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NHC: Outer Bands Of Idalia Now Affecting FL Keys, SW Coast; Idalia Nears Category 2 Strength, On Tract To Hit FL As Cat 3; Mayor Harvey Ward (D) Gainesville, Florida Talks About The Expected Effects Of Hurricane Idalia; Judge Wants Additional Briefs In Meadows Removal Bid. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired August 29, 2023 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:00:44]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Florida is already feeling Hurricane Idalia's impact, squalls coming ashore in the Keys. Deadly storm surge of up to 15 feet is expected, winds stronger than a hundred miles an hour, maybe much stronger. Officials getting - are warning residents to get out now.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And a federal judge is set to rule on whether Mark Meadows can move his case in Georgia from state to federal court, but not before he asks for additional arguments from both the prosecution and the defense. Ahead, what this could signal for the Meadows' case and that of former president, Trump.

SCIUTTO: A father's desperate 911 call, new audio and video from the Jacksonville shooting. Authorities are continuing to piece together what happened as the community mourns the victims of a racist attack.

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

Right now, parts of South Florida are already feeling Hurricane Idalia. Its outermost bands are bringing heavy rain to the Florida Keys. You can see here squalls are coming onshore as well and yet people are still taking photographs. The storm surge is causing water levels to rise at least two feet above normal in parts of southwestern Florida. That's just so far.

Idalia is intensifying on the brink of becoming a Category 2 hurricane, just hours away from its expected landfall in what's known as the Big Bend region as a Category 3 hurricane. And when it hits, the storm surge could be catastrophic, possibly up to 15 feet in some areas.

Director of the National Hurricane Center, Michael Brennan, joins me now.

It's good to have you, sir. I know you have a lot to track. What's the best storm track that we know at this point? I know it's always changing up into the final moment, but what's your best estimate as to where it's going to hit land?

MICHAEL BRENNAN, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: Well, it looks like - Idalia's headed for this sort of Big Bend region of the Florida peninsula, as you mentioned earlier.

Now, exactly where it crosses the coast there will be difficult to determine until we get within just even a few hours. And that'll make a big difference as to what area receives the very, very worst storm surge and those very, very strong, destructive hurricane-force winds in the eye of what's expected to be a major hurricane at that point in time.

But we're - Idalia's moving northward at 15 miles an hour now. We're expecting a turn toward the north-northeast and an increase in forward speed that's going to bring the center of the storm to the coast early tomorrow morning.

SCIUTTO: It's expected to undergo rapid intensification as it gets closer to shore. And our understanding is that this has become more common in part because of warming waters there. Does that make it more unpredictable, right? It's exactly what you're going to be dealing with when it makes landfall.

BRENNAN: Well, we are forecasting rapid intensification and we've actually improved our ability to make those types of forecasts. We would not have been able to forecast this type of strengthening five or 10 years ago, but we have better tools now, better understanding of how hurricanes work, better models and we're actually able to try to forecast this type of strengthening.

And it does make it difficult because even if we get the forecast right, people may still be looking at a system that - yesterday this was just a tropical storm and people may think, oh, well, why do I need to take action or evacuate for this.

So when you have a rapidly developing and strengthening storm heading for land and reaching land at its peak intensity, there can always be a lag in how people respond and take action. So we really try to get the message out that, hey, we're expecting this to be a major hurricane. You have to get ready for those impacts. You have to take those preparation steps today.

SCIUTTO: Another factor to add to the mix is the moon this time around. Can you explain exactly why that is? I mean, it's a little closer than it normally is to planet Earth.

BRENNAN: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Explain why that's having an effect and how much of an effect.

BRENNAN: Yes. So when the moon is closer to the Earth, we get a bigger tidal range. So you get higher high tides and lower low tides. So you - when you have those higher high tides, that can set the stage at a higher base level for the storm surge, which is simply the hurricane pushing the water from the Gulf of Mexico, in this case up onto land. [15:05:01]

So if we assume that these values assume that storm surge occurs at the time of high tide, that's why we're expecting that 10 to 15 feet of inundation somewhere between Aucilla River and Yankeetown in that Big Bend area. And that's that catastrophic storm surge that we're unfortunately expecting to occur here with that. And on top of that, with the deadly or devastating breaking wave action that can be very destructive.

SCIUTTO: Michael Brennan keep at it and I know a lot of folks are going to be relying on the updates you provide in the coming hours and days. Thanks so much for joining us.

BRENNAN: Thanks, Jim.

SCIUTTO: Brianna?

KEILAR: Our CNN team is on the ground up and down Florida's gulf coast. We have Carlos Suarez who is in Tampa for us and AMS certified meteorologist, Derek Van Dam is in Clearwater, keeping an eye on things there.

Carlos, I want to start with you. Tampa is already looking at potentially four to seven feet of storm surge if Idalia shifts in its track, obviously that could get a lot worse. What are you seeing there? What are people preparing for?

