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Now: Speaker Johnson Meeting With Trump At Mar-A-Lago; New Biden Campaign Ad Slams Trump As A "Convicted Criminal"; Brutal Heat Wave Targets More Than Half Of US. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired June 17, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

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[15:00:02]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: With only 10 days until the presidential debate here on CNN, Joe Biden is hitting Donald Trump hard, calling him a convicted criminal in a new ad, while Trump is plotting his path forward, meeting with House Speaker Mike Johnson to see what they can do to hold the House, and then use that power if Trump wins back the White House.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: And with summer still three days away, the oppressive heat wave is smothering the U.S. humidity, driving the heat index into the triple digits, and this could be just the beginning of a brutally hot summer for Americans.

And a new study suggesting the looming threat of an earthquake and tsunami in the northwestern U.S. of a size rarely seen on this planet, and scientists are warning no one is ready. Okay.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KEILAR: Right now, Speaker Mike Johnson is meeting with former President Trump at Mar-a-Lago. The two leaders said to be working out their game plans as Trump tries to win back the White House, and Republicans try to keep control of the House of Representatives.

This is happening just days after Trump held strategy talks with Republicans in Washington, the former president's first trip to Capitol Hill since the January 6th attack. We have CNN's Alayna Treene with us now to be a fly on the wall in this meeting, Alayna.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Right, exactly. Look, I mean, it does come just days after Donald Trump was in D.C. meeting with House and Senate Republicans and the big goal for that was unity. And so today, I'm told the big goal is we need to stay on message and we need to get the right candidates elected.

Now, remember, Speaker Johnson has a very slim majority in the House, and it's proven difficult. It's been very hard for him to get some, not just key priorities passed in the House, but also the general standard type of procedure packages as well. And so this goal, it benefits - this meeting, I should say, benefits both Donald Trump, but also House Speaker Mike Johnson and Richard Hudson, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. And look, Donald Trump in the past has - in his endorsements have carried a lot of weight. We know that many of the people he's endorsed have gone on to win their primaries.

However, in 2022, many of those people, even though they won their primaries, ultimately lost when it counted on Election Day. And Donald Trump since then has really had fewer endorsements. From my conversations with Trump's team, they argue that they really do not want to be putting their weight behind people that they don't think can win. So what I was told this meeting is about is really trying to get on the same page about who to endorse and, as well, what the messaging should look like as they look ahead to November.

Now, the other part of this that I find really interesting is Donald Trump and Mike Johnson have grown a relationship over the past few months as he's become Speaker. And recently, after Donald Trump's indictment - or not indictment, excuse me, his guilty verdict in his Manhattan trial on 34 counts of falsifying business records, Trump called Mike Johnson and complained to him about how he wants Republicans in Congress to be doing more to wage war on Democrats. And in order to do that, he needs more Republicans in his majority and so that's part of all of this as well.

KEILAR: All right. We'll have to see what comes out of this, but it's a fascinating time. Alayna, thank you for the report. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Ten days before the first Biden-Trump debate right here on CNN, the Biden campaign is going after Trump for the first time. One of their ads is calling the former president a convicted criminal, listing his 34 felony counts and other court defeats, all to try and make a contrast that the Biden campaign is hoping will win over voters. Here's one part of that 30-second clip.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This election is between a convicted criminal who's only out for himself and a president who's fighting for your family.

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SANCHEZ: Let's take you to the White House now with CNN Senior White House Reporter, Kevin Liptak.

So, Kevin, $50 million spent on airing this ad. Where exactly is it going to be seen?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, it's in all of the battleground states, according to the Biden campaign. And, you know, I think the timing is very intentional. Ten days before the CNN debate, as the Biden campaign really works to build up that contrast with former President Trump, you really can't imagine a sharper way of making that contrast than in an ad like this, you know, really going aggressively against the former president's legal issues, showing his mugshot, really kind of ticking through the felony counts, the accusations of sexual assault, the accusations of fraud, really trying to frame this as a choice for voters.

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At the end of the day, the Biden campaign really views this summer as the best chance for them to put that choice in front of voters into their living rooms through these television ads. You know, for so long, there had been this debate among Democrats about how aggressively to go after President Trump's legal issues. President Biden had seemed, at points, reticent to talk about them, certainly as the trial was unfolding, very wary of stepping over that line of ethics.

This ad, I think, answers some of those questions, the campaign very much leaning into this effort to brand President Trump a felon, to brand him a criminal. This is backed up by $50 million. It's part of this larger battleground state ad buy, really putting to use that cash advantage that the Biden campaign has been enjoying for so long.

President Biden really trying to increase that advantage over the weekend at that fundraiser in Los Angeles with President Obama, with George Clooney. The Biden campaign says that raised $30 million. That's a record for any Democratic candidate ever, so really giving you a sense of how much time and effort they're putting in to the campaign war chest, all with the effort of trying to put Biden and Trump, that contrast, that choice in front of voters.

Now, the Trump campaign did respond to this ad. They said that the contrast between President Trump's strength and success versus crooked Joe Biden's weakness, failures and dishonesty will be made clear on the debate stage next week. But certainly, I think what you're seeing here is the Biden campaign making very clear that at the debate, on the airwaves, and certainly in the months before the election, they're going to make very clear where President Trump's legal status stands, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Kevin Liptak, live for us from the White House. Brianna?

KEILAR: Let's talk more now with CNN Senior Data Reporter, Harry Enten.

All right, Harry, what do the numbers show when it comes to Trump's support with black voters?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Yes, this is a bloc that Donald Trump is going after. And if you look at where the polls stand now versus four years ago, you just see a significant change. All right, so go back to 2020 among black voters at polls at this point. Joe Biden had 86 percent of the vote. Donald Trump had 7 percent of the vote.

Look at where we stand now. Yes, Joe Biden is still ahead here by a significant margin, but Trump has closed the margin also significantly. His support, 7 percent four years ago at this point. Look at that. He's tripled it. He's tripled it up to 21 percent now. Joe Biden from 86 percent to 70 percent. Another way to look at that is the margin. It was 79 points at this point four years ago. Right now, it's at 49 points, a shrinking of the margin of 30 percentage points. That is a tremendous shift, Brianna.

KEILAR: That sure is. All right, what is the makeup of voters who might consider flipping from Biden to Trump?

ENTEN: Yes, right. So you know I love digging into the crosstabs. So we have the top line here among Black voters, but let's dig a little bit deeper. And this really just gives you an indication of where this Black support from - for Donald Trump is coming from.

All right, if you look at the black voters at the age of 50 or older, this is the margin Biden versus Trump. Four years ago at this point, Biden was up by 83 points. All right, that shrunk a little bit, a little bit. It's down to 74 points now, but nothing massive, nothing major here. This is nine points.

But look at it among black voters under the age of 50, Brianna. Oh, my goodness, gracious. It was 80 points at this point four years ago. Look at where that margin is now at just 37 points. That is a shrinking of the margin of more than half.

You know, I said earlier on in our air that I was speechless. I still am speechless because you go years and years and years looking at numbers, looking for when there was a significant shift, when something truly changed in the electorate. If this polling is anywhere close to being right, this is one of those historic moments where something we've never seen happen before, at least in our lifetimes, is happening.

Black voters under the age of 50 are leaving Joe Biden, the Democratic Party, and while he still leads, that lead is significantly, significantly smaller than it was just four years ago.

KEILAR: What happens here when you put a third party candidate in the mix?

ENTEN: Yes. All right, so let's put a third party candidate in the mix and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. All right. This is in the battleground states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, I got all six of those out pretty quickly. Biden's up 63 percent to 23 percent.

So somewhat similar to what we're seeing nationally. Take a look, though, what happens when you add RFK Jr. He gets 11 percent of the vote. Trump drops, but just by nine points. Look at this. Biden drops by 14 points and more than that, look here, he just gets 49 percent of the vote, less than a majority of the vote for a Democratic candidate among black voters. Truth is, Brianna, I've never seen anything quite like it.

KEILAR: Yes, it's really stunning to look at the polls. We'll have to see how this plays out. I know you're waiting for that.

Harry, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

ENTEN: Thank you.

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KEILAR: Still to come, a heat wave not seen in decades is sending temperatures well into the 90s and higher for more than half the U.S. population.

Plus, this hour, President Biden is hosting NATO's Secretary General at the White House. At the forefront, NATO's role in Ukraine.

