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Russian Missiles Hit Kyiv As G7 Summit Begins In Europe; Biden To Meet With Global Leaders This Weekend; At Least 17 Dead After Tavern Incident In East London, South Africa; Supreme Court Overturns Roe, Leaving States Free To Ban Abortion; Biden Signs Historic Gun Reform Bill Into Law; Federal Investigators Widening Scope Of Trump's DOJ Pressure Campaign. Aired 5-6a ET
Aired June 26, 2022 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KIM BRUNHUBER, CNN ANCHOR AND CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Welcome to all of you watching us here in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber.
Ahead, a barrage of explosions across Kyiv leaves destruction. We're live at the site of the attack.
And all this as the G7 summit leaders gather in Germany, where Ukraine is at the top of their agenda. We'll have a live report.
And in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned, abortion clinics across the U.S. are preparing for an influx of patients from other states. I'll speak to the president of one of California's Planned Parenthoods.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Kim Brunhuber.
BRUNHUBER: And we begin in Ukraine, where two largest cities are taking fire from Russia heavy weapons. In Kyiv, the city's mayor says a number of people are trapped under the rubble of a building after a missile attack. At least two people have been hospitalized. Ukraine's air force says Russia hit the city with at least four missiles launched from strategic bombers.
While in Kharkiv, officials say Russian artillery again pummeled residential areas, leaving at least two injured. A number of apartment buildings were truck along with a medical facility. And a regional official says Russia may be preparing a ground attack in the eastern Donetsk region. He says Russia is massing forces there, including armored vehicles.
And in Germany, G7 leaders are gathering for their annual meeting. We saw President Biden arrive for a meeting with Chancellor Scholz. And dominating the agenda, of course, is Russia's war in Ukraine. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: There is a lot to do and I want to compliment you on stepping up as you did when you became chancellor, moving in a way that you had a great impact on the rest of Europe, particularly when it comes to Ukraine.
You are one of our fastest and closest allies in the world and we got to make sure that we have this -- us all staying together. You know, we have to continue working on the economic challenges we face. But I think that we can get through all this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: This morning, President Biden announced that G7 nations will ban the import of gold from Russia, the country's second largest export. It is the latest in a series of wide ranging sanctions aimed at punishing Russia for the war.
U.S. Officials say Biden is also hoping to announce more military aid for Ukraine, both at these talks and at a NATO summit meeting in Spain later this week. G7 leaders are also hoping to tackle sustainability, the COVID-19 pandemic and the economy.
Ukraine's President Zelenskyy will take part in the summit on Monday. It was reported that he would make a virtual address. He made the announcement after Russian missiles rained down on Ukraine Saturday. Zelenskyy said the attacks show Ukraine needs more help. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): I will take part in the G7 summit on Monday. The NATO summit will take place next week; 45 missiles in half a day.
And just of the eve of such meetings, all clear, another confirmation of our opposition.
This confirms that sanctions packages against Russia are not enough. Ukraine needs more armed assistance and that air defense systems, the modern systems that our partners have, should be not in training areas or storage facilities but in Ukraine, where they are now needed, needed more than anywhere else in the world.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Kevin Liptak is standing by with the latest on the G7 summit. First, Salma Abdelaziz live in Kyiv.
You are there where they are trying to rescue people who are trapped.
SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's an active scene here. We're being moved about constantly. Security services pushed us back here. Just down the street is what was struck this morning.
[05:05:00] ABDELAZIZ: At about 6:30 local time, in the morning, multiple rockets hitting a residential building, a nine-story apartment block. You can see at the top there. I know we have pictures from earlier, that top apartment flattened, destroyed.
For hours, rescue workers were here, trying to pull people out from under the rubble. You can see firefighters, medics, a huge operation to rescue whoever they can. We know there are several people wounded, already hospitalized and taken for treatment.
One mother, a woman, was under the rubble for five hours. She was, of course, injured, put into the back of an ambulance and taken. We spoke to the local mayor here, who believes Russia was intentionally targeting civilians.
