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CNN This Morning

Hurricane Helene Strengthens As It Approaches Florida; Trump & Harris Make Economic Pitch In Battleground States; U.S. Calls For 21- Day Ceasefire Along Israel-Lebanon Border; Israeli Forces Found Hezbollah Targets In Lebanon. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired September 26, 2024 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:41]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Thursday, September 26th.

Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:

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COMMISSIONER BRIAN HAWKINS, HERNANDO COUNTY, FLORIDA: You need to have a plan and you need to get out now.

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HUNT: Bracing for a storm surge. Hurricane Helene picking up steam, expected to strengthen to a category four as it makes landfall tonight.

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KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Almost 200,000 manufacturing jobs were lost during his presidency.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT & 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Our economy is doing really, really badly.

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HUNT: It's the economy. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris lay out dueling visions on the top issue two for voters in battleground states.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: We've been working tirelessly with partners to avoid a full-blown war.

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HUNT: The brink of all out war, the U.S. calls for a temporary ceasefire as fighting between Israel and Hezbollah nears a boiling point. (MUSIC)

HUNT: All right. Five a.m. on the East Coast A live look at Clearwater, Florida, as Hurricane Helene is making its way through the Gulf of Mexico, gaining strength before its set to hit American soil tonight.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

Time is running short for residents along Florida's Gulf Coast to get ready for hurricane Helene. The powerful storm expected to make landfall later tonight, potentially as a major category four hurricane. Meaning they're just hours left to fill sandbags, board up your windows. Tampa General Hospital is preparing with a flood barrier to help protect against storm surge.

Some places along Florida's Big Bend are forecast to get up to 20 feet of storm surge That threat prompting evacuation orders up and down Florida's Gulf Coast. Local officials are urging residents to take these orders seriously.

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HAWKINS: Because of this surge and you need to have a plan and he needs to get out now. If you don't have a plan, you need to get one and you need to get out now.

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HUNT: Let's get to our meteorologist, Allison Chinchar, with the latest she is tracking the storm for us all morning.

Allison, what are we looking at right now?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Right So, Kasie, we actually just got an update at the very top of the hour at 5:00. So we now have sustained winds of 90 miles per hour with forward movement and of 12 miles per hour. That's actually going to pick up both of them actually will as it moves into the Gulf of Mexico, it's going to move into incredibly warm waters And when it does, its going to end up intensifying even more because this is fuel for that type of storm.

It's expected to still make landfall sometime late this evening on the big bend region of Florida. Now, one thing to note though, is, as it does, its still anticipated to get to a major hurricane before it makes landfall The forward feet is also expected to pick back up. It could be making landfall in forward speed to 25 miles per hour. This is very important because that means it can make it pretty far inland before its able to weaken back down to a tropical storms.

You're talking cities like Atlanta, Nashville, and even Greenville, Spartanburg, cities that are hundreds of miles away from the coast are likely to have significant impacts from this particular storm. We've talked about the storm surge numbers, taking a look at some of those. You're looking at the Big Bend area, about 15 to 20 feet at the highest level.

So pretty significant storm surge, but really up and down the entire west coast of the Florida peninsula. You're going to have some and type of storm surge to even Tampa, which is not near the landfall location, still likely to have storm surge of five to eight feet.

Now the winds again, this is expected to be a major hurricanes. So, you're looking at wins that are going to be well in excess of 100 miles per hour.

So a lot of those are really going to ramp but once we get past noon today, you'll start to see a lot of those wind speeds begin to tick up, up and down the West Coast. Then it makes landfall, but even on the other side, cities that are on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean, not the Gulf of Mexico also looking at some pretty substantial wind gusts, places like Savannah, Charleston, and it obviously inland, even a city like Atlanta, Georgia, very far away from the coast could end up having some of those winds up to 60 to 80 miles per hour.

And then eventually it will continue to make its way off to the north. Rainfall is also going to be a big factor or so flooding is going to be a big concern today and tomorrow -- Kasie.

HUNT: Okay. Wow, we're looking at quite a bit here. Allison Chinchar for us this morning, Allison, thank you very much.

[05:05:02]

We'll see you throughout the next couple of hours as we keep tracking this.

All right, let's turn now to this. Both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump spending this week focused on the economy. The two candidates holding competing campaign events in battleground states. Harris was in Pennsylvania focusing on policies aimed at strengthening the middle class, she says.

Trump was in North Carolina, emphasizing his plans to try to keep manufacturing jobs in the U.S. recent polling of likely voters shows just 40 days out from the election. Harris and Trump are virtually tied but that same poll released earlier this week also shows Trump ahead of Harris when voters were asked who they trusted more to handle the economy.

Now, it's up to Harris to clarify her economic messaging in final stretch of the campaign.

