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NYT: Second Provocative Flag Seen At Justice Alito Property; China Launches Massive, Two-Day Military Drills Around Taiwan; Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) On Rift Among Democrats As Border Bill Loses Support. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired May 23, 2024 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is defending his teammate Harrison Butker this morning. Butker came under fire for a commencement speech where he called Pride Month a deadly sin and left some feeling he was saying a woman's accomplishments at home are more valuable than her academic or professional goals. Mahomes told reporters that Butker is a good person despite not necessarily agreeing with his comments.

Seven people are dead and 23 injured in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. That is Ukraine's second-largest city. President Zelenskyy called it an extremely brutal Russian attack. All 10 strikes hit civilian infrastructure. Our Nick Paton Walsh was there and he felt buildings shake around him. Nick's going to give us an update very shortly.

And the title of the best album ever goes to "This Miseducation of Lauryn Hill," at least according to Apple Music. They counted down what they believe to be the top 10 albums of all time -- actually, the top 100 albums of all time. The 1998 album from Lauryn Hill landed at the number one spot. The five-time Grammy-winning record took the title over "Thriller" by Michael Jackson and The Beatles' "Abbey Road."

I will note "Sergeant Pepper" is not in the top 10, "Dark Side of the Moon" not in the top 10. Motley Crue's "Shout at the Devil" not in the top 10. So this list is highly controversial -- Amara.

AMARA WALKER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. This morning, The New York Times is reporting another controversial flag used by January 6 rioters was spotted at a property owned by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. Three photographs obtained by the Times show the Appeal to Heaven flag flying above Alito's beach house in New Jersey last summer. The flag dates back to the Revolutionary War but has recently been used by Trump supporters and was carried by some rioters in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

Now, just last week, Alito was criticized after the Times reported an upside-down American flag was flown at his Virginia home in 2021. That flag was also seen during the January 6 attack.

Joining us now is CNN senior Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic. Joan, as you know, there's been a lot of pressure, a lot of calls growing louder and louder for Justice Alito to recuse himself from Trump's case having to do with January 6, but have you seen any signs that he would recuse himself?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Good morning, Amara.

You're right. This is ramped up calls, especially from Democrats and from progressive activists, for Justice Alito to recuse from important cases involving the January 6 events, but he has shown no sign of having any interest in disqualifying himself.

Now, the Supreme Court's Code of Conduct that they just adopted last November after a lot of pressure, says that justices are supposed to promote confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary. And the code specifically states that "A justice should disqualify himself or herself in a case when the justice's impartiality might reasonably be questioned, that is, where an unbiased and reasonable person who is aware of all relevant circumstances would doubt that the justice could fairly discharge his or her duties."

But, Amara, the justices themselves are judges, so to speak of their own cases. It's up to them as individuals to decide where there's a valid conflict of interest. There is no way to file a formal complaint with the Supreme Court and have it aired. These justices are appointed for life. The only way to have them removed is through impeachment and, obviously, that's not going to happen at this point.

So, you know, it's a very tricky proposition of what kind of pressure the justice is even feeling.

And let me just stress the important time in the court's calendar right now. Beginning this morning, Amara, and running through the end of June, the justices will be issuing opinions in their most closely watched cases, and two of them involve former President Donald Trump and his supporters who rioted the Capitol on January 6.

One of those cases involves whether Donald Trump should be immune from a criminal trial on the four election subversion charges that have been brought by special counsel Jack Smith on behalf of the Justice Department against Donald Trump.

And the other one that feels even more salient to these issues of flags that were carried at the January 6 riot involves whether defendants from January 6 can be charged with an obstruction criminal provision that penalizes anyone who obstructed an official proceeding. That case doesn't involve Donald Trump but some of the charges against Donald Trump are involved there.

And one last thing, Amara. During the oral arguments in that case involving January 6 defendants, the court majority definitely seemed sympathetic to those defendants and Justice Alito was at the forefront of that sympathy, Amara.

WALKER: We'll watch this closely with you because as you know, these calls --

BISKUPIC: Yeah.

WALKER: -- for recusal will not go away quickly.

Joan Biskupic, good to have you. Thank you so much.

BISKUPIC: Thank you.

WALKER: Kate.

BOLDUAN: And joining us right now is former Clinton White House press secretary Joe Lockhart, and Republican strategist and publisher of The Bulwark, Sarah Longwell. It's good to see you guys.

[07:35:00]

Let's start there, Sarah. Mountain or molehill, politically? And what you are seeing here with Justice Alito -- the pressure on the justice, the backlash we're hearing about it, what do you think?

