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CNN International: Fani Willis Expected to Preview Case at Today's Hearing; Judge to Hear Meadow's Request to Move Case to Federal Court; Parts of Florida's Gulf Coast Under Hurricane Watch; Russia Confirms Yevgeny Prigozhin Died in Plane Crash; Shootings Rock Communities Across America. Aired 4-4:30a ET
Aired August 28, 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 warm welcome to our viewers joining us in the United States and all around the world. I'm Bianca Nobilo. It's a bank holiday here in the U.K. but just try and stop us from bringing you the news.
MAX FOSTER, CNN ANCHOR: Skeleton Staff. I'm Max Foster. Joining you live from London. Just ahead on CNN NEWSROOM.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What Mark Meadows is going to be arguing I was just doing my job as chief of staff. What Fani Willis is going to argue is, no, you were committing the crimes that I charged you with.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Tropical storm Idalia could become a hurricane later on today.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you are in the path of the storm. Expect to lose power for a certain amount of time.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 39 seconds of complete torture of a seven-year- old young Muslim boy. This video has gone viral online and led to widespread condemnation and dismay.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: Live from London, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Max Foster and Bianca Nobilo.
FOSTER: It's Monday, August the 28th, 9:00 a.m. here in London, 4:00 a.m. in Atlanta, where the Georgia election interference investigation faces a major test. Today Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is set to lay out her sprawling racketeering case against Donald Trump and his 18 codefendants in front of a judge.
NOBILO: It'll be the first time that arguments in any of the four criminal cases that Trump has been charged with will take place. Willis is expected to lay out some evidence in the case, and we could also hear testimony from some of the witnesses in the case who've been subpoenaed. That includes Georgia's Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger who Trump pressured to find enough votes to win the state.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: So, look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: A federal judge will also hear arguments from Mark Meadows, a codefendant and Trump's White House Chief of Staff. He's pushing to get his case moved to federal court or even thrown out. CNN's Katelyn Polantz has the latest.
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: There are other people that want to do what Mark Meadows is trying to do here in this case, move the case from state court to federal court. Donald Trump has that ability to make that ask, too, at some point, though he hasn't done yet. And the reason that Meadows is doing this is because he's trying to claim that he has some sort of protection because he was a federal officer at the time of the actions, he was taking that he's charged with here in Georgia.
And so, the question at this hearing, could go many hours, as far as hearings go. It could be a long one. Is that were the things that Mark Meadows was doing, such as setting up calls, being on calls, talking on calls with Trump reaching out to state legislators, reaching out to people in Georgia who were in federal -- or in state positions. Was he doing something that was part of his job in good faith as the White House chief of staff? Or was he doing something that was a little more political?
Meadows is going to have to make his own case. But we do know that the state of Georgia has subpoenaed four people for this. People who were privy to various calls that Meadows was taking part in or setting up including that call to Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger where Donald Trump asked him to find votes. Let's listen to just eight these of that. Where Meadows actually speaks on that call. The first voice you hear -- that you will hear is not Meadows, though. It is a lawyer who works with the state of Georgia.
RYAN GERMANY, ATTORNEY FOR GEORGIA SECRETARY OF STATE: I'm happy to sit down with, or have a lawyer sit down with Kurt and the lawyers on that side and explain to him, hey here's -- based on what we've looked at so far, here's how we know this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.
MARK MEADOWS, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STAFF: So what you're saying, Ryan -- hold on, let me make sure, so what you're saying is, you really don't want to give access to the data. You just want to make another case of why the lawsuit is wrong?
GERMANY: I don't think we -- I don't think we can get access to data that's protected by law but we can sit down with them and say -- DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: But you're
allowed to have a phony election? You're allowed to have a phony election, right?
GERMANY: No, sir.
[04:05:00]
POLANTZ: So, that's the type of evidence that the judge, the federal judge hearing this argument section is going to be looking at, potentially as well as hearing from multiple witnesses including Brad Raffensperger who has been subpoenaed to his appearing to testify. So maybe a mini trial we could have in some ways.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
FOSTER: And we'll also likely learn the trial date for federal election interference case against Trump. Special counsel Jack Smith is asking the judge in that case for a January trial date. But Trump is pushing for a court date in April 2026 long after next year's presidential election.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RON DESANTIS, (R) FLORIDA GOVERNOR: Floridians along our Gulf Coast should be vigilant, even if you're currently outside the cone, and indeed you could see impacts if you are in a place that's outside the cone. Please just heed the warnings of your local officials. Continue to watch the news.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: Well Florida Governor Ron DeSantis warning people that he expects power outages when the hurricane comes ashore this week. Tropical storm Idalia -- is how you say it, Idalia -- is rapidly gaining strength and is expected to make landfall on Florida's Gulf Coast.
