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Failure of City's Main Water Treatment Plant Leaves Residents of Jackson, Mississippi, without Drinking Water; Photos Released of Boxes Marked Top Secret from FBI Seizure of Documents from Former President Trump's Residence at Mar-a-Lago; Poll: Black Americans See Racism as Persistent Challenge. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired August 31, 2022 - 08:00   ET

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


[08:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: The water in Jackson, Mississippi is not safe for drinking, bathing, even brushing your teeth after the failure of the city's main water treatment plant.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: It's actually forcing businesses to close and schools to move online. Residents lined up for bottled water Tuesday until the supply ran out. Overnight, President Biden approved an emergency declaration ordering FEMA to assist with relief efforts. We're going to have much more on that in a moment.

BERMAN: First, a stunning photo released overnight, folders labeled "top secret," "secret," "sensitive compartmented information." Officials say these were taken from Mar-a-Lago even after Donald Trump's team claimed they had handed everything over. This is part of the most comprehensive filing yet from the Department of Justice explaining what they found and why they executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. The government says it, quote, developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the storage room at Mar-a-Lago and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government's investigation.

And when they searched, the government seized twice as many documents marked "classified" as the Trump team had given them when they claimed they had handed over everything. And the filing included this photo, documents you can see, the red cover sheets, the yellow cover sheets, recovered from containers spread out on the floor by the FBI, and the classified markings are clear, top secret, secret, highly classified information there, Brianna.

KEILAR: That's right. The FBI seized 33 boxes containing more than 100 classified documents during its search earlier this month. Three of those classified documents were not found in boxes, but in Trump's desk. And for all of those reasons the Justice Department vehemently opposes Trump's request to appoint a special master to oversee the seized documents.

The Trump legal team has until tonight to respond to this latest DOJ filing. At a hearing on Thursday, a judge will hear arguments before making her final decision on whether or not to appoint a special master.

Joining us now, we have former House Judiciary special counsel and Trump's first impeachment trial Norm Eisen. He is a party to this case, by the way, after following an amicus brief last night on behalf of former GOP officials who oppose the appointment of a special master. We also have CNN senior political correspondent Abby Phillip.

The photos, let's talk about the photo, because, to be clear, what we're seeing here, yes, these are documents taken from Mar-a-Lago, these are the documents taken from Trump's office specifically, Norm. What does this tell us?

NORM EISEN, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Brianna, the numbers here are stunning. After reclaiming 184 classified documents, and then going back again and getting another 38, an additional 100 reclaimed in the search under the search warrant. These aren't just documents. I was taught as an ex-ambassador, I had the highest security clearances, and I was taught with every one -- behind every one of these documents stands people who are put at risk, Americans and our allies who gather this intelligence. And particularly on that TSCI, the secure compartmented information, lives are really put at risk. That's what I see when I look at that picture. Not documents, but the people that I worked with whose lives are put at risk.

KEILAR: So much of the narrative, Abby, had raised questions about was this information clearly classified? Had Trump declassified it? When we look at this photo, you can see, it's --

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY: You can't miss it.

KEILAR: You can't miss it.

PHILLIP: It is really very obvious. And I think that that's part of the point that the government was trying to illustrate with that photo, you can't miss it. Not only would the former president have known that he was in the possession of classified documents, but potentially anybody else who was in those spaces.

The interesting -- one of the interesting new pieces of information in this filing is that it's about where the documents were found, not just in the storage room as Trump's attorneys had asserted, but really kind of all over the place. Think about this, Mar-a-Lago is his residence, but it's also basically a hotel. And it's a hotel in which you have cleaning people, which you have maintenance folks. These documents clearly marked classified sitting around in boxes along with a Time magazine and in desk drawers. Anybody could have seen them, known immediately that they were sensitive documents, and done things with them.

And that's why the government is so concerned about not just the presence of the documents, but how they were stored, and also just the fact that they kept asking and asking and asking and saying, do you have them. Trump's lawyers came back and said, we have given you everything we can find. And when the FBI went back, it didn't take them that long to find the rest of these documents that were obvious bright red, bright yellow colorings all over the documents that marked them as classified.