And later, how students at a middle school in Houston have to dodge trains just to get to school. We have those stories and much more coming up on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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KEILAR: Summer is still days away, but a big chunk of the U.S. is already hot as an oven. More than half of the U.S. population, especially people in the Midwest and the Northeast, are under heat alerts. And we're talking 25 degrees above average. Cities like Cleveland, Pittsburgh, New York are bracing for potentially record- breaking highs.

With us now is Michael Mann. He's the Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Also, he is the author of "Our Fragile Moment: How Lessons from Earth's Past Can Help Us Survive the Climate Crisis."

All right, Michael, obviously, this is not the first conversation we've had about this. It's sadly not going to be the last. This heat wave in the Northeast, the Great Lakes, could be the longest in 30 years, so about a generation. Is this what summer is going to look like from now on?

MICHAEL MANN, PRESIDENTIAL DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA: Yes. Hi, Brianna. It's good to be with you.

And unfortunately, yes, this is a glimpse of not only what our future will look like, but in fact, it will look quite a bit worse than this. We will see more widespread and hotter and longer-lasting heat waves in the future if we continue to heat up the planet. And so all of this gets worse if we continue pumping carbon pollution into the atmosphere and warming up the planet, that's the bad news.

The good news is we can still do something about it. We have to stop making the problem worse by getting off fossil fuels.

KEILAR: How much of a health risk are we talking about here, and what can people do to protect themselves?

MANN: Yes, so certainly heat risk, you know, heat waves, extreme heat is sometimes called the silent killer because it may not be as dramatic as some of the other extreme weather events, tornadoes and hurricanes and wildfires that lead to human mortality. But in fact, extreme heat leads to far greater mortality, especially among the young and the older.

And in particular, when nighttime temperatures stay very high and the body - the human body isn't able to cool down at night and recover from that heat, that is particularly a problem. And that's one of the things we're seeing with this heat wave, not only very high high temperatures, but we're going to see very high low temperatures.

KEILAR: So the heat waves are colliding, of course, with hurricane season. And then when you look out west in earlier than usual fire season, what does this tell us about the bigger picture when it comes to climate change?

MANN: Yes, we're seeing, you know, record flooding down in Florida. We are seeing early wildfires out west in California. We are seeing extreme heat in the Midwest and the eastern United States. And all of this is actually connected to a very persistent jet stream pattern.

When the jet stream sort of gets stuck in place and those big high and low pressure centers get stuck in place, you have extreme rainfall and flooding or extreme heat and drought and wildfires day after day. And that's what we're seeing.

And here's a very important point. The fact that we're going to see more extreme heat on a warmer planet, that's obvious. That's an obvious impact of human-caused warming. But one of the subtle impacts that we're just beginning to really understand is how the actual pattern of the way the planet is warming up is changing the behavior of the jet stream and leading to these very persistent extreme configurations that give us these unprecedented extreme weather events.

And the climate models that we use to predict the future appear to actually underestimate the impact that climate change is having in creating these very persistent jet stream patterns and many of these extreme weather events. And so, if anything, our models are actually underestimating some of the key impacts. As I like to say, uncertainty isn't our friend here.

KEILAR: Yes. That is so alarming. I do think that people are hearing the alarms, specifically in some places where they can't get insurance, right? Whether it's for flooding or it's for the threat of wildfires. There are people who are really experiencing this in a very real way, Michael.

So, what do they need to be doing? What do we all need to be doing to try to reverse course here?

MANN: Yes, you're right. I mean, uninsurability, as I like to say, is the first step to uninhabitability, right? If we can't insure our homes against extreme wildfires and floods, then pretty soon we're losing vast amounts of area where human beings can live on a planet with a growing population and growing demand on space, on food, on water. So, what can we do to make this, you know, to prevent this from getting worse? And again, that's the good news. One of the things that we've come to understand over the last decade and a half is that the warming of the surface of the planet halts fairly quickly when we bring our carbon emissions to zero. And so, there is a very direct and immediate impact of our effort to decarbonize our economy.

Now, here's the thing. We've got to bring carbon emissions down by about 50 percent over the next decade.

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And down to zero within a couple decades, if we're going to prevent the warming - the planet from warming beyond roughly 3 degrees Fahrenheit, where we'll see far worse consequences of climate change.

And so, as I like to say, there is urgency, but there is agency. It's not too late for us to act.

