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Tropical Storm Debby Kills 4, Drops a Month's Worth Of Rain On Florida; U.S. Markets Plunge Amid Recession Fears; Simone Biles' Paris Olympics Ends With Silver In Floor Final. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired August 05, 2024 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Talk about purple boxes everywhere that you see purple on this map is greater than ten inches of rainfall measured either by the radar or by people on the ground, there are spots now that we're looking at a foot and a half of rain flash flood emergency, the west of Lake City at this point. But now the rain and the wind and the saltwater starting to come on shore in Savannah, in Charleston. Very, very heavy rainfall and the potential, the high risk of flooding because the saltwater wants to go this way because that's the way the wind's blowing and the rain wants to go downhill because that's how the rivers run.

They clash right there and it doesn't work out very well. So yes, we are going to have significant amounts of rain and I'm even looking at a couple of models that by the weekend we could have five or seven inches of rain along Long Island as this thing continues toward to the north and to the northeast.

Are we record breaking yet? No, by no stretch of the imagination. By any tropical cyclone standard, Florida, over a tropical cyclone, 45 inches of rain would be needed in one spot to break that record and talk about Houston to the west over there, that would be 60 and Harvey, not really worried about that. But North Carolina, 35, South Carolina, 29, the Grand Strand all the way down to Charleston, all the way down to Tybee and Savannah, that's the area that I'm worried about with this onshore flow, with the storm surge from the really the wrong direction.

We had a lot of surge here. We had four to six feet of surge here. Do we get four to six feet here? Well, that'd be a problem because I mean, places like Garden City up in South Carolina, they will flood on king tide, let alone a real tide, a real surge in that water trying to run downhill. So yes, big problems when the weather service uses words like catastrophic, devastating in their texts. You know, they're worried and you should be paying attention to.

KEILAR: Yes, they're not, you know, wild with their adjectives. They're reserved. And so we are paying attention.

Chad, thank you for taking us through that.

Debby made landfall in Steinhatchee, Florida, which is on the West Coast. That's in Taylor County. And joining us now is the county's emergency managing management director, John Louk. John, thanks so much for being with us. Can you tell us what you're dealing with right now, what the conditions are like?

JOHN LOUK, EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT DIRECTOR, TAYLOR COUNTY, FLORIDA SHERIFF'S OFFICE (via phone): Well, right now we're, we still have a little bit of a tropical storm force winds that started to tail off the strongest part of the storm that obviously has passed over us. We are just now, most of the storm surge is receding. We're still trying to get some final numbers on our rainfall and the actual, the storm surge amount. But we were very blessed that we didn't get what was forecasted.

KEILAR: Yes, no, certainly. And you declared a mandatory evacuation for coastal and low line areas. Do you have a sense of how many people stayed and have any of them been in touch?

LOUK: Well, we were very fortunate that most people did evacuate. We only had a very few that decided to stay in their homes. Obviously that since Adelia is fresh on everybody's mind, they had that sense of caution and safety to go ahead and move out.

KEILAR: Yes, you mentioned Idalia because Idalia made a landfall in Taylor County just about a year ago. So if people think they've heard of Steinhatchee before, they have, and it wasn't all that long ago. Residents where you are still recovering from that.

How concerned are you about that one-two punch and what do you need to recover a second time?

LOUK: Well, let's say we're very fortunate now. We're still, we haven't been able to conduct our damage assessments, initial damage assessments just yet. We're waiting on some to put some teams together and like I say, to get some final numbers.

But at this time, it seems like we are looking pretty good. It's just waiting on the power to get restored and a sense of normalcy at this point.

KEILAR: Yes, John, that is good news to hear that at least right now it sounds like a pretty good prognosis. John Louk, thank you so much for being with us. We appreciate it.

LOUK: Thank you.

KEILAR: And coming up, global markets are plunging, growing fears of a recession. So what's it going to mean for your wallet and for this year's presidential race? We'll have that next.

[15:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: All right, we are now in the final few minutes before the closing bell on Wall Street, and it has been a horrible day for the markets. The Dow right now, down more than 1,000 points, almost 1,100, in fact. The tech-heavy Nasdaq and the S&P, also down -- deep in the red, I should say.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: Yes, those losses across the board all day, fueling fears that the U.S. is inching closer to a recession. But are those fears well-founded or premature? CNN's Julia Chatterley is in New York.

So, Julia, let's talk about that in a moment, but I just want to get to how important these last few minutes of the trading day are. What are you looking for here?

JULIA CHATTERLEY, CNN ANCHOR, FIRST MOVE: You're asking exactly the right question. Very important is the answer, because this really helps us set the tone, not only for what happens overnight, but perhaps what we'll see tomorrow when the U.S. markets open up again. So what I'm looking for, and I mentioned this to you an hour or so ago, are we seeing buying or selling into the close?

