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Police Say, Suspect Arrested After Stabbing of U.S. College Instructors in China; Garland Op-Ed Says, Unfounded Attacks on DOJ Must End; Soon, Jury Deliberations in Hunter Biden's Felony Gun Case Resume. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 11, 2024 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Could you -- like are you better or worse than -- wait, wait, wait, wait, let's put Courtney back. Where's Courtney and her dancing? There she, yes, there she is.

MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, WALL STREET JOURNAL: I mean, honestly, that I think I could do. That might be the limit of my abilities, but that I could do. I mean, I feel like I could do that too. I wouldn't want to do it in public, but, you know?

HUNT: I'm not doing that on TikTok, that's for sure. I sure as hell am not doing that either. All right, thanks guys, I very much appreciate your time today. Thanks for all to all of you for joining us. I'm Kasie Hunt.

Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right breaking overnight for Americans stabbed in China, the attack censored on social media. And we just learned seconds ago a suspect has been arrested in this attack.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Dangers for our democracy, this must stop. Attorney General Merrick Garland taking on Republican lawmakers and taking them on head on today as he warns the attacks on his department are going to get someone hurt.

Jury deliberations resumed today in Hunter Biden's federal gun trial. The president's son waiting to hear his fate.

I'm Kate Bolduan with John Berman. Sara Sidner is out today. This is CNN News Central.

BERMAN: Breaking, just seconds ago, a suspect arrested in China connected to the stabbing of four American educators there. Still, questions about if and why these Americans were targeted. New video appears to show the aftermath, though it was quickly censored on Chinese social media. Blood is visible at the scene.

The victims are from Cornell College in Iowa. They are in Northeast China as part of a partnership with a local university.

CNN's Steve Jiang joins us now from Beijing with the very latest on this arrest. Steve, what are you learning?

STEVEN JIANG, CNN BEIJING BUREAU CHIEF: Yes, John, that police update you just mentioned came from Jilin City in Northeastern China. As you said, the suspect was caught by the police and now in custody. The police describing him as a 55-year-old local residents with a surname of Tway (ph).

Now, they also added a bit more details in terms of what happened, saying this suspect, quote/unquote, collided with one of the Americans in the park and then somehow decided to use a knife to attack that American and three companions, as well as a local Chinese citizen trying to stop this attack.

Now, the police statement added that none of the injuries were life threatening, and all of the injured people have received prompt and proper medical care.

Now, this is the local authorities breaking their silence more than 24 hours after this horrific incident. Earlier, we have heard we had heard from the Chinese foreign ministry echoing a lot of what the police just said, but also they use the word isolated incident to describe this case. That's obviously the key message from the government to the outside world.

But it is worth pointing out that this kind of violence against foreigner is rare in this country because China is generally considered a safe place to visit with a heavy security police presence, not to mention their massive surveillance technologies being deployed nationwide. But because it's almost impossible to get hold of a gun for most ordinary Chinese people, stabbing incidents like this have happened in recent years, targeting people ranging from doctors to schoolchildren.

But, again, violence against foreigner is rare. That's why this case is receiving so much attention, not to mention the timing of this attack couldn't have come at a worse time for the Chinese government because their leader, Xi Jinping, has been personally promoting the resumption and expansion of the so-called people to people exchanges between the two countries after the two governments finally somewhat stabilized their fragile relationship. Xi Jinping, while in San Francisco last November, personally said China was ready to host 50,000 young Americans in the coming five years for study and exchange programs. Just last year -- just last week, actually, excuse me, Xi Jinping wrote a letter to a New Jersey college stressing the importance of this kind of exchanges.

So, if this incident somehow ends up dampening American's interest and enthusiasm in coming back to China, I think that would be considered quite a major setback for the Chinese leader. John, Kate?

BERMAN: Yes. China wants U.S. students there and U.S. money there. And this is the video we're looking at right now. You can see the victims clearly on the ground. This video again has been centered on Chinese social media, one suspect now in custody. Steve, thank you so much for that update. Keep us posted on new developments. Kate? BOLDUAN: Also new this morning, a scathing public statement by Attorney General Merrick Garland, just published in The Washington Post. Garland, writing in an op-ed, is warning against what he calls the unfounded attacks on the Department of Justice that he says is putting his staff and democracy in danger. The attorney general is saying this, in part, using conspiracy theories, falsehoods, violence and threats of violence to affect political outcomes is not normal.

[07:05:05]

The short-term political benefits of those tactics will never make up for the long term cost to our country. And even though he does not say Republicans anywhere in this op-ed, it is clear who he is referring to, quite frankly. Garland also saying this at one point, these attacks come in the form of threats to defund particular department investigations, most recently the special counsel's prosecution of the former president.

