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Republican Reality Rewrite Machine Accelerates Out of Control; Interview with Representative John Yarmuth (D-KY) about Republicans and Infrastructure Bill; Delta Variant May Become Predominant Variant in the U.S.; FBI Says QAnon Followers may become More Violent; Dangerous Drought and Soaring Temps Put Much of the West in Jeopardy; Biden Family Bids Farewell to Champ. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired June 19, 2021 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:05]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: Tonight, on CNN NEWSROOM, the Republican Party shifts its reality rewrite into high gear with a fresh round of lies.

How the new Delta COVID variant affects the unvaccinated and possibly people who are vaccinated.

And Californians are asked to conserve power amid blistery record heat.

I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. You are in the CNN NEWSROOM on this Saturday. It's great to have you along with us.

Well, even by their standards members of the Republican Party's revisionist machine have been really cranking it out this week with a full rewrite of reality. Get your tinfoil hats ready because here are this week's greatest hits.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN (voice-over): Coming in at number five, Representative Matt Rosendale says Juneteenth is a made-up federal holiday to further the liberal agenda about critical race theory. His colleague, Representative Ralph Norman, who voted against it said --

REP. RALPH NORMAN (R-SC): Are we going to do one for the Native American Indians? I mean, where does it stop?

BROWN: For the record it's a day to celebrate the emancipation of people who were enslaved in the U.S. Perhaps the question they should be pondering is, why did it take 156 years to make it a national holiday?

Coming in at number four, 21 House Republicans voting against medals for the officers who defended the Capitol on January 6th. Some of them said they didn't like the word insurrection in the legislation, but apparently there wasn't a dictionary nearby. Insurrection defined as a violent uprising against an authority or government. Sound familiar?

Just this week one of the rioters was charged with bringing a gun onto Capitol grounds. This is the same guy who, according to what his family told the FBI, said he'd kill them if they turned him in.

Coming in at number three, freshman Republican Andrew Clyde, who already downplayed the whole thing, conceding that there was an undisciplined mob but that others were more like tourists.

Tourists. But Clyde is angry about another, quote, "attack on democracy" right now. Unconstitutional, he says. Authoritarian, he cries. And what is so egregious, I hear you ask? Magnetometers. That's right. He and fellow Republican Louis Gohmert are suing to get the metal detectors that are there to keep guns out of the House chamber removed.

But wait, Representative Clyde wasn't done there. Coming in at number two, his alleged refusal to shake hands with a D.C. Metropolitan police officer who was stun gunned and beaten during the insurrection.

OFFICER MICHAEL FANONE, D.C. METROPOLITAN POLICE/DEFENDED CAPITOL ON JANUARY 6TH: Your words have consequences, Congressman. You're lying about what happened on January 6th, and I'm going to be there to confront anyone who lies about January 6th.

BROWN: But none of that could outdo this week's top spot which goes to Republican Paul Gosar of Arizona.

JENNIFER GOSAR, SISTER OF REPRESENTATIVE GOSAR: There is no one member of Congress more responsible for the attack on the Capitol than Congressman Paul Gosar. My name is Jennifer Gosar.

TIM GOSAR, BROTHER OF REPRESENTATIVE GOSAR: My name is Tim Gosar.

DAVID GOSAR, BROTHER OF REPRESENTATIVE GOSAR: My Name is David Gosar. And I am Paul Gosar's brother.

T. GOSAR: Gosar is my brother.

J. GOSAR: My brother --

T. GOSAR: And he should be held accountable for all the lies he told.

J. GOSAR: That led to the attack on the Capitol.

D. GOSAR: On January 6th.

T. GOSAR: He should have criminal consequences and if he's found guilty should go to jail.

BROWN: This week he was at it again, portraying the officer who shot one of the attackers as an executioner.

REP. PAUL GOSAR (R-AZ): Director Wray, do you know who executed Ashli Babbitt? Why hasn't that officer that executed Ashli Babbitt been named?

BROWN: Here's a reminder of what that Capitol officer was looking at as the last line of defense between members of Congress and the mob on the other side of the barricade. Representative Liz Cheney was less than impressed, tweeting, "As the

violent mob advanced on the House chamber, I was standing near Rep. Gosar and helped him open his gas mask. The Capitol police led us to safety. It is disgusting and despicable to see Gosar lie about that day and smear the men and women who defended us."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: And to be clear there are plenty of Republicans like Liz Cheney who have come out to talk about the truth of what happened that day, but there are others in the party who are clearly lying. And the truth matters more than ever right now. This failure to face up to the facts has dire consequences for our democracy as does the silence from the Republican Party leadership.

