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Biden and Trump Face Off in CNN Presidential Debate in Two Days; Julian Assange Agrees to Plea Deal With Biden Administration; Snapchat Rolls Out New Safety Tools to Protect Teens. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 25, 2024 - 07:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Of the race.

[07:00:00]

How do you view it in terms of a party that's trying to decide, has a very uneasy alliance right now between its progressive wing and its establishment wing?

MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO PRESIDENT BIDEN: No, I think that this is, this is very implemented of that. But I also think that this is why we have elections. He no longer is representing the views of his district and they are going to vote and he probably will end up losing his primary. But this is why we have elections. This is important to have primaries.

HAYS: All right. It seems like Bowman may not go back. Boebert, it seems, on track to come back next year.

All right, thanks to our panel for being with us today. Thanks to all of you for joining us. I'm Kasie Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Ahead of the big CNN debate, new reporting on what Trump is and isn't doing to prepare, and new reporting on why some Biden advisers say the winning recipe is less focused on the president's record and more focus on Trump.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: A years'-long standoff with the U.S. finally over for Julian Assange, the man accused in one of the largest government breaches ever of classified material. All the plea deal needs now is a judge's signature.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Selfies, video messages and sexual predators. How Snapchat went from a friendly platform to a target for child exploitation and their new plan to go back.

I'm John Berman with Sarah Sidner and Kate Baldwin. We are all here. And this is CNN News Central.

Just two days until the historic CNN presidential debate, and this morning, President Biden is getting brand new advice, unclear whether it is welcome or not. Some of it comes from the only person who has debated both President Biden and Donald Trump, that is Hillary Clinton. In a new op-ed in The New York Times, she writes, quote, it is a waste of time to try to refute Mr. Trump's arguments like in a normal debate. It's nearly impossible to identify what his arguments even are. He starts with nonsense and then digresses into blather. Yet expectations for him are so low that if he doesn't literally light himself on fire on Thursday evening, some will say he was downright presidential.

Separately, CNN has learned that advisers outside the Biden campaign want the president to focus squarely on Trump and his policies and not on Biden's own first term record really at all.

We've got the latest from both campaigns. First, let's go to Arlette Saenz at the White House. So, what is the mood in the Biden camp this morning?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, John, President Biden's debate preparations went late into the evening as his team is trying to use every possible minute to prepare for a showdown against Donald Trump in just two days.

Now, the campaign has signaled that there are three areas where they're really seeking to draw contrast with Trump on the debate stage. That includes abortion, democracy and the economy. And CNN has new reporting that some prominent Democrats have urged Biden's team to focus less on taking a victory lap on the president's economic accomplishments and focus more on targeting the way Donald Trump would handle the economy if he's elected to a second term. They believe that Biden should focus more on trying to tie Trump to corporate America and highlight some of the inflationary nature of his economic plan.

Part of the concern is that when the president goes out to talk about his own accomplishments, things like 15 million jobs created, the fact that the economy has not gotten into a recession, that that's just something that hasn't completely landed with voters, as many still hold deep reservations about the president's handling of the economy, and many polls have shown that they believe they trust Trump more on the economy than President Biden.

Now, the campaign today is trying to push their economic messaging. They've released a new ad, which will run across battleground states, really trying to draw a contrast between the two men, arguing that Donald Trump is looking out just for himself and not the American people. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Donald Trump loves to attack Joe Biden.

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Joe Biden.

Joe Biden.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because he's focused on revenge, and he has no plan to help the middle class. He'd just give more tax cuts to the wealthy.

Here's the difference. Donald Trump is only out for himself. Joe Biden is fighting for your family.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Now, this is all messaging that we have often heard from the Biden campaign. Something else that they are leaning into once again is highlighting the former president's recent criminal convictions. In a statement out this morning, Communications Director Michael Tyler said, quote, the American people deserve better than a white collar crook who's only in it for himself. That's why they fired Donald Trump in 2020, and it's why Joe Biden will beat him again in November.

So, President Biden is expected to spend the rest of today and tomorrow preparing for this debate as they are mapping out every possible scenario, including on how to make those economic arguments against Trump.

BERMAN: Arlette Saenz at the White House. Let's check in with Alayna Treene covering the Trump campaign. So, what is Donald Trump doing or, as Kate so eloquently put it, not doing today?

[07:05:02]

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Well, he is not hunkered down at Camp David, like President Joe Biden and his campaign. But Donald Trump has been keeping up a pretty aggressive schedule. And I do just want to walk you through exactly what he's been doing.

So, yesterday, he flew to a fundraiser with Steve Scalise, Majority Leader Steve Scalise in the House, in Louisiana. Today and tomorrow, he will be at Mar-a-Lago. I'm told they're going to continue to have some of those policy discussions that his campaign is continuing to dub as their, quote/unquote, debate prep. Thursday he will go to the debate afterward. He's expected to stop by at a watch party hosted by the RNC chairman, Michael Whatley, as well as the co-chair and Donald Trump's daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, afterward. And then Friday he has a rally in Virginia.

And the schedule is really kind of what the Trump campaign is trying to show, that Donald Trump is continuing to aggressively campaign regardless of this debate, and that he does not need as much prep as someone like Joe Biden. Of course, Donald Trump behind the scenes is doing his homework. He is prepping. He is sharpening his rhetoric. Arlette mentioned three key topics that Joe Biden and his campaign is focused on. Those are three topics I know that Donald Trump and his team are also have been talking about behind the scenes, abortion, the economy, as well as American democracy and Donald Trump's handling of the January 6 attack on the Capitol.

However, I do want to point your attention to, John, another thing we're seeing the Trump campaign do behind the scenes, and it's really this pre-spin campaign, trying to set up this debate ahead of time as already being rigged against him. We saw the Trump campaign and Donald Trump himself attack CNN, attack the moderators all throughout yesterday, trying to argue that if this doesn't go well, Donald Trump can try to ride that outrage. It's something we've seen Donald Trump do time and time again. He's pulling this out of his playbook.

They're also trying to manage the expectations for Joe Biden himself. We've seen Donald Trump repeatedly and baselessly claim that perhaps Joe Biden may take performing, enhancing drugs, something we have no evidence to prove.

I'm going to read for you what Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social yesterday. He said, quote, drug test for crooked Joe Biden. I would also immediately agree to one. And now we know clearly the Biden team is not trying to take the bait here and not engaging on this, but this continues to be a key theme for what Donald Trump and his team are focused on. They are trying to manage expectations ahead of this debate.

And behind the scenes, I'm told it's partly because I think they recognize that Joe Biden is in this weeklong boot camp leading up to Thursday, and they have set the bar, Donald Trump's team, I should say, have set the bar very low for Joe Biden. And so they're really trying to raise the bar here, raise expectations, as well as try and frame the debate itself as something that potentially they can walk away from and claim was biased. John?

BERMAN: Smokescreens and shiny objects. Alayna Treene, thank you very much for that. Kate?

BOLDUAN: So, new images have just been released of what DOJ officials found at Mar-a-Lago. Jack Smith's new approach to fighting back against Trump's effort to get the classified documents case against him tossed.

Plus, imminent failure, that is what officials in Minnesota are warning about a dam southwest of Minneapolis, the scramble now to keep everyone living nearby safe as catastrophic flooding continues to hammer the Midwest.

And an urgent search for a woman from Chicago who just went missing in the Bahamas while attending a yoga retreat.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:10:00]

SIDNER: A huge development overnight in a case that has captured the world's attention for years. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who's been in jail for more than five years, may soon be free. He's expected to appear in a U.S. courtroom tomorrow to accept a plea deal for espionage with the Department of Justice.

Assange was released from a British prison last night and flew to his home country of Australia. He spent years trying to avoid U.S. prosecution after seeking asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy as well. Assange is now expected to plead guilty to a felony charge of violating the Espionage Act. He released one of the largest U.S. government breaches of classified documents. CNN's Nic Robertson following the story for us. You've been following the story for a very long time. This has been an incredibly long saga. Where he's making his court appearance is part of this story. Where is that happening? And what does it say about what's going on in his mind?

NIC ROBERTSON, CNN INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC EDITOR: Well, it speaks a lot to Julian Assange's state of mind, the fact that he has an absolute distrust of the U.S. judicial system, that he won't appear in a court in North America to face this one count that he's expected to enter this plea deal on and agree to in exchange for time served in jail. So, he is going to be appearing in a U.S. district court in Saipan, which is in the archipelago of islands in the Pacific Ocean not too far from Guam. He's on his way there now, believed to be somewhere close to Bangkok in the aircraft that took him from the U.K. late yesterday afternoon.

This court is part of this sort of complex jigsaw puzzle in sort of essentially facilitating Assange's release. And we've got details of this in the last half an hour or so from a U.K. court saying that this deal was essentially worked out or signed off on in the middle of last week that the British court system has given him leave to sort of forgo his bail conditions, if you will to, to leave the country to go face this count.

[07:15:18]

And the British courts expect by the end of this week to get everything sort of signed, sealed and delivered from Assange's side, from the U.S. side, and that will be, that will be an end of his case.