[08:05:09]

KEILAR: I would add, you've also had at times foreign nationals, Chinese nationals who have tried to access Mar-a-Lago, suspected spies in at least one case facing jail time for trespassing. But certainly, suspected of doing more than just that. The purpose, broadly, of this filing, is to push back on this argument that Trump is making for a special master, right, this sort of independent third party here. Just, Abby, the repeated smackdown, the DOJ just ticks through all of these things to say this is not something that should move forward.

PHILLIP: Yes, and that was pretty apparent from the very beginning, which is that the special master request of the judge came weeks after the search had been executed, right? And so the government had basically already gone through the documents, they had already laid out, as we learned last week, that they had a procedure for dealing with the attorney-client privileged documents. They had a procedure before they executed the search warrant. And so they lay all of that out.

But the bottom line is these are not Trump's documents. They do not belong to him, and the government says he doesn't have the right to have them returned. And even the fact that there were personal effects all in the boxes, that's evidence. That's evidence of mishandling of government records and classified documents.

KEILAR: That's a lot of what the amicus brief that you filed on behalf of these former DOJ officials who served under Reagan, Bush one, Bush two years, that's the point that they are making.

EISEN: Yes, these are some of the most senior prosecutors, DOJ officials, under every prior Republican president of modern times before Trump who are explaining to the court, because the court has said she's preliminarily inclined to grant a special master, very courteously explaining, judge, when documents belong to the executive branch, and you have a former head of the executive branch, that's not what special masters are for. Special masters have been used in the past when you have attorney-client privilege documents, because those don't belong to the government, to the executive branch. This is not a place for a special master.

KEILAR: Abby and Norm, thank you so much for your perspective this morning. And of course, Abby, we'll see you at the end of this very pivotal week Sunday at 8:00 a.m. eastern. Berman?

BERMAN: Turning now back to the emergency under way in Mississippi's capital city where tens of thousands of people are waking up without access to clean running water. CNN's Amara Walker live in Jackson for us this morning. What are they waking up to there, Amara?

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey there, John. Look, there is still no reliable running water here in the capital of Mississippi. It is just hard to believe that people are struggling for a basic human need. What are they waking up to this morning? Many of them, if they do have bottles of water, they are forced to brush their teeth with bottled water. Also, a lot of people not able to take a shower because water pressure is so low.

We should also mention that the temperature is supposed to reach into the 90s throughout the week, which means they're going to be dealing with a lot of facilities where there is no air conditioning because the water pressure is unable to feed these chillers. On top of that, schools and businesses, many of them being forced to close.

So right now we're here at the Forest Hill High School which had to switch over to virtual learning as of Tuesday. All Jackson public schools had to do so as a result of this water crisis. You can see a water tanker here behind me, we just spoke to the truck operator who said that he and the city officials are trying to get the word out that residents can come here. They're advising people to bring the largest receptacles they can find, including trash bins, to get some non-potable water, which means water that you cannot drink, water that you can use to flush down the toilets and potentially even take a bath with as long as you don't ingest that water, water you can wash your hands with.

Overnight, the Biden administration did approve the federal emergency declaration, which means federal resources will now be made available to Jackson, Mississippi, to help with the disaster relief here. But John, as you'd imagine, the people here on the ground extremely frustrated. They're also angry because they say that this is a crisis that did not happen overnight. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's very frustrating. It's very frustrating to have to fight for some water, you know what I'm saying? You got to mess around and buy five cases of water just to stay hydrated.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is just kind of scary because we don't know if anything is going to get done or when it is going to get done.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After work, I get off late, and you come in the store and it's empty.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're very angry and we want to just name it, our state government, right, and their failure to come in and assist the city of Jackson with this infrastructure water crisis. The extreme racist politics that have been played, that have impacted over 175,000 residents here in this city of Jackson, we can no longer stand for the ignorance to continue here in the state of Mississippi.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:10:14]

WALKER: So, the big question is when will the people here of Jackson, Mississippi, get clean running water? Well, guess what, Governor Tate Reeves doesn't even know. He says there is no timeline at this point. The only thing we know is there will be truckloads of water that will continue to be brought in over the next several days. There will be several mega-distribution sites set up beginning on Thursday so people can get drinking water, also non-potable water. At that main water treatment facility, where much of the damage was

done from -- that was exacerbated by the recent flooding, we know contractors are being brought in to help with the repairs. But also, the governor during this news conference on Tuesday mentioned that there is a rented pump that is supposed to be brought into this facility to be installed, supposedly today, by this morning. We don't have an update on that just yet, but that would allow for an output of 4 million gallons of drinking water, which we should mention, would just be a fraction of the 50 million gallons of water that is treated at this facility every day. John?

