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DOJ Releases Redacted Mar-A-Lago Search Warrant Affidavit; Biden Loan Forgiveness Draws Praise And Anger Across The U.S.; Carole King To Biden: Stop Commercial Logging In National Forests; Herschel Walker Falsely Claims Sen. Warnock Lied About Having A Dog; L.A. Voters To Decide If Hotels Must Rent Vacant Rooms To Homeless. Aired 12-1p ET

Aired August 27, 2022 - 12:00   ET

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

[11:59:55]

STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): Overall, the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District, says about seven percent of its customers are online to get a flow restrictor if their usage doesn't go down, but they say they make sure those customers get ample warning before that happens.

Stephanie Elam, CNN, Los Angeles.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST (on camera): All right. Hello, again, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

New questions today around former President Donald Trump, following the release of the DOJ's heavily redacted affidavit.

WHITFIELD (voice-over): The document unsealed on Friday sheds new light on the unprecedented surge of Trump's Florida home, Mar-a-Lago.

It details why FBI agents had probable cause to believe that classified national security materials were taken to unauthorized locations at the resort. The affidavit also gives new specifics about the 184 classified documents retrieved in January, before the FBI search in August.

WHITFIELD (on camera): CNN's Pamela Brown has more.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR AND SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice- over): Now public, a heavily redacted version of the affidavit that led to the FBI search at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.

In it, shocking new details. The FBI telling a judge that there is probable cause to believe that additional documents that contain classified NDI, or that are presidential record, subject to record retention requirements currently remain at the premises.

There is also probable cause to believe that evidence of obstruction will be found at the premises. The Affidavit also revealing startling details about improperly handled documents that were marked with the highest levels of security clearance. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE HALL, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST (on camera): And as a former CIA guy, it sends chills up and down my (INAUDIBLE) -- in my spine when I hear that there's HCS information in somebody's basement, and not secured as it properly should. It's just -- it's really, really bad.

BROWN: HCS standing for Human Intelligence Control System, which is a classification designed to protect people working around the world for the U.S. government. And 14 of the 15 boxes retrieved in January by the National Archives, 184 documents had unique classification markings. 67 marked as confidential. 92 marked as secret, and 25 marked top secret.

HARRY LITMAN, FORMER UNITED STATES DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY GENERAL: The top secret stuff and compartmental can get people killed. It is completely alarming. Nobody down there except -- well, not even Trump any longer even has a clearance at all.

BROWN: According to DOJ, the document is heavily redacted to protect witness information and other key details from the ongoing criminal investigation.

Prosecutors explaining and their legal memo to the judge, information in the affidavit could be used to identify many, if not all, of these witnesses.

If witness's identities are exposed, they could be subjected to harms, including retaliation, intimidation, or harassment and even threats to their physical safety.

We're also learning new insights as to what led to the investigation in the first place. The National Archives made a criminal referral to the DOJ in February, saying there was significant concern after finding the boxes retrieved by the Archive contained highly classified records and are mixed with other records and not properly identified.

This leading the DOJ and FBI to launch their own investigation, issuing a subpoena in June for classified material and ultimately the search at Mar a Lago earlier this month. Trump reacted on his social media platform, leaning into the fact that the affidavit is, "heavily redacted", and calling it a total public relations subterfuge by the FBI and DOJ.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN (on camera): And the FBI said and one of the court finds that it has interviewed a significant number of civilian witnesses as part of its investigation. And sources tell me that the FBI has interviewed former and current Trump aides, which helps explain why the FBI believed there was probable cause that there was still classified information at Mar-a-Lago, which is why it took that extraordinary step to execute a search warrant. And indeed, we know the FBI took away 11 sets of documents marked as classified after that search warrant was executed. Pamela Brown, CNN, Washington.

WHITFIELD: All right. Let's dive deeper into all of this. Here with us now, former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. So good to see you, Jim.

So, this 32-page affidavit. It's heavily redacted to especially protect human intelligence sources and information on how spy agencies intercept electronic communications of foreign targets.

So, what are your worries or concerns about who may have an access to these now seized documents before the FBI searches?

LT. GEN. JAMES CLAPPER, (RET.), CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, Fred, thanks for having me. The first point I want to make and always doing these discussion is the fact that we actually we do not know the subsequent content of any of these documents.

