WSJ: Guilfoyle Pushed Donor to Wire $100K to Her AmEx Account

0:00Every day, animals across the country face abuse and neglect. And every day, the ASPCA shows up to rescue animals in crisis. But they can't do it alone. Visit ASPCA.org slash need. Become a donor today to provide the care and shelter these animals urgently need. And for a limited time, the ASPCA will send you a free gift as a special thank you. Visit ASPCA.org slash need. Observe. The North American Dad. 50s. Great polo collection. He enters his vehicle information on Carvana. An offer appears in minutes. Remarkable. He squints, reads it again, smiles and says, dang, that's a good offer. The highest form of approval.

0:49No haggling. No hassle. No one called him boss. He's still on the couch. Astonishing. Sell your car today on Carvana.com. Pickup fees may apply. Good evening from the newsroom, and honey, please, I need you to get this done for me today. Those words, according to the Wall Street Journal, were texted by Kimberly Guilfoyle, now the American ambassador to Greece, to a donor she was requesting$100 ,000 from so she could pay off her American Express bill. Now, why would anyone just give Kimberly Guilfoyle$100 ,000? Well, because he wanted something in return, and according to the Journal, had offered Guilfoyle, who had been Donald Trump Jr.'s fiancée, a million dollars if she could do some favors for him.

1:34The story broke yesterday, but it continued today and tonight. Ambassador Guilfoyle was on the tarmac in Athens this morning, just steps away from her boss, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who does not sound thrilled to be fielding questions about this. Sir, do you have anything new on the reporting from the Wall Street Journal that Ambassador Guilfoyle had sought finance? Yeah, guys, let me tell you something, OK? You guys are going to ask me this, you're going to ask me again in Portugal. I know the game, OK? The game is someone gives information to a newspaper or a media outlet. The media outlet reports it.

2:04You immediately turn to me and say, I need you to respond to our reporting. That's not the way this process works. So get that out of your head, because that's never the way it's going to work with me. It's a game that's been played for a long time, but it's not a game we're going to play. could have just said he didn't want to answer the question, but that's basically what he's saying. He doesn't want to talk about it. Vice President Vance, on the other hand, did engage somewhat, but only by treating the question as a hypothetical. Do you have any reaction to a U.S. government official, in this case a U.S.

2:34ambassador, asking someone to pay off debt in exchange to access to other government officials? Well, so with that hypothetical, Jen, obviously, I don't love that, but I, you know, I don't know exactly who you're talking about. I don't know the full details. OK, so let's get into the details as first reported by The Wall Street Journal. The text I read and others were sent by Guilfoyle to a Kentucky MAGA donor named Eric Dieters and were written just before her Senate confirmation hearing in July of last year. And again, in one, she says, referring to the Amex bill, the honey, please, I need you to get this done for me today.

3:14A short time later, according to the journal, she talks about how to make the payment, she thinks less traceable. Quote, it won't show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express. That's all it will show. Please. Polite. Dieters told the journal that she promised that if he paid, she would, quote, be your ride, your Trump ride or die forever and ever. He didn't pay. The relationship soured. And according to the journal, she began expressing concerns about their dealings becoming public, quoting now, Eric, I really wish you would stop papering all these things. Also, what a nightmare. You'll literally cost me my ambassadorship.

3:53Stop writing. Stop papering all these things. It's really dangerous. And just call me on signal. An attorney for the ambassador disputes the authenticity of the text. Dieter, in the meantime, has been talking about them all day. Here he is, Jake Tapper, on the lead. He told Jake he wanted Guilfoyle's help with a legal case he was pursuing, among other things, for which he'd pay her a million dollars. What I did is I told Kimberly, I said, Kimberly, if you help me draw attention to this, when the case settles, I'll give you a million bucks. And she said, fine. And she said that she'd start doing all these things for me.

4:28But none of that ever happened. So right before Senate confirmation, she says to me, I need one hundred thousand dollars to pay off my American Express card or I'm not going to become Greek ambassador. This is embarrassing. And I said, Kimberly, you haven't done anything that I've asked you to do. I mean, I mean, just nothing. She hadn't she hadn't accomplished anything. And I said, Kimberly, why should I do this for you? And she told me it's in the text messages. I'll be your ride or die forever in a Trump administration. I won't keep track of how many favors, how big the favors. Again, Ambassador Guilfoyle's attorney disputes the authenticity of these text messages, but it is one more story about ethical questions and money-making by members of the Trump administration.

