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Judge to Decide on Making Parts of Affidavit Public on Mar-a- Lago Search; National Archives Asked for Trump Records in 2021; President Biden Announces Plan to Forgive Some Student Loans; Dozens Rescued from Floodwaters in Mississippi; Uvalde School Board Fires Police Chief; U.S. Service Member Slightly Injured in Rocket Attacks in Syria; Train Station Attack Darkens Ukraine's Independence Day. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired August 25, 2022 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Max Foster in London. Just ahead --

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They had ongoing communications with representatives of former President Trump throughout 2021.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody had to tell him that this was espionage. This is obstruction of justice. And he doesn't want to hear it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Some 43 million borrowers will be eligible for some amount of student loan debt relief.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Democrats have been divided. Yes, there has been some support particularly on the left.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The school board finally deciding to fire Pete Arredondo.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have been waiting for some accountability, any accountability, for now going on three months.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster.

FOSTER: It's Thursday, August 25, 9:00 a.m. here in London, 4:00 a.m. in Washington and Florida. And we could see be learning more about why the FBI wanted to search Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. The U.S. Justice Department is facing a noon deadline to finalize their redactions to the affidavit that led to that search. And then a judge will decide what parts of that document should be made public. CNN's Evan Perez explains the process.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR U.S. JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: We don't know what the judge is going to do. We know he's already -- obviously he knows what's in this affidavit. He's very familiar with it. And he said that he's very comfortable with what he approved. We're just going to see whether the Justice Department is going to at least perhaps un-redact some of the things that have now become public. The things National Archives has released, things that the Trump campaign or the Trump legal team has already made public. So at least at a minimum those things could be unredacted as part of the release of this.

And of course, we don't know how long the judge will look at this and maybe ask the Justice Department to go a further step. It's clear he believes that there is some transparency that is needed here because of the unprecedented nature of this search.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: And we're learning a lot more today about just how long the U.S. National Archives fought and pleaded with Donald Trump's legal team to get documents from the former president. About 100 days after Trump left office, the Archives realized documents were missing and asked for them to be returned. Even White House counsel Pat Cipollone agreed. "The Washington Post" first broke this story. And here's their political investigations reporter Josh Dawsey.

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JOSH DAWSEY, WASHINGTON POST POLITICAL INVESTIGATIONS REPORTER: In May 2021, the top lawyer for the National Archives reached out to three different lawyers for Trump. And here's what he said. He said that in the final days of a Trump White House, they had identified two dozen boxes of presidential material that had been in the residence and -- in the White House residence. Not the Oval Office, but in the residence. And that Pat Cipollone -- according to the White House lawyer -- I mean, according to the archives lawyer -- Pat Cipollone the White House lawyer, wanted the material returned. They had asked repeatedly for the material to be returned and it had not been returned.

And they were asking again in May 2021 to please return the material. In fact, they were almost begging. And they said besides the boxes, they had noticed several other high profile items that had not been returned. Former President Trump's correspondence with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator. His correspondence with the former President Obama had not been returned, even though it is customary for a president to return that. And that they really needed all of these things back.

And what it shows is that actually before former President Trump even left office during the final days of his presidency, that is when the first request from the Archives came in, to please give these boxes back. We didn't know that before, that they had gotten involved so early.

And then they were repeatedly involved throughout the spring of 2021 and that former President Trump's lawyers knew about the extensive efforts and were involved in these as well to get the documents back.

So, what this email shows is that long before it bubbled into the public realm, before the public understood what was going on, more than a year before, there was efforts to get all of these things back to the National Archives.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Two new developments today in the investigation of election interference by the Trump campaign in Georgia. A judge will hear arguments in just a few hours on Governor Brian Kemp's motion to squash a subpoena to appear before the grand jury.

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Kemp actually stood up to Trump's efforts to overturn the states votes for Biden in 2020. And Trump attorney Jenna Ellis was subpoenaed to testify today before the grand jury but they've offered her a range of other days to accommodate her schedule.

FOSTER: Now the U.S. Justice Department has released an unredacted memo on the Trump Russia investigation from the former Attorney General meanwhile. And in it William Barr concludes that Trump couldn't be charged with obstruction because there wasn't an underlying conspiracy between his campaign and Russia. That's a break with special counsel Robert Mueller who found several incidents with strong evidence of obstruction by Trump. The memo says Trump didn't break the law when he fired FBI Director James Comey or when he asked Comey to go easy on his former advisor Michael Flynn.

Longtime U.S. House Democrat Carolyn Maloney lost her primary on Tuesday and her -- now her Democratic peers are scrambling to take over her powerful position running the House oversight committee. But an election for that to sort out the spot is still a month away and she won't be giving up her gavel until next year. Maloney was forced to face off against her decade-long colleague Jerry Nadler due to the New York's new redistricting laws and suffered a stinging defeat.

