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Border Closed to Asylum Seekers Crossing Illegally; Soon: Testimony Resumes in Hunter Biden Gun Case; Amanda Knox's Slander Conviction Upheld in Italy; Heat Dome Sends Temps Into Triple Digits in West. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired June 05, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Wednesday, June 5. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING. Asylum seekers effectively banned at the Southern border. President Biden's executive action in effect. But for how long?

[06:00:30]

Sparks flying at Hunter Biden's federal gun trial. His wife lashing out at a Donald Trump supporter.

A Florida man, angry with Donald Trump and naked from the waist down, crashes his car into the lobby of a local jail. OK.

And any moment now, a new verdict in the Amanda Knox case. Her lawyers looking to overturn a 16-year-old conviction.

All right, 6 a.m. here in Washington. A live look at the White House on this Wednesday morning. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

The message from the White House this morning, the border is closed. Right now, most asylum seekers crossing illegally from Mexico into the U.S. are supposed to be turned back after President Biden took executive action.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OT THE UNITED STATES: The simple truth is, there is a worldwide migrant crisis. And if the United States doesn't secure our border, there's no limit to the number of people who may try to come here.

So today I'm moving past Republican obstruction and using the executive authorities available to me as president to do what I can on my own to address the border.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The pushback was immediate: progressive Democrats calling it a betrayal while Republicans claim it's a political ploy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT, 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: This is a public relations executive order, and its meaningless. Meaningless. He could -- he could stop the millions of people coming into our country with one order and one signature. It's all there for him. I did it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: We should note that the ACLU is filing suit to block the president's action. They were previously successful blocking a similar action that was issued by former President Trump.

Our panel's here: Molly Ball, senior political correspondent for "The Wall Street Journal"; CNN legal analyst Elliot Williams, former federal prosecutor; and Patti Solis Doyle. She's former presidential campaign manager for Hillary Clinton. And Matt Gorman, former senior adviser to Tim Scott's presidential campaign. Welcome all. Thank you so much for being here this morning.

Molly Ball, big picture, the president is doing this precisely because he wants these headlines for political reasons. The border is shut. It is closed, but obviously, this is something that Republicans still feel like they have high -- higher ground on.

How does this ultimately work for the president or not?

MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": You know, the Democratic sources I talked to don't expect the president to actually win on this issue.

But the idea is that something is better than nothing. They'd rather have something to point to to say he's doing something. Then to have to sort of continue to ignore it or blame it on Republicans.

In our own "Wall Street Journal" polling, we've asked people what do you believe is a better explanation for what's going on in the border, is it, you know, that -- that the president, you know, undid a bunch of Trump's executive actions and has allowed it to get out of control?

Or is it that Republicans, you know, refuse to go along with these negotiated bipartisan border bill?

And the majority of people said the former. The majority of people blame the president for what's happening. Don't blame Republicans for not having come to the table or from having walked away from the table on the border.

And that had been the argument before up to now. I think you do hear some Democrats and some on the left saying, how does the president draw a distinction between him and Trump if he's doing essentially the same things?

And some of the progressives who are criticizing him, not just on the policy that they don't like, but politically, are saying this now makes it harder for him to make that case. Since, you know, Trump's platform on immigration is such a central part of his campaign and was so contentious while he was president.

HUNT: Right.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: This whole idea of "Republicans walking away," quote, unquote, really revolves around -- there's nothing more American than mom, apple pie and failing to pass immigration reform. It happens literally every couple of years.

When I worked up in Congress 2007, 2008, failures both times. Then I was at ICE, oddly enough on the border in 2013, and they failed again.

And Congress can't seem to get their act together with passing legislation. What ends up happening then is that presidents -- Trump did it. Biden did it. Trump did it for different reasons. Biden did it. Used these executive actions to try to patch the holes.

And that's why the ACLU was suing. The president has limited authority to step in when there's existing law and try to change it with just a signature.

HUNT: Right.

So this has divided Democrats and I kind of want to give you guys a preview of -- a little bit of a taste of how that's playing out. Let's watch. This is a series of Democrats, progressive and moderate, weighing in on the president's actions.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. AYANNA PRESSLEY (D-MA): It is extremely disappointing that this White House would choose to double down on the previous administration's harmful and flawed immigration policies.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's not perfect, but I am supportive of the action that he took today.

REP. JERRY NADLER (D-NY): He knows that probably the courts will reject it, as they did when President Trump did it. And that really throws the -- the -- the issue back to Congress.

REP. TOM SUOZZI (D-NY): The asylum is a very important part of American history, but now the system is being abused.

I think it was the right thing to do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Patti Solis Doyle, you've run a presidential campaign. You hear what those Democrats are saying there. The moderates are basically saying like, yes, I'm on board with this.

PATTI SOLIS DOYLE, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN MANAGER, HILLARY CLINTON: But progressives are obviously -- some of them are calling it a betrayal.

DOYLE: Yes. Look, I don't think the president had a choice, in all honesty. Again, that, you know, Trump came out early this year and said, No, no, we're not going to do this bill. I'm not going to give Biden the political win here. I'm going to use this as a juggernaut on this campaign. I'm going to win on this issue.

