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Arizona Republicans Block Efforts to Repeal Abortion Ban; Biden Admin Finalizes Rule to Close Gun Show Loophole; Pacific Castaways Help Sign Sparks Rescue Mission. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired April 11, 2024 - 15:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[15:30:00]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Chants erupted inside the Arizona State Capitol as Republican lawmakers blocked efforts to repeal a Civil War era law that bans nearly all abortions.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shame on you. Shame on you. Shame on you.

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KEILAR: This was actually a Republican who had tried to move forward on an effort to roll back the ban with the help of some Democrats after the state Supreme Court upheld the law that dates back 160 years.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Now, Vice President Kamala Harris is set to travel to Arizona. That is tomorrow. She's again adding her voice to the fight for reproductive freedoms as President Biden launches a new ad campaign aimed at voters in Arizona.

CNN's Kayla Tausche is at the White House. And Kayla, clearly the Biden campaign is making reproductive rights one of the pillars of its message to voters.

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Boris, for Democrats, it's been a critical campaign issue since the 2022 midterms.

The midterms, of course, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and it's reclaiming the forefront for the Biden-Harris campaign, which believes that it will be the galvanizing force for voters in swing states. And they're attempting to point the finger directly at Donald Trump, the former president who this week said it should be up to states to decide on reproductive rights. And they say this is the result of that policy.

President Biden's campaign just today unveiling a new ad in the state of Arizona with exactly that message.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (voice over political ad): Because of Donald Trump, millions of women lost the fundamental freedom to control their own bodies. The question is, if Donald Trump gets back in power, what freedom will you lose next?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: The White House or the Biden-Harris campaign, rather, trying to elevate this issue above the economy and immigration, where Trump currently out polls Biden.

The White House declining to say whether Biden will be personally making stump speeches on this issue. Yesterday, when he was asked about it, he said simply elect me. Biden's views as a Catholic can only be described as complex and having evolved on this issue.

But certainly, Harris has been taking up the mantle of this messaging for some time. She's made two trips to Arizona and has been crisscrossing the country, arguing for reproductive freedoms. And she's expected to have a very similar message, although a very forceful one, in the state of Arizona tomorrow -- guys.

KEILAR: All right, Kayla, we'll be looking for that.

In the meantime, gun law reform advocates now poised for a big victory in their push for more background checks, details when we come back.

[04:35:00]

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SANCHEZ: Today, the Biden administration announced a new rule aimed at expanding background checks on gun sales and closing the so-called gun show loophole. The new regulation will go into effect soon and it attempts to clear up what it means to be, quote, engaged in the business of selling guns.

KEILAR: The White House says there are over 20,000 individuals engaged in unlicensed gun dealing in the U.S.

Attorney General Merrick Garland releasing this statement that under this regulation it will not matter if guns are sold on the internet, at a gun show, or at a brick and mortar store. If you sell guns predominantly to earn a profit, you must be licensed and you must conduct background checks.

Joining us now to discuss is ATF Director Stephen Dettelbach. Thank you so much for coming in studio and talking to us, we appreciate it.

STEVEN DETTELBACH, DIRECTOR OF ALCOHOL, TOBACCO, FIREARMS AND EXPLOSIVES (ATF): Thanks for having me.

KEILAR: So as we just made clear, the gun show loophole, it's not just about gun shows really, it's sort of about who is selling there. So tell us how this is going to work here.

[04:40:00] DETTELBACH: Right, so Congress passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which redefined this notion of what is engaged in the business, which had already by the way been the law for a long time since the 60s. But there was a lot of non-compliance.

So people were out there who were engaging in the business of dealing firearms and we were seeing that increasingly they were doing it without a license. So you have the people who are following the rules, the businesses who are licensed firearms dealers, they're running background checks. They're selling guns with records so the cops could trace a gun when it's used in a crime, catch the killer. And then you have a group of people who are selling guns without running background checks, right, not licensed as firearms dealers, not keeping records.

And whether you're doing that out of your trunk of your car or at a gun show or on some new social media platform, it doesn't matter. What this rule says and what Congress's law says is that if your predominant intent is to earn a profit and you're engaged in the business, you need a license no matter where you do that conduct.

