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tv   Erin Burnett Out Front  CNN  May 8, 2023 4:00pm-5:00pm PDT

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delay like this, it makes the travelers' schedule all messed up. >> i think it will make a difference. i think it motivates the airlines to do better by the consumer. so i'm in favor of it. >> reporter: what can airlines do this summer, what can passengers do this summer, rather, to prepare for delays and cancelations? this analyst says you should build in a buffer of time at your destination. if you've got a time-sensitive meeting, fly early to that city, do not book the very last flight out. >> brian todd, thank you very much. one person will note before we go, it was 33 years ago today that i started my career here at cnn. it was may 8, 1990, when i began as the pentagon correspondent for cnn. seems like just yesterday. thanks for watching. "erin burnett outfront" starts "erin burnett outfront" starts right now. -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com "outfront" next, breaking news. cnn learning the gunman who
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killed eight people at a texas mall was obsessed with nazis and mass shootings. he also appears to have scoped out that mall before the massacre and then waited for the biggest crowds. a witness who was there during the gunfire is "outfront" tonight. we have new video into "outfront" tonight. this from a ukrainian sniper that we have spoken to several times. he's on the front lines tonight and is sharing dramatic new images of the brutal battles he's seeing there with you. and the migrant surge, up as much as 400% already in some areas along the u.s. southern border. we're going to take you there live tonight. let's go "outfront." good evening, i'm erin burnett. "outfront" tonight, breaking news, obsessed with nazis, guns, and mass shooters. these are the new chilling details that we are learning tonight about the 33-year-old gunman who killed eight people and injured seven more at a texas outlet mall. according to social media posts believed to have been made by mauricio garcia, the killer, you see exiting a car here just
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before the massacre, posted several photos of swastika tattoos and numerous photos of guns and ammunition, along with a disturbing and rambling post, which reads, in part, quote, even if i did go to a psychologist, they're not going to be able to fix whatever's wrong with me. besides, that [ b--'s expensive. a u.s. military source is confirming to cnn tonight that garcia was terminated after just three months in the army because of mental health concerns, terminated after just three months because of mental health concerns. just think about that for a moment because after that happened, he was able to return to his job in texas as an armed security guard, and to legally get an ar-15-style weapon used in the massacre after being released from the army because of mental health concerns. we are also learning that garcia was using google maps to scope out the location weeks before the weekend shooting. he prepared for it. the shooting was the second
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deadliest this year and the 17th mass shootings in texas. it comes as we are learning more about the victims from this latest horrific tragedy. the youngest among them 3-year-old james cho, a toddler killed along with his mother and father who you see here. his 6-year-old brother william was the only from his family to survive the shooting and he just woke up in the icu. among the other victims, sisters, daniella mendoza. and a security guard at the mall. i'm going to speak to someone who knew christian in just a moment. also an engineer who was shopping with a friend when she was killed, eastern michigan university where she graduated in 2020, released a statement that reads, in part, as the nation has to once again grapple with the senseless act of gun violence, we share our condolences with her family and
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friends. josh campbell begins our coverage "outfront" live in allen, texas. i know that you have been going through the suspects extremely disturbing social media history. what more are you learning? >> reporter: our colleague paul murphy has identified this social media account on russian social media. a law enforcement source confirms to me that they believe that this was used by the shooter here in this outlet mall shooting. it is filled with vile posts about swastikas, about anti-semitism. it appears that the shooter's online footprint is a repository of hate-filled grievances. >> i was full of adrenaline. it was the most terrifying moment of my life. >> reporter: eight people are dead, and at least seven others wounded after yet another mass shooting on american soil. this time at an outlet mall in
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allen, texas, saturday, about 25 miles north of dallas. >> the gunshots, just, it sounded like a war zone. it was horrifying. >> reporter: investigators say the 33-year-old gunman who was killed at the scene by a police officer may have been driven by right-wing extremism. a senior law enforcement source tells cnn there isn't a specific motive they've identified yet, but that investigators have uncovered an extensive social media presence, including neo-nazi and white supremacist-related posts. in one post from the gunman's account on a russian social media website, he showed a photo of the mall along with a sc screenshot from google maps showing what times of day the outlet mall busiest. >> i saw a boy about 4 or 5. he just kept saying, my mother's hurt. i kept telling him everything is fine, help is on the way.
