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NASA Scrubs Today's Artemis Launch Due To Engine Issues; Atlanta Area DA Requests Judge Deny Graham's Motion To Quash Subpoena; Two Killed, One Injured In Oregon Grocery Store Shooting. Aired 10- 10:30 am ET

Aired August 29, 2022 - 10:00   ET

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

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JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Very good Monday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Poppy Harlow. We're glad you're with us this Monday, with the Artemis 1 mission, not a go this morning at least for today.

This morning's scheduled launch toward the moon now scrubbed after a myriad of issues including a bleed and one of the rockets four engines. The next opportunity for Artemis 1 will be on Friday. It's unclear though, if the rockets issues will even be resolved by then.

SCIUTTO: Yeah, a lot of smart engineers working on that issue right now. The mission's ambitious agenda remains landing the first woman and first person of color on the moon this by 2025.

Also going even further afield, ultimately getting humans to land on the surface of Mars. But before we get there, Artemis 1 will need to fly around the moon using the most powerful rocket to launch since Saturn 5 took astronauts to the moon for the last time back in 1972.

CNN's Space and Defense Correspondent Kristin Fisher is live this morning from Kennedy Space Center. You were ready to see it take off like we all were. So tell us what the final issue really was here that led to this grab?

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Well, the NASA administrator Bill Nelson put it quite simply, he said, we don't launch until it's right. And today, it wasn't right.

The main issue, the final issue ended up being an issue with one of the main rocket engines. And I'm going to show you exactly what I'm talking about with this model of the space shuttle.

It's not the SLS Artemis rocket, but it's very similar because essentially, this rocket is the exact same, just instead of the space shuttle, which is obviously not here. There's an Orion crew capsule on top.

And what they've done with this rocket is they're using the same engines that were used to power the space shuttle right down here. And so there's several engines down here, and they've taken them off, and just put them underneath the big main burnt orange core stage of the SLS Artemis rocket.

And it was one of those four engines down here, engine number three, that had a problem. They need to cool these engines down to the right temperature before, they can use all of that liquid propellant, the very cold liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen to launch this thing off the launch pad.

So right now engineers are troubleshooting. They're trying to figure out if they can get this rocket ready to fly again for the second launch attempt, which is on Friday, third launch attempt is on Monday. But if those don't work, they may have to roll it back to the pad and start over, which would be a very long delay.

You know, Jim and Poppy, one thing that's really fascinating about this rocket as well is that, you know, it reuses so many parts of the space shuttle, it's not just those engines down at the bottom, they've also reused these two white solid rocket boosters on either side.

They're all made up from multiple different space shuttle missions. In fact, two of the pieces on here were used during my dad's space shuttle flight back in 1985. And so they've really cobbled them all together. My dad's flight was scrubbed five times before they finally launched.

Bill Nelson, the NASA administrator said this morning that he scrubbed four times. So that just goes to show you, you know, scrubs are very normal when it comes to space flights, and especially with a test flight, which is what happened here this morning, guys.

SCIUTTO: They always say space is hard, right? And this is one of the signs of that.

HARLOW: Yeah, we'll be seeing a lot of you down there, Kristin, until the thing actually takes off. Go ahead.

FISHER: And guys, we should get an update, a press conference from NASA in about four hours, we're told. A little more information then.

HARLOW: All right, thanks so much for the reporting.

So we're joined now by retired NASA Astronaut Leroy -- Astronaut Leroy Chiao. It's great to have you. Thank you. Sorry, today didn't go as planned. But as Kristin just said, it takes a long time, right? And you do it when it's right.

So when it's right, we're going to see something remarkable, right? It's not only going to go to the moon, but beyond and this final sort of goal of this program, right is Mars. Talk to us about how they're intertwined? LEROY CHIAO, RETIRED NASA ASTRONAUT: Sure. So this is the first step towards trying to get to Mars, get a crew to Mars. As you as you know, and mentioned the last time we landed humans on the Moon was 1972.

So just about 50 years ago, so we need to kind of relearn how to do those things. We need to learn how to land humans on another planetary body. The moon is a great place to develop and test your hardware, habitats rovers, spacesuits, it's a great place to train astronauts.

You don't necessarily want your first crew on Mars to have never operated in that kind of environment before.

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And the reason the moon is so great for all these things is because it's only about three or four days away. Mars, on the other hand, even when the planets are aligned, is about six months one way, and just as Apollo 13 going to the moon had to go all the way around it, because they couldn't turn around and didn't have the fuel.

