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Tennessee GOP Expels 2 Dem Lawmakers Over Gun Reform Protest; Israel Launches Strike in Lebanon & Gaza after Rocket Attack; ProPublica: Justice Thomas Accepted Undisclosed Trips from GOP Donor. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired April 07, 2023 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: It is Friday. Good morning, everyone.
[06:00:32]
DON LEMON, CNN ANCHOR: I'm talking to my crew. They're like, you guys are on TV.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Like, did you get a haircut?
HARLOW: We're glad you guys are with us. And it is, wow, a very busy news Friday. Let's get started with the five things to know for this Friday, April 7, 2023.
Tennessee Republican-led -- Tennessee's Republican-led House has expelled two of its Democratic members for violating House rules during a gun reform protest. One of them is Justin Jones, and he will join us live this morning.
LEMON: What a story that is. We have so much to cover on that.
Plus, escalation in the Middle East. Israel launching airstrikes into Southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. The move comes after a barrage of rocket attacks were reported in Israel.
The Biden administration proposing a rule that would forbid a ban on trans athletes. The rule, however, would allow some exceptions to be made.
COLLINS: Also Stormy Daniels speaking out, saying she is, quote, "absolutely willing" to testify in the Manhattan district attorney's case against former President Trump. She's telling Piers Morgan she doesn't think the charges against him, though, are, quote, "worthy of incarceration."
Also, JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon sitting down with Poppy and telling her that the banking crisis has also now raised the odds of a recession. He does still see some positives in the economy. That exclusive wide- ranging interview, you can only see here.
CNN THIS MORNING starts right now.
What happened on the Tennessee border (ph) last night -- LEMON: Last night in Tennessee, I was just going to say that. I mean crazy.
COLLINS: It was like nothing you've ever seen before.
HARLOW: I know.
COLLINS: I mean, it's only happened. This is the third time it's happened --
HARLOW: Twice, right.
COLLINS: -- since the civil war, which is just remarkable in and of itself.
LEMON: Since Reconstruction, that you know, someone has been --
HARLOW: Expelled.
LEMON: -- expelled. It's just -- and why? A lot of people believe it has to do with race. Two of the black ones, right? The white one did not get expelled.
COLLINS: And she, herself, is saying --
LEMON: Yes. Everyone is weighing in from the current president to the former president.
HARLOW: Exactly right. And by the way, when they took the time to do this, these expulsions, well, was the House and the body not doing, not addressing the crisis of the school shooting.
LEMON: Gun violence, and that's what they wanted to -- them to address.
HARLOW: That was the whole point.
LEMON: And they got expelled for it. Well, two of them, at least.
HARLOW: Yes. So we're going to talk about that a lot this morning. It's where we begin with outrage and protests at Tennessee state capitol after Republicans voted to expel two young black Democrats from the state House.
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(CHEERING)
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HARLOW: The lawmakers were defiant, with their fists raised as they walked in before the vote. It came one week after they protested on the House floor and demanded gun reform in the wake of the school shooting at Covenant Elementary that happened just a few miles from the state capital.
Here's how the crowd reacted to their expulsion.
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(YELLING)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mr. Clark, take the vote.
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HARLOW: Protesters screamed and booed and shouted their disapproval from that balcony above. The expelled lawmakers are calling for protests to come back next week.
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JUSTIN JONES (D), EXPELLED TENNESSEE STATE REPRESENTATIVE: Every week, until this session adjourns, we will return, whether we're inside the chamber or outside the chamber.
We said we want a ban on assault weapons. They said, we're going to assault democracy. Shameful, shameful.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HARLOW: Our Ryan Young has been covering all of this for days. Now. He joins us again this morning. They are vowing to keep this fight going. They're vowing to be there, whether they're officially in the body or not.
RYAN YOUNG, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Poppy, I think you guys summed it up pretty well this morning. People were in shock yesterday when this happened.
