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Red Cross Nepal Delegation Head David Fisher is Interviewed about the Flood Disaster; Americans on Renaming Great Lakes; Football and the Republican Mid-Term Convention Conflict; Doomsday Prepping Surges in America. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired August 28, 2026 - 08:30   ET

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

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[08:34:19]

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: A tight knit community in Tennessee is reeling after learning 80 members of their international group, including 22 Americans, are among the missing in the Nepal catastrophe. They were all on an annual trek organized by the Isha Institute for Inner Sciences. The yoga and meditation center has its U.S. headquarters in rural Warren County, Tennessee. Founder Jaggi Vasudev, known worldwide as Sadhguru, announced one of his groups was coming back after a sacred trek to Mount Kailash in Tibet. The group had alerted members of the institute just as they had made it to that immigration crossing into Nepal. But minutes later, as you saw there, that crossing was swallowed by a wall of mud, rock and water.

[08:35:04]

Speaking from Tibet, Sadhguru posted on YouTube in tears, explaining to another one of his trekking groups what happened. You can hear their audible sobs piercing each sentence.

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SADHGURU, SPIRITUAL LEADER, ISHA FOUNDATION: At 9:05, he sent a message that they have arrived at the immigration. So, literally, the entire group was there in the building.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: At the meditative center, volunteers told us they've been busy on the phones and in the homes of families of the missing, comforting them and trying to keep them up to date on any word of their loved ones caught in all of this. While at the institute, I was told 34 men and 46 women were at that immigration checkpoint, 22 of them, as you learned, are Americans, the community liaison told us. Here's how she described their connection to the institute.

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LESLIE CRESPI, COMMUNITY LIAISON, ISHA FOUNDATION: These people that have been in this tragedy come here. They've volunteered. They've taken programs here. We know these people. So, they are like family. It's not just a list of names to us. It's, you know, people that we know and we volunteered with side by side. We know their families intimately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: Leslie Crespi, who's also made the trek to the Kailash Mountain, says that every year the Isha Foundation organizes spiritual trips to Mount Kailash. This time, about 1,000 people, broken up into 22 groups, went on that spiritual trek. One of those groups has so far vanished in this disaster.

Now, just moments ago, we found out the number of missing has now gone up in Nepal, according to our reporter Will Ripley, who is on the ground there in Kathmandu. Joining me now is David Fisher, the head of the Nepal delegation for the International Federation of Red Cross.

Thank you for taking the time to speak with us at such a difficult time. You are there also in Kathmandu.

Can you give us some sense of what your teams are encountering as they try to get into this enormous disaster zone that goes on for kilometers and kilometers?

DAVID FISHER, HEAD OF NEPAL DELEGATION, INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF RED CROSS: Yes. It's still very raw several days later. The Nepal Red Cross has volunteers everywhere, including in these communities. And they themselves were affected and lived through this terrible disaster. Couldn't make any contact with their own family in the early hours when they were working to help others. And so it's very raw, very difficult for them.

And there are still areas that are only accessible by helicopter. The massive wave cut bridges, cut major roads. We're very worried about these people who are in this area in Rasuwa (ph) to the north. The Nepal army has been flying in goods via helicopter, doing rescue, but they need -- they need a lot more. And the authorities are working hard to clear the debris from the road. And when they do, we'll be ready with some goods.

In the meantime, we're providing our assistance slightly south of this area that was also very hard hit. And there, many, many people have lost their homes. They need food. They need water. They need blankets. They've lost everything. They need toothbrushes. And many of them are just living on the floor in schools or in government buildings without clarity about where they're going in the future.

SIDNER: You know, we're looking at these pictures, and now that the water has subsided and all that debris, the mud and those huge boulders and rocks and ice that came down and just demolished so much. As we look at this, you talk about the fact that people don't have food. They don't -- they don't have access to water. How are you going to try to help get those things to these areas that, in some cases, are barely accessible?

FISHER: In the beginning, we have to bring it in. And -- but we also need to start repairing very quickly water points. And it's very -- we can't just constantly truck in water. It's expensive and difficult. But it's critical that people have safe water. Floods like this often bring a waterborne disease. And that's the last thing these people need.

[08:40:03]

So, it's a big danger here in Nepal.

So, we have -- we've launched an appeal just today for global solidarity to support the work of Nepal Red Cross volunteers in these communities. It's going to be a massive effort, not only for the first emergency relief, but also for the recovery of the communities.

