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Nuclear Power Plant's Fifth Reactor Shut Off Due To Shelling; Disturbing Trend Of Businessmen Dying By "Suicide" In Putin's Russia; Donald Trump Calls Biden Enemy Of The State At Campaign Rally; California Wildfires Grow As Officials Order Evacuations; Family Of Missing Wyoming Woman Plead For Her Safe Return; January 6th Committee Report To Come Out By End Of The Year. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired September 04, 2022 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:24]

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

In Ukraine this weekend where Russia's brutal and unprovoked war is now pushing seven months the senseless tragedy for the people of one country could very easily become a massive disaster for a huge part of Europe.

I'm talking about a possible nuclear accident because Russian artillery shells are raining down on the part of Ukraine near a huge atomic power plant. Today that plant is running on only one of its six reactors. The explosions caused by the Russian military forced the others to shut down. This weekend the nuclear plant lost its main connection to the country's power grid and atomic safety experts are extremely worried.

CNN's Melissa Bell has the latest from Ukraine.

MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jim, there's been some good news from the Ukrainian counteroffensive tonight according to officials here in Kyiv, with an aide to President Zelenskyy tweeting a picture of what he says is Ukrainian flag being placed once again on the rooftop of Vysokopillya.

Now this is a town that had been the center of battles for some time. We're getting some confirmation of the fact that it may well now be in Ukrainian hands. Also from the Russian side, since there's been some talk on some pro-Russian Telegram channels of the retreat of Russian forces around that town.

And it is of course a counteroffensive now that's been going on for just about a week and about which Ukrainian authorities have been remaining pretty tightlipped, insisting that this is about degrading Russian military capabilities, trying to take out infrastructure that allows them to resupply their troops around Kherson and not really aimed at fast territorial gains. And yet the tweeting of that picture reminded that of course this is also about morale and momentum, Jim.

There's been bad news, however, from the Zaporizhzhia power plant where continued shelling over the weekend has led not just to the closing down of one of the last remaining functioning reactors at the plant but also damage to the last remaining functioning external power supply. Now there is an extra power supply that leads to a thermal power plant that allows both the energy leaving Zaporizhzhia to get to the Ukrainian electricity grid and the plant itself to be supplied with electricity.

But Rafael Grossi who is there only last week, the head of the IAEA, has been saying that although the presence of his six inspectors still inside the Zaporizhzhia plant hadn't been able to do much in terms of stopping the shelling saying that the fact that their presence had been important in gathering the information they needed and in changing their ability to try and get things up and running in Zaporizhzhia once again calling that presence, Jim, a game changer.

ACOSTA: All right, Melissa, thank you.

Now to a disturbing trend emerging in Russia. In the last eight months at least eight prominent Russian businessmen have died by suicide or unexplained accidents. The latest, the chairman of an oil company that took a public stance against Russia's war in Ukraine. Russia now claims he took his own life by falling from the window of a hospital.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN INTERNATIONAL SECURITY EDITOR (voice-over): It should sound extraordinary, but in Putin's wartime Russia, it becomes staggeringly common. A wealthy energy executive declared dead from suicide.

This time, oil executive Ravil Maganov seen here earlier with the Kremlin head, died on Thursday at 7:00 in the morning after falling from the sixth floor window of a central Moscow hospital where he was being treated after a heart attack, said a state media law enforcement source. They added he was taking anti-depressants and committed suicide.

The oil giant he chaired Lukoil behind 2 percent of the world's crude were tightlipped on the circumstances, saying he died, quote, "following a severe illness." They've been less cagey about Russia's invasion of Ukraine, expressing in March their deepest concerns about the war, calling for its soonest termination, and urging a lasting cease-fire.

Rare public dissent which elsewhere in Russia the Kremlin has squashed quickly.

Maganov's untimely death made him at least the sixth high-profile businessman to die from apparent suicide since January. Four of them from state giant Gazprom, currently at the forefront of Russia's energy battle with the West. The first two died in the same village in their country cottages. Transport head Leonid Shulman four weeks before the war, he left a suicide note, said Russian media. And then just a day after the war began, another top Gazprom executive Alexander Tyulakov was found dead in his garage there.

