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New Day Sunday
House Intel Democrats Request Damage Assessment of Seized Documents; Report: Salman Rushdie Starting to Speak Again Following Stabbing; FBI Testing: Gun Used in "Rust" Shooting Could Not Have Been Fired Without Pulling the Trigger; Biden, Democrats Look to Woo Midterm Voters by Touting Recent Wins; One Year Under Taliban Rule in Afghanistan; Women Aim to Fix Diversity Issue in Firefighting; Tennessee Makes Pitching a Tent on Public Land a Felony; Flood Watches in Place for More Than 7 Million People Across U.S. Aired 7-8a ET
Aired August 14, 2022 - 07:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[07:00:04]
COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Wesley French and Will Fries, going viral, just for standing next to each other. And they're super sized, six-foot-four, 307, and six-foot-six 309. Hopefully, you got an endorsement deal for those big fellows coming in the near future.
The Vikings and Raiders later today and six WNBA games with only two playoff spots on the line.
AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: I'm still stuck on 307 and 309. That's insane.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: A lot of French fries.
WIRE: Yeah.
WALKER: Coy, thank you.
And the next hour of NEW DAY starts now.
WIRE: Buenos dias, good morning, and welcome to your NEW DAY. I'm Boris Sanchez.
WALKER: Hi, Boris.
I'm Amara Walker.
New details in the FBI search of former President Trump's residence. We'll tell you what we're learning about a lawyer for Trump and what he told the Justice Department months before the search that turned classified documents.
SANCHEZ: And acclaimed author Salman Rushdie hospitalized after a stabbing. The latest on his condition and what we know about the suspect.
WALKER: And new details about the deadly shooting that took place on the movie set of "Rust" last year. What we're now learning about the weapon that killed a cinematographer.
(MUSIC)
WALKER: It is Sunday, August 14th. Thank you so much for joining us this morning.
Boris, I still can't believe someone can weigh 307 pounds. I can't get over the fact. My goodness.
SANCHEZ: Yeah, takes a bit of work, I think.
WALKER: Yeah.
SANCHEZ: We are focused this morning on the growing fallout after the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago. U.S. lawmakers are calling on the Justice Department now to release more details on the unprecedented search of former President Trump's Florida home.
Adam Schiff, the Democratic chair of the House Intel Committee, is now asking the nation's top intelligence officer of Avril Haines for a damage assessment on all the documents seized. He wants to know the fallouts from the classified documents being kept essentially at a private residence. He says, quote, the former president's conduct potentially put our national security at great risk.
WALKER: Now, the call for more information comes as sources tell CNN that one of Trump's lawyers stated back in June that there was no more classified documents being kept in Mar-a-Lago. But, in fact, FBI agents found a trove of materials there during a raid this past week, including 11 sets of classified documents, with some of them marked as top secret SCI, sensitive compartmented information, which is one of the highest levels of classification.
CNN's senior crime and justice reporter Katelyn Polantz with more now on this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Good morning, Boris and Amara. Two months before the FBI's search of Mar-a-Lago, a lawyer for Donald Trump attested in a letter to the Justice Department there were no classified records to be found on the property, CNN learned on Saturday. But despite this claim, when investigators seized the boxes this past Monday in this criminal investigation, they found in 11 different places records still marked as classified, that included records at three levels of classification, even ones labeled TS/SCI, those are types of records that would require the most strenuous provisions for secrecy around them in the federal government, like only being kept in secured facilities.
These new details flush out the timeline leading up to the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago. We learned just this week of a meeting Trump's attorney in June and a subpoena for the return of the records before the search. But this letter from Trump's lawyer also adds to our understanding of why federal prosecutors may have seen no other way to re-secure the records than to go to the beach club grounds for themselves on Monday. They weren't going to be given back by the president's team, that much is clear.
