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Threats to Law Enforcement Spike in the Wake of Mar-a-Lago Search; Marking One Year Since Kabul Fell to the Taliban; New Details on Gun Used in "Rust" Movie Set; Should Teachers Be Armed in the Classroom?; California Faces Mega Flood Threat. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired August 14, 2022 - 20:00   ET

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

[20:00:08]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): One of his followers tried to kill FBI agents. This is the kind of things that result when you've got a president that attacks law enforcement.

SEN. MIKE ROUNDS (R-SD): I'm hoping that it was not a fishing expedition. Releasing that affidavit would be important to share with the American people why they did this.

BLAKE ESSIG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Despite escalating tensions between Beijing and Taipei, this is the second time just this month a U.S. congressional delegation has made this surprise visit to Taiwan here.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: The acclaimed author has started to speak again. He was stabbed more than half a dozen times.

RALPH HENRY REESE, INJURED DURING ATTACK ON SALMAN RUSHDIE: To not only to assault his body but to assault everything that he represented.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: An armed man drove his car into a barricade outside the Capitol building, firing several shots in the air before taking his own life.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A mega-flood is coming to California. And it could be the most expensive natural disaster in history unlike anything anyone alive today has ever experienced.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Top of the hour. Hello, everyone. I'm Kate Bolduan in for Pamela Brown. And you're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Tonight growing concerns and calls for more answers over what the FBI recovered during their search of former President Donald Trump's Mar- a-Lago resort. Democrats on the House Intel and Oversight Committees say that they want a congressional briefing and damage assessment now after the Justice Department removed 11 sets of classified documents that includes materials marked with one of the highest levels of classification. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Some of those documents were marked top secret, sensitive compartmented information. That is among the highest designation in terms of the extremely grave damage to national security that could be done if it were disclosed. So the fact that they were in an unsecured place, that is guarded with nothing more than a padlock or whatever security they had at a hotel, is deeply alarming.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Meantime, the top Republican on the House Intel Committee wants more specific information from Attorney General Merrick Garland on what was found and specific evidence that the documents would actually threaten national security if exposed.

Amid all of that, the rhetoric surrounding the search is putting law enforcement and government officials at risk. An intelligence bulletin obtained by CNN warns of danger, quote, "including a threat to place a so-called dirty bomb in front of FBI headquarters and general calls for civil war and armed rebellion."

Let's begin with that this hour. CNN's Donie O'Sullivan is live for us in Las Vegas, joins us now.

Donie, you have done so much reporting, important reporting on this kind of rhetoric surrounding January 6th. Now it could boil all over again. I mean, what do you see here?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate. I mean, as soon as that news broke last Monday about the search in Mar-a-Lago, we really saw an immediate uptick in the talk of violent rhetoric both on traditional social media platforms but a lot of it on these new emerging alternative social media platforms that are targeted towards people who are on the right side of the political spectrum, including Trump's own social media platform.

First, there were calls for general violence against the FBI, against Attorney General Garland, and then later in the week when we learned about the judge who is believed to have signed the warrant, there were calls for violence against that judge, and then on Friday, of course, when there was an unredacted version of the search warrant was leaked and published on some right-wing Web sites, we also saw calls for the doxing of those agents.

But of course this isn't all just happening. This rhetoric isn't all just happening online. A lot of it is also coming from elected officials. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ELISE STEFANIK (R-NY): The FBI raid of President Trump is a complete abuse and overreach of its authority.

SEN. RAND PAUL (R-KY): Do I know that the boxes of material they took from Mar-a-Lago, that they won't put things in those boxes to entrap him?

REP. LAUREN BOEBERT (R-CO): I will make sure these tyrants pay the price.

SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): The way our federal government has gone, it's like what we thought about the Gestapo and people like that that they just go after people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'SULLIVAN: And look, that sort of talk there really helps bleed in then to what we're seeing at some of the more extreme rhetoric online. Of course, it is very, very important for Republicans, people in positions of leadership to call out and to explicitly call out any talk of violence. Some we have seen doing that. Have a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE TURNER (R-OH): I think always, everyone, should make it very clear that this is not an issue where violence is ever an answer. I think you should make it very clear. This is not something that should rise to the level of violence.

