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Thousands of Flights Delayed, Canceled Over Weekend; Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) Doesn't Rule Out Criminal Referral Against Trump; Biden to Gas Companies, Bring Down High Prices at the Pump. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired July 04, 2022 - 07:00   ET

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

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BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, I'm Brianna Keilar alongside Boris Sanchez this morning. John Berman is off on this New Day. Happy 4th of July, Boris.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Happy 4th, Brianna. Great to be with you.

KEILAR: After a two-year hiatus in many parts of the country, the fireworks, all the festivities are back in full swing, but the fireworks and the family barbecue could come with a higher price tag, unfortunately, as the White House is struggling to rein in inflation

SANCHEZ: And a significant loss for Ukraine as Russia claims a key city in the eastern part of that country.

And we also have the latest on the January 6th committee, Liz Cheney indicating multiple criminal referrals could be in the works against former President Donald Trump.

KEILAR: Good morning to viewers here in the U.S. and around the world, it's Monday, July 4th, the Independence Day celebrations kicking off on July 3rd in some parts of America where they just couldn't wait to get the party started here, like in Milwaukee where this video is from, thousands of people on hand for a just spectacular fireworks show and a head start on all of the celebration.

America's airports, okay, not so festive there. Thousands of flights canceled or delayed, passengers have been stranded. If you are flying, chances are you are not having a happy 4th because you are at the mercy of overwhelmed, understaffed airlines.

SANCHEZ: Look, more than 1,500 flights were canceled across the country from Friday through Sunday and Saturday was the worst, 653 flights axed. The airlines also blaming the weather, there were thunderstorms in the northeast that delayed thousands of flights. And adding to the chaos, the highest travel demand we've seen since the start of the pandemic and those chronic staffing shortages that you just mentioned. Let's take you out to the busiest airport in the world, Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International, and CNN's Nadia Romero who has been there live all weekend watching some passengers go through all the stages of grief as their flights get delayed, delayed, and then canceled.

Nadia, how are passengers holding up this morning?

NADIA ROMERO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. This morning, there's really light traffic throughout the airport. So, that's a good sign if you chose to travel on the actual holiday. The line started way back here just over the weekend but this is pretty clear and it's an easy path to make your way all the way through security checkpoint. You really don't have to stop. And that's a nice difference in what we saw over the weekend when lines wrapped around the airport. It won't take you too long to get through this terminal boarding process for standard TSA checkpoint to get through this morning.

But when we look at those cancelations and delays, they are already adding up, more than 115 flights canceled and more than 400 flights delayed. And it's those delays that really caused problems for travelers. You think, okay, my flight is delayed it's not canceled but if the delay is several hours and if you have two or three more legs of your trip, that can ruin everything.

Listen to this one passenger who was trying to make her way from London to Cincinnati, and she spent quite a bit of time in the airport. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGAN STEPP, TRAVELER IN HARTSFIELD-JACKSON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: So, I flew in last night from London. I waited an hour to drop off my bag, another hour in security, my flight from Orlando was delayed twice, I ended up having to spend the night, for free obviously, in Atlanta when I'm trying to get home to Cincinnati.

[07:05:07]

So, I spent 22 hours traveling to have two delayed flights and stay with my final destination is not.

So, I fly pretty frequently and I have never seen it so crazy.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ROMERO: So, that was Megan, and you could see she had a smile on her face and she was pretty optimistic. She said it's because she is a schoolteacher so she knows how to wake up early and put a smile on. And she's taking it all in stride.

But, really, most people are traveling by car, about 88 percent of Americans will be travel by car, many of them going 50 miles or more. But if you are doing that, gas prices are up about 52 percent compared to last year. So, whether you're traveling by air or by car, you're paying more and you're going to see a lot of congestion. Boris? SANCHEZ: Yes. We're going to dig in on those inflation numbers in just a minute. Nadia Romero, thank you so much.

KEILAR: Megan packed her patience. That's the most important thing you can pack right now.

SANCHEZ: Nadia hates that phrase. I was going to mention that. She told us --

KEILAR: Packing the patience.

SANCHEZ: -- packing the patience. How could you pack patience if you've been stuck in an airport for 24 hours?

KEILAR: Mentally, mentally prepare, like Megan did.

So, millions of Americans, they are hitting the road this morning for one of the busiest travel days of the year despite these historically high gas prices we're experiencing.

And joining us now is Rahel Solomon, CNN Business Correspondent. Yes, it's not stopping people even though gas is, you know, well over $5 a gallon most places.

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, lots of people still hitting the road, guys, 42 million, in fact, hitting the roads this weekend, according to AAA.

