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Washington Post: Trump had Material on Nuclear Capabilities; Fake Trump Elector Helped Operative into Elections Office; Brutal Heat Wave Wreaks Havoc Across Western U.S.; U.N. Secretary-General to Survey Pakistan Flood Damage; Liz Truss Vows Action on U.K.'s Economic Challenges; Biden Looks to Midterms and Beyond at Cabinet Meeting. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired September 07, 2022 - 04:00   ET

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

[04:00:00]

MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Max Foster in London. Just ahead --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The added suspense in the classified documents probe after the search of Mar-a-Lago.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: One of the things found in the course of that search was a document that described a foreign government's military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And record-setting heatwave is bringing scorching misery to the U.S. West Coast.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And it's also very windy which is also pushing some of the flames.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People are hitting a nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe. Nuclear security is indispensable. We are playing with fire.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster.

FOSTER: It's Wednesday, September 7, 9:00 a.m. here in London and 4:00 a.m. on the U.S. East Coast.

We're learning new details about what the FBI found at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home. "The Washington Post" reports that agents recovered a document on a foreign government military defenses and nuclear capabilities. The paper cites people familiar with the matter and CNN has reported the Justice Department has recovered more than 300 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago this year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) DEVLIN BARRETT, WASHINGTON POST: You're talking about documents that should be stored in a SCIF, it's a government acronym for a very secure room, and should have someone who is designated -- a government official designated to keep very close tabs on those kinds of documents. That's another cause for concern because obviously when they conducted this search, they looked in a storage room, they looked in the former president's office, and you know, those aren't nearly the kinds of places with the kinds of security for documents like that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: There's been no response from Donald Trump or his legal team to the "Washington Post" report. But CNN's legal analysts say this new revelation makes criminal charges against the former president more likely and it calls in to question a federal judge's decision to have a special master review the material seized from Mar-a-Lago.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: These are very, very serious documents. You know, they're not the sort of thing that should be anywhere outside of the proper places inside the SCIF. So, you know, it seems to me that this is the sort of thing that makes it more likely that ultimately, we'll see a criminal charge here. Whether it is an actual classified documents charge or the statute that they listed in the search warrant about national defense information.

PETER STRZOK, FORMER FBI CHIEF OF COUNTERESPIONAGE SECTION: Mar-a- Lago, Manhattan, Trump Towers, Bedminster, are all targets for foreign intelligence collection. Every single nation out there is after what information and what conversations go on there. So, this is extraordinarily concerning. And you know, it points to the absurdity of this whole idea of a special master.

Now setting aside all the legal problematic issues there, but you cannot separate -- people say well, she let the damage assessment go forward. Well, that's true, but you know what the damage assessment can't do? The damage assessment can't take this document, send it down to the lab at the FBI and dust for fingerprints to figure out who's touched it. That's important for the damage assessment. But it's also really important for the counterintelligence investigations to figure out who might have had access and of course it is also potentially relevant for the criminal investigation as well.

So, for a judge to sit there and say, well, we're worried about reputational harm, we're taking all the stuff off the table, you can't look at it, you can't use this investigatively until months and months potentially pass really harms just the efforts to protect national security across the board that the FBI and intelligence community are trying to engage in right now.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Donald Trump's former Attorney General is speaking out against the federal judge's ruling on the Mar-a-Lago search. William Barr says he thinks the decision to appoint a special master to review materials seized from Trump's home is deeply flawed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WILLIAM BARR, FORMER U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: The opinion I think was wrong and I think the government should appeal it. I don't think the appointment of a special master is going to hold up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOSTER: Barr says that even if the decision holds up, it won't fundamentally change the Justice Department's investigation, only delay it for a short time.

[04:05:00]

Now Georgia authorities are investigating newly obtained surveillance video which shows a Republican county official escorting two pro-Trump operatives into local election offices. They gained access on the same day the voting system there was breached. CNN's senior investigative correspondent Drew Griffin has the story.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: The surveillance video you're about to see is from an elections office in the state of Georgia, a swing state in the United States. Just one of the states where these breaches of voting machines are under investigation.

Cathy Latham is the woman in blue. She used to be the chairwoman of the Coffee County Republican Party. She's already under investigation for posing as a fake elector, signing a document that declared Donald Trump won the 2020 election, not Joe Biden. She can be seen escorting a team of these pro-Trump operatives into the elections office where those operatives then breached the voting machines, including a man named Paul Maggio. He is an IT specialist whose company was hired by Trump attorney Sydney Powell.

