We begin this hour with an historic Hurricane Barreling toward the u. S. Hilary is now a category 3 hurricane with top winds of more than 100 miles per hour. This is new video of the storm pummeling mexico as it inches closer to the u. S. The powerful system could bring a years worth of rain in one day to parts of the southwest along with potentially catastrophic and lifethreatening flooding. Right now parts of Southern California are under a Tropical Storm warning for the first time in history. Officials and residents there are preparing with sandbags and the California National guard is standing by ready to help. A State Emergency Official tells cnn its an all hands on deck situation. Weve got a cnn team at this hour tracking hilary. Meteorologist derek van dam is closely following the path Aina Tasha Chen has a look at storm preps in los angeles. Derek, lets start with you at the cnn weather center. I cant believe were talking about a hurricane and preparations for it in los angeles but were talking about a very unusual hurricane here. What can you tell us about hilary, when can we expect to see it hit the u. S. . Look, jim, i think what people need to recognize is that this storm is picking up forward speed very quickly. If you kind of tune in intermittently over the past 24 hours you may have thought, hey, this is more of a sunday night into monday time frame. The fact is that the storm sped up and this is going to be a sunday storm for Southern California and much of the southwestern u. S. As well. Very important for people to understand that we are already seeing the impacts across the interior of Southern California. 115mileperhour winds with the storm and radar coming out of Southern California and generally dry into the coastal areas but look whats happening across the Mountain Ranges and into central portions of Southern California. This is San Bernardino county. There are mandatory evacuations for some of these locations. San bernardino mountains are working as this almost like a wall so you take, lets say, a soaked kind of a setup here and this is basically just pushing all of that astralable moisture against the Mountain Ranges and bringing out all the rainfall so, listen, 27 Million People under the threat of flooding today specifically across the Desert Southwest and these areas dont see this amount of rain in such a short period of time. This is the forecast track from the National Hurricane center. Sunday evening, look at that. A Tropical Storm in Southern California. You dont see that that often. Heres a look at that surge of moisture. The main threats here certainly are going to be the Flash Flooding and mudslide potential across the Desert Southwest and then the moisture moves inland so places from vegas To Reno All The Way northward into idaho, were going to look for the flood threat as well, Focusing In On Sunday into monday morning, a level 4 of 4 of Flash Flooding from this weather prediction center, a rare thing to see especially across the southwest. Some areas have never experienced this level of heightened flood threat. Jim. All right, derek van dam, a lot to keep an eye on. We know youll stay on top of it. Thank you very much. If hilary hits Southern California as a Tropical Storm, it will be the first time that has happened in more than 80 years. The sheriff in San Bernardino county issued an Evacuation Warning for several communities. Officials are preparing for lifeth lifethreatening conditions and urging millions of residents to heed their warnings. Make no mistake, this is a very, very dangerous and significant storm. Cnns natasha chen in los angeles for us. I cant believe were talking about this. And talking about l. A. I mean, its just so strange to think about this and i hope because it is so bizarre and unusual and historic that people are going to take this seriously, these officials just wrapped up this news conference. What are they saying . Reporter yeah, jim, i thought that when i moved from our Southeast Bureau to our l. A. Bureau i would stop talking about Tropical Storms but here we are and that is sort of the attitude were hearing from officials, as well. These folks in Southern California have not seen a Tropical Storm warning before, so a lot of people have questions about what exactly they should be doing to prepare. So thats what they were trying to hammer home. The sandbags, the staying at home unless you really have to be out. Be heeding road warnings, not driving out into the storm and driving past barricades. Theyre also talking to people about, you know, charging up all their devices, making sure they have a plan because there will be Power Outages checking on elderly neighbors. A lot of plans have already been changed. We are seeing Baseball Games that were supposed to be played tomorrow, three different teams, home games have been moved to today so theyre doing doubleheaders today. The Hollywood Bowl has announced that their show tomorrow is canceled so a lot of plans are shifting here, especially as people are watching that radar and that track shift as well, which derek just explained. The department of Water Resources in california talked about how the Flood Operations state and federal are all working together and people may see dam operations, the Spillways Open Up and release water tomorrow. That is part of normal procedure. Heres the director talking about how unique the situation is. We did have a decaying Tropical Storm kay last september that caused extensive damage particularly in Santa Barbara county. This storm, Hurricane Hilary, is anticipated to be stronger than that. You would have to go back to 1939 since Southern California last saw a true Tropical Storm affect populations that dropped almost 8 inches of rain on mount baldy in los angeles county. Reporter now, we did have a very wet winter here in california. So some of the folks who are in floodprone areas should expect to see some of that happening here again, so some. The preparations that this region is used to for wildfires, earthquake, flood, mudslides that applies here, but the officials did say in this situation what theyre not used to is you can actually see where this thing is going, so people can track the radar as opposed to an earthquake or a wildfire where sometimes the direction or the timing is unknown. So what the officials are hammering home is theres no reason not to get prepared right now, jim. And natasha, talking to folks around town, are they taking it seriously . I think that some folks are taking it seriously asking questions about whether they should still hold events or go out and do the things they had planned on sunday. There is a lot of nervousness because they have not seen this type of event locally before, and then others perhaps i just wonder whether this is going to be heavy rain and so well have to see how everyone reacts tomorrow. All right, well hopefully people will heed the warnings. Cant be chill about this. I know its Southern California but please stay