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Soon: Bidens Land In Puerto Rico To View Hurricane Fiona Destruction; Hurricane Ian Blamed For At Least 88 Deaths In Florida; Seditious Conspiracy Trial Of Oath Keepers In Capitol Attack Underway. Aired 2-2:30p ET

Aired October 03, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

[14:00:00]

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ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota, welcome to CNN NEWSROOM. Victor is off today.

The death toll from Hurricane Ian is rising in Florida. 88 people lost their lives to this storm. 54 of them alone were in Lee County, which includes Fort Myers, as you're seeing on your screen here in Fort Myers Beach. That town was decimated by the monster Category 4 storm. Officials there now facing questions over the timing of the mandatory evacuation orders, were they given early enough? Search and rescue teams are still going door to door looking for survivors, especially on the Barrier Islands of Sanibel, Captiva, and Pine. Helicopters are still flying people out. Ian's monster storm surge and high winds destroyed homes and businesses leaving behind despair.

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RICKEY ANDERSON, DISPLACED SANIBEL ISLAND RESIDENT: Can we get some help out here? You know, that'd be too much to ask. I mean, you look around here there's nothing. We have no power, no phone service, nothing. So, we just like a little help that like little helped get my home back in shape because I have nowhere to go.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis says there have been more than 1600 rescues, some Floridians providing their own boats to help. The lights are slowly coming back on for nearly 2 million people though thousands are still without power.

President Biden will visit southwest Florida, Wednesday, to see the destruction firsthand. But today he's in Puerto Rico to see the damage from another storm, Hurricane Fiona. That's where we find CNN White House correspondent Jeremy Diamond. So, Jeremy, the president, and the first lady are expected there very shortly. What's the plan?

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Alisyn, two weeks after Hurricane Fiona struck this island of Puerto Rico and knocked out power to the entire island, 100,000 households are still without power many of those in this region of Ponce and in the neighboring western region as well. And so, President Biden coming here to see those recovery efforts firsthand as this island still struggles to get fully back to normal. This is in terms of getting back to normal not only after this latest hurricane but also on an island that is very much still recovering from Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island five years ago. But the president says that he wants to see these efforts firsthand and show the people of Puerto Rico that the federal government is here to stay and to help.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm heading to Puerto Rico because they haven't been taken care of. We've been trying like hell to catch up from the last hurricane. I want to see the state of affairs today and make sure we push everything we can.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DIAMOND: And when the president arrives here, Alisyn, he'll get a briefing from officials on the ground on those recovery efforts. He'll also meet with families who have been impacted by the storm as well as community leaders who have been helping with the recovery. And he and the first lady will help with a community service project, packing food and essential items for people on this island. The president is also going to be delivering remarks at the port here in Ponce where he'll announce $60 million of investments from the bipartisan infrastructure bill. This is going to help strengthen levees and floodwalls and also improve the island's flood warning system. That's of particular importance to the folks here, who after facing what was just a category one hurricane, but it brought devastating record rainfall to the island and a lot of flooding that impacted the power grid and other parts of the island.

So, the president though, he is arriving to a people here in Puerto Rico, who are skeptical of promises of federal investment and federal support in the wake of these disasters. They are still waiting for billions of dollars in aid that was promised to them from the federal government following Hurricane Maria five years ago. The Trump administration had put a lot of conditions on that money. The Biden administration has since rolled back some of those restrictions. And billions of dollars have flowed in the last year to Puerto Rico. But very much still a work in progress, an islands recovering not just from this latest hurricane, but also still trying to recover from the one five years ago, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Yes, we can't blame them for their skepticism there. Jeremy Diamond, thank you very much for the preview.

So back to Florida, some residents are questioning whether the evacuation orders in some areas were given too late in the days before Hurricane Ian. The Sheriff of Lee County says he stands by the decisions made ahead of the storm.

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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) CARMINE MARCENO, LEE COUNTY, FLORIDA SHERIFF: I am confident in our county manager, our leaders, our governor, all of us in law enforcement that we got that message out at the right time. Now whether people listen to it, we can't force people out of their homes but we can continuously say look, mandatory evacuation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: CNN's Boris Sanchez is live for us in Fort Myers, which is in Lee County. So, Boris, tell us what you're seeing and hearing from the people there.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Alisyn, there is widespread devastation across southwest Florida, and for many residents that we've talked to stories of heartbreak about those that were lost to Hurricane Ian. And even from those that were able to survive the storm, many of them are frustrated at the thought of having to rebuild from the ground up. Some residents have actually been asked to stay out of their homes -- out of their areas. We heard from the Sheriff of Lee County a short time ago saying that Fort Myers Beach is now going to be shut down even to residents because as this search and recovery effort continues, as they're combing through the debris, they are still discovering cadavers and bodies. And they want to treat those areas as delicately as they can. They want as little interference and traffic as possible.

I mean, all of that there is this debate about evacuation orders and whether they were issued in time. And we've heard from residents here, some who argue like one local Reverend, that they weren't given enough time to get out. And others on the other side of that debate, who say that even if the evacuation orders had been issued earlier, some folks simply were not going to leave. Here is what those two shared with CNN.

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REV. SHAWN CRITSER, PASTOR AT BEACH BAPTIST, FORT MYERS, FLORIDA: And then when that evacuation order came, we're like 24 hours. That's not a lot but you know we'll still kind of make it. And it wasn't until Wednesday morning when we woke up and saw that it had made another adjustment. And at that point, it's just too late. We just hadn't done -- we hadn't done enough at our place. I mean, we were actually -- it was already starting to terrain and storm you know by that point.

LESTER MARTIN, RESIDENT OF BONITA SPRINGS, FLORIDA: Everyone gave us great warnings. They told us to get out. They told us to evacuate. But in a true Floridian style, you see it going into the Gulf, you see it going last year like I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe and then that cold front came down and just took a direct east and we got hit.

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SANCHEZ: Alisyn, as you noted, at this point, at least 88 fatalities in the state of Florida, 54 of them, the bulk of them coming from Lee County more than any other county in the state combined. Those numbers potentially going to continue to climb as we heard from the Sheriff of Lee County because they are still combing through debris in these areas that were previously inaccessible like Sanibel, Pine Island, and Captiva as well. Again, heart-wrenching and difficult for these residents to face a new reality in southwest Florida.

CAMEROTA: Yes. And, Boris, we're just getting more information into our newsroom that the death toll has just jumped. Boris, thank you very much. The death toll from Hurricane Ian has increased. There are now at least 104 deaths in the U.S. as a result of this hurricane, 100 of them in Florida. Of course, that number could still rise. I mean when we went on the air it was 88, now it is a hundred. Pine Island is one of the Barrier Islands that has been completely cut off by Hurricane Ian because Ian had 155-mile-per-hour winds and a storm surge that as you know washed out the bridges and the roads to that island. Now it can only be reached by helicopters.

So joining us now from Pine Island is Dr. Ben Abo. He's the medical director for multiple agencies, including Miami Dade Fire Rescue, Urban Search and Rescue Task Force One. We really appreciate you being here, Dr. Abo. So just -- you're on Sanibel Island. We know that that's been cut off. Tell us what the evacuations and the rescues have been like there.

DR. BEN ABO, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN: So, my teams are operating right now on Sanibel and Pine Island. I'm physically on Pine Island, where again, I'm -- as you said, also medical directory here for the fire department. We've continued to do a lot of searching. We've been doing some rescues and a lot of evacuations. At the same time, I'm seeing some people that are almost repeat customers when we evacuate them. We help them out whether it's by boat in conjunction with the -- with the Coast Guard, or we're flying them out on the helicopters that were coming in on and bringing supplies in on with Air National Guard. And they're coming back.