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>> reporter: texas governor greg abbott who attended a vigil, says authorities don't yet know enough about the gunman to make any determinations. >> what i can tell from talking to the investigators yesterday, and that is people should not jump to conclusions because there's a lot of conflicting information about him. >> reporter: a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation tells cnn that the suspect served for a brief period in the u.s. military but was removed due to concerns about his mental health. in addition to an ar-15-style firearm and another weapon found with the gunman, the source tells cnn police found several more weapons in his car, and he was wearing tactical gear with an rwds insignia. the suspect had been living in some type of temporary lodging in the dallas area, and at one time worked as a security guard and underwent firearms training according to public records. now, erin, new information
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tonight about the weapon that was used in this shooting as well as the arsenal of guns that the suspect had collected over the years. a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation tells me that those weapons were purchased legally, most of them through private sellers. the reason why that's so important is because we continue to hear from gun safety advocates about this so-called private seller loophole here in the state of texas and in other states if you buy through a private sale, it doesn't require a federal background check. >> thank you very much, josh, just incomprehensible as we all sit here again talking about this. andrea gaither joins me now. she witnessed the shooting. i'm grateful to speak to you. i'm glad that you're okay. obviously, you can't unsee and not experience the horrors that you saw. when did you realize what was happening? >> well, erin, first of all,
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thank you for having me on. i first realized what was happening a few minutes after i came back from my lunch break. i clocked back in at 3:30. and a few minutes later, i was getting some cardigans off of a clothing rack in the far back corner of the store, and two little girls came right beside where i was standing, and one of them crawled under the fitting room door. her sister started hiding in between the rack that i was working on and the door, and then she was frantically trying to open the door and ask me, open the door, they're shooting, they're shooting. so, i turned my shoulder and noticed my boss was ushering customers in the back of the store. and that's when i realized that there was something serious going on. i knew that it was a real shooting scenario.
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>> and what did you do then once you knew this was a shooting? >> so, i briefly went under the door to the fitting room with the little girls, and then i knew that that wasn't a safe place and said, we need to go out the back. we were ushered by my boss to go out the emergency exit. and once i got outside, i could hear the gunshots very close, very loud, nonstop. and i started running, and i ran as if as fast as i could run. i ran the full length of the mall in the parking lot behind the stores that typically the employees use to park. and i took a corner to get off
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of the property the entire time that i was running, i could hear the gunshots. it sounded like a very powerful gun. every gunshot sounded like an explosion. it was definitely the scariest thing that i've ever heard. and not something that i ever wanted to go through. >> and i know you actually know one of the victims, the security guard at the mall, and obviously he was killed. someone that you knew that you saw every day. >> correct. >> what can you tell us all about him? >> well, he was frequently in the store. he would come in to chat with the employees, you know, just to check on things on the weekends. i had just spoken with him a couple of nights before when i had a strange man in front of
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the store and he came and called to offer me and my two young teenage girls who were working that night a security escort to our cars. so he definitely was a protector to all of the people that were working in the mall. all of the people who i work with, including myself were very fond of him. he definitely -- you could sense that there was a real genuine sweetness about him. he was very kind, and concerned, of course, about all of the mall. he called me just a few nights ago whenever i had the incident with the man in front of the store who was kind of, you know, not wanting to leave even though we were already closed. and he told me that he saw the man leave the property but then still offered us a security escort to our cars so that we
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would feel safe. >> that's the kind of person that he was. such a loss. well, andrea, thank you very much for talking about this. i can't truly imagine how hard it is to relive it and sharing it, but thank you. >> thank you, erin. and i want to go now to the author of "bring the war home: the white power movement and paramilitary america." when you hear andrea talk about this, just the agony that people witness that people saw, that people experienced who were there, everyone is trying to understand the why, how this could be happening again. and a source is telling us that investigators did find neo-nazi and white supremacist related posts and images that they believe the gunman shared online, he wrote about neo-nazi ideology online, he talked about replacement theory, which is this false idea that there's a conspiracy in this country to make the u.s. population less white, to get rid of white