5:12We've reported on the meme coins, the crypto company his family co-owns, the G20 Summit being held next month at his Florida golf resort, and there were new filings today that show President Trump made 517 stock and bond trades in August, including$5 million worth of SpaceX bonds just days before taking executive action to accelerate space exploration, which benefits SpaceX. The president also purchased up to$25 million worth of MetaShares and as much as$6 million in Microsoft. Several weeks later, at that White House AI summit, the president weighed in against regulating the AI industry. One former White House ethics czar Richard Painter, who would not call the transactions illegal, but he did say that they give the appearance of corruption.

5:53Polling from Gallup reveals that 89 % of Americans now believe government corruption is widespread, which is up 30 points in the last 20 years. It's not exactly the kind of country that Kimberly Guilfoyle said was coming just six short years ago. Ladies and gentlemen, leaders and fighters for freedom and liberty and the American dream, the best is yet to come.

6:26Yeah, that happened. I remember that. Joining us now is Washington Democratic Congressman Adam Smith, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee. Congressman, I mean, you look at how President Trump and certain allies and members of his family have enriched themselves during his second term. Should anyone be surprised that, if the Wall Street Journal reporting is correct, that his almost-daughter-in-law was dangling access to the administration in exchange for a six-figure Amex bill getting paid off? No. And look, I don't know why it has taken so many people in this country so long to wake up to the fact that Trump's presidency is basically a grift.

7:06OK, yes, he implements some policies here and there, but his policies aren't his primary focus. He, his family, everyone close to him are doing everything they possibly can to suck as much money out of their positions as possible. This level of corruption has never been seen before in the history of this country. And it's been out there for years. I mean, there's nothing, you know, the crypto stuff, you know, they got the SpaceX and the Meta stock. You know, he's buying stock right before he makes decisions to help prop up companies. You know, the Russian who pays for, you know, Don Trump Jr.'s wedding reception or whatever it was.

7:48You know, they are just laughing at the American people. Now, I will say in the polling from what I've heard, it seems like the majority, the overwhelming majority of American people are now waking up to this reality and turning on Trump and all the corrupt people around him. But you got to ask the question, Republican Congress, where the hell are you? Where were you? You let this happen. I mean, Mike Johnson defending Trump using taxpayer dollars to run a campaign ad less than a month before the election. So I hope the voters hold accountable the House and the Senate Republicans. I mean, it is important, I think, to step back every now and then and just point out how not normal this is.

8:34The people who are negotiating the deals for, you know, in the Middle East are also in business deals with people in the same leaders in the Middle East with these countries who, I mean, with one hand, they're trying to change U.S. policy and negotiate stuff for the U.S. government, the American people. and at the same time they have business negotiations going on and investors. Yeah. Look, it's interesting, Anderson, you use that term not normal. I've used that term many times when I look at what Trump is doing. I'm trying to figure out how do I show people, how do I convince people how bad this is?

9:16And I've used that not normal. And a lot of people, Trump supporters and others for that matter, shoot back at me, well, normal wasn't working. So I get that. I don't even disagree with it. OK. You know, we have a country that has major economic problems. We have a few people who have massive power and endless amounts of money. A lot of other people are struggling to pay the bills, get jobs. We have a fundamentally unfair system in our country. All right. But not normal isn't changing that. this is corruption. And I wish people could separate that and recognize Trump's not trying to address those issues.

9:55Okay. When he says it's, you know, I'm doing something different. He's just engaged, as I said, in the world's most successful grift. You know, he makes P.T. Barnum, you know, look like a dime store hustler. They've also cut back on investigations into corruption in a number of different agencies throughout the federal government and the IRS as well. Yeah, it's not even really corruption in the minds of the Trump administration anymore. It's just business. OK, you know, I mean, there's not even any effort. I'm forgetting the story exactly. But George W. Bush, I think there was an issue where he was about to pardon someone.

10:37And they did this deep dive and they figured out, I can't remember exactly what it was, but years before there had been some obscure connection with a Bush family, had been in business with the guy or something. There was a small amount of money, totally unrelated. And they held up the pardon because they thought that appearance. And here's Trump raffling off pardons, you know, like he's at a church bingo. I mean, the distance that we've come. And I wish people understood our Our government was not always this corrupt, okay? This is not the way things were done. Yes, there were isolated examples, but the Trump administration has institutionalized it.

11:19I do think that's the pushback that some people say was like, oh, look, these folks were always corrupt. There was always corruption. I mean, Jimmy Carter had a brother, Billy, who tried to market Billy's beer, and that was like people's heads exploded. I mean, that seemed, that's like a, and it was a joke then, but it seems like absurd now compared to this stuff. Well, it doesn't mean it's like saying all of a sudden on the major freeways in your town, everyone is racing at 150 miles an hour all day long. And people say, yeah, well, you know, people always speed. Okay. It's like, yeah, you know, they go 5, 10, maybe 15 miles an hour over the speed limit, you know, but that's not the same.

