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Nancy Phillipe is Interviewed about Saving the Sequoias; Democrats Rule Out Biden Challenge; Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) is Interviewed about Health Data; Funeral Tomorrow for Shinzo Abe. Aired 9:30-10a ET

Aired July 11, 2022 - 09:30   ET

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

[09:30:00]

NICK WATT, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That has been evacuated. The southern entrance to the park is closed right now. Mariposa Grove is obviously closed while those firefighters battle to contain. Cautious optimism, but this fight is far from over.

Guys.

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Glad you're keeping a close eye.

Nick Watt there. Thanks so much.

SCIUTTO: Joining us now is Nancy Phillipe. She's a park ranger with Yosemite Fire. She's joining us now by phone.

So, Nancy, I mean we're seeing some of these efforts here to save these trees, including the sprinkler system around one of them. I wonder, what's your assessment of the fight right now? Are you going to be able to save those trees?

NANCY PHILLIPE, PARK RANGER, YOSEMITE FIRE, YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK (via telephone): Well, Jim, we have a confident plan in place. And like your correspondent was saying, the combination of the removal of the hazard fuels and the prescribed burning that we've done, with the temporary sprinkler system that is in place, we are confident that's giving those giant sequoias the best protection available.

HARLOW: Do you have any indication yet on what may have caused this particular fire?

PHILLIPE: That's a good question, Poppy. The fire is still under investigation. It was reported at 2:00 in the afternoon last Thursday. And the National Park Service, Yosemite actually has fire investigators who were on scene from the Wawona area right away. So, we have a team looking into that and working on that.

SCIUTTO: Nancy, as you know better than us, these fires are becoming bigger, they're becoming more common, more frequent in the American west. So, my question is, going forward, if the big trees survive this fire, what are the chances they survive the next and the next for the long term? I mean you look at - you know the big one is 3,000 years but, you know, How much more time do they have?

PHILLIPE: Right. Well, these -- the sequoias are very fire resistant. And as we go back to focusing on those prescribed fires, it's called prescribed fire for a reason. Like, if -- as we - as adults and humans go to the doctor, we get a prescription from a doctor. What we're doing as fire managers and scientists are taking a look at the conditions of the trees and what do we need to prescribe? What conditions are in place? And so really focusing on that. And when unwanted fire comes into the area, once they hit the treated prescription, it really does tend to slow the rate of spread and really help us get some containment. So, they are -- they are a fire resistant tree.

HARLOW: What do you think people don't understand most about what is happening in Yosemite right now? And the big - the big picture here, because we - you know, we seem to see more and more of these fires that are even -- more and more destructive year by year.

PHILLIPE: Right. I mean it's not only the trees, it's our community.

HARLOW: Yes.

PHILLIPE: Our community of Wawona has been evacuated. And it's so difficult to be displaced and separated from your belongings and your home and your comfort. And, big picture, you know, this - this -- Yosemite is a land for everyone. The - Mariposa Grove was set aside in 1864 in the midst of the Civil War with President Abraham Lincoln. And that land was recognized as something that needed to be protected and preserved for all future generations, for everyone across the nation. And so this whole section, it's just - it's a vast, dynamic history that it's very powerful.

HARLOW: Yes. A national treasure.

Nancy Phillipe, thank you, not only for talking to us, but for -- to your whole - to your whole team on the ground there.

PHILLIPE: Thank you. All right, thank you. Take care.

HARLOW: Yes.

Well, ahead, the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade has led to an investigation into how data companies are handling reproductive health information. We're going to talk to one of the lawmakers ahead leading that case next.

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[09:38:46]

SCIUTTO: Right now President Biden is facing a crisis of confidence within his own party of voters. A newly released "New York Times" poll shows that 64 percent of Democratic primary voters do not want Biden to run again in 2024. New CNN reporting suggests, however, they may not get their wish.

CNN's Isaac Dovere joins me now with this reporting.

There's been a lot of talk here, both in public and private, that, hey, maybe he's not the man, the candidate for 2024. But you're finding now the party is rallying around him.

EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, look, I talked to the people who get chattered about the most as potential challengers, Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, J.B. Pritzker, the governor of Illinois. Even Ro Khanna, a congressman from California, who is seen by some as possibly doing kind of renegade maverick run against him, and they all said, absolutely not. We -- we're not running. I'm not running. And it would be a mistake for the party to do anything like this.

SCIUTTO: But we have -- the history of presidential campaigns is such that promises not to run can become campaigns eventually. I mean what is the - what's the - how locked and loaded is this?