SIDNER: Yes. You talked about the fact that, look, your staff lives and works in some of these areas. Are any of your staff members missing? Are any of your volunteers unaccounted for at this hour?

FISHER: I can say for the -- for the time being, everyone seems to be safe. So, we're -- so, we're so glad for that.

Today there was a secondary flood. And there were warnings to -- for everyone to leave low lying areas again, which halted relief for a while. It halted traffic. Luckily, it wasn't' like this. So, it doesn't seem to have caused that much damage. But it's really added to the trauma. When will people feel safe and when can they start -- restart their lives? And it's up to us now to do whatever we can to move that along.

SIDNER: David Fisher, you gave some very good advice. All of us can do something to help. And you can go to cnn.com/impact to try and do your part in trying to help those who are caught in this just utterly devastating disaster. I really do appreciate it, David. Thank you for joining us this morning there live from Kathmandu, Nepal.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right, shifting gears here.

Overnight, a little bit of fun at the president's expense. I want you to listen to the opening of a preseason football game in Cleveland. This is Al Michaels talking about the president's efforts to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America.

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AL MICHAELS: In fact, we are now in Cleveland. That is Lake Erie. We think it is still called Lake Erie now on the right. We're not quite sure at this point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

MICHAELS: But we'll be by lake something like Ontario or whatever it's going to be called by the time we get to Buffalo. Anyway, you know what I'm talking about. Some --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Some of us do. MICHAELS: Yes, right. Read the news.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Read the news.

All right, with us now, CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten.

Al Michaels --

HARRY ENTEN, CNN CHIEF DATA ANALYST: Yes.

BERMAN: Didn't seem convinced it's now called Lake America.

ENTEN: No. No, he's not convinced. Americans are, simply put, not convinced. You could see it right here. I mean just look to Google. I think this gives the game away. Are Americans actually calling Lake Ontario, Lake America? No. Search more on Google in the last day. In all 50 states, all of them, Lake Ontario. More people search for Lake Ontario than Lake America, where it was zero, zero, zero, zero states in which more people searched for Lake America than Lake Ontario. In every single one of them, Americans were searching more for Lake Ontario than for Lake America.

BERMAN: Breaking the rules. People in every state breaking the rules.

ENTEN: Breaking the rules. Breaking the rules. Blue states. Red states. Purple states. They're all saying it's Lake Ontario.

BERMAN: And has this move, can we tell, or all his actions towards Canada, shifted views on what the president is doing in that trade war?

ENTEN: Yes. No. I mean, this is the whole thing, right? You know, President Trump keeps trying to go after Canada. Oh, I think it's going to be an easy target. But Canada is the one that is winning. Canada is the one that is winning.

Take a look here. Net ratings among Americans. Confident in Trump on Canada-U.S. relations. Minus fifteen points, his net rating on that one. Minus 15. How about Canada's favorable rating? Their net favorable rating in America. Look at this. It's plus 48 points.

President Trump has gone on, tried to take on Canada over and over and over again. And Canada is the one that keeps KO-ing President Trump. And therefore, to me, it is not much of a surprise that, at this point, every single state is searching more for Lake Ontario than for Lake America. This is going over like a lead balloon.

BERMAN: All right. I mean, what lessons from history could the president have learned here when he was attempting a name change?

ENTEN: Yes. I mean, just take a look here. Remember, he wanted to make the Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of America. Search more on Google in the last year. Gulf of Mexico. All 50 states, all 50 states. So, it's not just after one day. It is after a year in which more Americans have been searching the Gulf of Mexico than the Gulf of America. Again, Johnny B., it's the zero, zero, zero. And we actually have polling on that because the net approval rating for that change was 35 points underwater, deep into the Gulf of Mexico. This name changing stuff, simply put, it doesn't work with the American people, Johnny B.

BERMAN: And you just did it there. You're going to get in trouble.

Harry Enten, thank you so much.

ENTEN: I'm a bad boy. I'm a rebel.

BERMAN: Thank you for your reporting on that.

With us now, CNN political analyst Alex Thompson from "Axios."

Alex, great to see you.

We opened that segment with Al Michaels calling a football game on Lake America. You know, football poking fun at President Trump. And it's not the only problem that football might be posing for the president, especially when we look to a couple weeks from now and this planned mid-term convention for Republicans.

[08:45:07]

What's the problem with football there?

ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, Trump planned this midterm convention on the opening weekend of the NFL season. And his keynote and JD Vance's keynote are during the prime time games in both instances.