And actually, for the Dow that you're showing there, we're actually seeing more selling pressure into the close, which is not a good sign.

[15:40:00]

If you look at the Nasdaq, however, which is the tech-heavy sector, that's actually off the lows, and that's been where a lot of the heaviest selling pressure in those big tech names has been focused. So that's a bit of a better sign.

The other thing I'm going to watch overnight is what happens in Asia and that Japanese stock market. Remember, we saw the Japanese stocks falling a monster 12 percent overnight. Did they bounce back, or do we see more selling pressure? Because again, that's going to set the tone for what we see in the U.S. markets tomorrow.

And the one caveat I'll add, if people are looking at their 401ks and thinking, yuck, this is an awful day, it is, there's a lot of people that might be thinking there's opportunity to buy here, but that's not the kind of thing you do if you're about some kind of event between Iran and Israel, perhaps, over the next 24 to 48 hours.

So that can also keep people out of here and add to some of the fear factor that we're seeing at this moment. There's just a lot to consider, guys.

KEILAR: Yes, it certainly is. And should Americans be worried about a recession, Julia?

CHATTERLEY: Another good question. No one is talking at this moment about an imminent recession in the United States. What they're talking about, particularly after that jobs data that we got on Friday and some of the weakness in the manufacturing sector last week, that the risks are rising.

And I think that's very clear. And that led to the finger pointing over just why the Fed hasn't started to cut rates yet. And I think that's a reasonable question to be asking. But we have to take a step back. The U.S. economy is still adding overall jobs. And yes, the data is softening, but I do think the Federal Reserve does still have time to cut rates. And it will decide based on the next few data points that we see, I think, just how much they do.

So I don't want people panicking about an imminent recession. Don't look at Twitter and social media and think, what's going on here?

There is still time for the Federal Reserve to help support this. We just need more data points. And the silver lining, as I keep saying to you, we're not talking about if the Fed now cuts rates, we're talking about how much. And the data will help us tell that over the next few weeks.

JIMENEZ: Julia Chatterley, thanks for guiding us through those numbers, because yes, there's a whole lot of red and a lot of people who are likely wondering what is going on. Really appreciate it.

I want to talk more about this with Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.

So let's start with the economy, because maybe it's the differences with the market versus the economy, because even when the markets were doing well, we constantly have heard from Americans that they weren't feeling the gains as much in their pockets. And I'm wondering how you read these economic indicators politically and how it may complicate things for the incumbent administration, which in this case is Vice President Harris.

LARRY SABATO, DIRECTOR, CETNER FOR POLITICS AT UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA: Well, Omar, it's not good news, obviously, for the incumbent administration and for the vice president. But it's one day and maybe it turns into one week. I don't know how long it's going to last. I don't think anybody does.

But that's not how most people measure the economy. It is true that about half the public has some stock investment, even if it's in their IRA or other retirement account.

But again, that's not how they measure it. They're much more likely to measure the economy and how they feel about the economy from the price of gasoline when they go to fill up their car twice a week. They go to the store and they look at the price of eggs and milk and bread.

That's what determines how people feel. And it's one of the reasons why they have been feeling so badly. And they interpret even good news as bad news or they discount the good news and say, I know what I see at the gas station. I know what I see when I go to the grocery store. So those are the feelings, sentiments that that Vice President Harris has to focus on and will, no doubt.

JIMENEZ: And I just want to expand on that because, look, some might say the economy overall is in good shape. As you mentioned, this is one day. Sure, it could turn into one week. But are you surprised that this is the economy that's upset so many? Or was that initial spike in inflation enough to hurt people's perception to the point that it's just made the impact of these numbers hit differently than maybe they would with a similar economy in a different year?

SABATO: Yes, the timing of this was awful. That is, it extended over years. And every time people went to the store, the prices had gone up a little bit more and a little bit more.

And so it's cumulative. And if it puts people in a bad mood, if they are grumpy about the economy, they're probably grumpy about the people running the government. But again, there are other factors in an election that will come into play in the general election.

You know, when economies are going really strongly in the United States and elsewhere, the incumbent party almost always wins another term, whether it's the incumbent running or a substitute for the incumbent.

[15:45:00]

When there's a bad economy, it doesn't guarantee that the incumbent party is going to lose, it just makes it much more difficult. And the incumbent party has to constantly stress the good news outside of the economy.

KEILAR: Let's talk about the substitute for the incumbent, because you have former President Trump labeling this now the Kamala crash. He's warning of a Great Depression of 2024. I wonder what you think of that, but also what you think about the chances of him making this stick to her, a substitute for the incumbent versus actually Joe Biden.