I'll read you these sobering words from our Stephen Collinson. Quote, "Events of the last week show how far our former president has succeeded in co-opting his party into his methodology of deception to such an extent that the facts of the past no longer hold water," which raises real questions about how American democracy can function in the future.

[19:05:16]

With me this Saturday night, Congressman John Yarmuth of Kentucky. He chairs the House Budget Committee.

Congressman, great to have you on. We asked you to come on to talk about infrastructure, we're going to do that in just a moment, but first, you heard my report on the week and Republican politics. You have been in Congress for nearly 15 years. What do you make of the behavior you've been seeing from some of your colleagues across the aisle?

REP. JOHN YARMUTH (D-KY): Well, thanks, Pamela. It's good to be on with a fellow Kentuckian.

BROWN: Yes.

YARMUTH: And, you know, thinking back, my reaction on January 6th sitting in my office -- I was not in the chamber -- was something, I said, I can't process all of this. It doesn't fit into any kind of thinking mode that I've ever had, and I think that's where I am with these members of Congress, these Republicans who are doing everything they can to try to politically deal with something that was real, that was tragic, that was a threat to our country and our process of government.

And they're trying to politicize everything. And I haven't been able to process it, and it's created a highly toxic environment inside the Congress, which I've not seen in my almost 15 years.

BROWN: I hear you say that because, I mean, you know, politics has been toxic for a while. But it sounds like what you're saying is it's even more toxic now. How so? YARMUTH: It is. Well, I mean, we have people who we work with every

day, who we see in the halls, who we used to vehemently disagree with, but we at least were civil to each other, and we can talk about other things, and we realize we all have differences of opinion. But we were still in the same institution, and we had some common interest. That's hard to believe right now when you have somebody who, you know, now the theory is that the FBI was behind the January 6th insurrection.

Tucker Carlson spewing that and Republicans are now latching onto that. Before it was Antifa. And you say, do these people really have any interest in governing? Are these people someone you can actually work with, when they basically denied the fact that lives were threatened, lives were lost on January 6th? And that they have an obligation, actually a sworn commitment to defend and protect the Constitution and they totally ignore it? So you say, how can I work with these people?

BROWN: How can I work with these people when there's so many important issues going on right now in Congress? Of course infrastructure is one of the big topics.

YARMUTH: That's right.

BROWN: Help us understand what the timeline for budget reconciliation and then infrastructure is.

YARMUTH: Well, what we in the House Budget Committee and Senator Sanders in the Senate Budget Committee have committed to do is we're going to bring budget resolutions with reconciliation instructions to the House and Senate floors by the August recess. So somewhere in the latter part of July. And then once those reconciliation instructions are approved, then our committees will actually write the bills, and the bills will be things basically implementing the president's American Jobs Plan, the president's American Families Plan, because those bills haven't been written yet. Those are just outlines right now. So those committees will write those bills and then we'll proceed to the regular legislative process of trying to pass those in September or early October.

BROWN: OK, so September, early October for that. So Senator Joe Manchin this week wouldn't commit to backing an infrastructure bill without GOP support, yet you said this week you're assuming right now that everything will be done by reconciliation. How does this move forward, though, through reconciliation if Manchin isn't on board?

YARMUTH: Well, you know, what I -- I pass the buck on this one. I say that's the Senate's problem and we don't have a reconciliation problem. But what we do have is we have a very slim margin of Democrats over Republicans in the House. We can lose four votes right now out of our 221 or whatever we have. So what I say is essentially we're all Joe Manchin. Every Democrat in the House and Senate is Joe Manchin in the sense that every Democratic vote is needed to pass anything because we're not going to get one Republican vote.

So I think that, you know, talking with Senator Sanders, I've not talked to Senator Manchin, but talking with Senator Sanders, he is relatively confident that in the final analysis, that if it takes reconciliation to enact these programs, that not just that the president has proposed which are overwhelmingly popular with the American people, that he thinks they'll be able to get the 50 votes in the Senate.

[19:10:16]

And we hope we can get our majority in the House. But people are beginning to understand that we cannot -- we have a limited amount of independence. And I think Joe Manchin understands that, too.

BROWN: If this becomes a two-step process and Manchin doesn't commit to voting in favor of the reconciliation bill, will you not commit to voting for the bipartisan bill?

