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Hard-Hit NC Towns Await Help After Widespread Damage; Millions Without Power, Water, Cell Service After Helene; FEMA, Defense Dept. to Airlift Supplies to Storm-Damaged Areas; Cleanup Begins After Helene Leaves Long Path of Destruction; JD Vance and Tim Walz Face Off in Debate Tomorrow; New Poll: Harris Leads Trump Among Latino Voters but by a Smaller Margin than Biden or Clinton. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired September 30, 2024 - 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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[15:01:38]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Unprecedented destruction in the southeast the scope and scale of this devastation from Helene is coming into sharper focus as the death toll continues to rise. We'll go live to hard-hit Asheville, North Carolina.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, Israel's defense minister says the next stage of the country's war with Hezbollah will begin soon as the IDF carries out new raids in Lebanon ahead of a potential ground incursion.

And in the U.S. presidential race, get ready to rumble. The two vice presidential nominees set to hit the stage for a high-stakes moment that could be the final debate before Election Day. What JD Vance and Tim Walz's previous debate experience is telling us about what we can expect tomorrow night.

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

KEILAR: Communities across the southeast are reeling from Helene days after the storm swept through the region leaving behind just a huge path of destruction. Parts of western North Carolina including Asheville all but cut off right now with basic essentials like food, water and fuel running low.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIAN TORRES HARWOOD, STORM SURVIVOR: I mean, it's pretty scary. You don't expect it. We weren't really prepared. I thought it was going to rain for a while and that's about it. And then power went out started to flood, almost got into our house. I mean, it's really bad and there's a lot of people that are passed away and so it's really bad.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Helene has now killed at least 119 people across six states and the fear is that that number is going to get bigger. Some 2 million customers are still without power and cell service is crippled so that leaves many with no way to contact their loved ones.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. ROY COOPER (D) NORTH CAROLINA: Right now, we're concentrating on saving lives and getting supplies to people who desperately, desperately need them.

MAYOR ESTHER MANHEIMER, ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA: I'm just in shock. There are neighborhoods where every other house has a tree on it or through it. Roads blocked, multiple trees down on one road. The power lines looks like, you know, spaghetti.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN Correspondent Marybel Gonzalez is live for us on scene in Asheville.

Marybel, tell us the kind of devastation that you're seeing there.

MARYBEL GONZALEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna. The devastation is widespread. The desperation is palpable. People waking up this morning to seeing their small businesses destroyed, their homes damaged, you know, their products, their jobs on the line, not really sure when they'll be able to go back to work. Right behind me a dairy distribution center. One of the workers telling us inside all of their products are completely ruined. And whatever is left they're trying to salvage to actually help out neighboring communities that if you can believe it are even in a worse situation.

Now, we talked about what the desperate situation is here. The Internet, cell phone services out. Sometimes spotty, it comes in and out but it's been difficult for people to be in touch with their loved ones.

[15:05:02]

Yesterday and over the weekend, we know that there were at least 600 reports of missing people here in this county alone. These were people that were not able to reach their loved ones.

Now, authorities do say that, you know, they hope that once the - that communication - those lines are restored, that they're able to reach their loved ones and that they are safe, they're just unable to get on the phone and make a call and let the people know that they are safe.

But however, one person that we did speak to earlier today, one of our teams, his name is Sam Perkins. He was one of the people worried about his parents that he could not reach in 48 hours. So he decided to hike 11 miles just to be able to make sure that they were okay. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SAM PERKINS, WALKED 11 MILES TO REACH PARENTS TRAPPED BY HELENE: I kind of got more and more worried, the more that I went up because it just got worse and worse. I mean, there were undoubtedly tornadoes up there and it was the most, you know, exhausting hike and kind of a crawl through a jungle gym of trees and landslides I've ever had to do, but I'm glad I did it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GONZALEZ: Now one of the major issues is that the roads remain closed. This is one of about 300 roads that are blocked off, and you can easily see why here there's sludge, there's mud making them impassable for people to get out and those necessary urgent supplies to get in. In fact, the mayor of Asheville telling CNN earlier that three - this community is cut off by three out of the four major highways.

And just to give you an idea of the devastation, he said the power lines right now they look like spaghetti.

