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Idalia could bring 12 Feet of Storm Surge to Parts of Florida; March 2024 Trial Dates for Trump's Fed Election and Hush Money Case; Trump Trial Set for Day before Super Tuesday in Federal Election Case; Study Finds Early Signs of CTE in Amateur Athletes. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired August 29, 2023 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

DEANNE CRISWELL, FEMA ADMINISTRATOR: But the number one killer in all of these storms is water, whether it's the storm surge that's going to happen at the coast or the excessive rainfall that might happen inland that causes urban flash-flooding.

The water is the thing that we are finding that is killing more people in these storms than the wind. And so please pay attention to, where you're at? What your risk is? How much rainfall you might get? And listen again to your local officials because they are going to tell you the actions you need to take to keep yourself safe.

SARA SIDNER, CNN HOST: Deanne Criswell, FEMA Administrator, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for giving information that is vital to people as this storm approaches the west coast of Florida and we will be checking in with you as the storm gets closer and closer. I know you are very busy. I hear all the activity behind you there. Thank you and we will be in touch.

CRISWELL: Thank you, Sara.

SIDNER: All right. I am still here with Derek Van Dam. We are going to have a chat in just a bit about what is to come. But first, I'm going to send it back to Phil, who is nice and dry and air conditioned studio.

I mean, you're making me feel bad here. It looks very beautiful down there. But you guys have been laying out the warnings in detail that conversation with Deanne Criswell the FEMA Administrator also underscoring that fact. And there's another element here that I'm fascinated by it.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I think is going to become critically important as Idalia turns closer to Florida could be a litmus test for the state's volatile insurance industry. It's expected to make landfall as a category 3 hurricane with at least 110 mile an hour winds were listening too, Sara, just talk about that.

That's slightly weaker than last year's hurricane in that had sustained winds of 150 miles an hour and cost 65 billion with B dollars in damage. CNN's Julia Chatterley joins us now. Julia, we were talking about this during the break the industry the market is a disaster right now to some degree, what should people expects?

JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN ANCHOR FIRST MOVE: I think disaster is a great way to put it quite frankly, in terms of this particular storm and hurricane there's good news. Insurers are saying that statewide incidents by and large are covered for this and the industry itself is well capitalized to make any payments that are required, God forbid.

But the problem is the knock on impact it has on pricing in a market that's already seeing prices skyrocket and Phil, it quite frankly, it's eye watering. Take Florida as an example, the average Floridian is paying $6,000 for property insurance this year, that's four times the average across other states.

The industry itself is predicting a 40 percent, 40 rising insurance costs this year that follows a third rise last year. And part of the reason for this, quite frankly, is insurers the leaving 15 insurers left the state they stopped writing policies over the last 18 months. We've got double digit numbers going into insolvency or liquidity.

And actually, the message is very simple. The business model doesn't work, the way that insurers work, they need to take in more money in terms of premiums than they pay in losses, or they stopped writing policies or they go out of business. And that's basically what you're seeing with these insurance leave.

These are not the only problems. When we go and buy insurance and insurer like Allstate, for example, goes, and buys reinsurance to protect them. Those costs are up 40 to 70 percent, this hurricane season alone then add inflation into the mix. We talk about this a lot just to rebuild buildings in the United States over the past three years, those costs have risen 40 percent.

That's labor and that's raw materials. This is a perfect storm, in terms of pricing and people like Floridians in California and Louisiana. They're all suffering the consequences.

MATTINGLY: -- understand how a market can exist to some degree real quick before I let you go how can people try and save money or protect themselves?

CHATTERLEY: The most important question bundle, see if you going forward from now on, can get property insurance and auto insurance together. Talk about perhaps raising the amount of money that you pay in terms of lowering the amount of premium. Take a high deductible if you face a loss. These are some of the options and ask for discounts, senior discounts for example.

MATTINGLY: Yes, listen to that. This is a fascinating story. We're going to be talking about this a lot in the months and years ahead. There's no question about that well capitalized makes me.

CHATTERLEY: Now?

MATTINGLY: Yes, it makes me nervous based on covering financial markets. Julia Chatterley thanks so much. Appreciate it. Well, a federal judge says Donald Trump's election subversion trial should start a day before the biggest primary day in the Republican race. Trump's team plans to appeal will they be successful?

And we're learning that the FBI is investigating dozens of asylum seekers who entered the U.S. from the southern border this year with the help of a smuggler that had ties to ISIS that new report that's coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:35:00]

MATTINGLY: Judge Tanya Chutkan setting, a trial date of March 4 next year for Trump's federal election interference case. That means she's technically rejecting Special Counsel Jack Smith January 2 request but probably more critically, also rejecting team Trump's proposal for April 2026.

