tv CNN Newsroom With Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto CNN August 18, 2022 7:00am-8:00am PDT
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very good thursday morning to you. i'm jim sciutto. >> i'm bianna golodryga. right now the biden administration intensifying its efforts to slow the spread of monkeypox. starting monday, hhs will make an additional 1.8 million vaccine doses available. the administration also taking steps to offer protection for the most vulnerable populations, making more vaccine available for places hosting large lgbtqi events. this comes as the cdc reports
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more than 13,500 monkeypox cases across the country. we're following a critical day in court in south florida. federal judge will consider requests to unseal investigators' probable cause affidavit for the fbi search of former president trump's mar-a-lago home. the doj opposing its release saying that keeping the information secret is vital to this investigation. let's begin today in south florida, cnn's senior crime and justice reporter katelyn polantz is there, covering this for some time. we spoke to a lot of lawyers leading up to this and they say the chances of the judge ruling the release this are are low, but we never know. so what can we expect from today's hearing and do we expect a decision today? >> reporter: that's right. you never know, but today what we are really doing in court is we are listening closely to what the justice department has to say about this investigation into the handling of potentially classified materials, presidential records, the justice department let on a
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little bit so far since this search warrant was released about what this investigation is about. they said it implicates highly classified material, that they want to protect witnesses both past and in the future. they said there is an ongoing grand jury criminal investigation, it could result in indictments. so they are arguing today about secrecy, the justice department wants secrecy. they want it specifically to remain over this affidavit, this confident narrative that would have been written by the justice department, presented to the judge, to justify why they needed to go into the former president's home, mar-a-lago, and retrieve all of these boxes last monday. but on the other side, the media, we have been in court, cnn included, arguing for transparency in the public interest here because of this historic nature of this set of events. this is what the media has written so far in court. not since the nixon administration has the federal government wielded its power to seize records from a former president in such a public fashion. so that's the argument presented
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to the judge. there could be a decision from the judge in this case today, or they could come -- the judge could come back at a later date, making a decision later, taking a little bit of time to think through all of the implications here. there is a lot of political implications, we also are waiting to see what donald trump's team has done. they have not taken a position as of this morning in court, in any written materials, they are potentially coming to court today, we could see them making an argument before the judge, but this really is about the confidential protects, balancing that against the public's need for an explanation here, and we do know that republicans have tried to use secrecy as a reason that they are arguing against the leadership of this administration of the justice department. there have been calls for defunding the fbi from some republicans, but the white house, president biden, have pushed back firmly against that, that's not on -- even on the table right here. jim and bianna? >> cnn will be covering that decision live as it comes.
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katelyn polantz, thanks so much. in a separate case, in new york, former trump organization cfo allen weisselberg, years of a relationship with the former president, is expected to plead guilty today to a 15-year long tax fraud scheme. he arrived in court, you see the pictures there, moments ago. cnn learned that the long time trump loyalist is expected to receive a five-month prison sentence. >> cnn correspondent jean casarez is following the story. so, jean, weisselberg would not sign up to cooperate with the investigation. but we now know that doesn't mean he won't be forced to cooperate sometime down the line. >> i think that's an interesting part of all of this. we want to tell everyone we believe this hearing in new york city is beginning right now. and we do believe that he is going to plead guilty to a 15 count indictment alleging tax evasion. has to do with the former cfo of the trump organization, perks that he got while he was employed for so many years.