[20:05:09]

GOV. ASA HUTCHINSON (R), ARKANSAS: Those folks on the ground do extraordinary heroic efforts to enforce our rule of law which is fundamental to the Republican Party and to our democracy. The FBI is part of that. And so, yes, we need to pull back on casting judgment on them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'SULLIVAN: And look, Kate, you know, up until January 6th we saw mostly a lot of Trump supporters using platforms like Facebook and Twitter. After that, of course, Trump himself and many others who were pushing lies about the election got kicked off those platforms, they are now using sort of alternative platforms which have far loser rules and content moderation policies, and that is allowing a lot of this violent speech to continue to circulation.

BOLDUAN: Maybe even more and more of an echo chamber which isn't needed in this moment, for sure.

It's good to see you, Donie. Thank you so much for coming on with that reporting. Really appreciate it.

So we are now 80 days out from the midterm elections, and it remains to be seen what impact all of this will have on motivating voters. We still need, of course, to see what happens with this investigation. We do know that this week House minority leader Kevin McCarthy told CNN that he does not think the Mar-a-Lago search will overshadow the Republican Party's messaging on inflation and the economy. And he's pin post, though, on Facebook right now calls on elected Republicans to, quote, "speak up and be loud" about what he calls Democrats' abuse of power in Washington. So where is this headed? Joining us now, CNN's Eva McKend and Chris

Cillizza.

It's good to see you, guys. Eva, you've been on the campaign trail this past week in Pennsylvania. Speaking to voters there, is the Mar- a-Lago search on the radar at this point?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Well, it certainly is. You know, Republicans have said that this is animating their voters and that they are rallying around the former president and they're quite excited about the political implications of this, but this could also make a difference for Democrats as well.

I was actually surprised when I was at John Fetterman's rally on Friday night in Erie speaking to voters. Many of them said that they were concerned about the former president announcing a 2024 bid and what the implications were for the future of our democracy. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE DROPCHO, PENNSYLVANIA VOTER: Democracy. I can't see anybody ruining the Constitution in the United States like the right is doing right now.

MCKEND: Wow, wow. So is that -- that's your number one issue you would say?

DROPCHO: My number one issue. Yes. The lies and everything else. I just -- I can't take it anymore.

MCKEND: Even more than the economy?

DROPCHO: Even more than the economy. Our Constitution becomes -- comes before the economy does, you know. Everybody can get by, you know. It will be tough doing it, but right now the way I'm looking at the right they're bringing down the Constitution and I can't stand for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: So this isn't going to be the only issue come November, but it will be a factor along with the economy, along with reproductive rights. If the former president does in fact accelerate his timeline as all indications are that he will and announce sooner than later, I think that is going to animate Democratic voters as well who are concerned about the health of our democracy.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And Chris, we've heard from more than a few people also this week that this was a particularly good one also for Donald Trump politically. I mean, one op-ed in the "New York Times" asks -- puts it this way. "Did the FBI just re-elect Donald Trump? And then there's Maryland's Republican Governor Larry Hogan, not a huge Trump fan at all, and he said this today. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) GOV. LARRY HOGAN (R), MARYLAND: I would say, you know, this week it was actually a win for Donald Trump. It seemed to motivate his base and people are rushing to his defense and feeling as if he was being picked upon and martyred, but I don't think, you know, we've seen the end of the story yet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Do you see that, Chris? What do you think?

CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICS REPORTER AND EDITOR-AT-LARGE: Yes. I think you have to separate, Kate, so I think you have to say on the one hand it's a win for Donald Trump within the Republican base. There is this sense that Donald Trump is unfairly targeted. Donald Trump is a martyr. Donald Trump is the target. Anything that plays to that is good for Donald Trump, but, again, Donald Trump was the frontrunner to be for the Republican nominee for president in 2024 before this.

