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Tropical Storm Debby At A Crawl & Expected To Inundate SE with Rain; U.S. Markets Plunge Amid Recession Fears; RFK Jr Admits Leaving Dead Bear Cub In Central Park In 2014; Louisiana AG Asks Judge To Dismiss Suit Against Ten Commandments Law. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired August 05, 2024 - 13:30   ET

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

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[13:32:56]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Slow-moving and sopping wet. That is Tropical Storm Debby over Florida right now. And it is expected to crawl over parts of the southeast and drop just catastrophic amounts of rainfall.

It's already brought more than a-month's-worth of rain to much of western Florida. And its winds killed a 13-year-old boy after a tree crushed his mobile home.

Debby made landfall at 7:00 this morning Eastern time as a category one hurricane near Steinhatchee and Florida's Big Bend area.

Just listen to how its winds lashed Horseshoe Beach where a 95-mile- per-hour gust was recorded today.

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(WIND)

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(WIND)

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KEILAR: Meteorologist Elisa Raffa is in Steinhatchee.

So, Elisa, tell us about these tornado watches that are underway because of Debby.

ELISA RAFFA, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes, I mean, a hurricane is multifaceted, multi-hazardous. Tornado watches are in effect because you have those little bits of the storm that can spin and drop tornadoes in those outer bands.

We've been seeing that as a threat. Plus, water has been a threat all day. So many streets around here look like this, totally inundated, impassable. We were not able to drive through a lot of these roads here from all of that water that came in. Part of it is the ocean water. The Gulf of Mexico is right behind us. So some of that is that pushed -- the storm surge push of the ocean water, which did get to about six feet in places like Cedar Key.

But a lot of it is the heavy rain, too. Some places around here got eight inches of rain. And you can see just the combination of all of the water that I'm standing in with the storm surge and the heavy rain.

People are really worried about this one. They still have that scar from Dalia, which was last year. They needed to re-do the docks because they were destroyed last year and they're brand new.

So they were worried read because they just finished them and they were worried about them getting damaged again after they just finished all that progress.

[13:35:04]

And boats have been coming out of the water here for the last day -- multiple days. And you can see where they're kind of parked up in some of those -- in that building there, in that shed where they're trying to store away some of the boats.

All of those docks were empty. Again, as they're worried that they could get damage similar to what Dalia did.

The good news is that the storm surge kind of capped around six feet. And Dalia had that storm surge a little bit higher. But again, a lot of the flooding from the heavy rain. And that is certainly going to be the case as this storm heads to Georgia and South Carolina -- Brianna?

KEILAR: All right, Elisa, we'll be watching.

Elisa Raffa, live for us in Steinhatchee, thank you.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: I want to get back to the breaking news on Wall Street, the seismic stock market plunge triggered by fears that the U.S. is on the brink of a recession.

Here are the numbers right now and it's a whole lot of red. The Dow, NASDAQ and S&P all deep in the red. The Dow started the day down more than 1,000 points before clawing back some earlier losses.

Let's talk about all of this with Catherine Rampell, CNN economics and political commentator and columnist for "The Washington Post."

I mean, I just want to start with your initial read on what we're seeing here.

CATHERINE RAMPELL, CNN ECONOMICS & POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: This is all a reaction to what happened on Friday, when we got a jobs report that was worse than expected. Not abysmal. I think that there has been a little bit of catastrophizing of this report.

But it was worse than expected. And in some sense, there are a lot of investors who maybe thought that stock values were too good to be true and they we're waiting for their cue for the party to end.

And that report was it, that a lot of traders looked at it and said, OK, maybe this is a sign that the U.S. economy is actually in trouble. We should dump our stocks.

JIMENEZ: And how much of it, along with the jobs report there, which as you mentioned, does show job growth, but not to the level that folks were expecting it to be.

But how much of it is also fueled by other factors, like the interest rate not being -- not as strong, a tech sector, as far as showings go, fears of war in the Middle East.

How much are those factors playing into what we're seeing here?

RAMPELL: All of those things, of course, matter. And the Federal Reserve met last week a few days before this jobs report and looked at the data and said, you know, the economy is slowing but doesn't yet warrant a rate cut.

In fact, Chair Jay Powell said that he wanted more data to justify a rate cut. Seems like he got it on Friday.

