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Inside Politics

Israel Says It Struck Hezbollah's Central HQ In Beirut; Gov. Hochul Considering Using Her Power To Remove Adams From Office; Now: NYC Mayor Eric Adams In Court Facing Corruption Charges; At Least 23 Dead In Four State Due To Helene; North Carolina Dam In "Imminent Failure," Evacuations Underway; Extensive Damage, Severe Flooding, Downed Power Lines In Florida; Search And Rescue Efforts Underway In Florida's Big Bend; Mayor: "Probably The Worst" Storm To Hit Sarasota In A Century. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired September 27, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Hello and welcome to Inside Politics. I'm Dana Bash in Washington. We have a lot of breaking news this hour. We begin with major news out of the Middle East. Israel says, it has struck Hezbollah's central headquarters in the Lebanese capital of Beirut.

CNN's Jomana Karadsheh is now here with us from Beirut. Jomana, what are you seeing and hearing?

JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, a short while ago, we were here on the roof, and we heard massive blasts that shook our hotel as well as the rest of Beirut. And then we could see the thick plume of smoke rising from the direction of Beirut's southern suburbs.

That is an area, one of the most densely populated areas of the country, where you have a Hezbollah presence, where their leadership has been known to have been based in the past, where we have seen multiple Israeli strikes in recent days.

But this certainly was the largest blast that anyone here has witnessed since the start of this escalation. According to Lebanese colleagues, they say that this is the biggest Israeli strike that has taken place since the 2006 Israel, Hezbollah war.

We have heard from the Israeli military saying that they struck Hezbollah's central headquarters in Beirut with a precise strike, they say, and that this headquarters served as the epicenter, they say, of Hezbollah's terror. And they say that it was underneath a residential building, again, accusing Hezbollah of using civilians as human shields, something that the Lebanese government, we have heard say is baseless.

They say that these are excuses. This is something we've heard in recent days from the Lebanese government, a minister we spoke to yesterday, saying it is the same excuses that we have heard in Gaza for nearly a year. Accusing Israeli military of indiscriminate attacks here, they say, not only going after Hezbollah, but saying that it is women and children and civilians in this country who are bearing the brunt of this.

Now Dana, we still don't have information from Lebanese authorities on casualty figures, but that was huge explosions. And when you hear the Israeli military laying, really the groundwork for what seems to have been a huge strike that they carried out, saying that it was under residential buildings, saying that it was a headquarters.

And based on what we heard, you would expect that large munitions were used in this strike, and almost certainly. When you consider how densely populated that area is, it is likely going to have a high casualty toll. And we will bring you that as we get that information from these Lebanese authorities.

BASH: Yeah. And this, of course, comes after months and months and months of firing into Israel from Lebanon, likely Hezbollah. And much of it has been stopped by the Iron Dome, but some have been killed, and there are tens of thousands of Israelis who have been displaced from with in their own country. Kind of refugees in their own country have moved south because of what has been happening.

So, this has kind of been a slow burn, as you know, far better than I between the two -- between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel at its northern border. Before I let you go, I know it's early, and forgive me, because this might not be something that's answerable. But is there any indication that Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, was in the headquarters that we believe was the target here?

KARADSHEH: Dana, that is very difficult to say at this point, but considering what we have been seeing over the past week or so. You know, what started with those pager and walkie talkie attacks, and then this stepped-up. Israeli airstrikes targeting Hezbollah commanders in that part of Beirut, in the southern suburbs, as well as other parts.

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But definitely in the southern suburbs, where they have killed several senior Hezbollah commanders in recent weeks. It really is unclear at this point who the target was. But I think we will be hearing more in the coming hours, but in the past, he was known to have been based in Beirut.

BASH: Thank you so much. As you said, and we want to underscore, it is very early in and what we just saw as this really major strike by the Israelis inside Beirut at what they say is Hezbollah headquarters. Thank you so much. We'll come back to you if and when you get more information.

Now we want to come back here to the United States, to New York, where we have even more breaking news. Mayor Eric Adams is inside a federal courthouse, set to be formally arraigned any minute. Like any other, criminal defendant, he will be in the custody of -- he already is in the custody of U.S. marshals. He is being fingerprinted and photographed. An unsealed indictment alleged Adams' pocketed cash and gifts from foreign powers, and that he and his aides routinely deleted messages to hide their alleged crimes.

This morning, sources tell CNN that New York's Governor Kathy Hochul is weighing whether to use her authority to remove the mayor from office. I want to get straight to CNN's Gloria Pazmino in New York. Gloria?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Dana. The judge has taken the bench. Eric Adams is inside that courtroom and the arraignment of the mayor of the City of New York for the first time in the city's history is now underway.

