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Judge Orders Release Of Mueller Report Grand Jury Information; Mass Demonstrations Across The World; Mysterious Deaths Of 39 Chinese Nationals Leave Many Questions; Boris Johnson's October 31st Brexit Not Happening; Why Was Trump Blocking Ukraine Aid?; California Fighting Nine Major Wildfires; Harvey Weinstein Confronted At NYC Club; Felicity Huffman Released From Prison. Aired 5-6a ET

Aired October 26, 2019 - 05:00   ET

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

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NATALIE ALLEN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): A win for House Democrats. They finally have access to documents all of Washington wants to see.

And we're getting more details about the mysterious truck filled with the bodies of 39 migrants. CNN is speaking exclusively with one of the victim's families. And they are heartbroken.

Also, wind, heat, dry conditions, the wildfires on the West Coast show no signs of stopping.

These stories are all ahead this hour. Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Natalie Allen and this is CNN NEWSROOM.

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ALLEN: Thank you, again, for joining us.

Our top story this hour: U.S. president Trump gets some support from congressional Republicans as the White House grapples with the ever- deepening impeachment inquiry.

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham said 50 of his Republican colleagues now back a resolution condemning how the House is conducting itself and demanding a House vote on a formal inquiry.

But a federal judge has now ruled that not only is the investigation valid, the House is entitled to all relevant documents because a thorough investigation is in the public's interest. We get more on these developments from CNN's Manu Raju on Capitol Hill.

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MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: A major victory for Democrats in court after a federal judge ruled yesterday that they were bound to get information related to the Mueller report underlying grand jury information because they're in a legitimate impeachment inquiry.

And that is significant because, for some time, the White House and Justice Department have argued that Democrats are not conducting a formal impeachment inquiry because there's been no vote by the full House.

Democrats have said they don't need a vote to conduct an impeachment inquiry. The judge sided with the Democrats, saying they're bound to get that information if they can determine essentially how to conduct their impeachment probe.

Since this was filed, this lawsuit was to get information related to efforts for obstruction of justice. Since then, the impeachment push is now focused on the Ukraine matter, efforts by the president to withhold several hundred million dollars of military aid to Ukraine, as he was pushing Ukraine to open up investigations that could potentially help his re-election bid.

Today, a rare Saturday deposition; a senior State Department official Phil Reeker will come behind closed doors, will be interviewed by lawmakers, congressional staff, as they learn more about that episode.

But also other witnesses bound to come next week in a very, very busy week of closed door depositions. Watch for Tim Morrison from the National Security Council to come testify. That individual is expected to corroborate key elements from testimony from earlier in the week from a top diplomat, who said the president did seek to withhold that aid in exchange for Ukraine to open up the investigation.

This cases the Democrats to show no signs of slowing down their investigation. They have issued new subpoenas. The top officials of Office of Management and Budget and top State Department official who may not comply with those subpoenas, we'll see if the court ruling ultimately changes that decision.

Nevertheless, Democrats are trying to push forward. They're unlikely to talk to the whistleblower himself or herself because of concerns from the lawyers of that person's safety.

But still, Democrats believe that they are moving quickly on the path to potentially impeach the president, which would make only the third time in history that a president has been impeached -- Manu Raju, CNN, Capitol Hill.

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ALLEN: Let's talk about these developments with Inderjeet Parmar, joining us from London. He teaches international politics at City University in London.

INDERJEET PARMAR, PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, CITY UNIVERSITY OF LONDON: Good morning.

ALLEN: Good morning, Inderjeet. First of all, they got a boost by this judge who ruled that the House impeachment inquiry is legal. President Trump has continuously said it is not. It's a political witch hunt; of course, he had unkind words for the Democrats.

What is the significant of this ruling?

PARMAR: Well, I think it basically blows out of the water the idea this is illegal and unconstitutional. The Constitution states very clearly in Article I that the House has the right to carry out impeachment. It doesn't specify that there has to be any kind of floor vote or anything like that.

So this puts the legal footing but it also has a big political effect. It basically undermines the argument of the Trump administration.

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PARMAR: They're going to have to take it much more seriously, including by serious Republican voters, who are paying attention to some more of the facts and some of them are shifting positions on their stance towards impeachment proceedings.