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such as a manhattan apartment, two mercedes-benz, private schooling for two of his children, and they amounted to according to prosecutors $1.7 million. but the whole point, they wanted him to cooperate. they wanted him to flip in the investigation of donald trump and the family that is going on right now. no charges at this point, but there is an investigation. what he will agree to do is to testify for the prosecution in a criminal trial that is actually set for october against the trump organization in all of this. and, right, the trump organization has been charged criminally, also in a 15-count indictment, so legal fiction, you can't send a corporation to prison, but you can do this. and he's agreed that he will testify if asked. now, the original indictment called for 15 years in prison, but if this plea agreement, if he pleads guilty, which we think
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he will, it would be five months in prison, which would amount to actually 100 days in reality. >> jean casarez, thank you. well, joining us now to talk about all of this is elie honig, legal analyst and former u.s. assistant dern attorney for the southern district of new york. it looks like they're trying to thread a needle here, willing to implicate the trump organization, perhaps, but not not the former president himself. >> yeah, bianna. this is halfway cooperation and this is in the big picture good news for donald j. trump, the individual. it is bad news for the trump organization as jean said. there is a trial coming up of the trump organization. that's not a human being. if they're convicted, nobody will go to prison because of that. they could be hit with major financial penalties. that could even result in sort of the closing of the trump organization. but the fact that allen weisselberg is not going to cooperate against donald j. trump or the trump children is the big news here.
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and it means that it is increasingly unlikely that we will see criminal charges out of the manhattan d.a. against individuals in the trump organization. >> another case, there are a lot, the ongoing investigation of trump's handling of the classified documents, top secret and otherwise, down at mar-a-lago. the phrase that continues to stick out to me, ongoing grand jury criminal investigation as the doj describes it. does ongoing mean they're considering whether there is criminal liability or they're looking for more documents or both? >> both, jim. we used to say that your investigation is ongoing until the minute the jury comes back with a verdict. you're always continuing to look for more information as a prosecutor. and, yes, i think there are sort of two lanes here. some question about, well, did doj go in and seize those documents from mar-a-lago just because they wanted to retrieve the documents for national
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security or are they looking at potential criminal charges? the thing to remember is you can't get into a property, a private residence based on a search warrant unless you prove by probable cause, less beyond a reasonable doubt, but probable cause of a specific federal crime. this is both of those things, jim. >> so, okay, elie, from new york to florida, now to georgia, that investigation there by the fulton county d.a., fani willis into the attempt to overturn the election there, the republican governor brian kemp is asking the judge to throw out the subpoena requiring him to appear before the special grand jury and here is how the fulton county d.a. responded to that letter and said they are hoping to focus on producing records to the grand jury that includes any documents explaining what trump or allies were thinking or doing, any logs of calls, emails, letters, documents by trump or others trying to influence election results. it got a bit heated, though, because the two exchange letters, i guess it wasn't the governor itself that the d.a.
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was attacking, but perhaps his attorney in his rational for not appearing before the jury. explain all this to us. >> yeah, bianna. this is a heated exchange really between the governors, representatives and the d.a.'s office. we have seen a reoccurring pattern here in this case where the d.a. has been subpoenaing powerful people, senator lindsey graham, the georgia governor brian kemp, john eastman and others and they have informally pushed back and said i should not be subject to this subpoena and they have informally lost. i think the lesson is it is really hard to brush off a criminal grand jury subpoena. we saw plenty of people casually brush off congressional subpoenas from the january 6th committee with no real consequence. this is different. this is a grand jury criminal subpoena, very difficult to sort of wriggle out of this. the dispute between the d.a. and the governor here has to do with timing, the governor alleges you time this intentionally to coincide with the upcoming elections, it is political, the d.a. says no, you have been