NOBILO: Some counties have already announced closures, voluntary evacuations and have declared local states of emergency ahead of the storm. Karen Maginnis is monitoring this tropical storm for us. And she joins us live from the CNN Weather Center in Atlanta. Karen, I've experienced many of these Florida hurricanes first hand. They can be extremely scary, very powerful. What can we tell at this the stage about the strength and where this might make landfall?
KAREN MAGINNIS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: It's exactly what you're saying, not so much right now, because of that tropical storm intensity. But it's been sitting over the Yucatan Strait or the Yucatan channel for quite some time. And what I'm picking up here over the last few hours is some deep convection that has really materialized along that western edge. This is just kind of spinning around stationary. We'll get another update coming up in the next hour. But right now, the latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center brings it at 60 miles per hour, quasi-stationary. But look what happens as we go through time. This is going to move
through the strait, move up into the southeastern Gulf of Mexico. And this is where Floridians along the west coast of Florida really have to watch out. Storm surge, the number one killer, during hurricanes. Also, there could be very much a lot of urban flooding. We could see some heavy downpours. We could see that storm surge, in some of the worst-case areas, between seven and 11 feet, depending on what happens at high tide.
Now, the computer models are in fairly good agreement, there was an outlier a few hours ago. But now it looks like everybody is sort of bringing in this tropical system, probably at hurricane strength later on today right around that big bend area.
Tampa, still not going to be good for Tampa, even though Tampa for more than a hundred years has never seen a direct hit from a hurricane. Now, just about a year ago, it was Sanibel Island, hurricane Ian, category 5 hurricane, they are still recovering from that. I was there just a few months ago and it's sill devastating to look at that.
So be prepared. That's the best advice right now. What are your evacuation routes? What will you do as far as medication, food, with children? They've already canceled schools in several counties here.
Take a look at this. For Tampa, they've upped the storm surge, 4 to 7 feet. But where you see the red, that's where it's going to be the strongest for right now. Now these commuter models could change. And if it wiggles maybe a little bit more to the east by 50, 75 miles it's going to be a different story.
All right, precipitation right along that big bend area from around St. George to the Appalachia Bay towards Tampa, we're looking at 6, 8, 10 inches of rainfall. Look at Savannah, Brunswick, Charleston, you to towards Myrtle Beach, then into North Carolina, heavy rainfall. So this is a multiday event that we all need to stay on top of. Another update coming up at the top of the hour. Back to you, guys.
NOBILO: Meteorologist Karen Maginnis, thank you so much. We'll keep a close eye on that along with the Floridians of course.
FOSTER: Yes, and heat alerts are also still in place still along the U.S. South and Gulf Coast. New Orleans saw 105 degrees on Sunday breaking all-time records. The brutal heat is fueling wildfires in southwest Louisiana and leading to mandatory evacuations.
NOBILO: In the town of Maryville, officials say strong winds are also fanning the flames. More than 60,000 acres have burned so far. The National Weather Service says these are some of the worst fire conditions that Louisiana has experienced in decades but fortunately no injuries have been reported so far.
FOSTER: Federal authorities have opened a civil rights investigation into Saturday's racially motivated mass shooting in Florida. Authorities say the 21-year-old gunman opened fire outside of a Dollar general store in Jacksonville on Saturday. [04:10:00]
They say he used racial slurs, drew swastikas on his AR-15 style rifle and left behind multiple racist screeds.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
T.K. WATERS, JACKSONVILLE SHERIFF: We're doing so much to try to determine what exactly led to this, the manifesto is, quite frankly, the diary of a madman. He was -- I mean he was just completely irrational. Was he rational -- was it rational thoughts? He knew what he was doing. He had 100 percent -- he was 100 percent lucid. He knew what he was doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: On Sunday, the Jacksonville community held a vigil for the three victims killed in the shooting. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis condemned the violence.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DESANTIS: Well let me tell you this, you are not going to target HBCUs in the state of Florida and get away with it. We're going to hold you accountable. We're not going to let it happen. And we thank what everybody has done, T.K., the mayor, and just know that the state of Florida stands with the community. Help is on the way. God bless you all.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FOSTER: U.S. President Joe Biden released a statement saying in part:
Even as we continue searching for answers, we must say clearly and forcefully that white supremacy has no place in America, hate must have no safe harbor. Silence is complicity and we must not remain silent.
NOBILO: 52-year-old Angela Michelle Carr, 19-year-old "AJ" Laguerre Jr. and 29-year-old Jerrald Gallion were all shot to death.
