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Headline Info; Headline Info. Aired 10:00-10:30a ET; Israel Launches Deadly Strike on West Bank; Pence: Don't Recall "Any Pressure" From Trump to Ask AZ Governor to Overturn Election Results; DeSantis Faces Criticism for LGBTQ-Focused Video; DeSantis Campaign Shares Video Slamming Trump's Past Vow to Protect LGBTQ Rights; Airlines Trying to Bounce Back From Weekend Travel Chaos; Buttigieg on Travel Troubles: "We've Come a Long Way"; Police Searching for Suspects in Mass Shooting; Impact of Student Loan Decision on Economy; America's Front Line of Missile Defense Straining Under the Demand of Global Threats; Supreme Court LGBTQ+ Rights Ruling Backlash. Aired 10- 10:30a ET

Aired July 03, 2023 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:01:09]

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SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Former Vice President Mike Pence says he does not recall Donald Trump putting any pressure on him to ask Arizona's governor to find fraud in the 2020 election. His response to new reporting that Pence did make calls to the governor and that Donald Trump did call to pressure the governor to change the results of the 2020 election.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: More passengers, more problems growing, delays in holiday headaches as a record breaking number of Americans tried to fly this July 4th.

SIDNER: Plus the largest military operation in over 20 years is happening right now in the West Bank. Israel launching armed drones, troops on the ground as a Palestinian death toll rises those stories and more Right here on CNN News Central.

This morning, former Vice President Mike Pence defending his former boss and current Republican rival in the race for 2024, saying there was "no pressure" on him from Donald Trump to ask for then, Arizona Governor Doug Ducey help to overturn the 2020 election results. Pence says, he did call Ducey, but it was more of a check-in than a pressure campaign.

CNN previously reported that Trump repeatedly pushed Pence to help find evidence of voter fraud and stopped the certification of Joe Biden. CNN's Kristen Holmes joins us now with the details. There's a lot of back and forth here. Tell us what's going on.

Well, that's right, Sarah. So, here's what we knew already.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: We knew that former President Trump and Doug Ducey, then the governor of Arizona did have a call in the wake of the 2020 election, but it was unclear what exactly they spoke about. Now, I learned over the weekend from sources who are familiar with these private conversations that behind closed doors, Ducey had told allies that the former president had tried to pressure him to find evidence of voter fraud to overturn the 2020 election in the state of Arizona.

As you'll remember, Trump lost by about 11,000 votes. We also learned over the weekend that Pence had called Ducey repeatedly to talk about the results of the 2020 election.

Now, sources had said that Pence was not putting pressure on Ducey, but he was trying to get information on if there was any visible voter fraud in order to return that information back to the former President. Pence was asked about that this weekend. Here's what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE PENCE, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I did check in with not only Governor Ducey, but other governors in states that were going through the legal process of reviewing their election results.

But there was no pressure involved, Margaret. I was calling to get an update, I passed along that information to the president and it was no more, no less than that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And I do want to note one thing about the Trump call to then Governor Ducey. Of course, as we know, as we reported on extensively, there was a call between Trump and then the Secretary of State, Brad Raff Berger in Georgia, trying to get more votes that was recorded. This call with Ducey was apparently not recorded.

The other thing to point out about this, that the special counsel Jack Smith, in his investigation into January 6th and Trump's actions after the 2020 election has interviewed Raff Asperger. He has not interviewed or reached out to Doug Ducey about their interaction. Sara.

SIDNER: It's interesting, a lot of people thinking that may happen. We will see. Kristen Holmes, thank you so much. John.

BERMAN: Republican presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is facing criticism this morning after his campaign shared a video slamming Donald Trump for vowing to protect LGBTQ rights. Everyone from Chris Christie to Pete Buttigieg slamming the move. With us now, Republican strategist Alice Stewart and Washington Bureau Chief for the Boston Globe, or as I like to call it, the paper of record, Jackie Kucinich.

Jackie, let me start with you here and leave aside the way this video was produced as Pete Buttigieg notes using greased up photos of bodybuilders spliced in with Ron DeSantis. But who's the target audience here?

[10:05:12]

JACKIE KUCINICH, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE BOSTON GLOBE: Your guess is as good as mine, John. Honestly, it really, it's certainly not people in Iowa, certainly not people in New Hampshire.