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dragging your feet, you're the one who is resisting just coming in and testifying, which is all we're asking you to do with this subpoena. there is truth both ways. it took the d.a. a year and a half to even start the grand jury. that is a fair point for the governor. the governor has been resisting this and i think ultimately he will lose and be ordered to come in and testify. >> so, i'll ask you a question i get asked all the time, there are a lot of investigations under way, some may go nowhere, we saw that with one of the new york investigations, which of these in your view is furthest along towards some sort of conclusion? >> well, it is clear to me that using the documents that bianna just cited that the fulton county d.a. is the closest one to some sort of conclusion and of the various investigations, the most likely to end up in an indictment of donald j. trump. i'm not saying that is certain. i'm not saying that's more likely than not. but of the four or five pending investigations, but it is really important that we keep in mind with the fulton county investigation, with the doj investigation, you name it, an indictment is one thing, that would be a very big deal,
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momentous instance in the united states history to have a former president indicted, but a conviction, upholding that conviction through appeals, and all the appellate processes is a different story altogether. >> yeah. specifically when jury trials are involved. elie honig, good to have you on to break it all down. >> thank you, both. appreciate it. just in to cnn, the suspect in the stabbing of the author salman rushdie has now just been indicted. details from the courtroom are just ahead. plus, the white house laying out a new plan to get more people vaccinated against monkeypox. we'll speak to a doctor who is treating monkeypox patients and has had the vaccine himself actually. and later, a record drought out west is leading to new water cuts. we have new data this morning on just how dire the situation is, and the drastic measures that may be coming. ♪(music: dance! bn a medice, elisha noll)♪ ♪ are you ready? ♪ ♪ ahh yeah ♪ ♪ you're going out tonight ♪ ♪ dance ♪ ♪ get with the groove and ♪ ♪ danance ♪ ♪ get up and move let's ♪ ♪ dance ♪
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this just in to cnn, the suspect in the stabbing of author salman rushdie has just been indicted. 24-year-old hadi matar is accused of brutally attacking rushdie on stage. >> just a brutal shocking attack in public. brynn gingras joins us now with details. tell us what is in this indictment and what happens next. >> jim and bianna, we're getting this confirmed by matar's attorney. he says his client has been indicted. we're still efforting the paperwork that gives the details of exactly what those charges consist of. but this, of course, is very significant as this means that there is going to be no preliminary hearing in this case, and it goes straight to an arraignment which we expect to happen this afternoon. the details of the indictment
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are always interesting as we learn possibly more details of what was motivation behind this horrific attack last week. whether or not fbi agents or federal agents were able to seize anything from matar's home, did he make any statements to authorities, it is possible he might get a little more detail about that once we get that court paperwork. but we're still efforting that. i will say that there was an interview by matar's mother by the daily mail over the weekend and she kind of talked about how she was shocked about this happening and learning that her son was all a part of this saying she did know in 2018 he did go to the middle east for about a month long, came back, became somewhat reclusive, wouldn't talk to his family, she wondered if that had anything to do with this. maybe we'll learn more detail about that. and interesting also to know as far as rushdie is concerned, he's doing better, he's still in critical condition, we're learning from his family, but he has been able to talk to investigators. so we'll see if that's also part of the court paperwork, which
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we're waiting for. but stay tuned to that arraignment that is expected to happen up there in the court in western p.a. -- yeah, in chautauqua county at 1:00 this afternoon. >> some of the decltails, interesting to see what we learn. >> the good news is salman rushdie appears to be and a long road to recovery. brynn, thank you. the white house is announcing new policies aimed at increasing the supply of monkeypox vaccines across the u.s. the cdc reports there are currently more than 13,500 cases of monkeypox in the country. >> it involves providing additional vaccines and making antiviral treatments more widely available. joining us now, dr. sanjay matthew, public health specialist. good to have you on, doctor.