Seeing a wide variety of things, these are people that you know, denial that it was going to hit there. There was also -- they thought that they couldn't make it out. They're realizing now that they're running out of supplies. And it really -- it's tough. I mean, this is -- this is my home.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I understand. I mean, not only do you work there, it's your home. And so just tell us about those evacuations. It was -- all that had to be done by helicopter and what condition were people in?

[14:10:05]

ABO: We have a wide variety of conditions. And so for evacuations, we have everything for people in wheelchairs or walkers, we're ambulating or carrying people or just assisting them, or putting them on our various vehicles or fire -- their firefighters. I mean just their pickup trucks are here and we're using them to be able to shimmy them over to the fire department as a casualty collection point and either putting them on a helicopter or onto little boats to shuttle them over.

At the same time, we do have a few rescues where we have to intervene a little bit more and provide a little bit more urgent medical care. And that's multiple things from pregnancy-related to cuts and bruises and broken bones. Just because there's a disaster doesn't mean the normal health scares are delayed at all.

CAMEROTA: Yes, I hear you. I mean, I hear what you're saying and I hadn't thought about all of those other medical complications that obviously are compounded by the hurricane. And so there -- are there still evacuations that need to happen on Pine Island and Sanibel Island at this hour?

ABO: Yes, absolutely. I'm very proud that in conjunction with the fire departments, and the National Guard, my Urban Search, and Rescue team, like others in other places have been going on foot doing our AC search. We've almost entirely searched the mat, let's say Pine Island, and Sanibel, Captiva. We've gotten through almost everything to make out but we're still getting evacuations. Right behind my phone, I'm looking at people that have just arrived, that I even just came back from doing rescue for someone that was trapped with a broken leg. And we're getting them out. Lots of evacuations still going on --

CAMEROTA: When you rescued people, where --

ABO: And I just urge people to go.

CAMEROTA: Where are you taking them?

ABO: It depends on what's best for them. A combination of we have a collection point when they go over by boat or if they go by air, they get one centralized place of their we can plan on what's best for them, their needs, put them in touch with family or anything else like that, or if they need medical care, because the status of the hospitals and everything. It depends on what their needs are if they go to a trauma center or a certain local hospital or down to where I also practice at NCH.

CAMEROTA: Did you say, Doctor, that some people that you evacuated have been coming back to the island?

ABO: Yes.

CAMEROTA: How are they coming back and why are they coming back?

ABO: I can only guess a number of reasons why. But they're getting on other people's sponsors in making their way back. They're not coming by any shuttle. We're not bringing them back. Our priority is search rescue and evacuation at this time.

CAMEROTA: Are there still people who are missing? Are you getting reports of missing people that you're looking for?

ABO: Yes, we are. And we're kind of coordinating that between our systematic approach to how we search everything and those that want to go those that want to stay and versus the calls that are coming in terms of missing people.

CAMEROTA: So, Doctor, how do you describe what you're seeing on Pine Island? What does it look like there? ABO: You know, it's really reminiscent for me for when we deployed to Marathon for Hurricane Irma or even when we had gone over for Hurricane Dorian to the Bahamas. I mean, tornadoes, hurricane, and storm surge just really annihilated a lot of things. The infrastructure is badly hurt. It's going to take time. It's not going to be impossible, I don't think.

But I'm seeing a lot of despair. But I'm also seeing help. I'm seeing urban search and rescue, Fire Rescue, bringing hope to people that we're going to get through this, but we have to do it in stages. And that's part of what we bring. We bring the skills and we bring hope.

CAMEROTA: Well, Dr. Ben Abo, we always appreciate you taking time out of this herculean effort that is going on to talk -- to talk to us. Best of luck. Stay safe. Thanks so much for your time.

ABO: Thank you very much.

CAMEROTA: Joining me now on the phone is Kevin Anderson. He's the mayor of Fort Meyers which is in Lee County. Mayor, thank you so much for your time and for talking to us. Just before we came to you, we got the sad news that the death toll has gone up again. Now, at least 100 people in Florida were killed. I think that we're up to 54 people in your county, of Lee County. Do you -- or you -- do you know where and how most of those people died?