We can infer though, and I can, as a longtime practitioner in the intelligence business.

[12:04:59]

So, profound concerns about who had access to these documents, where were they? And were they exposed to anyone who didn't understand the import of them, and didn't protect them.

So, there is -- there is an audit trail that needs to be run, and I'm sure is being run about the whereabouts of these documents from the time they left the White House, and who potentially had access to them.

One of the point I'd want to make, Fredricka, is the -- refers to the earlier explanation of what the alphabet soup caveats mean. They are not mutually exclusive. So, typically, and this is particularly true in the case of documents mark human control system will also be originator controlled, which is an indicator of their sensitivity in it, whoever originated that document, you have to ask permission to further disseminate it. And it could be as well, no foreign. Mean, no dissemination to foreign governments or personnel.

All that just illustrates inferentially --

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: Yes.

CLAPPER: The potential damage that could accrue here by virtue of the exposure of these documents. The intelligence community, as Glenn Gerstell, the former general counsel of NSA pointed out has to make the assumption from a counterintelligence standpoint that these documents could have fallen into the hands of a sophisticated foreign adversary, who could analyze them and derive all kinds of insights.

So, that's --

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: Oh, my goodness.

CLAPPER: That's the potential danger.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

CLAPPER: And I would -- I would foot stop what Steve Hall said earlier in a -- in a -- at a quote, you know, for intelligence people, it kind of sends chills up and down your spine.

WHITFIELD: It really does. And I mean, all of those classifications that you spelled out, I mean, those were among the many that apparently were all in those, you know, some 100 -- more than 180 documents.

So, now, help us better understand the journey of classified or top secret documents under, you know, ordinary circumstances. You mentioned the audit trail. Help us understand what takes place before actually being presented to a sitting president. Are these records -- and I realize you just spelled out there are different classifications of the records and how they're handled and by whom?

But are these records presented to a sitting president in kind of original form? Or is it a hardcopy or electronic form? And then, once you answer that, how long does the sitting president get to hold on to that material to familiarize him or herself with it?

CLAPPER: Well, typically, at least in my experience with President Obama is that the intelligence information could be presented in several forms. President Obama took information and just that information by reading a lot.

We had a tablet that was used to distribute the PDB. Now, they weren't connected. And, of course, he got hard copy as well.

Typically, at least President Obama didn't retain, to my knowledge, any of this. Was handed to him and taken away from him.

Presidents typically are accorded -- the former presidents are accorded the courtesy of access to briefings, which they can request. They are not the same as the president's daily brief, but have much the same kind of information that they have access to. But typically, they don't -- they don't retain the classified information, particularly after they leave the White House.

So, in the White House, is typically it's maintained, safeguarded by others in secure areas.

WHITFIELD: Interesting. So, then, which then brings us to the then where are they stored? Is it typical, that many of those documents would be stored in the White House or at other sort of intelligence facilities in the proximity of the White House?

Well, there are secure areas within the White House complex. The White House Situation Room complex, for example, is such a secure area. So, the such documents again, my experience, would not be left laying around the Oval Office and probably -- and wouldn't be kept in the private residence.

There is a -- there is a discipline here and a rigor that is instilled in people that have access to this material given its sensitivity, and a potential for loss of life if it is mishandle.

[12:10:03]

So, normally, great care is taken to safeguard this material, to protect it, store it in authorized containers and authorized facilities. And obviously, don't meet that requirement.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: Right. So, then you mentioned that the discipline --

Right. Yes, sorry about that.

So, I'm wondering. So, since just to underscore your point that about the discipline and the rigor, and handling documents, so then, do you think before these boxes, documents would end -- would have ended up or been sent to Mar-a-Lago, that these documents may have been -- would they have been copied, collected over a long period of time?

How would investigators be able to get to the bottom of that and find out whose hands may have been on them over what time period, who may have seen them before they actually reach the destination of Mar-a- Lago?

CLAPPER: That is a key question. And one that I'm sure the FBI, investigation is undertaking is trying to determine how these documents were handled before they left the White House, who had access to them, who packed them, who authorized those documents to be shipped to Mar-a-Lago, and were they protected during the shipment?