Is he marginally maybe more of a frontrunner? Sure. The question for me is, does this make Donald Trump any stronger of a potential president of the United States? Could Donald Trump -- does this make Donald Trump more likely to win? I think the answer to that is no. Now, again, it's at the margins. I don't think Donald Trump loses because of this search of his property.

[20:10:00]

Now maybe it's sort of a question mark. We don't know what ultimately comes of this, you know, if he's charged with something then obviously that's a different story, but I think you have to separate. Is this good for him within the base? Yes. Does that mean it's good for him in a general election sense? I think that's very much more of an open question.

BOLDUAN: Yes, and there's more time because there will likely be more twists and turns before that is really ironed out.

You know, Eva, Democrats have had a big couple of weeks pushing through parts of Biden's agenda. There's a back and forth on CNN this morning that I think kind of encapsulates what a lot of Democrats are wondering, at least I hear Democrats wondering about as they look towards the midterms which is, can you pursue your agenda, highlight your agenda, run on your agenda and also hold the former president accountable at the same time? Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. JAMAAL BOWMAN (D-NY): I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time.

HILARY ROSEN, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: No, we cannot.

BOWMAN: I think there's a way to hold -- yes, we can.

ROSEN: We can't. We've proven we can't. BOWMAN: There's a way to hold Donald Trump accountable whether that's

hearings or otherwise, right? There's a way to hold him accountable and still --

ROSEN: (INAUDIBLE). Hold him accountable.

BOWMAN: Exactly. And still champion what we've been winning in Congress over the past several weeks.

ROSEN: Right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: The congressman and the strategist going at it. How real is this challenge for Democrats heading home to face voters now, Eva?

MCKEND: Listen, they -- it's not going to be a cakewalk. Yes, the president and the Democrats just secured a few victories, but Democrats have historically had a good hand sometimes and botched it. Sometimes they are afraid to champion the very issues and policies that voters elected them on. We saw some waffling on immigration a few months ago when President Biden was moving towards reversing course on Title 42, a policy that under Trump Democrats were calling a white supremacist policy, and then when the president was in a position to do that, we saw Democrats kind of cradling.

So I could understand Hilary's trepidation there. Historically Democrats sometimes do not all sing from the same hymnal so to speak, and it could present a challenge no matter how many victories they've recently secured or massed. They have to -- they still have to govern together and have a unified message and strategy ahead of November.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And, Chris, we have time, I just want to get this in because I think it's an important week ahead for someone who is really important to this entire conversation. The vice chair of the January 6th Committee, Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney. She's facing primary voters. Her primary is coming up this week in Wyoming. It has been a tough long primary for her all along. She knows that.

CILLIZZA: Yes.

BOLDUAN: What are you watching for there?

CILLIZZA: So I think she's very likely to lose. If you want something to watch, if you want -- if you want to see if Liz Cheney has a chance, how many Democrats in Wyoming cross over and vote for her? She's not going to win among Republicans in Wyoming. I think that probably dooms her, Kate. They have run, they the Cheney campaign, have run an active effort to try to get Democrats to come over.

You know, well, you may not agree with Liz Cheney on everything but she is fighting sort of for the Constitution and the rule of law, come over and vote for her. I don't think there's enough of them who are going to do that. I think she's going to lose. I don't think this is the last we have heard from her, whether that's a presidential bit in 2024 as a Republican or an independent, whether it's a presidential bid down the line. Whether it's some sort of, you know, entity she forms after this. I don't think she's done in national politics. I do think barring a huge influx of Democratic voters, I think she's probably done in the House after this election.

BOLDUAN: I will say, then she's made it pretty clear that the stances she's taken, the statement she's made, the position she has put herself in, it is bigger than a congressional seat and that it seems very clear in all of this.

CILLIZZA: That's exactly right. She -- I think she knows, if you ask Liz Cheney, candidly, truth serum, you think you're going to win or lose, she'd probably tell you she's going to lose. She's not going to say that before Tuesday, but I think she's seen the writing on the wall for some time.