11:59It's having everyone go 120 miles an hour all the time. And what Trump is doing goes way beyond that. And we policed corruption. You know, we've arrested a number of members of Congress that wound up in jail because of their corruption. All right? But it was a small number. It was prosecuted and isolated. So, yeah, the corruption in the Trump administration is off the charts. Well, we'll see how widespread the, you know, the early pardons are for everybody. Congressman Adam Smith, appreciate it. Thank you very much. I want to bring in our panel and CNN political commentator who's also a former Obama ethic czar and ambassador to the Czech Republic, Norm Eisen, and also Brad Todd, Republican strategist as well.

12:37Brad, I mean, do you think reports like this one about Ambassador Guilfoyle register with people? Do you think it impacts people at a time of, I mean, is this a good look? No, it's a bad look. And I hope it's not true. I mean, what we have now is one newspaper reporting one thing her attorney says it's not true. You know, she was a pretty big draw on the circuit for President Trump in the campaign. She was a good surrogate. They have a personal relationship. So I'm sure he's going to give her every chance to tell her his side of the story, her side of the story. But, you know, these things are never a good look.

13:10I noticed Adam Smith didn't talk about Senator Bob Menendez, who was convicted on bribery charges. And I can't remember him saying anything about it at the time, actually. Or Mark Rich, who Bill Clinton pardoned on the way out the door after his wife committed a million dollars to the Democratic candidates and a half a million to the Clinton presidential library. So these scandals happen. They are happening. And hopefully this isn't one. I hope it doesn't work. Do you think they're right? If there is malfeasance, though, do you think these folks are going to get convicted or are they all just going to get?

13:40I mean, Bob Mendez was convicted. You know, they're going to be pardons pretty widespread, it seems like. Well, you know, the ambassador reports to the secretary of state first off. And I trust Marco Rubio will do it. Be fair about this. And again, you know, Donald Trump, I think he he he doesn't want anyone to be an embarrassment to him. And so I think if I think he'll give her every chance to give her side of the story. And look, we have to hope it's not true. That's that's that's the case now. Yeah. And certainly she says, you know, these texts are not true. And so we'll see. Norm, I mean, do you think Bachelet Guilfoyle, I mean, just with the corruption that does exist, do you think there will be consequences, whether it's for this case or any of the others?

14:21Well, I agree with Brad. It's a terrible look. In any normal administration, a criminal investigation would have commenced, because what you have here is powerful evidence of a quid pro quo. Nominees are covered by that law, Anderson. And it's not just a newspaper article. It's message after message. It's the receipts. It's the smoking gun. And then today, we had the other person involved going on television, Mr. Detmers, and describing the quid pro quo is the kind of explosive testimony you expect at a trial. So she denies it. This is just the beginning. I think it has to be said, though, that this is consistent with the tone that President Trump has set.

15:22Profit taking out of the presidency to the tune of billions. What's a$100 ,000 Amex bill compared to the billions President Trump has made, including from his meme coin and crypto products, where over a million people have lost almost$4 billion? So it stinks in Athens and it stinks in Washington. Brad, as we said, President Trump purchased$5 million worth of SpaceX bonds just days before signing a national security memorandum aimed at enabling more than a thousand launches and reentries on American soil annually by 2013, a policy that Elon Musk's company would obviously benefit from. To you, is that a concern at all?

16:09Well, let's be clear. The White House says that the president's investments are handled by third-party investment experts, and he is not involved in any of the buying or selling of those stocks. So let's put that up front. Next, though, you know, Tesla and SpaceX are stocks that tend to move in tandem in the market, if you look. And, you know, 60 percent of us are exposed to the market, and Tesla and SpaceX are 6 percent of Nasdaq. So really, what's good for SpaceX is good for all of us. And it's not too long ago, we were sending our astronauts up to the International Space Station on rented, rusty rockets from the Russians.

16:44And, you know, we were basically hitchhiking to get up there. And now Elon Musk and SpaceX last week got four astronauts up there in eight hours, a record. So he has revitalized and saved the American space program. This company has the experts, a lot of scientists there, not just him, plenty of the smart scientists who work there. And it's a volatile stock. You know, it moves around a whole lot. You know, in last June, it was high. Last August, it was low. Now it's back to being high. But if you do it five, I mean, Norm, if you're doing it five days before you're signing something that's going to boost the stock, would seem to want to be able to boost the stock.

