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Cassidy Hutchinson Cooperating with Georgia Probe; Stark Recession Warning; Vance and Ryan Clash in Ohio Debate; Growing Lack of Maternity Care for Women. Aired 9:30-10a ET
Aired October 11, 2022 - 09:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[09:30:03]
BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: First on CNN, sources telling CNN that Cassidy Hutchinson, the former Trump White House aide, is cooperating with the Atlanta area prosecutor investigating Donald Trump and his allies' efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Hutchinson's live testimony before the January 6th committee contained some of the most notable bombshell revelations about Trump's demeanor and actions in the buildup and during the January 6th insurrection.
Joining me to discuss is Elie Honig. He's a former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Elie, always great to see you.
So, you, along with many others, have called Cassidy the single most important and credible witness that we saw during the January 6th hearings. What do you expect to hear out of her in this Georgia probe?
ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Bianna, I do think that of the dozens of witness that's we've heard from the January 6th committee, she's the most important. I think she was highly credible. She really gave us a unique insider's perspective on what was happening in those sort of frantic days and hours leading up to and during January 6th. So I'm sure prosecutors are going to be looking at.
Prosecutors are going to have the luxury of getting to go through all of Hutchinson's testimony. And sometimes what you do when you're trying to build a case as a prosecutor is you want to use one person's information to put pressure on the next person. You try to build the sort of cascade effect, a domino effect, where one person flips leads to another person flipping. And the person I'd be focused on here is Cassidy Hutchison's former boss, Mark Meadows, who was chief of staff, because Meadows has been very difficult. He's been elusive to the committee, to prosecutors. But I think Cassidy Hutchinson is someone who can give them a direct line to at least put pressure on Mark Meadows. You have to come in. You have to testify. You have to give us straight testimony. That's what I'd be looking to do with Cassidy Hutchinson.
GOLODRYGA: And Meadows, just to remind our viewers, was on the phone when the former president, then president, asked the Georgia secretary of state to find enough votes to overturn Biden's win in that state.
Let me ask you another question, and that is about the 5:00 p.m. Eastern deadline for the DOJ to respond. It's a Supreme Court deadline to respond to former President Trump's - this gets very complicated so we're going to explain it here -- his emergency application to restore the special master's review of the Mar-a-Lago document that were marked as classified. What do you expect the DOJ to say? Obviously, they're going to contest it. But will the Supreme Court even hear it?
HONIG: So, this is one of two appeals that's happening right now. The other one has to do with the special master as a whole. That's on a much slower pace.
This one relates to the special master's ability to review those 100 or so classified documents. And where this stands right now is DOJ has won at the court of appeals, the federal court of appeals. So, Trump is trying to get the Supreme Court to come in and reverse that and say, the special master can and must review those classified documents.
So, DOJ has this 5:00 p.m. deadline today. I'm sure they'll file their brief at 4:59 or so. And they're going to argue that the court of appeals was correct, that those classified documents are not Donald Trump's property. That he has no legal interest in them and that they should not go to the special master and that they should go directly back to DOJ for use, it's an investigation.
Whether Supreme Court takes this case or not, it is, of course, up to the Supreme Court. They don't have to take any case they don't want to. They will need five of the nine justices to say, yes, we want to take it. If I had to guess, Bianna, I would say the Supreme Court does not take this one. They try to stay clear of political issues.
This is really a procedural question more than a big overarching political question. So, we should see pretty quickly, though, this is on a fast track. So, we should know within a few weeks or so whether the Supreme Court is taking this case.
GOLODRYGA: So your guess is 4:59, right, we'll hear from the DOJ?
HONIG: Yes, exactly.
GOLODRYGA: OK. I'll mark you down for that.
Elie Honig, thank you.
HONIG: Thank you.
GOLODRYGA: Well, JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon sent markets tumbling Monday with this prediction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMIE DIMON, CEO, JPMORGAN CHASE: Currently, right now, the U.S. economy is actually still doing well.
But you've got to -- you can't talk about the economy without talking about the stuff in the future. And this is serious stuff.
