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Soon, Biden Speaks As He Takes Economic Message On Road; Deadly Temps Expand, Threaten Midwest & Northeast; 911 Call Reveals Response To Bronny James' Cardiac Arrest; Prosecutors Ask Court To Compel Info On Suspect's Potential Alibi. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired July 28, 2023 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[13:34:21]
BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: At any moment, we will see President Biden pushing his Bidenomics message way beyond the White House. He will be touring a Maine manufacturing facility, hoping to convince Americans that the economy is turning around, even as polling shows they're not quite feeling that just yet.
Let's take you live to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with CNN's new senior White House correspondent, Kayla Tausche.
Kayla, first and foremost, welcome to CNN. It's your first time on the air with us. We're grateful to have you.
Bring us the details of President Biden's economic message.
KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: It's great to be here, Boris. Hopefully, this is the first of many times I'll be joining you from this perch.
[13:34:59]
President Biden is expected to take the stage momentarily at Auburn Manufacturing to tout recent economic wins, and to talk about a new executive order prioritizing domestic production.
It will be a familiar speech, a refrain of a lot of talking points that he's been highlighting recently.
It comes with a brand-new set of data points this week. A bunch of economic tail winds at the president's back. Higher than expected economic growth for the second quarter, the lowest inflation read in two years, rising consumer sentiment, a strike of UPS workers averted and much, much more.
The question, Boris, remains, when or even whether voters will give Biden credit for any of this.
In the most recent CNN poll on the economy, voters gave him just a 34 percent approval rating on the economy. And three-quarters of respondents said the economy was in bad shape. That poll was from back in May. But the numbers have hovered roughly
in that ballpark since then. And it is unclear what will create a breakthrough there.
There are also some economic snags that could be in the wings coming up ahead. You have student loan payments restarting in a few weeks. And then surging gas prices just this week.
A senior administration official tells me the White House is watching gas prices very carefully. The president is being briefed regularly. And officials are already discussing policy options if they need to step in to tame those prices.
But for now, the message is a good one. The White House wants to embrace it. Especially as the president's age has been thrust back into the spotlight.
And we'll see him momentarily -- Boris?
SANCHEZ: Kayla Tausche, thanks so much for the reporting.
Jim?
JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Well, just another day of extreme heat, historic heat across the country. More than 150 million Americans remain under heat alerts.
Nearly half the country, with many facing triple digits all the way from the southwest to here in the nation's capital. It's hot here, too.
In Arizona, the record-breaking temperatures are so bad that even cactuses can't take the heat.
The Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix said its saguaros cactuses are rotting from the inside-out, collapsing due to their own heat-related stress. That's cactuses.
The city's record streak of temperatures over 110 degrees is now in its 28th day.
That triple-digit heat set to take over parts of the northeast and Midwest now.
CNN Meteorologist Chad Myers is in the Weather Center.
Chad, listen, we talk about this a lot. It is really bad. How bad, for how long, and what do we do about it? A lot of questions for you.
CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Chicago -- that's OK. Chicago, 18 hours and it's a lot better. New York, Philadelphia, D.C., you're probably looking at another 36 hours before the front gets down to you.
The temperatures are already in the 90s and we're just after the noon hour here across parts of the Midwest. And the heat index, the current heat index in my hometown of Omaha is 111 to 112 degrees at this hour. And high temperatures will be hot coast to coast today.
And because we're talking about these 150 million people, it isn't that it's hot here. It is that it is hotter than it should be. They don't post these boxes here simply because it's hot. It's a threshold above where you should be.
The good news is, for Phoenix, you're cooling down. That will be a big help. Even from the 85-plus record highs we'll get over the weekend, this is going to help.
Although it will be a severe weather event tonight, even for you, Chicago, Milwaukee, toward Rockford, and even toward, I would say, Detroit, and Cleveland, Toledo by the morning hours, this is the area that will push all this humidity out.
You're going to get severe weather after dark, Chicago. But what look it does. You go from 95 this afternoon to a morning low Sunday morning of 61?
SCIUTTO: Wow.
MYERS: I think you'll take a couple leaves on the driveway with a wind gust with that kind of a drop.
That's the rub here. This is potentially a pretty severe event for Chicago. And even tomorrow afternoon, we can see the temperatures drop quite drastically when the storm comes rolling through New York, D.C., all the way down to Philadelphia and even Richmond, Virginia.
SCIUTTO: The only green box I saw on your map was San Francisco, I think, 69 degrees. That will make us want to run out there.
Chad Myers --
MYERS: I think Bismarck, too.
SCIUTTO: All right, well, those are our two choices.
Chad Myers, in the Weather Center, thanks so much.
MYERS: Thanks.
SCIUTTO: Boris?
SANCHEZ: Still to come, hear what happened during the critical moments after LeBron James' son, Bronny, went into cardiac arrest. Details on that 911 call.
And that rookie police officer who was shot in the head while responding to a mass shooting in Louisville is going home today.
[13:39:39]
You're in CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We're back in just a few minutes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SANCHEZ: Bronny James is now out of the hospital and recovering at home from his sudden cardiac arrest. His physicians are saying they're encouraged by how quickly he's responding.
Meantime, CNN obtained a frantic 911 call that reveals the quick response after he collapsed. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get an ambulance here now.
911 OPERATOR: Where exactly are you? Yes, yes. All right, sir. We're going to send help -- hold on. Don't hang up. Don't hang up.
