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TV Hosts: White House Used Tabloid As Threat; Trump: If GOP Deal Fails, Repeal Now And Replace Later; Trump's Voter Fraud Group Faces Stiff Opposition; Doctor Fatally Shoots One, Wounds Six At NYC Hospital; FBI Arrest In Disappearance Of Chinese Grad Student; Four Years Since Death of 19 Arizona Firefighters. Aired 6-7a ET
Aired July 01, 2017 - 06:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[06:00:22] DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Strategic patience with the North Korean regime has failed and frankly, that patience is over.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The U.S. military remains on alert watching for any hint of a missile launch.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's been fascinating and frightening and really sad for our country.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think he has been very clear that when he gets attacked, he is going to hit back.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: But I am very concerned as to what this once again reveals about the president of the United States.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was chaos and confusion in New York City after a man with an assault rifle walked into one of the city's busiest hospitals and started shooting.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All of the sudden, the hospital was on lockdown. It was a scary situation.
UNIDENTIFIED PILOT: May day, may day.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The plane collided, spun across the freeway and burst into flames.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The pilot and his passenger are injured but alive.
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CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning to you on this, believe it or not, July 1st.
VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Half the year is over already. PAUL: I just don't even get it. We are so grateful for your company as always, though.
President Trump kicking off the holiday weekend in New Jersey this morning. He is going to be back in Washington today. He is set to deliver a speech at the Kennedy Center tonight in honor of veterans.
BLACKWELL: The president also preparing for the G20 Summit happening next week. It is there where he will come face to face with Russian President Vladimir Putin, for the first time. Will the president bring up Russia's interference in the election? And will there be any chance to improve relations as both leaders hoped for back in November?
PAUL: In the meantime, there is fallout from the president's disparaging tweets about a TV news host now leading to claims the tabloid hit story and questions about whether the president issued a threat for favorable media coverage. We have all of that covered for you this morning from every angle.
We want to start with CNN's senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta.
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JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Standing with the South Korean president, President Trump issued yet another dire warning on the threat posed by North Korea.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: The era of strategic patience with the North Korean regime has failed. Many years and it has failed, and frankly, that patience is over.
ACOSTA: But as the president was leaving the Rose Garden, nearly all of the questions shouted at him were not about national security, they were about the president's tweets and his ongoing war of words with MSNBC hosts, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, who now alleged White House aides made them an offer, go softer on your coverage of Mr. Trump, and the president will kill a story about the TV hosts in the "National Enquirer."
JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC HOST, "MORNING JOE": He said if you call the president up and you apologize for your coverage, then he will pick up the phone and basically spike the story.
ACOSTA: A White House official confirmed Scarborough did speak with the president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, but the official denied there was ever any offer of a quid pro quo. Top White House adviser, Kellyanne Conway, said it is all about counter punching critics in the media. Critics Conway described as unpatriotic.
KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: It doesn't help the American people to have a president covered in this light. I'm sorry, it is neither productive nor patriotic.
ACOSTA: The president is also disrupting Senate negotiations over health care tweeting, "Republican senators are unable to pass what they are working on now, they should immediately repeal and then replace at a later date." That mirrors the suggestion from some GOP lawmakers who are growing frustrated with the law jam in the Senate.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What I am recommending is that we give comfort by the American people by repealing the maximum amount of Obamacare that we can but add a one-year delay before that would be effective so there is an action forcing event so that we get to work.
ACOSTA: The problem is it is not what the president promised.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: We are going to do it simultaneously. It will be just fine. We are not going to have like a two-day period and a two- year period where there is nothing. It will be repealed and replaced.
ACOSTA: Even some Republicans say splitting up repeal and replace won't work.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The problem is we know how Washington works. Sometimes on deadlines, we still don't get things done.
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ACOSTA: As for health care, the White House tried to clarify the president's stance saying officials are looking at all options. Asked whether the president now favors just repealing Obamacare. Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, Mr. Trump's thinking has not changed. Jim Acosta, CNN, The White House.
BLACKWELL: Jim, thanks. With me now is CNN political commentator, Errol Louis, and White House correspondent for the "Washington Examiner," Sarah Westwood. Good morning to you. Errol, I want to start with the president's tweet. This repeal, then replace offer, is that going anywhere?
ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No. For the reasons that were just described. It is both politically and sort of mathematically not just unwise but really impossible to do this.
I mean, you cannot undo the large tangle of subsidies and the various interactions that make the Affordable Care Act work and all of a sudden just kind of say, you know, well, none of that exists.
We are going to roll back the Medicaid expansion, 700,000 in this state, 700,000 in that state simply won't be covered and we'll get around to something better a year from now.
That is -- you know, look, the polls already suggested, the public, who are sort of the key players in all of this, are not going to let the Senate or the House get away with that.
BLACKWELL: Take a look at the latest CNN poll out from a March win, 17 percent here support repealing regardless of a replacement. You see there 59 percent support repeal only if a replacement is ready.
Sarah, to you, I mean, this wouldn't solve any of the problems the president says he wants to solve, better coverage, cheaper premiums, certainty to the insurance market. Is this the president simply saying please pass something, anything?
SARAH WESTWOOD, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "WASHINGTON EXAMINER": Well, this could be a sign that conservative critics of the current legislation are getting through to the president. This is something that critics like Senator Rand Paul have been pushing for a long time.
And the problem is it could empower folks, who are already opposed to the bill, but who might be persuaded to vote yes on it next week under certain conditions to maybe hold out a little longer in the hopes that the president would back their preferred approach to fixing Obamacare, which is a clean repeal and a replacement down the line.
This is actually what Republicans passed in 2015. President Obama vetoed it at the time. There has been talk in conservative circles particularly among groups like Freedom Works or the Heritage Foundation about why Republican lawmakers couldn't just pass the clean repeal bill that garnered so much support a few short years ago.
The problem is, though, that there was no realistic expectation at the time that that would pass. Now there is a lot more political realities at stake namely that many parts of Obamacare like the pre- existing condition protections are popular.
BLACKWELL: Yes. Errol, would this not be the easier of the two votes for Republicans, the repeal vote, although the CBO says that 18 million additional people would lose coverage in the first year and then 32 million additional in ten years. But that would leave them to vote for a replacement bill that would be antithetical to many of the things that the Republican congressmen believe in?
LOUIS: That's right. I mean, look, I think the mistake we all end up making here is assuming that what repeal is about is simply about trying to lower the cost of medical care or try to get some sort of a better way for people to choose their health care options.
What repeal is about is getting rid of the taxes on the very well think that enabled the whole subsidy structure to stand erect. I mean, what they want to do is get rid of that so that they will have money to fund the tax cuts, which were for many of these representatives the whole point of the exercise, the repeal exerices.
The replacement is not of very much interest to them. The repeal is of extreme importance to them and that is the deadline that they are really working against. They feel an urgency that the rate payers and the patience across the country simply don't feel. That's why you have such negative polling on something that is of such high urgency somehow to the Senate and the House leadership.
BLACKWELL: Sarah, let me turn to this President's Advisory Commission on election integrity. The committee sent out this two-page letter to secretaries of state across the country asking for voter's information. There has been a bipartisan rejection.
Of course, this comes after the president's unfounded claim that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 election. We heard from secretary of states across the country, many of whom said they are not going to give it up.
Mississippi's Republican secretary of state probably wins an award for the pithiest response that has been described, "They can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico." Rough start for this commission.
WESTWOOD: Exactly. I mean, I think that there was already a little bit of skepticism about the commission's motivations and its scope. It is not entirely clear what exactly this commission is examining, whether it is voter registration specifically in the 2016 election, whether this is some kind of sweeping look at all kinds of voter issues.
And the fact that the commission hasn't been particularly forthcoming about what exactly it is up to and what specifically they do want to look at and what kind of conclusions they are working toward, I think that has sort of fed into that skepticism among particularly Democrats.
And so it is not surprising that you are then seeing states resist this request and it is not clear what kind of authority the commission has to compel compliance with that request.
BLACKWELL: So Errol, let me ask you, does this give the president and, therefore, this commission and out? Well, we were going to provide the evidence but the secretaries of state didn't give us the information we needed?
LOUIS: Well, yes, I think politically, they could probably end up saying that the next time somebody wants to talk about ballot security. One thing that's worth keeping in mind, Victor, is that it is a bedrock principle of American voter systems that it is extremely decentralized.
