Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

At Least 95 Dead Across Six States After Catastrophic Storm; Sources Say, Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) Fighting Nerves Ahead of Debate With Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) Tomorrow; Harris-Walz Campaign Launches New Attack on Trump and Vance's Health Care Plans. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired September 30, 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]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Unprecedented tragedy, the race to provide relief across a half dozen states battered by Hurricane Helene. The death toll now at 95. We will speak to the governor of North Carolina with the hardest hit states this hour and President Biden will address the nation this morning.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking overnight, new Israeli airstrikes as new signs emerge that Israel could be preparing for a ground invasion.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And a final day of prep for what could be the last debate of the presidential election season. New reporting on what J.D. Vance and Tim Walz are doing today.

I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman and Sara Sidner. This is CNN News Central.

SIDNER: Communities across the southeast are facing indescribable destruction after Hurricane Helene tore a path of devastation from Florida to Virginia. At least 95 people across six states have died. Many more people are unaccounted for at this hour. And officials believe the death toll will rise.

Right now, utility crews are working around the clock to try to restore power, but nearly 2 million customers are still in the dark. And with hundreds of roads and bridges across the region damaged or covered by debris, thousands of people are stranded, cut off from badly needed supplies.

In North Carolina, at least 36 people are dead and officials have received more than a thousand reports of people who are missing. Helene's powerful winds and floodwaters ripped homes from their foundations, causing landslides and wiping entire mountain towns from the map.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID WAGNER, HOT SPRINGS, NORTH CAROLINA BUSINESS OWNER: We watched it from the edges happen, watched the water come push through these walls, take out buildings and move them entire like areas over.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: As we assess the damage, this is looking to be Buncombe County's own Hurricane Katrina.

RYAN COLE, ASSISTANT EMERGENCY SERVICES DIRECTOR, BUNCOMBE COUNTY, NORTH CAROLINA: We have biblical devastation through the county. We've had biblical flooding here. And it has been extremely significant.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Wow. CNN's Rafael Romo is joining us now from Asheville. What are you seeing this morning? We are seeing these pictures of this just immense flooding, which authorities are calling biblical flooding. What can you tell us this morning?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Sara. That's how officials here in Buncombe County are describing the situation is a scene of devastation everywhere you see. Hard to show you right now because it's still very dark here. There is no power, whatsoever, especially in this area where we are not too far from the historic Biltmore Estate, one of the best known areas in town here in Asheville.

And we got the news overnight, the very sad news, Sara. Buncombe County officials saying that 30 people in this county alone have died, which brings the total in North Carolina closer to 40 people. And you were mentioning at the beginning, if we count the people who have died in the southeastern states, we're talking about a figure that is getting close to 100 now.

Now, here, the situation is getting better, but very, very slowly. No water for most people here in town. Still no power, but communications are getting better. People had no cell phone reception at all for the last couple of days. I was talking to a family yesterday. They have relatives in Sarasota, Florida. They haven't even been able, imagine this, Sara, to call them to let them know that they're okay. We were trying to use our satellite phone and we still couldn't reach them.

And the city has announced that two cell phone carriers are going to bring satellite trucks here to provide temporary communications for people, so people will be able to go to those satellite trucks to be able to call their families. But imagine this, a thousand calls to the 911 emergency service system to let officials know that they have a loved one, a relative who is missing.

[07:05:13]

Now, most of those people are probably okay. It's just that they have been able to reach him. The other thing here in this desperate situation, Sara, is the fact that it is very difficult to bring food and water to some of the areas surrounding Asheville, to the mountain communities, because some of the roads are still impassable.

We talked to a few people here in town about what it's been like for them to go through this, and this is what they have to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw this. I broke out in tears.

LUCY TAVERNIRA, ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA RESIDENT: It's indescribable. I don't know. It just was covered in litter and trees and mud and it's stinky and it was all the way up the street up here. It just looks like the bottom of a river.

JULIAN TORRES HARWOOD, ASHEVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA RESIDENT: It was crazy. The water came all the way up to the top of our driveway. And usually, you know, you might see a little bit of flooding down at the bottom of the street, but it came up, I mean, another 15 feet more than that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMO: And, Sara, let me leave you with some good news. We were talking about 400 impassable roads in the county as of Saturday. The figure last night was 280. So, slowly, but surely, there's some progress there. Now back to you.

SIDNER: But it is still an incredible amount of work that needs to be done. And we're seeing Asheville where you are. But this is the entire community surrounding Asheville as well. There are so many places devastated by this.

