good morning, everyone. it's friday, we're so glad you're with us. victor, thanks for being here all week. it's been a great week with you. >> a difficult week, especially for hawaii. a big focus all morning. let's get started with five things to know for friday, august 11th. that death toll in hawaii rising to 55 people. many more are still mising this morning, as survivors say they didn't get proper warning. >> in just a few hours, donald

trump's legal team will face the federal judge overseeing the 2020 election interference case. this as the special counsel requests an aggressive trial date. meantime, trump's 2024 republican rivals are flocking to iowa for the annual state fair. former vice president mike pence is being heckled by some people at the fair as a traitor. a covid variant grips the country as health experts brace for a surge in the flu and rsv as well. a viral triple threat threatens america. and thousands of hackers are headed to las vegas for a chance to win millions of dollars in prizes to crack chatgpt. the white house is telling them, do your worst. cnn this morning starts right now. breaking news this morning, that death toll from the catastrophic set of wildfires

across maui has risen to 55 people. officials are warning it's expected to increase as search and rescue efforts continue. >> we are seeing loss of life here. as you know, the number has been rising, and we will continue to see loss of life. it's the largest natural disaster that our state has seen. that's becoming evident quite quickly. >> that is the governor of hawaii, josh green, and new this morning, cnn is on the ground in lahaina. our crew there captured these aerial shots from a helicopter, and what it shows is utter devastation. >> the head of fema is set to travel to hawaii today. this thousand the second deadliest wildfire in recent u.s. history, and it could soon become the deadliest natural disaster in hawaii's history. this is drone video of the long lines of traffic, of cars, people trying to get back into lahaina. a lot of them are wondering if their homes are still standing. here's cnn's mike valario.

>> reporter: one of the things that doesn't come through with all of the new images is the pine people are feeling. first responders helping evacuees, what will happen to the soul of lahaina with so much of it gone and so many of its people still missing. >> it's all gone. >> reporter: a sobering response from maui county's mayor, richard bisson. >> it's all burned to the ground. >> reporter: it's only been a few days since wildfires lit up the sky. >> you can see fire raining down from the sky and things are igniting all around. >> reporter: the images fresh in the minds of survivors. >> it's an extremely traumatic experience. there's a lot of emotion and trauma that's going to have to be dealt with for the whole community. >> it's the largest natural disaster that our state has seen. >> reporter: rebuilding lahaina

will be a massive effort, according to hawaii governor josh green. >> it is going to take many years. when you see the full extent of the destruction of lahaina, it will shock you. >> reporter: these satellite images show the extent of the damage to lahaina, before the catastrophe and after. nearly every home, building and business decimated. >> it really looked like a war zone. >> reporter: one of the many businesses destroyed, belonged to tiffany nguyen, the owner of whaler's locker gift shop. >> this is so devastating. i think lahaina and all of hawaii has a special place in everybody's hearts. it's such a tight knit community. >> reporter: president joe biden issuing a federal disaster declaration, allowing federal aid to help the state and members of the coast guard and national guard joining local efforts to help. >> the national gauard as activated 134 personnel, 35 from

the air national guard to assist with the hawaii wildfire response. >> reporter: and as the residents of maui piece their lives back together, a reminder. >> we are maui strong. we will get through this. we will be better. we will make this the safest, best community possible. >> reporter: and as we start friday, so many of the phone lines across maui are still down. getting them working again will help rescuers and first responders figure out how many people are still missing, and that could be an agonizing unknown that may last for days. poppy, victor. >> thank you for the reporting. >> let's talk about that now. it's unclear how high the death toll could go here. as mike pointed out, police in maui do not know how many people are actually missing. >> how many people are still missing at this hour? >> so honestly, we don't know,

and here's the challenge. there's no power. there's no internet. there's no radio coverage until we get some of those basic things set up, we're not going to have that number. >> reporter: tim williams' family, they have not heard from him since he sent this photo of the inferno closing in as he was evacuating. he's a disabled veteran who uses a wheelchair and crutches to walk. linda's family in massachusetts says that they have not heard from her since the fire destroyed her apartment, and they're even more concerned because she has health issues. >> she doesn't get around very well. she needs some assistance, and i just hope that someone was able to get to her and help her to evacuate. they're looking, but we have not heard anything yet. and from what i've seen, it looks like their apartment complex is completely gone. >> adding to the tragedy here, some survivors say they either

