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Pilot Threatens To Crash Plane Into A Walmart Store; Artemis I Launch Scrubbed For Second Time After Leak; Mar-a-Lago Inventory Reveals 48 Empty Folders Marked Classified; Biden Ramps Up Criticism Against Trump Ahead Of Midterms; Video Of Trump Calling Democrats "Fascists" Surfaces As Republicans Slam Biden's Speech; Trump To Campaign In Pennsylvania Tonight For Dr. Oz; Serena Williams Exits U.S. Open, Honored As Greatest Of All Time; From Goodwill To EBay: How A Voting Machine Wound Up For Sale. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired September 03, 2022 - 15:00   ET

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

[15:00:30]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

It has all of the makings of a nightmare scenario. A stolen airplane, a threat to intentionally crash it and no idea who's at the controls. It happened early this morning in Mississippi. Police say an employee with Tupelo Aviation stole a plane and called 911 from the cockpit saying he was going to fly the aircraft into a local Walmart. And negotiators eventually made contact with the man and convinced him to save himself and others but the suspect still flew erratically over the area for the next several hours.

You can see this on screen. There's the flight tracker. You can see that unpredictable path, very unsettling for local authorities there in the area. The suspect was eventually taken into custody some five hours later.

CNN's Nadia Romero has been tracking this all day for us. Also with us is CNN transportation analyst Mary Schiavo.

Nadia, let me start with you. What else are we learning about the suspect and how all of this came to an end? And thank goodness it did.

NADIA ROMERO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Thank goodness it came to the end that it did, Jim. And that's what we're hearing from the mayor of Tupelo, saying that this was the best-case scenario that he was waking up in the middle of the night or early this morning by police and fire. He says usually when he gets those calls it's always something bad, and so he feared the worst that this pilot, that this Cory Patterson, would go through with his initial threat.

The threat that he made was that he was going to take that stolen aircraft and crash it into a Walmart there in Tupelo. That's when authorities evacuated that Walmart. They blocked off the streets nearby just awaiting that threat to play out. And we know that it did not. We know that the negotiators were able to talk him out of that plan. Listen to one police officer explain how they were able to change the

pilot's mind. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF JOHN QUAKA, TUPELO, MS POLICE DEPARTMENT: Negotiators from Tupelo Police Department made contact with the pilot and were able to convince him to not carry out this deed. We have since learned he landed near the Graves Town Fire Department on Highway 4 West in between Ashville and Ripley. Soon thereafter the pilot was taken into custody and is in custody currently.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMERO: So witnesses tell us that they saw the plane, they heard the plane, they heard this loud thud, and that's when Patterson had this emergency landing, landing that plane in a soy bean field and then coming out of the plane with his hands up, surrendering himself to police officers, authorities who were attacking him for quite some time. Now the FAA, the TSA, the FBI, all of the above looking into this case.

We do know that he was an employee at Tupelo Aviation. That's how he had access to this plane. But really his mindset, Jim, is something that we haven't had from authorities. Why did he steal this plane? What was his intention? Was he trying to commit suicide? Was he trying to injure someone? Those are things that we just don't have answered at this hour -- Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes, and Nadia, I mean, police say Patterson posted a good-bye message from the cockpit?

ROMERO: Yes, he posted a good-bye message, in that message saying that he was sorry, that he didn't mean to hurt his sisters and his parents. Posting that on Facebook and then after that post circled around Tupelo for hours. And on that same chain, before it was since removed, people who knew him, who were Facebook friends with him, said please don't do it. Please turn yourself in, you have so much to live for. Pleading with him not to take those extreme measures that he was threatening to do.

The scary part of all of this is that he had plenty of options to go to Memphis, Tennessee, was only about 100 miles north of Tupelo, to go any direction really in that plane to try to injure more people but as the mayor said this was the best-case scenario. The only person impacted by this really was him, was Cory Patterson -- Jim.