[18:05:08]

Then, there were two murder-suicides in April. Both former executives from Gazprom or a subsidiary both said to have killed their wife and daughter, and then themselves, Vladislav Avayev in their Moscow home, and Sergey Protosenya in a Spanish villa. Finally, in July, the director of another subsidiary was found dead in his cottage's swimming pool, local media reported. A gunshot wound to the head and a pistol nearby.

Maganov is not Lukoil's first loss this year. A former top manager Alexander Subbotin found dead in a basement from an apparent heart attack. Some experts doubt however these deaths bear the Kremlin's fingerprints.

MARK GALEOTTI, PRINCIPAL DIRECTOR, MAYAK INTELLIGENCE: People do commit suicide. And particularly for these people, they're in their industries where they got used to a very elevated quality of life, and they know that hard times are coming. And at the same time, though, that there has been something of a resurgence of the great 1990s phenomenon which is business disputes being resolved by violence and by murder.

WALSH: Perhaps a subtler hand here than in the anarchy of the `90s. Yet, in a world where the Kremlin rules and ruins at will.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: Let's continue this conversation. Joining me now is Bob Baer, CNN intelligence and security analyst and a former CIA operative and national security expert, Joe Cirincione, he specializes in nuclear security.

Bob, first off with you. These deaths, they're mysterious obviously. Eight Russian businessmen recently dying in so-called suicides or accidents. But, you know, we're talking about Russia and some of these cases these are critics of what is going on in Ukraine right now. Does what the Kremlin is saying in terms of explanations, does any of that pass the smell test for you?

ROBERT BAER, CNN INTELLIGENCE AND SECURITY ANALYST: No, Jim. It doesn't. There's been too many. One or two could be a coincidence but when there's been so many very violent deaths attributing them to suicide, I just don't believe it. And especially falling out of a hospital window, that's an old tactic of Russian intelligence, who just said guy is suffering depression. He goes out the window. And who is to disprove it?

And we're never going to get the accurate police reports, the forensics on any of this. But like I said, there's way too many. And secondly, the fact that they're possibly killing families, it has all the hallmarks of the Russian mob, but of course the Russian mob is controlled by Russian intelligence, and has been since Putin came to power. And there are no exceptions to that really unless Russia is falling apart. We don't know.

But I think right now you have to say, speculating, I'm going way out on a limb here, that somehow Russian intelligence is behind this in dark disputes we don't really understand.

ACOSTA: And the level of violence directed at family members in some of these cases is just absolutely brutal.

Joe, let's turn to the Ukrainian nuclear plant that has faced more shelling. It's now down to one working reactor. We just heard in this report from Melissa Bell things are tense there. Obviously one reserve line for sending out power.

Joe, how alarming do you find these latest developments?

JOE CIRINCIONE, NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY EXPERT: This is a five-alarm disaster. We are hanging by a thread here. And in this case the threads are these power lines. Remember the electricity not only flows from the plant but it flows into the plant. You need the electricity to operate the cooling systems, the safety systems that keep the plant in safe operation. There's only one reactor left because Russia has been systematically shelling the electric power lines from the Ukrainian grid that feed into this Zaporizhzhia plant.

They've now knocked out the last one. So we're looking at reserve power. Just to give you a sense of how serious this was, if this had happened in America this plant would be forced to shut down right now. You are allowed to run on reserve power for about 24 hours in case of emergency. It looks like that the Zaporizhzhia plant is now struggling to just maintain that reserve power.

If that fails they have backup generators. And if those fail, then you're looking at meltdowns in the reactor and the kind of disaster we haven't seen since Fukushima.

ACOSTA: Yes, Joe, I was going to ask you a follow-up question. It does sound as though it is still producing electricity for cooling but what if those cooling systems are cut off?

CIRINCIONE: That's exactly right. The reactor is a controlled nuclear explosion. Fission is going on in the rods. They're kept close enough to allow the fission but far enough apart so that they don't go out of control. Well, that depends on cooling systems and other mechanical operations. If you lose control of that, that means those rods heat up and then you're looking at what they call the "China Syndrome."

[18:10:01]

The rods melt together and the whole melted core falls through the retainment vessels, through the containment facilities, and then into the atmosphere, into the ground water, and you're looking at plumes of radioactivity spreading over hundreds or even thousands of square kilometers. And there is nothing you can do at that point. That's what you're worried about here in addition to operator error maybe causing such an accident. Russian shells hitting some of the spent fuel rods, causing lesser but still lethal radioactive leaks. There's numbers of ways that this facility could turn into a nuclear

catastrophe. Way too many for comfort.