didn't get evacuation orders or the orders came too late. a brush fire spotted early on tuesday at 8:30 a.m. local time, the county facebook page put out this message ordering evacuations around lahaina intermediate school. you see the school marked on the map here, which ended up not being the area most impacted. 90 minutes later, the county says the fire is 100% contained. another evacuation message doesn't go out for 5 1/2 hours. cole millington lost his home and business in the fires. he joins us now. cole, i am so sorry for all you have lost. what happened as you tried to escape? >> i can run you through the whole situation of the afternoon and kind of what happened for the next couple of hours and days. i would say at about 4:00 in the afternoon, i looked out my bedroom window and i saw a huge plume of black smoke.

i immediately told my roommates, i said, hey, you know, this looks pretty serious, maybe we should start packing bags, thinking about leaving and within 15 minutes of talking about that and seeing the smoke, we were running down into our cars, anything we can grab, go bags, mostly nothing. i got my passport and my dog and my truck, and we were peeling out of the driveway, the whole street was starting to catch on fire. there wasn't really an evacuation notice for us. it was more we realized the town and our street looked like it was going to burn. my phone got one ping as i was getting into my truck, and that was the only evacuation notice we had. i got in my truck, got my dog in the truck, we start driving down the road, and there's, i mean, the whole time there's 90 miles per hour winds and crazy stuff like that. there's telephone poles in the road, there's trees in the road. there's people screaming in the

streets. there's no one saying this is where you should go, this is what you should do. there's one road in and out of lahaina, it's drive towards the fire or drive away from the fire. i got in a line of cars probably, i don't know, 5 miles deep at that point already. everyone was trying to get out. and i sent you guys some videos. i don't know if you've seen them. >> we have. >> there's pictures of me showing my rear view mirror and side mirror as i'm in the truck, and you can see the fire going across the road in fires. i'm sure people had to get out of their car and start running. it happened so unbelievably quickly that it was really difficult, really scary. >> cole, let me ask you if you had waited to move, make a decision to leave after you received that ping as you described it on your phone, do you think you would have made it out safely? >> i probably wouldn't have been able to grab anything in my

house. i don't know if i would have been able to find my car keys, my phone, my dog food, whatever. it pinged me as i was getting in my truck to leave. that warning was useless. we have tsunami warnings that i think should have been utilized. i think this could have been handled so much better in so many ways. so many of us residents felt like we had absolutely no warning. >> and what about now? i mean, i know you're staying with friends, do you even have enough supplies, food, et cetera? are you getting what you need from the government? >> i'm not getting what i need from the government. the community on maui is extremely strong, and the crowd funding and the community effort to support each other right now is so unbelievably immense. it's chaotic and extremely hard to organize. who meets where. a lot of big box stores are running out of supplies and things are starting to get a little weird after natural

disaster happen like that. a lot of people are spending their hard earned money and taking their personal vehicles and driving to lahaina to deliver supplies because we're not receiving, in any capacity that we need to be receiving on a large level. >> we showed some of that video at the top of people who were driving back into lahaina. we're low on time but i don't want to run out of time before you talk to us about this go fund me that's set up for people who want to help you and others rebuild and restart. >> yeah, there's a lot of confusion on where money can go. it would be helpful in hawaii, my first order of business yesterday when i woke up. i have been awake for 72 hours. i've taken a couple of cat naps. our first order of business was i have a local business. i have a good reach on the island, i have a good reach across the united states. my first order of business is i'm going to set up a fundraiser

to collect funds. this isn't going to be a couple of days or a couple of weeks. you guys are showing the videos. this is going to be month's long, years long. my goal is to crowd fund as much as possible. i'm working with the relief foundation. you can find it on relieffoundation.org. they work in the haiti disaster. they worked with houston during that flooding and that hurricane disaster. they worked in katrina, the japan earthquake, and i got in contact with them. they're helping me kind of figure out how this money isn't going to get taxed away and not to me personally. it's going straight to friends and family who have literally nothing. i want to interject one last thing, a lot of the community has asked me to tell you guys because they know i'm on air, we need support on the federal level. we should have the navy here. we should have the coast guard here.