It's not Republican voters even when you look at this, it's so online. This isn't the first time you've seen this account tweet out this sort, not necessarily this sort of thing, but sort of these very online memes and it just, it shows a campaign that really doesn't, is kind of flailing honestly. They probably thought they would be a lot further at this point in the contest, and they're sort of stuck.

So, whether this, it just, it really, this just serves to upset a lot of people on the Republican side. Frankly, you had the Log Cabin Republicans come out and condemn this and really no response from the campaign at this point to this very odd video.

Alice, is their room to the right of Donald Trump on this issue by saying former President Trump was, is too tolerant towards gays?

ALICE STEWART, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Let me just start off with, no offense, John, I'm in New Hampshire here where they consider the union leader of the paper of record, so we'll just have to disagree on that. But in terms of, of this,

KUCINICH: Come on now (ph), Alice.

STEWART: Look, clearly. Ron DeSantis is picking the wrong fight with Donald Trump, and it's really no room in the GOP to try and out woke each other when you're the top two candidates, and there's no mistaking the fact Donald Trump with the Republican primary voters, he doesn't have a problem with diversity, equity, and inclusion.

His problem is electability in the general election when we get to him against a Democratic candidate. So, Ron DeSantis, clearly this is an issue and a decision, his a calculation, a campaign is making that, these woke issues are important to highlight. Look, his record in Florida with regard to the culture wars is broad and Republican voters know about that, but it, in my opinion, his contrasting message with Donald Trump should be about winning and the fact that he won reelection and Donald Trump didn't.

It should be about his success in the economic realm in Florida, about how he handled COVID, about how the tourism and real estate is thriving in the state of Florida. And DeSantis, in my view, has a better message appealing to Republican voters and general election voters if he stuck with the winning instead of the woke issues.

BERMAN: So, Jackie, why isn't he running that way? Why does he seem in some ways scared to take Donald Trump on directly on those issues and also on the indictments and things like that?

KUCINICH: So, one of the great example happened on Friday. DeSantis addressed the Moms for Liberty, this is a group that is very open due to DeSantis woke message, someone a really friendly room for him. And here he got a lot of cheers. He really was well received. Then former President Trump showed up and the whole thing stopped. It was, you know, lines for his to get pictures with him. The room was packed, multiple standing ovations. Just the crowd completely changed. And it just, the, you know, almost a celebrity type en environment there.

He can't get a foothold against the former president right now. And to Alice's point, I guess he's trying to run to the right of the former president. But on this issue, it just really seemed to land flat.

BERMAN: And Alice, if I can jump in here on a different subject, there's a whole DeS --

STEWART: And John--

BERMAN: I'm just going to, I'm going to say, I want to say quickly ask about, you know, there's Trump-DeSantis and there's also Trump-Pence, which is obviously a unique relationship to be facing in a primary.

And yes, there are the issues of the Doug Ducey phone calls, but how much of the campaign between those two men, Alice, is going to be about issues surrounding the 2020 election?

STEWART: Well, it certainly remains to be seen. And look, we have an interesting article by Marc Caputo out today in terms of the last election and the indictments coming forth.

Voters in the state of Iowa, they might, they're looking at what's happening with Donald Trump and he might possibly win Iowa. Not in spite of these indictments, but because of them, people are furious with the way that Donald Trump is being treated. So, we're going to continue to see in my estimation, Trump will lean in on what he views as the weaponization of the DOJ and him being unfairly targeted, and that resonates with voters for some reason.

However, the more rational Republicans and those who want a candidate that can have a chance to win in a general election, they're looking at people like Pence or DeSantis or Scott or Nikki Haley and Mike Pence, given what he did to stand up for our election process and not standing in the way of certification of election results on January 6th.

[10:10:18]

STEWART: He gets a lot of credit from Rational Republicans who see that he did the right thing. And you know, Mike Pence is going out there talking with social conservative voters that are really his bread and butter, and he is better served by focusing on those issues of social evangelicals, the economy, education, as well as, public safety across the country.

BERMAN: Alice Stewart, Jackie Kucinich, great to see you both. Have a great rest of your holiday weekend. Thank you, Sara.

SIDNER: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is defending air travel saying things have improved. Still, there's a blame game afoot. Travelers were seething after more than 2,400 flights were delayed over the weekend, but most of the delays were the result of severe weather, which of course can't be helped.

