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Tropical Storm Ian Gets Stronger as It Approaches Cuba; Florida Prepares as Tropical Storm Ian Gets Stronger; People Protest Mobilization Order in Russia's Far East; January 6th Committee to Hold Next Public Hearing This Week; Right-Wing Coalition Set to Win Parliamentary Election In Italy. Aired 4-4:30a ET

Aired September 26, 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]

CHRISTINA MACFARLANE, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world, I'm Christina Macfarlane in for Max Foster here in London. Just ahead --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're continuing to monitor tropical storm Ian that will become a hurricane very soon.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The entire state of Florida is going to feel this.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will indeed see that rapid intensification over the next couple days.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please listen to your local officials and take those evacuation orders seriously.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MACFARLANE: Good morning it's Monday September 26th, 9:00 a.m. here in London, 4:00 a.m. on the U.S. East Coast. Where the state of Florida is under a state of emergency. Officials are warning residents to prepare for the worst as tropical storm Ian gained strength in the Caribbean and barrels towards the state. The storm is pushing towards western Cuba right now but a tropical storm watch is in place for the Florida keys. The National Hurricane Center says Ian is close to hurricane strength and could become a major hurricane on Tuesday. Florida's governor and officials are urging people to get prepared now.

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RON DESANTIS (R) FLORIDA GOVERNOR: Expect heavy rains, strong winds, flash flooding, storm surge and even isolated tornadoes. Make preparations now and I know a lot of people have been doing it throughout the state of Florida. And the things that you should be prepared with, food, water, batteries, medicine, fuel. Anticipate -- particularly the closer you are to where the eye of the storm makes landfall -- anticipate power outages. That is something that will likely to happen with a hurricane of this magnitude.

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MACFARLANE: Well, have a rain and storm surges are expected and Tampa residents are filling sandbags to prevent flooding. Local officials say they're trying to stay prepared.

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JANE CASTOR, TAMPA, FLORIDA MAYOR: Of course, there's a high degree of worry whenever we have a named storm that we are in the trajectory or in the path of that storm. So, but we are preparing. You know, we like to rehearse and practice for these, but we certainly don't want to be on the main stage of Ian.

JOHN DAILEY, TALLAHASSEE, FLORIDA MAYOR: We are preparing right now and we've got the great men and women from the city of Tallahassee out making sure that our power lines are clear, our storm water systems are clear, you know, removing any debris that could possibly cause blockage. We're doing everything we can on the front end of the storm to prepare and secure our infrastructure.

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MACFARLANE: Well, residents across the state have also been stocking up on essential supplies and authorities say people must follow evacuation orders if necessary.

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SHERIFF CHAD CHRONISTER, HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY, FLORIDA: If an evacuation order is given, please heed that warning. You don't want to be that family or that individual that calls for help and us and our partners, first responders, can't get to you.

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MACFARLANE: CNN's Carlos Suarez is in Tampa following the storm.

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CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ahead of a possible impact with Ian, city officials here in Tampa opened three sand distribution sites on Sunday and the line at each location was quite busy. Officials here echoed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' declaration that folks need to prepare now and not later in a week.

At a briefing in Tallahassee, the governor said that 2,500 members of the Florida National Guard had been called up and he noted that the entire state of Florida is under an emergency declaration. He once again reiterated that it does not matter where you live in the state of Florida, you need to have your hurricane supplies now.

DESANTIS: It really is important to stress the degree of uncertainty that still exists. And so, anybody from Tampa Bay all the way to Escambia County, there are different tracks that would take it into anyone of those places. And I would also say to other Floridians, even if you're not necessarily right in the eye of the path of the storm, there's going to be pretty broad impacts throughout the state. You're going to have wind. You're going to have water. There could be flooding on the east coast of Florida as a result of this. It's a big storm.

SANCHEZ: City and county officials have left open the possibility of a possible evacuation, all of this depending on where Ian tracks.

Carlos Suarez, CNN, Tampa, Florida.

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MACFARLANE: Our meteorologist Pedram Javaheri is joining us.

[04:05:00]

And Pedram, as Florida prepares for the worst, do we have any idea where this storm is due to make land fall?

PEDRAM JAVAHERI, CNN METEOROLOGIST: You know, the models have been really disagreeing on quite a bit of this storm system. We know it is going to intensify rather quickly, Christina, the question is exactly how far west or how far east does it end up as it approaches the state of Florida.

Right now, is just about 100 miles or so south of the Cayman Islands, about 350 miles south of the western tip of Cuba. 70 miles per hour, meaning sustained winds are just about 4 miles per hour shy of a category 1 hurricane. We believe that will occur within the next hour, possibly in the next few hours here this becomes a category 1 hurricane. And that is the weakest it will remain here possibly for the next five maybe six days before it moves across land depending on which track it takes.