But it's been a hugely long road, not least for his family and all those campaigning for his release. And we've heard from his wife, Stella Assange, who's in, we believe, Australia, waiting for his arrival there in the coming days.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STELLA ASSANGE, WIFE OF JULIAN ASSANGE: When we met, he was under house arrest. It will be the first time that I that I get to see him as a fully free man. And I was just -- when I was speaking to him, I said, well, you know, we can walk, go for a walk and there will be no restrictions, no curfew.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERTSON: So, it's been a, an incredibly long road to get to this point. As you said, you know, 2010, Assange is in Sweden because the United States is interested in bringing him to justice for the WikiLeaks. Then he is under -- facing an arrest warrant from the Swedish authorities linked to rape allegations, flees to the U.K. 2012, the U.K. says he can be extradited to Sweden. Assange bolts for the Ecuadorian embassy in London. He's there until he's extradited from there in 2019, held in the U.K. Belmarsh Jail since then for the last 62 months fighting extradition to the United States every step of the way. So, it's those 62 months in Belmarsh Jail which are expected to be the time served, and that's why he'll get off on this one count.

SIDNER: Yes. And we should mention this, he was also responsible in 2016 for releasing some emails from the campaign chair of Hillary Clinton, John Podesta, which played a role, but those are not any part of these charges, but something to note.

Nic Robertson in London live for us this morning, I appreciate you. John?

BERMAN: All right, a big step by a major social media platform to safeguard its teenage users. New details on the upgrades they say will protect teams from online harms.

And then a major U.S. dam is in imminent failure condition after devastating floods. We are standing by after new warnings that more rain could be coming.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:20:00]

BOLDUAN: Snapchat is announcing new moves today to better protect kids from predators and exploitation online. The popular social media app says the new safety features that they're rolling out will make it harder for teenagers to be contacted on the app by people that they don't know.

CNN's Clare Duffy has much more on this. They just are announcing this Clare, and Snapchat has faced a lot of criticism over not doing enough to protect young people on their platform. What are they doing now?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: Yes. So, what's interesting about these new features, the Snapchat has for a long time tried to prevent kids from being contacted by strangers they don't know on the app. But these new features use location data to try to detect potential scammers. So, now if a teenager receives a message from somebody who's not in their contacts, who isn't a mutual friend and who comes from a region where most of their other friends aren't located, they'll receive a pop up message warning them that it could be a scammer. The app is also going to prevent friend requests from being delivered to teens by people who again aren't in their mutual friends and are coming from a region where scammers are often located.

So, this is all an effort to address the specific kind of scam called financial sextortion where bad actors often pretend to be other teenagers to gain the trust of young people online, get them to send nude photos, and then threaten them saying that they're going to release the photos if they don't, if the teen doesn't send them money.

BOLDUAN: This isn't a small problem. This is becoming a really big problem.

DUFFY: Yes, it's a huge problem. A lot of the social media platforms are facing pressure to address this. So, these are just the latest steps by Snapchat. They also announced some other features, like they're going to make it easier for teens to see who they're sharing their live location with. They're also going to make it so that if a teen blocks an account, that user can't just create another account on the same device and send them a friend request. All future accounts will be blocked. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Interesting. All right, let's see. They're just rolling it out now to see what the reaction is and how successful people think it is.

It's good to see you, Clare. Thank you. Sara?

Coming up for us, I will take it, her debate with Donald Trump was unforgettable. Now, Hillary Clinton is weighing in on Thursday's matchup. Her advice to Joe Biden in the new op-ed just out.

And the surgeon general of the United States declaring a new public health crisis, gun violence, the gun violence epidemic and what the surgeon general wants to see happen now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

SIDNER: Let's go into the CNN presidential debate. Some Democrats are urging President Biden to spend less time touting his own record and focus instead on attacking Donald Trump. The president is also getting advice from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this morning, the only person to have debated both men. In a New York Times opinion piece, Clinton says Biden should be, quote, as direct and forceful as he was to Republican hecklers during the last State of the Union. And she also writes, expectations for Trump are so low that if he doesn't literally light himself on fire, some will say he was downright presidential.

Joining us now are Democratic Strategists Julie Roginsky and Jesse Hunt, founder and president of Monadnock Strategies and former communications director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

All right, I'm going to start with you, Julie. What is your takeaway from what we saw from Hillary Clinton in her op-ed in The New York Times?

JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: Well, I think the big part of it was it was a warning to the media. There's a lot of things that she, a bunch of really interesting things that she said, but the most interesting to me was that the expectations for Trump are so low that unless he literally, she said, sets himself on fire, some people, and I think by some people, she meant the media, will say that he acted presidential or whatever she framed it as.

[07:30:04]

And that's true. I mean, I remember during the 2016 campaign, and even into his first term.