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14th Amendment and Donald Trump; President Biden Touts Economy; Ukraine Military Leadership Shakeup; Stranded at Burning Man. Aired 1- 1:30p ET

Aired September 04, 2023 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:39]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Stuck in the mud, some 70,000 people stranded at Burning Man, heavy rain swamping the event in Nevada's desert, while roads leading out are expected to finally reopen today. We're following the latest.

Plus, President Biden sticking with a familiar playbook, talking up the state of the U.S. economy and shoring up union support. But is it working? New polling showing the economy could be the biggest threat to his reelection.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: And a leadership shakeup. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy dismisses his defense minister and says it's time for new approaches in the war with Russia. What that could mean for the counteroffensive.

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

SANCHEZ: Soon, a mass exodus out of the mud.

Organizers of the Burning Man festival in Nevada say they hope that, in just a couple of hours, tens of thousands of people who've been stranded in the desert can begin to drive out. For days now, festivalgoers have been trapped in treacherous ankle-deep mud, advised to shelter in place and to conserve food, water and fuel.

The area was slammed with two to three months' worth of rain in just the span of 24 hours. Officials say about 72,000 people are still stranded, some of them choosing to risk it, hike for miles in the mud to leave, one of them being the popular musician Diplo. He actually posted this video after he trekked through the mud, hitching on the back of a pickup truck alongside comedian Chris Rock.

We should anticipate hearing some jokes about that pretty soon.

CNN national correspondent Nick Watt is covering all of this for us.

So, Nick, what are officials saying are the next steps in trying to get folks out of there?

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, the latest we have heard is, they say, in a couple of hours from now -- that's noon local, 3:00 Eastern -- they will open the roads.

Right now, they say, -- quote -- "that road" -- it's not really a road -- it's mud -- is still too wet and muddy for most vehicles. But we have seen some people trying to get out this morning and succeeding in those vehicles. The issue is, the more vehicles that are on that mud before it's really dry could cause problems later in the day.

The sun is the savior here. Listen, the rain, that makes that clay very quickly unpassable, but the sun also dries it pretty fast too. I mentioned some people have already made it out. CNN spoke to one of them. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZOHAR KENNARD, BURNING MAN ATTENDEE: We planned on leaving right after the burn, which is Saturday night. And then it started raining on us like that night.

And we were like, oh, it's fine. It's OK. Everybody was still partying, having fun. We took -- everybody took their shoes off, started dancing in the mud. It was great. And then the reality sunk in that we couldn't leave. Like, we were stuck, basically.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WATT: Yes.

And, I mean, the only kind of fairly unpleasant exit was, as you mentioned, Boris, to walk. Chris Rock apparently wearing his New York Knicks jacket, walked out with Diplo, Cindy Crawford, and a few others.

They walked for three hours in the mud. And then some kid passing in a pickup truck recognized Diplo and gave them a ride, and they eventually made it to Reno. But a lot of people decided to stay. There is a real kind of ethos of self-reliance around this festival.

And some people said, listen, I could have walked out, but then I leave my R.V. and all my stuff. What do I do? And nothing really bad happened. One person did die, but we were told that that was not connected to the weather. And they say people mucked in, people helped, and, tonight, they will finally burn the man and pray for no more rain -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yes, a lot of folks not wanting to leave until that effigy that the festival is named after was burned.

Nick Watt, thank you so much for that.

Let's go to CNN's Chad Myers, who's at the Weather Center for us.

Chad, how did this get so bad so quickly?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Training rain.

One storm moved over the area, and then another one right behind it moved right over the festival again. This is in a rain shadow. This is in a place that doesn't rain much ever, this white area right through there. There's Lake Tahoe. There's Reno. We will zoom in for you.

[13:05:00]

You can actually see -- if you want to go to Google Earth, you can actually see the city itself, kind of a ring here, a little bit faint, but you can really see what's going on right here, and the Burning Man there in the middle.

And there are no roads, no paved roads here whatsoever. This is just that silt, the clay that got wet. And it's like walking into a lake and expecting not to sink down a little bit when you walk in off the shore. All of that was just completely saturated. There was no place for that rain to go.

And so the people just got stranded there. That clay gets very, very slippery. Here's the rainfall, just one area after another. That's the area right there. Watch that little white spot right there. That's where the training rain just came over and over and over for hours and hours and hours.