KEILAR: Yes, it's terrible what we're witnessing. Marybel Gonzalez, thank you so much for the report from Asheville. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Right now, FEMA is working with the Department of Defense to set up locations that will allow them to airlift supplies to storm damaged areas that aren't accessible by roads. For more on ongoing recovery efforts, we're joined by the fire chief of Asheville, North Carolina, Mike Cayse.

Sir, thank you so much for being with us.

I first want to hear what it's like for you to see the wreckage from this hurricane. What are you seeing on the ground?

CHIEF MIKE CAYSE, ASHEVILLE, NC FIRE DEPT.: Thank you for having me. Yes, you're absolutely right. There is a tremendous amount of wreckage here.

Asheville is a beautiful town set in the, you know, the Blue Ridge Mountains and people come here because it is so beautiful and the scenery and just, you know, you just - with Mother Nature and it's an amazing place. But then when you look at what's gone on the last five days, you wonder how your memory could even be of what you'd recall from the mountains.

SANCHEZ: And chief, this storm intensified very rapidly as it moved through the Gulf of Mexico. Do you think folks were adequately prepared for what was coming or was this completely unexpected?

CAYSE: It absolutely was not unexpected. We were messaging this prior to the storm ever getting there. We were telling people to have, you know, 72 hour kits on hand, to have water, to have food, to have medicines. You know, our standard messaging is that make sure you have three days worth of all the supplies you would need to include flashlights and batteries and a way to communicate, chargers for your phones. So we definitely got the message out to our residents.

SANCHEZ: What do you think is the biggest challenge that folks are facing right now as they try to regroup? We understand that communications are difficult at best. What do you think folks need most out there? CAYSE: Well, right now we're still working with the basic needs of our residents and visitors. Food and water are tremendous need right now. Just a couple hours ago, we opened up our first water station in the city of Asheville. We're able to give water to the people. Our residents and our visitors were given out a gallon per person up to five gallons per family per day, but - we were very excited to get that going.

But we still need to have food. We still need to open up communications. We still need to get the roads and the infrastructure back up and going. And this is going to be a long-term event for the city of Asheville. Our water distribution system took a tremendous hit. We are unable to distribute water in the pipes and that has all kinds of cascading events from the, you know, chillers for our different - our businesses, our hospitals, our firefighting capability. There are so many downstream effects from the storm that are not related to just the flood, but as a result of the damage of the flood.

SANCHEZ: I'm also wondering, sir, whether you might have an update on the death toll. We got some numbers recently from the sheriff in Buncombe County who said that it's at 35. That's an area that includes Asheville. Do you have any updates on the numbers and how many remain unaccounted for?

CAYSE: I think the sheriff's estimate is accurate at this time.

[15:10:01]

SANCHEZ: Understood. And lastly, sir, what's your message to local, state and federal leaders as they see this damage and weigh a response in providing resources to your community?

CAYSE: I think my message is we need help. We need it very quickly. We can't wait any longer. We - our residents have been without food and water now for five days, and I implore the state and federal government to get as much of those commodities into the city as fast as they can. We have had some resources come in. The federal government brought in their search and rescue teams. I heard overnight that more are coming in. We're looking for places to put them. The problem is there's just not a lot of real estate to put these teams in.

Asheville sits inside of a bowl, inside of a mountain, so there's no flat ground to put them in. We can't put them in our hotels because there's no electric and no running water anywhere. So it's very, very difficult to find places for these teams. We need to find a flat ground so that we can build basically base camps to put as many of these responders in as we can.

So we've got real problems here in Asheville and we're - I could say that the staff here in the city of Asheville are extremely dedicated, and we put together the infrastructure that we need internally to bring the aid and care to our residents. We just need the equipment and the food and the water from outside to get into here so that we can start giving it to our residents. SANCHEZ: Yes, we hope you get that help that you need right away and that some of those logistical issues that you outlined are resolved. Chief Mike Cayse, thank you so much for the time, sir.

CAYSE: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Appreciate it. Brianna?

KEILAR: Let's talk more about the monumental task of responding to this emergency with former FEMA administrator, Craig Fugate. He's also the head of Craig Fugate Consulting.

Sir, thanks for being with us.