Now how do we know that they breached the machines once inside? This guy, Scott Hall, actually admits it in this audio obtained by CNN.

SCOTT HALL, IT SPECIALIST: I'm the guy that chartered the jet to go down to Coffee County to have them inspect all of those computers. And I've heard zero, OK? I went down there, we scanned every freaking ballot and they scanned all the equipment, imaged all the hard drives, and scanned every single ballot.

GRIFFIN: Scott Hall turns out to be an Atlanta bail bondsman and described as a Republican operative. CNN got no response from him when we asked for his response. Cathy Latham who opened the door in the video, she has been connected to this plan to access the elections office through emails and texts documented in a civil case. Her attorney told us that Ms. Latham has not acted improperly or illegally and Ms. Latham did not authorize or participate in any ballot scanning efforts, computer imaging or any similar activity.

The IT specialist firm says it has no reason to believe that the lawyers that hired them would direct them to do anything wrong. But there seems to be no doubt this county's machines were compromised and ballots were scanned on behest of these operatives working for Donald Trump.

Drew Griffin, CNN, Atlanta.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: A New Mexico judge has removed January 6 rioter Coy Griffin from his elected position as a county commissioner for his role in the U.S. Capitol attack. Griffin the founder of Cowboys for Trump had been convicted of trespassing earlier this year. Tuesday's ruling states he violated a clause in the Constitution's 14th amendment by participating in an insurrection against the U.S. government. Griffin is also barred from serving in any future state or federal elected position.

And Trump associate Steve Bannon is expected to surrender to New York state prosecutors on Thursday over a new indictment. The charges are related to his fundraising efforts to build a wall along the southern U.S. border. It's the same conduct Bannon was charged with by federal prosecutors back in 2020 but former President Trump pardoned him. In a statement Bannon called the indictment nothing more than a partisan political weaponization of the criminal justice system.

A brutal heatwave is scorching the U.S. West Coast causing closures, delays and major concerns for residents. In Denver more than 30 schools closed early on Tuesday due to extreme heat. And in California, the city of Sacramento reached 115 degrees, breaking its all-time heat record. The excessive heat is taxing California's power grid with utilities warning of rolling blackouts. Officials say those temperatures are making it more difficult to fight rapidly growing fires across the state. The Fairview fire has grown to nearly 5,000 acres since Monday and it's only 5 percent contained. That's creating a nightmare for residents.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We believe our house was saved. We're one of the lucky ones. We feel bad for all these other people that lost their homes. Thankfully we're all right and a few of our other neighbors are all right, so.

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FOSTER: Well, according to CAL fire, there are more than 25,000 acres burning across the state, but there are fires in other states as well fueled by the scorching heat. Pedram Javaheri is going to take us through it, the really extreme conditions.

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, Max, it's so hot that officials there in California are urging folks to keep their air conditioning set to 78 Fahrenheit, about 26 Celsius, just to kind of alleviate some of the concern on the grid there because of the extensive nature of this heat, the long duration of this particular heatwave. [04:10:04]

Heat indices in some areas will feel closer to 115 degrees. When you factor in what's happening across this region, of course, you'll notice the records have been falling in on the order of dozens now, 45 plus records that were set just on Tuesday across the Western United States. And what's impressive is you check your calendar, you know it is early September, typically when it comes early September temperatures should be on a downward trend. But in fact, the middle portion of July into early August when the climatological peak is for heat across United States.

But you'll notice, these sort of temperatures among the warmest we've ever seen in the month September. Death Valley's 125 afternoon, one degree shy of the all-time warmest weather ever observed in the world in the month of September. That was 126 in another location in the Mojave Desert in California.

But you'll notice San Jose, all-time September warmth taking place. Denver into San Francisco, warmest weather on record for this month and certainly an impressive run of heat even across portions of the state of Utah. This is Salt lake city, the first six days of the month, all exceeding 100 degrees. So again, this long duration setup really not only taking its toll on people across this region, but also zapping any of the little fuel, any moisture I should say left of the soil across this region in the Western U.S. so plenty of fuel to be had. In fact, there are 65 large active fires across the U.S., Max, 63 of them across the Western U.S., two of them across the southern United States.

Again, speaking to just how dry and how hot this region has been in the last couple of days. Notice in Sacramento, temps warm up to 112 degrees, dropped to 107. Heatwaves that even in July would be considered historic taking place here in September. And notice finally coming back down to seasonal averages by Saturday and Sunday. But an incredible heatwave here impacting a lot of people -- Max.

