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Interview With Republican Presidential Candidate Will Hurd; Victims Killed In Jacksonville Shooting Honored At Vigil; Three U.S. Marines Killed In Air Crash During Training Exercise; Russia Confirms Prigozhin's Death In Plane Crash; Interview With Representative Maxwell Frost (D-FL) About Jacksonville Mass Shooting; FOX News Apologizes To Gold Star Family For False Story. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired August 27, 2023 - 18:00   ET

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

[18:00:00]

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And these are models that are still getting stronger as the days go on. Hurricane Franklin, haven't talked about this much, in the Atlantic forecast to be a major hurricane of 130 to 140 miles per hour. Missing Bermuda, but the problem I see here, Jim, are the insanely high rip currents here up and down the East Coast of the United States. You need to stay out of the water this week with those large waves.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Yes. And people on the Florida Gulf Coast, please pay attention to all of Chad's updates, all the weather updates as Idalia -- Idalia? Idalia.

MYERS: Idalia.

ACOSTA: It's a little bit of the Virginian in surfacing. All right, Chad, thanks so much. We'll get back to you. Appreciate it.

MYERS: You're welcome. You bet.

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

Hours from now we'll get our first taste of how Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis plans to prosecute anti-racketeering case against former President Donald Trump. The Georgia election interference case will take center stage in a federal court hearing tomorrow. Co- defendant and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will be arguing for the charges against him be moved to federal court and possibly dropped.

Meadows claims he should have immunity since he was acting, he says, in his capacity as a federal employee under then-President Donald Trump. Fanni Willis is expected to lay out evidence and legal arguments for why Trump, Meadows and the other 17 defendants broke the law in her state. It could be a pivotal moment in determining the future of those proceedings in Atlanta.

And joining me now is 2024 presidential candidate and former Republican congressman, Will Hurd. Congressman, great to see you. Thanks so much. Let's get right to

what's happening with the Trump campaign. They claim that since he was booked and had his mug shot taken last week, that the campaign has raised $7.1 million since his arrest in his mug shot.

Let me ask you, what do you think? Is he being strengthened in all of this? Are you concerned about that?

WILL HURD (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, first off, he's going to need more than $7 million to stay out of prison. I've made it very clear that Donald Trump is running for office to stay out of prison. You know, $3 out of $4 that he raises is going to his legal defense funds and now that you have so many people in his orbit that don't have lawyers or don't have the money to pay for lawyers like Rudy Giuliani, you're going to potentially start seeing some of them flip like in that case for the classified documents.

And so the people -- you know, Donald Trump has loyal followers. They're going to follow him no matter what, and regardless of what may or may not happen. But what I have to, you know, remind some of my friends, my Republican friends, is that, who's the independent or Democrat that voted for Joe Biden in 2020 who's now going to change his mind and vote for Donald Trump if we put Donald Trump as the GOP nominee, and that person doesn't exist.

And so if the GOP cares about things like dealing with the border, if we care about dealing with all the legal issues around President Biden through his son, Hunter, then we've got to put somebody that can actually prosecute that case and who doesn't have, what, almost 100 indictment against him.

ACOSTA: Let's talk about the debate. We watched candidates who criticized Trump like Chris Christie get booed while others were getting cheered like Vivek Ramaswamy as he was channeling his inner Trump. He even called Trump the best president of the 21st century which is interesting since Trump is -- Ramaswamy is trying to beat the former president. He's made a lot of other outlandish claims, like saying that climate change is a hoax.

We were playing in the last hour, he has said that white supremacy is like a unicorn. I mean, he's made a lot of claims, outrageous claims like this. Do you think he is a serious candidate?

HURD: Vivek Ramaswamy is a bad lounge act version of Donald Trump, and here's the truth. If you try to mimic Donald Trump, you're going to lose. The fact that Donald Trump is a proven loser, he hasn't won a campaign since 2016. We lost the House in 2018 because of him and in 2020 we lost the Senate and the White House, and then in 2022, we didn't see the red wave come to fruition.

