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CNN Tonight

Raffensperger, Giuliani Interviewed By Special Counsel In The 2020 Interference Investigation; Chris Christie Reacts To Trump Audio Tape On Secret Documents. Aired 11p-12a ET

Aired June 28, 2023 - 23:00   ET

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

[23:00:00]

ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: May Musk is checking in and she says that she is canceling the fight. So, I guess we will just have to wait and see if this one even happens. And thank you for joining us tonight. CNN Tonight with Alisyn Camerota starts right now.

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Abby, I only have one question. Why? Why are they doing that?

PHILLIP: That's -- that is what Elon Musk's mom wants to find out tonight.

CAMEROTA: Of course, she does, because they're acting like real housewives from Silicon Valley. That's what they're acting like.

PHILLIP: I'd like to watch that.

CAMEROTA: So, I'm with her. All right, Abby, thank you very much. Good evening, everyone. I'm Alisyn Camerota. Welcome to CNN Tonight. Remember when Donald Trump called Georgia's Secretary of State and instructed him to find 11,780 more votes to overturn Joe Biden's election victory? Well, today, Brad Raffensperger, that Georgia official talked to Jack Smith's investigators. One of Donald Trump's former White House lawyers is here to help explain what that means for Trump and the investigation. And listen to what Republican rival Chris Christie just said about Donald Trump on CNN.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CHRISTIE, FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: He's the consummate show off. And I think that's what that tape was, him showing off. People asked me going all the way back to the time of the raid last year of Mar-a-Lago, like, why would he keep these documents? People are like, is he gonna give them to a foreign government or sell them to somebody or blackmail people? Like, you don't understand Donald Trump. It's just a show off.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right, there's a lot more to come from that interview. Plus, how to stop a mass shooting. We're gonna show you some incredible, newly released body cam video that captures a lone police officer taking down an active shooter. And a major health scare from Madonna. We're told she is out of

intensive care tonight and recovering from a life-threatening bacterial infection. She just postponed her world tour. We have more details ahead. But let's begin with Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation into January 6th and Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

If you've lost track of all the different investigative threads, Tom Foreman is at the magic wall to catch us up. Tom.

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Alisyn, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has publicly said he felt threatened when then President Trump called asking him to find enough votes to help Trump win in Georgia. And now he has joined a long line of Republicans who have spoken to federal investigators looking into efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Among them, Rudy Giuliani, once Trump's personal lawyer who was questioned in recent weeks, Former Vice President Mike Pence, Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, Former Aide Stephen Miller, Former Deputy Chief of Staff and Social Media Director Dan Scavino, Former National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien, and on and on it goes.

Suffice to say, it's a lot of Trump insiders being asked what they saw and heard about any effort to undo a legal and fair election. The scope of this probe is also notable for its geography, with investigators asking about possible schemes for fake electors and false claims in Georgia and Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin and Nevada and Arizona and New Mexico, and all of this against the boiling background of the other cases the former president faces.

That indictment in Manhattan accusing him of falsifying business records to disguise hush money payments to hide alleged affairs. The indictment in federal court over those classified documents seized at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club and a Georgia county prosecutor's own investigation into alleged attempts by Trump and his allies to steal the election there.

For the record, the former president has insisted time and again that he did nothing wrong, and many of his team have said they just want to make sure that the election was above board. Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Tom, thank you very much for all of that. Let's bring in Former Trump White House Lawyer, Jim Schultz, along with CNN Legal Analyst, Jennifer Rodgers, and CNN Law Enforcement and Intelligence Analyst, John Miller. Great to have all of you.

So, Jim, we've all heard that heard that call to Brad Raffensperger where Donald Trump asked him to find 11,780 more votes and in Brad Raffensperger's book he said that he believed that it was a threat. So, what does Jack Smith, what more did Jack Smith want to know from Brad Raffensperger today in this interview?

JAMES SHULTZ, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE LAWYER: Well, my sense is that when you're seeing folks like Raffensperger and other public officials and then folks closer to the inner circle of Donald Trump being interviewed, that tells me that it's getting closer and closer to a conclusion in terms of the investigation.

And they're wanting to confirm things that they've otherwise already, you know, they've already had testimony or evidence in the grand jury. And they're trying to confirm things that they've already seen with folks who had the first-hand knowledge, which is why they're probably talking to Raffensperger.

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CAMEROTA: Jen, your thoughts.