Let alone who had access to these documents at Mar-a-Lago, which has to be a target for foreign nation intelligence services. So, this is a crucial question from a counterintelligence standpoint, who, who had custody of these documents, who had access to them, were they reproduced before they left the White House?

Were they reproduced after they reached Mar-a-Lago? And all those questions, I believe that investigation will undertake to try to resolve.

WHITFIELD: James Clapper, always a pleasure having you. Thank you so much.

CLAPPER: Thanks.

WHITFIELD: All right. Still to come.

WHITFIELD (voice-over): President Biden's plan to address student loans has been met with praise and criticism. I'll talk to a former college student about the impact the plan could have on her finances. Plus, plea from music legend Carole King, to President Biden. Leave our trees alone. Why the singer songwriter says America's forests are the key to solving the climate crisis? Carole King, live straight ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:16:43]

WHITFIELD: President Biden's long awaited plan to cancel 1000s of dollars of student debt is getting praise and fury on both sides of the aisle. CNN's Ryan Young talked to some students who will benefit from the plan and some who won't.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BIDEN: My campaign for president, I made a commitment --

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Biden's announcement canceling student loan debt for millions of Americans created instant strong reactions. Is it too much or not enough?

What's your initial reaction when you heard that finally being announced?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I was like great, that means I don't have to pay on what I owe this less.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a lot of money given out to a small segment of the population, and they didn't do anything to really deserve it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have mixed emotions about it.

YOUNG: For a small business owner, Bryan Lonsberry, the forgiveness plan isn't the right move. His family tighten their budget to make sure they kept paying their loans during the pandemic.

BRYAN LONSBERRY, SMALL BUSINESS OWNER: We have done the sacrifices, the no-vacations and no out to eat. And now, I'm on the other side. And the reason it upsets me so much is are we setting the good example --

YOUNG: Bryan believes that the students should think about the financial impact before taking out giant loans that will affect their futures.

LONSBERRY: It's a little upsetting that we kept pain and struggled and through everything, and then other people just gave up and quit, and I wasn't raised to quit.

YOUNG: The president's plan could affect up to 43 million Americans and forgives federal loan debt of up to $10,000 for people making less than $125,000 a year. 27 million Americans with Pell Grants will be forgiven up to $20,000.

According to the White House, over 45 percent of borrowers, or roughly 20 million people will have their debt fully canceled. It's a plan, President Biden first spoke about on the campaign trail.

BIDEN: I'm going to make sure that everybody in this generation gets $10,000 knocked off of their student debt.

It was Mateo Gomez, who asked candidate Biden about his plans to help Americans, his age, achieve their dreams.

MATEO GOMEZ, BARRY UNIVERSITY GRADUATE: I was asking him overall, does the American Dream still exist?

YOUNG: He points to the president delivering on a campaign promise despite wondering if more can be done.

GOMEZ: This is a first step for something. When looking at the campaign promise, he did say that. So, I could say check.

YOUNG: As the president's plan continues to receive mixed reaction, one thing is clear, the high cost of college is something many believe needs immediate attention.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Education is so expensive.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We need to get back to the core of why a school so expensive.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel like that there's a bigger problem on the cost of education.

YOUNG: As former students digested president's move to cancel billions in loans. For some, it's a welcome relief.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I have the debt, I'm paying back the debt. So, I will take it and keep it moving.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WHITFIELD: Ryan Young, thank you so much. All right. My next guest is one of the millions of Americans who have student loan debt, but no degree. Joining me right now is Katie Candler.

Katie, so good to see you.

KATIE CANDLER, QUALIFIES FOR STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS: Hi, there.

WHITFIELD: Hey, you have one class left, right? At Jacksonville State University before the pandemic hit, and then tell us how that affected your plans?

[12:20:02]

CANDLER: Yes, ma'am. Well, I first started and whenever I first decided to take my break, I originally thought, you know, after one or two semesters, after the pandemic was over with, and start to come back.

And then, as I tried to come back in the fall of 2021, I was told that I had to make at least a $700 payment on my student loan debt in order to come back in the first place. And, you know, to a low income student that might as well be a million dollars. So, I had to take an even longer break, and I ended up coming back for about one single semester.

