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Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) is Interviewed about Mail-in Voting; Two Storms Heading for the Gulf Coast; Wildfires Destroy Homes in California; Public Transit Could Hurt Essential Workers; Protests In Wisconsin over Shooting. Aired 9:30-10a
Aired August 24, 2020 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:30:00]
REP. JODY HICE (R-GA): What they want, universal mail-out ballots.
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: We'll have fraud --
HICE: Without any voter ID. We're going to have ballots mailed out to people who are deceased, people who -- they moved. There will be no valid -- validation as to where those ballots are sent.
SCIUTTO: You still have to verify the signature. You -- you have to verify the person is real that's getting it.
HICE: These ballots are going to go out to deceased, to people who have moved, to people where there is no validation as to who they are.
SCIUTTO: There's no evidence of it going out to deceased people. If you're going to make the claim, then you've got to back it up.
HICE: That's what the Democrats are -- go back and read the Heroes Act. Go back and read the Heroes Act.
SCIUTTO: I've read the Heroes Act, but I've also looked at the data and there is no data to support the claim.
HICE: This is what they -- because -- because it has not yet happened. We have not had yet the Heroes Act take place, but this is what the Democrats want.
SCIUTTO: We've had hundreds of millions of votes cast that way.
Listen, I -- let's keep up the conversation.
HICE: By absentee ballot.
SCIUTTO: If you -- we will -- I'll welcome you back to the broadcast and please bring some data to support the claim that a vote that's going to happen in two months is going to be rife with fraud when -- when you can't show data from previous votes in the same circumstances.
HICE: This vote -- this election will be -- this -- this election -- because it hasn't happened. Quit -- quit -- quit distorting the issue.
SCIUTTO: I'm not distorting the issue.
HICE: You can't have evidence for that which has not yet happened.
SCIUTTO: But there's been --
HICE: When the Democrats have their way, this will be an election filled with fraud.
SCIUTTO: This election has not happened, but voting by this method has happened by the tens of millions of votes where the data shows that fraud is a sliver of it.
HICE: Voting by universal mail-in ballots has never happened before. Absentee ballots has.
SCIUTTO: Well, when you can come back and back it up with some data, you're very welcome on this broadcast.
Congressman Hice, thanks very much.
HICE: We'll be absolutely ready to -- ready to do so.
SCIUTTO: OK, next time, please do. Thanks very much.
HICE: Thank you.
SCIUTTO: Preps are underway in Louisiana as not one but two tropical storms threaten the Gulf Coast. We're going to be live from New Orleans, next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:36:01]
SCIUTTO: Welcome back.
Right now residents along the Gulf Coast are preparing for a rare double blow from two powerful storms set to make landfall this week.
CNN's Martin Savidge is in New Orleans where street flooding already a serious concern. I don't tell anybody watching about the history of New Orleans concerns there.
Tell us what you're seeing there and about the concerns about two storms hitting at once.
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Right now, Jim, this is the calm before the storms, as we so well know, two of them here. Normally the people of Louisiana would not get that concerned about a tropical storm heading their way. These are not normal conditions because there's another storm coming immediately on the heels of that one. And that is what has people worried. It's the cumulative effect.
Here's the governor last night. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GOV. JOHN BEL EDWARDS (D-LA): Don't let your guard down. And we're also looking at a one-two punch because Laura is the second one that we're going to see.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SAVIDGE: And that's the concern here, Jim, is that you're going to initially get this tropical storm. It's going to hug the coastline here of Louisiana. Now, in New Orleans, storm surge is not so much the concern, it's the rain that is going to come.
You always worry more about water in New Orleans than you do about wind. And so the rainwater here is likely to trigger flash flooding, street flooding. That's common in a city that's below sea level. And normally they have a system that can clear it, but they may not have the time before the next storm. And that's what everyone in this state is prepared and worried about, Jim.
SCIUTTO: Understood. Well, our thoughts go out to them as it comes.
Let me speak now to meteorologist Chad Myers. He's been closely tracking the path of both storms.
Chad, what do -- good -- look at -- look at those two there. I mean it's amazing to see it on the -- on the -- on the radar. Tell us how it's going to play out over the next several days.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Marco died overnight, so to speak. It was a hurricane when you went to bed and now it's a tropical storm and it's not going to get any stronger from here.