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, we know that there are two mandatory evacuation orders that have gone out here in Hillsborough County, which is home to the Tampa Bay area as well as out in Pinellas County, which is to the west of where we are. That is home to the Clearwater, St. Pete area.

As you mentioned, the concern in this part of Hillsborough County, the downtown Tampa area is the flooding associated with this hurricane. As you noted, we're talking about a storm surge anywhere between four to seven feet. And when you take a look at the bay here behind me, you can see it's not going to take a whole lot of water out here in order for some of this flooding to take place.

This time tomorrow, we'll have taken into account the rain, which has already started to fall, as well as high tide and the storm surge. A number of hurricane shelters have opened here in Hillsborough County. We're told those can house up to 20,000 people.

And so right now, emergency officials are trying to get folks that live in this part of Hillsborough County, which is pretty low-lying area, they're trying to get them out of their apartments, out of their condos and their homes, and they're just trying to get them to higher ground.

Now, the flooding concern, of course, is not just only here in the Tampa Bay area. Gov. Ron DeSantis, he had an emergency briefing earlier this afternoon where he talked about some of the flooding that we're going to see in a lot of these inland counties up and down the western coast of Florida from, of course, the Big Bend all the way down here to Tampa Bay. Here's a bit of what he said earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R) FLORIDA: This storm is going to impact inland counties. And particularly in northern Florida, you are going to see significant impacts. By the path, it doesn't mean just in the cone, because there's going to be impacts that are going to be outside whatever the National Hurricane Center says is the path of the storm.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

And because of this forecasted path, we expect all of this water to just come into the Tampa Bay area, which again, the concern is it's going to lead to a good amount of flooding. We're told at least 60,000 sandbags have been distributed out in Pinellas County, which is home again to Clearwater and St. Pete. Brianna and Jim?

KEILAR: Yes. And Clearwater, Derek, that's where you are. Peak storm conditions expected, I think, around midnight tonight, is that right? Tell us what you're expecting there.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, we already had our first kind of initial impacts from the storm, right? We had the outer rain bands impacting us about an hour ago. We got this brief gust of wind, about 40 miles per hour, heavy downpours of rain and then it came to an end. That's what we should expect to see gradually increase in frequency through the course of the next few hours before conditions completely deteriorate overnight.

Now, I want to show you on our graphics because Hurricane Idalia is really starting to get its act together. And what I mean by this is notice that kind of spiral wrapping around the storm system. That is indicating that it's really starting to become more organized, it's strengthening, it's deepening, exactly what we anticipated because it is fueling itself off of the record warm water temperatures across Eastern Gulf of Mexico that sits directly over my shoulder.

Here's the latest radar information and you can see those initial rain bands that have already impacted Key West, 50-mile an hour wind gusts there earlier today, choppy waves on the water and that is several hundred miles away from the center of where Idalia is located.

So my point being is that the impacts will be felt well outside of where this storm actually makes landfall, so very key, very important. Fort Myers getting some hefty thunderstorms right now. There was a tornado warning near Marco Island earlier today. And something that - to pass along to our viewers here, we've got what is called a mesoscale discussion. They are talking about the potential for isolated tornadoes to continue and increase in the overnight period as Idalia makes a closer approach. Brianna?

KEILAR: Isolated tornadoes, this is a big storm to watch here.

Derek, Carlos, thank you so much to both of you. Jim?

SCIUTTO: Join us now, the Mayor of Gainesville, Florida, Harvey Ward.

[15:10:07]

Mayor, thanks for joining us this afternoon.

MAYOR HARVEY WARD, (D) GAINESVILLE, FLORIDA: Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: So Gainesville, of course, down on the coast, it's inland, but this is a storm that's going to cross the state of Florida with a lot of effects. So I wonder what kinds of effects, dangers from the storm you're preparing for most now.

WARD: Well, sure. As you heard Gov. DeSantis say just a few minutes ago, we're going to have impacts outside the cone. So I worry when people pay too much attention to exactly where the cone is. The National Weather Service tells us that even though we may not be inside the cone, we should - we have a 93 percent chance of sustained 40-mile an hour winds. We have a 40 percent chance of 57-mile an hour winds.

We are going to get a tremendous amount of wind from this. We're a heavily forested city. We love our tree canopy here in Gainesville, but we haven't had a storm like this in my lifetime.

SCIUTTO: Wow.

WARD: It's been more than a hundred years since we had this kind of storm pointed right at us. And our tree canopy has not been sort of cleared out by storms in recent years. So we should - I urge everyone in our city to take this very, very seriously. The winds, the potential flooding from the rain, we also expect six inches of rain in a short period of time and we expect that rivers and creeks will swell with that rain and then potentially flood.

