CNN.com - Transcripts (2024)

[07:00:00]

JEFF MASON, FORMER PRESIDENT, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT'S ASSOCIATION: He's very supportive of Israel's attack and fight against Hamas in Gaza, but he's probably not dying to sit down with Bibi.

MANU RAJU, CNN ANCHOR: Do you think that he should - the president should come out and say something? You know, I don't know what the president's position is about whether he's fine with him coming and speaking to Congress. Should he come out and join the criticism on the left?

MEGHAN MAYS, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: I mean, it's not the president's invitation to extend or to make comments on. I think that the president, like Jeff is saying, has made his positions very clear on what's going on. I mean, I think that John Kirby yesterday had some pretty strong comments about Bibi's comments back to us.

So, I mean, I think that the president is probably preparing for a debate, and then will face that and --

RAJU: And then will have deal with that after the race. All right, thanks to our panel. Thank you for joining us. I'm Manu Raju. You join me for Inside Politics Sunday at 8:00 A.M. and 11:00 A.M. Eastern right here on CNN.

And CNN News Central starts right now.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump getting a billionaire's boost. The numbers behind his huge fundraising haul over President Biden as they prepare to face off for a historic debate in less than a week right here on CNN.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN ANCHOR: And summer has officially kicked off. You can definitely feel it. A dangerous heat wave taking over the northeast and Midwest with temperatures set to soar into the hundreds this weekend.

SIDNER: And are you ready for an A.I. takeover? America's big companies are ramping up their use of artificial intelligence to do jobs once exclusively done by humans. What you need to know about how A.I. is changing the workforce already.

I'm Sarah Sidner with Omar Jimenez, John Berman and Kate Bolduan are out today. This is CNN New Central.

Donald Trump outraising President Biden for the second month in a row thanks to a cash infusion in the immediate aftermath of his criminal conviction in his hush money trial, Trump took in a staggering $141 million in May. Biden and the Democratic Party fell well short of that, even though they raised more than $85 million last month. And that was the second best grassroots fundraising month for the Biden campaign.

The cash piling up on both sides, thanks in part to two billionaire donors who unleashed giant sums, more than $70 million together. All of it comes as we learn new details about how things will play out in the first presidential debate next Thursday here on CNN.

CNN's Steve Contorno and Kevin Liptak are joining me now. Steve, I'm going to begin with you. What are you learning about this Trump fundraising haul? And a lot of people look at this and they see, look, sometimes he's spending some of this money on his legal woes. But now we are in full court press to this debate.

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: That's right, Sarah. And notably, Donald Trump's campaign still hasn't said how much cash on hand it has in this cycle left to use, which, you know, he's used a lot of that money to pay for legal fees already. But we did learn a big piece of information about how much one of the major super PACs supporting him now has. MAGA Inc, which again is one of these super PACs closely aligned with him, raised $68 million in last month. That is a huge sum of money, and a lot of it is coming from billionaires. In fact, it's almost entirely made up of three donations from billionaires, including a $50 million cash infusion from a banking heir named Timothy Mellon.

Now, interesting, Timothy Mellon had already given $25 million dollars to RFK this cycle. But now, since the conviction of Donald Trump, he gave $50 million dollars to this Trump super PAC. This Trump super PAC has now almost $94 million cash on hand. And now that can't that cannot be coordinated with the Trump campaign but this super PAC is planning a massive, massive advertising blitz in the coming months. And this will give him a lot of money to do so. And it's going to be able to shape the message coming out of this debate where Donald Trump has recently been interestingly resetting some of the expectations after spending months and months attacking Joe Biden over his age and physical appearance and mental acuity.

Listen to what he had to say about what he expects to see out of Joe Biden at next week's debate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I was never a fan of his, but I will say he beat Paul Ryan years ago, but he beat Paul Ryan pretty badly. And I assume he's going to be somebody that will be a worthy debater. Yes, I would say, I think, I don't want to underestimate him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CONTORNO: Trump will have the last word of the debate next Thursday after a coin flip gave him that advantage, Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you so much. Let's go to Kevin Liptak now. Give us some sense of what Biden's war chest looked like.

[07:05:01]

He is still entering June with a large war chest.

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes. The bottom line, both of these candidates have a lot of money to spend in this election. President Biden now has a war chest. That's $212 million. That's the largest for any Democratic presidential candidate at this point in the cycle. And for so long, fundraising has been one of the unquestionable bright spots for the Biden campaign.

But you are starting to see Trump erode that in some ways that isn't necessarily a surprise to Biden officials who did believe that when Trump wrapped up the GOP nomination, as he was able to bring in those huge donor checks that he would start to narrow that cash advantage, and you are seeing that play out in the numbers, the Biden campaign raising 85 million last month. This is the second month that Trump has outraised them.