Look, they believed that the expulsion could happen. But the fact that it went down racial lines really couldn't -- shook some of the people in the crowd. On top of that, you're talking about thousands of people showing up wanting to hear something about gun control, and that never happened.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What they did tonight is light a fire to our movement, and we will not stop!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shame on you! Shame on you!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shame on you! Shame on you!
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Shame on you! Shame on you!
YOUNG (voice-over): Screams ringing out of the Tennessee House floor after two black Democrats, Justin Pearson and Justin Jones, were expelled from the legislature.
JONES: When they expelled us, it wasn't about us individually.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.
JONES: It was an attempt to expel and silence a movement.
JUSTIN PEARSON (D), EXPELLED TENNESSEE STATE REPRESENTATIVE: We're showing up Monday. And we need you to show up Monday. Because our schools need to be safer.
YOUNG (voice-over): A third representative, Gloria Johnson, who is white, barely survived her expulsion vote.
REP. GLORIA JOHNSON (D), TENNESSEE STATE LEGISLATURE: I think it's pretty clear. I'm a 60-year-old white woman, and they are too young black men.
YOUNG (voice-over): The Republican-controlled Tennessee state House of Representatives brought motions on Monday to expel the three Democrat lawmakers after they protested on the House floor against gun violence after a mass shooting at a Nashville school.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No action, no peace! No action, no peace!
YOUNG (voice-over): The three Democrats were in breach of chamber rules when they approached the podium with a bullhorn without being recognized to speak.
One of the Republican sponsors of the motion, Representative Andrew Farmer, admonished Pearson during the debate.
REP. ANDREW FARMER (R), TENNESSEE STATE LEGISLATURE: You don't truly understand why you're staying there today. Just because you don't get your way, you can't come to the well, bring your friends, and throw a temper tantrum with an adolescent bullhorn.
PEARSON: While I know I do take responsibility for coming to the well while the speaker said out of order, I also take responsibility for the people in our district and in our communities who are asking for us to do something.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Expelled from the House of Representatives in the 103rd General Assembly, the state of Tennessee.
YOUNG: After a long, contentious debate, both Pearson and Jones were expelled along party lines.
JOHNSON: America should absolutely be worried.
YOUNG (voice-over): The three lawmakers appeared with protesters in the capital with their arms raised in solidarity.
JONES: I'm not broken. You know, I stood firm in that well, because we need to let the nation know that what's happening in Tennessee is a danger to the nation. What we saw today was authoritarianism. What we saw today was the undoing of the will of my voters, of my constituents.
(END VIDEOTAPE) YOUNG (on camera): Poppy, we talked to dozens of people who showed up here to the state capitol yesterday, and all of them were telling us they would like to see people get away from the red and blue. They wanted people to get away from these party lines and change the conversation.
They hated to see that Tennessee was being put in the spotlight for what we shouldn't be talking about right now, which is the politicians. We should be talking about gun control and how we keep kids safe.
We had one teacher who came on with us yesterday who was crying, saying he's in fear for his students on a day-to-day basis. You understand the passion behind this. People really want to see change. That did not happen yesterday.
And now how many people in their districts, everyone in their districts, for now at least, not represented, right? Vacant, those positions.
Ryan Young, thank you.
COLLINS: Yes, and they've called a meeting on Monday to see what the next steps here are.
Shortly after that Republican-controlled Tennessee House of Representatives, which has a super majority, voted to expel those two Democrats, we spoke with their colleague, Jeremy Faison. He is the Republican caucus chair in the state House. This is how he defended their expulsions.
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COLLINS: I understand decorum. Van was just making the point there. Of course, not everyone could bring a bullhorn in every time they disagreed. Otherwise, it would be total chaos.
But why take this step? Why -- was there no measure you could have taken before this, before expulsion? Why take the most extreme step so quickly?
JEREMY FAISON (R), CAUCUS CHAIR, TENNESSEE STATE HOUSE: So that's an excellent question. More than just what America has seen that took place last Thursday, there's a history all year long of disrupting committees and the House floor.
We've called them out. The chairmen of committees, the speaker of the House has been calling them out, time and time again, for grabbing the mic, sucking the air out of the room, making sure no other voice is heard.