BOLDUAN: Yes, I mean, she's not doing what she's doing to pick up more votes. I mean, she's doing because it's good for democracy.

CILLIZZA: Correct.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you, guys. Thank you so much.

Coming up for us, Beijing making it very clear how it feels about another delegation of U.S. lawmakers arriving in Taiwan as dozens of Chinese ships and aircraft are detected around the island. Also ahead what new forensic testing reveals about the fatal shooting on the set of "Rust," the movie set of "Rust" and how the gun held by Alec Baldwin went off.

Plus, climate change fueling fears of a, quote, "mega flood" hitting Florida. What are the odds of it actually really happening? Our Tom Sater is taking a look at it. He's in the weather center for us later this hour.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:18:57]

BOLDUAN: Taiwanese military tonight claiming it detected 22 Chinese aircraft and six Chinese ships in the Taiwan Strait today. Their presence came as a second U.S. congressional delegation arrived in Taipei for a surprise two-day visit. The group led by Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts says that the trip is meant to reaffirm U.S. support for Taiwan. It comes right on the heels, of course, of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's very big visit and controversial visit to Taiwan which ignited outrage from the Beijing government and backlash.

It extended its military exercises, Beijing did, beyond their original schedule after Pelosi left. China considers Taiwan part of its territory despite having never controlled the self-governing island.

Now tomorrow marks one year since Kabul fell to the Taliban. You'll remember the chaotic scenes at the airports just days later. Afghans racing after planes, people so desperate to escape trying to cling to the body of cargo planes as they took off. The chaotic scene outside the airport for weeks families huddled outside the airport, gates crushed by the mass of people which, of course, turned deadly.

[20:20:08]

Some managed to get on evacuation flights of course. Others were turned away and forced to stay behind to face life under Taliban rule once again. Today life in Afghanistan, you could say, looks a lot like it did before the U.S. arrived in 2001. The Taliban government rolling back all progress made for women and girls. They don't guarantee the girls the right to education past the age of 12. Women, they can't freely leave their homes now without being escorted by a male relative.

Just two examples of life under Taliban rule today. Joining me now CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen. He's also the author of "The Rise and Fall of Osama bin Laden."

Peter, you wrote a very important I think look at this one year since Kabul fell, and you concluded in your piece that you wrote for CNN about the Afghanistan withdrawal that this is surely one of the most spectacular own goals the U.S. has ever scored. One year later, what do you say? How should people look back at this?

PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Kate, thanks for having me on. I mean, unfortunately, a lot of this was predicted and predictable, the idea that the Taliban had somehow moderated, reformed I think was a delusional thinking. It gripped U.S. policy-makers beginning in the Trump administration and then with the Biden administration that once they come to power that they would kind of moderate and, you know, not enforce their misogynistic ideology, that they would really separate themselves from al Qaeda.

And we now see a year later that none of that was true, unfortunately, and, you know, the country itself is in terrible shape. I mean, millions of Afghans are on the brink of starvation. There are many other faults, Kate. The Taliban are terrible governors. They don't know really how to govern. And so the place, you know, there's no work, there's no economy virtually, and here were a year later with, you know, a very bad situation there.

BOLDUAN: Very bad. Earlier this week Afghan women took to the streets once again in protest. Can you give us a sense of just how quickly and dramatically life changed for women and girls in Afghanistan? I don't think people appreciate this enough.

BERGEN: Well, I think a very indicative thing is within days of the Taliban taking over they took over the Women's Ministry and they turned it into the Religious Police Ministry which I think shows where their priorities were, and, you know, the mayor of Kabul said that women could have jobs in Afghanistan providing there were jobs that were completely in the sphere of female-related jobs, so he gave the example of women could clean toilets in Kabul, the capital city.

So, you know, and then, of course, the Taliban promised right from the get-go that girls would be able to get an education and then eventually they kept reneging on that promise and that promise has never happened. They made up nonsensical ideas like we have to have a special Sharia-type uniform for these girls, I mean, stuff that really makes no sense at all.