ACOSTA: My -- I mean, what a scary situation for the people in that community. And Mary, officials say the suspect had some flight instruction but he did not have experience to land. You've covered these issues for so many years. How remarkable is this -- it ended the way it did?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN TRANSPORTATION ANALYST: Well, it's very remarkable because it's a twin engine aircraft and a twin engine aircraft with a fair amount of power. It's a king air and a turbine, so to be able to do that, fly the plane, he made many tight turns, he took off, he circled to land, and it appears that before he apparently ran out of fuel and landed in the field he might have even circled another airport.

[15:05:09]

And even for experienced pilots to make an emergency landing, apparently out of fuel emergency landing to land with the wings level and the blue side up, granted with lockdown with the aircraft, experienced pilots sometimes can't do that. So I suspect he's had some time in a twin engine plane as opposed to a single engine plane. And also I mean, there can be a lot of questions about, you know, apparently the airport he took off from is towered and has control part at the time. Did they alert the police, for example, that there was aircraft movement without clearance from the tower, with air clearance?

It was clear day so he could fly visual flight rules, he didn't need a flight plan. But he knew enough about the system to get it moved and sadly this isn't the first time that an aviation employee has taken a plane but fortunately this ended without injury or loss of life.

ACOSTA: Yes.

SCHIAVO: Except injury to the plane.

ACOSTA: Yes. And Mary, we were just putting the flight tracker up on screen. It looks like a little kid with an Etch-a-Sketch here. Just, you know, watching this flight path just go in circles. How much of a risk was the community in during all of this? And what do you suppose the negotiators were saying to this pilot to talk him down?

SCHIAVO: Well, I think they were probably saying what Nadia mentioned, please, you know, you have things to live for, you don't have to do this. You know, we can get you help. We can work things out. But, you know, a plane not being properly controlled over a populated area is always a danger, whether somebody intends to do harm or whether it's just a pilot who's lost control of an aircraft.

You know, granted with full fuel tanks, now we don't know how full these tanks were but with full fuel tanks had it crashed, then you have a fire hazard, explosion et cetera. So as the hours went on, and the fuel was depleted, the risk of, you know, big fireball explosion went down. But, you know, it is remarkable that he could get it down, basically wings level and topside up was quite a feat.

But there'll be a lot of questions. Did he talk to the tower? Did the tower tell the police? Did they know who was moving the plane before it took off? All those questions will be answered in the days to come, but, you know, for this person and for everybody of the city, now it always posed a danger when it was flying around. And we could tell, for example, from Flight Aware and from the altitude measurements and air speed he wasn't using auto pilot, he was hand flying it and some of these were pretty tight turns so he managed to keep it in the air.

SCIUTTO: Yes. And hats off to the authorities on the ground there getting him to land safely.

All right, Mary Schiavo and Nadia Romero, thank you both very much. We appreciate it.

NASA will once again have to wait a little longer to send its new moon rocket into orbit. Today's Artemis I launch has been scrubbed and a liquid hydrogen leak is to blame. This is the second time in a week that the launch has been called off due to technical issues.

CNN's Kristin Fisher joins me now from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Kristin, I had my fingers crossed. We wanted this to happen during this program. Why couldn't you make that work out for us? And what happens next?

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: I am very sorry, Jim. Trust me I wanted it to launch during your show as well. Yes, we are smack-dab in the middle of what was supposed to be a two-hour launch window but NASA had to scrub for the second time in less than a week because of another hydrogen leak.

Now they were able to fix the hydrogen leak on Monday, the first attempt. This time listen to what they tried to do, Jim. They tried troubleshooting, plan A, that didn't work. So they tried plan B, that didn't work. They tried to come up with a plan C, they couldn't come up with a plan C so they went back and they tried plan A again. They tried all of those things. None of them worked so at the end of the day they decided to call a scrub.