BRUNHUBER: All of this was in the context of more missile strikes from Russia in other parts of Ukraine. Take us through the latest from the rest of the country.
ABDELAZIZ: Absolutely. We're hearing of strikes in Kharkiv, in other areas, more information coming. We heard of more strikes here in Kyiv. Earlier I spoke to the mayor and he told me he felt that Russia was targeting, intentionally targeting residential areas. Take a listen.
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VITALI KLITSCHKO, KYIV MAYOR: It's live from Russians. They are fighting the gains military. It's -- we in our hometown, destroyed 220 apartment buildings, where live civilians. They attack and attack Ukrainians. It's a senseless war. And we have to do everything to stop this war because thousands and thousands of unguilty (sic) people, civilians died.
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ABDELAZIZ: As you can hear there, it's a devastating day for Ukraine at large with this widespread assault, widespread attack, multiple cities being hit by Russian forces.
BRUNHUBER: All right. Thanks so much.
Let's go to Kevin, who is covering the G7.
Ukraine at the top of the agenda where you are. We just heard President Biden stressing the importance of unity to Germany's Olaf Scholz.
Will that be one of the themes throughout?
KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it certainly will. The president reiterating that the West cannot splinter in the face of Russian aggression. And you're right. This really is a wartime summit. There are some other issues on the agenda. China, climate change.
But when it comes down to it, Ukraine will dominate the agenda here in the Bavarian Alps. This is coming at a period of deep global economic stability and comes as momentum on the ground there is not favoring Ukraine.
So when you talk to U.S. and European officials, they say the goals of this summit are twofold: one, to find new areas to punish Russia for its invasion. So we've already heard today that the U.S. and other G7 countries will ban imports of Russian gold. That's significant because gold is Russia's second largest export after energy.
Officials hope that can make further dents in the economy of Russia. The second issue is to try to mitigate these secondary effects of the war that have been seen around the world; principally the price of energy, which caused prices of gas in the U.S. and around the world to skyrocket.
The other issues leaders want to look at is food, getting grain out of Ukraine to prevent food insecurity crisis and potential famine around the world. This is all on the agenda when leaders sit down today. The president started his first engagement with the German chancellor but will have many more meetings as the summit progresses.
BRUNHUBER: You mentioned this balancing act they have to do, these Western leaders.
With this economic crisis looming, how much does their own domestic politics play into what's going to happen there?
LIPTAK: Yes. It certainly factors into Biden's thinking and all of these politicians' thinking. It was only three months ago that the president was last here in Europe for a similar set of summits. The mood was more of a resolved mood.
The mood here is more somber. This war, turned into a grinding conflict of attrition, that is having all of these aftereffects that is having an impact on political standings back home.
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LIPTAK: One of the conversations they'll have is, what does the next phase of this war look like?
What happens when the summer ends?
Do they press Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy to engage in more robust negotiations with Russia?
Do they even ask him to make some sort of concessions?
There is no indication that either Zelenskyy or these leaders here are ready to do that yet. But as this war continues, without necessarily a clear end game, that is something they will have to think about, as fatigue sets in among their populations back home, as anger sets in at what the war is doing to prices of commodities, like energy.
Biden will have some intense and serious discussions on those topics over the next several days.
BRUNHUBER: All right. We'll keep following along with you. Thank you very much.
We have breaking news from South Africa where police say 17 people have died in what police call an incident at a tavern in the town of East London. A police official told CNN he didn't know if there were survivors from the incident. The cause is still under investigation.
Many people have gathered at the scene, trying to find loved ones. Victims are thought to be between the ages of 18 and 20 years old.
People in cities and towns across the U.S. are taking to the streets to show their disapproval of Friday's Supreme Court ruling striking down abortion rights.
As more and more clinics are forced to shut their doors, women have no choice but to travel to a state where it's legal. We'll speak with a Planned Parenthood official in California about how they're preparing for the surge of out of state patients. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: For the first time since 1973, American women no longer have a constitutional right to make one of the most difficult decisions any woman could make, having an abortion.