we should have hospielicopters . it shouldn't be me and my friends driving through a burning town to get there. we need real support, this is a severe disaster. >> we know the fema administrator is in route there today, a national disaster has been declared there, a federal disaster as well. i'm gog ting to tweet out the l. relieffoundation.org is the organization? >> yeah, you can find the donate button. they set up the web site to show my stuff. i'm going to work with local community nonprofits and local leaders and people who are in tune with the community to figure out how to best use the funding. i was talking to maui rapid response has been doing a phenomenal job of telling people what is needed and what is not needed and where. i have been in contact with them. i was in contact with the west side rep. i'm trying to get information to make sure this is really effective. >> absolutely. cole millington, thank you for spending time with us.

i understand you're there with more than a dozen people at a friend's house, and it's going to take a long time to rebuild. we wish you the absolute best, and we'll check back in. cole, thank you so much. >> yeah, thank you guys for having me. >> what a shining example of stepping up to the moment. >> he's collecting money not for himself but for others, for the organization trying to help. >> anyone who wants to help can. the special counsel investigating former president trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election composing a trial date of january 2nd, 2024, two weeks before the iowa caucuses, how trump is responding. and speaking of iowa, the republican presidential hopefuls are there at the iowa state fair, flipping pork chops and paying homage to a butter cow. we'll go there live plus, we'll tell you which candidate just made that debatete stage. (tablet beeping) hi. hey. are you ready for your virirtual tour? yeah, i'd love to see it. (upbeat music continues)

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just hours from now, former president trump's legal team is set to appear in court in washington for a hearing related to his case on efforts to overturn the 2020 election. the judge set the hearing to discuss exactly what the former president is allowed to say publicly about evidence related to the trial. now, it comes after his lawyers asked for the judge to set the hearing for next week as they deal with his busy legal calendar. cnn's senior legal affairs correspondent paula reid joins us live from washington. what should we expect from today's hearing.

>> today is the first appearance for defense attorneys and prosecutors before the judge who's going to handle the case through a likely trial. the first hearing was before a magistrate judge. they will be before the judge, and both sides will have the opportunity to argue their case for what they believe the rules should be for handling sensitive information and evidence that's shared between prosecutors and defense attorneys ahead of that likely trial. prosecutors are advocating for broad protections. they have expressed concerns that former president trump could publicly share sensitive information, which could interfere with the investigation, with witnesses, and the case itself. but defense attorneys are arguing for something more narrow, saying we only need restrictions on sharing the most sensitive information which would be more in line with other january 6th cases. victor, i'll be in the courtroom today, and i'm fascinated to see how this judge handles both sides of the case. >> it will be so interesting.

also, what about the january 2nd trial date that the special counsel has asked for, wishful thinking, beginning of a negotiation? >> by all objective standards that would be a speedy trial, indeed, but they are saying that is the date they need to serve the public interest, to have a speedy resolution tocase. they say it will take about these are the first two months at a time when primary voting for republicans gets underway, and if the trial was to be at this time, i mean, this would mean that candidate trump would be spending most of his weekdays inside a courtroom. now, defense attorneys are going to get a chance to weigh in here too. they have another week to offer their suggestion for a date and if the florida trial is any indication, we expect they're probably going to ask to push this entire case until after the 2024 election, and then the judge is expected to set a trial date on august 28th. >> paula reid in washington,

thank you, paula. now we go to iowa. new this morning, republican senator tim scott has joined four other republican presidential candidates in signing that loyalty pledge. that means that he will make the debate stage in less than two weeks. scott is now the fifth candidate to meet all of those thresholds required to debate, including former president trump who has not signed the pledge, i should note. a couple of them haven't. many of the republican candidates are descending on the iowa state fair for what's become an important political tradition. former vice president mike pence took the stage yesterday but was met with heckling from some trump supporters. listen. >> hello, iowa. >> pence is a traitor. says he has a higher power, uses those words. he is not a christian when you say higher power. we don't buy it as believers, pence, you are far from a christian. >> wow, cnn's joins us live at

the state fair. tell us what's happening. >> reporter: we want to distinguish the two states. iowa is important because it is the first in the foundation conference. that's why we're here. that's why we're having so many candidates arrive here. this is day two of the iowa state fair. it's a ten-day fair but this is really a chance for the candidates to get down and talk to people and do very iowa centric things like flip pork chops and eat various foods like deep fried pickles on a stick. this is something that, you know, we get to see unscripted moments and various candidates walking through this entire fair. that's something that we are going to continue to see the former vice president mike pence do. he's going to walk through here with iowa senators chuck grassley and joni ernst.