If you go to Mars, you're also not going to be able to turn around until you get there if you have a problem going outbound. So you want to make sure everything's going to work. So that's why we go to the moon first.

We could technologically -- we could try for Mars first, which a lot of people do advocate that you're buying down some of that risk by going to the moon and making sure everything's going to work first.

SCIUTTO: Leroy, we were speaking last hour about the issues that eventually scrubbed this launch with the proviso that there are often scrubs before it launches that then proceed, and that this one in particular was about a cooling issue in one of the engines at the bottom of the rocket here.

And I just wonder, in your experience, and again, you know, you're not inside that rocket right now there are lots of engineers looking at it. In your experience, does this indicate a larger issue potentially, or more likely one that falls into the category of hey, this comes out, this is why we do test.

CHIAO: This is -- this was so -- it appears to be something with valving in that engine number three. In other words, a valve -- looks like a valve failed to open to allow that liquid hydrogen to go into pre-cool that engine bell.

And so it's probably a problem, you know, fairly simple problem. I hate to say that or for a second guess. But the big question is whether or not the people, the team can actually change that valve out or fix it while the rocket is still on the launchpad.

If they can, then we can probably look for an attempt, a second attempt in the shorter timeframe, perhaps as early as Friday or Monday. But if they have to roll the rocket back because they need to take that engine out and access the issue, then we're talking about a month or more. HARLOW: I think I'm so fascinated by not who's going to be on board because not living humans, but certainly ones made to look like it and where the actual suits from the three mannequins including the Commander Moonikin Campos to the voice assistant to, Snoopy, which is the nickname for the zero gravity indicator.

Talk about what they're all going to be doing. Because I understand a lot of it is to prove, you know, you can live through a mission like this. The astronauts can live through a mission like this. And if the heat shield works properly, is that right?

CHIAO: Right. So the instrumented mannequins are all there to take data and return data back to the engineers on the ground. And so there'll be taking measurements of a lot of different things, you know, the conditions inside of the spacecraft, the radiation that they're being exposed to, things like that.

It is a long mission. I mean, it's over 40 days long, so it's going to be orbiting the moon for quite a while. They're going to test out all the spacecraft systems, you know, it's got to unfurl its solar arrays to generate electricity to be able to function. And they'll be testing most critically, the heat shield on entry.

Coming back from the moon, you're coming back and a lot higher speed than Earth orbit. So the heat shield has to be much more robust, much beefier if you will. And so the temperatures for example, in the space shuttle on the leading edge of the wings, and this in the nose cap got up to around 3000 degrees Fahrenheit.

This trajectory that Orion is going to come back from the temperature will get up closer to 5000 degrees Fahrenheit. So we want to make sure that heat shields to work and keep the spacecraft intact.

SCIUTTO: More much so much more advanced technology here, including a heat shield to read gash 5000 degrees. Leroy Chiao, we know we're going to be talking about this a lot. Thanks so much for joining us.

CHIAO: My pleasure.

HARLOW: So this just in the CNN, the Fulton County Georgia district attorney asking a judge to deny -- to once again deny Senator Lindsey Graham's request to block his subpoena to testify before that grand jury.

SCIUTTO: CNN's Correspondent Nick Valencia is in Atlanta with more. Nick, we've seen so much back and forth right on this testimony. What more does the filing say and what happens next?

NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You got that right, Jim. This has been drawn out for weeks. A lot of legal wrangling and pushback by Graham's attorneys trying to keep him from having to appear before the special purpose grand jury. The Fulton County District Attorney's Office in a court filing today, calling Graham's position, an extreme position.

And here's what they partially had to say in that filing this morning, saying Senator Graham's repetition of his previous arguments does not entitle him to partial quashing and the district attorney respectfully request that his motion be denied they're effectively going on to say that he believes he's above the power of being questioned.

Graham and his attorneys are arguing that he is protected in a legislative capacity by the U.S. Constitution speech or Debate Clause and that he was operating in a legislative capacity at the then chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when he plays to phone calls to Georgia Secretary of State's office in the wake of the 2020 election.

And one of those calls, if you remember, was directly with Secretary State Brad Raffensperger. And it was Raffensperger's interpretation of that call that Graham asked him to throw out legal balance.

