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Biden Administration on Unveil Sweeping Executive Action on Immigration; Several Atlanta Water Main Breaks Force Thousands to Boil Water; Jury Selection Begins in Hunter Biden's Federal Gun Case; Hunter Biden's Defense Team Will Argue Hunter Was Unaware He Was a Drug Addict When He Filled out Form to Purchase Firearm. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired June 03, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: But that's it. Go.

BRYAN LANZA, FORMER DEPUTY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, TRUMP 2016 CAMPAIGN: Yes, sure. But they did backtrack down. Republicans did backtrack down. And that's their issue. But I think it boils down to the root cause is voters trust President Trump on the border more than they trust Democrats. And the voters are smart enough to know that this fire that's happening on our border is a direct result of Joe Biden's executive actions, and so why would you trust him to fix it?

BOLDUAN: That is one thing that is the unknowable that we will not -- that we'll watch it play out together, is no matter what action is taken or not taken or what arguments made, who -- at the end of the day, who do voters trust? That's what it's -- that is what it's going to come down to when it comes to this vote. Clear to you, Bryan, and different views from others.

(LAUGHTER)

I'm loving this pop-up video with Bryan Lanza today. It's great to see you both. Thank you, Simon.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: In just moments a child of a sitting president goes on trial for the first time. Jury selection begins in Hunter Biden's federal gun case as his defense just suffered a key setback overnight.

And then breaking just moments, Atlanta schools shut down as water main breaks leave thousands in the city without water.

And the wait is almost over. The most highly anticipated show of the television season set to premiere.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We fight for our queen! (END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Just a few of our favorite coworkers. Sara is out today. I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan, and this is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

We are standing by for jury selection in the federal gun trial of President Biden's son Hunter. It begins in just minutes. He is the first child of a sitting president to face criminal trial. The 54- year-old is charged with illegally purchasing and possessing a gun while abusing for being addicted to drugs. Prosecutors say he bought the gun in October of 2018. He had it for about 11 days.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is with us now. We really are just minutes away for something historic and really something a lot of people thought would never happen.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Yes, a case that Hunter Biden was really trying to cut bits away from or even not have to face with a trial, that there was a plea deal previously that fell apart. But here we are now, John, with jury selection beginning today. Here's a little more on how we got here.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

POLANTZ: The son of the sitting president on trial in another criminal case with big political implications.

HUNTER BIDEN, SON OF PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: They ridiculed my struggle with addiction.

POLANTZ: Hunter Biden's addiction and purchase of a gun in October 2018 is at the heart of this case. The Justice Department accusing him of lying on gun purchasing forms that required him to attest he wasn't addicted to drugs. A special counsel brought the case last year after a prior deal fell apart in dramatic fashion at his plea hearing.

MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I'm here today to announce the appointment of David Weiss as a special counsel.

POLANTZ: On Monday, jury selection begins, potentially a challenging task in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. Federal prosecutors plan to highlight a part of his memoir where he writes about struggling with drug addiction around the time he bought the gun.

HUNTER BIDEN: I had returned that fall of 2018 after my most recent relapse in California with the hope of getting cleaned through new therapy and reconciling with Hallie. Neither happened.

POLANTZ: And they have evidenced from the week of the gun purchase, Hunter Biden texting he was waiting for a dealer, and sleeping on a car, smoking crack.

The trial also may feature testimony from the women in Hunter Biden's life, his ex-wife, his brother's widow, and a woman he pays child filed support to. Prosecutors say the women witnessed his drug addiction. While Joe Biden continues to seek reelection, the president has avoided commenting directly on the prosecution of his son.

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm very proud of my son.

POLANTZ: Yet the trial is likely to dredge up more Republican attacks on the Bidens, including about a laptop containing embarrassing messages and images that prosecutors have obtained.

REP. ELISE STEFANIK (R-NY): The Biden crime family sold out America, and the American people have had enough.

POLANTZ: Republicans have been investigating Hunter Biden's business dealings as part of an impeachment probe of President Biden that's come up short.

H. BIDEN: MAGA Republicans have impugned my character, invaded my privacy, attacked my wife, my children, my family, and my friends.