Now, Donald Trump and some of his advisers have claimed he declassified all the records he had at Mar-a-Lago when he was president, but when you look at what is being investigated here, obstruction of justice, criminal mishandling of government records, the Espionage Act, the classifications status of these records may be immaterial. What matters as the Justice Department continues to investigate is how potentially harmful it was to have these records out of the control of the federal government for the last year and a half. All of what happens in June is likely to become important facts if there are criminal charges that do materialize here. And investigators try to narrow down who exactly mishandled these documents if that indeed occurred.
Boris, Amara, back to you.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALKER: Katelyn Polantz, thank you.
Joining me now to discuss this more is defense attorney and former federal prosecutor, Shan Wu.
Good morning. Good to see you, Shan.
SHAN WU, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Good to see you.
WALKER: So, let's start with Katelyn's report there, you have on one side, Trump's lawyer saying according to CNN reporting, that in that signed letter, no more classified documents here, but then, of course, on Monday, it turned up more classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.
So what's the legal significance of that and also the potential violations that were laid out in that search warrant?
WU: Well, the significance is as Katelyn reported, it gives us some insight into why there was a sense of urgency at the Justice Department. I mean, personally, I think, that they waited quite some time before developing that sense of urgency. But I can understand that with a case of this significance and sensitivity, they wanted to really make a record that they exhausted all other avenues before taking this unprecedented step of conducting a search warrant on a former president's residence.
The representation by that lawyer, you know, from a defense counsel standpoint, really raises significant problems for the lawyer. They either are in the position -- they're certainly in the position of having being interviewed themselves, and either they're going to have to disavow their client, meaning basically represent they were lied to when they were interviewed by the Justice Department, otherwise they're going to have to end up looking like they're complicit in the act itself, which is really, really problematic for them.
If I were in that position, I think I would just have to withdraw. You wouldn't give your reasons, but you would have to get out of the case at that point. WALKER: So could they potentially be legally exposed or face criminal
liability?
WU: Oh, absolutely. I mean, if you signed your name to this representation, that can expose you to that culpability. You made basically a false representation to the FBI, false representation to the Justice Department.
WALKER: Being obstruction of justice?
WU: It certainly could be, yeah. That particular version of obstruction could be simply concealing the material from an investigation, it could be altering it, and it could be misleading. So it could fall into all of those.
WALKER: Yeah, so we saw the inventory as it was expected with the unsealing of the search warrant. But, of course, as we know, it is the affidavit that talks about the probable cause that would have more details. Is there any chance that the affidavit would be released?
WU: There is certainly a chance of that. Normally that's pretty sensitive and nobody wants it released, normally the prosecutors don't want it released. It is giving more of the case away at that point. And usually, the potential target would not want that released either because it could be embarrassing.
However, in this case, given the sort of back and forth, the spin by Trump and his allies, I think that there is good reason to release it, and it would be as Attorney General Garland said in the public interest to release it.
I do want to make one note, though, I mentioned the word target, it certainly looks like Trump has a lot of legal jeopardy on this, on his property, et cetera. But there hasn't been a formal declaration he's a target. We haven't heard he's been informed of himself being in that status.
So I want to make that point for our viewers, that this investigation clearly involves him, clearly involves his actions, but that's different than saying he is being personally investigated. I think that's an important distinction to make.
WALKER: Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad you did that, Shan.
And regarding the classified documents, we heard after the unsealing of the search warrant, you know, Trump stating on the social media that he had already declassified those documents, they believe his lawyers also told investigators that during that June meeting, but declassifying isn't a defense, as we heard from Katelyn Polantz's reporting.
WU: That's exactly right, because the Espionage Act in particular, it is a question of whether documents or information that is relevant to national security, which it sounds like these obviously were, given their classification level, that's what the problem is, mishandling them. Honestly, there -- I cannot understand any innocuous good reason for him having those at this point. I mean, as was mentioned, those are the most sensitive level of documents and there is no reason why that those would not be kept in that secure SCIF facility. So there is just not a good reason to have them at this point.
And frankly on the declassification issue there, there is a lot of questions whether he really had done that, and there are no other -- there are certain channels you go through for doing that, and so far there is no evidence of that that happening other than his assertion that it happened.
