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Deadly 7.4 Magnitude Quake Devastates Eastern Taiwan; Special Counsel Issues Rare and Risky Rebuke of Judge Cannon's Order; Zyn Nicotine Pouch Sales Soar as Critics Warn of Potential Dangers. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired April 03, 2024 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:10]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: We're following breaking news overnight. A devastating earthquake hits Taiwan. Dozens of people now just rescued after being trapped in collapsed tunnels. At least nine people are dead, hundreds more injured, and we have new video of how it all played out.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, signs of Special Counsel Jack Smith has had enough of the judge overseeing the Mar-a-Lago documents case, a scathing filing that could be seen as a first step to try to get her removed from the case.

Chaos swirling around Donald Trump's social media company, a new lawsuit against two former Apprentice contestants connected to Truth Social.

Sara is out today. I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan. CNN News Central starts right now.

BOLDUAN: Let's get straight to the breaking news overnight, 75 people trapped inside tunnels. They have now just been rescued after an earthquake hits Taiwan, the strongest earthquake to hit Taiwan in 25 years.

We're going to show you, follow this video, showing a cloud of dust that you can see just settling in as the earthquake caused a massive landslide. At the center of the 7.4 magnitude quake, it was in a mountainous area on the east coast of the island.

So far, the death toll stands at at least nine, more than 800 people also have been wounded. We're staying very closely to try to track that.

The quake hit during the morning commute. And look at this, this dash camera video just capturing traffic coming to a standstill as it all happens in the highway, very clearly beginning to shake. And then there's also this. One man, he was in a rooftop swimming pool when it all started. And you can see the massive waves that were caused by the tremors. We're also getting a look of how it unfolded inside one television studio. Watch this.

So scary, so scary, no matter what the angle is that we're showing you here from all of this video.

Let's get right over to CNN's Hanako Montgomery, who's tracking all of this for us from Tokyo. Hanako, what's the latest?

HANAKO MONTGOMERY, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Kate. I mean, yes, like you saw there, really, really alarming footage coming out of Taiwan this morning local time. So, as you mentioned, we know that at least nine people were left dead, and more than 900 people were actually left injured because of this very powerful earthquake and the subsequent aftershocks.

We also know that of the nine people who died, all of them were killed in Hualien County, where it was very close to the epicenter, and actually where most of the significant damage has been taking place.

And just for context, Hualien County is located on the eastern coast of Taiwan. It's a very popular tourist destination. It's also a rural area and coincidentally where most of Taiwan's earthquakes actually occur.

So, we also know that 56 people were trapped in Hualien County. Originally, that number was up to 131, but rescue operators were able to rescue all the people trapped in those tunnels to safety.

Now, in terms of the rescue operations, the Taiwanese defense ministry has dispatched military troops to coincide and to work with local governments, try to get people to safety, get them out from underneath the rubble of their homes and buildings.

And this is really common protocol that you see in Taiwan. When you see a natural disaster of this magnitude, military troops do work with local governments to try to get people, again, to safety.

But one thing that was actually affecting disaster relief efforts today were the damaged roads. You saw a main highway from Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, to Hualien County, actually partially destroyed. So, military troops had to use some aircrafts to get to that part of the island.

Now, we also have to remember the context of this earthquake. It happened just a day before Tomb Sweeping Day, which, in the Chinese speaking world, is a day when people visit their ancestors' graves and give them offerings and remember their loved ones.

[07:05:07]

But, of course, for many people in Taiwan, those plans have been disrupted as they have to deal with the rubble and the aftermath of the most powerful earthquake they've seen in the last 25 years, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Just terrifying as we're watching this video. Much more to come, you're going to stay close to it. Thank you so much, Hanako. John?

BERMAN: Yes, just remarkable images there.

There was a tsunami warning in place, actually, several in several countries. They have since been lifted.

Let's get the latest from meteorologist Elisa Raffa. Elisa, what can you tell us this morning?

ELISA RAFFA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Thankfully, those were lifted this morning. But, yes, tracking this massive 7-point magnitude earthquake just off of the east coast there of Taiwan, that was pretty shallow. We are finding, like we've seen on the video, all the structural damage, landslides, a lot of these buildings have heavy wood frame construction. Some of the aftershocks have been as much as 6-point in magnitude. So, with the buildings kind of already loosen their foundation from the first earthquake, it's not going to take much in those aftershocks to cause further damage.

Now, a magnitude 7-point on the Richter scale for an earthquake is very rare. Worldwide, we only average about 15 per year, that's across the world, to get something this intense.

