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Manhattan DA Open To Delaying Trump's Sentencing In Hush Money Conviction After Supreme Court Ruling; 30 Injured As Air Europa Flight Hits "Strong Turbulence"; New Violent Protests Erupt In Kenya; TX Rep. Doggett Becomes 1st Sitting Dem To Urge Biden To Quit Race. Aired 1:30-2p ET

Aired July 02, 2024 - 13:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:36:16]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: New today, more fallout in the wake of yesterday's Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity.

The Manhattan district attorney's office now saying that it's open to delaying the sentencing a former President Trump. Trump was found guilty, of course, in May of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to payments to adult film actress, Stormy Daniels.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is tracking all of these developments for us.

Kristen, sentencing, we should note, it was coming up fast. It was supposed to happen next week. So what happens now?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Next Thursday. So now we're going to wait and hear from the judge if he agrees to both sides, which seems strange that he wouldn't agree to postpone the sentencing, particularly now that we know that attorney's office is fine with that.

So just to backtrack as to how exactly we got here, as you noted, this is all about yesterday's immunity ruling. We heard from Donald Trump almost immediately afterwards. His team saying that that New York hush money case should be thrown out because of this immunity ruling.

Now we have heard from the district attorney's office in response to that. And this is what they said.

They said, "Although we believe the defendant's arguments to be without merit, we do not oppose his request for leave to file and his putative request to adjourn sentencing pending determination of his motion."

They also called to have all the documents they needed by July 24th, so two weeks afterwards.

So the really interesting thing here, Brianna, though, is that one of the things we we're tracking as they campaign reporter, not just legally, was that this was just days before the convention. It was going to set up the narrative going into the convention.

There was some questions as to what that sentencing would look like. But also the narrative of Donald Trump is a martyr. He's a victim. Now that goes away. So what exactly are they? Going to do around the convention to lead up and build up anticipation?

One thing that's still missing that they haven't done is announced vice president.

KEILAR: I wonder if the Trump campaign feels that this gives some voters a reason to sort of forgive him, right, for this conviction, at a time where you have Biden coming off of a catastrophic debate performance.

How are they feeling right now, the campaign?

HOLMES: So I would go two lanes here. One, when you're talking about the community, I would say that it helps them politically. Maybe not necessarily for voters to forgive them.

But when you look at it as a whole, you see this argument that the Supreme Court ruled with Donald Trump. They have said, over and over again, that everything, including the New York hush money case, was some form of quote, unquote, "lawfare" from the Biden administration.

Obviously, as we know, we have absolutely zero evidence that Biden is linked to any of Donald Trump's legal issues. However, that is something that they have pushed politically.

They do believe that this immunity ruling, as well as last week's ruling on January 6th that the Department of Justice overreached on that issue when they we're charging some of the participants in January 6th, help them politically.

Because it tells voters, oh, look, the Supreme Court agreed with us. All of the things that we are saying turns out their true. So there's one line there.

Now on the other side, how's the campaign feeling? Well, they're feeling great. Donald Trump is usually in charge of the -- not in charge of, but most of the media narrative. And it's not always positive.

This is the time that you're not really seeing or hearing from Donald Trump almost at all. And that is intentional. They are riding this wave. They know the new cycle is about Biden and it is not positive.

So they want to sit back -- he's a Bedminster right now playing golf -- celebrate the Fourth of July with his family. Don't expect to hear that much from him right now.

KEILAR: Very interesting.

Kristen Holmes, thank you for the report. We appreciate it.

[13:34:35] And coming up, anger and frustration building in the streets of Kenya. Protesters demanding accountability and the resignation of the president. We'll have that ahead.

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KEILAR: We are seeing some dramatic video from inside of an Air Europa flight that made an emergency landing after it was rocked by really strong turbulence.

Passengers describing a scene that was so chaotic, one person was launched into the ceiling. And I mean, look at this. It's incredible. They have to be pulled down from an overhead bin.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: I mean, that is actually my worst nightmare, I think, seriously.

Another says, "We thought we we're going to die."

Video inside the cabin of the Boeing 787 shows flattened seats and what appears to be blood smeared on at least one of them.

CNN's Pete Muntean joins us.

So how long did they have to experience this horrific turbulence?

PETE MUNTEAN, CNN AVIATION CORRESPONDENT: It sounds like this was pretty brief. But the scene is really incredible, especially when you consider the interior panels that were broken off and the seat folded like a book. Because those are pretty strong. Kind of a barometer of how strong this turbulence was.

One passenger even lodged in that overhead bin had to be pulled out, according to one onboard.

Air Europa says 30 passengers received minor injuries, and according to reports, Brazilian public health officials say passengers got head, neck and chest injuries.

I want you to listen now to one of the passengers who was onboard this flight.

[13:40:02]

MAXIMILANO, PASSENGER ONBOARD AIR EUROPA FLIGHT (through translation): From one moment to the next, the plane destabilized and went into a dive. The people who didn't have seatbelts went up in the air and hit the ceiling and they got hurt. Those who had seatbelts on, not so much.

