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Search For Kentucky Shooting Suspect Ends; Top NatSec Officials: Iranian Hackers Sent Unsolicited Stolen Trump Campaign Info To People Associated With Biden Campaign; CDC: Fatal Overdoses Fall To 3-Year Low In U.S. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired September 19, 2024 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[13:34:20]
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: After braving sinkholes, caves and thick brush in the search for the I-75 shooter, authorities in Kentucky say the 11-day manhunt is finally over.
That is after a couple hoping for a piece of the reward money say they stumbled upon a body yesterday. And get this, that discovery was captured on video as the couple live-streamed their search.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's deteriorated.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, Mylanta. Oh, Mylanta.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KEILAR: Now police say two troopers were drawn to the same area and arrived around the same time as the couple.
[13:35:00]
But we should note, authorities have not identified the body yet, but they say that they are certain that this was the suspect.
We have CNN's Nick Valencia following this this for us.
And, Nick, the search was just in this colossal area of a forest. What drew everyone to this particular area?
NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, there we're buzzards circling around the area. And the couple talked about following a foul odor, a smell to make this discovery.
But a big sigh of relief, Brianna, in this area, Laurel County and the surrounding areas, after about two weeks of very fear-inducing manhunt. Things are slowly getting back to normal there.
And it was a pair of youtubers, aptly named the McCoys, who helped lead the end to this 11-day manhunt. It all happened over dinner. They were on a date night. And about five
days into the unsuccessful manhunt, they decided that they wanted a piece of this reward.
So they decided to go into that vast and rugged -- rugged wilderness. And after about six days, they made the discovery following a pack of buzzards flying overhead and also that foul odor.
They talked to our local affiliate about what they saw.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We went on a date night last Friday night, Friday evening. We said, let's go see if we can find this guy.
We started, put our boots on, started over the hill and got way down in the holler. For the birds, I think one of the vultures come up with something in his mouth. We knew we was getting close to whatever he had. We were getting close to it.
And Sheila smelled -- go ahead, Sheila.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes. A horrible smell of something dead. You could smell it. And I told him, I said, there's something awful in here. It smells. It smelt really bad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VALENCIA: There was a pair of Kentucky State Troopers that had the same idea. They also saw buzzards circling around. And you could all see that on the live stream.
Almost immediately after the four of them encountered each other, that's when the couple made the discovery of that badly decomposed body.
And so far, police said that it has not been positively identified as Joseph Couch, but it's believed to be the suspected I-75 shooter because of items found near the body.
No cause of death given, Brianna, but there was a weapon recovered nearby.
His body is currently in the capital in Kentucky where it's going through those positive identifications.
The couple, meanwhile, they are $35,000 richer. I talked to Crimestoppers earlier this morning and they are expected to get that full $35,000 reward -- Brianna?
KEILAR: Yes. Look, this story is -- this manhunt has upset this community for so long. It is so serious. What he did was so serious.
VALENCIA: Yes.
KEILAR: But I'm trying to wrap my head around just how adorable the dialogue is on -- on this video. Because you're so often really bleeping out video, Nick, and there she is saying, "Oh, Mylanta," as she makes this discovery.
VALENCIA: It's so adorable. They did the job that no one asked them to do. In fact, police were telling people to stay away from this area.
But it took -- their name is the McCoys. How fitting is that? You know, the Hatfields and McCoys. We all know about that drama, that historic drama in that area.
And it took these two to ignore police. But we know, again, that they helped solve this 11-day manhunt. And thanks to them, the community can rest a little easier tonight -- Brianna.
KEILAR: Thank goodness they are safe as they did that.
Nick Valencia --
VALENCIA: Yes, they are.
KEILAR: -- thank you for the update on that.
Boris?
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Oh, Mylanta.
Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour.
More testimony today in the Coast Guard's inquiry into last year's Titan submersible implosion that killed all five people on board.
A mission specialist on the support vessel when Titan vanished became emotional while discussing the tragedy and its aftermath. Listen.
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UNIDENTIFIED MISSION SPECIALIST: It's not going to bring our friends back.
I hope that this investigation creates an understanding that with this ocean exploration, there's risk. And without taking that risk and the exploration, you know, the world will still be fine.
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SANCHEZ: We're also getting some remarkable new video -- look at it now -- showing some of the wreckage from Titan. This is more than two miles deep on the ocean floor. They were fragments of the vessel, including parts of the hull that can be seen in this newly released footage.
Also, good news for some, bad news for others at Amazon this week. The company is giving a pay raise to it's more than 800,000 warehouse and transportation workers. Also offering free Prime membership ahead of the busy holiday season. But the news, not quite as sweet for corporate workers. We're told,
this week, that they must be back in the office five days a week starting next year.
Amazon has faced resistance in its push to end it's pandemic or a hybrid policy with workers in Seattle walking out last year.
And in just seven days, the Boeing strike involving some 33,000 union members has cost the company and its workers more than half $1 billion. And those costs are expected to climb rapidly in week two, if there is no settlement.
[13:40:03]
The union tells CNN that the two sides remain far apart in their discussions.
Coming up, federal officials are revealing what they know about an Iranian hack into the Trump campaign as the former president makes new claims, without evidence, about the investigation. We have details straight ahead.