And then, you know, add to that, Ayman al-Zawahiri just a week ago or so was killed by a U.S. drone strike, and he's the leader of al Qaeda, so the idea that they'd separated from al Qaeda was as nonsensical as the idea that somehow they were going to change their views on women and girls.

BOLDUAN: And the fact that Zawahiri had been living in Kabul for months at that point in like the center of Kabul just shows kind of the state of Taliban rule and what they think.

Earlier today, Fareed Zakaria spoke with the former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani who of course fled Afghanistan just as Kabul was falling. Fareed asked him if he felt betrayed by America and what happened. Let me play what Ghani said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASHRAF GHANI, FORMER AFGHAN PRESIDENT: We need to draw lessons from the past and deal with the present. Our country is in dire condition. I do not have the luxury to engage in blaming or sense of betrayal. Superpowers, big powers decide on the basis of their national interest. What I hope is that they've considered the implication of those.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: I mean, you've mentioned, though, millions of Afghans are starving at this point. And look, I think the question maybe one year out is what can and should the Biden administration do to help at this point?

BERGEN: Well, they've created their own very difficult policy dilemma because essentially by enabling the Taliban to seize power, the Taliban are in power and they're stronger today than they were before 9/11 in the sense that they control all of the country pretty much. There's no real opposition. They're much better armed. They have American armored vehicles and M-16 rifles.

[20:25:02]

BOLDUAN: Unfortunately, I think we lost the very end of the audio connection with Peter Bergen.

Peter, thank you very much. I really appreciate your time. Thank you.

Coming up for us, new details tonight about the gun used in the shooting on the set of the movie "Rust." Alec Baldwin says he did not pull the trigger. We're going to tell you what the FBI learned while testing the gun. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BOLDUAN: An update tonight on that deadly accident on the set of the movie "Rust." During tests the FBI found that the weapon handled by actor Alec Baldwin could not be fired without pulling the trigger while the gun was cocked.

[20:30:01]

CNN's Mike Valero joins me now with more. Because, Mike, this is an important potential detail because that doesn't appear to line up with what Alec Baldwin said in public comments after the accident. Any reaction from him?

MIKE VALERO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Kate. Well, no reaction from him but there is certainly reaction coming from his attorneys who are disputing some of the findings from this report.

But, Kate, you know, as we're talking about this, you've got to keep in mind how a revolver is designed to work, and there are two things that you really have to know, so with the revolver there's a lever on top called a hammer and a revolver is designed to fire, Kate, only when the hammer is pulled all the way back and when somebody pulls the trigger. So what the FBI did here, they tested this gun in a variety of different ways, they had the hammer pulled back a quarter position, half position, and then all the way back.

And in all of their tests, the gun would only fire when the trigger was pulled with the exception, Kate, of one test. In that one test, there were two small parts within the revolver that fractured and it was able to fire without the trigger being pulled. So because of that Baldwin's lawyers are issuing this statement, really seizing on that, saying in part to CNN, quote, "The FBI report is being misconstrued. The gun fired in testing only one time without having to pull the trigger and the hammer was pulled back and the gun broke in two different places."

But what this statement leaves out are all the other tests beforehand when the gun was tested and it could only fire with the trigger being pulled. Alec Baldwin spoke about this moment in December. Listen to what he said.

And apparently we don't -- we don't have that sound. Hey, Kate, I'm sorry about that. But he tells George Stephanopoulos over at ABC News I didn't fire, I didn't pull the trigger. We are not told to pull the trigger when we're pointing the gun at somebody.