And I'm sorry. Mayors and governors of states that are being affected, really high-stress situations for them. You know, they have called out and said we can't handle this anymore. Trump said too bad, you're going to have to wait until after the election.

So I -- I really honestly don't think Biden had the choice. As Elliot said, this is really complicated and really difficult to wrangle. Presidents on both sides of the aisle for decades have tried to put together a comprehensive immigration reform and have failed miserably.

And -- because it's complicated. It's got security implications, got economic implications, and myself included, really high emotional implications as a daughter of Mexican immigrants.

I don't think Biden had a choice. He had to do something to sort of stop the bleeding on this issue.

HUNT: Matt Gorman, I do want to show what, you know -- obviously, these policies are very -- this is a very similar policy to what Donald Trump put in place, right? Biden clearly is aware of that, and he sort of preemptively defended himself against that by explaining how he believes he's different from Trump on this issue.

Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I will never demonize immigrants. I'll never refer to immigrants as poisoning the blood of the country. And further, I'll never separate children from their families at the border. I will not ban people from this country because of their religious beliefs.

I will not use the U.S. military to go into neighborhoods all across the country to pull millions of people out of their homes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So obviously, all of the contrasts that he sees with himself and Donald Trump. But the bottom-line politics of this are he's still taking this action for a reason.

MATT GORMAN, FORMER SENIOR ADVISOR TO TIM SCOTT'S PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: I mean, look, it shows how much the Overton window of this all has shifted, right? When we talk about immigration, we've been doing this for a long time. For the last decade or two, it was always if you wanted border enforcement, you wanted border security, you had to do something: legal status, citizenship. That is not the case anymore.

HUNT: In the case of George W. Bush, it was --

GORMAN: Absolutely. It was one or the -- it was one or the other. That is not the case anymore.

Look, I was down at the border last year with Tim Scott, like I saw this firsthand.

And I think also you see the politics just radically change on this issue. This is an animating issue, not just for folks in the border states, but all across the country, because you're getting migrants really pop up in a lot of different places.

And look, I think the Biden administration sees that they need to do something on this. They needed to answer these charges. Right? And it shows also the politics have shifted, right?

Day one, you saw Biden reverse the emergency declaration that Trump had in office. Also, Title 42. Now he's -- you're starting to see a veering in the other direction, because look, we talk about abortion, I think rightly so. It's one of those animating issues of single issue voters.

Immigration is now rapidly becoming that on the other side. It's going to be, in many respects, a battle of which issue kind of dukes it out with the economy looming above all.

HUNT: Yes, really, really tough. All right. Coming up next here, prosecutors painting Hunter Biden as a man driven by addiction in his federal gun trial.

Plus, verdict watch for Amanda Knox? New courtroom drama connected to that infamous murder trial.

And Alec Baldwin's next chapter: a new TV show.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: All right. Welcome back. Testimony in Hunter Biden's federal gun trial will resume this morning after yesterday's opening statements, the defense arguing the president's son did not knowingly lie about his drug abuse when he purchased a firearm in 2018.

Prosecutors using Hunter Biden's own words against him, playing back for the jury long portions of the audio book of his memoir in which he narrates his own fall into addiction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUNTER BIDEN, PRESIDENT BIDEN'S SON: I possessed a new superpower, the ability to find crack in any town at any time, no matter how unfamiliar the terrain. It was easy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Panel's back. Elliot Williams, they're relying a lot, in the legal arguments, on the -- Hunter Biden's own words.

Quite frankly, we can play a little bit more of that, actually, because this comes from his audio book. The book was written in 2019. Obviously, these events are in 2018. And here's how Hunter himself describes the timeline.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

H. BIDEN: If I could find some new treatments, some new approach, some new lifeline. I thought I could still claw my way back out. During the nearly four years, of active addiction that preceded this trip to California, which included a half dozen rehab attempts. That's what I told myself after each failure.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So that, of course, is something the prosecution wanted out there. The defense is basically saying, well, this happened right after one of those stints in rehab, and he thought he was clean. How does that work?

[06:15:11]

WILLIAMS: The prosecution's only challenge here, really, is not going too far and not appearing to vilify or demonize someone who is addicted to or using drugs.

Because as far as prosecutions go, these possession statutes -- and I prosecuted them, too -- not for drug addiction, but usually for someone having a felony conviction beforehand -- are quite easy to prove. You just have to establish, No. 1, the possession, not even the purchase of the gun, the possession of the gun.

And No. 2, that the person was addicted to or using drugs at some point.

Now, defense --

HUNT: Isn't that a little less severe, though, the felony conviction that's written down.

WILLIAMS: It is a little fuzzy and but -- but it's there. I mean, you have the defendant's own voice, and it isn't a huge leap to saying that, at the time that the firearm was purchased, this person was using drugs.

It's really just a question of not going too far and getting in the jurors' heads that you are attacking or putting this person down.

I mean, the -- there's a great basis for him to plead guilty at this point to just take the lower sentence, knock six or even 12 months off of the time he would have gotten, given that if he does go through with trial and gets convicted, ultimately, it could be much higher sentence.

