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Girl Rescued After Abduction; Rep. Dusty Johnson is Interviewed about Ousting McCarthy; NOLA Water Supply Threatened; Trump's Legal Impact on Campaign. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired October 03, 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]

JOHN MILLER, CNN CHIEF LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Remember she said after riding around that loop with the other kids, that's loop A in the park, I want to go around one more time by myself. That could have been an impulse, which is a kid trying to get some early independence, or did somebody say, you know, come back here and I'll give you x? And all of that's going to be unfolding today.

Their first order of business was to get her to a hospital, aside from the criminal piece of this. The victimology is going to be very important, making sure that she gets the proper care immediately, the psychological first-aid that she and her family are going to need.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Of course.

MILLER: But all this has to happen in tandem.

HARLOW: Brendan, have you or any of your colleagues spoken with anyone in her family?

BRENDAN LYONS, MANAGING EDITOR/CAPITOL BUREAU AND INVESTIGATIONS, "THE TIMES UNION": Briefly. One of my colleagues spoke to one of the parents early on during the search. The mother didn't have much to say at that point. Obviously, they were so distraught and overwhelmed with the disappearance of their daughter. And on - on -- to his point on the whether this was a targeted kidnapping or not, I think that right now they've - they've been able to pinpoint the suspect being in that park, in that area on the day of the kidnapping due to probably cellphone records, possibly license plate readers. But those cellphone records, they can go back in time and figure out how long he was in that park and whether he had been monitoring that family either overnight or through the day, or only for minutes. It could have been that lightning struck when he drove in and saw an opportunity.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: John, Brendan makes - made the point that they didn't have any suspects - didn't sound like they had any suspects prior to the ransom note. Was that just an extraordinarily lucky break for law enforcement given the time window these investigations usually operate within?

MILLER: You know, the harder you work, the luckier you get. You start off with zero suspects and then you have to make your own work. So, that means going through all the registered sex offenders in the area. That means going through any arrests that might have had to do with luring a child or unlawful imprisonment. That means looking at people on probation and parole. That means comparing those to the records of people who bought tickets for entry to the park. All of those wheels were turning. And I know Brendan knows this as well. But then when you get this envelope dropped off by a car that disappears into the night, that was opportunity.

I remember, in the case of Cesar Sayoc, you may remember him, he was the individual who was sending pipe bombs all around New York City.

HARLOW: Yes, of course.

MILLER: We had zero as far as a suspect. I went to bed at 1:30 that morning. By 4:35 a.m. the lab had developed a print, gotten DNA from a hair, matched that to a record, was pinging a phone of a car moving down a highway. So, these things can turn around on a dime. And thank God this one did when it did.

HARLOW: Thank goodness that she's home safe with her parents.

Thank you, John.

Brenden, to your team and all the reporting, thank you.

LYONS: Thank you.

MATTINGLY: Well, when your phone goes off tomorrow afternoon, don't be alarmed. The government is actually going to be testing its Emergency Alert System and Wireless Emergency Alerts. This means all radios, TVs and cellphones will be sent an alert starting at 2:20 p.m. Eastern Time tomorrow. FEMA is trying to prevent any mistakes in its system, like it has in the past. In 2018 an accidental alert of an incoming ballistic missile sent the state of Hawaii into a panic. And earlier this year, Floridians woke up at 5:00 a.m. to a test alert on their phone meant for TV only.

HARLOW: Happening today, Democrats will meet to decide on fate of Kevin McCarthy's leadership.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:37:38]

MATTINGLY: You are looking live at Capitol Hill where just moments from now both Republicans and Democrats are set to meet with their respective caucus and conferences to determine potentially the fate of Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Now, this comes as Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz has followed through on his threat to move to oust the speaker of the House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): Well, I have enough Republicans where at this point next week one of two things will happen, Kevin McCarthy won't be the speaker of the House or he'll be the speaker of the House working at the pleasure of the Democrats. And I'm at peace with either result because the American people deserve to know who governs them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTINGLY: Now, McCarthy will now be required to put a resolution on a legislative schedule, setting up a potential showdown on the House floor. Unequivocally there will be a showdown on the House floor. It would take a majority vote for the motion to vacate to succeed. And McCarthy is expected to take procedural steps to kill the measure as soon as potentially today.

Joining us now is Congressman Dusty Johnson, a Republican from South Dakota. He's also somebody who, whether it's on the spending agreements or this particular issue, has always been in the room at the table trying to figure out a path forward to some degree.

Congressman, I appreciate your time this morning.