POLANTZ: After his trial on felony gun charges ends, Hunter Biden is set to face a second one in federal court in California on tax charges.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

[08:05:04]

POLANTZ (on camera): So now a Hunter Biden is arriving at that federal courthouse in Delaware. We are just hearing that now. And John, what's happening next is that his defense is going to try and poke holes largely around this idea that nearby Biden knew he was an addict at that time of October 2018, that they're going to try and make the point to the jury that he was trying to get clean. He had just come out of rehab, and that this was not a man who when he checked that box, knew he was lying. John?

BERMAN: All right, Katelyn Polantz for us, we are seeing some arrivals of the principal players in this case, as you said, live pictures from outside the courthouse right there. Katelyn Polantz, thank you very much.

Kate?

BOLDUAN: Let's talk about all of this right now. Joining us right now, defense attorney and former prosecutor Randy Zelin. Randy, thanks for coming in. What do you think of the case against Hunter Biden, just to start off?

RANDY ZELIN, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: It is not a factual case. It is a legal case. In other words, it's kind of tough to contest that I didn't possess a gun, that I didn't fill out an application, and at some point in time I was a drug addict. Those -- it is illegal right now to be a drug addict in possession of a gun. It is illegal to lie on the application that I'm not a drug addict. However, courts have been coming down lately, saying, wait a second,

nowhere in the Second Amendment does it say that you can't have a gun if you were once a drug addict. I don't know if you're a drug addict now -- not a drug addict now. And right now because of that, Hunter Biden's case is not going to be one at the trial court level. It will be one at the appellate court level.

BOLDUAN: But on that question, I'm calling it -- I'm going to call it gray area, if you will, and maybe it's not, but this matters because Biden's defense team has wanted to lean into this argument that Hunter Biden did not think he was an addict at the time that he was buying the gun. One of the questions on the federal form you have to fill out involves this question, "Are you an unlawful user of or addicted to illegal drugs?" How much gray area do you see in that?

ZELIN: Thats a tough one because, first of all, that means Hunter is going to have to take the stand. Good luck with that. And they did -- and John mentioned this, and it's critical, they got hurt, the defense got hurt in two ways just now. Number one, they can't call an expert basically to talk about, well, was Hunter thinking at that time since he completed rehab I'm no longer a drug addict. Judge said no. That's not helpful to the jury. We're not letting you call an expert. And we're not letting you bring in another application where you're saying it was doctored. The man from Mars came down, doctored my application, and the application should be thrown out.

BOLDUAN: You think that really hurts them?

ZELIN: Again, to me, I think you have to go into this thinking we're going to lose, but we're going to win at the appellate court level, again, because courts are saying you can't say I can't have a gun because I was a drug addict. And also remember he had a plea deal so that the judge blew up, and that will also be tested in the appellate courts.

BOLDUAN: Even before then, and again, me not being the legal mind, started wondering, this trial comes out after the plea deal last year, last summer blew up in real spectacular fashion and in a hearing. Does that blown-up plea deal play any part in this trial?

ZELIN: Only to the extent that the judge will ask the potential jurors if the juror knows anything and if the judge is smart, the judge doesn't do it in front of everybody else. You bring an individual jurors, because you don't want to give other jurors now, oh, wait a minute. I didn't know about that. Oh, I can get off this jury simply by saying I can't be fair and impartial because Hunter basically was involved in a plea deal.

BOLDUAN: That's really interesting. You also make the point that you think Hunter Biden's case and Donald Trump's New York criminal case that led to his conviction are two sides of the same coin. Explain this.

ZELIN: Brothers in arms. Starting backwards, you have a decision excluding a defense expert in the Biden case, like in the Trump case. And then take it back. You've got a defective indictment in the Trump case where he doesn't even know what the other crime is. You've got this notion of is it constitutional to prosecute someone for being a drug addict against the backdrop of the Second Amendment. You've got a Trump appointed judge overseeing the Biden case. You have Justice Merchan, who had a relationship with the Democrats, in the Trump case. The parallels are eerie. They are stunning.

And of course, the way each side handles it, Hunter Biden, you don't hear a word about it, this being rigged, this being a conflicted judge, and of course we had the exact opposite. Both of those cases, however, will be resolved favorably for the defendants on appeal.