This is as a record, 50 million Americans are going to travel this holiday weekend, both the airlines and the head of the U.S. transportation are feeling the heat. We are going to go now to CNN's Pete Muntean, who is live at Reagan National Airport there. How are things faring so far? Last hour things were looking pretty good.

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: Let's compare to where we were a week ago, Sara. You know, on Monday, that was the worst day for cancellations we've seen in quite a while, 2,200 flights were canceled in the U.S. according to flight award. Today so far we're only looking at 89, about 900 delays.

The day is still pretty young though, and the FAA is warning that as the day goes on, there could be ground stops in places like New York and Philadelphia and Baltimore and D.C., Charlotte, big hub there, Atlanta, big hub for Delta, all the way down to Miami. We saw the cancellations really rise yesterday as the bad weather started to hit the East Coast, we saw about 600 Nationwide just yesterday.

So, the good news right now, things are relatively quiet. We've turned the page from the big cancellations of last week, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on CNN says things are starting to get back on track. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PETE BUTTIGIEG, TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY: We're watching more severe potential for severe weather. That's what touched off all of these problems about a week ago.

But you look at where we were a year ago, where even on blue sky days with no severe weather, there were really unacceptable levels of cancellations and delays. We've come a long way.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: Let's put it all into context. Last summer, between Memorial Day and Labor Day, airlines canceled 50, 000 flights in total. Last week, the airline to cancel more flights than any other carrier, United Airlines. Today, looking a lot better, they've only canceled about 1% of all their flights, so getting back to normal like the Transportation Secretary says.

Although United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby says, he's committed to working with the FAA, committed to looking at the airline schedule at its major hub in Newark, where there simply just may be too many flights. Although, we're going to see a lot of people here, Sara, and this is so key, the tests are not over yet.

The TSA says, when it's all said and done, it'll screen about 17.7 million people at security checkpoints like this one, and at airports nationwide by July 5th. Sara. SIDNER: That is a huge number. Thank you so much Pete Muntean, appreciate you. Alright. Remember, if you want to just, you know, not travel and enjoy fireworks.

You can do that from your house, CNN's July 4th, special returns tomorrow night. You won't want to miss a spectacular fireworks. And the performances, we've got tons of people, Alanis Morissette, Darius Rucker, Flo Rida, and Coi Leray, just to name a few. The fourth in America Live starts at 7:00 PM Eastern. John.

BERMAN: So, the death toll is rising following a new round of violence in the West Bank. What we are learning about the Israeli military operation that is being called the largest in that area since 2002. Two people dead, 28 others injured after gunfire erupts at a block party in Baltimore. We have the latest on the search for the shooters and the Supreme Court decision to strike down President Biden's student loan plan, not just to blow to borrowers how it could impact the nation's economy as a whole.

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[10:18:37]

SIDNER: We are watching the largest Israeli military operation in the West Bank in 20 years unfold. The Palestinian Health Ministry says at least eight people have been killed in the West Bank, the Israeli military says its forces were targeting terrorist infrastructure.

An Israeli source calls it the country's largest operation since 2002, excuse me. Gunfire could be heard in the streets. And this is an unverified video, it appears to show several large explosions. CNN's Hadas Gold is live in Tel Tel Aviv with the very latest. What can you tell us about the operation that is happening in Jenin?

HADAS GOLD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Sara. This is an ongoing operation as we hear from the Israeli military, the largest such (ph) Israeli military operation since the days of the second eight de facto (ph) when tanks were rolling through cities in the occupied West Bank and Israeli military source saying that while there have been other large scale operations since 2002, this is the largest, when you look at just the number of Israeli forces and the use of airstrikes, this started overnight around 1:00 AM Israeli airstrikes carried out by drones, targeting what the Israeli military saying, were militants command and control centers.

We know that they've carried out at least 10 separate airstrikes in Jenin itself. This is a very dense, crowded, urban environment, there's a refugee camp in the middle of this city, and that is where most of this attention was focused.

The Israeli military saying that they were focusing on militant locations, weapons, manufacturing, site, weapons, storage sites. They said they just recently found an explosive site. Now the Israeli military saying that they are trying to only target the militants and they say they're trying to prevent Jenin from becoming a safe haven for the militants. [10:20:20]

GOLD: Over the last year and a half or so, there have been many Israeli military raids. This after a series of attacks targeting Israelis launched this latest sort of operation, but we have seen the intensity growing day by day, and we're seeing the parallels day by day to those days of the second Intifada. We have no indication yet that this is going to turn into something like a much broader Israeli military campaign.