HUNT: Very interesting.

Matt, I want to talk about the politics of this for a second, because NBC News reported a pretty heated confrontation that played out at the courthouse yesterday between Melissa Cohen-Biden, who is Hunter Biden's wife, and a man named Garrett Ziegler, who's a former Trump aide. So Hunter Biden's wife confronts Garrett Ziegler outside the trial.

She points her finger at him and says, "You have no right to be here, you Nazi POS." Obviously, using the profane version of that.

Ziegler, then, was interviewed, told NBC News, "It's sad. I've been sitting here the whole time. Haven't approached anyone. For the record, I'm not a Nazi. I'm a believer in the U.S. Constitution. I haven't said one thing to them."

Now, this is a guy, Garrett Ziegler, who in the -- after Trump leaves the White House, has really made a career out of assembling information and disseminating it about Hunter Biden. They blame him for many of the most salacious and nasty things that came out into the open from the Hunter Biden laptop and everything else.

But I was -- I was pretty surprised to see that his wife -- it really underscores just how tense this all is.

GORMAN: And there was a story. I believe it was in "Politico" recently, talking about the toll this is putting on the president, as well, right? I think that is something that is really percolating behind the scenes, the tenseness to the family.

Because, I mean, look, I'm not a lawyer, but Elliot, how much is he -- is he looking at in terms of a penalty if he's found guilty, conviction as you were saying before.

WILLIAMS: A bunch of months, but not a few years. And I'm being a little vague here, because it's going to be sort of a bell curve kind of -- so pleading would be, I think, six to 12 months.

GORMAN: Yes.

WILLIAMS: He'll get a little more than that if he ends up going.

GORMAN: Originally, there was a plea deal, right? Like where it kind of got shot down, whatever. But like, I think that is really -- like, the tension behind this for the Biden family.

Look, Hunter's a grown man. Like, he can handle this. Like whatever. But obviously, for the loved ones, it's tough. And you put this in the shadow of a presidential campaign, you know, Biden is what, 81, right now? He's not-- he's not a spring chicken.

So these things are tougher as you get older. And I think that is a real, real thing at play here for all the family involved.

HUNT: Yes.

All right. Coming up next here, we expect a verdict at any moment in Amanda Knox's slander trial in Italy. We'll bring you that.

Plus, the Bidens in France for D-Day commemorations, 80 years after the Allied invasion of Normandy.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) [06:22:48]

HUNT: All right. This just in the CNN. We now have a verdict in the Amanda Knox slander case in Italy.

Let's get straight to CNN International -- senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman, who is live for us in Rome.

Ben, what are we learning?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, we've learned that Amanda Knox has been reconvicted for slander relating to an accusation against a bar owner in the case of the murder of Amanda Knox -- or rather Meredith Kercher back in 2007.

This was a retrial last year. The European Court for Human Rights ruled that her conviction for slander, in which she accused this man, Patrick Lumumba who owned a bar where she worked part time. She accused him, after a night of interrogation by the Italian police, of the murder of Meredith Kercher.

And it turns out that, basically, she said today, very emotional in court, speaking in fluent Italian, which she learned during four years in an Italian prison, that she was young. She was stressed. She'd lost her accommodations because that's where the murder took place, and that she basically made two statements to the Italian police in the absence of a lawyer or a proper translator that Patrick Lumumba had killed Meredith Kercher.

The court today upheld that conviction. However, she's already served four years in prison waiting for the trial and the verdict, going back to 2009. So she won't have to spend any time in Italian prison. She may, however, have to pay a fine -- Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Ben Wedeman for us in Rome. We will watch to see what else Amanda Knox has to say in the wake of this verdict. Ben, thank you very much.

All right. A heat dome settling over the West, leaving millions under excessive heat alerts as temperatures spike to the triple-digits over the next several days.

Our meteorologist Elisa Raffa has the latest for us.

Elisa, good morning.

ELISA RAFFA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, good morning.

We're looking at some of the earliest 110-degree temperatures on record for a lot of these locations in this kind of deep purple. These are all of the warnings that stretch from the Sierra Nevadas down to Las Vegas and Phoenix for days, actually, through the end of the week.

[06:25:09]

We're looking at at least 100 or more heat records following both daytime highs and overnight lows. I mean, look at these temperatures. Yes, a lot of these areas do get hot, but not this hot this early.

Your average high in Las Vegas is 96 degrees. We're looking at temperatures getting to 110 as we go into the week. Same thing in Palm Springs. Phoenix could get temperatures up to 112.

All of these temperature 15 to 20 degrees above average. Again, it's dangerously hot for this early in the season. You'll want to just check on kids, elderly, and pets. It's going to be tough to stay hydrated because temperatures get no relief on the overnight -- Kasie.

HUNT: All right. Elisa Raffa for us this morning. Elisa, thanks very much.

Coming up next --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MERRICK GARLAND, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: I will not be intimidated, and the Justice Department will not be intimidated.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: The attorney general standing his ground against Republican attacks.

Plus, a grave warning about the danger posed by artificial intelligence and why A.I. insiders say it poses a threat to human existence.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:30:00]