stormy daniels that s believed to be a precursor to an indictment. they re required by law to be notified and invited to appear before a grand jury. if charged, trump would be the first former president to be indicted, but would it slow his current presidential quest? i say not a chance, at least not based on this case alone. any charges here would stem from the $130,000 in payments made to daniels during the 2016 campaign. apparently she had been ready to share her story of an affair with trump, but the publisher was a trump friend, who instead helped broker a deal with michael cohen, in which she was paid for silence. i ve thought it was the weakest of the trump investigations which generally fall into four buckets. first, the events of january 6th. second, the mishandling of government documents. third, the fulton county da investigation, including the phone call to brad raffensperger. fourth, this, the stormy daniels hush money. merrick garland appointed jack smith to loo
portions of the state. just minutes ago we were seeing this video of a levy that failed overnight in monterey county. that has forced evacuations, washed out roads and bridges. this week s atmospheric river, the tenth to hit the state dropped more than a foot of rain in some areas. at least two people have died in the most recent storm and more rain is on the way for some hard-hit areas. several feet of snow is blanketing the sierra, nevada mountains. they worry melting snow could cause more flooding. california national guard in high water vehicles are staged throughout the state. mike lareo is in vallaero. reporter: we re in the heart of the flood zone and we have all of this flooding in the downtown area because from that video you just saw, the levy is about 3 miles behind us and as soon as that levy had a breach around midnight local time, jim, all of that water had nowhere to go but here except for low lying areas. you can see there s a little bit of a dry spot in our
severe road damage as well. the california national guard is now on the scene in santa cruz to support emergency services. for some residents, the rising water is simply too much. we can t live like this. how do you live like this? how do i have my kids here? how do i have my elderly mother live here where i carry her out of the house? cnn s mike valerio and cnn meteorologist brit rits are tracking the latest. reporter: this is the heart of the flood rescue response effort. if you look around us, the area is inundated. as you mentioned at the top of the show, it is flooded because we have this levy upstream that failed around midnight local time, so as the front quickly comes through, that water is dumped around us. what we ve been seeing since we moved positions from the berry farm we talked to you last time until now, national guard troops have been coming up and down the central drag for several hours now rescuing people. you can just see the extent of the water. and
you re live in the cnn newsroom. i m jim acosta in new york. much of california is under a state of emergency this afternoon, and mandatory evacuations are under way in parts of monterrey county on the central coast. a short time ago we received drone video of a levee that failed this morning. as you can see, the waters rushed through the breach and into a nearby neighborhood. the floodwaters have washed away roads and bridges and cut off some communities in the area. this is new video. we also have coming in from springville, where many have lost their homes and belongings in that area. california s reeling from its tenth atmospheric river of the winter in the central and northern parts of the state. it s dumping huge amounts of rain and snow on the ground that is already saturated. cnn s mike valerio joins us. you spoke to a county supervisor a short time ago there. what have you learned? reporter: well, he told us, jim, that there are hundreds of people now in shelters
we are now seeing another guy from florida make moves. ron desantis is reportedly telling people in his circle he is set on running. sources tell the washington post he is going to declare in may or june. desantis has 70 mill in the back left over from run for governor. and desantis super pacs are coming alive. i don t know how it could be more obvious but ron desantis is in iowa today. if you talk to floridians, there s no drama in our administration. there s no palace intrigue. they basically just sit back and say okay, what s the governor going to do next and we roll out and we execute and we do things and we get things done. and, in the process, we beat the left day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. [applause] jesse: no drama ron. that s a clear shot at the former president. no drama and execute. we re going to see those themes repeated from the desantis camp. desantis winning the iowa caucus would be very big. trump didn t win iowa in