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Wildfires Tear Through Texas Panhandle, Burn 370,000-Plus Acres; Pope Francis Back at Vatican After Visiting Hospital Overnight; Biden Team Responds After Uncommitted Gets 101,000 Protest Votes. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired February 28, 2024 - 07:00   ET

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

GEOFF DUNCAN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: And one can't happen without the other.

[07:00:01]

And so we've got to figure out a way to lock ourselves in a bipartisan room and make actual budgetary concessions to make sure that that happens, and also just to figure out how to shape this in a parallel policies, because one can't work with the other.

And it's the perfect storm. It's perfect political fodder to throw darts at the other team on this issue and get nothing done.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Final thought of the day.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR AND HOST: That's where the tough part, what is policy? If you think security is policy and that's it. That makes it hard to have a discussion. But if the party of Reagan that once did amnesty now has many other policies completely off the table, where do you go from there?

HUNT: All right. We hopefully can continue this conversation on another day. It is 7:00. Audie Cornish, Ron Brownstein, Kate Bedingfield, Geoff Duncan, thank you.

And thanks to all of you for joining us. I'm Kasie Hunt.

CNN News Central starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Homes burned in almost every direction. That's the word from Texas, as multiple wildfires are burning right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And breaking just moments ago, we just got word that Pope Francis was taken to the hospital. We're getting new information in on the condition of the 87-year-old pontiff.

BOLDUAN: Hunter Biden about to take questions face to face with the Republican lawmakers trying to impeach his father.

I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman. Sara is out today. This is CNN News Central. We are following this breaking news. People in Texas are being forced to flee. Communities burn to the ground. There are multiple wildfires burning in the Texas panhandle right now. Watch.

That is terrifying if you come upon that, of course.

Overnight the fire called the Smokehouse Creek fire became the fifth largest fire in Texas state history, scorching over 300,000 acres. And right now, it is not at all contained. It's even crossed into Oklahoma.

Also, right now local officials say there's no firm information on how many buildings have been damaged. They're really in the thick of it right now. But here's a -- but to quote one county official, homes have burned in almost every direction.

We're going to show you some video of how quickly the fires are moving. You're going to see it just jumps this road.

And this is from the Texas Forest Service right here moving right across that road, leaving at least one county in Texas without power and water. There are at least five fires burning this morning. One major area of concern is Amarillo, where there is a nuclear weapons facility.

We're going to show you images that were taken near the plant showing how close the fires had reached. And last night, the facility was temporarily shut down because of the fires. We're told it's back open today.

Let's bring in CNN's Meteorologist Derek Van Dam and also CNN's Lucy Kafanov, who is in Amarillo. Lucy, what are you seeing, what are you hearing this morning?

LUCY KAFANOV, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, let me set the scene for you here in Amarillo, Texas. The air is full of thick smoke. It's very difficult to breathe. It makes your eyes sting and burn. And that is because of those five separate wildfires that are burning out of control in the surrounding areas.

And Amarillo, I should note, is one of the safer places that folks are being encouraged to evacuate to, although even here, one of the neighborhoods near Amarillo have to be evacuated late last night.

Now, the high winds of that dry air, you can hear the winds right now, is what is fueling these blazes. Governor Greg Abbott declaring disaster declaration for 60 counties here in the Texas Panhandle, that's six, zero.

As of this morning, we are looking at more than 370,000 acres burned. The largest one of those fires, as you pointed out, the Smokehouse Creek fire that is predominantly impacting Hutchinson County, it alone burned more than 300,000 acres so far, 0 percent contained. It is the fifth largest wildfire in Texas history.

Now, the main facility, as you pointed out in the intro, that disassembles, pardon me, America's nuclear arsenal is located about 17 miles northeast from here. That is the Pantex plant. It was shut down on Tuesday. It is reopened this morning. And here is the National Nuclear Security Administration spokesman addressing the issue. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LAEF PENDERGRAFT: We are responding to the plant, but there is no fire onsite or on our boundary. But we do have a well equipped fire department that has trained for these scenarios that is onsite, watching and ready should any kind of real emergency arise on the plant site.

