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Mike Morgan, Henderson County, NC, Spokesman, Discusses Devastation Following Helene; Prosecutor: Additional Charges "Possible" Against NY Mayor; Fidelity: Elon Musk's X Is Worth 80 Percent Less Since He Bought It. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired October 02, 2024 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:33:29]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Just into CNN, Democratic vice-presidential nominee, Tim Walz, spoke to reporters during a campaign stop in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.

He was asked specifically about a previous inaccurate statement he has -- he had made about his biography, saying that he had been in China during the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square back in 1989.

It turned out that he was actually there months later in China, overall, not in Tiananmen Square.

Here's what he just shared with reporters.

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GOV. TIM WALZ, (D-MN), VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I got my dates wrong. I was in Hong Kong in China in 1989. That -- that move from Hong Kong into China, it was profound for me that was the summer of democracy. I said it's where I understood how sacred democracy was.

It's what encouraged me, about 15 back-and-forth with my students, taking them to China to understand both, first of all, the culture, but also to teach Chinese students about democracy. That was part of the first --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: The Democratic vice-presidential nominee then turn the question to focus on Donald Trump, saying that Trump had lost the trade war with China, and that he should not be praising Xi Jinping, an authoritarian.

So he pivoted from the question over to attacking the former president.

Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: All right, Boris.

The level of destruction from Helene, it really seems to be growing worse by the hour.

We now know the historic hurricane has killed at least 180 people. And among the areas reporting more deaths today is Henderson County, North Carolina. Officials there announced this morning that four more people were found dead and many are still missing.

[14:35:08]

Responders are struggling to reach cutoff areas. And this morning, CNN rode along with a FEMA team in a part of the county there that has been really hard to reach.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: -- Henderson. We're seeing for ourselves everything that the governor has been talking about, officials have been killed talking about, how big of a challenge communication is, not just for civilians, but you guys trying to do these rescue operations.

COLIN BURRESS, FEMA DIVISION GROUP SUPERVISOR: Right, it is. You don't have cell service, calls, texts. All of that becomes a challenge and slows things down a bit.

ROSALES: Tremendously. How frustrating is that?

BURRESS: Well, you get used to it.

ROSALES: Yes.

BURRESS: You know, gets on and off. And just kind of going to adapt and overcome.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: On the phone with us now is the Henderson County spokesman, Mike Morgan.

Mike, tell us what you're we're hearing from residents, what they need. Are they getting what they need?

MIKE MORGAN, HENDERSON COUNTY, NC, SPOKESMAN (via telephone): Yes. Thank you very much for having us on.

And, yes, we've never experienced anything like this in a county before. We've just been -- we took a direct hit from hurricane. And you don't usually see that in the mountains of western North Carolina.

But right now, we've set up hubs, resource hubs all across the county. We're trying to get residents water, non-perishable foods, other items they need, baby formula, you know, diapers, wipes, things like that for small children as well as toiletries.

While all these hubs are passing stuff out, they have had a constant flow of people. We're accepting donations currently. We've seen stuff come in from all across the country. We've seen some federal stuff and state stuff starting to show up as well.

We have a very long way to go because there wasn't a part of this county that wasn't affected. And some took bigger hits than others. And it's going to take a lot to rebuild.

But I tell you, we are tough folk here in Henderson County in western North Carolina. Not just us, but our good friends up in Asheville up the road and even farther west in the Waynesville and Haywood County, who also took a big hit.

And, you know, we're -- we're going to work together. But we are still in rescue mode in this county. We still have people in this county we're trying to get to. And that is the main focus for everyone in Henderson County and our emergency management teams right now.

KEILAR: Yes. And listen, I will say, when we're speaking to a lot of people from the area there in North Carolina, you always sort of note your friends in other counties. And we take note of that. You guys are hanging together in these desperate times.