FOSTER: OK, Pedram, thank you very much indeed.

FOSTER: The U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is set to travel to Pakistan today to survey the devastating effects of recent flooding. The deluge across the country has killed more than 1,300 people. CNN's Anna Coren has more from Hong Kong.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

ANNA COREN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Stretching to the horizon and beyond, an expanse of endless brown, murky water dotted with tops of trees and roofs of houses. Never before has Pakistan seen this scale of flooding as water now covers one-third of the country.

This climate change-induced disaster has been months in the making. With more than double the amount of rain falling since May, in what the U.N. has referred to as a monsoon on steroids.

Last month's deluge unleashing even more misery as violent torrents of water decimated townships, homes and crops, the sheer volume unable to drain away.

CHRIS KAYE, PAKISTAN COUNTRY DIRECTOR, WORLD FOOD PROGRAMME: Hundreds of thousands of families now have absolutely nothing. The land where they had their house is totally flooded. They don't have anything more than what they're wearing.

COREN (voice-over): Thirty-three million people have been affected. That's around 15 percent of Pakistan's population. More than 600,000 people have moved into displaced persons camp, but some of the most vulnerable have been left stranded.

On this tiny strip of land are a number of families, their surviving livestock, a few belongings, and 24-day-old Shamalia (ph). Her mother Kainat is sick, exhausted and struggling to care for her sixth child. She's marked the baby's forehead to ward off evil spirits.

I want my baby to survive, but it's God's will if she dies, she says. We cannot afford to move from this area. We are at the mercy of nature because we are poor people. Kainat says she labored with baby Shamalia through the rains.

The World Health Organization says 1.2 million pregnant women are among those displaced across Pakistan.

A few bags of aid have been dropped off, but it's not enough to sustain the families according to its 70-year-old grandmother, who has witnessed three floods in her lifetime but nothing quite like this.

We keep our eyes on our children after sunset. They could fall down into the water and drown. We have one meal a day. We have to save food for our kids. God, please help us.

But it's not just a lack of food they're worried about. Mosquitoes, venomous snakes, and waterborne diseases are a constant threat. The WHO says cases of typhoid, malaria, and diarrheal diseases are rising and will undoubtedly worsen.

[04:15:00]

Foreign aid is slowly trickling in. Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and now head of USAID, Samantha Power, and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres are due to arrive in Pakistan this week in a desperate bid to ramp up international assistance and support.

KAYE: Pakistan, looking forward, is very dire. We've got to be there for the long term. We've got to be there for three or four months at the minimum in order to save lives.

COREN (voice-over): But for these people, mere survival is a daily struggle, and these clear blue skies aren't expected to last long. More devastating monsoonal rains are days away to further terrorizing a traumatized country.

Anna Coren, CNN, Hong Kong.

(END VIDEOTAPE) FOSTER: Still to come, new report says new safety measures are needed a Ukrainian nuclear plant under Russian control. Without them experts fear a possible nuclear emergency.

And later, students in Uvalde, Texas go back to school less than four months after a deadly shooting. How families are facing the new year with the tragedy still fresh in their minds.

Plus, Liz Truss says Britain can ride out the storm, but can she convince the country? Shall soon be in the hot seat. CNN's Nada Bashir is live at 10 Downing Street.

NADA BASHIR, CNN REPORTER: Liz Truss faces many challenges ahead and she will surely be questioned on how she plans to address these challenges at Prime Minister's questions later today in Parliament.

[04:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LIZ TRUSS, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We will transform Britain into an aspiration nation with high paying jobs, safe streets and where everyone everywhere has the opportunities they deserve.

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FOSTER: An optimistic outlook from Britain's new Prime Minister as Liz Truss prepares to tackle the many economic challenges facing the nation. Amongst her early priorities are addressing the energy crisis and boosting growth. And as she fills out her cabinet, she's set to face her first Prime Minister's questions in just about a few hours.

CNN's Nada Bashir is live from 10 Downing Street for us. This is always the big high profile event, isn't it, of the week in Westminster. And many people don't really know much about her, so it will be a getting to know you session as much as everything else.

BASHIR: Yes, absolutely. And another thing that many people have questions about is actually the details around this bold new plan that she has promised to tackle the crisis that the country now faces on various fronts. There are many challenges ahead for the Prime Minister, not a lot of details just yet. We did hear from her yesterday giving her first address outside Number 10 as Prime Minister.

