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Texas Woman Charged With Threatening to Kill Judge in Trump Jan. 6 Case; Negotiations Ongoing for Trump's Surrender in Georgia as D.A. Proposes March 4 Trial Date; Crisis Situation as 230-Plus Wildfires Burn in Northwest Canada. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired August 17, 2023 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: I just don't understand how a 12-year-old is starting a slider like that. That's insane. But also, kids, take an opposite field. Come on, Andy, you know the deal. Let's talk to these-- you want to go Williams Sport? We can go, we can teach, it will be great.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It's an outside pitch. You know what to do, Phil.

MATTINGLY: All right, Andy, thanks, man, as always.

CNN This Morning continues right now.

Well, good morning, everyone. Let's get started with five things to know for this Thursday, August 17th. Just in to CNN, now circulating in far right internet, pictures, social media profiles and home addresses that seem to belong to members of the Georgia grand jury that voted to indict Donald Trump. This comes after a Texas woman who was arrested for threatening the judge in the federal election subversion case.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Also, the Hawaii wildfires now claimed lives of 111 people. That's includes children. We know there are still more than 1,000 people missing and only 38 percent of the disaster zone has been searched.

Also this morning, news more young people are being diagnosed with cancer, according to a new study. The rising rate predominantly driven by women in their 30s.

MATTINGLY: And Michael Burry of The Big Short fame correctly predicted the collapse of the housing market in 2008. Now, he has bet more than $1.6 billion on a Wall Street crash. He's using more than 90 percent of his portfolio to make that bet on a market downturn.

HARLOW: And, yes, still talking about Barbie in its third week in the box office. It is still shattering records. Barbie is now Warner Brothers' highest grossing domestic release ever, even though some countries are banning the movie. We'll tell you all about it.

CNN This Morning starts right now. Have you seen it yet, Barbie?

MATTINGLY: I've been a little busy for the last couple of weeks.

HARLOW: I know but still go this weekend. It's so good.

MATTINGLY: Okay. I'm not anti, but people got mad when you asked me, and I said no a couple of months because they thought I was anti- Barbie. I'm not. I'm just-- I have some stuff going on leading up to this week.

HARLOW: It's so great and it just blew me away, and apparently a lot of people.

MATTINGLY: And now I have to go to Barbie.

HARLOW: Yes, you have to go to Barbie. We're going to get to that in a moment.

But now to serious and disturbing news, new details this morning, a Texas woman has been charged with threatening to kill the federal judge who's overseeing former President Donald Trump's federal election interference case.

According to a criminal complaint, she called the chambers of Judge Tanya Chutkan on August 5th, left a voicemail message threatening to, quote, kill anyone who went after former President Trump. Reportedly said, quote, if Trump doesn't get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you. So, tread lightly, and then an expletive. You are in our sights. We want kill you.

MATTINGLY: A woman, according to the complaint, also made a direct threat to kill Texas Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee, all Democrats in Washington, D.C., and all people in the LGBTQ community.

She admitted to Homeland Security special agents that she made the call to Judge Chutkan's chambers but she had, quote, no plans to travel to Washington, D.C., or Houston to carry out anything she stated. She's being held in detention pending trial.

And also just into CNN, photos, social media profiles, even home addresses reportedly belonging to members of the Fulton County grand jury in Georgia are circulating on far right websites. This comes just days after the grand jury indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants.

I want to go straight to Donie O'Sullivan with more on this reporting. Donie, what are you learning right now?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Phil. Yes. So, unlike the federal system when somebody is indicted in Fulton County, Georgia, the names of the people who sit on that grand jury are included in the indictment. So, a lot of people saw these names and the indictment the other day and thought that it had mistakenly been posted. That isn't actually the case. This is protocol in Fulton County. But, look what we've seen online disturbingly in the past 48 hours or so is some people essentially describing this list, the list of grand jurors as, quote/unquote, hit list. And we've seen people trying to, dox people who are on the grand jury, so posting what purports to the grand jurors' social media profiles, their pictures, their home addresses, all, of course, kind of in the context to suggest that there should be retribution for these citizens doing their job, essentially.