KEVIN ANDERSON, MAYOR OF FORT MYERS, FLORIDA (voiceover): No. Where most of the devastation is, is about 15 miles south of Fort Myers -- Fort Myers Beach in the Barrier Islands. In the city itself, we have -- we were fortunate, we have no reported deaths related to the hurricane.

[14:15:13]

CAMEROTA: Oh, that's good news. As you know, there are some residents who are wondering whether it would have helped to get an evacuation order earlier. Do you think that lives could have been saved if an evacuation order for Lee County had been given on Monday instead of a day later on Tuesday?

ANDERSON: I don't think it would have made a difference because we start pushing hurricane awareness in June. We push people to plan -- to have a plan for evacuation if need be. You know, if you plan you don't panic. The most predictable thing about a hurricane is that it's unpredictable. So until people learn to follow the advisories, to plan not waiting until it's too late, that's what will save lives.

CAMEROTA: I understand. And I hear you. But obviously, in June, it's still abstract. I mean, all of these warnings are abstract until you see it bearing down on you. And so, do you still think that there were urgent enough messages from local officials in Lee County on Monday?

ANDERSON: We started talking about this storm right from the beginning, all right? Where -- it was going to hit Tampa. And as they said, storms are unpredictable and people have to take accountability for themselves and plan accordingly, until we can get people to do that, we're still going to face these losses of lives when people don't pay attention.

CAMEROTA: So, mayor, what's the situation in Fort Myers right now? Do people have electricity and water?

ANDERSON: We have about 75 percent of the city has electricity. Water is slowly coming back on. The recovery is fully underway. The businesses are starting to reopen. Its -- downtown Fort Myers is very active right now.

CAMEROTA: And what about shelters? I mean, when we look at these aerial views of Fort Myers proper, I mean, obviously, there's just mass destructions still, all sorts of debris, are people -- I mean, where are people living? Are -- how many people are still in shelters?

ANDERSON: I don't have the numbers for that. I can tell you that the majority of the loss of homes was along the river Fera mostly in the east side of town and then in the Yacht Basin for those people who live aboard. A lot of them are still living on their boats, a lot of people still camping out in their homes.

CAMEROTA: Yes. Mayor Kevin Anderson, we appreciate the updates and we appreciate talking to you. Thank you very much for taking the time.

ANDERSON: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: So, President Biden and the first lady have just landed in Puerto Rico to see the devastation there left behind by Hurricane Fiona. We have all the latest on their stop. Plus, opening statements are underway in the seditious conspiracy trial from members of the extremist group, the Oath Keepers. We're live at the courthouse with an update. And Ukrainian troops are pushing back Russian forces. They're liberating key towns in the eastern part of the country. What these gains may signal for the future of the war? That's ahead.

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[14:22:37]

CAMEROTA: Opening statement is underway in the trial of the Oath Keepers' leader, Stewart Rhodes, and four of his top lieutenants for their roles in the January 6 insurrection. The judge today denied the far-right militia members' request to move the trial out of DC. CNN's Whitney Wild joins us now. So, Whitney, what's happening in court?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Department of Justice has laid out in much more colorful and much more textual detail exactly how they believe the Oath Keepers committed to this plan shortly after the election of President Joe Biden, and how really day by day, they took more severe efforts toward what was eventually the capstone of their effort, which was getting inside the Capitol and doing whatever they could to stop the certification of the Electoral College vote. They are so fixated on this timeline actually, that they presented to the jury a calendar. This will come up quite a bit. Because, Alisyn and Victor, they are going to go day by day showing how these efforts ramped up. Quite a bit of this evidence, according to the Department of Justice is going to focus on their own words. They're going to use their -- the words of these alleged Oath Keepers against them in court. And that includes quite a bit of text messaging between the groups as this plan began again in November and culminated in January, as well as radio communications that were captured. And it includes phone calls that were captured by people who are now cooperating with the Department of Justice.