I always remind people that the weekend before that election, all the prognosticators and pollsters thought that Kevin McCarthy was going to have a potentially 30 to 40-person majority of the House and he ended up with five. And clones never win elections, and the fact that you have the real thing still in the race, Vivek doesn't have a chance. The fact that what drives me crazy, you know, one of his ideas on 9/11, that it was some kind of inside job is absolutely outrageous.

[18:05:04]

And it's, you know, the 3,000 people that died that day and the thousands that were injured afterwards, it's just unacceptable that somebody running for the highest, you know, office in the land, would believe that. The fact that he wants to disenfranchise millions of voters by raising the age to 25, is just absolutely ridiculous and you don't have a chance. And then his perspectives on foreign policy is just wrong.

I know he said -- he himself said he's only been studying foreign policy for six months. Well, he's reading the wrong books, considering that he wants to kiss Vladimir Putin's butt and give Taiwan to the Chinese. You support your friends, not your enemies, and Vladimir Putin is clearly an enemy. And the fact that somebody like this, yes, he's smooth-talking but the reality is, we need a commander-in-chief that on day one, that understand foreign policy and can deal with these real challenges that we are facing all around the world.

And look, you said something, Jim, at the beginning of this question, about the debate. I will say there was still a lot of applauses when people criticized Donald Trump. I experienced that myself in this campaign but what is frustrating is, you saw a lot of talent on that stage but you didn't see a lot of vision and you didn't see a lot of people that were willing to be tough with Donald Trump. And this is what voters want to see. They want to see someone who's not afraid of Donald Trump but is articulating a vision for the future.

ACOSTA: Yes. But, you know, on that note, during the debate, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson was essentially the only candidate to not raise his hand. Candidates on stage were asked if they would back the former president as the party nominee even if he were convicted in a court of law. What was your reaction when you saw that and would you have raised your hand?

HURD: Would I raise my hand? Absolutely not. I've made it very clear that I'm the only person in this race --

ACOSTA: I thought that was the answer, I just wanted to check.

(CROSSTALK)

HURD: Well, I appreciate you often making sure I can clarify the record. And look, to be honest, that was a low point of the debate. I think there were some people that were showing a different version of themselves on that debate stage but when they raised their hand, that was incredibly disappointing. And at the end of the day, this is about winning in November and the Republican Party has failed for 20 years to win the popular vote.

We have a real opportunity in November, if we select and put forward the right candidate. And that is the part that is frustrating on that, and Donald Trump is not the model, is not the candidate, and he's already failed to do the things that we need to do in order to win the election. And there's some real challenges, there's some real opportunities to attack Joe Biden but we're not having that because we're embroiled in having to talk about all of Donald Trump's baggage.

All of these things are self-inflicted wounds. If you want to talk about the politicalization of the DOJ, that's fine. I'm not going to defend DOJ. You know, this issue with Hunter Biden looked like a sweetheart deal, but Donald Trump cases, these are all things that were self-inflicted, guess what? There's no question that he had classified documents. He still hasn't explained why was he keeping them, why was he lying about having them. What did he do in order to protect these things?

This case in Georgia, the way I explain it to people, imagine it was 100 years ago and you have six electors from Georgia on a horse and buggy going to Washington, D.C., and 600 six other people jump out of the bushes to take over. This is not about political speech, this is about people trying to overturn the election. Guess what? You lost.

ACOSTA: On that note --

HURD: And he should except that and allow the peaceful transfer of power.

ACOSTA: On that note, Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff is trying to say that because he was acting as a federal official when they were trying to pressure the Georgia secretary of state to overturn the election results out of Georgia, that he should not have his case tried in Georgia, it should be moved to federal court or dropped altogether. What do you think of that?

HURD: Well, I think we're going to find out tomorrow with all the details there. Here's what I've learned, you know, just because you're a lawyer doesn't mean you can't commit crimes. How many lawyers have been to jail. Just because you're a federal official doesn't mean, you know, anything you do means you're not committing a crime. I think we're going to find all this out, and how these cases are going to proceed.

But, look, there's going to be a lot of time for all of these cases, whether they get done before the election or not. I think those that are ready for something different and ready to move on, tired of litigating the past and are ready for a future, and how do we make sure that we grapple with some of these generational challenges that we're faced in the United States, we've got to move beyond Donald Trump.