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let's talk about this plan. 1.8 million new doses, is that enough, and when you look at the distribution plan, where it is targeting, does that make sense to you? >> yeah, good morning, jim and bianna. i think it is exciting that this cdc is really being aggressive with trying to get more vaccines. the biggest problem is getting vaccines into arms. the problem is not the number of people who are willing to get vaccinated. a lot of my patients are so anxious, just last week a group of five patients had to travel to dalton, georgia, just to get vaccinated because they're not enough vaccines. so it is a good start by the cdc, but we're going to need a lot more vaccines. it is two shots given four weeks apart. so we need quite a few vaccine doses available now. >> and you have been forth coming in disclosing you yourself just received the vaccine. you see patients, but you yourself have been vaccinated
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last week. salk about that process and what you're hearing from your patients when you hear just a recent poll, for example, finding that nearly 1 in 4 women were concerned about contracting monkeypox, that's compared to just 15% of men. does that correlate with what you're seeing amongst your patients too? >> well, i think really the big drive right now as we know that over 95, 96% of patients actually contract this virus are men, having sex with men. so what i'm seeing at work anecdotally are a lot of my gay patients that are absolutely anxious. but i think the word is getting out there, bianna, that you don't have to be gay, not what you do in the bedroom, it really is about your social network, who you hang out with. this can be transmitted from prolonged respiratory exposure to somebody who has monkeypox and skin to skin contact. and, yes, i was absolutely excited, i'm gay myself, i'm part of the lgbtq community,
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bianna, and it was very important for me to get vacc vaccinated. it wasn't easy to find a vaccine. i was lucky enough to get one. it was done the traditional way, which is basically into the fatty layer and not underneath the skin. and i'm scheduled for that second dose in four weeks. and no side effects. >> good. >> living by example there. let me ask you this, big picture here, right, here you have another -- outbreak is too strong a word, but disease spreading in the country, requires close personal contact, different from covid in terms of scale and so on and no one died from it and there is a vaccine and it works. so folks at home can understand just how worried to be about this, you know, can you describe how you with describe it to patients and folks who are asking you for advice? >> yeah, that's a really good question, jim. first of all, we should not be alarmed. i definitely don't want to be an alarmist. this is not like covid-19, lake
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y like you said there . there is a lot of community transmission. we shouldn't have the same mistake be made with covid-19. we need to be aggressive in letting people know that everybody is at risk. but at the same time, we should take responsibility in the gay population, limit our partners and get vaccinated asap. but overall the risk is low to most people. but i think it is important that we don't stigmatize this as a gay person's disease. you know what happened during the hiv epidemic, we made a lot of mistakes and we cannot make that same mistake again. >> yeah. >> absolutely. and let me get your response finally to the effectiveness of another strategy that the government will now be unrolling and that's to make more vaccines available in areas where there are large lgbtqi events or where those who are most likely at risk will be together as a group. what is the effectiveness of vaccines being available in
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those venues and do you think that americans and people that are going to be participating will actually take up those vaccines and get one themselves? >> you know, one of the biggest differences with the rollout of the monkeypox vaccine compared to covid-19, you're going to have a worried audience and gay people and bisexual men who are absolutely wanting to get vaccinated. so i think meeting people where they are, these large lgbtq events is going to be key, having the vaccine available is going to be key. and i think what is interesting, bianna, is a lot of gay people definitely are so worried about getting this virus that they are aggressive. they're making appointments, they want to get it. in terms of the new fda proposed route of administration, underneath the skin, just one point about that, as long as it is done correctly, i think that it will make more doses available. but that does involve some skill. so it is important that the fda
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and cdc make sure that people are trained correctly at these big mass vaccination sites to do that in the right way. >> understood. dr. saju mathew, thank you. >> thank you. it is silent disaster having a widespread impact. i'll speak to the man in charge of managing the water supply in southern nevada amid what is an historic drought. his warning about what could happen if the west doesn't start conservati conserving more water. when w we started, we grew a quarter of an acre. now i'm tataking on new projecs on the regular. there are millions of f ways to make the most of your land. lelearn more at deere.com
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this morning, new information about the severe drought persisting across the western u.s. this comes as the area fights to preserve water, levels keep dropping to dangerous lows. look at the pictures of those reservoirs, it is crazy. and that is not the most significant finding. >> meteorologist chad myers is live at the cnn weather center for more. so, chad, break it down for us, how bad is it right now and which areas are getting hit the hardest? >> area by area. back out to the west, getting a little bit better, except for texas and california. off to the east, getting a lot worse. i don't have to tell you if you're looking at me from massachusetts, rhode island, connecticut, it is dry. the grasses are literally crunching as you walk on them. this is a flash drought.
