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Walker Denies Accusations; 14 States Stop Abortion Care; Stephen Dionisio is Interviewed about Charlotte County School District; CIA Soft-Pedaling Havana Syndrome. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired October 06, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

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[09:31:29]

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: Herschel Walker now doubling down with another denial. This after "The Daily Beast" revealed the anonymous woman who accused Walker of paying her to have an abortion in 2009 is also the mother of one of Walker's children. The Republican Senate candidate calls the report a, quote, flat-out lie, claims it's totally untrue. Walker has run his campaign on a hardline anti-abortion platform.

CNN's Eva McKend joining us now with more.

This is not going away anytime soon.

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: No, Erica, it's not.

Walker just wrapped up an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt where he again denied the allegations. And, you know, the denials are all the more significant now because "The Daily Beast" reports the anonymous woman says she's the mother of one of Walker's children.

Now, he went on to characterize this whole episode as a distraction and implored his supporters to stay unified behind his campaign.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HERSCHEL WALKER (R), GEORGIA SENATE CANDIDATE: I know nothing about any woman having an abortion. And they can keep coming at me like that. And they're doing it because they want to distract people. I know that. Because, you know, I've already been forgiven. And if I've been forgiven, why in the world would I not be forgiven of something I -- like that. And I'm not saying being forgiven -

HUGH HEWITT: So -

WALKER: Go ahead.

HEWITT: Is there anything you need to be forgiven for, vis-a-vis a woman whose name we do not know -- do you know who this woman is and do you need to be forgiven?

WALKER: Well, that's - that's what's so funny. And I'm saying I've been forgiven because of all of the things I did when I went through my - the thing with my ex-wife and all of that, and things I did, I don't know how many years ago, that I wrote in my book, I forgot. But I wasn't perfect. I had my problem with mental health. And as I've - I've been - I've been - I, you know, I hate to say I've been born again, but I have a new life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MCKEND: So, you can hear him there leaning heavily on this - on his faith. Also really trying to explain this away in folksy terms. In the interview he also said, the left is trying to rob my whole house, but I don't live there anymore.

The former NFL star says it's not impacting his momentum on the road. And we'll be able to see this for ourselves, where CNN is on the ground at his next campaign rally in just a few hours.

Walker, of course, facing off against incumbent Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock in a Senate contest, Erica, that could determine the balance of power in Washington. That's why this is being watched so closely.

HILL: Yes, That's why we've been so laser focused on it, why you have been spending so much time in Georgia and will continue to, as I know.

Republicans still pretty quiet on this?

MCKEND: Well, actually, they are defending him in a pretty robust way. Right before Herschel jumped on the radio with Hugh, Hugh was interviewing Senator Tom Cotton. And Senator Cotton was defending Walker, as well as a host of other Washington Republicans. You know, they believe that this is a winnable race and they are defending him.

Who is not as defending him as robustly, sort of taking, I would say, a more measured and muted tone, are the Georgia Republicans, right? Governor Brian Kemp, who is also facing a competitive race this cycle. They aren't blasting Walker, but that aren't giving, I would say, a full-throated defense as we're hearing from many of these Washington Republicans who I think are very concerned about keeping this seat.

[09:35:03]

HILL: Yes, as we've heard, that is the number one focus.

Eva McKend, appreciate it. Thank you.

A new survey shows the consequences of the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe versus Wade. The decision, of course, triggered laws in a number of states banning or severely restricting access to abortions.

CNN's senior medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen joining us with more.

So, when we look at the numbers here, what do they tell us?

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Erica, it's very dramatic what has happened in the past 100 days since Roe v. Wade was overturned. If we look at the states that have the most severe restrictions, there are 14 states in the United States where you cannot get an abortion. There are no abortions being offered. This is according to an analysis done by the Guttmacher Institute. You'll see that many of them are centered in the southeast. And many of them are near each other, which means that if you can't get an abortion in one of those states, many of the neighboring states also don't have abortions.

And the doesn't include several states, such as Ohio, where there are strict bans passed by the legislatures, but the courts have stepped in and done temporary stays on those restrictions. So, in other words, those states could really, pretty much at any time, they could have those bans put back in there.

So, that's really restrictive. And if we look just by the sheer numbers of women who are in those states, if we take a look at 2020, in 2020 more than 125,000 women got abortions in those 14 states that we just showed you, more than 125,000. So, those are 125,000 women who now will not be able to get abortions.

Erica.

