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Early Start with John Berman and Zoraida Sambolin

LGBTQ Rights May Hang In Balance As Fate Of Roe V. Wade Looms; Today: Biden Speaks About More Funding For Police; Biden Adopts New Messaging On MAGA. Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired May 13, 2022 - 05:30   ET

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

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[05:34:31]

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN ANCHOR: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito making his first public address since the bombshell leak of his draft Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade. He seemed to dodge answering a question about his relationship with the other justices and if they could still have a nice meal together.

The Washington Post reports he said, "This is a subject I told myself I wasn't going to talk about today." He added, "We're taking new cases. We're headed toward the end of the term, which is always a frenetic time as we get our opinions out. So that's where we are."

[05:35:01]

He did not address the substance of the court's abortion decision.

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: One thing Justice Alito was more than happy to discuss, however, was the court's stance on LGBTQ rights. According to the Post, he had an extended discussion about why he believes his fellow justices were wrong back in 2020 to find gay and transgender employees protected by the 1964 Civil Right Act.

So let's bring in defense attorney and former federal prosecutor Shan Wu, on the set with us. Shan, so nice to have you back on EARLY START.

ROMANS: Hi, there.

SHAN WU, DEFENSE ATTORNEY, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: You, too.

JARRETT: All week we have heard President Biden and other people as well say don't think that this stops at abortion.

WU: Right.

JARRETT: The next thing to fall here is marriage equality.

Can you explain for people at home what in the world abortion has to do with gay rights?

WU: Well, I think Justice Alito put it the best, which is he's actually talking about challenging this question of the marriage equality. And the reason it flows from the potential overturning of Roe is that his way of analyzing this is to what they call look at original intent. And gay marriage, obviously, was not originally in the Constitution as were not many things, including the right to vote for women, no slavery, et cetera.

By overturning something which is considered, really, super precedent, as so many of the justices testified to during their confirmation hearings --

JARRETT: Yes.

WU: -- it opens the door to overturning other things which were not in the Constitution back in the 1700s. And that's why we have President Biden talking about this opens the door to other issues being overturned.

And, of course, central to the concept of equality for gays and LGBTQ people are the idea of privacy in the homes.

JARRETT: Yes, right -- yes.

WU: And overturning Roe comes from really overturning Griswold, the original notion of the privacy claim.

JARRETT: Yes. And so, speaking of privacy, the next fight that seems to be shaping up here is one over the drugs that are used to induce abortion.

WU: Right.

JARRETT: And you see a lot of states already targeting that because they know that the law has to catch up with the technology, and so that's where this is going.

The issue seems to be, in the case of ectopic pregnancies, which are rare but when they happen you can die from that if you don't treat it. And the same drugs that are used to induce abortion are the same drugs that are used to try to handle an ectopic pregnancy. And so, it seems like this is one of

ROMANS: Wow.

JARRETT: -- those areas where the -- they -- at least people who support having laws against abortion say that's a misreading of the law. In that case, the woman's health would become precedent.

But explain how this is going to have a chilling effect. That's the whole point of it, right?

WU: Yes, absolutely. And the problem here is when you have this type of a ruling it can trigger criminalization of anything that is defined as abortion.

JARRETT: Yes. WU: So not only with those dangerous pregnancies but also there are after-effects -- medical after-effects to miscarriages as well and even with the IVT fertilization issues. Fertilization isn't just a black and white question medically -- I'm not a doctor -- but it's a process. And so, there are multiple steps in that. There are multiple fertilizations. And if you have a law which criminalizes anything that's related to abortion, including these drugs, that is problematic for the doctors.

ROMANS: But, what -- I mean, what if pharmacies don't carry these drugs? So if you are a woman who gets a prescription from your doctor because you have this life-threatening pregnancy and they don't -- I mean, if you're in one of these states -- I mean, it could be terrifying.

WU: Absolutely.

ROMANS: Shan Wu, happy birthday.

WU: Oh.

ROMANS: We're told it's your birthday.

WU: I appreciate that.

ROMANS: Thank you for the legal analysis on your birthday. Nice to see you.

