The next hour of cnn this morning starts now. Good friday morning. We are watching Hurricane Hilary this morning, a powerful category 4 storm as it barrels towards the west coast. It is supposed to weaken. Thats good news, by the time it reaches the u. S. It is expected to bring heavy rain and maybe flooding to the southwest over the weekend, as we learn fema is running out of money for Disaster Relief after an historic year of disasters. One of Donald Trumps close allies and codefendants was at the Capitol On January 6th with Conspiracisy Theorist alex jones. President biden about to hold summit at camp david to figure out how to counter the looming threat from china and north korea. National Security CouncilSpokesman John Kirby will join us live to preview this highstakes meeting. This hour of cnn this morning starts right now. Developing this morning, Hurricane Hilary a category 4 storm rapidly intensifying and on its way to the west coast. It is expected to weaken by the time it reaches the u. S. , but could be the first tropical moisture to hit california in more than 80 years. Forecasters say hilary could bring significant and rare impacts, including extensive flooding. As we learn fema is running out of money after historic year of Weather Disasters from coast to coast. America has already had 15 billion disasters in 2023 alone. A fema official telling cnn the Disaster Relief fund could run dry by the end of the month if congress doesnt act. We have enough funding to support the ongoing response efforts, because we take events like this into consideration. But it would delay, if we dont have additional funding, some of the Recovery Projects and push them into next year. The year started off with devastating flooding in california, crippling Winter Storms in the northeast and then a Tornado Outbreak and Severe Weather across the midwest and the south throughout march. In april, another round of destructive storms from texas to the midwest. There were massive hailstorms in may. Then even more rounds of severe storms in june. All of these totaled more than 1 billion in damage, and that isnt including the recent wildfire on maui or historic flooding in the northeast. Derek van dam is tracking the latest forecast of hilary. What are we expecting . With the billion Dollar Disasters we are entering into the peak weeks of the atlantic hurricane season. Here we are talking about a hurricane on our west coast. So, wow, right . 145mileperhour winds with Hurricane Hilary. This is a major category 4 hurricane. Its south of cabo san lucas. The projected path of this, it will weaken approaching the southwestern u. S. , but this is going to be a significant rainmaker. Flash floods, landslides and mudslides on the table this weekend into early next week. A very rare level four of four from the weather prediction center. This is a high risk of excessive Flash Flooding. To put this in some context why you at home should car, back a year, 2022 in death valley, california, we received 1. 46 inches of rain in a 24hour period. Their average annual rainfall over two inches. What we are forecasting for this particular location, three to four inches of rain. You can see the devastation in the image. What happened in death valley . We need to pay attention. The rainfall will be the major concern with the Flash Flooding. But what about the winds . This storm is going to encounter cooler waters. Thats going to help weaken it as it approaches Southern California if it stays offshore, more coastal impacts. It moves inland, it gets shredded apart and we focus on the Flash Flooding for the interior southwest. So so many components here. We will keep on track of it. Thank you. Also this breaking overnight. The administrator of mauis Emergency Management agency has resigned a day after defending his decision not to sound the islands siren system as the fast moving wildfires fred through maui. Do you regret not sounding the sirens. I do not. The sirens, as you mentioned earlier, is used primarily for tsunamis. Had we sounded the siren that night, we are afraid people would have gone they would have gone into the fire. That was Herman Andaya. He cited Health Reasons for his departure. He has come under a lot of scrutiny after last weeks wildfires are being blamed for at 111 deaths. Hawaiis Attorney General will be engaging with a thirdparty organization to assess the fire response. Mauis mayor says given the gravity of the destruction, death on maui, a replacement for Herman Andaya will be named as soon as possible. Exclusive reporting this morning about protrump to lawyer Kenneth Chesebro and where he was during the insurrection on january 6th at the u. S. Capitol. He was the alleged architect for a slate of fake electors. Racketeering and other charges in georgias election subversion case. Shimon prokupecz joins us with his exclusive reporting, this is significant information uncovered by our Investigative Team here at cnn and it shows that he was at the capitol on the Capitol Grounds just outside the doors of the capitol surrounded by the mob of protesters. Also, following a round, the leading voice of the stop the steal