[18:10:16]

That's one of the reasons why I'm running, and if folks, you know, out there, you know, that are watching, that believe in this go to HurdforAmerica.com and help me out by continuing to invest in what we're trying to do.

ACOSTA: And I was going to say, you didn't qualify for the debate and you've been very critical of the RNC's debate requirements. What do you think, are you planning on staying in this race? Are you giving any consideration to may be stepping aside at this point? HURD: Well, Jim, I'm, you know, the momentum, right? I'm a startup,

and I recognize I'm a dark horse candidate. I've been in the race the least amount of time. A little bit over I think it's about 62 days. We're near and we're going to surpass that 50,000-donor threshold. We're tied in New Hampshire with Nikki Haley and Mike Pence, two people that have definitely more name ID and have both spent tens of millions of dollars.

I've done it with a fraction of the cost. My supporters are excited. They are disappointed and pissed, to be honest, that some of these polls where we've registered in weren't counted by the RNC because they believe it had too many independents and Democrats. Newsflash, if Republicans are going to win, we've got to get independents and Democrats to vote for us. That's actually the real opportunity in a place like New Hampshire.

And if the GOP is going to change this trend of losing, then we're going to need a candidate that can attract that. So we are driving on, we're doing our thing, we're taking our message, and people appreciate it. I'm not afraid of Donald Trump, and I've been intellectually honest and consistent since 2015 on this particular issue, and people are appreciative that I have that unique experience in foreign affairs and domestic policy, and in technology to where we can talk about these challenges. And so, yes, we're going to continue and keep plowing forward.

ACOSTA: All right. Will be watching. Former Congressman Will Hurd, thank you very much. Appreciate it.

And join us later tonight for a special look at what you need to know as the case against Trump faces a major test on Monday. Don't miss "ELECTION 2024, THE CAMPAIGN AND THE COURTROOM," that is tonight at 8:00 Eastern right here on CNN.

Now to Florida where a community in Jacksonville is mourning the lives of three people killed in a hate-filled shooting rampage.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Persons who simply said I'm going to the store and I'll be right back never left the store alive. And families' hearts are broken. And our community is shattered into pieces.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: We now know the names of the three victims, 52-year-old Angela Michelle Carr, 29-year- old Jerrald Gallion, and 19-year-old AJ Laguerre, Jr. All three victims were black. The sheriff calls it a racially motivated attack. He says the gunman, 21-year-old, Ryan Christopher Palmeter, legally purchased both firearms used in the shooting rampage, a handgun and an AR-15 rifle.

CNN's Isabel Rosales is live in Jacksonville, outside the Dollar General store where this horrific shooting happened.

Isabel, how is that vigil going and what more are we learning? ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Jim. I'm just a couple of

blocks away from the Dollar General where that shooting occurred. And you can see just the show out here, hundreds of people packing up this block. You see firefighters, engines, all across, police officers, the faith community is here. City leaders are here. They are praying, they are figuring out how to organize and put their money together to help out the families of these three victims.

And at one point, Jim, we had a councilwoman, Ju-Coby Pittman, asked family members to raise their hand, family members of the victims, and one such woman rose her hand, that's Sabrina Rozier. I want to introduce you to her right over here. She is the family member of one of the three victims.

Sabrina, first of all, how are you doing? How is your family coping?

SABRINA ROZIER, FAMILY MEMBER OF JERRALD GALLION: We are holding up as best as we could. We're just trying to figure out how to tell his daughter that her dad is gone. And we haven't gotten the words to tell her yet.

ROSALES: How old is the daughter?

ROZIER: She's 4. My grandbaby is 4.

ROSALES: And tell me who your family member is.

ROZIER: Jerrald Gallion.

ROSALES: Just 29 years old.

ROZIER: Twenty-nine years old.

ROSALES: And tell me how you found out that this horrible incident had gone down?

ROZIER: I was out shopping with my grandbaby. His mom called me and told me he was shot. When we got the chance, that's when we found out about what really happened.