WALKER: Exactly. Yeah, way too many questions unanswered still. Shan Wu, appreciate having you on. Thank you.
WU: Good to see you.
SANCHEZ: Some good news from Salman Rushdie's agent, he's started to speak again after a brutal attack late last week.
[07:10:00]
He's apparently on a ventilator after several hours of surgery when he was stabbed more than half a dozen times at a speaking event in western New York.
WALKER: The man charged in the stabbing Hadi Matar pled not guilty to attempted murder in the second degree and other charges. His public defender says Matar has been very cooperative and communicating openly. And in some parts of the world, Matar is now being hailed a hero for what he did.
For more on that, we turn now to CNN correspondent Jomana Karadsheh in Jordan.
Hi there, Jomana.
You know, what's the perspective from there?
JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know, Amara, I have to say, it has been very much a muted kind of reaction that we have seen in this region, no real statements coming out from major Muslim countries and I think when the attack happened on Friday, the sense that I got, the reaction from a lot of people is they were surprised that this is happening now.
A lot of people felt that the issue of Salman Rushdie, "The Satanic Verses" and the controversy around it was something of the past, of the '80s and the '90s, so they were surprised to see this and especially when you look at the suspect in this case, a 24-year-old, who wasn't even born when this book was published.
But all eyes have been on Iran, a country that has been at the heart of the controversy and the death threats that Rushdie has been living with for decades. We have heard from the Israeli prime minister last night, tweeting out his country's condemnation of the attack, and blaming Iran for what he said has been decades of incitement that this extremist regime as he described it in Tehran has led. No official reaction from Iranian officials. But as you recall, it was
back in 1989 that the supreme leader at the time Ayatollah Khomeini who issued that fatwa, that religious edict calling for the killing of Salman Rushdie, it did appear in the '90s like the Iranian government at the time was softening its position, it was perhaps backtracking on that fatwa.
But, again, the current Supreme Leader Khomeini, again, repeating that this still stands as recent as 2017, saying that fatwa was still in place. Well, we haven't had official reaction, what we have seen Amara, is Iranian conservative hard-line media reacting to this with some of these publications running columns describing the attacker as a warrior, that his hands should be kissed, that he deserves a thousand bravos, hundreds of god blesses, describing him as a warrior who attacked Rushdie, who they described as an apostate and even more disturbing headline, running the photo of Rushdie on a stretcher and saying it is the devil on the path to hell.
So, we will wait to see if we're going to get any sort of official reaction from the Iranian government and the regime there in the coming hours and days, Amara.
SANCHEZ: And hopefully soon, we will hear from Rushdie himself and get his response to this attack. We hope him a speedy recovery.
Jomana Karadsheh out of Jordan, thank you so much.
WALKER: According to a newly released forensics report, the gun used in the fatal shooting on the "Rust" movie set last October could not be fired without pulling the trigger.
SANCHEZ: FBI testing also showed that the gun had to be partially or fully cocked before firing. The report also noted that it may not be possible to re-create the circumstances which led to the gun-firing without pulling the trigger.
Keep in mind, last year, Alec Baldwin told ABC news he never pulled the trigger of the gun that killed director of photography Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza. CNN reached out to representatives for Baldwin to get comment, but we have yet to hear back.
WALKER: Just ahead, President Biden now has to sell his recent legislative wins to voters, but will it matter for the midterms?
And later, many women in Afghanistan now fearing for their lives and girls not allowed to go to school. We're going to take a closer look at the country one year after the Taliban retook control.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:18:29]
SANCHEZ: With a key part of his agenda passed in Congress, President Biden says he will sign the Inflation Reduction Act into law this week. WALKER: In a tweet, Mr. Biden hailed the passage of the bill Friday,
saying in part, quote, the American people won, special interests lost.
CNN White House reporter Kevin Liptak with us now.
And, Kevin, yes, this is quite a big win for the president. The latest in a series of legislative achievements, but, you know, how will he and his fellow Democrats sell it to the voters?