KEILAR: Yes, we just have to hear those alarms, and they are going off very loudly.

Michael Mann, always great to have you. Thank you so much.

MANN: Thank you.

KEILAR: Boris?

SANCHEZ: We want to zero in on one of those fires burning out west. Hundreds of people in Southern California are forced to evacuate because of a raging wildfire just about an hour north of Los Angeles. Dry brush and fierce, gusty winds are fueling the post-fire that erupted Saturday in the city of Gorman. It scorched more than 15,000 acres, and right now, it's only about 8 percent contained.

CNN National Correspondent, Camila Bernal is watching the firefighting efforts.

And Camila, this morning, you felt some of those 70-mile-an-hour winds that are fueling the post-fire. How are conditions where you are right now?

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, at least I can stand. It was hard to stand. I couldn't even see earlier in the day, but now I can actually be here. But you're still seeing a lot of the wind. And look, it's not about me. It's about those guys and women back there, because these firefighters have been here 24/7, and these wind conditions were making it really difficult for them.

And so what we're seeing is a continuous effort here on the ground to get all of these hot spots cleared out. And you have them working with the chainsaws, with hand tools. They brought in the hose earlier. And so you're seeing these efforts on the ground, but you're also seeing the efforts in the air.

We tried getting closer to the fire line just a few moments ago, and it's impossible, essentially, to get in there. But some of these firefighters are hiking up the mountain to get to that fire line and to continue battling these flames. You guys were just talking about climate change. What happened in this area is that we had so much rain in California over the last couple of years that a lot of the grass, the bush, the trees, all of that grew and that creates that fuel for this fire.

So as things heat up for the summer, those conditions is essentially what makes these flames uncontrollable. They have gained some. They've made some progress in terms of containment for this fire. It was at 2 percent, we're now at 8 percent.

So we have seen it improve, but we've also seen the acreage burn continuing to grow now more than 15,000 acres. And you mentioned evacuations. About 1,200 people are under evacuation orders. And there are more evacuation warnings. So they're telling people just be careful. The wind is strong, and it can change at any moment. And it can move that fire closer to where people are. So people in this area are being told just to be careful, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Camila Bernal, live for us. Thank you so much. Stay safe out there.

Any minute now, President Biden is set to host NATO's Secretary General at the White House. The Oval Office meeting coming after a new agreement would give the alliance greater control over military aid to Ukraine. We're going to discuss after this quick break.

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KEILAR: At any moment now, President Biden is set to host NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the White House. It's a meeting that is coming just days after NATO was put in charge of coordinating aid to Ukraine in its war against the Russian invasion. CNN's Kayla Tausche is live for us at the White House.

Kayla, what is the Biden administration hoping to achieve with this meeting today?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Brianna, the NATO Secretary General has met with President Biden for each of the last four years in preparation for the alliance's annual summit that takes place each summer. This year, Washington is playing host city for that summit. It's expected to take place in mid-July.

And so the Secretary General and the president are going to be discussing how to reach agreement on a series of deliverables and specific language relating to the ongoing war in Ukraine, the need to defend every inch of NATO territory, and an attempt to future-proof the alliances with a far-right movement in Europe, as well as a looming election here in the U.S., threatening the existence or at least much of the support of NATO.

Earlier today in a speech at the Wilson Center, the Secretary General called on NATO to play a bigger role in delivering aid to Ukraine to avoid delays. He announced that 20 of 32 allies are now meeting the 2 percent defense spending benchmark that was set in 2014. That's more than doubled.

And he also called on the alliance to impose more costs on China, which he says is fueling the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II. Earlier today, I asked NSC Spokesman, John Kirby, whether the president shared that view. Here's what he said.

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JOHN KIRBY, WHITE HOUSE NATIONAL SECURITY SPOKESMAN: I have no doubt that they'll discuss a range of issues important to the NATO alliance. And clearly, that means supporting Ukraine. And clearly, that means trying to make it harder for Russia to be able to murder and slaughter innocent Ukrainians and destroy Ukrainian infrastructure. And the Chinese, because of the support that they are providing to the Russian defense industrial base, certainly bear hand in helping Mr. Putin do that.

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TAUSCHE: This is just one of the many meetings that Stoltenberg is holding with allies. He travels personally to each country to meet face-to-face with the head of state that will be ...