ACOSTA: And Bob, the "New York Times" is reporting that this plant could be a deliberately turned into a potential dirty bomb. We've seen pictures of Russian trucks inside the plant. Are we seeing a new front of a potential nuclear threat in all of this?

BAER: Well, Jim, I think so. Putin is losing the war. Slowly. At this point. He failed to take Kyiv. He is failing in Donbas as we know. And he's failing in Kherson. And so he is looking at this nuclear power plant almost as a hostage. He is telling the Europeans, he's telling us as well, that unless you guys come to terms with me, this place could go up like Chernobyl. And we'll spread radiation all across western Europe and even into the United States if this thing were to blow.

I think he is this desperate at this point that he's looking at this power plant, this nuclear power plant in just that way.

ACOSTA: And Joe, inspectors from the IAEA, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog group, that have been on site, the agency's chief says Zaporizhzhia and Chernobyl are, quote, "quite incomparable." Can you explain that?

CIRINCIONE: Yes. Chernobyl was a much earlier design. There was no containment facility for example. So when it exploded there was nothing at all to contain the radioactive plume and it went out of control very quickly. These are much more modern reactors that we have here, six reactors, and they have very thick containment domes, about a meter or two meters thick, reinforced concrete.

So you're not going to see a Chernobyl type accident. But that's why I make the Fukushima comparison. That's what most experts are looking at. So still a major nuclear catastrophe, just not quite on the scale of Chernobyl.

And I have to say I agree with Bob. I think this is a form of nuclear terrorism. Putin is using this to try to get Ukraine to surrender and to try to get the West to back off. So far, both are holding firm. I'd look for one more move. I suspect that in the back of Putin's mind is also a plan to steal this plant. It's connected to the Ukrainian power grid. I would -- Putin might say that for safety reasons we now have to connect it to the Russian power grid in effect stealing Ukrainian energy and shipping it over to Russia.

ACOSTA: Wow. And, Bob, the last leader of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev was buried in Moscow. Many of the mourners used his funeral as a silent protest against Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine. As the war drags on, do you think Putin faces any real threat of a domestic uprising? And I guess your thoughts on the passing of Mikhail Gorbachev and what this means.

I mean, I remember at the time when the Berlin wall came crumbling down and the world had so much hope for Russia and it's just fallen apart. BAER: Well, it's worse than fallen apart, I mean, Jim, he's Stalin,

you know, redux at this point. What he is doing to the Russian democracy, it's over. But he's more, even irrational than Stalin. And we don't know where it's going to go next. But the Russia we know from the Gorbachev era, all that hope is gone.

ACOSTA: It truly is. All right, Bob Baer, Joe Cirincione, a lot of cautionary words from both of you. We'll take it to heart. Thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it.

CIRINCIONE: Thank you, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Coming up former President Donald Trump campaigns for Republican candidates in Pennsylvania but uses the rally to air his grievances, his lies, and labeling President Biden, quote, "the enemy of the state."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:18:33]

ACOSTA: The high stakes midterm season is kicking into full gear but this time it's not just control of the House and the Senate on the line. If you listen to what President Biden said in Philadelphia Thursday, the choice on the ballot will help determine the fate of American democracy. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And last night former President Trump responded, saying this about the man who defeated him in 2020.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT: He's an enemy of the state, you want to know the truth. The enemy of the state is him and the group that control him, which is circling around him. Do this, do that, Joe. You're going to do this, Joe. Right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And joining me now to talk about this is CNN's senior political analyst and senior editor for the "Atlantic" Ron Brownstein and Barbara Walter, professor of International Relations at the University of California San Diego. She's also the author of the book "How Civil Wars Start and How to Stop Them."

Ron, I do think we have to hit the pause button and talk about what Trump said last night. Those remarks calling -- here you have the former president of the United States calling the current president of the United States an enemy of the state. Did Donald Trump just prove Joe Biden's point?

[18:20:07]

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, I mean, I think the evidence is overwhelming that Donald Trump is the leader of an un- democratic faction in American politics that is now the dominant faction in the Republican Party. It's not the entire Republican Party and President Biden was very clear and explicit in making that case during, you know, during his speech last week.

