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Bloomberg: Document Mistakenly Posted On Supreme Court Site Shows 6-3 Vote To Allow Emergency Abortions In Idaho For Now; Biden & Trump Gearing Up For Debate Showdown Tomorrow In Atlanta; Gov. Tim Walz (D) Minnesota Discusses About The Upcoming Presidential Debate; Espionage Trial For Detained U.S. Journalist Begins In Russia. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired June 26, 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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[15:01:22]

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN Breaking News.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: We're following breaking news into CNN. The Supreme Court appears poised to side with the Biden administration on a critical abortion case. That's according to a document that was mistakenly and briefly posted to the court's website, which was reviewed by Bloomberg News before it was taken down. Bloomberg has since published the full text of the document, which shows the court voting six to three to allow abortions in emergency situations in Idaho on a temporary basis while the case continues.

Idaho's strict abortion laws ban the procedure in nearly all cases. It prohibits ER doctors from providing abortions to women whose pregnancies are causing medical emergencies that are not life- threatening.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: The leak marks yet another stunning breach of protocol at the Supreme Court, which usually safeguards the release of its opinions. CNN is covering this from all angles. We have our Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent, Paula Reid, our Medical Correspondent, Meg Tirrell, and also with us, we have Emergency Room Physician, Dr. Megan Ranney.

First to you, Paula, what are you learning about what happened here and what the Supreme Court is saying about it?

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It's two big issues here. The first is what appears to be opinion on one of the biggest cases that the Supreme Court has taken up this term. And the other is the fact that there is yet another leak out of the Supreme Court.

But let's first look at the opinion or what appears to be the opinion. This reporting is coming from Bloomberg Law. They say that they saw this document that was posted briefly by the Supreme Court. We did not see that posted by the Supreme Court, but they have now posted this document. And the court has released a statement appearing to confirm that yes, this document was inadvertently released. They said, quote, "The Court's Publication Unit inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document to the Court's website. The Court's opinion in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States will be issued in due course."

So this statement appearing to differentiate between the document that was posted and an opinion that will be released soon. And in this document, it appears that the Supreme Court is siding with the Biden administration. This case comes out of Idaho and the decision would allow abortions to be performed in emergency situations to preserve the health of the mother, but not necessarily having to wait until a woman's life is at risk.

But the decision as it is written, again, in this document that was posted, leaves a lot of uncertainty in terms of the larger question after Roe v. Wade was overturned about what happens when there are conflicts between state and federal laws. But the other issue here is, of course, this incredible breach of protocol. This is the second time that a major abortion case has leaked out of the Supreme Court, this case being inadvertently posted.

Now this comes, the timing is significant. This comes roughly 36 hours before a presidential debate that I think most people would agree is probably the most significant moment in this campaign season so far. The Supreme Court also been a little slow to roll out their final big cases. They still have roughly 10 cases left to be released. It's unclear if this abortion opinion would have come before tomorrow's debate. I've reached out to many of the stakeholders in this case, the Justice Department that argued on behalf of the government, the White House that was watching this very closely, and of course, the Trump campaign.

Because while a lot of folks are waiting for the Trump immunity case, watching that closely, we've repeatedly said that it was this case, the abortion-related case, that could have the biggest impact on the election. So far, all these stakeholders declining to comment until the actual opinion is officially released by the Supreme Court. And of course, we know tomorrow and Friday, both opinion days at the High Court.

SANCHEZ: Yes. Well, wants to see if they officially publish it. Paula Reid, thanks so much.

[15:05:04]

Meg, at the heart of this case is EMTALA, this federal law, the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act. Help us understand what it is and how it clashed with Idaho's abortion law.

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, so this is a law that goes back to 1986, and it applies to hospitals that participate in Medicare and provide emergency services, which is sort of most hospitals. And it requires these hospitals to provide care when necessary to stabilize a patient's condition, regardless of their ability to pay. And this was implemented at the time to avoid something called patient dumping, where maybe private hospitals would want to move patients who couldn't pay to public hospitals for cost reasons, and it applies to pregnant women as well.

