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Biden Goes Into Reelection Mode, Hits Campaign Trail; RFK Jr Gets Fairly Strong Numbers In Dem Primary; Christie: RNC Loyalty Pledge A "Useless Idea"; 35-Plus Million Under Heat Alerts Across U.S.; Dangerous Storms Threaten Much of Southeast; Doctors Urged To Rely Less On BMI, Citing Concerns Over Health Stigma & Bias; "Juneteenth: A Global Celebration For Freedom" Airs Tonight On CNN. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired June 19, 2023 - 14:30   ET

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

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[14:30:54]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Right now, President Biden is headed back on the campaign trail. He's flying to California for a three-day trip to highlight the environment and meet with donors.

The president officially kicking off his re-election campaign over the weekend rallying with union members in Philadelphia.

The 2024 election is still more than 500 days away, and polls show that some Democrats do not want him to run again.

He's also facing a Democratic challenger, including environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is posting surprisingly strong polling numbers.

CNN's political director, David Chalian, joins us now.

David, what is the polling saying about the Democratic side of this race?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, you know, our most recent poll had Robert Kennedy Jr. at 20 percent support. Your eyes sort pop and, whoa, here's an incumbent president, why is a challenger at 20 percent support?

Obviously, name recognition has something to do with that. His name is Robert Kennedy. Not a bad credential to start with just for Democrats.

But when you look inside our numbers, not all 20 percent are meaning the same thing. His support is coming largely from Independent, more moderate conservative Democrats, right?

That's not the base of the party that shows up as majority in these primary and caucus contests. So he's not pulling right now from the folks in large numbers that -- that turn out and show up in these primary contests.

Which is why the path to actually taking Biden on for the nomination is also a trick one.

SANCHEZ: I was also surprised by 8 percent for Marianne Williamson. We'll leave that there.

CHALIAN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: How much of this has to do with some criticisms over President Biden's age?

CHALIAN: No doubt, the president's is the oldest person serving in this job. He'll do so again, if he runs and wins. But that is a concern.

If you talk to any Democrat in the White House, any president in the Biden campaign, this is not something they ignore. This is something they understand at the reality they are dealing with.

[14:34:59]

And, you know, you heard -- you hear them on the campaign trail a bunch, the way in which the White House is addressing this right now saying, hey, yes, I'm old, but I've got a lot of experiment and wisdom. And look at all these things that he's got done. And he also says watch me.

That's what people will do over the next year and a half, they will watch him very closely. And whether or not he has the vitality and vigor do the job and bring on the confidence of the American people will be one of the questions he has to answer.

SANCHEZ: A lot of self-deprecating humor on the campaign trail so far for President Biden. It works to make him somebody that people empathize with.

But is there a chance that RFK Jr. could steal a primary state?

CHALIAN: Maybe a state. As you know, President Biden rejiggered the Democratic calendar to get South Carolina, a place he did well last time, that sort of catapulted him to the nomination, up front. If he doesn't play hard in Iowa and New Hampshire somebody might come there and make some hay.

But listen, we averaged the four recent national polls in the poll of polls and Joe Biden's approval rating, while low overall, is among Democrats 82 percent on average. That's not a terrible spot.

SANCHEZ: We should also point out, part of the reason for that change in the order of primary states was the snafu we saw last time around to start in Iowa.

CHALIAN: Yes.

SANCHEZ: I also want to talk about the Republican side of the presidential race and play some sound for you and react to from Chris Christie who says the agreement for a support pledge is pointless. Let's listen. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CHRISTIE, (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE & FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: Look, I think the pledge is just a useless idea. You know, we're Republicans, and the idea is you would support the Republican whether you won or whether you lost and you don't have to ask someone to sign something.

Only in the era of Donald Trump that you need somebody to sign something on a pledge, so I think it's a bad idea.

Look, I will do what I need to do to be up on that stage to try to save my party and save my country from going down the road of being led by three-time loser, Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: I've not heard any other Republican go out against the former president that strongly.

CHALIAN: He's making that his calling card of the campaign. No doubt, Chris Christie sees himself in the role as the guy inside the party to really try to take Donald Trump down. Even if he's not the one that ends up with the nomination.

