'Nation has your back,' President Biden says to Hurricane Helene victims | The Excerpt

On Wednesday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: USA TODAY National Correspondent Chris Kenning reports from North Carolina, where residents are relaying harrowing stories of survival and recovery after Hurricane Helene. Special counsel Jack Smith argued in a Wednesday filing that former President Donald Trump is not immune from election subversion charges. Commercial Appeal Criminal Justice Reporter Lucas Finton has the latest from the trial surrounding the former officers involved in the beating of Tyre Nichols. A third person has pleaded guilty in Matthew Perry's death.

Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.

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Taylor Wilson:

Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and today is Thursday, October 3rd 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today we head back to North Carolina and hear more harrowing stories of survival and recovery from residents after Helene. Plus closing arguments have wrapped in the case surrounding officers in the beating of Tyre Nichols. And another person pleads guilty in Matthew Perry's death.

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We start with the continuing and expanding story of the devastation in Hurricane Helene's wake. The death toll now stands at over 160 and is still rising. Meanwhile, survivors of the monster storm are continuing to emerge from shelter to share news with loved ones that they made it, while starting the long process of recovery.

Casey Smith:

We knew a big hurricane was coming through, but we've never seen anything like this before and it was just total destruction.

Taylor Wilson:

That's the voice of Casey Smith from Burnsville, North Carolina. She has one of thousands who are picking up the pieces after one of the deadliest and costliest storms in US history. USA TODAY national correspondent Chris Kenning has been on the ground in North Carolina and spoke with Smith and others. Chris, thank you for making some time during this troubling, troubling week.

Chris Kenning:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So Chris, we heard from Casey Smith there in the intro. Can you just start by telling us about her and her experience through all this?

Chris Kenning:

I met Casey on Sunday. I had driven from Tennessee over a mountain in North Carolina that was a tangle of downed trees and power lines and had just been cleared just enough to get through by locals. And I'd stopped at this general store in a little community called Red Hill and Casey and her father operated a general store. It was a kind of community hub, the kind of place that sold live bait and people came for news and gossip and stuff like that. People were stopping along the road to ask directions. No one had cell service, no one knew which bridges were out, which roads were passable.

Other people were coming in to share news about neighbors, who needed what. And Casey was there just talking to everybody, telling them what she knew. She took a note from one guy who asked her to take it back over the mountain the next time she went to Tennessee where there was cell service to call a neighbor's relative. They told me that a lot of people there just really bonded together and got to work despite the losses they had. They got their chainsaws and went out to the roads to clear them. If they had a farm excavator, they would help neighbors dig out. So it was just a nice moment of humanity amid all the destruction and loss.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah, I mean how harrowing that they're sending messages across the mountains like that. Chris, you also spoke with this couple, Carolyn and Clifford. What was their experience like both during and after this storm and really what else have you seen or heard the last few days in this part of North Carolina?

Chris Kenning:

I'm actually in Boone, North Carolina. And Boone got hit hard. It's home to a university and it's a tourist draw. But I'd heard that a lot of extreme damage that happened out in the more rural remote areas. Places where you drive up a narrow road that goes uphill and it winds along a creek and there's scattered housing there and there's high hills on each side. And so when the storm hit, all that water just comes down and creates a raging torrent in what was a creek, damaging homes and cars in the road and taking down electricity poles, but also caused landslides as well.

And so I met Carolyn and Clifford. They're an elderly couple. She's 77, he's 80. They've lived in a home there for 40 years. He built it himself out of two trailers. And they love it there in a lot of ways. But now Carolyn was rethinking that after experiencing this storm. She said it was terrifying. She said, "We just prayed to God to survive." And the home did survive, but she knows that getting help out to these remote, sparsely populated areas is tough. And they're still without power and all that and it's going to take a long time to rebuild the area and make it safer from floods and landslides. She wants to move, but her husband doesn't.

Taylor Wilson:

Yeah. So Chris, we're coming up on about a week since the storm. What are the biggest challenges folks still face going forward, whether it be the next few days, the next few weeks and beyond as they recover and rebuild?

Chris Kenning:

The challenges are still huge. There's the immediate needs of getting the power back on. And that's something that is obvious, but it can extend to things like in rural areas there's wells that are operated by electric pumps and so people can't get water. Water is also a huge issue in Asheville. So hotels can't operate, people are having trouble flushing toilets and all that kind of thing. And then there's been this lack of cell phone coverage for days after the storm, which really made it difficult to contact loved ones, check on people. I was in the town of Burnsville and you could see they had a disaster Wi-Fi set up, but it was very weak and only worked intermittently. You'd go to the Central Square and it was just filled with people just holding their phones to the sky, kind of hoping for a signal or just sitting on benches, refreshing, desperate to either let loved ones know they're okay or whatever. But generally I think recovery and rebuilding, everyone's saying it's going to be a very, very long process.