ROSALES: And tell me once the details started to come in and we heard that this was an outsider to the community, from Clay County, who drove here, then they find letters, a manifesto, as the sheriff called it, saying that he was out there to target black people.

[18:15:10]

When you hear these horrifying details come to light, what goes through your head?

ROZIER: It's hurtful because I thought racism was behind us but evidently it's not. And that's what they're calling this, an act of racism, and I just feel like he was a coward. You went in and shot these innocent people for nothing, that you didn't even know, and then you took your own life. That's just the cowardly way to go.

ROSALES: And you're part of the Jacksonville community?

ROZIER: Yes, I am. I've been here all my life.

ROSALES: How would you describe the mood out here? How this has impacted.

ROZIER: It is impacted a lot and then for him to do it on the fifth year anniversary of the Jacksonville Landing shooting, that's just horrible.

ROSALES: And the 60th anniversary, commemorative anniversary of the March on Washington, too. This watershed moment of civil rights as well. What does this community need to heal?

ROZIER: Closure. We need more police -- we just need more police on the streets.

ROSALES: And tell me about Jerrald. What was he like?

ROZIER: Jerrald was a fun-loving young man. He was very active in my granddaughter's life from the day him and my daughter met, to the time she got pregnant, he was at every hospital visit, every doctor's appointment. He was very, very active in her life. She loved her daddy and her daddy loved her. He didn't miss a beat in her life.

ROSALES: What were his hobbies? What did he want to do in life? He was such a young man.

ROZIER: He can rap, he can play basketball, they played video games together, he took her to the park, one of her favorite memories when he took her to Dave and Busters.

ROSALES: And what message do you want to leave to our audience who -- most of them are not from the Jacksonville community. What do you want them to understand?

ROZIER: Just pray. We've got to hold onto these kids, just pray, talk to these kids, teach them that racism is not the way. We need to love each other. It's not the way to go.

ROSALES: Thank you so much, Sabrina. I appreciate it.

Jim, back to you.

ACOSTA: All right. Isabel Rosales, thank you very much for that report.

We should also note Governor Ron DeSantis is at that vigil in Jacksonville. But the governor who's come under fire for changes to the state's black history curriculum was not met with a warm embrace. While trying to speak, people in the crowd began shouting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

We are not going to allow these institutions to be targeted by people. Let me tell you, we are going to put parties aside because it ain't

about parties today! A bullet don't know a party, so don't get me started.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R), FLORIDA: We are not going to allow these institutions to be targeted by people. We --

(CROSSTALK)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: OK, listen. Let me tell you. We're going to put parties aside. Because it ain't about parties today. A bullet don't know a party so don't get me started.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: The governor called the gunman a scumbag and the shooting unacceptable. DeSantis went on to say he will be announcing new funds to help the city of Jacksonville.

In the meantime three American Marins are dead after an aircraft crash in Australia. What they were doing there and what the Defense Department is saying about it, that's next. Plus Russia says it's confirmed the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin. What will happen to his Wagner mercenary group without their leader?

And two new major storms as we approach the peak of hurricane season. One of them could hit Florida just two days from now. Our Chad Myers is following that. People in the Gulf Coast need to pay attention. This storm may very well be heading your way. That's coming up next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:22:48]

ACOSTA: Right now the Pentagon is trying to figure out what caused a crash that killed three U.S. Marines off the northern coast of Australia. At least five others were injured when their Osprey tote rotor aircraft went down on a remote island during a routine training exercise.

CNN's senior national security correspondent Alex Marquardt joins us now.

Alex, what do we know about what happened?

ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: This is tragic obviously, Jim. At least three lives lost but we have very little information at this point as to what exactly took this Osprey down, whether it was some kind of pilot error or mechanical error, something technical that happened.

What we now is essentially the context that this crash happened in. This was one of two Ospreys that took off from Darwin, which is one of the biggest cities in northern Australia. This is where an exercise had been taking place or regular exercise. This was a routine operation by these U.S. forces, American troops training alongside Australian troops and forces from other countries.

