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Supreme Court Ruling Overturns Roe Versus Wade Decision Constitutionally Protecting Woman's Right To Abortion; Protests Take Place Across U.S. In Wake Supreme Court Ruling Overturning Roe Versus Wade; States Across U.S. Enact Trigger Laws Outlawing Or Restricting Abortion After Supreme Court Ruling; Prolife Democrats Praise Supreme Court Decision Overturning Roe Versus Wade; Congress Passes And President Biden Signs Into Law Bipartisan Gun Control Bill; House January 6th Committee Hearings Reveal Six Republican Members Of Congress Sought Pardons After Capitol Insurrection. Aired 2-3p ET.

Aired June 25, 2022 - 14:00   ET

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

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[14:00:30]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

The constitutional right to an abortion is history. Americans across the country are taking to the streets as the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe versus Wade leaves states free to ban abortions. Emotions are running very high. In Cedar Rapids, Iowa, video shows a truck appearing to push through a group of protesters, injuring one person.

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(SHOUTING)

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ACOSTA: It's lucky it didn't get worse than that. Police say this followed verbal confrontations between the protesters and a driver.

In Phoenix, a crowd of abortion rights protesters surrounded the state's senate building, banging on the glass. An official tells CNN law enforcement there used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

An abortion ban is already in effect in at least six states, and as of today, 13 states have trigger laws banning abortions in light of the ruling. Some emboldened House Republicans want to take this one step further by pushing legislation to ban on abortion at 15 weeks nationwide.

Today the United Nations and leaders around the world are blasting the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe versus Wade, calling it a huge blow to women's rights and gender equality.

And CNN has a team covering today's protests happening across the country. Polo Sandoval is in New York, but we begin with Joe Johns who is outside the Supreme Court. Joe?

JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Jim, we have certainly seen this crowd growing over the last several hours. It has been peaceful, but it has been confrontational.

When I walked up, I saw people on either side of this issue essentially yelling and cursing at each other. But it has not gone physical.

There's a lot of anger here. This is a mostly pro-abortion rights crowd. And one of the things that I think is very interesting is they're going through the names of the individual conservative justices, and more than once singling out Justice Clarence Thomas, because of course in that ruling yesterday he talked about his feeling that the court should revisit substantive due process rights, a bundle of rights that includes things like gay marriage and contraceptive rights.

And when I talked to one woman who flew up here just this morning from Dallas to participate in this demonstration and rally, she told me that one of the things that has motivated her the most is the fact that she feels this is more than about just abortion rights. Listen.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Right now, I feel like my voice matters even that much more because, considering my journey with LGBTQ+ community. Somebody a long time was doing this right here for the LGBTQ+ community when they tried to tell them who they could and could not love.

And so I feel like now, even though people are connecting pro-choice with pro-abortion, which is a false narrative, it's not true. I'm not pro-abortion or antiabortion. I'm pro-choice.

My choices matter. Everybody's choices matter. And if you don't fight for them yourself, that's OK, we got you. We'll fight for your choices too.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JOHNS: So I want to give you a sense of the crowd and just step out here and take a peek. There's someone speaking over there, and I don't think our camera can actually see, but you can hear him.

Now, this crowd, I think, is actually smaller than what we saw yesterday. Still, a very healthy number of individuals who have decided to come out here.

And they seem to come from both far and near, not just the Washington metropolitan area but also all over the country, from what I can tell just talking to people on the ground. Jim, back to you.

ACOSTA: Joe, thank you very much. Let's go to Polo Sandoval who is following the protests in New York City. Polo, what are you seeing? POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Jim, that crowd here in the heart

of Manhattan is slowly beginning to grow as organizers are actually taking that mic only a few minutes ago.

We expect that crowd to continue to grow, very similar to what we saw play out yesterday here in the heart of Manhattan as we saw thousands of very passionate demonstrators coming together, expressing their disappointment and their frustration.

Important to mention, though, that New York City and state officials saw this ruling coming, so they took steps to ensure that women would still be able to get an abortion in New York state.

[14:05:06]

In fact, just here on CNN yesterday, New York City Mayor Eric Adams telling told our Wolf Blitzer that New York City has been and will continue to be a safe haven.