These are very, very serious things, which I think are likely to ush the U.S. and, you know, the world. I mean Europe is already in recession. And they're likely to put the U.S. in some kind of recession six, nine months from now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Six to nine months from now.
Let's bring in CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans.
So, Christine, we just heard a few months ago from Jamie Dimon also warning of a potential hurricane, right, on the horizon, whether it's a category one or a four, he didn't know. But he seems to worry about some ominous signs in the economy.
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: And that's his job, right? I mean he runs a business where what's happening with the consumer, what's happening with businesses and people who are getting loans is incredibly important it his business.
Look, he says that things are good right now. He admits the U.S. economy feels OK right now. But when you look at all of these headwind out there that he's concerned six to nine months out into the future, doesn't say what kind of recession that's going to be, but that's what he's looking for.
Now we're just hearing from the IMF, with its warning for the next year as well.
[09:35:01]
The IMF saying that it's going to see global growth drop to about 2.7 percent. That a third of the global economy is going to contract either this year or next. And for much of the world it's going to feel like a recession.
The U.S., by the way, the EU and China, they'll be more of a stall, not a contraction but a stall in those three major economies. And global inflation will peak at about 8.8 percent late this year. Start to come down next year, but people are still going to feel it. So that's the fourth downgrade in global growth from the IMF since this whole business began of recession worrying.
GOLODRYGA: And it's hard to isolate the United States.
ROMANS: True.
GOLODRYGA: We may be better than many other countries in terms of our economic outlook. But we're still going to feel some of it.
ROMANS: Stall won't feel good.
GOLODRYGA: Yes. Christine Romans, we don't like to stall, thank you.
ROMANS: Right.
GOLODRYGA: Well, still ahead, the tough midterms battle on full display in Ohio last night. What last night's debate between Tim Ryan and JD Vance tells us about voters, and why Ohio may indeed be a swing state yet again. That's next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:40:34]
GOLODRYGA: In Ohio, the race for the Senate heating up overnight as Democrat Tim Ryan and Republican JD Vance faced off in their first and only debate. Front and center in the conversation, abortion, immigration, and party politics. And it's safe to say things got personal. Here's CNN's Omar Jimenez with the breakdown.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): A nail biter Senate race heating up in Ohio.
JD VANCE (R), OHIO SENATE CANDIDATE: We're getting close to Halloween, and Tim Ryan has put on a costume where he pretends to be a reasonable moderate.
REP. TIM RYAN (D), OHIO SENATE CANDIDATE: I'm for Ohio. I don't kiss anyone's ass like him. Ohio needs an ass kicker, not an ass kisser.
JIMENEZ: Democratic Tim Ryan and Republican JD Vance, in a closer than expected contest that could determine the balance of power in the Senate. On abortion, Ryan pledged to codify Roe v. Wade.
RYAN: We've got to have some moderation on this issue. He's got a very extreme position. JD, you call rape inconvenient, right? That's -- rape is not inconvenient. It's a significant tragedy. And he thinks that we should have Ohio state law which says if you're raped or incest -- pregnant through incest, that you should be forced to have the baby. This is the largest governmental overreach in the history of our lifetime.
JIMENEZ: Vance says he's not as extreme on issue as Ryan claims.
VANCE: I am pro-life. I've always been pro-life.
My view on this is, generally speaking, Ohio is going to want to have different abortion laws than California, than Texas. And I think abortion - I think Ohio should have that right. But some minimum national standard is totally fine with me.
JIMENEZ: But then the abortion issue took a heated turn when Vance brought up a 10-year-old girl's rape case. That girl traveled to Indiana for an abortion after Roe v. Wade was overturned and Ohio banned abortions as early as six weeks into a pregnancy.
VANCE: And I have said repeatedly on the record that I think that that girl should be able to get an abortion if she and her family so choose to do so. The thing they never mentioned is that poor girl was raped by an illegal alien. Somebody that should have never been in this state in the first place.