HILL: And the questions, obviously, are, as you pointed out, there are certain states where we're sort of waiting to see how things play out based on what's been filed and what hasn't. So, in the months going forward, what should we be looking at? Where should we be looking?

COHEN: We should be looking for it to get worse. That map that I showed with 14 states could have many more states. It could have another dozen or so states on there. And that's because those states passed trigger laws that said an x number of months after Roe v. Wade is overturned, we want to have this kind of ban or these kinds of restrictions on abortion. So that's - that map that we looked at, at the beginning, that's going to have more and more states in there as those trigger bans start coming into play.

Erica.

HILL: Elizabeth Cohen, appreciate it. Thank you.

Still to come here, Hurricane Ian prompting concerns over when children will actually be able to return to school. We're going to bring you the very latest, next.

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[09:42:19]

HILL: As the devastation, the full scope of the devastation from Hurricane Ian becomes more clear, the numbers are growing when it comes to the dead. One hundred and twenty-five people we know of who were killed as a result of the storm. In Ft. Myers, the community has been flocking to a memorial wall where people are paying their respects, leaving flowers and messages, as you can see, for the families who have lost loved ones.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEO SOTO, STARTED MEMORIAL WALL: The idea is, we just gave the community a blank canvas and now they're going to get to bring their own items, you know, they're going to get to say goodbye to their own loved ones. And that's the idea, as this is going to grow, it's going to become even more special than it is today.

It's a way to face the tragedy. It's a way to put a face behind the casualty numbers. A lot of times people become accustomed to hearing how many people died and they don't really understand how many families are suffering behind those numbers.

You accept what happened here and then you get to move on.

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HILL: So many images being posted. Here you see a Bible open to Exodus 33:13. It was found in the rubble left behind on Sanibel Island.

For many school districts, the rebuilding process, though, is only just beginning, if it's even been able to begin yet. They are trying, though, in some places, to get kids back in class, to bring their staff back. Collier County reopening its schools today. Schools in Sarasota County will begin a phased reopening on Monday. Hardee County students set to return on Monday as well. In DeSoto County, schools, we're learning, will remain closed until at least mid-month.

Well, the worst of the damage, as you know by now, was in Lee and Charlotte Counties. Take a look here at some of the destruction to Ft. Myers Beach Elementary. You can also see Lee County, hear from Lee County School District. The county does plan to make an announcement tomorrow in terms of what their plans are for next week. So, we'll be watching for that.

Joining us this morning, Steve Dionisio, he's the superintendent for the Charlotte County School District and is with us on the phone today.

You just told me in the break you're hopeful that maybe by the 24th you can get schools back up and running. This is a massive undertaking for the thousands of students and staff in your district, all of these families. Your schools were shelters. How many of them can actually go back to being schools at this point? What was the damage?

STEPHEN DIONISIO, SUPERINTENDENT, CHARLOTTE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT (via telephone): Well, we did receive damage at every one of our school sites. All of our ancillary buildings, damage from roofs peeling back, water intruded in all of our buildings, soffit and fascia damage, walkways, canopies, exhaust fans relocated, I'll say, air conditioning systems that sit on roofs relocated. And those are all bad things, obviously, when you're - when you're trying to keep water out of a school. We have been fortunate, we have not had rain since the event.

[09:45:02]

And our first phase has been buttoning up our buildings, making sure we don't - we don't get any more water in those buildings so we can start to remediate the moisture so we can make it safe for our students and our staff to come back to those buildings as soon as possible.

HILL: Would remote learning be an option?

DIONISIO: It would be down the road. As we continue to assess our schools, we're hopeful that every one of our school sites will be able to be used in some format. We may have -- if the building has 100 classrooms, we may only have 90 of those classrooms available to us. So, we may adjust schedules, adjust where -- when teachers teach within those classes, float teachers, do things like that, to try to get them back to their own schools because as a part of the normalcy component of this, kids have already dealt with so much through the last few days, that the last thing you want them to do is to have to learn a whole new school because you've got to send them somewhere else.

HILL: Right. They're -

DIONISIO: So, we're going to try real hard -- if we have to delay a couple extra days to get them back to their own schools, those are days well spent.

HILL: OK. That would be - that would be the priority.

DIONISIO: Yes.

HILL: I feel like I have so many questions for you just on a logistical level too.

DIONISIO: OK.

HILL: Because I look consistently at all these pictures of the destruction and I can only imagine how many families are now displaced. And I'm talking about students and staff as well. Do you have any idea of, you know, how many teachers, how many school staff no longer have a home?

