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Hermine Makes Landfall in Florida as Hurricane; How Will Trump Pay for Immigration Plan? Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired September 02, 2016 - 07:00   ET

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

SANDOVAL: ... communities. Some of them even rode out a storm about 11 years ago. They said they weren't about it leave their home for this either. And from the looks of it, no injuries. From some of the reports, some of the early reports we've gotten from officials here on the ground, it does seem that much of the damage would actually be more because of flooding, not necessarily because of some of those high winds, Alisyn.

[07:00:19] CAMEROTA: Polo, how loud are those tree frogs near you? They're -- they're almost -- they're the soundtrack to your live shot there.

SANDOVAL: It's incredible. It really is incredible and kind of eerie, too. You've had these howling winds that we -- that we experienced a few hours ago. Now replaced with the sound of these tree flogs that have been essentially been flushed out onto some of the roadways. And also, the occasional sound of a chainsaw, because we tried for about 2 1/2 hours to reach this community during the early morning hours but were unsuccessful, because several of those roadways were either flooded or covered with large trees. But now you have the chainsaw out there, and of course, the wildlife, as well. An added reason why people should stay off the roadways right now.

CAMEROTA: Absolutely.

BERMAN: The tree frogs quieted down there for a minute when our producer was yelling at them.

CAMEROTA: They're very obedient.

Polo, thank you for all of that description and color.

Let's head west on Florida's Panhandle to Apalachicola. That's where we find CNN's Boris Sanchez. What's the situation there, Boris?

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, good morning, Alisyn.

A very different picture from where Polo was a few miles east of here. When the hurricane made landfall at 1:30 a.m., packing winds of up to 80 miles an hour, it took out power to, as Polo mentioned, more than 100,000 people, but at least here in Apalachicola, the damage appears to be minimal.

I've spoken to several people in the area who say that they haven't really noticed much damage. One of them was a police officer, and he told me this is about as smooth as it gets when you're dealing with a hurricane.

There was a lot of concern about the storm surge. As you can see, we're in front of a coastal area right now. Fortunately, when the storm hit, it was low tide, so the water didn't flow into neighborhoods as it had before. Fortunately, it appears that the only damage is some debris that's in the streets right now. As the sun comes up, we're going to get a clearer picture of how extensive the damage was.

Again, the big headline here, at least, in Apalachicola is that people were ready. Obviously, a big concern for officials here was that, as you mentioned, Florida had not had a direct hit, landfall, from a hurricane since October 24, 2005, more than ten years. So they were worried that perhaps people had forgotten how strong a Category 1 storm could be, or a lot of people that have moved to Florida that had never experienced a hurricane before were now dealing with something new.

Fortunately, again, at least here in Apalachicola, it appears that the damage is minimal. We'll get a clearer picture as to just how extensive it was as the day goes on -- John.

BERMAN: Boris Sanchez for us. Thanks so much, Boris.

At this point, more than 23 million people are under watches and warnings for Tropical Storm Hermine, all the way up the East Coast. So where exactly is the storm headed now? Can we even tell?

CNN meteorologist Chad Myers is with us to try to sort this out. Hey, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Maybe for the next 24 hours. But after about 36 to 48, models start to diverge.

We are getting a significant weather event in Tampa this morning with training thunderstorms. Part of Tampa Bay filling up with some water. Still, a new storm surge there is possible. We're about five feet above low water. That's handle-able, but it's still there.

Don't let your guard down. Just because it's no longer a hurricane doesn't mean this storm is over. There will be tornadoes coming onshore in the Carolinas, in parts of Georgia, and still, we are seeing that very heavy rainfall into Tampa. There could be more flooding.

Parts of Tampa have seen almost 20 inches of rain in the past 48 hours. And now they're seeing more rain. Here are the storms coming in to Charleston, Savannah, Hilton Head, and the like. Some of those storms will rotate.

We still have some water on the roadways. We had Polo Sandoval in St. Marks. He had to leave St. Marks, because they were getting nine feet of water above low water datum there. So he had to back out of that city. Now trying to get back into city to people that stayed. Hopefully, they protected themselves. It was an awful day. It did hit in a lightly populated area of Florida. Probably the lightest coastal area of Florida. But Tallahassee got pretty much a direct hit, John.

BERMAN: All right. Chad, stick around with us, if you can, for a minute and join me in questioning our next guest. The director of the National Hurricane Center, Dr. Rick Knabb, joins us right now.

Doctor, thanks so much for being with us. I'm here with Chad Myers. I wonder if you can give us a sense of exactly what this storm looks like right now and exactly where it is.