Now, the U.S. government, the Biden administration, argued in this case that this law clashed with Idaho's very strict abortion ban. This was - is one of the strictest abortion laws in the country. It prohibits abortion in most cases, except to prevent the death of the person who's pregnant, and a few other narrow circumstances. This is punishable by two to five years in prison.

And there are certain circumstances that doctors have pointed out, as well as the Department of Justice in its brief, where this would clash when a pregnant woman's health is at risk, her future fertility, her organs, but she's not yet on death's door, where they say that the federal law preempts Idaho's law. Things like a premature rupture of membranes, for example, uncontrolled hemorrhaging, detached placenta, severe preeclampsia.

So these are some of the places where the government has argued that the federal law needs to supersede the state law. And we've been to Idaho and talked to doctors and patients there, and doctors say they've had to ship patients out of state to get care because there is so much uncertainty over what is legal. And so this may continue because there may still be uncertainty as this still moves through the courts, guys.

KEILAR: Yes. And that was something they were doing increasingly once these things became in conflict. Meg, thank you so much for that.

I want to bring in Dr. Ranney.

You are an emergency room physician, and we do need to be clear here. This is about an injunction, meaning as the core issue here is determined by the courts, what happens with Idaho's law as it may be in conflict here with EMTALA. So this is temporary until that's worked out. But that said, if this ultimately is what is decided, that there can be an exception when it comes to health. What is that going to mean for care provided in emergency rooms across the country?

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN: What it would mean is that care continues as it currently exists in most states across the United - across the U.S. Basically, that we as emergency physicians have both a moral and a legal obligation to take care of anyone who walks through the door for any reason and stabilize them. We make sure they don't have a medical emergency. If they do have a medical emergency, we do everything within our power to treat them.

The thing that is so worrisome about this Idaho law, were it upheld, is that it would stop my and my colleagues' ability to provide needed care. It would force us to decide between legal regulations and the patient in front of us. It would make us wait until patients are literally on death's door to act.

And let's be clear, there's no bright line. It's not like, oh, at this minute, this person is totally fine, and the next minute we can say they're about to die. There's no clear dividing line between those two conditions. So it would make folks wait until women are in incredibly dangerous positions. Now, should this injunction actually be what they're saying it is, that's great news for physicians, for patients, for families in Idaho. But here's the thing that's really worrisome, already, just the way that the Idaho law has been written, even though it has not been enforced, we've seen one out of five OB-GYNs in the state of Idaho leave that state. We've seen a dramatic increase in the number of out- of-state transfers of severely ill pregnant women.

So even without this law being enforced as written, we're already seeing negative effects on the health of women and families, and negative effects on the number of physicians providing much needed reproductive care in that state.

My worry is that this injunction does not actually create clarity for the healthcare system. It's just pushing it down the road and basically showing folks other ways to pass devious laws that restrict abortion and critical reproductive health access for patients in need.

SANCHEZ: That question of delay was something that was pointed out by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, saying that this essentially just kicks the can down the road.

Doctor, I wanted you to expand, if you could, for a moment on that line that you were describing that you see with patients and their conditions.

[15:10:00]

In what situations might a woman need an emergency abortion when it doesn't get to the point of being a risk to her life?

RANNEY: Gosh, I've taken care of dozens of such patients over the course of my career. Let me give you two examples. One, a patient who comes in who's having a miscarriage, who's been unable to completely finish the miscarriage on their own at home, who's actively bleeding, who still perhaps has a fetus, maybe with a heartbeat, but it's so clear that that pregnancy is over, now, that woman may not be on death's door at the moment that I first see her, but I can predict that if we don't do what's called a DNC, which is essentially an abortion, to help finish that miscarriage, she will continue to bleed, to hemorrhage until she is potentially on death's door.

We shouldn't make her have to wait to sit in a hospital bed for hours or for days actively bleeding until she gets to that point when her organs are shutting down. That's one example.

Another example is an ectopic pregnancy. When the pregnancy lands outside of the uterus, in the ovary, or even in the abdomen, it can burst and you can cause extensive bleeding inside the belly. I've taken care of countless patients for whom this has happened. It can cause severe pain. It can cause tachycardia. And if untreated, it can mean that a woman can't have future children.

