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Ian Now Blamed for At Least 125 Deaths as Communities Try to Recover; House GOP Aiming for DHS Chief's Impeachment Instead of Biden; Dozens of CIA Officers Say, Agency Soft-Pedaling Havana Syndrome. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired October 06, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In Northeastern Thailand, that is not known for violence. Authorities say that at least 34 people were killed, including at least 22 children.

The authorities have identified the gunman as a 34-year-old former police officer. We have learned that he had been dismissed from the police force, is involved in allegedly a case involving narcotics.

Now, at this point, this is profoundly devastating and shaking all of Thailand because this is a country that has relatively high rates of gun ownership, however, mass shootings are rare. The last major mass shooting, however, was in 2020 when there was a gunman opened fire at a military site, as at a mall. John?

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: And some of the complications involving the suspected shooter, any idea on a specific motive?

WANG: The motive right now is still unclear, but the authorities have told CNN that the gunman went to the nursery looking for his two-year- old stepson. He could not find him. He ended up opening fire, as well as stabbing children, stabbing people at this nursery. Authorities tell CNN that he then drove home, he took his own life. He then killed his two-year-old stepson as well as his wife.

We're still learning more details about the motive about this person. Again, he is a former police officer who had been dismissed from the police officer, John.

BERMAN: What an awful story. What an awful story.

BIANNA GOLODRYGA, CNN ANCHOR: Thinking about those families. 22 young children killed.

BERMAN: All right. Selina, keep us posted, thank you very much.

So, we have new developments in recovery efforts in Florida. The death toll after Hurricane Ian keeps climbing, at least 125 people now dead. But Floridians are fighting back. The Pine Island Bridge has now been made passable in just a week, vehicles driving across now, including food trucks and emergency vehicles. President Biden met with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. The two men set aside politics to focus on the people of Florida.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. RON DESANTIS (R-FL): I think one of the things you're sighing in this response, we are cutting through the bureaucracy, we are cutting through the red tape, and that's from local government, state government, all the way up to the president.

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: We've seen extraordinary cooperation at every level of the government, as the governor has said. And the cooperation began before the storm hit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: Hurricane Ian memorial wall has been erected in Fort Myers to honor the storm's victims.

Schools are open this morning in 70 of the 75 counties in Florida. The two latest to reopen, Volusia County, which opened yesterday, and Collier County, which opens today. It is not clear just how many students, however, will show up.

BERMAN: Our Carlos Suarez is standing by live at Shadowlawn Elementary School in Naples, Florida. Those are some of the lucky students in Florida, Carlos.

CARLOS SUAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's exactly right. So, the Collier County School District tells us all of their schools have power, they've all been cleaned and they are all going to welcome students later today. Now, exactly how many of the 50,000 students enrolled in this district are going to come back, it is still unclear.

We're told that a community event yesterday at a donation drive, some teachers in the district said that some of their students were telling their teachers goodbye. And they were telling them that their families were being forced to move because they'd lost everything in this storm.

Now, up in Lee County, just to the north of us here, it's unclear exactly when any of the 90,000 students there are going to be returning to the classroom. The school district tells us that over 50 percent of their school sites suffered some type of damage and that some of their locations are still being used as a hurricane shelter. And then a bit further north in Collier County, officials there have said that those schools there are going to be closed until, quote -- until further notice, rather.

Again, this morning, parents are starting to show up here to some of the schools in Collier County. Everyone is eager to get their kids back in the classroom, recognizing, though, that for a lot of students, their future right now is still uncertain when it comes to getting an education. John, Lee, Collier and Charlotte County, those are the three areas that were hardest by Hurricane Ian.

GOLODRYGA: Yes. It's just so important to bring back some sense of normalcy, right, for these students to go back to school.

We also mentioned earlier that President Biden and Governor DeSantis, as we saw there, were together on this tour of the damage, working cohesively, not politically. How was that visit received?

SUAREZ: Yes. So, I think, by and large, the president's visit to Southwest Florida was well received. I think everyone here on the ground is just eager to keep the progress moving forward. State officials used the reopening of that bridge up in Matlacha as a perfect example of what happens when the state, county and the federal government are all on the same page.