So we know that following the storm, there's always a potential for tornadoes. I want everybody to be concerned about this, to be ...

SCIUTTO: Yes.

WARD: ... I won't say worried, but prepared and taking it very seriously.

SCIUTTO: Sure. Would you find then that, given your inland, that folks get a false sense of security, right, and aren't listening to those warnings?

WARD: Well, so Floridians by nature take hurricanes and alligators very seriously.

SCIUTTO: Mm-hm.

WARD: We're not joking about this, but we do pay a lot of attention to the maps. And when we're outside the cone, often that can lead to a false sense of security. And I want folks to know, we are - we should not feel secure. We should feel very concerned about this and we should take every possible precaution. SCIUTTO: Yes.

WARD: So that in a couple of days, we can get back to doing things as we normally do.

SCIUTTO: No question. Well, listen, we know you've got a lot of work to do in the coming days. We wish you the best of luck and the people of Gainesville the best of luck as well.

WARD: Thank you so much for having me.

SCIUTTO: Mayor Harvey Ward, thank you. Brianna?

KEILAR: And we will be continuing to monitor Hurricane Idalia and bring you the latest forecast on how - and talk about how Florida is also preparing. We're also covering other developing stories coming in.

Former President Trump's trial calendar starting to solidify and it's on a collision course with the 2024 campaign season. We have that ahead.

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[15:17:12]

KEILAR: After more than three hours of Mark Meadows' testimony, the judge now wants more information. A short time ago, the judge hearing Meadows' bid to move his Georgia charges to federal court requested additional briefs from both sides.

SCIUTTO: As Trump's chief of staff, Meadows was a point person for Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 Election. Yesterday, he testified that those actions were, in his view, part of his official White House duties.

Joining us now, CNN National Security Reporter, Zachary Cohen and CNN Political Correspondent, Sara Murray.

Sara, it's interesting here because I asked the constitutional professor, Stephen Vladeck (ph), what the significance of this is and his read was, again, you're reading a judge's comments from afar, was that it looks like the judge is on the fence here and Meadows' case has always been slightly different from the other co-defendants. So what are you hearing about this?

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, Meadows is in a different position. He obviously was White House chief of staff. That is a federal position. And what the judge is essentially saying is, look, if I find that one of these acts that's outlined in the indictment, one of these things he allegedly did as part of the conspiracy had to do with his role as a federal official, as the White House chief of staff, is that enough for him to succeed and to be able to move this to federal court ...

SCIUTTO: Mm-hm. MURRAY: ... or does that not meet the threshold? And he's asking Meadows, as well as Fulton County District Attorney's office to reply in these briefs by Thursday evening. I mean, from a timing perspective, we've been trying to figure out when is the judge going to sort this out. That tells us it's at least going to be Friday is the soonest where we ...

SCIUTTO: Right.

MURRAY: ... could hear the judge weigh in on this.

KEILAR: How closely are Trump's lawyers watching all of this?

MURRAY: They're watching it closely. I mean, attorneys for Trump, as well as attorneys for Jeffrey Clark, another person who's trying to move to federal court - in the courthouse yesterday. I mean, they want to know if this is successful.

If someone like Mark Meadows is able to do this, that certainly bodes well, I think, for former president, Trump, may bode well for Jeffrey Clark, who was an official in the Justice Department at the time.

SCIUTTO: Prosecutors, they grilled Meadows on this yesterday about that famous or infamous, I should say, Trump-Raffensperger phone call, in which you have the former president. At the time the current president literally saying on tape, find me the votes, just enough votes to overturn the election here.

Did that give - the cross-examination give any view as to what the prosecution strategy is here? Because the other thing - of course, Trump's lawyers are watching and other lawyers are watching is how exactly is the day going to go at this case.

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Well, it certainly sheds some light on what Meadows' defense is going to be. He's saying, look, I did all of this in the capacity of my job as the White House chief of staff. And he basically said that everything I did, even if it wasn't related to Trump's official policy or the administration, it falls within the purview of my job as chief of staff. He admitted that was a really challenging time for him, as we documented it in real time. He was taking a lot of requests and he was often asked to, like, bring things to Trump and ask Trump various questions and pass along different ideas.

But at the end of the day, he's going to say, look, I did all of this as Trump's Chief of Staff and therefore it should be moved to federal court and thrown out, because I should have immunity.

[15:20:07]

SCIUTTO: Mm-hm.

KEILAR: What about the other defendants, are we seeing movement there?

COHEN: We are. We've seen now three different individuals plead not guilty. One of them is Sidney Powell, who you'll remember is one of Trump's former attorneys. She was pushing a lot of baseless claims about (inaudible) sort of going her own way.

A lot of these defendants are waiting to see how things - like Mark Meadows, how that shakes out. But Powell is going to enter her not guilty plea. She's going to waive her arraignment and she's also asked for a speedy trial, which is the opposite of what Trump ...