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, certainly, Democrats are pretty enthusiastic that they have this affirmative message that they can start taking out to voters ahead of the midterm elections. And as you mentioned, the president will sign this bill next week. That will probably be a fairly low key ceremony.
President Biden is out of town. Most members of Congress are also out of town. He will bring them together at the White House in September for a sort of larger event.
But really, the work is just beginning in explaining to the American people what is in this bill, how they could benefit from it. So, what White House officials say is that President Biden, Vice President Harris, members of the cabinet, will start fanning out across the country to start talking about this bill, explaining what is in it.
And that might sound a little familiar, this is probably the fourth or fifth time that the White House said that President Biden will start traveling more to explain his agenda. Of course, he's always been way laid by events back in Washington, but they really do describe this as the most intensive push for the president's agenda and what his message will be essentially is that big corporations, pharmaceutical companies lost in this bill and American families won.
[07:20:09]
Democrats really hope this will be a turn around moment for President Biden. Remember, there is exactly a year ago that the fall of Kabul happened in Afghanistan, that really sort of precipitated the decline in his approval ratings. Now, President Biden really hopes that he can use this to sort of amp him up, turn the momentum around ahead of the midterm elections.
SANCHEZ: It is a timely accomplishment for the president and Democrats. Kevin Liptak, thank you so much.
LIPTAK: Sure.
SANCHEZ: And as President Biden turns his focus to the midterms, we're approaching a sobering milestone that Kevin mentioned, the one- year anniversary of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
We witnessed chaotic scenes like this one, highlighting the desperation of those that were trying to leave the country after the Taliban regained control of Kabul. Now, in a new op-ed for CNN.com, our next guest argues that President
Biden's decision to leave Afghanistan looks even worse 12 months later.
Peter Bergen is a CNN national security analyst and vice president for global studies and fellow at New America.
Peter, good morning. Always grateful to have your perspective on.
You make the case that withdrawing from Afghanistan was a mistake, but polling indicated that a majority in the United States wanted to get out. So what do you think should have been done differently and who bears responsibility for how it was handled?
PETER BERGEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY: Well, you know, defeat has -- yeah, not a lot of people are going to claim responsibility that they were responsible for not only what I thought was bad policy and clearly was a very poorly executed policy. But, you know, the polling you referred to, I mean, there was a lot of negative polling about how the withdrawal was handled.
I think that if you, you know, if Americans could understand when they're asked the polling questions a year later, women could not go to work, like girls can't be educated, al Qaeda's leader was living in Kabul, al Qaeda is closely aligned with the Taliban, all the promises that were supposed to come with the withdrawal didn't happen, that the polling, you know, might have come out differently.
And, you know, at the end of the day, Boris, you know, there were 2,500 American troops sustaining kind of a fragile government, but, you know, as soon as President Biden announced we were planning to withdraw those troops, the Taliban began started taking over the country. The 34 provincial capitols in Afghanistan, none of them were under Taliban control before Biden announced in April of last year that we were going to withdraw around September 11, and, of course, they realized September 11th wasn't a good day for the total withdraw on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, so they moved the withdrawal date to August 30th, even then we were -- the Taliban took over on August 15th, so we're coming up on Monday of the first anniversary of the Taliban takeover.
SANCHEZ: Peter, what do you make of the argument then that the mission in Afghanistan had been accomplished a decade before the withdrawal with the death of Osama bin Laden, that the United States didn't go into that country to prop up the nation with, you know, no expiration date, no withdrawal plans?
BERGEN: You know, I mean, a reasonable argument, however, I mean, I think the counterargument there is the Taliban are now stronger today than they were before 9/11. They control more of Afghanistan, they're better armed because they have a bunch of American armored vehicles and M-16 rifles. They face no strong opposition.
And, you know, the fact that Ayman al Zawahiri, the leader of al Qaeda, was living in downtown Kabul sort of speaks for itself. I mean, al Qaeda has not gone away, the Taliban are sheltering them. In fact, according to the United Nations, the minister of interior in Afghanistan is actually a part of the leadership council of al Qaeda.