ALLEN: Right. You mentioned Republicans. And we know that Mr. Trump's Republican support has been steadfast in Congress, even as we just saw from Manu Raju, that Lindsey Graham has 50 Republicans backing it.

But with these developments, it's hard to believe they can stick with asking for a formal inquiry.

PARMAR: Yes, I think this is probably not unexpected. You would expect the year ahead of an election, that they won't necessarily break ranks fully. But the evidence in this particular case is more and more compelling.

And I think we have a lot more to come. For example, what Bill Taylor, for example, told the hearings this week were devastating, that there was a clear link with President Trump, the White House, with changing the behavior of the president of Ukraine, in order to provide information and to declare it publicly so he'll be bound by it.

I suspect much more will come if John Bolton would appear before the House. So it's going to be difficult for Republicans to hold on. But they don't want to break ranks just yet because President Trump has such support amongst the GOP base at the moment.

ALLEN: Yes, the president continues to hold on to that base. He hasn't worked to bring in people from the blue states. He's counting on the base. But as you say, as this ticks forward, we're seeing more polls that show Americans are supporting this process.

So that could mean trouble for the president, if there starts to be a crack in the small support, the limited support that he has.

PARMAR: Absolutely. And I think that very danger is what he's trying to avoid. So President Trump plays smoke and mirrors, sand in your eyes strategy. I think we knew that from almost the very beginning of his administration. I think what he wants to do is paint a particular kind of picture and

continue to reinforce that image, that this is all illegal, a witch hunt, just to deflect attention from the facts. And I think facts are stubborn things and they've been more and more clear.

I think Trump is going to hemorrhage some support but it's going to take its time. As we know President Nixon retained almost 100 percent support from Republican Congress people in 1974 until the very last minute.

And this could very well be the same kind of thing happening here. But the only surprising thing is there are more facts available about this particular infraction than there were at that time about President Nixon's.

ALLEN: All right. As you say and much more testimony to come this coming week, even today on Saturday, Inderjeet Parmar, we appreciate your insight. Thanks so much.

PARMAR: Thank you.

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ALLEN (voice-over): We want to take you to Moscow now, where moments ago, this woman, a controversial player in the Russian investigation, arrived home. That's Maria Butina who was released from prison in Florida after 15 months behind bars.

The Russian national pleaded guilty to conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government. She tried to infiltrate conservative U.S. political groups including the National Rifle Association and promote Russian interests.

She intends to return to her hometown in Siberia. But this is her arriving just a short time ago in Moscow, after being released by the United States.

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ALLEN: Well, the Trump administration is taking new steps to try and pressure Cuba over what is called the repression of its people and its foreign policies. Starting December 10th, the U.S. is suspending flights to nine Cuban cities but not including Havana.

Cuba's director general for the United States criticized the decision, tweeting this, "Important attempts to extract political concessions from Cuba drives U.S. government to increasingly extreme measures, punishing a whole nation mercyless (sic)."

In many parts of the world we're seeing an increase in mass demonstrations and civil unrest from Latin America to the Middle East. Of course, it started in Hong Kong.

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ALLEN: Throngs of protesters have been clogging busy streets, defying curfews and clashing with police. They are marching over myriad issues, including corruption and economic hardships.

The unrest unfolding in Iraq has been among the most violent where demonstrations over unemployment and corruption turned deadly on Friday. At least 42 people were killed and more than 2,000 people were injured.

And in nearby Lebanon, Hezbollah supporters clashed with anti- government protesters, who had been out on the streets for more than a week. Let's go now to CNN's Senior International Producer, Gul Tuysuz in Istanbul and Senior International Correspondent, Ben Wedeman in Beirut.

Ben, first to you.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Oh, yes, this morning, actually, the streets are relatively calm. Many of the shops that have been closed for the past 10 days have been reopened. Some of the roads shut have been reopened.

However, at this moment, just a few hundred meters from here, there is one of the main roads in downtown Beirut called the Ring Road, where protesters are facing off against the police.

