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Biden Heads to Maui; Robert Luna is Interviewed about Tropical Cyclone Damage; New Iowa Polls. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired August 21, 2023 - 08:30   ET

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

[08:30:00]

CHRISTIAN HALL, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, "BLOOMBERG": And especially primaries. I mean they have become very national in scope. And if any of these candidates can really make a compelling argument to viewers, I mean, there are voters out there looking for a Trump alternative. Granted there are, you know, a large contingent of voters who are stick by the former president. There are voters who, you know, may think, you know what, we should move on. So, I think he has to be really careful about this strategy.

LAURA BARRON-LOPEZ, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: But Ron DeSantis isn't making an argument to be an anti-Trump or a big Trump alternative. So, his ability -- he's even said that he has -- is not necessarily going to attack the former president. His campaign says they're going to defend the former president during this debate.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, that's a great point.

Laura Barron-Lopez, thank you.

Christian Hall, appreciate it.

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you.

HARLOW: President Biden and the first lady will be in Maui later today. They are there to pay their respects, to survey the damage also from these devastating deadly wildfires. We're live from the White House with a preview of that trip.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're so honored to have the president coming on Monday to both mourn with us and also so that he can see, you know, see the damage, see what it's going to take to rebuild Maui.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BLACKWELL: Happening today, President Biden and the first lady will head to Maui where they will meet with survivors, first responders, and get a firsthand look at the devastating wildfires that have killed at least 114 people. New this morning, Maui's mayor says 850 people are still unaccounted

for.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAYOR RICHARD BISSEN, MAUI COUNTY: When this process began, the missing person list contained over 2,000 names. Through the tireless work of the FBI and the Maui Police Department, over 1,285 individuals have been located safe.

[08:35:10]

We are both saddened and relieved about these numbers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Rescue teams with cadaver dogs have been digging through Lahaina's incinerated wasteland looking for victims. Now, Hawaii's governor says some remains may never be found despite the dedicated search.

CNN's Jeremy Diamond joins us live from the White House now.

Jeremy, give us a little more about what the president and the first lady will do once they arrive.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor, this death toll already makes this the deadliest wildfire in more than a hundred years of U.S. history. And it is likely to continue to rise. And so President Biden, today, is going to go on the ground to meet not only with survivors and victims' families, but also to tour some of the devastation that has been wrought on Maui.

The president is going to be arriving in Maui later today where he will initially get a helicopter tour of the island to see some of the devastation. He will then land near Lahaina, where he will go and see that area that is one of the most devastated areas on the island firsthand to view some of the damage. He will meet with first responders and local responders to get a briefing on the situation, as well as on the federal response.

And we will hear from the president directly. He is expected to deliver remarks during which he is going to announce that Bob Fenton, the regional administrator for that area, is going to be named the chief federal response coordinator for this effort. An effort to -- a designation that is intended to signal that this is going to be a long-term recovery process, and one for which the federal government will indeed be on scene.

The president, in a statement, saying, quote, "I will do everything in my power to help Maui recover and rebuild from this tragedy. And throughout our efforts we are focused on respecting sacred lands, cultures, and traditions."

Now, the president could hear some criticism of the federal response. Some local residents have been saying that they felt the federal response was too slow. The president also faced criticism from Republicans for the nearly five days of silence on this matter while he was at his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, home.

But, most importantly, Victor, today will be an opportunity for the president to display that signature empathy, that while it may have been missing for a handful of days last week, it has been a hallmark of his political life and of his presidency as well. Certainly, a moment for him to present that front today.

BLACKWELL: A needed moment.

Jeremy Diamond for us there at the White House. Thank you.

HARLOW: Coming up, post-Tropical Cyclone Hilary slamming the Los Angeles area with intense rain, major flooding. We've got an update from the L.A. County sheriff. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:40:51]

HARLOW: Welcome back.

Post-Tropical Cyclone Hilary slamming the southwest, bringing intense rain, widespread flash flooding this morning. And when it made landfall, it was a tropical storm. The first to hit that area in over 80 years.

On Sunday, just as Hilary triggered flood warnings across Los Angeles, a magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck. Millions of -- millions of become- to-back urgent emergency alerts were then sent out to residents across southern California.

What are officials doing?

Joining us with an update, Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna.