But it is the dominant faction. When you look at the results of the primaries this summer Trump style election deniers are winning in state after state. And Jim, what I have found to be extremely revealing is the reaction from so many other Republican elected officials and conservative pundits to the speech. Because as you know, they are all saying in effect that Biden smeared all of you.

He said that anybody who doesn't support Democrats is a threat to American democracy. In fact, he said the opposite. But I think the reason why they want to put that message out is they don't want the one-fifth to one-quarter of Republicans that polls consistently tell us are uneasy with Trump and Trumpism to believe that they have another choice but falling in line in a party where they are now clearly the subordinate minority.

ACOSTA: Right, and, Barbara, you study civil wars. Is President Biden right about the threat the country faces right now, do you think?

BARBARA WALTER, PROFESSOR, ROHR CHAIR IN PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIEGO: He is partly, although I want to emphasize we're not on the precipice of civil war. But we know from just decades of research on civil wars that parcel democracies, so weak and declining democracies, and those democracies with political parties that have broken down along racial and religious lines, are at the highest risk of political violence and civil war.

And we have, again, as we just heard, we have a big faction of one of our two major parties who wants to unravel our democracy because it no longer serves them. They can't win if we remain a one person, one vote democracy. And so that's the direction they'd want to move us into, which is that dangerous zone. And then of course we do have political parties that have definitely broken down along racial and religious lines. So as long as we continue to have these two features in our country, we're going to continue to be at increasing risk of violence in the future.

ACOSTA: And, Ron, I want to play another moment from Trump's speech last night when he went after the FBI and the Justice Department for the search at Mar-a-Lago, again, another incendiary, dangerous, irresponsible comment from Trump. Here is what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) TRUMP: The FBI and the Justice Department have become vicious monsters, controlled by radical left scoundrels, lawyers, and the media who tell them what to do, you people right there, and when to do it. They're trying to silence me and more importantly they are trying to silence you, but we will not be silenced. Right?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Now, in response to that, Congresswoman Liz Cheney tweeted this. And we show this, "Trump is attacking law enforcement yet again using language he knows will provoke violence. Only one group of Americans has a chance to diminish this danger -- Republicans. If my fellow Republicans fail to step up to stop this, they will share the blame for all that follows."

Ron, I mean, you know, Barbara is right in that we're not on the edge of falling into a civil war, going into a civil war where people are killing each other in the streets. But this kind of language can incite violence and isn't that the point here?

BROWNSTEIN: Yes, look, I've written that we are I believe in the modern equivalent of the 1850s. The only question is what the modern equivalent of the 1860s looks like. And by that I mean that we are functionally already in a Cold War between two inimical factions that have fundamentally different visions for what the country should be.

And Liz Cheney is right fundamentally. I think people who study this internationally will say that the key -- and I will defer to Professor Walter on this, but the key when democracies are threatened by un- democratic forces, the key is what does the center right do? Do they try to isolate those un-democratic forces or do they try to benefit from them, benefit from their energy in the belief often mistaken that they can control it and harness it?

And certainly, Republicans throughout the Trump presidency and as we are seeing again after his presidency with the reaction to the Mar-a- Lago search warrant, they have chosen the former strategy. They are trying to get the benefits of how Trump energizes his movement without confronting the full scale reality of the level of threat that he poses to democracy as we have known it in this country.

You know, the paradox, Jim, is that while there are undeniable electoral benefits to the energy Trump has unleashed there is also a real cost. And there is the potential that a normal midterm election which would have been a referendum on the party in power that probably would not have gone very well for Democrats is clearly evolving into something much more of a choice where they have much more of a fighting chance and part of that is the Supreme Court on abortion, but part of it also is voters asking, are they comfortable with the re- emergence of Trump to the extent we have seen?

[18:25:16]

ACOSTA: Right. Republicans want the midterms to be about Joe Biden and Donald Trump is making it about himself right now. And, Barbara, you write not only about civil wars but how to prevent

them. It's right in the title of your book. What do you think about this? Is it helpful in terms of easing the divide for President Biden to call out the threat? Is it helpful in terms of preventing damage being done to our democracy by calling out and having a discussion like we are having right now, playing what Trump was saying last night and having this discussion?

WALTER: Yes. I think it's a really fine line where you don't want to be unusually or unreasonably alarmist. You don't want to create a sense of fear in the population so that they become uneasy and they feel threatened. That is in fact what Donald Trump is trying to do. He is engaging in fear-mongering as a way to gain support, which is a very dangerous strategy in the long term.

