Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Newsroom
CNN International: First Four Co-Defendants Appear for Booking in Georgia; Two Co-Defendants Want Cases Moved to Federal Court; Eight Candidates Qualify for First Republican Debate; 110 Million+ Under Heat Alerts in Central and Eastern U.S.; Parts of Europe Hit by Heat Wave, Raging Wildfires; All Eight Rescued for Cable Car After 14-Hour Ordeal in Pakistan. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired August 23, 2023 - 04:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[04:00:00]
BIANCA NOBILO, CNN ANCHOR: Hello and a happy Wednesday. We'll get you through midweek with a jam-packed show of news and some great stories. I'm Bianca Nobilo.
I'm Max Foster joining you live from London. Just ahead on CNN NEWSROOM.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And the DA is threatening to arrest Mark Meadows if he doesn't turn himself in by this deadline of Friday at noon.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These are co-defendants, they can turn on Donald Trump. They can flip.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These fierce fires raging in this northern part of Greece, very high temperatures, sweltering temperatures.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The heat will continue across the U.S. today. We'll let you know where the most extreme temperatures will be.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Chandrayaan-2 did not make it to the moon, so Chandrayaan-3 has to, I think, succeed.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If the missions is successful, it will make India the fourth country to land on the moon after the U.S., China and the former Soviet Union.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster and Bianca Nobilo.
FOSTER: It is Wednesday, August 23, 9:00 a.m. here in London, 4:00 a.m. in Atlanta where we're following major developments in the 2020 Georgia election interference case, the first of four -- the first for Donald Trump's 18 co-defendants that turned themselves in. NOBILO: And they are attorney John Eastman, who advised Trump on plots
to block the certification of the election. Scott Hall who was allegedly involved in the breach of voting machines in rural Coffey County, Georgia. Kathy Latham, who was the Republican Party chair in that county.
FOSTER: And then there's former Georgia Republican Party chair David Schaffer who allegedly played a key role in organizing a slate of fake electors to support Trump. John Eastman spoke with reporters after his booking.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN EASTMAN, ATTORNEY WHO ADVISED TRUMP: I'm here today to surrender to an indictment that should never have been brought. It targets attorneys for their zealous advocacy on behalf of their clients. Something attorneys are ethically bound to provide and which was attempted here by formally challenging the results of election through lawful and appropriate means.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you still think the election was stolen?
EASTMAN: Absolutely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: There are also new developments involving Trump's former personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.
[04:05:00]
Our CNN's Paula Reid has that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
PAULA REID, CNN SENIOR LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Rudy Giuliani is expected to meet with the Fulton County district attorney on Wednesday. Giuliani is expected to travel to Georgia along with his long time friend, former New York Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik. Now Kerik is not an attorney but he is an unindicted co-conspirator in this Fulton County case. Kerik has been helping Giuliani in his search for an attorney, something has proven challenging given that Giuliani currently has seven figures worth of unpaid legal bills.
But it does appear that they have someone with a Georgia law license who will at least help them through the bond phase of this process. It's unclear though if he has retained someone who has agreed to represent him in this case. It is an open question about whether Giuliani can even afford a lawyer to represent him in this case. Now I'm also told by one source, that Giuliani would like to get through the bond negotiations and his surrender before former President Trump shows up on Thursday.
As CNN has previously reported, Rudy has gone to former President Trump pleading with him to give him some help with his legal bills. And as of now, Giuliani has only received a small portion of what he owes and that was from a Trump affiliated political action committee, not from Trump himself.
Paula Reid, CNN, Fulton County, Georgia.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Two of the 19 defendants are trying to avoid a Friday deadline to voluntarily turn themselves in. Trump's former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and former Justice Department official, Jeffrey Clark, have filed motions to move their cases to federal court. CNN's Tom Foreman explains their strategy.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There's several reasons. One, Trump strategy, it slows everything down. Anytime you do anything in this case, is going to slow it down. All these people, all these lawyers, a lot of things are going to get slowed down. That's one of the slowing things.
Potentially more sympathetic jurors. You debate about this, but the notion being if you broaden the jury pool in a federal hearing further beyond Fulton County but on to Atlanta, which will lean so much more blue, you might get some more Trump sympathetic jurors in there. No cameras in federal courts. You don't have to hear on TV day after day, you know, blinking and being accused of things. And maybe some more legal avenues for defense. The question is who else winds over there with them.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: Meanwhile, special counsel Jack Smith's office is investigating whether two Mar-a-Lago employees gave false testimony in the classified documents case. A court filing claims an IT worker, who has not been charged, recently changed his story about potentially incriminating security footage. Meanwhile, Mar-a-Lago property manager, Carlos de Oliveira has pleaded not guilty. He is accused of lying to the FBI about whether he saw boxes with classified documents being moved around the resort.