The teacher strike in Columbus, Ohio is over. Early this morning the teachers union and board of education say that they reached a conceptual agreement to get students back in the classroom starting on Monday. Thousands of teachers and other school workers went on strike over the weekend demanding better classroom conditions. The school year started as scheduled on Wednesday but kids had to do online classes with substitute teachers. They'll stay virtual the next two days while the regular teachers get ready for their return next week.

U.S. President Biden is facing bipartisan criticism over his ambitious plan to write-off millions of dollars in federal student loans. The administration wants to erase $10,000 in debt for individuals earning less than $125,000 a year or $20,000 of debt relief if they went to college on a Pell Grant which are awarded for financial need. CNN's Phil Mattingly has the details there.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Biden, the idea of canceling a significant amount of student loan debt was not something that was high on his list of priorities during the campaign. He pledged to cancel up to $10,000 in student loan debt, but he didn't move do anything related to that despite major Democratic pressure for more than a year and a half -- until Wednesday.

The president moving forward on that idea doing it unilaterally on his own authority and targeting that $10,000 in loan cancellations towards individuals making under $125,000 a year, households making $250,000 a year or less. Most importantly perhaps particularly for supporters who were pushing for the president do much more, he also added an additional $10,000 for Pell Grant recipients who had taken out student loans. A universe that is much more driven by lower and middle income individuals the exact type of people that Biden and the White House were attempting to target.

Now there had been significant criticism from Republicans saying it's an anathema to how the market system is supposed to work, calling it a giveaway. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell calling it a slap in the face.

Biden was asked about the idea of it being unfair to those who did pay their loans or chose to not go to college because of the expense, this is how he responded.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is this unfair to people who paid their student loans or chose not to take out loans?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Is it fair to people who, in fact, do not own multibillion-dollar businesses if they see one of these guys getting all the tax breaks? Is that fair? What do you think?

MATTINGLY: While Republicans focused on the fairness issue, one of the biggest overall issues and one of the things driving the debate over the course of the last several months inside the White House was the economic side of things. Particularly at a moment of exceedingly high inflation in the country, the idea of canceling student loan debt would ostensibly add significant demand to the economy.

White House officials say the president's decision to also put an end to the long-running pandemic era freeze on student loan repayments at the end of this year should counteract that to some degree saying it might offset it entirely. So, economists, even some Democratic economists disagreeing entirely. However, it is definitely something to be watched going forward.

One thing is clear, the White House officials who've gone believe it could affect up to 43 million borrower, more than 20 million of those borrows could have their debt canceled all together. No question it's a significant problem in the country. Whether or not this one time solution can provide any kind of major relief to that system, still an open question.

Phil Mattingly, CNN, the White House. (END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: President Biden said he would have preferred the student debt issue were handled by Congress rather than an executive order, but it's unlikely enough Republicans would back it. Here is what U.S. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell had to say.

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SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): I think it's a bad idea. An awful lot of Americans choose not to go to college. And then there are those Americans who borrowed money to pay for school and paid it back. In what way is it fair to those taxpayers? So, I think fundamentally when we borrow money, we ought to pay it back and I don't think the government ought to be forgiving these student loans.

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FOSTER: The White House pushed back on that and said Republican criticism of the president's plan is misplaced. Take a listen.

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KATE BEDINGFIELD, WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: When businesses for example were having their loans forgiven during the pandemic as they should have, as you heard the president say, they should have, we didn't hear a word from Mitch McConnell or from Republicans. So, I think what you see here is a fundamental difference between the way President Biden -- between his vision for the country which is to give breathing room to middle class families, to working people. It's what he ran on. It's what he promised to do. It's what he is doing today. And the vision that Mitch McConnell and the Republicans are putting forward which is about tax breaks to the wealthiest, to corporations and to ensuring that the special interests continued to have their day in Washington.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: And do stick around because President Biden's Education Secretary will join John Berman and Kaitlan Collins to explain the student loan forgiveness plan. As live on CNN "NEW DAY" 7:00 a.m. Eastern time.

Mississippi is the latest victim of flash flooding in the U.S. Emergency crews are rushing to help local residents to get to higher ground as the floodwaters rise. The city of Pearl logged 8 inches of rain on Wednesday. Floodwaters in Newton County were so strong they washed out a whole highway as you can see there. Local police officers and fire departments had to evacuate more than 100 children and 15 teachers after their daycare center was flooded. And rescue crews led residents of an assisted living facility to safety after their water rushed into their building. Officials in the city of Brandon say they've never seen waters this high in the area before.