he is also scheduled in addition to the soap box he had yesterday where he had 20 minutes to talk to the crowd, he's going to be sitting with the governor of iowa for a fairside chat. the addition of other candidates, miami mayor, francis suarez. tomorrow is the big day. we're going to see donald trump arrive here. we're not expecting victor or poppy to see him flipping pork chops, or, you know, he's going to sort of redefine what it means to be at the iowa state fair as he has throughout this entire primary campaign. guys. >> i don't think we saw in 2016 he was flipping pork chops. even to the butter cow. >> those were butter cows. >> i know you guys do the butter sculptures but on iowa, what's the impact of this visit. i saw the schedule for the soap box, it's packed with candidates.

how much of a difference can the visit to the fair make on a candidacy? >> well, kind of continuing on that theme that donald trump has redefined the primary. in a normal year, i would say that this is very important. iowa has traditionally been won at the state fair, inside living rooms, handshake at a time. what we are seeing, though, is that this is very much been a primary determined by donald trump and then the rest of the field. so really it's tbd. we don't know how much of an impact it's going to have, victor, but this is unlike other primary seasons we have seen here before . >> certainly is. have fun. kyung lah, thank you for the reporting. a new warning about a covid variant on the rise. >> the house oversight committee has not shown any direct evidence that president biden personally benefitted from his son's business dealings. in a new memo, though, republicans on the committee are saying, well, they don't have to. that's ahead.

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actually be bracing for a viral triple threat this fall as a new vid variant has emerged. covid hospalizations on the rise for the first time since earlier this year. experts say they are bracing for a surge, also rsv and flu cases in the next couple of months. medical correspondent meg is here. >> rsv came early, respiratory viruses were shaking out post covid. experts say this is going to be an instructive season. so far it doesn't look like rsv is going to be super weird again. it's not coming super early. what is different about the

season, we have protection against all three major viruse flu, covid and rsv. we know the flu shot is recommended for everybody si months and older. covid updated boosters against one of the newer trains are coming out end of september, and rsv, there's a new shot for babies which is really protective and recommended for babies under eight months. people are excited that will cut down on hospitalization risk, and 60 plus, particularly those more vulnerable, there are two new vaccines. there's a lot of protection available out there. one thing to know about flu, the timing is really important. people say flu before boo, get your vaccine before halloween, you don't want to wait too long. >> that's new to me. >> we like rhymes in public health. you don't want to get it immediately because the protection can wear off after five to six months. public health officials say end of september, into october, don't wait too long. don't go out immediately. >> flu before boo, you would not forget that. the covid variant, this new one,

how worried should we be? >> this one is sort ofaking over, it's called eg5, another version of omicron, and it's about 17% of cases in the united states. it's really splinted. 17% is the most commonnt. the w.h.o. put out a newk assessment about it. they say the public health risk globally is low. it does have increased prevalence, it is taking over globally. there is immune escape, meaning it can escape our antibody protections a bit, but not expected to be severe, and the clinical severity has not proven to be worse so far. >> flu before boo. >> i just said you're not going to forget it. house oversight committee chairman james comer says he intends to subpoena members of the biden family. accusing biden of a bribery scheme worth $20 million. when pressed by cnn's jake tapper for evidence on claims that biden financially benefitted from his son's

foreign business dealings, here's how comer responded. >> this is why we're investigating, and it's difficult, jake, it's very difficult. the biden attorneys are obstructing. they're intimidating witnesses. the doj will not cooperate with us. the fbi will not cooperate with us. the irs will not cooperate with us. >> cnn's zachary cowen is with us now from washington. what if anything supports these claims from comer? >> yeah, good morning, victor, and poppy. this memo is based on bank records that the committee obtained through subpoena. they targeted individuals who they know were doing business with hunter biden, but what it really shows is that republicans on the house oversight committee intend to accuse the president of corruption without direct evidence to support that claim. that's a shift from what we have seen from the house oversight committee chairman, james comer, a week and a half ago when he was asked by sean hannity on fox