Taylor Wilson:

And Chris, are there any conversations about mitigation efforts going forward and what that conversation looks like?

Chris Kenning:

Yes. And it's interesting especially because in the areas that are more mountainous, a lot of the things that made this weather event so damaging, also mean recovery and rebuilding are going to be slower and probably more expensive. I talked to experts who said that at a time when climate change means extreme weather events are going to be happening more often, most likely, this is really important to think about how can we prevent or at least mitigate, you can't prevent it probably, but mitigate the impact on people. I think just once the immediate needs are met, there's going to be a turn to those longer term efforts. Anything from infrastructure like piping and drainage systems in certain areas to figure out ways to bolster the financial and health protections for vulnerable people. But those things are expensive and they face an array of challenges.

Taylor Wilson:

Chris, I really appreciate your time and your reporting on this. I know it's been a tough week. Chris Kenning is the national correspondent with USA TODAY. Thank you, Chris.

Chris Kenning:

Thank you so much.

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Taylor Wilson:

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris yesterday surveyed communities hit by flooding from Hurricane Helene during separate trips across three Southeastern states. As both vowed, the federal government will not leave until the recovery is complete. Republican nominee Donald Trump visited Valdosta, Georgia earlier this week and has slammed Biden for being at his beach home and Harris for attending a fundraiser last weekend during the flooding. For his part, Biden yesterday said he approved the deployment of up to 1,000 active duty army personnel to reinforce the North Carolina National Guard in response and recovery efforts.

Meanwhile, a new study out yesterday says that hurricanes and tropical storms are far deadlier than initial death tolls suggest. According to the study, an average US tropical cyclone indirectly causes 7,000 to 11,000 excess deaths, far more than the dozens or hundreds of deaths officially attributed to storms. You can read more about that with the link in today's show notes and you can stay up on the latest from the devastating aftermath of Helene on usatoday.com.

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A filing from Justice Department Special Counsel Jack Smith released yesterday lays out the election subversion allegations against Donald Trump in new detail. To argue the former president does not deserve immunity from criminal charges because his conduct was for private gain rather than duty of public office. US District Judge Tanya Chutkan must decide whether Trump is immune to charges for conduct while he was president. While there won't be a trial or probably even a hearing on the evidence until after the election, the filing provided the most detailed explanation so far of the case against Trump. Trump's lawyers opposed having prosecutors file such a lengthy set of unanswered allegations, quadruple the length of typical filings as a monstrosity and a false hit piece. Trump faces four charges of conspiring to overturn the election and obstructing Congress and counting Electoral College votes on January 6th 2021. He has pleaded not guilty. The Supreme Court ruled in July that former presidents are shielded from charges for conduct at the core of their office like pardons and vetoes and presumptively immune to charges for other official duties. But former presidents are not immune for private conduct, which prosecutors contend that Trump was doing in electioneering to stay in office.

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Attorneys yesterday presented closing arguments in the case deciding the fate of three former Memphis police officers charged with violating Tyre Nichols' federal civil rights when they beat him on January 7th 2023. Tyre Nichols was pulled over by officers of the Memphis Police Department and beaten. The 29-year-old at the time was taken to the hospital in critical condition for his injuries and died three days later. Tadarrius Bean, Demetrius Haley and Justin Smith Jr. are charged with using excessive force, being deliberately indifferent to Nichols' medical needs, conspiring to witness tamper, and witness tampering. They face up to life in federal prison if convicted. Attorneys representing the three made several arguments during a long series of closing statements yesterday. I caught up with Commercial Appeal criminal justice reporter Lucas Finton as he darted out of the courtroom after a long day in court. Lucas, thank you so much for making some time on The Excerpt today.

Lucas Finton:

Thanks for having me.

Taylor Wilson:

So we moved to closing arguments yesterday, Lucas, let's start with the prosecution side. How did prosecutors wrap up their arguments and really did they fall in line with how they framed this case from the start?

Lucas Finton:

Yeah. From the start, this case has always been about these five officers. Basically what they went through was the case they'd laid out, all 19 witnesses that they'd brought and said, "These officers were all implicit. Not a single one of them, even if they didn't throw a punch that was recorded on video, if they didn't use a baton that was recorded on video," they said, "Everyone had a role to play here." And they wanted to remind the jury of that.