So, you know, a member of a terrorist group has actually got one of the most senior positions in the Taliban government. The U.N. also says that 41 of the top Taliban officials are actually on U.N. sanctions list.
So you got a government that is very sympathetic to jihadist groups including al Qaeda, and, you know, I mean, we have seen how this videotape plays out. It may not take a year or may not take two years, but eventually people go to Afghanistan, they will be trained and they will try and carry out attacks against Americans or Western targets because the Taliban provides a very sympathetic environment for them.
SANCHEZ: There were some comments this week from the former president of Afghanistan that caught my eye. Ashraf Ghani slammed the United States claiming he was -- his words -- deceived and that the Taliban was emboldened by the U.S. plan to withdraw. Why do you think that is?
[07:25:03]
How do you perceived his --
BERGEN: Well, I mean, you know, I think he has some, A, Ghani did leave precipitously unlike Zelenskyy in Ukraine. He had good reason to fear for his safety. He was deceived on a certain level, which is the Taliban and the United States conducted this withdrawal agreement without any substantive input from the Afghan government, which after all was the elected Afghan government.
The Taliban conveniently don't believe in elections. You know, they always wanted the Afghan government to be excluded from this withdrawal agreement, which after all was going to affect the Afghan government and the Afghan people a lot more than the United States and we sort of went -- the United States went along for the ride and believe I think in some delusional views about the Taliban, that they had reformed, that they would moderate once they got into power. Well, that turned to be -- a year later we know none of that was true.
SANCHEZ: And, Peter, in the op-ed, you point out that millions of people in Afghanistan now are undergoing severe hunger and the Biden administration is seeking to help them, but there is no real way of doing that without ultimately benefiting the Taliban, right? So what are the options for the Biden administration?
BERGEN: Yeah. I mean, it is a terrible policy dilemma. The Biden administration, the United Nations says half the country is on the brink of acute hunger and, you know, the economy is completely collapsed. So the Biden administration has created a policy dilemma which they have to deal with, which is they do have to support the Afghan people, which ultimately does benefit the Taliban. But they can't simply let the country just sort of, you know, have millions of people, you know, starve to death as a result of our own policy decisions.
So it is a very tough place to be. It is where we are now. And, you know, U.S. officials continue to kind of communicate with the Taliban and they do try and set up the aid in such a way it doesn't directly benefit the Taliban, but clearly anything that helps Afghanistan in general helps the Taliban stay in power.
SANCHEZ: It is a scathing and sobering op-ed. You can find it on CNN.com.
Peter Bergen, thanks so much for sharing part of your weekend with us.
BERGEN: Thank you, Boris.
WALKER: And a reminder about today's special edition of "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS," Fareed will be joined by former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. You'll hear Ghani explain why he left the country last year. Here is a preview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, FAREED ZAKARIA GPS: People around the world are wondering why you decided to leave. In may 2021, just months earlier, you gave an interview to "Der Spiegel', you said, and I'll quote you, no power in the world could persuade me to get on a plane and leave this country, it is a country I love and I will die defending.
But you did get on a plane and leave the country. Why?
ASHRAF GHANI, FORMER AFGHAN PRESIDENT: I did get on a plane because it became impossible to defend it. From the presidential ground, all the presidential protection force melted, and put on civilian clothes. The minister of defense had left. I was ready to go to minister of defense because he had called me that Kabul could not be defended and I said, I'm going to come to the ministry, the ministry was empty. He was on a plane.
I was the last to leave and the reason I left was because I did not want to give the Taliban and their supporters the pleasure of yet again humiliating an Afghan president.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALKER: Fascinating.
Be sure to watch the full interview this morning at 10:00 a.m. right here on CNN.
One way to fix a shortage of firefighters is to hire more women. More on that ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:33:02]
WALKER: And welcome back.