But notice, hurricane warnings have been prompted across the Cayman Islands and also across parts of Cuba because the system has what it takes to not only become a hurricane but potentially rapidly intensify. This is the warmest body of water across the Atlantic, the warmest region with the heat content across the Atlantic. So, we know the system will be really fueled rather quickly across this region.

Notice 9 to 14 foot storm surge the forecast around western Cuba. It will be a catastrophic storm surge. Parts of southwest Florida initial forecasts have storm surge threat as high as 7 feet across that region.

Here we go with the timing, we think landfall sometime in to the early morning hours of Tuesday around western Cuba as a category 2, because of the very little land interaction on Tuesday morning here, we do expect this to quickly intensify back up to a category 3 and possibly even to a category 4 from Tuesday into Wednesday.

Of course, any time you get to this scale, you're talking about a major hurricane. We know the population density quite high across portions of western Florida and this system is forecast to parallel the coast which is really the worst case scenario because the impacts across the state become a multi-day setup, where you get on shore winds, you get storm surge threat and significant rainfall.

And notice just the scope of the system here, the forecast guidance really begins to break apart. And I often tell people, don't fall in love with the center of that track because the western periphery of this cone indicates where the forecast guidance on some models takes the storm and the eastern periphery also shows where other models take this storm. So, we're kind of splitting the difference. But the storm doesn't travel in a straight line.

So, it will end up somewhere between that area and just to show you the variability between the initial forecast guidance from Saturday to Sunday models, notice how quickly from one day to the next it can shift. So, three to four days out you bet it is going to shift even more here in the coming several days. But again, the initial concern is Tuesday morning landfall around parts of western Cuba. And then look at this particular model, the European one, on Wednesday into Thursday bringing it near Tampa.

And again, showing you another model where again western Florida -- western Cuba looks to be the initial impact zone. But when you look at where it ends up in the United States, the American model wants to keep it offshore and possibly take to the Panhandle region near Panama City. So, we'll follow this as the story progresses and give you the latest here on CNN.

MACFARLANE: Yes and given the variability of those models we're going to have to keep a close eye on it. Pedram, thanks very much for now.

And as Pedram was mentioning there, of course, hurricane warnings have been issued for western Cuba as well. CNN's Patrick Oppmann has more from the capital of Havana.

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PATRICK OPPMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Cuban officials warned residents in the western portion of this island to remain on alert as Ian approaches Cuba. Certainly, in the low-lying areas, areas that are close to the water, most likely people will have to be evacuated from those areas. West of Havana, it is mostly agricultural areas and what we have heard throughout the day on Sunday is that people are readying their farms, are taking their livestock to areas that will be safer for them, are trying to collect crops. There's a lot of tobacco grown in this area. Because they know when the heavy winds and rain come in, that that is when they could lose their crops. So, they've been warned to get ready in advance of this powerful storm's arrival.

Up until now though, the Cuban government has not really given specific instructions to people. They're watching where this storm goes, if it will stay offshore, or if it will make landfall in Cuban territory. Certainly, if it comes to Cuba as a major hurricane, a category 3 or above, it could cause quite a bit of damage here. People have been hoping they would get through this hurricane season in Cuba without a hurricane striking the island. That does not appear to be the case, though. And Cubans are very concerned because already the Cuban economy has

taken so many hits throughout the last year or so with a result of the pandemic, essentially ending for more than a year all tourism to this island. The impact of U.S. sanctions, bad economic decisions made by the Cuban government. And so, this storm, if it hits parts of the island where food is grown, where tobacco is grown, it will only damage the economy all that much further.

[04:10:00]

So, Cubans are simply wondering if the impacts of the storm will be too much for them to bear.

Patrick Oppmann, CNN, Havana.

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MACFARLANE: Well meantime, recovery continues for those hit by hurricane Fiona. More than 50 percent of Puerto Rico now has electricity nearly a week after Fiona slammed into the island. The storm's initial hit knocked out the island's entire power grid. And despite weakening to a post tropical cyclone in Canada, Fiona hit the region with strong winds destroying homes. At least one death from the storm has been reported in Canada.

Now the Philippines is reeling after being slammed by a super typhoon on Sunday. Noru has since been downgraded to a regular typhoon. It's caused catastrophic flooding across the country, destroying homes and making cleanup hard for residents. Of course, stay with CNN for more on the typhoon Noru later to come this hour including where the storm is heading next.

