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President Biden Provides Update on Hurricane Response Efforts; Harris Leading Trump in New Poll; Interview With Clearwater, Florida, Mayor Bruce Rector; Hurricane Milton Targets Florida. Aired 11-11:30a ET

Aired October 08, 2024 - 11:00   ET

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

[11:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Pull all the partisan stuff aside, out of the news and everything else, politics and all that.

When somebody's there to give you the weather, you just have to be able to rely on that information day in and day out. And he's been doing it for such a long time. He's such a trusted guy in the community. And I'm thinking about that panel.

I'm also thinking about this business owner I was just talking to a few moments ago who was saying he was going back to his business, perhaps to say goodbye.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Yes.

ACOSTA: It's just heartbreaking what folks in this part of the country are going through right now.

BROWN: So many goodbyes happening from Helene and now with Milton approaching and just the double whammy that some of these folks are having to deal with now.

ACOSTA: That's right.

BROWN: It's hard to just understand and fully comprehend it.

ACOSTA: It really is.

BROWN: But we're going to cover it to the best of our ability and shine a spotlight on what's going on, Jim. Thanks so much.

ACOSTA: That's right. You got it. Have a good show.

BROWN: And good morning to all of you. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Pamela Brown in Washington.

We begin this hour with this breaking news. Hurricane Milton is barreling toward the western shores of Florida. The National Hurricane Center just issued the latest advisory saying the storm remains a Category 4, but it could pick up speed and go back to Category 5. Meanwhile, Floridians heading out of state could be facing a number of

obstacles. Some gas stations are running out of fuel. And officials say to expect hours' worth of traffic. And this morning, Tampa International Airport suspended all operations.

We begin this hour's coverage with meteorologist Derek Van Dam.

Derek, we just got an update on the storm. Tell us the latest.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: All right, so Pamela, since 5:00 a.m., we have seen an increase in the wind speeds.

We're at 150 miles per hour sustained with Hurricane Milton, which makes it a Category 4, a strong Category 4 too. But what's different about this is, we're noticing this kind of dreaded northeasterly turn towards the Western and central portions of the Florida peninsula.

And then as we look at the official forecast track, right, this is important to note, we are seeing a hurricane warning extend from the Gulf Coast side of Florida all the way to the Atlantic side with tropical storm warnings extending as far south as Key West.

Now let's look at this angle of approach, because this is important. If we compare it to what Helene did two weeks ago, that ran basically parallel with the coastline, bringing in the water along with it. But this is going to be more of a perpendicular trajectory towards Florida.

So it's going to realize a lot of its storm potential and storm energy. So when we talk about the landfall, which we believe will take place late Wednesday into early Thursday morning, because it's becoming -- it's coming at the coast with this type of an angle, we do believe that with the expanding wind field that we could have impacts from storm surge well outside of the center, especially to the south of the center, where that eventually makes landfall.

And then at some stage early Thursday morning, when this thing is traversing the central portions of Florida, we believe that there could be hurricane winds in excess of 80 miles per hour, for instance, from the west coast to the east coast.

Look at this ballooning effect of the hurricane as we go forward in time. By the time it reaches Florida, it will have doubled its size, at least its wind radius size, from what it is right now, a very compact storm, or it was earlier this morning, but it continues to grow.

So as it realizes this potential, this potential energy that it has stored up within it, it is going to push in the water from the coastline, and because we have the inland flood threat that is real -- that is going to be a real concern with the storm, both of those are going to work together to raise the water levels in some of the local river inlets, the harbors, the bays within, let's say, Tampa Bay, for instance, points southward.

So we will realize that storm surge potential of 10 to 15 feet, right where that right front quadrant of the hurricane makes landfall, and that, of course, is still to be determined exactly where, but some of our latest computer models still honing in on Tampa Bay or slightly southward.

And with this time that we live in right now, Pamela, we get this minute-by-minute update from the National Hurricane Center, Hurricane hunters flying directly into the eye of the storm. I will leave you with this. This is what it looks like on the plane, where they have experienced severe turbulence and hail.

There they are with their onboard radar flying right into the eye of the storm.

BROWN: Wow. Oh, my goodness, look at that. That really tells quite the story there.

VAN DAM: Critical information, yes.

BROWN: I know. It really is.

And, Derek Van Dam, I know you're on this, looking at those minute-by- minute updates.

VAN DAM: Yes.

BROWN: We're going to continue to check in with you to see what the latest is there with Milton.

And let's go straight to CNN's Ivan Rodriguez. He is in Tampa this morning.

