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Biden Pushes for Gun Laws; House Committee Approves Gun Reform; Uvalde Teacher Wrongly Accused; Kara Joy McKee is Interviewed about the Tulsa Shooting; May Jobs Report. Aired 9:00-9:30a ET

Aired June 03, 2022 - 09:00   ET

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

[09:00:47]

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, everyone. I'm Poppy Harlow.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Jim Sciutto.

Let's hear the call and cry. Those are the words of President Biden, in a rare primetime address, making a new plea yet again for gun action. Telling Congress in the wake of more mass shootings, enough is enough.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: More kids and on duty cops killed by guns. More kids than soldiers killed by guns. For God's sake, how much more carnage are we willing to accept? How many more innocent American lives must be taken before we say enough? Enough.

This time we have to take the time to do something. And this time, it's time for the Senate to do something.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: Among the president's demands to Congress, either ban assault weapons or raise the minimum purchase age to 21 years old. The fact is, many of these proposals have no realistic chance of passage. There is little to no GOP support for them.

HARLOW: That's exactly right, even after what happened this week, and last.

The president's speech comes as Democrats on a House committee did pass a string of proposals and got in a fiery debate with a Republican colleague. It's a small bipartisan group of senators is still working behind the scenes. But, as Jim mentioned, you have GOP leader Mitch McConnell already signaling gun restrictions and background checks are a non-starter for his party.

So let's bring in our Jeremy Diamond. He joins us at the White House.

Jeremy, certainly an impassioned plea from the president last night, calling for a set of significant changes to the nation's gun laws.

What did he lay out and where does it actually go from here? JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, without a doubt,

Poppy, this was President Biden's most fervent and specific appeal yet on this issue of reforming the nation's gun laws in the wake of these multiple mass shootings.

You know, it's not every day that you see the president come down the Cross Hall in the White House to deliver an address. It is meant to signal that he is going to talk about something grave, something urgent. And that's exactly what we heard from the president last night as he urged Congress to take action.

And he listed several specific measures that he would like to see. First among which is this assault weapons ban that President Biden worked on back in the 1990s. It lapsed in 2004. And he would like that to come back. But he made clear, he knows that that's not going to happen. And he said, at a minimum then, Congress should limit -- increase the minimum age to purchase those weapons to 21.

We also see him talking about expanding background checks, creating safe storage requirements that would make people who don't lock up their guns properly liable for anything that happens with them. He also talked about national red flag laws, repealing the liability shield for gun manufacturers and also expanding mental health services for students in particular. All of these things are things President Biden would like to see, but few of them are likely to actually pass through Congress.

These bipartisan negotiations that are taking place, they are looking at a really narrow set of issues. But, nonetheless, the president here, even as he has tried to give those negotiations space and time to progress, he also wanted to make sure that he wasn't on the sidelines. And that's why you saw the president last night making use of the bully pulpit. A White House official telling me that the president wanted to signal urgency in his remarks last night. And, ultimately, the president also making clear that these talks could potentially fail. And if they do, the president said it's up to voters to make this a central issue at the ballot box in November.

Poppy. Jim.

SCIUTTO: Jeremy Diamond, at the White House, thank you.

As we mentioned earlier, the Senate majority leader -- minority leader, we should say, already pouring cold water on gun reform. Mitch McConnell says any gun deal must target what he claims is the actual problem. Keep in mind that's code language to say in effect nothing that deals with weapons themselves.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY): Mental health and school safety are what we need to target.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCIUTTO: What are the facts? CNN has crunched the numbers on mental health. The GOP argument this is about mental illness does not stand up to the data. It is estimated by doctors that less than 5 percent of shootings are committed by people with a diagnosable mental illness.

[09:05:02]

HARLOW: Less than 5 percent.

More on where things stand on Capitol Hill, let's bring in our congressional correspondent Lauren Fox.

So, I mean, to the point that really is important to make, it's great that you have a small bipartisan group working together, but without ten Republicans in the Senate, nothing changes.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, the focus has really been on that small bipartisan group working together in the Senate, in part because nothing can pass that doesn't get those ten Republican votes, like you said, Poppy. They are critical. And really critical to this negotiation is Senator John Cornyn, that Republican from Texas, who was dispatched by Mitch McConnell to have these conversations with his colleague, Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut. They are still working. We expect that next week those negotiations are going to heat up when lawmakers return.

But yesterday, in the House Judiciary Committee, there was an explosive hearing, where you saw just how dug in both sides are when it comes to gun reform measures.

Here is some highlights from what happened yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MADELEINE DEAN (D-PA): What have we taught our children? This is on our watch. Where is the outrage?

REP. MATT GAETZ (R-FL): It is reflexive, and it is irresponsible to consider bills while we're still trying to figure out what happened in some of these circumstances that you suggest animated the need for this hearing.