Sheriff, it's good to have you.

I mean the last thing you need is an earthquake in the middle of all of this. How extensive and dangerous is the flooding now?

SHERIFF ROBERT LUNA, LOS ANGELES COUNTY: Well, good morning and thank you for having me on the show.

Right now it's still dark here on the West Coast. So as light comes up, we'll see the extent of the damage. But we are getting wide reports of flooding throughout the county of Los Angeles.

BLACKWELL: So, when I had a conversation with the mayor of Palm Springs up in Riverside County earlier, she said that the 911 system there was out. Are your communications intact to -- if there are needs for rescue or some help that they can get to you?

LUNA: Yes, thank God that our 911 system throughout the county, as far as we know now, has been fully operational. We have had intermittently outages at some of our substations. But we have contingencies in place. And then they get placed to another station so there are no interruptions where community members cannot call in and ask for the assistance they may need.

HARLOW: As I understand, a particular concern to you this morning is the - is the unhoused population there, is that right? What kind of danger are they in?

LUNA: Yes, obviously one of the biggest concerns we have in this area, typically on an everyday basis, is dealing with our unhoused population. For those of you who are no familiar with the L.A. region, we have a lot of man-made rivers that are made of concrete. And we have a lot of unhoused people who end up residing along these locations. So, when it starts to flood, if you're, again, not familiar with the area, when the water starts rushing through, it becomes very dangerous, and we consistently, whether it's us or our fire department, pull people out of the rivers.

So, what we did as soon as -- part of our preparation efforts, was to go out with our homeless outreach teams and then other county department personnel to engage, warn our community members there, things like putting out public address announcements with our helicopters, really trying to get people to safe ground. And then working with other partners to find them shelter for the next several days.

And we have done that. I believe we made close to 200 contacts. And many of those people were offered services and shelter, at least through the duration of this significant storm.

BLACKWELL: Yes, we look at some of this video, and to be pretty candid, folks who live in the southeast, in Florida and Georgia, they've lived through this. The reason that this is so dire where you are is because L.A. County, Riverside County, Orange County, they're not used to this type of rainfall. They're getting a year's worth of rain in some areas, in a day.

Talk to us about just the -- how overwhelming this is, the amount of rain that's coming in for first responders and residents who are not used to this much water?

LUNA: Yes, it's -- you know, for us here in Los Angeles County, our employees, the people who do emergency response are amazing people. And we prepare all the time. We are used to fires. We're used to earthquakes.

[08:45:00]

It doesn't rain here all the time. But when it does, it's like we get it all at one time. So, unfortunately, we are used to dealing with flooding and mud slides and things of that nature.

As you said in your teaser, this is the first time this significant amount of rain has fallen in a short period of time, so it causes additional challenges. It looks like, at this early stage, that all of our planning and training has worked. But when we get daylight and we're able to assess everything with the flooding and mud slides that we're seeing, not only in our county, but our adjacent counties, we'll see how well we handled it. But it is not something that we're used to dealing with every day. But I'm really proud of the entire county team and the work that they did in preparing for this.

And there will always be lessons learned. But like you also said in your teaser, how many times do people around the country are dealing with either a hurricane or a significant storm like this, and then they get a 5.1 earthquake in the middle of it.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

LUNA: Earthquakes are something we're used to. And that happened in Ventura County, which is just north of us. But many of us here in Los Angeles felt that shaker. And it does, you just kind of shake your head and go, OK, what else is coming our way?

BLACKWELL: Well, hopefully nothing else -

LUNA: Some of us even thought we'd better head to church.

BLACKWELL: I'm sure a lot of folks thought you should head to church.

Hopefully there is nothing else that's coming your way. Thank you so much for the time. I know you've got a lot of work to do. And our best to you and everybody there in L.A. County.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna, thanks so much.

LUNA: Thank you.

HARLOW: We do have new polling out of Iowa this morning. It gives us a look at the state of the Republican presidential field. Harry Enten here with the latest numbers.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:53]

HARLOW: New polling out of Iowa this morning. It shows, not a surprise, President Trump holding a dominant lead with five months to go until the first in the nation caucuses.

Our senior data reporter Harry Enten here this morning.

Good morning.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Good morning.

HARLOW: What's the number?

