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Protests Intensify as Justices Set to Release More Opinions; States Protecting Abortions Brace for Out-of-State Influx; Zelenskyy Tells G7 Leaders, Russia's War Needs to End by Winter. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired June 27, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS CORRESPONDENT: They didn't have any to enjoy during the game, also probably made a poor bat boy have to go clean it all up.

[07:00:05]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: They didn't look happy, Andy. That's all I can say. It didn't look like they were getting along there at the baseball game.

SCHOLES: Yes. They have played each other like eight times in the past two weeks, so they were pretty tired of each other at that point.

BERMAN: Anger management. It works. I'm told.

New Day continues right now. Thanks, Andy.

Good morning to viewers here in the United States and all around the world, it is Monday, June 27th. I'm John Berman alongside Brianna Keilar.

So, now what? That's the question millions of Americans are asking this morning, now what after the Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade, now what happens to a woman in Texas who wants an abortion? Is it illegal for her to travel to Colorado to get one? Is it illegal for someone to advise her to go to Colorado? Could a state like Wisconsin with majority approval for abortion rights still enact a decades' old ban? What happens with abortion pills? Where can they and can't they be mailed? What about the politics? Could a Republican Congress with a Republican president now move to restrict all abortions across the country? What can Democrats do to reverse this, if anything?

At least ten states quickly moved to implement laws effectively banning abortions since Friday, some happened automatically with the so-called trigger laws, another five states expected to enact further laws limiting abortion and all 26 states have laws that indicate they could outlaw or set extreme limits on the procedure.

There were some protests across the country over the weekend. They were largely peaceful.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: And as some states move to restrict abortion rights, others are taking steps to protect access and funding. Some major companies are pledging to provide support not just for employees, in some cases, they're saying they're going to provide support for dependents in states where abortions are being outlawed.

Meanwhile, there are questions about the future of other court- determined rights. A consenting opinion, a concurring opinion from Justice Clarence Thomas calls for the court to reconsider the precedents on contraception and same-sex marriage.

BERMAN: All right. Here now to discuss the biggest outstanding questions, CNN Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin, he is the author of The Nine, Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court. And, of course, Jeffrey is a former federal prosecutor.

You can see in orange. These are states where abortion this morning is banned.

JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Right.

BERMAN: All right. The other states, the sort of the burnt orange. is where they will shortly because of trigger laws that will force them in into place. And I say ban, either completely ban or largely restricted. And then in the tan where we believe they will be banned sometime soon.

TOOBIN: Right. there's a really simple way to think about abortion rights in the United States now, which is if there is a Republican legislature and a Republican governor in the state, abortion is going to be banned in that state. And that's really what you see in the map here. The only -- the places where there's going to be a battle are places like Michigan and Wisconsin where you have Democratic governors and Republican legislators. I think the answer there is not resolved.

But for the rest of it, a Democratic governor and Democratic legislature, abortion is going to be legal. So, essentially, it's going to be legal in the blue states and illegal in the red states.

BERMAN: There is some nuance in a place like Florida. There is a 15- week ban that could go into place, so it may be allowed up in to a point. We'll see where that goes.

One of the big legal questions, Jeffrey, is punishment, right? Punishment. What happens -- and this largely has to do with interstate travel -- what happens if you are in Texas and go to Colorado for an abortion?

TOOBIN: Well, this is the great unresolved question. If you read the statutes that are being passed in some of the states, not all of the states, like South Dakota, like Oklahoma, it does seem to be a criminal offense to travel to another state to get an abortion. There is historically in the Supreme Court a doctrine called the right to travel. Brett Kavanaugh in his concurring opinion says he just sort of volunteers, well, it clearly will be legal for women to travel to other states. But if you read the majority opinion, it does suggest that states could ban travel. So, that's a very much outstanding question and a very important one, obviously. BERMAN: You say it's outstanding. So, Kavanaugh did write that, that it's not the controlling opinion here there?

TOOBIN: By no means. It is not binding at all. And, in fact, if you certainly read Justice Thomas' concurrence and the majority opinion, it is certainly not resolved. And the logic of the majority opinion, where he says the -- where Justice Alito says abortion isn't mentioned in the Constitution, neither is travel.