And I think that a lot of investors, market traders, et cetera, are saying, you know, maybe the Fed waited too long, maybe they are behind the curve and they should have gotten ahead of this report, which, of course, they didn't know about, and started stimulating the economy earlier.

I want to caution, I want to emphasize that this is one report. There may have been some weirdnesses in it related to Hurricane Beryl temporarily putting people out work.

It's one report. A lot of the other data are actually much stronger. And the GDP numbers that came out not that long ago were better than expected. So I don't want everyone to freak out. I know markets look pretty -- pretty murderous right now.

But I don't think that we should read too much into this one report, especially since we'll get another jobs report in a few weeks and plenty of other data between now and then.

JIMENEZ: And it sounds like -- what you're saying lines up with -- we were talking to the acting labor secretary, Julie Su, last week and she was saying that it's not just about this jobs report that happened on Friday.

Overall indicators, when you look at averages over multiple months, go to what you we're talking about, that maybe there should not be a worry of an incoming recession.

But politically, we're obviously in the middle of a campaign season right now. Does this complicate a campaign, like Kamala Harris', when people will be looking at her economic record coming from the Biden administration? RAMPELL: The stock market is not the economy. Always good to emphasize that. But, yes, people are going to look at the market, look at their 401K.

And if we continue to see markets decline, which we may or may not, that will certainly not be good for the presumed Democratic nominee who is associated with the current administration, the V.P. of the current administration. So none of that would be good.

Again, we don't know if this was a blip in the jobs numbers. Other data have come in, generally, OK, sometimes better than OK, sometimes not great. And it's kind of a mixed bag right now.

The real weakness, I think, for Kamala Harris is that, even when the numbers are fantastic, and they have been quite a few months over the past two years or so, consumers are still really bummed out.

[13:40:05]

So even when the numbers are really good, consumers seem pretty grumpy. And there are a lot of different ways to interpret that.

But if the numbers, in fact, do start to look more unequivocally bad -- consumers are already grumpy -- that will presumably reinforce negative attitudes, negative perceptions of this administration's leadership. And, yes, that could definitely tarnish Kamala Harris' campaign.

JIMENEZ: And I think we sort of saw the opposite effects of the market not being the economy. When the market was up, people not necessarily feeling a lot of those effects throughout the economy as well, contributing to some of what you're talking about.

Catherine Rampell, really appreciate you being here. Thanks.

RAMPELL: Thank you.

JIMENEZ: All right. Coming up for us, 10 years ago, a dead bear cub was found in Central Park, but nobody knew who put it there. Until now. The mystery is solved, and you have to see it to believe it, next.

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[13:45:22]

JIMENEZ: All right, everyone, we finally know who dumped a dead bear in New York's Central Park 10 years ago. And I did not have this guess.

(LAUGHTER)

JIMENEZ: But back in 2014, a woman walking a dog discovered the bear's carcass resting on a bike wheel. Now the discovery caused a commotion, making news around the country, with everyone asked him, who did this? And I want you to listen to our John Berman reacting to this mystery when the news first broke.

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JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: There have been no bears in the park for a long, long time. It seems as if somewhat brought the thing there was just really sad.

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KEILAR: So CNN's John Berman is joining us now.

And 10 years later, John, you can also tell us who's responsible. But I do want to play to your strengths here and do this "Jeopardy" style.

So this is the clue for Presidential Candidates for $400. His campaign slogan might best be described as, "A worm ate my brain. No, I didn't eat a dog. No, I didn't eat a baby bear. But I wanted to. Instead, I staged a baby bear murder."

Your answer, John Berman?

BERMAN: I only wish this we're a Daily Double.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: Who is Robert Kennedy Jr?

And how do we know? Because he confessed to Roseanne Barr in a video he posted overnight explaining that he dumped the bear cub and posed it to make it look like a bike accident in Central Park after eating at Peter Luger Steakhouse and before going to the airport.

Everything I said just now is true.

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BERMAN: Listen to this video.

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ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR, (I), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was going to skin the bear and it was in very good condition and it was there, and put the meat in my refrigerator.

I said let's go put the bear in Central Park and we'll make it look like --

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KENNEDY: (INAUDIBLE) So we did that music for whoever found it or something.