news, directly, do you have proof that joe biden took a bribe. take a look at what comer said then. >> i sure hope so, and i do believe that there's a lot of smoke and where there's smoke, there's fire. >> reporter: so now comer is saying, we don't need the prove to throw the accusations out there, and of course this comes as republicans are pushing the individual experiment of the president based on allegations. republicans moving forward without really having shown the goods to back up the claim they're putting out in public. >> manu raju reporting the republicans privately are saying the impeachment inquiry is a fore gone conclusion. we'll see if they'll get there in the fall. thank you. less than two weeks until the first republican primary debate. we'll tell you who's in, who's not in yet, and who still hasn't signed the loyalty pledge. that's ahead. i remember when i first started flying, and we would experience turbulence. i would watch the flight attendants. if they're not nervous, then i'm not goining to be nervous. fifinancially, i'm the flight attendant in that situatioion.

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my blood pressure is borderline. garlique healthy blood pressure formula helps maintain healthy blood pressure with a custom blend of ingredients. i'm taking charge, with garlique. . in just a few hours, a judge will hear arguments on how sensitive evidence in the election subversion case against trump will be handled. yesterday, prosecutors filed their proposed trial schedule for the case, pushing for a january 2nd start date. in the meantime, trump's opponents have descended on iowa state fair to make their case for the white house. joining us now national political reporter for the associated press, michelle price, and cnn senior legal

analyst, and former assistant u.s. attorney in the southern district of new york, elie honig. let's talk legal, political of january 2nd all of it's going on. if you propose from the special counsel's perspective, january 2nd, do you introduce that knowing that you're not going to get it, but you got to set it so early, you'll hopefully get something you can live with midway. >> i was appreciative of this move by doj because i have been in this situation. you are hoping you get your way. you're hoping you get that quick trial date but recognize it's highly likely you won't get that exact trial date. they're sending a statement, we're ready to go, we want to do this as soon as possible. i think january 2nd is going to be an awful tight fit. this indictment dropped august 1st, last week, and if you're going to start a trial in january, you're going to have to start jury selection in december, that's what doj says. you're giving the defense four and a half months. that is really a tight squeeze to go through what's going to be hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of pages of discovery,

to do their motions, they're going to have substantial motions here. i don't know how much success they'll have, but they have the right to bring motions and to prep the decfense. that's a tight fit. i think january 2nd is optimistic for prosecutors. >> i want your take on what nikki haley did, signing that loyalty pledge and taunting the others who haven't to do it. what's notable, we'll pull it up here is she crosses out biden's name and she writes harris in, president harris on it. what does that tell you about her valstrategy. >> it's a way to make edits to the loyally threads. presidential candidates and republicans in general, they're kind of seek to go undermine joe biden and by alluding to either that he will not finish his first term, he might not live long enough, she will become president or sometimes they're alluding that she is actually the president right now. you'll see ron desantis, he'll

always refer to it as the harris biden administration, and not the biden-harris administration. nikki haley has made this point over and over again. she's tried to target herself a little bit opposed to kamala harris but we're seeing the vice president right now lean in on some of these candidates. she showed up in florida to talk about the african-american history standards, showed up in iowa to talk about abortion. she's ready to have this fight. >> let's listen to the vice president here. there's an interview with, i think, the reverend al sharpton, let's listen. >> if we muff this one and biden gets in again, heck you may end up with kamala as president. >> if you vote for joe biden, you really are counting on a presidential harris because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that i think is likely. >> let me promise you that if he is the nominee in 2024, joe

biden will be a president in 2025, at 83 years old, and if you think his act looks bad now, wait until he hits 83 and 84, and 85, and 86. and by the way, in case he doesn't, you get kamala harris. >> obviously a different sound bite, the candidates are referring to a president harris there. let me stay with the pledge. donald trump says he's not signing it. is there a scenario in which donald trump does not sign that pledge and still, if he chooses, makes that debate stage? >> it's possible. he is a very powerful person in the party. the rnc might decide they will somehow find a way to soften the language or come to some kind of agreement. so far they're holding firm on it. he could sign it and say whatever he wants and does whatever he wants it's not a legally binding document. >> i think all politicians need to sign pledges of no more pledges.