But I still owe about $7,000 in debt. So, once this gets wiped away, I'm going to be on an even playing field for the first time in a long time.

WHITFIELD: Do you think you're going to go back to school? Because now, with the Biden plan, I understand that you will be able to completely clear yourself of your previous loan for college.

CANDLER: Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. I am hoping to go back to school and go ahead and just finish it all off.

WHITFIELD: Fantastic. Well, congratulations on that. So, what kind of a load did this lift off you to hear that, you now have this possibility?

CANDLER: It was astonishing, truly. I wasn't sure if I was going to qualify at first. And then, I saw that I had to make at least 125,000, or under 125,000. And I just automatically knew that I was going to finally be able to have a good credit score for the first time in forever and actually be able to start accruing good credit and just start living my life finally.

WHITFIELD: So, tell me, Katie, about, you know, the journey and the decision making, before you embarked on, you know, going to your first college class. When you apply for your federal loan, when you got the federal loan, do you feel like you had a very clear understanding of what it meant to get a federal student loan and what paying it back or what kind of bill you're going to be faced with once, you know, school was behind you?

CANDLER: Well, I think, and most low income students, especially, first generation college students can say the same. It's not true. No one truly has a good grasp on financial literacy, when you are 18 years old, in a household making 160,000 a year.

WHITFIELD: Right.

CANDLER: It's very difficult. And while I did read everything forwards, backwards, and sideways, it did make it like I didn't quite understand the ramifications of not paying my student loans, of knowing when to start paying my student loans, the interest rates on my student loans.

I didn't calculate any of that. So I was -- I was very much unprepared for what I -- what I was getting myself into.

WHITFIELD: And I'm sure you're not alone, right? I mean, the bottom line is you're thinking, hey, this is my opportunity to go to college. And I'll worry about the other stuff later. I mean, that's understandable that, you know, a lot of people would think that way. So, then, there are critics of President Biden's debt relief plan, who say that this won't fix the problem, the big problem of high tuition costs, and that it ultimately transfers debt to millions of working taxpayers. To that, you say what?

CANDLER: I say that there are plenty of other things coming out of our taxes, so, why not add something to help lessen the load for millions of Americans?

Like it just does it? That's pretty much it. Why would we try to argue about this whenever we're doing everything for everybody else?

WHITFIELD: OK. And so, now, what's your plan, Katie? What's the road ahead?

CANDLER: I'm hoping to be able to finish school and graduate. I'm currently an English major with a pre-law minors. So, I'm hoping to either you know, write, teach, maybe even go into like community action, community organizing something.

WHITFIELD: Very good. All right.

CANDLER: And let's move on from there.

WHITFIELD: The sky is the limit, right?

CANDLER: Correct.

WHITFIELD: Yes. All right. Katie Candler, thank you so much all the best to you and congratulations for the achievements of having nearly completed college and right around the corner. You're going to finish it.

CANDLER: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thank you.

All right, coming up. Carole King has a message for Joe Biden. Stopped commercial logging on public land.

[12:24:06]

I'll discuss all of that with the legendary singer, songwriter, and environmentalists, on her plans to help safeguard forests.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAROLE KING, AMERICAN SINGER-SONGWRITER: And it's too late baby now, it's too late. Though we really did try to make it. Something inside has died, and I can't hide and I just can't fake it. Oh, no, no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: Oh, my gosh. That is just timeless and always beautiful. That, of course, is legendary singer-songwriter Carole King.

So, when it comes to the environment, is it too late? King says, not yet.

In a new opinion piece in The New York Times, the longtime environmentalist says our future hinges on our trees, saying in part, "The future of America's national forests is being shaped now. The Biden administration is developing a system to inventory old growth and mature forests on federal land that the president wants to be completed by next April.

But given the immediate threats facing many of these forests and their importance to slowing climate change, bold action is required immediately to preserve not just old growth and mature trees, but entire national forest ecosystems, comprising 1000s of interdependent ended species." That penned by Carole King. And Carole King joining me right now. So good to see you.

[12:30:06]

KING: Good to see you, too, Fred.

WHITFIELD: And must I say right off the bat, I mean, one of the most emotional concerts I've ever seen was that with you and Roberta Flack in Miami Beach years ago. So you are known for your music and your messaging, and now this and you write in your op-ed that no one should say those iconic lyrics, it's too late, when it comes to the climate.

