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Back and Forth Begins Over What Trump Can Say On Indictments; Ocean Surface Heat Reaches Record-Breaking Levels; U.S. Set To Face Sweden For Spot In Quarterfinals; Soon: Simone Biles To Compete For First Time Since Tokyo; 3 Women Hurt In Otter Attack On Montana's Jefferson River; Social Media Influencer Charged With Inciting Riot. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired August 05, 2023 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:55]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington. Good evening.

There is a new deadline and new back and forth in the latest indictment of former President Donald Trump. The federal judge overseeing Trump's election fraud case has responded to a court filing from Special Counsel Jack Smith that came in last night. Smith wants a protective order after Trump posted this social media message late last night. It says: "If you go after me, I'm coming after you."

Smith wants the judge to limit Trump and his legal team in terms of what they publicly discuss about the sensitive evidence in the case and the judge has now given the Trump team until 5:00 PM Monday to respond. Minutes ago, the judge denied a request from the Trump lawyers to push back Monday's deadline. Smith had called it an unnecessary delay.

And joining us now to talk about this is Jim Schultz. He's a former Trump White House lawyer. Jim, thanks very much for joining us. We appreciate it.

Let's start with what the judge is saying here. There's now a deadline of 5:00 PM on Monday for Trump's legal team to respond. This is going to stand after the judge denied a Trump motion to push it back. They wanted this to be pushed back until Thursday, it sounds. Is that -- how does that Monday deadline sound to you? And what do you make of everything that's transpired over the last 24 hours?

You have Trump on social media last night putting out this threat, essentially, one day after he was arraigned in Washington. I would imagine as a former Trump attorney, you would have advised him not to put that out there given that this judge on Thursday was admonishing him to be very careful about intimidating witnesses, trying to communicate with witnesses, and other things that he might do that could damage this case.

JIM SCHULTZ, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: So look, he opened up the door for this type of motion by Jack Smith, with that comment, and no surprise that they made that motion and that the judge is going to take it seriously and going to hear it right away, but she is going to be very thoughtful about this.

She is going to have to balance the former president's First Amendment rights of political speech against the need to protect that sensitive information, and perhaps grand jury information, witness lists, witness testimony, witness interviews, those kinds of things are certainly going to be protected, because the judge is going to be taking seriously the need to protect the witnesses from threats, intimidation, and those types of things that could be incited from that speech.

But she's going to have to make that and strike that balance, and I think she'll be thoughtful about it.

ACOSTA: And the Trump campaign has called this social media posted question: "The definition of political speech." I mean, I don't know if we can put it up on screen again, if we have it available. We can show it to our viewers one more time: "If you go after me, I'm coming after you." He posted this roughly 24 hours after his arraignment on Thursday, and I suppose the Trump campaign can say, well, he was talking about this thing or the other thing, he wasn't talking about the case that went to an arraignment on Thursday.

But you and I, I mean, come on? . I mean, does that pass the smell test?

SCHULTZ: Look, it's certainly like I said, opened up the door for the judge to take it and say, okay, guys, you've got until Monday to respond to this. So certainly the judge is taking it seriously. The prosecution has taken it seriously and it is something the Trump legal team is going to have to deal with throughout this campaign, because there are going to be limitations on what the former president can say, as it relates to this case and information he actually receives from this case, and how we can use it publicly.

So yes, it opened up the door and it certainly justified -- gave the prosecution ability to justifiably go to court on.

ACOSTA: And you worked in the Trump White House, it wasn't around the 2020 election, but it was early on in the administration and you know how Trump operates. Do you think he is trying to intimidate those involved in this 2020 election case?

SCHULTZ: I can't speak to what the former president is doing with his speech, what's going on in his mind as it relates to this, but what he does need to be cognizant is that everyone is paying attention to what he is saying.

[20:05:06]

And what he says as it relates to people coming after him, him going after them could be taken in the context of, hey, this is a threat against potential witnesses, and everything he says is going to be viewed through that lens of scrutiny, and he's going to have to be mindful of it. It's going to be really tough for his lawyers to make him mindful of it. ACOSTA: Well, yes, I mean, because you worked in the Trump White

House. I mean, this is the kind of activity, behavior on his part that I would imagine makes Trump lawyers, you know, reconsider what they're doing with their lives, I suppose. It has got to be pretty maddening.