So, you know, Kate, I was speaking to our national security and our law enforcement correspondent Josh Campbell throughout the afternoon about this story, and even though there are all of these intricacies about how this gun could have fired, Kate, the larger point here is that we still don't know nearly 300 days later how live ammunition got on the set of this film, and because that happened a life was lost. There are still so many questions about this film, how it was made as we're approaching a year later -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely. Such a sad, I mean, such a tragedy. Still, it's good, thank you, Mike, for laying that all out. I really appreciate it.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. Coming up for us, as kids head back to class, there's a debate now on whether teachers should be armed to defend against active shooters. Some school districts are already putting guns in schools. I'm going to speak to a teacher who says and has written she loves her students but won't use a gun to protect them. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:37:06]

BOLDUAN: As the new school year gets under way, our nation's teachers have a lot on their plate as they always do, trying to help students recover and catch up after two-plus years of pandemic snarls, negotiating with parents, many of whom are newly empowered by state laws giving them the right to challenge how some topics are taught in the classroom, and then there's the very real threat of active shooters all over the nation. Some think the answer is to arm teachers.

In a guest essay for the "New York Times" my next guest writes, "I love my students, but I won't use a gun to protect them." She also writes this. "Our schools have become places where children go to learn and to learn to fear, and it makes them sick. These students' entire coming of age has been a long fight or flight cortisol bath."

Beth Ann Fennelly teaches at the University of Mississippi. She's also the former poet laureate for Mississippi. And she joins me now.

Beth Ann, thank you very much for being here. Why did you want to speak up about this in this way?

BETH ANN FENNELLY, TEACHER, UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI: Well, it occurred to me that I was doing my back-to-school classroom preparation, and that always involves stopping by my classroom before the first day of school and in addition to the things I've always done like checking and making sure that there's chalk and the classroom is well organized, now I have this additional step of thinking where's the hard corner, where will I put my students if there's an active shooter, how could I possibly try to protect them, and thinking about the new growing proposals that teachers should be armed and what it would mean for me to have to protect my students with a gun and feeling like that is really not the right answer.

BOLDUAN: You say very clearly and you write this. You say, I'm mentally preparing to protect my students from an active student. This fact splits my sternum with an ice pick of despair but please don't offer me a gun. And you also write about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton saying on the day after the Uvalde massacre, he said we can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly because the reality is that we don't have the resources to have law enforcement in every school. How does that make you feel?

FENNELLY: I think it's completely preposterous that we're assuming that -- that now the job of teachers with everything else teachers are supposed to be doing to be protecting their students be getting trained with a gun in some places as little as 24 hours, that you get a one-time training and then you have a gun in the classroom and you can protect your students that way when it's never supposed to have been the teacher's problem and they are saying well, you're the first line of defense and I'm saying, no, it only looks like we're the first line of defense because everyone else has lain down.

I mean, if I'm face to face with a mentally ill child wielding an AR- 15, I look like the first line of defense because the lawmakers have lain down, that's people interpreting the law have lain down, the people enforcing the law have lain down, that's why it looks like I'm the first line.

[20:40:16]

BOLDUAN: You think they're pushing it off on to you without taking the real responsibility that is on their shoulders.

FENNELLY: Right, and there are so many teachers fleeing the profession right now more than ever before, and I just can't imagine that they think that it's now going to be a great idea that teachers who are dealing with so much trying to catch kids up after COVID, trying to deal with the vulnerability of these students who have a lot of mental health problems now due to the stress, who have fallen behind and in addition to that we're now going to be carrying a gun in our backpacks?

BOLDUAN: I think you mentioned how many teachers are fleeing the profession, because I think the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that there are 300,000 fewer public school teachers than there were before the pandemic. Why do you think so many teachers are quitting?

FENNELLY: Well, you know, Kate, I think there's been a problem historically for a long time with teacher pay, but adding to that how the profession has changed, how teachers have less autonomy in the classroom, it's really more administrative than about testing and add to that this kind of feeling that they're not being valued, there's a lack of respect, then with COVID, the workload was increased, everyone is teaching and trying to, you know, coming into work, figuring out who is sick that day, how they can do everyone else's classes, and the dissatisfaction has grown and people are realizing they can make more money doing other things.

