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Artemis 1 Set to Launch in Hours; Pearl River Set to Crest in Flood-Hit Jackson, Mississippi; Damage Assessment Launched Over Mar-a- Lago Documents; Bolsonaro and Lula Face Off in First Debate; More Shelling Reported Near Zaporizhzhia Plant. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired August 29, 2022 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Christina Macfarlane in for Max Foster here in London Just ahead --
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There is something a little bit absurd when it appears we have a former president who has taken highly classified documents to his own residence.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think we need to know more about the documents.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're concerned about 100 to 150 homes that are in northeast Jackson and some homes that are south of us.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The next human boots are going to be a woman and a person of color on the moon and that inspiration to provide diversity in this type of environment.
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MACFARLANE: Hello and welcome, it's Monday, August 29, 9:00 a.m. here in London and 4:00 a.m. on Florida's space coast where we are hours away from the launch of Artemis 1. the first steps in NASA's return to the moon. These are live pictures of the launchpad At the Kennedy Space Center in Florida and the launch window is scheduled to open about four and half hours from now.
But right now, the launch team is dealing with a leak they observed while fueling the rocket tank with liquid hydrogen. NASA says they're troubleshooting the issue but no word on whether this will impact the scheduled launch.
Well, this unmanned mission to the moon is the first in several in the years ahead. Eventually the goal is to send astronauts back to the lunar surface for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972. And ultimately NASA hopes to someday land the first humans on mars. But before that Artemis 1 will serve as a test.
Space exploration of course brings inherent risks. One of which is radiation exposure's. So, one of the goals of today's mission is to mitigate those future risks in the future making space travel safer for astronauts.
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JANET IVEY, PRESIDENT, EXPLORE MARS, INC.: There are three manikins on board, two of them just torsos that are going to have all kinds of with radiation sensors. Another one called Commander Moonikin Campos named in homage to Arturo Campos who helped the Apollo 13 crew get back to earth safely. And it's going to be equipped with all kinds of radiation sensors and dosimeters to test those levels of radiation that a human might endure on a very long-term mission on the moon.
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MACFARLANE: Well, CNN's Rachel Crane has a preview of the mission and more on the objectives that NASA hopes to accomplish.
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RACHEL CRANE, CNN INNOVATION AND SPACE CORRESPONDENT: Well, weather is 80 percent favorable towards a launch. And this launch window opens at 8:33 a.m. Eastern and it's a two hour launch window. So, so far mother nature is on our side but folks aren't just keeping an eye on the weather when it comes to this launch. That's because this rocket behind me has never flown before and several rehearsals of the SLS launch did not didn't go exactly as planned.
Three what dress rehearsals as they are referred to had many issues involving valves and leaks. As I said this vehicle has never flown before and it's a really important part of NASA's Artemis program that this an crude test flight is a success. That's because NASA has several major objectives here. They need to test the heat shield of the Orion spacecraft before they put the crew on board. They need to make sure as they send up this brand-new rocket actually functions as planned. They also need to go through retrieval of the Orion face spacecraft.
If this launch is successful, it'll be a 42 day mission and the Orion spacecraft will splashdown in the Pacific so they will need to go and retrieve that spacecraft. There's some avionics on board that NASA is hoping to use on Artemis2. Now that would be the first crewed mission of the Artemis program. NASA hopes to achieve that next year and hopefully put humans once again on the moon. The first woman and the first person of color in 2025. Back to you.
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MACFARLANE: Well, for more on the weather conditions for the launch, meteorologist Karen Maginnis is standing by at the CNN Weather Center in in Atlanta. Karen, how's it looking?
KAREN MAGINNIS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, Christine, good to see you. And To see you.
[04:05:00] And it looks like in the past half hour or so, we've really seen the diminishing amounts of moisture across this region. And you can't have such a sophisticated machine like this without having a few hiccups and we've heard they were stopping down because of the liquid hydrogen that they were fueling it with. This is the launch site area here and we have seen some showers and even a couple of thunderstorms that did produce some lightning. It wasn't a problem but there are parameters that this mission has to stay within as far as the weather is concerned.
You can have all kinds of other hiccups but the weather is the one thing you are unable to control. All right, the launch is forecast for 8:33 a.m. eastern time to 10:33. It's not the only time that they can launch. They can do it as we go into Friday, there's another window than.
The temperature is expected to be pretty much in the upper 70s to the 80s all the way through 10:33 hour. There could be a few showers. Now the parameters are as we look at it weatherwise. That first hour is better and the optimism it's an 80 percent chance of go, 20 percent chance might see issues as far as cumulus cloud cover, maybe some lightning and the potential for precipitation.