SCHULTZ: Look, these folks have a tough job, right? He's running for president. He's always been a person who kind of just, you know, his stream of consciousness, he says what he wants to say. He doesn't always -- you know, it's not scripted in any way, shape, or form, that becomes really hard for a lawyer who is trying to prepare a defense in a number of criminal actions.

ACOSTA: You know, Donald Trump has previously called Smith deranged. He was doing this last night at a rally in Alabama. He has called federal investigators, thugs. He has repeatedly denounced the prosecutors in these cases against him. Is it time for the judge to warn Trump to knock it off or else?

SCHULTZ: Making -- you know, making comments about the special prosecutor, making comments about the agents involved in the case, generally speaking, is something the judge is going to look at closely every time he does it.

So the more he does it, the more he is going to open himself to more and more scrutiny and be subject to press sanctions and other things that, you know, inside of this case, that could cause him some real trouble, and the judge was very clear in that in her initial hearing, that it's a crime to intimidate witnesses, bribe witnesses, say they make threats against witnesses, that that's a crime, and she warned them specifically of those issues.

ACOSTA: Right. And I guess that brings me back, I suppose to the original question that I had, which is for Trump to do this 24 hours after he was arraigned, it clearly appears to be -- I mean, they're going to say, well, he didn't say specifically, anybody, anything about anybody involved in this case, but the inference is there.

Does the judge at this point have what she needs to essentially put some guardrails on Trump and say, no more social media posts. You're done.

SCHULTZ: There is no way she is going to say that there are no more social media posts by someone running for public office level, president of the United States. This is no way a judge is going to be --

ACOSTA: To know about this case -- about these cases.

SCHULTZ: She has a reputation for being very thoughtful in terms of being a judge and she is going to have to keep those guardrails on as it relates to witnesses, and as it relates to this case, not necessarily, you know, defending himself in the public realm, as it relates to the charges in the case. He is certainly going to be able to do that, but specific instances of issues relating to witnesses, and sensitive information is where he's got to keep those guardrails, and I think that's probably what she's going to do. ACOSTA: And other judges have tried to advise Trump in the past, for

the most part, he's ignored them. If he were your client right now, what would you advise him to do?

SCHULTZ: Look, I think his lawyers are probably telling him now that he has to be very careful, because all he is doing is making their job harder as it relates to defending this case, and if unless he wants to get hauled into court every time he sends out a tweet or some type of public statement on Truth Social, you know, he's got to be mindful of what he is saying, and who his audience is, who he is saying it to, who is directing it to, specifically witnesses and people involved in the case, and about matters that may be sensitive that he receives as a result of discovery in the case, because we expect on August 28th that there's going to be a discovery schedule.

The government said they're ready. They're ready to start turning over evidence, and those are things -- you know, he's going to receive a lot of the or all of the information relative to this prosecution -- from the prosecution -- from the government and all of that information, you know, they're going to put some guardrails around what he can say about it.

ACOSTA: And as with the case itself, Trump defenders that are claiming he was just exercising his right to free speech and challenging the election results. Do you buy that?

SCHULTZ: That's what the argument is going to be in court, right? That he didn't say anything about this case. There was some -- the government is going to say, look, the timing is suspect on this, right?

And I think the judge is going to take this opportunity to say, look, this was a close one, and we're going to put some guardrails around what you say because you're running up to the line here and that's why I think she has been very stern about having this hearing on Monday because it's running up to the line.

[18:10:06]

ACOSTA: Well, and I guess, I'm also asking in regards to the case in its entirety. Trump and his defenders are trying to say, well, he was just exercising his free speech rights, and saying what he was saying about the election. Do you buy that? Do you think that that is a legitimate line of defense? Because I mean, he was also involved -- I mean, he and the people around him were also involved in putting together alternate slates or fake slates of electors and so on. That wasn't free speech.