17:25Is that a problem for you, Norm, from an ethics standpoint? Anderson, when we were in the White House, we decided at the time of the Great Recession that we wouldn't even let the president refinance his modest family home in Chicago, saving a couple hundred bucks a month on interest. You didn't let President Obama refinance his mortgage. No, no. We decided together, the president and I and the team, that it was a bad look to start where Brad did. The American people put Donald Trump in there to put money in their pockets, not over$2 billion in his own pocket. He's done thousands of these stock trades.

18:08And I don't care if he says that others are doing them or not. I want to know the proof of that. But also, presidents, this is why they put their investments in a blind trust or in mutual funds. So these questions about profit-taking don't arise. It's like nothing we've seen in the history of America. It's terrible. You saw the poll numbers. The American people are furious. We'll see. Norm Heisen, Brett Todd, appreciate it. Thanks, guys. Next, more on how the story is playing out inside Trump world from the best-selling Trump biographer, Maggie Haberman. She's going to join me. We'll also talk about whether the president's mostly red state campaign strategy is likely to get results.

18:51And later, a new report that the Trump Justice Department is targeting former White House aide and January 6th whistleblower Cassidy Hutchinson for criminal prosecution will explain ahead.

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19:58$15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. More than a week into his month-long midterm campaign marathon, the president tomorrow is doing something different. He's not campaigning in a red state. He's holding a rally in Syracuse, New York. Last night, he was in Texas, someplace he's now been to three times already, and is now in play for Democrats, in part because he drove the incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn out of the office by backing the current nominee instead, Ken Paxton, someone who a conservative political commentator on the show last night called a, quote, walking liability for the whole of the GOP.

20:35But Paxton is a Texas problem for Republicans. Across the board, the problem is the president's low job approval numbers, even in red states. New CNN polling shows it at 36 percent in Ohio, 41 percent in Iowa. And in both the states, Republican House and Senate candidates are paying the price for it. Joining us now, New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, co-author of The Best-Selling and Fascinating Regime Change. Maggie, it's good to see you. So is it clear to you if the president has any real plan or message for the midterms, which are now less than four weeks away? And do you think he grasped the headwinds that Republicans are facing?

21:10I think he grasps the headwinds. I don't think that he blames himself, based on everything we've seen him say and everything in my reporting and my colleagues' reporting. He very infrequently blames himself. But the reality is, Anderson, that the biggest issues that his party is facing right now, tariffs would be won, but the much larger issue is the Iran war and the price of gas and the affordability crisis and the fact that the president talks about it in a way is not very understanding about voters. All of this is why he has a problem, including what you were talking about in the previous episode, which is all of this self-dealing on a scale that we just have not seen ever in my lifetime like this at all.

21:52And I don't think in yours either. So it's not that there have not been other allegations of corruption in other administrations. It's the level at which this is taking place. And so all of that is felt by voters. But he's blaming, he's blaming his strategists. He keeps saying things privately like, you know, this plan is bad. These candidates are his candidates and these decisions are almost all his. He's also, I mean, you know, he giveth and taketh sometimes in the same sentence. I want to play some of what the president said recently about Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton. Ken Paxton, you might not like the way he dresses.

22:29And I say this, it's so insulting to him, but I might as well say it. you might not like the way he looks. You might not love his look. He may not dress right. He may not talk exactly perfectly. And he may not be the best looking guy I've ever seen. I don't like the way Ken dresses. I don't really like the way Ken talks. I don't really like the way he looks. I don't like it. Ken Paxton was at my side more than anybody. And I have to always remember that because he could be a pain in the ass sometimes. I'll be honest. Is he here, by the way. We got to get this guy elected. This is part of his personality that was early on kind of fascinating that he would say these things out loud that he was thinking, which, you know, maybe a lot of other people were thinking as well, but just were kind of stunned that anybody would say them out loud.

23:23I don't know what the it's absolutely true that he would say things out loud. And there were there were voters who found that appealing. And he would also have this to tell two different sides of his own coalition because his coalition is an odd you know fit of a bunch of different you know essentially groups who hold opposing views on some things he could say different things and one group would hear what they wanted to hear and the other group would hear what they wanted to hear in what what he was saying that get is has been very tested in the last two years it's when you've been doing it for 10 years 11 years it becomes hard to maintain.