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people. his name, though, was maruricio garcia. is this hard to reconcile? >> you know, we keep running into this same fissure where when we have people with latino surnames or people who do not appear to others to be consequentially white, people believe then that they can't be involved in a white supremacist movement. and this is a problem in our understanding for a couple of different reasons. first of all, there are a lot of people who are neo-nazis, like it seems this gunman was, who do not appear white within a sort of usual framework. second, the frameworks around racial hierarchy and whiteness are different in different places in the world. and neo-naziism has a foothold in a lot of different places. so, for instance, the patch right wing death squad refers, in part, to the -- in argentina
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where political enemies were flown out by helicopter over the ocean and simply thrown to their death in the sea. we were seeing proud boys wearing t-shirts with the right wing death squad patch. that was a clear embrace of white supremacy, even if it is carried out by people who do not appear conventionally white. >> we have talked about the shooter was found with insignia on his clothing, the rwds. my understanding, though, is that members of the proud boys also wear that same insignia. do you think that there is any possible tie or relation? i understand he was planning this for weeks. but the fact that this shooting came on the heels of the big conviction last week for the leaders of the proud boys for their role in january 6th. >> yes. and not for nothing, the
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conviction of at least one person who we would not classify as conventionally white enrique tarrio. i think it's very possible that it might indeed provoke acts of violence like this one. i think there have been a number of other things adding fuel to the fire, including things like former president trump having a campaign rally in waco, texas, which is a reference within this movement of extremists to the oklahoma city bombing as a successful example of white power domestic terrorism. the other thing i want to mention is we have a cast of characters here who now include a whole bunch of racial and ethnic backgrounds. if you look at the leaders across this movement, there are a number of latino surnames. that doesn't confuse the nazi content of the posts that this
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person made. there were pictures of tattoos of a swastika of ss letters on upper bicep. and also pictures of a number of people dressed in nazi regalia who appear to be people of color. >> well, thank you very much. it's crucial perspective because, at least certainly i and i'm sure many others learn a lot from hearing it. thank you. >> thank you. well, next, a jury about to begin deliberating in the rape trial against former president trump. the trump team deciding not to have him take the stand. will that hurt him with the jury or not? plus, tensions escalating on the u.s. southern border where thousands of migrants are now living in the streets in el paso as they wait for a trump era policy to expire just days from now. the mayor of el paso which has declared a state of emergency is out front. we'll take you to the front
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hollywood" tape where he said stars could sexually assault women without their consent. >> well, historically, that's true with stars. >> it's true with stars that they can grab women by the --? >> if you look over the last million years, i guess that's been largely true. unfortunately or fortunately. >> and you consider yourself to be a star? >> i think you can say that, yeah. >> that was his deposition in this case i'm not pulling old tape, that's for this case. the jury expected to begin deliberations tomorrow. and could force trump to pay damages to carroll if it believes her allegations. ryan goodman has been following this case from the beginning. this is a case you've been watching very closely, and you kind of pointed out that others had not for a while. now, obviously, it's on the front burner. the jury verdict does need to be
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unanimous, but it's a civil trial so the burden of proof, the prosecution has to prove it's likely that this happened, and that could be 51%. you don't have to have beyond a reasonable doubt. so you've got a much lower standard even though you need unanimity. how significant would it be if the jury does find trump guilty? >> people don't necessarily realize that there is a lot of statistical evidence that shows that the american voters will respond very strongly if it is proven that he is guilty of sexual assault. so there was a quinnipiac poll in december of 2017, and it asked american voters if it was proven that he committed sexual harassment, do you think he should be removed from office. and 61% said yes for sexual harassment. this is sexual assault, and also that 61% in terms of it being proven in a court of law by unanimous jury. 61% is also higher than any single poll ever in the first two impeachments against him.