Angry protests have spilled across the country since the 5-4 decision was handed down early Friday. With midterm elections a few months away, there's no indication that tempers will cool anytime soon.
Two people were arrested by U.S. Capitol Police on Saturday for allegedly throwing the paint over the fence surrounding the U.S. Supreme Court; 26 states are expected to implement abortion bans in the near future. At least 10 of them already have since Friday's stunning ruling.
In Mississippi, a statewide abortion ban will be triggered sometime in the next 10 days or so. The Jackson Women's Clinic, whose name is enshrined in Supreme Court precedent, vows to remain open until the last possible moment.
The vast majority of protests so far have been noisy, passionate and peaceful but there has been some scattered unrest. Riot police confronted marchers on Friday with batons and tear gas. CNN correspondents are across the country following the ruling. Let's begin with Joe Johns in Washington.
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JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: At the Supreme Court, what we saw at the court today was anger, outrage and fear about the future after the court overturned Roe versus Wade. There was a large crowd out here made up of mostly abortion rights
supporters but there were opponents of abortion here as well, leading to verbal confrontations, back and forth shouting and profanities.
Police reportedly had to intervene with speakers admonishing the crowd to remember that this was supposed to be a peaceful mass rally here outside the Supreme Court.
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Polo Sandoval in New York City, where a group of peaceful and passionate protesters have come together at Union Square hoping to send a loud and clear message to women in other states, especially those in states with so-called trigger laws.
Hoping that they hear them loud and clear, that women here continue to be vocal and speak out after the Supreme Court ruling that has left so many people across the country frustrated.
New York officials in anticipation of that ruling did take steps to make sure that women in New York state still had access to abortion. In fact on Friday, New York City's Eric Adams doubled down and sent a clear message to the rest of the country that New York City will continue to be a safe haven for women seeking abortions.
NADIA ROMERO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm Nadia Romero in Jackson, Mississippi, outside of the last abortion clinic still open in the state.
The abortion provider tells me that he's doing abortions all throughout the day. They started letting in patients long before the opening hours and they've remained past hours to allow those women to come in and get access to health care.
You can see behind me that there are still protesters that are out here, anti-abortion protesters, who've been trying to convince women not to come to the clinic.
Here in the state of Mississippi, there's still about 10 days or so during that certification process before abortions must stop in this state. And that's why this clinic has extended their hours.
CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Camila Bernal in Los Angeles, where a group of protesters has been walking around the streets of downtown Los Angeles for the entire day.
They are now heading towards city hall, where a large group is currently protesting as well. You hear the chants. You see the signs. Their message is that they stand with the women in other states where abortion is not protected.
They understand that the State of California protects a woman's right to an abortion but they want to show that they stand with the rest of the country.
They have been very passionate. They have been consistent. This is the second day of protest and they believe that they will send a message to other states. As you hear them right now, they're saying, "No justice, no peace." But there are many chants and there's of course a lot of passion and a lot of emotion here in Los Angeles.
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BRUNHUBER: More than a dozen states were ready to ban abortion when and if the Supreme Court reversed Roe versus Wade. In some cases it's happened. Tom Foreman breaks it down for us.
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TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Thirteen states had so-called trigger laws in place for this day, meaning abortion bans that would go into effect very quickly according to the abortion rights group, the Guttmacher Institute.
In Kentucky and Louisiana and South Dakota, for example, the law said it would happen immediately. So barring some issue, it's already illegal there.
The next level were the states where abortion bans are to be enforced 30 days from now. In Idaho, Tennessee and Texas -- although there is a push in Texas to bypass that delay and have it in place even sooner.
We should note all these maps are in flux because this is moving so quickly this weekend.
Then we have a half dozen states where officials need to certify their legislation is legally valid before their bans kick in -- Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.
And again, they're moving so fast to get this done, they may all be done by the time you hear this. And we know that those that aren't, it could still just be a matter of hours or days until they're done.
So then we have all of these with trigger laws in place and then we add to that states that have old, unenforced abortion bans which now can be enforced and states that passed bans under Roe which were blocked by the courts which now would be unblocked.