While Trump's legal troubles are front and center, the first Republican presidential debate of the 2024 race will take place without him later on today.
It won't be the same. In Trump's absence these two candidates will be at center stage tonight. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who has trailed Trump in the polls and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. Eight Republicans met the party's fund raising and polling criteria to qualify for the first debate. CNN's David Chalian previews who made the cut.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: You have Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy in the center of the pack. You then see on either side of them, Mike Pence and Nikki Haley. Then down to Chris Christie and Tim Scott. And then at the ends there, you have the former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum. But obviously this is a debate without the dominant frontrunner and
that's going to impact the debate. Now the Fox moderators have indicated that Donald Trump will be a topic that comes up, there will certainly be questions about that. So he will be looming over this debate even though he won't be here.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: Trump is expected to be at one of his golf clubs during tonight's debate. All the candidates set to participate have signed a pledge to support the party's eventual nominee no matter who that might be. It's not clear whether Trump has signed that pledge.
FOSTER: Tropical storm Franklin is churning in the Caribbean. Threatening to bring heavy rainfall and potentially life threatening flash floods to Hispaniola today. The center for the storm is southwest of Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic and it is bringing with it strong winds and gusty winds as well.
NOBILO: The Dominican Republic and Haiti have already issued tropical storm warnings and tropical storm conditions are possible in the Turks and Caicos Islands later on tonight.
FOSTER: Around 110 million people across the Central and Eastern U.S. are under heat alerts today. Meteorologist Jennifer Gray has that forecast.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JENNIFER GRAY, CNN METEOROLOGIST: The heat continues today across the U.S., anywhere from the deep South all the way up to the Midwest.
[04:10:00]
We are going to see extreme temperatures, excessive heat warnings in place, heat advisory advisories in place, that heat index is going to feel very hot especially across portions of the Plains and even Midwest. So highs today are going to be 101 in Oklahoma City, 104 in Dallas, 101 Omaha, even getting 99 degrees in Chicago. High temperatures are going to stay very warm. 108 on Friday in Dallas. So temperature are actually warming. 95 is where we should be. San Angelo, temperatures are going to be in the triple digits. Houston, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, you name it. High temperatures across the Midwest, Chicago hitting 100 degrees possibly on Thursday. Minneapolis hitting 99 today. Green Bay even at 96 degrees. And when you factor in the heat index, feels like temperature, 112 in Chicago, 106 in Minneapolis, feeling like 115 in Little Rock. So a dangerous heat across the board.
More than 400 potential records broken, that's for maximum high temperatures as well as warm minimum temperatures. So the overnight temperatures are not going to cool off much. We have above average temperatures, finally starting to back off by the time we get to the weekend, still in place though across the deep South and it looks like the heat will be working its way into the Pacific Northwest and the Northern Plains as well. As we look into the outlook over the next week or so, we do have above average temperatures across the South and West, below average temperatures for much of the East.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: One Arizona county is asking people near Grand Canyon National Park to shelter in place due to the flooding in the area. These photos posted to social media show how the floods have impacted the roads and travel.
FOSTER: Officials reported 2 to 3 inches of rain on Tuesday afternoon and floodwaters up to three feet deep. They're asking drivers to rethink any unnecessary travel to and from the Grand Canyon's south rim.
NOBILO: A blistering heatwave is setting record high temperatures and triggering wildfires across Europe. In northern Greece, firefighters battling blazes discovered the burned bodies of 18 people near a remote village on Tuesday. Gale-force winds are making it more difficult to control the fires even with additional help from other countries.
And in the northeastern Greek town of Alexandroupolis, 200 hospital patients were evacuated as the flames approached their building. A local nurse says in his nearly 30 year career, he's never seen fires this bad. Saying, quote, it's like war conditions.
Someone who knows the area really well, Eleni Giokos. She's in northwest Athens. What do you make of it, Eleni?
ELENI GIOKOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it's very loud. One second. Here is a helicopter. It's dousing a fire that's now engulfed the homes, Max. This entire street catching alight. There are locals standing by. They received evacuation orders. Many of them do not want to leave their homes. They are using hose pipes to douse their homes, their gardens in the hope of salvaging what's left of their livelihoods.
Now, they say that they feel that authorities have not done enough. Authorities on the other hand face subservient task of trying to put out these raging fires and of course, with massive winds that you can see I'm experiencing right now.
This family here, as you can see, watering down their home. All these homes are at risk. Many homes have already been burned. The damage is extraordinary.
Now, Greece experienced incredible rainfall in June followed by record temperatures and the last 24 hours have been 93 new wildfires that have erupted across the country. Catastrophic damage that you've seen. And of course not enough resources from what we understand to save what is left of homes in these frontline areas. We are currently in currently in (INAUDIBLE), in Boeotia. As you can see, look at these flames. Unbelievable. This is what is known as the lens of Athens and now, Max, alights. It is extraordinary to see this. We've been here for over an hour. We saw smoke but we are now seeing massive flames engulfing the forest area.
