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Winter Storm Hits South and Central U.S.; Winter Weather Alerts for More than 40 Million Americans; Blinken Meets with Palestinian President; Biden Touts Infrastructure Impact; Two Memphis Officers Put on Leave; Erika Shields is Interviewed about the Nichols Case. Aired 9-9:30a ET

Aired January 31, 2023 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:26]

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: A good Tuesday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

ERICA HILL, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Erica Hill.

Right now, Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in the West Bank, set to speak at any moment. This at the end of his three-day tour of the Middle East. The trip has gained new urgency following an outbreak of deadly violence in the region. Blinken met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas earlier today. He met, of course, with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday in an effort to get both sides to work together to end the bloodshed.

SCIUTTO: Also, Kevin McCarthy will meet tomorrow with President Biden at the White House for the first time since becoming House speaker. Top of his agenda, the debt ceiling. Republicans with that slim majority in the House are holding the threat of defaulting on the nation's debt to demand budget cuts.

And this morning, two more Memphis police officers have been put on leave in connection to the death of Tyre Nichols. That in addition to five officers who have already been fired, charged with second-degree murder.

Plus, the Memphis Fire Department has also fired three employees for their response, or nonresponse, to the beating. We're going to be live in Memphis just ahead.

HILL: We are keeping a close watch on the weather this Tuesday morning. Nearly 1,000 flights already canceled at this hour and even more are delayed as severe ice storms are snarling travel for much of the south and the central United States today. More than 40 million people right now under winter weather alerts.

SCIUTTO: In Texas, several school districts in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Austin areas are closed as a result. Ice on the roads making driving dangerous. One person is dead after a ten-car pileup on icy streets in Austin, Texas.

CNN national correspondent Ed Lavandera, he's live in Dallas, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers in the Weather Center.

Ed, first to you.

I'm curious what you're seeing there, also what you're hearing from emergency officials.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, emergency officials and transportation officials all over north Texas really urging people to stay off the roadways if they can. And you can see behind us that many people listening to this warning. This should normally be rush hour traffic. This is Highway 75 and 635 in the north Dallas area. This is, you know, one of those areas where we've often seen drivers coming down these mix matches (ph) of highways slipping and sliding all over the place. But we've seeing very few cars on the roadways this morning.

But despite that, there have still been a high number of accidents throughout the region. Icy roadways all over the place as well. And that is expected to worsen here in the hours ahead where what we're anticipating is a sporadic mix of sleet and icy conditions that will be off and on throughout much of the day, well until tomorrow as well.

And these winter advisories and winter warnings extend not only - not just here in north Texas, but also into Oklahoma and Arkansas, and as far south as San Antonio and Austin as well, where we've already heard reports of one fatality in the Austin area because of the winter weather and the roadways here.

So, treacherous conditions that will only continue to worsen here throughout the day as these flurries and ice and sleet is expected to continue falling throughout much of the day.

Erica and Jim.

HILL: All right, Ed, appreciate it.

Chad, as we look at what is ahead, what does the forecast look like for the rest of today and even into the week?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: I mean really Dallas, Fort Worth, all the way to Dias (ph), to Stephenville, this is the area that's getting hit the hardest right now.

What came through last night, about a quarter of an inch of ice in some spots, has already moved away and in toward the northeast, warming up a little bit. Not as much freezing going on.

But the next of three systems, one, two, and then one you can't even see yet, will now move into Dallas, Texas, and is in -- moving in right now at this hour.

Thunder, lightning, rain and 26 degrees at Love Field. And that's not a good combination at any time of year.

Right now this is going to be a treacherous day for Dallas, Fort Worth, from Paris, all the way up to Texarkana, including parts of Oklahoma, Arkansas and even towards Memphis and the like.

This storm does move to the east. Watch the pink. This is where it is freezing, raining and sleet. Kind of tapers off a little bit by tonight in Dallas. But the next system comes in tomorrow. No relief here. And what we're seeing with this heavy rain that's coming in, in Dallas at this point, with temperatures 26, even in the areas that have been salted, the salt is getting washed away and now all of a sudden the ice is accumulating.

[09:05:02]

Luckenbach, Texas, a quarter inch of ice. Whelan, and Willie and the boys. If I have put that song in your head for the rest of the day, I'm sorry, but you don't get Luckenbach on your map very, very often.

HILL: Chad, I think that was actually a sorry/not sorry on your part, my friend, but I'm going to let it slide because I like you.

Chad, Ed, thank you both.

Ed, stay safe out there.

SCIUTTO: Overseas now, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, he is speaking at the end of his trip to the Middle East. Earlier he met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

CNN's Nic Robertson, he is in Ramallah, in the West Bank, this morning.

Nic, there's no peace process to speak of there. There wasn't even one with a more moderate Israeli government. Now you have a harder right Israeli government. I wonder what the expectations are of what the U.S. secretary of state can accomplish there.