And I'm just going to pop up our little model of the Artemis rocket to show you exactly where this hydrogen leak was occurring. It was occurring right here where the orange part on the course stage almost meets the engines right there. And so now the big question, Jim, is what is NASA going to do? Are they going to try again on Monday, where they have another 90-minute long launch window, or are they going to try again on Tuesday where they only have a very short launch window.

The problem with that is, is there enough time to actually fix the problem by then and can they even do it at the launch pad or do they have to do what we are hearing is the most likely scenario. Jim, officially NASA has not said that they're going to do this. But behind the scenes, the NASA administrator has told several of the VIPs here in attendance that he believes that NASA is going to have to roll back the entire rocket all the way to the vehicle assembly building, the VAB, about four miles away for repairs. And that is something NASA really did not want to do.

[15:10:03]

And, Jim, I'm going to let John Honeycutt, who's the SLS program manager, explain why.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN HONEYCUTT, SLS PROGRAM MANAGER: The big thing we want to avoid is roll backs to the VAB. Those are the things that Dr. Blevins has told me put more stress on the vehicle than anything else. Now that said we've still got rolls left in the vehicle. But we want to watch that and manage it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FISHER: So that was John Honeycutt speaking at a Thursday press conference, Jim. We're going to get another press conference where we should get official word of what NASA plans to do next in about an hour at 4:00 p.m. And, you know, the other thing that you had going for you, Jim, you and your show, was the weather. Look at this, the forecasters were right.

ACOSTA: Wow.

FISHER: Beautiful conditions. You know, if it had not been for these technical problems, this launch weather-wise almost certainly would have been a go.

ACOSTA: Yes, Florida in the summertime, even late in the summertime there should be thunderstorms rolling in and to have that beautiful weather down there, gosh, it's so disappointing.

All right, Kristin Fisher, give us any updates that you can. We're disappointed but thanks so much. We appreciate it.

Joining me now, former NASA restaurant and veteran of four space flights, Captain Scott Kelly.

Scott, I'm sure you're disappointed, too. And based on what Kristin Fisher was saying just a few moments ago, it sounds like they may have to roll this rocket back to the repair shop.

CAPT. SCOTT KELLY (RET), FORMER NASA ASTRONAUT: Yes, that's what it's sounding like. I don't think it's been officially announced or they officially made the decision.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KELLY: But, you know, these things happen. It's a brand new rocket. It's the most complicated, you know, rocket. The most powerful rocket ever built. So we need to get this right the first time. And if it takes rolling back to the pad, then so be it.

ACOSTA: Right. I mean, it makes sense to take every precaution imaginable at this point, correct? I mean, you can't take any chances with this very important program.

KELLY: Yes. So it's a $4 billion rocket at least, if you include the development costs for this launch. And the very next one we're going to put people on there, so this is a very important test flight. If something goes wrong we don't want to have to redo this. So we're going to make sure everything is absolutely perfect before the decision to launch is made.

ACOSTA: Do you have a take on what your decision would be at this point?

KELLY: I would probably do exactly what the NASA leaders and management and the engineers are deciding to do. They're the experts on this. And I know that -- and I'm confident that they're going to make the right decision, and that's probably the same decision I would make.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, I mean, NASA has some big ambitious goals for this program, and so you can understand the caution. I mean, they're talking about building a base camp on the moon surface, testing out technology to eventually get people to mars. Do you think that's something we can actually see in our lifetime? And by that, Scott, I mean, you know, old guys like us.

KELLY: Yes. So I hope so. You know, I think we'll definitely see people going back to the moon. You know, hopefully a few years after this flight we'll fly the first crewed version of the SOS and Orion, and fly that around the moon and then several years later land on it. And also land on it with, you know, a diverse crew, which we've never done before. Obviously it was all, you know, white men landing on the moon in the late '60s and early '70s.

So this will be -- you know, highlight the importance of diversity in our culture. And, you know, to also do the great science and the work that will be required on the moon to someday get us to mars. And hopefully that will be within our lifetime, Jim. I'm hopeful.