The Democrats have to be very careful and I think Biden has been quite careful. It's two years into his presidency. We know that America's democracy has been declining since 2016. And this is the first time he's really come out publicly and stated it very clearly. And the reason he's doing that is he doesn't want people to become afraid.

But the reality is, if you don't say anything, if you stick your head in the ground, this actually allows -- it makes it easier for those who do want to create some sort of authoritarian or strongman minority-ruled government here, sort of similar to what you have in Hungary, it simply allows them to do that more easily.

They can do it quietly behind the scenes. And no one is looking. And what Biden did was really he lifted the curtain on that.

ACOSTA: All right. Ron Brownstein, Barbara Walter, we'll have this discussion, we'll continue to have it. Thanks so much for being on with us this evening. We appreciate it.

BROWNSTEIN: Thank you.

WALTER: My pleasure.

ACOSTA: All right. Coming up, 100 homes burned and thousands evacuated as wildfires spread in scorching hot Northern California.

Plus --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What you doing here, man?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Watering the flower.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: A black pastor in Alabama arrested while watering his neighbor's flowers. Yes, you heard that right. Watering his neighbor's flowers. We'll show you the body camera footage next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [18:32:09]

ACOSTA: We have some new video to share of yesterday's drama that unfolded in the skies over Tupelo, Mississippi. Hours after the pilot of a stolen plane threatened to intentionally crash into a Walmart, this is where he eventually crash landed. Take a look at this. It's a soybean field in nearby Ripley. The suspect is an employee of an aviation company at the airport where the plane was stolen.

Police say he doesn't appear to be a licensed pilot. He is charged with grand larceny and making terroristic threats. It's also expected that he will face some federal charges. But just some remarkable video there to show you.

In Northern California, meanwhile, authorities are urging thousands of residents to flee two fast moving wildfires and warn conditions are extremely dangerous. The Mill Fire and the Mountain Fire have now burned more than 10,000 acres in that area. Dozens of buildings and homes have gone up in flames. California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency for that area and CNN's Chris Nguyen joins me now.

Chris, this just looks really, really serious. What's the latest?

CHRIS NGUYEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim, as these temperatures climb so does the fire danger. As you said, there are two major wildfires burning right now in Siskiyou County. That's up in Northern California. More than 10,000 acres have burned, dozens of structures have been destroyed. And more than 1,000 people are currently under an evacuation orders.

And because of the conditions are so dry, the wind forecast is going to be crucial as CalFire works to contain those wildfires. And in terms of those dry conditions, because of the drought that we're experiencing here in California, CalFire is urging the public to be careful this holiday weekend when it comes to doing anything that could potentially spark another wildfire -- Jim.

ACOSTA: And Chris, talk to us about this extreme heat out west. 40 million people are under heat alerts right now. It is hot.

NGUYEN: It has been an incredibly hot day here in Santa Monica with temperatures approaching triple digits. State officials here in California have issued a Flex Alert once again asking the public to conserve energy especially between the hours of 4:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. Here at Santa Monica pier we spoke to some folks who came out early to beat the heat. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I needed to hurry up and get out here to this beach area before it got smoldering hot, like closer to a hundred. I'm going to really enjoy myself. I'm going over here and get into this nice, cool water.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Find anything we can do to stay cool. Come out here, it's just as hot. The beach or no beach is hot.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, my gosh, you walk out of the store with an ice cream cone and it melts in your hand. This is ridiculous. It was 108 going through Mohave.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[18:35:02]

NGUYEN: And, Jim, Governor Gavin Newsom believes that today and tomorrow could be the most challenging for the state's power grid as California deals with its longest heatwave of the year -- Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Chris Nguyen, thanks for staying on top of that for us. We appreciate it.

In Wyoming efforts continue to find a woman who has been missing for months. 33-year-old Irene Gakwa hasn't been seen since February 24th when she last video-chatted with her family in Nairobi, Kenya. At the time they didn't know she was living in Wyoming with a man she had met on Craigslist. After that day she no longer responded to video calls.

CNN's Faith Karimi joins me now.

Faith, the family received or they claimed they received messages from Irene's phone making excuses for why she couldn't talk to them but this does sound like a very worrisome situation. What can you tell us?