JARRETT: Come back soon. It's so nice to have you in person.

ROMANS: Have a nice day.

WU: Thank you.

JARRETT: All right. Coming up, Joe Biden's new MAGA messaging. Will it work?

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[05:42:51]

JARRETT: Forty-two minutes -- back now.

President Biden meets with mayors and police chiefs from across the country later today. They're going to be at the White House to talk about more money for policing.

Let's bring in CNN's Jasmine Wright. Jasmine, good morning. What are you looking for today?

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN REPORTER: Well, we're looking for President Biden to talk about just how these local communities have used the millions of dollars that his administration has provided to them to keep their communities safer. He's going to be talking about that Plus-Up money that was allocated in the American Rescue Plan that leaders have been using in their communities to do things that he supports, like violence prevention and community policing.

Now, a White House official told CNN that these remarks today are not unintentional -- that they are made, really, before the summer months where last year we saw that uptick of violence -- really trying to push these communities to do more, saying that they have access to these resources to keep their communities safe.

Now, of course, we know that today, President Biden will meet with a bunch of local mayors, including the Kansas City mayor who will talk about money that he has used really to add more police officers to the force, as well as pay those 911 call-takers more money, as well as leaders from Ohio and leaders from Oklahoma.

Now, the elephant in the room here, of course, is that the president, the administration, and Democrats at large have spent a lot of time in the last two years defending themselves against attacks from the right saying that they are soft on crime and that they've basically allowed crime to run rampant. So this is kind of a prebuttal, really saying that these are the things that we are doing, especially as crime headlines could really surface in the next few months -- Laura.

JARRETT: All right, Jasmine -- appreciate it.

ROMANS: OK. So the president warning Democrats that midterm voters are angry about inflation. Quote, "Rising prices will scare the living hell out of everybody."

The White House messaging has shifted. Now it's less it'll work itself out and more I feel your pain. And brand-new MAGA extremism is dangerous.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Under my predecessor, the great MAGA king, the deficit increased every single year he was president.

[05:45:00]

I never expected the ultra-MAGA Republicans who seem to control the Republican Party now to have enabled control of the Republican Party.

This MAGA crowd is really the most extreme political organization that's existed in American history -- in recent American --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

JARRETT: All right, let's bring in someone who knows a little bit about messaging, Jess McIntosh, former director of communications outreach for Hillary Clinton's campaign. She's also a CNN political commentator and, of course, co-host of Signal Boost on SiriusXM --

ROMANS: Hi, Jess.

JARRETT: -- Progress. Jess, so nice to have you bright and early this morning. The president is really drilling down on this message. He's trying to

frame it as MAGA extremism. Is he too late?

JESS MCINTOSH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, FORMER DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATION OUTREACH, HILLARY CLINTON CAMPAIGN, CO-HOST, SIGNAL BOOST ON SIRIUSXM PROGRESS (via Webex by Cisco): No, I don't think he's too late at all. And I think it's very important to talk about how extreme the Republicans are, especially now just a week after we learned that they want to take away -- well, we've learned that they want to take away our right to decide when and whether we were going to become parents. But we did learn exactly how close we are to this precipice.

Republicans are not only doing that -- they have made our schools a front line in their weird culture war, demonizing teachers, restricting our kids' freedom to learn.

They're standing in the way of every -- almost every economic package that President Biden and the Democrats have proposed to help ease Americans' economic anxiety in this time.

Like, this is extreme. I don't know if I would have chosen MAGA to describe them when extremists --

ROMANS: Yes.

MCINTOSH: -- is right there. But I do think we need to be telling the American people that the Republicans that we are dealing with today are a different breed than the ones that we ever have been before. And I think that, frankly, that's been kind of tough for President Biden to realize. He believes in the two-party system.

JARRETT: Yes.

ROMANS: Right, right, right.

MCINTOSH: He believes that they are willing to do the right thing. And today, they just aren't.

ROMANS: But, you know, Jess -- so that's diverting from the inflation story, which he maybe hasn't had the messaging right on over the past few months, to this new extreme MAGA.