SANCHEZ: Right.

CHALIAN: But the last thing he said, Boris, I will do what I need to do. I read that to say that he's going to sign that pledge because he doesn't have a life in this campaign without getting on that debate stage. But he may not honor the pledge that he signs if Donald Trump is the nominee.

SANCHEZ: If he makes it to the debate stage, we've even seen him cause fireworks before. It should be interesting to watch those two go head- to-head.

(CROSSTALK)

SANCHEZ: David Chalian, as always, a pleasure.

CHALIAN: Of course.

SANCHEZ: Jim?

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Summer does not officially start until Wednesday but don't tell that to 35 million people from Mexico all the way to Mississippi. They are under scorching heat alerts and some can feel dangerous triple-digit temperatures.

CNN meteorologist, Chad Myers, here to discuss.

Chad, how unusual is this and how wide is this area right now?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: This should be mid-July, certainly not mid-June. We're a month ahead of where we should be. All across the west and the Deep South, of course, this is where the worst weather is, 60-plus possible heat records, broke a couple yesterday.

Excessive heat warnings all the way from New Orleans all the way back to New Mexico and all the way down to the Rio Grande.

San Antonio is going to feel like 105 without the humidity. And then you add the humidity in, and it will feel even worse.

Look at Corpus Christi. In the heat and sun, it could feel like 120. Even for Dallas, it's going to feel like 116.

So these are heat and humidity numbers here, not thermometer numbers where you're sitting in the shade. But all of the numbers that I'm showing you are in the shade.

You multiply that by a little bit if you're sitting in the sunshine or working in the sunshine across all of Texas.

This is making a couple more things go on here. Tornadoes and severe weather across the Deep South where the very hot air is clashing with cooler air in the north. It's actually milder in the east coast area.

This sliding area of a frontal system is causing severe weather. Even tornado warnings. And I saw some damage that I'm looking at on the radar, 20 minutes ago. Not that far from Gulf Shores, Alabama.

This storm has kind of lost a lot of its spin but it hasn't lost its rainfall. There will be significant flash flooding down here where the hot muggy air is clashing with the cooler air from the north. It's going to be all day long.

Tomorrow, it's going to slide into part of Florida. Some big storms across parts of Tallahassee, all the way down to Tampa, Ocala, the Villages, all the way through Jacksonville as well. Keeping an eye on how much rainfall, the potential for flash flooding.

Also keeping our eye on something in the tropics. This could be Brett. Tropical depression number three is forecast to be a hurricane in the Atlantic by Friday -- Jim?

[14:40:06]

SCIUTTO: Wow. Here they come.

Chad Myers, in the Weather Center, as always, thanks so much.

Brianna?

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: There's a growing movement urging doctors to shift away from Body Mass Index, or BMI, to measure individual health risks. We'll tell you why that is.

Plus, a heroic rescue caught on camera. A Florida officer rushes into rising floodwaters only to get sucked into a drainpipe with the trapped resident. It is dramatic. We'll have that ahead.

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[14:44:55]

KEILAR: A big headline that we're watching here on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, a submersible used to take people to see the "Titanic" wreckage is missing off the coast of Newfoundland. An urgent search-and-rescue effort is currently under way.

The company Oceangate Expeditions issued a statement saying, "Our entire focus is on the crewmembers in the submersible."

The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed they are looking for five missing people. What's unclear is we don't know how much oxygen they have left. We'll have an update, minutes from now -- Jim?

SCIUTTO: It is a measure of height and weight that some consider a scarlet letter. Doctors have used BMI, or Body Mass Index, for decades for health assessments.

But now the American Medical Association is warning that that figure has significant limitations with a history of use for, quote, "racist exclusion."

CNN medical correspondent, Meg Tirrell, is here to explain.

Meg, this is something we hear about in our doctor's offices, right, something that relates to your height and weight, heard it for years. What has the AMA found about the limitations with this number?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim. This is really an extra push to a movement that's been going on for a while, looking at BMI not as a great measure of individual health risk.

This is a metric invented in 1832 by a Belgian statistician trying to characterize the average man. It wasn't until the 1970s it was adopted as a marker to measure body fat measurements across the population.