JENNIFER RODGERS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yeah, I agree. I mean, one of the things you want to do with something like this is set the table, right? You want to hear from Raffensperger, not just about what actually happened on that call, which of course you have recorded. But let's talk about the integrity of the election in Georgia. You know, tell us how confident you are about the vote count and why there were no troubles in Georgia. And when you explain that to the president, what his reaction was, you need to kind of set all of that out as well so that, of course, you know, in the end, that the president did know that he lost the election. And when he's asking for those votes, it's not because he thinks he really deserves those votes, but it's an effort to overturn the legitimate election.

CAMEROTA: John, what do you think happens next?

JOHN MILLER, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE ANALYST: Well, I think what we're seeing is a flurry of activity in a place where I think, prior to this, the Special Counsel's momentum was really towards the documents in Mar-a-Lago, but now you're seeing Brad Raffensperger, you're seeing sessions with Rudy Giuliani. You see them, you know, looking to talk to Eastman. So, they're trying to lock down everybody's story.

The Giuliani one is particularly interesting because their focus was really the period from election day, November 3rd to January 20th. What happened on what dates during that thing, during that time period? What was the purpose of the alternate electors? What was the legal precedent for that? Did they actually have the evidence of the fraud?

But I spoke to two people who were familiar with that conversation who said it was very cooperative, not acrimonious, fairly reflective of what the January 6 Committee interview with Giuliani covered in terms of territory, so, they are bringing form to this investigation.

CAMEROTA: And Jen, you have other -- you see other signs that suggest to you that Giuliani's being cooperative.

RODGERS: Well, the fact that he's there at all under a proffer agreement means he's being cooperative but they can subpoena him and drag him into the grand jury but the fact that he's willing to interview in advance of that means he's being cooperative. I don't think that means he will be a cooperator with a cooperation agreement because I think there's just been too much craziness from him, too many false statements, too much nuttiness, substance abuse issues. I just don't think that they will sign him up as a cooperating witness and use him at trial, but that doesn't mean he's not useful to talk to now as they're still putting the rest of the pieces together.

MILLER: I also think there's a distinction there which is, you know, he was asked, from my understanding, about what did you do on this date? What was behind this particular move? When it came to questions about what did you say to Donald Trump, what did he say to you, that's where lawyer-client privilege came in and was invoked, and that's where it stood.

CAMEROTA: So, Jim, there's already been two -- Donald Trump has already been indicted twice. Do you think there are others coming down the pike soon?

SCHULTZ: Yeah, I think what they're looking at here is, you know, we already talked about the alternative electors. You know, they're probably looking into perhaps the attempt to try to change over the attorney general. The pressure that was placed on folks like Mike Pence and others, and what was going on in the state legislatures around the country as it relates to electors, as we said before.

And then you have the whole issue in Georgia, right? So, you pull that all together, and they're looking at some --perhaps some conspiracy to overturn the outcome of a valid election, perhaps defrauding the United States government. They're looking at all these issues to try to build a case and build eventually towards an indictment.

And I think as they're getting to the -- to the end here when you're hearing when you're seeing folks like Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows and others going in and testifying, I think that's where you know we see this coming to a conclusion. I do think that this case, in particular, and I don't think you'll see an incitement type case here because the First Amendment issues associated with it.

I think it'll focus more on the election issues and trying to overturn the outcome of the election. But I think you are going to see you know -- so, I think you are going to see, you know, the facts surrounding January 6 coming into play, but not in the sense of incitement, but more of pressure to, you know, push this narrative.

CAMEROTA: Do you agree, Jen?

RODGERS: I do agree. I do agree. I mean, this conspiracy has a lot of strands, as Jim was just saying. I don't think they'll even touch this issue of incitement on that day. They've got plenty with the fake electors, the pressure on the state election officials, the pressure on the state legislatures, you know, all of that. They've got more than enough to do that, maybe in one big Klein conspiracy, it's called, as Jim was just saying.

CAMEROTA: Jim, you worked obviously in the Trump White House. So, let's talk about Rudy Giuliani for a second. What kind of behind the scenes info do you think that he can offer to the Special Counsel? I see Rudy Giuliani didn't work in the White House. He was an adviser to the president, was a lawyer to the president, private lawyer to the president. So, I mean, he probably knows a lot more than most as it relates to this matter. You know, he was going into court in Pennsylvania and other places and holding meetings in Pennsylvania and other places where they were pushing forward with this idea that the election was stolen.