And there's just no way to predict this. This is just kind of monsoonal moisture. It comes down in the Desert Southwest every single winter season, spring season, depend -- there. You get the moisture coming up, especially in the summer. The humidity is involved, and it just pops a thunderstorm or it pops the rain.

And even talk about Phoenix. You can get two inches of rain in Scottsdale and it doesn't rain at all in Ahwatukee, which is just a few miles away. That's kind of what we had here. It just rained in the wrong places.

No more rainfall. That's the good news. This now just has to have the sun to dry it up, people ironing out some of these roads, or at least trying to get through some of these roads here. Likely, a maintainer, one of those big scrapers would have helped a little bit to try to get some of that mud away.

But here you go. This is what it looks like. That's what turns silt and clay into rain and mud. So, how it happens is because this rain has no real place to go. It's not going to soak into the ground like if you had loam, which was like peat moss, or the dirt, just regular dirt below it.

So this is almost a dry lake bed that's been dry for a very long time. Silt has blown in. Clay is everywhere there. And when it rains on top of the clay, it just sits there and becomes a soup. It doesn't soak into the ground. And that's what they're driving out right now.

They're driving out on mud soup. Hopefully, everybody gets out of there today. Probably, there's an awful lot of trailers that are going to go very, very slowly to get out of there. So we will see if we can get everybody out today or not, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Yes, a most unpleasant soup. MYERS: Yes.

SANCHEZ: Chad Myers in the CNN Weather Center, thank you so much -- Omar.

JIMENEZ: Yes, I'm going to pass on that soup for lunch this time around.

(LAUGHTER)

JIMENEZ: But, look, this is a serious situation for a lot of people.

I want to talk more with someone who's been experiencing all this at Burning Man.

Angela Peacock joins me now.

Angela, good to see you. I know we were worried about Signal, so I'm glad to see that you're actually beamed in here.

But, for starters, just tell me, what is the situation right now? It definitely looks drier than what it was, I can imagine, over the past few days.

ANGELA PEACOCK, BURNING MAN ATTENDEE: Our camp just had a meeting and they said there's a really, really long line trying to get out.

Some people are leaving, I think mostly the four-wheel drives, the Subaru-type vehicles, not the passenger cars yet. There are a few of those stuck. So, right now, our camp is focusing on breaking everything down, packing up, just sort of waiting it out.

And probably, as you have heard, the Burning Man will burn at like 9:00 p.m. So everybody's kind of just taking our time until then tonight.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

And, look, it seems that it's become a situation over the past few days, where you have really had to work with some of the other people there, that some of the set rules that maybe were in place when you got there, all of a sudden, you had to improvise a little bit.

Have you seen people help each other out, share food and water? What has the dynamic been like over the last few days?

PEACOCK: I mean, honestly, it's brought us closer together.

There's principles to Burning Man. One of them is radical self- reliance, meaning, like, you bring enough to take care of yourself and help others if needed. And you gift things. Like, there's no payments. So, like, if you need food or you need water or you need something, there's someone here that will give it to you.

There's even a saying, we say, the playa provides. Things will be provided. You will be fine. So, honestly, it's brought us closer together as a community, lots of teamwork, lots of getting to know people on a deeper level, because there's not much else to do.

So it's been fine, totally fine.

JIMENEZ: Yes. And radical self-reliance, I'm sure people didn't anticipate going as hard into that motto as they have over the past few days, but it does sound like the dynamic has been helping people out.

We know, and you mentioned it a little bit, that some people have been trying to get out, have decided to walk out or potentially get rides out on some of those four-wheelers that you mentioned. How difficult is that right now?

PEACOCK: Well, I mean, most of us are smart, and we're not even going to try, because, if you even try to ride your bike or you walk, there's lots of dry pockets, but then there's puddles still, and there's still a lot of really wet stuff.

So, as you ride your bike, or as you walk, or as you drive, you're going to accumulate mud on those tires and those feet. And it makes everything harder. And you don't want to get stuck in this and then prevent other people from leaving.

So, it's -- everybody's being really cool about it. We're just biding our time. We're finding stuff to do. It's a pain for some people with flights and travel schedules and work schedules, but we're doing the best we can. And everybody's in really good spirits.

[13:10:10]

JIMENEZ: Yes.

Yes, Angela Peacock, well, I hope you get out of there soon, but it sounds like you all are handling it as well as you can, especially for how quickly the conditions there changed.