At the moment, we don't see any violence yet but it does seem that the police are trying to remove them. What we saw yesterday, Natalie, was just below our office, in the square below the prime minister's office. We saw clashes between Hezbollah supporters and anti- government demonstrators.

There has been rising tension between the anti-government demonstrators and Hezbollah because, among other things, the demonstrators are calling for the departure of the entire ruling class, all political leaders.

And of course, Hezbollah is one of the most important political parties, definitely one of the best organized in Lebanon. So that's what we saw.

Now during the afternoon, while there were these sporadic clashes in the square below me, the secretary general of Hezbollah came out and made a speech. Among other things, he said he's in favor of the government remaining as it is, that there should be these reforms proposed by -- or rather tabled by prime minister Saad Hariri.

But this disruption to the country this basically economic paralysis going on could lead to a power vacuum, to disorder and eventually to civil war. So certainly, that has raised tensions significantly.

Perhaps things will calm down, what we've seen so far today. But at this point, we're really just going to -- I hate to choose a cliche -- we're going to have to wait and see -- Natalie.

ALLEN: All right. Our biggest protest there in decades in Lebanon. Ben Wedeman, thank you.

Now let's go to Gul Tuysuz, she's following developments in Iraq from Istanbul.

GUL TUYSUZ, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL PRODUCER: Yesterday was the latest change in protests in Iraq. People once again out on the streets, demanding better governance.

And in the clashes, the demonstrations that we saw yesterday, 42 people at least were killed and 2,300 people were wounded. The government police responded again with tear gas and rubber bullets at times. We don't know at this time if live ammunition was used.

But we know a couple weeks ago, there was ammunition and the death toll was much higher than yesterday. Currently, we're seeing something of the demonstrators have set up tents across cities in squares. And right now, things seem to be calm.

But this is really the latest reincarnation of dissatisfaction with the Iraqi government by regular Iraqi people. They are saying they have had enough of bad governance. They're saying that the bad economy is not something they'll tolerate anymore and the high youth unemployment is something they won't accept anymore.

And they're asking for better basic services. In a country that has as much oil wealth as Iraq does, you have parts of the country that only have electricity for three or four hours. People are saying, that's not enough. We need some change.

And they're pointing the finger squarely at the government. They're pointing the finger at the political elite and saying you have failed us.

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TUYSUZ: This is the generation, the generation on the streets that came into its own after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, they're saying this government is failing us. It's time to change. You need to go -- Natalie.

ALLEN: I can remember all the way back to 2003, when they didn't have electricity and it was sporadic. Here they are in 2019 and nothing has changed. We appreciate it, Gul Tuysuz, thank you.

Next up, a heartwrenching text and a family fearing the worst for their daughter. More developments in the investigation of the 39 found dead in a truck in southeast England. The father of a possible victim has been talking with CNN. We'll share that with you.

As, the British prime minister suffered defeat after defeat at the hands of Parliament. Now he's trying to take back control. What are his chances?

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(MUSIC PLAYING) ALLEN: A young woman who texted her mother a world away to say she couldn't breathe is feared to be one of the victims among the 39 found dead in a truck container near London. British police say the nationality of the victims has yet to be determined.

But they've also made new arrests, bringing the total to four. We want to go right now to our David Culver, he's following developments from Beijing.

This was a heartwrenching text. And we've seen the suffering of this family.

What more can you tell us about this one story, knowing there are so many more that are going to be like this, as people figure out who was in that truck?

DAVID CULVER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, no question, Natalie. Several families are now going to feel the same agony that you're about to see this one family in Vietnam going through right now.

You've got to put yourself in their positions and thinking that they wanted to send their daughter, their 26-year-old daughter, off to the U.K. for what she thought would be a better life, more opportunities. Her parents helped her with that.

CNN speaking exclusively with her parents in North Vietnam. This is the text that her parents received, thinking that she had started her new life, instead they get this.

"I'm sorry, Dad and Mom, the way I went overseas was not successful. Mom, I love Dad and you so much.

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CULVER: "I'm dying because I can't breathe. I am so sorry, Mom."

That is the message they got. You can imagine the confusion and the confusion, the despair. Especially how they thought their daughter was going to be transported to the U.K. Take a listen to what the father told us.