[23:10:00]

So, I mean, he's probably got a lot of information. The question is, what's privileged, what's not, what can he talk about, what can he talk about? You know, those are the issues that were just earlier in the in the discussion and you know, I think they're, you know, it remains to be seen as to what really comes of Giuliani's testimony.

MILLER: I think that's a good assessment because we also have to, I mean, just going back to our discussion here last night at this table, it was, what did Rudy Giuliani say in public versus what did he represent in court? And part of the focus of this interview was that Rudy Giuliani was running the operation of trying to prove that the election was stolen, but when they made those representations in court, they weren't saying the same things that they were saying in the media. So, the idea that he did something legally to defraud the process, the only way to get to alternate electors is if a body, which is a court or a legislative body, makes that move and that hasn't happened since Nixon versus Kennedy in 1960 in Hawaii.

CAMEROTA: And very quickly, wasn't it also Rudy Giuliani who said, let's have trial by combat?

RODGERS: It was, but now --

CAMEROTA: Isn't that incitement?

RODGERS: Now, you're up against these First Amendment issues again. Is it immediate enough? Is it calling for violence clearly enough? Is it seditious conspiracy? I mean, this is where it gets difficult. So, I -- I honestly think they won't touch that because, you know, they've got plenty of other stuff.

CAMEROTA: Yeah. And just very quickly, Jen, the intersection between the Georgia Fulton County investigation and Jack Smith's investigation. They were both going on. They are both going on concurrently. Who's going to go first?

RODGERS: Yeah, so, it's super unusual, you know, normally DOJ would try to stop the state from doing this but way back when they kind of pulled back and let Georgia go ahead. So, I don't know what's going to happen now. I'm sure that they're talking because Trump's stance card is getting very, very full as far as charges and trials.

MILLER: Don't forget the Manhattan DA.

RODGERS: Yes, but the feds will want to go first because of course if Trump were to be elected again, that's the one that he can mess with. He can't really mess with Georgia in the same way. CAMEROTA: It does feel like a lot is coming to a head right now. Thank

you all very much for the expertise. Okay, when we come back, Chris Christie calls Donald Trump childish and says he's the cheapest person he's ever met.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIE: He's the cheapest person I've ever met in my life. That's why. And what he's very good at, Kaitlan, is spending other people's money.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: All right. More of what Christie just said on CNN.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Republican Presidential Candidate Chris Christie appearing on CNN this evening and explaining what he hears on that exclusive audio tape obtained by CNN of Donald Trump discussing secret classified documents during that 2021 meeting at his golf club.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIE: He's the consummate show off. And I think that's what that tape was, him showing off. People ask me, going all the way back to the time of the raid last year of Mar-a-Lago, like, why would he keep these documents? People are like, is he going to give them to a foreign government or sell them to somebody or blackmail people? Like, you don't understand Donald Trump. It's just to show off. He wants to continue to act like he's president. He can't live with the fact that he's not. And so, that's why he kept those documents. It seems childish and stupid, and it is, but that's the reason why, in my view, he's always kept them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now, CNN senior political analyst, John Avlon, John Miller is back. We're also joined by Rolling Stone columnist, Jay Michelson, and New York Republican surrogate, Joe Pinion. Great to have all of you. Okay, so John, I think Christie's enjoying this unplugged moment that he's having right now. He's just speaking his mind about, particularly about Donald Trump. We'll get to what he says about DeSantis in a second. What do you think about what Christie's doing, and will it be effective in helping him move up in the polls?

JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, I think authenticity is what voters respond to, and you clearly the unplug moment is him actually able to tell the truth and the problem with so many Republicans right now is that they try to tiptoe around Donald Trump for fear of offending him or some part of the base and when you're liberated from that to actually tell the truth from a position of knowledge.

I think that has a compelling charisma around it and I think that's one of the reasons, you know, I think Christie should not be written off as simply a candidate who's gonna, you know, soften him up. I think the town hall the other day on CNN showed he reminded people that he's got uncommon political talents.

CAMEROTA: Do you see that as a Republican, Joe?

JOE PINION, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Look, I mean this is a man that every major donor in the country begged to run for president in 2012 and I think if he had run for president in 2012 he would have won. So, I think the unforested reality for Chris Christie is that it's very difficult to try to impugn the integrity of President Trump without alienating the voters that still support him.