Filling up your tank will sting a bit less, emphasis on bit less there than it did last week, the average for a gallon of gas is $4.81. That's lower than last week but higher than last month. So, why the lower prices? Oil and Industry Consultant Andy Lipa (ph) tells me it's two things here, lower demand because of the high prices, investors being spooked by a recession are also driving down the price of crude oil, an economic slowdown means less demand as we travel less and cut back on spending.

Speaking of recession, investors will be watching two things this week, minutes from the Federal Reserve's last meeting when they hiked have rates by three-quarter of a percent, remember that, the most in one meeting since 1994. That comes out Wednesday. Some are concerned that the Fed will overdo it with higher rates and bring the economy to a screeching halt tipping us into a recession.

But the big report this week, the June jobs report, that's out on Friday. After a year of job growth of more than 400,000 each month, we saw a slight slowdown last month and the expectation is even more slowing in Friday's report. The unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 3.6 percent with about 350,000 jobs added. But, guys, it is a delicate balance here because while the Fed would like to see some slowing in jobs growth, a significant pullback could be alarming.

And if you're wondering how to make sense of all of these recession warnings, well, here are a few bright spots. Bank of America says that most households right now still have more in their checking and savings accounts than before the pandemic and, of course, the job market still red hot. Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody's, also sharing this advice with me recently, be cautious. Obviously, inflation is very high and interest rates are rising and that is going to have an impact. The job market isn't going to be what it was a few months ago, so keep your head up at work, but there is no reason to panic. Guys?

KEILAR: All right. Rahel, thank you so much for that.

Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney says that the January 6th committee could make several criminal referrals to the Justice Department based on their findings. Here is what she said.

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REPORTER: So, the committee will or will not make a criminal referral?

REP. LIZ CHENEY (R-WY): We will make a decision as a committee about it.

REPORTER: So, it's possible there will be a criminal referral?

CHENEY: Yes.

REPORTER: Which will be effectively the committee saying that he should be prosecuted and this is the evidence that we've uncovered?

CHENEY: The Justice Department doesn't have to wait for the committee to make a criminal referral and there could be more than one criminal referral.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining us now, CNN Political Analyst and Axios Managing Editor Margaret Talev as well as CNN Legal Analyst and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General Elliot Williams.

You know, Margaret, obviously, like she said, Congress doesn't have to make a criminal referral. That's not a necessary part of the process when it comes to DOJ deciding to investigate or to prosecute here. But I wonder what you are hearing if this is about the committee or members of the committee worried that maybe DOJ isn't going to do what they think DOJ needs to do and they're trying to send a signal of what they think should be the accountability process.

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, good morning, Brianna. Happy 4th. Yes, you know, I hear many of the same subtexts that you do. I think it's important not just that Liz Cheney but that several members of the committee were actually out there over the weekend, you know, pushing this idea that some action on that front is important and that, you know, essentially that they don't think the DOJ has moved far enough fast enough at this point.

[07:10:07]

So, that is part of what's going on. Another part of what's going on is that you remember the chair, Bennie

Thompson, within the last couple of weeks sort of suggesting that there might not be sort of a formal process, and this sounds to me like, again, Liz Cheney pushing back and saying, look, the committee thinks that there should be a DOJ process and would, in some fashion, move towards that. So, I think this is important on all of those fronts.

But you are looking at a time calendar where it's already July and the midterms are coming up and there is sort of a DOJ tradition of backing off around elections. And what the members of the committee seem to be saying is there's too much here for the Justice Department not to act and there's too much of a consequence heading into 2024 if nothing comes out of this from the DOJ end.

SANCHEZ: Elliott, to a point that Margaret just made, our reporting indicates that officials at the Department of Justice were caught off- guard by Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony, the moments inside the motorcade, which she heard at the White House, specifically discussions about the president's -- former president's reaction to hang Mike Pence chants. Does it surprise you that the Department of Justice hadn't talked to her about her experience in the White House before the committee did?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, here is the thing, Boris. It's not clear that the Department of Justice didn't talk to her because they won't confirm or deny whether they did. Look, Congress and the Justice Department are two different organizations that do different things. One of them operates completely in public as a political body, one is not. And, you know, we're never really going to know what's happening in Justice Department grand juries or in interviews or communications they're having with witnesses.

Now, look, if a witness is that important as Cassidy Hutchinson was, and everybody knew she was from reading the newspapers, you know, leading up to this, and they had not talked to her, certainly, it's alarming, you know, they have the resources to be finding witnesses. But at the end of the day, we just don't know and frankly shouldn't know what the Justice Department is doing until they come forward with some action, which won't happen on the timeline that Congress works on.