And finally, when they come and -- and act so foolish on the House floor -- this is a sacred place that belongs to everybody -- and literally start looking up into the gallery with a bullhorn, getting the protesters worked up into a frenzy. That is incumbent on us to say you've gone a step too far. And I'd like to add to you all, they've not backed down from that
either. I told them earlier today, I feel like if they would have said, You know what? We messed up. I mean, what American, what human, won't bring forgiveness and redemption? But they doubled down and to which so far as to stand in the well today and said I'd do it again. That was their mentality.
That shows me, when there's a pattern of behavior like that, if you refuse to stop it yourself, then we have to step in as a group of individuals that work with you and say, you'll not do that here.
COLLINS: They said they were passionate because of the underlying reason that I think is important here to also remind people, which is because six people were killed in a shooting last week.
FAISON: This body spoke many times. I brought our caucus together several times since last Thursday to ask the body what we, as a group, wanted to do. The overwhelming majority, the heartbeat of this caucus, says not on this House floor. Not this way.
[06:10:03]
So if there was an idea of sending it to the ethics group, this group, my caucus, which is the supermajority -- there's 75 of us -- said no, that is not. We don't want to go to the ethics route. We don't want them censored. We want them expelled.
It's not possible for us to move forward with the way they were behaving in committee and on the House floor. There's got to be some peace.
And for them, the way they were behaving, to disrupt every committee, disrupt the House floor. They were -- how can we get to the -- to the answers? What are we going to do about gun violence? What -- what are we going to do about guns in court (ph)? What are we going to do about red flag law?
Well, the conversation can't happen, because they're drowning out and sucking all the air out of the room.
So I would just push back on you saying we can't get there, if they won't let us. And thank you for letting me speak with you. God bless you.
COLLINS: Representative -- Representative, I know you've got a long drive home. One final question for you.
All right, well, Jeremy Faison has left us.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: And the final question that I wanted to ask him was his explanation for why the two black Democrats were expelled and the woman, the white woman, who she acknowledged she believes race played a role in that. Survived by one vote.
HARLOW: Yes.
LEMON: I think it's obvious. Look, it's -- they could have done a censure, right? I think the right question was why take the most drastic action afterwards?
This is exactly what our country was built on, on protesting. Not everyone -- protests aren't perfect. It's also unconscious bias. It's racism. It's a double standard in our society.
I obviously -- I have to say, I would doubt they would have done this to a white member, because guess what? They did it. They did it to the two black members and especially the two black men. It's like, usually, especially with something like this.
The -- the way people think about black men in this society needs to really be examined, especially with protests, especially with how we express ourselves. If you look at the member there, the guy with the afro. Right? He's very outspoken. Justin Pierce [SIC], right? I just I just want it to be clear, because there are two Justins.
I just wanted to be clear because he has the afro.
HARLOW: Yes.
LEMON: Militant or whatever you want to call him, outspoken. But that's how he -- that's his way of expressing himself.
And it doesn't mean that he's being rude or boisterous or whatever. He's expressing himself. And that's how he feels.
And the other guy is more subdued, and he's going to be on the other. Justin, I should say, because there are two Justins. That's why I keep saying Justin Jones. That's the way he expresses himself.
And so I think that we really need to think about the double standard of society. You may want to call it and -- you know, unconscious bias. It's racism. That's exactly -- that's all what it is and what they were trying to do is something that was good for the country and for Tennessee and for the country. And they ended up with the worst outcome.
COLLINS: And I think the point that you can't just have someone when they disagree, take a bullhorn, go into the well, you know, cause all the disruption that we saw.
LEMON: And compared to January 6, by the way.
COLLINS: As the House speaker did. But the -- it's the way I understand that point that, you know, they have to have order in the House decorum. I get that to the degree of you can have someone just taking up or whenever they disagree.
But it's exactly you were saying no. Why take that step? Because Van Jones was, you know, he lived in Nashville. He was talking with us yesterday. There is the House Ethics Committee that you can go to. There are all these other steps you could take before that, if you really wanted to prove a point about decorum.