DOVERE: And that's totally true. But the other history of presidential campaigns is when you have had incumbent presidents face a primary challenge, whether that was Ronald Reagan in 1976, Jimmy Carter in 1980, George Bush in 1992, it hasn't worked out for the primary challenger, and it also hasn't worked out for the incumbent president.

[09:40:08]

SCIUTTO: Right. Undermines the candidate in the general election.

DOVERE: For sure.

SCIUTTO: Yes. Isaac Dovere, thanks so much.

DOVERE: Thank you.

SCIUTTO: We'll be watching closely.

Poppy.

HARLOW: All right, the House Oversight Committee will investigate the use of reproductive health data collected by technology firms. Three Democratic lawmakers sent letters to a handful of data companies requesting a lot of documents and information on their data security practices. Let me read you part of this letter.

Quote, the collection of the sensitive data could pose serious threats to those seeking reproductive care, as well as to providers of such care, not only by facilitating intrusive government surveillance, but also by putting people at risk of harassment, intimidation and even violence.

Joining me now is one of the authors of the letter, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, a Democrat from Illinois.

Congressman, thanks very much for the time. I read through the letter this morning. And you guys seem very worried

given the history of a lot of big tech companies with handling private data, but also your concern seems to really center on the sharing of the data gathered by these apps with big third-party tech companies.

So I'm interested in what specifically you think needs to change to protect it. What specific changes are you guys calling for?

REP. RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI (D-IL): Well, first of all, we're trying to shed some light on the privacy policies of these different apps. As you know, millions of women entrust deeply personal reproductive health data with these apps and the companies that manage them, and so we're trying to find out, what are their policies with regard to sharing this information, who has actually accessed it, and what are their policies going forward after -- now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned.

Separately, we've initiated legislation to put more privacy protections in place with regard to this information.

HARLOW: Ok. The White House has warned about some of these apps, not all of them, but saying people need to be, and I quote, really careful when using, for example, a period tracker app. I mean that's saying a lot coming from the White House. Is your assessment at this point that these apps are safe to use at the moment?

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Not all of them, Poppy. It appears that many of them actually share information without the consent of the women or others who are using those apps. And so we are trying to shed sunlight on those policies and exactly which companies are doing what so that women can actually make better informed decisions in the marketplace, even at the same time that we're pursuing legislation to provide privacy protection for everybody.

HARLOW: President Biden, as you know, signed an executive order on Friday trying to protect abortion rights, but there are some, include -- not just - not just activists, but some in Congress, including the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who tweeted out it's a start but it's not enough. I wonder if you agree with them.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I think we need to do more.

HARLOW: OK.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I think that (INAUDIBLE) quite - quite frankly, in Congress this week we're taking up two bills. One to protect those women who are traveling from states where abortions are outlawed, to other states such as Illinois where they can get reproductive health services. We also need to codify Roe. Of course, we're going to be taking up another bill to do that this week, but in the Senate, unfortunately, there's a filibuster in place with regard to that legislation, which means that we have to get more senators elected to potentially create a carveout within the filibuster to allow for Roe v. Wade to be codified.

HARLOW: So, Congressman, I'd like to turn to talk about guns and red flag laws, given the tragedy in your state, the Highland Park mass shooting, the tragic number of shooting deaths in Chicago as well.

Illinois has red flag laws, but it didn't - it didn't work in the Highland Park case. We now know a lot about all of the missed warning signs, the numerous times police were called to the home of the shooter, the parents' unwillingness to raise a red flag, if you will, and the way that the red flag law is written in your state is that family members have to raise it. For example, police can't initiate it. And I wonder if you think the text of the law now needs to change.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Yes, and I think that's what the governor and the general assembly here are planning to do, Poppy, in the upcoming special session. But more generally, this particular shooter, who took the lives of seven people, used a Smith & Wesson MP-15 semiautomatic weapon. The M&P stands for military and police. This weapon of war should only be accessible to the military and police. And so we have to look at a bigger issue both in this state, as well as nationally, which is, should we allow such weapons of war to be accessible by people like this person, Mr. Crimo, the shooter, or anyone.

[09:45:14]

I think the answer is no, because, unfortunately, these AR-15 and other semiautomatic weapons are the weapons of choice in these mass shootings, which are increasingly becoming prevalent everywhere.

HARLOW: I'd like to ask you more broadly about Chicago. You called the Highland Park mass shooting unspeakable. And it is. Seven murdered. An eight-year-old little boy paralyzed. Dozens injured.