So these two Ospreys taking off from Darwin heading north, and this Osprey crash on Melville Island. It had some 23 U.S. Marines on board. Very soon after the crash we did hear from the Marines, saying that the three U.S. Marines very sadly had been killed. At least five more were seriously wounded and were taken to a hospital in Darwin. A local official, an Australian official had said that there were more injuries, that there were people who were treated on the scene.

But we've gotten very little in the way of an update since the crash. It happened at 9:30 local time on Sunday, so we're coming up on 24 hours since the crash. We have now heard from the Pentagon, we've heard from the secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, he posted on what used to be called Twitter, now it's called X, a short post paying tribute to these Marines who he says served our country with courage and pride, and my thoughts and prayers are with their families today, he says, and with the other troops who were also injured in the crash.

You can see there, Jim, he didn't say how many Marines have been killed so of course when you have these serious injuries, there are concerns or fears that the number could rise and of course, we would like to get more specifics from the Department of Defense as to what exactly happened and why this Osprey crashed on the island.

[18:25:04]

ACOSTA: All right. And it's just incredible that there were Marines who survived this crash, just a tragic situation.

All right, Alex Marquardt, thank you very much.

Russian investigators say genetic tests confirm that Wagner mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was among the 10 people killed in a plane crash on Wednesday. Authorities had previously said his name appeared on the passenger list but stopped short of confirming his death, and CNN military analyst, retired Army Lt. Gen. Mark hurtling joins us now.

Great to see you, General. What's your reaction to this Russian confirmation, if you want to call it that, that Prigozhin was killed in the plane crash? I mean, I suppose it gives us something to hang our hat on that he is in fact dead.

LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Well, Jim, there certainly is evidence that a plane crash with 10 people on board and allegedly Prigozhin was one of the members of the list of the people that were on board. If there were 10 people on board, as the Russians have also mentioned, you know, our focus has been on Prigozhin. Some have mentioned his deputy, Utkin, who was the deputy for operations of Wagner all over the world, but the other eight are also likely critical members of the chain of command, like a guy named Chekalov who we followed very closely in the military, who was responsible for the (INAUDIBLE) and logistics, quote-unquote, of the Wagner Group. All of these guys are critical to the operation to that private military company.

ACOSTA: And can Wagner survive without its leader?

HERTLING: Well, that's a great question, Jim, and what I'd say is there certainly has been, for several months now, appeared to push to dismantle of Wagner by the Ministry of Defense of Russia and place them under military control. But, you know, that's going to be very difficult for a variety of reasons. While most Americans, and you've been very good about publicizing Prigozhin and Wagner for their actions in the Donbas and especially Bakhmut over the last year, the American military has been tracking them for their actions in Syria and several African nations as well, and they are only one of many private military contractors established by Putin.

There are others like the Patriot Group which was a direct competitor with Wagner. It's likely to be better trained and better paid. And there's also the Redut and Fakel groups, both originally sponsored by Gazprom. So, you know, when you're talking about putting these PMCs under the control of the military or the Ministry of Defense in Russia, it's going to be tough because there are literally tens of thousands of these guys doing the Shoigu's and Putin's bidding all over the world.

ACOSTA: So that's interesting. I mean, I think that's a little reported detail that we could see other Wagner like group emerges, sort of Putin's pet, I guess, when it does his business around the world.

And, General Hertling, one other thing, I mean, I was talking with the former secretary of Defense Bill Cohen about this in the last hour. I mean, we talked about, you know, how Putin looked weak after what Prigozhin did, that raid on Moscow or trying to march on Moscow and it didn't work. He pulled back at the last send. And there was all those conversations that Putin is weak or Putin -- it doesn't seem that way now.

HERTLING: Well, it doesn't now, Jim, but there are certainly a lot of dysfunction and chaos between Putin and the Ministry of Defense right now. What they're trying to do is establish a chain of command and more importantly chain of control, as we just said, across these dozens of private military companies. That's going to be very tough to do during wartime, especially at a time and right now there seem to be indicators that Ukrainians defensive is beginning to gain momentum in several areas.

So what they're trying to do is take a look at Russia's actions around the globe. Get rid of something that has been helpful to them in the past, but isn't going to be so good in the future, and at the same time, conduct a war that everyone in the world, most countries in the world are causing Russia to be a pariah. So all of these things are contributing to some very difficult situations for the Russian federation and especially the actions of Mr. Putin.