Here are some top stories we are following. A deadly night in Pennsylvania, one person has died, 17 others injured
after a car drove through a crowd in Berwick. Authorities say the 24- year-old suspect who has been arrested drove into a group of people who were gathered to raise money for a family who went through a deadly house fire a week ago. Police say he then allegedly assaulted a woman in a nearby community. She has died from her injuries. The motive for both incidents remain unclear.
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Almost a million people right now are under a boil water advisory in Detroit after a leak was discovered in a main that distributes water from Lake Huron to the metro area. Officials say crews are working to isolate the leak about a mile away from this facility so they can begin the repair work that is required.
WALKER: A massive wildfire on Hawaii's big island has consumed more than 16,000 acres and it is still only 30 percent contained. Officials say they made an all-out assault on the so-called Leilani Fire on the northwestern end of the island with local, state and federal crews working with heavy equipment to stop the flames.
But extremely dry conditions are making the fight quite difficult. Five helicopters from the U.S. Army's nearby training area are helping with aerial water drops.
As many parts of the country experience longer and more destructive fire seasons, there is a constant need for more firefighters. But today, only a fraction of career firefighters are women.
CNN's Isabel Rosales has more on the push to make the industry more inclusive.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ISABEL ROSALES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is not the uniform Olivia Lozano-Fuentes would have imagined for herself. She'll be the first to tell you she accidentally fell into firefighting after her life violently changed almost ten years ago, when someone texting and driving ran her over.
[07:35:00]
OLIVIA LOZANO-FUENTES, FIREFIGHTER, CALFIRE: From then on I decided I wanted to give back to my community. They inspired me to pursue EMT, first aid classes.
ROSALES: At 5'2", 110 pounds, Lozano Fuentes wasn't sure she could keep up. One reason, some women may avoid the job.
LOZANO-FUENTES: I would say I might not be as tall or as strong as some of them, but I definitely when it comes down to the most important part would be to do the job.
ROSALES: In a profession never intended to include them, women still face major obstacles. In the last major survey on the subject, some report shunning discrimination, sexual harassment and other issues like ill-fitting uniforms and gear, designed for men. But in her decade of fire service in California --
LOZANO-FUENTES: I have not worked directly in contact with another female firefighter.
ROSALES: -- while the number of women firefighters is increasing, it remains relatively low according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The number of women police officers, paramedics and military service members all surpassing the count of women in career firefighting. They make up less than 5 percent of the U.S. Fire Service.
There is a push across the nation to turn that around. 2,500 miles away in Arlington, Virginia, Camp Heat is showing teenagers what it is like to be a real firefighter.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And we'll practice bringing the victim down.
ROSALES: At 18 years old, Heather Strickland's heart is in fire fighting.
HEATHER STRICKLAND, CAMP HEAT PARTICIPANT: Working as a team really is important and this camp shows why it is important and I'm just -- I'm about to cry.
I'm a people's person. I'm a humanitarian at heart. I really love helping people.
ROSALES: Signs of progress can be all the way to the top. A woman appointed in 2020 to the second highest fire position in the country as deputy U.S. fire administrator. The following year, another woman was appointed as the U.S. fire administrator.
KRISTIN PARDINY, ARLINGTON COUNTY FIRE DEPARTMENT: The hard part for young females, they may not see themselves as being able to fit in.
ROSALES: That representation matters. And the work is nowhere near done. Black and Brown women make up just a fraction of the number of the white male counterparts. These women fight not only fires, but also for a seat at the table.
STRICKLAND: I got to keep going. I can't stop now. This is only the beginning.
ROSALES: I'm Isabel Rosales reporting.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALKER: And a programming note, on the next episode of "PATAGONIA: LIFE ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD", CNN takes you behind the scenes to show you how photographers and production teams made the series. Here is a preview.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's what happens all the time. You got a great shot and then a boat comes in the way. Let's get some high ground again. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It is a tough angle. I lost him.
So, this goes on all day long. You have to be here from sunrise to sunset, and you can't miss a beat.