He is facing multiple charges, bribery, corruption, soliciting and accepting illegal donations and specifically defrauding the city's matching fund system, a taxpayer funded system meant to make elections easier for people who run for office. Making them not have to raise money from high powered individuals in order to finance their campaigns.

But that's exactly what the U.S. attorney says that Eric Adams did, and that he started doing this long before he became mayor. And that once he took office, he used his power, his authority to grant special favors to those donors.

Now I just want to take a moment to highlight what's happening here because the mayor is inside that courtroom. My colleagues, Mark Morales and Kara Scannell are in there. They say that he is staring right ahead, looking at the judge's bench. He has also taken a look at the jury box, which right now is filled by members of the press, and he's taken a look at the sketch artists.

They're going to be the ones who give us the only images that come out of this. It's federal court, so no cameras allowed inside. You said, he has been processed just like any other defendant. They have taken his mug shot. They have taken his fingerprints. They have put him through the federal system.

We will not be seeing that mug shot. New York has a policy of not releasing those photos. But the enormity of this moment, and as you said, the political fallout, the political implications of all of this are significant. The governor taking a serious look at the legal language that grants her the power to remove the mayor.

Now that is not an easy thing to do. It is not a politically easy thing to accomplish. But sources close to the governor and those who are familiar with what she is thinking about right now, say that she is keeping her options open.

Now I do want to just highlight that that is not going to be an easy task, right. Here you have the first woman mayor who would be using her powers to remove the city's second black mayor who has yet to be convicted of any charges.

There are other high profile lawmakers who have called for his resignation, including Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Nydia Velazquez here in New York, along with several other city and state members who say that the mayor cannot run the city effectively and that he should step down. The mayor so far showing no signs that he has plans to do so. He says, he will fight the charges, and that New Yorkers should give him a chance to defend himself. Dana?

BASH: Yeah. It's really remarkable that the Governor Hochul has those powers. And it's been interesting to see the way so far, as you sort of alluded to that she has been saying, please take a look at this kind of a do the right thing. My words, not hers. But that's the gist of what she has been saying so far. We'll see if she takes it even further.

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Thank you for that. Let us know if you get any information from inside that courthouse. Prosecutors detailed some of their allegations in an unsealed indictment against Adams. Here, text messages between an Adams' staffer allegedly show an effort to conceal Adams' pattern of free travel.

The staffer rejects a $50 flight and tells an official with a state- owned Turkish airline to charge a more realistic $1,000 for a flight to Turkey, saying his every step is being watched right now. Let it be somewhat real. We don't want them to say, he is flying for free. Prosecutors alleged that economy ticket was then upgraded for free, something that would have cost $15,000.

Joining me now to help make sense of this indictment is CNN's chief legal analyst and former federal prosecutor, Elie Honig. Elie, nice to see you. Thanks for helping us break this down. So, what I just reviewed with our audience is just one piece of evidence. There is a lot more in this indictment, and presumably there's more that we don't know about that is not in this indictment, at least wasn't spelled out in the indictment.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, Dana. So typically, when you put an indictment together as a prosecutor, you're going to put a lot of your evidence in there, but certainly not all of it. But looking at this indictment in the broader sense, it strikes me that the prosecution's evidence here is solid.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that it's a complete slam dunk, overwhelming case. But the strongest parts of the case appear to be, first of all, the text. You just highlighted one. There's another, for example, where Eric Adams is basically telling one of his staffers to get a donation from a foreign donor to make it work. We don't want to waste that opportunity.

And then the other thing that comes through to me from the indictment is that they clearly -- prosecutors clearly have flipped people on the inside of Eric Adams' office and campaign, those can be really powerful witnesses.

And I just have to say, Dana, having practiced in the very courthouse that we just saw Eric Adams walking into 500 Pearl Street, it is surreal. It's just surreal to see the sitting mayor walking into those doors right now, which are a couple hundred yards away from his office. And now he's sitting at a table as a criminal defendant in federal court.

BASH: Sitting mayor, former Brooklyn Borough President and cop -- former cop --

HONIG: Yeah. Police captain.

BASH: Exactly, police captain. So, he's very familiar with the law of the land, so to speak. What -- I know your experience is on the prosecution side, but you're obviously a game out what you're going to hear from the defense when a prosecutor is prepping a case. What do you think that the Adams defense is going to say as, they're getting ready for this trial?

HONIG: Yeah, Dana. Good prosecutors always say, well, what's the other side -- going to say. They will have a spirited defense here. First of all, Eric Adams has absolute top shelf defense attorneys. I think what we're going to see is a defense like the one that we saw in the first trial of Senator Robert Menendez, not the one that just concluded with the conviction.