What we can say also is that it's not clear to us if all the social media pages and the purported addresses and even the images are actually all of the grand jurors, or if they're simply just people who share, happen to share the same name as some of those jurors. But either way, experts we have spoken to have said even if posting the wrong details of people who are being posted online, that also creates risks for those people as well.

[07:05:08]

Look, there's a bit of a chatter about this from what we can see on a lot of these kind of far right extremists forms. And, look, a lot of times, it is just that, it is just chatter. But, look, it's also show going up in places where some of these forums have been linked to shootings and violent attacks in the past, some of the platforms even used in the planning up to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

So, there is potential real harms for this, of course, a lot of harassment as a result of this, but something that we are monitoring closely.

HARLOW: I think, look, so it's on page nine of the indictment. They list all the grand jurors. And when I saw that, I was surprised, because in a lot of proceedings, people will probably be wondering, well, jurors' names aren't out there in sort of normal court proceedings.

There's a law in Georgia, Donie, that they have, for transparency reasons, that says the name of the grand jurors, who, by the way, don't get to choose if they're going to be doing this or not, are out there. And that's concerning to some of them for reasons like this.

O'SULLIVAN: Exactly. And, look, I mean, transparency is one thing, but, obviously, in this environment, particularly in the world we live in today, of kind of really charged political violent rhetoric online, I mean, this is a very scary situation.

I've seen some of these posts, essentially what you have, and in very dark corners of the internet, again, kind of on forums where, you know, mass shooters, people who have gone on to take part in violent attacks.

There are pictures, screenshots of Facebook pages all purporting to belong to members of this grand jury. So, one thing that just kind of one comment that stuck out, really, to us as we were going through this was somebody looking at that list of grand jurors and calling it a hit list. It was quite chilling. HARLOW: Of course.

MATTINGLY: It was great new reporting, Donie. Keep us posted on this. I think it's important. I appreciate your time.

HARLOW: So, this morning, negotiations are underway for Donald Trump's surrender in the state of Georgia. Take a look. This is a live shot of the Fulton County Jail, where the former president has eight days left to turn himself in on those felony charges for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state.

District Attorney Fani Willis is now asking the judge to start that trial on March 4th. That is a day before Super Tuesday when Trump will be competing in more than a dozen presidential primaries. And, remember, for criminal cases, he's got to be in the courtroom.

We're also learning more about Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump's lawyers, serious money problems. He's one of Trump's 18 co-defendants in this Georgia indictment, and his legal bills have been mounting. A source tells CNN Giuliani went down to Mar-a-Lago with his lawyer in recent months to make a desperate face-to-face appeal to Trump and ask him to help pay.

MATTINGLY: So, on some level, I think it's important to step back, especially in this moment, four different indictments, a calendar. You look at it, it looks a little bit empty there. It is not. And also, by the way, as we've been talking about repeatedly, this is not just about the cases. It's not just the legal. The political is deeply intertwined in it.

So, he has a lot on his plate, the former president. When are these trials going to happen?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: That is the question of today and really the next few weeks. And it's so important on so many levels. We do now have four indicted cases, and they're all jockeying for very limited position on the calendar. The only way to understand this, I think, is to just see it visually.

Now, here, November, of course, is the election. That's a crucial day. Are they going to get these cases tried before then? Let's look at what we have as of this moment. The New York case, the hush money case, is scheduled for trial at the end of March. That will go through April. Then you have Jack Smith's Florida case, the Mar-a-Lago documents case scheduled to begin in late May. That is going to go through June and into July.

Okay, it doesn't look so bad so far. But here's what's new. Jack Smith's team has asked for their other case, the January 6th case, they want that to start in the beginning of January. Now, today, Donald Trump's team is going to respond to this. They're going to say, we want it probably somewhere out here or way beyond the election. But if Jack Smith's team gets its way, that trial is going to take four months, conservatively.

Now, we've already got a problem here in March and April. You think that could get worse? Fani Willis, the Fulton County D.A. in Georgia, now wants her case to start in the beginning of March. Now, we've got trials potentially double and triple tracked.