So we're supposed to wait and watch while someone continues to bleed internally until that point when she's barely survivable and maybe her reproductive capacity has been hurt forever before we're allowed to treat that ectopic pregnancy, that also is a ridiculous situation. And there are many more that I've personally seen and cared for over the course of my career.

This really puts doctors, as well as patients and families, in an untenable position. No wonder a bunch of doctors are, again, leaving the state of Idaho right now.

KEILAR: Yes, we've seen that. There's been quite the exodus.

Dr. Megan Ranney, thank you so much for your insights. We do appreciate it.

RANNEY: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Of course. Still plenty more news to get to, it is debate eve for Joe Biden and Donald Trump. The key issue is both candidates are being pushed to hammer home during tomorrow night's big showdown on CNN.

KEILAR: Plus, locked in a glass cage with noticeably his head shaved. We're going to talk with a friend of journalist Evan Gershkovich about the start of his so-called trial in Russia.

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[15:16:58]

KEILAR: The road to the first presidential debate of the 2024 race is hitting the final stretch.

SANCHEZ: Yes, and we've got to look at the stage where the two candidates are going to go head-to-head in the CNN debate site in Atlanta. Look at that. Spacious, luxurious ...

KEILAR: Grand.

SANCHEZ: ... grand, full of graphics. They're going to go toe-to-toe. But before they do, we're learning more about their game plans. CNN's Steve Contorno is in St. Petersburg, Florida, covering the campaign - of the Trump campaign, I should say. Steve, what are you hearing?

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: Well, Boris, Donald Trump has spent the last couple days at Mar-a-Lago, where we are told the focus has been on two areas. One is getting Trump to hone in on the issues that they believe they have the upper hand on. That's immigration, crime, and inflation. Those are areas they believe that they pull well in, and they prefer the former president focus his energy on going on the attack in those areas instead of going into his - the grievances that he has focused on for the last four years.

The other area is more related to style. Donald Trump, in the first debate of their last meeting in 2020, he was talking over the moderator. He was talking over Joe Biden. At one point, Biden told him to, quote, "shut up," and an advisor to Trump says that they believe that they lost the election in that moment. And so they are hoping that Donald Trump, this go-around, will try to just adhere more to the format of the debates.

And Trump himself, in recent interview, did acknowledge that he was, quote, "very aggressive" in that first debate. And he felt that he did much better in the second debate, and so he, I think, going into this, they are trying to urge him to be more like he was in that second debate, whether that happens remains to be seen. Trump campaign though and - Trump and his campaign though keep insisting that this debate prep is not as extensive as what the president is doing. In fact, Donald Trump, in an interview, downplayed exactly what - the kind of benefits you can get from doing debate prep. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think I've been preparing for it for my whole life if you want to know the truth. And I'm not sure you can lock yourself into a room for two weeks or one week or two days and really learn what you have to know.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CONTORNO: Now, Trump does - though - even though he said that, he has been doing some prep behind the scenes. Though he is mixing things up a little bit, as you know, he's on the campaign trail over the weekend. He has attended a fundraiser. He's still doing media interviews, and just a little bit ago, he called into an event with black supporters in the Atlanta area.

KEILAR: All right. Steve Contorno, thank you so much for the very latest on that. We appreciate it.

And joining us now is the Democratic governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz. He is a surrogate for the Biden campaign.

Governor, great to have you, and I do wonder what are you hoping to see from President Biden tomorrow night, and what do you not want to see in this debate?

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): Yes. Well, thank you for having me, Brianna. Look, I want to see the president be himself.

[15:20:00]

Somebody who cares about Minnesotans and Americans, somebody who's out there doing the work for others, trying to make our country fairer for everyone. And I just hope he, you know, and I'm sure he won't, just don't engage with the buffoonery that Donald Trump wants to be in. We know these debates are not real life. I've been governor long enough. I served under both, with President Trump and President Biden, and with President Trump, it was always fighting with my neighbors to get ventilators during COVID and telling my citizens to drink bleach. With Joe Biden, it's about real solutions.