I want you to listen to what he's been saying about inflation over the past year that many people think he just didn't kind of hit the right tone as early as he should have -- listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: Talking inflation, the overwhelming consensus is it's going to pop up a little bit and then go back down.

It's a real bump in the road. It does affect families.

My plan cuts the deficit. My plan cuts the deficit and will boost the economy by getting more people into the workforce. That's why 17 Nobel Prize winners for economics say we'll ease long-term inflationary pressure.

REPORTER: How long do you think it will be until we see prices coming down?

BIDEN: I'm not going to predict that. It ranges depending on which economists you're talking to -- by the end of this year. And some say it's going to be -- it's going to increase next year.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMANS: But now, this week, you're hearing more about I get it -- you -- this really hurts. He went to Kankakee to a family farm where he talked about inflation and all these other factors that hurt. And also talked about Ukraine -- the war in Ukraine and how it's going to continue to hurt.

If you were advising President Biden today, what would you tell him he should be preaching to Democrats here?

MCINTOSH: I think he should be talking about how Republicans are standing in the way of any offsets to make American families get through this period of high inflation.

The idea that inflation was going to remain stable as we go through a war in Russia and a global pandemic was always a pipedream. There were going to be problems in the economy. But when you have Republicans, like Gov. Abbott, deliberately causing supply chain issues; when you have Republicans standing in the way of --

ROMANS: You're talking about -- you're talking -- wait -- I just want to -- I want to tell people what you're talking about. You're talking about these new -- these new inspections at the border of Mexican trucks inbound to the U.S. That caused some snarled -- a snarl-up at the border.

MCINTOSH: Exactly, exactly.

Part of the Republican agenda is to make inflation as high as possible so that they can blame Joe Biden and the Democrats on the way to November. That is callous. That is cynical. That hurts American families.

ROMANS: But I think -- but I think --

MCINTOSH: And that is something we need to explain to people.

ROMANS: But from the -- the Democrats need to explain to people.

I think from the perspective of the messaging of the White House, it's almost you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't on inflation, right?

JARRETT: Yes.

ROMANS: You can try to tell people this is going to get better someday, and then they say you don't feel our pain. And then you can say we feel your pain, and then they say but you're not doing enough --

JARRETT: You're not doing enough.

ROMANS: -- about it. So, I mean, as a message, I think inflation -- it has just been a terrible hand this White House has been dealt and I don't know that they've handled very adeptly.

MCINTOSH: It certainly -- it certainly is a tough hand. I think you need to acknowledge that it is happening, but explaining to America why it's happening is not that difficult. There is -- there are price gouging. We're seeing record oil profits while we're also seeing record gas prices. And we're seeing Republicans refuse to do anything that's going to alleviate --

ROMANS: Yes.

MCINTOSH: -- Americans' economic (INAUDIBLE).

ROMANS: They have tried but it just hasn't stuck.

JARRETT: They're not connecting.

ROMANS: It just hasn't stuck.

JARRETT: Yes.

[05:50:00]

ROMANS: You know, you're right. I mean, you're right. All of those are sort of angles of attack they've tried that just haven't stuck yet. People just see their higher gas price and they're like this sucks, I feel terrible about the economy, and Biden happens to be the president.

Jess McIntosh, CNN political commentator, thank you. Come back soon.

JARRETT: Thanks, Jess.

ROMANS: All right. Just ahead, new signs Russian troops are in retreat in Ukraine.

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[05:55:03]

ROMANS: All right, let's get a check on CNN Business this Friday morning. I'm smiling because it's Friday, not because of what's been happening in the stock market lately -- I promise.

Let's look at markets around the world. Asian shares have closed the week higher with big gains, and Europe has opened up as well -- a bounce here.

On Wall Street, stock index futures also leaning up because yesterday felt like a victory because it was just a mixed day. When a mixed day feels like a victory. The Nasdaq up slightly. The Dow and the S&P down slightly.