ACOSTA: Me too. Fingers crossed. And even though there are no astronauts on board this mission when they finally get the rocket up there, there are three mannequins inside the Orion spacecraft that will be critical in terms of collecting data. Their names are Helga, Zohar and Commander Moonikin Campos. Tell us about that.

KELLY: Yes, so the Moonikin Campos I believe is for like launch loads, those kinds of things, vibrations. The other two are for measuring the effects of a radiation protection vest that was, you know, was designed to protect crew members from radiation that you'll get in deep space. It's already been tested on the -- on the space station. It's a combination between Lockheed Martin and StemRad Company that built these vests.

And they're very important because when we send crew members to mars, they will be outside of the -- or into the moon, they'll be outside the protected magnetic shield of the earth that protects us from a lot of the radiation.

[15:15:10]

So they need this kind of protection and those mannequins, one will be a control and the other one will have the vest on it and measure how well the vest works in this environment.

ACOSTA: And given some of these delays, I mean, I suppose some folks might be frustrated and begin to ask again a question that we hear from time to time about the costs of these kinds of missions, you know, for those who think the price tag, almost $100 billion by the time humans set foot on the moon again, what do you say to all that?

KELLY: Well, there are a lot of great reasons we explore space. I know it's expensive. You know, NASA human space flight is about $5 billion a year, this launch is $4 billion. I think our country spends like $30 billion on Halloween. So, you know, I look at it as -- nothing against Halloween, I like Halloween. But, you know, we spend money on stuff that is important to us. And I think we've gotten so much out of the space program technologically. It's advanced us as a society.

And we get a lot out of the investment in, you know, having this money spent on the ground, with people with high paying jobs, they pay taxes, they support the community. That money is not in space. It's all spent on earth. And just the inspiration that we get in this country and around the world from the space program that encourages kids to study these STEM subjects that are so important to our future. I mean, those are the people that are going to solve the problems of the future, climate change. You know, health care.

All those people are not going to become astronauts or work for NASA but they're inspired by the space program and I think that alone is worth every penny of the investment.

ACOSTA: It's so inspiring. I mean, I remember I was maybe too young to remember the moon landings, you know, when I was a little kid, but the space shuttle programs, it was just so inspiring to watch that kind of stuff as a kid and to think that we'll have a new generation of young people watching this unfold is just amazing to think about.

All right, Scott Kelly, thanks so much. Great to see you. We really appreciate it.

KELLY: Thanks, Jim. Thanks for having me.

ACOSTA: All right. Thanks, again.

Coming up, Trump stash. New details about what the FBI recovered Mar- a-Lago last month, and it includes dozens of empty folders that were marked as classified.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:21:47]

ACOSTA: Are all classified documents accounted for? That's the big question after a newly released court filing reveals the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago last month recovered 48 empty folders marked as containing classified information. We don't know what was in those folders. All we do know is that they were empty. And that's not all. They also found more than 100 classified documents in Trump's office and a storage room mixed in with newspaper clippings, clothing and gifts.

CNN's Sara Murray has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA MURRAY, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A newly unsealed inventory revealing the trove of materials seized from Mar-a-Lago, including thousands of government documents and 103 papers marked classified intermingled with magazines, newspapers, press clippings, photos and articles of clothing.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: You know, mostly the boxes are pictures and newspapers and shirts and gear and, you know, golf balls and just -- it's a lot of stuff. You know, when you're there for four years, it's a long time.

MURRAY: While Trump is downplaying what was recovered by the FBI, a seven-page list ticks through how sensitive the material was. 18 documents marked top secret, 54 documents marked secret and 31 marked confidential.

Investigators also collected dozens of empty folders with a classified banner or labeled return to staff secretary/military aide.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: None of this is going to help Donald Trump.

MURRAY: A federal judge in Florida unsealing the inventory and pondering whether to appoint a special master to independently review the seized material.