They might like them less, they might feel like it's not what they're put on earth for. But I think so many teachers are just feeling so frustrated with the way they're being treated that they're fleeing. Frankly they're fleeing their profession.

BOLDUAN: On so many levels as we just touched on just a couple of them here.

Beth Ann, thank you for coming in. Thanks for your time.

FENNELLY: Thank you. BOLDUAN: Coming up still for us, scientists now warning the state of

California that it could be hit by a trillion-dollar mega flood that could swallow up cities and displace millions. CNN's Tom Sater tests the theory for us. That's story is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:46:52]

BOLDUAN: Between historic drought and scorching heat, California has been hit by the climate crisis like few other states have. Now experts are warning of a mega flood may soon be added to the state's list of threats. They say it could be the most expensive natural disaster in history if it occurs.

Meteorologist Tom Sater is in the CNN Weather Center to help explain what this is really all about.

Tom, what has scientists so worried?

TOM SATER, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Well, when I break this down this report for you, Kate, and everyone listening, you'll get a better understanding. It used to be you talk about California and the big one. You know, it's an earthquake and that can still be the possibility, but now the big one is a mega flood.

Let's begin with what the scientists are looking at and a number of them, of course, contributing to the report. Since the 1850s the temperature has been rising across the entire planet. We have broken thousands of high temperature records across all of northern hemisphere. Look, the last seven years have been the hottest seven we've ever had on this planet. They're breaking records in the southern hemisphere, too, and they're in winter.

On average the earth has warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius since the pre- Industrial Age, right? That is causing a 7 percent increase in the atmospheric water vapor. That means a warmer atmosphere holds more water which means we've seen more of these one in 1,000-year events. We've had three now in the last three weeks. St. Louis, eastern Kentucky and, of course, in Death Valley. But now what we're looking at is the opposite of a mega drought. California right now 99.8 percent in drought, almost 46, and the two highest levels.

Of course it's much of the West but this mega drought we've been seeing out west really for the most part has been going on for decades. The mega flood will happen in three or four weeks. Notice we're two times more severe in our soil deficiency. You can see Lake Meade, Colorado River, everything going down. This talks about the Central Valley. This happened once before in the 1860s. Simulated models are saying these atmospheric rivers will be pounding into California within the century and it's not going to be what we typically see, what we call a pineapple express which has this fire hose of water that moves in for a couple of days.

Typically we have snow in the mountains, Kate, and we have rain in the valleys, but with climate change we're not going to have the snow. We're going to have rain in the mountains and rain in the valleys, so not only is there going to be higher frequency and higher intensity but this atmospheric river is going to be much wider and much longer. It happened in Sacramento in 1861.

This is incredible. And I really didn't know much about this. Only 500,000 people lived in the Central Valley. Today it's 37 million. 30 feet of water in all of Central Valley for weeks. It rained for 43 days, the equivalent of $1 trillion in today's damage. They say the next one would probably be like a Katrina times five so a warmer atmosphere holds more moisture. Sometime in the next 40, 50 years, an atmospheric river will drop rainfall for three to four weeks and flood out that Central Valley which now, of course, is home to 37 million people. Could be devastating. The capital back in the 1860s was under about 12 feet of water.

So the news is not good but if you look at the climate change the models make sense.

BOLDUAN: It does. And is not less terrifying.

SATER: Frightening.

[20:50:02]

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you, Tom. Thanks for laying it out for us. I really appreciate it. Wow.

Coming up still for us, Kamau Bell is back tonight with a new episode of "UNITED SHADES OF AMERICA." He's going to join us live next with a preview of the show. It's good to see him. He'll be on with us soon.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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BOLDUAN: An amazing tale of survival for you.

[20:55:01]

A dog that has been missing for months is now back home after being found 500 feet underground. This is 13-year-old Abby. She's somehow got lost in a maze of underground caves just north of Perryville, Missouri, back in June. Two months later a group of spelunkers touring the caves found her and carried her to safety.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I laid that bag out, unzipped it, put the blanket in, and the dog at that point walked right over and sat in the bag because the dog recognized that this is the driest, warmest and softest thing I've seen in a long time and I'm just going to lay on it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Poor thing. Went door to door until they found Abby's home. Now reunited, her owners say she is slowly on the mend, slowly getting back to normal.

