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Soon: Trump Speaks At Faith And Freedom Conference; Biden And Trump Prepare For CNN Presidential Debate; More Than 100 Million Under Extreme Heat Alert; 3 Dead, 10 Wounded, In Arkansas Grocery Store Shooting; Supreme Court Upholds Law Banning Domestic Abusers From Having Guns; Justin Timberlake Addresses His "Tough Week" At First Concert After DWI Arrest. Aired 12-1p ET

Aired June 22, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

RAJA SHEHADEH, PALESTINIAN AUTHOR, LAWYER, AND HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST: Because they dehumanized the Palestinians to such an extent that it's difficult how to imagine how we can make peace with them.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: "What Does Israel Fear from Palestine?" is available now. And you can watch our longer conversation on my show on Monday, which starts at 7:00 p.m. in Central Europe.

That's all we have time for now. Don't forget, you can find all of our shows online, this podcast at cnn.com/podcast and on all other major platforms. I'm Christiane Amanpour in London.

Thank you for watching, and I'll see you again next week.

[12:00:41]

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone, thank you so much for joining me this Saturday, I'm Fredricka Whitfield.

And with just five days until the historic presidential debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, both candidates are spending today preparing in their own unique ways for the upcoming showdown that will air right here on CNN.

This morning, Biden is at Camp David where he and his team are spending the weekend poring over briefing binders and holding mock debate sessions as he prepares for this high stakes' moment.

Meantime, Trump is shunning traditional debate prep and spending his Saturday on the campaign trail.

In an hour Trump will speak to a gathering of Christian conservatives in Washington before traveling to Philadelphia for a rally tonight. We've got team coverage. Kevin Liptak is covering President Biden's debate preps. But let's begin with Eva McKend in Washington at the Faith and Freedom Coalition, where Trump will soon be speaking.

Eva, what can you tell us about Trump's decision to hit the campaign trail instead of holding mock debates?

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: Well, Fred, it is a way for him to project confidence ahead of this consequential matchup.

We know that he also sort of thrives off of the energy of his most passionate and loyal supporters, which no doubt will be here at the Faith and Freedom Conference.

But also, he can ill afford to lose time on the campaign trail. You have to remember, just weeks ago, when he was in a New York courtroom day after day before he was ultimately convicted. And he lost a lot of ground there.

We also know that the former president is really basing his prep on rhetoric over policy. And so, those rhetorical jabs will -- he'll have the opportunity to test those out in front of his supporters today.

He has been engaged in some policy discussions, though with some of his top V.P. contenders. They have been focused on how to talk about inflation. They are expected to really -- former president expected to really try to hammer President Biden on that issue.

But overall, this is a confidence play. Him, being out on the trail today in D.C. and Philadelphia is really aimed to downplay his need for debate prep. Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Thanks so much, Eva. Let's go to Kevin Liptak now. So, Kevin, what more can you tell us about how President Biden is preparing for this upcoming debate, by being in Camp David?

KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yes, we are now on day two of debate camp out there in the mountains of western Maryland. And I think that this long stretch of intensive prep really does tell you that the Biden team really views this debate as a critical moment. They really are aware that they can't afford an underwhelming performance.

And you know, we aren't expecting to see President Biden again until he is down there in Atlanta for the debate, they are reserving the possibility that he could go directly from Camp David, to the debate site, and it does really give you a sense of how important they are viewing this.

Now, what we understand, he is doing in these first days of the debate prep are going through binders of potential questions, potential answers, batting around ideas with his team for responses, retorts, zingers, kickers, really trying to hone his language and his rhetoric when it comes to President Trump.

At the bottom line, they are expecting an aggressive President Trump in this debate, they are expecting attacks on President Biden's policy on his fitness for office, even on his family. And they want to be prepared and they want to be ready for some of that when it comes.

