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Rulings on Major Cases Expected on Last Day of Supreme Court's Term; Dangerous Heat Wave Set to Collide With July 4th Holiday; White House Says, Witkoff, Kushner to Meet With Qatari P.M. in Doha Today. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 30, 2026 - 07:00   ET

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

[07:00:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All eyes on the Supreme Court. We are standing by for major decisions this morning, including on the president's signature effort to abolish birthright citizenship. That decision coming shortly.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: A scorcher, a holiday heat wave hitting the United States set to blanket millions from the Midwest to the East Coast for days. The National Weather Service warning you need to take this heat seriously.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: And a house explodes. It's reduced to rubble, but a contractor survives this. We have new reporting on what happened here and what went so horribly wrong.

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

BERMAN: All right. This morning, a blockbuster day at the Supreme Court. This rare moment when we know there are big decisions coming and on what cases, including a ruling on President Trump's effort to end birthright citizenship. That's the provision in the Constitution that for more than 150 years has been understood to mean that if you are born on U.S. soil, you are a U.S. citizen, whether your parents are citizens or not.

Also expected, the ruling on whether states can ban transgender athletes from girls and women's sports. The court has already issued major decisions this week, ruling the president has expansive power to fire independent agency heads, but handing him a defeat on mail-in ballots and in the E. Jean Carroll case.

With us now from Washington, just down the street from the Supreme Court, CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig.

Let's start with the birthright citizenship case. This is a big one and very, very, I think, contentious for 100 years.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely, John. So, birthright citizenship goes back to 1868 and the ratification of the 14th Amendment after the end of the Civil War. So, that provision tells us that all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens.

Now, as you said, for the past 158 years, that has been generally understood with only the narrowest of exceptions to mean that if you are born here, you are a citizen regardless of your parents' status.

Now fast forward to Donald Trump's first day back in office, January of 2025, he issues an executive order that basically says, well, this does not apply if the parents are here illegally or even temporarily. Now, that's been put on hold ever since he issued it by the lower courts, and today, in three hours' time, we will get the final word from the Supreme Court on whether the traditional understanding will prevail, that anyone born here is a citizen, or whether Donald Trump's far narrower conception will ultimately prevail.

BERMAN: And based on the questions we heard when this was being, you know, heard by the court, it does seem the justices are inclined to rule against the president, correct?

HONIG: Absolutely. The oral argument on this case happened back in April. There was open skepticism, certainly from the three liberal justices, but also from most of the conservatives in the middle. There were real questions about the way Donald Trump's executive order reads the Constitution, about the fact that it would go against 158 years of practice and understanding, of laws passed by Congress to enshrine birthright citizenship. So, yes, you know, you always have to be careful with predictions.

BERMAN: Yes.

HONIG: But if I had to make one here, I feel pretty confident this one is going to come out against the Trump administration, and I feel pretty confident that the Supreme Court will in fact restore birthright citizenship to the way we've known it for the last 158 years, and we will know in three hours from now.

BERMAN: And very quickly, Elie, the other major ruling we are expecting today is on transgender athletes. Very quickly explain that case.

HONIG: There's actually two different cases here, both have to do with state-level laws that bar transgender athletes from participating in girls' and women's sports at the college level and at the primary school level. And the question is, do those laws unconstitutionally discriminate against transgender people? Do they unlawfully discriminate on the basis of sex, as one side argues, or are they valid exercises of the state's power to regulate fairness and to ensure fair competition and to ensure safety?

So, we'll get the ruling on that soon, and that will tell us whether states can actually pass those laws, if they so choose, or whether they're unconstitutional.

[07:05:03]

BERMAN: Elie Honig, thank you for explaining that so well. Again, just a few hours' time, especially on the birthright citizenship case, the Court will weigh in on this foundational constitutional issue. One way or another, we will have a ruling on this.

Elie, thank you very much. Sara?

SIDNER: All right, thank you so much, John.

This morning, millions of Americans across the eastern half of the U.S. bracing for dangerous and likely record-setting heat, and it could peak at the start of the July 4th weekend, right when many of us will be heading outside for parades, as we do, barbecues, fireworks. Cities from Chicago to New York will see consecutive days of temperatures in the mid-90s to low 100s.

In New York City, Central Park could reach records, its first 100- degree temperature since 2012. And Washington, D.C. could have three or more consecutive days of 100-degree heat for just the eighth time ever.