KEILAR: Okay. Elliott, how problematic is it, though, if, you know, according to testimony, Donald Trump, the president at the time, knows that a mob of people, a crowd of people that they're armed and he encourages them to go up to the Capitol, actually planning to go with them, and then there's no accountability for that. How problematic is that if there really are no consequences for that behavior?

WILLIAMS: Now, look, the request he is how do you define accountability and how do you define consequences? He was impeached twice, one time being his role in that conduct.

Now, I guess the question is what if there's no criminal accountability for that, and something we've talked about, you know, at length on this problem as sometimes the challenges you get into with charging a crime.

Now, an interesting thing that has emerged over the last week or two is this question of witness tampering, which, quite frankly, is far easier to prove than a lot of these other lofty constitutional crimes we've talked about, like sedition and obstruction and conspiracy against the government. Witness tampering is very straightforward. It's did you, intend to influence the testimony of another person? And it looks like, based on what's been reported, that that's happened here.

And so, you know, yes, there's been a form of accountability and a form of impeachment even if the president wasn't removed but there could still be crimes that are charged and it wouldn't be completely out to lunch or off base to charge one of these things here.

SANCHEZ: I want to play a quick sound bite from Adam Kinzinger, one of the committee members, he was on State of the Union with Dana Bash this weekend, talking about one specific potential witness the committee wants to hear from. Here he is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R-IL): -- that the president didn't want to go to the Capitol. Nobody has argued that he didn't know there were guns. They're trying to argue, did he really grab for the Beast. And that's where Tony Ornato will have to come in and tell us more about his position on that.

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Will he do that?

KINZINGER: Well, there's information I can't say yet but we certainly would say that Cassidy Hutchinson has testified under oath, we find her credible and anybody that wants to cast disparages on that that was firsthand present should come and also testify under oath and through anonymous, quote/unquote, and not potentially being an anonymous source.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SANCHEZ: Ornato, of course, disputed the claims that he supposedly made to Cassidy Hutchinson that she claims he told her about Trump's behavior in the motorcade after the rally on January 6th.

Margaret, Tony Ornato is in a unique position here because he still works for the federal government.

TALEV: Yes, that is important. Tony Ornato had once been the head of the presidential protective detail for Secret Service. Former President Trump, in a very unusual move, pulled him in to be his deputy chief of staff for operations.

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And then, of course, after the end of his service in that capacity, he has remained as the Secret Service now as the assistant director for training. Secret Service is housed within the Department of Homeland Security, and if DHS decides that they want individuals employed by the Secret Service to make themselves available to the committee under oath, those individuals would be instructed to do that.

And so I think this is different than someone who is still like a satellite to Trump world, involved in the campaign or legal work and kind of making decisions like that on their own or in that private sector context.

And that's part of what makes his testimony interesting or important, another part is just how much he would have seen and heard and the fact that he's already communicated with the committee before Cassidy Hutchinson's testimony. And we're getting several indications both from the committee and former officials in the Trump administration that, to put it nicely, his recollections aren't as clear or distinct and to put it another way that he's given a lot of sort of mixed signals with that testimony.

So, they're going to be interested in inconsistencies and under oath in any more detail that he can provide.

KEILAR: Yes. Stay tuned, we will see what happens there. Margaret and Elliot, guys, thank you so much. Happy 4th to you both.

SANCHEZ: Happy 4th.

KEILAR: President Biden calling out gas companies, demanding that they bring down their prices, but are they listening and is this their fault?

And protests overnight in Ohio over the police shooting of an unarmed black man who suffered 60 wounds. The newly released body cam video, ahead.

SANCHEZ: Plus a Norweigian Sun cruise ship on its way to an Alaskan glacier forced to cut its trip short after slamming into an iceberg.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My God, Titanic 2.0. Oh, my God.

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JAMES CORDEN, COMEDIAN: We could call Boris, call Boris Johnson.

JOE BIDEN, U.S. PRESIDENT: Boris always talks to me all the time.

CORDEN: Does he?

BIDEN: I wish I had his hair, I could have gotten elected sooner.

CORDEN: You wish you had Boris Johnson's hair?

BIDEN: Yes, look at this, man.

CORDEN: Nobody has ever said that in the history of talking about hair.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The president has used the strategic petroleum reserve, is he watching gas prices and will he tap the SPRO again?

CORDEN: I don't think it's for me or you, Jenny, to talk about who or what the president is tapping, okay?

Have you thought about mixing up the look when you are out there? You are a big fan of the Aviators. I'm just wondering you might want to mix it up a little bit. I mean, I think if you came out, a couple of ice creams, no malarkey.

BIDEN: I'm worried about you.

I have got something for you, too.

CORDEN: No.

BIDEN: Yes. Try those.

CORDEN: Mr. President.