SARAH LONGWELL, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST, PUBLISHER, THE BULWARK, HOST, THE FOCUS GROUP PODCAST, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, Republican ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT: Mountain. This is -- the point that was being made earlier about the confidence in the court is so key here. We have a situation in this country now where trust in our institutions is at an all-time low.

And we already, very recently, had a situation where Justice Thomas' wife was texting the chief of staff -- the president's chief of staff during the insurrection, telling them to go harder. That the election was stolen.

This now with Alito having multiple flags showing sympathy with the insurrectionists and people who said that the election was stolen -- this is getting to a place that I think if you'd ask us five years ago if we'd be here, we would have been shocked to think that this was happening. That this level of overt politization -- and not just the political side but siding directly with activists who were trying to overthrow the results of the election. I can't think of a situation that would be more serious and more worthy of recusal.

BOLDUAN: And Joe, the reason I posed the question that way is because we hear from some bold-named Republicans. They basically are saying molehill.

John Bolton thinks -- says that it's wrong to be even -- suggests it's wrong to even be making a thing of it, saying it's outrageous that people are taking a flag from the American Revolution and now saying it's unacceptable because it was seen at the January 6 riot.

Ted Cruz was on CNN, and he says that he thinks it's a -- this is actually a concerted effort driven by Senate Democrats to try to delegitimize the Supreme Court.

What do you think?

JOE LOCKHART, FORMER CLINTON WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: Well, I think in terms of you expecting something to happen, it's a molehill. And as Sarah was saying, that's exactly why it's a mountain.

I mean, if you took the Supreme Court -- one of the three branches of our government -- and applied it to the Executive Branch, this is -- this is autocratic regime. They get to decide what the laws are. They get to interpret what the laws are. And there's nothing to stop them from doing what Clarence Thomas is doing now, what Samuel Alito is doing -- things that have been happening since Bush v. Gore in 2000.

And this goes beyond perception. I mean, they have agreed that perception matters and then they ignore what they agree to. It goes beyond that. It goes -- it shows that the independent branch of our government that we've depended on for 250 years is no longer independent. They have become a part of the Republican Party, doing their bidding. So there's no surprise that Republican leaders come out and say it's outrageous we're having this conversation. It is outrageous we're having this conversation but not for the reasons they're saying.

BOLDUAN: Let me ask you about some other headlines. I know, Sarah, I saw you were putting out a lot of statements about this.

Nikki Haley announced, saying yesterday that she is going to be voting for Donald Trump. And just to remind folks, this is after -- which was a pretty brutal primary, eventually, between those two.

Listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, (R) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: At some point, maybe we should say the reason that America keeps losing is because of Donald Trump.

I feel no need to kiss the ring.

Donald Trump got out there and just threw a temper tantrum.

We lost in 2018. We lost in 2020. We lost in 2022. And Donald Trump's fingerprints were on all of it. How much more losing do we have to do before we realize maybe Donald Trump is the problem?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: And she called him unhinged. She's called him unfit. She called him unstable, I think is another word that popped up during conversations.

Sarah, you were -- you were scathing in your criticism of Nikki Haley for her position on this now. We know that in politics, people have such short memories. Why did this rub you so wrong?

LONGWELL: This is just so disappointing. And here's the thing. Nikki Haley didn't just talk about Donald Trump being a loser like she did in those clips. She talked about the fact that he was -- should not be president. He was unfit to be president. That he would side with Putin in certain areas. That he was destroying the Republican Party. I mean -- and also, Donald Trump -- she said when she conceded -- when

she got out of the race, she said he's going to have to earn my vote and the support of my voters. He has done zero in that regard. He has treated them, in fact, like garbage.

And so, I just am -- look, Nikki Haley -- I was a Republican for my entire career. I've always admired Nikki Haley. I'd always hoped that she would be president some day. I sort of looked forward to supporting her -- and I did support her in this primary against Donald Trump.

[07:40:00]

And I thought that as her criticism got more pointed throughout the primary, I thought that she meant it. This isn't saying, like, the other guy's tax plan is bad. She was saying he was unfit. That January 6 was going to be -- that he was going to be judged for that. Like, she seemed to understand what we were grappling with in terms of Donald Trump.

And so, to turn around and say that she's going to support him creates a permission structure for a lot of other Republicans who think what he did was really bad and are thinking maybe I can't vote for this guy. And now, she's basically saying no, no, no -- we can go ahead and vote for him because of pure tribal partisanship.