[07:05:05]

That is something that the governor says he wants to continue to see moving forward, it's something that the president also echoed.

One other final point from that meeting that folks really were well received -- or that part of the meeting that was well received, rather, is the extension of the time that local governments are going to be able to get some of that money back from the federal government. It was 30 days. The president extended that another 30 days. All of that money is going to be given back to local counties so that they can continue to debris-removal process and then, of course, the rebuilding effort. Guys?

BERMAN: Yes, so much work to be done. Carlos Suarez, thank you so much for being there for us.

GOLODRYGA: Well, this morning, Human Rights Watch reports Iran's security forces have been using excessive and lethal force against largely peaceful demonstrators.

CNN's reporters are covering the latest around the world.

NADA BASHIR, CNN REPORTER: I'm Nada Bashir in London. And as anti- regime demonstrations in Iran into their third week, pressure is mounting on the international community to take tougher action to hold the hard line government to account.

On Wednesday, Swedish politician Abir Al-Sahlani gave an impassioned speech in support of the women of Iran, cutting her hair before the lawmakers in parliament in solidarity with the protest movement. Al- Sahlani has been critical of the E.U.'s leadership for, in her words, failing to adequately support protesters. European leaders are set to impose further penalties on Iranian officials connected with both the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini and violence against peaceful protesters.

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Paula Hancocks in Seoul. The USS Ronald Reagan has returned to the waters of the east coast of South Korea for naval drills, this according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff here in Seoul. It is in response to yet more missile launches from North Korea on Thursday. The U.S., South Korea and Japan are holding drills to detect, track and intercept missiles. Meanwhile, Pyongyang says it's launching missiles to protest against the U.S./South Korea military drills, this tit-for-tat action showing no signs of letting up.

BERMAN: Ukrainian forces are accelerating their territorial advances into Russian held areas. It's all happened so quickly in just a matter of weeks.

With us now, retired Army Major General James Spider Marks, CNN Military Analyst and head of geopolitical strategy at Academy Securities.

Spider, the pace of what Ukraine has been able to do, explain this.

MAJ. GEN. JAMES SPIDER MARKS (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, it's quite phenomenal, John. Let me do this. First of all, I want you to concentrate for a second to this area and this area. Let me show you what has happened over the course of last month. I'll run that one more time.

So, backing up, clearly, this is what the Ukrainians saw a month ago, about a month ago. You had Russian forces here. And the Ukrainians had achieved this incredible success. You see this penetration into where the Russian forces were. So, that was a good news story. The Ukrainians had a choice. What they could do is they could either attack in this direction or attack in this direction.

The Russians have, all along, indicated that this was their objective. They wanted to connect Donetsk, Luhansk with Crimea, this land bridge right here. So, in the mind of the enemy commander, this is what's most important.

So, what the Ukrainians did is they did a deception operation and tried to convince, successfully, that the Russians -- to convince the Russians that this is where they were attacking. That was not the case. But they did it with fires, they did with it maneuvers, they did everything you should do to get into the head of the commander and reinforce his disposition, his thoughts about what you're going to do, this little bit of arcane military stuff here.

But what they did is they faked here and they did their primary attack here. So, this is what Ukraine looked like a month ago. This is what it looked like yesterday, this incredible success in this area because of the operational initiative of the Ukrainians. It's quite phenomenal. The Russians are completely caught off guard.

GOLODRYGA: Right. But, Spider, was it really a faint? Is it fair to call it a faint there in the south when you are seeing that the Ukrainians are now advancing against Russians in Kherson? I mean, there's story after story about the Russian front potentially on the verge of collapse there now.

MARKS: Perfect question. What you cannot do is conduct two major efforts at the same time when you don't have the kit, you don't have the manpower. So, what the Ukrainians did is put the primary effort up here. Now, they're putting a primary effort down here in the Kherson area. And this is where the Russians are now at risk. The Ukrainians are holding here, and they've diverted most of their forces down here.

[07:10:00]

So, what you see now -- let me get down to the Kherson area, this is what it looked like a month ago. Bianna, this is what it looks like today. Again, let me highlight that this area in here, the Russians are on the other side of the Dnipro River. This becomes a challenge for the Russians because they can't resupply and those forces are potentially isolated. This is what's happening on the battlefield.