these are ridiculous. they're not legally enforceable. people scribble them out, write whatever they want. chris christie said i'll sign it but i'm not going to abide by it. it's stuntsmanship. >> it's interesting, we have will hurd, a republican candidate on later who has refused to sign the pledge, i don't want to lie, i won't vote for trump. if trump is the nominee i'm not going to vote for him. if trump can get on the debate stage without signing it, rnc is going to have to let him and others on. it's going to change the game for anyone. >> for some of the candidates having a hard time making the stage, it's a convenient thing for them to say, you know, i'm not going to sign that pledge anyway, so the way it's set up, they're supposed to first meet the polling requirements, donation requirements, and then they're presented with a pledge, some of them are handicapping themselves from the front. >> michelle price, thank you so much. elie, we'll see you next hour. thousands of heat records in the united states have been broken in the last 30 days, and forecasters are warning of more

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oceanic and atmospheric administration. forecasters are warning of a more active hurricane season due to the climbing ocean temperatures. let's get to our meteorologist derek van dam, bad on top of bad on top of bad. >> one way to put it. if you're on the eastern sea board or gulf of mexico, this is for you. this is important, noaa just increasing the likelihood of an active hurricane season. we're just entering into the peak in the next week or so that will start the peak of the hurricane season, and, you know, up until this point, it's been a battle between the record breaking ocean temperatures and, which helps fuel stronger storms, and that compared to this what we call an el nino which sheers or rips apart hurricanes in the atlantic ocean. noaa has been going back and forth, it turns out as they continue to study their models further, they have come to the

conclusion that they believe the warm ocean temperatures will actually prevail, and that is why they increased these forecasts for at least hurricanes. they're anticipating 14 to 21 named storms. we have already had four. look at this, two to five major hurricanes. that's the new forecast. that's category 3 or higher. we're talking water temperatures that are ranging anywhere from 3 to 5 degrees fahrenheit above average within the main development region. this is an area where we look out for hurricane development and as i mentioned, the peak of the hurricane season, not until september 10th, but the next couple of weeks, that's when we start to really see the activity ramp up. so look out eastern sea board, gulf of mexico, we're watching for a very active season coming up. >> for sure. thank you. now to a man going to extremes to address the climate crisis. endurance swimmer and environmentalist, lewis pugh will swim the entire length of the hudson river, 315 miles in

30 days, all to bring awareness to the critical importance of the healthy river ecosystems to oceans and the environment as a whole. lewis is no stranger to these extreme swims for a cause and he has done it in the most challenging environments on earth, including the english channel, the an arctic, the north pole, the red sea. look at these pictures. he joins us now, the united nations environment program's patron of the ocean. good morning to you. >> good morning. >> i have been reading on what you're going to face when you go out there, this journey starts on sunday, you're risking bears, vultures, being exposed to human fluids, chemicals, why is this the way. >> there will be a lot of stuff. this is one of the greatest rivers on this earth. i mean rgs, just think about it there's no other river, you have black bears, vultures, beavers and at the end when you swim underneath the george washington

bridge, there, when you breathe to your left-hand side, you see all of these skyscrapers and there the statue of liberty bri bringing you to an end, an amazing river and an amazing place to tell the story about the health of rivers. >> the fact that you're doing it now so important. i feel like everyone is feeling it this summer, really feeling it. look what's happening in hawaii, look at the record temperatures, finally waking up to the devastation of climate change right now on our environment, and so much of what you do in your foundation is about protecting this. >> it's actually essential that we really focus on the health of our planet now. this is the defining issue of our generation. i have seen enormous changes around the world, high up in the arctic with every single year, less and less sea ice, down in antarctica, with lakes appearing on the surface of the ice sheets, the coral reefs of the red sea, everywhere, i'm seeing

what's happening to the planets, and this is a swim, a call to em po people around the world. i can speak to people around the world. the river ends in manhattan right next to the united nations headquarters. >> that's so true. >> and the importance of rivers. we have talked about some of the other bodies of water that you have conquered before, but rivers specifically, why? >> rivers are the arteries of the world. okay. if we want to have a healthy plan planet, we need to have healthy rivers. everything we flow into rivers, industrial waste, raw sewage, plastic pollution, it all goes down the rivers and then ends up in the sea. >> it's one of the reasons why in three of your four river swims, you have gotten seriously sick. you are taking in what we pollute and put in our rivers. >> yeah, well, i mean, it's an interesting story, the hudson, because at the source, it's absolutely beautiful. it's fresh clean water. >> the adirondacks.