YARMUTH: No, I'm all -- here's the way we're proceeding, Pamela. We're saying, it's a two-track process. There are negotiations going on between Republicans and Democrats in the Senate over a bipartisan bill. Meanwhile, we're proceeding as if that won't work so that everything in the jobs plan, in the families plan will go into reconciliation. If they succeed in getting an infrastructure deal, we just pull that out of the reconciliation instructions.

Neither one precludes the other, and we're very hopeful that they can come to a bipartisan agreement on infrastructure, and then we'll proceed to try to pass the rest of the president's agenda which is childcare, elder care, early childhood education, community college, job training, all sorts of different things through reconciliation.

BROWN: OK. Well, Congressman John Yarmuth, from my home state of Kentucky, always nice to have on a fellow Kentuckian. I just realized I'm wearing Kentucky blue tonight. Thanks so much for coming on.

YARMUTH: There you go.

BROWN: And by the way, Happy Father's Day.

YARMUTH: Thanks, Pamela. Appreciate it very much.

BROWN: Well, new details tonight out of Arizona where multiple people are in critical condition after a man plowed his pickup truck into a group of cyclists. According to the local police department the suspect who has yet to be identified struck at least nine victims earlier today and then fled the scene. Police officers eventually caught up to him behind a hardware store where they shot him leaving him in critical but stable condition. As for the victims, six remain in critical condition tonight while the rest are stable.

And coming up this hour, Californians are asked to conserve power amid record heat. We're going to take you there.

Also tonight, the FBI warning that so-called QAnon digital soldiers may become more violent.

And then next hour Billy Graham's son, Reverend Franklin Graham, on getting vaccine hesitant evangelicals to see the light. But first Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains how worried we should be about

that Delta COVID variant. We're going to be right back. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:17:02]

BROWN: There are rising concerns this weekend about COVID-19 variants, how they might affect the unvaccinated and eventually possibly people who are vaccinated. The World Health Organization says the Delta variant is becoming the world's dominant strain. Meanwhile President Biden is touting 300 million COVID shots administered but also warning that the Delta variant could threaten the progress against the virus.

So how worried should Americans be? CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta explains.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: So, overall, Pamela, the news is good. 300 million shots have actually been administered. We're not going to quite get to that 70 percent level across the country, but these are high numbers. And if you add in the existing immunity from people who have been previously infected, you obviously have a lot more immunity out there with the vaccinations.

The big question I think for a lot of people is these variants. I mean, if you're vaccinated you should be pretty well protected. If you're not, it's a different situation. Let me show you this graphic that I think tells the story a little bit of what's been happening with this Delta variant. This is out of the U.K. Look at the last week of January. You can see at that point the U.K. variant now known as the Alpha variant was the dominant one.

What happened over the last few months is that overall, the numbers came down progressively for a long time. But as you saw the Delta variant start to take hold you saw the yellow increasing there but also the numbers starting to go up. So that is the concern. And primarily, again, the people who are most affected by this are the unvaccinated and that includes obviously children as well.

So, you're seeing children become a larger reservoir overall of the virus in places like the U.K. and we're starting to see that here in the United States as well. The vaccines work well against the variant. We can show you the numbers here. This is based on some real data. You can see there's a bit of a drop off between the Alpha and the Delta variants with the different vaccines, but they work well, really well at preventing people from getting sick.

But one of the points that comes up over and over again is that the more this virus spreads, the more that it finds willing hosts, the more it's going to mutate. And the more that it mutates, the more variants. And we're going to keep having this discussion until we can really put out the fire of this spread, and it all comes back down, Pamela, to the same message. Get vaccinated. That's going to be one of the best ways to really slow this down.

BROWN: Sanjay, thank you so much for that.

CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen joins me now. She's also the former health commissioner for the city of Baltimore.

Doctor, as we saw in Sanjay's report the vaccines work against COVID variants. That is great news. But how long might it be before a variant emerges that's resistant to the vaccines?

DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: It's a really good question, Pamela. And I think the answer that I have to give and people need to be getting here is we just don't know.

[19:20:01]

If there's anything that we've learned during COVID-19 it's how much we need to be humble in the face of this virus. It's certainly possible that new variants will develop. In fact, it's certain that new variants will develop. It's possible that some of them may render the vaccines that we have slightly less effective. Are they going to be completely ineffective? Probably not.