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: They're very low. The expectation here is that he can't deliver what they want, although Secretary Blinken did speak about that, about what people want. You know, and I think if you - if you listen to his words on that subject where he talked about we need to reestablish, and then he corrected himself and said, actually we need to rebuild a relationship with the Palestinian people. I think that gives you the sense that this is not something that's broken down, it's something that's sort of disappeared.

The faith that the Palestinian people have that they can get from the United States, the level of support that the Palestinian people feel is going to the Israelis, this sort of parity of, you know -- parity of security guarantees, parity of freedoms. The United States, Palestinians will point out, are very strong in supporting and giving security support to the Israelis, but they don't feel they get that. So, I think that gives you a sense of the heavy lift, the diplomatic lift, that faces Secretary Blinken here.

He has talked as well about the two-state solution and he's talked as well about this far right government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the possibility of it building more settlements. And he said, that is a key thing that would destroy the possibility of a two-state solution. But, again, Secretary Blinken aspires to that, wants to keep that idea alive. Yet here in Ramallah, most people would tell you they don't really believe that it's possible to have a two-state solution anymore. And that's particularly true amongst the younger generation. And, of course, it's their future and horizons that the secretary was speaking about.

SCIUTTO: And many Israelis say they have little hope of a two-state solution anymore.

Nic Robertson, in Ramallah, thanks very much.

HILL: In Washington, President Biden actually preparing to head to Queens, New York, in less than an hour, where he's expected to announce nearly $300 million in funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law for the Hudson Tunnel project between New York and New Jersey.

SCIUTTO: CNN's senior White House correspondent MJ Lee joins us now from the White House.

So, the president here in effect looking backwards to say here's what we accomplished in the first two years. Is that intended to be the bulk of the message in these next two years given that they've lost the majority in the House?

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim and Erica, basically if you take a look at President Biden's travels and speeches and events going back to last week and heading into this week as well, you actually get a pretty good roadmap of not only his State of the Union speech that's coming up next week, but also his 2024 re-elect pitch. What White House officials are telling us is that if you look at Biden's schedule, it is being crafted in such a way that he is doing several important things ahead of both of those things, the State of the Union speech, as well as his expected 2024 announcement.

One of those things is obviously touting the economic progress of the last two years. We've heard him do that a lot, whether it's talking about the jobs market, being robust, or talking about inflation finally seeming to moderate. And then there's the implementation part of the legislative accomplishments of the last two years. You know, we are going to see him do this when he talks about the infrastructure bill at an event in New York today. And we also saw him do this yesterday as well in Baltimore.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: It's about making investments in American cities, towns, and heartlands of rural America. It's about making things here in America again. It's about good jobs. It's about the dignity of work. It's about respect and self-worth. And it's about damn time we're doing it.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEE: And a huge part of the president's political messaging, too, will be casting House Republicans as extremists who are trying to undo some of that economic progress. And, of course, don't forget fundraising. That is going to be a huge part of the president's portfolio as well. In fact, he will be headlining a fundraising today in Manhattan. So, all of this really just adds up to what we expect to be a 2024 announcement that could come in the next several weeks.

Jim and Erica.

HILL: MJ, appreciate it. Thank you.

[09:10:00]

SCIUTTO: With us now, Margaret Talev, senior contributor for "Axios."

Margaret, good to have you on.

So, here we go again. 2020 all over again. It looks like. I mean Trump has already announced. Not clear the Republican Party entirely behind him.

Is the Democratic Party entirely behind Joe Biden as their 2024 nominee?

MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, "AXIOS": Well, Jim, for now the answer to that question is yes. And I think what you're seeing Biden do with this series of messagings around the infrastructure spending is a couple of things. There are plenty of swing voters and Republicans who do not care about construction under the Hudson River or what happens in New York. But looking at what this is part of, it's more than a billion dollars in those mega grants that also have been dedicated to spending in places like Kentucky and Ohio and North Carolina and Oklahoma and Louisiana and Mississippi. And the jobs that come with them, and this particular project in New York that MJ was just talking about, the promise is the creation of more than 70,000 jobs.

And this is all coming ahead of tomorrow's meeting between Biden and Speaker McCarthy over the spending cuts that Republicans are demanding in terms of an offset for raising the debt ceiling.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

TALEV: So, I think Biden's messaging is to show the Democratic Party that he can take a winning message into 2024 and to try to message to the center of the country the same thing.

HILL: It's not just that winning message that he's hoping to deliver, right, pointing to those accomplishments in the first two years, but there's also this - this push to go after extremism and the extreme far right and MAGA Republicans.