SANCHEZ: Director, this new rule sort of came about as part of a provision from the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act that was passed back in 2022. I think the question for a lot of folks out there that watched or that learned that this rule took years to craft is why is it happening now?

DETTELBACH: Well, it's happening because we've been working on it for quite some time. So months and months and months ago last year we published a notice of proposed rulemaking. There's a process to do this that's an inclusive process. We got 387,000 public comments submitted to ATF based on that proposed rule.

We reviewed each and every one of them. We have now addressed them publicly in a 400-page document where we look at the comments, talk about their merits, and we've made some changes to the final rule based upon some of the comments that we got. And designed a system based on years of experience that shows the kind of particular conduct that's likely to indicate that somebody's in business, right, and not a private collector or just, you know, making a private sale, let's say, to a family member.

Like, for instance, practical things. If you take credit cards for payment. If you've registered with your state licensing authority as a business, right, that's a pretty good hint you're in business. If you've gotten certain kinds of business security with centralized business monitoring.

If you stock inventory and turn it over, over and over again. If you have the same kind of gun that you're selling in stock, that's right, that's not as much like a collection as it is business inventory. We also set forth, based on the comments, some specific things that are not likely to mean that a person is presumed to be engaged in the business.

Like if they're only providing firearms as gifts or to family members or occasionally to other actually licensed dealers, right? So what we're trying to do here is to make it crystal clear the actual kinds of conduct so that people hopefully begin complying with the law because it's deadly consequences.

KEILAR: Are there ways that some folks will be able to get around this, though? I mean, if they're dealing in something, and I guess I'm talking about the smaller level folks who are selling firearms, but maybe they're dealing in cash, right? Maybe they don't have -- they haven't registered to have credit card transactions. And yet they are selling enough weapons that it still basically is that under the sort of gun show loophole.

DETTELBACH: You always -- first of all, you know, I know we talk about this, we call it the so-called gun show loophole. If you look in the actual law, there's never been a provision in law that says, hey, as long as you are breaking the law sitting at a gun show, it's OK, right? But I guess what we're talking about is the fact that people are out there, as you say, kind of not obeying the law.

So look, I think that the honest answer is hopefully there's a group of people who will see these black and white terms that we've said again and again and again, see that Congress has said, you got to have a license if you're predominantly for profit engaging in this business.

Will there be people who continue to try to fuel felons and gangs and drug dealers through the black market? Of course there will. And when that happens, we'll do what we've done in the past, which is, you know, from 2021 to 2023, the number of criminal gun trafficking cases we did for people who were dealing without a license on ATF went up 52 percent in those years.

And we did a recent study where we showed that for people who are trafficking in firearms illegally, 60 percent of those guns are going to convicted felons and other people who aren't allowed to have guns, right? That makes sense. If you can't pass a background check, right? With a licensed dealer, what are you doing? You're going to the black market.

And if you look at a mass shooting in Midland, Odessa, Texas, right? You had a person who went to a licensed dealer, couldn't pass a background check.

[04:45:00]

And then they went to the black market, got a firearm, murdered seven people, injured 17 more, including three cops, right? So we have to try to close down that black market illicit firearms dealing.

SANCHEZ: There's almost no question that gun rights groups are going to challenge this in court. And unfortunately, we don't have time to have a fully fledged conversation about what that's going to look like. But I am curious, quickly, the Supreme Court has shown that they do not really adhere to precedence the way that they once did. Do you imagine this is going to wind up there?

DETTELBACH: I don't know where it will wind up. Obviously, we feel comfortable that we're within the statute that Congress passed. This provision doesn't implicate people's Second Amendment rights to keep and bear arms. Thousands of dealers are out there doing this the right way now.

And let me just say one last thing about that for people who are looking at fundamental fairness. It is unfair to a federal licensed firearms dealer who's spending the extra time, effort, and money to obey the rules and run these background checks, right? That sitting over there is somebody who's flouting the law, dealing the felons, and making money off it. So there's a fairness issue in addition to the public safety issue here.