But this is another reason why those who are unvaccinated should be vaccinated as soon as possible, and why we need to be developing therapeutics, because in the foreseeable future we are going to have people who are going to get sick from COVID-19. And ideally we will have something like Tamiflu for influenza where somebody can take an oral pill to prevent them from progressing to severe illness.

BROWN: And the Biden administration has put forth money for the development of such a pill. That's a really good point. And all of this, of course, raises the question about children and vaccinating them. You have been recommending that researchers develop vaccines for children. But "The New York Times" cites data from the CDC that COVID- 19 is well below other causes of death in children like drowning, homicide and vehicle accidents.

So my question is, would it be better to focus on vaccinating children or would those resources be better spent getting more people vaccinated around the world to stop the spread of COVID and variants?

WEN: I think we should be doing both of these things. It's not either- or. And actually some of these arguments put forward in this vein I think are actually conflating the issue. Because yes, we absolutely need to be vaccinating the world, because as long as COVID is surging in other places, it's going to affect us here and also there's a humanitarian reason for us to be sharing our vaccines as well.

But if you were to allocate every single dose of vaccine for every child under the age of 18 to other places, we will still be vaccinating less than 1 percent of the global population. And so what we really need to be doing is scaling up manufacturing capacity for vaccines around the world and at the same time keeping in mind that there's a fallacy. I think so often we are comparing the severity of illness in children versus adults.

But imagine if we had a new illness that within a year and a half has killed more than 400 kids, has led to tens of thousands of kids being hospitalized. Thousands may be living with long-term consequences, and we can't even predict which children get ill and which don't. If we have that kind of illness I think a lot of parents would be saying, I don't want my kid to get that. And so I do think it's important for us to be vaccinating our children, to be reducing the risk of something that's yes, it is a low risk but it's a low risk of something potentially terrible. We want -- if we can cut that to essentially zero with a safe and effective vaccine that is really important.

BROWN: I want to look at the big picture here in the U.S. The number of COVID cases in the United States has been falling rapidly as more Americans get vaccinated. This graphic shows the number of new cases each day since the start of the pandemic. A closer look at the past couple of months shows that the number of cases per day is now below 10,000.

Dr. Anthony Fauci cited that number as a bit of a milestone for ending COVID restrictions when he spoke with our Jake Tapper back in March. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASE: I would like to see as we get the level of virus in the community to a very low level, well, well below the 60,000 to 70,000 new infections, somewhere, you know, I'll just pick a number even though, you know, there's not a good model there yet, but I would say less than 10,000 and maybe even considerably less than that.

(END OF VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: So given the numbers, at what point can we say we are no longer in a pandemic in the U.S.?

WEN: Well, that point is not right now, although we certainly have to acknowledge that we have come a long way, and we are out of the worst of it. We're not going to see the massive surges that we saw over the holidays as an example. The problem, though, is that we should really be looking at the numbers for each community instead of looking at the U.S. as a whole because while the U.S. as a whole is doing so much better and there are pockets of the country that have very high vaccination rates, we also have pockets of the country that are actually undergoing massive surges right now where their hospitals are getting full again.

And so I think it's important for us to look at things on a community- by community level. And if you are in a community with low vaccination rates, keep that in mind when you're thinking about what kinds of activities you want to be doing and when you should be wearing masks especially if you are unvaccinated yourself or are immunocompromised.

BROWN: That's such an important point. Dr. Leana Wen, thank you so much for joining us as always. Great to see you.

WEN: Thank you, Pamela.

BROWN: And first on CNN the FBI warns lawmakers that so-called QAnon digital soldiers could become more violent. Former Obama Homeland Security official Juliette Kayyem joins me next to discuss the threat of domestic terrorism.

[19:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BROWN: Tonight a sobering warning from the FBI as officials say that followers of QAnon may become more violent going forward. The new report reads in part, "The failure of QAnon predictions to materialize has not led followers abandoning the conspiracy. Instead there's a belief that individuals need to take greater control of the direction of the movement than before. This might lead followers to seek to harm perceived members of the 'cabal' such as Democrats and other political opposition, instead of continually awaiting Q's promised actions which have not occurred."

Juliette Kayyem is a CNN national security analyst and former Obama Homeland Security official.

[19:30:00]

Great to see you. First of all, Juliette, help us understand why those who believe in this don't just abandon it once it becomes clear time and time and time again that all these predictions aren't coming true. Why would they not abandon it? And why would they turn to violence instead?