Talk to us a little bit there as first responders are still making contact with some people who have been unaccounted for. Because we've heard from the former FEMA administrator, just because someone has not been accounted for, you have to be very careful. This does not mean -- don't read too much into it. They may just be cut off from communication.

Tell us what you're experiencing.

MORGAN: But that's very true. And of course, we have a total loss of power, pretty much the entire county. We've seen the - the last number, last report I heard, we went from about 75,000 homes to about 50,000 homes without power. I think that's improved today.

Cell phone services has come back today. We had a pretty big problem yesterday. Communication has been the biggest problem. People who have been cut off.

And yes, I worked the phones a little bit after the storm hit and we started a wellness check list. And we had over 600 calls that came into our call center of people just asking, how's my grandmother, I need to check on my brother, my sister, my son.

And what we've done, we took the employees in this county, 750 almost 1,000 strong. Everybody came to work on Monday. We put them doing stuff and we had a bunch of folks getting in the cars. We mapped it out, going, trying to get to these wellness checks, trying to see if these people are OK.

So folks in Henderson County have been working hard looking out for their neighbors. And I totally agree, because of the lack of contact, it's kind of hard. And especially if they're in these areas that got hit really, really hard.

I mean, it may be another week or so before they even have cell phone service or power down there. But folks are working hard. Duke Energy's working hard. The cell phone

carriers are working hard. Our emergency management, rescue squad, EMS. We've got help from all across the state. We've got other fire departments here assisting us.

It's been an unbelievable effort. I'm not there now, but I've been living pretty much in the operations center.

Those folks are the heroes, man. They're superheroes, those men and women out there risking their lives to save folks in our county. God bless them all. We're so fortunate to have them.

And we're going to get through this.

KEILAR: Yes, you are. But it is a tough road.

And you have a lot of attention on you today. President Biden is flying over the state. What do you want him to know?

MORGAN: Well, just that we need help. I mean, anything and everything that we can get from everybody, the federal government, state government and local, donations, whatever.

We just need to get supplies. We need to get stuff that we need so we can help our people get through this. And then, once we get out of rescue mode and more into recovery and assessment and rebuilding mode, we're going to get a lot of help for a long time.

I had a question earlier, what -- what's the dollar amount? And I said I have no idea we're nowhere close to that yet. We're still trying to get to people.

[14:40:04]

But just help. We just want the help. We need the stuff. And the most you can do right now is to get the things we need.

KEILAR: All right, Mike Morgan, thank you so much, Henderson County, North Carolina spokesperson. We appreciate your time and good luck to you and your community, sir.

MORGAN: Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

KEILAR: So we're learning some brand-new details about the federal corruption and bribery case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, including new allegations of witness tampering and the possibility of more charges against him.

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[14:45:09]

SANCHEZ: New today, additional charges are possible in the federal corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams. That's according to a prosecutor at a hearing this morning.

Adams currently faces five counts, including bribery and accepting donations from foreign nationals. He's pleaded not guilty.

Let's take you now, live, outside the courthouse with CNN's Kara Scannell.

Kara, what more did we hear from prosecutors?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, one of prosecutors in this case said that it is possible that there will be additional charges against Mayor Adams.

He also said it is likely that there could be other defendants charged as part of this corruption scheme.

And one other thing he did was he acknowledged that this investigation is one of several related investigations that are taking place by the U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of New York.

And that the investigation into Adams started in the summer of 2021. That was before he was elected mayor.

They also revealed some information about allegations of witness tampering. What the prosecutor said was a significance instance of witness interference in this case.

What he said happened was that one witness was approached by the FBI. After that, according to the prosecutor, quote, "a clear message from the defendant was delivered to this witness to not tell the truth to the FBI."

Now, after court, Adams' attorney, Alex Spiro, said that that is the sort of nonsense that prosecutors say when they don't have a real case. He said, if they had a real case, they would bring it.

Now the big question is, when will this case go to trial? Adams' lawyer is pushing for this case to go to trial and be wrapped up by March of next year.