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PHAM VAN THIN, VICTIM'S FATHER (through translator): I asked for some information about how she would travel. She answered that she was going by VIP safe route, go by airlines, go by car. If I had known she would go by this way, nobody would let their kids go. I would never let her go.

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CULVER: Added to that is the great expense that this cost the family financially. While certainly that doesn't rank nearly as high as a life lost, for them it does matter because it was $40,000 U.S. that they say paid for their daughter to be transported to the U.K. To put it in perspective, they make roughly $400 a month. Now this

is, of course, bringing up a lot of questions that they're seeking answers to. Right now, Natalie, they're hoping that authorities will respond and give them those answers but they're sitting there rather hopeless.

ALLEN: Right. This investigation is going on, as we said, a world away. And you just see the pain in that father's face. He's carrying it right there in his eyes. So tragic. So sad. David, thank you.

Well, a dizzying week in British politics. Ahead, it's all things Brexit. Here's what happened on Monday.

The House of Commons Speaker denied a new meaningful vote on Brexit, saying nothing had changed and then on Tuesday lawmakers rejected Boris Johnson's fast track to meet that October 31st deadline. The prime minister then paused the legislation until the E.U. made a decision on an extension.

Wednesday, lawmakers grilled Johnson about his plan. On Thursday, he called for a general election December 12th. Finally, Friday, E.U. leaders agreed in principle to a Brexit delay, likely waiting to see how U.K. lawmakers vote on the motion set for Monday.

"The Independent's" Chief Political Commentator, John Rentoul joins us from London.

Hey, John, can you make sense of everything I tried to say?

JOHN RENTOUL, CHIEF POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, THE INDEPENDENT: Well, one of the people outside of Britain may at least can talk ourselves into it. The simple thing that you missed out there was, also on Tuesday, the House of Commons did actually vote in favor, in principle, of leaving the E.U. and of the legislation to take it out of the E.U.

And that is possibly the most important thing that has happened this week. But of course, the problem is the government doesn't have a majority in Parliament and therefore, it cannot actually force Parliament to get that legislation through by any particular deadline.

And that's what all this is about. But Parliament has made (INAUDIBLE) and the argument right now over the timing and when there needs to be a general election in order to force it.

ALLEN: We know that Boris Johnson, after taking on Parliament, has talked about being reasonable now with Parliament.

But do they have any reason to compromise or work with him at this point?

RENTOUL: Well, yes, they do, the Labour opposition doesn't want to appear to be obstructing Brexit if there there's a majority in Parliament for it. They just want to try to impose conditions. They want to try to amend the legislation. They want to try to achieve a soft Brexit. They perhaps even want a second referendum on the decision. All of those things take time and are slowing things up. That's why

Boris Johnson is saying we've got to have a general election to cut through this endless delay on obstruction. But Parliament is not going to vote for an early general election on Monday.

ALLEN: And what about the E.U.?

Leaders have agreed for a delay but do you have any idea for how long?

RENTOUL: Well, no, they haven't decided that. They're waiting to see what the U.K. Parliament decides on Monday.

And I suspect, after -- they will have that on Monday -- they will reject the idea of an early election. So that means we won't have a Christmas election, much to the relief of most MPs. And then the E.U. will probably agree to an extension.

Now the question is how long is that?

Because Boris Johnson is very keen to get the E.U. to give him a very short extension.

[05:25:00]

RENTOUL: Because that would force Parliament to make a decision, get the legislation through and get us out of the European Union this year. But the E.U. doesn't want to take a decision for us. If we're not taking decisions ourselves, most E.U. leaders don't feel why they should.

Apart from Emmanuel Macron, who has been very friendly to Boris Johnson, he's the lone voice for the debate and giving up a short deadline to make up our minds.

ALLEN: One thing is for certain, October 31st, well, that is over. And we'll see how this plays out. We appreciate you helping us out with it.

Will you come back and talk with us again regularly, John Rentoul?

Thank you.

We have a quick update from Yokohama, Japan, England is powering ahead in the Rugby World Cup semifinal 13-0, against the always dominating New Zealand All Blacks in the second half. The pace of the game starting to dip after a frantic start. We'll keep you updated from Japan. This would be quite the win for England.