Now we're tracking growing protests across Russia over President Vladimir Putin's mobilization order and the war in Ukraine. An independent monitoring group says more than 2,300 people have been detained since last Wednesday as the government tries to shut down opposition. On Sunday alone, dozens were detained in some of Russia's ethnic minority regions during heated protests against the draft.

This video shows women arguing with police in the capital of Dagestan a predominantly Muslim region about a thousand miles from Moscow. And that wasn't the only confrontation. This video shows officers aggressively pushing back a crowd of protesters. We also saw a large anti-draft rally in the far eastern Sakha Republic, another ethnic minority region more than 3,000 miles from Moscow. Authorities there have acknowledged some residents have been enlisted by mistake.

To evade conscription many Russians are trying to flee the country. These pictures are from the border with Georgia. You can see hundreds of cars there waiting to line up to get out of Russia. And some men spoke about the challenges they face getting through the last major Russian city before the border.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): We paid $1,200 to be escorted to the point which is 3 kilometers before the Russian checkpoint on the Russia/Georgia border. Because if you just honestly wait in line, leaving Russia could take at least 72 hours. Paying our fee, we made it in 30 hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Our president having declared war to an adjacent state, having illegitimately annex part of their territory is now trying to drag the population into the fratricidal war.

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MACFARLANE: A Ukrainian official says a predominantly Muslim ethnic group is also fleeing Russian-held Crimea to avoid the draft. According to Ukraine's presidential representative to the Peninsula the Crimean Tartar's have been disproportionately targeted by Russia's conscription. And now she says thousands of Tartar men and their families are seeking safety in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Here's how Ukraine's president reacted.

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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): The criminal mobilization is being used by Russia not only to extend the suffering of people in Ukraine and to further destabilize the world, but also to physically eliminate indigenous men living in territories controlled for now temporarily by the Russian Federation.

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MACFARLANE: America's national security adviser says Russia's desperate measures this week suggest the war isn't going as Vladimir Putin had hoped. Here is what he told NBC News.

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JAKE SULLIVAN, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR: Throwing together sham referendum on three days' notice and scrambling to call up hundreds of thousands of people who are going to need to get trained and organized is not a sign of strength. It's not a sign of confidence. Quite the opposite. It's a sign that he is struggling very badly in Ukraine, that the Russian army is struggling badly and that he doesn't have a lot of options left because he really did not want to have to move to mobilization. He knew that as soon as he ordered mobilization there would be some upheaval in the country. And we're seeing the images and scenes of that right now.

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MACFARLANE: Well, U.S. Secretary of State has confirmed that Washington has been communicating privately with Moscow about Russia's threat to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Antony Blinken says the U.S. has warned Russia of serious consequences if it launches such an attack. Here he was on "60 minutes".

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SCOTT PELLEY, CBS NEWS: How concerned should Americans be about the prospect of nuclear war?

ANTONY BLINKEN, U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: Scott, we've heard a lot of irresponsible rhetoric coming out of Vladimir Putin, but we're focused on making sure that we're all acting responsibly.

[04:15:00]

Especially when it comes to this kind of loose rhetoric. We have been very clear with the Russians publicly and as well as privately to stop the loose talk about nuclear weapons.

PELLEY: Privately the United States has been in communication with the Kremlin about these threats of nuclear war?

BLINKEN: Yes. It's very important that Moscow hear from us and know from us that the consequences would be horrific. Any use of nuclear weapons could have catastrophic effects for, of course, the country using them, but for many others as well.

PELLEY: If you can't give us specifics about a U.S. response, can you tell us that the administration has a plan?

BLINKEN: We do.

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MACFARLANE: Well, as you heard there, Blinken didn't specify exactly how America would respond, but he said the U.S. is determined to keep the war from expanding.

Well, still to come on CNN, the January 6th Committee holds a public hearing this week, its first since July. And newly-released evidence will be revealed.

Plus, Giorgia Meloni is expected to be named Italy's first female Prime Minister. More on Sunday's election as congratulations pour in from Europe's far right.

And just ahead, it's been the stuff of Hollywood block busters, but now this time it's real. Nasa will try to collide with an asteroid in space. That's coming up.

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REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): I think it'll be potentially more sweeping than some of the other hearings. But it too will be very thematic. It will tell a story about a key element of Donald Trump's plot to overturn the election. And the public will certainly learn things it hasn't seen before. But it will also understand information it already has in a different context by seeing how it relates to other elements of this plot.

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MACFARLANE: That's Adam Schiff on what the American people can expect when the January 6th Committee holds its next public hearing on Wednesday. He also told CNN if the committee makes a criminal referral for former president Donald Trump, then it should be made unanimously. There's still some holes in the investigation that need to be sorted out before the committee wraps up its work.