All together, you've got a whopping 26 states certain or likely to ban abortion. We say "likely" because there are places such as Montana, where a state Supreme Court ruling is for now still in the way.
We talk about a lot of laws in this country that may or may not be felt by people everywhere. These laws are really going to reverberate all across the country through the actions of these states.
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BRUNHUBER: Joining me now is Stacy Cross, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood in California. She joins me now from San Jose.
Thank you very much for being here with us. California has vowed to be a safe haven. Yours is the largest Planned Parenthood in terms of the patients you serve. They could see another 1.4 million patients come to your state since the ruling. Since the draft was leaked, you had time to prepare for this moment.
How have you prepared?
Are you ready?
STACY CROSS, PRESIDENT AND CEO, PLANNED PARENTHOOD MAR MONTE: Well, thank you very much for having us, having me on. We are as prepared as possible. We've been preparing for several years. We really knew this was a possibility the morning after the 2016 election.
So what we've been doing is we've been adding providers. We've hired at least 10 additional providers and we are training our licensed staff up to their fullest capacity. We're adding additional health center space, so adding brick-and-mortar, both Nevada and California.
We're prepared right now to take an additional 250 to 500 patients a week while not impacting the care we're currently providing to patients.
BRUNHUBER: Will that be enough, do you think?
CROSS: We just don't know. There are seven Planned Parenthoods across the state of California. And there's two Planned Parenthoods that cover Nevada. Then there's also independent providers.
We're all working together and we just don't know until the patients start coming. We have already been seeing, since SB-8 in Texas went into effect on September 1st, we've been seeing patients from Texas all across the state of California, also in Nevada and we're seeing patients from other states already.
BRUNHUBER: The problem is financially traveling out of state. It's not an option for everyone, of course. The costs this will have in terms of the health and the lives potentially threatened. I know you know this all too well from a tragic event in your own family, I understand.
Is that right?
CROSS: Yes. So I never got to meet either of my grandmothers. My mother's mother died before -- when she was 17. And after she delivered her ninth child, she never came home from the hospital.
About five years after I started working for Planned Parenthood, I found out my father's mother, though we were always told had -- that she had died from a ruptured appendix, had actually died after an illegal abortion performed by her sister in 1934.
She was 19 years old. My father was about 18 months old. They just didn't think they could afford another child during the Depression, which is true right now. Most of our patients seeking abortion are the -- between the ages of 19 and 34.
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CROSS: They're married. They have other children. They just don't think they can afford to bring another child into their families.
BRUNHUBER: It must be unbelievably sort of poignant and tragic to feel we're going back to those times now, that that situation that your grandmother was in will be replicated perhaps across this country, with so many people who can't afford to travel to get an abortion elsewhere.
CROSS: It's heartbreaking. Friday morning, even though I knew this was coming, it's heartbreaking to think we're going back in time. Making abortion illegal doesn't make it go away. It just makes it unsafe for people seeking abortions.
To add to that the burden that people have to face, that they have to travel, they have to get time off of work, they have child care, they have housing they have to figure out. So fortunately, living in the state of California, where our governor has been an absolute champion and has -- we've been able to pass several bills here.
And they've put money behind those bills. There is money that will be administered through a third party to help patients with travel, with housing, with child care. Many of these patients have never left their small town.
Now for a procedure, earlier in the week that was safe and legal, they now have to potentially travel thousands of miles in order to receive this.
BRUNHUBER: We wish you the best of luck dealing with this huge influx of patients who might be coming to see you. Really appreciate your input on this. Stacy Cross, thank you very much.
CROSS: Thank you very much. Appreciate your time.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: The world reacts to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision ending national abortion rights. We'll tell you how nations around the world are responding to the change. That's ahead.
We'll find out from CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta what the decision could mean for the mortality of women during pregnancy and why medical professionals are concerned. That's ahead.
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BRUNHUBER: Welcome back to all of you watching us in the United States, Canada and around the world. I'm Kim Brunhuber. This is CNN NEWSROOM.
Protests have erupted across the U.S. in the wake of the Supreme Court's decision to end nationwide constitutional protections for abortion.