So I just think be himself, give us a positive vision for America, one that impacts our families, and just don't get caught up in the grievance stuff that Donald Trump will bring. KEILAR: There has been reporting that Biden is preparing for a disciplined version of Trump. I will say disciplined and Trump, those are not, I think, two words that we normally associate with one another. But in all seriousness, it's not. So I wonder what you think of that. Do you really think that we are going to see that?

WALZ: I mean, history would tell us no and, you know, listening to him talk about he's not preparing, of course he's not preparing. He doesn't prepare for anything. He didn't listen to briefs. He didn't listen to governors during COVID. He didn't do things to help us. I got off the phone this morning with Joe Biden, who's concerned about the Rapidan Dam in Mankato and the flooding we're seeing. That's a big difference.

Debates are an opportunity for people to hear on some specific subjects. I hope the moderators do a good job of asking those questions, but this is about the record and I think Donald Trump's going to have a hard time, because if he gets asked and he has to talk about his record, there's not much there. But yes, I - you know, he's an entertainer. Now he can talk about his felonies. I just expect him to not be able for 90 minutes not to talk about himself in the way that he normally does, which is untruths and hyperbole.

So I think, again, if the President's just talking about his record, folks out here know who's delivering, who's - we got historic unemployment numbers out here starting to tame inflation. If Donald Trump had done his job when he was president, we wouldn't have been in the situation we were.

So I'm going to watch just to see if he can maintain himself, I doubt it.

KEILAR: Governor, we've been following this breaking news from Bloomberg, which obtained a document erroneously posted on the Supreme Court's website that shows the court, at least temporarily allowing emergency abortions for the health of the mother in Idaho. And according to the document, it's a 6-3 decision, which includes in the majority Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, who are, of course, two of the justices nominated by President Trump, confirmed during his presidency.

I wonder, for the purposes of this debate, if you think that is at all tough for President Biden, if you think it makes Trump's Supreme Court, as he sort of created it, less extreme to voters, and how can President Biden combat that?

WALZ: Yes, Brianna, it's a fair question. The leak is probably a concern, that's for another call on this. But look, what this is, is a good decision for women that are in danger of losing healthcare or even their lives, with a extremist position taken by Idaho.

Yes, I don't, you know, I have to be really careful and just be candid with you. The thing that shakes me the most is the politicization of the Supreme Court and some of the decisions that were made. I would look at this decision, this is good for women. This is at least a move in the right direction. Joe Biden would see it that way. Certainly Donald Trump would probably see it to be able to say he's not extreme, but that's baked in. We know he's extreme. We know these folks are going after IVF. We know they're going after contraception. So I don't think it gains them much, but it's a very valid question.

And just to be - unfortunately, it's one that I think is probably legitimate at this time. But I think Joe Biden is the way many of us are viewing it. This is good for women and that's the right decision.

KEILAR: All right. Gov. Walz, thank you so much. We appreciate your time. Obviously, a big day tomorrow that we're all going to be tuning in for.

WALZ: Thank you.

KEILAR: And ahead, there will be no live audience, the mics will be muted while the other candidate is speaking. We are going to talk to a debate coach about the format of tomorrow night's CNN presidential debate and which candidate he thinks this might actually hurt.

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[15:28:43]

SANCHEZ: A closed door trial is beginning for American journalist Evan Gershkovich. He appeared in a Russian courtroom's glass cage today with his head recently shaved. He's accused of spying for the CIA, something that the U.S. government, his employer, The Wall Street Journal and Gershkovich himself have vehemently denied. Russia has provided no evidence against him while keeping him in prison for more than a year so far.

Joining us now is Joshua Yaffa. He's a friend of Evan Gershkovich. And Joshua, I wonder how you are receiving these new images, what your impressions are of how Evan is holding up.

JOSHUA YAFFA, FRIEND OF EVAN GERSHKOVICH: The emotions really are similar to the ones that Evan's friends and colleagues have been feeling for the past year and a half, ever since he was arrested. Continued shock this is happening. Outrage at the absurdity and injustice of it all, of our friend being effectively held hostage on charges that are laughably false to anyone that knows Evan or really the work of a foreign correspondent like Evan, abroad. Mixed with a hope that we can get him home as soon as possible.

[15:30:01]

That we're able to find some resolution to this where Evan comes home, a place he should be, you know, have been from the very beginning ...