BOLDUAN: So says Randy Zelin. We will roll back and tape when we see it happens. It's good to see you Randy. Thank you so much.

ZELIN: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: John?

BERMAN: Really interesting.

President Biden ready to roll out a new executive order aimed at tackling southern border security.

[08:10:00]

A 14,000 acre wildfire raging near San Francisco, thousands of evacuated. We have new update on the by the battle.

And it really is a story about families, deeply messed up families that have dragons. It's also the most highly anticipated television premiere of the season, and we have a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My father chose me, his firstborn child, to succeed he. He held his decision until death. And yet, Alicent's son sits on my throne. I need to fight.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:15:09]

BERMAN: This morning, Mexico has made history electing Claudia Sheinbaum to be the country's first female president, the first Jewish president as well.

President Biden will no doubt want a strong relationship with her to deal with border issues, and we are learning this morning, the president will roll out brand new executive actions on the border as soon as tomorrow.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is at the White House. Arlette, what are you learning? ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, sources

have told us that President Biden could unveil these potential border executive actions as soon as tomorrow. And in fact, sources have told us White House officials have started reaching out to mayors who represents cities along the US southern border to potentially join the president here at the White House for that event.

Now, the president has been weighing executive action relating to the border for several months now in the wake of those failed bipartisan border talks up on Capitol Hill.

In recent weeks, administration officials have been working on this potential executive action that would dramatically limit asylum seekers' ability to seek asylum at the US southern border. It is expected that this policy could be reminiscent of an approach former President Donald Trump took while he was an in office, seizing on a pre-existing authority to try to clamp down on border crossings.

Now so far, the White House has yet to confirm that the president will in fact unveil this executive action this week. A White House spokesperson simply saying: "As we have said before, the administration continues to explore a series of policy options and we remain committed to taking action to address our broken immigration system."

Now, this comes as the president and his team are trying to tackle an issue that has been politically vexing for Biden heading into November's election. They had also been hoping to potentially roll out an executive action before Biden faces off against Donald Trump on that debate stage, a bit later this month, and it comes at a time as Americans have increasingly showed concern relating to the issues along the US southern border.

Trump has really tried to make that a key focal point of his campaign. But you've also seen Biden and the White House really take a more aggressive approach when it comes to the border in recent months, especially after Republicans tanked those bipartisan border talks at the urging of former President Donald Trump, something that Biden said was that he would try to hold Republicans accountable for that going forward.

So we will see when and what exactly the White House will unveil relating to a potential border executive action at a time when the president is trying to move the needle with voters on an issue that has really emerged as a top concern heading into November's election.

BERMAN: Yes, these executive action is discussed for months and months. It will be interesting to see what they look like when they do come out.

Arlette Saenz, thank you very much for that.

All right, broken water mains shut down streets, cancelled a big concert, closed schools. You can see a little bit, a little bit of the water right there, the crisis in Atlanta this morning. So if you've been waiting months and months and months for the next

installment of "House of the Dragon," well, wait no more. The biggest show of the season is set to premiere and we have an early look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not against the king, and I will pay it back a hundred times over.

I am as fearsome as any of them.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have no idea of the sacrifices that were made to put you on that throne.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:22:42]

BOLDUAN: This morning, summer school programs in Atlanta are cancelled as the city is still grappling with a water crisis. It all started Friday, multiple water mains burst, leaving thousands of people without water and under boil water advisories all weekend, and city officials, as they're working to fix this, are also facing criticism now for how their handling the ongoing emergency.

Joining us right now from Atlanta. Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens.

Mayor, thank you so much for coming in.

How many people are still without clean water this morning?

MAYOR ANDRE DICKENS (D), ATLANTA, GEORGIA: Yes, so good morning.

Right now, we are still under a boil water advisory, which I am very hopeful that in the next hour or so that we can lift that. We have done tests on the water and everything comes back negative, but we want to make sure that we send this off to the EPD while we have stable pressure throughout the system.