I want to start with kind of where things stand right now. There are clearly enough Republicans that are willing to join Congressman Gaetz. You are a member who also has relationships across the aisle. Do you have any sense of whether or not Democrats will help Speaker McCarthy here?

REP. DUSTY JOHNSON (R-SD): First off, let's make sure we're clear about the math. There are ten times more Republicans backing Kevin McCarthy than are backing Matt Gaetz. At least ten times more. Maybe 15 or 20 times more. Yes, Matt Gaetz is going to try an unauthorized coup. He is trying to get some of the most liberal voices on the Democratic side to help. I know Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been a vocal supporter of his efforts.

To answer your question though, I do think there are going to be a number of Democrats who understand that this kind of chaos does not serve our country well. And we've got a southern border in crisis and we only have the government funded for 40 more days. Maybe we should actually focus on solving a few problems than these kind of D.C. parlor games.

MATTINGLY: You mentioned solving problems. You're also a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus. Oftentimes in moments like this the Problem Solvers Caucus, some of their members, can serve as kind of middlemen between Democratic leadership and Republican leadership.

[08:40:02]

Has that been happening here? Have you guys been trying to work to mediate a relationship that isn't exactly a great place right now?

JOHNSON: There aren't a lot of things that unify Democrats and Republicans in Congress. Listen, we're in a deeply divided time. But one thing that does bring the Problem Solvers together is this idea that the stone throwers, the people who only love to knock things down, should not be running the House. It is hard to build anything in this really toxic, political

environment. So, when you have dedicated people who actually want to find legislative accomplishments, I think it's frustrating to them that you've got somebody who just -- their only purpose in seven years has been going around and kicking everybody else's sandcastle.

Listen, the time for the chaos agents like Matt Gaetz to be getting publicity needs to be in the rearview mirror. We got to focus on work. And, yes, I do think there will be plenty of folks on both sides of the aisle who acknowledge that.

MATTINGLY: I was struck that you referred to -- in the lead-up to the potential government shutdown, you referred to it as stupid, which was blunt and accurate, to give an opinion if I can. If that was stupid, what is this?

JOHNSON: Well, this is -- this is insanity. I don't know how Matt Gaetz can go to his constituents, who are concerned about the government shutting down in 40 days, who are concerned about the southern border, who are concerned about a $33 trillion debt, who are concerned about urban crime on the rise.

I mean last night we had a congressman carjacked in this town. That's not the big problem. The big problem is that that kind of thing happens to everyday Americans thousands of times a day. And yet today, instead of doing interviews about how we can tackle fentanyl and meth, all of us are doing interviews on why does Matt Gaetz hate Kevin McCarthy so much and why hasn't he been able to check his middle school grudges at the door and do his job. This is insanity.

MATTINGLY: You were - to mentioned what you would like to be doing right now. There are now I think 44, 43 days until the next government funding deadline. You were integral to the debt ceiling agreement that I think people hoped would help clear a pathway to full-year spending bills.

Do you think it's remotely possible to get all appropriations done in 43 days, assuming you aren't having a battle for the speaker for the next several weeks?

JOHNSON: If we don't have a battle for the speakership, yes. We passed out three bills last week. We have made progress. I mean the House has passed ten bills out of committee, two others out of the subcommittee. That's all 12 appropriations bills. So, the House is very close to having its work done.

Now, it's going to take some time to bring amendments up on the floor and vote on those. I'm not saying that we're at the one yard line. But we have made incredibly good progress. The Senate probably needs to pick up their pace a little bit if we're going to get this done in 42 or 43 days.

But, yes, if we actually roll up our sleeves, if we're big boys and big girls, we can get our work done. If we're going to be involved in instead in a battle for the speakership, everything else, everything else is pushed by the wayside and instead we fight about the leadership of Kevin McCarthy.

MATTINGLY: I do want to ask you, before I let you go, Ukraine funding was not in the continuing resolution. The administration has continued to push for it. There is a bipartisan level of support on Capitol Hill for additional funding. There's been a lot of question whether or not the speaker and the president have some kind of deal or agreement related to the pathway for that going forward. Do you -- are you aware of that? Do you - would you know what the pathway is for more Ukraine emergency funding?

JOHNSON: Well, I can state categorically there's no deal between the speaker and the president. They didn't talk that day. They didn't talk the day before. That -- those are allegations just entirely made up out of whole cloth. That being said, the fact that Ukraine aid was stripped out should not indicate that there isn't a bipartisan level of support for Ukraine. Instead, most members don't want to drib and drab billion dollars package after billion dollars package. They want to make sure that there is a strategic plan, that there's accountability, and they want to have a comprehensive sense of what - what kind of investment would actually make a difference towards pushing back against Putin's illegal and reprehensible invasion.