HARLOW: Of course. We're going to talk a lot more about this later. We'll talk about what President Obama said, as well, in response in a little bit, but we do need to get to Israel.
LEMON: Justin Jones is going to be with us --
HOLMES: Yes.
LEMON: -- in a little bit, so we need to get to this because it's also happening right now. We'll get back to that story. We're following the escalation that's happening, this conflict in the Middle East this morning.
Overnight, Israeli forces launching a series of air strikes on Lebanon and Gaza.
Those strikes coming after Israel says a barrage of rockets were fired from the Lebanon border into Israeli territory. The tension comes after police in Israel stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem earlier this week.
CNN's Hadas Gold live near the Israel-Lebanon border with more.
This is really escalating this morning. What is happening now, Hadas?
HADAS GOLD, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Don, you can actually see the border with Lebanon just behind me along that hill. And since those Israeli airstrikes in Southern Lebanon earlier this morning, there has been a tense quiet.
The Israeli military saying that it was targeting specifically Palestinian Hamas targets in Southern Lebanon.
There have been no reports from injuries from those airstrikes, and we have not seen any sort of rockets in response.
The airspace, though, here in the Northern part of Israel is still closed. That gives you an indication that there are still fears that something could further escalate.
But we are hearing from both the Israeli military and the Lebanese prime minister that essentially neither side has an interest in any sort of further escalation.
[06:15:07]
In fact, most of the action has actually been down South in Gaza, where the Israeli military is saying that it struck several Hamas militant locations, including tunnels, as well as weapons manufacturing sites.
And the -- at least 44 rockets were fired from Gaza into Israel overnight.
Now again, thankfully, no injuries have been reported on either side. There has been damages reported in Gaza. In fact, a children's hospital in Gaza has reported some damages. But again no injuries on either side.
The Israelis who live near the Gaza border have also actually been instructed that they don't need to be staying near their shelters anymore. As of this morning, an indication, hopefully, that things are coming down at least there.
But things are not calming down elsewhere. In the West Bank, just in the last hour or so, two Israeli women were shot and killed. Another was injured. The Israeli military saying this was a Palestinian attack in the occupied West Bank.
Don, it goes to show you just the multi fronts that are going on here and how the situation can very quickly go out of control.
And also, right now, Friday prayers going on at Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem. So far, they are passing peacefully in the tens of thousands of worshippers, but things here can easily cycle out of control.
LEMON: Yes. It is a tinderbox there. Thank you. Continue to follow that. Hadas Gold joining us this morning.
HARLOW: All right. This story, just stunning. A mega yacht, private jets, exclusive resorts. Coming up, a new report that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been going on all of these free luxury vacations for decades, paid for by a GOP mega donor.
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[06:20:18]
COLLINS: This morning, there is a stunning new report from ProPublica that reveals Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife, the conservative activist, Ginni Thomas, have gone on several luxury trips, all paid for by a Republican mega donor.
This new report detailed lavish vacations to Indonesia, and New Zealand, some parts of the United States, all funded by the conservative businessman, Harlan Crow, that you see here.
It's a far cry from how Thomas has described how he likes to spend his free time and a documentary he did in 2020 called "Created Equal."
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CLARENCE THOMAS, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE: I prefer the RV parks. I prefer the Walmart parking lots to the beaches and things like that. There's something normal to me about it. I've come from regular stock. And I prefer that. I prefer being around that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: In addition to the vacations, the new report says that Thomas reportedly also used Crow's private jet, flying to New York for the unveiling of a bronze statue of his beloved eighth-grade teacher who was a nun.
The justice also gifted a $19,000 Bible that belonged to the abolitionist Frederick Douglass, which Thomas did disclose, we should note.
Harlan Crow put out this statement in response to the new report, saying, "Justice Thomas and his wife, Ginni, never asked for any of this hospitality. We have never asked about a pending or lower court case, and Justice Thomas has never discussed one. We have never sought to influence Justice Thomas on any legal or political issue."