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no poll reached 61%. >> so that -- just to give everyone a data point of where we are now. his comments in that deposition about the "access hollywood" tape were not the only part of that deposition that he's got a lot of criticism over. his go-to defense, his entire defense on this was actually, she's not my type, e. jean carroll's not my type, here he is in the deposition. >> i'll say it with as much respect as i can, but she's not my type. while it's mitically incorrect, she's not my type, and that's 100% true, she's not my type. >> so, in a deposition environment, he had made a decision, whether his lawyers wanted him to or not, that he was going to say that again and again and again. i want to point out that he then appeared to undermine himself because he mistakenly said that this photo of him with e. jean carroll, he mistakenly said that the woman with him in this picture was his second wife, marla maples.
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so this person he says who's not his type is his wife. >> i don't know who -- it's marla. >> you say marla's in this photo? >> that's my wife. >> which woman are you pointing to? >> here. >> the person you just pointed to was e. jean carroll. and the woman on the right is your then wife? >> i don't know. this was the picture. >> not his type, but he thinks it's his wife. okay. he did not end up testifying. this deposition is what we got. is this going to help or hurt him with the jury, not withstanding the horror of the deposition? >> i think it hurts him quite a bit. and the plaintiff's counsel starts their closing argument and ends their closing argument almost like bookends by saying he's not here before you, he did not come and testify before you
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the jury and tell you that this was a lie. why is that? wouldn't you yourself rush to court if you were falsely accused of something like sexual assault? they think it really helps them a lot. >> and just a final quick question to you. what do you make of that deposition? >> it's damning from beginning to end. the "access hollywood" tape was entered in evidence because it is like a confession. it matches many of the allegations against him from e. jean carroll. hers go further step. but then he doubles down in the deposition, and there are lots of other parts of the deposition that are really bad for him. he also loses it and calls the woman attorney for e. jean carroll that she is not his type either, which is just misogyny through and through in the deposition. this is the theory of the case, this is a misogynist. there are so many other parts of the deposition that it's really not something good that the defense counsel would want. >> all right, thank you very much, ryan goodman. and we'll wait to see when that
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verdict comes. border towns seeing already as much as a 400% increase in migrants. the mayor of el paso, who has already declared a state of emergency is "outfront" next. we are on the ground in ukraine tonight as force there's come under attack. >> dust in the sky around us . . the future is here. we've been creating it for more than 100 years. from the most advanced technology
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tonight, you're looking at live pictures out of juarez where hundreds of migrants are waiting for the southern u.s. border. three days are left until the end of title h42. this comes as texas governor greg abbott announces he's sending tactical units to the border. and it is unclear at this moment how many soldiers are actually being deployed in the state of texas. president biden is sending 1,500 active duty troops to the border. cities from san diego to el paso are already facing a spike in migration, up 400% from two weeks ago in some areas.
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rosa flores is "outfront." >> reporter: tension on the border escalating as an suv in brownsville, texas, plows through a field, killing eight migrants, unclear if it was intentional. >> the suv ran a red light, lost control, flipped on its side, and struck a total of 18 individuals. >> reporter: the incident comes just days before the controversial expiration of the pandemic-era immigration rule known as title 42. border communities across the u.s./mexico border already seeing a spike in migration, according to community leaders. in brownsville, one respite center went from receiving up to 300 migrants per day a week ago to a thousand. 25,000 migrants are in immigration custody, according to a homeland security official. total migrant encounters on the
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u.s. southern border now surpasses 8,000 per day. and this is the scene by the border wall in el paso where hundreds of people are waiting to turn themselves into immigration authorities, a flow that's expected to spike once title 42 expires tuesday. and thousands more are already living on el paso city streets. >> this is ground zero. >> reporter: this pastor has been delivering between 900 and 1,100 warm meals a day. as migrants here rely on the kindness of strangers for everything. >> with respect to the dod personnel. >> reporter: this border patrol chief says the 1,500 active duty troops deployed by the biden administration to assist with administrative tasks are headed to el paso for now. >> i'm going to be able to reallocate those to some of the other sectors that require some additional capacity. so we're going to be able to balance that out.