All right.

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KEILAR: All right. President Biden returns to the White House today to mark July 4th where he will be celebrating with military families. This comes as the president calls on gas companies to lower their prices.

Let's go to CNN's Jeremy Diamond live at the White House. Tell us about this latest messaging he's doing.

JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Well, as you said, Brianna, President Biden is returning from Camp David today, he will be celebrating July 4th with military families and a barbecue here before ultimately watching the fireworks from the White House.

But he and his administration in terms of messaging, they are very much focused on those high gas prices that Americans this 4th of July weekend are getting a painful reminder of as they hit the roads with gas prices near record highs. President Biden took to Twitter this weekend urging companies, saying my message to the companies running gas stations and setting prices at the pump is simple, saying this is a time of war and global peril, urging them to bring down the price to make it reflect the price that they are paying for the product.

Now, this earned the president a fair bit of backlash. This was actually him reiterating a message that he delivered on June 22nd in remarks here at the White House. And, so far, the White House hasn't actually given any evidence that these gas companies are deceptively charging higher prices than they should, but the White House has made the point that, listen, oil per barrel has fallen $15 over the last month, but the price at the pump has not changed much.

Many experts say that that's actually more a result of the kind of market volatility and these gas companies, gas station companies are not necessarily the ones reaping these high profits because of these prices at the pump.

Now, Jeff Bezos was one of the people coming after the White House this weekend calling this either straight ahead misdirection or saying it's a deep misunderstanding of basic market dynamics. The White House, though, is standing firm on this, insisting that because of the changes in the price of a barrel of oil, that those prices should be passed on to American consumers and it's not happened yet, of course.

But ultimately, Brianna, this is really about the White House trying to show Americans that they are doing whatever they can to bring those prices down even as they don't have much control over those gas prices and the president wants to show at least that he's focused and that he understands Americans' concerns as they hit the roads this summer.

KEILAR: Yes, maybe also showing that there just isn't much that he can do. Jeremy Diamond live for us at the White House, thank you.

SANCHEZ: Let's dig deeper with CNN's Chief Business Correspondent and the anchor of Early Start, Christine Romans.

Christine, it's like there's a bad smell in the room and the president is just pointing to the dog.

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean, look, this is a real problem for the White House because people put gas in their car all the time and they're feeling this pain. And, look, it's called rockets and feathers, right? The price goes up like a rocket and falls slowly like a feather. And we see that often. Over time, when you look at gas and oil prices, they move together. But in very short periods, there can be this dislocation and that's what we're feeling right now.

[07:25:02]

The U.S. Gas and Oil Association said this about the president asking to lower the price of oil. They said we're working on it, Mr. President. In the meantime, have a happy 4th. And please make sure the White House intern who posted this tweet registers for Econ 101 in the fall semester. So, the smack back player in the energy industry, they say there's so many factors at play, it's not like you can just lower the price of gas waving a magic wand.

The president was talking about the people who sell the gas. The 145,000 gas stations are independently owned. They're small businesses essentially. And they have higher margins on their candy bars that they sell than they do on their gas. So, it's a very, very big, global, complicated picture here.

KEILAR: So, when Jeff Bezos is sort of also clapping back and taking aim at the president here, taking aim at the White House tweet, he's right?

ROMANS: Well, I mean, put yourself in the position of the White House trying to message this. People feel miserable about prices. They feel terrible about gas. There is a sour mood in the country in general and you look at it, the president is right that oil prices are down $15 a barrel but gas prices are down only a penny.

On the surface, it looks like someone is making a killing there and it's not the American consumer. It's just more complicated than that. It really is.

SANCHEZ: And, obviously, the midterm elections are only a few months away, so how much support do you think they're going to get from voters who are paying all this money and they're trying to blame the oil companies, does that translate?

ROMANS: Well, it's Putin's price hike he's called it, and he was talking about refineries need to be refining more oil. The long-term the strategy of this administration, they don't want them refining more oil, they want them using other kinds of resources. So, there is a lot of different kind of messaging strategies, I think, at play here, and some of them were kind of working at cross purposes.

KEILAR: All right. Christine, thank you so much. Happy 4th. And we will see you in a little bit, right?

ROMANS: Yes. Oh, yes, I'm anchoring the 9:00.

KEILAR: 9:00 A.M.

ROMANS: Well, they're getting their money's worth out of us today, aren't they?

KEILAR: We will see you in a little bit.

SANCHEZ: Still ahead, Ukrainian military officials say Russia is preparing for an assault in the Donetsk region just days after claim ago key city in the east. Could this be a turning point in the war?

KEILAR: And July 4th celebrations making a comeback nationwide after the pandemic put some events on pause.

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