[07:05:00]

So, if there is -- if it's not mentioned in the Constitution, maybe it's not protected, very much an unresolved issue.

BERMAN: Likewise if you are in Missouri and you are advised -- if I advise you, you can go to Illinois to get an abortion, is it possible that the person who did the advising broke a law?

TOOBIN: Entirely possible. I mean, the whole concept of aiding and abetting an abortion, again, South Dakota, Oklahoma, for example, it's illegal. What happens -- I mean, okay, advising is one thing. There are now many funds in the United States to pay for women to travel to states where abortion is legal. Is paying a woman's expenses, paying for an abortion in another state, are you aiding and abetting an abortion? Very important question.

It's also an issue regarding corporations. Many corporations are saying, we, as part of our employee benefits, as part of health insurance, because we think abortion is health care, we are going to pay for the travel to have women be able to get abortions in other states. Is the act of paying for that travel a violation of the law? Again, unresolved question.

BERMAN: Who gets to decide?

TOOBIN: Well, it will probably be the state Supreme Courts in these individual states, but it is very likely that these cases will return to the U.S. Supreme Court as well because they have enormous consequence for people's lives.

BERMAN: So, the former vice president of the United States, Mike Pence, says that he wants to see a national ban enacted. Imagine a scenario where there's a Republican Congress and a Republican president. Could the Republican Congress say we ban abortions and the Republican president sign that?

TOOBIN: That does appear to be possible. In a similar sense, President Biden has said if we have a Democratic Congress that is filibuster-proof, we could pass a legalization of abortion in the country. The whole notion of a congressional law, a law permitting or banning abortion, raises constitutional questions that are somewhat different from the Roe v. Wade question and the Dobbs question because, you know, the question of Congress' authority, is it commerce because the federal government can only regulate commerce. The question is, is an abortion law commerce? That is, again, unresolved. I mean, one of the ironies of the Dobbs decision is that the majority said, you know, this will resolve the question of abortion. This will settle the issue. It's not settling anything. And, in fact, as just our discussion illustrates about travel, about paying for abortions, about advising for abortions, the number of outstanding legal issues has gone up, not down, as a result of this decision.

BERMAN: Jeffrey Toobin, thank you very much.

TOOBIN: Okay, Berman.

KEILAR: Let's discuss this with CNN Anchors Laura Jarrett and Poppy Harlow, CNN Political Commentator S.E. Cupp and Irin Carmon, Senior Correspondent at New York Magazine. She's also the co-author of Notorious RBG, the Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Let's just start broadly here. How different, Laura, are women's rights in America this morning?

LAURA JARRETT, CNN ANCHOR: Dramatically. Dramatically right away. Dramatically even before. I mean, think about the fact that Texas effectively banned abortion months ago and we're here right now. Life as women know it has been dramatically changed from what we knew for the past 50 years. I think the question now is really all the questions that you outlined with Jeffrey Toobin is what comes next.

And I think the real fight that you are going to see play out is what happens with medicated abortion, two the pills that induce abortion -- I mean, offer half of women in this country who get abortion are actually doing it through these two pills right now. The FDA has said that they're safe, has said that they're effective, safer than Viagra. The attorney general has said, states, you cannot ban these two pills. And yet states are going to try to ban them. So, then what happens?

BERMAN: I think the FDA said, you can't ban them for safety reasons.

JARRETT: Yes.

BERMAN: Which may end up being where the legal crux of this issue is. They can say, we're not banning it for safety reasons, we're banning them for other reasons.

JARRETT: It's an enormous loophole, though. If, in fact, Merrick Garland's side on this, which he believes he has the argument here that, the federal government has the last say, it preempts state law, as Poppy knows --

POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR: A big question.

JARRETT: It's a really big question. But if you can get an abortion through two medicated pills up to ten weeks, that is fundamentally different than what states are doing right now, which is trying to ban abortion at the moment of fertilization.

BERMAN: S.E., again, the question that Brianna is asking is the right one, the sort of now what. What are -- now that anti-abortion activists got what they wanted, right, which is to overturn Roe versus Wade, what happens now politically, do you think?

[07:10:09]

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's hard to imagine the Republican Party surviving this. Between anti-abortion, anti-LGBTQ, book banning, anti-democracy, I mean, as add of the aggressive bullshit -- garbage, sorry, to this -- I don't take that back -- add it all together and I don't know who is left in the future -- in future generations to be drawn to this party.