ATF Director Steven Dettelbach, thank you so much for being with us.

DETTELBACH: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

So what started as a fishing trip turned into a fight for survival for three fishermen stranded on an island. How their quick thinking saved their lives and led to an unexpected reunion.

[04:50:00]

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KEILAR: A group of fishermen stranded on an island for more than a week survived to tell the tale. Thanks to a little creativity, there you see it, they used palm fronds to spell out help on the sand. And earlier this month, a Navy jet spotted their SOS and sent just what they asked for, help.

SANCHEZ: Yes, for some perspective, the island is part of Micronesia, a Pacific nation that's made up of more than 600 islands scattered across an area bigger than the size of Alaska. The Coast Guard says the men's ingenuity, again with that help sign, was crucial in their rescue.

KEILAR: And there's a twist here. This survival story ends with a surprise family reunion because it turns out the Coast Guard petty officer who came to save them is a distant relative.

Joining us now is survivalist expert Zachary Fowler. Zach, these three fishermen, I mean, they were stranded for more than a week. How unlikely was this story of survival?

ZACHARY FOWLER, SURVIVALIST: I mean, the spread of the islands like that and the fact that they were able to get close enough to one and get on one, that's a lot of odds that I would not want to be playing the table on that one.

SANCHEZ: Zach, once they made it to shore, they apparently noticed that their radio battery had died. I'm wondering, is there a way for folks to communicate their need for help to rescuers without any kind of direct line of communication? Do you have to resort to making a help sign like the one they did? FOWLER: Yes, that was definitely a failure of communication, like

having the right equipment ready to go, having your radio charged, you know, being prepared is going to be always your best way, having a survival kit, things like that at hand, fire starters, flares.

Because they may -- we don't -- I mean, I don't know from the article, it doesn't say, but I would think that as they're flying around looking for them, that help sign is good when somebody flies over, but if the plane was flying all around and looking for a smoke sign or a flare or something like that, they didn't have that up and that would have increased their odds of getting picked up a little bit sooner.

KEILAR: Let's talk about food, because these guys got pretty lucky here. They had coconuts, right, so they had some decent nutrition, and then there was also a small well on the island, so they had water, which of course is most essential. What are the options when, you know, you have something like that or maybe something different, or you don't have a small well that you'd be so lucky for, what can you do?

FOWLER: For a week's amount of time, they would have been doing pretty good with just the coconuts, and people pay a lot of money for that kind of a retreat, right? To just be on an island with some coconuts, and, you know, and that just that coconut diet, though, would be the only issue long term, because that's kind of a cleanser to the system when you're just having coconut, that much fiber like that.

So they were very fortunate for the well, because the dehydration would have been a big issue over time. If they lost the boat, they don't have something to boil water and then capture that moisture, because the fresh drinking water, when you're stuck on an island like that, is usually you're going to be your biggest problem.

KEILAR: It's unbelievable. Zach, thank you so much. I did once, I think, pay someone to drop me off. I really did. I paid someone to drop me on an island like that just for an afternoon. So Zach's right. Zach, appreciate it. Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Thanks, Zach.

FOWLER: Yes, thanks for having me.

KEILAR: It was a nice retreat.

Pro golfer Bubba Watson is going for his third Masters win this weekend, but his daughter may have already stolen this show.

[04:55:00]

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KEILAR: All right, check this out. The Masters are underway, but it is the daughter of one of the top players that is really capturing the crowds.

SANCHEZ: Yes, this special moment happened during the annual Par 3 tournament that Bubba Watson's nine-year-old daughter Dakota shined and she put on a clinic. Watch this.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just everything, everything. Phenomenal year from Tita Green. Barely tap it. Dakota Watson has already hold countless feet of putts today.

A terrific putting stroke.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Go ahead.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh my goodness.

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KEILAR: For the uninitiated, those are crazy long putts.

SANCHEZ: That is incredibly difficult and she does it with such ease and the celebrations come so naturally to her too. She looks like she belongs out there.

KEILAR: Yes, I mean, what a future she has.

SANCHEZ: Quite a future.

KEILAR: Amazing. All right, "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts right now.