Then that second hour, the 9:33 to 10:33 hour becomes a little bit more problematic. Wind is going to be from the south, the visibility is expected to be about seven miles or so.
All right let's talk about the flooding in Mississippi. Here we go, we got a update and it looks like that crest is going to be just below that major stage in this pink shaded area. But this is where we we've got it at 35.5 feet and that keeps it just below the major stage. Now this is cold comfort for people who have been inundated with that 12 inches of rainfall that has occurred already this month. But the Pearl River is notorious and historic flooding has occurred here and it really floods very quickly. But as we look into forecasts, there are chances for showers and thunderstorms but most of it, the heavier stuff moves into Texas and southern Louisiana -- Christina.
MACFARLANE: All right, Karen thank you very much for now. And we're going to talk a little bit more about this. Because as Karen mentioned, Jackson, Mississippi and neighboring communities are keeping a wary eye on this swollen Pearl River. Water has already swamped parts of the city and some areas lost power on Sunday. The state has distributed more than 100,000 sandbags and is using drones to access water levels along the rivers path. Jackson's mayor has been sounding the alarm for days. He tells CNN the city learned critical lessons about flooding that occurred two weeks ago which took weeks to fully recede.
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CHOKWE ANTAR LUMUMBA, JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI MAYOR: If we risk the life of one individual, that's one individual too many. And so, we want to make certain that we know both people and individuals, pets and to the extent that some property can be saved, that it's all spared due to early preparation. Unfortunately, because we have seen these events as recently as 2020, we have a reference point and we know the damage that can occur. And so, we're asking those residents to heed the warnings that are being provided to them.
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MACFARLANE: Not to developments following the FBI search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home. A federal judge has set a hearing for this week to consider the former president's request for a "Special Master" to oversee a review of the materials seized. This as the intelligence chief launches a damage assessment of those documents. CNN politics reporter Jeremy Herb has the details now from New York.
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JEREMY HERB, CNN POLITICS REPORTER: The Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines has informed Congress that her office will be leading a damage assessment relating to the classified documents kept at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. According to letters sent to House and Senate committees and obtained by CNN, Haynes wrote that the intelligence community will conduct, quote, an assessment to the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents.
In addition, Haynes said that the intelligence community would be working with the Justice Department to conduct a classified review -- classification review of the documents including those obtained by the FBI during this month's FBI search of Mar-a-Lago.
Lawmakers have been urging the intelligence community to conduct the damage assessment since the search earlier this month. The letter was sent Friday, the same day the FBI released a redacted version of the affidavit justifying the search of the former president's residence. The affidavit revealed that Trump had 184 classified documents in the 15 boxes handed to the National Archives in January.
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Of those documents, 25 were marked top-secret and some included information about human sources, foreign intelligence and other highly sensitive material. In a joint statement House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff and House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney said it was critical for the intelligence community to, quote, move swiftly to assess and if necessary to mitigate the damage done. A process that should proceed in parallel with the DOJ's criminal investigation.
Separately a federal judge indicated Saturday she had preliminary intent to appoint a "Special Master" as Donald Trump has sought. That means a third party outside of the Justice Department will review the materials the FBI collected to determine whether any of it is privileged and therefore, could not be used in the FBI's investigation.
The next step in that case will come Tuesday when the Justice Department has a deadline to file under seal a detailed list on what it took during the search of Mar-a-Lago. Then on Thursday the judge has a hearing scheduled on the matter. Jeremy Herb, CNN, New York.
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MACFARLANE: Well, a number of Republicans have been demanding more transparency over the search of Trump's Florida home and what documents were taken. Some even suggest the move was politically motivated. Take a listen.
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SEN. ROY BLUNT (R-MO): You should be very careful with classified documents. I have had access to documents like that for a long time. I'm incredibly careful. What I wonder about is why this could go on for almost two years and less than 100 days before the election suddenly we're talking about this rather than the economy or inflation.
CHRIS SUNUNU, (R) NEW HAMPSHIRE GOVERNOR: If you're going to take unprecedented action and raid a former president house, well you better have a strategy for unprecedented transparency. So, I think we're all concerned about what might be in those documents that some were classified, some weren't, what the serious nature was.
REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): The hypocrisy of folks in my party that spent years chanting lock her up about Hillary Clinton because of some deleted emails or quote, unquote wiping a server, are now out there defending a man who very clearly did not take the national security of the U.S. to heart and it'll be up to DOJ whether or not that reaches the level of indictment.