If you look back at 2016, I think people voted for Trump for a wide array of reasons, some of them garbage, but some of them legitimately economic or even foreign policy. I think the people voting for more Trump, more MAGA now are really motivated by very few reasons, and so there are fewer of them. And when you imagine that I think for the first time, maybe we should ask Jeff Toobin, a generation will be able to say my parents had a right that I don't have today. For the first time a right was taken back. I can't imagine how Republicans message to new voters and don't just keep shrinking and condensing.

IRIN CARMON, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: May I jump in? I mean, I hear you on that but I think that we cannot take for granted that a younger generation isn't actually cheering a backlash to the kind of progress that we saw. All you have to do is go on the internet and go into the manosphere, go into men's rights, there is a profound dislocation because of the progress that certain groups have made and this is seen wrongly, I think, as a zero sum game, whether it's progress for LGBTQ individuals, women and other people who can become pregnant controlling their reproduction, Black Lives Matter, Trump was elected on the backlash and I don't think that backlash has gone away, even as they've accomplished some goals. There is still this feeling, if you control someone's reproduction, you control their life.

CUPP: Absolutely. But that view --

CARMON: There are some people who are on board with that.

CUPP: -- in the minority, if you look at the spectrum of where people are on abortion, 8 percent of this country wants a full ban. 8 percent, that is an extreme minority. Most people want legal abortion, I count myself in this category, legal abortion with restrictions. And then you have folks who want no restrictions, they are also a minority. So, absolutely they are there, believe me, I hear from them. But it's an increasingly minority position.

CARMON: It's a minority that's insulated from political accountability because of the system we have.

CUPP: Yes.

KEILAR: Poppy, the premise for protecting abortion rights before protects other rights, and Justice Thomas has opened the door to that. Should that be challenge on the right to contraception, the protection of same-sex marriage? What questions has that raised for you?

HARLOW: Every question about modern America and where we are. I mean, I will never forget Friday, Jim and I were anchoring the show when the decision came down and Jeffrey Toobin sitting next to us said, look at page three of Thomas' concurrence. That's where it was. I mean, no one joined that, but Thomas is clearly saying -- and he used the word, duty. We have a duty as an institution to reassess all of these, they're called substantive due process rights, but, basically, contraception, same-sex marriage, you could put interracial marriage in there decided on those grounds.

I mean, Irin, you wrote a book on Justice Ginsburg. You knew her well. I had that one interview with her. But we will remember how she had argued that Roe, she wasn't a justice yet, should have been decided on equal protection grounds, not on privacy grounds, like Griswold. And she warned -- and people have twisted her words and they are wrong when they do it, but she did warn in '92. (INAUDIBLE) too swiftly shaped may prove unstable. And Roberts was also saying, go slowly. She wanted to go slowly but she wanted this fundamentally, believed it should fundamentally be on different grounds, equal protection grounds, not on the grounds they are on now, which is how Thomas is bringing up that argument that this could change all of those rights.

KEILAR: Are those protections, are they really at risk? When -- Clarence Thomas is -- he is one justice. Are they really at risk? Should people who are very concerned about that be very worried this morning?

HARLOW: I mean, I think some of them could very much be at risk. If you look at Jonathan Mitchell's brief in the Dobbs case, also the author, I believe, of the Texas abortion six-week law, right, a brilliant legal mind, whether you agree with him or not in terms of how to shape things legally and have successful legal arguments that hold, he wrote in his brief in Dobbs, there are no reliance interests that warrant the retention of Roe or Casey and went on to write about the potential impact on all of those other rights.

JARRETT: What's interesting, though, is, politically, you see the other justices, namely Alito and Kavanaugh, go out of their way to say --

HARLOW: To say no.

[07:15:00]

JARRETT: -- absolutely not, these other rights aren't affected, nothing to see here, don't worry about it, abortion is special. Why?

HARLOW: But that's not the central holding of the case.

JARRETT: Yes. And they're saying trust us. And, by the way, Clarence Thomas was the only one who openly called for the overturning of Roe v. Wade from Planned Parenthood versus Casey onward.