And so as you take in what's happening here, again, in the heart of Manhattan, it's important to remember, again, Jim, that the reason that many people are coming together here, according to what they've been telling me for some time now, is to stand in solidarity with women in other states.

Some of them those you just mentioned a little while ago, those trigger law states, making sure that women there know that they're not alone and they hope that the voices that are ringing here today are heard all the way there. Jim?

ACOSTA: All right, Polo Sandoval, keep us posted on everything that's happening out there. Thank you very much.

The court's decision to overturn a nearly 50-year-old ruling is producing a wild range of emotions. Obviously, Democrats are showing plenty of outrage.

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REP. MAXINE WATERS, (D-CA): You ain't seen nothing yet. Women are going to control their bodies no matter how they try and stop us. The hell with the Supreme Court. We will defy them.

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ACOSTA: On the other side, Republicans are celebrating. They're celebrating the ruling, including Arkansas's attorney general who got emotional while certifying a law banning abortions in that state.

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LESLIE RUTLEDGE, (R) ARKANSAS ATTORNEY GENERAL: I can't wait for other women across Arkansas to have that same joy of seeing their child's face that maybe they would not have seen had it not been for today's decision.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: My next guest has spoken out about what life was like in the country before Roe versus Wade, back in the 1960s, before lawyer Gloria Allred was a household name.

She was raped at gunpoint, became pregnant, and had a back alley abortion. She later represented Norma McCorvey, the woman who would go on to be known by millions as Jane Roe.

And Gloria Allred joins us now. Gloria, great to see you. You're the perfect person to talk to about all of this. I know this decision was devastating to you.

It's almost hard to believe that this has happened. I think it's still being digested by millions of women across this country.

Talk to me about how you're feeling right now about all this.

GLORIA ALLRED, VICTIMS' RIGHTS ATTORNEY: Well, I'm feeling outraged. This is an unprecedented deprivation of women's rights.

It is not only dangerous, it is a decision that is going to have an impact on every woman and girl in this country, because it is going to lead to a slippery slope, beyond the fact that women are not only deprived of legal and safe abortions and must either travel to a haven state or a sanctuary state like California, where I am, or New York, where I will be in a couple of days.

But beyond that, many women don't have the ability to travel. They won't have the funds to travel. So they will be forced into mandatory motherhood.

This is a decision that says states can decide that they don't trust women to make a decision about their own reproductive lives and their own future, that some, frankly, mostly men, legislators in states, will be able to make that decision for a woman that will affect that woman emotionally, physically, financially, in her educational plans, in her plans for a business, in her plans for her professional opportunity in the future, in her relationships, in every aspect of her life.

It is terrifying. It is lifechanging. And it is wrong that some stranger, some elected official in some state can make that decision for a woman or a girl that they've never met, that they will never know.

ACOSTA: And in their dissent, Justices Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor wrote, "From the very moment of fertilization a woman has no rights to speak of. A state can force her to bring a pregnancy to term even at the steepest personal and familial cost."

And now we're seeing this video of a truck that drove through a protest injuring one person in Cedar Rapids. Arizona last night, we saw protesters being teargassed.

For those who can't remember, explain what it was like, Gloria, if you could, what it was like before Roe versus Wade when women didn't have access to safe and legal abortions.

ALLRED: What it was like for me, when I came back to California, and I was just a teacher at the time, public school teacher, and I was a single parent with a young child, and became pregnant, as you say, as a result of having been raped at gunpoint in Mexico when I was on a vacation. And I found out that abortion was a crime in the late 60s in California, which meant that I couldn't get a legal and safe abortion.

[14:10:09]

So that meant I had to get a back alley abortion, which meant I had to pay a stranger to provide it who was not a doctor or a nurse, not a licensed health care provider, and that had to be done in another place, in somebody else's apartment, in a bathtub, where I was left in a pool of my own blood, hemorrhaging, and almost dying.

And ultimately had to be taken by an ambulance to a hospital in Los Angeles where they weren't taking women in to do abortions, but if you were hemorrhaging and dying from an illegal abortion, then they would try to save your life, which is what happened to me.

It was a very frightening experience. I remember a police officer wanting to know who performed the abortion. I was terrified because I didn't know if I had committed a crime, and I didn't know that even if I didn't, if I told him who it was, first of all, I wasn't sure that would be the real name of the person, but what that person might do to me if I revealed his name.