Let's turn now to this. Kamau Bell back with another all-new episode of "UNITED SHADES OF AMERICA." This week Kamau travels to the black hills of North Dakota to talk to Native people trying to reclaim their culture and their land. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

W. KAMAU BELL, CNN HOST: So talk about what is the goal of the Land Back Movement?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, it's simple. Like land back is about reclaiming indigenous lands and getting land back into indigenous hands, and to reclaim everything stolen from us when we were forcefully removed.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A huge part of the Land Back Movement has a strong premise around dismantling white supremacy because all these systems that have been put in place that made it possible for the stealing of our land is the very systems that are in place to make it possible to keep our lands from us to this day.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We were fully thriving communities and societies pre-colonization, and so all of who we are, our spirituality, our culture, our language, our life ways, our ceremonies, but also our kinship systems, our governance systems, education, health care, housing, food systems are all based on this land right here, and so Land Back is that. It's literally reclaiming those lands so we can re- establish those relationships.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: The host of "UNITED SHADES OF AMERICA" W. Kamau Bell joins me now. He's also the director of the Emmy-nominated series "We Need to Talk About Cosby" and the co-author of the new book "Do the Work: An Anti-Racist Activity Book" which is available now.

Kamau, it is so good to see you. Talk to me about this episode. What is -- what exactly is the goal of the Land Back Movement? I mean, do the Native activists fighting for it, do they real want all of the land that makes up the U.S. put back under indigenous control?

BELL: Well, let me be clear, first of all, I don't presume to speak for all of them individually, and I just want to make that clear, but I think the short answer would be yes, and I think, and Nick (INAUDIBLE) was in the clip said something very interesting when I asked him about all the people at home who would hear that and suddenly be afraid that they're coming for their houses. His response was like, the fact you would assume that us giving the land back is a bad thing it's really about your understanding of how this country works.

He's saying if we get the land bank, we get the control of the land, the country will actually run better than it is right now. Now you just did a story about climate change in California and floods. Native American folks are saying we would handle that better than the government.

BOLDUAN: It's really, and what you do so well is you really open people's eyes and you are great at having uncomfortable and important conversations, and a lot of it comes from just your first episode in talking about history, how it's taught, what's included, what's not. How have Native Americans been impacted, and what are you learning as you're talking to them about the way that their history has been taught by non-Native society?

BELL: Well, you know, I don't want to get into a game of press and poker where we say who got more pressed or whatever. But I will say this. That is, as distorted as the images of black folks are in most people's history books, in most kids' history books, Native Americans aren't seen at all or barely at all, or just seen as a function of settlers getting the land. It doesn't tell anything from the perspective of Native American folks and indigenous folks in these lands. So they feel like, you know, while we argue about the details of how we tell the history, they're saying ours is not being told correctly at all or even being talked about.

BOLDUAN: Talk to me about then how they feel about the future because they feel -- one of the activists that you spoke to said that Native peoples are always being put in the past. They're not allowed to kind of exist in the present. So are they optimistic then? How do they talk about the future?

BELL: I mean, I feel like this is the same way that a lot of black folks feel. The future is optimistic if we do the work now. So I think the idea being that the Land Back Movement which was started by Indian collective is a way to say we're going to work so we can be optimistic about the future and even saying such a provocative idea as land back and saying we want to put a provocative idea in your head because we believe ultimately this will be good for all of us. So I think in that sense they believe that their time has come and the future is good but it has to come with work.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And the hard work it does and you do it in these episodes, every single one. It's great to see you, Kamau. Thank you so much.

BELL: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: All right. An all-new episode of "UNITED SHADES OF AMERICA" airs tonight on CNN 10:00 p.m. Do not miss it. I will surely not. Thank you all.

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