[07:05:03]

We also have a fully staffed emergency response organization who has activated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KAFANOV: Now, the plant might be safe, but so many counties in the surrounding areas are not. And this is a largely rural area, which means livestock has been impacted. And some places it wasn't possible to evacuate the animals. We saw dramatic footage of some animals fleeing the smoke, fleeing the flames.

The city of Fritch had asked its residents to evacuate. Natural gas was actually shut down in that city on Tuesday. Residents were asked to limit the use of water so that fire trucks could have access to that.

There's another town called Canadian, Texas, where the hospital had to evacuate all of its patients. One of the motel owners there spoke to CNN, she described the scene as Armageddon. There was white ash covering the trees. She had to shut down her motel and get out for safety.

In another area, we saw or we heard reports of more than 200 people sheltering in a church because they had nowhere to go. It is chaos. Residents are being asked to try to stay safe, and, of course, these fires now spreading to neighboring Oklahoma.

BOLDUAN: And we're showing -- as you're speaking, we're showing some of the images from Canadian, Texas, from Fritch, Texas, where these conditions look horrible from yesterday. We'll see what happens today.

Lucy, thank you so much.

Let's bring in Derek. Now, Derek, talk to me about what the conditions are kind of broadly. It's moved into Oklahoma, at least, with one of these fires. What are they going to be looking at today?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, Kate. The video that we were playing during Lucy's live shot was showing extreme fire behavior. It is all driven by the strong winds in advance of a cold front and during the passage of this cold front, which you'll see. Now, not only are residents and firefighters on the ground contending with this erratic fire behavior, but so is the agriculture and the cattle. This is very dramatic footage of cattle just running away, simply fleeing for their lives away from the flames, away from the billowing smoke, which you can see in the distance behind it. I mean, that is really, really saying something about this rural area that is impacting a wide range of industries.

Now, this is a satellite imagery I have, very, very important to show what's happening here. This blue line that I'm drawing, you can see it in the satellite imagery, is the approaching cold front. Those, of course, are the hot spots. Here's the Texas panhandle. And the winds before the cold front moved through. We're moving from the west to the east at about 50 miles per hour.

That cold front moved through and changed the wind direction, and you can see the shift in the fire behavior. So, basically, that fire takes advantage of the dry fuel conditions on the other side, and it allowed for this to explode overnight to 300,000-plus acres, 0 percent containment. We've mentioned this already. The fifth largest wildfire in Texas history so far, it's already spreading into portions of Oklahoma as well.

So, what does the future hold? For the immediate future, winds are dying down. That's good news, but they start to pick up throughout the course of the day today, and then into the overnight hours again. So, we're going to monitor that.

Lucy mentioned the thick smell of smoke in the air. Well, there it is. This is our near-surface smoke forecast. You can see where the wildfires are located. There's Canadian. There's Amarillo. And you can see as the wind direction changes, it will also take the smoke along with it as it moves towards the north.

Temperatures today cooler than yesterday, but warm up once again by the weekend. Back to you, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes, a lot to watch. Derek, thanks so much for running through it for us. I really appreciate it. John?

BERMAN: All right. With us now is Courtney Kirksey. She is the Children's Pastor at Celebration Family Church in Fritch, Texas, where I know people have been taking shelter. Thank you so much for being with us.

Describe what it has been like outside the last 24 hours.

COURTNEY KIRKSEY, CHILDREN'S PASTOR, CELEBRATION FAMILY CHURCH: So, we opened our shelter about 11:00 A.M. yesterday. And at the beginning there wasn't very many people but then the people did start coming in when the evacuation orders came out. And we had several inside our church as well as several in the parking lot because they had animals and we've had all kinds of animals here at our church as well.

But it has been devastating but yet encouraging just to see the way the community has come out to help us and even companies here in our town. But just being here and being able to help and love on people has been a blessing for our church.