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JOHN BILBRO, ADMINISTRATOR, PEACHTREE VILLAGE ASSISTED LIVING: We got everybody out and that's the most important thing. Everybody is safe. We got all the staff and the residents out. We can replace the stuff, but the people are out. So that's a good thing.

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FOSTER: Pedram Javaheri joins us now with more. Where is the weather moving to now then -- Pedram?

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hey, Max, well it looks like finally a break ahead of us here over the next day or so. Still some strong storms for later this morning, possibly a little bit more into the afternoon hours. But the energy really weakening here as the storm rains itself out across this region. And you'll notice, of course the damage has been done. You noted the historic amount of rainfall that has been in place across this region, as much as 10 inches falling in a span of just a couple days. And an incredible amount of rainfall in an area that has been of course drought-stricken.

Widespread coverage of 4 to 6 inches. A few areas again exceeding 6 to 10 inches about this region. And notice still watching this flood threat around the southern tier of the United States. The energy gradually shifting out of Texas in recent days into portions of Mississippi, into Louisiana. Now on into areas widespread along the southern tier of the United States.

But when it comes to what is currently in place, notice just a few stronger storms around portions of central and southern Georgia, while on the back side this, generally quiet conditions for now. And we do expect some storms to develop into the afternoon hours across this region, but the flood alerts also are dwindling here in the last couple of hours as well. So good news altogether as it relates to the weather forecast moving forward as a few storms could pop up, the vast majority of the strongest storms look to remain offshore and the ones on land look to be along the southern tier of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, on into the Florida Panhandle. So again, some of the hardest hit areas reduced coverage of the strongest storms moving forward.

Rainfall amounts, some of these areas could still pick up a couple inches which on top of what has already come down is going to be problematic. So, there's a slight risk here in place including areas around Jackson, Mississippi that historic rainfall was observed over the past 24 hours.

But here's what it looks like when it comes to the Western United States, the heats has also been a big story here impacting as much as 5 million Americans from the Canadian border all the way down towards Olympia into Seattle of course as well. Temps have climbed up close to 90 degrees in the last couple of days. And one more day of it here and then we get more of an onshore component and then the temps cool off right back down to a room temperature come Friday and Saturday. Portland going from the 90s to 80s and eventually down to the 70s. So again, a turn for more comfortable weather across that region of the Pacific Northwest.

And, Max, we leave you with this, high temps around the U.S., as warm as 102 across Phoenix, 91 around Memphis, Atlanta a rain cooled 77 degrees -- Max.

FOSTER: Pedram thank you so much.

Now a police chief blamed for fumbling the response to the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas has been fired. On Wednesday the school board voted unanimously to sack its police chief Pete Arredondo. Officials said that he was in charge of the police response during the shooting in which 19 children and two teachers lost their lives. Shimon Prokupecz has more.

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SHIMON PROKUPECZ, CNN CRIME AND JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Three months to the day and finally accountability here for family members and community members in Uvalde who have been waiting for this day for weeks, for months hoping that there would be some kind of accountability and now finally the school board deciding to fire Pete Arredondo.

He was the school police chief. He was the man that officials say was in charge of the scene. He was the incident commander on that day that was supposed to lead these officers in to the classroom and to kill the gunman and try to save those children. Of course, officials here saying that that did not happen. And they say -- the school board here saying the reason why they have fired him is because he showed lack of leadership. He did not perform his duties as a chief on that day.

Now as for Pete Arredondo, he's continuing to defend himself. His lawyer up until the last minute before this hearing took place, released a statement defending Pete Arredondo's actions on that day. Including saying that he was brave and saying that he did everything that he can to possibly save the children. Of course, that's not what officials say happened.

Despite all this, family members here say they're still continue to fight for answers, they're still going to continue to fight for transparency. They want more people to be fired. They want other law enforcement officials and school officials to also be held accountable for what happened that day.

Shimon Prokupecz, CNN, Uvalde.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Still ahead this hour, an American service member is wounded in an attack in Syria. Who the U.S. blames and what the military is doing about it.

Plus, Ukraine's president says a Russian missile strike targeted a train station as the country marked Independence Day. Details in a live report just ahead.

And later, Kobe Bryant's widow gets a verdict in her favor over pictures of the crash that killed the basketball star. More on what the jury had to say, coming up.

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FOSTER: The U.S. military is trading attacks in Syria in what it claims are militia backed by Iran. It started last Monday and has escalated since. CNN's Oren Liebermann has the details from the Pentagon.

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OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: One U.S. service member was injured in a rocket attack on two different bases in Syria used by U.S. troops as part of the defeat ISIS coalition according to an U.S. official familiar with the details of the attack.

And it's worth noting this comes less than 24 hours after the U.S. carried out a series of strikes on bunkers used for ammo storage and logistics by Iranian backed groups in the region. So, this appears to be an ongoing back and forth between U.S. troops in Syria and Iranian backed groups that operate in the region.