SCHULTZ: Right. So I think Jack Smith was very careful and very smart about the way he charged this case, right? He said, look, the president does have a right to free speech. The president has a right to lie about some of these issues. But, you know, he doesn't have a right to conspire with others, to push a fake electors slight on to Congress, and some of the other allegations, switching out the attorney general or trying to strong arm DOJ into making statements that were false. So those types of things are going to be separate from that free

speech argument, but I do expect motions on this and I do think that the judge, and you'll see these motions play out likely in January- February of next year after discoveries played out on this case, and after the defense has gotten a look at what the prosecution has.

And I think in that January-February timeframe, there's going to be a lot of motions filed by the defense on this case, I think that's one of them and she is going to want to be thoughtful, this judge is going to be thoughtful about writing on these issues, making sure that when they go up on appeal, that whatever her decision is sticks.

ACOSTA: And Jim, just finally getting back to the social media post. That it just sounds like incitement and that he is threatening people. If you were his defense lawyer at this point, wouldn't you advise him to avoid this sort of thing in the sense that it could, in addition to upsetting the judge, not make a jury feel all that good about the former president.

I mean, these kinds of social media posts, the stuff that he says at these rallies, I can imagine that the special counsel's team, they're compiling these things to show later on during the trial.

SCHULTZ: Look, his potential jury pool is watching everything he does, both in Florida and in Washington, DC. So certainly, as a lawyer, when you're counseling your client, he has to be mindful, especially someone, a public figure with a giant bully pulpit like he has, you have to be advising your client to be careful about what they say, and certainly his lawyers are doing that, I am sure.

ACOSTA: Would you tell him to knock it off, I guess is my basic question during this interview. Wouldn't you just tell him to knock it off?

SCHULTZ: Well, I think any lawyer representing him would tell him to knock off, you know, making speech that could get him into trouble in the courtroom. Certainly, you want to advise your client, not to run into the line, don't even come close to the line, because we're going to get held back into court to start to deal with motions on these issues, and doesn't make it easier on the defense, and quite frankly, doesn't make it better for him and the jury pool.

So, as lawyers, they should be telling him, I'm sure they are telling him, look, you can't run this up to the line, you have to abide by the guardrails, you're going to get called into court just like we're doing on Monday, or we're going to have to respond to motions just like we have to do on Monday, time and time again, if you don't.

ACOSTA: All right, Jim Schultz, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it.

SCHULTZ: Thank you.

ACOSTA: All right, and for more analysis on this, I want to bring in defense attorney and former federal prosecutor, Shan Wu. Shan, thanks for giving me a few extra moments with Jim there to go

over this stuff. I mean, your sense of it, though, when you saw the social media posts last night, and then the special counsel, Jack Smith, almost immediately pouncing on. It only took a few hours to go to the federal judge in this case and seek this protective order.

Your sense of things, I guess, 24 hours now after that social media post and all of the stuff that transpired after that. I mean, it really has ignited a whole other battle inside of this case.

SHAN WU, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: It's the right move for the prosecutor to call him out on that. The magistrate judge who had admonished him and his team said it's illegal to do anything to attempt to influence jurors or intimidate witnesses.

This easily can be argued if we say, "I'm coming after you" would be an attempt to influence the jury pool or intimidate witnesses. There's a way he can do his political speech, as you were just discussing with Jim, that wouldn't be like this.

You know, you could say like this is a political persecution, et cetera. This ain't the way to do it, but it sounds like he's actually threatening people with physical harm this way.

Now, interestingly, the special counsel said to the judge, don't even wait for a hearing, impose the protective order, because it can be modified at any time. You can have a hearing later. They can say, you know what conditions they want, but we want to push the send button and start giving them to discovery and we need reassurances the discovery won't end up on Truth Social.

[18:15:10 ]

Trump's lawyers say no, we need more time, even more time. And this is, of course, part of the whole delay strategy. So part of the problem for him is it all adds up to delay.

ACOSTA: Well, and that's what I was just about to get to, which is, if Trump plays these games, and they result in the special counsel having to go to the judge and say, okay, wait, Trump just did this or Trump just did that, and then the defense team says, oh, hold on a second, we need a few days to think about our defense strategy for this.