BERMAN: Such a problem and so many people caught in the middle of it. Amara Walker, thank you very much.

Ahead, we're going to speak to the mayor of Jackson, Mississippi, about what is being done there to address the crisis. Joining us now is Keisha Lance Bottoms, senior adviser to President Biden and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement. She's also the former mayor of Atlanta. Thanks so much for being with us, Mayor. There was an emergency declaration signed by the president overnight for Jackson. What else, what else can the federal government do for the 120,000 people there?

KEISHA LANCE BOTTOMS, SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: Well, the president has made sure that FEMA and the head of EPA are coordinating with local and state authorities in Jackson to try and restore water. Mayor Lumumba is a personal friend, we also served together as mayors. I know that he's been sounding the alarm for many years about the challenges that they have in Jackson with the infrastructure.

So it is his hope that this is a great start to cooperation with the state. But what President Biden has done is also made sure that $20 million in American rescue plan funds have gone to local and state officials to assist with the water issue in Jackson, and also $75 million in the bipartisan infrastructure funding that we have seen is also flowing into the state and the city.

BERMAN: Yes. The mayor, though, of Jackson, he was of course, a friend of the White House, says it will take $1 billion to fix the water system?

BOTTOMS: There is a very long way to go, and we know that this is not something that has happened overnight. Mayor Lumumba has been sounding this alarm for many, many years. So it is his hope and our hope that this is the start of fixing this issue, this long-standing issue. And I know that Mayor Lumumba is also hopeful that it will be a matter of days, and not months, that the water is restored in Jackson.

BERMAN: You were mayor of a city. Can you imagine what the people -- how the people in your city would feel?

BOTTOMS: I cannot begin to imagine. To be faced with something that as basic as water and not be able to access clean drinking water in a major American city. But I know that Mayor Lumumba is a very strong believer and he's very passionate about the people of Jackson and the needs of Jackson, and I know with his leadership, if there is a chance of getting this right, it will be done under his leadership and with the support of President Biden and the federal funds that are flowing into Jackson. It is our hope that it will happen sooner rather than later.

BERMAN: President Biden gave a speech in Pennsylvania yesterday. He's going back again tomorrow, spending a lot of time in Pennsylvania it is worth noting. This was a speech to talk about law enforcement and the White House efforts to boost law enforcement. As part of that, he also talked about this. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let me say this to my MAGA Republican friends in Congress -- don't tell me you support law enforcement if you won't condemn what happened on the 6th. Don't tell me.

(APPLAUSE)

BIDEN: You're either on the side of a mob, or the side of the police. You can't be pro law enforcement and pro insurrection. You can't be a party of law and order and call the people who attacked the police on January 6th patriots. You can't do it!

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: So why combine this message with what also was part of this trip to push the safe America plan that you and the White House have been putting forward?

BOTTOMS: Well, when we're talking about a safer America plan, it extends beyond our cities. It extends into our nation's capital, and to the capitol. And what the president has highlighted is what we all bore witness to.

[08:15:04]

Law enforcement was attacked on January 6th. And there are people who have celebrated the attack on our democracy.

And so, what President Biden has done, he's calling upon Congress to actually show that we support law enforcement, to make sure that it is not just a Democratic Party, all of whom voted for American Rescue Plan funds that flowed into cities to help support law enforcement. But, again, to try and get bipartisan support to make sure that we have funding in our cities, not just to put officers on the streets, but to make sure they are properly trained, to make sure we have mental health services available, that we can expand drug courts in our cities, after school programs, that we can make sure that kids have summer jobs.