Now, this will eventually we expect culminate and mock debates that President Biden will engage in. And it's been interesting because we've had a chance to hear from the person who played Trump during President Biden's mock debates back in 2020. His name is Bob Bauer, he is President Biden's personal attorney. He talked yesterday about what it took to sort of get in the character of Trump for these mock sessions.

Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you do a Trump impression? Do you sound like Donald Trump? Are you talking in your normal voice?

BOB BAUER, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL UNDER OBAMA: Whenever you do this, you want to strike a balance between trying to approximate the experience, but it's not an opportunity for theatrics.

[12:05:04]

That's a distraction.

(CROSSTALK)

RAJU: Right.

BAUER: So, you want to find some balance between recreating the experience and not attempting to, if you will, audition for "Saturday Night Live".

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LIPTAK: So, not an impersonation, more of a character study. Now, it's presumed that Bauer will play Trump again in these mock debates, and certainly, President Biden, want to be very prepared before he hits the debate stage down there in Atlanta, Fredricka.

WHITFIELD: All right. We are all looking forward to that. Thank you so much, Kevin Liptak, Eva McKend. The debate, rather, happening here in Atlanta.

All right, let's talk more about the debate preps. Joining me right now about these very different styles that we're going to see on stage, Alex Isenstadt, he is a national POLITICO -- correspondent for POLITICO.

Also, joining me is Margaret Talev, a senior contributor for Axios. Great to see both of you.

I'll talking about the style differences of the two candidates that we'll see on the debate stage.

All right. So, Alex, let me begin with you. Bypassing mock debates, instead speaking at a conservative Conference in Washington, D.C., and then later at a rally.

Since there will be no audience at this debate. Perhaps this is how Trump gauges his possible debate material. What do you think is happening here in terms of why he is choosing not to do any kind of mock debates, but instead, you know, staying on the campaign trail?

ALEX ISENSTADT, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: Yes, yes. No, it's interesting. One thing to note, though, is that Trump has been doing -- for the last three weeks or so, he's been doing a fair amount of prep, maybe not in the traditional use a mock debate, style strategy, he doesn't have anyone playing Joe Biden, for example. But what he is doing is he's meeting with his V.P. candidates, he's meeting with other people in his orbit, to talk about, to go over different policy issues that are likely to come up, and he has done a fair amount of preparation in that regard.

And so, it's going to be interesting to see how he addresses certain issues that come up. One of the things that's come up in these debate prep sessions is January 6th, that's definitely something that's going to come up in the debate. Immigration is another one.

So, he is been doing prep, but not necessarily in the traditional way. You'd like you'd see other candidates do including Biden.

WHITFIELD: Margaret, let's talk about the differences here. You know, Biden's debate prep is going to more traditional route for presidents right having mock debates at Camp David. Would the rehearsal be heavy on policy preps, or anticipating the behavior and the style of his opponent, in Trump?

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: It's a little bit of both. I mean, Biden and his team have made clear, they want to be able to talk about policies, both what the president is doing and to hold the ex- president accountable or to be able to press on policy issues.

There are kind of two outside of the policy landscape areas that I'll certainly be looking for him. One is memes. What is a cuttable moment? What's a clippable moment? Because both teams are not simply thinking about their performance in the moment, but how aspects of that can be captured and used in ads or put on social media to shape people's views. Anything that goes to a gaffe, something extreme, a catchphrase, something that's positive for the candidate, something that goes to either candidate's age or sort of, you know, mental acuity or the vibes they give off.

And the other is this emerging theme of giveaways, the sort of courtship campaign. With President Biden, it's been very much about student loans or prescription drug prices or infrastructure money. With former President Trump, you are starting to see these sort of unlikely tests and floats, things like making commitments for green cards, for foreign students who study at U.S. colleges, or telling waiters, if he is elected, they are going to get a break on taxes on their tips. TikTok, and yes, as you said, January 6th, the criminal justice system, and President Trump's own issues with the justice system, President Biden's son's issues with the justice system. All of that is in play, in addition to inflation, you know, America's posture in the world, all the standard policy issues.