REP. GREG STEUBE (R-FL): Here's the gun I carry every single day to protect myself, my family, my wife, my home. This is a XL Sig Sauer P365. It comes with a 15 round magazine. Here's a seven round magazine, which would be less than what would be lawful under this bill if this bill were to become law. It doesn't fit. So this gun would be banned under the Democrat's proposal.

REP. SHEILA JACKSON LEE (D-TX): I hope the gun - gun is not loaded.

STEUBE: I'm at my house. I can do whatever I want with my guns.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: House Judiciary Committee passed several gun measures yesterday, 25 to 19. But even though that bill is expected to go to the House floor and pass there, it is not going to pass in the U.S. Senate. Instead, again, that focus on what that small group of bipartisan lawmakers can agree to, we're going to know more on that next week when they return.

Jim and Poppy.

SCIUTTO: Yes, these votes, like so many, are symbolic. They don't have the votes in the Senate.

Lauren Fox, thanks so much.

Today, families in Uvalde, Texas, will hold funerals, more funerals, for victims, child victims of last week's deadly attack at Robb Elementary School. So here's some of them. Ten-year-old cousins, Jayce Carmelo Luevanos and Jailah Nicole Silguero. They will be laid to rest in the next hour. This afternoon, friends and family will say good-bye as well to nine-year-old Jacklyn Cazares.

HARLOW: We are still waiting for DPS in Texas to release the report of the response to the shooting. That will be critical.

But CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez has new details about the teacher who was -- it seems, Omar, wrongly accused of propping open the door that the gunman used to enter the building. He joins us now.

Omar, great reporting.

You spoke with her attorney. What can you tell us?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Poppy.

Well, in short, her attorney says it's been difficult for her. She's had to see doctors in recent days because she can't stop shaking. Not just because of the accusations, but because of what she saw that day. So, her attorney, Don Flanary, tells us that Emilia Marin was her - is her name, was setting up for an end of the year school party that day. So she was going to this door to meet a co-worker who was coming to the school with food.

As she's doing so, she sees what was the gunman's car crash. So, she props open the door for a little bit, goes in, gets her phone and calls 911, but only to report the crash. When she gets back to the door, she sees her co-worker running, someone across the street is yelling, he's got a gun, and she sees the gunman coming right toward her. She kicked -- closed the door and, according to her attorney, she knew what was about to happen next.

So, she runs to a classroom, still on the phone with 911. Her attorney says the call dropped at some point. She's trying to hide. She's got a text from her daughter asking, are you OK, but she was frantically trying to silence her phone because, and I'm quoting here from the attorney, as she was hiding, she thought he was going to come in and kill her. And she made peace with that.

And then the accusation came later on from the Texas Department of Public Safety that the door was propped open, or left open, I should say, as the gunman came in. So, her attorney said to that, she felt alone, like she couldn't even grieve, because she was second -- she second guessed herself, like, did I not do that? It wasn't until later the Texas DPS not only walked it back, but her attorney says they reached out to her and told her you did not actually leave the door open.

Outside of, of course, what happened that day, her attorney says they do not plan to sue the elementary school, the school district, or the Uvalde Police Department.

[09:10:02]

But they have filed a pre-suit petition to depose Daniel Defense (ph), which is the company that manufactured the gun used by this particular gunman. And it's not an official accusation of wrongdoing, but what they're hoping to do is to, at the very least, open discovery to get some answers into how this gun was marketed, for example. And they say they're partly inspired by the recent settlement that the families of Sandy Hook got in regards to the settlement with Remington, which is another gun manufacturer. And to use his words, we have to hold these people accountable.

Poppy and Jim.

SCIUTTO: You know, to make that accusation in effect against the teacher before knowing that the facts stood it up, it's -- to make it public is notable. And it's not the first time we've seen this in here, law enforcement stories not stand up to the test of time and the facts.

HARLOW: Yes.

SCIUTTO: Omar Jimenez, thank you for tracking that down.

We are learning new details about the victims of Wednesday's mass shooting in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Amanda Glenn was a receptionist at the hospital. A friend described her as the proudest mother of two boys. There she is. She also called Glenn a hard worker and a kind soul who would do anything for you.

Dr. Stephanie Husen was a doctor of osteopathic medicine at Saint Francis Hospital. She was described as, quote, an incredible person.

You know, Poppy, we are reading obituaries on this program it seems like every day of shootings -- from shootings like this one.

HARLOW: It's so - yes, you're so right, from one city to the next to the next to the next.

William Love was a patient at the Warren Clinic. Tulsa police say he sacrificed his own life to save his wife. Love was a retired Army first sergeant with 27 years of service to this country, including one tour in Vietnam.