BERMAN: Yes, watch that space. Literally watch what's going on in Kherson, see how quickly the Ukrainians are able to move, if they're able to move.

Spider, always great to see you, Major General James Spider Marks, thank you.

MARKS: Thank you.

GOLODRYGA: Well, this morning the fate of DREAMers is once again in question. A federal appeals court ruling the DACA program, which prevents the deportation of immigrations brought into the U.S. illegally as children is unlawful.

The decision largely upheld a lower court ruling on the Obama-era program. The Biden administration is proposing changes to preserve the program so DACA remains in place for at least now. President Biden expressing his deep disappointment, saying in a state, the court's stay provides a temporary reprieve from DACA recipients, but one thing remains clear, the lives of DREAMers remains in limbo. Today's decision is a result of continued efforts by state officials to strip DACA recipients of the protections and work authorization that many have now held for over a decade.

BERMAN: So, new CNN reporting as House Republicans get ready to potentially take back a majority in November. A proposition is starting to gain steam in the conference, launching impeachment proceedings not against President Biden but rather his top official in charge of the southern border, that would be Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

With us now is CNN Political Commentator and former White House Communications Director under President Trump Alyssa Farah Griffin. Great to see you this morning.

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Great to see you both.

BERMAN: So, House Republicans, you don't have to scratch the surface to find out that they have impeaching on their mind. They want to impeach. They will say that. I'm not making this up. They will say that -- why Mayorkas?

GRIFFIN: Well, this is actually straight out of the 2015 Freedom Caucus playbook. You'll recall that they wanted to initiate impeachment proceedings against then-IRS Commissioner James Koskinen. So, this is kind of similar, I think, that they realize trying to impeach Biden is going to be an uphill battle, the conservative flank, to get the leadership onboard with. This is kind of an in between in it, has the added benefit of bringing attention to the border crisis, which is a rallying cry for the Republican Party, something they can be critical of Biden for not handling well.

So, going after the head of DHS is a step below trying to, of course, impeach the president. A ridiculous notion has not committed high crimes and misdemeanors but it does make sense here because it's a smart political ploy ahead of 2024.

GOLODRYGA: But is it? Because the administrations are interchangeable but issue is a constant one, right? The border issue has been a crisis for this country for many years, for Republican administrations and for Democratic presidents. So, is this a smart move going into 2024 to target an issue that, listen, both parties have been grappling with?

GRIFFIN: Well, smart politics often doesn't mean smart policy. As you said in the lead-up to the segment, we're still debating over DACA. We've never come up with a permanent solution for the 20 million illegals living in the country through no fault of their own. And that is something -- I mean, it underscores that the immigration issue has just been passed around presidency after presidency.

But it is a rallying cry for the Republican base. It was a wave that Donald Trump rode into the office, I think it'll be helpful into the midterms and in 2024. But this goes nowhere in the Senate. Even if Republicans end up getting control, I don't think they're going to be impeaching the head of Homeland Security.

GERMAN: Let's talk Georgia, Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee. There was that Daily Beast article that he paid for a woman to have an abortion. He then, in an interview, said he had no idea who was making this allegation. The Daily Beast came out with a reporting overnight, and I think that I'm getting this accurate, that the woman turns out to be the mother of one of his other children. So, the idea that he did not know who it would be, this flies in the face of that. What's the impact of this in this very close, very important Senate race?

GRIFFIN: Listen, I didn't want this story to be true because I want Republicans to take back the Senate, but, I mean, this reporting is rock solid. And now you have the woman actually coming forward and saying, no, I not just know you, I'm the mother of one of your children. You can't make really the argument that this isn't factual and it's the fake news media coming after him.

I suspect in Georgia we may see a scenario where you have a Republican Brian Kemp outperform the Senate candidate and could even have a split win there. I think it's too early to say how much it impacts the race though. Herschel Walker is fundraising quite a bit off of this. So, in some ways, it's helping him with Republicans who are with him.

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It's going to be much harder with moderates and independents if he needs to win.