>> really, you can drink that water, it's absolutely pure. all rivers should be fishable, drinkable, and swimmable. but then when you go a little bit further down the river and the stuff starts coming in after the rain waters and you have pollution getting in there, that's when it impacts. >> so you're swimming unassisted, meaning that you'll only be wearing a speedo, cap and goggle, no wet suit, snorkel, flippers, why unassisted and then what's the plan for 315 miles over 30 days. >> so i love to swim in just a speedo, cap and goggles. the reason for that is two-fold, firstly, it's a really different -- you're exposed to the elements and i really like that. i don't like to wear a wet suit or dry suit. the last reason is because i'm trying to get world leaders to be courageous. to make the really tough decisions which we need to take, and i think swimming, you know, with a wet suit or dry suit, especially swimming in the arctic and antarctic and those

places wouldn't send the right message. in terms of daily activities, i'm going to swim around five hours a day. i'm a much better afternoon swimmer than a morning swimmer, so i'll wake up early in the morning, before the sunrises, get in the river, swim for two hours, and then get out, eat a good breakfast, and then in the late afternoon, as the sun's going down, three more hours. >> well, we wish you the absolute best, a fantastic cause, and you have done it before. we'll check in with you. lewis pugh, thank you. >> thank you so much. >> you can swim right by our office at the end of your journey. >> i'll wave. a historic banyan tree in hawaii, stretching a full city block, threatened by fire. cnn on the ground next. and the death toll in the devastating hawaii wildfires is now up to 55 as new questions arise about why warnings were missed or not issued at all. >> there's a lot of people, more than 36 people that didn't make

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out about phil mickelson, i'm curious your reaction, what the reaction in there was when you read about it? >> at least he can bet on the ryder cup this year because he won't be a part of it, so. >> rory mcilroy with a little joke there. he was being asked about the stunning allegations that phil mickelson tried to gamble on the ryder cup. andy scholes joins us with more.

lots of allegations which will soon be out by phil mickelson's former partner. in a book released later this month, it alleges that the six time major champion's wagers go well beyond what had previously been known. billy walters said he was mickelson's gambling partner for years, and in excerpt from his book, walters says mickelson considered a $400,000 bet on the u.s. team to beat europe in the 2012 ryder cup. mickelson was a member of that u.s. squad that ended up losing. walters wrote he doesn't know if mickelson ever placed that bet, but mickelson released a statement on social media denying the allegations saying i never bet on the ryder cup. while it is well known that i always enjoy a pretfriendly wagn the course, i would never undermine. he is open about his gambling addiction. the total gambling losses are

close to a hundred billion and waged over a billion dollars. cnn has not been able to independently verify the claims. walters was convicted of insider trading in 2017, and sentenced to five years in federal prison. president trump commuted his sentence in 2021. walters suggested in his book according to golf digest that mickelson was to blame for his prison sentence. elsewhere, golfer, colin morikawa is working to help the recovery efforts and the deadly fires that have devastated maui. the two-time major champion says he's going to donate $100,000 for every birdie he makes in the pga tour playoffs. several of his family members were born and raised on maui, and his grandfather owned a restaurant there. he posted his pledge on instagram along with a menu from that restaurant. and morikawa finished the opening round of yesterday's st. jude championship with six beers. he's going to begin today his second round. he went to maui many times as a kid, and it holds a special

place in his heart. he wants to do what he can to help. >> a lot of people are reaching out to help. andy scholes, thank you so much. cnn this morning continues right now. good morning, everyone, let's get started with five things to know for friday, august 11th, breaking overnight, that death toll in hawaii has risen to 55 people. many more still missing this morning, as some survivors say they just didn't get proper warning. in just a few hours, donald trump's legal team will face the federal judge overseeing the 2020 election interference case. the special counsel is requesting an aggressive trial date. meantime, trump's 2024 republican rivals are flocking to iowa for the annual state fair. former vice president mike pence being heckletrump's 2024 republican rivals are flocking to iowa for the annual state fair. former vice president mike pence being heckled by some fair goers as a trader. >> the supreme court blocks a $6 billion opioid settlement that would give immunity by the family of purdue pharma, the