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MACFARLANE: Well, you can head over CNN.com for any even deeper dive in to what the unsealed affidavit does and doesn't say. And we have a page by page annotation that breaks it all down into language that is easy to understand.
And Brazil's presidential election season is now in full swing. And on Sunday night a competitive first debate took place in Sao Paulo. Every candidate participated but all eyes were on current president Jair Bolsonaro And Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva who seeking to return to his old job. Stefano Pozzebon as the details.
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STEFANO POZZEBON, JOURNALIST: It was a debate that almost didn't happen with the Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro confirming his presence only hours before the broadcast began. Bolsonaro and former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva were joined by four other candidates to discuss the economy, the response to the covert-19 pandemic and the environment.
Lula was questioned about the series of corruption scandals that took place while he was president between 2003 and 2010. And he defended his records in power, saying that millions saw their living conditions improve while he was president.
LUIZ INACIO LULA DA SILVA, FORMER BRAZILIAN PRESIDENT: (through translator) You say you didn't see those changes I am talking of. Well, your driver saw them. Your gardener saw them. Your cleaning lady saw them. Go ask her. She saw this country doing better. She saw her child could enter a university.
POZZEBON: Bolsonaro instead went on to the attack saying that you the Brazilian economy is faring much better than other countries in the region. And personally, attacking local journalist Vera Magalhaes after she asked him a question about vaccination rates. All of the other candidates expressed solidarity with the journalist Magalhaes. But with a little over a month before the first round of the Brazilian election on October 2, the race already seems a two-way affair between Lula and Bolsonaro.
For CNN this is Stefano Pozzebon, Bogota.
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MACFARLANE: All right, still ahead, anti-radiation pills are being handed out in Ukraine, signaling growing concerns about a potential disaster at Europe's largest nuclear plant.
Plus, millions in Pakistan are being impacted by deadly flooding. What we're learning about the scope and scale of the devastation coming up.
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MACFARLANE: A team of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors are now on their way to Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog tweeted the news just a few hours ago. He says they're expected to arrive at the facility later this week.
It comes amid continued fighting around the complex with Russian and Ukrainian officials reporting more shelling on Sunday in a town five kilometers from the plant. A Russian installed official says at least nine people were wounded. Scott McLean joins me here in London with the latest. Scott, this is the breakthrough that we have been waiting to hear for weeks now. Do we know how this is going to happen? How are they going to access the plan?
SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's a great question. So, we know that we're sort of in uncharted territory here. Rafael Grossi, the director general of IAEA says this kind of mission where you're actually having inspectors going into an active war zone, this has not happened before.
He also mentioned the challenge of getting in. Anyone who has been to Ukraine recently, knows that even if you're just going to Kyiv, even if you're just going to one of the major cities, it takes a few days to get there from the Ukrainian side. And then if that's the route you're going, you actually have to cross over an active frontline. If you're coming from the Russian side, it might be a little bit
easier but it's still probably going to take a while to negotiate all of the checkpoints and things like that.
In terms of what they want to accomplish here, the IAEA has said in previous statements that they want to carry out essential safety, security and safeguarding activities at the actual site.
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The other hope is that their mere presence may help to kind of take down the temperature of the two sides and maybe bring some level of calm, some level of stability. Obviously, they want to assess the damage of recent shelling as well where I think everybody agrees that these sites are playing with fire. Hence why you have the city of Zaporizhzhia not far from there, where handing out iodine tablets. And this is what some people who are picking them up said.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We bought it the first time in winter when the power plant was shelled the first time. We bought iodine with supplements in a pharmacy back then so we still have it but it's supplemented with folic acid.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We were told that an adult should take one tablet, I have a 7 to 8-year-old child, it should take half a tablet.
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MCLEAN: That dosage there is actually the recommended dosage. Iodine, by the way, this is important because radioactive iodine is one of the things released when there's some kind of a radiation leak or nuclear disaster and our bodies need iodine, we absorb it but we do not actually produce it and so is stored in the thyroid. The idea of the tablets is, if you put enough of it inside of your own body you sort of max out the amount that your body is able to absorb, hence blocking anymore radioactive iodine from actually getting into your body and they provide some level of protection.
MACFARLANE: So, if people of Zaporizhzhia not only dealing with a possible radiation fallout here but also continued shelling. What are we learning about that shelling that happened in the city close to the plant overnight?