GOLODRYGA: I want you to respond to a Dana Loesch. Because this question of being hypocritical, preaching one thing but clearly having a different scenario in your private life, she addressed this head on, and she said she doesn't care, that this is all about regaining power. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA LOESCH, FORMER NRA SPOKESWOMAN: How many times have I said four very important words, these four words? Winning is a virtue.

So, I don't care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles, I want control of the Senate.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: How many voters agree with her on that?

GRIFFIN: Unfortunately, I think quite a few. And I think a lot of the political establishment does. I personally think that we should care about more winning. I missed where winning has ever really been the virtue in and of itself. And she goes on to say some other pretty offensive things about women who have had abortions. I disagree with that notion.

I do think the quality of candidates matters. If we are going to have a Senate that is made up of pure obstructionists, who actually drag down Republicans ahead of 2024, it jeopardizes the presidency. So, I don't that think just winning by all cost, even if it's somebody misleading the public or is unqualified to be in office is something we should aspire to.

BERMAN: But it does put Republicans in a bind then in Georgia, because if you believe the story to be true, then it flies in the face of the rhetoric that he has been campaigning on. So, put your former communications director hat on. If it were up to you, what would you advise a national Republican official to say when asked about Georgia?

GRIFFIN: Listen, the party has to stand with him at this point. It's a binary choice between him and Raphael Warnock, who I think for a Republican like myself, is too extreme for Georgia. I think that it leaves voters in a tough place.

And, yes, the party is not going to walk away from him at this point. If I were advising Herschel Walker, I'd say, be honest. You do have a story of redemption but that requires you to be honest about what you've actually been involved in. And I do think -- I mean, the people who are with him are going to be forgiving to him and that might even resonate with some who are on the margins.

BERMAN: Would there be anyone with the courage to say if the story is true, I don't think he should have done that, or if the story is true and he hasn't been honest about it, then it's a problem but maybe I'd still vote for him? I just don't know how honest do you think people will be willing to be. GRIFFIN: I don't suspect people are going to be overlyhonest but I think it would be a perfectly reasonable position to say, you know what, I hope that he addresses this head on. If this is true, he comes forward about it. I'm uncomfortable with it. It doesn't reflect my values but I hope he'll be honest. I mean, that's what senators, it's a tough place to be in.

BERMAN: How many do you think will do that?

GRIFFIN: I don't think any.

BERMAN: If I set the over/under at one, do you take the under or the over?

GRIFFIN: By the way, he's not the only path to keeping the Senate, just throwing that out.

GOLODRYGA: But let's also -- if we're being honest, this isn't the first issue or controversy that has raised the question whether or not he's qualified to be a senator.

GRIFFIN: And this is the tough place Mitch McConnell is in, who, by the way, is coming in to bail out bad candidates that were Trump- endorsed candidates who Trump is not helping now. And now, he is thinking about having to preside over a Senate that looks very different than previous ones with some of the more extreme candidates.

GOLODRYGA: Also getting attacked by the former president.

Alyssa Farah, thank you.

BERMAN: So, sources tell CNN that dozens of CIA officers are concerned that the agency is soft-pedaling its Havana syndrome investigation. We have the CNN exclusive report next.

And New York authorities uncovering thousands of rainbow fentanyl pills in a container for Legos, the details of the largest seizure of the drug in the city's history.

GOLODRYGA: And outrage in Uvalde after a former Texas state trooper who is being investigating over the school massacre is now hired to protect the very same children who survived the shooting. We have the CNN exclusive reporting straight ahead.

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GOLODRYGA: Now to a CNN exclusive report. Sources say that dozens of CIA officers are accusing the intelligence agency of soft-pedaling its investigation into a mysterious illness impacting agency officers and diplomats known as Havana syndrome. One CIA physician who talked to Dr. Sanjay Gupta recalls how he traveled to Cuba to investigate the mystery illness and wound up experiencing some of the very same debilitating symptoms. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I had a lot of nausea and a terrible headache, and I never suffered from headaches before. The amount of ringing in my ear was astounding and things were getting worse and worse and worse. I started to hear the noise. And I'm really in disbelief.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: And you believe that that night, there was some sort of injury or damage to either your inner ear, the nerves around your inner ear or your brain?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Correct, absolutely.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GOLODRYGA: Just fascinating. Well, joining us now are CNN Reporter Katie Bo Lillis and CNN National Security Correspondent Kylie Atwood, who broke the story.