WILLIAM BARR, FORMER ATTORNEY GENERAL: The whole idea of a special master is a bit of a red herring. At this stage, since they've already gone through the documents, I think it's a waste of time.

MURRAY: The investigators' haul, which included more than 11,000 government documents without classified markings, revealed just how much Trump was holding on to even after more than a year of negotiating the return of documents and 18 months after leaving office.

TRUMP: So what you do is you accumulate a lot of stuff over a term and then all of a sudden you're leaving and stuff gets packed up and sent.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.

TRUMP: All sorts of stuff.

MURRAY: But in Trump's office alone, investigators retrieved a number of boxes, including 27 documents marked classified in some way.

BARR: People say this was unprecedented. Well, it's also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club, OK.

MURRAY: And investigators found them after Trump's team had assured the government any potentially classified materials have been kept in a more secure storage room and after a representative for Trump signed a document, saying everything with classified markings had been turned over a month before the search.

Meantime in a separate criminal investigation into the January 6th attack at the U.S. Capitol and the events leading up to it, former Trump White House lawyers Pat Cipollone and Patrick Philbin appearing before a grand jury.

Both men pushed back on efforts to overturn the 2020 election and are key witnesses to the final days of Trump's presidency. CNN reporting they appeared after weeks of discussion with the Justice Department over executive privilege.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

MURRAY: Now back to that haul of documents that came from Mar-a-Lago, we're only learning so much about this of course because the former president asked for a special master independent reviewer to go over this haul of documents. The judge still has not issued her ruling on whether she will grant that request. She has suggested she's leaning toward it though asking in a hearing earlier this week what's the harm in appointing that special master.

Back to you.

[15:25:02]

ACOSTA: All right. Our thanks to Sara Murray.

A day after he offered sharp criticisms of the MAGA movement inside the Republican Party during a primetime address in Philadelphia, President Biden offered this further explanation.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I don't consider any Trump supporter to be a threat to the country. I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence, fails to condemn violence when it's used, refuses to acknowledge when an election has been won, insists upon changing the way in which the rules you count votes. That is a threat to democracy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And joining me now to talk about this is former Republican congressman and host of the "White Flag" podcast Joe Walsh and CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist Maria Cardona.

Joe, let me start with you first. We heard Republicans like the House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy demand that President Biden apologize for invoking fascism to describe the ideology of former President Trump and his supporters. How do you see this?

JOE WALSH (R), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE, ILLINOIS: Joe Biden doesn't owe, Jim, an apology to anybody. I think the context here is so important. 19 to 20 months ago, Donald Trump led an effort to overthrow, violently overthrow an American election. Here we are in September of 2022, 80 percent of the Republican Party does not accept Joe Biden as their legitimate president. Our democracy is in a lot of trouble.

And I'm glad, Jim, that President Biden addressed that and called out violence and called out a philosophy. Look, I come from MAGA world, he didn't call out Trump voters. He called out the MAGA philosophy which is anti-democracy.

ACOSTA: And Maria, what do you think about this? What can the president do to bring in more Republicans from the moderate wing of the party, into the fold? Do you think he accomplished that the other night and could he do more to accomplish that in the future?

CARDONA: I think he started to, Jim. And I think what he should continue to do, and I think he will, is not only calling out this huge threat that is the MAGA extremist agenda and those who follow it, including more than 80 Republican primary winners who could be in a position to have control over elections if they win in November. So it's important to call that out and to tell Americans that it is in our hands to protect our democracy.

But what I hope that President Biden continues to also do is to underscore how important a traditional, commonsense, smart, democracy- respecting Republican Party we need in order to have a viable two- party healthy American democracy. So I think if he continues to do that, to underscore that he is calling on commonsense, traditional Republicans who are the ones who understand what a threat to democracy Donald Trump and the MAGA agenda is and all of the so-called leaders that are following him and then reflecting at his altar, continue to call them out and then continue to say, look, we need a healthy Republican Party so that we can continue to fight on the battlefield of ideas for what is best for this country.