Thank you so much, Rafael Romo. I appreciate your reporting there. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Let's go now to the Middle East, where this morning there are increasing fears that an all out regional war is coming after Israeli airstrikes hit within the city limits of Beirut for the first time in a long time.

The strike overnight hit a major intersection. And just a short time ago, Hezbollah announced that the terror group will be naming a new leader to succeed Hassan Nasrallah as soon as possible, is how they put it. And, noteworthy, the first anniversary of Hamas' October 7th terror attack on Israel that Hezbollah supported is now just one week from today.

CNN's Ben Wedeman is live in Beirut at the scene of these latest strikes. Ben, tell me what you're seeing and what you're hearing.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we're -- is this apartment, the sixth floor of this building, totally destroyed. According to the Ministry of Health, four people were killed, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Palestinian faction, says that three of their members were killed.

Now, it's significant that the PFLP really hasn't been very active in this war, certainly from Lebanon, but nonetheless Israel took those men out in the early hours of the morning. What is also significant about this strike is it's the first time since hostilities ramped up, that there has been a strike outside the southern suburbs of Beirut, where Hezbollah has a large presence.

So, what we also heard in within the last two hours was from Naim Qassem, who's one of the senior deputies of Hassan Nasrallah, who gave what appears to have been a recorded speech in which he didn't seem to be indicating any willingness of Hezbollah to ceasefire, to agree to a ceasefire.

He said that as far as the organization goes, despite repeated body blows and, of course, the killing of the leader of the group, he said, we did not collapse. We are going on despite the pain and sacrifices. He said, Hezbollah will continue confronting Israel in support of the Palestinian people, Gaza, and the people of Lebanon.

So, no indication from Hezbollah at this point that it's going to change course despite the blows it has sustained in the last two weeks. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Much more to come from there. Ben Wedeman on the ground for us, Ben, thank you very much. John?

BERMAN: All right. It is the eve of the vice presidential debate and we have new reporting on what has Tim Walz feeling nervous.

And does Donald Trump's new plan to fight crime include a purge?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: You know, if you had one day, like one real rough, nasty day with the drug stores as an example.

All these stores go out of business, right? They don't pay rent that the city does that. But the whole -- it's a chain of events. It's so bad. One rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out and it will end immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[07:10:02]

BERMAN: All right. To the rescue, the space capsule that will bring two stranded astronauts home has docked at the International Space Station.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BERMAN: All right. New this morning, sources tell CNN that Governor Tim Walz is nervous ahead of his debate against Senator J.D. Vance. That debate is tomorrow night. He is nervous, apparently, that he will let Vice President Kamala Harris down.

[07:15:01]

Let's get right to CNN's Isaac Dovere. Isaac, this is your reporting. What have you heard?

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, that's right, John. Look, right now we've got Tim Walz in debate camp in Michigan doing the final preparations ahead of tomorrow night's showdown with J.D. Vance. He's got Pete Buttigieg in there playing J.D. Vance. The campaign made a point of telling folks last night that Buttigieg is wearing a cheap red tie. He has not grown a beard out, so it's not full method as he gets into this prep, the final stages here.

But Walz is someone who -- he's been in politics a long time. I reported back in August when Harris picked him that one of the things that he said in their vetting interview was I'm not a good debater. And I'll tell you from the reporting that I've done since, as you mentioned, he has continued to be nervous about this debate, really feeling like he needs to think about all the things of how he gets his points across, gets it into two minutes, what his resting face looks like when he's not speaking, and all of that because he really is, number one, devoted to the idea that Donald Trump can't get back to the White House, and that he doesn't want to let Kamala Harris down, make sure that she feels like he's done his work for her.

So, in introducing her and continuing to talk about her work as the prospective president here, and making sure that that's the role that he has as the running mate. But even last week I was in New York at a fundraiser that Tim Walz was doing at an apartment there, and he said -- after I left the room, I heard he said to someone who asked how's debate prep going? He said, look, you know, I was trained as a teacher. As a teacher, we're trained to answer the questions. We tell our students to answer the questions. That's not what this is.

So, Walz really trying to fit himself into this somewhat awkward, always, thing of a nationally televised debate.

BERMAN: Big risk, Pete Buttigieg not growing the beard for the debate prep. We will see.

DOVERE: That may be what it all comes down to.

BERMAN: It's going to come down to the beard. Isaac, that is interesting reporting. One wonders if it's expectation setting, but we shall see. Terrific work. Thank you. Kate?

