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75 Million-Plus Under Severe Storm Threat from Texas to Vermont; New Photos Show Trump Aide Moving Boxes Around Mar-a-Lago; One Killed, Dozens Injured After Deadly Turbulence. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired May 22, 2024 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, the Beatles said they were more popular than Jesus Christ, and I think that didn't go over that well either.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It was a slightly more conservative time.

WILLIAMS: It's a slightly more conservative time.

HUNT: Remember when their hair was like the wildest thing?

WILLIAMS: Is the hair the wildest thing?

HUNT: Going on in our culture? Oh, okay. That's where we are.

Thanks to all of you for joining us this morning. And thanks to our panel for being here. I'm Kasie Hunt.

Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, a string of deadly tornadoes ripping across the Midwest and now storms are threatening cities from Texas to Vermont.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A federal judge found strong evidence of crimes before Donald Trump was charged in a classified documents case. And today we're seeing new images of a Trump aide moving boxes around Mar-a-Lago.

And all hell broke loose. Passengers described the moments of fatal turbulence on a flight that left one person dead and more than 100 injured. We're getting new details this morning.

I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan. Sarah is out crushing it this morning. This is CNN News Central.

BOLDUAN: And we need to begin this morning in Iowa, where people are waking up to utter devastation in what was just yesterday, their homes, their neighborhoods, their towns, the whole state, a string of deadly tornadoes tore through the Midwest last night. Western Iowa bore the brunt of it with crazy winds and reports of 17 tornadoes touching down across the state. One city reported wind gusts of 100 miles an hour.

Governor Kim Reynolds, she issued disaster emergencies for 15 of Iowa's 19 counties. And officials say there are multiple fatalities from these storms. But at this point, they're not giving a more specific death toll. Many injuries were also reported in Greenfield after a tornado tore through that small city. One person from a neighboring town described the destruction in Greenfield, saying there is basically nothing left.

They're waking up to a very tough reality there today, and the threat is not over. More than 75 million people, as I mentioned earlier, from Texas to Vermont are facing the risk of severe storms today.

CNN's Whitney Wild is in Greenfield, Iowa. She's joining us now. Whitney, what are you seeing?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, we are about a mile from where that destruction hit in Greenfield. There's a curfew now so that police and first responders can do everything they can because this is now a search and rescue mission. So, I'll just give you a quick look again. We're about a mile from where that destruction happened.

And, Kate, as you mentioned, Western Iowa is where the brunt of this storm hit, towns like Greenfield most affected. And to give you a context of what a tornado of this magnitude meets for a town like Greenfield. This town is small. There's only about 2,000 people who live here, according to a recent census. The square mileage here is less than two square miles. This is a tiny town and a massive storm just ripped through it.

As you mentioned, there were 17 reports of tornadoes in Iowa alone. As we know, this storm system was massive. It impacted Midwestern states, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa included in that. Here again in Iowa, the impact was huge in Montgomery County. That's a neighboring county to where we are. 28 homes were impacted in Carbon, Iowa. A storm team was there right after a tornado hit. They ran right up to a home that was directly impacted. Here is that moment, Kate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there somebody here? Call out. Down here, all right. Are you in shelter? All right. Nobody's hurt?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: Hundreds of thousands of people lost power throughout the storm system, which hit at least in Iowa late afternoon, ripping through those Midwestern states again, hundreds of thousands of people losing power in states like Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin. The damage here will be assessed by Governor Reynolds. Kate, she's expected to come to Greenfield today. Back to you,

BOLDUAN: What they're going to see is from that aerial video, you could see the literal path that it took and just cut through those tornadoes. Whitney, thank you so much. John? BERMAN: All right. We have new images this morning. For the first time, we're seeing footage of Trump aide and co-defendant Walt Nauta moving boxes around Mar-a-Lago. The photos are dated June 1st, 2022. Prosecutors say that Nauta moved these boxes shortly before a Trump attorney was going to look through them after getting a subpoena to turn over classified materials.

Today, the judge in the case, Aileen Cannon, will hear motions to dismiss charges against Nauta and other co-defendants.