safe and listen to what the officials have to say. Natasha, thank you. Just a few moments ago, the hurricane is prompting the San Bernardino county Sheriffs Department to issue an Evacuation Warning for the following communities. Take a listen to this. The affected communities are oak glen, forest falls, Mountain Home village, angeles oaks, i hope i pronounced that correctly, northeast yuccapa. Not totally familiar with those particular parts of Southern California in that county so if i mispronounced that please forgive me. Pay attention to the warnings. The San Bernardino county Sheriffs Department issuing Evacuation Warnings for several communities and check that countys website, Instagram Page for further information. In the meantime, turning to the president ial race four days until the candidates take the stage for the first primary debate in order to qualify, candidates must have 40,000 donors with at least 200 different ones in 20 states and polling at 1 in National Polls that meet rnc requirements. Heres a breakdown of the gop field, eight candidates have qualified, though frontrunner donald trump, the former president is expected to skip the debate. As you can see in the lower left of your screen our next guest met the polling tlhreshthreshol. Governor, you now have roughly 53 hours, i think i have that right, to meet the donor requirement. Are we going to see you on that debate stage on wednesday . Jim, absolutely, youre going to see me on that debate stage. You have to have 40,000 unique donors. Were up to 38,000 so were almost there, and thousands have come in the last couple of days to asa2024. Com and given us a dollar. People here at the Iowa State Fair have helped out so well be there excited about telling the truth about donald trump, but also talking about the future of our country. I do want to get to that. If youre not able to qualify for the debate, what do you do at that point . Do you reassess whether the campaign should continue . Does that, you know, impair your campaign in any way . Well, again, im going to be there. Obviously if someone doesnt make the debate stage theyve got to evaluate where they are and where their campaign can go. But this is critically important. This debate stage, because iowans, folks in New Hampshire are all looking there, the first time to compare the candidates, so its critical to be there and its going to be a very good discussion, even if donald trump is not there because were going to have to give our views of january 6th and our views of Donald Trumps leadership. So i think my voice is critically important and i will be there. And youve spoken out against the rnc requirement to support the eventual nominee and talked about it on this program. Are you going to sign that Loyalty Pledge maybe catch me up to speed here, maybe you already have. What is the latest on that . Well, theyre not submitting to us until we meet the 40,000 threshold, but, yes, my intention is to sign that so i can be on the debate stage and my view is that ill support the nominee of the party. I dont believe that nominee is going to be donald trump. And it appears trump as you said is not going to take part in the debate. What is your take on that . Why is he skipping the debris in your view . Well, at first i would think that he made the decision he cant effectively campaign and deal with his four criminal cases at the same time, but it sounds like hes got a counterproducing event going on so looks to me like hes just saying im more important than the debrate. I think its a mistake on his part and whether hes there or not, the candidates are going to have to state their positions on what hes done, how we distinguish ourselves so he will be there in abstonentia. As you know, authorities in Fulton County, georgia, where that fourth indictment was filed, they have suggested that the former president may have to submit himself to fingerprinting and potentially a mug shot later next week. Were hearing that could occur on thursday or friday of next week. What is that going to say to the world if we see the former president getting a mug shot . Well, i dont think its preferred. I dont think its necessary. Whenever you look at the way the Special Counsel handles that, theyve avoided that. Its unnecessary. I know theyre trying to treat everybody the same and the mug shots are not a fun thing to go through, so id prefer not, but thats up to the sheriff and the local prosecutor there. Isnt that kind of letting him off the hook, though, if the other people who are indicted in that casesurrender themselves and they have to get mug shots but donald trump doesnt . Sure, it does. Sure, its a separate in the same way that nobody else goes into court with Secret Service around them, weve never been through anything like this and he needs to understand the impact that his decisions, which led to these indictments, are going to have on our body politic, on the election coming up, on the debate and on the discussion of the issues. I talk to people in iowa. Theyre asking me about inflation. Theyre asking about what im going to do on Border Security and fentanyl, and thats what weve got 230 to focus on and what hes doing is a great distraction from the serious issues in our country. I suspect the issue of ukraine is going to come up during this debate and this past week i spoke with one of our opponents, Vivek Ramaswamy who is rising in the polls and asked him about his position that he would allow russian president Vladimir Putin to keep parts of ukraine that have been captured thus far. Lets listen to that and get your reaction on the other side. I would freeze the current lines of control and that would leave parts of the donbas region with russia. I would also further make a commitment nato will not admit ukraine to nato but there are even greater wins that i will that sounds like a win for putin. The top of the list well, our goal should not be for putin to lose. Our goal should be for america to win. Governor, what do you think of that . Should it be the policy of the u. S. For putin to lose or what . Well, first of all, viveks policies he articulates allows putin to win. He allows russia to win, and, no, thats not in the National Interest of the United States of america. That shows weakness. That rewards russia for doing the invasion. They get what they want and keeps ukraine out of nato but also gives them territory. Its just flat wrong. This obviously will be discussed in the debate. Donald trump had some comments on that, as well, but, no, i could not disagree more with what vivek is articulateing. Governor hutchison, thanks very much for your time. Maybe well talk to you on the other side. Appreciate your time. All right, thank you. Good to be with you. Thank you, governor. We appreciate it. A live look at the Fulton County jail in atlanta. There it is right there. Donald trump and his 18 codefendants have until next friday to turn themselves in there. 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