You can just see a scenario where Trump can just sort of keep fiddling while Rome burns here and just essentially drag this out by engaging this kind of activity. Doesn't that put really the onus on the judge at some point, to issue him a warning?

WU: Oh, I think first of all, he will be issued a warning on this.

ACOSTA: You think so?

WU: Yes. He will be issued a warning, but you're exactly right, which is, you know, in the documents case, part of their delay comes from having more defendants. They have to get lawyers, there's national security issues classification. Here, it looks much more streamlined, because the special counsel only

charged him. Here a path to delay for them, which we may be beginning to see, it is correct a lawyer would say, hey, don't be talking about this like this, this is bad for you. But from his point of view, energizing his base saying they keep dragging me back into court, they won't let me talk. Every time that happens, it takes time away from the trial.

ACOSTA: Yes.

WU: And so that could add up to a whole new strategy for delay.

ACOSTA: To delay, and I mean, I've talked to a Trump adviser in recent days, who has said that the plan is to push these cases as off as far as we can, if we can get them delayed until after the election, we've got a shot at winning this thing.

Now , I just want to ask you about this. There has been a lot of talk about the First Amendment providing cover for the former president in this case. I asked -- I was trying to -- I asked Jim Schultz about that, too, as well as these claims that he was just following the advice of what his legal team told him. Your sense of both of those strategies.

WU: Yes, the First Amendment, a hard case from them, though not legally, there will be motions where they try to fight that out. I mean, that the simple analogy people have been talking about, you know, bank robberies. Bank robber goes in hands, the teller note, "Roses are red, violets are blue, give me the money, or it's curtains for you." They arrest him. He says, hey, now it's illegal to write poetry. Right?

That's his argument on the First Amendment.

ACOSTA: Right.

WU: But even if the judge says you can't really say that they may still get a piece of that in front of the jury, and that could still be helpful for them. But as a strictly legal defense, it doesn't really work.

The advice of counsel of the defense, a little bit of the same issue, this is a jury nullification idea. You want to get in front of the jury. He is the president. He has lots of people advising him. He is listening to some, not listening to others, that if the counsel is -- the special counsel is good and is lucky, they will get that knocked out ahead of time in motions to restrict that.

Nonetheless, it'll probably still seep into the jury arguments to say these co-conspirators were lawyers, so he was listening to them.

ACOSTA: Yes.

WU: The difficulty for Trump on that end is to get that advice of counsel in front of the jury really, is somebody needs to testify about it. He needs to testify, unlikely to happen, or the co- conspirators, who if they stay unindicted, they're not going to be jumping to the gun to expose themselves, waive their fifth amendment privilege to talk about that advice.

So in that sense, it's hard for him to put that on and that's going to be a big problem for him. He can't get that defense in front of the jury very easily.

ACOSTA: All right, Shan Wu, thank you very much. We'll be watching, I assume some twists and turns to come. Thanks so much.

Right now, more than 60 million people are under heat alerts across the south and southwest. We will tell you who is seeing the hottest temperatures including the city that just beat a record of 28 straight days above 100 degrees plus.

CNN's Bill Weir is here to talk about the growing concerns over our oceans as average temperatures soar to the highest level on record this past week.

And later on in the program, the return of the GOAT, a sellout crowd is expected to watch Simone Biles, there she is, return to competitive gymnastics tonight. CNN is there. We will talk to you about that in just a few moments. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:23:24]

ACOSTA: It has been one very hot summer. Mother Nature it seems has no mercy and certainly not this summer. Some severe heat warnings -- look at this -- stretching from California all the way to Mississippi today, at least 62 million Americans under threat, almost the entire state of Texas now baking under triple-digit temperatures.

The city of Austin is setting a new record, 28 straight days over 100 degrees. Our planet's oceans are also soaring to record breaking temperatures. Take a look at this. The water is so hot off the coast of Florida that the coral is literally melting.

The new record, there it is on your screen right now might not seem like a huge jump, but given how much heat it takes to warm the ocean, experts warn it is extremely significant.

Let's discuss with our chief climate correspondent, Bill Weir.