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we've got a plan. >> reporter: homeland security secretary alejandro mayorkas says the administration's border policies are not to blame. >> we urge congress to fix our broken immigration system. and, until then, we will do everything that we can. >> reporter: while washington squabbles about who is at fault, its border churches and nonprofits are helping fill in the gaps. now, outside a shelter that it's over capacity. and i just learned from a source that the federal government estimates about 152,000 migrants are waiting in northern mexican states for the lifting of title 42. now, the top three states are chihuahua with 60,000 individuals. now, this is across the border from el paso here where i am. then the state of tamaulipas with 35,000. that's across the border from
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rio grande. and guailla. here's why this is important because border facilities for processing are overcapacity already. shelters are overcapacity. nobody that i've talked to knows what's going to happen when title 42 lifts. >> rosa, thank you very much. i want to go now to the mayor of el paso, oscar leeser who has declared a state of emergency in his town because of the border crisis. mayor, i very much appreciate your time. i just want to start with the live pictures of what it looks like in juarez, mexico. you've got hundreds of migrants waiting. that is an incredibly small fraction of those who are waiting, and those already there. you've got thousands of migrants already on the streets of your city. what is your latest estimate, mayor, of how many more migrants could be on the way ahead of thursday's deadline?
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>> you know, erin, i traveled to ciudad juarez last week and went to the shelters and the shelters were empty. the second largest shelter that i visited had about 20 asylum-seekers and the rest of them were out on the street. so there are thousands of them. based on the report that i have, there's about 10 or 12,000 right there at the border. the reason they don't want to be at the shelter, they don't want to miss that opportunity to come to the united states because they're under the false pretense that if they get here before title 42 expires they'll be able to stay here. and that is not the case. the borders are closed today and the borders will be closed after title 42 expires. but there's thousands of them. i was told there's a caravan that will arrive prior to title 42 expiring that's about 3,500. so we expect to see at the end of title 42 expiring, we expect to see somewhere in the neighborhood of about 10 to
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15,000. >> these are stunning numbers. are you -- what even happens here? are you even prepared for this? >> well, i've been saying that we need to continue to prepare for the unknown. and the unknown is we'll be here on may 12th. when i declared a state of emergency, i wanted to make sure we were able to open -- we have a couple schools that have been closed for years. we were able to turn them into temporary sheltering. those people who have gone through the immigration process that will be able to stay in those schools from 24 to 72 hours and then go to the next destination, and that's to be with their friends and family. those are people that once you go and get a number which has gone through the immigration process, you're free to go into the u.s. we want to help them get to that destination. so we're going to open up two schools. we have the convention center prepared, and the red cross has come to assist us. >> so you're doing all of that.
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but not hearing very much about the federal government. senator kyrsten sinema from arizona says she's not getting information from the biden administration about preparations for the end of title 42, which includes no information on how many buses will be available to transport them, pretty much anything. here's a bit more of what she said. >> it's unfortunate is that i'm asking for that information and i'm not getting it. and, so, either the administration has that information and they're choosing not to share it, which is a problem since we're the ones who are going to deal with the crisis, or they don't have it, and that's even more concerning. >> and that hasn't been shared with the governor? >> it has not been shared with the governor. i spoke with the governor yesterday. it has not been shared. so we do not have this information. >> mayor, is this your experience with getting information from the white house? is it like senator sinema's? >> no. i can tell you that i've been
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working with secretary mayorkas and he's been very good at filling us in with the information and making sure that we have the funding. because people are coming to the united states, and the federal government has given us funding to be able to do the work of the federal government, really, because we are a border city and that's a responsibility to make sure that the citizens of el paso continue to be safe, but also our asylum-seekers. the white house has been very good in working with us. and i actually call up there and i can talk to somebody. and i talk to them probably once or twice a day moving forward. and they've been very, very helpful. and i'm thankful for the opportunity and the help they've given to our community. >> well, mayor, i appreciate, thank you very much for sharing all of this with me. thank you. >> thank you, ma'am. you have a great day. , and next, we have new video that has just come into "outfront." this is what's playing out right now in the front lines of ukraine. we're going to let you see this for yourself, next. plus, president biden support among nonwhite voters
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it is just a completely charred out, burned out destroyed shell of a city. and this comes as the ukrainian sniper that we interviewed several times on "outfront," roman, he is sharing with us some dramatic video from the trenches around bakhmut that he has just filmed. i want to warn you that what you're about to see is graphic, but he did want us to go ahead and share it. it's a ukrainian soldier that has been severely wounded by an explosion receiving life-saving medical treatment from other soldiers. ultimately, this soldier did survive. it's difficult to watch, but he thought it was important to share with you. you see him tieing the tourniquet. that soldier did survive. nick paton walsh is "outfront" in southern ukraine. >> reporter: occupied ukraine,
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evacuating its civilians. russia's wholesale departure can't come soon enough for this front line town, ravaged by moscow where four missiles hit on thursday alone. rescuers left guessing what the constant bangs mean and have done. i see people just down the road here carrying on life as normal despite the dust around us. i may not be, in fact, outgoing. [ speaking non-english ] he's saying, it could be any time. as dusk falls, the sky is lit. all they can do here to stay alive is read the horizon.