ACOSTA: All right. Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, great to talk to you as always. Thanks so much.

HERTLING: Pleasure, Jim. Thank you.

ACOSTA: All right, much appreciated.

All right, there are new calls for gun reform after a violent weekend across America. It hasn't just been Jacksonville, it has been all over America. But coming up next, our next guest, Congressman Maxwell Frost. He joins us live in the NEWSROOM to talk about what took place in his state of Florida in the last 24 hours. We'll talk about that next here in the CNN NEWSROOM. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:34:14]

ACOSTA: Tonight police in Jacksonville say the guns used in yesterday's racial shooting were legally purchased. Officials say the shooter, a 21- year-old white man, bought his AR-15 style rifle and handgun earlier this summer before using them to kill three people and then himself. This is prompting Democrats to renew their calls for stricter gun laws and my next guest is U.S. freshman Democratic congressman from Florida, Maxwell Frost. His 2022 campaign was centered around gun reform.

Congressman Frost, great to see you as always. Your response to what took place? I know you tweeted, we can't wait another damn day on gun violence prevention legislation. That's your tweet to all that. Our people are dying every day, why isn't that enough.

But, Congressman, it appears it's not enough because we've seen mass shooting after mass shooting, some of them racially motivated, and it doesn't really translate into the kind of legislation that is going to stop this from happening again.

[18:35:13]

REP. MAXWELL FROST (D-FL): A hundred percent. And I asked myself that same question after every mass shooting. And look, I've been involved in this movement since I was 15 years old. It was the Sandy Hook shooting that really drove me to action. I remember sitting in the concert hall, playing drums, and I was playing at a jazz concert, not being able to play correctly because I kept looking over my shoulder at the exit sign because I was scared someone would walk into my school and kill myself, kill my classmates and kill my family.

And that anxiety, it was an anxiety that young people and really all Americans live with on a daily basis where we lose 100 lives a day due to gun violence. That is a policy failure. And we have to rectify it. And what happened yesterday, not only the intersection of gun violence but gun violence and racism and bigotry. And here's the thing, I am not surprised that this happened because this last legislative session, we saw our governor and Republicans in the state legislature pushed horrible bigoted legislation, that empower shooters like the one we saw yesterday.

Things like permit-less carry that say you can pretty much carry any gun, any place, any person, any time. And bills and actions like we saw when we found out two weeks ago that middle schoolers would be learning that black people who were enslaved received personal benefit from them. All of these issues are connected and we have to do a lot more.

ACOSTA: And we saw Governor DeSantis at this vigil in Jacksonville earlier this evening. He made some comments. He was interrupted at one point by some people in the crowd. And I just wonder if you were to sit down with the governor, what would you tell him?

FROST: I'd love to sit down with the governor. You know, we've been asking him to sit down, and activists and organizers have been asking him to travel the state and sit down with people since he's gotten into office and he never does it.

What I would tell him is, Governor, we need a special session on gun violence. We needed it, you know, when you first started and we need it now more than ever. The leading cause of death for children in this country is to be shot to death. That's unacceptable. Not only do we need a special session on gun violence but we also need the governor to stop embracing and being a champion for this far-right wing fascist movement that's growing in Florida and across the entire country because when he gives credence and when he embraces that movement, to help further his presidential primary run, he gives them the energy they need.

And we live in a time right now where the ways our leaders conduct themselves and the message they give, it's more important now more than ever and we need true leadership in the state, one of the most diverse states in the entire country. I love this state. You know, I was actually just thinking about writing an op-ed, and I want to still do it but now it's even harder. I wanted to write an op-ed encouraging people to still come to the state because we can't be left alone here.

We need help in this fight. And then yesterday, I get up and I look at my phone and I see that three people were hunted down because they were black. There's multiple truths to everything going on in the state but I want people to know that we're fighting.

ACOSTA: And you mentioned earlier that young voters are motivated by this issue of gun violence, and what needs to be done to stop it. One of the Republican candidates running for the GOP nomination Vivek Ramaswamy has proposed raising the voting age. I'm sure you've seen that. And I was just curious, what's your response to that?