And this is what's destroying this country. It shows a lack of character. It shows cowardice on her part and I'm deeply disappointed in her.

BOLDUAN: Sarah, thank you for being candid about that.

Joe, we're going to continue the conversation a little later about what impact this could have on Joe Biden's attempts to try to pull over those Nikki Haley voters as we've seen them cutting ads about this. We're going to continue this conversation a little later.

It's good to see you both. Thank you -- John.

BERMAN: All right. This morning, an extremely tense situation in Taiwan. Just hours ago, China launched a huge two-day military drill all around Taiwan. At this moment, Taiwan is surrounded by dozens of Chinese warships and aircraft. China calls it a strong punishment against the self-governing island.

Our Will Ripley is live in Taipei this morning with the very latest on this. This is deliberately provocative by China, Will.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It is, and it comes, John, just two days after the inauguration of Taiwan's new president, Lai Ching-te, who gave a speech using language about Taiwanese sovereignty that Beijing perceived -- condemned as highly provocative because he essentially said that China needs to recognize the existence of Taiwan's self-governing democracy of almost 24 million people that holds democratic elections every four years, like the United States. So just in the first days of this president's new term we now have this -- operation Joint Sword 2024A, as the Eastern Theater Command of China's People's Liberation Army is calling it. And this thing is not even halfway done yet. It's scheduled to last for two days.

Let me break down what's been observed so far in the waters encircling Taiwan.

Forty-two, at least, warplanes, including 28 that crossed into Taiwan's self-declared air defense identification zone. At least 15 naval vessels. These are warships -- not an aircraft carrier, at least not yet -- but also at least 16 Coast Guard vessels that have been patrolling very close to and in the restricted waters near Taiwan's outlying islands.

The spokesperson for the Chinese military -- the PLA naval Col. Li Xi put out a statement earlier. I'm going to read you a portion of it.

It says these exercises are "A strong punishment for the separatist acts of Taiwan independence forces and a serious warning against interference and provocation by external forces." That is a not-so- veiled warning towards the United States, John.

Taiwan's presidential spokeswoman, Karen Kuo -- she also put out a statement earlier today here in Taipei saying that "We will continue to defend democracy, and we are confident and capable of defending [Taiwan's] national security."

It is 7:42 p.m. Thursday evening here in Taipei, John. We're getting constant updates on where this thing stands. But clearly, very high tensions in this corner of the world right now.

BERMAN: Yeah. Look, I can only imagine. As we said, deliberately provocative from China.

Will Ripley, it's great to have you there in Taiwan this morning. Thank you very much -- Amara.

WALKER: Another dangerous tornado overnight as a string of extreme storms sweeps across the country. CNN is on the ground in Greenfield, Iowa as people there are picking up the pieces after the deadliest tornado so far this year.

And new details on the health risks of eating a diet with ultra- processed foods.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:48:03]

WALKER: A million people are under threat of severe weather today. Large hail, tornadoes, and wind gusts of 85 miles an hour are expected across parts of the Central U.S.

Now, it comes one day after a tornado touched down south of Waco, Texas. The storm system left thousands of people without power and blocked major roads.

In the meantime, Iowa residents are recovering after deadly storms and tornadoes killed at least five people and injured dozens more in Greenfield, which is a small city.

And that is where CNN's Whitney Wild is joining us. Whitney, the scene behind you is just devastating. I know you've been talking to the residents who live there. What are they telling you about what they went through?

WHITNEY WILD, CNN LAW ENFORCMEMENT CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I talked with one woman yesterday, Amara, who had mentioned that as this tornado was starting to bear down on her, she was in complete panic. I mean, she truly thought that was going to be the last moment for her on Earth. And then when she -- when the tornado passed and she came out of her house and she saw all the destruction, she just started crying.

There was so much fear over the last two days because it was not clear how many people had died. How many people were missing. We now know four people died, 35 people were injured.

There is a massive cleanup effort underway here, but it is a state of shock here, aa state of sadness, and it's easy to see why, Amara.

I'm in what was a neighborhood here in Greenfield. If you take a look behind me, you can see this house was absolutely destroyed. This was someone's living room. This was someone's home and now it has been ripped apart. It looks like a dollhouse, Amara.

It is really -- it is extremely shocking when you come out here and see the destruction, and this is just one house. I mean, this goes on for several blocks. We were all around town yesterday and it looks just like this, Amara.