Then we landed here as an emergency. They helped us on the runway. We were on the plane for three or four hours without being able to move.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MUNTEAN: The question for investigators will now be how this happened. Since airlines are getting better all the time at forecasting turbulence, it is an invisible phenomenon to pilots.

Onboard radar can detect some of the major causes, like thunderstorms. Though important to note, our CNN weather team says there we're no thunderstorms in the area at the time.

There's also mountain wave turbulence, which creates shearing columns of wind. There's wake turbulence, which is created by another airplane, just like the wake on a boat.

Then there is clear air turbulence. The most mysterious type of turbulence associated with none of those tell-tales I just laid out. It's usually bumpy patches at high altitudes. It's more frequent in the wintertime. Remember, Brazil, in the southern hemisphere where it's winter there right now.

The big takeaway for passengers here is to always keep your seatbelt buckled or at least as much as it can. Hard to do on a flight like this, 12 hours long.

So when you're up and walking around, going to the bathroom, stretching your legs, you have to treat it like a bit of a risk.

We're going into a huge period for international travel right now. And remember, the National Transportation Safety Board says turbulence is the number-one cause of injuries on commercial flights.

The good news is the data says U.S. airlines have become good at avoiding it. And passengers are really following the rules. The latest data from the FAA says 17 people, only 17 people suffered serious injuries from turbulence on U.S. flights in 2022 and 2021. That number was six. That was the peak of the pandemic.

Although that number is certainly going to rise with the TSA numbers we've been seeing. A record just set last month on June 23rd. And we're likely to set another air-travel record over this weekend with all these people coming home after the July 4th rush.

BROWN: Yes, the bottom line is, when nervous flyers see this or even just a regular flyer, right, they think, oh, my gosh, I do not want to go through that.

How do aviation experts investigate turbulence?

MUNTEAN: The big thing that they're going to have to do now is pull a black boxes and sort of figure out what the forces, the G-forces that they we're experiencing in the airplane cabin was like at the time of those incident.

The other thing that they'll also really need to do is pull all of the weather data. So right now, we're able to see that there wasn't really a lot of strong convective activity. That's hot air rising that turns into thunderstorms. The weather team hasn't been able to see that on their radar from the time of this incident.

But that'll be something that investigators will look at closely, too. They will just really want to know, was this caused by something external, which is typically the cause of turbulence?

Or could this have been maybe an internal thing? Because during the Lanham incident back earlier this spring, that was something that was initially reported as a turbulence incident.

Although it turned out to be somebody leaning on a switch on one of the pilot seats then ran the pilot seat into the control column of the airplane, which caused the airplane to nose over briefly, and people who hit the ceiling.

So there could be a lot of factors here. We don't want to speculate, although it's something that investigators now really have their work cut out to do.

KEILAR: This seems like just the latest incident involving turbulence. And not to out myself as a rule breaker, but I am tempted, when there's a long sleep involved in a flight, to maybe take a break from the seatbelt.

But I will tell you, after the last severe turbulence event that yielded some video like this, no way. I could not feel comfortable.

(LAUGHTER)

KEILAR: I was wearing -- I took a long flight from the Middle East and I had that seatbelt on. I wonder if that's the effect for passengers right now.

But also what can the airlines do to try to get people to comply?

MUNTEAN: I think the airlines sort of really need to step up their game here. And so you think that, when you're in a car, a modern car, relatively new over the last 10 or 20 years, there's an alarm always blaring at you when you have your seatbelt off.

And so, in a commercial flight, I think there's sort of this flip side to the seatbelt sign being on so many the times, I think people have sort of come to ignore and make it sort of background noise, like the no smoking sign. We all know that smoking is not allowed on airplanes.

The seatbelt sign is often on most of the time on a commercial flight. I wish just on a flight to Seattle and back, and that's a six-hour flight when you're going from D.C. westbound.

So you can't not get up and want to stretch your legs and go to the bathroom. So it's easy for us to say, well, always keep your seatbelt on. But in reality, it's not a great practice.

It's OK to do. You know, it's easy to do a two, three-three-hour flight domestic in the U.S., go to the bathroom beforehand. You can probably stay in the seat the entire time.

And airlines in the U.S. have gotten really good at figuring out with their own modelling not only from the National Weather Service, but also, internally, where turbulence is going to be. The one thing that airlines really rely on, though, is something called pilot reports or why reports, which is the airplane in front of you essentially saying, hey, there's turbulence here, you may want to watch out.

[13:45:05]

It's kind of an old-school, antiquated system that dates back to pre- World War II.

So really there needs to be some sort of technological advance, not only for the pilots who have to avoid this thing that they cannot see, but then there also need some sort of technological advance for the passengers to try and incentivize them to keep their seatbelts on.

I heard Miles O'Brien, on our earlier, say, if you wanted your seatbelt on, if the airlines want you to keep it on, then maybe they would have to cut off your in-flight entertainment or something to sort of incentivize that.

KEILAR: Or it's an honor system right now --

MUNTEAN: Totally

KEILAR: -- right?

MUNTEAN: Yes. And the flight attendants to police it, too.

KEILAR: That's right.

All right, Pete, thank you so much. Incredibly alarming as we look at these pictures here.

BROWN: Yes.

KEILAR: Thank you for that.

We'll be right back.

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BROWN: In Kenya, a fresh round of anti-government protests have erupted in the capital city of Nairobi. At least 39 people been killed and hundreds injured after two weeks of clashes with police, according to a national watchdog.

Protesters are angry about proposed tax changes that have already been withdrawn. But the clashes continue as demonstrators demand the resignations of the president and the lawmakers who supported this bill.

[13:50:08]

CNN's Larry Madowo is in Nairobi for us.

Larry, what is the situation there today? LARRY MADOWO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Pam, it was another chaotic day here

in the capital, Nairobi, and other parts of the city. Protesters back on the streets for the third straight week. They kept chanting "Ruto must go."

That dissatisfaction with the president, William Ruto, and his administration. Police using tear gas to kind of try and disperse some of these protesters in parts of the city where we were.

And what happened is that sometimes we saw protesters throwing rocks at the police. The police throwing tear gas at them. They throw back the tear gas canisters. So a really chaotic day.

And we also saw some looting and vandalism. And that's been part of the problem here.

President William Ruto, last week, said that there were well- intentioned protesters that were infiltrated by criminals. And he promised the full force of the law to take care of them.

And that did not go down well. Many young people, a lot of these protests were organized on TikTok and social media. Gen Z, trying to agitate for better country -- Pam?

BROWN: And as I mentioned, the proposed tax hikes that spurred these protests have already been dropped, but protests, they're still out there.

What do they hope to accomplish now?

MADOWO: They hope to spare the government of President William Bradshaw -- William Ruto into more action, which is going to be difficult. Because when they say, "Ruto must go," that is unlikely. President Ruto is only two years into his term.

But what's happening here is extraordinary. President Ruto has a lot of support and respect internationally. You saw the White House roll out the red carpet for him in late May for that state visit, the first African head of state in 16 years.

But here at home, there's growing anger at his administration about corruption, about the high cost of living, in some cases, about the extravagant lifestyles that some of his senior government officials live.

And that's the anger you see translating on the streets of these young people, saying, enough is enough. This is a fight for our future. This is the fight for survival. And they're willing to go out there and risk everything.

We saw on CNN last Tuesday when protesters stormed into Kenya's parliament and we saw police shooting directly at unarmed protesters. We've been doing a lot of reporting on that.

And Kenyan police were using tear gas or water cannon or live ammunition. But that has not stopped them from often breaking down these protesters very violently Pam?

BROWN: All right, thank you, Larry, for breaking it down for us there.

Brianna?

KEILAR: Now to some of the other headlines that we're watching this hour.

Illegal crossings at the U.S. southern border hit a three-year low in June. Homeland Security says there we're about 84,000 migrant encounters last month following President Biden's new asylum restrictions.

While officials point out part of the trend could be seasonal, daily encounters at the border are also down with CBP encountering 1,800 people yesterday.

The city of Atlanta will pay a $2,000,000 legal settlement to two students who we're tased by police and dragged from a car during a 2020 street protest in the wake of George Floyd's death.

Neither student was directly involved with the protests. And body camera footage revealed that officers deployed their tasers unprovoked.

And Naomi Osaka just took a big step in her pro tennis come back. She won her first Wimbledon match in six years yesterday, following a long layoff. Osaka took a break from the sport for mental health reasons back in 2021.

She had a baby this time last year. She's facing American Emma Navarro in the second round tomorrow.

And coming up, we're revealing the first CNN poll since the CNN debate. And the president's performance that led to panic in the Democratic party. As the first sitting Democratic Congress calls for Biden to quit the race.

[13:53:46]

CNN NEWS CENTRAL is back after a quick break.

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[13:58:35]

KEILAR: New polling and new worries for President Biden. Numbers showing the state of the race after last week's debate debacle.

But Democratic governors aren't waiting on polling. They want to hear from the president now, with an explanation of what's happened and what is next for a campaign in crisis.

And what would the American democracy look like under Trump? New evidence today as the former president amplifies posts on social media that suggested military tribunals for his enemies one day after the Supreme Court opened up the possibility of new presidential powers.

BROWN: And Oklahoma schools add the Bible into classroom lessons. The state's top education official says the inspiration for the order came from Donald Trump. We're going to speak to that official this hour.

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

KEILAR: We begin this hour with the mounting fallout from President Biden's widely criticized debate performance that led to mass panic within the president's own party.

For the first time, a sitting Democrat is now publicly calling on the president to quit the race.

Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas wrote in a new statement, quote "Recognizing that, unlike Trump, President Biden's first commitment has always been to our country, not himself. I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so." Now this is happening as brand-new CNN polling that was taken after the debate is giving us a fresh look --