WHITFIELD: And then Alex, I mean, since neither candidate, you know, will be allowed to have kind of pre-prepared notes, but they will have a pad and the pen to take notes. And with that said, do you see that these candidates will try to avoid answering questions directly? And instead, kind of doing what Margaret said, they have got to have issues that they really want to zero-in on, trying to pivot whether it is about maybe it's avoiding January 6th for one candidate, whereas, for the other, it might be going straight to January 6, immigration et cetera. Is that what you see happening here?

ISENSTADT: Yes, definitely. I mean, you're going to see the Trump, when he pressed on certain issues. You're going to definitely at him try to turn the tables on Biden, try to take attention away from some of his own issues on for example January 6 are some of those legal cases, and tried to turn around -- turn it around and focus on Biden's record, whether it's something like immigration, or inflation.

[12:10:19]

That's probably what you're going to see Trump do a lot up. Trump is also certainly going to get pressed on his, you know, his legal problems. Right. But what you've seen him do in the past is he has tried to turn things around, and say that Biden is the one who engages in election interference.

And so, you're possibly going to see Trump do that, again, in this debate. Certainly, Trump's efforts to interfere in the 2020 election vote count is going to come up. And you could definitely see Trump turn that -- try to turn that around and make the argument that somehow Biden is interfering with these legal cases that Trump is facing. Even though there is no evidence, of course, that Biden is doing, has anything to do with those indictments.

WHITFIELD: But you bring up an interesting point, Alex, because I wonder, too, with, you know, among the regulations in this debate, the mics will be off, you know, for the opposing candidate while the other is speaking. And so, there won't be that instinct of jumping in and even correcting or following up.

So, that means there is going to be, I guess, a greater dependency to on the moderators. We haven't talked about the moderators. And their ability to follow up on moments like that, because the mic is off for the other candidate unable to do so. Do you think that's going to be a challenge? Is that going to, you know, help make for in a rather spicy debate? Alex.

ISENSTADT: It's going to be interesting to see how that plays out, because I'm sure as all your viewers remember, back in 2021, one of -- the first time that Trump and Biden debated, there were plenty of interruptions.

And so, now you have this new rule in this coming debate this week, and it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out. You know, and just because a candidate's mics off does not necessarily mean they're actually going to stop talking. Right?

So, it's going to be interesting to see how that plays out.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: True.

ISENSTADT: And it's also going to be interesting to see how much -- how assertive the moderators are in stopping the candidates from talking, even though their mics are off.

WHITFIELD: Yes.

TALEV: And the audience aspect as well, of course, because you're not going to be able to have an audience that cheering or booing or cheering or kind of influencing the way viewers would perceive it. So, the President Biden and his team have been hopeful that this will kind of take chaos out of situation and create a level playing field for the -- their own performances to play out.

I think we won't know until we see. This is a different kind of debate. And don't forget, it's a debate before either candidate either actually becomes the official nominee.

(CROSSTALK)

WHITFIELD: That's right.

TALEV: So, we are looking at something different here. Yes.

WHITFIELD: You are right. Right. It is going to be spicy in in some way, shape, or form. We know that and, of course, Jake and Dana hands down the best in the business, they can handle whatever is going to unfold on that debate stage.

Margaret Talev, Alex Isenstadt, great to see both of you. Thanks so much.

TALEV: (INAUDIBLE). You too.

ISENSTADT: Thanks, Fred.

WHITFIELD: And, of course, tune in to see the CNN presidential debate right here on CNN. Coming up, June 27th, right around the corner, next Thursday, 9:00 p.m. Easter and streaming on Max.

All right. Still to come, more than 2,000 days in Russian custody, detained American Paul Whelan, marking another grim milestone. He spoke exclusively with CNN. Here what he's demanding from the White House. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:18:17]

WHITFIELD: In an exclusive interview with CNN, detained American, Paul Whelan, is urging the Biden administration to take decisive action to secure his release out of Russia.

The former Marines surpassed 2,000 days in Russian custody this week.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) PAUL WHELAN, DETAINEE IN RUSSIA (via telephone): When you think of 2,000 days, how long that actually is, how many years, how many months? It's, it's an incredible number. You know, you go to university to earn a bachelor's degree, that's four years.

Now, you are generally in high school for three or four years. Even people go into the military, and they serve four years. So, when you think of 5-1/2 years, it's just an incredible amount of time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WHITFIELD: That is incredible. Whelan was arrested in Moscow in 2018 on espionage charges and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Since his arrest, Whelan has been declared wrongfully detained by the U.S. State Department.

CNN's Jenny Hansler is joining me right now with more on this. Jenny, good to see you.

What else did Paul Whelan have to say and what would, in his words, more pressure on Russia from the Biden administration look like? What would that mean?

JENNIFER HANSLER, CNN STATE DEPARTMENT REPORTER: Well, Fred, clearly a sense of disbelief, exasperation, and some sadness at the fact that he has been detained there in Russia for over 2,000 days now. And he wants the U.S. government to put more pressure to take decisive action to bring both himself and fellow wrongfully detained American Evan Gershkovich home.

He said he does think the U.S. government is taking his case seriously, but he wants them to take it more seriously. And he described to me some of the steps that he thinks would demonstrate that they are taking it seriously that they are putting this increased pressure on the Russian government.

[12:20:06]

Take a listen to how he described it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHELAN (via telephone): The U.S. needs to go out and do something, you know, fill up Guantanamo Bay with Russian officials, arrest Russian spies, do something that makes the Kremlin sit up and take notice and say, OK, yes, right, now it's time that we're going to get Evan and Paul back. And then, we want back what you've got of ours, and we'll call it a day.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANSLER: And Fred, he argued that until the U.S. government takes these kinds of decisive actions, the Russians are going to continue to detain Americans. Now, of course, those are Whelan's ideas. Here is what we know, the U.S. government is doing. They have put sanctions on some Russian officials, who have been involved in the wrongful detention of Americans.

And we know that they put forward what they described as a substantial proposal to free both Paul and Evan. To this point, the Russians have not accepted that proposal. We don't even know if they have engaged with it in any sort of serious way.

Now, the U.S. government has also acknowledged that 5-1/2 years is too long for Paul to have been sitting in Russian detention. A state department official told me yesterday, "2,000 days is far too long for Paul to be wrongfully detained in Russia, our hearts go out to Paul and his family, who feel the pain of separation in a way that very few people have experienced."

And now, the state department continues to insist that they are doing all that they can working to their utmost to bring home both Paul and Evan. Fred?

WHITFIELD: And Jenny, I mean, the list of those detained is significant. But, you know, in short, here are just a few, you know, Whelan detained in 2018, as I mentioned, accused of espionage.

Last year, Wall Street Journal journalist, Evan Gershkovich was arrested and charged with espionage.

A dual U.S. Russian citizen and dancer was more recently arrested and accused of, you know, this is the charge in quote, you know, financially assisting a foreign state in activities directed against Russian security.

Marc Fogel, arrested at an airport in 2021, accused of trying to smuggle in marijuana. And Gordon Black, arrested for allegedly stealing from and threatening his Russian girlfriend.

So, and these are just four of many. Is there more targeting of Americans in Russia right now?

HANSLER: Well, it certainly seems like we're seeing more and more public cases of Americans being detained by the Russian on these alleged charges. Now, the state department has been tracking all of these cases, not all of them are wrongfully detained.

But one thing we continue to hear from the agency is do not go to Russia. If you are an American, they are saying that it is too dangerous. The state department spokesperson Matt Miller said this week that you run a tremendous risk if you go there of being detained, being imprisoned and being convicted.

And that is something we have seen in a lot of these cases that a number of these Americans are arrested and they don't go to any sort of trial for months, if not years. This is the case with Evan Gershkovich, as you mentioned, we -- he is only going to trial next week. He was detained over a year ago on those espionage charges that he and the U.S. government denies.

And now, Paul Whelan told me yesterday, Fred, that he is aware that Evan is going to trial next week. And he thinks it could be an important milestone in both of their cases, because the Russians often want to see these false convictions as he described them in these cases, before they will move forward. And he also does not expect Gershkovich to get a fair trial here. This is what he told me.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WHELAN (via telephone): There is no criminal justice system here. There is no judicial system. It's just a system that the government has operated for many years, putting people in prison for all sorts of dubious charges and dubious events.

And in my case, that's 100 percent true and I'm sure in Evans case, it's 100 percent true. But people go to trial here and they are automatically guilty, and then they are given a sentence, and that's it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HANSLER: And we know the U.S. government will also be watching Evan's trial closely next week. Fred?

WHITFIELD: Of course. All right, Jenny Hansler, thank you so much.

All right. When we come back, a dangerous heat wave is bringing sweltering temperatures to millions of Americans this weekend.

[12:24:22]

A look at the impacted areas and when temperatures might come down. Next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Oh, take a look at that. That is a Strawberry Moon over Miami. A Strawberry Moon appears one day after summer solstice, June 21st. A Strawberry Moon appears because the moon's path is lower than average across the sky which gives it that gorgeous glow.

Now, across the U.S., more than 100 million Americans are under heat alerts this weekend. With temperatures soaring into the upper 90s, even triple digits. And that's where CNN correspondent Polo Sandoval is now, he is in the heat in Brooklyn.

And meteorologist --

(CROSSTALK)

POLO SANDOVAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fred.

WHITFIELD: Hello. Staying cool, though, I see. I'll get to you in a second.

Meteorologist Elisa Raffa is live for us from the CNN Weather Center in Atlanta -- also staying cool but inside. So, let's go back outside with Polo. So, what kind of help are people getting to beat the heat? SANDOVAL: You know, Fred, experiences firsthand. You look out the window. It actually looks like a beautiful Saturday. Step outside and you will immediately feel that sweltering combination of heat and humidity for yet another day. Of course, 100 million Americans going to be, once again, experiencing that heat wave.

[12:30:03]

You see some of the tiniest of them getting some relief from that heat right now here in Brooklyn, New York.

And really, a lot of these advisories are focusing on that I-95 Corridor one of the most populated parts of the country. And that is where authorities are really stressing the importance of staying hydrated, staying cool. And checking in on some of those most vulnerable specially some of the elderly as well. We know that that combination has proven deadly in the past. So that is certainly a concern.

In Washington DC, the mayor there extending a heat advisory that will go on into next week, as today, temperatures are expected to near triple digits in nearby Maryland, a very similar situation. I had the opportunity to actually a few days ago to be in Burlington, Vermont as they were getting get ready to prepare for the heatwave.

About a third of Vermont's population doesn't have air conditioning, why would you but nonetheless, they are now having to turn to some of those, not just there. But in other parts of certainly other parts of the U.S., including here in New York, where those cooling centers continue to be open for people who need.

WHITFIELD: OK, cooling centers are certainly a huge help. But I also understand Polo that the city's energy provider Con Edison is asking customers to reduce energy use. So what are they asking people to do and how were they going to do it?

SANDOVAL: That was actually request that they put out to some of their neighborhood or some of their customers in northern Queens, they said that there was some equipment repairs that needed to be done. So as a result, they had to scale back the voltage by about 8 percent. So they turned to about roughly 130,000 of their customers asking for them to reduce their usage as they made the repair.

They didn't really elaborate on the nature of the repair but they did say that the rest of their Con Edison customers would not be impacted.

WHITFIELD: OK, well that's halfway good news. Right? Half glass full. That's the way we're going to look at everything. All right, Elisa, to you in the weather center now. This heatwave could be the longest ever for the Big Apple in June and it feels like it's that way everywhere else but you tell us I mean, what is going on?

ELISA RAFFA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, we're going to have temperatures in the 90s in the city as we go through the weekend things finally starting to cool down a bit by Monday as a cold front comes through but you can see the alert stretch from New York to Philadelphia under an excessive heat warning, stretching down to DC, Cleveland, just so many people under alerts.

And it has been a hot month. These -- look at this is the last 30 days how many people were under heat alerts. And you can see we've had heat alerts issued almost every day since late May, which has been above the average from last year, we had nearly 120 million people under heat alerts just the other day.

So it has been sweltering for multiple days now and it will continue. We'll still have more than 80 percent or lower 48 with temperatures above 90 degrees going into next week. More than 250 records could fall both daytime highs and overnight lows as some of this heat continues.

We'll look at the temperatures for today. 91 from New York, 92 down to Atlanta, 95 and Little Rock, 97 in Dallas says that he don't just really sit. And if you look at the next couple of days you can see temperatures up near 100 this weekend and Philadelphia, DC, Richmond, Virginia, New York's and middle 90s and then you can see what I'm talking about that cold front by Monday starts to take us back down to the 80s closer to average all the way straight down the I 95 corridor from New York down towards Richmond.

Overnight lows give you a little no relief to you looking at overnight low temperatures nearing 80 degrees in some spots. Fred.

WHITFIELD: OK. Very good. Elisa Raffa, thank you so much. Polo Sandoval, appreciate you as well. We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:38:16]

WHITFIELD: We're learning new details today about a deadly shooting at a grocery store in Arkansas. Arkansas State Police a Travis Posey opened fire on Friday inside the Mad Butcher grocery store in Fordyce, Arkansas. The attack left three people dead and 10 wounded including two police officers. CNN's Rafael Romo has been following the story of us. Rafael have investigators said what the motivation may have been?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Fred, we don't have a motive yet. Not officially anyway, in the last hour we learned that the suspect 44 year old Travis Eugene Posey is suspected to have his first court appearance on Monday. Posey will be charged with three counts of capital murder in the shooting being described as horrific.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are live here at Mat Butcher in Fordyce, and there's a shooting going on.

ROMO (voice-over): It was just before noon when the shots rang out.

The shooting happened at the Mad Butcher, a supermarket in Fordyce, Arkansas, a town of some 3,700 people located about an hour south of Little Rock. The first 911 calls came in at 11:38 in the morning. MIKE HAGAR, SECRETARY OF PUBLIC SAFETY AND DIRECTOR OF ARKANSAS STATE POLICE: Law enforcement responded immediately and exchanged gunfire with a lone suspect.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is that lady OK?

ROMO (voice-over): According to officials, three people were killed and 10 others wounded.

RODERICK ROGERS, FORDYCE CITY COUNCIL: Man it was just good people just at the wrong place at the wrong time. And they didn't deserve it. But I've learned something in life man bad things happen to good people.

ROMO (voice-over): Two police officers were injured in the shootout with the assailant.

HAGAR: Suspect was also shot and taken into custody.

ROMO (voice-over): Hagar said both the officers and the suspect are expected to survive. The injuries to the civilians range from non-life threatening to extremely critical.

[12:40:03]

Witnesses like twin sisters Amaya and Ashia Doherty described a terrifying scene at the supermarket.

ASHIA DOHERTY, SHOOTING WITNESS: Was a man shooting. They're shooting everywhere. And my mom was in a store. I was worried. I thought they kill her when she came out and I'm glad she's alive.

AMIYA DOHERTY, SHOOTING WITNESS: And I just pray and I was really scary. Like, I will never think that will happen in Fordyce like that. That's real scary. And I pray for the man too, you know, because something had to trigger him to do that.