The attorney general's rare public rebuke comes right as House Republicans are preparing to take the next step today in charging him with contempt of Congress.

CNN's Lauren Fox has more. Adding to the attention around this movement today is now this opinion piece from the attorney general. What is going to happen in the House today, Lauren?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Kate. What you're going to see in just a couple of hours is the House Rules Committee will convene to consider these two resolutions to hold Garland in contempt. Now, what this does is it is the first step to get it to the House floor. We do expect that that action could happen later this week.

One of the question marks since these two resolutions passed in the Judiciary and Oversight Committees was whether or not House Republican leadership had the votes to actually advance them on the floor. Obviously, they're feeling very confident about that, or they wouldn't be moving this through the Rules Committee today. But, again, House Speaker Mike Johnson can only afford to lose two Republicans and still get this across the finish line.

What this would ultimately do is these resolutions would instruct the House speaker to refer Garland for potential questions criminal charges from the attorney in Washington, D.C. Again, it is very unlikely that that would happen, but this is not without some precedents. If you remember, House Republicans actually held Eric Holder in contempt of Congress. Democrats held William Barr in contempt of Congress. Nothing ultimately came of that. But that just shows you that there is a record and there is a history of the opposing party holding the president's attorney general in contempt of Congress.

And we should just note this all stems over a dispute over whether or not the attorney general should release the special counsel's audio interview with President Joe Biden. Those transcripts have been released, but House Republicans say that they want the audio of the interview to continue their investigation into Joe Biden. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Lauren, good to see you. Thank you so much. Let's see what happens today.

Also with us -- also for us this -- coming up for us right now, Secretary of State Tony Blinken is in Jordan to discuss how to get the more critical humanitarian aid into Gaza, and also with that, putting more pressure on Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal.

And it's already expensive enough to buy a home, but a new report shows the costs of maintaining one are skyrocketing as well.

And new details this morning about the payouts for passengers of that Singapore Airlines flight that hit such dangerous turbulence that one person died. We'll be back.

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[07:10:00]

BERMAN: All right. Happening now, we're standing by for jury deliberations to resume in Hunter Biden's federal gun trial. The jury had the case for about an hour before breaking for the night. The president's son could arrive back in court shortly. He faces three felony gun charges.

CNN's Marshall Cohen is live outside the courthouse this morning. How will this work, Marshall?

MARSHALL COHEN, CNN REPORTER: Hey, John. Good morning. Well, as you mentioned, the jury got about one hour of deliberations in the books yesterday, and they are expected to return here at 9:00 A.M. It's about two hours from now.

Now, the judge said that she's not going to call them all back into the courtroom just to wish them a good morning. They will be allowed to go directly to the jury room. And once everyone is back in that room, they can pick up the deliberations on their own. So, we won't necessarily see them this morning.

Now, while they're in that room doing their deliberations, they have to weigh three criminal charges that Special Counsel David Weiss has brought against Hunter Biden. He's accused, as everyone knows by now, of lying on gun forms and illegally possessing a gun while addicted to drugs. But it's a little more complicated than that, John, because while those are the top line charges, each one of those offenses contains several elements of the offense that the jury needs to also debate, discuss and decide whether each one of those elements within each charge was also met. So, there's a lot under the hood here for the jury to hash out.

Now, I do want to point out, obviously, this has been a family affair for the Bidens from the very start. And they really beefed up the support yesterday in court. We saw obviously the first lady, Jill Biden, President Biden's sister, Valerie, his brother, James, and then Hunter Biden's sister, younger sister, Ashley, was also in the pews, in the gallery, during the closing arguments during that final push.

And their presence caught the attention of the prosecution. One of the very first things that the prosecutor, Leo Wise, told the jury in his closing arguments was basically telling them that there's a lot of famous people in the galleries. There are people you might recognize from the news, from the community, but respectfully, none of that matters.

[07:15:05]

Pay no attention to that, and only focus on the evidence in this case, which the prosecution claimed was overwhelming.

So, John, in many ways right now, the fate of the president's son, it is in the jury's hands and they'll be back in just about two hours to hopefully reach a conclusion.

BERMAN: A verdict could come at any time. Marshall Cohen, thanks so much for being there. Needless to say, keep us posted.

So, new eye-popping data on the rising cost of home ownership, eye- popping and wallet busting. And then when you turn down 70 million and a job in sunny Southern California, the seductive allure of Northeastern Connecticut.

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[07:20:00]

BOLDUAN: It is expensive as ever to buy a home. Now, a new study shows that it's also become wildly expensive to also just maintain your home. The cost of home ownership has gone up 26 percent since the pandemic.