And so, it has the unintended consequence of actually putting you behind the eight ball at a time when you're actually trying to go on the offensive, namely to win a primary. So, I think that is what he is up against. I think the other part of it is we don't get to tell voters what to care about. That's politics 101. And part B of that is that we don't get to tell them to care about my issue for the reasons I want you to.

So, yes, I think that you can talk about the real problems and the tragedy of January 6. You can talk about the issues that President Trump has in some ways brought on himself. But none of that actually gets to the compelling interest of what most Republican primary voters want to talk about, namely the economy and a lot of --

AVLON: Here's my -- does that extend to the truth? I mean, you know, you could say you can't tell voters what to care about or not my issue, but isn't leadership required telling people the truth?

PINION: To be clear, I don't think that you have a preponderance of people who are running for president in New York or around the country who are just outright lying to voters. I think they're focused on how they win the primary. So yes, I think that if he --

AVLON: I think that's a means to an end for some.

PINION: Look, I think if you're going to sit here and say that, yes, Chris Christie has the cards of his convictions, how far be it for me to question that? I think he's an accomplished man.

[23:20:00]

He's done many things. But if you're talking about raw politics, how do you win the primary? And more importantly, how do you beat President Trump? I don't know if the path that he's on is gonna get --

CAMEROTA: Hold on, Joe, hold on to that thought for a second because I want to also play what he just said about Ron DeSantis. So, Ron DeSantis had a town hall, a student, I believe a high school student, asked him what his thoughts were on January 6th, and if Donald Trump tried to destroy democracy, that's basically paraphrasing what the student said. And Ron DeSantis said something to the effect of, well, I wasn't there that day, it's time to move on. I believe it's time to move on. I try not to think about what happened. And here's Chris Christie responding to that moment.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRISTIE: He wasn't anywhere near Washington. Did he have a TV? Was he alive that day? Did he see what was going on? I mean, that's one of the most ridiculous answers I've heard. People were killed, Kaitlan, as you know, that day, on Capitol Hill defending the Capitol.

We had members of Congress who were running for their lives. We had people trying to hunt down the Vice President of the United States chanting, hang Mike Pence. And Donald Trump the entire time sat outside the Oval Office in that little dining room of his, eating a well-done cheeseburger and watching TV and doing nothing to stop what was going on until it got to the point where even he could no longer stand it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Jay.

JAY MICHAELSON, COLUMNIST, "ROLLING STONE": Yeah, you know, I'm perplexed by these responses. So, I never thought in a million years that I would be saying that Chris Christie would be the voice for your moral reason and moral conscience in this moment. And yet he is in part that person, right?

He is the one person who is speaking truth to power, showing that the emperor has no clothes. But in that clip, you can see he just can't seem to help himself like being the other Chris Christie, the one who's kind of a bully and says like mean insults, you know, the cheeseburger thing.

And I just wonder, you know, maybe that plays with voters. But it feels to me like he has a lane here that is, again, not one that I would expect, given Chris Christie's past with closing lanes to enter bridges, for example. But that lane is being the voice of reason in the Republican Party. And there are a lot of Republicans, I think I'm sitting next to one, who would appreciate some truth and some reason from their candidates.

The question is, as Joe says on this show pretty much every other week, it's a winner-take-all primary in the Republicans, and it's not clear that point of view will be the one to prevail. But maybe that Chris Christie, I can't believe I'm saying this, may go down in history as one of the valuable voices of this year.

CAMEROTA: Your thoughts, John.

MILLER: I think Chris Christie has a unique role, which is the thing that makes him different here, which is, you know, he's the one who entered a crowded field with a whip, a chair, and a gun as the guy was going to keep Donald Trump cornered by making these statements. And he does it in the form and format of a former federal prosecutor

who, you know, keeps coming back to the crimes, the violations, the legal analysis, as well as the political characterizations, and he's becoming formidable for being different in a field where Mike Pence struggles with no one's above the law, but he shouldn't go to jail, and Nikki Haley flip-flops back and forth.

CAMEROTA: Their numbers are higher. Their poll numbers at the moment today are higher than Chris Christie's.

MILLER: Right, and we're very early, and people are just getting accustomed to someone speaking frankly and truthfully. It's kind of a new concept in this conversation, so we have to see how it plays out. But the key is he stands out.