On Wednesday night these two bases in Northeast Syria came under rocket attacks from several rockets. According to the U.S. official, one service member was injured with minor injuries, at least two others are being evaluated for minor injuries.

In response, the U.S. carried out a series of strikes against the origin of the attack. The official says three vehicles were destroyed as well as two or three people who carried out the attack killed as a part of that U.S. response. That's according to an initial assessment, so of course we'll have to wait and see if that is updated as the U.S. has a better clarity on what has happened.

Now again this comes after the U.S. carried out a series of strikes on nine bunkers in Northeast Syria used by Iranian backed group. Despite Iran's denial in any involvement in that area and condemning U.S. attacks in that region and the U.S. operation here.

This has continued that U.S. strike or response to what happened a week ago, two different attacks last Monday on facilities that house U.S. bases in Syria, one a drone attack, one a rocket attack. So, we're seeing this ongoing back and forth play out. On Wednesday at the Pentagon and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Colin Kahl, said the U.S. has the right to defend itself and will continue to do so and that's a completely separate issue the defense of the U.S. troops and assets from the Iranian nuclear deal -- ongoing in the background of all of this. The U.S. sees them as separate. The negotiations to try to wrap up the nuclear deal are one part here and that doesn't affect the operations, the actions in the responses the U.S. says are necessary to defend its troops in Syria. Oren Liebermann, CNN, in the Pentagon.

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FOSTER: U.S. President Biden set to speak with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the coming hours. A day after his country marked Independence Day. The White House says Mr. Biden will give an update on U.S. arm shipments. On Wednesday, he announced a $3 billion security assistance package for Ukraine, the biggest so far from the Biden administration.

Russia has ramped up attacks around Ukraine's Independence Day in the overnight hours, two rockets hit communities near the capital Kyiv. So far there've been no injuries reported or damage to residential buildings.

Meanwhile in eastern Ukraine, an aide to President Zelenskyy says the death toll has climbed to 25 in a missile attack on a train station. An 11-year-old boy is amongst those killed. This was one of several missile strikes reported on Wednesday on the same day Ukrainians marked 31 years of independence from Soviet rule and six months after Russia launched its invasion. Scott McLean joins us now with the latest developments. So, it does feels like there's a heightened sense of alert in Ukraine right now.

SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, officials had warned about the stepped up Russian attacks on Independence Day, marking six months since the war began and it seems like those fears were well founded. Case in point, a soccer match, football match, in Lviv in the far western part of the country was interrupted four times by air raid sirens.

But look, air raid sirens were the least of their worries. Further east in the country in the town of Chaplyne about 85 miles -- or kilometers or so east of Zaporizhzhia. That is where the train attack took place yesterday. President Zelenskyy said that the train cars sitting on the tracks took a direct hit. As you mentioned the latest death toll stands at 25 according to local officials. And they say there were two children who were killed, one was found in a burnt out vehicle on the road nearby, another was found in the rubble of the destroyed building nearby.

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They say search and rescue efforts in that area have been -- have wrapped up now.

Now typically when train infrastructure is hit, they're aiming at things like electrical substations, things that might slow down the flow of weapons. But civilian targets along the train lines, they're not unprecedented either. In fact, Russian missiles have even hit in city centers as we've seen before. And sometimes the bar is extremely low. Russia doesn't even necessarily need a military target insight. Case in point, Vinnytsia last month I was in the aftermath, the Russians said that there was a meeting taking place amongst military officials there. Not even they claim that there was actually a military installation anywhere even remotely close to that area.

Meanwhile I just want to also mention, Max, that the U.N., they have warned that POW trials could begin in Mariupol very soon. They were concerned that perhaps they would begin yesterday to mark Independence Day. There's no indication that they actually have. But we've gotten word that the head of the Donetsk People's Republic said yesterday that on Russian TV that all war criminals will be court-martialed to the tribunal to show how inhumane they are. No word on exactly when.

But the pictures here are startling. You have actual cages, presumably the prisoners boxes, on an actual stage in the Mariupol Philharmonic Hall for these show trials. The U.S. State Department spokesperson says that the planned show trials are illegitimate and a mockery of justice. The Kremlin is attempting to deflect responsibility for President Putin's war of aggression and detract from overwhelming evidence of the atrocities Russian forces have committed in Ukraine.

FOSTER: Those pictures are extraordinary. Scott thank you.

More and more migrants seeking to enter the U.S. from Mexico are losing their lives meanwhile. Still ahead, why their attempts at a fresh start are increasingly deadly for them.

And with millions of dollars on the line, a jury finds in favor of Kobe Bryant's widow of graphic crash scene photos. How much they awarded his wife Vanessa, just ahead.

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