CNN's Meteorologist Derek Van Dam is here with the latest. The National Weather Service is chiming in here saying, look, this heat wave is different. So, what are they telling people? What's important for us to know?

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, trying to break that down the best I can. It's going to be the humidity values that will be off the charts, Sara, and the fact that this heat wave will linger. You talked about the consecutive days of 100-degree weather in D.C. Hey, guess what? This could be the warmest 4th of July ever recorded in our nation's capital. That's really saying something. 50 million Americans or more will experience temperatures above the 100-degree mark, above the century mark. That's incredible.

So, we start today, right? This is the feels like temperature across the Midwest and into the Tennessee Valley. We've got 75 million Americans under heat alerts right now. That includes Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis. But watch how this advances towards the East Coast as we head into the second half of our week, of course, timing coincidentally with the 4th of July and all of our outdoor plans. So many of us will be celebrating the nation's independence outdoors, fireworks, all the things, but it's this heat dome that is going to trap the humidity and allow for the temperatures to skyrocket.

All these black dots, these are locations that could tie or shatter a daytime record high temperature. That is something. And when we start talking about the feels like temperatures, above 110 degrees, you need to start taking this seriously because a lot of us don't have access to air conditioning. Many of us will be wanting to stay outdoors, but it just won't be that easy.

I want to show you another story that we are monitoring closely here in the CNN Weather Center, and that is the wildfire activity across the Western U.S. Look at these orange skies in Pueblo County, Colorado. This is southeastern portions of the state, and this is all thanks to what's known as the Aspen Acres Fire. And you can see we have ramped it back up once again today across the Four Corners region into critical fire danger weather, and that will last right into the day on Wednesday. There is the potential here for lightning strikes without rainfall that could start and ignite additional rain -- additional fires.

Look at this. I'll end with this Sara. This is a Ring cam catching the moment the wildfire spread across the Aspen Acres area, and you can see just how ferocious these winds are and how quickly these wildfires spread.

SIDNER: It's so frightening. But those temperatures, man, the way they're going to feel 108 in New York, insane. We got to take this seriously.

Thank you so much, Derek Van Dam. Yes, prepare yourself is right. I appreciate it. Kate?

BOLDUAN: There are some incredible stories of survival still coming out. A 12-year-old pulled from the rubble in Venezuela five days after those devastating earthquakes. We have more to come on all of these efforts.

Also today is the next big moment for the Democratic Party. Will Democratic socialists see a big win out in Colorado after what they saw in New York?

And a new report on why the Trump administration is now feuding with the Intelligence Community over a so-called master list of foreign spies.

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[07:10:00]

BOLDUAN: Just into CNN, President Trump's Iran negotiating team, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, they're expected to meet with the Qatari prime minister today in Doha. There was an expectation that they would actually be meeting with Iranian negotiators today as well, but that has now been pushed off.

What meetings will actually take place has been, though, unclear and a bit of a moving target for days now, mixed messages from both the Trump administration and coming from Iran.

But this morning, there is also exclusive new reporting in from the USA Today that House Speaker Mike Johnson is now suggesting that President Trump should or can essentially get a do-over, can reset the 60-day clock for Congressional authorization for the war now if the ceasefire does fall apart.

CNN's Alayna Treene is at the White House. Curious if that's a suggestion of he thinks that the ceasefire is going to be falling apart any time soon, or what that actually does mean. But what are you hearing from the White House today?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, let's get started about these talks in Doha. We've learned now that the president's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, have now arrived in Qatar for this meeting with the Qatari prime minister, as well as, I'm told, other mediators.

[07:15:09]

That's going to take place today, that meeting. And then tomorrow Witkoff and Kushner and other senior officials are going to meet with different mediators from Qatar and from Pakistan.

We're told that Iranian officials are also going to be in Doha as well, except they're going to be having separate meetings from the U.S., separate technical talks. It comes, Kate, as you mentioned, that we have heard kind of mixed messaging from Washington and Tehran of whether or not there would be direct talks. But a White House official tells me at this time that is not the case.

Of course, what happens in the Middle East right now with these negotiations is going to be crucial. We know that the ceasefire is very fragile. The memorandum of understanding was really tested last week when we saw these clashes between the U.S. and Iran over the Strait of Hormuz. That fighting ended on Sunday, but there's a lot of questions about what this means for a more permanent deal that they are working toward.

And I remind you as well that a lot of the thorniest issues we know that still need to be resolved have not been really settled. That includes the discussions over Iran's nuclear program, about U.S. sanctions on Iran, and the unfreezing of Iranian assets.