Is that going to be effective heading into 2024, especially if that field becomes a little bit more fractured? TALEV: Yes. It's really interesting. There's a new Marist poll out

that's getting a fair amount of attention. And that poll, you could argue, shows something not good for Biden, which is that more than half the country, six out of ten Americans, say the State of the Union is not strong. If you are the person delivering the State of the Union address, that's not -- those aren't the best numbers. I mean I guess they could be worse, but they're not good.

But there is a kind of sub note to that survey. And what that survey also found is that more than half the country says one of the reasons that the State of the Union isn't strong is because of partisan extremism in both parties. And people feel it more acutely on the Republican side, the -- but they -- Republicans see it on the Democratic side as well, the sense that there's too much extremism in both parties. That's why I think you're seeing Biden really lean into this sort of center or pragmatic position because actually when you look at the polling what Americans are saying is, we think extremism is one of the major contributors to the fact that we feel uncertain about the future of the United States right now.

SCIUTTO: OK, so speaking of extremism, if one of the messages of the midterms was that the far right of the Republican Party, that their message, including election denialism, didn't work for Republicans, why is the speaker with that slim majority doubling down on the threat of bringing the U.S. over the debt cliff, in effect? What -- is that politically beneficial to him or is it purely about keeping the speaker's gavel and keeping that wing of the party happy?

TALEV: Well, the two answers are completely intertwined because Kevin McCarthy is not running for president, Kevin McCarthy is trying to maintain his speakership.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

TALEV: And he has such a narrow majority, no Democrats support him, that he has to keep the right flank of his party at least satisfied enough that he's raising their issues.

But you see the duality of his messaging. He's already saying he is not in favor of replacing the current tax structure with effectively a 30 percent regressive sales tax. He's already saying that he's going to take off the table basically two of the biggest contributors to the national debt, which are -- would be modifications to Social Security and Medicare.

So, there's a dual messaging going on. You're seeing it with Kevin McCarthy. You're seeing it with James Comer on the Oversight Committee. The messaging to the center of the country and a parallel messaging to the right flank to conservative media and to the viewers and listeners of those media.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: It's -- it is - it is fascinating stuff as we look forward.

Margaret, always good to talk to you. Thank you. TALEV: You, too. Thanks, guys.

SCIUTTO: Coming up next, the investigation into the killing of Tyre Nichols has led to two more Memphis police officers being relieved of duty. And this morning we are getting new details about what was in the initial police report, misleading to say the least. That's coming up.

HILL: Yes, that's an understatement.

Also ahead, a protest erupts at a New York hotel after a group of migrants refuse to move from their rooms. They were being asked to move to a shelter in Brooklyn.

[09:15:01]

We're going to take you there live and get you up to speed.

Plus, maybe you saw it on TikTok, the 100 envelope challenge. Why financial experts are split on this money saving move.

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HILL: This morning, some important updates about what did and did not happen in Memphis on the heels of that severe beating of Tyre Nichols, who ultimately died from those injuries. So, let's bring you up to speed on the very latest.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: First, we've learned that it was not five officers who were initially put on leave and then ultimately fired and charged, as we know in Tyre Nichols death, but seven. That's right, two more Memphis police officers, at the same time, were put on leave. Officials say Preston Hemphill and another, a second unnamed officer, are still subject of an internal investigation. They have not been charged.

There's also, again, they were placed on leave at the same time. There is also some new reporting. "The New York Times" obtained a picture of what "The Times" says is the initial police report.

[09:20:05]

CNN has not been able to verify that photo. But what we can tell you is that reporting is that the initial police report was not at all what we initially heard.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HILL: And, in fact, was contradicted, Jim, by the videos that were then released.

SCIUTTO: Well, the initial police reported, according to "The Times," and again this is - we're reporting with attribution here, made no mention of the officers punching and kicking Tyre Nichols. And it also matches up with something that I noticed, Erica, looking at those videos yesterday from the scene, which is that in the immediate aftermath you heard officers talking about saying, well, he tried to grab my gun, he went for us, he punched at us, when there was, in fact, no evidence of that, at least in the videos we've seen. And the police chief saying -- citing similar.

CNN's Ryan Young, he's live in Memphis today.

Ryan, you've been there for some time. I wonder what you're hearing both from the community and from authorities.

RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim and Erica, when you look at this police report, of course, from "The New York Times," you can understand why people now have some more questions involved in this case. Obviously, you have what the officers were saying initially in the body camera. In fact, some of the words they were using in that body camera footage, talking about him reaching for the gun, is apparently in that report. We're working right now to obtain that report ourselves and we'll be reaching out to the Memphis Police Department in the next few hours to get that.

But then when you add on the other parts of this, that there were seven officers who pretty much were pulled from duty, you have that one unnamed officer, which we're still trying to find out who that person is. And then you have Preston Hemphill, who was suspended. We know he's been an officer since 2018. He was a part of that Scorpion Unit. And he is the one who's initially in that body camera footage. You see him wrapping the Taser back up afterwards.