[07:50:00]

As you can see here, this vehicle crushed. It looks like a toy. The debris here stretches so far. I mean, there are piles of debris throughout downtown Greenfield. But even when you're driving around here even, as far out as a mile, you can see debris had been strewn all over.

That's, Amara, because this tornado that hit Greenfield was just massive. It was an EF3. Those are rare but they are typically the deadliest tornadoes that hit communities like Greenfield.

And, Amara, just to give you a sense of the type of area this is, this is a small town. It's 2,000 people. The town is less than two square miles. But this is a very resilient town. This is a town that is coming together to try to rebuild after mass tragedy.

I'm also -- Amara, I want to share an anecdote with you that I think really highlights how dire the situation was here in Greenfield. We're right by the hospital. So you can see behind me there's -- it says hospital, emergency. It says ambulance. That hospital was directly impacted. And then if you swing this way, I'll show you. They had to actually take patients out of the hospital, and they were triaging them right over here about -- you know, about 50 yards from where I'm standing because the situation was that dire.

Again, let's hear directly from that woman I spoke with yesterday who had mentioned how terrifying it was when this tornado came down.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RANDY STAMPER, GREENFIELD RESIDENT: I've lived in this area my whole life. I was born at the hospital. It's a horrible thing to see your son's house, you know. At least he's got insurance. And we're all safe.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We've done so much work on this little house and it was so cute.

SCOTT ARMSTRONG, GREENFIELD RESIDENT: You earn every dime, you work hard, and then it's gone. I think they said it was about seven seconds that it came through and it was done.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WILD: Amara, the cleanup effort is well underway here. We are expecting an update from Gov. Kim Reynolds later today and we'll share the very latest with you. Back to you.

WALKER: A small town of just 2,000 people. Obviously, they'll be leaning on each other as they go through this recovery.

Whitney Wild, thank you very much -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: So this morning, Senate Democrats are bringing the bipartisan border security bill to the Senate floor once again. It was blocked by Republicans last time around at the urging of Donald Trump, you'll recall. This time, Democrats are losing Democrats on this vote, it appears.

CNN's Lauren Fox is tracking this one for us. Lauren, what is going on?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. You'll remember the last time they brought this bill up a couple of months ago, one of the things that was attached to it was additional funding for Ukraine and for Israel. And the fact that has now passed in a separate package means that there are some Democrats who are arguing that this package does not do enough for immigrants.

You have to remember that over the course of the last decade when there have been negotiations -- these huge bipartisan negotiations over immigration -- oftentimes additional border security meant changes to ensuring that people who were already here living in this country who may not have had a legal status were able to stay in some way. That is not part of this bill. This bill is obviously very different

than that. And a lot of Democrats and others who I'm talking to in the Senate say that is a reason for them not to support it.

Now, I talked to a couple of members who are on the fence yesterday, including Ben Ray Lujan, who said he was still looking at this legislation. Bernie Sanders says he's still looking at this legislation. So those are some people to keep an eye on.

But obviously, Kate, we're going to be watching closely when this vote happens around 2:00 this afternoon -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: Lauren, thank you so much -- John.

BERMAN: All right. With me now is Democratic Congressman Tom Suozzi from Long Island in the state of New York. Congressman, thanks so much for being with us.

I was reading in Punchbowl this morning that you are taking the lead of the Border Security Task Force even though Congressman Henry Cuellar from Texas, who has been indicted, is still technically the co-chair. Punchbowl reports there are a lot of Democrats -- part of this caucus -- who are uncomfortable and say it's awkward that Cuellar is still the co-chair.

How do you feel about that?

REP. TOM SUOZZI (D-NY): I mean, the bottom line is I'm taking the lead and I'm setting up a meeting for early June, and we've got to get moving on this. The Democrats have to come out with a unified message that says very clearly, we're for strong border security, we need to fix the broken asylum system, and we need to treat people humanely.

So we can do all those things. We can be tough and we can be fair. And we need to bring all the different factions of the Democratic Party together with a strong message because the people care about the border.

Right now, it's been a little quieter but we're going to see a surge again as soon as the Mexico elections are over. We're going to see people at the border again and people are going to start worrying what's going on. We need to bring order at the border.

BERMAN: How similar is that message from you to the message that you are hearing from President Biden?

SUOZZI: I think the president gets it. The president realizes he's got to be tougher and he's got to be humane. He's got to do both things.

[07:55:00]

I did a bipartisan letter a week ago saying listen, Mr. President, if we can't get the Senate to pass the bill that everybody agreed would work -- it was endorsed by The Wall Street Journal. It was endorsed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It was endorsed by the union president of the Trump -- of the Border Patrol that was a big Trump supporter. And the Senate killed it because Donald Trump came in and said I don't want to give Biden a victory. I want to run on the chaos.