Next, a federal judge says the impeachment inquiry in Congress is valid. Now she has ordered the Justice Department to turn over secret grand jury testimony from, you'll remember it, the Mueller report.

Also ahead, California battling multiple major wildfires, crews are racing to contain them and prevent new outbreaks. But recently more evacuations have been ordered, more about that, as we push on.

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ALLEN: Welcome back and staying with us. To our viewers here in the United States and around the world, I'm Natalie Allen with our headlines.

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ALLEN: A federal judge in Washington has ruled the impeachment inquiry in Congress is valid then ordered the Justice Department to give Congress portions of the Mueller report that had been redacted, arguing it was in the public interest. Central to the investigation is the president's role in delaying aid to Ukraine.

We're now learning more about what happened before and after that aid was released. Here's CNN's Alex Marquardt.

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ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Multiple sources telling CNN that after the funds for Ukraine had been frozen all summer long, it was suddenly on September 11th that the president finally relented.

The abrupt move triggered by a phone call with Ohio Republican senator Rob Portman, who pressured the president to release the aid because a fiscal deadline was looming.

This was a day after national security adviser John Bolton was pushed out and two days after U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, told the president that concerns were being raised that his actions amounted to a quid pro quo.

TRUMP: There was no quid pro quo at all.

MARQUARDT (voice-over): Bolton has so far remained mysteriously silent. That may soon change. Lawyers for Bolton, according to sources involved, are in talks with the three House committees leading the impeachment inquiry about Bolton being deposed.

TRUMP: He made some very big mistakes.

MARQUARDT (voice-over): Sources tell CNN that a former top deputy of Bolton's testified that Bolton called the president's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani "a hand grenade who is going to blow everybody up."

REP. STEPHEN LYNCH (D-MA): It corroborates a lot of the relevant information that we had previously about Mayor Giuliani freelancing.

MARQUARDT (voice-over): The inquiry is also expected to be ratcheted up next week with the testimony of Tim Morrison, the White House's senior official for Ukraine, who was on the infamous July 25th call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky, in which Trump asked for a favor.

Morrison, who was the first person on that call to testify, is expected to confirm key elements of the testimony of the top U.S. diplomat in Ukraine, Bill Taylor, who said on Tuesday that Morrison told him that President Trump did insist that President Zelensky go to a microphone and say he was opening investigations of Biden and 2016 election interference.

DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: If you have somebody directly saying, I was on the call, this is what happened, that's direct evidence that really causes problems politically and obviously legally.

MARQUARDT: The pressure to release the money to Ukraine wasn't only from Senator Rob Portman. There was also a deadline; by the end of September, the funds had to be given to Ukraine or they would get nothing at all.

So lawmakers from both parties were urging the president to send the aid, as was Vice President Mike Pence, so finally on that call, the president agreed but not before grumbling that the U.S. was getting a bad deal -- Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.

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ALLEN: Meantime, the president's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani has had a rough couple of weeks. NBC now reporting he accidentally called one of their correspondents without realizing it and left voicemails, in which he talked about large sums of money.

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RUDY GIULIANI, ADVISOR TO DONALD TRUMP: Tomorrow I've got to get you to get on Bahrain. You got a call?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, (INAUDIBLE).

GIULIANI: Got to call Robert again tomorrow.

Is Robert around?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Rob's in (INAUDIBLE).

GIULIANI: The problem is, we need some money.

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GIULIANI: We need a few hundred thousand.

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ALLEN: "We need a few hundred thousand."

Giuliani told CNN those calls had nothing to do with Ukraine and were about other overseas projects he was involved with, all, he said, perfectly legal.

ALLEN: Thousands forced from their homes in California. We've been saying it over and over again because the fires just don't stop. We'll have the latest on the effort to knock these fires down and save these people's homes.

Plus, what role does climate change have to play in the fires?

We ask an expert from the U.S. National Weather Service.

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ALLEN: A fresh evacuation order is in effect for parts of northern California in response to a wildfire there. That's in addition to the thousands who have already fled the so-called Kincade fire. It's raging in the wine region north of San Francisco.