FAITH KARIMI, CNN DIGITAL SENIOR WRITER: Jim, thanks for having me. So some of the messages they got forecast on reasons why she could not answer her video calls which was a red flag for her family because she is big on calling people on video call and some of them gave excuses such as she was sick, her phone had fallen into the water, and the microphone wasn't working. So she couldn't do video calls. So that was a red flag for her family and they started trying to reach out to people who knew her to find out if they knew where she was or they had talked to her.

ACOSTA: And this case is odd for a lot of reasons. Her boyfriend told police he last saw her when she came home one night, packed her clothing in two plastic bags, and left in a dark colored SUV. This is according to him. From your experience, I mean, how realistic is that?

KARIMI: Talking to her family, we've been in conversations, we've talked for months and to them the scenario doesn't make sense because Irene was very close to her family and she talks to her parents in Kenya every other day. And her boyfriend said that she had packed and left in late February. He never reported her missing. He never reached out to Irene's brothers, who he talks to in the past so he knew how to reach out to them. So he never reached out to them to tell them that she was missing.

And so the family just is not sure he did everything he was supposed to do when his girlfriend disappeared, and especially considering they knew how -- he knew how to reach them. ACOSTA: And the boyfriend has not been charged but he is considered a

person of interest in the disappearance. He is also a suspect from what we understand in some financial crimes against her after she went missing including felony, unlawful use of her credit card. If he refuses to cooperate like he is currently doing what are the chances of finding her after all of this time? A lot of time has passed.

KARIMI: Yes, so it's been about six months since she was last seen on the video call. The last time she was seen was on a video call with her dad in February, late February. The first 48 hours are very critical when it comes to finding someone because you know your chances of being found get lower around after 48 hours. And so the family is just -- they go back and forth between hoping that she'll be found and fearing the worst.

They obviously want to see their daughter and their sister alive, and they are hoping that she will somehow turn up. But I've talked to the dad over the last few weeks and he told me that, you know, he understands it's been a lot of time since she disappeared but he hopes that whether she is alive or not he can get answers. He hates waking up every day and not knowing where Irene is. Irene was his only daughter. She was the youngest of three kids so, you know, he is really worried about her.

So he understands that it's been a long time since she was last seen, but, you know, he still has hope, you know? As every parent hopes their child is still alive out there.

ACOSTA: Absolutely. You have to have hope. All right. Faith Karimi, thank you very much for that reporting.

Coming up, sympathizers of the January 6th rioters took center stage at a major Republican campaign rally in Pennsylvania. We'll tell you about that.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:43:51]

ACOSTA: Our breaking news in to CNN at least 10 people are dead and several others injured in a string of stabbings across Canada's Saskatchewan Province. Canadian authorities are calling it a mass stabbing encompassing 13 crime scenes. Two suspects have been identified at this hour, Damian Sanderson and Miles Sanderson. Police say they're traveling in a black Nissan Rogue with a Saskatchewan license plate.

We'll of course bring you any developments that come in as that investigation unfolds.

The January 6th Committee is preparing for an end-of-the-year sprint as their investigation enters its final months.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: You said the January 6th Committee plans at least one hearing this month. Any update on when that could be, what it would cover, and when do you think we will see that full report? Will we see it by the end of the year?

REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): Well, let me say, I always leave the announcements up to the chair and vice chair so I'm not able to answer that question but, surely. We will have our complete report done by the end of this year. We've always planned on that. And as you know, all congressional select committees are established for the life of the Congress. And so that has always been our intention and remains so.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[18:45:04]

ACOSTA: And CNN national security reporter Zach Cohen has been covering the committee's investigation since it began.

And Zach, the committee had a little bit of a break but here in Washington they're going to have to get back to work pretty soon here. And we still don't have all of the answers to a lot of pressing questions. And so what could we expect in these final months?

ZACHARY COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Jim. I mean, look, they've known that this looming deadline is coming for a while. Now they knew they had to put out a report. But, you know, they sort of changed things up a little bit and decided they wanted to hold at least one more public hearing after the first round that just concluded earlier this summer.

Now you said there had been a little bit of a break. But they would argue they've been working this entire time. They're seeking new information, trying to bring if new witnesses including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who they sent a letter to just last week asking him to come in and they cited previously unknown communications that Gingrich had with senior White House Trump advisers, Jared Kushner being one, Mark Meadows being another one.