CAMEROTA: Yeah, I got to leave it there, Joe. Thank you all very much. We have some new video to show you of how a police officer responded when he realized an active shooter was loose in a shopping mall. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[23:25:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAMEROTA: Newly released video captures the moment a mass shooter opened fire at a shopping mall in Allen, Texas last month. It also captures level of heroism. It took for a sole police officer to chase the sound of gunshots through the parking lot until he found the shooter. Tonight, we see that officer's body cam footage for the first time.

My panel is back with me. John, this is one of the most remarkable things about this video we're about to show is what the officer was doing seconds before the shots ring out. He is doing community service, basically. He's teaching little kids about seatbelt safety. And so, let me just play what happens next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OFFICER: Hey, make sure you all be good, okay? And make sure you wear your seatbelts when mommy's driving, okay? You understand? Okay? Okay, alright. Alright, you be good.

UNKNOWN: Listen. I can't put my seatbelt on.

UNKNOWN: Say, always the --

OFFICER: Seatbelt? I think we got shots fired at the Allen Mall. They're moving further away from me. Go, go, go, keep moving. Get out of here!

CAMEROTA: Okay, we're going to play more of that, but those are just the first moments. What did you see in that moment? MILLER: I mean, what you see is what 90 percent of a police officer

life is, which is playing Mr. Policeman. He's talking about safety with the kids. And it's a fascinating moment, because when you look at it, you hear bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. And while they're processing, that sounds like gunfire. What does mom do? She gathers up the kids and moves out. He gets the patrol rifle from the vehicle. This used to be the moment where you called SWAT. Now, everybody has an AR-15 in their patrol car because that's, you know, the new world in one-man patrols out there.

[23:30:00]

And what does he do? He literally starts running towards the gunfire. And he needs it because that's -- he doesn't know the new world in one-man patrols out there. And what does he do? He literally starts running towards the gunfire and he needs it because that's -- he doesn't know where it is. He's following the sound.

CAMEROTA: Yeah, so let's show that. So, he's following the sound of gunfire. He's alone, he's trying to call for backup and how much well, let's watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Okay, so, this is just him running and he's running all around the mall. Okay, and he has gear on. Oh, this is not, it's not easy to run during all this, right? Like he has heavy gear on.

MILLER: Right, and he is yelling at people to get away. He is talking on the radio simultaneously saying, this is where I'm passing. So, you know, the units know where to respond. He's already called it in when the mom and the child were running away. Shots fired at the outlet mall. He's doing a lot at once while trying to follow the sound of the gunfire and maintain breath control because he knows he's likely going to have to engage this person.

CAMEROTA: Let's hear what happens. So, when he sees, then at some point from a distance, he sees the gunman. So, let's just listen to that.

OFFICER: We got a male, I'm moving up on them. Who is this behind me. Watch your fire. Watch your fire. I got him down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: I mean, that's just -- it was from a long distance. He sees him, he shoots him, he's all alone. I mean, he had to do all of this in split seconds. I know that might not, you might not be marveling at the way that we all are, but how police officers' lives can turn on a dime like that.

MILLER: Well, and it's interesting, because if you take it in the context of what we just saw, what does he know? He knows he's going against a heavily armed assailant. How does he know that? Simply by the number of shots he's heard. He knows this person and has a giant supply of ammunition and probably a long gun by the sound of it. He's running towards that danger. He's trying to clear people away,

update the department on the radio, and then, you know, as he stops hearing the gunfire and it goes quiet, every corner he comes around he's saying, am I running into an ambush?

So, I think that's just such a remarkable video and we saw that. We saw it in Nashville at the school. We saw it at Louisville in the bank, and we've seen the flip side. I mean, if you take this week, Alisyn, what are we going through? You've got three officers in Texas who opened fire far too quickly on a woman who was charging at them with a hammer.

They're charged with murder now. You have Scott Peterson in Florida, in Parkland, on trial, literally for not doing what we saw here. It underscores that being a police officer is complicated under pressure, being driven by fear, trying to control that and make sensible decisions.

CAMEROTA: And so, John, the back story, I mean more to flesh out the story, eight people died. So that shooter, that active shooter killed eight people who were just shopping on any given day at a mall in America and that police officer killed him.

AVLON: Yes. And it was obviously entirely justified. But I think what John Miller is saying is that video reminds us of the essential heroism of cops, from being a role model to kids, to their video cameras showing him running towards the danger.

MILLER: Literally, in the same moment.

CAMEROTA: Right, in the same moment. I mean, that's how he has to flip the switch in his own mind.