Firefighters are also battling a major wildfire near Los Angeles. It's dubbed the Tick fire. Our Nick Watt has the latest in the efforts to knock down those flames.

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NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Red flags warnings were in place. We knew it was coming, just not where. The ignition point for this one, Tick Canyon Road. And the so-called Tick fire exploded to 200 acres in just 20 minutes or so. Homes were lost here in Canyon Country just north of Los Angeles.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know if anybody is up there. I don't know.

[05:40:00]

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Helping out, putting out the fire, I don't know. I can see the whole structure is on fire.

WATT (voice-over): Dry brush, high temperatures and those whipping Santa Ana winds gusting at over 50 miles per hour, pushing the fire forward, those flames jumping a major freeway overnight; 10,000 structures endangered, 40,000 people under mandatory evacuation orders.

ROBERT LEWIS, SANTA CLARITA VALLEY SHERIFF: We asked that people pay attention to the evacuations. It is mandatory.

WATT (voice-over): Many not knowing what they might return to.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What they usually suggest, they recommend that you do is, like horses and livestock, you just open gates and let them out. And I never got to get up there. Two fire trucks were going up the road. KATHRYN BARGER, LOS ANGELES COUNTY SUPERVISOR: It's hard to sit and watch your community burn. But at the same time, we need to listen to our first responders and allow them to do their jobs.

WATT (voice-over): This, just one of nine wildfires right now burning across the Golden State. Up north in Sonoma County, 49 structures destroyed by the Kincade fire, nearly 22,000 acres and still burning. Still no cause but the local utility, PG&E, has now reported an outage of a high voltage transmission line just seven minutes before this fire broke out and near the point of origin.

BILL JOHNSON, CEO, PG&E: We still at this point do not know exactly what happened.

WATT (voice-over): Hundreds of thousands of Californians have had their power shut off in high-risk areas in the hope of presenting breakouts. Right now across California, thousands of firefighters still fighting flames, still waiting for the next conflagration.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: The utility company mentioned in Nick's report is now warning of potentially historic winds over the weekend that could make the situation worse, if that's indeed possible.

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ALLEN: Joining me now is Brian Garcia, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service

Brian, we know you're very busy right there in California and we appreciate you coming on. Thanks.

BRIAN GARCIA, NWC METEOROLOGIST: You're welcome.

ALLEN: What have you seen with the forecast over the years there in relation to warming?

[05:45:00]

ALLEN: And how is this affecting life and business there in northern California?

Because this has now become a common occurrence.

GARCIA: Right, yes. It's interesting having watched this over just a handful of years. Over the past five years we've seen an uptick in the number of fires and those impacting people, whether it's directly by the fire or by the smoke drifting over heavily populated areas.

So for example, last year, the Bay Area was inundated with smoke from the Camp fire.

But going back to the Lake County fires, like Rocky and the Jerusalem fire and going into like the Mendocino Complex, the Carr fire, we've had all these fires in California and those seem to be increasing in numbers. There's a whole host of thoughts on why that is.

But from what I'm seeing, it's pretty easy to draw correlation to, as we continue to warm the atmosphere and we see these upticks in temperature across the area, year over year, we're seeing what we call more evapotranspiration. We're seeing the evaporation coming out of the fine fields, the grasses, the shrubs, the trees and so forth.

Then we had the 4.5 year drought, dried out a lot of trees in a lot of those larger fields. And then we had about three years of pretty heavy rain across the area around here. That doesn't add back in the moisture into those large fields. That takes a long time for that to occur.

So those large fuels, the big trees, we've had a lot of tree mortality. Then you throw on the beetles that have infested a lot of these trees. We have a lot of dead growth of trees and so it creates a tinder box for fire.

ALLEN: And with all that you just said, let's get back to the people that live there that are going through this.

Do you think people are thinking now of the climate and warming and that this is a new normal for them?

GARCIA: Talking to people, it seems like we have a short-term memory in a lot of sense. People who are directly impacted by these fires tend to remember it. But even in 2017, when San Francisco broke its all-time high of 103, we had 106 that year in September. That's a fleeting memory now. So we really need to do a better job in instilling this history into people.