FOSTER: How unusual is it, Eleni, for the flames to come so close to the capital?
GIOKOS: It is unusual. Look, Athens has experienced many wildfires over the past few years. But the locals here tell me that they have never seen wildfires like this. And never seen it so close to their homes. They are absolutely distraught. The emotions are incredibly high as you can see taking conditions and the situation into their own hands in belief that they can save their homes with just a water hose. You can see -- this is so unbelievably close.
[04:15:03]
The heat, Max, unbearable, the air unbreathable. I'm covered in ash. I'm covered in water droplets from the helicopters that are so desperate -- desperation try and put these fires out. We can see it. This is what you're seeing. Live pictures here from northern Athens, a home catching alight with major effort on the ground to try to put things out.
FOSTER: And you can understand people not wanting to leave their homes, but just explain their thinking when it's, you know, it's about to be catastrophic for their home. Why are they staying?
GIOKOS: It's such a good question. I'm just waiting for the helicopter to pass by so you can hear me. They feel that they have not been assisted by local authorities. And here is the thing. They say they have worked all their lives, some of these people have lived in their homes since teenagers and they do not want to see their livelihoods destroyed. And they feel that if they leave, no one will protect their homes. They are willing to risk their lives.
Everyone we've spoken to the streets from the young to the old are standing with water hoses in the hopes that they will save their homes. I mean, here's one grandfather we spoke to earlier and his son standing with water hoses. As you can see cars parked on the side ready to leave. We're also ready to leave, Max. They've received evacuation orders. The police have come through here many times asking people to leave and they are just refusing and they do not want to go.
FOSTER: OK, well get out of there. Get out of there, Eleni. But thank you so much for bringing us that. Thank you for joining us from outside Athens. Unreal scenes.
NOBILO: An incredible report from Eleni. And I was just thinking the same thing about her own safety and the people in the background because those flames are so close and we just heard that there are gusty winds and gale force winds that are moving in.
FOSTER: So to have to leave so quickly, yes.
NOBILO: And yes, thanks to her for that reporting.
South Korea says it's detained a prominent Chinese dissident who apparently arrived in the country, wait for this, on a jet ski. He's believed to have traveled hundreds of miles across the sea to escape China. FOSTER: South Korean Coast Guard officials say he arrived a week ago
with only a helmet, compass and binoculars. Authorities haven't named him but a Chinese activist group says the man is Kwon Pyong, an outspoken critic of Beijing and President Xi Jinping, who took part in Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests back in 2014.
TV and movie producers have announced their latest proposal to end the strike by the Writers Guild of America. The package includes what's being called the biggest wage increase in 35 years along with some residual pay hikes and a concession on written material produced by artificial intelligence.
NOBILO: The producers' statement says:
We have come to the table with an offer that meets the priority concerns that the writers have expressed. We're deeply committed to ending the strike and are hopeful that the WGA will work toward the same resolution.
CNN has reached out to the Writers Guild for comment.
A potential strike by drivers and other workers at UPS has been averted. The Teamsters Union says 86 percent of its members have voted to approve a new five-year contract which gives raises of more than $15,000 a year of full-time workers.
FOSTER: UPS also agreed to address the union's safety concern that 95,000 delivery vans in the company's U.S. plate do not have air conditioning. The contract will be retroactive to August 1.
NOBILO: Still to come, after a 14 hour ordeal, eight people including six children have been rescued from a dangling cable car in Pakistan. We'll have the details of the rescue.
FOSTER: Plus, people into U.S. states are being warned to avoid mosquitos because they could spread a rare virus.
NOBILO: And later, we're about four hours away from India potentially landing a spacecraft on the moon. A live report on the historic mission coming up later on this hour.
[04:20:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
AILLYN VILLABONA, DELIVER BABY DURING POWER OUTAGE: I had the option to get transported, but I decided to stay because I knew my baby was already coming out. The nurses just ended up using like their flashlights and like their phones just to kind of like help us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: A mother there who had to deliver in the dark Monday night due to a power outage at a hospital in Los Angeles during tropical storm Hilary. Hospital officials say more than 200 patients had to be evacuated after generators subsequently failed. Power is now back on, but an investigation is under way. And CNN's Nick Watt has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: What a scene in the middle of the night. 1:00 a.m. in the special care center here, a six-story tower that includes an OB/GYN, and a NICU unit. The power out. Total blackout.
L.A. Fire Department was quickly on the scene. And what they had to do, because of course, if there's no power, there are no elevators. They had to evacuate people down the stairwells into waiting ambulances and on to other hospitals in the area.