Bill, great to have you back. Explain to us why these warming waters could have serious implications for the planet. We've talked -- you and I have talked about this before warmer oceans mean more powerful hurricanes. I never thought of melting coral. I mean, that to me is just -- I mean, it's just extraordinary what we're seeing this summer, all of these indicators.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely.

Well, if you think about sort of the marine ecosystem like a big game of Jenga with the blocks sort of stacked on each other, this summer is pulling out some of the biggest ones at the base right now.

We're about 21 degrees, this new record, Celsius that's just shy of 70 degrees Fahrenheit, which doesn't seem all that too hot, but that includes the southern hemisphere which is supposed to be icy. It's winter down there right now, but they have record low sea ice down there.

Meanwhile, take a look at this graph. This is from Copernicus. That's the European Space Agency climate unit, similar to NOAA in the United States and they put out this new graph.

[18:25:10]

The colors there, those lines, this is a line chart of ocean temperatures around the world for the last, you know, 20 or 30 years or so. The yellow line is 2022, the blue one is 2020, the record year that was just broken was 2016, that was an El Nino year, the natural sort of heating rhythms of the ocean there. Look at the black line. That's us. We're off the charts.

So you talk to the marine biologists and ecologists anywhere in the world from the Mediterranean to the Gulf of Maine to the Florida Keys, they are going through the stages of grief right now, because already stressed reef systems, for example, in the Florida Keys coral, it looks like a colorful plant, it is an animal and it is a social animal, it breeds collectively, it spawns collectively, releases eggs and sperm into the water and then they fertilize and cling to a little rock and start their own colony and that's the bottom of the food chain of every fish you've ever ordered in a restaurant of millions of people who live in coastal communities.

And now when that water, that coral evolved in a very specific set of circumstances. We've exceeded that now, and so they are going down seeing massive die-offs, even the hardiest coral, which survived bleaching events in 2015 are completely gone.

There have been 60 or more fish kills up and down the Florida coast. These are the smaller tropical fish, but they are worried now it could get to the snapper in the red fish, which is the heart of that tourism angler market in Florida. And so this is just -- and that's just a microcosm of what's happening around the world -- Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes, I mean, those hot temperatures in the Keys, in the water around the Keys, I mean, it's just -- it's unbelievable. And I guess, not to ask an impossible question, but I'll try, how much of this is El Nino? How much of this is climate change? Is it a collision of the two that explains what we're seeing this year.

WEIR: Almost all of this that we're seeing right now is manmade climate change. It's a century-and-a-half of sort of planet cooking pollution put into the sea and sky and just -- but we're now seeing it in stunning speed, because the ocean has been hiding 90 percent of this warming for so long, and now it's coming to the fore.

El Nino is just really getting underway in parts of the Pacific now, and so we have August to get through, and September. These are usually the two hottest months. So folks are really, really preparing here for something that nobody has measured before.

ACOSTA: In a new report from Climate Central says four out of five people across the world experienced higher temperatures than they normally would have in July, because of human-induced climate change, and we've been talking about this, July has just been a month that folks in your line of work, they're going to be remembering for some time, this July -- this past July.

WEIR: It feels like it. It really feels like it. I've always said that one of the sort of tyrannical puzzles of climate change, it is not like a sudden global event, like a COVID or a 9/11, or a Pearl Harbor where that just changes everybody around the world. Because you could be in miserable conditions in one part of the planet and it's perfectly tamed somewhere else.

But this year, to see that over 80 percent of humanity was experiencing one of these heat blobs on three continents in Asia, one in North America, one in Africa and Europe, that just sits there and cooks people for weeks at a time. The nighttime temperatures don't go down enough for people to get a break, so that becomes more dangerous as well.

And again, we're just starting August, right now, Jim, so we're going to be talking about adaptation, as part of the conversation the way we used to talk about, is it hot enough for you? Unfortunately, the meaning of that icebreaker has changed.

ACOSTA: Absolutely, and I foresee many more segments, Bill. We're going to have you come on and talk about how hot August was and September, and what these hurricanes are going to be like coming up in the next couple of -- I mean, it's just -- there are so many red warnings, flashing red lights warning us that we're in really rough shape right now in terms of our climate.