FROST: This just shows someone that's completely out of touch and also you know that the majority of people don't agree with the politics of your party, if one of your policy points is to make it harder to vote and make sure that less people vote. And let's be very clear, that is what that candidate and the entire Republican Party and their apparatus and leadership, that's what they want to do because they understand that, number one, in 2022, 70 percent of Gen Z and young millennials voted for Democrats.

And so it's no surprise that the right-wing now is more than ever wants to raise the voting age, wants to -- he also wants to do testing to vote. It's so un-American to take away that freedom that we have. Voting should be one of the easiest things to do in this country and that fight is still alive and still well. We should want more people to vote, not less, and again, it shows that the right-wing, they understand that their policy is not popular.

ACOSTA: And let me ask you, I know this is a big issue for you. Your thoughts on -- you recently signed a letter to the president urging the White House to do more with student debt forgiveness after the Supreme Court struck down his forgiveness program. Federal student loan interest will resume this coming Friday and payments will be due in October.

[18:40:02]

What are your thoughts? What's the next step in this fight?

FROST: Well, we were really -- we were saddened to see the Supreme Court decision but many of us really expected it. And we're happy to see that the president, within 24 hours, came out and said here's the next plan, we're going to do this through the Higher Education Act. And now they're going through a rulemaking process.

What that letter did, and I signed it with Senator Elizabeth Warren, Representative Ayanna Pressley, Chuck Schumer, a bunch of us signed it, and says, number one, thank you, Mr. President, for your work on doing this through the Higher Education Act, but let's ensure that the bureaucracy of the rulemaking process doesn't inhibit us from giving -- from doing the student debt relief as soon as possible.

We'd like to see this redone early next year. And let's be clear, this is a racial justice issue, this is an issue of our economy, this is to take the shackles off of not just young people but the over 40 million of folks who would be eligible under the program. And it's really important that we get this promise done for the American people, especially early next year. Folks are not in crushing student debt because they lived beyond their means. It's because they've been denied the means to live. And we as legislators have to use every tool in our toolbox to give the relief that they deserve.

ACOSTA: All right. Congressman Maxwell Frost of Florida, thank you very much for your time, we appreciate it.

FROST: Thanks for having me.

ACOSTA: All right. Thank you.

In the meantime, FOX News issuing an apology to a Gold Star family over a story. It was repeatedly told, was false but reported it anyway. A closer look at that controversy next.

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[18:45:43]

ACOSTA: There is an apology to note this weekend from FOX News to a Gold Star family over a false story that FOX published then deleted without a correction. FOX's reporting claimed the family had to pay $60,000 to have the remains of their fallen relative shipped home from Afghanistan because the Pentagon refused to pay. Again, that was the false story. And FOX had been notified repeatedly that it was false. How FOX came to pull that story is of interest to our CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy who joins us now.

Oliver, what happened? What were the steps that led to FOX finally apologizing?

OLIVER DARCY, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim, this is really an interesting chain of events. So FOX News publishes this false story and the Pentagon notifies FOX News that the story is inaccurate, but unlike most news organizations that would immediately move to correct the story, FOX News just tweaked the headline. Thery were notified again by the Pentagon that the story was still wrong and they just deleted the story.

They didn't put a correction, they didn't offer a note to readers, they just straight up deleted the story. And no apology to the Gold Star family either. And so this issue went on until this week when Military.com, they obtained documents that show the Pentagon really going after FOX News in private e-mails saying that, you know, the story was incorrect. That drew attention to this and only then did FOX News delete the story and offer -- sorry, offer an apology to the family, the Gold Star family.

The story still remains deleted, Jim. And I think we should note to viewers, that's very strange. Normally when a news organization gets something wrong they do correct it, they do offer a note that explains to readers what happened, what went wrong. FOX News just scrubbed the story, very unethical, and didn't notify anyone exactly what happened -- Jim.

ACOSTA: And let's talk about this Republican debate that was on FOX. It didn't include the former president but got pretty good ratings, 12.8 million, not as good as 2015 with Trump in the mix when that debate drew 23.9 million, but the ratings were a bit higher than expected. What does that tell you?