24:00The Paxton one is very unique because he does it sort of everywhere. It's clearly insulting. There's nothing endearing about it. And Paxton already has all kinds of other problems as a candidate that has nothing to do with how he dresses. So what exactly you're selling the voters is not clear to me there. Obviously, every second term president eventually becomes a lame duck. It may depend on how he does the midterms. But how do you think this president is going to react to being described that way? Well, A, I don't think he's going to react well to it, Anderson. But B, I think that the bigger issue is, you know, less the description and more the behavior that comes from this.

24:40I think people forget that even if the House flips, even if the Senate flips, yes, there obviously are going to be a lot of hearings, a lot of oversight. We've seen previews of the kind of things that Democrats are going to be looking at across, you know, the Trump family, the Whitcoff family, Lutnik family, Kim Gil, I mean, I can go on and on here, but I don't think that we have ever seen what it could look like if an entire government does not respond to subpoenas. And the president, as you noted before, has made very clear that he is going to pardon, and we report this in regime change, any number of people, everyone, in his words, who has come within 250 feet or so of the Oval Office.

25:17So I don't know what oversight looks like in that scenario. And at the same time, even though his own approval rating is obviously down, he's still overwhelmingly popular with Republicans and he's still the president. And he is very willing to put the squeeze on his own party, as you're seeing now. So I don't know what that looks like, but I doubt it's going to look much like what we've seen before. Yeah. Maggie Heberman, it's great to have you on. Thanks so much, Maggie. More breaking news tonight. According to Punchbowl News, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division, which has undergone a transformation in this administration, is seeking a federal criminal indictment of former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson on charges of lying to Congress in her testimony before the January 6th committee.

25:58Punchbowl is reporting that the DOJ presented evidence to a grand jury this week and is expected to present more evidence and additional witnesses later this month. Now, Hutchinson was the top aide to former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows at the end of the first Trump administration. You may remember she testified in 2022 that she had heard a secondhand account that President Trump was so enraged at his Secret Service detail for blocking him from going to the Capitol on January 6th that he lunged to the front of his presidential limo and tried to turn the wheel. I looked at Tony and he had said, did you effing hear what happened in the beast?

26:33He said, no, Tony, I just got back. Tony described him as being irate. The president said something to the effect of, I'm the effing president, take me up to the Capitol now. To which Bobby responded, sir, we have to go back to the West Wing. The president reached up towards the front of the vehicle to grab at the steering wheel. Mr. Engel grabbed his arm, said, sir, you need to take your hand off the steering wheel. We're going back to the West Wing. We're not going to the Capitol. Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge towards Bobby Engel. And when Mr. Renato had recounted this story to me, he had motioned towards his clavicles.

27:22Now, a Secret Service agent and a White House deputy whom Hutchinson said were also aware of the story have said they don't remember it. President weighed in on social media about Hutchinson's account in March of 2024, saying our great Secret Service has totally crushed Cassidy Hutchinson's, who I barely knew, made up fake stories about me roughing up Secret Service agents from the backseat of the beast limo. Has she now changed her testimony? Will she be prosecuted for what she did and said? What about the unselect J6 committee? They destroyed almost everything, including real evidence and findings.

27:53What's going to happen to them? Serious crimes have been committed? Question mark. Joining me now to discuss is former federal prosecutor and CNN senior legal analyst Ellie Honig. The grand jury, do you think they would indict? Obviously, there's the old ham sandwich thing. You can find one to indict. But what she was saying was secondhand. She's not saying she saw that. So that's the key point. I think if DOJ tries to bring this case, it will be ridiculously weak. I think it will be doomed to fail for exactly that reason. Cassidy Hutchinson did not testify. I witnessed this event. She's talking about Tony.

28:25She said, Tony Ornato told me about this event. And so the question is not... He was a Secret Service agent, but he also sort of doubled as a White House security advisor and a Trump loyalist, we should know. So the question is not, did that event happen inside the White House? It's just, did this conversation happen between Hutchinson and Ornato? Hutchinson says yes, Ornato says no. And so you will not get a conviction as a prosecutor in a 50-50 case. It has to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Cassidy Hutchinson is lying. Let me add, Anderson, Tony Ornato has a history of doing this. Two other former White House officials who work there with Ornato have had instances unrelated to this where they've either testified or said publicly, I had this conversation with Ornato.

29:08And then Ornato has come out and said, no, that never happened. So either all three of these people are just fabricating these conversations or Ornato is the White House busybody who has these conversations. And then when they come out, denies them. It's an unwinnable case. Doesn't mean they can't try to indict it. it's easy to indict in front of a grand jury, but they're not going to win. And if he is called to testify and denies under oath that he ever said these things, then it's just up to the jury to decide who's telling the truth? Yes, it's up to the jury. But here's the thing. Even if the jury decides, Ornato's, let's say, more credible than Cassidy Hutchinson.