When you talk to campaign officials, their argument is that early advantage allowed them to invest very heavily in the battleground states to go up on the airwaves and television advertising. And, in fact, just yesterday, they said that they had hired their 1,000 staffer, and they say those early investments allowed them to put in the infrastructure that will help them win this campaign.

Now, President Biden is waking up this morning at Camp David to begin this intensive stretch of debate preparations. We do expect those to begin somewhat informally going through those binders of questions and answers, batting around ideas of framing and retorts with his aides, eventually culminating in those longer mock debates in the lead up to the debate next Thursday.

Now, we did see President Biden as he was heading off there to Western Maryland to the presidential retreat in the mountains, and he was asked how he was feeling about debate prep. He gave a thumbs up, so feeling good today. But, of course, the real question is how he's feeling about a week from today as the debate gets underway.

SIDNER: And certainly for the voting public, it is not the money in their war chest that they're worried about. It's the money in their own pockets, the economy going to be a big thing on the debate stage, but so will immigration, another huge issue for Americans.

And I want to ask you about some new numbers that have come out from the CBP. Migrant arrests apparently down about 25 percent since Biden's announcing the asylum restrictions. What more are you learning about that?

LIPTAK: Yes, we are seeing a steady decrease in the arrest of migrants who are entering the United States illegally. We have numbers from May. They're down about 9 percent from the month earlier. But even more significantly, we're seeing quite a significant decrease since President Biden announced that new executive action that really cracked down on asylum seekers trying to seek access to the United States, he announced it about two weeks ago. Since then, the numbers have fallen about 25 percent.

That is welcome news, I think, for the White House as they try and neutralize this immigration issue on which President Biden has really struggled politically throughout his presidency. You see them announcing a number of different actions that asylum action allowed President Biden to essentially shut down the border when crossings reached a certain level. And in these numbers, you can see the effect of that action.

SIDNER: All right. Kevin Liptak, thank you, as well as Steve Contorno.

Let's remind folks, you can join CNN as President Biden and former President Trump meet for the first debate of the 2024 election. Jake Tapper, Dana Bash moderating that. It is all live from Atlanta next Thursday, beginning 9:00 P.M. Eastern. Omar?

JIMENEZ: Can't wait. Still ahead, Donald Trump's legal team back in court this morning. We're going to tell you about their request on the classified documents case and the latest in as Judge Aileen Cannon finds herself again at the center of scrutiny.

Also, New York becomes the first state to regulate social media algorithms. How it's specifically working to protect children, we'll tell you about that.

And a major change in the Turks and Caicos, how the country is changing part of its firearms law that put five Americans behind bars in recent months.

Stay with us.

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[07:10:00]

JIMENEZ: Happening soon, Donald Trump's long shot bid to invalidate Special Counsel Jack Smith will get its day in federal court. Now, it'll happen in just hours after this reporting from The New York Times that not one but two federal judges, peers of Judge Aileen Cannon, personally advised her to step down from the classified documents case last year.

CNN Senior Crime and Justice Reporter Katelyn Polantz is closely following it all. And, Katelyn, I mean, Judge Cannon has known to take a drastically different approach at these hearings now. Now, this new reporting that is really highly unusual, I think, is fair to say. What do we know?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Unusual from the start, Omar, but today it is going to be a hearing in Fort Pierce. Donald Trump is not going to be there personally, but Judge Cannon is going to have a hearing in this case about how Donald Trump wants to challenge the validity, the power of the special counsel himself and his ability to bring this case against Donald Trump, which was charged a full year ago.

It's going to be an odd hearing because she's also going to be hearing today from people that aren't even part of the case, just third party law professors, scholars, people that want to have a say before the judge. So, that's happening.

[07:15:00]

You don't see that very often, if at all, in criminal cases at the trial level, and it almost appears that judges recognize that Judge Cannon might go in a direction that was very different than how judges would be handling.

This New York Times story that was out yesterday highlighted that when Judge Cannon was randomly selected from about ten or so, give or take, different judges down in South Florida, to take on the Trump case, very quickly, two judges called her and put the idea in her mind that perhaps she should be stepping out of this case. One of the judges pointed out to her according to the Times that she's in a very remote courthouse, didn't have a lot of ability to handle national security cases or experience there to handle national security cases. Maybe it would be best for a judge down in Miami.

And then the chief judge of the district also put out some information to her, said to her on one of these calls that it might not be the best idea for her to take this forward because she hadn't handled things the way it was under the law whenever the investigation was still going on.