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Now, Graham and his attorneys have denied those allegations, calling them ridiculous. They're trying to keep him from having to appear before this special purpose grand jury. He's just the latest Republican and ally of former President Trump to try to get out of being questioned by Fani Willis, who's the District Attorney in Fulton County.

Now, what happens next is more legal wrangling. Graham's team has until August 31, that's Wednesday to respond to this at which point a judge will have to rule whether or not a full quash or a partial quash over this subpoena is in order. Jim, Poppy.

HARLOW: Nick, thanks very much for that significant update. So let me bring in John P. Fishwick Jr., who's a former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia and also CNN Counterterrorism Analyst, Phil Mudd, thanks both very much for being with me.

I guess, let's just begin because this news just came in about Lindsey Graham. And John, I would just ask you, I mean, it's interesting because Elliot Williams was saying last hour to us, like the Speech and Debate Clause argument could kind of go either way here for Graham, right?

The question is why were these calls to Raffensperger about those ballots related to the 2020 election, actually part of his job as a legislator or not as a member of Congress or not?

JOHN P. FISHWICK JR. FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY FOR WESTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA: I think you're right, I think it's going to be a close call. And it's going to be litigated for a while. There's going to be back and forth between the district court and the court of appeals.

And ultimately, you know, the United States Supreme Court is going to weigh in on some of these issues as relates to these various Trump investigations.

And for everybody who's investigating Trump, that's not a good thing, because these investigations need to be with transparency and also with move forward quickly with alacrity. And so when you have these various evidentiary disputes, it will slow down investigations.

HARLOW: Phil Mudd, if I could turn to you on what we learned over the weekend, and that is that the Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has told the House Intelligence and House Oversight Committees that they are going to do what is a formal damage assessment on the documents taken from Mar-a-Lago.

Not the ones taken on August 8. This is the documents taken back when they got the first batch of 15 boxes, if you will, in May, what we know because of the affidavit is it in those boxes that were 67 documents marked confidential, 92 marked secret 25 is top secret. What does the damage assessment really mean? And what question are they trying to answer by doing that?

PHIL MUDD, CNN COUNTERTERRORISM ANALYST: Well, this is a curious one, because typically, if you're going to do a damage assessment, you know that something bad has already happened. And I don't mean somebody storing documents improperly. I mean, for example, a spy giving away documents to the Russians.

In this case, you're doing a damage assessment, and you're not certain whether damage is done. We don't know, obviously, whether any of those documents left Mar-a-Lago, or whether anybody inappropriately looked at them. We do know they're stored improperly.

And I'm going to guess when the FBI and the Department of Justice, look at videos from Mar-a-Lago, they're going to find people who did not have security access, had access to those rooms. In other words, people who didn't have security clearances might have looked at the documents.

So you don't know if damage is done. You know, the stuff was stored improperly, I think the end result is going to be pretty interesting. It's going to be more of a political game than a security game.

The political game is the Democrats are going to get a piece of ammo saying this was nasty stuff. And the Republicans are going to get a piece of ammo saying it's not clear anything ever happened with.

HARLOW: Sad thing about it is not -- this is so much more important than politics. This is not supposed to be about politics. This is supposed to be about securing documents that have to do with our national security.

John, thanks so much for agreeing to come on. And Phil, as always. But John, the reason we reached out to you is because I was struck by what you told the New York Times a few days ago, and that is, you know, you said and I should know you were an Obama appointee.

You said, I think anytime you search a former president's home, you've got to treat it with more transparency, and you need to disclose all the details with alacrity and quickness.

And I just wonder, because that's where the fight is now, really, within the part of the political fight is even with this affidavit that, you know, a lot of it is redacted. Is there enough transparency here? Now seeing what we see and also seeing what's redacted? Do you -- is there enough transparency from DOJ here?

FISHWICK: I don't think there is. I think ultimately, Merrick Garland's job here is to get buy in from the American public that the investigation is being conducted fairly and transparently. And ultimately the American people are the jury on this case. They need to know what the evidence is against a former president.

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Yes, a former president United States is different. We have to treat that person differently. And we need to make sure that Donald Trump is treated the same as Joe Biden would be treated if he left office. And so the American public needs to go out there.

So I think they should absolutely, literally release the affidavit to the search warrant. We need to know the specifics of this case, you can't just suddenly indict a former president without telling the public why.