And the president is spot on. We all witnessed law enforcement being attacked on January 6th. This is not his opinion. These are facts. You can't say that you support law enforcement and support the attack that we witnessed.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Keisha Lance Bottoms from the White House, thank you for being with us this morning.

So CNN uncovering just how much it costs for Texas to bus migrants to the nation's capital and New York City. We have the new reporting in.

And Meghan Markle opening up about her racial identity and the shift she experienced when she began dating Prince Harry.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Plus, a Republican Senate candidate calls the Biden administration the affirmative action regime. CNN's Don Lemon joins us live to discuss.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:20:17]

KEILAR: A new poll shows nearly two-thirds of Black Americans say that recent increased focus on race and racial inequality in the United States is not making their lives better.

Joining us now is Don Lemon. He's the host of "DON LEMON TONIGHT". He's also the author of the book "This is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism."

Don, I think one of the most interesting things about these poll numbers is that it shows right after that summer of the racial reckoning you had this hope fullness that it would bring about change. What we're seeing now is that it has become hopelessness about things actually changing.

DON LEMON, CNN HOST, DON LEMON TONIGHT: Yeah, it is actually a regression from the momentum at least about race relations that was made after George Floyd, during the summer -- the riots of 2020 and the unrest and the killing of George Floyd. Everyone thought there would be some progress.

But I think what happened is that some folks politically turn it around, turn it into messaging, and do what they do best and that is to co-op people to actually vote or think about things that are against their own interests. So I think that is what happened.

And, look, this is something that, you know, you introduced a book I wrote about as a result of what happened in the summer of 2020 that I was so moved by it that I wrote about the book, number one in "The New York Times," by the way, people wanted to learn more, people were open about racism, we were glued to our televisions because it was a global pandemic and we had nowhere to go, so people paid attention finally to what was going on and the video was so horrific that everyone thought they were going to make progress, that we were actually going to address the issue of structural and systemic racism.

But as it turns out, that did not happen, one, because we had someone in the White House who was saying there is no systemic racism and then you had members of his own party who were saying the same thing, that there is no systemic racism and then you had the whole critical race theory thing that came up after that, that people are now using as a political cudgel rather than using it the right way to talk about how we fix those issues.

The issue that you talked about just before I came on, if you look at what is happening in Jackson, Mississippi, if you look at what happened in Flint, Michigan, these are cities with large black populations, right?

BERMAN: Eighty percent.

LEMON: Eighty percent.

So, if you don't think there are structural issues, there are systems that are built into our American system that disaffect proportionately disaffect African Americans and people of color, then you're sadly mistaken.

BERMAN: First of all, before we go any further, I want to acknowledge you were on TV last night when this document came out from the Department of Justice. So you have a quick turn around, so thank you for coming in here and being with us today.

LEMON: It's just you. I love being here with you.

BERMAN: I saw you last night walk the halls.

LEMON: I saw him in the hall -- you were leaving as I was getting ready to go on my show.

BERMAN: So, listen, in addition to what we talked about, Blake Masters, who is running for Senate, the Republican nominee for Senate in Arizona, he talked about affirmative action. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BLAKE MASTERS (R), ARIZONA SENATE CANDIDATE: Look, I don't care if every single employee at the Fed is a Black lesbian as long as they're hired for their competence, not because of what they look like or who they sleep with. News for Joe Biden, we're done with this affirmative action regime. Now, I can't think of a single policy at the end of Jim Crow that's been worse or more decisive for race relations in this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: What do you think?

LEMON: I think he sounds like a lot of people who are -- he knows exactly what he's doing. He doesn't believe anything he's saying.

BERMAN: You write about this in your book also.

LEMON: He believes nothing what he's saying. If you listen to all the people who say the same thing that he says, they all sound alike, it is a script. He knows -- what he's doing and he's trying to rile up his base, right, people who feel that they're disaffected because they're white.

He is, what, trying to reach this white population who feels aggrieved, it is a grievance culture. Someone like Blake Masters and white males in the society, there have never been carve-outs in our constitution for white males. Why? Because they wrote it. Because the laws and the structure of the country are built around them, built around white males.