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it really wasn't here about four or five weeks ago. back you up two weeks, these extreme areas here across parts of massachusetts and rhode island were not here. but it just hasn't rained at all. so now all of a sudden, all of massachusetts in a drought, first time in seven years. all of rhode island in extreme drought, connecticut, you have long island, even parts of upstate new york in on this act too. now back out to the west. here's where we had some improvement. colorado, utah, parts of nevada and arizona. it has rained. it hasn't been widespread, but there have been rains. texas got worse. it has not rained. it may rain this weekend and a lot in some spots but not lately and back out to california. i take you back two weeks, a lot worse in some spots. watch nevada, watch north of vegas go from the dark red to only red. that's some good news, but you're still in a major drought. every thursday at 7:30 central time, at -- from the university of member member, here, and also
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the drought mitigation center, the department of agriculture get together and put the maps together. this is the one that came out this morning. we will have a new one that comes out next thursday. hopefully we see significant improvement here across texas. some spots, guys, could pick up five inches of rain over the next week and a half. >> wow. fingers crossed. >> much needed, yeah. what stands out is that nearly every part of that map, the united states, is dry right now. chad, thank you. >> you're welcome. nearly three-quarters of the u.s. farmers say this year's drought is hurting their harvest and impacting their own income. and that will lead to higher prices for things like fruits, nuts, and vegetables. in the southwest, there is also real concern about the water supply. back in june, the federal government mandated that states sharing the colorado river come up with the plan to significantly cut back on water consumption. >> but, that hasn't happened yet. even as critical reservoirs like lake mead, there it is, hit just dangerously low levels, joining us now is one of the people
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involved in those ongoing negotiations, john enswinger, for the southern nevada water authority. good to have you on, john. you've been sounding the alarm there, you wrote a letter to the u.s. bureau of reclamation commissioner camille touten and deborah howland saying, everybody is talking about this, but no real collective action has been taken yet so far. are you getting a response? and what do you want to see done immediately? >> well, thanks for having me. i think the federal government needs to take action. and they had a press conference on tuesday, said some pretty vague things, but didn't really follow up on commissioner touten's call to action. and at a minimum i think they need to be imposing evaporation losses on nevada, arizona, california. >> and you note that the crisis
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is so dire that we're beyond remedying it with conservation. you say as the population has increased, southern nevada reduced its water use by 26% in the last two decades. that's a good thing, but you say conservation at this point is not enough. what more needs to be done, urgently enough to address this dw growing crisis? >> well, for starters, we need to get away from thinking about this as a drought. a drought is a temporary phenomenon, this is long-term for the southwest and we need to adapt our institutions and our water usage to the realities they're going to be less water in the western u.s. for the foreseeable future. >> wow. that is a great point there because folks like to think you can live through the season and move on. big picture, does that mean that the southwest, which by the way, a lot of the states are growing states, that the southwest can't sustain as many people as it has
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today? >> no, i don't think it means the end of economic growth and economic diversification within the west. we have to adapt. and i think southern nevada is a living example of the fact that you can grow your economy and use less water. we added 750,000 more people to southern nevada in the last 20 years and we're using 26% less water. the reality is that the future of the west is less grass. the cities are going to have less grass, we're going to be growing less alfalfa, less sudan grass, you can't sustain that sort of production with the amount of water we have. >> explain to our viewers why what happening in nevada has implications for other parts of the country, for neighboring states, colorado, arizona, and why they have a critical role to play here as well. >> well, we have adapted because we had to. we have 1.8% of the legal entitlements to the colorado
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river so we had to start conserving 20 years ago and now a lot of other parts of the colorado river basin are facing that same challenge, both we forged a path and if they chose to follow electrit, the whole b can have water security. >> you have a lot of work to do there. as you say, long-term work. it is not going to end with the season, this year or next year. we wish you the best of luck. thank you for joining. >> thank you for having me. coming up next, as we await a judge's decision today on unsealing of the affidavit behind the mar-a-lago search warrant, we will be joined by the chairman of the house armed services committee on the national security risks that those documents pose.