They say they want to keep this focus, but as we speak, this is ongoing. We know of at least eight Palestinians have been killed so far, dozens others have been injured. Now, the Israeli Army Radio is saying that those eight killed were militants. We have not heard any claims to them by any sort of militant organization.

We are seeing dozens of others killed and when you're looking at the footage from Jenin, we are seeing streets completely ripped up by Israeli bulldozers that are trying to remove IEDs. There is a big concern, this will just spill over into something much broader. The Hamas militant group has already called on all of its cells.

It says across the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem to operate and strike Israel. Sara.

SIDNER: Yeah. Airstrikes, a lot of people in the world are used to seeing those happen in Gaza, but in Jenin and in the West Bank, it is highly unusua. Hadas Gold, thank you so much for your reporting. John.

BERMAN: Overworked and undermanned.

That is how one senior Army Air Defense Officer this morning is describing the challenges facing America's frontline of missile defense. As global threats grow, so does demand and defense units are feeling the strain. CNN's Natasha Bertrand joins us now with this. Natasha, what are you learning?

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yeah, John.

So, my colleague, Haley Britzky reports that the U.S. Army's air defense units are among the most overworked in the U.S. military, and they're responsible for defending the U.S. and its equities around the world from missile attacks. And because of that, they're required to provide around the clock deterrence against many adversaries, including North Korea, China, Iran, and Russia.

But because there is a constant need for this deterrence, these air defense soldiers get very little time off between deployments and as a result, many of them are beginning to suffer burnout, and the Army already has more missions than it has air defense capability. According to the Army's most senior air defense official who spoke to CNN about this, the problem has also gotten worse since Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

U.S. Air Defense soldiers, were told stationed in Europe, have had to deploy with just hours notice to protect NATO's Eastern Flank and assist in training Ukraine on air defense systems, including of course, the Patriot system in the Pacific. Meanwhile, the U.S. military is increasing its presence in the region to prepare for a possible future conflict with China, while also maintaining its deterrence of North Korea and the U.S. still has its ongoing mission in the Middle East.

So, because of all this close to 60% of the Army's Air Defense branch is deployed at any one time and the air defense soldiers typically have less than a year at home after a year long deployment. Now, ideally, they should have two to three years at home after a full year away. So, as one senior army defense officer told CNN, "we have been overworked and undermanned."

So, service leaders now are, therefore, becoming increasingly worried that the missile defense units could be stretched too thin, and they're starting to come up with some solutions, including embedding mental health specialists and offering a nearly $50,000 enlistment bonus to attract more candidates for certain air defense jobs.

Now, Brigadier General Maurice Barnett, who is the commander of the 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command in Europe, he told CNN that while, "our number one priority, of course, is taking care of our people," the U.S. still obviously has a mission to accomplish, and those mission requirements are not slowing down. John.

BERMAN: Tremendous demand, but also a tremendous strain on the people involved. Natasha Bertrand, thank you so much for that. Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Thrill seekers got a little more than they bargained for. At a North Carolina amusement park, a visitor spotted a crack in the support of North America's tallest rollercoaster, and the Colorado web designer who the Supreme Court ruled could refuse to make wedding websites for gay couples cited a client who tells CNN that he never sought out her services and that he's not gay.

A married man of 15 years more on this story coming up.

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[10:29:22]

BERMAN: The Supreme Court ruling blocking President Biden's student loan forgiveness plan could potentially have an impact on the nation's economy overall. The program would've forgiven up to $20,000 in student loan debt for millions of borrowers, and with loan payments set to resume again in October. This means many U.S. consumers will have less money to spend on goods and services.

CNN Business Correspondent Rahel Solomon is here now. So, how much of a dent could this make in consumer spending? Consumer sentiment, things that drive the economy?

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. So, important for the economy, right John? So, it's been really remarkable how well the U.S. consumer has done over this last year or so, despite the interest rate increases despite the inflation. And so the question now is, well, how does this impact that? A few estimates going around Greg Vallier, he's a policy strategist.

[10:30:00]