But until that happens, you know, we are in a position where we have to continue to call out these devastating and dangerous lies that are part and parcel of the MAGA ultra-extremist agenda.

ACOSTA: And Joe, let's remind our viewers of this moment that Donald Trump had as president in 2020 when he referred to people on the other side of the aisle as fascist. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Going left-wing all the way. Fascists. They are fascists. Some of them. Not all of them, but some of them. But they're getting closer and closer. We have to win this election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Joe, do you think there's some pearl clutching going on over what President Biden said given where we've been lately, given some of the rhetoric that Donald Trump has used?

WALSH: Yes, Jim, I have zero patience for any Trump supporter who calls Joe Biden divisive after the Donald Trump presidency. Here's Joe Biden's problem and here's America's problem, though, Jim. The MAGA philosophy, the MAGA movement, it's no longer some fringe movement within the Republican Party. It is the Republican Party. And America really needs to wrap its arms around that.

[15:30:00]

And I think President Biden began to play a real leadership role the other night in getting Americans to understand this.

We're not talking about a fringe movement. Again, 80 percent of Republicans do not accept basic election results. Hello, that's a huge problem.

ACOSTA: And, Maria, Trump will be in Pennsylvania tonight, stumping for Republican candidates, Doug Mastriano, running for governor. He's been an election denier.

He's also out there trying to support Mehmet Oz for the Senate, who's been struggling, if you believe the latest polls in this.

What do you think of that? And do Democrats need to worry about they don't get too complacent when it gets to this critical battleground state?

CARDONA: Oh, 150,000 percent, Jim, on that last point. The last thing Democrats have to do is be complacent. That is dangerous. We have to still be very concerned.

Look, the momentum is certainly in our corner right now. But we have to play like we are absolutely behind in both the House and the Senate. We have to play like our democracy is on the line because it is.

I assure you that tonight we're going to continue to hear massively destructive, dangerous lies from Donald Trump.

And here's what I believe people need to continue to think about and realize. The American people rejected the MAGA agenda in 2018, Jim. Let's not forget that.

The American people continue to reject the MAGA agenda in 2020. That is why Joe Biden won legitimately by a long shot. It was a huge win by Joe Biden.

The American people, I believe, will continue to reject the MAGA extremist agenda. But we have to continue to call it out. We cannot be complacent. That is the last thing we have to do.

Which is why I'm so glad that Joe Biden made this speech a couple of nights ago to put everyone on notice.

Because it is our responsibility to make sure that this American idea, this American democracy, which is still very fragile, it's not something that's guarantee.

It is upon all of us to make sure that we protect it. We have to go out and, like President Biden said, vote, vote, vote.

ACOSTA: Yes. This democracy belongs to all of us. It should be precious to all of us.

Joe Walsh, Maria Cardona, great conversation. Great to see both of you. We appreciate it. Thanks so much.

CARDONA: Thanks so much, Jim.

ACOSTA: Coming up, Serena Williams honored as the greatest of all time after playing what could be the final match of her career. Say it ain't so. We're live at the U.S. Open next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[15:37:13]

ACOSTA: The longest U.S. Open match of Serena Williams' career may have been her last. But the 23-time grand slam winner did not go out without an epic fight. Williams staved off five match points in the third and final set before falling to Australian, Ajla Tomljanovic.

Afterwards, she expressed her gratitude to several people who have become familiar faces to those of us who followed her amazing journey, her family.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SERENA WILLIAMS, PRO TENNIS PLAYER: It all started with my parents and they deserve everything. So I'm really grateful for them.

(CHEERING)

WILLIAMS: Oh, my god. These are happy tears, I guess. I don't know.

And I wouldn't be -- I wouldn't be Serena if it wasn't for Venus, so thank you, Venus.

(CHEERING)

WILLIAMS: She's the only reason that Serena Williams ever exited.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: What a moment.