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REP. JAMIE RASKIN (D-MD): Well, it's not complete because there have been efforts to undermine the investigation, obviously. But I think that on the Secret Service record side we've gotten some teams communication and some other electronic communications that help us to complete our understanding of what was taking place on January the 6th.

In this investigation I learned to say never say never. I want to say definitively there's not going to be another hearing. My expectation is this will be the last investigative hearing, but our report is all about giving the information to Congress and the American people about what needs to be done. And if relevant information surfaces in that interview or any others we will include it.

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MACFARLANE: Well meantime, California Representative Zoe Lofgren -- also a Democrat -- doubts the select committee will hear from Donald Trump or Mike Pence. Here is more from Lofgren.

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REP. ZOE LOFGREN (D-CA): If we were trying to get into a subpoena fight with either the former vice president or the former president, that litigation could not be concluded during the life of this Congress. And I think the former president has made clear that he has no intention of coming in. So, while we'd like to hear from both of them, I'm not expecting that we necessarily will.

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MACFARLANE: And again, the January 6th public hearing is on Wednesday. Watch it here on CNN at 1:00 p.m. Eastern, that's 6:00 p.m. here in London.

Now, in Italy, exit polls show Europe's hard right scored another stunning success at the ballot box. An alliance led by Giorgia Meloni and her Brothers of Italy party appear on track for victory as the official results are awaited. Meloni a 45-year-old mother from Rome will likely become the country's first female Prime Minister and the most far right Italian head of government since Benito Mussolini. She spoke to supporters about the challenges that lie ahead.

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GIORGIA MELONI, BROTHERS OF ITALY POLITICAL PARTY LEADER (through translator): When this night is over, we have to remember, we must remember that we are not at the end point. We are at the starting point. It is from tomorrow that we must prove our worth.

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MACFARLANE: Joining me now from Rome is CNN contributor Barbie Nadeau. Barbie, so Italy now on course for its most right wing government since the end of World War II. And there's been much speculation and concern really about which direction Giorgia Meloni will try and take the country, especially given her two right wing coalition parties. So, what can Italy and Europe expect here?

BARBIE NADEAU, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, you know, Italy is waking up this morning to a very different world. And this far right win is especially telling when you start looking at the breakdown of the coalition vote. She won hands down in her coalition, she has so much more support than Matteo Salvini of the Labour Party or Silvio Berlusconi who served this country three times as Prime Minister.

So, she spoke last night. And when she did, she said she wanted to be inclusive because this vote was very much about who didn't show up at the ballot box. The turnout was only 64 percent. A lot of people didn't go because they felt disillusioned. Of course, this was a snap election after Mario Draghi's government fell. There wasn't a very long campaign season and a lot of people just didn't show up to vote.

And she addressed that last night in her victory speech saying that she wanted to be very inclusive. But it's going to be really hard for her to be inclusive when you see the far right support all over Europe right now. You've got French far right tweeting support for her, congratulating her. And she's got to try to temper that, she's got to speak to those Italians who didn't vote. She needs their support. She has a parliamentary majority, so she is going to be able to get some things done, but the opposition is strong and her coalition is extremely fractured as they're going into this.

MACFARLANE: Yes, and of course, it will be very --

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[04:25:00]

MELONI (through translator): It's important to understand that if we are called to govern this nation, we will do it for everyone. We will do it for every Italian. We will do it with the goal of uniting these people. To highlight what unites them rather than what divides them. Because the major objective we've always given ourselves in life and that we have given ourselves as a political force is to ensure that Italians could once again be proud to be Italian.

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NADEAU: You know, and that message, you know, proud to be Italian is really tempered by the fact that the far right in Europe are so pleased that they have another victory. Italy is a very important country. Italy is the center right coalition is very divided on Russia. They're very divided on sanctions/ they're very divided on Europe in general.

So, the challenge here is as much for the people in Italy to support her especially those who didn't vote as it is for Brussels to accept her, for Germany, for France to accept her. And you know, we're watching on Twitter this morning the social media reaction to her has been very, very divided here in Italy on the left, people are disappointed. Boy, on the far right of Europe, they're very, very pleased -- Christina.

MACFARLANE: Yes, we know, of course, that all across Europe there's going to be close attention to her next steps. Barbie in Rome, thanks very much for now.

All right, still to come, typhoon Noru sweeps through the Philippines causing catastrophic flooding. We'll have the latest on the storm and other extreme weather incidents around the world.

Plus, the state of the U.S. economy. New data out this week could reveal how badly inflation is hitting.

And CNN sits down with the UK's new Prime Minister to hear her thoughts on the controversial new tax cut and partners she's working with to ensure a brighter future for Britain.

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