But the one a few years ago where Senator Menendez beat those charges. Essentially, what he argued is, look, if I took travel and benefits from people, they were friends of mine. If I did things to try to help them, that's constituent service. That's what we do and that's not bribery.

There are some Supreme Court rulings that actually lend some support to that theory that say, it's not enough. If you're just sort of setting up meetings and making phone calls for people, you have to show something more specific than that. But the problem for Adams is the funneling of foreign money through straw donors. I think that's going to be a big problem for him here.

BASH: All right, Elie, thank you so much. Really appreciate. I always feel smarter once I get your perspective.

HONIG: Thank you.

BASH: And now, we're going to go to another major breaking story this hour, Hurricane Helene. It is dousing the country. Hundreds of miles of rain, at least 23 related deaths have been reported across four states, that's according to authorities. I want to check in on things in North Carolina, which is seeing catastrophic flooding as we speak. You can see that, wow, just behind you, Isabella -- Isabel, forgive me. Isabel Rosales is in Asheville. What's the status of things right there?

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Just an incredible amount of flooding, bringing debris to what should be a roadway right here. And actually, as we push our camera in, what I've noticed here in the last couple of hours, extremely concerning is the amount of chemical tanks. So, propane fuel tanks that have just floated in these flood waters and then just drifted off past eyesight, at least a dozen of them. And actually, I can smell it right now, the scent of fuel that is in the air. We've been told by officials that, just because the rain has eased off, and we heard this from the governor as well. It does not mean that the threat is over, because all of this incredible amount of water has to go back and will go back into the rivers and the streams, further causing it to swell over its banks.

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So, this is not done. The threat is not quite over here. We heard from Buncombe County officials saying that this is the most significant weather event that west North Carolina has seen in modern times. They are telling people, please do not travel, that you should consider all of these roads essentially closed because the situation again is expected to get worse.

To give you a little bit of a context as to where we're standing over in that direction, that is where the Swannanoa River is at. It has risen 12 feet in just over the last 12 hours, and it is expected to rise to 21 feet. That would surpass a record. Normally, that river is just two to four feet deep.

So, this thing is just getting increasingly worse. I have seen the water line just rise and rise and rise. And also, one more thing over a nearby Rutherford County, about 20 miles southwest of here, there is a dam that is at risk of imminent failure. So, all of this water will continue to cause considerable problems for the people living around here.

BASH: Yeah. And the fact that it's still rising that water is so, so damaging. I appreciate your report. Thank you so much, Isabel. And up next. Daylight is shining light on a hurricane horror, as first responders frantically sprint to pull people from underwater wreckage. We're going to go live to Florida to get the latest there from that states, U.S. Senator Rick Scott.

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BASH: Back to Florida now, where we're getting a fuller, more frightful idea of Helene's wake. This is the aftermath of the storm in Cedar Key, Florida, just off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico. And this is a hospital in Tampa, now surrounded by a makeshift moat. The water has receded like in Steinhatchee. The storm brought complete disrepair, turning roads into muddy trails.

And then there's this, what is both the scariest and sole satisfying moment of the day. The coast guard saved a man and his dog who were stranded 25 miles off Sanibel Island. You can see the pair clutching each other, desperately holding on as the rescue team finds them before hoisting them into a helicopter.

CNN's Carlos Suarez is standing by for us in St. Petersburg, Florida. Carlos, what's happening there at this hour?

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Dana, Pinellas County was one of the areas that was hit hardest by the flooding yesterday. And in fact, the National Guard is at this hour coordinating the recovery and safety efforts out here, in large part because you can't walk too far without seeing some of the damage out here.

This sailboat behind me is one of about nearly half a dozen that came crashing ashore in yesterday's storm. Again, you really cannot get too far without seeing just how much of this storm impacted this part of Gulfport and Pinellas County. This right here used to be a part of a floating dock that you can see clearly, broke free of its pylon -- its concrete pylon, out in the bay out there, and came to a stop right here.

This part of Pinellas County, where we were yesterday, got anywhere between four to six feet of a storm surge. And so, when all of that water came from the bay, it pushed all of this back inland. You can see that other sailboat that sits over there. There's a boat right in front of it.

And then earlier today, that's where the National Guard was stationed, we're told again. They're the ones that are deciding exactly just how and when some of this debris is going to be moved.

I can tell you that some of these businesses have already started, trying to clean up as much as they can. The folks there have taken down some of their pylons and some of their boarded-up windows, although it appears that the damage there is extensive.

One final note from me. Five people were killed in Pinellas County yesterday, a number that is considerably high when you take into account the fact that this hurricane passed us to the north, right? It ended up to the north of us, and it was well over 100 miles out to the west. Dana?