Now, this is really -- I mean a lot of Republicans didn't want this midterm convention to happen anyway. It's expensive. They often travel there rather than being, you know, campaigning on the road. But now you're actually taking time out of your campaign season and you're campaigning in your districts and your states, and now you're going to a convention that a lot of people aren't going to watch because they're going to be home watching football.

BERMAN: I'll be watching football. The Patriots are playing. I mean, I'll have two screens because I'm also covering the news at all times as well. But I do know, people like football.

And this convention in general is causing some angst, Alex. What are you hearing on that front?

THOMPSON: Well, usually -- you know, at least the way things usually work is that, if a president is unpopular, they're usually fine with letting people in competitive districts, competitive states, you know, not show up or not come or not be associated. Trump is making that very difficult for all these people. And there's an expectation for most Republicans that they're going to show up. Now, I can tell you, the Democrats in 2024, 2022, if they were in a competitive seat, leadership said, it's fine, don't worry about it. Even campaign against me if you need to. Now, Donald Trump is not letting this happen. He is making sure that,

you know, if Democrats want to make this a referendum on his presidency, he is very much helping them out.

BERMAN: Yes. And I've talked to Republicans who say, we really don't have much choice. It's going to be a referendum on the Trump presidency, whether we like it or not. Maybe we should lean into it. We'll take the money from MAGA inc., the president's PAC. He started to spend there a little bit. We'll see how that ends up playing out.

Alex, you and I both saw an article in "The New York Times," I think, which caught our interest as well, and it has to do with this same week of the -- of the midterm conventions for Republicans. It's the 25th anniversary of the attacks on September 11th. There are, of course, ceremonies in New York and Washington. The president of the United States, the sitting president, often comes, sometimes to both, but often comes to the one in New York.

President Trump, who is from New York, won't be coming, according to "The Times," here. Why not?

THOMPSON: "The Times" reported that President Trump wanted to give remarks, wanted to give an address at the ceremony. Now, organizers don't allow that. That's not the point of the ceremony. And afterward, Trump changed his plans. And now he'll be giving remarks at a Pentagon ceremony.

BERMAN: It just gets, again, to a little bit of a shift, perhaps, in how the president has controlled the narrative and, in some cases, been able to do it where and how he has wanted to over the first year plus of that administration. And sometimes it -- lately it appears to be shifting ever so much there. Is this something you think that it's on the White House mind as they head into November?

THOMPSON: I mean, I think what you are right that this presidency has been defined, that Donald Trump does not take no for an answer in any way, in a way that's very different than the first term. You know, if he's told no now, they do find some ways around it. You know, he wanted to give remarks on 9/11 to commemorate the day. Now he's going to. Now, he is not going to go to New York. And that is going to be significant because the president usually goes to New York City, where, you know, the biggest attacks took place.

Now, I think, you know, I think Donald Trump is going to continue to take -- not take -- not take no for an answer during these midterms. And part of the reason MAGA inc. hasn't spent their money yet is because it maintains leverage. You know, you have $450 million (ph) on the sidelines going into the final two months of the election. Republicans need that money in order to get them across the line. And Donald Trump, if nothing, always knows where his leverage is.

BERMAN: Alex Thompson, great to see you. Have a terrific weekend. Thanks so much.

Sara. SIDNER: All right, the Tupac murder trial heading into its final

stretch. With closing arguments set for Monday, the defense rested its case yesterday (AUDIO GAP) three former Las Vegas police officers to the stand. One of those witnesses, a retired detective, said he believed the defendant, Duane Keffe D Davis, that account of the shooting, when he interviewed him years ago, but said he couldn't verify it. Prosecutors have made Davis' own words central to their case, pointing to his memoir and past interviews he's done. They argue Davis helped orchestrate the attack that killed Tupac Shakur in 1996. But he is not accused of being the person who pulled the trigger.

Meanwhile, the defense has argued there is no physical or independent evidence connecting Davis to the shooting. Davis has pleaded not guilty.

All right, the FAA now considering disciplinary action for two LaGuardia Airport air traffic controllers who left work early on the same night of a deadly Air Canada crash. Now, back in March, two pilots on the Air Canada Express flight were killed, you'll remember this, when that jet collided with an airport fire truck that was on the runway at the same time.

[08:50:07]

Dozens of passengers were also hurt in that collision. A source tells CNN the controllers' early departure was not by just a few minutes. Both of them are now on leave.

John.

BERMAN: All right, more and more Americans preparing for the worst. We've got a new look inside the growing doomsday prepper movement.