NARRATOR: Despite the difficulties, this is a dream shoot for Mauricio. He has a special connection not only with this creature, but also the country itself.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was born in Chile, but I left very young. 6 years old. And I returned only about seven years ago as a cinematographer.
There they are. All three. All three are there. All three are there.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALKER: Patagonia airs tonight at 9:00 p.m. right here on CNN.
Back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:43:12]
WALKER: Dealing with the homeless issue is a challenge for many cities across the country. But Tennessee has a new approach.
SANCHEZ: The state has criminalized living in a tent on public land. It's now a felony.
CNN's Nick Watt has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Tennessee just became the first state in the nation to brand this a felony -- pitching a tent on public land that's not actually a campsite.
MOMMA V, UNHOUSED NASHVILLE RESIDENT: We're out here homeless. We're trying to struggle to make it and they're just trying to make it worse on all of us by criminalizing it.
LINDSEY KRINKS, OPEN TABLE NASHVILLE: It's a huge deal because a felony offense carries up to six years in jail, a $30,000 fine --
WATT: Yes.
KRINKS: -- and the loss of voting rights.
WATT: And makes finding a job or a home even harder.
PAUL BAILEY, TN STATE SENATOR (R) SPARTA: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
WATT: The bill's sponsor declined our offer of an interview but said this. BAILEY: This bill requires law enforcement give a documented warning for the first incident, and any punishment thereafter is up to the prosecutorial discretion of the district attorney.
TANEESHA GREEN, UNHOUSED NASHVILLE RESIDENT: It's a felony to survive.
WATT: Tanisha Green says police have already told her she must now obey that sign.
GREEN: They said that it'll be an action that we'll go to jail.
WATT: And do you have anywhere -- any place else to go?
GREEN: I don't. I've been here a year.
WATT: Next door, in Missouri, a similar law takes effect this month -- a misdemeanor; not a felony -- but local governments that don't enforce the camping ban can be punished. And money earmarked to build permanent housing must instead be used to fund treatment programs and build state-sanctioned temporary homeless camps.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is a push to the most vulnerable people into internment camps.
WATT: Similar bills are now being considered in Arizona and Georgia.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're sitting right on the tipping point right now.
[07:45:01]
WATT: In Oklahoma and Wisconsin, similar bills were introduced but failed. And those similarities are no coincidence. They're all based on a model bill produced by The Cicero Institute, a think tank in Austin funded by a tech billionaire.
Texas passed a version of Cicero's bill last year.
JUDGE GLOCK, CICERO INSTITUTE, SENIOR DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND RESEARCH: We have no influence except the power of persuasion. We're merely saying here seems to be a better idea. We know what's not working.
WATT: Something called Housing First has become the primary approach to tackling homelessness. Get someone an actual home, not a shelter bed, offer but don't mandate addiction treatment, and the rest should follow. Many studies support the approach. Cicero does not.
GLOCK: We don't have decades to wait to build up brand- new houses for every one of those people. We need to have a solution that's acting right now.
WATT: He's addressed lawmakers in Tennessee -
GLOCK: Homeless encampments are bad for the homeless themselves.
WATT: -- and in Georgia.
GLOCK: We can offer you alternatives but you have to move. You need that -- both the stick and the carrot -- and this bill provides those.
WATT: In a leafy Nashville suburb --
I can see your issue.
REBECCA LOWE, FOUNDER, RECLAIM BROOKMEADE PARK: Yes. You haven't seen anything yet.
WATT: -- this is what Becky Lowe's local park now looks like.
LOWE: Nothing has been working. We're -- nothing has worked.
WATT: She now supports the stick approach -- the threat of a felony conviction for just camping.
WATT: Where do you think these people should go?
LOWE: Well, we have dozens of shelters throughout Nashville.
HOWARD ALLEN, CO-FOUNDER, NASHVILLE HOMELESS UNDERGROUND: I was in a temporary shelter and I didn't like it because you're not treated as a human being.
WATT: A sentiment shared by many.
Howard Allen now has a permanent home.