You just heard the fire chief of Asheville and he's really sounding an alarm here. People without food and water for days now and just the difficulty too of accommodating even the folks coming into help from the federal government. What's your reaction to hearing that?

CRAIG FUGATE, FORMER FEMA ADMINISTRATOR: Well, the urban search and rescue teams that are being sent in, they literally just need flat ground. They bring their own tents and their own base camp. They're self sufficient. Other responders - that's one of the things we've always tried to get people understand when you're going into an area like Asheville right now, if you don't bring it with you, don't expect to get it when you get there, so that's one piece.

And the second piece is, you know, FEMA's meeting with the governor today. I knew that the increase will be ministries on the ground with the governor. They're bringing in more National Guard helicopters, Florida, sending helicopters up to the state. A lot of these areas are going to fly supplies in, so that's going to be a - it will be a short term solution. The big solution is getting more of those roads open up so you can get the supplies in there, not to mention the areas that are still cut off and I think that's why it's going to be a combination of getting roads open, but also using helicopters to get some of those outlying communities that the roads are just gone.

KEILAR: So we're hearing from people in North Carolina in particular that comms are a big problem. People are entirely cut off from cell service. Are you worried that local officials in FEMA might not have full visibility of the problems and also that this death toll could jump once we get more comms?

FUGATE: Well, I've seen this happen before in tornadoes, floods and hurricanes where we need to be careful not to equate people missing or unaccounted for with people who have lost their lives. A lot of this as communications will improve, we'll start getting people checking in. I'm not saying there won't be more loss of life, but I've seen this where people have taken the people missing or people unaccounted for equate that to loss of life, and that's not something we generally see.

So I would just, you know, reassure people that as communication comes up, we'll get a better idea of how people are doing. And we're already getting reports that a lot of these areas are cut off. You had a report earlier where they're having to go in by foot to get in some of these areas. So just because we still have a lot of people unaccounted for, that does - hopefully - does not mean that is the number of people we've lost.

KEILAR: Yes, that's a very good reminder, and we can be hopeful of that.

So President Biden is saying that he expects to travel to North Carolina as soon as later this week, maybe Wednesday, Thursday. We see former President Trump in Valdosta, Georgia today, hard-hit by Helene, bringing some supplies. What are the tradeoffs of these kinds of officials or former officials going with their big footprint, their Secret Service footprint and pulling resources from response and recovery, you know, along with the benefit of bringing awareness and attention to these communities that are so much in need.

FUGATE: Well, that's just it, it's a balancing act. And I can speak directly to my experience in the Obama administration.

[15:15:03]

President Obama is very clear. He did not want any of his visits to take away from immediate response. And it was only after in conjunction with the governor and local officials that they felt that they had completed a search and rescue, that they were at a stable point where they were beginning recovery and they could facilitate the president's visit with President Obama travel. And again, that's from tornadoes to floods to hurricanes.

But it's a very delicate balancing act. The perception that if they're not there, things aren't happening. Well, the president has been directing FEMA to mobilize response as it's been declaring disasters. But as you point out, historically, the president's role becomes the consoler-in-chief of going into communities, particularly those that are hard-hit and lost a life and going, hey, we're not forgetting about you. And that even when all the cameras gone, the federal government's going to be there supporting the state and local officials.

And so it's that balance between wanting to reassure people that everything's being done, being on the ground, seeing it, listening to the stories of people there and assuring them that the full force of the federal government is behind the recovery.

KEILAR: Well, we certainly appreciate your insights as we're just looking at these devastating pictures. Former FEMA administrator Craig Fugate, thanks for your time.

FUGATE: Thank you.

KEILAR: And ahead, what past debates involving JD Vance and Tim Walz can tell us about their specific approaches to what will be a high stakes moment tomorrow night during the vice presidential debate.

Plus, Vice President Harris maintaining a small lead among Latino voters, but not as much as previous Democratic nominees. What she needs to do to bolster support among that crucial voting group.

And we're taking you live to Beirut as the IDF carries out new raids in Lebanon, potentially setting the stage for a limited ground incursion that U.S. officials believe could begin at any moment.