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HARRIS: I believe we have an extraordinary opportunity to make our middle class the engine of America's prosperity.

I grew up in a middle-class family. I have pledged that building a strong middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency.

(END VIDEO CLIP) HUNT: Trump's vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, criticized Harris on her pitch to the middle-class, arguing her backgrounds not relevant.

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SEN. J.D. VANCE (R-OH), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And Kamala will say, well, did you know that I grew up in a middle-class family? I -- I had a very nice lawn back there in Berkeley, California, is like, well, that might be true. What the hell is that have to do with lowering inflation?

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HUNT: All right. Joining us now, national political reporter for "The Hill", Julia Manchester.

Julia, good morning.

Struck a little bit by J.D. Vance, who has made quite a bit out of his a very humble beginning and his own political story in terms of leveling that criticism at Kamala Harris. But look, big picture, this is the issue that voters say that they care the most about. And Harris went to Pittsburgh to lay out this plan in the heart of the Rust Belt.

Obviously, affected by manufacturing, their plans are in fact very different because Donald Trump is out there pitching these heightened tariffs. What are we seeing out there this week?

JULIA MANCHESTER, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE HILL: Look, so you have Donald Trump like he said, talking about foreign competition and U.S. not bowing to that foreign competition. But Harris seems to have much more of a domestic focus plan, talking about building out the middle class, talking about, you know, raising taxes on corporations or people making over $400,000? So, definitely pushing that message.

I don't think that's necessarily new, but I think there are a lot of questions still about her economic plan. A lot of this could depend on, you know, who controls the House and the Senate and how she'd be able to get a lot of this stuff through Congress. But overall, Kasie, I think this comes as you're starting to see maybe the gap between Harris and Trump on the economy start to narrow. This is an issue she that Trump and Republicans have generally leaned on, but a recent AP- NORC poll shows her starting to close the gap maybe two or three points behind him there.

So I think she's really trying to drill in on that message as she's going to face more questions about this plan.

HUNT: But one of the things we saw Julia was that they put out this policy book. Its like at some pages long which I'm sure we will now hear them say if they're faced with criticism of not having policy pleasant, to a point to and say, hey, here it is. Do you think voters are going to buy that because you mentioned the polling that says that this gap may be closing on the economy? What are the other things we heard from voters after the debate, for example, was we want to know more about what she would do.

MANCHESTER: Exactly, and pointing to that book while that's great, they need to go into detail and they have to come up with a clear and concise message that voters are going to be able to essentially digests. And right now, I think there's still a lot of questions and only about our policies, but also the state of the economy.

You have the Biden administration repeatedly talking about lowering unemployment rates and the fact that inflation has, in fact, ticked down the problem is though there is still this perception among Americans that the prices of goods and services are still high, so still some skepticism there.

HUNT: And on the tariffs question for Donald Trump, I mean, he was criticized in all street journal yesterday for threatening these John Deere tariffs.

Is this effective?

MANCHESTER: You know, there are a number of economists -- several economists who have come out against that, saying that putting tariffs on these companies could end up with a number of companies rising prices on their services and their goods which could impact the American consumer.

So I think there is certainly some skepticism to that plan. You're starting to see, you know, like he said, more economists coming out against that. You have Harris talking about that quite a bit. So I think there are some questions about that on that side as well.

HUNT: All right. Julia Manchester, getting us started this morning -- Julia, thank you.

MANCHESTER: Thank you.

HUNT: Appreciate it.

All right, up ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, we're going to continue to bring you the latest on Hurricane Helene. That storm is quickly intensifying. It's expected to make landfall tonight as a category four.

Plus, the Harris campaign releases a new ad taking on Donald Trump's false claims about Haitian migrants, the impact that could have in the critical Sun Belt state of Nevada.

[05:10:06]

And Israel striking Hezbollah targets overnight as the U.S. and Western allies work to prevent an all-out region general war.

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JOHN KIRBY, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY COMMUNICATIONS ADVISOR: I think certainly if you start to see ground forces moving, then it definitely takes, takes the fighting up a notch, and we're trying to prevent exactly that outcome.

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HUNT: All right. You're looking live at Crystal River, Florida, as Hurricane Helene barrels toward Florida's Big Bend, the storm is expected to make landfall as a major hurricane later on today.

[05:15:02]

We're going to be watching this throughout the morning as residents there start to evacuate.

But for the moment, let's turn to this story. The United States and its Western allies calling for a temporary halt to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah before an all regional war erupts.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We put out a statement for a 21-day ceasefire along the Israeli-Lebanese border. We were able to generate significant support from Europe as well as the Arab nations. It's important this was not widen.