So it was terrifying. Again, a nurse in the hospital who was antichoice said to me, I hope you learned a lesson by doing this. And I learned, yes, a lesson, that is not the one she wanted me to learn. It was that abortion must be safe, it must be legal, it must be affordable, and it must be available.

That is gone today with Roe v. Wade in certain states. And by the way, the antichoice compulsory pregnancy people are not finished with women's bodies and trying to control our bodies.

They, many of them, want to outlaw contraception. They want to perhaps even, some of them, make it a crime for a woman to have an abortion. Even though they say they don't want to do that, there are efforts by antichoice people to do that.

And of course, the slippery slope of trying to eliminate the right to privacy is happening too, because look at what Justice Thomas said that he might like to do in the future.

ACOSTA: Right, and I was going to say, and now Republicans, including former vice president Mike Pence, who obviously is thinking about running for president in 2024, are talking about a national ban on abortion.

So they're not even talking about stopping here with overturning Roe versus Wade. They're talking about a nationwide ban on abortion even in states where it is still legal and available. ALLRED: This is not a conservative decision. This is an extremist

decision. And it's right that everyone who is out there on the streets, in front of the Supreme Court, in Los Angeles, where I spoke to a rally in downtown Los Angeles yesterday, in cities across the nation, we must make our voices heard, because we all have a stake in this, especially poor women and young women and rural women and women of color.

But all of us who care about our sisters and our daughters and our mothers and our aunts, this is completely unacceptable. And what we can do, and everyone's asking me, Gloria, what can we do, is you must vote as though your life depends on it, because it does.

You must go and vote in your state and vote out the antichoice, compulsory pregnancy legislators who want to wrap their ideology and their message in some kind of nonsense.

There is no rationalization or justification for trying to control women. You must vote them out of the office. You must vote in pro- choice people.

You must do that, and you must consider running for office yourself if you are pro-choice, because we must protect women's rights.

And if we don't protect them, I can assure you elected officials won't do it unless we make our voices heard, unless we contribute money to candidates that we want to support, and support Planned Parenthood and get out there and make this happen.

You have the power. And if you're men who care about women, you care about your daughters and their futures, you must go to the streets and you must make this happen, and you must make sure that everybody votes like you never did before.

ACOSTA: Gloria Allred, I think there are a lot of people out there who share your passion, and I think we're going to see that coming up in these midterm elections later on this year.

Gloria Allred, thank you very much for your time, and thank you as always for sharing your personal story on this, we appreciate it.

ALLRED: Thank you, Jim.

ACOSTA: Thank you.

And coming up, we'll talk to the leader of a group representing Democrats who actually applaud this decision by the Supreme Court.

Plus, a month after the mass shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas, President Biden puts his signature on the most significant gun safety legislation in 30 years after getting bipartisan support. What does it call for?

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We'll talk about that, next. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

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NANCY PELOSI, (D-CA) HOUSE SPEAKER: What this means to women is such an insult. It's a slap in the face to women about using their own judgment to make their own decisions about their reproductive freedom.

Reproductive freedom is on the ballot in November. We cannot allow them to take charge so that they can institute their goal, which is to criminalize reproductive freedom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: That was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi condemning the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe versus Wade, saying the future of reproductive rights is on the ballot in November.

And joining me now is someone who represents a segment of the Democratic Party you don't always hear about, those that are antiabortion and wanted to see Roe versus Wade overturned. Kristen Day is the executive director of Democrats For Life.

[14:20:00]

And Kristen, I know you're very happy today with this decision. But you're a Democrat.

KRISTEN DAY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DEMOCRATS FOR LIFE OF AMERICA: Yes, I am a Democrat. I've been a Democrat since I started working on the Dukakis campaign in 1988.

ACOSTA: OK. So let me ask you this. You're happy, Republicans are celebrating. Folks who are opposed to abortion are celebrating. But there are Republicans like former vice president Mike Pence who is thinking about running for president in 2024 who are now talking about taking this to the next level, a national ban on abortion.