And new video of San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York as he was arrested during a prostitution sting.

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[08:55:09]

SIDNER: New this morning, police have released body camera footage showing the arrest of San Francisco 49ers owner Jed York. He's accused of engaging in prostitution in East Palestine, Ohio. Yorks's attorneys were able, though, to get that charge lowered to just disorderly conduct. He pleaded no contest to that charge. He also pleaded to possession of criminal tools, in this case the cell phone he used to answer an online prostitution ad. Court documents show the 46-year-old paid a fine and was sentenced to a night in jail.

A stunning scene along a Florida beach after a plane crashes into the water. Witnesses say the plane was flying really low over the beach before it suddenly dropped into the ocean. The plane flipped over in the water, but the pilot, able to get out on his own. No one was hurt on the beach, and it's unclear exactly what caused the plane to go down. Now, saying goodbye to Dolly now on the big screen. AMC movie theaters

across the country are bringing back two of Dolly Parton's big hits, "Steel Magnolias" and "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." Who -- Dolly is so amazing. We miss her so much. The films will play in 200 AMC locations starting today, and will run through September 2nd. And you can always go back and find "9 to 5," which is one of my personal favorites, John.

BERMAN: That is just awesome.

All right, bunkers, go bags and prepping for doomsday. Not Sara. Not Sara. No.

SIDNER: How do you know?

BERMAN: Other people are doing it. It has gone mainstream. An estimated 20 million Americans are now identifying as preppers. This week on "The Whole Story," CNN's Nick Paton Walsh goes inside this new booming world.

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NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Jack shows us his safe house, where his training gets more violent and the gear gets serious. AR-15s, sigs, night vision. This one with a thermal clip-on adapter.

JACK RICH, BLACK SCOUT SURVIVAL: If you come at me with a number one strike, go ahead and give me the number one, I'm going to cut your arm. So, go ahead and give it to me again. So, then I'm going to step out. I'm going to trap the arm. All right, so you're going to slap. So, follow my hand this way. Don't -- you don't have to grab it. Just slap it. Cut.

WALSH: No.

RICH: Come -- so you're going to --

WALSH: Yes.

RICH: No, you're going to follow me with this hand.

WALSH: That.

RICH: One. Cut. Control the arm. There you go.

WALSH: Would you mind slowing down your attacks.

RICH: Yes. There you go.

WALSH: And then that. Right. OK.

RICH: So, then I can cut --

WALSH: Right. Yes. Fine. OK. I'm very dead.

Was that wrong?

RICH: No, that's good. Yes, that's good.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: You'll be happy to know, Nick Paton Walsh did survive that encounter and joins us now in the flesh there.

What are these people telling you they're most concerned about?

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yes, only for a world entirely of plastic knives, John.

I mean the issue here for I think many people is the combined sense of political crisis, the climate crisis, the sense possibly through social media that there is always a war somewhere nearby, potentially expanding.

And someone like Jack fits the kind of stereotypical mold of the prepper, ex-military, slightly on the right end of the political spectrum, and keen to prepare himself as much as possible.

What's changed for him, though, are the kind of people who are his clientele, who are spending thousands of dollars to come to him for the kind of skills you saw there. I mean, that might look a bit silly until you actually find yourself in a knife fight. He said these were people working in tech, entrepreneurs, fathers trying to look after their family. A sign of how this world, originally the preserve of men in the woods, frankly, has become something so much more mainstream.

Now Sara may not have a go bag of her own, I'll let her answer that question, but it's increasingly something people feel they have to have on their mind. And we took this extraordinary month's long journey across the different ways you can spend a differing budget on this particular issue across the documentary that's on CNN on Sunday night.

John.

BERMAN: Yes. And, first of all, I don't know what problem he had with you. He kept on trying to beat you up there. But what was the most extreme thing that you saw while you were reporting on this?

WALSH: Yes, I mean, and Jack and I spent a lot of time together. So, that probably answers your question. But, I mean, ultimately, I think the two things that struck us most there were what you can do if you have basically endless resources and that is buy yourself a $5 million apartment in a converted missile silo in Kansas, which has nuclear, biological air scrubbers, has a doggie park, has a small jail cell if you and your fellow billionaires get a bit too tanked up in the bar and get belligerent with each other to give someone a cool out time.

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You could spend millions on getting your place potentially to survive in great luxury and comfort in that kind of silo, if indeed something you didn't expect goes wrong. And then