And Dr. Preston Phillips, a Harvard educated orthopedic surgeon, who now, we know, was the gunman's target. Police say that the gunman blamed Dr. Phillips for his pain from a recent back surgery. A friend of Phillips described him this way, quote, a wonderful, gentle person with an infectious smile and kind words for everyone.

Let's bring in now a member, of course, of the Tulsa community to talk about how they're coping with this tragedy, City Council Member Kara Joy McKee.

Kara, thank you. And we are - Jim and I are so - all of us at CNN are so deeply sorry.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

KARA JOY MCKEE, TULSA CITY COUNCIL: Poppy and Jim, thanks so much for having me here. This is - this is hard. The whole community is still reeling from this.

HARLOW: Of course. And the grieving never stops, right?

SCIUTTO: Yes.

MCKEE: That's right.

HARLOW: We heard the president last night call for an assault weapons ban and said, look, Congress, if you can't do that, at least raise the age to 21.

If you look at the deadliest mass shootings in America, the suspects in four out of five were over the age of 21, right? So it would - it would solve for potentially some of it, but not all of them. And I wonder - I wonder if you think raising the age to 21 is enough or what you want to change?

MCKEE: You know, the president had a lot of great suggestions last night that could have saved some of the parents in Uvalde from the worst tragedy that I could imagine as a mother. The shooters in all of these incidents had different backgrounds, had different motives, but what they had in common was easy, unmonitored access to weapons that look and kill a lot of people really fast. There's a lot that we can do. I know a lot of Americans, like myself, are feeling a bit hopeless that things will change. Our policies have been gridlocked on this a long time. But we have to take action.

SCIUTTO: This is the umpteenth time you and I have heard the president and others, lawmakers, say they need to take action, right? I mean the list of proposals last night from the president are familiar, but there aren't the votes. Republicans by and large oppose most or all of these measures. And I just wonder, as you sit there in a community still reeling from an act of gun violence, how do you respond to that? What's going through your mind when you hear of negotiations and sadly hear a lot of headlines of the negotiations stalling again?

MCKEE: Yes. Well, honestly, personally in Oklahoma, the politics on gun control, gun reforms of any sort have been really difficult. Oklahoma's the only state I believe that has already banned the red flag laws that I think would be -- do so much to help us identify the people who are showing signs that they are destabilized and shouldn't have access to weapons, that they need some kind of help otherwise. I don't think anything is going to change until we as Americans make

this our top issue. Not just saying we want common sense gun reforms, but I -- in Tulsa, a lot of us are joining the national group Moms Demand Action. There are chapters in every state.

[09:15:01]

There are events even this weekend with Moms Demand Action. And I think that we, as the voters, have to not just make it an issue, but the top issue.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Kara Joy McKee, thank you very much for joining us this morning.

SCIUTTO: Thank you.

HARLOW: Please keep us posted on also how the, you know, the injured are doing and we're wishing them a full recovery.

MCKEE: We will.

HARLOW: Thank you.

MCKEE: There's a lot that we can do. And Tulsans are resilient. We're going to find ways to be helpful.

HARLOW: You are.

All right, new this morning, new jobs number. The U.S. added 390,000 jobs in May. That number slightly less than the previous month but still higher than what economists were predicting.

SCIUTTO: CNN chief business correspondent Christine Romans joins us now.

Tell us about the economic picture here, right. I mean the job market remains remarkably strong, right, but inflation is still high. What does it all look like?

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: You know, when you look at the job market, it is still very strong, but it's starting to show signs of downshifting, and I think that's what you want to see in a mature recovery.

We had been having 500,000 and more every single month. So, 390,000 is a moderation of that pace. Really the lightest in about a year. But, still, well above the average from before the pandemic.

In normal times, pre-pandemic, this would be a blockbuster number, to be honest. And 3.6 percent unemployment, it might have fallen a little bit, the unemployment rate, had you not had 330,000 people come in looking for work, right? So, the labor force grew a little bit.

That's the trend, you guys, over the past year or so. You now have 2.4 million jobs, more than that even, added just this year. So we are now shy since the pandemic of about 822,000 jobs. At this rate, in a couple of months, you know, you'll be back to pre-pandemic levels there. The unemployment rate, again, 3.6 percent. Really has had a steady, steady improvement here.

This is essentially a full employment situation. You've got employers hungry to hire even more people, quite honestly. And where was the hiring? Widespread. Leisure and hospitality, professional services, transportation, warehouses, construction sites. I did see some job losses at the big, big retailers. As you know, Walmart and Target have had a little bit of trouble with higher prices and trying to gauge what consumers need and the shifts in their spending.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

ROMANS: But, overall, guys, this is still a strong, strong labor market, but starting to cool just a little bit and I think that's what economists and the Fed want to see.

HARLOW: Christine Romans, thank you, as always, for making it understandable to all of us.