SCIUTTO: OK.
MYERS: But the good news is, it's going to travel along the coast and not really make landfall.
The bad news is, it's going to travel along the coast and not really make landfall because all of the rain with Marco is to the north of it. And that north is going to progress all the way through New Orleans to Baton Rouge. And it won't be a lot of rain. Maybe two to four inches.
But now that's going to prime the area for the next one, the big storm. This is Laura. Laura is forecast to be 105 miles per hour, forecast to be a category two and possibly higher. Weather Service, Hurricane Center saying get ready for this, we may have to upgrade this, we may have to make these numbers higher, but 105 miles per hour here along the coast. And still probably 80 miles per hour for Shreveport. That will put a lot of power lines down.
Now, what I need you to focus on if you're in this area is the cone. The cone goes all the way from Houston, all the way over to Morgan City. So this thing isn't done yet. We know it's going to grow, we just don't know where landfall might be. We know there's going to be a lot of rainfall, a lot, maybe ten inches. And places out west could use any of this. Ninety large fires out west right now.
Jim.
SCIUTTO: Goodness. Watching what's happening out there is just heartbreaking.
Martin, Chad, thanks so both of you.
So let's talk about those fires now in California. Devastating. Just devastating there.
Our Dan Simon, he is in Sonoma County.
You know, a big issue here, right, is they don't have enough firefighters, right, to control this. It's a fraction of what they've had in the past. But tell us how it's going now and what they're doing about it.
DAN SIMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, hi, Jim.
Well, first of all, we've gotten a very pleasant surprise in the last few minutes in the form of rain, but if that rain is accompanied by lightning, then you could have more fires. The area is also under a red flag warning until early this evening, so you could have some strong winds. But the numbers are just staggering.
First of all, let me explain where I am. This is Healdsburg. You can see this burned out house behind me, this chimney, it looks like somebody tried to save it with this garden hose. We're talking about 11,000 lightning strikes within the past week and that's created some 600 or so fires, about two dozen of them considered to be major.
[09:40:06]
I want you to listen now to one firefighter who explained what the conditions are like.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JEFF GOLIGHTLY, FIRE CHIEF FROM ASTORIA, OREGON: Being out on the line, it's some of the most extreme fire behavior I've seen in my 25- plus years of doing this. The terrain being so steep and just overall how dry it is.
And, you know, we're seeing fire that, you know, we cold trailed and it been good and it turn around five, ten minutes later and it's flared up and across the line somewhere. It just -- you never know where it's going to pop up. It's just extremely sporadic this year.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIMON: Well, these three dozen fires have been distilled down to about three complexes. And two of them are already the second and third largest fires in state history. This particular fire, crews made progress over the weekend getting it to about 20 percent containment. But with the red flag warning, will firefighters be able to build on that progress or could we see things go in the wrong direction?
Jim.
SCIUTTO: Yes, it just seems like every season they get hit so hard.
Dan Simon, thanks very much.
Well, new fears that slashed public transportation budgets due to the pandemic could be permanent. What this means for essential workers who depend on public buses and subways, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:45:40]
SCIUTTO: Welcome back.
The pandemic has devastated public transit in the U.S., forcing cities to slash budgets as more people work from home or simply avoid public buses and trains because of fears of the coronavirus.
But what about essential workers who depend on it? They don't have another option. What happens when bus and train services are cut?
CNN's Pete Muntean has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PETE MUNTEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Devin McCall takes the D.C. Metro five days a week to his job at a suburban hospital. He is still working but fears public transit will not be for much longer.
DEVIN MCCALL, RIDES WASHINGTON, D.C. METRO: I won't be able to go to work. And I need to go to work.
MUNTEAN: Public transit systems nationwide say they are struggling in the pandemic. At its start, Congress kept systems running for essential workers with $25 billion federal stimulus dollars.
PAUL WIEDEFELD, GENERAL MANAGER AND CEO, WASHINGTON METROPOLITAN AREA TRANSIT AUTHORITY: But they are dwindling down very quickly.