Bill Weir, thanks as always, really appreciate it.

WEIR: You bet.

ACOSTA: Thanks Bill.

Tomorrow the US faces Sweden at the Women's World Cup they say they're not panicking after some disappointing performances, but the pressure is on.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLATKO ANDONOVSKI, US WOMEN'S NATIONAL SOCCER TEAM COACH: For someone again to question the standards, the mentality, the mindset of this team or everything that they do. First, I don't think it's the right time for that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:33:49] ACOSTA: Can they keep the dream of a three-peat alive? Tomorrow, Team

USA will face Sweden for a chance to advance at the Women's World Cup. But after struggling to get out of the group stage, there are real questions about whether the Americans can do it.

CNN's Patrick Snell joins us now.

Patrick, despite the questions, the players seem to be confident and this is when they shine when they get to this round.

PATRICK SNELL, CNN SPORT ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely. This is where, in theory, they come to their best form. We shall see so much of the focus, as ever, Jim, on the U.S. women's team. They've been the team to beat repeatedly over previous World Cups. They're two-time defending champs, they're looking to win this tournament for a third straight time, something no women's team or indeed men's team, I will say, has ever done before.

Let's be honest, though, Team USA, somewhat uninspiring with that draw against Portugal this past week. A game that ended goalless, it was enough for them to regress, but the Portuguese missed a great chance in stoppage time when they hit the woodwork, had that gone in, Jim, the European team would have advanced and America would have been eliminated.

Most importantly, though, for Team USA, they did get through, and they now have a place in the last eight in their sights.

[18:35:06]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALEX MORGAN, U.S. CAPTAIN: It hasn't been the tournament that I would have hoped, but at the same time, having this incredible opportunity in front of us in the round of 16, facing Sweden, a team we know extremely well, I think that there's no question we're highly motivated.

VLATKO ANDONOVSKI, U.S. COACH: We accept the fact that we could have been out if the ball hit the cross - hit the post on the other side too, right? The fact that we're in, okay, we were lucky at the moment and we're moving on. So now we'll do everything possible so that the same situation doesn't happen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNELL: It won't be easy either, I'm telling you, against the Swedish national team. They beat the Americans in the last two Olympics, but I will say their record against the U.S. not good when it comes to the World Cup, having lost on four of the six times they've faced each other. Twenty years on from reaching the final.

They did get to the final, Jim, in 2003. They lost on that occasion to Germany. How Sweden, though, would love to go one better this time around. Their head coach doesn't seem too interested, though, in the struggles of the American national team. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETER GERHARDSSON, SWEDEN COACH: So I don't know what the U.S. think about their performance so far, so - and I don't care about it. So I care about what we can do and I think we have the possibility to win the game. That's the important thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SNELL: So much at stake, Jim. The winner of Sunday's match will book their place in the last eight. They'll take on Japan. We know that already. Japan, the last team to beat America at the Women's World Cup and that was in the final, and you have to go all the way back to 2011 for that. Right back to you.

ACOSTA: All right. Yes, Patrick, they have been on fire. And we're going to have to see if the streak keeps going.

Patrick Snell, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Next hour in a Chicago suburb, the much-anticipated and long-awaited return of Olympian Simone Biles, the competitive gymnastics. Her return comes two years after she shocked fans by withdrawing from the finals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, citing mental health concerns. Tonight's competition is important because it's the final opportunity for athletes to qualify for the national championships in San Jose later this month

And CNN's Isabel Rosales joins us from outside of Chicago.

A lot of anticipation there, I'm imagining, where you are. What's the mood like?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Jim, excitement would be an understatement. I've been hearing little girl screams pretty much all day long. I mean, this arena, now arena, has 7,200 seats and every seat will be filled today to watch Simone Biles compete the seven-time Olympic medalist back. We have not seen her compete since the Tokyo Games.