And they are most common in this area of the world. We call it the Ring of Fire because that's where nearly 450 of our volcanoes, 90 percent of the world's earthquake all happen in this area, and that's because that's where we have the edge of two massive tectonic plates meeting. And when those plates start to move and shake and rub up against each other, that's when you have these massive earthquakes.

And this is the Ring of Fire. Look at where it goes up the west coast of the U.S. and then all across eastern Asia and Southeastern Asia. And this is exactly where we see most of the world's earthquakes in this Ring of Fire. So, Taiwan, kind of where it's situated, is prone to these massive earthquakes, though they are pretty rare.

Now, in the cleanup for the next three days, we are looking at some showers possible over Taiwan, which isn't good for rescue crews and for cleanup. We're looking at showers, temperatures about average, a little bit above average, in the middle and upper 70s, with some rain by Thursday into Friday and Saturday, which, again, could be a problem with rescue crews and trying to clean up some of this damage.

And you can see the showers that really roll off of mainland of China there as we go through the next couple of days, through today, through Thursday, Friday, and going into the weekend. So that's something that the rescue crews will have to contend with.

But the aftershocks continue. That 7-point magnitude was the first one. And we'll have to keep watching these aftershocks and how they can already kind of rock vulnerable structures that are already kind of fallen, you know, and the damage is already there, so something that we'll have to keep watching through the day today. John?

BERMAN: Yes. When you've already lived through a major earthquake like that, the aftershocks can be even more terrifying.

Elisa Raffa, thank you very much. Kate?

BOLDUAN: So, while you were sleeping, Special Counsel Jack Smith is now confronting Judge Aileen Cannon, questioning her moves in the classified documents case. Why he's arguing her jury instruction request is based on a fundamentally flawed legal premise.

A new presidential polling out this morning shows Donald Trump leading President Biden in six of seven swing states, the Wisconsin warning signs today.

And they're surging in popularity, but what are the risks? Why experts are concerned now about nicotine pouches?

We'll be back.

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[07:10:00]

BERMAN: Al right. Breaking overnight, an extraordinary filing by Special Counsel Jack Smith blasting Judge Aileen Cannon's jury instruction request in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case. Smith said the judge's order reflected a, quote, fundamentally flawed understanding of the case before her that has, quote, no basis in law or fact.

With us now, CNN Senior Legal Analyst, former U.S. Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Elie Honig.

Elie, this has to do --- Judge Aileen Cannon asked both the prosecution and the defense to write hypothetical jury instructions on the issue of whether the Mar-a-Lago documents were, in fact, personal property, Donald Trump's property.

In the filing, Special Counsel Jack Smith wrote, quote, the court should be aware at the outset that Trump's entire effort to rely on the PRA, the Presidential Records Act, is not based on any facts. It is a post hoc justification that was concocted more than a year after he left the White House.

The special counsel also writes, there is no basis in law or fact for that legal presumption, and the court should reject Trump's effort to invent one as a vehicle to inject the Presidential Records Act into this case.

What do you see there, Elie?

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, John, Jack Smith's frustration really just jumps off the page in this brief. That, by the way, classifies as a prosecutorial temper tantrum. I mean, usually prosecutors are very just the facts, very sort of deferential to a judge. And here we see Jack Smith really expressing his frustration at the judge. And the source of his frustration is that Judge Cannon has expressed a real willingness to entertain and perhaps introduced to the jury this defense that Donald Trump has raised based on the Presidential Records Act.

And Jack Smith's response, and we can break it down a bit more as we go ahead here, but his response basically boils down to it's a falsity. As a matter of fact, this never happened. Trump never properly designated the documents.

[07:15:02]

And, second of all, even if he had, it fails legally.

So, Jack Smith has had it and you can sense that in this brief.

BERMAN: And in asking in this brief for the judge to rule specifically on this matter now, why is that significant?

HONIG: So, this is a really important point. What Jack Smith says in this brief is, if you're going to rule against us, if you're going to entertain this defense and potentially instruct the jury on this defense, we need to know now because we may well appeal you.

He's going to appeal if he loses, but he's being polite about it. He says, we may well appeal you. And there's a really important reason for that, John. Once a case goes to a jury, even if the jury gets legally flawed instructions, when the jury comes back, if they come back with an acquittal, with a not guilty verdict, there's nothing a prosecutor can do. A prosecutor cannot appeal a not guilty verdict.

So, what Jack Smith is saying here is, we're worried that you may make a mistake here that may lead to a not guilty verdict and then there will be nothing we can do. So, if you're going to do this, tell us now and we'll appeal you.

BERMAN: Does it stop with the idea of keeping the door open for an appeal, or is this also possibly a first step in a real long shot effort to get her removed from the case?