JULIETTE KAYYEM, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, there's one reason why they're not abandoning it, and it's because the expectation of the sort of resurrection of Trump or whoever else just keeps getting reiterated on right-wing media, by Congress people and by, of course, Trump himself.

So, one is that there's still an expectation that, you know, that Biden will no longer be President. The other reason why it's not shifting is because they believe that something rightfully theirs has been taken away from them. So, there's a sense of justice, right, on their part that this is a just cause, and that's hard to get people off of. And that's why, you know, the big lie, this idea that something was taken, the Stop the Steal, right, something was taken from you. That's something that they believe, that the election and the White House were rightfully theirs.

So, I'm not surprised that they are now just creating their own narrative, but we have to be clear here. It's not like the Republicans have abandoned this narrative. They've fully embrace it at this stage, because fundamentally, it is -- you know, it is fundamentally about violence at this stage. So, you just -- you cannot separate the big lie from violence or the threat of violence. That is the only thing that animates what is going on now.

And until we start calling it exactly what it is, such as this is a violent movement, not about the First Amendment, not about politics, not about partisanship, we will not really grasp how close we came to losing so much on January 6th.

BROWN: Of course, a big lie led to the insurrection, the FBI has identified at least 20 Q-adherents in that, but now here we are so many months after that, if you would put in perspective, how significant this threat is.

KAYYEM: Yes. So there's -- I want to start with the good news because it's always good to start with good news.

There's over 400 criminal cases going on right now, and FBI Director Ray has promised a couple hundred more. Why is that significant? One is, punishment is important. You punish people for doing something like this.

The other is, it serves as a narrative for future recruits that we are not messing around anymore, because as a counterterrorism person, I worry about recruitment. And so these groups are getting eviscerated, they are turning on each other, they are telling on each other, they can't raise money. They've been isolated in a way that Donald Trump -- Donald Trump did the opposite. He, of course, nurtured them. So, that is the good news.

And we don't -- and you're seeing that in the social media, you're seeing that in the way they're able to raise funds.

The bad news is, we don't -- one is it only takes one person, right to mobilize towards violence. And that mobilization is being nurtured by FOX News, by Congress people who will not denounce the big lie, by just the atmospherics of much of the G.O.P. at this stage. So, I just keep coming back to violence or the threat of violence, because that's really their strategy right now, whether you look at what's happening with trying to take away voting rights or the threat of violence against certain Congress people or just the way they talk.

I mean, it's just -- it's just filled with this sense of, you know, righteous violence, that you're -- that one does not talk like that in a democracy.

BROWN: So, then how do officials best take on a threat when it's posed by individuals in a group like this one that don't live and operate in reality and when there are First Amendment protections?

KAYYEM: So, there's a couple of things. I mean, one is, of course, these are -- if you do something to go after them, so I really cannot underestimate or under emphasize the extent that these cases are significant, the January six cases, a couple hundred of them, and they are also disclosing something important, the extent of the conspiracy.

We don't know if this is linked to any Congress people. We don't know if this is linked to the White House, we will learn that over time. So, that stops recruitment, that stops the ability of these people to raise funds.

The other is, of course, shaming them is a harsh word, but just essentially calling it out. I really worry when commentators or analysts come on and sort of talk about it as partisan politics. It's not partisan politics. It is one party. One party and members of that party are embracing violence or the threat of violence. And so I think we have to just basically call it for what it is. And

then ultimately, one hopes that with a President who is lowering the temperature, with the continuing isolation of Donald Trump that you're seeing sort of, we're less interested in him, social media is less interested in him, that over time you begin to just lower the temperature.

Look, I am -- there will always be people who have bad thoughts, whose thoughts that are grotesque to us, you know, racist or anti-Semitic or whatever. The goal for us now is to simply try to focus on the people who are violent and that's what the White House made clear this week with their new strategy against violent extremism.

[19:35:10]

KAYYEM: You want to go after the people who are showing signs of violence and that can be done through these investigations, through families and friends, and through a society that just begins to just say, this is not tolerable anymore.

BROWN: Right. It's one thing to have violent thoughts. It's another -- you cross that legal threshold when you start taking steps towards a violent act.

All right, Juliette Kayyem, thank you so much for coming on.

KAYYEM: Thank you.

BROWN: And up next, millions of Americans are under an excessive heat warning right now. Take a look at Palm Springs, California, where it is a balmy 114 degrees. Yes, you heard that right. 114 degrees.