And the only reason, Jim, you're not seeing all this packed behind me, this is the merch area, normally this would be just absolutely crowded. In fact, let's whip the camera that way. The only reason you're not seeing all the crowds is because they haven't been allowed in yet. There's still half an hour before they can be allowed into this arena, but you see them right there by the door, so many of them just so excited to come here and see all of these amazing athletes compete.

Now, Biles is registered for all four events. Two years ago, she shocked the world at the Tokyo Games when she withdrew from her events after suffering what's known as the twisties, that mental block and also spatial block where they can't tell up from down when they're flipping in midair, and that's kind of important if you're an elite gymnast. She received backlash on social media during that time, some people

accusing her of abandoning her teammates and of showing a moment of weakness. But her supporters saw it as a testament and proof on - of the demands on elite gymnasts that even the best of the best can't always keep up.

Now, I spoke with so many fans just excited to see the greatest of all time back at it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And we're excited to see her come back tonight. Yes, it's going to be an awesome show.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's the greatest to ever do it and just the example that she's setting by, number one, taking care of her mental health, being public and vocal about it and then making this comeback. As soon as I heard she was in, I was like, we have to go.

ROSALES: When you heard she was coming back, what'd you think?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just got lit up and I'm like, mom, we have to get the tickets. I would give her just do your best and you're going to do amazing out there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROSALES: And Jim, I'm not a gymnast, but I was just inside of the stadium and I saw her practicing out there. She looked really good. I spoke with other athletes who saw her practicing yesterday and they said she looked so strong like she "hadn't missed a single day." We'll see here in about an hour.

ACOSTA: All right. It's going to be pretty exciting. Please let us know what happens.

Isabel Rosales, thank you very much.

[18:40:01]

Coming up, three women in Montana injured after being attacked by an otter. That's right, you heard that, an otter. We'll talk about how often that actually happens and what to look out for. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:44:15]

ACOSTA: Grizzly bear attacks in Montana, sure, that's not all that surprising. But attacked by otters? When was the last time you heard about one of those? Well, that's exactly what happened this week to three women floating the Jefferson River in southwest Montana.

We wondered how rare is this? So we asked Ron Magill of Zoo Miami to join us.

Ron, Montana rivers are full of otters and they look like cute little cuddly creatures, which is why this story jumped out at me. Does this - and I don't want to make too light of this because one of the three women was apparently so seriously injured, she had to be airlifted out of the area. How serious can this get and does this happen?

RON MAGILL, COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, ZOO MIAMI: Well, first of all, it's very rare that it happens. Having said that, it has happened before. It can happen and otters are very powerful animals, very quick animals.

[18:45:05]

They're also very protective animals.

They usually give birth to their young in the spring and during the first several weeks, they can spend time in a den, but then the mothers take them out to learn how to swim. And they're very protective of those offspring.

So I can imagine people coming down in a tube, especially in a smaller river or stream where there's not a lot of space to get around. It's very easy to understand that she could have been threatened and attacked to protect her young. They're also very protective of their territories.

So people look at otters and like you said, they're very cute, they're adorable. People have seen the pictures of them on swimming on their backs and playing and the whiskers and such. But they have an incredibly powerful set of teeth, powerful jaws to eat the fish and the food that they get through shelled mollusks and things like that. So the bite can be very, very serious.

ACOSTA: Yes. So I guess - I mean, it's just sort of like we mentioned grizzly bears earlier. If you're near a bear around her cubs, watch out. You could be in a lot of trouble if you're out in the wilderness hiking or doing whatever. I suppose the same rule applies for these cute little cuddly otters as well.

MAGILL: Absolutely. And it's ...

ACOSTA: Yes.

MAGILL: ... more dangerous when you're in water with them. This would be much, much rarer had the otters come out of the water and attack somebody on land. But I can understand going on tubes and a smaller body of water, how they may be threatened and become very protective.

ACOSTA: And the Montana Fish & Game officials say they have no plans to do anything to the otters. When a bear attacks, it's a different story. The bear is usually killed. What is your sense of it? How should wildlife officials handle this kind of a situation?

MAGILL: I think they're handling it perfectly well. I think, these otters were probably just being otters defending territory. They should be putting up signs around the area saying, listen, otters are in the area, beware.