29:40I don't think he is. But what if the jury says, it's more likely Ornato's telling the truth than Hutchinson's lying? That's not enough. What if they find it's very likely Ornato's telling the truth? Still not enough. That's That's why perjury cases are tricky. You have to prove as the prosecutor, beyond a reasonable doubt, that there's a lie. All right. Ellie Honig, thanks very much. Appreciate it. Next, the latest on the hurricane that's now strengthening in the Gulf, when and where it is expected to hit. And later, family reunions, including 122 new dads, as the crew of the super carrier Abraham Lincoln comes home after almost a year at sea.

30:15This holiday, all plans, even unlimited, are just$15 a month. A holiday deal this good obviously deserves an enormously expensive holiday song, like All I Want. Right. Okay, we can afford that. You know what? Forget the music budget. We're going to stick with whatever's in the public domain. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Upfront payment of$45 for three months,$90 for six months, or$180 for a 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. New customer offer for initial plan term only. Greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms.

30:51We have more breaking news. Hurricane Isaias has strengthened to a powerful Category 2 storm as it takes aim at the northern Gulf Coast. Parts of Alabama, Florida and Georgia have issued states of emergency. Some areas have issued mandatory evacuations. That's the traffic backup. people leaving one town along the Florida Panhandle. Our meteorologist Derek Van Dam joins us now from the CNN Weather Center. So how strong is the storm right now and when is it going to make landfall? Well, I understand it looks like there are signs that the storm is strengthening right now. 100 mile per hour storm, but you can see the center of the eye starting to clear out as the sun sets on Hurricane Isaias.

31:28This storm is moving in a northeasterly direction at about 13 miles per hour. It will pick up forward speed in the next 24 hours. That puts it on a trajectory to reach the northern Gulf Coast by late Friday, probably after sunset. This is a Category 2 storm right now, and you can see the wind gusts over 120 miles per hour. Does this reach major Hurricane 3 status or greater? That's still to be determined, but one thing's for sure. There is a weakening trend forecast because of the strong upper-level winds that have been highly advertised with this storm system. But does that kind of save the day before it makes landfall?

32:04unlikely. It will expand the wind field, meaning that the impacts of the storm will be felt well outside of the center. Depending on exactly where that storm, the center of the most powerful winds makes landfall. That's where we will see the greatest storm surge impacts, especially to the right of the center. This is where we expect the maximum wind threat, but notice it doesn't stop at the coast. It works its way inland. And we time this thing out by 11 o 'clock tomorrow morning. We think that the rain shield would be knocking on your doorstep across the Florida panhandle conditions deteriorate behind it.

32:36And then we start to see what's known as the dirty side of the hurricane. And what that means is the potential for spin up thunderstorms that could produce tornadoes. We have a slight risk of tornadoes tomorrow across the western Florida panhandle, and that extends inland across Georgia and eastern sections of Alabama. Look at the five to seven feet of potential storm surge. This is above what would normally be dry ground. Pensacola into Port St. Joe, Panama City, depending on exactly where the storms track in the center goes. This will be a prolific rainmaker, the potential for upwards of 15 inches of rain and some of these rain bands that move over the same locations as this makes landfall.

33:18And Anderson, this is important. This is not going to stop at the coastline. Once it moves its way inland, there's going to be a large wind field that will impact places like Alabama, Georgia and into Tennessee that could take down power lines and trees as well, far inland. Derek Van Dam, thanks very much. Up next, authorities have just been briefing reporters after a person was shot during an encounter with federal immigration agents here in New York. We're live at the scene. And the long-awaited homecoming for the crew of the supercarrier Abraham Lincoln after their near-record-long deployment, with 122 of them meeting their babies for their first time.

33:51I'll show you that. Hello! Daddy's here! Oh, ho, ho.

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34:53in just three months. Learn why over 16 ,000 of the fastest growing companies use Vanta at Vanta.com. Busy night. We have breaking news. The NYPD, the New York Police Department, says a man was shot during an encounter with federal immigration agents in the Marble Hill section of Upper Manhattan. A law enforcement official says that agents shot into the man's car while a five-year-old child was in the backseat. The man's injuries were not considered life-threatening. Two agents were said to be heard in the encounter. CNN's Shimon Prokupes is on the scene for us. So what more do we know about this?