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just a couple of hours from now, a judge will consider whether to unseal the affidavit behind the search warrant of trump's mar-a-lago home. the justice department now concerned that releasing that information would jeopardize its ongoing investigation as they describe it. joining me now to discuss about this, democratic congressman adam smith from the state of washington. he's chairman of the house armed services committee. congressman, thank you for taking the time this morning. >> good morning. thank you. >> first of all, so folks at home can understand this, what is the potential damage in your view to national security of the contents of what was held in
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mar-a-lago. is it a real risk? >> there is the actual contents of the documents, which contains from what we have seen what was reportedly taken, you know, classified information, or information we don't want other countries to know, and this information has been lying around donald trump's hotel room for over a year now. who has had the opportunity to come in and look at it? just reading an article in ""the new york times" about president trump's propensity to show classified information to whoever he had been with at the time. so who has seen it and what they have done with it? what does this say about not just this bunch of information, but how president trump and his team treated classified information while in the white house? what else is out there? it is important to understand that what this does is it potentially betrays sources and also crucially it can tell adversaries how we gather
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information. so it is potentially very damaging to national security. >> let me ask you this, as a lawmaker, you have a security clearance, considering the committee you're on. if you or another lawmaker, democrat or republican, did the same thing, had classified top secret, top secret special compartmentalized information, special category sitting in your home for a year and a half, what would happen to you? >> to begin with, the fbi would go get it. no question about it. and this is the really -- the most disturbing part of this, to me, the way the republican party has reacted to it. you have to understand, and as you look at the new stories, trump says one thing, they say the other thing, what is the story here, is this the right thing to do? the fbi had no choice but to do what they did here. no sensible human being can look at this and say they did anything wrong. for 18 months they tried to get donald trump to give the information back. the law is clear, even if it is not classified, the archives law makes it clear that a president can't take these documents out of the white house.
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and at that point, they had to get them back. and yet we have got republicans running around talking about defund the fbi, talking about how this is an abuse of power, and it is ridiculous and dangerous and undermines the justice department and the fbi. to answer your question, number one, they can come get the documents back from any one of us and we would be looking at criminal charges, no doubt about it. >> let me ask you this, though, you can appreciate just how unusual this is to have a former president have his home searched, the documents had been there for more than a year and a half. do you believe that there are other risks involved in this decision to the politics of this nation right now? the basic question is was it absolutely necessary? justified, perhaps, was it necessary? >> yes, it was absolutely necessary. there is no doubt about it. but you raise a very interesting point. and, look, i am a dealmaker as a
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politician. i work with donald trump to get quite a few things done in the national defense authorizing act during the two years i was chairman and he was president. and i am mindful of the fact that you don't want to create a high level of conflict. and this does, you're right, it is unprecedented. but it is also unprecedented for president trump to conduct his presidency the way he did. that's what -- you covered it. stuff that went on in that presidency, you know, i've been here 26 years, four different presidents, unimaginable before trump became president. so the question is, do you go in and create the level of conflict that you creately lycorrectly you let the norms and rules and institutions of our society that are crucial to our well-being be destroyed? if that's the choice, i don't think there is a choice. you have to hold this president accountable. you have to protect those orders and institutions, even while, yes, it drives up the level of conflict, but the republicans, they don't have to react this
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way. they don't. they don't have to drive up the level of conflict. they can acknowledge the truth of what we're discussing here. >> right. well, congressman adam smith, certainly appears we'll have more to discuss on this investigation going forward. we appreciate you joining the broadcast this morning. >> thank you, jim. appreciate the chance. well, coming up, mortgage rates ticked lower last week. so what that means for inflation. we'll explain up next. if you used shipgo this whole thing wouldn't be a thining. yeah, dad! i don't want to deal with this. oh, you brought yourur luggage to the airport. that's adorable. with shipgo shipping your luggage before you fly you'll never have to wait around here again. like ever. that can't be comfortable though. shipgo.com the smart, fast, easy way to travel. (brad) you know what i say to all the other titans of tech who are making such a fuss over finally launching themselves into space?