Now, all of this, again, as they are really working toward that 60-day deadline, that clock that began when the president had signed this memorandum of understanding back in Versailles around the G7. So, they're working toward that deadline, but a lot that still needs to be resolved. We'll see whether or not these discussions with the mediators in Qatar over the next couple of days can go far in the way of trying to resolve some of these issues.

As for what we heard from the House speaker, Mike Johnson, I mean, this is something, of course, that I'm sure President Trump is delighted by, this idea that if perhaps hostilities were really to resume, and in a big way between the U.S. and Iran moving forward, that perhaps the United States and the president would get another 60- day clock before they needed to go to Congress for Congressional approval over this war.

I don't think that really means that he believes that full combat operations are going to resume, but it's definitely something I'm sure this White House is hoping to hear from Republicans on Capitol Hill. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Yes, they'll definitely welcome the opening and a reset like that if needed.

It's good to see you, Alayna. Thank you so much. Sara? SIDNER: All right. Thank you, Kate.

The largest housing affordability effort in a generation, hugely bipartisan, now in limbo. Why the president is calling the bipartisan legislation a big yawn.

And a family watches helplessly through their Ring camera as a wildfire, look at this, destroys their property. Those stories ahead.

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[07:20:00]

SIDNER: We're long past that 72-hour golden window to try to save people, and still there are some incredible rescues happening in Venezuela after those terrible quakes. New this morning, a three-year- old rescued from the rubble six days after those devastating earthquakes in Venezuela. You can see the child trapped here, but his hands are moving. Take a look.

You're hearing Arabic there because that is a Jordanian team that made this rescue early this morning. Rescuers also found a 12-year-old boy trapped under mounds of rubble. After hours of painstaking work, they were able to lift him up on a stretcher.

Despite these wonderful and incredible stories of survival, the death toll unfortunately is climbing. More than 1,700 people now confirmed dead, and upwards of 5,000 people injured in this quake.

Stefano Pozzebon is in Caracas. You are in an area, there are still thousands of people also who can't go back to their homes because they're destroyed. What are you seeing and hearing this morning?

STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, Sara. We are -- basically, it's called Parque del Este, but you can probably call it Caracas Central Park. I used to run here almost every morning when I used to live in Venezuela. And this place has now been turned into a tent city for thousands of people who have been displaced by the quake.

According to official figures, at least 12,000 Venezuelans have lost their homes and are now looking for a new accommodation. Probably that number is much higher, at least by what we see whenever we go to La Guaira, which is the disaster zone, where hundreds of buildings have collapsed because of the power of the tremors.

And here people are trying to make -- you know, make a new life or spend time as much as they can. You see there are children. There are a lot of igloo tents that have all been donated, many of them by international donations.

We do have the feeling here in Venezuela, Sara, that the world has responded to this emergency. A lot of countries have sent down aid. The United States, for example, have sent $300 million in aid and the hospital ship from the U.S. Navy is now mooring in La Guaira. But at the same time, of course, there is so much to be doing still. Hundreds and hundreds of people in this park alone, which used to be a recreation area. It's the park where people from Caracas would go on a Sunday afternoon, or like me in the morning run, have now been completely changed because of the earthquake.

And I think it's also important to point out that the survivors still have a road ahead, a long road ahead, a long journey ahead to try to leave this tragedy behind their backs.

Of course, we're focusing on the dramatic images that we see out of La Guaira. We spent Saturday and Sunday down there and it's utter devastation. But this is also the other face of the catastrophe that has hit Venezuela. It's a country that it was already in deep humanitarian crisis, and now it has all been made worse by the quakes. Sara?

SIDNER: Stefano Pozzebon, thank you so much. Just looking at these images of these pancaked buildings over and over again, it is truly heartbreaking.

[07:25:05]

John?

BERMAN: All right. An international manhunt underway after a bomb explodes inside the apartment building of an ultra-rich oligarch.

Then a JetBlue plane hit by a drone while flying into one of the nation's busiest airports.

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BERMAN: Primary day in Colorado, the next major test for the progressive movement. This is after major wins when all the candidates endorsed by New York City's Mayor Zohran Mamdani came out on top.

Among the races we are watching today, Democratic socialist Melat Kiros taking on 15-term Congresswoman Diana DeGette in Denver, what strategists call DeGette's toughest race in years.

With us now is Jackie Kucinich, the Washington bureau chief from the Boston Globe --

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[07:30:00]