So right now, Atlanta -- and most Atlantans have water, it is just we want to make sure that they boil it out of a precautionary measure and this has been in place over the last day-and-a-half to two days that we've been under a boil water advisory because of that large water main break, it occurred on Friday, and we fixed it on, you know, it got resolved on Saturday.

We started building up pressures and things are working fine in terms of water being to the residents for them to be able to wash their hands, take a shower, et cetera. But we wanted to make sure now that we can lift the boil water advisory and we are hoping that the EPD will give us that authorization soon.

BOLDUAN: From what we hear from residents, still yesterday things were not fine for a lot of people. I mean, we saw our teams in the field this morning still saw water gushing on the streets in places.

It seems a long time for the immediate crisis to still not be triaged this many days later and have water still gushing on the streets. Why is that?

DICKENS: Yes, so there were two breaks that occurred that were large, a 48-inch and 36-inch pipe. These are old pipes. One was a 1910 installation lesion, another was a 1930 installation, and so the first one was fixed on Saturday, about five o'clock and pressure resumed and we were able to get water back to downtown and throughout the city.

[08:25:07]

But another break occurred right in midtown at 11th and Peachtree and that is the one that had the high gushing water and that lasted for a day-and-a-half to two days and now, we have that gusher of water down. People are inside of that hole fixing that pipe right now.

For the rest of today, that will probably be taking place and that would mean that right at that immediate impacted area, we have shut off the water to that area so we can isolate that pipe and fix it and then we will open up the water again for those residents as soon as possible.

So right now, that is the second major incident and it is currently in a state of getting repaired. The first one was fixed and all is well, and so we are hoping that we will get the authorization to lift the boil water advisory.

But to the people of Atlanta, I do want to apologize that this has frustrated you and if frustrated me over this weekend. This is not the way the city nor the visitors, residents intending to spend in our weekend having to boil water and have to deal with low pressure or water outages in certain areas.

But right now, our hospitals, our airport, City Hall where I am at right now, we have water. We are able to function as well as a number of our hotels. We've been distributing bottled water to places like Senior Towers and to the various homeless shelters, et cetera.

BOLDUAN: And unfortunately, water mains do break especially old pipes, which so many American cities are dealing with and trying to upgrade, but that takes decades.

But you're also -- you're facing criticism for being slow to respond to what could be inevitable, which is water mains breaking. I mean fliers were posted in places this weekend with your picture on them saying, has anyone seen or heard from Mayor Andre Dickens? How do you respond to this criticism?

DICKENS: Yes. I mean, I have had response to it, head on. You know, I promised the citizens of Atlanta on Saturday at two o'clock that every two hours, they've going to hear directly from the city of Atlanta about where we stand, whether that's a boil water advisory, whether that's a repair that is being made.

We did press conference at two o'clock, did another press conference later in the day. So we are trying to resolve the situation.

Nobody is happy when you can see water gushing out of the street. We had to cancel some major events that took place, but luckily, on Saturday -- on Sunday yesterday, those events were able to take plays. The airport had 355,000 passengers. We had 60,000 people that Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Individuals in the city were at parks and our swimming pools were open, splash pads were open.

So we are balancing this, but you know, I take it seriously. I take it to heart and the residents wanted to see more of me Saturday morning before the 2:00 PM, press conference, I understand that, and I apologize.

We were trying to resolve it. Each time we thought we had it fixed, another leak would appear in that same area. We had three iterations of fixes and then water started coming up and we had to shut the system back down.

So it was frustrating to say the least, but the men and women that were working on the ground were working very diligently, they still are.

BOLDUAN: And they continue, yes, I was going to say, the continue to work as we speak from some of our live cameras, we've been seeing them working all throughout these early morning hours.

Mayor, thank you. Hopefully this crisis is over very soon in the immediate, like today, we'll stay on top of it. Thank you for coming on.

Coming up for us, 14,000 acres of land scorched by raging wildfires in California. How a dangerous heatwave and wild wind gusts have impacted efforts to contain the blaze.

And more than a year of anticipation, "House of the Dragon" is coming back to screens this weekend, and we have a sneak preview for you of the season to come from one of the show's creators and one of its stars.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will prevail and bring full peace, but you must accept that the path to victory now, is one of violence.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good.

To war then.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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