So we didn't know about Newt Gingrich's involvement at all in the lead up to January 6th but, you know, the committee wants to bring him in and hopes he'll do so voluntarily. Now another person they want to talk to absolutely is former vice president Mike Pence and we've heard members sort of allude to, you know, his willingness or lack thereof to come in and talk to the panel.

You know, Congressman Raskin today even mentioned that he expects Mike Pence to come in. Now it remains to be seen if that happens but the committee is still pushing ahead and still expects to put out that report and hold more hearings.

ACOSTA: And of course many January 6th defendants are still awaiting trial on their charges stemming from the insurrection. Cynthia Hughes who runs a support group for January 6th defendants was an opening speaker last night at Trump's rally in Pennsylvania. If you miss this, this actually happened. She spoke about her nephew, a convicted Capitol insurrectionist who has been in jail since his arrest well over a year ago. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CYNTHIA HUGHES, NEPHEW JAILED FOR BREACHING U.S. CAPITOL: He went to the nation's Capitol to hear his president speak. He dressed in a suit and tie and his favorite hat. Tim wanted to take part in what he thought was going to be a historical event. Instead, he witnessed a horror show.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: But Aunt Cynthia is not telling the whole story, is that right, Zach?

COHEN: Yes, Jim. That's right. Look, Aunt Cynthia as you call her, Cynthia Hughes used her time at this high profile Trump rally to talk about her nephew who as she says has been in jail for nearly two years now but she holds him up as sort of the poster child for January 6th related injustice but in reality the Justice Department has argued that he is a Nazi sympathizer and he's somebody who the judge in this case, a Trump appointee, was so concerned that his violent, you know, Neo-Nazi-esque rhetoric was going to turn from words into violence. So that's why the judge decided to keep him in jail while his court process played out. And so --

ACOSTA: And we're showing a picture of him right now.

COHEN: Right. And so that's how his case went viral. The Justice Department released this photo of Miss Hughes' nephew. And, you know, you have to look at the facts here, though. And his defense in his case was that he didn't know that Congress met at the Capitol. Clearly the jury did not buy that.

But I think bigger picture here you got to look at the fact that there is a ton of January 6th defendants that the former president could have chosen from in terms of featuring them to defend or at least try to draw sympathy for people who were at the Capitol on January 6th and this was the case that ultimately took center stage during this rally.

ACOSTA: Yes. The rally organizers instead made the decision to defend somebody who has a Hitler mustache in these photos. I mean, that's what we were just showing a few moments ago. We put it back up on screen. This is who they were defending last night at the Trump rally in Pennsylvania. It's just -- it's astonishing. And the rhetoric that was being used last night was just absolutely irresponsible.

All right, Zach Cohen, thanks very much for that report. We appreciate it.

Coming up, the head of NASA joins me live after a major setback in launching the first mission to the moon in 50 years. The next steps in the space race, that's next.

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[18:53:27] ACOSTA: A one in 200-year flood event in Georgia today. This was the scene in the northern part of the state. Take a look at this. Flash floods overwhelming roads, homes and businesses. Georgia's Governor Brian Kemp has issued a state of emergency with an estimated foot of rain expected in some places, expected to cause rivers to rise rapidly. This gas station in this next shot, you can see here, wow. Look at that. Just completely flooded over. And it's not over yet. More rain is expected tonight.

The governor of Texas now says that rape victims in the state will be permitted to take Plan B also known as the morning after pill. Republican Governor Greg Abbott says that emergency contraceptive will be made available to victims of rape. This after his state's almost total abortion ban went into effect last night making no exemption for rape or incest. That's so-called trigger laws also generating new criminal penalties for abortions performed after six weeks which is before many women of course even know that they're pregnant.

They risk their lives to bring us the biggest headlines from around the world. "NO ORDINARY LIFE" is a new CNN Film. It shares the remarkable story of five female photojournalists who made their mark by braving the frontlines to capture images from Tiananmen Square, conflicts in Iraq, Somalia and more. Here's a preview.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We were sent out on these stories. And they were very dangerous. There's a lot of shelling going on, a lot of shooting going on. We got right in the middle of it.

[18:55:11]

Had to hunker down three times from the snipers. Frightening.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Take the camera down.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But we got the story. And I got the job.

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ACOSTA: "NO ORDINARY LIFE" premiers tomorrow night at 10:00 only on CNN.

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