You say stop commercial logging on public land right now, not next year. You don't want to wait for Congress. But then you want the Biden administration, you want the President to sign an executive order directing his secretaries of interior and agriculture to banned commercial logging? Do you think that's going to happen? Is it realistic?

KING: I don't know if it's realistic or not. But I know that, we, the people can make it happen if there's enough pressure, put on the Biden administration. They have to act and they will do something. Now they have this new climate, this -- the Inflation Reduction Act with the climate provisions, which is great. But one of the things, remember, it was a deal. And the deal that they made, gave more money to a basically subsidized commercial logging in our national forests.

And a forest is the best technology to extract carbon from the atmosphere and put oxygen back up into it because of photosynthesis. So we should not be destroying our forests and our national forests are owned by all of us. And people don't see that. People in cities, you know, smell the fumes and have all the fossil fuel-based emissions.

But I live near the forest. I know people who live right where they clear cut, like entire swaths of forest. And that's what we have to stop doing because those trees are what's going to save us. And we ask other countries to stop deforestation. But we're not only allowing it, we subsidize it. WHITFIELD: So to break down the Inflation Reduction Act that you're making reference to, I mean, it does include $369 billion in funding for climate change mitigation projects, and specifically has $5 billion in conservation in the form of sustainable forestry. So why are you not confident that the future of logging on public land wouldn't be addressed with that kind of allocation?

KING: Because when they claim to be doing conservation, there are many, many euphemisms for logging. Restoration is a euphemism for logging. Hazardous fuel treatment, which they say they're doing to keep wildfires out of communities, they do that miles away from communities, and it's logging. They all boil down to logging.

And when you hear someone from the government say, oh, we're doing treatments, or we're doing forest management. You don't need to manage a forest. You can control the fires effect on homes from the homes. You don't need to cut down trees to do that. So look for the details in when they call it restoration or conservation. It's not.

WHITFIELD: And you feel like you're familiar with the semantics, because your concerns about the environment, you know, including the values of unlogged forest reaches way back. You've lived in Idaho for decades, even at times with no running water or electricity. But you're expressing an urgency right now. And in this piece that you write, you know, about being a longtime environmentalist, I mean many decades in fighting, even with your fame and notoriety. What is it about the pace of getting results for environmentalist?

What do you feel like you are up against that you share with other environmentalists who perhaps don't have the notoriety that you have?

KING: I do speak for a lot of people who can't get on your show or don't get on your show. And that's a part of the joy of doing this for me. But the frustration is we're up against, you know, the timber industry is powerful. There are other industries but our primary opponent right now is the timber industry. They like that we, the taxpayers, subsidize their logging in national forests, and they're not very happy with me right now. But they are very, very powerful.

WHITFIELD: So what's your message to the next generation for whom you and others would be handing the baton?

KING: OK, I am met with and spoken with people the next generation. They are amazing. They're so active about the climate. My message to them is as you take on fossil fuel industries, please add the timber industry. We have to stop logging in our national forests. We can't stop logging on private land which is also an emission huge emitter. But we can stop it on the land that we all own. And those forests were set aside for us and for that generation.

And so I want you all to know that you young people, and people my age who don't know that, forests need to be protected and they need to be protected now and in total, you can't just like do a sliver and say, oh, we got some wilderness. That's great. But we need to protect whole forest ecosystems to save the climate, as well as all the species.

[12:35:42]

WHITFIELD: And what keeps you in the fight, if getting the masses motivated like you are, and like the next generation that you've already interacted with, you know, seems to be a little bit tougher for that message to resonate.

KING: It's very, it's very tough, but part of it is thank you for giving me the opportunity to educate people who had no idea. I mean, the response to the guest essay that I wrote in "The New York Times," was phenomenal. And so many people said, I had no idea, I just wrote to Biden, and that's what I'm asking everyone to do, write through whitehouse.gov.

Contact, contact President Biden and say, stop commercial logging in our national forest. He has the power to do that. And there are many options available to him through an executive order. He needs to take that action, and we need to ask him to do that because otherwise it won't happen.

WHITFIELD: All right, we shall see. Carole King, so glad you could be with us. Thank you so much.