DIONISIO: The answer to that is many. It's not a few. We have - we have teachers and staff members at every school who have varying levels of damage to their home, from ceilings on the - on the floor, to damage enough that they can barely get out of their own driveways, to they will need complete rebuilds. Same thing for our families.

So, this - this process of recovery, we're still in assessment. The first thing, not just for our schools, but for our community is to get those tarps up. And, you know, we remember the tarps well. Our community, through Charlie, and those tarps became very -- unfortunately, very apparent and it kind of created a timeline of, you know how things are going as the tarps are coming down.

And we're going to be in that same model again. We had roof damage. The wind in Charlotte County was really the biggest impact of Hurricane Ian.

HILL: Yes.

DIONISIO: And so, our community has a long road to go.

HILL: Yes. Well, we want to keep talking and we want you to continue to keep us updated.

Real quickly before I let you go.

DIONISIO: OK.

HILL: In so many areas around this country students, and in some cases their families, especially with the backpack programs that we see on the weekends, really rely on their schools for food. Is there a program in place right now to meet some of that need? Have you been able to keep up with that over the last week?

DIONISIO: You know, our community has been incredible. We've - instantly (INAUDIBLE) team had feeding locations across our county. And as soon as we can get staff in, we'll start to pick that up because, you're right, in many cases the only two meals that our students receive come from us. I hate to say that, but that's just the truth.

So, we're hopeful that we can get feeding to the kids as soon as possible. The easiest way to do that is to get them back in our buildings. So, the number one priority is to get these buildings ready to go so that we can get kids back as soon as possible. We're hopeful by the 24th. If that's three days before that, we'll get them in three days before that if we can.

HILL: Yes. Well, we are hopeful as well. Please do keep us updated. Let us know what you need. I imagine there are a lot of supplies, whether it be technology, books, you name it, that were also destroyed.

Stephen Dionisio, appreciate you joining us this morning. Thank you.

DIONISIO: My pleasure. Again, our community, take care. Be safe.

HILL: Just ahead here, a CNN exclusive. Dozens of CIA officers accusing the intelligence agency of soft-peddling its Havana syndrome investigation. We have a live report for you just ahead.

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[09:53:53]

HILL: An exclusive CNN report.

Sources say dozens of current and former CIA officers are raising concerns that the intel agency has been soft pedaling its investigation into a mysterious illness impacting agency officers and diplomats. This is what's known - it's known as Havana syndrome. One CIA physician who spoke with Dr. Sanjay Gupta recalls how he traveled to Cuba to investigate, then wound up experiencing some of those same debilitating symptoms.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. PAUL ANDREWS, FORMER SENIOR MEDICAL OFFICER, CIA: I had a lot of nausea and a terrible headache and I never suffered from headaches before. The amount of ringing in my ears was just astounding, and things were getting worse and worse and worse and I started to hear the noise and I'm really in disbelief.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: And you believe that that night there was some sort of injury or damage to either your inner ear, the nerves around your inner ear, or your brain?

ANDREWS: Correct. Absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HILL: CNN's Katie Bo Lillis joining us now.

So, how is the CIA now responding, Katie Bo, to these accusations that they're essentially slow walking this investigation.

[09:55:04]

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: Yes, Erica, the CIA and the Biden administration both say that they're 100 percent committed to getting to the bottom of whatever is causing these strange episodes. As one CIA official who spoke to us said, this is among the most aggressive approaches to an investigation that the agency has ever taken.

But, you know, so much of this is necessarily happening behind closed door that I think that's part of why you're seeing some of this frustration start to bubble over. That same CIA official said to us, look, this is an active intelligence investigation. We can't necessarily make public everything that we're learning, every lead that we're following up on in live time.

Erica, part of what make this so difficult is that officials who are familiar with the intelligence community's investigation into these episodes say they just don't have any good answers at this point. There's about two dozen of these cases that haven't been yet explained by any other known means. And officials who are familiar with the investigation tell us that at this point they just don't have any good evidence linking any of these two dozen cases to a foreign power, an action by a foreign power, nor do they really have any solid proof showing that all of them are even caused by the same thing.

This is really frustrating for victims and I think that's why you're beginning to see so many of these officers, over the last year, travel to The Hill to raise these concerns.

HILL: Yes, trying to push some pressure on them.

Katie Bo Lillis, appreciate it. Thank you.

Still ahead here, dangerous, new developments on the Korean peninsula. North Korea conducting another firing exercise within just the last hour. So how now is the Biden administration responding? We have live team coverage, next.

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