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President Trump Was In The Carolinas Assisted The Federal Response To Hurricane Florence; The Woman Accusing Supreme Court Nominee Brett Kavanaugh Of Sexual Assault Got A Lot Of Supporters; North Korea And South Korea Announce A Deal To Achieve Denuclearization; Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired September 19, 2018 - 13:30   ET

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


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[13:33:08] JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Right now President Trump is in the Carolinas assisting the federal response to hurricane Florence. The rain has subsided but the worst is yet to come. Several rivers are still rising while thousands of homes and roadways are under water.

Look at these before and after pictures of top sail beach, North Carolina, the lighter picture was taken in 2014, the latest one shot Sunday shows the main thoroughfare. Anderson Boulevard covered with dark standing water. An incredible picture there.

CNN correspondent Nick Watt is in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Nick, the pictures are just incredible from down there. What is the President saying so far about the damage? We have seen him a lot today to handing out meals and so on storm victims?

NICK WATT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, he said that he wanted to meet the people and see some of the worst damage, and that's what he's been doing. He has been New Bern, which was one of the worst affected areas. Touring a neighborhood that was under six feet of water, just a few days ago. He was also at a relief center, to church handing our meals to people. They were, I got to say, a few surprised faces on people when the President handed them a couple of Styrofoam boxes full of food.

He also met earlier with local and state officials. So let's take a little listen into some of what he had say to.

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We have had a lot of help from Congress, in all fairness. And we are ready and they are ready to do whatever we have to do to make this perfect. And that means, unfortunately, the money will be a lot, but it's going to come as fast as you need it. We are going to take care of everybody.

WATT: Now remember it was just last week, Jim, that the President was questioning that new high revised death total from Puerto Rico from hurricane Maria, suggesting it was some kind of Democrat plot to make him look bad.

Interesting (INAUDIBLE) this, Jim and make of it what you will. ACOSTA: OK. Nick Watt, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Coming up next, joining me live, a long-time friend of the woman accusing Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault come to her defense. Why she says Christine Ford has nothing to gain except to get a clear conscience. Coming up.

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[13:39:51] ACOSTA: This hour more than 200 people are coming to Christine Blasey Ford's defense, the woman accusing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault. The hundreds of supporters graduated from the same high school as Ford, and my next guest Samantha Guerry is one of them. Samantha is joining us now.

Thank you so much for being here with us. And you were just telling me before we got going here that you have known Chris Blasey Ford for a long time.

[13:40:15] SAMANTHA GUERRY, FRIEND OF CHRISTINE BLASEY FORD: Forty years.

ACOSTA: What is she like? And what do you think she is going through right now?

GUERRY: Well, this has been an agonizing period of time for her. As you might imagine, she didn't ask to be in this position. She asked for confidentiality. And since that wasn't possible, apparently, we are now in the throes of being a political football.

She is a very private person. And she's a very substantial woman of great intellect and integrity. She is a bio-statistician, which is even hard for me to say so I have great admiration for that alone. And she is someone who is really devoted to her career to accuracy and data and facts. She is someone who doesn't put pen to paper unless she can prove it. So we have --.

ACOSTA: So she knows the full weight of what she is alleging and what she is doing?

GUERRY: Absolutely.

ACOSTA: And what's your sense of what she's going to do? Because everybody is now waiting to see, is she going to testify? Is she going to come out publicly and talk about what she had said in this letter to the committee?

GUERRY: I don't know what she is going to do. I really don't. I think that she might not even know what she is going to do right now. This is all come on her very quickly since her name was released and there's an awful lot of things coming at her right now. I think that the careful consideration she is giving to how she handles this should be a lesson to everyone involved in this process, that we all need to take a deep breath and consider how we are going to move forward with this information.

ACOSTA: And I'm sure you have been listening to all the political debate of her coming forward and so on. A lot of the Republicans are complaining on the Judiciary Committee that this is an 11th hour, last-ditch effort to derail judge Kavanaugh's nomination, basically to get revenge form Merrick Garland and so on. Knowing Christine Blasey Ford personally, do you think she would be a part of that id that's what's going on?

GUERRY: I understand that this is highly inconvenient to the Republicans' agenda right now. But what Christine has done, she wasn't part of any of the decisions of how the information she put forward was handled. That's all been part of the Democrats having to really honor her decision to remain confidential. And you know, whether it was revealed two months ago, or last week, I'm not sure how relevant that is. I think that's what we are focusing on right now because that's sort of, you know, the dynamic that we are in. But we, regardless of the timing, we can't get sidetracked on that. We need to focus on the fact that this is a very serious allegation by a very substantive, incredible person.

ACOSTA: And you are seeing a lot of the Republican senators Bob Corker, Jeff Flake now Susan Collins coming forward and says essentially that if she doesn't speak, if she doesn't talk to investigators or if she doesn't talk to the committee or speak publicly at this hearing, that they just need to move on and vote. What do you make of that?

GUERRY: I'm a little disappointed to hear that. She has said that she will talk to investigators. But my understanding is having the proper FBI investigation would be only done at the request of Trump and I'm not sure how likely that is. Which really puts Christine in a very uncomfortable position because appearing in a public forum in front of thousands of cameras and people and Congress people, it just seems really like an inappropriate forum for this kind of discussion, at least for the next step. And we have already seen that done. I mean no one can say that the Anita Hill hearings were a great success, so.

ACOSTA: She doesn't want to go through the same thing that Anita Hill went through?