She acknowledged that it won't be easy but said that she is confident that Britain can ride out this storm. And as you laid out there, she highlighted three key areas that she plans to focus on the coming weeks and months as Prime Minister. Chief among them of course is the economy. And she said she plans to grow the economy by cutting taxes and pursuing economic reforms. The country is of course facing rising inflation rates and a severe cost of living crisis. Something that will certainly be at the forefront of many people's minds up and down the country. It's something that members of the opposition will surely be pressing the Prime Minister during the Prime Minister's questions later today in Parliament.

Of course, a second he question issue on many people's minds is the energy crisis. The Prime Minister has repeatedly now pledged to ensure that people aren't facing unaffordable energy bills and to security Britain's energy supply for the future. Now we've already heard from the newly appointed Chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng speaking yesterday. Saying that the government is finalizing its plans for an urgent support package to help people with their energy bills with an announcement expected sometime this week.

So, there are still questions around the details of how Liz Truss and her government plan to tackle that energy crisis. She will face the opposition in Parliament later today and there will be questions around those details but also of course questions around how she can unite her party behind her and behind her new government -- Max.

FOSTER: Nada, thank you.

Now the U.S. midterms are about two months away and political campaigning is ramping up. On Tuesday President Joe Biden set the tone for Democrats and his next two years in office at a cabinet meeting. And the officials sitting around the table were the same individuals at the outset of Mr. Biden's term. It's a stark difference from the revolving door during his predecessor's term. CNN's Kaitlan Collins has more from Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Biden hosting his fifth cabinet meeting since taking office at the White House on Tuesday. He was putting out this message following a string of legislative victories for Democrats and for his administration, talking about that and talking about what they've gotten done and what they'd like to get done in the future.

And that is also a message that you were seeing President Biden use on the campaign trail. Where you have seen him very often in recent days. And the White House says \ you can expect to see a lot more of him in the near future in the next nine weeks as they are in the run-up to the midterm elections.

Of course, following Labor Day in the United States, that is when the political season gets into its busiest aspect and President Biden is expected to be on the road two to three times a week according to White House officials campaigning for candidates in battleground states. And you've already gotten a bit of a taste of that with President Biden going to Pennsylvania three times within seven days alone, also visiting Wisconsin. He's got a trip coming up to Ohio. And also, another one to Michigan.

All of these are states where President Biden is not just taking his message about his legislative accomplishments, he is also talking about what he believes is the threat if Republicans are elected and they do get a majority on Capitol Hill, at least in the House, maybe potentially even in the Senate. And the president has been making this argument distinguishing between

what he calls these MAGA Republicans and mainstream Republicans. He says he is making that distinction because he has worked with mainstream Republicans at other times in his career, but it's the ones who are shaping themselves in the ideology and in the mold of former President Trump that he believes are the threat. And he has this concern, not just because of what could happen on Capitol Hill but also when it comes to governors races and how elections can be administered going forward not just now, but also in 2024.

Kaitlan Collins, CNN, the White House.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

FOSTER: Health experts say Americans may need to get a single coronavirus booster every year.

[04:25:00]

The head of the White House COVID response team says the virus will eventually be treated more like the flu and a routine part of our lives. This marks a shift in the government's approach as it keeps scaling back its pandemic response. Authorities urge Americans 12 and older to take advantage of the updated boosters which match the currently circulating variants.

Now e-cigarette maker JUUL will pay nearly $440 million to dozens of U.S. states and territories in a new settlement over its marketing to minors. An investigation found that JUUL deliberately promoted its products to young people even though e-cigarette sales to children are illegal. Efforts included social media campaigns, fruit flavors and a presentation that told schoolchildren -- school children that the nicotine product was, quote, totally safe.

Now still ahead on CNN, playing with fire, that is the warning from a nuclear expert who says if changes aren't made to Ukraine's largest nuclear plant, disaster is imminent.

Plus, Vladimir Putin talks global economics. The Russian president speaks out on Western sanctions and Moscow's own challenges. We'll break down his comments when we return.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FOSTER: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Max Foster. If you're just joining us, let me bring you up-to-date with our top stories this hour.

New details about the FBI search at Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort. The "Washington Post" reports investigators seized a document on a foreign nation's military and nuclear capabilities. CNN has already been reporting that hundreds of those documents were classified.

And in the coming hours newly appointed British Prime Minister Liz Truss will take part in her first questions in Parliament, the Truss transition comes as the economy faces crippling record inflation. We'll have much more on both these stories on CNN's "EARLY START."

[04:30:00]