FOSTER: One of Gallion's family members who attended the vigil described to CNN what kind of man that he was.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
SABRINA ROZIER, JERRALD GALLION'S FAMILY MEMBER: Jerrald was a fine and loving young man. He was very active in my granddaughter's life from the day he met 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.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 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 is when he took her to Dave & Buster's.
It's hurtful because I thought racism was behind us but evidently, it's not. And that's what they're calling this and 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.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: Outrage in India, after a video emerges showing a teacher asking her students to slap a Muslim student. We'll head to New Delhi for the details of that.
FOSTER: Also ahead, three marines dead, many others injured in Australia. So far, the U.S. military is staying silent about what caused their aircraft to crash. We'll go live to Sydney for an update.
NOBILO: Plus, star gymnast, Simone Biles, makes history as she secures a record eighth all-around title. Details on that just ahead.
[04:15:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
FOSTER: Donald Trump is using his mug shot to drive up fundraising. His campaign says they've raised more than $7 million since that historic shot was taken at an Atlanta jail on Thursday. And CNN's Julian Zelizer reports that the U.S. former president seems to be benefiting from his legal troubles in more ways than one.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JULIAN ZELIZER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I don't think it's hurting him. He is raising money. He's also taking away all of the attention from his Republican opponents at this point in the primary which is very early. But we just had a first date, and what we're hearing about more is the mug shot. And it helped to define him. Meaning his entire character revolves around being a person fighting the establishment that's out to get him.
So he's using this, or he's trying to use this to play into that narrative. So it doesn't hurt him. Whether that helps him, that, we will see, in the next few months.
But it will be part of what the Biden campaign wants to argue. That this is who you will be putting into office. This is why it's dangerous not to elect the Democratic candidate. But the question again, is there outrage? Is there any sense of shame, within the Republican party, that causes them to agree to that, or causes voters to move to Biden who are not already in that camp? And I think at this point in American history, that's an open question. And we just don't know if this -- this will have that impact.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
NOBILO: As Trump deals with his legal troubles, other Republican presidential candidates are focusing on the campaign trail.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NIKKI HALEY, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The fact is, I don't know if it's four or five or six or how many indictments it is now, but he's going to spend a lot of time in a courtroom and not on a campaign trail. And my concern is, we cannot have Kamala Harris as president. We can't chance this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: Former Governor Ron DeSantis left the campaign trail Sunday to return home as his state is reeling from a racially motivated shooting.
NOBILO: Meanwhile, Vivek Ramaswamy slammed Democratic representative Ayanna Pressley for her comments.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VIVEK RAMASWAMY, U.S. REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Either get into the same spirit to say I can look at you and based on just your skin color that I know something about the content of your character. That I know something about the content of the viewpoints you're allowed to express. For Ayanna Pressley to tell me that because of my skin color I can't express my views, that is wrong. That is divisive. It's driving hate in this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
NOBILO: In 2019, Pressley has said that Democrats did not need, quote, any more brown voices that don't want to be a brown voice. And quote, any more Black faces that don't want to be a Black voice.
FOSTER: President Joe Biden and U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin offered their condolences on Sunday to the families of three marines killed in an aircraft accident in Australia.
NOBILO: U.S. and Australian military rescue crews worked together to transport the injured from a remote island to a hospital in the northern city of Darwin.
[04:20:00]
The military says 23 marines were flying in an MV-22B Osprey when it crashed on Melville Island and many of them were injured, five severely.
It's FOSTER: Let's get the latest from Sydney, Australia, where CNN's Angus Watson is standing by. You're not, frankly, getting much information on this though, are you?
ANGUS WATSON, CNN PRODUCER: Well, Max and Bianca, to give you a sense of just how remote this location is that the rescue effort and the now recovery effort has been taking place, it's some 50 miles off the coast of northern Australia. The crash happened on a hillside in thick shrubland. In a very sparsely populated area. So that has been hampering the recovery effort now for the three Marines who were tragically killed in this accident Sunday morning. That recovery effort may go in Tuesday, according to local authorities here.
The 20 survivors of the crash who came with injuries to Darwin have been treated, five of those Marines are seriously injured. Now, we don't know why this crash happened. We don't know how it happened. There's investigation that will take place, led by Australian and U.S. officials into that. What we do know is that the opposite Osprey has had a track record of these deadly incidents. Just last year in 2022, nine U.S. service personnel were killed in crashes related to these Osprey aircraft -- Max and Bianca.
FOSTER: OK, Angus in Sydney, thank you very much for that.
NOBILO: After days of uncertainty, Russia says it has concerns that Yevgeny Prigozhin was among the 10 people killed in last week's plane crash. Russian investigators say genetic tests confirm the identity of the Wagner chief and all of the victims. Prigozhin who led a failed uprising against the Kremlin had previously been named as one of those on board the plane which crashed north of Moscow. But until now, authorities had stopped short of confirmed that he died.