I guess, first of all, do you support that, do you think that's a good idea? And do you think that the folks who are opposed to abortion are going to, I guess, stop after what happened, rest after what happened yesterday at the Supreme Court, folks like yourself?

DAY: Right now, we just have to take a collective step backward and look to see how things play out in the states. I would not recommend -- somebody asked me the other day, what would you recommend in Congress? And I said, nothing. Just hold on.

Let the states see what they can do. Some states are going to have abortion legal, some are not. And what we need to do in the states and right now is making sure that every woman who becomes pregnant has the support to carry that child to term, work on making sure we have paid leave, making sure that we have childcare, putting pregnant women in touch with places that will support them through that pregnancy and beyond. ACOSTA: What about these 13 states that had trigger bans in place for

this very moment? We're putting this up on screen now. Other states have very old laws on the books dating back decades. I believe Wisconsin goes all the way back to 1849, Michigan goes back to 1931.

And in many of these cases there aren't going to be exceptions for rape or incest. And so, what do you say to a teenage girl who was raped by somebody in her family, is pregnant, and perhaps because of the state that she lives in, can't get an abortion?

DAY: Yes, those are very difficult decisions, and difficult circumstances. The rape itself is very violent, and then to become pregnant from that is a double negative.

But I think when you look at states like Louisiana, they actually -- one of our pro-life Democrats amended the trigger law to allow for the morning after pill to be able to be prescribed to, particularly victims of rape, so hopefully a pregnancy would not occur.

So I think there's a lot of things we can do to provide these protections and support for women.

ACOSTA: But there are going to be some states obviously where that is not going to be available.

DAY: And that's our challenge that we really need to --

ACOSTA: There are going to be some girls stuck in a situation here now.

DAY: We need to work in all the states. And we have challenges in the blue states as well, not only the red states. And California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, you put those states together, and that accounts for almost 40 percent of abortions nationwide.

So in those states we need to really do more to make sure that a woman feels like they do have a choice other than abortion. A lot of women in these states feel like the abortion is paid for but there's not that support network for them to choose to carry the child to term.

So we have different challenges in every state, and we're going to be active all over the country to try to ensure that people are doing more to support the pregnant women and the children as well.

ACOSTA: Here is what Democratic Senator Joe Manchin said about Roe versus Wade, quote, "It's been the law of the land for nearly 50 years and was understood to be settled precedent. As a Catholic I was raised pro-life, always considered myself pro-life, but I have come to accept that my definition of pro-life may not be someone else's definition of pro-life."

According to the Center for Reproductive Rights the U.S. joins only three countries, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Poland, that have chosen to roll back abortion rights since 1994. That isn't exactly stellar company. DAY: No, but when you look around the world, when you look at Europe,

most of Europe has abortion bans after 12 weeks, 13 weeks. So the U.S. has been out of line with the majority of the world up until now.

We need to work in California to roll back the abortion up to nine months and trying to provide protections and support for women to carry the children to term.

We see -- we would like to see a world where no woman thinks abortion is the best and only option for her, and that's what we're working for within our party and also reaching across the aisle and trying to get people to work with us.

In my home state of Virginia, I know they're talking about a 15-week ban there. But I think we will push for a package of support that goes along with that.

If there's going to be a 15-week ban in Virginia, we really need to make sure there is a network of support for women so they don't have to walk that road alone.

Pregnancy centers do incredible work. They are often demonized because they have a religious -- a lot of them have a religious aspect to them.

[14:25:03]

But if you go and visit one, I would urge you, I can take you to one or two, and you see that they have diapers and clothing. They support women.

ACOSTA: Diapers and clothing might not cut it.

DAY: No, but job training, they have housing options.

ACOSTA: Fair enough. Are there enough of these centers for all of these young women who are going to be in this position?

DAY: Fortunately, they've been growing by leaps and bounds, the number of that's centers that are doubling and tripling over the last decade.

ACOSTA: And you talk about 15-week abortion restrictions. Let me ask you this. If a young lady does not even realize that she's pregnant until after 15 weeks, then, I mean, what is the use of that at that point?

DAY: That's where the education, we always talk about what we need to do more to educate women and men about the reproductive process, and it's a pretty amazing process when you learn all about it.