MICHAELSON: We can't forget that.

CAMEROTA: Like that, absolutely. Gentlemen.

MICHAELSON: We just need fewer of these incidents. You know, this, I mean, I got the chills watching this video. This is about the third or fourth time I've watched it preparing for this segment, and it is truly what heroism is. And we, as a society, have to do better so that people, individuals, police officers, don't have to put themselves in this kind of harm's way.

CAMEROTA: Yeah, quickly.

PINION: I think you juxtapose that with what happened in Uvalde, and certainly we recognize the need for people who raised their hand to be able to act when called upon. And so, we've gone from a world where police officers should go their entire career and not ever have to brandish their weapon to incidents like this. And so, we should be doing everything humanly possible to curb these occurrences, but also at the same time remembering the reverence that we should have for the overall majority of people that put that uniform on each and every day, not knowing if they're ever going to see their loved ones again. CAMEROTA: Yeah. Thank you all very much. Okay. Now, to this. Madonna

postponing her world tour after an infection lands her in the ICU. We're going to give you the latest details on her condition, next.

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[23:35:00]

CAMEROTA: Pop Legend Madonna dealing with a major health scare. Her manager says in a statement that on Saturday, quote, Madonna developed a serious bacterial infection, which led to several days stay in the ICU. Her health is improving, however, she is still under medical care. A full recovery is expected, end quote.

Madonna is 64 years old. This infection has forced her to postpone her latest tour, which was set to kick off next month. Let's get the latest now with CNN Correspondent Omar Jimenez and Dr. Devi Nampiaparampil, an Associate Professor of Rehab Medicine at NYU School of Medicine.

[23:40:00]

Okay, Omar, what do we know at this hour?

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN Correspondent: So, for starters, the source is telling CNN that she is out of the ICU which is good. But according to her manager, she was in the ICU for days, which of course indicates how serious this was, what they were dealing with.

But also, he mentioned or he said as you said that this was a bacterial infection, a very serious one that she was dealing with, and we know It's serious because she is someone who is almost notorious for battling through ailments that she's had physically. And so, the fact that she is now essentially out of service, that we don't know how things are gonna move forward, I think in its own, indicates how severe this actually is even if we don't have it verbally at this point.

CAMEROTA: Dr. Devi, what kind of bacterial infection lands somebody in the ICU for days?

DEVI NAMPIAPARAMPIL, MD, Associate Professor of Rehab Medicine, NYU School of Medicine: Well, any bacterial infection can. So, it could start out any place. You know, you could get a scrape on the skin. You could have a purposeful cut, like if someone has surgery and then it becomes infected like a wound. Sometimes at that age, it could be a urinary tract infection, for example, or let's say even an elective procedure like a colonoscopy.

But the main thing is usually that it has to spread to the blood because in order to end up in the ICU, it has to be something that's interfering with your ability to get oxygen and nutrients to the brain and to the organs because they have to be in danger of failing. So, your heart has to be having problems actually getting those things to the brain and the organs.

CAMEROTA: We have heard that she had a hip replacement in 2020. So, does that lend itself to bacterial infections?

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Exactly, it can become like a nest or a nidus for infection. So, the problem is it may not be that the hip prosthesis is infected. That may not be the source of the infection. But if someone is infected, let's say she has something called sepsis, which is bacteria in the blood. If she has sepsis, it can always be a source of bacterial infection in the future.

So, sometimes what people will do is they'll remove the hardware and then the person has to go back after a course of antibiotics for weeks and then have a new hip put where that hip replacement was. So, we don't know for sure. I'm not treating her, but it definitely complicates the whole process.

CAMEROTA: Why does she have to postpone her tour? If it wasn't happening until next month, is the thinking that she won't be well by then?

JIMENEZ: Well, I think that's the clear part in the unclear right now, which is his manager or her manager has said that they are trying to work out when this new tour would start. And this is a tour that I mean, we're talking 80 shows, at least 40 cities across North America, Europe, so many different places, a huge tour for anybody and especially someone who's 64 years old.

So, the fact that I think they don't have a definite time period for when she can restart is indicative of where we are, but also, as we mentioned, you know, she's battled through a lot of these types of injuries in the past, or not these types, but injuries in general.

Back in late 2019, early 2020, she had to postpone or cancel certain shows of her Madame X tour because she said she was going through more pain than she had ever gone through in her life. And then a year later she reveals she had hip replacement surgery because of overwhelming pain.