JIMENEZ: And, of course, there are always questions about the pace of this particular case, and it has just seemed to be slowed down at every point here. So, it'll be interesting to see what comes out of this hearing and beyond.

I want to also ask about another person within the Trump orbit, because Steve Bannon is still scheduled to report to prison on July 1st. What do we know about his efforts to make sure that doesn't happen, and what's expected to happen moving forward?

POLANTZ: Yes, Omar. The reality here is that Steve Bannon does have a July 1 report date to go to federal prison. And a trial judge has said, yes, that's the date. And now an appeals court, as of late last night, said, yes, that's the date, we're not giving you a get out of jail free card right now, Steve Bannon. He could go to the Supreme Court. We'll see if they would want to do anything on that. I'd put that in the camp of a long shot.

But Steve Bannon headed to prison from July the whole way through October for four months, it comes at a time where he's still in touch with Donald Trump. He's ascendant in the world of people talking about what Trump may do if he is elected to a second term, the people who are among the advisers. Here's a little bit more of what Steve Bannon has had to say recently.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP CHIEF STRATEGIST: And, McCabe, you should be worried. You should be very worried. But also understand this brother, we have extradition treaties with virtually every country in the world. And you go ahead and run and run as far as you want. We're going to come and get you.

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: To have the person who aspires to the highest seat, the highest role, the highest job in the land to start picking out people like me or anyone else and targeting them for revenge, unleashing the rage of their supporters, and however that's played out, it's outrageous and it's just heartbreaking that that's where we are as a nation.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

POLANTZ: So, there's the former FBI director responding to what Steve Bannon has been saying lately about what will happen if Donald Trump has a second term. One thing, Omar, it's going to be very difficult, if possible at all, for Steve Bannon to be podcasting from prison.

JIMENEZ: I think that's fair to say, and all this over a contempt of Congress charge for failing to comply with a January 6th committee subpoena. Katelyn Polantz, I really appreciate the time.

All right, we've got a lot of news that we're also following. Coming up, more than 100 million Americans are under heat alerts as a sweltering heat wave continues across the country. We'll bring you the latest.

Stay with us.

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[07:20:00]

SIDNER: This is the first official full day of summer, and, boy, do we notice that. More than 100 million Americans from across the U.S. are under heat alerts and a dangerous heat wave from the Midwest all the way to Maine, breaking records. Temperatures in Chicago, St. Louis, New York and Pittsburgh are all expected to be around 100 degrees this weekend. Washington, D.C., set to hit 100 degrees for the first time in almost a decade.

CNN's Athena Jones is here in New York. New York is also getting hit hard with this. What's it feel like out there so far?

ATHENA JONES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Sara. Well, it's not that hot yet. There's a nice cool breeze here along the East River. We're seeing people out walking and running, trying to get that exercise in before the heat really ramps up, because we're looking at a heat index here in New York, reaching even exceeding 100 degrees. There's a whole area, this whole area is going to be under heat advisory starting this afternoon, lasting through the weekend.

And as you may have mentioned, New York could see a June heat record, seven consecutive days, with the temperature at 90 degrees or above. If that happens, it will tie the longest stretch in a decade and it'll be the longest stretch ever in the month of June. Central Park is forecast to reach 94 degrees. That'll be the hottest day since July of 2022.

Heading down to Washington, D.C., you mentioned on Saturday, they could see their first 100-degree day since August of 2016. And there are even concerns about how the heat could impact transit. Transit officials down in D.C. putting out a statement saying, due to rail temperatures above 135 degrees as of 2:00 P.M., there's an above ground speed restriction of 35 miles per hour in effect system wide. So, those are some of the precautions they're taking in D.C.

And, of course, these are dangerous conditions. That is why we're seeing cooling centers opening in Washington, D.C., here in New York, hundreds of cooling centers to help people beat the heat. And, of course, those most at risk are people without air conditioning, older people, people who have chronic health conditions. And so they're being advised to avoid strenuous activity outside. And, of course, find a cooling center if you're one of those folks who does not have an air conditioner. Sara?

SIDNER: Yes, that is one dangerous situation in this absolutely burning temperature. Thank you so much. Athena Jones. I appreciate you.

[07:25:00]

All right, coming up is A.I. coming for your job. Corporate America adopting artificial intelligence to automate work, and it's happening faster than you may think.

And a historic night in baseball, the Major League honors the Negro Leagues and, of course, the late great Willie Mays.

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SIDNER: We've got some new details for you this morning on how things will play out in the first presidential debate next Thursday here on CNN. The Biden campaign chose the winning side of a coin toss and got to pick the right side podium.

[07:30:03]

Donald Trump's campaign chose to get the final word of the debate. It comes as we get some new numbers on how much.