[07:05:01]

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is with us now. All of a sudden, a lot of new information here, Katelyn.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes, John, that's because there's a backlog in this case of the judge handling all of these requests from Donald Trump and his co-defendants, Carlos de Oliveira and Walt Nauta, to dismiss the case, to challenge the case, to get more information in the case before the trial.

We're seeing these new images of Walt Nauta now because there were documents, motions filed months ago back in February that are just now becoming public because the judge says it's time to make them public. We're going to start having arguments on them, but it's just a sliver of the things that Judge Aileen Cannon has to work through before we even get close to a trial here in this classified documents case in Florida.

John, the thing that is happening today in court, it has a little bit to do with those pictures, but it's not actually about everything that we're getting in the court record over the past couple days. It's something that was filed way back in February by Walt Nauta. He argued that he was being retaliated against by the Justice Department because he spoke to them several times. They say he gave them false information in those interviews, and then he stopped cooperating. He says he shouldn't have been charged at that time. That's what Judge Aileen Cannon is going to be hearing legal arguments over today.

But remember, even though Walt Nauta is saying that he was retaliated against, he was selectively and vindictively prosecuted when he said he didn't know much about the movement of boxes, there are those images of him moving them around Mar-a-Lago resort back in 2022. John?

BERMAN: Yes, looking at the pictures right now. All right, an interesting day ahead. Katelyn Polantz, keep us posted. I appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: All hell broke loose. That is how passengers are describing what happened in the moments when their plane hit severe turbulence that left one person dead. What the passengers and the airline are saying now today.

If Virginia man pleads guilty for having ammunition in his backpack while on vacation in Turks and Caicos. What that guilty plea now, not only him, but the four other Americans facing similar charges in Turks and Caicos right now.

And an investigation has been launched into the death of Friends star Matthew Perry.

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BERMAN: We have new reporting this morning on what happened when severe turbulence hit a Singapore Airlines flight leaving one person dead and more than 100 now injured. That 100 number is just in. One passenger said all hell broke loose on this flight from London to Singapore. It happened ten hours into a 13-hour flight. Passengers say many people do not have a chance to put their seatbelts on because it happened so quickly.

The pilot declared a medical emergency and diverted the flight to Bangkok. That is where CNN's Ivan Watson is this morning, I believe, Ivan, outside the hospital where some of these now more than 100 people who were injured are being treated.

IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That's right. A number of hospitals where passengers and crew members were transported to after the Singapore Airlines flight had to make this emergency landing here in Bangkok, cutting short its trip to Singapore because of this sudden and violent turbulence that hit.

The numbers of injured people are kind of staggering if you think about it. According to the hospital authorities here, there were a total of 85 people hospitalized in the aftermath of this. And if you consider that there were 211 passengers on board and then some 18 crew, I mean, that's a third perhaps of all the people who were on board this flight.

Let's take a listen to one of the passengers who spoke earlier to our own Erin Burnett describing what it was like and how sudden this all was.

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ANDREW DAVIES, SINGAPORE AIRLINES PASSENGER: The plane just felt like it dropped. It probably only lasted a few seconds, but I remember vividly seeing shoes and iPads and iPhones and cushions and blankets and cutlery and plates and cups flying through the air and crashing to the ceiling. The gentleman next to me had a cup of coffee, which went straight all over me and up to the ceiling.

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WATSON: Now, John, this gentleman, he said he had seen the seatbelt warning come on and had actually put his seatbelt on, which probably protected him. But if you want evidence of how sudden it was, he and other passengers have described almost all of the airline crew being injured, which suggests that they didn't get time to buckle up and to brace themselves for this, again, sudden and violent turbulence. The CEO of Singapore Airlines, which I might add, has a stellar safety record. He has publicly apologized for what happened and expresses condolences for the one passenger who died on board the flight. It's a 73-year-old British man named Geoffrey Kitchen.

But still, the investigation will have to reveal how this could have happened so suddenly and caught crew members and passengers off guard and hurt so many people. And just a final note, there are still 20 people from the plane that are in intensive care right now, just highlighting again how violent and sudden this turbulence really was.

[07:15:01]

John?

BERMAN: Yes. The footage that we're seeing now, Ivan, just paint paints a picture of pure mayhem.

All right, Ivan Watson in Bangkok this morning, Ivan, thank you very much for that. New warnings from President Biden this morning that Donald Trump is sounding a bit too much like Hitler.