HARLOW: Yeah. OK. Well, that's right. No one's indicted yet. But so I mean, I think John's referring to, there are pages, full-pages in this affidavit that are fully redacted. There's other parts that are not, so they put it out there, Phil, but there's a lot know that they can't release because of the ongoing investigation protecting sources and methods protecting witness identity. Is that right, Phil?

MUDD: I think so. And I could not disagree more with the assessment that they should be out open more. Let me give you two reasons why we just went through Hillary Clinton, as soon as the Department of Justice opens a conversation with the press in the public, they have to continue the conversation.

And they have to close it about a person or persons not just the former president, but also lawyers, for example, who are supporting him who have not been charged, that is potentially doing a lot of damage to people as you raise their names in here in conversations by the Attorney General, when they may never be charged.

The other thing and the Department of Justice said this repeatedly, as soon as you open more of that information, when you walk into a potential witness to say don't worry, don't worry, talk to us in private because your name will ever get out there.

If I'm sitting across from the FBI and those agents I'd say get out. You cannot promise me confidentiality, because you already showed you're going to violate your regulations by speaking to the press, get out. I don't think we should ever speak again until they figure out what the heck you're doing.

HARLOW: Phil Mudd, thank you. John Fishwick, good to have you. Welcome to the program. Thanks both very much.

FISHWICK: Thanks so much.

HARLOW: Sure. SCIUTTO: Still to come this hour, just a terrifying situation in Bend, Oregon when a gunman opened fire. This time inside a grocery store. At least two people were killed. We will have the latest on the investigation.

HARLOW: Also, Britney Spears says she is turning down Oprah and telling her own story on her own, the unexpected 22 minute recording that now has Britney Spears' mother posting urgent or posting and urging her to respond.

And later the beginning of her swan song. Serena Williams taking the court for her opening round in the U.S. Open, what it could mean for potentially one of her last matches.

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SCIUTTO: York City Police say at least 16 people were shot, five of them shot dead in 13 shootings over the weekend there. There was deadly gun violence in many cities across the country including a shooting in a supermarket in Oregon.

HARLOW: Investigators say two people were killed there in Oregon at that supermarket. At least one person injured when a gunman opened fire in a Safeway grocery store that happened in Bend, Oregon.

Our Brynn Gingras, joins us now. Brynn, sadly there were, you know, it's not just New York, Oregon, several fatal shootings across the country over the weekend?

BRYNN GINGRAS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, and you guys said it's all too familiar at this point. There are ongoing investigations again for those shootings in New York, Houston, Detroit.

That's just some of the cities where we can violence broke out. That horrific scene, though, let's go back to Bend, Oregon where two people were killed. One employee said they were closing up the deli department ready to go home when they had to run for their lives.

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HEATHER THOMPSON, WITNESS: All of a sudden I heard anywhere from five to eight shots. I thought it sounded like backfire. Of course you know you're a little stunned. And then less than a minute later there were 10 to 20 shots, and then another 10 to 20 shots and by that time I went inside and told my dad to get away from the windows.

ROBERT, SAFEWAY EMPLOYEE: It was loud enough to make me and three other employees ran into a walk in refrigerator and close the door and stayed there, we stayed hidden until the authorities arrived.

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GINGRAS: Hiding in a refrigerator. That rapid gunfire armed with an assault rifle that gunman he moved through the store and witnesses estimate firing dozens of shots. Authorities have found the gunman's body a shotgun was found near it. Now, the motive for the shooting, it's still unclear at this point. The FBI and local law enforcement conducted a search of the shooter's home to hopefully find some answers there.

In Phoenix, Arizona, two officers were hit with gunfire while responding to a call where two people were killed. Those officers are expected to be OK. And in Detroit four shootings that resulted in three people killed for these cases authorities actually believed the same weapon was used and what's been described as random crimes.

One victim was walking their dog another one waiting for the bus according to authorities and that suspect was apprehended after this picture went out and after a manhunt which included federal authorities, guys though it's just heartbreaking to hear city after city with these, you know, just gunfire erupting and many victims involved.

SCIUTTO: So many lives disrupted. Brynn Gingras, so good to have you.

Well, Senator Elizabeth Warren says that the Fed could, "tip the economy into recession," which he believes could cause it, this right after the brick.

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SCIUTTO: Watching the stock markets, they are down again slightly this morning this after plunging more than 1000 points on Friday. Why? What's all tied to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell's warning that the Fed would continue its historic pace of rate hikes for the foreseeable future? He worried that there will be some "pain" to households and businesses. This weekend responding Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts slammed those comments.