35:29Yeah, that five-year-old child, we just spoke to the aunt, a woman who says that she is the aunt of the man who was shot here. And she says that her daughter ran out of the apartment and saw that five-year-old with police after the shooting. And then that man was taken by the police officers, by the NYPD to the hospital. Her daughter is with the child. The child is okay. I think that's the most important part of this. What the mayor is saying is that that child was in the car during the shooting. Now, the Department of Homeland Security has issued a statement saying that this was a targeted operation, that the individual is a criminal, illegal alien, kind of the terminology we often hear from them after these incidents, and that the person was arrested back in December of 2023 and then released and that they were just now here three years later targeting this individual.

36:29Now, there are a lot of questions, Anderson, as there always are after these shootings involving ICE. I want to show you here behind me the FBI is here on scene. They are going over the area here. They are collecting evidence. The car here, that is the car that the individual was in. I saw a photo of the windshield of this car. There is a bullet hole right through the front of that windshield. The NYPD is out here as well, as you can see, Anderson. But they are here mostly just to try and keep the peace, make sure that nothing gets out of hand here, because there's been a lot of tension, as you can imagine, from the community here.

37:04They're very upset over what has happened here. We've seen officials here from the mayor's office, the city council, and other local leaders just trying to keep the peace here, because at one point there was confrontations between the police and some of the Homeland Security officials. But right now what we can say is that the FBI is here. They are seemingly now part of this investigation, collecting evidence. The NYPD is here. Many of the community members here say they plan on being out here all night to try and get answers. The man that was shot here, Anderson, he's expected to survive. The NYPD is not involved in this investigation.

37:40They were not here when this happened. They do not hear a New York City work. with ICE on any of this. And so that's important to make clear. But certainly they did respond in the moments after the shooting, Anderson. And so just to be clear, and only about 10 seconds left, but this was, you're saying ICE officers? Yes, that's correct. This was ICE officers that were, according to the Department of Homeland Security and also law enforcement sources, were trying to apprehend an individual. And as we've seen in other instances, when they're trying to stop cars, that's what this seems to be, that's when this happened, Anderson.

38:22We don't know why they opened fire on this individual. Appreciate it. After over 10 and a half months, the USS Abraham Lincoln is finally home. More than 5 ,000 of the sailors and Marines were on a near record-long deployment, as you probably know, to the Middle East. During that deployment, there were reports of obviously poor conditions, But today the focus was on very happy reunion, seen as Pamela Brown was on the ship in July, returned for the homecoming to Gluck.

38:50Mixed in the emotion on this Navy pier are 122 sailors who have never met their children. The only person my daughter knows is my wife right now. Joey Montemoreno's daughter, Madeline Grace, was born while he was away at sea. These images are all he knows of his 10-month-old child. What are you going to do, you think, when you see them? Probably cry a little bit, probably try to hold back the tears while I kiss my wife, hug my wife, and meet this baby that I've never met before that I can't wait to meet and interact with. We met Joey and many more of the roughly 5 ,000 sailors at sea on the USS Lincoln as they headed into port.

39:30Most admit their returning home changed. This is the hardest one I had to deal with, so I feel like if I could do this one, I could do anything. It's the end of a harrowing 322-day deployment that faced scrutiny over the living conditions on board and low morale that included attempted suicides. The man overboard, that was a crazy day. Many confirmed the uncertainty around the extended deployment brought mental challenges. Just thinking about my family and things going on back home that you can't control. I would go to prayer service with the chaplains and that would help out a lot. Others we met confirmed food supplies ran low at times.

40:10I was in cargo for a while, the people that bring the food up. And I was in there during the tough times, not a lot of food was being brung up. But as we progressed, it got better. It was stressed, but we never shut anything down. Captain Dan Keeler, commanding officer of the Lincoln, tells CNN supplies were mainly affected when support ships under threat from Iran were forced to alter their movement in the region. We serve 14 ,000 to 16 ,000 meals a day, four times a day, so four meals a day. We never missed a meal, not for 10 and a half months. There were some sacrifices made. Maybe there was only one protein option instead of two, but there was always food.

40:47Some of the family members had a town hall with Navy leadership because they were really concerned about their loved ones on this ship. They were getting pictures of toilets overflowing and mold. What do you say to that? What I'll say to all the families is they were all so amazing. You can't do what we just did without a lot of support. I think a lot of the reporting focused on some anecdotal things because we looked into all this stuff and there really were no systemic issues. It's a big ship. It's a floating city. We have a toilet gets clogged. It eventually gets fixed. Keeler acknowledges there were five suicide attempts on Lincoln itself and three others on its support ships.