Don Riddell, host of CNN "WORLD SPORT," joins me now.

Don, an incredible finale for Serena Williams. I didn't want it to end. I was cheering in my living room last night like I'm sure a lot of people around the world were.

It was an amazing match and she didn't want to give up without a fight.

Your thoughts on what we witnessed the last few days?

DON RIDDELL, CNN HOST, "WORLD SPORT": I mean, it's been an extraordinary week, hasn't it, Jim? When she came in here, having played not even a handful of matches this season, nobody really knew what to expect. But I don't think many people really gave her much of a chance.

But of course, she won the first match. In her second match, knocked out the world number two. And so coming into this match, the expectations really were raised. But in the end, she couldn't do it.

But there were moments in this match when she was absolutely brilliant. It did, at times, feel as though we were looking at the old Serena Williams. The power, the aggression, the passion, the hunger.

And you referenced those match points at the end. I mean, they were career points.

You were so invested in the match and you were so absorbed in the match, you, for a moment, forgot if any of those balls went long or into the net, then this was the end of the career. And she managed to stave off so many of those before ultimately succumbing.

So much emotion at the end. I don't think she was ready to talk about what happens next. Because, in so many ways, she was living in the moment. She was realizing that she could compete.

But she has addressed that and it does sound like this is it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAMS: It takes a lot of work to get here. Clearly, I'm still capable. But it also -- it takes a lot more than that. I'm ready to be a mom and explore a different version of Serena.

[15:40:02]

And technically, in the world, I'm still super young so I want to have a little bit of a life while I'm still walking.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIDDELL: So she said she was evolving away from tennis before this tournament. She still hasn't said officially that's it, good-bye. But we are thinking that's it.

Tonight, she's off to do some karaoke with her friends and her team. So she's definitely not going to want to play tennis tomorrow. I'm sure of that, Jim.

Back to you.

ACOSTA: No tennis after karaoke, that's a rule, I believe.

All right, Don Riddell, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

RIDDELL: All right.

ACOSTA: Coming up, a story you first saw on CNN. An Uber driver ended up with a Dominion voting machine and then sold it on eBay for $1,200.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: It's a story you saw first on CNN. Police in Michigan are investigating how a voting machine used in the 2020 presidential election went missing and was then sold on eBay. [15:45:02]

CNN's Donie O'Sullivan reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: Harri, what's in the box?

HARRI HURSTI, BOUGHT VOTING MACHINE ON EBAY: That is a device which can be configured either to be voting machine, as a DRE, or ballot marking device.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): This box should not be here on Harri Hursti's kitchen table in Connecticut.

HURSTI: Yes, I have been asked not to open it so that if it's a part of criminal investigation, it's preserved as evidence.

O'SULLIVAN: Hursti is an elections expert. He bought this voting machine for $1,200 on eBay.

EAN HUTCHISON, UBER DRIVER: As far as I was aware, it was a completely legal sale on my end.

O'SULLIVAN: The eBay seller is Ean Hutchison, an Uber driver in Ohio.

(on camera): In your eBay ad, you wrote, "Dominion Image Cast X voting machine from Michigan. Own a piece of history. This voting machine was one of thousands used in the 2020 U.S. presidential election."

(voice-over): But how did an Uber driver in Ohio get his hands on a Michigan voting machine? He bought it from Goodwill online.

HUTCHISON: I saw a listing for what looked like just an industrial touchscreen computer.

And I got to look into the pictures, and in one of the pictures I saw in the bottom corner of the screen it said Dominion voting. So, I, just on a whim, bid on it. I was the only bidder and I won the auction.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): So, how much did you pay for the voting machine?

HUTCHISON: I paid $7.99.

HURSTI: I'm really surprised about this. I mean $8. He made a good profit.

O'SULLIVAN: It turns out someone dropped the voting machine off at this Goodwill in northern Michigan. Who that person is remains a mystery. But the Goodwill put the voting machine for sale up on its Web site.