You voted so many times against border wall funding, so many times for amnesty, Tim. If you had done your job, she would have never been raped in the first place.
JIMENEZ: Vance then went on offense to paint Ryan as towing the Democratic Party line, despite former President Donald Trump carrying the state twice.
VANCE: Tim Ryan has done nothing to stop the flow of fentanyl. He talks about wanting to support a stronger border. He talks about wanting to be bipartisan and get things done. Well, Tim, you've been in Congress for 20 years and the border problem has got worse and worse and worse.
JIMENEZ: Ryan then alleging the former venture capitalist depended on foreign workers.
RYAN: He has businesses in Ohio that actually hire foreign workers. You think we're stupid, JD, and we're not. I'm just telling you that you are so -- you're from Silicon Valley. You don't understand what's going on here in Ohio.
JIMENEZ: And claiming a new wave of younger leadership is needed in Washington.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you want President Biden to run again in 2024?
RYAN: No. I've been very clear. I'd like to see a generational change.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you.
RYAN: Mitch McConnell, Donald Trump, the president, everybody.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All right.
RYAN: Like, we need a new generation of leadership.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Gentlemen, it's -
JIMENEZ: Vance and Ryan also sparred over the threat of MAGA Republicans and election deniers.
VANCE: Are we having a good time? Is it great to have the president back in Ohio?
JIMENEZ: Vance has repeatedly invoked Trump's support throughout his Senate race and rallied with him.
RYAN: I want people in Ohio to understand, this is the crowd that JD is running around with, the election deniers, the extremists.
He's running with an extreme element that's very, very dangerous. VANCE: I find it interesting how preoccupied you are with this at a
time when people can't afford groceries, people can't afford to walk down the streets safely. Let's focus on the significant issues right now, Tim.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
JIMENEZ: I mean it might go without saying, this was maybe the most contentious debate we've seen in this midterm cycle so far. And this was a state that President Trump carried both in 2020 and 2016 by more than eight points. And now there's no clear leader, which is even more significant when you consider Republicans have spent more than $90 million on ads here through this week compared to Democrats only around $30 million. Total spending on both sides only outdone by Senate races in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Georgia, where, spoiler, things will also be close.
[09:45:01]
GOLODRYGA: Yes. Yes, the gloves came off quickly last night.
JIMENEZ: Yes.
GOLODRYGA: It seems the only things these two agreed on was what suit to wear.
JIMENEZ: Yes. Yes. Showed up wearing the same thing. You don't see that.
GOLODRYGA: They wore - they wore a matching red tie and suit. No, you don't.
Omar Jimenez, thank you.
JIMENEZ: Of course.
GOLODRYGA: Well, still ahead, in just two years pregnancy related deaths in the U.S. jumped more than 30 percent. Up next, the new report released just this hour shedding light on one of the critical issues, access to maternity health care.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
GOLODRYGA: A new report from the March of Dimes is underscoring the lack of access to maternity care across the country. The findings show 36 percent of U.S. counties are maternity care deserts or areas where there are no hospitals or child birthing services for pregnant women.
[09:50:09]
Now, this impacts 2.2 million women of child bearing age and almost 150,000 babies nationwide. The report comes as the U.S. saw pregnancy related deaths increase more than 30 percent from 2018 to 2020.
CNN's Jacqueline Howard has more on this really alarming finding.
Jacqueline, are we seeing more of these maternity care deserts across the U.S. now?
JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: We are, Bianna. And this is alarming. And keep in mind, we're talking about counties with no hospitals or birth centers offering obstetric services and without obstetric providers. And based on this new report from March of Dimes, 36 percent of all U.S. counties are designated as maternity care deserts. We have seen an increase in countries restrict - or not restricting but lowering maternity care access. And about two in three of these countries are rural counties.