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some of it perhaps further south into occupied areas than a week earlier. but so much of it also very close. dawn is often jarring. we hear a jet overhead, the slowly building sound of damage moving towards you. a missile a half-million-dollar kh-31 ukrainian officials later say, lands just 700 yards away. another blast follows. the symbol of russia's invasion,
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a z in the air. it is soon gone. the damage it leaves, though, isn't. this is where it hit or missed. down here, you can get a feeling of just how massively brutal russian firepower can be. and also how indrim gnat. i can still smell the explosive down here. and you're kind of left wondering where the obvious military target is. at the end of this road is one of the towns russia has said it is evacuating. we are just one mile from russian front line positions here, a world torn apart as moscow tries to hold ukraine back. they're going to be evacuating because of the ukrainian counteroffensive. the last town really held by ukraine, absolutely battered. and so few people left here as little need to evacuate. where there were once 3,000, there are 200 people trying to
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stay. [ speaking non-english ] caught in these wide open spaces where a distant bang can suddenly alter life in an instant. russian officials say they've now evacuated 3,000 individuals, civilians mostly from the areas along the front line, potentially where ukraine may launch its counteroffensive. ukrainian officials say that's impacting cash withdrawals, gasoline availability, and also cell phone service too. and even that one particular town to the west of crimea may have seen a lot of people leaving it recently. most importantly, though, many ukrainians here, i think, are bracing themselves for a night of maybe more missile strikes, drone strikes as well. a lot are being intercepted by defense over the past nights. but tomorrow is victory day, the 9th of may. it will be celebrated in moscow.
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and we sadly know that moscow tends to mark anniversaries with a bid to create more bloodshed. >> i want to go straight now to the retired army lieutenant general mark hertling. part of what nic's talking about, russia evacuating 3,000 people from the front line in zaporizhzhia where nick is tonight due to increased shelling. they've got lines of buses, they're using those to transport people away. now, zaporizhzhia, of course, has been seen as a major target likely in the coming ukrainian counteroffensive. so what do you think russia is doing here? >> first of all, zaporizhzhia is an entire oblast. so you're talking about several hundred square kilometers. make no mistake. russia is not evacuating these people for humanitarian reasons. what they're doing is taking
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citizens away so that they don't help the incoming ukrainian forces that are coming in. it's the same thing the nazis did in france where they killed resistance fighters, they moved fighters away so that they couldn't help the allies when they were coming in to france and then later into germany. so that's what they're doing. they're getting rid of the population so they can't help and spot where russians are. they can't tell the ukrainian forces where the defensive positions are. they can't point out sniper positions. so those are the kind of things that are going on right now. >> i think it's important to be clear, there is nothing humanitarian about it. another thing i wanted to ask you about, because yevgeny prigozhin, the head of the wagner group, is now saying his troops are getting ammunition, and that they're advancing in bakhmut. the reason i'm mentioning this is that you and i were talking just days ago. he was warning that he was going to pull all of his troops out of bakhmut because they had no ammunition and no support,
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nothing from the russian military. now all of a sudden they're advancing and they got the ammo. what do you read into that? >> i read into it that it is more russian and kremlin drama. it is political back and forth between prigozhin, the leader of the chechen fighters, and gerasimov. the interesting thing is this has been dysfunctional now for almost 18 months. these kind of personalities have been at play. and even on the eve of a grand offensive by the ukrainian forces, they're still screwing around trying to figure out who's in charge and who the leader is. none of this is military activity the way professional soldiers see it. >> all right, thank you very much, general, as always. >> thank you, erin. and, next, president biden tonight has the lowest approval ratings of his presidency so far. in fact, in this most recent poll, he would lose to trump in a 2024 matchup. so, how worried should he be at
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tonight pay up. that is the message from president biden who wants airlines to pay customers whose flights are canceled or delayed. this is a proposal that obviously would be fairly popular one could imagine. it comes as he is facing some of the lowest poll numbers in his presidency so far though so whether this will move that is another question. but a new "the washington post" poll came out that shows 36% of voters approve of the job biden is doing. 36%. that is the lowest in his presidency. in a head-to-head match up with trump biden loses, 44-38. that is not close. out front now van jones former special adviser to president obama. just to be clear here, the approval rating is the lowest of biden's presidency so far. that would be a trouncing if that were the general election number that came out. here we are in may of 2023. how worried should biden be at this point? >> look, i think he should be worried but worried if the numbers were flipped. in other words we are a year almost away from the election and anything can happen.