KING: Me too. Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right, coming up, we will fact check a strange claim and a bizarre new campaign ad in the Georgia Senate race right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:41:03]

WHITFIELD: All right, the U.S. Senate race in Georgia has turned into a literal dog fight over who's telling the truth from ads accusing Republican nominee Herschel Walker of lying about his story and connections with law enforcement to now a bizarre new campaign ad and tweet from Republican Herschel Walker accusing the Democrat Senator Raphael Warnock of lying about having a dog. The strange claim stems from campaign ads Warnock ran during his successful 2020 campaign. Warnock used the ads to deflect what he called smears by his GOP opponent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-GA): But I think Georgians will see your ads for what they are. Don't you?

I'm Raphael Warnock, and we approve this message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: CNN's Daniel Dale joining us now with a fact check. OK, so this is dog eat dog? What's going on?

DANIEL DALE, CNN REPORTER: It sure is. So OK, I know we're talking about a dog here. But we're also talking about a central issue in this key Georgia race. The Democratic incumbent, Warnock, has been pounding Walker, the Republican challenger over Walker's documented history of false claims about his own past. And so Walker made this dog claim as a kind of response. It was like, well, you're calling me a liar. Well, he tweeted Warnock is willing to lie about having a dog. And Walker's campaign posted an interesting video that satirically suggested the dog from Warnock's ads in 2020, a beagle named Alvin had gone quote, missing, take a look.

So as a Pomeranian owner, I cannot resist looking into this. Did Raphael Warnock actually lie about having a dog? The answer is no. It is Walker's claim that is false. So the dog in those popular Warnock ads from 2020, who's a very good boy, of course, belongs to one of Warnock's supporters. And Warnock never said Alvin was his. In the first ad, Warnock just said, quote, I love puppies and held the dog. In the second ad, he walked Alvin around the block. He tossed out some dog poop as a joking message about negative attacks against him and got some licks from Alvin. But there was no claim anywhere that Alvin was his own.

So I see how some viewers could have watched this and assumed it was his own dog. But there was no actual assertion for Warnock that it was either in the ads or in any of his public comments about the ads. I took a look online, and the Warnock campaign explicitly told POLITICO before Election Day in early 2021, that the dog belonged to a supporter. And guys come on, campaign ads are filled with actors and stage chines and much more explicit fiction than Warnock did here.

In 2018, Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp ran an ad where he held a shotgun near a guy he identified as quote, a young man interested in one of my daughters. That young man was actually an actor, of course, this was not treated as a scandalous example of Brian Kemp being a liar.

WHITFIELD: Oh, boy. All right, still a few more months to go. This is going to continue to be interesting. Daniel Dale, thank you so much.

DALE: Thank you.

[12:44:26]

WHITFIELD: All right, coming up, voters in Los Angeles will decide if empty hotel rooms should be offered to the thousands of homeless that spent the night in the city streets. Why? Some say that proposal could do more harm than good.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, welcome back, voters in Los Angeles will decide if vacant hotel rooms should be given to the homeless. Supporters of the proposed ordinance say it's a bold solution to the city's homelessness problem. But those in the hotel industry say the proposal is insane. CNN's Nick watt has a closer look at the controversial plan.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In Los Angeles County, more than 60,000 people are homeless on the average night and more than 20,000 hotel rooms lie empty on the average night. See where this might be going?

STUART WALDMAN, PRESIDENT, VALLEY INDUSTRY & COMMERCE ASSOCIATION: It's insane. It isn't going to solve the problem.

KURT PETERSEN, CO-PRESIDENT, UNITE HERE LOCAL 11: We think this is one part of the solution by no means that we think this solves the homelessness crisis. But do hotels have a role to play? Of course they do.

WATT (voice-over): So the union he leads which reps hotel workers gathered enough signatures and Angelenos will vote on a bill that would force every hotel in town to report vacancies at 2:00 p.m. every day, then welcome homeless people into those vacant rooms.

[12:50:14]

MANOJ PATEL, MANAGER, MOTEL 6: Honestly, would you check into a hotel knowing that the chance of your neighbor to the left or right is a homeless individual?

WATT (voice-over): Manoj Patel voluntarily rent some rooms to homeless people who are vetted and paid for by a local church. But he's against this bill, that would make that mandatory.