MATTINGLY: All right, Congressman Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, a Republican, a busy day ahead. We've gone from stupid to insane. We'll see if we can move on from that. I appreciate your time, sir. Thank you.

JOHNSON: Thank you.

HARLOW: Phil with the optimistic outlook for us there. Great conversation.

All right, this is ahead, and it's fascinating and important. A drought in Louisiana bringing salt water into the Mississippi, where, obviously, it should not be. Our chief climate correspondent, Bill Weir, here with the impact on New Orleans straight ahead.

Bill.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning from NOLA, Poppy. That's right, the mighty Mississippi not so mighty. So, it set up a new modern battle of New Orleans. The Army Corpse versus time and salt. We'll tell you all about it, coming up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:49:04]

HARLOW: Louisiana is facing a new problem. Too little fresh water, too much salt water. A drought has allowed salt water from the Gulf of Mexico to creep into the Mississippi River. It's now threatening to contaminate the supply of drinking water. And it's only a matter of time before this all impacts New Orleans.

Our chief climate correspondent Bill Weir joins us live from NOLA with more. You've been warning us about this and now we're seeing it in real

time.

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Louisiana is really a canary in the coal mine sadly these days. They lose about a football field every hour and a half to rising seas and sinking lands. There's so much history in this place. Good morning from Jackson Square. You can almost smell the beignets here. But it is tainted with this worry of old man river being not so mighty anymore. In a good year, the waves would be lapping up on these bottom steps right now. You can see it's as woefully low. And about 50 miles downriver is an invisible threat creeping this way at walking speed. But the stakes are huge.

[08:50:04]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WEIR (voice over): In south Louisiana, folks are plenty familiar with salt water that moves at the speed of a hurricane. But now, they must also worry about salt water that creeps steady, and invisible, towards the crops, machines and drinking water systems of almost a million people.

GOV. JOHN BEL EDWARDS (D-LA): I happen to be one who believes in the power of prayer. I'm going to ask for people to pray for rain.

WEIR: After a second straight year of extraordinary drought, the not so mighty Mississippi is too weak to hold back the Gulf of Mexico. So, the heavier salt water is running downhill, towards New Orleans, in the shape of a wedge, with the toe about 15 miles in front of the kind of inundation that could threaten the health of the vulnerable and destroy everything from lead pipes to appliances.

WEIR (on camera): So, the Army Corps of Engineers is urgently racing against time and salt with a couple different tools. This is the first of what will be many barges that can bring about a half million gallons of fresh water at a time downstream. They use it to dilute the brackish stuff as it goes into a small water plant here in Plaquemines Parish.

The Corps says they can move 36 million gallons a day. But even that wouldn't be enough to save the New Orleans water supply. So they're already talking about maybe building pipelines to prop up that water system.

In the meantime, the Corps is also building a big sill, like an underwater speed bump, to try to slow the wedge as it moves inland.

But these are all temporary fixes. And the leader of this parish says, if this is the new normal, that means parts of Louisiana will need the same kind of desalination that they use in Israel and other desert communities.

KEITH HINKLEY, PRESIDENT, PLAQUEMINES PARISH: You've got one trailer would be the reverse osmosis and the other would be the filtration system right there. WEIR (voice over): Keith Hinkley is the president of Plaquemines

Parish, a spread-out community of less than 25,000, now spending a fortune on desalination.

HINKLEY: If we didn't have help of the state and the federal government, it could bankrupt the parish here.

WEIR (on camera): IS that right?

HINKLEY: So - yes, yes. Because we are probably right now about $33 million in on this situation.

WEIR: No kidding?

HINKLEY: And, like I said, we're a small parish.

WEIR: Just this summer? Just this wedge (ph)?

HINKLEY: Yes. Yes. Just because of this wedge.

WEIR: Wow.

HINKLEY: Yes.

WEIR: This is land that's familiar with hurricanes and flooding, not droughts and wildfires.

HINKLEY: Oh, this - yes, right, right.

WEIR: How do you reconcile these things?

HINKLEY: Because - look, it's like you say, when you look this way and you look that way, you're looking at water. We're in the middle of water, but we're in the middle of the wrong kind of water. And that's why we're - we're needing these - these kind of machines.

WEIR (voice over): There is hope El Nino will bring rare October rain. But this battle could last months with the latest forecast putting the wedge close to New Orleans in the next three weeks.

LT. GENERAL RUSSEL L. HONORE, COMMANDED MILITARY RESPONSE TO HURRICANE KATRINA: But it's happened two years in a row because this is considered to be a pattern.

WEIR: Lieutenant General Russel Honore led the military recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina and says that was the first disaster that made him consider the costs of climate change. Now retired, it is the focus of his work as an environmental activist in his native Louisiana.

HONORE: For the first time in my life, a couple weeks ago, the governor declared a wildfire emergency. I've never heard of that in Louisiana before. This time of the year when we'd normally go to church on Sunday, the priests are praying for no hurricanes. We need to turn that and ask them to start praying for thunderstorms. You know, yesterday we had floods in New York. Who would have thought. This time of year, the floods are in the Gulf, not in New York.

WEIR (on camera): Yes.

HONORE: And the city flooded for sure. The climate is changing quicker than we're adapting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WEIR: Salt water intrusion also becoming an annoyance in south Florida, Miami. They have these sunny day king tides where the salt water just bubbles up out of the manholes covers there. It's farmland in the mid-Atlantic region. They've seen encroachment there. Salty patches spreading.

But here, this is a special place, because of the - so much commerce coming up and down this river here, because of the history, the petrochemicals, the energy systems here. This is a very, very valuable place. Fresh water is vital to this place. So, we'll be watching with keen interests over the next couple weeks hoping that rain arrives.

Phil. Poppy.

HARLOW: Yes, of course, we - of course we will, Bill. Thank you so much for your reporting from Louisiana for us.

Phil.

WEIR: You bet.

MATTINGLY: Well, former President Trump says he'll be back in court today after attacking the attorney general prosecuting him and sounding off on the judge who will determine the fate of his business empire. His New York civil case is just the latest legal challenge. He also faces 91 criminal charges in four criminal cases. But have all these legal setbacks had any impact on his momentum in the 2024 race. CNN's senior data reporter Harry Enten took a look at those numbers and he joins us now from the magic wall.

Harry, you're our expert. We do these check-ins often.

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENOR DATA REPORTER: Yes.

MATTINGLY: Where do things stand right now in the polls?

ENTEN: So, often we look at the primary. I want to look at the general election. Because in the primary we know Trump has been gaining. But how about in the general - potential general election matchup against Joe Biden.

[08:55:02]

All right, definitely or probably would vote for in the 2024 general election. Look, back in July, according to Monmouth University, it was Biden by seven. Look where we are now, well within the margin of error. Trump, 43 percent. He's actually gained. Biden's dropped by 5 points, down to 42 percent. Look how close we are. Now, of course, this is just one poll. Let's expand out and look at

some other surveys.

All right, change in Trump's margin versus Biden. Latest poll versus the prior one. ABC News/WaPo, Trump gains four. NBC News, Trump gains four on the margin. Fox News, Trump gains five. So, pretty much, no matter what poll you're looking at, Trump's actually gaining, not just in the primary, but the general election as well.

HARLOW: Do we have a sense of why? I mean Trump has long said, not going to hurt him, maybe help him in the polls. Look what's happening.

ENTEN: Yes. So, I think there are basically two things that are going on in the voters' minds. One, Trump carried out a crime in response of the 2020 outcome? Forty-six percent of voters believe that now. Compare that to Biden is to old to effectively serve another term. The vast majority of voters, look at that, 76 percent. These back and forths are basically going on in the voters' minds. Which way am I going to go? It's these two things.

And all of this discussions about whether Trump carried out a crime? Look how steady these numbers are. April of '22, it's 46 percent. January of 2023, 48 percent. Forty-six percent now. So, the fact is, despite all the press around this, the same percentage believe that Trump carried out a crime in response to the 2020 outcome.

HARLOW: So interesting.

MATTINGLY: What's fascinating is that everybody says, all right, we knows he's going to do well in the primary. Nothing's going to hurt him there. The general is where this is going to have a huge impact. And it still may.

ENTEN: Right.

MATTINGLY: But right now, Harry's numbers are saying, not so much.

ENTEN: Not so much. Not at this point. Trump is actually gaining in the general election, at least according it these polls.

HARLOW: Thank you, Harry.

MATTINGLY: Appreciate it, buddy. You're the best.

HARLOW: We appreciate it.

Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill about to caucus to decide the fate of Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

The president's son, Hunter Biden, and former President Trump, both expected in court shortly.

Needless to say, it is a busy day ahead. We have it all covered for you here on CNN.

"CNN NEWS CENTRAL" starts after this. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)