MCLEAN: Yes, that's right, so first off, I should mention as well, the IAEA has confirmed that over the last few days there's actually been shelling on the site of the plant as well, just 100 meters from one of the reactors. Now they described this as a special building, some of the housing facilities for waste management, for water treatment, things like that. So, nothing essential to the operation perhaps of these nuclear reactors. But obviously these inspectors are going to know more or get a better sense of things.
The shelling that you mentioned is about five, six kilometers or so from the actual nuclear site, sort of in a suburban Enerhodar. We know that it was three residential buildings that seem to have been targeted. Depending on who you ask. Maybe 20-25 cars set on fire, 9 or 10 people potentially injured. This is not the kind of thing that you want to hear. Especially on the eve of a visit from a mission from the International Atomic Energy Agency and five kilometers may seem like a far distance but it's certainly five kilometers closer than you'd really want.
MACFARLANE: And this was on Russian held territories this shelling.
MCLEAN: So, Enerhodar, yes, is all on Russian held territories. So logically you would expect that it would be the Ukrainians would be firing into this area but both sides are blaming each other. The Ukrainians say that this is actually the Russians trying to provoke some kind of a response.
MACFARLANE: All right, Scott thank you very much for now for bringing us those details.
So, let's actually turn to Moscow now where our Fred Pleitgen can join us live. Fred, we've just been speaking there about the blame game going on essentially between the two sides with regards to the shelling. And the fact that this most recent shelling, as we heard Scott say they are, was actually on Russian held territory. What are you hearing, what is Russia saying about this?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, first of all you're absolutely right, Christina, that this blame game has been going on for a very long time and most of the shelling that's taking place around the plant has been of course been on Russian held territories since they hold that part of Ukraine on that side of the Dnipro River.
Now the Russians are saying that -- and they came out earlier this morning -- that the shelling in that area has increased by about 70 percent over the past week. And they obviously blame the Ukrainians for it. They even say that the Ukrainians are using American-made howitzers to conduct some of that shelling. It is of course impossible to tell.
But we do know that especially over the past week there have been close pretty close incidents at that plant. Where for the first time ever in the plant's history, it was completely disconnected from the Ukrainian power grid and the emergency diesel generators of that plant went on as well.
Now as far as the Russian side is concerned, they claim that that was due to wildfires in the area that were also caused by shelling. That stopped a power line that actually supplies the plant itself with power, which it needs for all the cooling technology that has, that that simply wasn't operational and had to be put back up. Now, that was done. Right now, the situation there seems to be quite stable. But certainly, it's an extremely dangerous situation that's going on. And that's something that the Russians have acknowledged as well. One of the things that we've been hearing sort of from Moscow, especially from the Foreign Ministry over the past -- really especially over the past week, is they've been saying they support this mission happening. They want this mission to happen. They say that they believe that the Ukrainians are going to try to derail this mission. And there you have that blame game going on again. But by and large they say that they want the inspectors to get into that area.
But of course, you know, as Scott said, the big question is going to be, how are they get there? Are they going try to go through Russian held territory or Ukrainian held territory?
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Both of which is extremely difficult. Checkpoints of course very difficult.
And one of the other things that we have to always keep in mind is that that powerplant is on the bank of a huge river basin of the Dnipro River. That means coming from the Ukrainian side you probably have to go through or get past a big body of water as well. How that's to be done is of course, a big question as that body of
water actually right now is the frontline between the two sides. We can see on our screen right now. The closest city on the Ukrainian side is Nikopol, which of course, has seen some pretty heavy shelling side -- Christina.
MACFARLANE: Yes, it remains an incredibly precarious mission, whichever side that the IAEA inspectors choose to go in on. Fred, thank you very much there live from Moscow, Fred Pleitgen.
All right, now to the global energy crisis. And outgoing British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson is blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin for the crisis that's affecting many countries including the U.K. In a Sunday op-ed for British newspaper, he blamed Putin for skyrocketing energy bills and said the Russian leader wants European countries, like the U.K., to buckle and to remove sanctions and beg for Russian oil and gas.
He also tweeted: We must not give in to Putin's aggression. The next few months will be tough but the Ukrainian and British people can win.
Meanwhile Austria's Chancellor is urging other European nations to implement a cap on skyrocketing energy prices. Karl Nehammer's remarks came as natural gas prices continue to soar in Europe since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Pakistan is asking for global aid as millions of people are impacted by extreme flooding. The latest on the deadly monsoon season coming up.
Plus, fighting between rival factions has led to some of Libya's worst violence in years. How aid groups on the ground are responding.
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