Now, I smoke with March of Dimes' CEO and President Stacey Stewart about this. Here's how she describes the current state of maternity care here in the U.S.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STACEY STEWART, PRESIDENT AND CEO, MARCH OF DIMES: Today, the U.S. is considered among all highly industrialize countries, one of the most dangerous developed nations in the world in which to give birth. And part of the problem with that and part of the reason for that is because of these huge gaps in access to care where women are having to travel 40, 50, 60 miles just for a prenatal visit or to have their babies. And we can all imagine how dangerous that can be sometimes for those women living in those areas.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HOWARD: So, we heard her there describe giving birth in a maternity care desert as dangerous.
And, Bianna, I also spoke with her about how there appears to be some overlap in the areas that are maternity care deserts and the state's restricting abortion access. And she says March of Dimes is currently closely monitoring that as well.
Bianna.
GOLODRYGA: One of the most dangerous developed nations in the world to deliver a baby.
HOWARD: Yes.
GOLODRYGA: That's just unacceptable for the richest nation in the world.
Jacqueline Howard, thank you so much for bringing this to our attention.
Well, still ahead, it was just supposed to be simple -- a simple fishing trip. Instead, more than a day later, they found themselves clinging to foam ice chests and fighting off sharks. The incredible survival story of three men in the Gulf of Mexico, up next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[09:56:42]
GOLODRYGA: So, imagine your boat sinks in the Gulf of Mexico. Now the situation is already desperate and then you face shark attacks while waiting for a rescue. Well, that's exactly what three people faced this weekend when a fishing trip turned dangerous. Rescuers spotted the three people in the water Sunday about 25 miles off the coast of empire, Louisiana, after they were reported missing by a concerned family member who said they had not returned more than a day later. When rescue crews located the trio, they found two of them fending off sharks in the water.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LUAN NGUYEN, SURVIVED SHARK ATTACK WHILE STRANDED AT SEA: They ripped the life vests. And it -- it didn't touch me. It bit the vest. And, boom, it hit. And I pushed him in the face. And I think that's where I caught the fingers - I mean these injuries on my hand. I don't really remember. But I push them in the face and then he won't leave. So, I took my two thumbs and jabbed them in the eye, and he took off.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Wow. His crew mate said he swam more than five miles to get help.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PHONG LE, SURVIVED SHARK ATTACK WHILE STRANDED AT SEA: I sent my location to my friend. And it was only 2 percent left. The minute I sent it, I see him trying to reply to me. And the phone cut off. I ran out of battery.
It was enough. Two hours later the rescue was on the Louisiana coastline. Their life jackets and this distress call were critical to their survival. But the survivors credited one decision to make a makeshift float of ice chests.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: It was enough. Two hours later, that dramatic rescue unfolded on the Louisiana coastline. Coast guard officials said their life jackets and that distress call were critical to their survival. But the survivors also credited one quick decision to create a makeshift float of ice chests.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NGUYEN: That was critical in us surviving, tying the ice chests together. It happened to be that one of the ice chests actually had waters and food in there. So that - you know, that hydrated us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GOLODRYGA: Creative quick thinking there on the part of the three men. Fortunately, they are all expected to recover just fine. Well, a major milestone for an eight-year-old boy paralyzed in the
July 4th shooting in Highland Park, Illinois. Cooper Roberts has now returned to school in a limited capacity, joining his twin brother in the third grade this week. His family said Cooper still needs therapy, which will mean a gradual return to school, but cheered the progress he has made since suffering life-threatening injuries. We're all cheering Cooper on.
And the U.S. could still be headed towards a strike of railway workers after one of the industry's largest unions rejected a tentative deal with freight carriers. Unions for engineers, conductors and maintenance workers have been fighting for shorter workweek, among other things, as most have to be on call seven days a week currently. The Biden administration is hoping for a swift agreement so there's no further disruption to the already strained supply chain. But experts say the first no vote is a likely sign that the current deal won't go through at all.
And good morning, everyone. I'm Bianna Golodryga.
This morning, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleading with President Biden and G7 leaders for more support as an increasingly dire situation unfolds in Ukraine.
Now, their top priority, more air defense. Overnight, President Biden offering Ukraine another round of security assistance, which includes those advanced air defense systems.