You are in the state of Georgia, which has 159 counties. There are 159 county Boards of Election that each have their own way of doing elections and while it might seem complex and it might seem difficult to get information when you might want it, the reality is that's one of the ways that we protect our ballot security.
It is hard to hack the whole United States of America because there are 3,100 counties and 3,100 independently elected or appointed boards that make up their own systems. It is just impossible or nearly impossible. That's what's so important about it.
So everybody should feel, I think, relieved that there was such a resounding rejection of this request to begin the steps towards centralizing a system that would do more to undermine our security than anything else.
BLACKWELL: Some secretaries of state have said to hand it over would be a violation of state law. They can't simply give it to the federal government. Errol Louis, Sarah Westwood, we will continue the conversations throughout the morning. Thanks so much.
PAUL: Coming up, a small plane crashes on one of the busiest highways in California.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, move back from the plane. Just breathe. Just breathe, OK?
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PAUL: Frightening moments as that plane crash landed in the middle of rush-hour traffic. We have details for you.
BLACKWELL: Plus chaos inside a busy hospital, we have some new details this morning about that deadly shooting a New York City hospital.
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UNIDENTIFIED PILOT: May day, may day. I lost my right engine.
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PAUL: A California pilot's panic distress call there after his plane's engine gave out mid-air. What you are looking at is the aftermath here. We are told the pilot attempted to land the Cessna 310 at an Orange County Airport and clearly did not make it and crashed into a ball of flames in the middle of the 405 Freeway.
Others on the Freeway stopped to help and try to put out those flames, but the 405 is one of California's as you may know busiest highways. The pilot only clipped one car on the way down.
BLACKWELL: The driver of that car fortunately suffered just minor injuries. The pilot and the passenger on the plane survived the crash. They were taken to a local hospital.
PAUL: Police say a disgruntled doctor was who went on a shooting spree at a New York City hospital, and that's a place that he used to work. He killed a doctor, wounded six others before he killed himself.
BLACKWELL: As you can imagine, this had workers at the hospital ducking behind desks and behind doors. According to authorities, the former doctor had a troubled past.
Let's go now to CNN correspondent, Polo Sandoval, has got the latest for us from New York.
POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Victor, Christie, this morning, five doctors, many of them young medical students in the early part of their career, people who are hoping to save lives are currently fighting for their lives here at Bronx Lebanon Medical Center in New York.
These are individuals that is according to police were shot by a man who used to practice medicine here in 2014 for a relatively short stint at this before re-signing in 2015 under unknown circumstances.
What I can tell you, though, this was a very chaotic scene yesterday afternoon as the sound of gunfire erupted upstairs in this medical facility. We do understand that this man is being described as a disgruntled employee. There was a sixth individual who was injure.
The only patient who was shot according to officials here that I've spoken to. They tell me that patient expected to pull through. But truly that chaotic scene also is something that many did not expect to happen.
This is a hospital, a place of peace, a place where people turn to for shelter or treatment, turned into, as one doctor described it for me, a virtual war zone.
But again, investigators still trying to determine a motive, trying to determine what could have led to this shooting, why a person who was a doctor came here to a place that he practiced medicine and opened fire on some of his colleagues -- Victor.
BLACKWELL: Polo, thanks so much.
Let's take you to Illinois now where authorities fear a missing Chinese grad student is dead. They arrested a man that they say kidnapped her. FBI investigators say Yingying Zhang disappeared June 9th from the campus of University of Illinois.
Surveillance cameras, they caught her getting into a car that was driven by the suspect who has been charged in her disappearance. Investigators also say the suspect visited websites about kidnappings and allegedly confessed to the crime. Despite what officials believe, Zhang's family remains hopeful she will be found alive.
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LIQIN YE, AUNT OF MISSING WOMAN (through translator): To the person who did this, we want to tell this person, please be kind to her and let her come back. Grandma and mother are waiting for you at home. You have to be persistent in fighting, because we are all waiting for you.
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BLACKWELL: We also know Zhang's disappearance triggered widespread concern in China. The suspect is expected in court on Monday.
PAUL: A man underway in a deadly road rage incident that killed a high school graduate. I want to show you a sketch that authorities released of the suspect. Please take a good look. This incident happened Wednesday afternoon outside of Philadelphia.