DARCY: I think it shows that there's a lot of GOP interest in the other candidates. You know, it's not just Trump that's drawing the ratings. Other people wanted to see Mike Pence, maybe they wanted to see Ron DeSantis. There was some interest. I think what's interesting to note, too, Jim, is that it's very clear after watching the debate why the Republican Party wanted to partner with FOX News, whether it was the first question which was, about the "Rich Men North of Richmond" song, that has gone viral in right-wing media, or just watching the moderators so reluctant to tackle the issue of January 6th and the 2020 election, and the lies that Donald Trump has told.

That's really a big issue obviously in the Republican Party. That's perhaps the main issue that Republicans have to tackle, but FOX News didn't ask a question about it for about an hour and they were very reluctant. After about 10 minutes, they really tried to move on to other questions.

ACOSTA: Yes.

DARCY: Again, really demonstrating to viewers I think and to everyone else that this isn't necessarily as much a news operation as it is an organ of the Republican Party.

ACOSTA: Yes, and it's a sensitive subject over there. I mean, we should note just very quickly, Oliver, Dan Balz, the great Dan Balz of the "Washington Post" noted, we were just showing this on screen a few moments ago, the words, "FOX News Democracy 2024," were, you know, on the stage behind the candidates on Wednesday night and yet the subject of democracy really didn't get much of a discussion during that debate.

Oliver Darcy, great discussion as always with you. Thanks very much. Really appreciate it.

All right. And we are quickly approaching peak hurricane season and there's a major storm that could hit Florida just two days from now. Got to keep your eyes on this one, folks, down in the Gulf Coast. This could be deadly. This could be dangerous. The latest is next here in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[18:54:09]

ACOSTA: Emergency officials are preparing for a new tropical storm heading toward Florida. Tropical Storm Idalia could hit the U.S. as early as Tuesday and CNN meteorologist Chad Myers join us now.

Chad, what are we expecting?

MYERS: Jim, things are about to go sideways for Florida with this for sure. Very hot water, very little shear. All of the computer models making it stronger than the same computer model run that happened yesterday. All saying this storm is going to intensify. Hurricane Center says two 100-mile-per-hour storm there off the coast somewhere.

Remember this cone. We talked about this last hour, and this is important. The cone is only made to catch 66 percent of the hurricanes inside the cone. There could be one-third on either side. So Tampa, yes, you're on the cone, but kind of slow down here toward Sarasota.

[18:55:02]

You're outside the cone, but you're not in the clear because sometimes these storms can turn to the right, especially if they're rapidly intensifying.

Hurricane watch posted in some spots up there in the northern part of the state. Hurricane watches down to the tropical storm watches south of there. Also storm surge. Seven to 11-foot storm surge in places that aren't seven to 11 feet above sea level.

This is going to be a storm that runs up toward the Big Bend of Florida, but if it turns to the right you're running into a much larger population density. There will be a lot of flooding. There will even be flooding likely with the winds coming from the east along the East Coast of Florida, Georgia, even up toward the Carolinas. There will be rainfall in the Carolinas that could approach six to 10 inches. That could cause flash flooding especially in those topographically challenged areas where the water is all going to run downhill.

There will be gusts possibly even in Tampa at 75 miles per hour, maybe higher. That will certainly bring down power lines. There are so many things going on with this storm. And something else in the Atlantic, tropical storm turned to Hurricane Franklin and it's about to be a major hurricane off the East Coast, not hitting the East Coast, but the waves, the winds certainly. For Bermuda, the waves and the rip currents certainly for the East Coast -- Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, Chad, and it also shows that the mix is there, the right mix is there for these tropical systems to become very powerful over the next several weeks.

Chad Myers, thank you very much.

The deadly shooting in Jacksonville is just the latest in the string of what police say are racially motivated killings. Next, civil rights leaders, Martin Luther King III, Andrea Waters-King and Jonathan Greenblatt, they all join us live next for a very important discussion about what is happening in this country and why it keeps happening over and over again. We'll talk about that next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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