That puts the start date the day before Super Tuesday just before another trial. Trump's hush money case in New York is set to get underway on March 25, 2024. And there is also by the way, the Fulton County case possibly this October the second E. Jean Carroll defamation trial which is on the day of the Iowa caucuses and also the classified documents trial proposed for May of next year.

Got all that? That's a lot if you're filling out a calendar like for your family in the morning. This is what we have to do for the week. It's a busy week, month and year, joining us now, Political Video Reporter for The Washington Post, Joyce Koh, CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig and CNN Political Reporter Alayna Treene, in studio on -- welcome.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Studio yes, thanks for having me.

MATTINGLY: You spend a lot of time talking to the Trump team with the Trump campaign at Trump's properties to some degree where we usually talk to you at this hour, the calendar itself. Look, I understand what the spokesperson says in the statement. I understand what his TV lawyers say and what his lawyers say in the courtroom itself.

Take us behind the scenes when the campaign's actual kind of key players look at this calendar and look at what it's going to mean for whether Trump is on the trail look at what it means for their infrastructure for their money. What concerns them most right now?

TREENE: There are a couple things, Phil. One is for a while there actually was the belief within Trump's team that they could delay a lot of these trials, if not all of them until after the 2024 election. It's no secret that's their plan and that's their goal. But increasingly over the last several weeks, there's been acknowledgment within his camp.

And his lawyers about how now with his mounting legal troubles with the four indictments he's facing. It's more likely than not he's going to have a trial in the middle of primary campaign season especially now that Judge Chutkan just roll that it's going to be March 4.

[07:40:00] I think there's even as much as we saw Donald Trump say I'm going to have appeal this and whatnot and Ellie can speak to whether he can actually do that. They recognize that he's probably going to have to do this and that's very concerning for him because I think as much as they are benefiting from the short term political boost of these indictments.

We're seeing them fundraise, a ton of money off of these charges. They're far more worried about the trials themselves. And they also are worried about how general election voters could react to this. And that's something that they fear a lot can come out in these trials that could impact that campaign. Of course, he's also being taken off the trail at a very crucial time in primary season.

MATTINGLY: Right, which I mean, if you're plus 30 plus, 40 points, maybe it's not the biggest concern, but that's the point that I think that people are missing to some degree, the trial itself, Elie.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yes.

MATTINGLY: He's going to be sitting in a courtroom. We're going to be hearing arguments, it is not going to be PR statements and people yelling on TV, this is in a courtroom. What does that mean? Tell, take people inside that courtroom?

HONIG: Yes, it's a whole different ballgame. And I think yesterday was a reality hit for Donald Trump's team, it is clear, we are going to have one, maybe two trials between now and the election. When you're on a criminal trial, you have to physically be there as the defendant, we remember the E. Jean Carroll trial a few months ago, that was a civil case.

Trump opted to skip that. He will have to be physically in the courtroom, it's a full day, it's a long day, trials usually start at 9, 10 in the morning, go to 4 or 5 in the afternoon, he will be in D.C., he will be in Florida. And so he will be physically off the campaign trail.

And I think it'd be really interesting to see, from a political perspective, how does that play because presumably he'll be getting what while coverage, not the good kind when you're defendant in a criminal case. But presumably, he's going to get a ton of media coverage, but he's not going to be out there at rallies.

He's not going to be able to go door to door, but you know, shake hands with people and are mixed in with the normal type of campaign activity. I don't know how that's going to play ultimately.

MATTINGLY: Joyce, and to that point, you know, if you're another campaign, and you're watching this, and you've been waiting for any number of things to happen to the Former President, that haven't happened. And perhaps you want to just one opportunity not to have all the oxygen sucked out of the room, not going to happen. Where's your opening here?

JOYCE KOH, POLITICAL VIDEO REPORTER AT THE WASHINGTON POST: I think you sort of see this with some candidates like Nikki Haley, who have started since the debate, she sort of started pivoting her messaging, and not being shy about going after Former President Trump when it relates to these indictments and how he possibly could govern with these charges that he faces.

You know, despite saying that she was one of the six of the eight candidates on stage during that debate, saying that she would also support the Former President if he was to be the GOP nominee. But I think Elie makes a good point. And in terms of, you know this optics that we've been talking about this morning. At least in the Georgia case, the state trial, we could see him in court on television.

MATTINGLY: -- right.

KOH: Where, you know, in the federal trial that might not be the case. But how does that look to like Alayna said, the general population of voters, that, you know, general election voters, you know, might play differently in the primaries. I've been out in Iowa talking to voters, there's no Republican voter who will tell me that they will not support the Former President.