And this morning, Israel threatening serious consequences to countries who decide to formally recognize a Palestinian state.

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BOLDUAN: Donald Trump is back on the campaign trail today in Texas, and as the saying goes, Donald Trump is clearly hoping everything is bigger in Texas, and that it also applies to campaign donations. He's set to attend several fundraising events there today.

[07:20:02]

And he is also facing fierce, new backlash and criticism from President Biden today over remarks that Trump made, signaling that he's open to looking into state restrictions on contraception, remarks that he later backtracked from.

President Biden also taking on Donald Trump for his now removed social media posting that nodded to Nazi Germany. Biden's warning there is that Trump's posting is the language of Hitler Germany -- of Hitler's Germany. Listen.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's next for America?

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: This was not his official account? Wow. A unified Reich, that's Hitler's language. That's not America's. He cares about holding on to power. I care about you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Daniel Strauss is tracking all of this for us. Daniel, where does this go from here? DANIEL STRAUSS, CNN REPORTER: I mean, that's a good question, but this is the latest example in a long list of statements that do allude to Nazi Germany from Trump and Trump's orbit. And it's pretty clear that the Biden campaign has been eager to jump on this. Even in the few hours after this Truth Social post came up, the Biden campaign, the vice president, Biden's aides all released statements and pointed both to this particular Truth Social post and past ones, such as Trump saying that there were very fine people on both sides, referring to the march in Charlottesville years ago. And so the Biden campaign sees this as an example to really go on offense here.

BOLDUAN: It sure does. And what about contraception? What's this back and forth?

STRAUSS: Right. This is basically that Trump in a local radio interview recently said that he would look very closely on some kind of restrictions on abortion contraception, and that he would have a new plan that Americans would find very interesting in the coming week or days or so. And this comes after the former president himself has said that he wants to leave restrictions on abortion up to states.

Again, this is a point of tension within the Republican Party. There are elements in the GOP that want to move further in response to the Dobbs ruling on contraception restrictions. Trump himself has tried to veer away from that because he's worried that that would alienate swing voters and general election voters that he needs to win this election.

BOLDUAN: Daniel Strauss, thank you so much. John?

BERMAN: So, after being told by doctors he might never walk again, Actor Jeremy Renner is doing more than that. He is running. The 53- year-old was involved in a near fatal snowplow accident two years ago and has titanium rods and screws in his legs. Renner said Brooks running shoes had been a big part of his recovery. So the company caught wind of this and the results, as you might imagine, a new ad campaign.

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JEREMY RENNER, ACTOR: You know, I'm still worried about these bolts and screws coming out because I learned that they can come undone, right? Terrifying, but I don't care anymore. I just don't care. Let them come out.

I'm proud that I'm walking. I'm proud that my family is thriving. And I'm proud that I've taken something that could be perceived as tragic or an accident and turned it into something to a superpower, I'm proud of that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Renner says his journey has been grueling, but he hopes his story can motivate others. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Really remarkable. New reporting this hour on how House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is seizing now on the fractured Republican majority and what that means for Democrats.

And a new Barbie is unveiled honoring Venus Williams and other female athletes who have broken barriers in sports.

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[07:25:00]

BOLDUAN: New this morning, CNN has new reporting about detailing how the top Democrat in the House, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, is seizing on the fractured and slim Republican majority.

CNN's Lauren Fox is joining us right now. She's got this great reporting. Lauren, take us inside. How is Jeffries making his mark with us?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, this is new reporting from me and our colleague, Melanie Zanona. And, really, what we learned about the minority leader in interviews with nearly two dozen people is that this is someone who operates behind the scenes, oftentimes not wanting to take credit in the moment, someone who also has the earned the trust of different parts of his party by listening, by taking in feedback.

Many members that we talked to said this is someone who has navigated tensions within the caucus when it comes to the Israel-Hamas War, something the Democrats have dealt with for years for years now as an issue, but something that obviously has come to the forefront within their party since October 7th, and specifically and unique anecdote that I heard in the process of reporting out this story was the fact that Jeffries quietly secured additional money for Democratic earmarks in the last spending bill.

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This was something that Democrats had been fighting for more than a year, according to the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee.