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Trump Pressured Arizona's Then-Governor Doug Ducey To Overturn 2020 Election Results; Report Details Failing Of Chaotic Afghanistan Withdrawal; Ukraine Claims Progress But Gains Appear To Be Slow; Supreme Court Rules On Web Designer Case, Affirmative Action And Student Loan Forgiveness Program; Over 65 Million Americans Under Heat Alerts; Thousands Of Twitter Users Unable To Access Site; Elon Musk Announces "Rate Limit" On Tweets; Pandemic Pause On Student Loan Payments To End Soon. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired July 01, 2023 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:29]

PAULA REID, CNN HOST: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Paula Reid in Washington. Jim Acosta is off.

And we begin this hour with new evidence of Donald Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. A source tells CNN that after the votes were cast, former President Trump called then-Governor Doug Ducey of Arizona in an attempt to pressure him into overturning that state's results. Sources say Trump also pushed then-Vice President Mike Pence to help him in this pressure campaign.

CNN's Jeremy Herb joins us now.

Jeremy, what more are you learning about Trump's attempts to pressure the governor?

JEREMY HERB, CNN POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Good afternoon, Paula. Now we heard publicly at the time that Governor Ducey acknowledged he had this call with President Trump but we did not know the contents of the call. Now sources are telling CNN that Ducey has said that the president pressured him to try to find enough fraud in the state of Arizona so that Ducey could overturn the election.

Now the governor stood against Trump and certified this election despite these pressure calls. Sources also told CNN that the president talked to his former vice president and pushed Vice President Mike Pence to try to also pressure Ducey. We know that Pence called Ducey about the elections several times, but a source tells CNN that he did not pressure Ducey as he was asked.

Now this all comes as a special counsel is ramping up his investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including efforts to reach out to states like Arizona and Georgia. We should note here that a spokesman for the governor, he downplayed the significance of this call, telling CNN, frankly, nothing here is new nor is it news to anyone following this issue the last two years.

Governor Ducey defended the results of Arizona's 2020 election. He certified the election, and he made clear that the certification provided a trigger for credible complaints backed by the evidence to be brought forward. None were ever brought forward. A source -- special counsel spokesman also told CNN that Governor Ducey -- excuse me, a spokesman for Ducey told CNN that Ducey has not heard from the special counsel -- Paula.

REID: And, Jeremy, this certainly sounds similar to the call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Are they similar?

HERB: You know, it's interesting, there are a few descriptions -- now let's of course back up and remember that in January of 2021 President Trump called Raffensperger and asked the Georgia secretary of state to find enough votes for him to win the state of Georgia. Now in this case with Ducey, we don't know that -- if President Trump actually asked him to find votes. We know he asked him to find fraud. But that is a key distinction.

Another difference here is that there was a recording made of this call with Secretary Raffensperger, and a source tells CNN that in this case with Governor Ducey there was no recording of the call, Paula. So those are just a couple of these key differences that may help explain why the special counsel who interviewed Raffensperger this week may have not yet contacted Governor Ducey -- Paula.

REID: Jeremy Herb, thank you.

And joining us with more on this developing story, former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti.

Renato, does it surprise you that it does not appear that the special counsel's office has not contacted the governor about these phone calls?

RENATO MARIOTTI, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: It does surprise me because the special counsel has been very aggressive. He actually hauled in the former vice president to give testimony. And that said, I really think this suggests to me his focus is more on the false elector scheme, which is really I think very tightly connected with the pressure campaign on Mike Pence. So I think that's what it suggests to me. But, you know, it wouldn't surprise me if there are additional interviews with Ducey in the future.

REID: And based on our reporting, it appears that he didn't record these calls but he took notes. So in terms of evidence, the strength of potential evidence, how do contemporaneous notes compare to something like what we have in Georgia, a recording?

MARIOTTI: You know, contemporaneous notes are more common. It's much rarer to have a recording. But a recording is obviously better evidence. You can hear the words yourself. It has much more of an impact on the jury to hear the defendant's words spoken on tape.

[16:05:02]

Obviously the testimony of Ducey with contemporaneous notes would be credible, but it doesn't have quite the same power. REID: And sources say that then Vice President Mike Pence also spoke

to the governor multiple times about the election but did not pressure the governor as he had been asked to do. Is it likely that the former vice president has already shared some of this information with the special counsel?

MARIOTTI: I wouldn't be surprised. We know that the former vice president has not only spoken with the special counsel, but he has testified. There was, of course, some emotion regarding that in a ruling by a judge. So I presume that everything the vice president, former vice president knows is something that the special counsel and his team knows as well.

REID: We know from our reporting that the January 6th side of the special counsel investigation has been ramping up. How do you think this new reporting impacts the former president's potential legal jeopardy here?

MARIOTTI: I think it's very problematic. You know, one of the issues that the Georgia investigation, the Fulton County investigation, for example, is that, you know, the argument is going to be made that Trump -- you know, that Trump really didn't intend to commit any wrongdoing, that he was just speaking loosely, that he just chose his words poorly. And there is an aspect to that recorded conversation with Raffensperger where it's a bit of word salad.

That really can be defeated very easily if there's a pattern of activity. Of course there is a bit of a pattern of activity in Georgia itself. He made calls to the speaker of the House there and others. Now this I think creates more of a pattern, makes it very hard for the defense to explain away the conversation with Raffensperger.

REID: Where do you see the January 6th investigation going? We do expect that a charging decision could come any time in the next few weeks. We're also, as you noted, waiting for the decision in Fulton County. Right now, how do you see this playing out based on what we know?

MARIOTTI: Well, the Fulton County investigation is almost certainly going to end up with an indictment. It's not like the grand jury foreperson held her cards close to the vest when she was giving interviews. And certainly Fani Willis has also I'd say said things that have suggested that an indictment is going to come.

As for the January 6th case, I've always considered the January 6th investigation by Smith to be charges that are going to be more difficult to bring. I've always been skeptical. That said, in recent weeks more and more people who are witnesses, who have been interviewed, have suggested that an indictment is forthcoming, so I wouldn't be surprised if one does.

REID: And of course a lot of folks changed their thinking about the Mar-a-Lago probe once they knew there was a tape.

Renato Mariotti, thank you so much.

MARIOTTI: Thank you.

REID: And make sure you stick around because I'll be interviewing former Trump attorney Tim Parlatore for his first interview about this call that Trump had with Arizona's governor tonight at 7:00 p.m. Eastern.

And a new report details the failings of the deadly and chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The report concludes that the Biden and Trump administrations were to blame. But this report contains sharper criticism of the Biden administration's actions.

CNN's senior national security correspondent Kylie Atwood has details.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT (on camera): The report paints a flawed picture of both the Biden administration and the Trump administration's ability to prepare for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, saying that in both administrations, there was insufficient senior level consideration of worst-case scenarios and, quote, "how quickly those might follow."

And also gets into specifics surrounding processes that weren't effectively put in place to deal with withdrawal as it was actually unfolding. For example saying that the noncombatant evacuation operation which the Department of Defense stood up didn't have a lead at the State Department to coordinate with them. And there wasn't a single person on the seventh floor here at the State Department, which is where the secretary of State sits, coordinating on this crisis scenario.

It also paints a picture of, you know, the challenges that this presented for the Afghans on the ground because there weren't decisions made in advance about where those Afghans that the U.S. was going to help evacuate from the country we're actually going to go.

Now this is a long-anticipated report. The U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan almost two years ago. The report was done more than a year ago. There was a classified version of it shared with Congress a few months ago, but just now we have received this unclassified version. And there's some criticisms and questions about the administration in trying to bury this story, which is a dark mark on their foreign policy record.

A senior State Department official wouldn't discuss questions related to the process of when this was released.

[16:10:05]

Kylie Atwood, CNN, the State Department.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

REID: CNN military analyst Colonel Cedric Leighton joins us now.

Thank you so much for being with us. I want to talk to you about a key part of this report that says, look, this largely boils down to a failure to consider a worst-case scenario. We all remember that terrorist attack in the final days of the withdrawal that killed 13 American service members and more than 70 Afghans. Shouldn't a focus on worst-case scenarios be a vital part of planning for anything of this magnitude and complexity?

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON, CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Absolutely, Paula. There's no question about it. You know, it's -- a tragic mark on the administration and on the prior administration for not considering worst-case scenarios. That's what planning is all about, you know, in the military and we should have the same situation in the State Department. You should be planning for the worst possible outcome.

You hope that that worst possible outcome doesn't take place, but in the Afghan situation, it was really clear. We've had plenty of historical antecedents such as Vietnam, for example, the fall of Saigon, which happened very quickly. And there was enough information that could have been extrapolated from what was going on at the particular -- at this particular time about two years ago that it was very clear that the central government in Kabul was not going to lasts and that we had to do something very quickly to get our Afghan partners out, the ones that had helped us, the translators, the interpreters, the other people who assisted us logistically and in other ways throughout the 20 years that we were in Afghanistan.

So this is, indeed, a failure to plan and a failure to plan in this case resulted in a failure to act.

REID: All right. I want to turn to the war this Ukraine. We continue to see reports that the counter insurgence isn't making the gains that might have been expected. So why aren't Ukrainians getting more traction right now?

LEIGHTON: Well, part of it I think, Paula, has to do with the fact that the Ukrainians don't have air superiority in the areas that the counteroffensive is actually going to be taking place in. That is a significant shortfall.

There was an interview in "The Washington Post" with the head of the Ukrainian armed forces, General Zaluzhnyi, and he correctly points out that if a Western army or even if a Russian army goes into battle, they're going to try to gain air superiority before they mount a defensive operation.

The failure to mount a defensive operation without air power is a significant failure, and it's pretty clear that air power, longer range artillery, faster delivery of weapons systems, faster delivery of munitions, all of those things play a part in this. And the West and the United States especially would really be well-advised to get these weapons to the Ukrainians as quickly as possible if we want to see results on the battlefield that will help Ukraine maintain its sovereignty.

REID: Well, CNN has learned that the Biden administration is strongly considering sending cluster munition warheads to Ukraine. Apparently the Pentagon believes those could help given the current conditions. So for starters, what exactly are cluster munitions, and what do you make of this assessment?

LEIGHTON: These munitions are weapons systems that can be fired either from a ground-based system or from air. And what they do is they spread. They release multiple bomblets in various directions. So the main danger that -- explode upon impact or upon release. And once that happens, there's a possibility that civilians could years from now be wounded or even killed by cluster munition bomblets that find their way into farm fields, on to city streets, and in other areas like that.

So a cluster munition is a very dangerous weapon. And in fact, 120 nations consider them inhumane and have banned their use. The United States and Ukraine, by the way, are not among those weapons (INAUDIBLE).

REID: Interesting. We learned this week that the CIA director paid a visit to President Zelenskyy during a recent visit to Ukraine. So how important is U.S. intelligence to Ukraine, and why exactly would the CIA director go there in person?

LEIGHTON: Well, the CIA director also in addition to running one of the most important intelligence agencies in the United States have a diplomatic mission in many cases. And they -- you know, anybody who is in the role of CIA director often finds themselves doing some very interesting things.

[16:15:05]

In the case of Director Burns, he is one to actually assess many different aspects of the Ukrainian war effort and that Ukrainian war effort really depends a lot on U.S. intelligence, and a lot of that is provided by the CIA. And so I believe he was out there in Kyiv to not only speak with President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian military leaders, but he was also out there to make sure that our intelligence is getting to the right people in Ukraine.

And that's a critical thing because if it doesn't get to the right people, it's basically worthless. They can't make the right decisions, they can't do the right things for the war effort, and they can't do the right things politically, as well. So it was critical for him to be there and lay eyes on target as we say.

REID: Colonel Cedric Leighton, thank you.

LEIGHTON: You bet, Paula.

REID: And coming up, major Supreme Court decisions this week affecting LGBTQ rights, affirmative action, and student debt. We'll break down the latest rulings next.

Plus, tens of millions of Americans are under heat alerts today. What you need to know to keep yourself safe and when you can expect some relief.

And later, hashtag Twitter down. Thousands of users hit with an error message. Why a new Musk policy could be the issue. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:20:36]

REID: The U.S. Supreme Court wraps up its term with two controversial rulings. I guess we have that every season. One seen as a significant setback to gay rights and protections. The court sided with a Web designer who doesn't want to create wedding Web sites for same-sex couples. The ruling, though, is rooted in freedom of speech.

Here's what the Web designer said earlier today.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LORIE SMITH, WEB DESIGNER/PLAINTIFF IN SUPREME COURT CASE: The state of Colorado has been silencing and coercing my speech and forcing me to create a message I don't wish to create. Nobody should be put in that position and the court's decision yesterday protects speech not just for me, for the LGBTQ Web site designer, and every other artist out there. Nobody should be punished by the government for speaking consistent with their beliefs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

REID: I want to bring in CNN Supreme Court reporter Ariane de Vogue.

Thank you so much for being with us. So talk to us a little bit about the significance of this case.

ARIANE DE VOGUE, CNN SUPREME COURT CORRESPONDENT: As you saw she is this graphic designer. She wants to expand her business. She wants to make these wedding Web sites but not for same-sex marriage. She says that goes against her religious belief. And a 6-3 court ruled in her favor here. Neil Gorsuch, conservative, he saw this through a lens of speech and he said, look, the government can't force you to make a product with a message that goes against your religious beliefs.

But Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the liberals, they didn't see this that way at all. Sotomayor said, you know, it's the first time the Supreme Court grants a business open to the public a constitutional right to refuse service. She says that this is discrimination. So on the one hand you've got this decision, and the conservatives tried to say, you know, it's really only limited to people who are in a business with expression, right, so a Web site designer.

A baker? Well, a jewelry maker? That's the problem here. Where does this end? Where does the line divided? And that's what the liberals seized on at oral argument. They said that this is a license to discriminate and it's a lot broader than the conservatives are trying to say it is.

REID: And there's an interesting twist in this case because the supposed potential customer cited by Smith, the Web designer, tells CNN he is straight and married to a woman, and that he's baffled to be named in the court filings. What?

DE VOGUE: So here's what's interesting. The week that we were waiting for this decision to come up, suddenly -- it had always been that she had said she had been asked about her Web site, and in court papers she said that she was -- got an e-mail from a man named Stewart, and she used that as saying, look, I don't know if I can do this or not without violating the public accommodation laws.

And then this enterprising reporter said, well, I think I'll call Stewart. So they called Stewart and Stewart said, I don't know what you're talking about, I'm a happily married man to a female, I never did that. But I talked to her lawyer a little about this, and she was kind of furious this came up at the last minute. And because in a way, as you know, it's not that legally significant because there were other people who came forward to ask her to do this, but it was very interesting that this fraught time this story came up and this guy Stewart was like I never did that. Legally insignificant probably, but interesting all the same.

REID: Yes. I guess, and it's a shame it took a while, right, for people to call in and check some of the facts of the story. So the court obviously also striking down affirmative action. Talk to us a little bit about that case and just how significant this is for higher education.

DE VOGUE: Well, that was Chief Justice John Roberts. No surprise that he wrote this opinion. We knew this was coming. As a young lawyer, he has always been very skeptical of racial preferences here. And he basically said, look, if the government is going to take race into consideration, then it has to reach a really high bar, and here these schools didn't reach that bar, he said. He said basically it pit one race against the other.

He said it -- one of his big problems with it is he saw no end in sight for this. He thought this was going to continue along in perpetuity. But the liberals on the other hand, again, another instance of them being at loggerheads said we don't live in a colorblind society right now. There is still racial discrimination. That's why we need these programs.

[16:25:01]

That was a real indicator this term of how in some cases the six- member majority here, conservatives, just are not seeing things the same way at all as the liberals.

REID: Fascinating. Ariane, thank you so much for helping us understand it.

And now I want to turn to Jessica Levinson, a professor of law at Loyola Law School. She's also host of the podcast "Passing Judgment."

All right, thank you so much for being with us. Justice Sonia Sotomayor on affirmative action, she said, quote, "Ignoring racial inequality will not make it disappear. What's your reaction to that? JESSICA LEVINSON, PROFESSOR OF LAW, LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL: My reaction is

that the difference we see between the majority and the dissent shows two very different views of the Equal Protection Clause and equality in this country.

As Ariane just laid out so well, in the affirmative action case, we have the Supreme Court, the conservative majority, saying basically that we have no offramp to continue these plans, and that the Equal Protection Clause says we don't discriminate on the basis of race, period. So we don't take race into account. Then we have the liberal justices really saying, but if we don't take race into account, then we're ignoring what true equality means.

And in fact we're ignoring cases like Brown vs. Board of Education which were race-conscious decisions. So really interesting you have two kind of factions of the Supreme Court arguing over what equality means and even arguing over what that landmark case, Brown vs. Board of Education, really means.

REID: Well, yesterday of course you saw the court ruled that Christian businesses can refuse to create, for example, wedding Web site for same-sex couples. Some have argued that that would weaken a long- standing anti-discrimination laws. Is that correct? Is that fair?

LEVINSON: I think that's fair. I mean, the answer is that on the other side of that, according to the majority, is speech rights. So it's OK to, in their view, weaken those anti-discrimination laws. Colorado like so many other states have these public accommodation laws, and they essentially say if you hold yourself open to the public, if you provide a good or service to the public, then you serve the public, period.

You don't serve part of the public. You don't refuse a portion of the public because you don't agree with their lifestyle or you are racist or you don't want to serve people of a certain religion. And what the majority said was we can't put people in this untenable situation where they have to choose between their livelihood and complying with this law. And the majority said it amounts to forced speech, to force people like Lorie Smith, this would-be Web site designer, to design a Web site for a same-sex couple.

As Ariane laid out, the question really is but when does that stop. Well, virtually every seller say, well part of what I sell is expressive, has this sort of expressive content, and then say I can also be exempted from anti-discrimination laws.

REID: Now of course the other major ruling yesterday was the court striking down President Biden's student debt forgiveness plan. In light of the fact that most student loan forgiveness has been granted through laws passed by Congress, was this decision a surprise?

LEVINSON: I don't think it was a surprise. The real question is whether or not the court was going to say anybody has standing, basically if anybody is injured enough to walk into federal court and bring this case. But once you decide, once this court says, yes, it's Missouri, they have standing, then I don't think it was a surprise that they're looking at that 2003 statute, they're looking at the Heroes Act, and they're trying to determine if the secretary of education has the power to create this student loan forgiveness program.

And they're really evaluating just two words. They're looking at waiver and they're looking at modification, and they're trying to figure out if a program falls within it. The court said no, it doesn't, and to your question, if Congress had acted, we wouldn't be here. Right? We wouldn't be having this conversation about does the executive have the power because there would have been legislation. Congress would have spoken with a clear voice and of course that's a political problem that kind of runs into the legal realm.

REID: That's right. Congress has previously passed laws that grant some loan forgiveness but did not do so after COVID.

Jessica Levinson, thank you so much.

LEVINSON: Thank you.

REID: And right now it feels like 109 degrees in Corpus Christi, Texas, just one of the many cities under excessive heat warnings. When it might get cooler next.

You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:33:57]

REID: An unrelenting heat wave is scorching parts of the U.S. this holiday weekend. More than 65 million people remain under heat alerts. And these are not your typical summer temperatures. States all over the country are likely to see record-breaking heat.

Meteorologist Allison Chinchar has the forecast.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: That's right, Paula. Over 65 million people under some type of extreme heat alert this holiday weekend.

Two separate areas, however. You've got this portion of the southeast that are dealing with excessive heat warnings and advisories, but also out to the west where that heat wave is really starting to set in now and not expected to peak until next week.

Across the southeast, it's not just the temperatures but also the humidity you have to factor in. And combined it creates that heat index or the feels-like temperature. But that will start to improve over the next couple of days.

Dallas going from one final day today of that heat index in the triple digits, back down into only the double digits the next few days. New Orleans, Mobile experiencing a similar drop. But it's going to be a bit more of a delayed effect, likely waiting until Monday to see a bit more relief. [16:35:07]

To the west, numbers headed in the opposite direction. Salt Lake going from a high of 94 up to 98 by the time we get to Monday. Las Vegas, Death Valley, a few other areas where those temperatures are going to continue to rise in the coming days.

And a lot of these areas, it's summer, we get it, it's hot. But it's well above where it should be. Over two dozen locations have the potential to break records not just this weekend but heading into Monday and Tuesday of the upcoming week.

And one of those locations is even as far north as Portland where they are expected to peak with their highs for this particular heat wave, Paula, by the middle portion of the upcoming week.

REID: Allison Chinchar, thank you.

And new headaches at Twitter. Thousands of users say they can't access the social media site. They're reporting error messages, as well as confusing prompts that mention a limit being reached for viewing content.

The hash tag "Twitterdown" began trending early this morning. So what is happening at Twitter?

CNN Business writer, Clare Duffy, is here to help try to explain.

Hi, Clare. I've seen this all over social media today. What is going on?

CLARE DUFFY, CNN BUSINESS WRITER: It's just the latest of these sort of Twitter glitches that we've seen in the last couple of months.

This issue coincided with Twitter owner, Elon Musk, saying that he was making a temporary policy change this morning.

He tweeted that there would be rate limits, they would be limiting the number of tweets that people could see on the platform. Several thousand for these people who had bought verified checkmarks on Twitter, several hundred for everybody else.

What this appears to be is a glitch on top of that. You had up to 8,000 people this morning saying they were having trouble accessing the platform, saying they were getting error messages that they had reached the rate limit without actually having looked at hundreds of tweets prior to that.

And again, Twitter has faced a number of these glitches, outages, technical issues in the months since Elon Musk took over.

REID: Claire Duffy, thank you so much.

And if you are one of the millions of Americans who have student loans, what you need to know now that the Supreme Court is blocking President Biden's debt forgiveness program. That's next, live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:41:30]

REID: If you have federal student loan balances, you'll soon have to start making payments again. Starting in October, borrowers will have to resume monthly payments that were paused for more than three years as a result of the pandemic.

Now this is separate from the Supreme Court's decision on Friday to strike down President Biden's effort to cancel up to $20,000 of student debt for millions of borrowers.

So let's discuss. Jean Chatzky is the CEO of hermoney.com,

Jean, I know this is on a lot of minds. Thank you so much for joining us.

JEAN CHATZKY, CEO & CO-FOUNDER, HERMONEY.COM: Thanks for having me, Paula.

REID: I want to start by asking you what federal student loan borrowers need to do as these payments are set to resume this fall. What would be the number-one thing on a to-do list?

CHATZKY: First thing to do is just make sure that your loan servicer and you are in contact, that they know where you are, that you haven't moved during the pandemic or that they have lost track of you because they're going to want to make sure that their money will be coming in.

And if you're not sure, go to studentaid.gov, and just make sure that all the dots are connected.

From there, I know that a lot of people are very worried because they counted on not having to pay back those $10,000 or $20,000 of debt. They went out, they bought homes, they bought cars, they spent money, and now they're thinking, oh, my gosh, what do I do.

And there are two things you should know. First, the president and the administration have created what they're calling an on ramp for borrowers. We expect that a number of people will not be able to make these first couple of payments on time.

So what they're saying is that, if you are late, if you miss a monthly payment, you have a year of basically a grace period where -- it's not a pause, but if you're late they're not going to report you to the credit bureaus. They're not going to say that you're delinquent.

The other big thing that's underfoot is a change in income-based repayment. They're rolling out a new plan called the Save Plan. It's really good news for borrowers who are strapped by a certain amount of monthly income that makes it difficult to make their payments.

Under this new income-based repayment plan, you'll have to pay, at most, 5 percent of your disposable income, that's for an undergraduate student, or 10 percent toward your monthly payments.

There's also been an increase in what's considered disposable income, so that more money is actually sheltered from those payments.

And once you make those payments for 20 years, again for undergraduate students, any remaining debt is wiped away.

If you go to studentaid.gov, you can start getting in line for this program.

And you should know that if you're currently in an income-based repayment program, the current one is called Repay, you'll be rolled into this new version.

REID: So to be clear, Congress has passed, like you referenced, income-based repayment, some forms of student loan forgiveness. There are still a lot of programs on the books that were passed through Congress.

[16:45:00]

Can you clarify this new program that you just mentioned? Was that something passed by Congress, or is that something the Biden administration is implementing?

CHATZKY: It's something that the Biden administration is implementing. It's a change that has been happening in plans like this. Income-based repayment has gone through many different iterations through the years.

And we're expected to see these changes take hold within the next couple of months.

So this was not a congressional act. It was something that came through the administration. But again, it's expected to provide a lot of relief for a lot of people.

Because rather than having to put up to 10 percent of their disposable income toward monthly student loan payments, it drops it to five for undergraduate students.

Now some people aren't eligible for this. Parents who took out Parent- Plus Loans are not eligible, but undergraduate and graduate students with federal loans are.

REID: I'm sure some people are probably feeling a little skeptical, a little skittish. They were banking on what the Biden administration was going to do, the court struck it down.

Can this so-called off-ramp or this modification to income-based repayment, can these be challenged in court? Should people be worried that these, too, may not be fully executed?

CHATZKY: Of course, they can be challenged in court. Pretty much anything can be challenged in court. But my sources are saying that these will go through, that we should have good confidence that they will go through.

And by the way, income-based repayment for anybody who is having trouble making their payments, whether we're talking about the old plan or the new plan. is a very good idea. So if you're not enrolled, go ahead and get enrolled.

The other thing that's happening right now is that the Department of Education is undergoing a review of months that people have been making payments that should have been applied either toward public service loan forgiveness or toward their income-based repayment.

And they're adding months to people's calendars. So you may see that you're getting more relief than you expected.

REID: A little light at the end of the tunnel for a lot of people paying down those student loans. Lots of great options.

Jean Chatzky, thank you.

And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:51:55]

REID: The Supreme Court's decisions this week have a lot of people talking, and some say the rulings go against American public opinion.

CNN's senior data reporter, Harry Enten, is here to run the numbers.

Harry, let's take this one decision at a time. Let's start with student loan forgiveness. What do the numbers show?

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: The public is so split on this particular issue. You know, I could pull out one poll that says one thing, I could pull out another that says another.

Let's stick with this poll, though. On Biden's student loan forgiveness plan, the Supreme Court should allow it, 43 percent, but reject it, 40 percent, right within the margin of error.

I want to note that no opinion very large at 17 percent. We'll have to wait and see after they hear about what the Supreme Court did, whether or not people might change their minds.

I should note, on this particular issue, very few people are paying very close attention to it before the Supreme Court ruling came down. So I think these numbers are sort of squishy. But at this particular point, what we see is a very split public.

REID: That's really interesting, Harry. The legal nerd in me would want to know if people are opposed to any form of forgiveness or just the kind done through the executive branch. I guess we'll do this in the next poll.

Up next, affirmative action. That decision has everybody talking. So what are you seeing when you break it down?

ENTEN: Yes, you know, again, it depends on which poll you look at. You'll find different things. I think overwhelmingly what the poll data does show is that most people approve of what the Supreme Court did.

So you know, there's this great Pew Research Center question, should colleges account for race in admissions to increase diversity. Only 33 percent of Americans approve of that idea. The clear plurality, 50 percent disapprove.

Again, I'll note that no opinion number, 16 percent, is rather large. So you know, these are issues that I don't think people are necessarily thinking about every day.

So I think, depending on which poll question you look at, and also with it now more in the news, I wouldn't be surprised if those poll numbers move at least a little bit.

REID: And how does all of this polling compare to what we saw before Roe was overturned last year? I mean, that was the last really big blockbuster opinion.

ENTEN: Yes. This is just -- these two issues are in completely different ballpark than Roe v. Wade getting overturned.

If you look back at the polling just before Roe was overturned, only 27 percent of Americans believed it should be overturned, 63 percent said let it stand.

And that polling was seen over and over and over again. And you saw that in the polling after Roe v. Wade was overturned, as well.

I think that the issue of affirmative action, student loan forgiveness are not in the same ballpark. I don't think that they will sort of allow for that same sort of rising up public will against the court.

The fact is the court's in a much better position when it comes to public opinion on these two issues than they were on Roe v. Wade getting overturned.

REID: That's really interesting.

I see the next thing we're supposed to talk about is any advice you have for people celebrating the Fourth of July. We're both working on a holiday weekend. I don't know if you and I are really the appropriate people to talk about this.

[16:55:02]

But what advice do you -- what advice do you have? You are a fun guy. What should people do to celebrate the holiday, Harry?

ENTEN: No, I am a fun guy, but on this particular one, I'm going to say follow the law. Do not purchase illegal fireworks, OK, folks. I'm a big fan of dogs. Dogs don't like illegal fireworks. They don't like that sound.

But 77 percent of Americans have never bought illegal fireworks. That 21 percent, though, shame on you. No illegal fireworks. I hate them.

REID: I mean, he speaks for the trees. He speaks for the animals. You heard it here. Harry Enten is a law-abiding citizen, and as a recovering lawyer, I agree.

Harry Enten, thank you.

Be sure to check out Harry's podcast "MARGINS OF ERROR." You can find it on your favorite podcast app or at CNN.com/audio.

And CNN's July 4th special returns with an all-star lineup. Celebrate with exceptional legally purchased fireworks and musical performances. Don't miss "THE 4TH IN AMERICA LIVE," the 4th of July at 7:00 p.m. Eastern only here on CNN.

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