PATEL: We barely are surviving, number one. Number two, we have to think of the safety of our staff. And number three, we're not professionally or any other ways equipped with any of the supporting mechanism that the homeless guests would require.

WATT (voice-over): What services would be provided remains unclear, also unclear the funding and hotels would be paid fair market rate.

PETERSEN: It's up to the city. I mean, they did it during Project Roomkey.

WATT (voice-over): The pandemic era program now winding down that inspired this bill by placing more than 10,000 people in hotels that volunteered. Shawn Bigdeli, among them.

SHAWN BIGDELI, RECIPIENT, PROJECT ROOMKEY: Well, first of all, it's a blessing. It's a great room, the technology is not up to par. But, you know, look technologies, you have an attempt.

WATT (voice-over): This bill would also force developers to replace housing demolished to make way for new hotels, and hotel permits would be introduced, as well as making every hotel from a Super 8 to the Biltmore accept homeless people as guests.

BIGDELI: I don't think that's a good idea.

WATT (on camera): Why not? BIGDELI: Maybe for some, but you know, there's a lot of people with untreated mental health and some people do some damage to these poor buildings, man.

WATT (voice-over): This happened in Manoj Patel's motel.

PATEL: And she marked all walls. Curtain she burned, thank God, there was no fire, even marked the ceiling.

WATT (voice-over): Opponents of housing the homeless in hotels fear this and fear tourists could be put off from even coming to L.A.

WALDMAN: I wouldn't want my kids around people that I'm not sure about. I wouldn't want to be in an elevator with somebody who's clearly having a mental break. The idea that you can intermingle homeless folks with paying normal gas just doesn't work out.

PETERSEN: We don't want to head backwards into the segregated south. But that's kind of the language that they're talking about. There's a certain class of people less than humans, animals, they almost describe me as to be honest with you. They don't seem to understand who the unhoused are. We're talking about seniors, students, working people, that's who the voucher program would benefit the most.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WATT: So it's about 18 months before this will be on the ballot here in Los Angeles and expect plenty of mudslinging between now and then. Some opponents of this bill, well, they claimed that the union is only pushing as a negotiating tactic as leverage. The union tells us that is false that they just want to hold the hotels accountable and make sure that they're playing their part and trying to solve this problem here in Los Angeles, which appears to only be getting worse.

Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.

[12:53:17]

WHITFIELD: All right, here's a question for you. Do you ever have trouble keeping up with your car keys? We'll show you how a Michigan man solve that problem by implanting a chip in his hand.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: All right, it does happen to everybody. But do you misplace your car keys seemingly all the time? Well, one man has a unique solution to never have to look for his car keys again. All he'll need to do is swipe his right hand. CNN's Jeanne Moos has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JEANNE MOOS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Why worry about losing your car keys when you can take matters into your own hands literally. With a chip implanted in your hand at a tattoo and piercing parlor.

BRANDON DALALY, IMPLANTED TESLA KEY CHIP IN HAND: You can't lose your hand. So you'll always have a way of getting in your car.

MOOS (voice-over): Brandon Dalaly had a local anesthetic injected then the chip inserted, a few days later, his hand hardly sore. He was hovering over the door pillar to open his Tesla. Though he's been mocked, Tesla bros will single handedly ruin civilization. Brandon says he's now Elon Musk groupie, but rather --

DALALY: I'm a huge tech nerd. I work in technology.

MOOS (voice-over): What he really wants is for the chip to be updated so the implant will work for credit cards. But until that's possible, he'll settle for starting his Tesla by holding his hand over the console.

DALALY: I'm getting a lot of comments saying, why if somebody comes after you and tops up your hand?

MOOS (voice-over): Brandon already had a chip implanted in his other hand and allows him to unlock the door to his home and also holds his contact and medical information such as COVID vaccinations. It glows green so you know the phone is reading the chip.

(on camera): Can you show me your lump?

DALALY: It's hard to see but you can kind of see part of it kind of pop up on the end right.

MOOS (voice-over): Barely a bump though he's taking his lumps online, but they don't get to say with a wave of the hand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Open sesame.

[13:00:00]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, open sesame.

MOOS (voice-over): Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)