We'll have a live report from California on the heatwave that is gripping the West Coast.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:40:07]

BROWN: In the southeast, floods and tornadoes this weekend as Tropical Storm Claudette cuts a swath from the Gulf to the Atlantic. But in the West where they really need that rain, a record breaking heatwave, all time temperature records are being shattered in more than a dozen states. Wildfires are ripping across areas of Nevada, Arizona, and California, and maps show more than a quarter of the U.S. is in exceptional drought.

Here's just one example, California's Lake Oroville, the state's second largest reservoir is still seeing its water levels falling so low it is expected the hydroelectric power plant will be forced to shut down for the first time in its history, and summer is just getting started here, folks.

CNN's Camila Bernal is in Santa Monica, California. So Camila, heat and harsh conditions are of course, nothing new to people in that part of the country. But what is making it so much worse right now? CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Pam. So, what's making

this situation worse is that year-over-year, California and many other states are getting less and less water. And yes, many people are out here at the beach today, they are cooling off because of course, this is an area where temperatures are a little bit lower in comparison to other parts of the state where you're seeing 100-plus degree temperatures, but it doesn't mean the problem goes away.

All week long, officials here in the State of California telling people to conserve both water and energy. I spoke to Professor Steve LaDochy. He is with Cal State, Los Angeles, about what he tells people who don't believe that these efforts are necessary. Take a listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE LADOCHY, PROFESSOR, CAL STATE, LA DEPARTMENT OF GEOSCIENCES AND ENVIRONMENT: They should be thinking a lot about water, energy, and help water supply and height. So when they turn on the tap is -- no problem. There's the water. But where is it coming from? It's not coming from Los Angeles. It's coming from the Colorado River, which is at lowest amounts ever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERNAL: Now, we also spoke to Californians about whether or not they're making these changes, if they're trying to conserve water and energy. Some say, yes, they're making some adjustments, while others simply say it is too hot.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TANYA GRACE, LOS ANGELES RESIDENT: I open my windows, even though I have air conditioner on my windows at nighttime.

APACHE IZTALI, LOS ANGELES RESIDENT: Well, I have to have my AC. So, I don't know what to say about that because I have to have my AC all the time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERNAL: And this is just the beginning. Everyone that I spoke to telling me that it's going to likely get worse. We're talking about 30 million people who are under some sort of excessive heat warning at the moment and nearly one in three Americans who are living under drought conditions.

Those statistics, Pam, are likely going to get worse over the next couple of days, weeks, or months.

BROWN: Okay, Camila Bernal, thank you for bringing us the latest there from Santa Monica, California.

And up next, paying tribute to a quote, "cherished companion," the Biden's announce the death of their beloved German shepherd, Champ.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:47:41]

BROWN: Some sad news from the White House tonight, President Biden and the First Lady announcing a death in the family, their 13-year-old German shepherd named, Champ. CNN White House correspondent, Kate Bennett is with me now. What a heartbreak, this is Kate, for the President and the First Lady.

You know when I saw this news, I was surprised, but was it a surprise to the Bidens that Champ died?

KATE BENNETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Not so much. Champ Biden was 13-years-old. So, he was definitely getting up there in age and everyone was sort of used to seeing him and his brother, Major, around the White House, but certainly it is sad for a family member for the family, the Biden family, to lose one of our beloved pet German shepherds.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BENNETT (voice over): Condolences for the Bidens are pouring in after the President announced the family's much loved German shepherd, Champ, passed away Saturday.

Michelle Obama tweeting, "Champ was such a good boy. Barack and I are sending all our love to you." And Biden's former National Security Adviser adding, "Boy oh boy, did he love chasing golf balls."

Champ chose the Bidens when he was just a month old, shortly after Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election. For Jill Biden, getting Champ was about keeping a promise. She said the family could get a dog if Joe and Barack won the election.

Bidens' grandchildren gave Champ his name, an homage to the nickname Joe Biden's father called him.

In the announcement, the Bidens write: "He was our constant cherished companion during the last 13 years and was adored by the entire Biden family." They say Champ love nothing more than curling up at our feet in front of a fire at the end of the day, joining us as a comforting presence in meetings or sunning himself in the White House garden.

And note, Champ was there for their most joyful moments and most grief stricken days. They even got their other German shepherd, three-year- old, Major, as a companion for Champ to help keep him busy and active as he got older.