movement, conspiracy theorist alex jones and the big question, what was he doing there . You. He is one of the alleged coconspirators in two cases against donald trump for 2020 election interference. Now for the first time, cnn has identified Kenneth Chesebro outside the Capitol On January 6th. Shortly before a Mob Stormed The East Side of the building, he followed rightwing conspiracy theorist alex jones for about an hour. Chesebro is alleged architect of a plot to use fake electors to stop the certification of joe bidens win. This week he was indicted along with trump and 17 others in georgia. He is also identified as an unindicted coconspirator in the federal case against the former president. Cnn projects joseph r. Biden jr. Is elected the 46th president of the United States. Reporter in the days after the November 2020 election, chesebro wrote a memo to a lawyer for donald trump. Its among the earliest known documents outlining the Strategy Trump would have allegedly tried to use. It focuses on january 6th as the hard deadline with ultimate significance to determine the validity of electoral votes. Emails obtained by the january 6th Committee Show chesebro suggests to the Trump Campaign that the fear of, quote, wild chaos could provoke the Supreme Court to take action. Go to the White House Reporter alex jones was helping pay for and plan the january 6th raleigh, urging his audience to gather in washington, d. C. The night before trumps rally, jones warned of a coming battle. This will be their waterloo this will be their destruction we fight. We fight like hell and if you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore. Reporter when the january 6th kmut asked if Kenneth Chesebro was in Washington The First week of january, chesebro pleaded the fifth. But there is no question he was there. Cnn analyzed publicly available photos and videos from that day which show his movements. In the hours before the insurrection, he was with alex jones and his entourage a short distance from the capitol. Chesebro is here wearing a red trump 2020 hat. As lawmakers prepare to certify the election results, chesebro follows alex jones and a crowd of protesters as they walk towards the capitol. Chesebro has his phone out, seemingly recording jones every move. As jones was leading a crowd to the east side of the capitol, the west side was breached and rioters poured in. At one Point White Chesebro was on Capitol Grounds, he appears to show something on his phone to a Remember Of Jones security team. Then jones and chesebro climb the capitol steps. There is no indication chesebro entered the Capitol Building or engaged in violence, but shortly after chesebro and jones left the steps on the east sued, the capitol was breached again as the mob poured into the doors. In all, more than 2,000 rioters would enter the building. Vandalizing and looting, attempting to prevent a joint session of congress to count the electoral votes. The House Committee investigating january 6th would call it the final step in Donald Trumps plan to try to overturn the election, a plan that started in earnest with Kenneth Chesebro. And an attorney for mr. Chesebro released a statement to cnn saying they were going to allow this to i plea out in court. Chesebro is one of the people expect today surrender in georgia by the end of next week. All right. Shimon prokupecz, our kfile team with the reporting, thank you. Bringing in our panel for more on this. Elisa and former White House Trump communications director, former Executive Director of the political party. What is your reaction when you see yet another thread that seems to connect to absolutely everything the last three months. Administration . Only the best people around donald trump. I never dealt with Kenneth Chesebro. He was an attorney who came in when the former president stopped listen to his white house counsel. As we saw in the indictment, there will be violence in the streets if you do this. I am old enough to remember ten ye years ago in the gop, if you were paling around with alex jones, you would have been chased out. He was very much involved in this effort we know and had a close line to the white house. Do you think this has legal implications for the president s pending cases, for the president . Not just for chesebro . No, not for the president. It does speak to sort of the inner play here between the legal team, the events of january 6th, and that the fringe became the center of the Republican Party at this moment. Alex jones was the fringe of the Republican Party and yet the people who were with him, the lawyers that were advising alex jones were part of the Electoral College scheme. It came together in a really terrible, violent way on january 6th. I want to ask you, the frontrunner in the republican race is the former president. All these legal cases are surrounding him. The individual that was supposed to be the likely candidate to take down the current frontrunner, lula da silva, had a rough couple of months, we know apparently what a lot of the people would operate on a super pac would like him to say and do at that debate. Walk me through this remarkable