BERMAN: That is a blessing. You also say the conditions have been devastating your sheltering community members. What stories have you been hearing from the people coming in?

[07:10:00]

KIRKSEY: We have heard from we've lost everything to we have a house. But most of the people that have come in, they have lost everything. And we even have people here that are helping to help with the community that have lost everything, but yet they're here showing compassion and love to one another.

BERMAN: We have lost everything, people are telling you. How are you holding up?

KIRKSEY: We're holding up. We have our moments. And when we have our moments, we walk away and then we come back together and we're here for the community as they come in our doors.

BERMAN: When you say people are telling you they've lost everything, did you have warning? Did you know this was a threat or did the fires just come in too quickly to save anything?

KIRKSEY: They gave warning to the community to be prepared to evacuate. But with the fire, it's so unpredictable and starting out the day the wind was blowing out of the southwest, and then probably about 4:00, it switched to the north, and that sent the fire in another direction.

BERMAN: You are the children's pastor, as I said. How have the children been holding up?

KIRKSEY: Yes, my husband is the (INAUDIBLE). I do know that there are several community children here that they've lost their house. And so I haven't seen any of our children here from our church. They probably all have been at other houses.

But we're going to be here to support them through this. This isn't our first time that we've had to deal with the wildfire in our community.

BERMAN: Well, Courtney Kirksey, we do appreciate you being with us. We appreciate the work you are doing. I know it must be exhausting, but I'm sure it is valued in the community. Let us know how we can help. Thank you.

KIRKSEY : All right. Thank you, John.

BERMAN: Kate?

BOLDUAN: we are following more breaking news this morning, Pope Francis in the hospital overnight. He's back at the Vatican, we're told now.

Let's get to Ben Wedeman. He's in Rome for us with more as the details are starting to come out. Ben, how is the pope doing? What's the latest you've learned?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, what we know is that he held his general audience this morning at the Vatican. And at that audience and we've seen the video of it, he looks as one might expect an 87-year-old man who's lost part of his lung to be at this time of winter of the year.

Then he apparently -- before I mean at the beginning of the audience, he did say, I've got a bit of a cold and so I'm going to pass to my colleague who's going to read my address. After that general audience, he was taken to a nearby hospital in the Tiber Island, the Gemelli Hospital, where, according to a statement put out by the Vatican, he underwent diagnostic tests and then returned to the Vatican.

So, he wasn't staying there for very long. He just had those tests. We don't know exactly what they were, but we do know that, as of late, he has been suffering from a cold on Sunday.

He did hold his usual audience, addressing the faithful in St. Peter's Square. But then on Monday he canceled all audiences because of flu- like symptoms, according to the Vatican. Tuesday seemed to be a normal day. And, of course, Wednesday, it started off normal. He met with Armenian bishops before addressing this general audience.

So, we know he has not been in the best of health recently, but is this simply a seasonal thing or something more serious? Not clear at this point. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Ben, thank you so much for the update. We're going to continue to monitor this, bring everyone updates as they come out. Ben Wedeman in Rome for us, thank you so much.

Coming up for us, we have new CNN reporting, what President Biden's campaign is saying about the uncommitted protest vote against him in Michigan.

Plus, Hunter Biden back on the Hill and this time headed behind closed doors to take questions from the very Republican lawmakers leading the impeachment inquiry into his father, President Biden.

And it's been in the works for nearly a decade. Now, the long-awaited electric car from Apple could be toast.

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[07:15:00]

BERMAN: All right. Brand new reaction just in from the Biden campaign after more than 101,000 voters in Michigan, in the Democratic primary there, voted uncommitted, largely to protest U.S. support for Israel in the war against Hamas.

This morning, the message from a senior campaign adviser is, quote, President Biden shares the goal of many of the folks who voted uncommitted, which is an end to the violence and a just and lasting peace. That is what he is working towards. It's interesting, this is the first time they've really directly addressed the issue of the uncommitted voters.