But it definitely impacts business lives and we see a lot of businesses mitigating for climate change, whether it's sea level rise or the threat of potential fires and potential energy shutdowns now.

ALLEN: So are you now, when you give your reports, are you referencing climate when you do that?

GARCIA: You know, it's really interesting. Meteorology looks out pretty much from today going out seven, 10, 14 days. Climate looks seasonally and beyond.

At this point now, when I go out and talk to our partner agencies and I give them seasonal briefings, like, for example, what to expect for the coming winter, I'm starting to work in climate talk into it because they need to be climate literate for their planning, for a winter or a fire season, a dry season.

So climate literacy is becoming much more of an important part of meteorology. Because at the end of the day, as the climate changes, it's the meteorologists that do the day-to-day forecasting that will be behind the desk, forecasting this change in environment.

I don't necessarily like to call it the new normal, because that implies we've hit an equilibrium of some kind and we haven't. We're going to continue to warm and continue to see the impacts of this changing climate.

ALLEN: We appreciate your insights in this. Brian Garcia, we can't thank you enough. We appreciate it.

GARCIA: My pleasure. Thank you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ALLEN: We're keeping close tabs on the Rugby World Cup in Yokohama. New Zealand is finally on the scoreboard as they try to mount a second half comeback. But moments ago, England scored again, putting them up 19-7. The pace of the game starting to pick up again.

This would be quite the win for England if they were to overcome the very famous New Zealand All Blacks. We'll keep you posted.

An early release from prison for a high-profile actress sentenced for the U.S. college admissions scandal. Why actress Felicity Huffman is enjoying freedom a few days earlier than expected. That's next.

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ALLEN: A night on the town in New York City made headlines when Harvey Weinstein was confronted while he attended a show at a comedy club. Comedian Kelly Bachman said she spotted the disgraced Hollywood producer in the audience Wednesday when she was on stage.

She used part of her set to call out the rape allegations against him. An audience member then confronted Weinstein and demanded he be asked to leave.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ZOE STUCKLESS, ACTRESS: Nobody's going to say anything?

Nobody's really going to say anything?

I'll get out of here, that's fine. I'm happy to leave.

But nobody's going to say anything?

I'm going to stand four feet from a (INAUDIBLE) rapist and nobody's going to say anything?

I'll go.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ALLEN: Weinstein called it rude. He says it shows how the public is denying him due process. He faces charges, including sexual assault and rape. He's always claimed he's not guilty. The woman who yelled at him said the culture of silence which surrounds assault allegations was also present in the night club.

[05:55:00]

ALLEN: Freedom has come a bit early for the highest profile parent sentenced in the U.S. college admissions scandal. TV star Felicity Huffman is out of prison a few days short of her two-week sentence. Our Alexandra Field has the story.

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ALEXANDRA FIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Actress Felicity Huffman is now a free woman, released from federal prison on Friday, no longer an inmate. She was serving time in a northern California prison, sentenced to 14 days behind bars.

In the end, she served just 11 days. The Bureau of Prisons explains she was given a one-day credit for the day she was processed. And they say it's normal to release inmates on Friday when they're scheduled to be released on a weekend day.

Huffman would have otherwise been released on a Sunday. Huffman is one of the 52 people who've been charged in regard to the nation's largest college admissions scandal, 29 have now pleaded guilty. She said she paid some $15,000 to have her child's SAT score inflated.

Huffman expressed remorse when sentenced. In a letter to the judge and in a statement to the public, saying she apologizes not just to her family, not just to her own children but also the other hardworking parents and students out there -- in New York, Alexandra Field, CNN.

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ALLEN: Activist and long time actress Jane Fonda said protesting climate change is the least she can do to draw attention for global crisis. For the third straight week she was led away in plastic cuffs as she and other demonstrators were arrested for blocking a key intersection right near the U.S. Capitol.

This time she was joined by actor Ted Danson. Fonda did the civil unrest fire drill Friday. She said she'll be there every Friday until Congress and government act on climate change. That is CNN NEWSROOM.

Thanks for watching, if you're joining us from the U.S., "NEW DAY" is next. If you're an international viewer, I'll be right back with our top stories.