Here in Florida where I'm from, we've got the situation with alligators all the time. They're common. It's not common that you have an alligator "attack," but it does happen on occasion. So it's just important that people are aware of their surroundings.

IF you have a sign that says the otters prep their young in this water, I wouldn't be taking my inner tube down that waterway.

ACOSTA: Yes. And I do want to check in if we can somehow on the - on how these ladies are doing, because it's just - it's a remarkable thing that you'd never see happen. But it is a reminder when you're out there in the wilderness, the key word there is wild. I mean, you don't know what's going to happen and you have to be careful at all times.

Ron Magill, thanks so much for being with us. We appreciate it. If we get any updates, we'll get back to you on it for an otter update ...

MAGILL: I appreciate it.

ACOSTA: ... if it happens. All right. Thanks, Ron.

MAGILL: Thank you.

ACOSTA: Thanks so much.

Tomorrow night on CNN, we explore the rich history of black creations in the genres of horror and science fiction in an all new episode of See It Loud: The History of Black Television. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

YTASHA L. WOMACK, AUTHOR, AFROFUTURISM: THE WORLD OF BLACK SCI-FI & FANTASY CULTURE: It was really groundbreaking to have a black superhero on television. And for many people, this was one of their first examples of Afrofuturism in science fiction television.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They've been stung by a mantis.

SCOTT EVANS, HOST, ACCESS HOLLYWOOD: Carl Lumbly stars as this man who's been shot by the police --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Somebody help me.

EVANS: Who's paralyzed, but builds an exoskeleton that gives him the ability to walk. And with that ability comes for him the responsibility of fighting violence.

CARL LUMBLY, ACTOR, M.A.N.T.I.S.: I'm Carl Lumbly and I was television's first black superhero. I didn't know it, assumed that there must have been another one, just one I hadn't heard about.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can go on destroying each other or you can learn to live together.

LUMBLY: Mantis was a pilot that celebrated black genius.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ACOSTA: All right. The all new episode of See It Loud: The History of Black Television airs tomorrow night at 9 Eastern and Pacific only on CNN.

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[18:53:14]

ACOSTA: A popular online gamer with more than 15 million followers is facing charges of inciting a riot and unlawful assembly after a massive crowd turned up in New York City's Union Square following the promise of free electronics from the social media star.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the New York City Police Department. This assembly is unlawful. You are ordered to disperse.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: And that's what ensued. The chaos prompted the NYPD to activate a level four response, its highest disaster alert level after the large crowd turned violent.

CNN's Polo Sandoval has more details.

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Jim, good evening.

New York City officials are still investigating yesterday's events, an unlawful assembly here in the heart of Manhattan quickly and dramatically spiraling into an out of control mob, as the NYPD described it. Initially, there were hundreds of young people quickly turning into thousands of them, all coming together here, drawn in by promises from that very popular influencer of free PlayStations and other free items.

Today, though, the only reminders of what took place on Friday afternoon, some power washing teams are taking out some of the paint splatter you see just behind that, that green temporary construction fencing was taken down by the mob. Some of the construction materials and the equipment used during the event and all three officers and at least four civilians were hurt. About half of the sixty five people who were detained, we understand, are juveniles.

We want you to hear directly from mayor - New York City mayor, Eric Adams, as he spoke on Saturday with new information about what may have led to yesterday's incident and also talking about the police response.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D) NEW YORK: We believe there were some outside influences that may have attempted to aggravate the situation. [18:55:03]

And I cannot say enough for the police department yesterday. I don't think people realize the level of discipline that was showed to take a very dangerous, volatile situation and to be able to bring it to a level of resolve without any loss of life, any substantial damage to property and without young people harming themselves.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANDOVAL: The social media influencer at the center of it all is back in court on August 18th, at least he's scheduled to. He was recently charged with inciting a riot and also unlawful assembly, Jim?

ACOSTA: All right. Thanks, Polo, for that.

Coming up, a former member of the January 6th Committee joins us live here, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren's reaction to Trump's social media post saying, if you go after me, I'm coming after you, making its way into a court filing by the Special Counsel. We'll talk about that next. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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