HONIG: Yes. So, that's possible. It is extraordinarily rare, but there is a procedure for this and it can happen sometimes where prosecutors will ask a judge or will ask an appeals court to remove a federal judge from a case.

Now, you have to be really careful about when and why you do that as a federal prosecutor. First of all, it's a pretty precipitous move. Second of all, if you lose, you have a kind of awkward scenario where you've asked the judge to be kicked off and then they're not.

It's supposed to be reserved for cases where the judge has made repeated errors that evince some sort of bias.

Now, Judge Cannon did rule in favor of Donald Trump before this case was indicted. You'll remember the special master issue and she got reversed by the court of appeals there. And so it's possible, I think unlikely but possible, that if the judge rules against DOJ here, they may take that sort of extreme step of asking her to step aside.

BERMAN: Elie Honig, great to see you. And, again, we're going to talk much more about this. This has to do with the claim that these records that were at Mar-a-Lago were personal property. Trump argues just because he had them there, they were personal property.

Elie Honig great to see you this morning, much more to discuss. So, as one of the top watchdogs of Congress called it put this in the category of bills that are going absolutely nowhere, a new Congressional proposal to create a Donald J. Trump Airport.

Then paper towels, pigs in a blanket and now Ozempic, Costco making the new wildly popular weight loss drugs like Ozempic available. Why the big move and how it will work.

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[07:20:00]

BOLDUAN: Total eclipse mania is in full swing, friends. People finalizing travel plans looking for their eclipse-safe glasses, very fashionable, and checking the weather and hoping for clear skies and a clear view.

Canada -- here's -- let's go through some of what the mania is all about and the level it's reaching. Canada's Niagara region has now even declared a state of emergency to prepare for the influx of tourists expected for Monday's big event.

And in New York, a group of prison inmates have filed a lawsuit to gain access to watch the eclipse, this is after the state's Department of Corrections announced that all prisons would be locked down during the solar event due to safety concerns.

The six inmates are arguing that the eclipse is a religious event and one they must, quote, witness and reflect on to observe their faiths.

Moving on, if you are able to watch and you are not in prison and watch it all happen, according to NASA you should wear a set of eclipse glasses that complies with international safety standards. The term you should be looking for is ISO-compliant. And these are glasses that are like thousands of times darker than standard sunglasses, and this matters because staring directly at the sun, as a reminder, even during an eclipse is not a safe thing to do.

You can also catch it all right here on CNN. CNN's special live coverage of the eclipse begins Monday at 1:00 P.M. Eastern, and you can catch it streaming on MAX. John?

BERMAN: All right. New concerns this morning about the wildly popular Zyn nicotine pouch. The small pouches of nicotine are packaged in containers similar to mints, and they come in flavors like citrus, cinnamon and coffee, and they look an awful lot like candy.

CNN's Jacqueline Howard is with us now. What are the concerns here, Jacqueline?

JACQUELINE HOWARD, CNN HEALTH REPORTER: Well, John, one major concern, we still don't have much research or data on these nicotine pouches. So, there is a debate here. On one hand, these pouches are marketed for adults ages 21 and older who have a history of using nicotine. So, some users use them to help quit smoking. But on the other hand, like you said, they're packaged to kind of look like candy and there're concerns about making them accessible to children. And at a young age, if a teenager starts using nicotine pouches, they can develop a nicotine addiction.

So, what we know about nicotine pouches, they are tobacco-free. And the way that you use them, they are put between like the cheek and the gum and you kind of hold them in your mouth and you do -- it does provide nicotine. So, you do get doses of nicotine. And they're easily hidden in the mouth when they're used. But that nicotine that it provides, that's a concern among health experts.

We know that nicotine is associated with cardiovascular effects.

[07:25:00]

There're some concerns about holding these pouches in your mouth, the impact it could have on your dental health. And, of course, we know nicotine is addictive. So, there are those health concerns as these products become more popular, especially among younger ages.

But, again, on the other hand, there's the argument that these products may be used among older adults who are trying to quit smoking. So, you see this debate going on here, John.

BERMAN: All right, watching this closely. Jacqueline Howard, thank you very much.

And, Kate, do not look directly in the sun.

BOLDUAN: What?

BERMAN: Do not.

BOLDUAN: That was my afternoon plans all gone out the window now. Don't stare at me then, John.

Wisconsin warning sides, what both President Biden and Donald Trump need to take away from what voters had to say last night.

And, first, he fired them, and now he is suing them. Donald Trump is going after two former contestants on The Apprentice over their shares in his media company.

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[07:30:00]