And if this is all making your head hurt, here's what I can tell you. Trial dates always move. These dates, I suspect, they have to move. This can't all play out. How do I think it's most likely to play out? I think we're most likely to see Jack Smith's case, one or both of them potentially tried before the election. I think the two state cases, New York and Georgia, are likely to move out. Alvin Bragg, the New York D.A., has already stated publicly that he's willing to consider moving his.

[07:10:02]

So, we've got a collision coming here, and it's crucial to see which ones get tried.

MATTINGLY: A lot more to come, clearly, and I think it can't be definitive on dates on anything just because of all those elements. By the way, respect the hustle drawing on the magic. We've been there, man. Your handwriting much better than what--

HONIG: Handwriting on the wall is in art. It's tough.

MATTINGLY: I do want to ask you though. Kaitlan Collins and Paul Reid had this great reporting last night about how Rudy Giuliani, who Katelyn Polantz had reported was in dire financial straits, had gone down to Mar-a-Lago, was basically saying he desperately needed help from the former president. Not to get too into Hollywood movies, but if you're a defendant and you need help on money and the one you might blame for the issues is not helping you, what does that mean?

HONIG: This is the second big question to watch. Who else is going to get charged in these cases? Who else is going to flip? In the new case, the Georgia case, the Fulton County case, there are 19 defendants, Donald Trump and 18 others, including Mr. Giuliani. Will any of them choose to serve their best interests financially and perhaps in the legal system by flipping against Donald Trump? We've not seen any indication that any of these folks have flipped.

But let's also remember, in the other case, in the other 2020 election case, the federal case, these six people, including Rudy again, are co-conspirators. They're not charged, but they could find themselves-- all of them have been indicted in the Georgia case, they all could find themselves with a second indictment.

And so these incentives do pile up, Phil. We've not seen any indication that any of these insiders will flip, but you never know. Things change after people get charged.

MATTINGLY: Things change, but to your point, Rudy Giuliani doesn't seem to be headed in that direction based on his public comments.

HONIG: He's running out of options.

MATTINGLY: All right. Poppy? HARLOW: Guys, thank you.

Less than a week to go until the first Republican primary debate, sources close to former President Trump tell CNN he may skip it. They say he may also consider counter-programming for the debate or even doing an interview with fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

This is part of new reporting from our colleague, Alayna Treene, who joins us now from Washington, D.C. Good morning. What else are you learning about what he might do Wednesday night?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: All right. Well, good morning, Poppy. And, yes, you're right. All indications that I'm getting from Donald Trump's team is that he is not going to participate in that debate next week. Of course, with the hedge, which I included in the story, is that this is Donald Trump we're talking about. I've covered him from years, and his team tells me that.

There's always a small chance that he may decide in the 11th hour that he ultimately wants to go. Of course, there's logistical questions to whether he would even be able to do that, but most likely, he will not be on that debate stage next week.

And instead, Donald Trump himself has been personally throwing out ideas for counter-programming. There have been discussions between Donald Trump's team and Tucker Carlson about an interview around the same time on Wednesday.

Of course, this all comes as Donald Trump is feuding openly with Fox News and Rupert Murdoch, and Tucker Carlson clearly has left Fox News. And so some motivations there, I think, behind the scenes.

I'm also told that Donald Trump's team wants some of his surrogates to represent him at the debate, especially if he is not there, people like Byron Donalds, a congressman from Florida, as well as Matt Gaetz, another congressman from Florida, and Kari Lake, the gubernatorial candidate in Arizona, all of these people potentially there to represent him in his absence.

And one more thing, Poppy, that I find really interesting that I've been picking up in my conversations is that Donald Trump has been telling people this week even that there was a dinner last month where Fox News executives, the president, Jay Wallace, as well as their chief executive, Suzanne Scott, they traveled to Bedminster and encouraged Donald Trump to participate in the debate. And Trump personally is telling people he thinks that shows that Fox is worried about ratings without him.