(END VIDEO CLIP) JIMENEZ: So not so amusing. But something of a scandal at the time. So scandalous it appeared on "Early Start" with John Berman and Christine Romans 10 years ago, as you saw it.

And just to reiterate what happened there, Kennedy says he came upon the bear. It was hit and killed on the road. He picked it up. He planned to take it home and skin it and, I guess, eat it, but he didn't have time, it turned out, after going to Peter Lugers where he ate when the bear was still in his car.

So he decided to dump it in Central Park. That's the story as told to Roseanne Barr in this video posted last night, which he posted because "The New Yorker" was onto the story and "The New Yorker" apparently was going to report it today.

And it did. It did come out with a story. Kennedy tried to get out ahead of it last night with this -- this thing on video to Roseanne.

JIMENEZ: And he tried to get ahead of it by saying, let's see how you spin this, "New Yorker." I mean, watching the video, I don't know how else -- I mean, it seems pretty --

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KEILAR: I would agree.

JIMENEZ: -- under no duress by Roseanne Barr, it seems. It seems like he was just saying it.

John Berman, thanks for the decades-long perspective here. Really appreciate it. Thank you.

BERMAN: It was a longtime coming.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: Vindicated.

BERMAN: Exactly.

KEILAR: Right? He's -- the truth is John Berman's always right.

JIMENEZ: Yes. I learned that a long time ago.

KEILAR: Yes.

JIMENEZ: Long time. Thanks, John.

(LAUGHTER)

BERMAN: You, Brianna, know that that was the happiest part of the story for me, was that I --

KEILAR: Right.

BERMAN: had to be right about something. (LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: Love it.

Bye, John.

[13:49:01]

JIMENEZ: All right, still ahead for us, Louisianas governor and attorney general say the state's new law requiring the Ten Commandments to be displayed in classrooms can be enforced constitutionally. And they're giving visual examples of how they might look. We're going to bring you the latest, next.

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KEILAR: There are new developments in the push to have the Ten Commandments displayed in all public-school classrooms in Louisiana.

The state's governor and attorney general spoke out this morning and gave us a better sense of how they'll fight those trying to stop it in court.

JIMENEZ: And CNN's Jessica Schneider is following this story for us.

So, Jessica, obviously, lots of developments over time at this point. But what did we learn in today's press conference?

JESSICA SCHNEIDER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, state officials, the attorney general, the Republican governor, digging in their heels today.

Because right after this bill was signed into law saying that these Ten Commandments have to be displayed in all well public-school classrooms, kindergarten through college, there was a lawsuit filed at the end of June.

Well, what happened today is the A.G. and the governor said we are filing our response brief later this afternoon and we are arguing that this is completely constitutional.

And in addition, they're saying that the plaintiffs who filed this lawsuit, they claim, have no standing since the law hasn't actually gone into effect yet.

But you know, we're right on the cusp of the school year. It starts any day now. What's interesting is this law is not set to go into effect until January 1st.

As a result of this lawsuit, the parties have agreed to not enforce the law until at least November 15th so some of these legal issues can get worked out.

[13:55:04]

It'll be interesting to see if a court puts a pause on this law while these legal issues are figured out.

The last time something like this, directly like this, was before the Supreme Court was in 1980. A similar Kentucky law that the court struck down because of violations of the Establishment Clause.

But of course, the Supreme Court has changed drastically since then. And it was just two years ago that they allowed a football coach to prey on the field after games.

So who knows if this might -- might be a challenge that the state could win as it moves up through the courts. And that's something that state is banking on.

Here's how the governor talked about all the controversy today. Take a listen.

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GOV. JEFF LANDRY (R-LA): What I would say to those parents, if those posters in school and they find them so vulgar, tell the child not to look at it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHNEIDER: So the governor was pretty incredulous that anyone would have a problem with this. But of course, many people do. The lawsuit that was filed has several parties of multiple faiths, Christian, Muslim, et cetera.

So there's obviously great opposition to this. We'll see what happens in the court and if any of the court -- if the court puts a hold on this law while it works its way through.

KEILAR: Yes. Really interesting stuff. We'll be watching it.

Jessica, thank you for that report.

Fear, but not panic. The markets take a plunge after the opening bell. Investors are feeling very, very nervous. We'll break down what's behind the fall and whether you should be worried. Have that after a quick break.

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