story. This memo, all these documents for the debate. Yeah. So we dont Know Whether Trump will be on the debate stage. Desantis is the leading republican who has said he will be on that debate stage and its a big moment. He had a couple of rough months, as you said. He is getting a lot of advice and notably the super pac backing him, put together a memo and putting it on one of the Companies Websites working for the super pac. Some of the stuff is undercutting him because if he says the lines they outlined how he should attack Chris Christie, how he should attack Vivek Ramaswamy and not attack donald trump, it puts him in a box. If he does the things that the people advising him are telling him to do, he looks like he is just listening to the people who are advising him and thats never good on a National Debate stage. There is a reason as a strategist, albeit for the other party, there is a reason you are supposed to have a wall between a pac and a candidate because its not supposed to be all about unlimited money. But, you know, the money can go to the pac, right . Right. There is not supposed to be coordination . Right. And this is why i think your piece is good about pointing out the history of this, that oftentimes the plans if up on obscure parts of the internet. This one was like right on their website. Just explain to the American People the significance of this and what this sort of lays out to bare for everyone about how things actually work with money in politics. No pressure at all. In 30 seconds. Youre right. There is not to be any coordination with super pacs. But they do raise, as entities, a tremendous amount of money. They can bring on Staff Members that the campaign otherwise would not bring on and they can run ads and get information out to the public that the campaign might not, should not, for some reason is hampered from doing. So this some people call it dark money. And you could use that term, that qualifier for that. But the reality is they are a very significant part of the political process, and they can use some of those dollars to do the kind of research to be able to help a candidate. The candidate should know that though. Right. The candidate shouldnt have any part of that. Maybe what they do is actually send that information out to the surrogates so that they can act in concert with what the candidate in the campaign is are doing. But, yeah, this is a big part of the political process, important part of the political process. Not everybody agrees it should exist. You alis a, we asked governor Chris Christie when he was on a short while ago about he was targeted in the desantis memo or Desantis Super pac memo several times. This is what he said. There is no Desantis Campaign. The entire Desantis Campaign is being run by the never back down super pac. They have gotten all of the people at the campaign fired that they didnt like. And now they are Writing Strategy Memos and putting them on the internet where everybody can see them. Look, this shows you, its not easy to run for president , and if you cant run for president in the way that doesnt create embarrassing Process Stories multiple times a week, you certainly cant run the white house. And thats my biggest question about posting this allowing people like shane to scoop it, jerk movement, right, but greed great to read, because it creates another news cycle and then to shanes poirngts like, how does this not get in your head as a candidate . Walk me through this as an advisor. What are you doing . Governor desantis has the most to lose in the gop hopeful debate assuming donald trump doesnt show up. He had sky high expectations. He has gone lower in the polls and i think he is running into a problem that some of us predicted who knew him in the house. He is a green candidate. He some successes in florida. He didnt have a real strong operation around him. This is honestly the least of his worries. He had staffer who posted a neonazi video, sense of pride he put out, looked like amateur hour on the Desantis Campaign and he tried to argue the adults will be in charge in my administration, we wont have leaks like the Trump White House did. They have a leak and chaos every day. He is in a position where i kind of expect to see after the debate someone else pass him as the number two in the race. Dont get often opportunities to burnish my Science Fiction interest, blade runner, the light that turns twice as bright burns half as long. As yif you apry that to ron desantis, he has really nothing to back that up. There is no more pathway por him. Your questions to Chris Christie are important because whether its ron desantis or Chris Christie, how do you try to make a case for a General Election and still get out of your primary . 2012, Chris Christie hugs barack obama, then President Obama after Superstorm Sandy and spent every way possible to figure out how to explain that away. A similar situation i think happens now. How do you approach democrats and independents and say i can win this General Election and you cant even explain how to work across the aisle to get out of your primary. That is problem i think all of thos