Dozens of demonstrations took place across the country on Saturday, with critical midterm elections just months away. Democrats are urging abortion rights advocates to express their anger at the ballot box. Conservatives celebrated the rules. Listen to this.
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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)
BRUNHUBER: Lawyer Gloria Allred says it was wasn't about conservatism but extremism.
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GLORIA ALLRED, VICTIMS' RIGHTS ATTORNEY: 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 for all of us who care about our sisters and our daughters and our mothers and our aunts, this is completely unacceptable.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: Many European leaders are aghast over what the Supreme Court did. Judging by their reactions, the U.S. is now starkly out of step with many other democracies when it comes to basic women's rights. As CNN's Rafael Romo explains, and the impact is being felt far outside the U.S.
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RAFAEL ROMO, CNN SR. LATIN AFFAIRS EDITOR (voice-over): A wave of green in Bogota, abortion rights advocates celebrated the landmark decision by Colombia's constitutional court in February, legalizing abortion during the first 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Moving the needle forward from a previous ruling of the country in 2006 that allowed the woman to get an abortion if she was raped, if the fetus was deformed or if her life was threatened.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): From now on, we will be able to decide whether to be mothers or not.
ROMO (voice-over): But the decision still has strong opposition. On Friday the Colombian justice ministry confirmed that it supports petitions to the court that seek to nullify the historic ruling.
It's a sign of just how heated this battle is, not only in Colombia but around the world.
In Latin America, protesters carrying green scarves, symbolic of the abortion rights movement, have gained momentum in recent years, resulting in major shifts in legislation across the region.
Argentina, at the forefront of the trend in 2020, when it legalized abortion up to the 14th week of pregnancy.
Last year, Mexico's Supreme Court ruled it's unconstitutional for a woman to be criminally penalized for having an abortion, a decision that set a legal precedent for court cases across the country.
Now eight of Mexico's states allow abortions, a sea change in Latin America that experts say is part of a global tide of nations liberalizing abortion laws. One of Europe's most restrictive abortion laws was overturned in 2018 when Ireland voted to admit abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and in later cases if the woman's health was at risk.
It's something activists say was a decades long struggle.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The youths of Ireland are mobilized. And now we're moving beyond the conservative traditionalism that has held our country back for the last, like, 100 years of the church being in control. We're progressive.
ROMO (voice-over): In Australia, access to abortion varies in each state and territory, similar to the United States. But there have been some progressive changes there.
In 2018, the procedure was decriminalized in Queensland and New South Wales, with South Australia becoming the final state to decriminalize it last year. Analysts say the U.S. is one of a handful of countries going in the opposite direction.
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ROMO (voice-over): According to the Center for Reproductive Rights, of the 36 countries that the United Nations defines as developed economies, all but two, Poland and Malta, allow abortions on request or on broad social grounds.
Many activists say they're not only shocked by the U.S. reversal but worry it could encourage lobbying for more restrictive reproductive rights.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): When it's extremely serious is that we see the power and the influence in a country like the United States, which has an immense power of influence in the world, it's extremely frightening on the impact it can have on the rest of the world.
ROMO (voice-over): The U.N. warns that restricting abortions won't stop people from seeking them out; it only makes them more deadly, a danger many women in certain states of the U.S. may be confronted with for the first time in their lives -- Rafael Romo, CNN, Atlanta.
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BRUNHUBER: The Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade is expected to have a major impact on women's health. And the medical community is reacting strongly to the decision. Countless major institutions are issuing statements of concern. Dr. Sanjay Gupta has more.
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DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: It is fair to say that the public health organizations, medical organizations in this country are pretty much in lockstep regarding their concerns about Roe v. Wade being overturned.
One of the biggest concerns -- this is coming from more than 1,000 deans of public health schools, head of the American Medical Association, head of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, lots of organizations like that -- their biggest concern is just how much of an impact this will have on access to safe care for women.
Now one thing worth pointing out, many people don't realize this, if you look at maternal mortality statistics in the United States now, just as things stand now, one of the wealthiest countries in the world, how do we stack up, as compared to other wealthy countries?