ROMO (voice-over): Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders reacted to the shooting in a post on X saying I'm thankful to law enforcement and first responders for their quick and heroic action to save lives. My prayers are with the victims and all those impacted by this horrific incident.

HAGAR: On behalf of the State Police law enforcement community all public and first responders, it's tragic. Our hearts are broken. Our prayers law and Governor Sanders in the entire state of Arkansas will be with his community those affected victims.

ROMO (voice-over): Hagar said Arkansas State Police are now in charge of the investigation. The country has seen a spate of shootings over the past few weeks as the weather has gotten warmer with 21 mass shootings recorded by the Gun Violence Archive since last Friday.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMO: And Fred to put it in perspective, at least 234 mass shootings have taken place in the United States in 2024. According to the data to data from the Gun Violence Archive, which like CNN defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people are shot excluding the shooter. Back to you.

WHITFIELD: Rafael Romo. Thank you so much. So that shooting happened just hours after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal law banning domestic violence abusers from carrying guns.

In the eight to one ruling, the High Court rejected an argument by gun rights groups that said the law violated the Second Amendment. Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority saying this, our tradition of firearm regulation allows the government to disarm individuals who present a credible threat to the physical safety of others.

Joining us now is Jessica Levinson. She's a law professor at the Loyola Law School and host of Passing Judgment podcast. Great to see you. So what's your take on this decision?

JESSICA LEVINSON, PROFESSOR OF LAW, LOYOLA LAW SCHOOL: My take is that this is the conservative Supreme Court clarifying for lower courts, what their standard really is, when it comes to governments that are trying to regulate guns trying to implement a variety of different gun control measures. How do lower courts determine whether or not those restrictions are constitutional?

So I read this decision as really a rebuke of the lower court, the Fifth Circuit, and the Fifth Circuit had said this case that federal law that says if you are subject to a domestic violence restraining order, you can still own a gun, the federal law can apply to you. The Supreme Court said no, that's not what we meant. We laid out a difficult standard but not an impossible standard.

WHITFIELD: Was that a significant problem a misinterpretation of this in the lower courts prior to now, this decision?

LEVINSON: I would say yes, in the sense that what we know is all the way back in 2008, 16 years ago, the Court made a really big decision about the Second Amendment. And they said there's an individual right to bear arms. Fast forward two years ago to 2022. And the court said, and here's the test to determine when you can limit that individual right. And it's a really hard test to satisfy.

And this often happens when the court creates a new test. There was I will say confusion among lower court judges about exactly what does that mean, you have to have a measure that fits within the history and tradition of our country in order for that gun control measure to be upheld.

I think what the court said yesterday is, this is what that means we can still allow certain loss. People as you read in the introduction, people that present a credible threat to themselves or others, those people can be temporarily disarmed.

WHITFIELD: And really this is an interesting juxtaposition, right? A week after the court struck down a Trump era ban on bump stocks. How do you see this contrast?

LEVINSON: It's a great question, because on the surface, they both deal with guns and we have different outcomes. But I would say let's keep them really separate in the sense of the case we've been talking about is a case dealing with the Second Amendment. It's a constitutional question of what under the Constitution, what type of government restrictions are OK even though you do have this individual right to bear arms.

The bump stock case was completely different. The question was, there's a federal law and it says we can ban machine guns. And the question for the court was does a semiautomatic weapon plus a bump stock equal a machine gun? It was really a question of whether or not an executive agency the ATF had the power to impose that regulation or if Congress had to be the one to say if we want to ban bump stocks we should.

[12:45:09]

And what the court said here is, it's up to Congress. So it wasn't a constitutional question. And I know it seems like different results, but I think they're actually quite consistent.

WHITFIELD: OK. All right. And then, you know, there remain other cases still to be decided, like whether Congress can prohibit all felons or all drug offenders from possessing firearms. So, you know, does this latest ruling give you any insight into how this court might lean?