And so he's feeling like he's in a strong position not to attend next week.

HARLOW: Alayna Treene, thank you very much. We'll see what he does, maybe even at the 11th hour, as you said.

TREENE: Right, thanks. MATTINGLY: Some troubling news we're following this morning, cancer diagnosis rates are on the rise for younger Americans. That's according to a new study. And there's a certain gender and age group seeing the biggest surge. Dr. Sanjay Gupta will break down the findings, coming up.

HARLOW: Also, actor Bradley Cooper facing some heat for wearing a prosthetic nose in a new movie about Leonard Bernstein. The legendary composer's family is rushing to his defense.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:15:00]

MATTINGLY: Well, this morning, Canada has declared a state of emergency in its northwest territory where more than 230 active wildfires are burning and what officials are calling a crisis situation, as officials say the capital, Yellowknife, is now under threat from the spreading fires, heavy smoke and flames.

Thousands of people have been order to evacuate. Some are being told to leave now, others by noon tomorrow.

HARLOW: New this morning, the death toll from Hawaii's devastating wildfire has now risen to 111. Hawaii's Governor Josh Green told CNN last night he estimates there are still more than 1,000 people missing.

Search teams have now gone through just 38 percent of the area. They're still searching for more victims. At a news conference last night, Maui's police chief gave this devastating update.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHIEF JOHN PELLETIER, MAUI COUNTY POLICE: Have we found remains that are maybe smaller than other remains? I'm not going to sit here and sensationalize that, but the answer to that is yes. But we haven't-- what I'm talking about his children, okay? So, we're going to do this right. We have to identify them and then notify them. But that's what we're dealing with.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: And we have learned from county officials the name of five of the victims, 74-year-old Robert Dyckman, 79-year-old Buddy Jantoc, 71-year-old Melva Benjamin, 90-year-old Virginia Dofa, and 79-year-old Alfredo Galinato.

CNN has also confirmed from families the names of two other victims, 68-year-old Franklin Trejos. He lived in Lahaina for three decades. His niece tells CNN her uncle was a kind man, a nature lover and an animal lover.

Carole Hartley also lived on the island for 36 years. Her sister says she will remember her as a special loving person from a young age who always looked for the good in people. This, as survivors right now want to know why the warning sirens did not go off as Maui -- in Maui as the wildfire began to rage.

CNN's Chief Climate Correspondent Bill Weir has the latest on the effort to temper the flames on the ground in Kula, the neighborhood in Maui.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Phil, Poppy, aloha again from Kula, Maui, where the effort to put out these pesky hotspots in this upcountry fire continued. This is Maui Fire Department.

[07:20:00]

But the yellow bucket you recall our report from yesterday, where we had guys out in these canyons with bottled water trying to put smoking hot spots down until they actually, eventually got some help from this chopper here.

But the latest here is just that death toll continues to tick up in a way that has people worried about whether it will jump, if this will just be sort of a constant one or two a day. About a third of the area in Lahaina town has now been searched. They've radically increased the number of dogs.

Now, I believe the governor said there's 40 dogs working that scene now, so they should be able to get a lot more covered in the near term here. I did see a couple of folks in FEMA vest talking to homeowners today, maybe trying to get them into the system to make a claim for a onetime cash payment or get some housing repair help. But if your house looks like this, there's not going to be any repairs.

So, for working class, especially native Hawaiians, there's a lot of worry that they'll be tempted to sell or can't afford to rebuild. And dwindling that soul, the cultural heart and soul of Hawaii, the natives, is a great worry to a lot of folks here, especially in rebuilding Lahaina town. There're concerns it could turn into another Honolulu.

There's a lot of talk about the alarm system. We continue to get conflicting information about what happened with the governor saying that maybe some of those sirens were old and didn't go off. We did hear from the fire chief who says it was never set off in the first place, that the communication between the field and somebody at a computer to start the alarm broke down, given the speed of the fire.

There were tests. They do test these alarms at the first of every month. So, a lot of questions there for the investigation as that is unfolding.