Angela Peacock, thank you so much -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: So, President Biden is spending part of his Labor Day in the battleground state of Pennsylvania. He celebrated union workers, defended his economic record and slammed his predecessor.

But even with near-record low unemployment, a strong stock market and lower inflation, the president is having a tough time selling Bidenomics. A new "Wall Street Journal" poll out today shows that just 37 percent of respondents approve of Biden's handling of the economy.

Nearly six in 10, nearly 60 percent, disapprove.

Let's take you to Philadelphia now with CNN's Arlette Saenz.

So, Arlette, President Biden has to be feeling some pressure to get that perception shifted, especially because he's facing a reelection.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Boris.

And President Biden came here to the battleground state of Pennsylvania to try to make his economic pitch to voters. The president spoke at a rally for union workers as they got ready to go on their Labor Day parade here in Philadelphia.

And the president really tried to promote some of the progress that has been made based on the policies from his administration, pointing to job creation, also a moderation in inflation, though he did note that there is still more work that needs to be done, as Americans are still suffering from high inflation.

But he also used this speech as an opportunity to take a swipe at his predecessor, former President Donald Trump. He never named him by name, but he was trying to make an economic contrast with him. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When the last guy was here, you were shipping jobs to China. Now we're bringing jobs home from China.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: When the last guy was here, your pensions were at risk. We helped save millions of pensions, with your help.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: When the last guy was here, he looked at the world from Park Avenue. I look at it from Scranton, Pennsylvania.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: I look at it from Claymont, Delaware.

(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Now, this all comes as, while there are some bright spots in the economy, the president still is struggling in some polls when it comes to Americans' perceptions of how they are doing economically.

As you mentioned, his approval rating when it comes to the issue specifically of handling the economy sits at around only 37 percent. It's a bit lower when you take a look at his handling of inflation.

All of this, the White House has really, over the course of the past few months really tried to chip away at, trying to show that the policies that he has enacted, things like the Inflation Reduction Act, things like the bipartisan infrastructure bill, that those are ultimately paying off for voters.

Of course, the question will be whether, in November 2024, if Americans are feeling that the economy is at a good state. Of course, the president traveled here to Pennsylvania, a battleground state that he won. It helped him win against Donald Trump back in 2020.

And it's a state that he will need once again if he's going to gain reelection in the upcoming election -- Boris.

SANCHEZ: Arlette Saenz from Philadelphia, thanks so much -- Omar.

JIMENEZ: Well, coming up, Donald Trump may be facing four criminal cases, but could the 14th Amendment keep him from holding public office again?

What one senator and some legal scholars are floating. We will dig into that.

Plus, Vladimir Putin holds key meetings on the critical Black Sea grain deal, as his forces attack agricultural sites in Ukraine. We're live on the ground.

And a new COVID variant may not be as bad as we thought. What early lab tests are telling us about this version of the virus.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:18:02]

JIMENEZ: Right now, Donald Trump is the clear favorite in the 2024 Republican primary. But can he even be on the ballot? It's a big question to ask.

Several conservative legal scholars say no, that the insurrection provision in the 14th Amendment bars Trump from running. One GOP candidate, Asa Hutchinson, tends to agree, and some battleground states are even looking at the issue. And now a sitting senator has weighed in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): The language is specific, if you give aid and comfort to those who engage in an insurrection against the Constitution of the United States.

It doesn't say against the United States. It says against the Constitution. In my view, the attack on the Capitol that day was designed for a particular purpose at a particular moment. And that was to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, as is laid out in the Constitution. So I think there is a powerful argument to be made.

My sense is, it's probably going to get resolved in the courts.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: A lot to talk about here.

Let's discuss the former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti.

Renato, good to see you, one. Happy Labor Day.

But I just want to start with, is this 14th Amendment case against Trump as cut-and-dry as Senator Kaine makes it seem?

RENATO MARIOTTI, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Well, it's not because it's never a provision that has really been exercised in a context like this before.

And so, ultimately, I do agree with him that -- this much, that the courts are going to get involved. And without really any precedent in -- that the courts can look at in the past, I think it gives a lot of freedom, for example, for the United States -- the Supreme Court to go really, I think, one of two ways, either to say that this is what's called a non-justiciable political question.