If he's convicted of any of these crimes, if he is in prison, by the time that the 2024 election rolls around, I didn't speak to a single Iowa Republican voter who told me that even if they're supporting someone else in the primary process. So he clearly has an iron grip over the voters, at least that we're talking to right now. But how will that play among you know, independent voters and general election voters come the fall.

MATTINGLY: Alayna, this is my, I've been fixated on this idea of tell me post-May tell me post-convention, the path right now. And I'm not one of those people that saying Donald Trump can't win. I lived through 2016.

TREENE: Right.

MATTINGLY: I covered his campaign in 2016 then they're never going to say that again.

TREENE: You know lot.

MATTINGLY: But the idea of the people that gave Joe Biden the presidency, have not gotten any happier about the Former President and to some degree are the exact population that are saying they're turned off by these indictments. So what's the plan inside the campaign?

TREENE: For a general election strategy it's funny, they're actually have been pivoting toward that we saw them released an ad just before the debates, making it a Trump versus Biden type of race and their minds and trying to portray that to the public. But listen, it's tough right now, a lot of what they're doing is focused on Trump's base and Republican voters.

It's a massive primary election strategy, but they will need to have a general election strategy. I think that they are still figuring out what that will be. I think they're going to lean more into 2024 agenda items like the economy, China, the border, all the things we know that.

A lot of voters liked, when he you know, had these policies, maybe not his rhetoric, they're going to try to hone that. But again, if he's being you know, there's so many of these trials that he has to go through all of these legal troubles. It's something that his campaign I don't think has figured out yet how to spin to general election voters and it is a big concern within the Trump campaign itself.

[07:45:00]

MATTINGLY: Yes, no question. It's a very different team and a very different infrastructure than definitely had 16, had 20 much more professional team. It'll be interesting to see how they do that. Alayna thanks for coming in.

TREENE: Yes --

MATTINGLY: It's good to see Elie and Joyce, thanks guys. Now to a CNN exclusive, the FBI is scrambling to find dozens of migrants who crossed the U.S. southern border with the help of a smuggler that ties to ISIS. U.S. officials say no specific ISIS plot has been identified, but they are still tracking a number of the migrants as possible criminal or national security threats.

I want to get to CNN is Katie Bo Lillis, who's reporting on this. Katie Bo, what do we know about what U.S. officials know in this moment?

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: Yes, it feels so it's important to say at the outset that U.S. officials believe at this point that there is no indication of any terrorist plot or any terrorist planning against the United States. They really see these people as seeking a better life in the U.S.

The Biden Administration views this as more of a human smuggling case than they view it as a potential terrorism case. So what happened here, Phil, was basically a case of bad timing. This group of Uzbek nationals presented themselves seeking asylum in the United States. They were vetted according to standard U.S. procedures.

And then they were released into the United States pending a court date as is typical in this kind of incidents. What happened was that the U.S. only later developed intelligence that allowed them to understand that the human smuggling network that had facilitated the travel of these individuals to the United States had an individual in its group with some pretty troubling links to ISIS. And that obviously set off some pretty loud alarm bells across the federal government, Phil.

MATTINGLY: So what has been I guess, how did you officials respond when they realize that this has actually transpired?

LILLIS: Yes, so this has really all gone down in the last few weeks, the FBI immediately scrambled to try to locate, investigate, assess the backgrounds of all the different individuals who had come into the country through the work of this facilitation network. The U.S. also broke up the smuggling network.

And Turkey at the behest of the United States detained the ISIS linked smuggler that was involved in this group. And that allowed the U.S. pretty quickly to determine that this person was really more like an independent contractor. He was not a member of ISIS.

He was somebody who just sort of had personal sympathies with the group which gave them some confidence pretty early on, that this was more of a human smuggling case than it was a potential terrorism case. So for some officials that we spoke to this whole episode is really evidence of the system working the way it should.

The U.S. received additional intelligence about a group of migrants inside the United States they investigated, and they determined that they likely did not present a counterterrorism threat but for some counterterrorism and intelligence officials that we spoke to in the course of our reporting.

This episode was a lot more alarming for these people. The whole incident just shows the how vulnerable the United States is to the possibility that terror groups like ISIS could try to essentially sneak across the southern border by hiding amid sort of the flood of the surge of migrants seeking asylum in the United States. For these individuals Phil, this whole episode really a test case that proves a chink in U.S. armor.

MATTINGLY: Yes, a very complex and dynamic test case back, Katie Bo Lillis there reporting. Thanks so much.

LILLIS: Thanks, Phil.

MATTINGLY: And right now I want to take us back to Florida where our Sara Sidner and the team have been keeping a very close eye on what is now a hurricane that they are waiting for. We're seeing it play out off the coast of Cuba headed in the direction of where Sara Sidner is right now in Clearwater Beach, Florida, Sara?