And so, she said at the time that not only has she said she's a bionic woman, but also that she says she doesn't believe in limitations, which I think will give us some insight to maybe how she mentally is trying to handle this latest episode, but obviously this bacterial infection, very different from what from the pain that she would have experienced in the past.

CAMEROTA: Does she have to be on IV antibiotics? Is that the solution?

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Most likely she's been on IV antibiotics in the ICU. And it depends. If this hip prosthesis is an issue, then she might have to continue with that. On the other hand, you know, it depends what actually landed her in the ICU, if it's a bacterial infection or if it's something else that complicated the bacterial infection. And that's what kept her in the ICU, so it may depend.

But just to follow up on what you said, her positive attitude and her work ethic might be a real like a good prognostic factor here because usually if you have a serious infection it's where you start, that predicts how you're gonna end up afterwards, too. It's not just the infection. So, if somebody is really in bad shape before they get this bacterial infection, it's hard for them to bounce back from that.

But for somebody who's starting at such a high level, that actually is a really good sign for her in the future. On the other hand, the stress of the tour might've been maybe what predisposed her also to being maybe immunocompromised, maybe her diet was off. You know, there could be other factors that complicated this.

CAMEROTA: Well, she is bionic. So, her manager says she's expected to have a full recovery and we certainly hope so. Dr. Devi, Omar, thank you very much for all of that.

NAMPIAPARAMPIL: Thank you.

CAMEROTA: Okay, the Supreme Court's biggest decisions are expected this week, including one on affirmative action. John Avalon has our reality check for us about whether affirmative action works. That's next.

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CAMEROTA: Just two days left in the Supreme Court's term and some major decisions still expected to come down on President Biden's Student Loan Program, on whether businesses can deny services to LGBTQ customers, and on affirmative action, specifically whether colleges and universities can use race as a factor in admissions. If the justices rule against that practice, colleges and universities would no longer be able to take race into consideration.

Let's get over to CNN's John Avalon for a reality check. John.

AVLON: That's right, Ali. Look, in the next two days, Americans can expect a much-anticipated decision from the Supreme Court about affirmative action, specifically the role of race in university admissions. Now, affirmative action, as we know it, started with presidential executive orders in the 1960s.

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But universities really began embracing it in the wake of MLK's assassination. For example, in the fall of 1969, according to "The New York Times", Harvard increased the number of African-American freshmen from 51 the previous year to 90 in a class of 1200. Other colleges started to move in the same direction.

And according to data from the National Center for Education Statistics, diversity in college enrollment increased each decade between 1980 and 2020. Now, of course, American society has grown more diverse, as well. White students, for example, made up around 83 percent of undergraduates in 1980, but only 54 percent in 2020.

CAMEROTA: So, John --numbers. Is it fair to say that affirmative action worked? I mean, what do the polls say? AVLON: So, there's a paradox here, right? A brand new Monmouth poll

found that a majority of Americans believe that racial and ethnic discrimination is a major cause of our political divisions. But a "Washington Post" poll last year also shows broad majorities of Americans say they favor leaving race out of college admissions. That was reaffirmed by a Pew Research Center survey earlier this month, which found that not even a majority of Black Americans support affirmative action at 47 percent, followed by 39 percent of Hispanic respondents, 37 percent of Asian respondents, and 29 percent of white folks.

Now, perhaps most surprising is that 35 percent of black Americans and 20 percent of Hispanics say they've actually been disadvantaged by efforts to increase diversity, with 28 percent of black Americans surveyed saying that people assume they might have benefited unfairly. In fact, get this, the biggest divisions on affirmative action are partisan, and white Democrats support affirmative action at a higher rate than black Democrats, 59 to 50 percent, they're about equal on disapproval.

Look, a poll is just a snapshot in time, while race has always been a fundamental fault line in American politics. Thanks to the legacy of America's original sin of slavery. We've got a long way to go before we achieve a genuine multiracial democracy.

Now, if the Supreme Court does overturn considering race and emissions, we can't know exactly what the impact will be, but an analysis of medical school enrollment trends found that the number of students from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups fell by around a third, just five years after some states banned affirmative action programs.

Now, if the Supreme Court chooses a mended, non-ended path by moving from racial distinctions to class, giving students from lower income families a boost in college admissions, it might have some of the same net effect benefiting economically disadvantaged kids across the demographic spectrum, poor whites, as well as, poor black Americans.