In other words, states and officials can make a decision themselves as to whether or not that -- that a person qualifies in their state, or to say that -- to narrowly construe it. And the reason I give those two possibilities is, given the makeup of the court, I think it's unlikely that the court is going to take an aggressive position that would knock Donald Trump off the ballot.

[13:20:12]

JIMENEZ: Now, for everyone who doesn't have a pocketbook Constitution hand, the 14th Amendment includes a post-Civil War disqualification clause that bars anyone from holding public office if they have -- quote -- "engaged in insurrection or rebellion" or -- quote -- "given aid or comfort to those who do so."

The Constitution does not, as you mentioned, spell out how to enforce that ban.

So, before this next question, I want to revisit a message Trump gave the Capitol rioters on January 6. This followed hours of inaction from Trump during the violence that day.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know your pain. I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us.

So, go home. We love you. You're very special.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: Now, look, the eye test is one thing, but you have fought in the courts before. Does that qualify to you as giving aid or comfort?

MARIOTTI: I don't think that's where a court would go.

In other words, I think the stronger argument is that he actually participated or had a role in planning or instigating the armed attack on the Capitol. Obviously, there is going to be arguments on both sides there. I do think that there is a strong argument that that was an insurrection, for purposes of the 14th Amendment. But because it hasn't been defined, of course, that leaves a lot up to courts to make that determination and, obviously, in the first instance to local officials.

JIMENEZ: And look, we know, obviously -- and Senator Tim Kaine brought it up -- but some legal scholars have spoken on this. And some battleground states are looking into it on an individual basis.

If a state did rule to keep Trump off the ballot, couldn't he appeal that? I mean, we talked briefly about the court process, but what would that scenario potentially look like?

MARIOTTI: He would challenge. He would ultimately challenge. That's a determination that would go up to the United States Supreme Court.

And, obviously, there's a 6-3 conservative majority right now in the United States Supreme Court.

And that's why I really think the likely outcome here is either that the court narrowly construes that provision and essentially says that it doesn't apply to the situation, or says that it's what's called a political question, in other words, courts aren't going to get involved in this, which then would, I think, create a lot of issues.

Because, obviously, different states would have different ways of interpreting that provision. Ultimately, Trump would potentially be kicked off the ballot on a number of states. It would create a lot of conflict. Let's put it that way.

JIMENEZ: Now, quickly on the Georgia elections and racketeering case, Trump has already pleaded not guilty there, but we're also looking for arraignments of some of the other co-defendants in this particular case.

What is the next big step you're watching for here?

MARIOTTI: I'm really interested in how the federal judge decides Mark Meadows' motion essentially to move that his case to federal court. That's going to be very interesting.

It's also going to be interesting to see what the judge does with all of the various requests to both speed up, in the case of some defendants, the trial date, in others, to keep it slow, in the case of Donald Trump, keep it slow, and then to sever these cases from each other.

In other words, how many trials and when they're going to be is going to be very important tactically, and for how this plays out for each of the defendants. It will make a big difference who the other defendants are and when their trial is.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

And when this indictment first came out, everyone had questions, how is this actually going to work, especially heading into a campaign season. We're starting to see the little bits and pieces, again, motions to sever, motions to move to federal court, that sort of deal.

Renato Mariotti, thank you for joining us.

MARIOTTI: Thank you.

JIMENEZ: Boris.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead: a defense shakeup in Ukraine, as President Zelenskyy promises a new approach. What this could signal for the counteroffensive and the future of the war.

And happening right now, investigators in Pennsylvania giving an update on the active manhunt for an escaped killer.

Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We have got the very latest just moments away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:29:06]

SANCHEZ: Overnight, Russia launching what Ukraine has described as a massive attack on civilian infrastructure and ports in the Southern Odesa region.

Ukraine says the strikes hit communities, industrial buildings, and agricultural equipment. It's also accusing Russia of trying to create a food crisis with attacks on port infrastructure over the weekend.

These fresh attacks come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shakes up the highest ranks of his military. He's firing his defense minister, as his country enters the 19th month of this war.

Let's take you now live to Ukraine with CNN's Melissa Bell.

So, Melissa, why this shift in the top levels of Russia -- or, rather, of Ukraine's Defense Ministry?

MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we understand, Boris, is that this change came at the request of the outgoing defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov.

But it is, of course, also an opportunity for President Zelenskyy to draw a line under the last 19 months of this war, and specifically some of the corruption and procurement scandals.