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HUNT: Israel has been pounding dozens of Hezbollah targets in Lebanon overnight. More than 500 people have been killed since Monday, including dozens of women and children.

Overnight, the Israeli resort town of Eilat coming under fire. Two drones apparently launched from Iraq, one of them injured two people, the other was intercepted. And while the West tries to negotiate a ceasefire, Israel's military chief signaling a different approach.

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GEN. HERZI HALEVI, ISRAELI MILITARY CHIEF: The goal is very clear, to safely return the residents of the north. To achieve that, we are preparing the process of a maneuver, which means your military boots, your maneuvering boots will enter enemy territory.

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HUNT: All right. Lets go live to London where we find CNN's Max Foster.

Max, good morning. Always good to see you.

That seemed to indicate that in Israeli ground operation in Lebanon is certain here.

How does this potential 21 day ceasefire proposal play into that?

MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Netanyahu is clearly taking it seriously, because he appears to be heading to New York to discuss it after the U.S. and its allies came up with that, well have to see what sort of conditions, he would attached to any sort of deal with Hezbollah and we don't know what Hezbollah thinks of it either.

But suggestion being that Netanyahu would expect some sort of tie in really with what's happening in Gaza. Because as he said throughout his priority is getting the hostages back. So will it be -- will this Lebanon deal, this Hezbollah deal be tied to hostages, in which case, it would be a very complicated deal.

We don't know quite what shape it will be, but when you hear that general, a top general saying something like that to U.S., troops and also the military distributing that message as well, it's pretty clear what they got in mind.

And I'll be -- there has to be a very quick deal which will be a very complex deal for that to be prevented. It feels like although some people suggesting that maybe Netanyahu in the military are posturing just to get the best type of deal when he gets to New York.

HUNT: Yeah. It's -- I'm glad you pointed that out because were seeing that because they want us to see it, right I mean, that message was as much for us if its not entirely as it was for those, those troops that you see listening to him in that frame.

Briefly, Max, we're also reporting that Zelenskyy is going to make this really urgent in-person plea to President Biden, Vice President Harris. He's, of course, here around the un general assembly. Ukraine is bracing for the possibility that Donald Trump might win the election in that would fundamentally changed how the West is interacting with his -- his country. What do you expect from that?

FOSTER: Well, it is an urgent plea because, you know, he's really against the clock here. He's working with a president who is currently very sympathetic to Ukraine and he is not going to be in power in November. And as you say, Donald Trump might be in power and it\s just not clear how he will deal with Ukraine despite all the words we've seen, there's still a lot of clarity about exactly what he's going to do.

So in this urgent meeting, as we understand it, he's going to ask for immediate help, as much help as possible before the election, but also some guarantees about what will be in place after the election if there is a change in parties in power. You'll know better than me whether or not Donald Trump could unravel those sorts of guarantees. But that's certainly what Zelenskyy is after.

HUNT: Yeah, we certainly think he's going to try. Max Foster for us this morning, Max, always grateful to have you. Thank you so much for being here.

All right. Still to come after the break, sources tell CNN, New York City's mayor, Eric Adams, has been indicted. The news follows a months-long investigation by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan. We'll talk about it. Plus, a catastrophic storm headed for the Florida coast. We're

watching for the latest elements on Hurricane Helene.

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[05:24:09]

HUNT: All right. Twenty-three minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup.

New York City Mayor Eric Adams indicted on at least one federal criminal charge during a months-long federal investigation by the attorneys office in Manhattan. Prosecutors have been looking into Adams connection to Turkish officials and businessman. The exact charges have not yet been made public.

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ERIC ADAMS, NEW YORK MAYOR: These charges will be entirely false, based on lies. But they would not be surprised, always knew that if I stood my ground, all of you that I would be a target, a target I became.

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HUNT: Congress heading home after avoiding a government shutdown for now. Yesterday, the House and the Senate passed a funding bill that will keep the government open and for three months.

[05:25:00]

The new deadline to pass a long-term spending deal is December 20th. Merry Christmas to all.

A federal judge approving a $600 million class actions settlement after the Ohio train derailment last year, because settlement was offered to everyone who lived within 20 miles of the derailment in East Palestine. Roughly 55,000 claims were filed.

A suspect appearing in a California court on a firearms charge sets off an explosive, injuring several people. The 20-year-old suspect walked into the courthouse for his arraignment and then threw a bag containing an explosive that went off. So he was arrested again this time on suspicion of several felonies, including attempted murder.

All right. Straight ahead here on CNN this morning, tracking Hurricane Helene. Floridians facing a 20-foot storm surge and 130 mile an hour winds by tonight.

Plus, Kamala Harris trying to convince voters, she's better equipped to handle the economy than Donald Trump. Will the strategy work with undecided voters?

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