How old is he? All right. Get next to him with the phone. Get next to him with the phone. I need to find out, is there a doctor on the scene with him or a registered nurse?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, no doctor --
(CROSSTALK)
911 OPERATOR: Help is already on the way. OK. Get next to him, please.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[13:45:03]
SANCHEZ: CNN national correspondent, Natasha Chen, is in Los Angeles with more on James' recovery.
Natasha, despite what that caller said, we understand there were actually, in fact, trained USC medical staff around when Bronny James collapsed.
NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Boris. At least they were credited when yesterday a doctor at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center talked about the USC medical staff as part of reason that Bronny James is was able to go home.
They said that that was a very swift and effective response by the USC staff.
Let's read the rest of that doctor's statement.
Saying, "He arrived at Cedars-Sinai Center fully conscious, neurologically intact and stable. Although, this work up will ongoing, we are hopeful for his continued progress and are encouraged by his response, resilience and his family and community support, of which there is a lot."
Remember, this happened Monday morning during basketball practice at the Galen Center at the University of Southern California. By Tuesday, we learned that he was out of ICU and in stable condition. Yesterday afternoon, we learned that he was able to go home.
This is an incredible event to have happened. And a lot of people are wishing him well.
The team earlier in the year had announced they were going on a tour to Europe starting August 5th. That's likely what they were practicing for.
The USC medical staff also are experienced with this. Because this happened to another player just last July. A player had a cardiac arrest during practice.
And according to the "Los Angeles Times," the staff really surrounded that player within 45 seconds to really respond to that situation as well. And he ended up recovering and coming back to play -- Boris?
SANCHEZ: Really glad that it sounds like he's OK. We look forward to seeing him on the hard court hopefully sometime soon.
Natasha Chen, thank you for the update.
Jim?
SCIUTTO: Now to some of the other headlines we're watching this hour.
A serious sign of instability in Haiti. The State Department is ordering all nonemergency staff there and employees' family members to get out of country along with advising all U.S. visitors to Haiti to leave immediately.
Haiti has been in even deeper chaos since its president was assassinated two years ago this month. Gang violence has overwhelmed the country. The crime rate has doubled. The State Department warns that kidnappings are widespread.
And a hero's welcome home for a Louisville officer, Nicholas Wilt. The 26-year-old, you may remember, was shot in the head in April in a mass shooting at a bank there. Days earlier, he had just graduated from the police academy.
Wilt spent just 190-- he spent 109 days in the hospital. He was in critical condition there for a month. His family overwhelmed with gratitude.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ZACK WILT, OFFICER'S BROTHER: Because of the work they did, we get to take our brother home today.
Nick gets to go home, sleep in his own bed, watch his own TV. And he's been asking for a steak dinner and we're going to get him a steak dinner tonight.
He has a long road ahead of him. With the help of Dr. Kalan (ph) and everybody here, he is going to get back to it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCIUTTO: A steak dinner. We do wish him well. And it appears labor strikes are sidelining TV's biggest night of the
year. "Variety" reports, for the first time in more than 20 years, the primetime Emmy Awards will be postponed. The awards show had been scheduled to air September 18th but event vendors are being told the ceremony will not air on that day. Of course, the ongoing strike.
Boris?
[13:48:39]
SANCHEZ: Still to come, the Idaho college murder case. Prosecutors demanding to see details of the suspect's alibi. We'll break it down in just a few minutes.
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[13:53:31]
SCIUTTO: Prosecutors in the Idaho college student murders have now filed a new court motion. They want a judge to force the suspect Bryan Kohberger's defense team to share information about his potential alibi.
Just days ago, his lawyer suggested Kohberger was not at the scene where four students were murdered last year, you'll remember.
His attorney also filed a long-shot motion to dismiss the case entirely, claiming that the grand jury was misled on a technical issue.
CNN's Veronica Miracle joins us now.
Tell us about this court filing, specifically about the alibi. And do we expect the judge to order the defense team to share more details?
VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it will certainly be interesting, Jim. There has been a lot of back and forth between the defense team and the prosecution over this last week, including the alibi.
As well as the fact that the defense team wants this case thrown out. They're arguing that there are problems with the grand jury proceedings, which led to the indictment, and therefore the indictment should be dismissed.
In reference to that alibi, Bryan Kohberger had a deadline earlier this week to provide his alibi of where he was on the night of the murders.
And in a court filing, this is what his defense team said.
They said, quote, "Evidence corroborating Mr. Kohberger being at a location other than the King Road address will be disclosed pursuant to discovery and evidentiary rules as well as statutory requirements."
[13:54:59] So, they're suggesting he was not there, but they did not provide exact concrete details as to where he was.
So the prosecutors have come back and said, this is simply not enough. If he was not at the home the night when four University of Idaho students were murdered, they want to know where he was and they want that evidence now.
So the preliminary hearing will be in October. It is expected to be six weeks long. We'll have to see if both sides will be ready at that time. Usually, in cases like these, there are delays.
And also important to remember this is a death penalty case, and so it is certainly complex -- Jim?
SCIUTTO: To say the least. More to follow.
Veronica Miracle, in Chicago, thanks so much.
Boris?
SANCHEZ: Donald Trump is facing more federal charges in the classified documents case. All while a separate potential indictment looms over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. We'll break it down with our legal experts next.
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