ROMANS: Yes.

HARLOW: In the next hour, we're going to be joined by the labor secretary, Marty Walsh. So we'll talk more about it then.

Up next, though, we will be joined by Martin Luther King Jr.'s 14- year-old granddaughter who is once again going public with her plea to fight gun violence.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

YOLANDA RENEE KING, GRANDDAUGHTER OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: My grandfather had a dream that his four little children will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character. I have a dream that enough is enough!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: That was four years ago and it is still very much her dream. Yolanda's message to other students who are afraid and to the leaders tasked with change, next.

SCIUTTO: Plus, we will speak with chef Jose Andres on the ground in Ukraine where the Russian invasion has now hit 100 days. One major result of this, food shortages, not just in Ukraine, but around the world. The global risk of a hunger crisis as one of the world's biggest exporters of grain finds its exports blocked.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[09:22:54]

HARLOW: Welcome back. In 2018, Yolanda Renee King, the granddaughter of Dr. Martin Luther

King Jr., joined thousands of students to march on Washington against gun violence. That's her then. Today, more than four years later, she is leading the charge still, lending her voice in a similar message. She writes in an opinion piece for "The Washington Post," quote, I am 14 years old, and once again I am afraid. Most people won't take a 14- year-old seriously when it comes to addressing gun violence. What do I know, right? Well, I know when it is time for change. I know it is my duty as an American to use the platform given to me by my grandparents' sacrifices to uplift the voices of my peers.

Yolanda Renee King joins me now.

Good morning. And, wow, you are an inspiration.

YOLANDA RENEE KING, GRANDDAUGHTER OF MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: Thank you.

HARLOW: And I was just saying in the commercial, you've grown up so much. Thank you very much for being here.

KING: Thank you for having me.

HARLOW: It's a pleasure.

Well, look, advocacy is a family tradition, obviously, in your family and your parents have been very supportive of you speaking out publicly. I'd like your reaction to this, what President Biden said in his address to the nation last night.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Guns are the number one killer of children in the United States of America. The number one killer. More than car accidents. More than cancer.

Over the last two decades, more school aged children have died from guns than on duty police officers and active duty military combined. Think about that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HARLOW: You're a child. He's talking about children. And you're a loud voice in this fight. What are your thoughts this morning?

KING: My thoughts this morning, especially on that speech, is that I think that it's important for the world to really see and listen to these stats. My next question is, OK, like, all these stats are important, and clearly you seem to be concerned about this issue, what is your plan?

[09:25:01]

I mean it's -- it hasn't even been a month and we've had - and there have been three major mass shootings that have been - that have just been recently covered. And so, like, what is your plan about this? Because it seems like more are -- more and more mass shootings are happening and occurring and children are scared to go to school. And so what's the solution to the problem? We can talk about it all we want, but until there's a solution, nothing is going away. So I really want to see like what is the president's and what are our politicians' solutions on how they will ban rifle (ph) assault weapons - or ban assault weapons.

HARLOW: You know, you were invited by former President Obama to the Oval Office with your parents, this is in 2016. And you said to him at the time, what are you going to do about guns. No major federal legislation has passed Congress on guns since then. Nothing. The executive order, bump stocks, but no major change from Congress. What do you make of that?

KING: Well, we have to keep -- we have to keep on fighting. We have to keep on putting pressure. And so I - and I think that we need to keep on planning, we need to keep on marching, and we need to keep on writing to our politicians, to make sure they really get this issue done. And we need to keep using our platforms for good. And we need to keep meeting. We really need to keep - and we're willing to elevate the stuff that we are already doing, to make sure that our politicians pass the -- pass major pieces of legislation that can really help this country.

HARLOW: I was struck in reading your piece. You said, look, people invoke my grandfather's name day in and day out, and you wrote, when it's convenient. Tell me more about that, what you were thinking, what you were trying to say to people.

KING: So, my grandfather's legacy is - it's a big -- he has a big legacy. And so many people, especially around the King holiday, will tweet something on honoring him. But then with days later, when they go back to work, politicians, when they go back to work, they'll block pieces of legislation that can really help the country and help us get to his dream. So, they just use it to make them look good and as though they are acknowledging him, but they really do not live -- they really do not live by the dream and they really do not want to -- they aren't committed to getting us to the promised land that he talked about and speaked about and just used him as a crutch to promote themselves.

HARLOW: Well, for any of them watching you right now, in the halls of Congress, I'm sure you're making a big impact.

Thank you for what you wrote and for all that you do. Your grandfather must be looking down very proud.

Yolanda Renee King, thank you.

KING: Thank you.

HARLOW: Jim.

SCIUTTO: Still ahead, the New York state grand jury is issuing several new subpoenas. Which one of Donald Trump's former advisers should be paying very close attention? We'll let you know, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)