SABATO: Brianna, it's tougher when you don't have the incumbent to attack. And it's one reason why Trump has been off his game. He's not sure how much people will agree that Kamala Harris is responsible for what they may see as Joe Biden's mistakes.

And so far, clearly, it hasn't hurt her that much. In fact, she's been gaining speed. She's been gaining ground on Trump.

So I think it's important that people realize we haven't heard the vice presidential nominee yet. We haven't seen the Democratic Convention. There's a good chance that Harris can keep the positive momentum going through the convention and probably all the way to Labor Day, which used to be, and maybe this year, the actual launch of the general election campaign.

So it's just too early to say, oh, this is the end of it. We can call the election now. No, we can't. No, we can't.

Also, Trump, if I can add this, he is one of the people who may be helping to talk us into a recession, though I agree with the people who've said that's very unlikely. But his language is always apocalyptic. And it hurts him in situations like this because the news actually is bad. But he always says it's bad. It's awful. It never would have happened if I'd been president. If I were there, I could solve this in one day. You know, even his base must wonder whether that's true.

KEILAR: Yes, well, he's calling it a depression. And it's the question is obviously not the D word. It's the R word here.

Larry, it's always great to discuss these things with you. Thank you so much for being with us.

SABATO: Thank you both. Thank you.

KEILAR: And still ahead, a major show of sportsmanship by the GOAT, Simone Biles at the Paris Olympics. We'll show you what happened next.

[15:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JIMENEZ: We're always following the latest from the summer games. I mean, moments ago, Noah Lyles, the fastest man in the world by little fractions of seconds, won the first round of the men's 200-meter race.

KEILAR: And Simone Biles will leave Paris with four new medals, earning silver in the gymnastics floor final. And CNN's Coy Wire is in Paris with the latest. Coy, what's going on?

COY WIRE, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Hi, Brianna and Omar. Yes, that's a wrap for the goat here. She finishes out her 2024 Olympics with a silver to add to the three golds she already won here.

Now, she missed today on medaling in the beam, but her floor routine just after that was jaw dropping. She stepped out of bounds a couple of times, likely costing her the gold, but her difficulty level was on such another level that she still won silver. So she leaves Paris with five more gymnastic medals for an American record, 11 in her name.

Now, Brazil's 25-year-old Rebeca Andrade, she won her first gold of these games. And check out this incredible photo. This display of sportsmanship afterwards, Simone Biles, fellow American Jordan Chiles, bowing down to Andrade on the podium.

I caught up with another Team USA star, Suni Lee, who added three more medals to her name here and asked her about this remarkable moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SUNI LEE, 2-TIME OLYMPIC GOLD MEDALIST: I feel like in the sport of gymnastics, only the gymnast will know really how much respect you have for each other. And also, like, we are the only people that know what we go through every single day to get to where we are. So seeing someone succeed, honestly, just makes me really happy.

And I was so happy for her, too. I was up there jumping up and down. But yes, it was a great moment.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIRE: All right. And also, we caught up here earlier with perhaps the most powerful right arm on the planet, Team USA's Ryan Crouser. He did something remarkable this week, an Olympic shot put gold for a third straight time. No one else has ever won three, period, in the event. And, you know, he's 31 years old, a three-peat Olympic champion. And he says he still might not be done, Omar and Brianna.

He is self-coached. He practices in his backyard. And he is just a big burly man, but actually a sweetheart, a very introspective man at heart.

So one of the many stories of these incredible athletes from around the world coming here to shine on their biggest stage, capturing their moment.

KEILAR: That's amazing. His backyard must be bigger than mine.

JIMENEZ: Yes, or a lot of broken windows, one of the two.

KEILAR: Yes. That's amazing, Coy. Thank you so much for that.

Coy Wire, we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: Moments ago, a major court decision. A federal judge has ruled that Google violated U.S. antitrust law with its search business. The decision hands the tech giant a staggering court defeat. It's one with the potential to reshape how millions of Americans get their information online.

JIMENEZ: Yes, and in this lawsuit, it was filed during the Trump administration. The U.S. government accused Google of using exclusive contracts to block would-be rivals like Microsoft's Bing and DuckDuckGo. I don't really remember DuckDuckGo.

But the judge also said, quote, after having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion. Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly. So we're going to watch for the impacts there. Pretty wide reach.

KEILAR: Yes, that is some big news there. Thank you so much for hanging out today.

JIMENEZ: Yes, thanks for having me.

KEILAR: And "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN Breaking News.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: And welcome to "THE LEAD." I'm Jake Tapper. It's a busy news day with multiple breaking stories.

We're just moments away from the closing bell on Wall Street after this morning saw the highest level of market volatility since the beginning of COVID more than four years ago, March 2020. The Dow opened more than a thousand points lower in reaction to Friday's unexpected ugly jump in the unemployment rates in the United States.