Well, it is inland over southern Georgia. That's where the center of circulation is, but that's not the complete story on where the center of action is.

There's still plenty of onshore flow here in the Florida big bend area. Water levels have not come completely down. We still have wind gusts at a minimum to tropical storm force. And that's starting to happen over on the Atlantic side of Florida.

And look at the rain starting to move into South Carolina. But heavy, heavy rainfall over much of the state of Georgia, the southern half especially. So a lot of hazards at the coast and inland happening right now and more to come as this heads up the East Coast.

[07:05:11] MYERS: Dr. Knabb, hey, it's Chad Myers here. Let's push this storm forward.

KNABB: Hey, Chad.

MYERS: Let's move this story into the Carolinas, offshore maybe for the weekend. All I've been saying is don't go in the ocean this weekend; it will be a dangerous place, right?

KNABB: Very true. And not only will the immediate coastline be a dangerous place in the mid-Atlantic and northeast this weekend, but some distance inland because of the size of the system that we expect it to be as the weekend unfolds, you could have some heavy rains and gusty winds in some inland areas. And if you're in the eastern parts of South Carolina and North Carolina, the system itself is going to be moving over those areas. Some very heavy rainfall in coastal and some inland locations.

But when this gets offshore, we still think it has the potential to not only sit in generally the same area for a few days, but it has some potential to re-intensify in that area.

And all things considered equal, a large system, not moving very quickly, can be big problems at the ocean, not just for rip currents and waves, but we do have the potential for a storm surge situation to unfold in the mid-Atlantic and northeast.

BERMAN: Well, Doctor, let's pick up on that point with the storm potential to stall off the coast there. Do you have a sense of where it goes after that, and what are you watching for? Because up here in the northeast, New Jersey, New York, there's a lot of concern about a Sandy scenario.

KNABB: Yes, and every storm is different. So we can't say that this is going to be exactly like Sandy in any particular location or definitely not like Sandy in any location. So this one will have its own personality and its own behavior. And it might take quite a few days for it to finally move its way out into the northern Atlantic.

So while it's sitting in this general area into early next week, the onshore flow is going to bring the potential for some at least minor coastal flooding in some areas. We could have a situation in which there is some more dangerous storm surge.

And any time you've got onshore flow in this shape of coastline that's going to capture that fetch of wind blowing into the coastal areas, you can have perhaps an extended period of water rises at the coast. So not only is it a bad beach day; it could be a dangerous situation that emergency managers in that region are going to have to watch very carefully. And whatever happens over the next few days, do whatever your emergency managers, local officials tell you to do.

MYERS: Doctor, we talked about the models and we talk about ad nauseam. But this model behind me I forwarded to Monday. And talking about a block, a huge block in the upper atmosphere that will not allow the storm to eject away, typically like storms do. That's where the models are being confused, is it not?

KNABB: Well, we are seeing some consistency in our most reliable global models in the overall scenario of this slowing down after it exits the Carolinas.

MYERS: Yes.

KNABB: So in that sense, we have a fair amount of confidence this is not headed out to sea. And that's important to know because, again, something that is going to perhaps sit over the Gulf Stream, not moving very quickly, perhaps get pretty large, as soon as it gets out over the water, we're seeing in some of the model predictions that the onshore flow picks up pretty quickly in the Hampton roads area and then moving northward.

And it's going to be a combination of hazards that we're going to be dealing with in land areas: wind and water. And, you know, flooding could happen at the immediate coastline, could happen in some locations farther inland due to the heavy rainfall that could last for a long time as this sits offshore. You don't have to have the center come over you to have bad water and wind conditions on land. So we have some confidence that we're going to have a pretty hazardous event here early next week.

BERMAN: All right, doctor. Let's bring it back to the now. Right now the storm over Georgia. Where's your most immediate concern over the next 12 hours?

KNABB: I'm most concerned about the expansive area of heavy rain and the piling up of the rainfall totals that could lead to flash flooding. The most frequent cause of loss of life in landfalling tropical

cyclones in the last few decades in the U.S. has been inland flooding due to heavy rainfall. So folks need to respect the fact that water hazards are very dangerous. Stay off the roads in areas where the heavy rain is occurring. Turn around, don't drown is a cliche, but it works. We've got to save lives here. And that's how people can die in this situation, far away from the coastline, where we are also going to have some hazardous conditions where the tropical storm warnings are in effect all the way up into the Carolinas.

So -- but I'm most worried about the water and people getting into trouble due to inland flooding.

BERMAN: All right. Great advice, Dr. Rick Knabb. Obviously, we're going to have to watch this storm over the next several hours and days. Chad Myers, our thanks to you, as well.

MYERS: You're welcome.

CAMEROTA: All right. So we will have much more on the storm throughout the program.

[07:10:03] But first, there are questions about Donald Trump's immigration plan and the price tag for it. The numbers have been crunched, and the total is eye opening. So our political panel discusses that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: The breaking news this morning, you are looking at it. Tropical Storm Hermine hitting the southeast right now. The storm made landfall as a hurricane overnight. More than 100,000 people are without power at this moment in and around Tallahassee. More than 23 million people are under watches and warnings along the East Coast.

The center of Hermine right now is over Georgia. The winds about 70 miles per hour. The rain extremely heavy. We just talked to the National Hurricane Center. They are very concerned about the rainfall over Georgia. We are going to keep our eye on this throughout the morning.

CAMEROTA: All right. Meanwhile, Donald Trump delivered a hardline immigration speech in Arizona this week, laying out his plan, which he later described as a softening.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE (VIA PHONE): It is softening. Look, we do it in a very Humane way. And we're going to see with the people that are in the country, obviously, I want to get the gang members out, the drug peddlers out. I want to get the drug dealers out. We want to -- we've got a lot of people in this country that you can't have. And those people will get out.

[07:15:10] And then we're going to make a decision at a later date once everything is stabilized. I think you're going to see there's really quite a bit of softening.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: But his plan does come with a steep price tag. How does he plan to pay for it? Let's discuss it with CNN political commentator and Trump supporter Kayleigh McEnany and CNN political commentator and Democratic strategist Paul Begala. He's a senior advisor for Priorities USA Action, a pro-Hillary Clinton super PAC. Great to have both of you guys. Happy Friday.

KAYLEIGH MCENANY, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: "Washington Post" has crunched the numbers in terms of what Donald Trump laid out in his ten-point plan. So let me pull those up for you. We have a graphic in terms of how much each of these would cost.

The border wall, which of course, he says Mexico would pay for, is $12.6 million. End catch and release program, which would mean giving a lot of money to local authorities to incarcerate people, is 14.4 billion. Triple the ICE deportation officers, 10.8 billion. Biometric entry/exit visa tracking, 6.1 billion. Five thousand more border patrol agent. That adds up to 50 -- more than 50 billion over five years. Kayleigh, how does that get paid for?

MCENANY: Well, first of all, that's infinitely less than the cost of illegal immigration to our country every year. PolitiFacts cited a conservative think tank that, you know, they say it costs us $85 billion a year to have 11 million people living in our country, taking benefits from the government. So that to me the bigger question is how is Hillary going to pay for that?

That aside, they're looking at really innovative ways of funding. Life Set, which is Laura Ingraham's site, broke news just 14 hours ago that the campaign is looking at seizing assets from cartels, which would total $6.7 billion, raising fees at ports, which would -- again, this is Mexico paying for the wall. Taxing remittances, increasing visa fees for people who want to come from Mexico.

There's a lot of ways they're looking at this. And that's what you get with an innovative businessman like Donald Trump.

CAMEROTA: OK. Sounds like they have a plan.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Right, good one. No, they don't have a plan. They didn't have a plan to make a plan. First off, when you're turning to an a.m. talk radio host for your policy shop, you're in deep doo-doo. OK. Trump hasn't put any of this out.

MCENANY: That was from the campaign that she was citing.

BEGALA: OK, fine, so the campaign now is going Donald Trump hasn't said this. Trump tower was built by undocumented workers, in part, from Poland. It's been well-reported. He's rehabbing the old post office in D.C. Beautiful old building. He won the contract to fix that up. "The Washington Post" committed journalism. They sent reporters over there, found lots of undocumented people working there.

Trump doesn't give a rip snort about immigration. It's all been a con. And now he's conning people into thinking that he can have this billion...

MCENANY: How is Hillary going to pay for 85 billion a year?

BEGALA: First of all, she's not paying for it. She actually has -- she has a real plan. By the way, Barack Obama, if you want to be so tough...

MCENANY: What's the plan?

BEGALA: If you want to be so tough on the border, Barack Obama has deported more people than anyone in American history. He's put more armed people on the border than anybody since Woodrow Wilson was chasing Poncho Villa.

CAMEROTA: Well, here's the thing. I mean...

BEGALA: So Trump is just feeding Democrat -- by the way, the next immigration is back to Mexico. We've lost 140,000 Mexicans, according to Pew Research.

MCENANY: We also released.

BEGALA: We're losing people. So Trump's wall will only slow down their departure. Kayleigh, do you not get that?

MCENANY: Why did President Obama release 20,000 criminal aliens into society last year?

BEGALA: And he wasn't born in America.

CAMEROTA: But Paul, those are real -- that's real. That stat is real. There were people who committed crimes who were released and not deported.

BEGALA: Yes, and they ought to be. And 2.5 million were deported.

CAMEROTA: Paul, here's the thing. You call it all hooey.

BEGALA: Yes.

CAMEROTA: It's working. The latest poll, let me show you...

BEGALA: Yes, of course. People always fall for a con.

CAMEROTA: FOX News poll shows at least Trump softening. OK, so not the plan, but the softening on immigration does make people more likely to vote for him. Thirty-six percent say that they like what he's saying. Twenty-five percent, which is I guess what you would describe as the base, less likely. No difference, 27 percent.

What do you think about those numbers?

BEGALA: What has changed? He has softened. Why? Have the facts changed?

MCENANY: Yes, they have.

BEGALA: Really, in the last 75 days, the facts have changed?

MCENANY: He's setting priorities. And he wants to be Humane in how he deals with this. So his very last priority is dealing with the people who remain in this country. His first priorities are building a wall, or getting criminals out. He's actually put forward a plan. Hillary Clinton has not.

BEGALA: And Barack...

MCENANY: Has not put forth a plan that will help someone like Kate Steinle not get killed by an illegal immigrant or Sabine Durden, who lost her son, who was just messaging her with -- yesterday, lost her son Dominic at the hand of an illegal immigrant. How will Hillary Clinton help them? They're Humans, too. They're citizens too. They have...

CAMEROTA: OK, let him answer.

BEGALA: Of course. Barack Obama is going after -- he's actually setting the priorities. And the Republicans are trying to stop this. He has, I think, the most sensible plan, which is you start with gang bangers, not grandmothers. Trump wants to deport everybody. That's what he's saying. Eleven million people. Now he's down to only 6 million, according to "The Washington Post." This would be the largest movement of Humanity since the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

How are you going to move 6 million people and then pretend that you're targeting the bad guys?

[07:25:10] MCENANY: Theory is very different than practice. Barack Obama can say all he wants on deporting criminals.

BEGALA: Deported more than anyone in American history.

MCENANY: Look up the ICE numbers. He's letting them out to society. Nearly 100,000.

BEGALA: How is Trump going to move 6 million people?

CAMEROTA: That is the question. Six million is impractical. That number, everyone says, is impractical. Even if he wants to, and we accept that he wants to, it's impossible to get rid of six million people.

MCENANY: First are the criminals. Very last is what we're dealing with people here. And he said we will decide once we've implemented...

BEGALA: How is that different from Obama?

MCENANY: He's actually going to do things. Barack Obama can say all he wants that he's -- that he's deporting criminals. He's not doing that.

CAMEROTA: I think we've reached an impasse. Let's move on to -- we have other topics. I understand, and you guys have debated it, but let's move on to the new batch of e-mails, Hillary Clinton e-mails, that have been released. There's one that I want to call to your attention.

Paul, this is Doug Band, again the head of the -- one of the top executives at the Clinton Foundation, trying to talk to Huma Abedin about a favor that he needs. He says, "Need to get me, Justy," who's Justin, "and J.D., someone else, diplomatic passports. We had them years ago, but they lapsed, and we didn't bother getting them." He's asking a favor of the State Department. Any problem?

BEGALA: No. For what?

CAMEROTA: They were going to North Korea.

BEGALA: Oh, really? So this wasn't some business -- why were they going to North Korea, Alisyn?

CAMEROTA: To free the American hostages that were there.

BEGALA: They should get a medal. They risked a lot to go into the most bizarre regime in the world.

CAMEROTA: And Bill Clinton got these two journalists.

BEGALA: They went with him.

CAMEROTA: OK. So just checking.

BEGALA: I think it's great. I think it's wonderful that they went to North Korea and they liberated these American journalists.

CAMEROTA: Yes, paid off massively. So why couldn't they get diplomatic -- why couldn't Bill Clinton get a diplomatic passport?

BEGALA: Who knows? It's often difficult. Thank God they went. Thank God they got those women free. That is a repressive, horrible regime. And of course, thank God they had diplomatic passports so they had a little bit of protection going into that nuthouse.

CAMEROTA: Can you quibble with that logic?

MCENANY: Yes, I can.

BEGALA: Really?

MCENANY: Because diplomatic passports are not supposed to be given to members of a private foundation. We have laws.

BEGALA: Is that not a diplomatic mission?

MCENANY: I know you don't want to enforce the immigration laws. I know you don't want to enforce this law, but we have laws on the books. This is not how it's supposed to work.

CAMEROTA: Right. But this was a diplomatic mission. I mean, can't we make an exception for this one?

MCENANY: I don't think so. Because the Clinton Foundation is a revolving door of favors and access for Clinton Foundation donors. The millionaires and billionaires, Lebanese billionaire who wasn't allowed into this country...

CAMEROTA: But this one -- but this one...

MCENANY: ... but gets favors from the United States.

CAMEROTA: This one does seem to be -- if you're ever going to make an exception, let's get the Americans home.

MCENANY: It's a long line and a long pattern of favors and billions of dollars in access. And this is another example.

BEGALA: So those journalists should still be locked up in a North Korean prison?

MCENANY: No, you could have sent two other people. You don't have to send two people from a private foundation?

BEGALA: How would they get in? The president of the United States asked a former president to do it.

CAMEROTA: And it worked, which we're happy about.

BEGALA: Got them out. Thank God. Thank God for Duc Pham and those staffers who helped.

CAMEROTA: You made your cases. Thank you, thank you both. Thank God for you. Thank you both very much. Let's get over to John.

BERMAN: Thank God for you, Alisyn.

Up next, we're going to get the very latest on Tropical Storm Hermine. It is hitting the East Coast right now, dumping huge amounts of rain in Georgia as we speak. We have live reports from where it's hitting and the latest forecast, because you're going to want to see that. These are live pictures from Savannah, Georgia. You can see the rain. Look at that airport tarmac just flooded there. The forecast, that's coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.

[07:27:23] CAMEROTA: Well, the southeast is getting slammed by Tropical Storm Hermine. The storm was the first hurricane to hit Florida in nearly 11 years, making landfall south of Tallahassee but now, of course, moving. CNN's Polo Sandoval is live in St. Marks, Florida, with more.

How does it look at this hour, Polo?

SANDOVAL: Well, what's remarkable, Alisyn, is just as fast as the water moved into St. Marks, Florida, it's beginning to move out. I'll show you. A little while ago, I was actually standing in about three feet of water. Now you can see, Alisyn, if you look down this street, you can see how the water has receded.

Two reasons why this community saw some of the worst flooding from Hermine so far. One is the storm actually made landfall not far from here during high tide. And then second, you had that storm surge. Combine it all, you end up with about four to five foot water in some -- feet of water in some parts of this town.

But I can tell you, now that people are finally taking a look at the -- at what's left behind for the first time, they are hopeful that the damage was quite limited, because several people learned from what happened here 11 years ago. They actually took some of the mobile homes and some of the travel trailers out of here. And other homes have actually been built -- rebuilt but on stilts. So that's a couple reasons why, folks, don't expect damage will be too significant.

But nonetheless, we do have to wait before crews are able to make their way. Here they're actually going door to be door to check in on some of the folks, now just the ones that decided to ride out the storm here but the ones that actually decided to leave.

But you look behind me, Alisyn, it will at least give you a preview of what -- what this storm is packing and what it could potentially bring to the rest of some of the states in the south, John.

BERMAN: A lot of standing water behind you right now, Polo. And we heard there is still concern that some of these trees could still topple over with the soil so drenched.

SANDOVAL: Right.

BERMAN: Thanks so much, Polo, for being with us.

Want to go now to CNN's Boris Sanchez. He's live in Apalachicola, Florida. Easy for me to say. Boris, what are you seeing?

SANCHEZ: Hey, good morning, John. Well, it's actually really good news here in Apalachicola this morning. The damage from the storm was minimal.

In the area that Polo is, more than 100,000 people are without power. The storm, it kind of gives you an idea of just how unpredictable hurricanes can be. The storm was forecast to come straight toward Apalachicola. It ended up hitting a couple dozen miles southeast of here. And so they dodged a bullet here. Many people still have power. There is some debris in the streets.

But for the most part, as a police officer told me who I spoke to this morning as he was on patrol, this is about as smooth as it gets for a hurricane. And it's really welcome news, especially because, as Governor Rick

Scott mentioned yesterday, there's some concern over complacency, as Alisyn mentioned earlier. It had been about 11 years, since October 24, 2005, that Florida got a hurricane that made landfall. So there was some concern that people perhaps had forgotten about how powerful a Category 1 hurricane could be.

Also, a lot of people have moved to Florida since then. So they may not...