LEVINSON: Yes, I think this latest ruling again, the Second Amendment case that we've been talking about, indicates to us that a variety of different laws of for instance, the law that Hunter Biden was charged under those laws can still stand under the Second Amendment.

I think the court was saying again, eight to one, even though they laid out a difficult standard, there are still cases when people are dangerous when we have a history of regulating certain people were at least for a specific period of time, we can say we're limiting your right to obtain a gun.

This has to be frankly, I think yesterday has not had been the greatest day for Hunter Biden, who wanted to, I think be able to rely on the courts recent case law to say that law I was charged under wasn't constitutional. This really undermines I think, a big part of his appeal.

WHITFIELD: OK. And then only a few more days left, you know, before the end of the U.S. Supreme Court term. There are other consequential decisions expected including the question of former presidents Trump's immunity from prosecution.

Do you think they're, you know, saving the best I mean, the most consequential for last, so to speak?

LEVINSON: Well, that's often the case that the really big cases are the last week of the Supreme Court term. I will say to remind everybody who's like what's taking so long, we need a decision that they actually didn't hear arguments in that case, until the very last day of the Supreme Court term they tacked it on, I think it was April 26.

The Second Amendment case that you and I have been talking about the beginning of our discussion was argued on November 7. So the big cases can take a while. I think what this indicates is, the court just recently heard this case. And my guess is they're trying to find some middle ground standard where presidents have some immunity, but not absolute immunity from criminal prosecution based on official acts.

And I bet there's a lot of drafts going up and back between the majority dissent concurrence is trying to figure out what exactly is that standard.

WHITFIELD: All right, Professor Jessica Levinson. Appreciate you. Thanks so much.

LEVINSON: Thank you.

WHITFIELD: All right, the U.S. and Israel are increasingly at odds over the war in Gaza. But now the U.S. is pledging its full support for Israel and its other growing conflict. We'll be live from Jerusalem, next.

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[12:52:37]

WHITFIELD: At least 52 people are killed or missing following to airstrikes in central Gaza today. That's according to Palestinian officials. The Israeli military says its fighter jets targeted Hamas military infrastructure in the area around Gaza City.

And just as Israel has increasingly been at odds with the U.S. over the war in Gaza, the Biden administration is now offering reassurances in the event of a full blown war with Hezbollah on Israel's northern border. CNN's Paula Hancocks is in Jerusalem for us. Paula, why was this show support so important right now?

PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred, given what we have seen this week, it is important for the U.S. to reaffirm that if this does become an all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, that the U.S. has given the security assurances that Israel needs that it will support Israel fully.

This is because this week, there has really been some very public disagreements between the U.S., the Biden administration and the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu here. Netanyahu saying publicly that he was -- he believes the Biden administration is withholding weapons from Israel, something which U.S. officials have very quickly rebuffed and said they weren't quite sure what he meant by that and what he was talking about.

But then he doubled down and repeated that in an interview that was published on Friday saying that barely a trickle of American weapons are coming through to Israel, again, something that the Biden administration rejects.

So this is significant, because it is the U.S. reassuring Israel it there was an Israeli delegation in Washington this week meeting with U.S. officials, and they said that they would give them the security assurances that they needed.

Now, they did say that there would not be U.S. boots on the ground, that they would not be deploying U.S. troops on the ground as would be expected, but they certainly would be providing Israel with what it needed.

So given this was such a public spat, it really is this information coming from U.S. officials, that senior officials, it's their way of showing that the relationship as a whole, if not individually, between the leaders of the U.S. and Israel is as it should be. Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Paula Hancocks in Jerusalem. Thank you so much.

[12:55:00]

All right still ahead. Back in this country, Justin Timberlake hitting the stage in Chicago with a message to his fans.

And what he said about his arrest as he tried to bring SexyBack.

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WHITFIELD: Welcome back, Justin Timberlake is speaking out for the first time since he was arrested and charged with DWI earlier this week while in the Hamptons.