MUNTEAN: Metro General Manager Paul Wiedefeld says it is still short more than 80 percent of its normal riders. Empty trains mean burning $2 million in cash each day. Wiedefeld says Congress must step up once more.
WIEDEFELD: The only other alternative we have is to cut. We've got to cut service. You know, we'd have to do furloughs. We'd have to do layoffs. All those nasty things that no one wants to deal with.
MUNTEAN: This week, New York's subway will detail how deep its cuts could be.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We are in a moment when every dollar counts. MUNTEAN: MTA says it will face a fiscal tsunami without $4 billion
just to get it through this year alone. Public transit advocates say service slashed by the pandemic could be permanent, making returning to normal even tougher.
SE. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN (D-MD): Congress needs to get its act together.
MUNTEAN: Senate Democrat Chris Van Hollen of Maryland wants a new $3.2 billion stimulus for mass transit. With talks stalled between Congress and the White House, he says time is running out. Transit advocates estimate almost 3 million essential workers take public transit, and two-thirds are people of color.
HOLLEN: There's no doubt that if you, you know, pull the plug on transit systems or allow them to wither away that you're jeopardizing entire communities but you will have a disproportionately harmful impact on communities of color.
MUNTEAN: The impact could be even bigger on smaller cities. In Flagstaff, Arizona, many city bus riders are what's called transit- dependent, those without cars to get to work or school. Heather Damolin says her system needs $7 million more or it too could cut services to neighborhoods that need it most.
HEATHER DAMOLIN, CEO AND GENERAL MANAGER, MOUNTAIN LINE OF FLAGSTAFF, ARIZONA: We feel very hopeful that there will be a way that we find more funding so that our community doesn't face service cuts.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
MUNTEAN: Those cuts would have a disproportionate impact here in the D.C. area, especially on people of color. They make up 82 percent of the region's bus riders.
Jim.
SCIUTTO: Yes, some folks don't have a choice, right? That's the only way into work.
Pete Muntean, thanks very much for following it.
Protesters hit the streets in Wisconsin after a black man repeatedly shot in the back by police. All of this reportedly happening in front of his three children. We're going to bring you what you know.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:53:20]
SCIUTTO: All too familiar scene. Protests erupted overnight after police in Wisconsin shot a black man multiple times in the back, this while his children were nearby. According to the family's attorney this morning, that man is fighting for his life. The officers involved have been placed on administrative leave and we're learning this morning that Attorney General Bill Barr will brief the White House on the shooting today. CNN's Polo Sandoval has been covering the story. He is live in
Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Polo, what do we know this morning?
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, I have to tell you that knowing that this man actually survived that -- the shooting and is hospitalized according to the latest update from police, knowing that doesn't make it any easier to watch this video. It is deeply disturbing. But, also, it does offer a glimpse -- it's the actual shooting incident.
We're going to play a portion of that in just a few moments. But let me just tell you a little bit about what led up to it.
It was yesterday afternoon here in Kenosha, Wisconsin, when Kenosha police say that officers were dispatched to a home to reports of a domestic disturbance. Now, we don't know exactly who called police or what the nature of that disturbance was, but in the video you're about to see, you will see a man that's been identified by the governor as Jacob Blake in this interaction with police that ends with those shots fired.
And, again, the video is very disturbing.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SANDOVAL (voice over): Guns drawn, two Kenosha police officers followed Jacob Blake to the driver's side of an SUV when he opens the door and almost immediately the shots are fired.
At least seven shots are heard. Police say Blake was immediately treated for several gunshots.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[09:55:00]
SANDOVAL: Now, all of that is certainly going to be part of the --
SCIUTTO: Polo -- we lost Polo Sandoval there.
Again, the video from that shooting just horrible to see. Polo is going to stay on the ground. We're going to bring you news as the investigation continues.
In just minutes now, the postmaster general, he will be back on the hot seat on Capitol Hill to answer questions about changes to the Postal Service as the election approaches. Expected increased demand for mail-in voting. We're going to bring you all the latest and we're going to bring you that live.
Stay with CNN.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SCIUTTO: A very good Monday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.
We're following breaking news this morning.
Any moment now the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, will testify on Capitol Hill on his changes to the post office.
[10:00:02]
Changes that critics say have hindered the USPS ahead of a November election.