So he knows that he doesn't really have an argument. For people who had -- I'm not saying there aren't white people, especially and white men who are -- who don't have challenges, who aren't discriminated against, but for the most part, they're the least discriminated against people in this country. There has never been a carve-out in the Constitution, never been an amendment for anyone who looks like Blake Masters.

[08:25:02]

So all of that silliness aside, because Blake Masters doesn't believe a word he's saying and I think that most people who say that, leaders I'm talking about, don't believe a word, the sad thing is that there are people who believe him and who are being co-opted by him. He is the reason, people like him are the reasons that Republicans are struggling now when they thought they were going to win almost everything come November. It was going to be this giant red wave.

It is because of people like him, extremists in the Republican Party, people who are running for office, who are denying that the election was a legitimate election. People who are co-opting -- causing people to vote against their own interests. I have always said, if people of color, women, and quite frankly poor white people can get together, they would be the most powerful political force ever, if you can get people to stop voting against their own interests. If you can get people to stop saying -- voting against Obamacare, but saying they like the Affordable Care Act, because people just don't know.

Blake Masters knows what he's doing. But sadly people who are co-opted by him may not be so savvy about that and don't understand that they're voting against their own interests, don't understand that people like Blake Masters, they are taking advantage of them.

KEILAR: Don, I want to see --

LEMON: That's what I think about what Blake Masters is saying.

KEILAR: I want to hear what you think about an exchange that Meghan Markle had, of course, she's got this podcast. It's so popular right now. Part of it, of course, is because it is Meghan Markle, but she's also got these huge high profile guests, like Serena Williams.

In this case, it's Mariah Carey, who she was speaking with yesterday when she said this.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

MEGHAN MARKLE, DUCHESS OF SUSSEX: For us, it is so different, you're light skinned, you're not treated as a Black woman, you're not treated as a white woman. You sort of fit it in between. I mean, I -- if there is any time in my life that's it's been more focused on my race, it's only once I started dating my husband. Then I started to understand what it was like to be treated like a Black woman, because up until then, I was treated like a mixed woman and things really shifted.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KEILAR: You talked a lot about this, Don, this concept.

LEMON: Yeah. Well, look, there are a couple of things at work here. There's colorism which I talk about. Colorism in the Black community. But there is also this is also for people, in some ways she's saying she had privilege. So therefore it didn't apply to her because it never happened to her, right?

She was a mixed woman, people didn't really know how to react to her, didn't know if she was Black or white but didn't get the full black treatment, people weren't sure she was Black. I think most African Americans probably looked at her and said I know that's a Black woman, but I think the larger culture may not have realized that.

But what she essentially -- what she is coming from is a place of privilege, where she did not have to deal with racism, until she married a white man and she's got all this criticism and all this attention and suddenly she understood or understands what it is like to be part of a group of people, especially women in this country or in Europe who are discriminated against.

So I think it was eye-opening for her. It is certainly real, and, you know, it is interesting Mariah Carey has a very similar experience. I remember when Mariah Carey came about in the '90s, people didn't know what to do with her.

In the podcast, she talks about people not knowing how to do her hair, her -- the people who were in charge of her and trying to establish her as an artist didn't really know how to market her. Do they market her as a Black woman? Do they market her as a mixed woman? Do they market her as a white woman? They didn't really know how to do it.

So, I think it is an eye-opening podcast and I commend Meghan Markle for going there, even though it is a bit shocking that at 30 some years of age, she is just understanding what it is like to be a Black woman in America. It is a bit surprising to me.

BERMAN: Don Lemon, thank you so much for being with us.

LEMON: That's it?

BERMAN: That's all Don Lemon. But people can get more of you, Don Lemon, we should say, is the anchor and creator of "DON LEMON TONIGHT".

LEMON: It is a creator, I'll tell you the story behind it.

BERMAN: I know from the beginning. Creator of "DON LEMON TONIGHT" which airs every night at 10:00 Eastern.

LEMON: It's an elevator pitch, John.

BERMAN: So you'll get much more of Don.

LEMON: That worked.

BERMAN: All right. Mission redo. A new launch date has been set for NASA's Artemis 1.

And the last living member of The Monkees is suing the FBI over secret documents about The Monkees.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)