HUTCHISON: I wasn't even aware that they weren't supposed to be sold, let alone donated to Goodwill. HURSTI: It is shocking that only when we started asking, does it

belong somewhere, only after that they realized it has been stolen.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): They, being the Michigan secretary of state's office.

(on camera): One of Michigan's voting machines showed up on eBay.

JOCELYN BENSON, (D), MICHIGAN SECRETARY OF STATE: Yes. We immediately referred it to law enforcement.

O'SULLIVAN: Clearly, it's raised some issue up the chain of custody and how these machines are secured.

BENSON: We basically have 1,600 jurisdictions. Typically, in between elections, clerks have the responsibility of securing all election equipment and protecting it from attempts, illegal attempts to access it by unauthorized individuals.

O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Michigan is one of several swing states where authorities are already investigating unauthorized access to voting systems by people who are trying to prove the false claim the 2020 election was stolen.

BENSON: There is a nationally coordinated effort to try to interfere with our elections that's manifesting itself at the local level in incidents like this in Michigan.

What would you really have is individuals who don't seem to understand the technicalities of the elections process or election security trying to gain access to machines to keep the misinformation alive.

O'SULLIVAN (on camera): What do you say to the voter, who is skeptical, who is watching this and saying, they lost a voting machine in Michigan.

BENSON: Well, a couple of things. One, Michigan's elections are secure. Before every election, we test every machine for accuracy.

And we've never seen, even with this unauthorized access to machines, any actual evidence of any challenges or wrongdoing or lack of security in the process.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: All right. Our thanks to Donie O'Sullivan for that report.

Coming up, a mystery in Memphis. A schoolteacher abducted while jogging. A reward now being offered in the case.

[15:48:30]

Plus, America's mass shooting epidemic, can it with stopped? Fareed Zakaria shares ideas from around the world. "GLOBAL LESSONS ON GUNS," a "FAREED ZAKARIA, GPA" special starts tomorrow morning at 10:00.

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[15:53:25]

ACOSTA: The family of a Memphis teacher who went missing during an early morning run is offering a $50,000 reward to help find her. Police believe she was abducted.

Eliza Fletcher never returned home from her run yesterday. Police say the kindergarten teacher and mother of two was last seen jogging near the University of Memphis campus when someone approached her and forced her into a vehicle.

They've released photos of the vehicle, a dark mid-sized SUV, and of Fletcher running in a pink sports bra and purple shorts yesterday. Her smashed phone was found near where she was taken.

If you have any information, please contact local authorities in that area.

Wildfires are forcing residents in three northern California towns to run for their lives. Two fires started Friday just south of the California/ Oregon border. Video on social media showing flames consuming house after house around the town of Weed.

The fires have burned more than 7,000 acres. One is only 5 percent contained, the other 20 percent. Dozens of buildings just gone.

Thousands of residents are under mandatory evacuation orders. And California's governor has declared a state of emergency for the affected areas.

At the start of the pandemic, many restaurant workers lost their jobs as restaurants started to shutter. And in an industry in which people typically work paycheck to paycheck and don't qualify for unemployment, there's no safety net to fall back on.

That's where this "CNN Hero" stepped in.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIM CALICHIO, CNN HERO: I had a choice to either sit here in my house and be overwhelmed or I can do whatever it is that I could possibly do without thinking about whether it's going to work or not.

[15:55:03]

We're going to do two apples, a bunch of bananas, two tomatoes.

We started a GoFundMe to direct deliver groceries to families across Queens.

And then these guys.

And within a week, we raised $10,000.

We thought the pandemic was going to be over in two weeks. So we were like, we'll spend this 10 grand and then we'll go back to work, and that never happened.

The first week, we delivered 25 grocery packages to 25 families. And within a month's time, we were delivering 400 to 500 groceries to families every single week.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And to learn more about this story, go to CNNheroes.com.

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