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this is probably his floor. there is a level of fatigue out there not just with biden but the economy is weird. you can't plan for anything. nobody knows what is going on. ai is going to come and eat all our jobs. everyone is scared, uncertain, and hurting and you take it out on the president in situations like that. you know, we are a year and a half out. there is only one way to run for president. you have to run scared. he should be worried today. he should be worried if the numbers were higher, too. >> which is a fair point. but he is struggling within that poll, right? there were some sub data points that were pretty interesting. one is a key vgroup which is nonwhite voters. biden is up by 11 points. people might take a step back. oh, he is up by 11 points. contrast that with 2020 where he won nonwhite voters by 45 points. what the heck is behind that? >> that is, those are shocking, scary numbers. i don't think they are stable
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numbers. in other words, i think that you're going to see these numbers move around. if you are trying to figure out what's going on in addition to the basic anxiety, we always assume these cultural war fights only cut one way. they kind of excite the trump base and nobody else. but there are conservative, african american and latin voters that may also sometimes get pulled along into some of these, you know, on to the other side of some of these culture war issues. and we just don't know where it all settles out. >> quick final point here. i mentioned trump. we have no idea who the nominee will be. biden also in the poll loses to the florida governor ron desantis, 37-42%. again in u.s. politics where we are now that is not really close. do you read anything into that one? >> we just haven't had a campaign yet to define desantis. right now desantis, you know, look. you have the opportunity in the campaign dynamic when you know who the alternative is, as joe biden always says, don't compare me to the almighty. compare me to the alternative.
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once you know who the alternative is you will see a lot of people come back home. people on the fence won't want desantis. >> thank you. coming up on ac 360 anderson will look at a new twist in the alex murdaugh saga. in a surprising admission from prison he now says he lied about hiskeeper's death. what does it mean? that is next at 8:00. and next here a new warning about the u.s. economy as president biden is about to sit down with a high stakes meeting on paying america's debt. your c. so you only pay for what you need. that's my boy. now you get out there, and you make us proud, huh? ♪ bye, uncle limu. ♪ stay off the freeways! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ how to grow more vibrant flowers: step one: feed them with miracle-gro
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tell your doctor about an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. tell your doctor if your crohn's disease symptoms develop or worsen. serious allergic reaction may occur. best move i've ever made. ask your dermatologist just hours before president biden is about to meet with congressional leaders about paying america's debt, this
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warning from the treasury secretary tonight. >> if congress doesn't raise the debt ceiling, we just will not have enough money at that time to be able to pay all of the bills. it is widely agreed this would be a huge hit to the economy and really an economic catastrophe. >> using the word catastrophe there. yellen also saying she is worried about negotiations between the president and republicans. well, then, i guess she doesn't need to be worried about that tonight because even though i mentioned biden will be hosting a high stakes meeting at the white house with the four top leaders of congress tomorrow, and that is a crucial meeting, the white house does say this particular meeting will not actually include negotiations on raising the debt ceiling itself. thanks so much for joining us. "ac 360" starts now. good evening. though it is hard to say that. it is not a good evening when a