Joining us now for her perspective on this is CNN Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic, whose new book that was just out, "Nine Black Robes: Inside the Supreme Court's Drive to the Right, and its Historic Consequences," is kind of the perfect book to set us up for this moment.
And Joan, you know the Supreme Court so well. I just wonder initially, as you read this report, you learned about this, what your reaction was. Were you stunned by it?
JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SUPREME COURT ANALYST: I was. I was. I will be very honest. I was impressed by the reporting, the kinds of details they came up with. And how much they were able to ferret out.
Because the truth is so little is disclosed by these justices. There is some ambiguity in the rules about how much they have to put on their financial disclosure forms. They tend to put just minimal amounts of information there.
And recently, the rules were tweaked so that this kind of travel, so- called personal hospitality, would have to be revealed.
But the bottom line also is, Kaitlan, that they have no formal code of ethics or any way that any member of the public could lodge a complaint and then see that complaint resolved.
The attitude of the justices has essentially been, Trust us. We have -- you can be confident that we have no conflicts of interest here.
HARLOW: You know, Joan that -- that lack of a code of ethics is the first thing I thought about when I read this ProPublica reporting, because we talked about that right around the leak of the Dobbs decision, right? Like, where is the code of ethics? And this is another place where it shows how needed that is.
Is there any precedent for anything like this in modern -- the modern history? The court at least?
BISKUPIC: You mean, this kind of extensive, you know, not that we know of. And I do have to say, Poppy, you know, since you know the court well, it's really hard for the public to both have a way to complain about these off-bench activities.
And then, even for members of Congress to do any anything about it? The last -- you know there's been a lot of complaints now from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin about. He said there's been a call to action and that there should be an enforceable ethics code.
But remember, there's a separation of powers issue. It's -- it's hard to go after them. And only once in American history has a justice actually been pressured to leave the bench. No justice has ever been impeached and convicted, but back in 1969, Abe Fortas did leave under pressure because of some financial irregularities.
LEMON: But this is way -- this is a breaking of the norms, right? But Joan, you can answer both this, because I want to get this in before we run out of time.
But this is just -- this is an escalation. It's just a series of missteps and controversies surrounding Justice Clarence Thomas and his wife and so on.
BISKUPIC: Yes, you know, there may be plenty of other things about other justices that we don't know and we should know, but you're exactly right.
You know, I'm thinking back to the early start of this year when so much information came out about Ginni Thomas's activities to try to reverse the results of the 2020 election that Joe Biden won.
You'll remember the January 6th Committee received those text messages that she had written to former President Donald Trump's chief of staff, saying we have to, you know -- imploring him to do something to, you know, reverse what she saw as such a travesty.
[06:25:11]
And she was so active in trying to challenge the 2020 election results. And then her husband, Clarence Thomas, did not recuse himself from any election-related cases. And maybe he -- he had reasons for not doing that, but he never said them, Don.
This is the whole thing, is they never feel like they need to answer. Yesterday, Justice Thomas said nothing and Chief Justice John Roberts said nothing. With again, the message being we have it under control here, trust us.
HARLOW: Yes. That's -- that's really too bad, to not hear from them, especially the chief justice, who wants this court to not be viewed as political.
COLLINS: Yes.
BISKUPIC: Yes.
HARLOW: Joan, thank you. Great reporting. Thank you.
COLLINS: And the ProPublica reporter said that they didn't get a response at all from Justice Thomas either.
LEMON: I encourage everyone to read that. That --
HARLOW: It's amazing reporting. LEMON: -- is a stunning report on ProPublica.
COLLINS: Yes.
HARLOW: The power of journalism. That's for sure.
All right, coming up next, the CEO of America's biggest bank says, We need to let some banks fail. My exclusive sit-down with Jamie Dimon from JPMorgan, ahead. Also, his predictions on a potential recession.
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HARLOW: Has this banking crisis, even though you think it's almost over, which I'm really glad to hear, though increased chances of a session here?
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