That same weekend, the July 4th holiday weekend, in Chicago proper, you had 71 people shot, eight people killed. So the death toll there higher, from guns.

J.R., who's a resident of the south side of Chicago, told "The Washington Post," quote, we are getting ignored. Kids get shot here. They throw them in bags and they keep going, but they've got the whole SWAT team out there in Highland Park trying to get to the bottom of this.

I promise you, he's not alone, and I wonder what you say to him.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: I think he's right. I think we have to bring more attention to the daily unfortunate mass shootings that are happening in places like Chicago and elsewhere. But that's going to require federal gun regulations, Poppy. In Chicago, for instance, 60 percent of crime guns, those are guns found at crime scenes, are actually coming from other states, like Indiana, Wisconsin and other places, where the regulations are so lax with regard to these weapons. So only national common sense gun control can prevent these tragedies that are unfortunately unfolding every day in places like Chicago and other cities.

HARLOW: Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, thanks for your time on both of these really important issues this morning.

KRISHNAMOORTHI: Thank you, Poppy. HARLOW: Sure.

Jim.

SCIUTTO: Coming up, CNN is in Tokyo following the assassination of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. What we are learning now about the gunman pictured there coming up.

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[09:51:43]

HARLOW: In Tokyo today, mourners are paying their respect to Japan's former prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated Friday while campaigning for candidates from his party.

SCIUTTO: Still, such a shocking event there.

Earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an unscheduled trip to Japan while traveling in Asia to offer the Biden administration's condolences.

CNN's senior national correspondent Kyung Lah is live with us from Tokyo.

So, Kyung, tell us what we know about the funeral plans tomorrow.

KYUNG LAH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jim and Poppy, the funeral is scheduled to take place and really take place over several hours tomorrow at the Buddhist temple that you see right over my shoulder. And it's a process and a ceremony that's really going to be reserved as a private manner for the family and close dignitaries.

But this temple is going to be a place for the public to gather as well. And we saw glimpses of it today for the wake, for the former prime minister. We saw a steady stream of well-wishers, people who probably had never met the prime minister, had never shook his hand. But they were dropping flowers. They were gathering around a picture of the former prime minister to pause, to pray and to leave flowers. And it really was a way for them to begin to process the shock and horror that this happened in a country that doesn't experience gun crimes. It is a completely foreign experience for them.

And when I was speaking with one man who had come here, he said, he just wanted to stop and note what had happened. That this was something he still could not understand.

Jim and Poppy.

HARLOW: And, Kyung, do you have any updates on the suspect? I mean any new details, timeline?

LAH: We are - yes, we are getting quite a bit. And on that exact point, Poppy, a timeline is beginning to form around the 41-year-old suspect, Tetsuya Yamagami. The timeline that we understand, according to the police, that he had actually been planning this for quite some time, that he made these handmade, homemade pistols by watching YouTube videos, and that he put them all together with adhesive tape, that he had practiced using some of these handmade devices in the mountainside and that he knew exactly when the former premier would show up in his hometown and that he had almost chased the appearance before the prime minister, the former prime minister had shown up.

As far as motive, we understand that from what the police tell us that he was motivated by anger, resentment, a grudge that he held against the former prime minister, believing that he had ties to some sort of a group. Well, that group, according to a press conference held by the Japan branch of the Unitarian Church, is that church. But what they say is Abe didn't have ties to them. That the suspect wasn't a member of their church. The suspect's mother was. And they did say that they were aware that she had become bankrupt in 2002, but they still were quite confused about exactly how that sort of resentment might end up in such an elaborate murder.

Jim and Poppy.

[09:55:01]

HARLOW: Kyung Lah, thank you. We really appreciate your reporting being on the ground there. Obviously, a very significant day tomorrow.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Thanks, Kyung.

The Justice Department, overnight, firing back at Steve Bannon's sudden about-face on testifying before the January 6th committee, just days before his own contempt trial begins.

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SCIUTTO: A very good Monday morning to you. I'm Jim Sciutto.

HARLOW: And I'm Poppy Harlow. We're glad you're with us.

SCIUTTO: Yes.

HARLOW: Key Trump ally Steve Bannon reversing course after months of defying a subpoena saying he is now willing to testify before the January 6th committee. But, the Department of Justice says it will not help him in his criminal contempt of Congress case. It's set to go to trial next week, by the way. Bannon now says he's ready to cooperate with the committee after receiving a letter from former President Trump waiving executive privilege.

[10:00:05]