Ivan, what's happening there on the ground as Florida braces for this monster storm?

IVAN RODRIGUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pamela, still a lot of action across the Tampa Bay area.

Officials have been pleading with millions of people to get out and get out now. This is the last day, really, that people have to still be able to get out safely and do so before conditions begin to deteriorate. I'm standing right now on a beach on Davis Island, just a little south of the Tampa Bay region.

This isn't, by any means, an official sandbag location, Pamela, but people have been coming here with their own bags, filling up sand on the beach, and bringing it to their cars here to my right. And then many of them have been telling me they're going to make sure that their homes, their businesses are safe, and then evacuate.

[11:05:06]

Listen to what one gentleman had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JULIEN COLLET, FLORIDA RESIDENT: I think it's the back-to-back, and it's -- our memory is really fresh from Helene, and all the experts expect this one to be a lot bigger. So we can't even imagine what the damage will be.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RODRIGUEZ: And it's that sentiment that we're hearing from many people who we're speaking with here in Tampa. There's another sense, another feeling of urgency with Hurricane Milton that many haven't really felt before.

It's worth mentioning that in the last 100 years there's been no major hurricane within 50 miles of Tampa. So we could be living in an unprecedented time here if everything is projected to happen as experts have said so far.

And, Pamela, one other concern that officials are having and are still working to address is all the debris that's been left behind, not only here where we are on Davis Island, where there's piles of debris still in front of homes and apartment complexes, but other parts of the Tampa Bay area as well.

And those agencies throughout the state are going to be working around the clock, we're told, up until it's no longer safe to do so to try and clean that up. And the biggest reason is to not allow it to become a danger, a dangerous projectile, when those strong winds come up, pick up the debris, and then either it becomes dangerous in the form of it flying everywhere or it can simply just impede the road and get in the way of first responders or even electric crews when it's safe for them to come out and start working to address power restoration.

BROWN: Yes, I think that's a really big problem. We were just talking to the mayor there of Tampa yesterday and she said that some of the contractors they hired didn't come with the trucks they needed, so they're really scrambling to get that debris out of there before Milton hits.

Ivan Rodriguez, thank you so much.

And joining us now for more on this is Bruce Rector. He is the mayor of neighboring Clearwater, Florida.

Mayor I know how busy you are. How is the city preparing for this massive storm?

BRUCE RECTOR, MAYOR OF CLEARWATER, FLORIDA: Well, it's all hands on deck, as you might expect.

Human life is our priority at this point. As my friend Mayor Castor said yesterday, if you choose to stay in an evacuation area, you're going to die. It's very serious. It's the most significant storm we have had here probably in a century.

And so I have just visited a special needs shelter. I was thanking the folks hosting that shelter and thanking the residents who have evacuated to that shelter. It's very important that people get out as soon as possible. BROWN: Are you seeing that some residents are not heeding these

warnings and they're saying they're going to stay behind?

RECTOR: Certainly.

But Clearwater Beach is part of Clearwater. And we have significant condominium buildings, high-rises, where we have got elderly folks who have ridden out many a storm before. They're higher, third floor or higher, in these condo buildings. And they don't realize that they're still at risk.

It doesn't matter how high you are. Projectiles can come through windows. You're going to be without electricity for as long as two weeks or longer. And it's not a safe place to be. It doesn't matter what type of building you're in, how high you are.

If you are in an evacuation zone, you need to get out.

BROWN: So what are you doing to really get the message through to those folks, as you point out, the elderly who have ridden out storms before and they think they're safe because they're higher up in the building?

RECTOR: Well, personally -- and I'm just working on Clearwater Beach because that's part of our city, myself.

But I'm going out here after this interview, and I'm going to ride around the islands with our police officers to go door to door, building to building to do my best to convince folks and try to describe to them the misery that I saw this past week, where I was on the phone during the event with folks who were terrified, grown man in tears, fearing for their lives, and then, the next day, how ragged these folks who tried to ride it out looked who did survive, but they will never do that again.

So I have got a tough task today to explain to folks who have been here a long time, who have weathered many storms that this is not the time to do it, and they do not want to have the experience that I saw two weeks ago from some of our beach residents.

BROWN: Right, from Hurricane Helene.

I'm wondering how Helene has impacted preparations there. We just were talking about the debris issue going on. What are you seeing there?

RECTOR: Well, the debris that you described was incredible. And we have been trying to help our residents understand this wasn't limbs and branches and leaves.