Total of 241 patients were inside, 28 of them in critical condition. So, this was a major operation that they had to undertake.
A baby was born during the blackout. They got together a bunch of flashlights, and that baby was delivered by the light of flashlights. All of the critical patients have now been moved out, but there are still some patients in here waiting to be moved.
How did it happen? Well, why did it happen? Take a listen to what the president of the hospital had to say.
JOHN RAFFOUL, PRESIDENT, ADVENTIST HEALTH WHITE MEMORIAL HOSPITAL: We are in the mode of investigating that. We don't know the cause of the double failure that we had here at the hospital yet other than the fact that we had a major storm that hit us here in Southern California.
WATT: So, the main power to the hospital, as the president just said, that died at 3:00 a.m. Monday morning, which was the height of that rare tropical storm that was moving past Los Angeles at the time.
[04:25:00]
The emergency generators kicked in, but then nearly 24 hours later, the connectors that brought that emergency generator power into the tower, those connectors failed. It's unclear at this point how or why that happened.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: Health officials are warning people in Alabama and New York to avoid mosquitos because of a rare virus that can spread if they bite someone. It killed at least one person in Alabama. New York's Health Department says most people who are bitten won't develop any symptoms. But severe cases begin with sudden headaches, high fever, chills and vomiting and could progress to seizures and coma. There are no vaccines or specific medications to treat the virus.
NOBILO: Relief across Pakistan after eight people including six children were rescued from a cable car dangling hundreds of feet over a valley. FOSTER: Officials say they were traveling to school on Tuesday when
one of the cables snapped leaving them stuck. They were finally rescued after a 14 hour ordeal.
NOBILO: For more now let's go to CNN's Sophia Saifi who joins us from Islamabad, Pakistan. Sophia, walk us through this rescue and also any reaction that we've had from family and from the country. Because this much have been a seemingly interminable and nerve-racking experience for on onlookers.
SOPHIA SAIFI, CNN PRODUCER: Incredibly nerve-racking for the families of course, the hundreds of friends but also for the entire nation. They were simply transfixed as to watching every movement of this rescue which as you said, lasted many, many hours.
I think there's a huge sigh of relief and also a bit of good news that Pakistan needed after a very long time. So, yes, there's a lot of criticism about why children need to move from cable cars from one point of the valley to the other in that part of northwest Pakistan. There were about eight people in that cable car.
The cable snapped which led to the dangling about 900 feet above the ground for many, many hours. We were told by one of the children who was in that cable car that two of the children had vomited, another two were slipping in and out of consciousness. There was an attempt by commandos via helicopter to rescue them. One of the children was rescued by a sling team which went and actually grabbed that child directly from the cable car, while being hanging from a helicopter, and then came down. But then again, night fell. It got incredibly dark. They couldn't bring those helicopters up. Which were also causing a lot of movement of that one remaining fragile cable.
And so eventually they had to call in zip lining experts which went in and climbed up and through the use of rope and pulleys and various mechanics, they managed to get the remaining seven down. So this lasted late into the night and around 11:00 p.m., in the night again. It's a very remote part of the country.
There is again, the Prime Minister had tweeted out saying that he is relieved. But again, according to tweets by both the Prime Minister and the president, there has been a call for oversight with these cable cars and these chair lifts which are really made because there is a lack of infrastructure. And people want to send their kids to school. So they put together these homemade, almost hokey cable cars using auto mobile crafts as well as leftover bits from heavy machinery. So they aren't very safe. There have been accidents like this in the past, but none that have lasted so very long and have needed such a long and measured safety response. So a lot of relief and a lot of joy that this ended well -- Bianca.
NOBILO: Sophia Saifi for us in Islamabad. Thank you so much for bringing us the very happy ending.
FOSTER: Yes, thankfully.
FOSTER: An extremely worrying situation. FOSTER: Day two of the BRICS summit getting under way right now in
Johannesburg with leaders gathering to address a general session. The heads of state of Brazil, India, China and South Africa expected to speak and later answer questions as well from reporters.
NOBILO: Russian President Vladimir Putin is attending virtually because he'd be subject to arrest on war crimes warrants if he did appear. The summit is focusing on two main issues, whether to expand BRICS to more countries and how to create a trading and investment system that would not rely on the U.S. dollar. But it is not clear if it's going to make any substantial progress on either issue.
We have a team covering this BRICS summit. Kristie Lu Stout is in Hong Kong focusing on China. But let's begin with our senior international correspondent David McKenzie who is in Johannesburg. David, let's focus on the question of expansion. Certain members, particularly China, have made it incredibly clear how they envisage these countries working together to break that Western hegemony. But what countries might be considering joining this bloc and what would be the stipulations of them doing so?
DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well we're still trying to figure that out. What we do know is that multiple countries including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, DRC and others.