GUERRY: Why would she want to go through that? She doesn't want to go through what she is going through now. This is a really traumatic experience on top of a traumatic experience.

ACOSTA: Do you know Brett Kavanaugh at all?

GUERRY: I did. He was an acquaintance of mine in high school.

ACOSTA: And did he have this reputation for excessive drinking at that time?

GUERRY: I can't really speak for that because he wasn't directly --

ACOSTA: What about what Dr. Ford is alleging? Have you - was this the first time you heard anything like that with respect to judge Kavanaugh?

GUERRY: Absolutely. It's not the first time I had heard anything like that, in terms of the community of women that I know, and not regarding him, but --.

[13:45:11] ACOSTA: Those sorts of things went on.

GUERRY: You know, one of the things that's been surprising to me as I have got involved in this in the last couple of days is how many women of my class have come forward to me in this last few days and said I had similar experiences in high school. And this hits me very deeply and I --

ACOSTA: Not with Brett Kavanaugh, but with other boys?

GUERRY: Not with Brett Kavanaugh but with other boys in our community. And we all feel that if we were in her shoes, we would want to be taken seriously as well.

ACOSTA: OK. Well, we appreciate your time very much, Samantha Guerry. Thank you very much. And obviously, your friend has a big story to tell. We are waiting to see what happens. But thank you very much for sharing what you have to say.

GUERRY: Thank you for listening.

ACOSTA: Good talking with you. We appreciate it.

Coming up, they are calling the era of no war. North Korea and South Korea announce a deal to achieve denuclearization, but there's a big catch involved.

Later, she made headlines for this viral photo of flipping off Trump's motorcade. There it is right there. And now, the woman in the picture is running for office. She will join us live coming up.

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[13:50:42] ACOSTA: The era of no war has started, those are the words of the President of South Korea comes after he and the leader of North Korea Kim Jung-un sign an agreement to suspend any hostile acts against one another. In addition Pyongyang is promising to destroy a key test facility for missile engines and a Pyongyang nuclear site if the U.S. agrees to what was already described as corresponding measures. President Trump praised the meeting earlier today.

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TRUMP: We had very good news from North Korea and South Korea. They met and we had some great responses. I got a tremendous letter from Kim Jung-un. As you know, it was delivered three days ago. The relationships, I have to tell you at least on a personal basis, they are very good. It has very much calmed down. We are talking. It is very calm. He is calm. I am clam. So we will see what happens.

(END VIDEO CLIP) ACOSTA: He is calm. I am calm. That's according to the President.

I'm joined by CNN global affairs analyst Joseph Yun, who formerly served as the U.S. special representative for North Korea policy.

Thanks, Joe, for joining us. As you saw the President there, he is already excited about what is taking place. This agreement in Pyongyang. But should he be excited? He is saying I'm calm, he is calm. OK, fine. People are calm. But does this agreement amount to anything?

JOSEPH YUN, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, I think there is something there, you know. As you mentioned earlier on, there is the promise to get rid of missile site. There is a promise to given some measure from the U.S. side. He will get rid of a major nuclear site. So there is a promise there.

Jim, frankly, what I'm worried about, this kind of binary reaction from the White House. On the one hand you have fire and fury. On the other hand, we are all calm, we are all nice. I like the guy.

ACOSTA: There is no middle ground.

YUN: There is no middle ground. And there has to be middle ground. This is a very complicated issue.

You know, you and I are were in Singapore together. And optics were good, everything was good, you know, but then nothing happens. And this is, you know, two weeks ago he stopped secretary Pompeo from going to Pyongyang. And now he is saying, well, everything is OK. So this kind of going back and forth between two extremes, you know, I feel like I'm being whip sawed.

ACOSTA: It feels like nuclear whiplash.

Kim Jung-un, he says he is waiting for President Trump to take the next step. But what kind of reciprocal action does North Korea expect and would want the President to agree to? Because it seems as though we have two very different understandings of what denuclearization means. It sounds as though the President and I mean, what Republicans would like to see Democrats frankly and Washington would like to see is a completely denuclearized Korean peninsula. But it still, to this day, it just boggles the mind to think that the North Koreans would ever commit to that.

YUN: You are absolutely right, there is no way North Koreans will completely verifiably, irreversibly, denuclearize before we do anything. What they are looking for is an action for action. This is going to be a long process.

I don't think that we will get a completely denuclearized North Korea within short time, say, one or two years. That is not in the cards. So what does it mean? Can we take some steps? I mean, certainly, I think we all agree that tensions have gone down substantially. North Korea and South Korea we saw in Pyongyang just now building a political relationship. So what North Korea wants to do is test the U.S., same as we want to test the U.S. So what with we really need is some quiet diplomacy to nudge each other along. If they are truly offering to get rid of (INAUDIBLE) facilities, let's see. What do they want in return? For sure they will want what we call end of war declaration.

I mean, quite frankly, personally, I don't think that there is a problem giving it to them. But if they want more like complete removal of sanctions before they do much, that would be a problem.

[13:55:01] ACOSTA: That sounds like a nonstarter.

Well, Joe Yun, thank you very much. Great insights. We appreciate it.

Coming up, the Kavanaugh nomination chaos continues. We will run through the different scenarios that could play out including the potential for a vacant seat until 2021.

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[14:00:02] BROOKE BALDWIN, CNN HOST: Hi, there. I'm Brooke Baldwin. You are watching CNN on this Wednesday afternoon.

We begin with this high stakes ultimatum facing the woman accusing the President's Supreme Court nominee of physical and sexual assault.