SIDNER: We are on Clearwater Beach. It is an absolute beautiful day. But that is going to change all of the forecasts indicate that we are going to start seeing some of the effects of hurricane Idalia which is a category one storm it is getting into the Gulf of Mexico.

And it is going to intensify because those waters are warm, which helps fuel the hurricane. We now understand that at least 20 counties are in some form of evacuation mode. Some people are it's a mandatory evacuation where they are telling you that you've got to get out and get to safety.

And there are other places where it is a voluntary evacuation. It is not the entire county for a lot of places. It is just parts of the county exactly like where I'm standing where you are very, very close to potential dangerous storm surge and that is going to be the story of this storm. A huge storm surge lifting up those ocean waters pushing the waters closer and closer to the population, we are watching it and we will give you an update as soon as we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:50:00]

MATTINGLY: We are continuing to monitor hurricane Idalia it is now a category one hurricane it could increase, we category 3 hurricane as it heads towards the Gulf Coast. We'll keep you posted on that with our team. Sara Sidner is down there in Clearwater Beach now.

But we also want to focus on your Health This Morning. Researchers have now found CTE brain disease often associated with NFL players and concussions in younger amateur athletes. That's according to a striking new study from Boston University. The researchers evaluated 152 donated brains and found evidence of the disease in more than 60 of them, including an athlete's who never played professionally.

CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta has been covering this issue for years and has visited the very brain bank where this work is happening. Sanjay, I had multiple concussions as a high school football player, but never really thought that was something I needed to be concerned about. How concerning is this study?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, the first thing I want to tell you when you look at these numbers, the outset is that all the people who actually have their brains donated, this can only be diagnosed at autopsy. So they donated their brains. They all had significant symptoms, Phil.

So this is a pretty specific group of people. I don't want people to look at those specific numbers here and say 40 percent of people between the ages of 17 and 29 are going to develop this. These are people again, who had symptoms but I think what is concerning to your point, Phil, is just how young this was.

We often think of CTE as something that happens not only after a professional career, but many years after a professional career. We know it can happen on amateur athletes, and it can happen, young and just really quick CTE again chronic traumatic encephalopathy.

It's sort of this Alzheimer's like syndrome of symptoms that people will develop with memory loss, with confusion, impulse control issues, depression, and suicidal behavior.

[07:55:00]

In fact, suicide, Phil, was the primary cause of death in this group of people that we're talking about here but I think one of the headlines should be that most people, all the people who donated their brains they had symptoms. I don't want that to suggest that everyone out there, who's had concussions, like yourself is going to develop this.

MATTINGLY: It's a very important point. Sanjay, I'm stuck on the idea the youngest person to have been diagnosed with CTE was just 17. It's just you so young.

GUPTA: Yes, it really is. And you know, I'll tell you, when we were working on our documentary a few years ago, big hits broken dreams. That's exactly when this 17 year old named Nathan Stiles, his family came and had his brain evaluated. And I want to show you this I actually spend time with Ann McKee.

That's Nathan, he was 17, he had this incredible game one day, he ran 165 yards in the first half alone, had a significant blow to the head subsequently died. But this is us looking at his brain. And what you can see, I don't know if you can tell there. But those dark areas, again in a 17 year olds brain, that is the tau protein.

Often associated with Alzheimer's disease, they found it in his brain. Again, there was no suggestion yet symptoms at that time. But this was an indication of just how early these brain changes can start to take place, Phil?

MATTINGLY: And do we know there's been so much groundbreaking research? Do we know why some people develop CTE and why others don't?

GUPTA: Yes, so it's still not entirely clear, most people will not. Is there a genetic sort of predisposition for this? Is this an environmental thing? One thing to keep in mind, take a look at this animation of the brain. When we talk about blows to the head, one of the things that we're often talking about can be sub concussive hits where the brain is actually accelerating, and then decelerating quickly.

And so the brain itself moves within the skull. So it's not necessarily these blows to the head that are specifically causing it as much as it is the stretching of the fibers within the brain multiple times that happens, that seems to be something that sort of sets you up even if they didn't lead to concussions.

MATTINGLY: Right, Dr. Sanjay Gupta you've been all over this story this research throughout thanks so much.

GUPTA: Yes, thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, we are waiting for an update any minute now on hurricane Idalia. It's a category 1 storm right now but forecasters warned it could intensify into a category 3. And coming up, big developments into Former President Donald Trump's criminal cases, we're going to get reaction from the highest ranking Democrat in the House, Congressman Hakeem Jeffries just ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTINGLY: Welcome to "CNN This Morning", and we are following breaking news right now. A brand new forecast from the National Hurricane Center as hurricane Idalia churns towards Florida's Big Band you're looking at live footage from our drone over Clearwater Beach. That is where Sara Sidner is.

[08:00:00]