So, Katie Bo, this continues to be such a mystery and raising so many questions as to what is causing it. What concerns are these officers specifically raising now?

KATIE BO LILLIS, CNN REPORTER: Yes. So, Bianna, dozens of current and former CIA officers have traveled to the Hill over the past year to raise concerns that the CIA task force that is meant to be investigating who or what might be causing these strange episodes isn't doing enough. They're raising concerns that the CIA isn't being aggressive enough in its investigations, that it's not adequately following up on leads, and some of them have been concerned enough that they have launched official whistleblower proceedings with Congress.

What makes this hard is that officials who are familiar with the investigation say that, at this point, they just don't have any good answers. There's about two dozen of these cases that have gone unexplained by any known means. And officials familiar with the probe say, at this point, they just don't have any good evidence either linking any of those two dozen cases to a foreign power or even definitively proving that they're all caused by the same thing.

[07:25:01]

This is really frustrating for victims, some of whom are experiencing some pretty uncomfortable flashbacks to kind of the early months and years after the first cases were reported in Havana, Cuba, when many victims said they felt like they were gaslit by the Trump administration.

BERMAN: So, Katie Bo, how is the CIA responding to all this?

LILLIS: So, both the CIA and the Biden administration are saying, we are 100 percent committed getting to the bottom of this, figuring out what's going on. As one CIA official put it to us, this person said, this is among the most aggressive approaches to an investigation that the agency has ever taken. But so much of this necessarily is happening behind closed doors, and I think that's why you're seeing some of this frustration start to bubble over. That same officer also said to us, look, this is an active intelligence investigation. We can't necessarily share everything we're learning about every lead that we're following up on in real-time.

GOLODRYGA: And, Kylie, this is now a phenomenon and a question that has been raised for two administrations, began in the Trump administration, now here the Biden administration came into office and said that they would be focused on tackling this. What do we know about how the government is handling it and specifically compensating these victims?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, listen, right now, there is law that requires U.S. government to compensate the folks who are deemed victims of this mysterious syndrome.

And we should note that those payments are starting to be approved and starting to go out the door. The CIA approved some of them earlier this year, a senior State Department official said there are a dozen diplomats and their family members who have been impacted who have actually applied for compensation. The first tranche of those approvals should go out in the coming days. And that is something that these victims are welcoming. They do want compensation.

But the other thing to consider here is it's not just about compensation for them. It's not just about this $147,000 or $187,000 that they're going to get because of this medical situation that they have been through, it's also about the continued support and the flexibility at work and wanting this investigation to continue going on. So, those are the things that the victims are still looking for from the U.S. government.

BERMAN: Kylie, what are they saying about the possible long-term effects of all of this?

ATWOOD: That is a huge question, because a lot of these cases, even the earliest of ones, only happened about five or six years ago. So, they really don't know. Even if folks feel a little bit better today because they've received medical treatment over the course of the last few years, they really don't know what this will mean for them in the long-term.

And that's why it's particularly concerning that we learned, according to sources familiar, that one victim has come down with a rare form of cancer that's associated with exposure to radiation and microwave energy.

And the reason that that is concerning, we don't have a direct link from this person being a victim and now coming down with cancer, but there was a report earlier this year by a panel of scientific experts who said that pulse radio electronic energy could be one of the things that would cause these cases, these mysterious illnesses that these diplomats and spies have come down with. So, there is a concern that these two things are correlated and that's why victims are increasingly concern about what the prospects could look for them in the long-term when it comes to their health.

GOLODRYGA: You just feel it for these people, because it impacts their lives, it impacts their careers, they're public servants, not only them but their families, sometimes children are involved in experiencing this as well.

Great reporting, Katie Bo Lillis and Kylie Atwood, thank you.

Well, now to this troubling story. It looks like candy but this is part of the biggest drug bust in New York City history, and part of an alarming new trend.

BERMAN: And new this morning, a tragic development in the search for a family that had been kidnapped. Why the sheriff says there's a special place in hell for the suspect.

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