SCIUTTO: Mm-hm.

COHEN: ... and his legal team want in this case. So we're seeing some of the dynamics of a 19-defendant case play out almost in real time.

SCIUTTO: Yes, so the second task for a speedy trial, because Kenneth Chesebro has done the same thing. So you could see very different timelines for this. For instance, the federal case, which we now have the Special Counsel's election interference case. Of course, there's also the classified documents case to keep track of here, but that's going to be in March 2024. It's going to be a busy legal calendar.

MURRAY: It is going to be a busy legal calendar. And I think, there's still a question of how Donald Trump juggles this and how much of this he can actually put off. I mean, the judge in the election interference case here in Washington, D.C., pretty much scoffed at the notion that Trump's team wanted to delay this by two years and said, no, no, we're going to go ahead with this March trial date.

I do think it's going to be a lot harder in a place like Georgia, where you do have these issues of is it going to be in state court, is it going to be in federal court. You have 19 different defendants. Obviously, they're going to want to get some of these people to plead out so that they can herd fewer cats. So we'll see how it goes.

KEILAR: March 2024, does that hold?

MURRAY: I think that there is a good chance that that holds. I think that there are some things the Trump team can do to try to delay it, but your ability to be able to appeal a trial date like this before it goes to trial, I mean, a lot of this discretion rests with the judge. And she really was not buying what they were trying to sell in this hearing about how they needed many years to prepare.

KEILAR: This is getting underway, and it's going to be, I think, wild.

Sara and Zach, you will be along for the ride with us, thank you so much.

Still ahead, Florida's ordeal starting now. Hurricane Idalia's outer bands. You see them there. They're already lashing the shore of Florida as the eye wall is moving closer to a potentially devastating landfall with catastrophic storm surge. Stay with us.

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[15:26:55]

SCIUTTO: Floridians are getting their first taste of Hurricane Idalia's strength. It is only the beginning. Squalls are beginning to crash ashore in Southern Florida. The storm's worst expected hours away from now.

Joining us now, Jeremy Greenberg. He's the director of operations for FEMA's Response Directorate.

Thanks so much for taking the time this afternoon.

JEREMY GREENBERG, DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS DIVISION, FEMA RESPONSE DIRECTORATE: Thank you for having me on.

SCIUTTO: As you see this coming, there's a lot of talk of historic, historic storm surge, particularly in the area where it's expected to hit most in the Big Bend there. Does FEMA have in place what it needs to respond to what this storm is predicted to look like?

GREENBERG: FEMA, along with other federal interagency partners have been working with the state of Florida for the past several days to pre-position our incident management teams, search and rescue teams and equipment, communications equipment, as well as supplies for mass care to be used for those who are sheltering out of the storm's path.

In addition, we'll deploy recovery experts to assist the state of Florida, Georgia or any of the Carolinas that are impacted by the storm.

SCIUTTO: I always feel for your teams after the storm hits, when you go out and do rescues, oftentimes in cases where people stay, they did not heed evacuation orders, do you have a sense now of how many folks are listening to these evacuation orders along the coastline?

GREENBERG: You're absolutely right. The most critical point right now is for people to listen to local officials who are issuing evacuation guidance. We know that there are several counties that are under mandatory evacuation and others who are under voluntary evacuation. And the most critical thing, whether you've lived in Florida your whole life and weathered storms before or maybe this is your first time going through it, is to listen to that evacuation orders and the guidance from local officials.

FloridaDisaster.org, Ready.gov and Listo.gov all have great information about preparedness kits, what you should have to take care of your family, your loved ones and your pets. And we would just encourage everyone right now to take the storm seriously and listen to that guidance.

SCIUTTO: If folks are listening now and I imagine a lot of folks watching right now are looking for the latest information on this storm, and they're saying, as folks sometimes do when storms approach, you know what, I don't really have to go. I'll be fine where I am. What would you say to them?

GREENBERG: Well, unfortunately, we hear that from time to time. We can tell you and I know you had Director Brennan from the National Hurricane Center on earlier and we're seeing the storm forecasting as it goes, right now Category 3 undergoing additional rapid intensification. But it's not just the wind itself that people are - should be concerned about. It's that storm surge. We'll see up to 10, 12 feet of storm surge in certain areas being pushed inland. So while homes can be rebuilt and power lines can be restrung, we want to ensure that everyone is safe riding out the storm. So to do that, please listen to the evacuation guidance. And if you're told to leave, please leave.

SCIUTTO: The FEMA Administrator, Deanne Criswell, she was at the White House podium earlier today calling on Congress to pass supplemental funding for emergency relief operations like this.

[15:30:00]

She said that the $3.4 billion they have in the bank right now should be enough for Idalia, also clean up from the Maui wildfires. Do you have concerns about that?