FOSTER: Salma is here right now. I mean, we're spectating this news. Weren't we? But I mean, in terms of exactly what happened, we're getting all of our information from the Russian authorities.
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's what's important to remember here, this is a Russian-backed investigation carried out by Russian investigators on Russian soil. So the question mark is, can they really do their job independently? Can they do their job without interference? I think if you ask any Western intelligence official, they'll probably tell you, no, we don't believe that they can. And that's why there's been so much finger pointing at the Kremlin, at President Putin himself for being involved in the crash. Of course, the Kremlin has denied, denied, denied this. Said, any accusations of involvement in that plane crash is an absolute lie.
But so brings the end of the speculation as to who exactly was on board the plane, Yevgeny Prigozhin, several of his top aides as well on that flight. Russia's investigative committee continues to dig into the cause of the flight.
But the other question mark what happens to the Wagner mercenaries' group? The group he led that was very much centered around his personhood, around this character. So how does it survive without him? It's difficult to imagine that it would. And already Russia had been taking steps before even the death of Prigozhin to co-opt, absorb these mercenaries into the regular army.
And President Putin just a couple days ago now announcing yet another decree requiring all voluntary formations -- that was the term used, essentially meaning mercenary groups, to pledge allegiance to the Russian flag. To essentially fall under the Russian ministry of defense. So you're seeing steps being taken here to make sure that this is consolidated, centered, all of these military forces under President Putin himself, to avoid potentially in the future something similar to this.
The question is, what happens on the battlefield in Ukraine? Can Russia's ministry of defense which had been highly criticized for its performance, for its lack of manpower, for its lack of weaponry, can it on its own, without the support of independent contractors like Yevgeny Prigozhin carrying out what is needed on that battlefield?
FOSTER: OK, Salma, thank you so much.
The U.S. takes another stab at repairing its rocky relationships with China with meetings in Beijing to discuss trade investments in their mutually dependent economies. We'll have a live report from Hong Kong just ahead.
NOBILO: And America's epidemic of gun violence, it's growing so out of control that people are changing the way that they live their lives.
[04:25:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
NOBILO: Welcome back to CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Bianca Nobilo.
FOSTER: I'm Max Foster. If you're just joining us, let me bring you up to date with our top stories at this hour.
The Atlanta prosecutor investigating Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants in the Georgia election case will present her case to a judge later today. Fani Willis is expected to present some evidence, as well as offer witness testimony.
And tropical storm Idalia is making its way towards the state of Florida where it could become a hurricane by Tuesday. Governor Ron DeSantis is warning residents to be vigilant about data on the storm's path.
Gun violence left its tragic mark on communities across America over the weekend. Mass shootings in the U.S. are climbing, and already the nation is on track to mark one of its deadliest years. CNN's Polo Sandoval reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was another weekend plagued by gun violence in America, that violence extending beyond just the state of Florida. On Saturday night, police in Louisville, Kentucky, investigated a shooting that left several people injured and at least two people dead. Shooting at a restaurant, investigators are still looking into what led to that.
On Saturday, I covered a shooting at Boston's Caribbean Carnival, the shooting not linked to the yearly event by authorities, but the parade that was part of it did have to be stopped because of the scope of the investigation. No deaths reported, but several injured there.
Sadly one person did lose their life following a shooting at a high school football game just outside of Oklahoma City earlier in the weekend. A victim just 16-years-old and not a student at the schools that were facing off on the field. Two guns and several rounds have been recovered. The investigation is still ongoing, but police believe that it was a conflict between several individuals, an argument that led to this particular incident.
And two baseball fans injured during a Chicago White Sox game on Friday, though it's unclear where the shots actually came from, either from inside or outside the ballpark. Two people sustained non-life- threatening injuries there.
We're going down this list to remind viewers of just the far-reaching impact of gun violence and how it has affected many aspects of life for Americans, either folks at a store, folks enjoying a sporting event. And it is changing the way some Americans are living their lives. That's according to research conducted by KFF, a health policy organization that shows one in three adults surveyed said that they have recently avoided large crowds, spaces like crowded bars, music festivals saying their concern is a potential for gun violence to break out.
And yet another sobering statistic, in July the U.S. surpassed 400 mass shootings for the year. We haven't seen such a staggering number so early in the year, since 2013, since the Gun Violence Archives started compiling these statistics. Just some perspective here, in 2019 it took 356 days to reach that 400 mark. Yet here we are, still several more months left to go in 2023 and we've already surpassed that 400 number.
Polo Sandoval, CNN, New York.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