The president, first lady coming on Monday. We'll see if that solves any wounds from a lot of people who feel abandoned here. Still no signs of National Guard, although they say they've doubled the number of troops now close to 500 to help put out these fires.

We'll keep looking and keep you posted as best we can. Let's kick it back to you guys in the studio. HARLOW: Bill, we're on the ground there keeps bringing us a reporting. Bill, thank you.

Meantime, rates of cancer diagnoses rising among really young Americans. That's according to a new government funded study just published. And it found that women in their 30s drove that increase by a large majority.

Our Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta looking at all of this. I was just so surprised that it was women so young.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning.

MATTINGLY: Good morning.

GUPTA: Yes. This is a bit of a warning call. I think we have to look at this data and read into it and understand what's going on here. If someone is diagnosed under the age of 50, that's considered early onset cancer, early onset diagnosis.

What they were trying to figure out is how much has this changed over the last ten years or so. What are we seeing? Are we seeing more of these cases being diagnosed in younger people? And the answer, just like you said, is yes. It's primarily people in their 30s that are driving that increase, and primarily women.

Let me just show you per 100,000 back in 2010, had about 100 cases diagnosed in that age group. Go fast forward ten years roughly, and it's closer to 103. So, it's about a 3 percent increase over that ten years. It doesn't sound like a lot, but if you start to extrapolate and fast forward even further into the future, the concern is that those numbers will continue to balloon.

But, again, it is primarily women. So, men did not have the same increase, and you did not see that same increase in people over the age of 50 as well.

MATTINGLY: So, Sanjay, the obvious question here is why. Do we know what's accounting for the increase?

GUPTA: We're not sure. And this is a topic of significant debate right now within the oncology community trying to decipher these numbers. First of all, we do know what the types of cancers are that were sort of driving the increase, breast cancer, for example, thyroid cancer and colon cancer. Those are the three that were sort of driving it. There are some others on the list as well, but those are the primary three.

It could be a combination of a couple of things, really. One is that we are better at screening for these cancers than we were even 10, 20 years ago. So, we may be simply catching more cancers. That could be part of it. But talking to oncologists, they don't think that accounts for everything.

The other thing is that probably at the age now where people are in their 30s, there is a significant higher percentage of people who are obese than there were 20, 30, 40 years ago. We know when people are taking in lots of glucose, developing lots of insulin as a result, in addition to creating fat in the bodies, that can also fuel cancers. So, that could also be part of it, just the general on health.

But those are sort of the top sort of two ideas. Again, it's a subject of debate. A lot of people want to figure it out, obviously, to try and bring these numbers down.

HARLOW: How can we keep it from becoming a bigger problem, Sanjay?

[07:25:00]

GUPTA: Well, I think one of the things is we still know that there's a utility in screening tests. It was about a month ago that we did a report talking about colon cancer rates going up among young people, specifically. Screening can help.

Obviously, not talking about people in their 30s, but once you get into your 40s, if you're talking about mammography or colon cancer screening, there are specific recommendations there in terms of when to get those screenings. Mammography really starting at age 45 unless you have a family history, and then 55 years getting it yearly or every other year, and for colon cancer screenings, beginning those screenings again at 45 as well.

I think that the larger issue here, though, again, is looking at the general health. If it is true, and it seems to be that the same things that are driving obesity could also be driving cancer rates, fueling the body, fueling these cancers at the same time, we have to address that. There's just a higher percentage of people who are obese now than there were when I was in that age. I'm over 50 now, and I don't think you guys are. But we do find that people over the age of 50, their cancer rates have stayed relatively flat. So, there might be some information in there as well as to what to do in the future.

MATTINGLY: All right, really important. Thanks so much, Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

GUPTA: You got it. Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, there's the campaign trail. In this cycle, there are campaign trials ahead when the Fulton County's D.A. is hoping to begin her trial against the former president and his 18-coefendants. And we'll talk to two witnesses who testified before the grand jury just hours before Monday's indictment.

Stay with us.

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[07:30:00]

MATTINGLY: You're looking right now at live pictures from outside the Fulton County Jail.