In fact, listen to some of his words right after that initial stop.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE) southbound (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They found him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Huh?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They got him. Martin and all them are over there chasing him.

I hope they stomp his ass.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (INAUDIBLE).

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. I hope they stomp his ass. Smith is calling for other cars because him and Martin are chasing him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

YOUNG: Yes, you can hear those words being said, I hope they stomp him.

And so a lot of people in this community obviously were very upset about hearing that language. We now know from his lawyer that he has been talking to investigators as well. Still trying to figure out who that seventh officer is.

And you've got to think about the fire department also making some moves yesterday, firing three of their employees who did not do an assessment initially after watching that video, which was so tough to watch, as someone desperately needed help after severely being beaten the way they were, as we all saw on the video, and not getting that immediate medical attention.

Now there are more questions because obviously you wonder, are there going to be more charges? When you look at that police report, could charges come from filing a false police report. These are all questions that have to be answered at this point.

So, we do have this new reporting, but it's something that we'll also have to dig down into to figure out how the next steps goes, especially with the DA and this police department.

HILL: Yes, and not only about that police report, as you point out, Ryan, but also if seven officers were put on leave at the same time, why did we only hear about five of them initially? An important question there as well as you point out.

Ryan, thank you.

SCIUTTO: Joining me now is former chief of the Atlanta and Louisville, Kentucky, police departments, Erika Shields.

Chief Shields, thanks for taking the time this morning.

ERIKA SHIELDS, FORMER LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY, POLICE CHIEF: Yes, good morning. Thanks for having me.

SCIUTTO: So first with what appears to be a false police report in the initial wake of this. And, by the way, it's not just the report here because when you watch those videos you could see the officers begin to, it seems, concoct this story in the wake of the attack on Tyre Nichols, saying on tape that, oh, yes, he went for my gun, you know, he threw a punch at me, even though there's no evidence of that on tape.

This has echoes of that first police report in George Floyd's case, right, which cited none of what we know happened there.

Is this a consistent problem that you have seen in the forces you've commanded, and how do police departments police that?

SHIELDS: Yes, I think this is why it's so important that body worn cameras be required and that they be audited.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Yes.

SHIELDS: Because what you tend to find is on use of force incidents that were questionable, there is a tendency by officers, not always, but some of your - your - your other -- some officers do embellish and flat-out lie. And they're -- this is why we have body worn cameras. They have to be worn, they have to be audited because we owe it to the public to get this right.

SCIUTTO: Yes. I wonder, as someone who's commanded officers in two major cities here, I mean it's a basic question, what were they thinking? There are cameras recording every moment of this and yet they file a report that is easily contradicted by the video evidence.

SHIELDS: Well, and go back a step further. They knew they were filming themselves and yet they still beat this man to death.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SHIELDS: So that tells you their comfort level with behaving this way. And I suspect when you go back and you review their other incidents, there won't be anything this egregious, certainly.

[09:25:02]

But you're going to find that these folks just thought they were above the law, they thought they were above training.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SHIELDS: And it's - it's frightful, quite frankly.

SCIUTTO: What is the fix for that? There is a renewed effort on Capitol Hill for legislation which failed after George Floyd's killing, those - the two parties unable to come to agreement. Is the fix primarily a legal one or is it a cultural one? And how would a cultural fix be accomplished exactly?

SHIELDS: So, the legislation last year really got held up on qualified immunity.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

SHIELDS: What I would say is, that's an important piece, but the reality of it is, these officers could care less about qualified immunity. They filmed themselves killing a man. So, it's not to say it's not important, but I do think there's room for legislation to be done that is proactive.

So, for instance, there are body worn camera analytics coming on the market now so that as I, as a chief, I can actually put in key phrases that I want. So imagine you put in that you want to get -- beat somebody's tail or a racial term, and I can start identifying behaviors before we get to this point. So, I think that there's -- we've put so much investment into technology to fight crime that we need to look inwardly and leverage that technology to weed out behavior.

So, I think that -- and I do think Congress has a role here because one of these areas that is so -- where people push back is the cost associated with it. And then what you run into is state laws on record retention and what the state law -- so in Kentucky, which has had strong collective bargaining, a sizable amount of my operations were dictated by state law. Well, as a chief trying to drive change, that's extremely difficult. So, I do think there is a room -- a role for Congress.

SCIUTTO: But you're saying that if qualified immunity were the sticking point again, that there could be positive change even if that was set aside?

SHIELDS: Absolutely. Absolutely.

SCIUTTO: Understood.

Well, Chief Erika Shields, serving both in Atlanta and Louisville, Kentucky, thanks so much for joining us this morning.

SHIELDS: Thank you now.

HILL: Dozens of migrants are currently camped out on a New York City sidewalk. They're protesting the city's plans to move them from a midtown hotel to a relief center. We're going to take you there live, next.

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