I learned later in life, I had trouble getting pregnant, so I really researched what the process is. And I think the more education we can give young women and the more we let them know the pregnancy process earlier, they can find out if they are pregnant. ACOSTA: I want to talk about some data from the CDC. It shows that

six in ten women who have abortions are already mothers, half of them have two or more children.

One of the main reasons is they just want to be a better parent to the kids that they already have. Why can't they have that right?

DAY: In some states they can. And in over half the states, abortion is still legal. But again, we're -- most women who seek abortion do so because of pressure or income.

And our position is just because you're poor doesn't mean that you shouldn't be allowed to be a parent. There has to be some equity for poor women. And we talk about the income inequality. And most of the women who seek abortion are poor.

So how can we support them and allow them to have the same opportunities as their wealthy counterparts to become parents? I think that's what we're focusing on, and that's the majority of cases.

ACOSTA: And you're a Democrat who is opposed to abortion. You're in favor of what happened yesterday. Let me ask you this. As a Democrat, is this decision actually going to energize the folks in your party, the vast majority of the folks in your party who don't agree with you?

DAY: I think Democrats have to be very careful. I'll put my Democratic strategist hat on, they have to be very careful with this issue, because with the push in New York and New Jersey and Colorado really pushing the abortion extremism, the abortion up to nine months, eliminating regulations, that is pushing people out of the party. And there's been a real inhospitable for --

ACOSTA: I'm going to get in trouble if I don't jump in.

DAY: -- for Democrats to be in the party.

ACOSTA: But isn't that a bit of a straw horse argument, saying that there are all these people out there who want abortion available up until nine months?

DAY: No, no, I'm not saying people do. I'm just saying that's what the laws are in some of these states now, that you can get an abortion up to the nine months, not that women are knocking down the door to do that.

But again, back to the party, we're supposed to be a big tent party. And when you look around the country, and look what happened in West Virginia, for example. We used to have 78 Democrats now, and now we have 25.

So what happened there? That's a strong pro-life state. When you look at Louisiana, we have a pro-life Democrat governor, he's the only Democratic governor in the south.

So we have to think strategically about how we can win these races. We have a pro-life Democrat running in Alabama for governor right now, Yolanda Flowers.

ACOSTA: Are you glad that Amy Coney Barrett was essentially rammed onto the Supreme Court at the end of the Trump term?

DAY: As a woman and a mother, I think it's amazing to have a strong, smart woman with a young family on the Supreme Court. So from that aspect, yes, it was pretty exciting to see her on the court.

ACOSTA: I can't imagine what your conversations are like when your fellow Democrats at dinner parties and so on. But Kristen, we'll have to leave it there. Kristen Day, thanks very much for your time.

DAY: Sure, thank you so much.

ACOSTA: Coming up, new fallout over revelations than a half-dozen Republican lawmakers requested presidential pardons following the insurrection.

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ACOSTA: This week they named names. One of the big revelations out of this week's January 6th hearings was that six Republican members of Congress sought pardons after the violent storming of the Capitol on January 6th.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was Representative Gaetz requesting a pardon?

ERIC HERSCHMANN, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: I believe so. A pardon that he was discussing, requesting was as broad as you could describe.

CASSIDY HUTCHINSON, FORMER AIDE TO TRUMP WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF MARK MEADOWS: Mr. Biggs did. Mr. Jordan talked about Congressional pardons, but he never asked for one. Mr. Gohmert asked for one as well. And Mr. Perry asked for a pardon, too, I'm sorry.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Did Marjorie Taylor Greene contact you?

HUTCHINSON: No, she didn't contact me about it. I heard that she had asked White House Counsel Office for a pardon.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Joining me now, Andrew McCabe, CNN senior law enforcement analyst and former deputy director of the FBI. Andrew, it must have been interesting to watch these hearings and watch some of this testimony in particular from your perspective.

I wish I could have been in the room as you were watching some of that testimony we just viewed a few moments ago to get your reaction.

[14:35:00] But let's talk about it now. The idea that all these lawmakers were asking for a pardon, what does that suggest to you?

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Jim, it suggests what we call in the investigative and prosecutorial business as evidence of guilty knowledge, right? This is one that is exactly as it appears to be.

People don't request pardons unless they have some concern that behavior and activities they were involved in might leave them susceptible to criminal accountability.