Because that is when the election signatures and the certification begins in is underway for the New York mayoral race. Adams is up for reelection next year.

Prosecutors suggested May. The judge said he wasn't going to pick the date now, but he did agree that it was in the publics interests and in the mayor's interest to have this case happen quickly and have this trial underway.

Prosecutors are estimating the whole case could last about four weeks. Everyone will be back in court on November 1st. We might learn then when this case will actually go before a jury -- Boris?

SANCHEZ: Yes, the timing of that could get interesting.

Kara Scannell, live outside the courthouse in Manhattan, thank you so much.

Brianna? KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour.

In Georgia, the winds are shifting and more people in metro Atlanta could soon smell chlorine in the air after a chemical fire at a bio- plant southeast of the city.

Residents in Rockdale County are being urged to stay indoors and avoid using their air conditioners as the effects on air quality could cause respiratory problems. Could also cause other health problems for certain people in certain categories.

Officials say that they've made progress in neutralizing the chemicals. They say that water is safe to drink.

And now is your chance to buy a piece of medical history. But beware, it contains mold. A medallion containing some of the original mold involved in the discovery of penicillin is up for auction. It's expected to fetch up to $50,000.

It was created and inscribed by Scottish bacteriologist -- say that three times fast -- Alexander Fleming in 1928. It was one of several medallions that he made to commemorate his breakthrough discovery of antibiotics.

[14:48:23]

And ahead, Elon Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter. Ahead, how much money he has lost in that investment two years later. It's a lot.

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[14:52:57]

SANCHEZ: Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter, now known as X, has given him a platform in this year's election, and he has used it prolifically.

But it hasn't done much for his wallet. A new analysis shows that since Musk took over two years ago, the company's value is down, way down.

CNN's Matt Egan joins us now.

Matt, how much exactly are we talking?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Boris, we knew that Elon Musk overpaid when he bought Twitter two years ago. Even Musk must have known. And that's probably why he tried to get out of that purchase.

But the scale of the losses here is just staggering. So each month, Fidelity publishes an estimate on how much it believes it's shares in X are worth.

And two years ago, when Musk bought this company, Fidelity valued those shares at almost $20 million. Today, just $40.2 million. That is a drop of almost 80 percent in the span of just two years. And this implies that Fidelity thinks that this company is now worth

just about $9.5 billion. That is a far, far cry from the $44 billion that Elon Musk paid for it.

Now, it's worth pointing out, this is just one investor's e estimate. And other investors could value the company differently. Still, analysts tell me that this plunge in value for X likely reflects a sharp drop in ad revenue at the company.

Remember, some brands had been concerned about some of the content on X. They don't want their brands associated with the company's content.

There's also been some controversy spawned by Musk himself. Remember, last fall, he embraced an anti-Semitic controversy on social media. He later apologized for embracing that conspiracy theory.

But even in that apology, he ended up telling off some of the advertisers. That, of course, could not have helped the value of this company.

[14:55:03]

Now, there's no doubt that X remains a major player in social media, especially for live events like last night's vice-presidential debate. Still there are some signs of a possible dropping engagement among users.

Similarweb has found that X had 73.5 million monthly active users on IOS and Android as of August. That is still huge, of course. But it does mark an 11 percent drop from the year before and 20 percent less than when Musk bought it.

Now, it is possible, of course, that the value of X rebounds if ad revenue goes up or if they figure out a way to really monetize some of the data here.

But clearly, Fidelity, at least, thinks that this company is worth just a small fraction of what it was when Musk bought it -- Boris?

SANCHEZ: Yes, really a significant downgrade from where it was two years ago.

Matt Egan, thank you so much.

Still ahead, President Biden getting a firsthand look at the widespread destruction caused by Hurricane Helene as he meets with first responders in the southeast and sent hundreds of active-duty soldiers to help with this massive recovery effort.

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