CNN's Omar Jimenez is in Dearborn, Michigan, where actually in Dearborn proper, uncommitted got more votes than President Biden.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. I mean, look, here in Dearborn, Dearborn is home to one of the largest Arab-American communities in the country, and the vote uncommitted movement was led by Arab-American activists over their disagreement with how President Biden is handling the Israel-Hamas War.

[07:20:06]

And as you mentioned, yes, when you look at unofficial results coming from the city of Dearborn, uncommitted beat Joe Biden 56 percent to 40 percent.

Now, that's within a total of 11,000 votes. But when you expand that data countywide here, that number is over 25,000. I mean, you look statewide, over 100,000 people voted uncommitted.

Now, President Biden still did win this primary by a large margin but when you look at the margin that he won Michigan by in 2020, that was around 150,000. So, obviously, a sizable margin there. And the goal of those that were leaving leading this uncommitted movement was to send a message that President Biden needs to be doing more to push towards a permanent ceasefire.

And you read some of the campaign, the senior campaign adviser reaction we're getting in saying that they share the goal of many who voted uncommitted to work toward a last lasting and just peace. But moving forward, obviously, this is a message that was set.

On the Republican side, though, Donald Trump obviously took this primary here, but Nikki Haley got nearly 300,000 votes, around 26 percent or so. So, obviously a sizable margin there, adding to her argument that there's still a lot of people who do not want to vote for the former president.

That said, the name of the game here is delegates and time for her is running out. Take a listen to some of what she said in reaction to what happened last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our goal is to be as competitive as possible. That's the focus of this and all the Super Tuesday states is let's just keep going and running through the tape as much as we can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JIMENEZ: And, obviously, Super Tuesday is less than a week away at this point, about around 15 or a little bit more than 15 states will have voting contests of some of some sort, more than a third of delegates up for grabs. So, that may be the indicator of what the reality will be moving forward, but, clearly, a message sent on both sides of the party aisle with this primary here in Michigan.

BERMAN: Yes, message sent, and at least from the Biden campaign standpoint, you get the sense it is message heard.

Omar Jimenez in Dearborn, thank you so much, Omar. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Great point. Joining us right now to talk about this is CNN Opinion Contributor, former House Republican Investigative Committee Counsel Sophia Nelson and Democratic Strategist Joe Trippi. Guys, thanks for waking up to go through this after last night.

Sophia, you say, from what you saw, last night reinforced for you that Michigan really could be the deciding state in November. What are you honing in on there? Why?

SOPHIA NELSON, CNN OPINION CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. I mean, I think Pennsylvania is probably going to stay with Biden. I think that, you know, some of the other battleground states that we saw in 2016 and 2020 are probably static. I'm very concerned about Michigan, though, because Biden has a serious issue with the Muslim community, right?

And we saw that in this uncommitted vote last night, although his numbers were still overwhelmingly over, what, 85, 90 percent, almost, he still -- that's it. That's an alarm for him to pay attention to. I think with Trump, though, Trump has got a Nikki Haley problem and she's proving that about a third or more of the Republican base doesn't want Donald Trump.

So, I do think that Michigan is going to be the place that we all have to keep our eyes on on election night if Trump is in fact the nominee.

BOLDUAN: That's the case, Joe, is that good news or bad news for Joe Biden if it's Michigan, Michigan, Michigan?

JOE TRIPPI, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Look, it was always going to be Michigan, Michigan, Michigan. I mean, there may be one or two, maybe three other states where that will be the case, but Michigan has been tight the last two presidential cycles. There has been almost no margin of error. And I think the results last night sort of say, yes, it's going to -- there's no margin of error and they both have areas that they need to shore up or address.

I'd much rather be Biden in this situation, though. I think that it's -- when you look at the places that he has problems, he can address them. He can share those goals. He can speak to those voters. You know, Donald Trump is not going to go to Dearborn and tell them I'm going to -- I want to deport all Muslims, so vote for me. So, I don't -- it's not like a lot of those voters are likely to go to Trump. It's whether Biden can win them back.