[11:10:03]

This was refrigerators and stoves and large couches and furniture, a huge amount of large debris. And it was going to take a lot of time to remove that debris. And so having this very short window to get it off, it takes special equipment to do it. We're not going to be able to get it all.

And as Mayor Castor has said and you reported earlier, we have had some challenges with contractors getting them out, because they are overwhelmed too with the need to get out this large debris. It takes special equipment. Doing the best we can, but we are not going to get it all out before this storm arrives.

BROWN: And that is even more concerning. Yes, I mean, that's very scary, right, to think about the debris and the extra layer of issues that that could cause.

Mayor Bruce Rector, thank you so much.

RECTOR: Thank you for your time.

And we will continue to monitor Milton's path throughout the hour. Later this hour, I will speak live with DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about whether FEMA has the resources it needs to help impacted Americans this hurricane season.

Also ahead, explosive revelations about what President Biden has said about Benjamin Netanyahu behind closed doors. You're not going to want to miss this segment with my colleague and friend Jamie Gangel.

You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:16:04]

BROWN: We are now four weeks away from Election Day, and a new poll this morning from The New York Times and Siena College shows just how tight this race remains, Vice President Kamala Harris with a slight lead over former President Donald Trump nationally, 49 to 46 percent, but the reality is, it's the vote in battleground states that will make or break a candidate this election.

Harris is making several big media appearances today, starting with her live interview on ABC's "The View," as well as "The Howard Stern Show," while Trump is set to hold a virtual town hall tonight on health with former presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

David Chalian joins us now to break it all down, the best political mind that we have here.

All right, so four weeks from today, it's hard to believe, we're going to be tallying the votes. What stands out to you about this new poll?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, to your point, what stands out is the consistency of how close this race is remaining.

I mean, when you put up those numbers, you saw this went from a 47-47 race to a 49-46. That means each candidate's number is moving just within the margin of error. So it's unclear how much real movement there is here from that tie to this slight lead in this poll. But what is clear is, this remains -- I mean, we put that into our

average of poll of polls, Pamela, and the five most recent national polls show it's a two-point race. That is a dead heat, basically. And as you noted, it is important to pay attention to these battleground states. We do not elect our president by the national popular vote.

BROWN: That is an important point.

And what really stuck out to you out to me as I was looking over this poll is that more of the voters see Harris as the candidate of change, right? And it's interesting too, because Donald Trump has been trying over and over again to keep her attached to Biden, right?

CHALIAN: Yes, and he wants to be the change agent, right?

BROWN: Right.

CHALIAN: That's been part of his brand in American politics since he came on the stage in 2015. He upended. He couldn't be anything but change, right?

And yet he, as a former president, there's a piece of his biography that is no longer that. We kind of know what a Donald Trump presidency may look like, right? It is intriguing to watch the incumbent vice president with an unpopular president try and shed the attachment and be the change candidate. She says in every one of her interviews and speeches, it's time to turn the page.

BROWN: Turn the page.

CHALIAN: That is not just turn the page from Donald Trump. That's turn the page to her, a whole new -- obviously, first female president, all these things that would come.

And so she is embracing that. And I -- that number jumped out to me as well, because if she can run Trump to a tie on a change candidate in what is an electorate that doesn't like the direction of the country right now, that is no small thing for her.

BROWN: No, that is no small feat.

I also want to talk about what the poll showed in terms of the key issues. Donald Trump still has a lead on many of these key issues, though the margin is narrowing when it comes to the economy. How do you view that?

CHALIAN: Yes, so we have being seeing this across a bunch of polls that she has definitely been closing the gap.

This was an enormous advantage for Trump, economy and immigration, certainly against Biden, but even early on when the ticket switch happened and Harris was atop the ticket. We have seen, especially since the debate, a little bit more narrowing.

Now, the economy is constantly something the voters say it is their most important issue in deciding who to support in this election. So it is mission-critical for her to try and narrow that gap. I don't know that she has to overcome him in that in order to win the election, but she wants that as narrow as possible.

And so we have seen this little bit of movement again. I say it's little because it's all within margin-of-error stuff. So it's hard to understand how much of that is real and how much of that is noise.

BROWN: Exactly.

And I want to note what Harris is doing in terms of interviews, right? She sat down with "60 Minutes." She has three high-profile media interviews today, "The View," Howard Stern, Stephen Colbert. What do you think about this today when you look at where she's going? Is she just visiting friendly territory here or is she going out of the box, outside the box?

CHALIAN: Well, a little bit of both, right?

BROWN: Yes.