Now police say surveillance video shows the moment the suspect who is in that red truck shot the young woman in the head. Her car veered off the road and crashed into a tree.
The victim, 18-year-old Bianca Roberson, her family says she was heading to Jacksonville University in two weeks to start her freshman year. Police are offering a $5,000 reward for any information.
BLACKWELL: We have more on the president's voter fraud commission asking states for information on their voters. Several states are pushing back, saying they have no intention of complying.
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PAUL: Welcome back. So grateful to have you with us. I'm Christi Paul.
BLACKWELL: I'm Victor Blackwell. Good morning to you.
Next week, President Trump will meet face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin and there is a lot to talk about. The White House says that they will meet on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hamburg. But so far there are details about what the format of the meeting will be or what they will talk about.
PAUL: The president seems to be changing his tone on the GOP health care bill. In a tweet he called to repeal Obamacare first and then replace at a later date. Now the White House insists the president has not changed his thinking at all. This of course as GOP leaders struggle to muster enough votes for the current repeal and replace bill that's in the Senate.
Also more Republicans are slamming the president for his Twitter rampage this week attacking a female TV anchor. They say it is distracting from their agenda and damaging the presidency.
Carl Bernstein, a CNN political analyst, and one of the "Washington Post" reporters on the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon says "President Trump's presidency is sailing uncharted waters."
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CARL BERNSTEIN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think something much greater is happening. We are in the midst of a malignant presidency. That malignancy is known to the military leaders of the country. It is known to the Republican leadership in Congress who recognize it and it is known to the intelligence community.
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PAUL: All right, Errol Louis with us as well, CNN political commentator and political anchor of Spectrum News. Sarah Westwood, White House correspondent for the "Washington Examiner" with us as well. Thank you both for sticking around.
Wanted to ask you, do you believe that President Trump is going to bring up the meddling allegations, Errol, because at the end of the way, you wonder if there is going to be a consequence for the president if he doesn't take a harder line here.
LOUIS: Well, yes. It's an interesting question. I think the threshold question for me, Christi, would be, are we going to know all of what happens in whatever meeting occurs? Even a sideline meeting, there can be a transcript.
I would advise the White House that would be the best way to quell any fears that there is something untoward that's going on. That something as close to full transparency be achieved so that we know exactly what is said.
And yes, there will be some real outcries I think if people don't hear our president of this United States step up and say, you cannot interfere in our elections.
I mean, now the question, of course, is that Donald Trump has said, up until recently, repeatedly over and over again that he thinks that it is fake news. It didn't happen. There is no collusion. There is nothing to see here.
If that is really how he truly feels, it would be odd to hear him sort of take a different approach when he's face to face with Vladimir Putin. So personally I'm not expecting to hear anything.
But again, I think the key is the transparency. Whatever is said, we really need to know about it.
PAUL: Sarah, would it not serve the president in some way because if he called Russia on it, took a harder line, would it in any way dilute this whole notion that Russia was working on his behalf? Was there some sort of collusion in terms of that investigation?
WESTWOOD: Certainly I think that he would suffer consequences at home if he didn't bring up the election meddling even in passing, even if he just briefly mentioned it. He would spare himself a lot of grief back home.
Because you are right, there are these allegations, so far unsubstantiated that his campaign colluded with Russians during the presidential election. So there is sort of an obligation for him to put a little bit of that to rest by bringing up the subject of election meddling with Putin.
I think there are other very important issues that he will have to discuss with Putin during this meeting. So it will be really interesting to see how long he will have with the Russian president.
Syria will probably be the most pressing topic that he would bring up because the conflict there has been escalating so much in recent weeks particularly with regards to Russia.
But certainly if he doesn't bring up election meddling, I think he will just invite a whole lot of unnecessary criticism that he could just easily avoid by putting in a mention of it at the meeting.
PAUL: All righty, let's talk about the White House refusing to answer questions regarding the president's attacks on a female news anchor. I want to listen to Kellyanne Conway first of all.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you endorse what the president sent out in those tweets?
KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO PRESIDENT: I endorse the president's right to fight back when he is being mercilessly attacked.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What I was asking you about is whether you endorse the president's comments and attacks? Apparently, you do.