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[15:21:06]

KEILAR: With just 36 days, can you believe it, until the election, we're gearing up for a major moment in the race for the White House. The vice presidential debate tomorrow night could be the very last head-to-head event between the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns. Earlier today, Sen. JD Vance arrived in New York ahead of this showdown with Gov. Tim Walz.

Walz has been preparing with his team in Michigan. Over the weekend, the two candidates, former challengers, offered some advice ahead of the big event.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIM RYAN, (D) FMR. OHIO SENATE CANDIDATE WHO DEBATED VANCE: Hit first and hit hard and then hold him to account. And I think he'll be much better. You'll be able to handle it much better regardless of what the issue is.

DR. SCOTT JENSEN, (R) FORMER MN STATE SENATOR WHO DEBATED WALZ: He's very good at sort of an extemporaneous word salad. But I do think that JD Vance would do best to try to brand Tim Walz. Don't try to hit Tim Walz on all the various things. Don't allow seven or eight superficial wounds to take place. Try to get two deep cuts. You know, try to point out the fact that Tim Walz is a little slippery on labels.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Daniel Strauss is here with more.

All right, pretty interesting advice there. I wonder how these two teams are preparing for this big night.

DANIEL STRAUSS, CNN REPORTER: Yes. Well, what we do know is that Walz in Michigan is preparing with Pete Buttigieg, the Transportation Secretary, and former presidential candidate himself, who's considered an avid and very strong debater. Very quick on his feet, even Republicans can see that.

Now, meanwhile, JD Vance has been training with his team for the past few days. He's been working with Tom Emmer as a stand-in for Vance. Now, Emmer is a Minnesota native. The thing I think we should expect from this debate in particular is that these are not storytellers. They are eager to land blows and punches, but they are not going to tell stories about a semi-fictional or a hypothetical person in Ohio, for instance, or Michigan or any other ...

KEILAR: Minnesota, yep. STRAUSS: ... or Minnesota or any other swing states. They are very eager to land a punch, but also not get caught up in minutia or statistics or very small policy points.

KEILAR: It's really interesting. And so the - I think that the expectations management is always a big part of it. How are they doing that publicly? Are they sort of trying to say, oh, no, he's so good. He's so good.

STRAUSS: It's interesting. I - this is a pretty strange sort of prep period where Republicans have said that JD Vance has a story to tell. He is a very good debater. And usually there's some sort of watering down, some lowering of expectations in the hopes that they can over exceed expectations. But Republicans are not doing that.

Meanwhile, we have new reporting today, actually, that Walz, personally, despite having been in Congress over six terms, having won debates in the gubernatorial readout, is nervous about his own debate prospects and not wanting to let the top of the ticket down.

KEILAR: Man, there's a lot of pressure. I don't know how both of them are not nervous, but that's very interesting reporting. Daniel Strauss, thank you so much. Boris?

SANCHEZ: We're also getting new insight today on where this race is shaping up with a critical voting bloc. A new NBC News, Telemundo and CNBC poll shows Harris leading Trump among registered Latino voters. But we should note this lead is smaller than President Biden had in 2020 and Hillary Clinton had in 2016 during their races against Trump.

Joining us now to discuss, one of the co-founders of The Lincoln Project, Mike Madrid. He spent decades as a Republican political consultant with a focus on Latino outreach, and he has a new book, "The Latino Century: How America's Largest Minority Is Transforming Democracy." It is available now.

Mike, thank you so much for coming on with us.

I've covered this story for years.

MIKE MADRID, CO-FOUNDER, THE LINCOLN PROJECT: Yes.

SANCHEZ: And initially, some of the responses that I got, especially from Democrats, were that this was a mirage.

MADRID: Yes.

[15:25:05]

SANCHEZ: And there's still skepticism out there about the methodology, whether Spanish-speaking voters are being undersampled. I'm wondering, from your point of view, how serious this shift is from an electoral standpoint? Could it potentially shift the election?

MADRID: That's a great question, Boris. Look, the shift has been happening for the better part of 10 years. It's not a new phenomenon. It was particularly pronounced in the 2020 elections. That's when people kind of started to focus.