If we can't get a bill passed on a bipartisan basis, then the president has to take executive action. And that executive action should be to try and secure the border, number one. And number two, treat people like human beings.

BERMAN: Just back to my first question, very quickly here. You are in a seat now that was vacant because George Santos was booted from Congress after getting indicted. I'm asking you about Henry Cuellar who was also indicted but still part of this effort you're in. You don't think that's a conflict at all?

SUOZZI: I mean, Henry Cuellar has been involved in border issues for a long time. He was originally the guy who came up with the idea of a Democratic border security task force. And when the indictment came out, he came to me and he said listen, I need you to take the lead on this. So I'm taking the lead going forward.

George Santos -- I don't know if you still want to talk about George Santos. I really don't.

BERMAN: All right, I'll take that for an answer right there.

Sometimes, in some places, if you gaze across Long Island Sound from your district, in certain places you can see the Bronx where President Trump will be today.

What does he need to know, in your mind, about New York voters -- the people who will be near his rally later?

SUOZZI: I think it's going to be surprising. It's going to depend on the weather on how things turn out. He'll have supporters that will be there because people that live in the Bronx -- African Americans, Latinos, Italians who live there are concerned about the border like everybody else. They're concerned about cost of living. The same issues that we hear talked about in the top of the news are concerns of the people who live in the Bronx. And the people in the Bronx want us to address these very, very real issues.

But I don't think that people in the Bronx should fall for what Donald Trump is selling. If there's one thing that's clear, Joe Biden cares about people. Donald Trump cares about himself and that's been clear throughout his entire time in the public eye. So we can't be fooled by what Donald Trump is trying to sell.

He didn't address the border when he was in office. Neither did the presidents before him as well. And we finally had a bipartisan deal to address the border and Trump sabotaged the whole thing by saying I don't want to give Biden a victory. Well, as Mitt Romney said, that's appalling that he would be so political on such an important issue.

Everybody says it's a problem, it's a problem, it's a problem. And then they say oh, no, we're not going to do it now. We want to -- we want to get through this politics first. BERMAN: Can I ask you -- The New York Times is reporting that Justice Samuel Alito -- over his beach house in New Jersey -- let's keep this in the Tri-State here -- had a flag -- an Appeal to Heaven flag. Yes, George Washington flew this flag. It was a revolutionary-era flag. But lately, it has come to be associated with -- it was flying on January 6 in some places. There are some people on the far-right who take it.

Whether or not it's a January 6 flag or not, what are your feelings about a Supreme Court justice flying politically motivated flags from his house? Maybe he didn't do it. Maybe it's his wife. But should these flags be over his house at all?

SUOZZI: It's very upsetting. I mean, I want to get more facts like everybody else does.

I'm an attorney. I went to law school in the 1980s. Our big concern when we were talking in law school in those days is we don't want to see the politization of the judiciary -- and, especially, of the Supreme Court. And I'm getting very worried about the politization of the Supreme Court.

We -- people need to trust the rule of law. They need to feel that the judges are going to be acting in a -- in a fair way and just trying to follow precedent and follow the law.

When we saw the overturning of Roe versus Wade, that didn't make sense because it was an undoing of precedent of 50 years. And people are more and more concerned that the Supreme Court is acting politically, and that's bad for America. That's bad for all of us.

We don't want our Supreme Court judges acting politically. We want them to follow the law and we want everybody to be treated equally under the eyes of the law. That's something we should all be worried about and we, as a country, have to work together.

And the idea of the judge flying a flag that's politically motivated over his house or as he did with the upside-down flag at his home here in Washington is very, very disconcerting and we should all be watching this very, very carefully.

BERMAN: Congressman Tom Suozzi, great to see you this morning. Thanks so much -- Kate.

SUOZZI: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: So no matter how healthy you are eating, a new study says that adding in even a small amount of ultra-processed foods means you're still facing increased risks of serious disease.

CNN's Meg Tirrell has more detail on this. Meg, what are you learning?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kate, this morning, this study focuses on neurological issues associated with ultra- processed foods. They looked at essentially what folks ate. They looked at more than 14,000 people over a decade. They filled out surveys about what they were eating. And what they find is that a 10 percent increase in ultra-processed food consumption was associated with a 16 percent raised risk of cognitive impairment, and an eight percent increased risk of stroke. And that risk was higher for Black participants.