CARMON: He is the only one who actually said --

JARRETT: There's seem to be a move there politically to try to say, don't worry about same-sex marriage, and somehow a woman's right to choose what happens to her body politically is not seen. I think what's happening there is not seen as somehow the political sort of lightning rod that upending same-sex marriage after only a few years would be for them.

HARLOW: I just think, really quickly, you make a great point because remember when Missouri brought this case to the court, Missouri didn't ask for them to overturn Roe versus Wade. Initially, Missouri's petition to the court was look at the 15 weeks, that's it, and then it changed in their briefs -- I'm sorry, yes, Mississippi, and then it changed in their briefs.

BERMAN: Again, we're waking up on a Monday morning here with a different country than we woke up with on Friday and everyone I think is trying to figure out how to navigate it now.

And, Poppy, you know, you cover business and business angles. So many different companies are doing so many different things here.

HARLOW: Yes, so many. I mean, you guys probably have a graph. Like there is a litany. Most -- I would say most of the really big companies right now are coming out from Starbucks, Goldman Sachs, Meta, Facebook, Disney and saying they will help employees travel if they need to, fund this, help protect that. Some companies are not.

But I think even beyond the companies, the impact is mostly on poor women, women without means, who many won't be employed by these companies. So, then what? Which was also a warning from Justice Ginsburg. So, then what?

I mean, there's a nonpartisan study two years old out of NBER, and the initial finding said that when women have access to abortion and when it's taken away, when that access is taken away, there is a large increase in financial distress that is sustained for years.

KEILAR: So, S.E., what is the responsibility of those who support this?

CUPP: Yes.

KEILAR: Right? If you are in Texas and there are 40,000 -- I mean, there's probably not going to be 40,000 babies born in the next year that would not have been born. I imagine some women will go elsewhere and find a place to have an abortion, but there may be tens of thousands of babies that there wouldn't have been before this. What is the responsibility of, say, Republican senators who normally don't want to vote for spending on social safety net items that would protect the families and the babies that may need it?

CUPP: Well, in many ways, it's too late. That should have been, you know, part of the plan here, to have that in place. The idea that we're going to have an army of police and prosecutors going out to round up women and doctors and Uber drivers and whomever else is tangentially connected to this is medieval and draconian. And it's the responsibility of our legislators both at the federal and state and local levels to figure this out for us and not just allow this kind of chaos and draconian, you know, experience to happen to us. And Poppy is right, this is mostly going to affect poor and rural women who have limited access to all kinds of health care to begin with. So, it's really irresponsible of legislators, it's not the Supreme Court's job to do this, but it is the job of legislators to put into place some protections for what's about to happen. Like you said, I mean, there are more people alive today who never lived in America without Roe. It's older than I am. More people have never known it without it. So, we've got to provide for the reality of this.

Listen, I'm pro-life, I sympathize with the pro-life position, but I'm a modern gal. I understand the necessity for this. For many women, I don't judge that. And I've always accepted Roe as the law of the land because it's older than me. It always has been. To make this monumental a shift in American cultural life and experience, it is our duty to then explain how life goes on today, tomorrow and the next year.

BERMAN: What do you think happens politically? I can see Democratic voters being animated by this but I could also see them being deflated by this, saying what good do we get from electing a Democratic president? Why didn't you stop this?

CARMON: Right. I think that's very much in the hands of the Democrats. They may have limited tools but still have tools. For example, could they join a lawsuit from somebody who needs to use an abortion pill and says the FDA says it's safe, why is the state barring me? Could they even bring such a lawsuit, for example, like they did when they challenged way back when they challenged Arizona's immigration law, because they said this is the job of the federal government? Could they stop people from being prosecuted for leaving state lines?

[07:20:02]

The federal government has limited power without that filibuster-proof majority but still can do some things.

That said, I do think it cannot be taken for granted that people will rise up particularly because those who are going to be the most affected, people of color, poor people, rural people, as we've been saying, these are the most politically disenfranchised people. So, the majority of the country may support this but they may not see the immediate effects because they either live in a state in which, for now, for now, very much, access is available even if there's going to be a backlog. Will they feel that urgency that they feel now?

