saying that this provision of the Inflation Reduction Act is unconstitutional. But the Biden administration is pushing forward with these negotiations announcing the first 10 drugs that will be up for negotiations under Medicare.

And what this also does is it highlights President Biden's efforts to try to lower health care costs and also prescription drug costs at a time when economic, kitchen table issues remain top of mind for voters heading into the election. So, even though this -- these new prices wouldn't take effect until 2026, the president is hoping that this type of program will pay off with voters.

[11:55:11]

SOLOMON: Arlette Saenz, live for us at the White House. Arlette, Thank you.

We want to go quickly again before we leave, continue to track Hurricane Idalia. We've been watching it all morning. You can take a look at the track here.

We heard from DeSantis -- Governor DeSantis a short time ago, he said look, this is a major hurricane. There's going to be a lot of debris, particularly in the Big Bend area. He said we're going to see a lot of power lines that are going to come down and said this is going to be an all-hands-on-deck situation. A major hurricane

SANCHEZ: It is a major hurricane. In fact, the National Weather Service in Tallahassee put out a statement not long ago saying. "This has the makings of an unprecedented event for this part of the state." They say there is no precedent for it. There is no historical context going back to 1851 for a storm of this size, going in this direction. Important to keep an eye on, Rahel.

SOLOMON: Yes. Good to be with you today.

SANCHEZ: Well, you too.

SOLOMON: And thank you for joining us. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL. "INSIDE POLITICS" is up next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)