The issue is now it's on every medical record and can sometimes be used for individual health risks.

The AMA in a statement last week saying that it significantly correlated with the amount of fat mass in the general population but loses predictability when applied on the individual level.

That's really the issue here. This is really validated in a population that is mostly white, validated in the 197os in a population of mostly men.

So this really isn't applicable across people of different racial backgrounds and people of different ages and sexes. So there are major problems with this.

The problem with that though is that this is used so broadly, not just a screen for being overweight or having obesity but also eligibility for certain medical procedures like fertility treatments or having certain surgeries.

It can also play into life insurance rates. So this is something that doctors are saying deserves a lot more scrutiny.

SCIUTTO: So the AMA is saying it has some relevance across the population but not predictive for individual health outcomes necessarily.

So is there an alternative that we should, say, ask our doctors about when we go to see them the next time they take our height and weight?

TIRRELL: Yes, doctors have been telling me you can use BMI perhaps in conjunction with other things. Some other things they look for in measurements are called visceral fat, fat around the organs. Where you carry that on your body has a lot of implications for your health.

Waist circumference is another thing to look for. And doctors are really concerned with markers of metabolic syndrome. So that's what they are on the lookout for.

SCIUTTO: Meg Tirrell, thanks so much. Something to keep track of.

Boris?

SANCHEZ: Still to come, Americans across the country celebrating Juneteenth, commemorating the emancipation of enslaved African- Americans in the United States. What the holiday means for so many, straight ahead.

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[14:52:47]

SANCHEZ: Today, Americans across the country are commemorating Juneteenth, the annual holiday celebrating the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans in the United States.

For many, the holiday represents a profound moment of triumph, but it also serves as a reminder of our nation's often painful history.

Tonight, at 8 p.m. Eastern, CNN will host some of the biggest names in music for a special celebration, "JUNETEENTH, A GLOBAL CELEBRATION OF FREEDOM."

CNN political commentator, Van Jones, is going to be a part of tonight's celebration on CNN.

In fact -- Van it's great to see you. you're going to be hosting the pregame starting at 7 p.m. What are you most looking forward to tonight, Van?

VAN JONES, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I'm just excited. Sarah Sidner and I are going to be co-hosting this in Los Angeles. Big names are going to be here. Chloe Bailey will be here, Quest Love. It's a whole -- just a show of force into terms of just the culture. And, on the one hand, of course, it's about the past, it's about, you know, how far we've come, but it's also about the future and where we need to go as a country.

I'm going to tell you, you're going to laugh, you're going to cry, you're going to dance. Tonight -- if you're not watching this tonight, you're missing out. It's going to be amazing, 7:00 is when the pregame starts.

SANCHEZ: I'm looking forward to the dancing especially.

Van, a few years ago, there were parts of this country where people didn't really recognize the day of Juneteenth as what it is, an historic day. Walk us through the history of the holiday and what it means to you personally.

JONES: Sure. Well, look, the United States if we're about anything, we're about freedom.

The Revolutionary War was about freedom. The Civil War was about freedom. The civil rights movement was about freedom. Women's rights is about freedom.

Every time we have something great happen in this country, it's about freedom.

This is a day of freedom. The last group of enslaved Africans, so- called slaves, who finally got the word they were free were in Texas. For two years, they had been working as slaves, they didn't know they were free. Finally, someone came and let them know.

[14:54:56]

So the last group of people in this country who were African slaves, enslaved Africans were finally free in their minds. They were free on paper but weren't free in their minds because they didn't know.

And so -- and I think that's a metaphor for all of us. All of us are not as free as we want to be. Whether it's financial freedom, people fighting addictions, people fighting old patterns in their lives.

And yet, there can be a single day where it all turns around. In this country, that was Juneteenth.

SANCHEZ: An effort that continues, a work that continues.

Van Jones, we look forward to seeing you at 7 p.m. for that pregame. Always a pleasure to see you.

JONES: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course.

Jim?

SCIUTTO: The U.S. and China took a crucial step towards stabilizing their relationship. Secretary of State Antony Blinken held talks with top Chinse officials in Beijing, including President Xi Jinping. What came out of those high-stakes meetings and what did not, that's coming up.

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