I think that the opinion is there. Is the mobilization there? Is the organization there? Will they join existing efforts of abortion funds and other practical support organizations? I don't think that's going to happen on its own. I think that needs to happen with a great amount of organizing and participation and people need to stay focused on it, it's only June right now, until November.

JARRETT: It's interesting politically to see the generational divide too. Over the weekend, AOC was tweeting about this and saying, you actually -- Democrats, she said, where are you? What's good? Like you actually need to have very specific plans here and just saying go vote is not enough, which is interesting just tactic there. She's saying, you really need to actually be strategic and surgical about what you're asking people to do so that they feel like they have some stake in the game. Just saying this is outrageous, at least for her, was sort of not enough.

KEILAR: Laura, thank you so much. Poppy, S.E., Irin, thanks for being here for this discussion. We do really appreciate it.

A major programming note, CNN's Dana Bash is going to be sitting down with Vice President Kamala Harris to discuss this and much more today at 4:00 P.M. Eastern.

And happening now, the G7 World Summit under way in Germany as President Biden and world leaders map out their next move to confront Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

BERMAN: And the Ukrainian president addressed the conference just moments ago as Russia makes substantial progress in the east. Zelenskyy now putting a timeline or at least a desired timeline on this war.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:25:00]

BERMAN: This just in, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy addressing world leaders at the G7 summit moments ago calling for a major push to end the war before the winter sets in. This as the Russian offensive continues to make significant progress in the east.

Let's go now to CNN's Phil Black. He is live in Slovyansk, Ukraine, for us. Tell us the latest from where you are, Phil.

PHIL BLACK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Sure, Brianna. So, here in the east of the country in this remaining pocket that Russia does not yet control, well, this territory is gradually getting smaller and smaller because Russian forces are incrementally making gains. That is putting greater pressure on the Ukrainian military and the civilian populations in major towns and cities all around this area as Russia seeks to circle it.

Here, in Slovyansk, which is the northern edge of that pocket of territory, missiles came in through the night and this morning hitting residential areas, killing at least one civilian, injuring others, we are told as well.

The key Russian gain, I guess, is taking place in the last couple of weeks to the east of this pocket of territory, the city of Severodonetsk, where Ukrainian forces finally pulled out their remaining forces over the weekend, escaping by a nearby river with boats and rafts to the sister city of Lysychansk.

Severodonetsk has been a key site of fighting for the better part of this war. And although its fall to Russia has felt inevitable for some time now, the Ukrainian forces were clearly determined to try an exactly very high cost for Russia's efforts to take it.

But now that they have fallen back to the sister city of Lysychansk, that is where the next fight begins, this is where Russia will focus again and where we are told Russia is fighting and attacking from the east, from the south and the west as well, as they seek to encircle this remaining territory.

As I say, the Russian gains are slow, gradual, but over time, they are making a difference here on the ground in very meaningful ways, Brianna.

KEILAR: Yes. It's like a bucket sort of filling up with water over time. Eventually, they do make that progress. Phil, thank you so much.

BERMAN: With us now, CNN Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour. Christiane, President Zelenskyy just told the G7 he wants this war over by winter, by the end of the year, but he didn't start this war. Russia invaded Ukraine. So, how much does it matter what Zelenskyy wants and can he force the ending by the beginning of the year?

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, not in so many words, John and Brianna, no, but he can and what he is doing clearly by addressing the G7 leaders is saying, you want this over, too, right? Therefore, you have to help us.

And I have to say, John, we see tide turns on the battle but even the Institute for the Study of War is saying, this is not necessarily a major turning point for Russia. This was bound to happen. We've been reporting about this since the beginning of April when the Russian forces started to withdraw from their failed attempt to take the capital of Kyiv.

We knew that they were going to do what they've done, which is attrition, Syria-style, long-range artillery, air force and they were going to use their maximum strength in troops and artillery to do exactly what they're doing now in the east and to try to hang on to some kind of major territorial band in order to then be able to negotiate. That's what people thought this was.

Now, Zelenskyy is saying, we have suffered maybe 100 or more forces dead per day in this slog in the east and we can't go on anymore. But because you have said, you in the west, that you want Putinism defeated, Russia weakened so that it cannot do this ever again, we need what you promised us, and that is the heavy artillery and the exact kind of weapon systems that are required in order to fight this.

[07:30:07]