Look, the S&P 500, frankly, is in the middle of its longest losing streak since 2011. Damage report here. The S&P 500 -- this is likely what the stock makeup of your 401K -- it's down 18% from a record high in January, edging toward that 20% definition of a bear market.

Now, context. You know I love context. Look to the right. That's this awful experience we're having right now. The S&P rose 27% last year. And the even longer view since March 2009 -- right -- the S&P 500 is up a staggering 480%. It's my crisis reminder never bet against U.S. stocks.

In tech this year, sell-off has been even more punishing. The Nasdaq is down 27% this year, deep in a bear market. It's so bad for tech stocks, Apple, Thursday, lost its crown as the world's most valuable company.

JARRETT: And I know you're doing that for "NEW DAY." That's interesting.

The Miami Heat are headed to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second time in three years. Andy Scholes has it all covered in this morning's Bleacher Report. Hey, Andy.

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, good morning, Laura.

So the Miami Heat, the first team to clinch a spot in this year's conference finals with a convincing win over the 76ers. And Jimmy Butler and the Heat -- they just seemed to want it more last night.

Butler scoring 23 of his 32 points in the second half. Watch him here. He misses the shot, gets his own rebound in the middle of two Sixers players, and then he makes a three in James Harden's face. Harden, once again, not showing up in a big playoff game. He had just 11 points and only took two shots in the second half, missing both of them.

The Heat would win 99-90.

And Joel Embiid saying after the game that Harden just isn't the player he once was.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOEL EMBIID, PHILADELPHIA 76ERS CENTER: Obviously, I'm sure since we got him, everybody expected the Houston James Harden, but that's not who he is anymore. He's more of a playmaker. I thought, you know, there are times it could have been us -- all of us could have been more aggressive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SCHOLES: All right. The Mavs and the Suns, meanwhile, are going to a game seven. Luka Doncic leading the Mavs on a big second-quarter run. They'd take a 15-point lead into halftime. And Luka finishing with a game-high 33 points. He was talking some smack with Devin Booker. Luka said loves the trash talk and it fires him up.

Mavs would win big 113-86. Game seven set for Sunday in Phoenix. The home team has won every game of that series so far.

All right, hockey. The back-to-back defending Stanley Cup champion Lightning stave off elimination with a thrilling win against the Maple Leafs. Brayden Point scoring the decider on a rebound with a minute-56 remaining in the first overtime to secure the 4-3 win. The Tampa fans going nuts. Maple Leafs haven't won a playoff series since 2004.

Tomorrow night, winner-take-all game seven in Toronto.

All right. And the NFL releasing the full schedule last night. Defending champion Rams are going to open the season hosting the Bills on Thursday night, September 8. That Sunday, Tom Brady and the Bucs are going to go to Dallas. And on Monday night, Russell Wilson's first game with the Broncos is back in Seattle where he spent 10 -- his first 10 seasons.

Christmas falls on a Sunday this year and for the first time ever, the NFL deciding to hold three games on Christmas Day. Packers at Dolphins, Broncos at Rams, and Bills at Bengals.

And you know, guys, Christmas Day is traditionally a big day for the NBA. Now we're going to have the NFL going on at the same time. So, a big sports day coming for you this Christmas.

JARRETT: It's something to look forward to.

ROMANS: Merry Christmas, Laura. More sports that you don't want to watch.

All right, Andy. Thank you.

SCHOLES: All right.

JARRETT: Thank you, Andy.

ROMANS: All right, thanks for joining us. I'm Christine Romans. Have a great weekend, everybody.

JARRETT: I'm Laura Jarrett. We give you permission. Start your weekend right now -- after "NEW DAY."

ROMANS: No, no -- after "NEW DAY." We're both on "NEW DAY."

JARRETT: And "NEW DAY" starts right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Good morning to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. It is Friday, May 13. I'm John Berman. Chief White House correspondent Kaitlan Collins in for Brianna this morning.

And we have brand-new information about a notable Russian retreat this morning. So, after the failed advance on the capital Kyiv, Ukraine's largest city, Russia is now pulling back from Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv -- here in the northeast. We have new analysis of key satellite images that really tells the story here.