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KEILAR: Former President Trump is using a foreign hack into his campaign to attack his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
Top national security officials today confirmed that Iranian hackers stole material from the Trump campaign and sent it to people well associated with the Biden campaign.
The federal agency said there was no evidence that the Biden campaign responded.
Trump posted, quote, "When does Kamala and her campaign go before a grand jury on Iran, Iran, Iran? My campaign when -- "when," I think he meant "went" there, he did misspell it -- "went through hell on the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax."
[14:45:05]
A Harris campaign official telling CNN that the hacked material was not used.
Joining us now is CNN national security analyst, Carrie Cordero, who is an attorney who served as counsel to the assistant attorney general for national security.
I mean, normally, Carrie, I think we would just be focusing on the hack itself, but now politics have been interjected into it.
So I just want you to fact check something as Trump is asking when Harris is going to be going before a grand jury. Fact-check that for us. Would there be a reason for her to go before a grand jury?
CARRIE CORDERO, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: No. And I think it's really unfortunate and really misplaced that the former president is alleging anything nefarious.
Because actually the administration, the Biden-Harris administration is doing a lot just this week to take action to counter foreign interference the election.
So it's important to point out, in this case, the former presidents campaign is the victim of this Iranian cyberattack.
The administration, however, the Biden administration, Biden-Harris administration has said that, in this election cycle, Iran and Russia, in particular, have accelerated, in the words of deputy attorney general, Lisa Monaco, who just spoke yesterday at the aspen cyber summit.
She said that those two countries have accelerated their activities to interfere in the 2024 elections.
So the administration is making a lot of efforts. FBI Director Wray announced an action against China on the cybersecurity front, where they we're recently targeting critical infrastructure.
The administration has been very clear about Iranian efforts to influence the election. And just yesterday, the Senate Intelligence Committee held a hearing focused on what the tech companies are doing to counter election interference.
KEILAR: In the past, when he has not been the victim of the hack, he has welcomed interference. But we should be clear, this is an attack on the democratic system when we see Iran or Russia trying to get involved, even though they seem to have different favorites in this election, for sure.
How serious is this attempted interference? How sophisticated is this?
CORDERO: Well, the Iranian effort, the most recent example of if they we're sending emails to campaign staffers where the campaign staffers -- and as I understand it from the reporting -- they we're sending it to campaign staffers' personal email accounts.
So not even sort of the campaign infrastructure. But trying to and get at it from individuals. They would have to click a link. That's a fairly rudimentary, phishing -- what we would call a phishing exercise.
So that's not so sophisticated. There are other types of activities, and particularly the activities of Russia, that Deputy Attorney General Monico was speaking about.
Where the Justice Department has brought charges against individuals affiliated with RT communications front, a media front organization for engaging in much more sophisticated online influence activity intended to affect the U.S. election.
KEILAR: All right, Carrie Cordero, thank you so much. I know that we'll hear much more about this. We appreciate it.
And still ahead, overdose deaths in the U.S. plummeting. New reporting on what is causing the sharp decline.
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[13:53:00]
SANCHEZ: Today, a glimmer of hope in a desperate fight against fatal drug overdoses and the human toll, deaths that have taken an incalculable toll on American families.
KEILAR: Yes. The CDC says that it has seen a big drop in the number of these kinds of deaths. Now at their lowest level in three years, which is pretty amazing news.
CNN medical correspondent, Meg Tirrell, is with us now.
Meg, walk us through these numbers.
MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Brianna, I mean, experts are calling this kind of unprecedented progress. And they're really trying to dive into the data to see, are these trends real and are they going to be sustainable?
We are seeing about a 10 percent drop in the most recent years' worth of data, which ended in April of this year. That gets us down to the low what's level since about 2021.
We should still note, though, that we are still seeing more than 100,000 deaths from drug overdose in the United States every year. And these are numbers that are much higher than we we're seeing before the pandemic when, during covid, these really started to surge a lot.
So we're seeing trends going in the right direction. Researchers are trying to figure out, are these real? And they say there are some indicators that say, yes, not only are fatal drug overdoses down about 10 percent, but non-fatal drug overdoses also are declining by about 15 to 20 percent nationally.
We are seeing that Fentanyl-related drug deaths are declining, particularly sharply, down 20 percent in the data from Fentanyl and other synthetic opioids. So that is really contributing to these declines -- guys?
SANCHEZ: Meg, what do recent researchers say is driving this?
TIRRELL: Yes, that's part of the mystery. They're not entirely sure. There are some interventions they think are probably helping.
One is the wider availability of Naloxone, the opioid overdose reversal drug, Narcan. You can now buy that over-the-counter in pharmacies. And just generally, they're trying to get that out there more.
Medication for opioid use disorder. They are hoping that's helping. And a lot of folks say that needs to be more accessible and Fentanyl test strips, things like that.
[13:54:59]
But there are a lot of factors that might be in play here. They are still trying to sort of solve that mystery so that they can make sure they're doing more of it to keep those numbers going down.
SANCHEZ: Yes. More of whatever it is, is better.
Meg Tirrell, thanks so much for that good news.
Still ahead, former President Trump says he is going to visit Springfield, Ohio, soon. The city's mayor, though, now issuing a proclamation granting himself temporary emergency powers as threats linked to Trump's false claims about Haitian immigrants continue to disrupt daily life.
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