BASH: It's just so sad and so devastating. Carlos, thank you so much for that report. And I want to go now to the U.S. senator from Florida, also the former Florida Governor, Rick Scott. Senator Scott, thank you so much for being here. I want to pick up where Carlos just left off. I mean, talking big picture. This is category four. Helene was the strongest hurricane on record to strike Florida's Big Bend.

Do you know roughly how many residents did not heed evacuation orders? And can you tell us about rescue efforts at this time?

SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): Sure. Dana, nice talking to you. This was a massive storm. It's a massive, massive amount of water. We had flooding from Naples, Florida all the way up through past Tallahassee and Apalachicola. I mean, we had -- unfortunately, we had people that, you know, they look at storms and say, oh, it's a category one, two or three. That's not so bad, instead of thinking about the storm surge.

So, there's a massive amount of water. We still have flooding. We -- you know, and hopefully we don't have any more deaths. I've been talking to sheriffs all along the coast. And they're doing rescue efforts with, you know, the fire department's rescue teams. So there, I ask everybody, stay out of the -- you know, don't be a -- you know, somebody that goes looking and gawk at what's going on.

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There's a lot of people out trying to go door by door to make sure people are safe. They rescued hundreds of people last night in harm's way. We also are out. We have a lot of people out of power. So, we have 18,000 line-workers that have come in. So -- and then, on top of that, we got a lot of water. So standing water, don't drive into it, don't touch down power lines. Our state is saturated with water. There's going to be more trees coming down.

But here's the positive. We've got shelters open you can go to. FEMA is -- I've been talking to FEMA. They're here to do everything for the federal government can help this - we're a resilient state have been through hurricanes like this.

Unfortunately, the Big Bend has been through two hurricanes, another storm, just in the last 12 months. It's been horrible with their -- what they're going through. But we're going to come back together, and we're going to -- we're going to continue to rebuild our state and be -- you know, we're a resilient place. So, I'm very hopeful about the future.

BASH: And you just heard our reporter, Carlos, talked about the fact that five people died in Pinellas County, which was surprisingly high given the fact that the storm was 100 miles away there, which begs the question for you, sir, about more generally, the storm. It was 420 miles wide at one point, which appears to be part of a trend where storms are simply bigger than they once were, perhaps because of the changing climate. What are your thoughts on that?

SCOTT: Dana, you know, who knows, but you're right. Burma (Ph) was bigger than our state. This was gigantic. And you know, the other thing that is -- what it seems like what's happening is the storm surge is getting worse. We had over 10 foot of storm surge in the Big Bend in some of these areas where like Taylor County periods. We had 10 foot of storm surge. That's massive amounts of water.

So, what -- you know, the National Hurricane Center is doing unbelievable work, trying to educate people that don't just think about the wind, think about the water. In Florida now, most of what you die from is water, not from wind. So, what's happening is, is that -- it's a water coming in and just floods in and that sucks everything out, including you, if you stayed around.

Let's think about Sanibel two years ago. So, you're right. Something it, you know, who -- you know, who knows what the reason is. But something is changing, massive storms, massive storm surge. So, we've got to figure this out, but -- and we -- but here's the positive. We're going to do it. We're going to build more resiliently. We're going to come back. And I live in a most wonderful state with wonderful people that are very resilient.

BASH: I don't want to get too far down this path, because we're looking at pictures as you're talking. There's absolute devastation. And it is still very much an ongoing horrible situation in your state. But when you say something's going on, isn't it pretty obvious that the climate is changing, and that is changing the size of these storms and making them as big as you just described.

SCOTT: Dana, absolutely something's changing and the climate is clearly changing. And what we got to do is, like, when I was governor, I spent a whole bunch of money on, you know, resilient sea level rise issues and beach renourishment issues and trying to make our state more resilient.

So, what we've got to do is, we know things -- we know things are changing. We've got to figure out, how do we react to that? And so, in the short term, I'm talking today where I'm doing as I'm traveling state, talking to sheriffs, talking to first responders, keep joining, everything I can to keep people safe. And then what we're going to do is we're going to figure out how to rebuild more resiliently.

BASH: Senator, thank you so much. We were talking before you came on. You unfortunately, have a lot of experience with these hurricanes, devastating storms, and everybody is thinking about the people of Florida right now, and then, of course, the people who are in the path to the north of Florida. Thanks, Senator.

SCOTT: Yeah. Thanks, Dana. Bye, bye.

BASH: And coming up. We are going to go back to the Middle East, where Israel says, it has just struck Hezbollah headquarters. Stay with us.

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