Take a look. These are maternal mortality statistics. The United States is all the way on the right in orange. It's the highest in terms of overall maternal mortality. This is defined as women who die in and around childbirth. So it's already very significant.
And as you might expect, it disproportionately affects women of color and women in poverty. So one of the reasons these public health organizations are so concerned is, because if you look at the models as to what happens if there's an abortion ban, what you find is that those terrible numbers that you just saw go up even further.
So they're going to be up 7 percent, they project, within the first year and 21 percent in subsequent years, on top of already very high both maternal mortality and morbidity. Women having significant illness, harm during and around the time of childbirth.
So that's one of the issues. Another issue that they raise in these letters that they've been now circulating for some time in the anticipation that this might happen is looking around the world and seeing that restricting access to legal abortion -- this is from "The New England Journal of Medicine" -- restricting access to legal abortion did not substantially reduce the number of procedures but did dramatically reduce the number of safe procedures, which then again increased in the morbidity and mortality around childbirth.
So this is what we're hearing from the public health community, from the medical community. There's still a lot that we don't know in terms of what will be allowed. We do know medical science has advanced a lot over the last 50 years.
But what that all means going forward in this nation and, in particular, states, that's a subject of a lot of these letters going around now in the public health community.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Our thanks to Dr. Sanjay Gupta for that report.
Just ahead, a major legislative accomplishment after the recent spate of deadly mass shootings. We'll have a report from Washington.
Also ahead, how Donald Trump tried to intimidate the Department of Justice into doing his bidding. Why it could have lasting damage to America's democracy for years to come. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Updating our top story: Ukraine's two biggest cities are taking fire from Russian heavy weapons. The chief of the national police force says one person died in a missile strike that hit a residential apartment block in Kyiv Sunday morning.
Five people were wounded, including a 7-year-old girl and her mother, who is a citizen of Russia. Ukraine's air force says Russia hit the city with at least four missiles launched from strategic bombers.
History was made on Saturday in the bitter fight over gun reform in the U.S. President Joe Biden signed a historic federal gun safety legislation into law. It's the first major gun safety reform passed by Congress in decades.
It came together in the wake of mass shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo and it got support from both sides of the aisle and was celebrated on the House floor Friday after it passed. The president acknowledged it falls short of what he and the Democrats had hoped. Here he is.
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JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, this bill doesn't do everything I want. It does include actions I've long called for that are going to save lives.
It funds crisis intervention, including red flag laws. It keeps guns out of the hands of people who are a danger to themselves and to others and finally closes what is known as the boyfriend loophole.
So if you assault your boyfriend or girlfriend, you can't buy a gun or own a gun.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BRUNHUBER: For more on how Washington got to this point and what's in the historic bill, we go to Daniella Diaz.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
DANIELLA DIAZ, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: President Joe Biden signed into law the first major piece of legislation addressing gun safety in nearly 30 years. Major, major news, after a bipartisan group in the Senate worked on this framework on this bill for weeks in the wake of that horrific shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Of course, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell ended up supporting this legislation. The top Republican in the Senate, he actually was the one who gave his blessing to senator John Cornyn of Texas to begin negotiating with Democrats for this legislation.
It passed the Senate, was able to break the filibuster Thursday night and it passed the House Friday morning. Incredibly notable, with just little to no Republican support in the end; 15 Republicans in the Senate supported this legislation and just 14 Republicans in the House supported the legislation, including Adam Kinzinger and Liz Cheney, two Republicans who serve on the January 6 committee.
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DIAZ: After it passed the House, it went to President Biden's desk.
What's in this legislation?
It has millions of dollars for mental health, school safety, crisis intervention programs and it will have incentives for states, including -- to include juvenile records and the national instant criminal background check system.
It also makes significant changes to the process for someone between the ages of 18-21 goes to buy a firearm. Then it also closes the so- called boyfriend loophole, a major win for Democrats in these negotiations.