That might be a way to constructively depolarize this debate, making more progress towards quality of opportunity and social mobility as we continue our constant work to form a more perfect union. And that's your reality check.

CAMEROTA: John, thank you for all of that. Those are really interesting and probably unexpected numbers for a lot of people. So come back and join us. Joe, what happens if affirmative action goes away on college campuses?

PINION: Well, look, I think a few things happen. I think number one, we talked a little bit about this in the green room. We've already had a live experiment for what happens when the affirmative action goes away in California. They got rid of affirmative action via the voter referendum in 1996. We saw that you know the next year at UCLA, the most competitive school in California, enrollment for African Americans and Hispanics went down about 40 percent. There was a professor from Princeton University who actually tracked

the long- term impact of that decision and we found that over a 15 to 20-year period long term economic impact down about five percent. So, we know in a vacuum getting rid of affirmative action does have a negative impact. The issue is, and for me I think perhaps the opportunity, is to say that is this the best way to make sure that we're actually achieving the equality that we set out back in --

CAMEROTA: And is it?

PINION: I don't think that we are. I think that if we're looking constructively at why it is that we even still need the program, it's because school by school, state by state, city by city we have public schools that are failing our children. We know this unequivocally. So, whatever you think the remedy to that is could be and should be. I think that we spend so much time talking about how do we help these people catch up. We spend less time figuring out why is it they're behind in the first place.

MICHAELSON: I'm glad that Joe's showing up for a robust Department of Education and federal funding of public schools. I'm all for that. That sounds great.

PINION: School choice my friend, school choice.

MICHAELSON: Clearly aligned on rescuing the public school system. So, look, I mean I think John's introduction is very helpful. We should understand from a -- so, I've been writing on the Supreme Court for fifteen years. This is almost certainly the result that affirmative action will be overturned. It's helpful to understand two things. First, that it is improper, according to federal law to discriminate on the basis of race. The question is whether there's a compelling state interest that justifies that.

When we look at some of the numbers, the achievement gaps, and so forth that were just mentioned, it's hard to argue that that's not a compelling state interest that justifies something that otherwise would not be justifiable. But it doesn't look like that's the cards for the Supreme Court. And I think one of the major reasons is that progressives in particular have muddied the waters ethically about this issue.

Americans care about fairness, right? It's a primary value. Affirmative action seems to offend the value of fairness. And progressives have done a terrible job of explaining that fairness is both individual and also collective. That it's not fair for everybody to just have a certain equal shake when it's just fairness.

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And progressives have done a terrible job of explaining that fairness is both individual and also collective, that it's not fair for everybody to just have a certain equal shake when as Joe just said some people haven't had an equal shake for the first 15 to 18 years of their lives. But I really, actually have to say I blame progressives and Democrats in particular for failing to explain why affirmative action is in line with primary core American values of fairness and equality. And so, we have lost the moral debate as we are soon to lose the judicial debate.

CAMEROTA: Jen.

RODGERS: So, here's the legal issue. For 40 years the Supreme Court has said that diversity is a compelling state interest. That because these schools, and a lot of these are private schools, want to compose their classes using diversity as one of their core values, that they are allowed to do that because that's a compelling state interest.

For the court to now say, which I agree they are primed to do, that they are not going to allow that anymore, that requires them to not sort of nuance this, massage this and say, oh, well, we said that and this is a little bit different, but to actually overturn that, to say what we said, more than once over the last 40 years, we no longer want to go with because we are an ideologically different court than existed back then.

This is not so dissimilar from last year's Dobbs decision overturning Roe versus Wade. They're saying, we're a different court. We feel differently about this issue. And so, we're gonna rule in the opposite direction.

MICHAELSON: That's where they're gonna go. I mean, I feel like this will be a history has changed. And I wonder if this will be that bold of a statement tomorrow, or if it'll be, well, the world has changed, and so now this vermin is.

RODGERS: They may try based on that O'Connor statement, but it's so defied by the facts in this case. I don't think they can get away with it.

CAMEROTA: Thank you all very much. Really interesting conversation. We shall see what happens in the next two days. Tomorrow on CNN "This Morning", Melinda French Gates on her push to get more women elected to office. Plus, Daryl McDaniels of Run DMC is live to celebrate 50 years of hip hop. That all starts at 6 AM Eastern.

Thanks so much for watching CNN Tonight. Our coverage continues now.

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