CHALIAN: I would imagine I would call "The View" very friendly territory. "Colbert" is friendly territory to, though it's always a little bit of a risk for any candidate to be on a comedy show, right, and just being in that different thing.

[11:20:03]

BROWN: Right. Yes.

CHALIAN: But what I would look at it is less about friendly audience or not and more about, who is she trying to target and talk to, right?

So, clearly, you go on "The View," you want to reach a lot of female voters. She has an enormous advantage with female voters, but she wants to extend that advantage. That's why you go on "The View."

Howard Stern, not necessarily a softball, clearly a fan. He's no fan of Donald Trump. But he asks tough questions. And he doesn't -- he gets interesting conversations going. So there's potential for her to make undesired news there, potentially. So we should look to see.

But she's clearly trying to reach out. A lot of men listen to "The Howard Stern Show." She's trying to make sure she diminishes Trump's advantage with male voters as best she can. And, again, the comedy show at night, I think, is to show a different side of her to America.

BROWN: Can we just take a step back and talk about two things that I didn't really think a few weeks ago we would be talking about, but how the hurricane season is impacting presidential politics?

You have a swing state, North Carolina, severely impacted by Helene. You have Milton barreling towards Florida. And you have the candidates talking about this. Pretty much every day, they're having to respond.

CHALIAN: Yes. And we have seen the impact already on their schedules, right? BROWN: Right.

CHALIAN: Donald Trump was supposed to have a Univision town hall being taped in Florida this week, I believe today. That's been postponed until next week.

So we're already seeing. You already saw President Biden cancel his trip. We will see if Harris and Trump take down some of their events later in this week as the response begins in Florida. We will be on the lookout for that. So that's one way it impacts.

The other way is, you have seen Donald Trump put forth a bunch of misinformation, disinformation, and lies about the federal response to Helene. We will see if he tries to repeat that in a way to sow distrust in the federal response, even though there were no basis of facts for what he was saying in much of that.

And then I think it's about the opportunity for these candidates, even though they are not in the front-line responsibility positions, Trump or Harris, about sort of command-and-control. Can you look the part and tough and get your arms around the response and what it should be, or how you would do it as president?

I think that's another opportunity here for them.

BROWN: Yes. And in terms of the misinformation that Trump has been pushing out there, we're going to discuss that with the DHS secretary, Mayorkas, coming up in the show.

David Chalian, thank you so much.

CHALIAN: Sure. Thank you.

BROWN: Great to have you on.

Well, take a look at this video right here. Piles and piles of debris left over from Helene now threatened to become dangerous projectiles for the winds and the floods of Milton. I will speak live, as I pointed out, with Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas about this compounded crisis in the Southeast.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:27:20]

BROWN: Well, moments ago, President Biden gave an update on Hurricane Milton's anticipated impact and the ongoing recovery efforts for Helene.

The president is postponing a foreign trip due to Hurricane Milton. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: As you know, I put out a statement this morning. I'm canceling my trip to Germany and Africa. I'm going to try to work those out later, but I just don't think I can

be out of the country at this time, number one.

And, number two, we're going to stay focused on what's ahead of us right now. I have been briefed by senior leaders of this administration and -- who are driving up preparedness for Hurricane Milton, which could be one of the worst storms in 100 years to hit Florida, and continued efforts on Hurricane Helene.

I have directed this team to do everything it can to save lives and our communities, help our communities before, during, and after these extreme weather events. And that's being done. That's being done.

I have spoken to all the political leaders in the region, some of them more than once, and they -- I have told them anything to ask for, they can get, they can be given, and we have got an overwhelming response, a positive response from everyone from the governors of Florida up to North Carolina, and mayors, leaders, local, have expressed their sincere gratitude for the work of FEMA and for the work of my entire administration.

Now, I have also surged thousands of federal personnel on the ground across the Southeast already and deliver every available resource as fast as possible. And my priority is to increase the size and presence of our effort, and as we prepare for another catastrophic storm about to make landfall.

It's been a -- I have been in constant contact with our director of the National Weather Service, Ken Graham, who's kept me informed the last several days what to anticipate. You never know until it happens, but very, very engaged.

He made clear to me just how dangerous this storm is, indicating that winds had reached up to 180 miles an hour, 180, not guaranteed it's going to hit the shore at 180 miles, but they have reached up to 180 miles an hour, and a possible storm surge as it hits the coast of Florida of 15 feet, which can be devastating.

The current path of the storm is expected in the Tampa Bay area and cut directly across the state, east to west, all the way across the state, with the potential for this storm to both enter Florida as a hurricane and leave Florida as a hurricane on the Atlantic Coast.