The pair were featured in Biden's campaign ads when he was running for President and the First Lady says the pups had some major adjustments to make when they moved into the White House.

DR. JILL BIDEN, FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: They have to take the elevator, they're not used to that. They have to go out on the South Lawn with lots of people watching them, so you know, it's -- that's what I've been obsessed with, just getting everybody settled and calm. BENNETT (voice over): President Harry Truman once said, "You want a

friend in Washington, get a dog." But it's Jill Biden who summed it up saying, "Everything was instantly better when he was next to us."

Rest in peace, Champ.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BENNETT (on camera): It is so sad to think about, and you know, I just want to make clear that Champ is the older dog. The Biden's have two German shepherds, Major is the three-year-old, and Major is the one that had had earlier some biting incidents that we've reported on, needing a little more training than his older brother, so to speak, but yes, it is a sad day.

BROWN: It is so sad. I'm just such a dog lover and it breaks my heart to see this video of Champ. I mean, he had 13 great years, obviously, but it may be too soon, but we've got to ask, where's the cat?

BENNETT: Well, listen, there's a silver lining. Major won't be alone too long at the White House. The cat, I hear is waiting in the wings, no pun intended, that it is an adopted cat from a shelter and that it will soon join the family, and part of the reason that the cat has taken a while to appear although promised is because Champ was old and not well, and I think the Biden's knew that his days were numbered and they didn't want to introduce another new thing, a White House new cat, new world.

So, I think we'll wait a few -- a little bit and I think we'll be seeing a cat pretty soon.

But you know, President Biden, when he was young he said that he raised German shepherds and sometimes showed them in dog shows, so it's a breed and a dog that he really is attached to and after four years of no pets in the White House with the Trumps and sort of now people are used to seeing them around and so, we'll just get used to Major by himself for a while. Best wishes to them.

BROWN: We'll get used to Major, and you know, even though this wasn't a surprise for them, it's such -- it's so hard, right, like when you lose a pet. It's just -- our hearts go out to the Bidens and well, Major, I hope he's not feeling too alone.

Thanks so much, Kate Bennett.

BENNETT: Sure.

BROWN: Well, a historically low turnout in Iran for a presidential election that was all but decided before the polls even opened. We take you to Tehran, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:57:16]

BROWN: Well, a new President has been elected in Iran, but officials in the U.S. and other Western countries are not happy with the results or the voting process, seen as neither free nor fair. A hardliner with a brutal human rights record won the election, but not even half of Iran's voters cast a ballot.

CNN's Fred Pleitgen is in Tehran.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Conservatives celebrating a major victory that could shape the political direction of this country for a long time.

Ebrahim Raisi, a man very close to Iran's Supreme Leader will soon take over as President.

"With the help of God and with the help of Sayyid Ebrahim Raisi, he will do a good job," this man says.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I am happy.

PLEITGEN (voice over): While turnout was historically low, Raisi managed to garner more than 60 percent of the vote, the Interior Ministry says.

PLEITGEN (on camera): After Ebrahim Raisi won his landslide victory in the presidential election, his followers are putting on a show of force. Of course, in this vast country, not everyone is celebrating after the moderates suffered a crushing defeat.

PLEITGEN (voice over): While some shops in this market have already hung up Raisi posters, others question the election after many candidates were disqualified by Iran's Guardian Council in the run up to the vote.

"Before the voting, everyone knew the new President would be Raisi," this woman says, and this one adds, "All the four candidates are the same. It makes no difference to me. The elections have no effect."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He will be pushed to move towards the -- lift the sanctions, our people are in the very high pressure of economic pressure.

PLEITGEN (voice over): The transfer of power is already being prepared. Raisi has already met outgoing President, the moderate, Hassan Rouhani, and said he is focused on the task ahead.

"I hope I can live up to the trust that the people have placed in me during my term," he said.

For many that means getting the Trump era sanctions lifted and reviving the Iran Nuclear Agreement, all to jumpstart the ailing economy.

TRISTA PARSI, EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT, QUINCY INSTITUTE FOR RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT: There is a tremendous amount of continuity and very important foreign policy issues such as the JCPOA are not set by the President alone or the Foreign Minister. It requires much greater degree of systemic buy in.

PLEITGEN: One thing both moderates and conservatives agree on is that Iran's struggling economy is the country's top issue. Now, Ebrahim Raisi will get his shot to bring it back on track.

Fred Pleitgen, CNN, Tehran.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BROWN: Your next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.