41:22He says anyone with mental health problems had access to treatment on the ship. The most severe cases were sent home. We had zero suicides. We had zero casualties on the ship. Every single sailor that left is coming home. And they're coming home awarded with a presidential unit citation, the military's highest honor for a unit in battle. It's going to be pretty cool to be able to wear that and tell everybody why I'm wearing it and what I did to wear it. On board, you could feel the anticipation as we pulled into port. Moments later, among this flood of emotion, Joey Montemarino, a father who served on a ship at war.

42:01Look at it. Is this your daddy? Now with his daughter, together in peace. She's perfect.

42:11Such a touching moment to witness that. And dads like Joey actually had to take classes on the ship, learning how to change diapers and feed their baby and hold a baby so that they would know what to do once they came back to land. So he's going to be put to work, I'm sure, very soon, if not already on that front. And in terms of the crew, they're reintegrating now back into life on land, enjoying some of those creature comforts they missed on the ship, such as warm showers, not wearing shoes, things like that. But it's going to be a short-lived reprieve here in San Diego, Anderson, because the USS Abraham Lincoln behind me will be moved to Washington state in just a couple of months for much needed repairs and maintenance after this demanding deployment.

42:54Anderson? Amber Brown, appreciate it. Such good reporting. Thank you so much. Coming up next, a preview of my streaming show on Lost, All There Is Live, which starts at 9.15 Eastern time. and a bit of my conversation. The new podcast just released today with tech executive Sheryl Sandberg, who speaks about the connection she found between grief and joy in the years after the death of her husband in 2015. From the very depths of our pain come what make us more human and more able to give and love and feel.

43:30New episode of my podcast, All There Is, came out today. You can find it at CNN.com slash allthereis or wherever you get podcasts. My guest is tech executive, philanthropist, and author Sheryl Sandberg. In 2015, her husband, Dave Goldberg, died suddenly at 47. Eleven years later, she's found love again and is encouraging adult children, a widowed parent, to give permission to their surviving parent to look for love if they want to. We also talked about the connection she's found between grief and joy. Grief can make your life better. Better. And I want to be so clear. I would never pick it. I would never have chosen to lose Dave.

44:09But I sit here, 11 years later, and I live a more meaningful life. I am closer to the people who carried me through this. And I experience joy in a different way. I feel the joy you can feel when you know that every day is precious. This was one of the great things I've learned. There is a link between grief and joy. It makes the joy deeper. It makes the joy deeper for sure. But I think one of the problems with death, whether it strikes slowly or it strikes suddenly, is that you feel like you have absolutely no control of anything that matters. I think understanding that you actually make choices.

44:47Of course you're going to grieve, but over time, let yourself feel some joy. and do it actually not just for you. It's not a selfish act. It's an act of honoring the person that is gone. I am more grateful than I was before Dave died. I'm grateful that I was his wife and that he was in the world. I'm sad that he's gone, but I really do feel a joy and gratitude for being alive. from the very depths of our pain come what make us more human and more able to give and love and feel. That's Sheryl Sandberg on the new episode of my podcast. In about 17 minutes from now at 9.15 p.m. Eastern tonight, I hope you watch my online streaming show, All There Is Live.

45:36Tonight, my guest is a woman named Sue Sullivan. Three years ago, she left me this voicemail about her 16-year-old son, Dermot, and the constant grief she lived with as his round-the-clock caregiver. This is Stu from Minneapolis. I have a 16-year-old son, Dermot, who has a neurodegenerative condition that causes protein to deposit in his brain. My husband and I have lived with constant grief since the day he was born, having to grieve what you thought he would be in life as it is now. He can no longer eat. He cannot walk. He cannot talk. we've watched our son slowly disappear in front of our eyes.

46:19Everything about our lives has changed since we've had our son Dermot. And what wakes us up in the morning is a love for our son, but also the hope that sometime it will end. Now, I know that's not the best thing a mother can say, but watching my son go through medical procedures after medical procedures and seizures and feeding tubes and operations, it makes me think that he might be better off not being alive. And it took me 16 years to be able to say that out loud. Well, since leaving that message three years ago, Sue's son Dermott has died. And I'll talk with her in 15 minutes at 9.15 p.m.

47:01Eastern. Watch online or on your phone at cnn.com slash allthereis. That's for All There Is Live, my streaming show. The news continues. The Source with Caitlin Collins starts now. Twas many nights before Christmas, and one woman knew she needed a Christmas tree, so to Wayfair she flew. Finding just the right one, and for years it will last. Wayfair shipping was free, and remarkably fast. What's this? Garland? A wreath? Essentials to host? Good thing she celebrates way longer than most. As her cart filled with magic and decor from the heart, Merry Christmas to all. Get your Wayfair head start.

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