But Hillary Clinton lost support from where Barack Obama had been. Joe Biden lost from where Hillary Clinton was at. And we're in a position where we're looking at Kamala Harris possibly losing even further support. It's very real. It is happening and it's part of this broader diploma divide realignment, where Latinos are the fastest growing segment of the non-college workforce, non-college educated workforce.

So in many ways, Latinos, where the explosion of these new voters is happening with third and fourth generation voters, are viewing themselves and voting much more like what they would determine or characterize as typical Americans.

SANCHEZ: It strikes me that a lot of folks out there would see it as counterintuitive for ...

MADRID: Yes.

SANCHEZ: ... Latinos to support. Trump, given his rhetoric about immigration, immigrants poisoning the blood of the country, and talking about mass deportation, what is his appeal from your perspective?

MADRID: There's a lot of evidence to suggest it's not necessarily his appeal. It's sort of this economic populism of which he is the most populist candidate at the moment. We have to also recognize that the other American politician who did better than Donald Trump and defied expectations was actually Bernie Sanders on the left with a populist message as well. And in some of the same precincts, they were doing equally and strongly.

So I wouldn't characterize this, frankly, as a shift to the right. We hear a lot about this racial realignment. Rather, I'd say it's the emergence of a new voter that is defying the stereotypical view of what we believe non-white or minority voters to be. It's not like people are saying, well, now maybe I'm pro-life and I was pro-choice or maybe I'm anti-tax and I was more pro-tax. It's simply this populism that is emergent as a function of youth. Thirty-eight percent of our voters are under the age of 30. Twenty percent of all Latinos will be voting for their first time in November.

So this is a very young, very dynamic, very anti-establishment voter that is voting more along populist lines than ideological lines.

SANCHEZ: That's a fascinating perspective that I hadn't heard before. One thing that's clear in the data, actually two things that are clear in the data, and I'll get to one at a time, the gender gap ...

MADRID: Yes.

SANCHEZ: ... isn't excluded the way that it is among other demographics. In other words, Latino men seem to favor Trump more than Latino women. Why is that?

MADRID: It's exactly - first of all, it's a great observation. The second is, it's exactly correlate to the diploma divide. Latinos have the largest diploma divide between men and women of any race or ethnic group. And both the gender gap in politics and that diploma divide are both about 7 percent. So our women are going to college at much faster rates than our men are, and that gap is bigger, again, than any other race or ethnicity, and it's manifesting itself at the ballot box.

SANCHEZ: It's also jumping out to me in the data that views of immigration among Latinos are vastly different than they were even 10 years ago or so. Why is that?

MADRID: This is the entire premise of the book that I just came out with. The Latino voter from now going forward, the next 30 years is going to look very different than the last 30 years. And the answer is really simple, it's generationally, the explosive growth of Latino voters is happening with third and now a fourth generation voter.

For the past 30 years, it was largely a naturalized immigrant themselves than their sons and daughters, where that issue was much more impactful, much more meaningful, much closer to the immigrant experience. The further along we get down that generational track, the less salience it has, one, but two, most importantly, where it does emerge, it tends to be much more about border security than immigration reform.

SANCHEZ: Notably, some of the biggest shifts we've seen among Latinos toward Republicans has been in the Rio Grande Valley on the border (INAUDIBLE) ...

MADRID: And Southern New Mexico and Southern Arizona ...

SANCHEZ: Right.

MADRID: ... and Southern California.

SANCHEZ: Before we let you go, Mike, what do you make of how these two candidates, Donald Trump, Kamala Harris, have approached Latino voters? Trump with these reggaeton stars trying to get them on and off stage quickly because he says people don't know who they are. And Harris seeming to make her appeal less about identity politics.

MADRID: I think that the latter, the Kamala Harris transition is frankly, much, much more significant. It shows a 180-degree move away from the Democratic nominee. Ironically, perhaps or perhaps not a black woman pushing away from the racial identity politics that has defined the Democratic Party for the past 10 or 15 years towards this stronger border security position and saying that immigration is not the defining issue of the Latino voter and she's right in that regards.

SANCHEZ: Mike Madrid, great to have you on. I look forward to having you on again.

MADRID: Thank you so much.

SANCHEZ: Thanks so much for joining us. Appreciate it.

Still ahead, time is running out. [15:30:01]

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