CONWAY: No, I didn't say I endorsed his attacks. I never said that, George. What I said was I endorse his ability to fight back.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bottom line, you do not endorse the president's tweets?
CONWAY: Bottom line, I endorse his ability to connect on social media with Americans --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PAUL: All right, I want to listen to Scott Lucas, a professor of International Politics at Birmingham University in England. Here's what he had to say.
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SCOTT LUCAS, PROFESSOR OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS, BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY IN ENGLAND: I want to be very clear. This is a where on the media. This is an attempt not only to say the media is wrong or that they have their information incorrect. It is an attempt to suppress what you and other journalists are trying to do not only by Trump but high-level advisers like Kellyanne Conway.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[06:30:10] PAUL: Errol, where does the White House go with this?
LOUIS: Yes. I think, what the professor said is a fair statement. They have certainly tried to demonize the press beyond anything I've ever seen. I've been doing this for over 30 years now.
I do think though that the -- what they're, also, sort of, calling the question is a certain kind of brinksmanship. We don't have a lot of remedies to deal with a president who is, you know, dishonest or who is obscene or who amounts these, kind of, crazy personal attacks.
You know, you don't impeach somebody for that. You don't invoke the 25th amendment and try and have the cabinet remove him. There really aren't a lot of things that you can do other than to do your job, inform the public and let the public sort out what they want to do with a president who insists on this kind of behavior.
There are individuals like Kellyanne Conway. She's a perfectly nice lady. I've known her for a long time, who have to make their own professional decisions about what they will or will not be associated with.
PAUL: Sarah, real quickly, we saw something this week that we have not seen, I don't know, ever, people publicly questioning the president's sanity to some degree.
There is this house democrat that's again asking colleagues to get behind a panel that is proposed to remove the president if he sound unfit to lead, any possibility that that could actually come to fruition?
WESTWOOD: No. I don't think that questioning the mental stability of the president is going to be an effective strategy from democrats. I don't know that it's even fair to do that.
We've seen this move play out before with President Trump time and again. He'll tweet something controversial. It will get Washington up in arms for a couple of days and then everything will die back down and that's essentially what we've seen over and over again since the campaign. I don't expect that this time we would see any kind of different results.
PAUL: Any difference? Right. Errol Louis, Sarah Westwood, always appreciate you being here. Thank you.
LOUIS: Thank you.
WESTWOOD: Thank you.
BLACKWELL: The president's Voter Fraud Commission asking states for information on their voters. One state's response? Go jump in the Gulf of Mexico.
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PAUL: We have some breaking news. I'm going to tell you about it right now. In Little Rock, Arkansas, police are working on a shooting inside a local nightclub. That happened early this morning.
This was gunfire, they say, that erupted early at the Power Ultra Lounge. Police say there are multiple victims. They're not calling this terror related though.
We do not know the number of injuries. We do not know if there are any fatalities but investigators believe the shooting began after a dispute inside that club.
So, we're going to keep an eye on what's happening there. Give you more information as it comes into us, of course.
BLACKWELL: All right. According to a memo obtained by CNN, the Pentagon is delaying a decision on allowing transgender people to enlist in the military. The new deadline will be six months from today.
Now, July 1st was the original for Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis but last week, army, navy, air force and marine corps leaders requested the delay.
Last year, then Defense Secretary Ash Carter, ended the ban on transgender recruits openly serving but said the process would happen in stages.
PAUL: Well, several state officials are pushing back now after the Trump administration asked secretaries of state for information on their voters.
The commission said it's needed in order to combat what they say is widespread voter fraud. No documentation, however, no documented evidence of such fraud and now both republican and democrats are saying they will not comply with the administration's request.
Here's part of a statement from Mississippi's Republican Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, to the commission he says, quote, they can go jump in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi is a great state to launch from.
Here's CNN Tom Foreman.
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TRUMP: So many cities are corrupt and voter fraud is very, very common.
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: In a quest to root out allegedly rampant voter fraud, the president's commission wants an ocean of sensitive information about every voter, including the person's full name, address, date of birth, political affiliation, voting, military and criminal records, part of his or her social security number and more.
States, particularly, some democratic blue ones are pushing back hard. California is flat-out refusing to hand over the info.
ALEX PADILLA, SECRETARY OF STATE, CALIFORNIA: The president's allegations of massive voter fraud are simply not true.