You have all of this footage that was showed to the jury throughout the last three and a half weeks and they wanted to remind them, this is what this case is about. It's about what you see and what you find to be the truth and what you find to have actually happened here. And they really wanted to center it around, if you have an officer holding a man while another officer is using force, that officer is equally complicit if he doesn't stop the one that's using force. They really wanted to center it in on that. And also saying the people who weren't directly throwing punches, who weren't kicking Tyre Nichols, those officers were taking their time, holding him up, turning them so that they could get a better angle, and also that they would encourage more force from these officers.

Taylor Wilson:

So the defense then gave its closing arguments with attorneys coming up separately to argue on behalf of each of the three former officers. I know as you write in the piece, Lucas, the attorney representing Bean spent much of his closing argument saying that Nichols was a threat to officers, that officers believed Nichols was high at the time and that he was actively resisting arrest. I know he also spoke to jurors for more than 80 minutes and closing arguments overall ran for hours, well into the night. What else, Lucas, can you tell us about defense closing arguments and how they wrapped up their case?

Lucas Finton:

At the end of the day, they pretty much stayed the course. They wanted to make it seem like an impossible situation for these officers, where they had no other choice but to use this force in order to arrest Tyre Nichols that night. Two of the officers were not at the original traffic stop scene and so what they really focused on was, "We don't know what's going on. We got a call saying that there was a suspect fleeing." And they wanted to make sure that the jury knew these guys were as blind to what was happening as anyone else was that night before they found out who Tyre Nichols was. And when it came to the second scene where the most force was used, where Tyre Nichols was hit with a baton, where he was pepper sprayed again, where he was punched multiple times, and where he'd already been kicked by Emmett Martin, Demetrius Haley's attorneys were saying there was irreparable damage already done by the time Haley got to the scene.

When Demetrius Haley delivered these kicks to Tyre Nichols as he laid on the ground, he was already on his way to dying. These kicks essentially did not matter in Tyre Nichols' death is what his attorneys had argued there. And they wanted to reinforce that point and they wanted to point to their own experts that said, "These kicks also were not to his head." The one thing that I think surprised me most was from Justin Smith's attorney and he really focused on comparing Justin Smith's actions, both during and after, to the other officers.

And he essentially threw the other officers under the bus saying, "Look at what my client did. My client Justin Smith, he called for EMTs, he recommended that the EMTs get forced breathing apparatuses for Tyre Nichols. He said that it looks like his oxygen's getting low. He expressed the most concern out of everyone here. And because of that he's not being deliberately indifferent and because he was pepper sprayed by Desmond Mills at the second scene, he couldn't see anything that was going on." These are three distinct defendants and even though they're being tried at the same time, they all took different routes including one basically trying to put himself as I'm the good guy here compared to everyone else, including the two people who had already pleaded guilty by the time trial started.

Taylor Wilson:

So Lucas things now move to jury deliberations. What can you tell us there? What's the expectation and really what's next for this case going forward?

Lucas Finton:

This is a jury that has been really stoic and next to impossible to read. And that's at the request of Judge Mark Norris who's been presiding over this case. He didn't want any emotion to be really shown. It's really hard to tell how long this will take because at the end of the day, they're standard charges, these aren't assault charges, they aren't murder charges. What has to happen is they have to look and say, did these guys violate someone's constitutional civil rights? That is a lot more difficult for your average person to decide. It could also be that the footage spoke for itself and as soon as they saw the footage, they were ready to make a decision. We don't know what's going through their mind at this point and we'll just have to wait for the verdict to find out.

Taylor Wilson:

All right. I appreciate the breakdown. Lucas Finton is a criminal justice reporter with the Commercial Appeal, part of the USA TODAY Network, joining us from Memphis. Thank you, Lucas.

Lucas Finton:

Thanks so much.

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Taylor Wilson:

A third person has pleaded guilty in actor Matthew Perry's death. Yesterday, Dr. Mark Chavez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute the drug, ketamine. Chavez, who has agreed to hand over his passport, restrict travel to Central and Southern California, refrain from possessing illegal drugs and marijuana, and stop practicing medicine per the conditions of release, is scheduled to be sentenced next year. He could face up to 10 years in prison. Perry who was open about his struggles with addiction was declared dead at his Los Angeles area home in October of last year, after responding officers discovered him unconscious in his jacuzzi. The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner's Office ruled Perry's death an accident, with the primary cause being the acute effects of ketamine. Five people have been charged in connection with his death.

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Today is Rosh Hashanah, one of Judaism's holiest occasions marking the start of the Jewish New Year.

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Who will win this razor-tight presidential election next month? Historian and professor at American University Allan Lichtman has accurately predicted the outcomes of nine out of the last 10 presidential elections. He joins my colleague Dana Taylor this afternoon after 4:00 PM Eastern Time to discuss his prediction and why his pick almost always emerges the winner. Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. You get the podcast wherever you get your pods. And if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from USA TODAY.