So the fact that we have a handful, five, I guess, by my count, of sitting United States congresspeople who thought that they might have been engaged in some criminal activity towards the end of the administration is a remarkable and depressing comment on the state of the end of that administration.

ACOSTA: And we heard stunning details about how Trump tried to get the Justice Department to seize voting machines after he lost the election. And when the Department of Justice said that that was not possible, he then turned to the Department of Homeland Security.

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RICHARD DONOGHUE, FORMER ACTING DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: The president yelled out to his secretary, get Ken Cuccinelli on the phone. And she did, in very short order.

Mr. Cuccinelli was on the phone, he was the number two at the DHS as the time. I was on speaker phone, and the president essentially said, Ken, I'm sitting here with the acting attorney general.

He just told me it's your job to seize machines and you're not doing your job. And Mr. Cuccinelli responded.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Rosen, did you ever tell the president that the Department of Homeland Security could seize voting machines?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, certainly not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: How stunning is that?

MCCABE: It's incredible, Jim. But honestly, for those of us who actually worked in this administration and were exposed to this early on, it's not surprising.

From my own experience, even from the earliest days of the Trump administration, it was apparent to us early on that the White House would be reaching out to the Department of Justice regularly and pressuring DOJ to do things that were really for the purpose of protecting or advancing the White House.

It didn't have anything to do with investigations and pursuing justice for the American citizens.

When the White House wanted to cook up some justification for the Muslim ban, they called Attorney General Jeff Sessions and he passed the requirement on to us.

When Donald Trump needed someone to cook up a fraudulent reason for justifying the firing of Jim Comey, he reached out to Rod Rosenstein and Rod Rosenstein did it.

So I think what's important for people to remember, while the people in charge around January 6th at the Justice Department resisted this intense pressure, that was not the case in every instance of pressuring the Department of Justice across those four years.

ACOSTA: And how significant was that raid on the home of Jeffrey Clark, the person inside the Justice Department who Donald Trump wanted to install as the acting attorney general? This doesn't sound good for Jeffrey Clark.

MCCABE: It really doesn't, Jim. You don't start your investigation by raiding the home of a former high level DOJ official, right? So even just to get that search warrant, the agents and prosecutors investigating this case had to stand before a federal judge and convince that person that they had probable cause to believe that there is evidence of a crime inside Clark's house. Obviously, they met that standard, they had the warrant, they went and did it.

I'm sure there's been a lot of investigation of Mr. Clark leading up to that moment. And things are really in high gear now. It will be interesting to see what happens going forward not just with Jeff Clark but those around him, like John Eastman, like Ken Klukowski, like those involved in this obvious fraud to try to turn over the results of the election, the scheme of fake electors and pressuring states to do the wrong thing.

ACOSTA: Right, for folks out there who have been frustrated with the Attorney General Merrick Garland and wondering what he is up to, that in particular, that moment in particular I think should be an indication that things are moving inside the Justice Department. It might not move to the conclusion that some people might want, but there is an investigation happening, it appears.

MCCABE: That's right. That's right. And let's hope that it's moving towards justice, right? We don't all get to weigh in and pick the result that we want.

But it's good to know that this Justice Department has agents at work out there picking up pieces of evidence, moving this case forward to find out exactly what happened, and hopefully to hold people accountable if a crime has been committed.

ACOSTA: All right, Andrew McCabe, thank you very much. We'll keep watching those hearings, get your reaction to it. We appreciate it. Thanks for your time.

MCCABE: Thanks, Jim. ACOSTA: Coming up, the most significant gun legislation in three

decades gets President Biden's signature.

[14:40:00]

What it achieves, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: Just hours ago President Biden signed into law the first major federal gun safety legislation to pass through Congress in decades.

The legislation covering one of the most contentious issues in the nation came together in the wake of shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York.

White House correspondent M.J. Lee is in Austria where the president is heading right now as he starts a week of European summits.

[14:45:00]

M.J., I am familiar with that backdrop there. It looks like you guys have nice surroundings for all of this. But getting to this legislation which came through Congress in a surprising bipartisan fashion, the bill was done with support from both sides of the aisle.

It does fall short of what the president and Democrats were pushing for, but it is a bipartisan achievement, there's just no question about it.