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well, this just in to cnn. new numbers showing the housing market is cooling down as interest rate hikes force potential home buyers out of the market. let's bring in cnn business and economy reporter matt egan. so, matt, it appears this is what the fed had wanted to do and the response to -- is this a good thing? >> they definitely wanted to cool down this housing market. it is unsustainably hot for the longest time. the new numbers show it slowing down. existing home sales down for six months in a row. down 6% month over month in july, the sales space is the slowest since may 2020. that's when a lot of covid lockdowns were going on. if you exclude that, this is the slowest pace since late 2015. why is this happening? one-two punch of high prices and relatively high mortgage rates.
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let me read you a key line from the chief economist, he said, quote, we're witnessing a housing recession in terms of declining home sales and home building, however, it is not a recession in terms of home prices. let me show you what we mean. the median price of an existing home sold in july at $404,000, that's up 11% year over year, 12 straight months of year over year price gains, but prices are cooling off. month over month, prices actually dipped a bit. we just have to remember, though, that demand for homes remains very strong. supply is weak. a lot is going to depend on what happens with mortgage rates. some good news on that front for home buyers because the average mortgage rate dipped to 5.1%, down from 5.2%. that's still well above a year ago, but it has come down a bit. what happens there matters so much because the higher mortgage
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rates go, the less home everyone can afford. >> average home prices cool a bit. still high. >> matt egan, thank you. >> thank you. this also just in to cnn, the former trump organization's cfo allen weisselberg pleaded guilty in a 15-year long tax fraud scheme. kara scannell joins us again this time live outside the courthouse. what did he agree to testify against in the future? that's key. >> reporter: yes, so allen weisselberg just pleaded guilty to 15 criminal counts, all part of this tax fraud indictment that he was charged with last year. now, part of this agreement he has agreed to plead guilty against the trump -- to testify against the trump organization when they go to trial in october. weisselberg was one of the most senior officers of the trump organization, he was leading the company with the former president and sons when donald trump became president and went to the white house. weisselberg is required as part of the plea agreement to testify
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at the trial of the trump organization. now, under this deal, he's also required to pay back nearly $2 million in taxes, interests and penalties he's owed. but in part of this deal, he's not going to cooperate with the manhattan district attorney's larger investigation into the trump organization and whether they misled any lenders, insurers and others. that investigation is ongoing. and weisselberg will not cooperate as part of that. but a significant victory for the manhattan district attorney's office, which brought this case against allen weisselberg and the trump organization. allen weisselberg will be required to testify at the trial of the company later this year. back to you. >> the company, not the man trump. you were inside that courtroom. i'm curious what it was like. >> reporter: so it is very interesting. weisselberg came in, walked straight down the line, wearing a mask because of covid. he was asked a number of questions by the judge who ran through each and every count of the indictment. so 15 counts going through all
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of the elements of the crime, about how weisselberg had an apartment in manhattan, that he did not pay taxes on. that the company, the trump organization had paid for the private school tuition of two of his grandchildren, weisselberg admitting he did not -- he knowingly did not pay taxes on that, and when the judge went through this, it took quite a while, but he was barely audible in the courtroom, spoke in a hushed tone, just saying repeatedly yes, your honor, yes, your honor, to each of the 15 counts. >> kara scannell, thanks so much for following. appreciate it. another busy morning for us. thank you so much for joining us today. i'm bianna golodryga z. >> i'm jim sciutto. "at this hour" with kate bolduan will start right after a quick break.
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hello, everyone. at this hour, a florida judge will soon be deciding whether to reveal key details that led to the search of former president trump's mar-a-lago home. and the white house is unveiling a new plan to fight the monkeypox outbreak. plus, the war over books in texas. school librarians pulling challenged books off shelves, including the bible. this is what we're watching at this hour. thank you for being here. i'm kate bolduan. today is a decision day, a day that the public could learn key details about the fbi search of donald trump's mar-a-lago estate. in hours a federal judge will hold a hearing to consider unsealing the affidavit used to justify that search. the justice department does not want that to happen. arguing that making the affidavit public would compromise its ongoing criminal investigation. on top of that, cnn has learned some people close to trump are now urging him to
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