ENTEN: All right. So, I just want to give you an understanding that Donald Trump is up big league in the state of Iowa. This is obviously "The Des Moines Register" poll, which is the marquis poll in that state. Look at this, he's got an over 20-point advantage over Ron DeSantis, his nearest challenger. This is the largest lead in an Iowa GOP caucus poll at this point since George W. Bush in 2000. Hillary Clinton, on the Democratic side, remember she had that huge lead. It had already shrunk by this point. So, the fact that Trump is up by over 20 points really gives you an understanding of how large his lead is in the state of Iowa.

And I think this gives you an understanding of just how strong the Trump base is. Mind is made up about the top choice for the GOP nominee. Look at this, 66 percent of Trump voters say their mind is made up. That is significantly larger than the overall likely caucus goers at just 40 percent. And significantly larger than Ron DeSantis supporters who just 31 percent say their mind is made up about their top choice for the GOP nominee.

BLACKWELL: Arguably the state polls, especially Iowa, they're more important because these are state by state contests.

HARLOW: Yes.

BLACKWELL: But how does this compare to the national outlook (ph)?

ENTEN: Yes, so, nationally, Trump's lead is even larger. So, these are three polls that were out over the last week. Look at these leads for Donald Trump. He's at 62 percent in the CBS News/YouGov poll, 57 percent in Quinnipiac University, 53 percent in the Fox News poll.

Look at where DeSantis is in all these polls. Look how far back he is. He doesn't crack 20 percent in any of them. So, in Iowa, you have that 20 plus point lead for Donald Trump. That's actually smaller than the lead we see nationally where we see these leads of 35, 40, near 50 points in this particular case.

Of course, the primary is one thing. If Trump wins the primary can he go on and win the general election? And we've had three polls that have come out over the last week here. And I want you to take a look at how close this race is at this particular point. Granted the general election is over a year away.

The largest lead for Joe Biden is just three points, within the margin of error. No clear leader. Look at these, one point. One point. If you go back where we were at this point four years ago, Joe Biden's lead was high single digits to low double digits. This is significantly closer than where we were four years ago. So, this idea that Donald Trump can't win the general election, I want you to lose that idea. This race is very, very close and Donald Trump is polling better right now than basically at any point during the entire 2020 cycle.

HARLOW: After four indictments.

ENTEN: After four indictments. It just doesn't really seem to matter.

HARLOW: Matter. That's fascinating.

BLACKWELL: Harry Enten, thank you.

ENTEN: Thank you. BLACKWELL: Still ahead on CNN, coverage of post-Tropical Cyclone

Hillary continues. Our crews are live out in California as communities across the West Coast wake up some serious flooding.

HARLOW: And over the weekend Stand Up to Cancer honored the progress the organization helped achieve over the last 15 years and its mission to fund more life-saving breakthrough treatments. Our "Morning Moment" is next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:58:32]

HARLOW: It is time for your "Morning Moment."

Cancer research charity Stand Up to Cancer just celebrated its 15th anniversary with an hour-long telecast on Saturday. And the night was a celebration of how far that organization has come. Over the years it has brought together more than 3,000 of the best scientists to collaborate toward ending cancer's reign as the leading cause of death worldwide. And through their work they have done a lot. It is far from over and they wanted to honor the success and advancements of the organization because every one of those successes leads to survival.

BLACKWELL: You see some of the faces. A star-studded show. Included special appearances by President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden, Justin Timberlake, Jessica Beal, Queen Latifah, Julie Ann Moore, Katie Couric, who shared how the disease has personally impacted her life.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KATIE COURIC: How it started was how it starts for so many Americans. Every 30 seconds someone in this country is told they have cancer. In April of 1997, that someone was my 41-year-old husband Jay. Nine brutal and terrifying months later, I became a widow and our daughters, Elie and Carrie, fatherless.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Now, there still is an opportunity for you to donate. Just go to standuptocancer.org.

HARLOW: Yes, and please do. If you can, make a donation.

[09:00:01]

This work that Katie has led in honor of her late husband is remarkable. And in 15 years, look at how much they've done. I mean that aired all over the place on Saturday night. So, good for her.

BLACKWELL: Yes, it was good to see so much support there for the organization and still, obviously, so much work to do.

HARLOW: Yes. All right, we'll see you back here tomorrow morning. Have a great day.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts now.