Let's bring in CNN's Matt Egan. He's got more on this digging into these what's going to be sobering numbers. What's going on here?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, Kate, a lot of people probably think that once they buy their first home, they're done, right? But in reality, they're just getting started, because there's all of these hidden costs of home ownership, and it can really add up. Bankrate found that, on average, Americans are spending $18,000 a year to own and maintain their home. That is obviously a lot of money. When you think about it, it's almost like the cost of buying a used car a year. This is 26 percent more than in 2020. And, of course, this is all on top of your mortgage payment, right? We're talking about the cost of energy, the cost of property taxes. And the biggest drivers, according to Bankrate, are the fact that it's gotten more expensive to maintain a home and also the cost of home insurance.

Now, we've seen premiums spike right for two reasons. One, it's the fact that the climate crisis has made it more likely that there's these disasters, right? We've seen wildfires and hurricanes and flooding. Then the cost of living, labor, materials, that's all gone up. So, it's more expensive to repair when this happens. I spoke to a woman in California yesterday who told me that her home insurance rate doubled with no notice because of concerns about wildfires. On top of that, they have to spend $10,000 to repair the plumbing. Now, she's taking on extra hours to try to make ends meet, and she's not alone, Kate?

BOLDUAN: Does it matter? Does it change depending on where you live?

EGAN: It does. It does. Not shockingly, some of the more expensive places to own and maintain a home are here in the northeast. We see New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut. Of course, all of these states, high cost of living, also high property taxes. California and Hawaii, two very expensive places to live, it's costing almost everything $30,000 a year.

Now, we've also seen a big surge in the cost of owning and maintaining a home in Hawaii, up by almost 40 percent, but also big increases since 2020 in Idaho and Utah as well. These are the three states with the prices going -- the expense is going up the most.

Now, on the opposite end of the spectrum, some states has actually become more affordable to own and maintain a home. Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, three of the more affordable places to live. There, we've seen expenses go up at a slower pace. But, listen, I think at the end of the day, no matter where you live, the message here is that you've got to budget for the unexpected, right, the burst pipe, the home insurance spike, because when it happens, it can be really painful.

BOLDUAN: Yes. And you're also keeping -- tied to this, you're also keeping -- been keeping a close watch on an increase of underwater mortgages.

EGAN: That's right. So, I mean, most Americans are sitting on a nice cushion of equity because home prices have gone up. But there is an increase in some people who are seriously underwater. That means that they owe 25 percent more than the home is worth. It's never a good sign. We've seen this is a particular problem in Louisiana, Wyoming, Kentucky, Mississippi and Oklahoma. And this reflects the fact that, in some of these areas, home prices have actually gone down since the peak. And some people, they bought at the peak. They bought at the top. So, now they owe more than what the home is actually worth.

I think big picture, nationally, this does not seem to be a major problem. Only about 2.7 percent of all mortgages are seriously underwater. That's pretty low. Back during the Great Recession, it's around one in four homes that were underwater. But we do need to keep an eye on this, and I do think it's another reminder that, whether we're talking about expenses or fluctuating home prices, home ownership, it's not without risk, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Well, I mean, look, Kentucky is a perfect example. Kentucky is among the states that you said where homes were becoming more affordable and you're also saying this is where people are more -- have been seriously underwater with their mortgages because they've also seen home prices go down. So, you talk about the kind of the complicated web of it doesn't come without risks and it's all interconnected in a very strange way.

EGAN: Exactly.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you, Matt. Thank you so much.

So, coming up for us, Attorney General Merrick Garland is facing another contempt vote in Congress today, and he is not facing it quietly. His blistering rebuke of the conspiracy theories that he says are endangering the Department of Justice, the people working there, and democracy.

And the White House is celebrating black history with an early Juneteenth celebration.

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[07:25:00]

BERMAN: Moments ago, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Jordan for key meetings. Now, he just left Israel, where he says there is consensus among senior Israeli leaders, including the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to move forward on a ceasefire proposal now backed by the United Nations. It is worth noting, however, that U.S. and Israeli leaders have often had different public interpretations of what that means.

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ANTONY BLINKEN, SECRETARY OF STATE: Everyone has said yes, except for Hamas. And if Hamas doesn't say, yes, then this is clearly on them.

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BERMAN: All right, CNN's Oren Liebermann is in Tel Aviv this morning with the very latest. Oren, what are you hearing?

OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: John, Secretary of State Antony Blinken held not only a number of meetings here but also throughout the region to try to push forward this ceasefire deal and a hostage release. He had come from Egypt, and then here, he met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the defense minister, the leader of the opposition, and Benny Gantz, who until just a couple of days ago, was a member of the war cabinet before he resigned.

[07:30:07]

From the Israeli perspective.