And then when you look at Trump's problems over 300,000 voters voting for Nikki Haley, again, this is showing up in, you know, state after state, a large number of them saying they don't want to support Trump in November.

I look at a county like Washtenaw, sorry about that, where -- you know, to give you a -- in that county, Trump -- Haley won 45 percent of the vote in that county.

[07:25:05]

And now go the other way, Biden lost, uncommitted got 17 percent. So, they both -- it shows both their problem, but this is a place where both their problems show up at the same time, and even in Washtenaw --

BOLDUAN: The fact that you even continue to try to nail it, this is why I'm so impressed with you, Joe, at all times.

But what you're getting at, Joe, is that, out of last night, there are lots of questions. Here're two questions, Sophia. Of these two questions, what do the uncommitted voters do? And what do Nikki Haley voters do in Michigan? Which one is harder to answer right now, do you think?

NELSON: I think Biden has to focus on the fact that, in 2020, he won by, what, about 150,000 votes in Michigan, which was really comfortable compared to Hillary's loss of 10,000 votes, by 10,000 in 2016. Biden has got to get those votes solidified. He can lose some votes. He can lose 10,000, 20,000 and probably still be okay.

But I think that the second question you're asking about on the Nikki Haley side, if Trump has got a 300,000 deficit and Biden has got maybe 60,000 votes, he's kind of toying with looking at the margins, Biden is in a better place. And I agree with Joe 100 percent. I'd rather be Joe Biden right now than Donald Trump because Trump has had a Muslim ban. He's talked about doubling down on that.

And like Joe said, what's he going to do? Go to Muslim communities and say, well, you should vote for me because I'm going to make you have some type of brand, if you will, and you're not an actual physical brand, but we're going to classify you, we may deport you, we may ban your family members, et cetera, from coming into the country. So, I don't think it's a good place for Trump to be.

BOLDUAN: But is it enough so far, Joe, that you see in the statement that John was talking about with Omar Jimenez, the statement from the campaign essentially, from the Biden campaign, acknowledging really for the first time the protest effort, the protest vote, and the first time they're really directly addressing the uncommitted, what you see in that statement, is that enough to convince the uncommitted to not stay home in November?

TRIPPI: Well, I mean, one, it's great to acknowledge it. That's important. I listened. I'm hearing you, and I've been working on it, and I continue to work on it. And there's still quite a bit of time between now and November, and if anybody can predict what will happen in this conflict, you know, we'll see.

So, I mean, I think there's -- the one thing, though, that's pretty amazing to me is, you know, Obama had an uncommitted vote of 10 percent. This has been about 13 percent, 14 percent for Biden. It is much larger. Why? Because the turnout, the turnout was off the charts, both young people, this community, the Muslim community, and I think that's great.

In the end, I think that these are people who will turn out. They're showing that. And I think so that the president gets to speak to them the rest of the way, knows who he has to speak to, his surrogates know who they have to speak to.

And, yes, some of them will stay home. But I think most of them are going to vote. And, again, I don't see how in that moment, Donald Trump doubling down against them is a strategy that gets those who do vote to vote for him. They may reluctantly vote for Biden, maybe not.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And Ron Brownstein said something interesting this morning, was that Nikki Haley is leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for Joe Biden to recover. That's what Ron Brownstein sees in last night's results. I thought that was something interesting. How long and if he has enough time to pick up all those breadcrumbs, I guess, remains one of the big questions.

It's good to see you guys. Thank you. John?

BERMAN: Interesting, Michigan posing a challenge for President Biden and Joe Trippi, at least the pronunciation.

BOLDUAN: You try to pronounce the county.

BERMAN: we are standing by to see hunter Biden arrive on Capitol Hill set to testify behind closed doors in the impeachment investigation into his father.

A Texas death row inmate who is scheduled to be executed today says there is new evidence that proves he is innocent.

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