BOLDUAN: What we've seen when, you know, men who have grown out beards who shouldn't, what it looks like, and it could have been career ending for you.

BERMAN: a cautionary tale.

BOLDUAN: Maybe you'll see it soon enough. Just give John a long enough vacation, which you'll never be allowed to have.

How the Harris campaign is now targeting Donald Trump and J.D. Vance ahead of tomorrow's big debate, as was just being discussed, and what it has to do with Trump's in concept plans for health care.

And 17,000 people told to evacuate in Georgia all because of that. That's a fire at a chemical plant. We'll be back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00] SIDNER: This morning, the Harris campaign is targeting Trump's plans on health care. A senior campaign official telling CNN the 43-page analysis called Concept on Health Care is an attempt to force the Trump camp to address their proposals. There's also new polling this morning that shows two thirds of Americans believe health care is not getting enough attention in this election.

Joining me now is CNN's Meg Tirrell. Give us some sense of what -- you know, we see this polling. Give us some sense of what Harris is saying.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Sarah, I mean, this isn't something that we've heard come up as much as perhaps you would expect in the presidential debates so far, and we are seeing that in these polling data this morning. This is a new poll from Gallup and West Health, and what it finds, this was done in September of about 3,000 people, is about 67 percent of U.S. adults say they don't think that health care is getting enough attention in this 2024 presidential election cycle.

And that is true that a majority of people believe that across political parties, although it is most pronounced among Democrats, the poll finds 78 percent of Democrats believe that, 67 percent of independents, but still 53 percent of Republicans said that they don't think health care is getting enough attention in this election cycle.

They also drilled down on key issues and which candidate different party members said that they trusted the most on key issues like access to care, insurance coverage, increasing quality of care, lowering the price of prescription drugs. This broke down among party lines as one might think Democrats were more likely to think Harris would do better on those, Republicans were more likely to think Trump would do better on those. They were slightly more likely to trust Harris.

Independents, though, one-third of them said that they didn't trust either candidate on these issues. So it kind of shows there's a lot of room there to be talking more about this and to win some folks over. And when I said they were more likely to trust Harris, independents maybe slightly were leaning toward Harris on those, but still that third said that they didn't trust either candidate, Sara.

SIDNER: Healthcare obviously affects every single person who would be going to the polls or otherwise. What did the poll find are the most important healthcare issues for Americans?

TIRRELL: Yes. They drilled down each one of these and the top one is protecting Medicare and Social Security. They found 63 percent of folks said that that was the most important or among the most important issues for them in this election. 57 percent said lowering the cost of health care, 47 percent said lowering drug costs, and 43 percent said increasing mental health care access, where a lot of people in this poll said that that should become more affordable and more accessible.

But this was particularly pronounced among older voters who wanted protection for Medicare. Sara?

SIDNER: Yes, that's very clear. But it is interesting, the mental health care, you don't always see that in polling and it really is a huge issue in this country.

Meg Tirrell, thank you so much for bringing that to us this morning. I appreciate you. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Sports friends, let's get to it.

[07:25:00]

The fate of three teams hangs in the balance today in Major League Baseball. The Braves are hosting the Mets in a doubleheader. They were originally set to play last week before being postponed by Hurricane Helene. The winner of game one automatically goes to the playoffs. That's the easy part. What happens next, according to everyone, especially me, gets complicated.

To sum it up, if the teams split the doubleheader, meaning they both win one, the Mets and the Braves both are in the playoffs. And Arizona will then end up being on the outside looking in. You get it? Great.

One player is happily already on the post-season roster, Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani. The Japanese superstar tallied steal number 59 of the season this weekend. He finishes the regular season as the national league leader in home runs and RBI, ending up just shy of hitting the batting average mark for the Triple Crown. Is that mixing a metaphor? Yes.

Nevertheless, his regular season defied all odds, all expectations, and according to John, all human ability.

BERMAN: It's just he makes it look so easy. You're not supposed to do what he does. And, by the way, he also pitches really well. He took the entire season off from pitching. He's one of the best pitchers.

BOLDUAN: And he's like, also like a master chef.

BERMAN: He cooks really well. The moose boosh (ph), that's his specialty. I just wanted to say a moose boosh.

This morning, we are finally getting our first look at some of the area's hardest hit by Hurricane Helene. We've got new video just in on the catastrophic damage.

And the U.S. is preparing its troops this morning as the White House fears a wider conflict in the Middle East could soon become a reality.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:30:00]