ALLEN: When I moved in my house and they put that key in my hand, I cried. And then I cried again because my brothers and sisters deserve the same thing that I have -- housing -- and we can do it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WATT (on camera): Maybe we can, but there seems to be increasing disagreement over how -- how much carrot, how much stick -- even here in liberal-leaning Los Angeles after -- let's call it a lively public comment section. The L.A. City Council has voted to ban camping within 500 feet of any daycare center and any school.
Nick Watt, CNN, Los Angeles.
SANCHEZ: Nick, thank you.
Right now, flood watches are in place, more than 7 million people. We have the latest forecast and tell you when it is finally expected to dry out.
Stay with NEW DAY. We're back in just moments.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[07:51:51]
WALKER: Okay. So a loud boom heard across parts of Utah and Idaho surprised to say the least some residents on Saturday.
SANCHEZ: Yeah, turns out it was likely a meteor. You see it flashing quickly right there at the center of your screen. It was caught on camera shooting across the sky, blowing up into 1 million pieces when it hit the atmosphere. There were door bell and home cameras that recorded this huge sound for about two minutes. Listen to this.
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
SANCHEZ: Honestly, same. Yeah. I'm surprised she didn't go running inside.
Utah's Governor Spencer Cox has confirmed it was not an earthquake, so more than likely it was that meteor flashing across the sky.
WALKER: It's an incredible image there. Wow.
Well, as you wrap up your weekend, you may want to keep your raincoat nearby. Flood watches are in effect for 7 million people across the country.
SANCHEZ: Let's take it to the CNN weather center now and CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar.
Allison, what's the rest of this weekend looking like?
ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: I feel like a broken record. It's rain and more rain and even more rain for a lot of the same place that is have had rain many of the last several days.
Here's a look at where we are looking at flood watches. Most of them are over across portions of the dessert southwest, you're talking, Las Vegas, Phoenix. But, again, they stretch into Wyoming. And we've got a lot of moisture surging up. This has been a good monsoon year for a lot of areas at the southwest, especially across Arizona.
This high pressure system is what's steering a lot of that moisture being surged up to the north, but it's also taking that moisture from the west and feeding it into the eastern portion of the country too. So areas of the great lakes even to the Midwest, you also have chances for rain today.
Now, overall, most of these areas, about an inch, maybe two tops. But in isolated areas where you get the heavy downpours and bigger thunderstorms, you could pick up, three, maybe even 4 inches of rain. So, still some isolated flooding potential there as well.
Another location is going to be across portions of South Texas. It's for a different reason here though. This is a tropical coast sitting off the Gulf coast region.
Now, it only has a 10 percent chance of developing into a named tropical storm. But the concern is the movement of this system. It's not moving very fast, but it has a tremendous amount of moisture it's surging back to this area.
So, unfortunately, Boris and Amara, over the next several days, a lot of these areas could pick up four to six inches total.
WALKER: All right. Allison Chinchar, thank you.
CHINCHAR: Thanks.
WALKER: And before we go, we have to show you this moment. It was the perfect plan, I guess. Finishing iron man and propose to his girlfriend, right? What could go wrong?
(VIDEO CLIP PLAYS)
[07:55:15]
WALKER: Oh, my god.
SANCHEZ: Forget about getting down on one knee. He laid completely flat on the ground.
If you couldn't tell, this magic moment was almost derailed by a cramp in both his legs. He kept the ring in his hand, though, and he was finally able to muster the words through a lot of difficulty to ask his girlfriend to marry him. Of course, he got that yes at the finish line with some help.
A wonderful moment I'm sure they'll never forget.
WALKER: That was painful to watch. I feel horrible for him.
SANCHEZ: His legs were shaking the whole time.
WALKER: He was determined, I guess, right? Romantic, I don't know about that. But she said yes.
Thanks for being with us and starting your morning with us.
SANCHEZ: Of course. Stay right here. Phil Mattingly is in for Abby Phillip on "INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY".
Thanks for being with us.