M.J. LEE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, absolutely, you're right, but it doesn't get everything done that the president might have wanted or advocates and other Democrats.

But it's very significant because, as you say, it is very, very difficult in Congress to see something meaningful and bipartisan get through Congress. It has been so elusive in Washington for so many years.

The president himself is certainly very familiar with that dynamic. And the president today saying in an address before leaving for Europe that he believes this bill is going to end up saving lives. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Their message to us was do something. How many times have we heard that, just do something, for God's sake, just do something.

Well, today we did. While this bill doesn't do everything I want, it does include actions I've long called for that are going to save lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LEE: So while the bill may not have some of those things that Democrats and President Biden would have wanted to see, some of those big things like an assault weapons ban or a high capacity magazine ban raising the age of purchase to 21, let's just walk through some things that the bill does have.

It has millions of dollars that can be spent on programs like intervention, crisis intervention, red flag programs. There's also the closing of the so-called boyfriend loophole.

That's something that advocates have been talking about for years. There's also an enhancement of background checks for folks under 21 who are trying to buy guns.

And as you said, very significant because of the Republican support that this bill ended up having -- 15 senators and 14 House members from the Republican Party ultimately ended up supporting this bill.

So again, in that sense alone, it is a very big accomplishment. And this came together, the push for this bill really happening after the Uvalde school shooting that took the lives of 19 children and two adults.

And Jim, this time around, the president and the lawmakers who voted for this bill can finally say we did do something after this tragic event, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right, M.J. Lee, thank you very much, live from Austria, we appreciate it.

Coming up, how some of the biggest companies in the country are vowing to stand by employees who need to seek an abortion.

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[14:52:33]

ACOSTA: Norway is now under the highest terror alert after a mass shooting early this morning outside an Oslo gay bar. Two people were killed, eight others were taken to hospitals.

The suspect is in custody charged with murder and terrorist acts. The shooting happened just hours before Oslo's annual gay pride parade. The parade is now cancelled, and Norway's prime minister calls the shooting deeply shocking.

The Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade is reverberating across America. Microsoft, JPMorgan Chase, and Warner Bros.

Discovery, the parent company of CNN, are among the many corporations announcing that they will cover travel expenses for employees who live in states where they can't access safe and legal abortions.

The ride hailing service Lyft released this statement, saying "Transportation should never be a barrier to access and we will continue to stand up for the privacy and choice of our drivers, riders, and team members across the country."

In a statement, Dick's Sporting Goods announced it will reimburse abortion travel expenses up to $4,000, adding "We are making this decision so our teammates can access the same health care options regardless of where they live and choose what is best for them."

When a New Hampshire man needed a lifesaving transplant, he didn't expect his donor's mother would become one of his closest friends. CNN's Sanjay Gupta has more on their truly heartwarming bond in today's "The Human Factor."

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HAMID MAHDAVY, Heart failure is miserable. Imagine breathing, and instead of being able to take a deep breath and exhale, you just take maybe a short breath.

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hamid Mahdavy needed a heart transplant.

MAHDAVY: So when I was laying in the hospital, I said, if I ever get out of here alive, I'm going to make a commitment to give back.

GUPTA: Hamid was one of the lucky ones, receiving an organ after being on the waiting list only a few months.

CHARLENE SLAVER-ROOSEVELT, DONATED SON'S ORGANS: When I say the heart choosing a person, the comparison of Hamid and Joey is amazing.

GUPTA: The heart had belonged to Charlene's Slaver-Roosevelt's 23- year-old son Joey, who had been struck and killed by a car.

SLAVER-ROOSEVELT: Hamid and I developed this relationship. It's not just the man that carries my son's heart, but I learned to love the man.

GUPTA: Hamid has made good on his pledge to give back, regularly returning to the hospital to speak to others waiting for organs. And on this day, Charlene is at his side.

SLAVER-ROOSEVELT: Hamid being part of my wedding was just always the given. I wanted him to be there to walk me down the aisle. He placed a rose on the seat for Joey.

[14:55:01]

When we got to the top and he hugged me, I could feel his heart beating right through his suit.

MAHDAVY: You cannot change destiny, but you can turn something very terrible to at least something positive for many families. Out of the fire, pull out life.

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