Of course, Republicans endorsed this legislation because they say it still respects the Second Amendment. That is why it was a bipartisan bill.
But look, Democrats argue that it falls short of some of the measures they were hoping they could include in gun safety legislation, including a ban on assault rifles or expanded background checks.
But they still lauded this as a win for a bipartisan group that negotiated this bill. But of course, President Joe Biden signing this legislation into law, one of the first major bipartisan wins we've seen on Capitol Hill in a long time -- Daniella Diaz, CNN, Washington.
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BRUNHUBER: The January 6th committee wrapped up its fifth public hearing on Thursday. Now there's signs that federal investigators are widening their scope.
A source tells CNN that Arizona Republican Party chair Kelly Ward and her husband have been subpoenaed, part of an investigation into a reported scheme to send fake electors to Congress to keep former president Trump in office. Brian Todd has a closer look at testimony from top officials in Trump's Justice Department.
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BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The dangerous moves of a desperate, defeated president trying to get the Department of Justice to do his bidding.
This week's hearings of the House select committee on January 6th focused partly on Donald Trump's efforts after the 2020 election and before the January 6th attack on the Capitol to change the election results using that department as his lever.
RICHARD DONOGHUE, FORMER ACTING DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: The president's and treaties became more urgent, he became more adamant that we weren't doing our job. We need to step up and do our job.
TODD (voice-over): Part of a pattern former Trump administration officials and outside analysts say Donald Trump exhibited almost from the moment he stepped into the Oval Office.
JULIAN ZELIZER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: The behavior is very dangerous. The former president saw the Department of Justice as an institution that should help his presidency and the attorney general is someone who worked for him rather than who protected the law.
DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Welcome to the White House.
TODD (voice-over): Early on, Trump relentlessly pressured his first attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to oversee the Russia investigation. When Sessions refused and recused himself, Trump publicly insulted him repeatedly, like in an interview with FOX News.
TRUMP: I put an attorney general that never took control of the Justice Department.
TODD (voice-over): Trump eventually fired Sessions.
TRUMP: There is -- he's become more famous than me.
TODD (voice-over): Soon after taking office, Trump pressured then FBI director James Comey to drop an investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Comey later claimed Trump had made a personal demand of him. JAMES COMEY, FORMER FBI DIRECTOR: I got the sense my job would be contingent upon how he felt I conducted myself and whether I demonstrated loyalty.
TODD (voice-over): Trump denied asking for Comey's loyalty but ended up firing Comey, later saying he was frustrated over the ongoing Russia probe. Later, after then attorney general Bill Barr, who had been a loyalist, finally said he saw no evidence of widespread election fraud in 2020, Trump called Barr, quote, "stupid, a coward, a swamp creature."
According to the Mueller report, Trump once asked why the Department of Justice didn't fight for him the way he believed then attorney general Robert Kennedy fought for his brother while John Kennedy was president. Experts say that's not how the relationship between a president and an attorney general should be.
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: There is a longstanding practice in government that the president and the attorney general should not ever be communicating about cases. President Trump violated that pretty repeatedly throughout his administration.
TODD: Many say because so far Trump has not been held accountable for his behavior with the Justice Department, that future presidents may think they can get away with similar tactics -- Brian Todd, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BRUNHUBER: Days of extreme heat may be easing up soon in parts of the U.S. but not before more heat advisories. And a tropical system is potentially on the horizon. We'll check the latest extreme weather conditions with Derek Van Dam next. Stay with us.
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BRUNHUBER: Blistering heat is gripping many parts of the U.S. right now, with several records set on Saturday and heat advisories in place for some places today. Relief from triple digit temperatures may be in sight.
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BRUNHUBER: And just this before we go. While there are not many better things to wake up to than the smell of bacon sizzling on the stove, if you're a true fan of America's favorite breakfast meat, now you can smell like it, too. The Tyson-owned Wright brand is selling a new bacon fragrance to
celebrate its 100th anniversary. It's on sale on its website for $19.22. Don't wear it for a walk in bear country.
That wraps this hour of CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kim Brunhuber. "NEW DAY" is next.