At the very core of this, Victor and Alisyn, the Department of Justice is going to lay out that for the last, you know, 200 years plus, the peaceful transfer of power has occurred on January 20, that the electoral college vote has occurred on January 6, then that this is a tradition that is core to what it means to be an American. And the Department of Justice said this. These defendants tried to change that history. They concocted a plan for an armed rebellion to shatter a bedrock of American democracy. Adding that the defendants were looking for an opportunity and they got that opportunity two weeks before the inauguration.

The defense is going to argue that this is all just a very small snapshot of what actually happened. They're going to say that these text messages, these audio communications, the video captured of them is just a very small part of this much bigger story that has yet to be told that what has been told by the media and what has been told by the Department of Justice is very narrow. And what they're going to do is provide more contextual evidence to base proof that this was not criminal and that all of the actions they took were legal. Back to you.

[14:25:08]

CAMEROTA: OK, Whitney Wild, thank you very much for the update from the courthouse. So, never before heard interviews with former President Trump, courtesy of New York Times reporter, Maggie Haberman, are making news. In them, Trump falsely claims he gave letters from North Korean dictator Kim Jung-un to the National Archives last year.

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MAGGIE HABERMAN, REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Did you leave the White House with anything in particular? Are there any Memento documents you took with you? Anything of no --

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Nothing of great urgency. I have great things there. You know, the letters that Kim Jung-un, letters and many of that --

HABERMAN: You take those with you?

TRUMP: Look at what's happened? Well, no, I think that has the -- I think that's in the archives. But most of it is in New York.

HABERMAN: OK.

(END AUDIO CLIP) CAMEROTA: CNN's senior crime and justice reporter Katelyn Plantz is following this. So, Katelyn, what else is on those tapes?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME & JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, Alisyn, Maggie Haberman sat down with Donald Trump three times for interviews for her book. And in these tapes, she asks him some of the most pressing questions about two different avenues of the current investigation surrounding Donald Trump, the Mar-a-Lago documents, the documents that he would have kept after his presidency ended that would be federal records. And then also she asks him about January 6.

Now on the king jump -- Kim Jung-un letters, what he just said there in that clip, Alisyn, it is wrong. At that point in time when she asked him this question, these were not in the possession of the National Archives. The Archives knew this. Trump's -- people surrounding Donald Trump also knew this. And the Archives was trying to get those letters back into their possession. So, there's that.

On January 6, Maggie Haberman was asking Donald Trump the pressing question there that -- there still really isn't a clear answer to why was Donald Trump doing nothing? What was he doing for 2.5 hours as the Capitol was under attack, and there was no message coming from the president to either his supporters or anyone else throughout the federal government? Here's what he told her in another clip of audio released today by the New York Times.

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HABERMAN: But what were you doing when -- how did you find out that there were people storming the Capitol?

TRUMP: I had heard that afterwards, and actually, on the late side, I was -- I was having meetings. I was also with Mark Meadows and others. I was not watching television, I didn't have the television ton.

HABERMAN: You weren't. OK.

TRUMP: I didn't usually have that the television on. I'd have it on if there was something. I then later turned it on and I saw what was happening. I also had confidence that the Capitol, who didn't want these 10,000 people --

HABERMAN: The capitol police, you mean?

TRUMP: That they'd be able to control this thing. And you don't realize that you know, they did lose control.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

POLANTZ: So, what Trump says there, it just wasn't true on two fronts that there were aides around him at that time who have testified to the House Select Committee that he indeed was watching television during that period. He would have seen the Capitol falling to his supporters. And also, the capitol police were clearly overwhelmed by the Trump supporters running into the building. So, illuminating answers there from the former president and -- where he's clearly still obscuring the truth, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Really interesting to hear him in his own words there. Katelyn Polantz, thank you.

So the U.S. is developing plans in case Vladimir Putin does the unthinkable in Ukraine. Our new CNN reporting, next.

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