FOREMAN: So is New York, we will not comply, and Virginia too, there is no evidence of significant voter fraud.
But, some states that went republican red for Trump are also balking, including Utah, Alabama, Iowa and Wisconsin. They'll hand over only some data and still others are dismissing the whole idea of voter fraud run amok.
MATTHEW DUNLAP, SECRETARY OF STATE, MAINE: You might find some illegal activity but not to the scale that's been described.
TRUMP: People that have died ten years are voting. Illegal immigrants are voting.
FOREMAN: As a candidate, Donald Trump insisted fraud was a real problem and even after he won the Electoral College, he lashed out at news more people voted for Hillary Clinton, tweeting, I won the popular vote, if you deduct the millions of people that voted illegally.
TRUMP: So many things are going on. FOREMAN: To help steer his commission, he chose Kansas Secretary of
State Chris Kobach, who calls the state's complaints complete nonsense.
KRIS KOBACH, VICE CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENTIAL ADVISORY COMMISSION ON ELECTION INTEGRITY: We're looking at all forms of election irregularities, voter fraud, registration fraud, voter intimidation, suppression.
FOREMAN: Kobach has zealously hunted vote cheaters back home for months, yet, he's found less than a dozen provable cases out of more than a million and a half registered voters.
What's more? He's a champion for voter I.D. laws which many skeptics consider a way to suppress minority votes and he was fined by a federal judge in Kansas just last week for his conduct in a lawsuit involving voting rights.
Connecticut's take, given Secretary Kobach's history, we find it very difficult to have confidence in the work of this commission.
FOREMAN: Underlying it all is a simple fact. There is simply no credible evidence that there's ever been a widespread voter fraud problem. That's adding clearly to the hesitancy of many of these states.
Tom Foreman, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
BLACKWELL: All right. Coming up, what do republican voters think of the GOP health care bills?
Well, the polling is bad and as we found out, sitting down with republican voters, they're putting congress on notice.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
POPPY HARLOW, CNN CORRESPONDENT: As republicans, raise your hand if you want to see democrats and republicans work together on this thing and come up with something different than the senate and the house have put forth?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think, that's an easy one there.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a no-brainer.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look, this is the president that wrote "The Art of the Deal." So, get in and make a deal.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Make a deal.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BLACKWELL: This week, CNN sat down with a group of voters, all registered republicans, most of whom who voted for President Trump and we wanted to understand their views on the president and how he's doing on issues that mattered most to them.
PAUL: Yes. They addressed health care, an issue that they all care very deeply about and not a single one of them really like ether the republican plans that are on the table right now. Listen to this.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HARLOW: Raise your hand if you voted for President Trump.
Do any of you want the house or the senate health care bills to pass and become the law of the land?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not in its current form.
JOSH AIKENS: I'm not really happy with the health care bill that they have so far. I'm not happy with the current health care bill but I'd like to see more free market so people can choose how they want.
BILL CORTESE, JR.: I think he still has a lot to prove and I think I'm probably one of those republicans that he still has a lot to prove to.
You have a republican house, a republican senate and White House. There's no excuse for republicans not to put points on the board and that's where I feel it's almost like a football game.
This is offensives trying to drive down the field but keeps having these penalties and it keeps bringing them back. You have to put points on board and there's really no excuse now for it.
HARLOW: Scherie, is he right and then to you, Josh, as well, is he right?
I mean, you give the president a B plus and Bill says, he's got control -- you know, the Republican Party has control of the White House and Congress and he says they need to put points on the board. They need to get legislation done.
SCHERIE MURRAY: We do and I agree to his point.
We hold the majority in the White House right now and our Congress as well and this is a great time for our president to be an effective leader, to deliver on some of his campaign promises.
I'm looking forward to what's to come out of the health care bill. I do think, personally, that he should consider reforming it instead of repealing it.
I think there are layers there that ought to be changed but there are layers that can remain.
HARLOW: Like he promised. You know, the president's promise was repeal and replace Obamacare on day one.
MURRAY: On day one.
HARLOW: You don't want to see him do that. It sounds like you want to see him work and Republicans and Congress work with Democrats to alter Obamacare, is that right?
MURRAY: Absolutely. I would love to see our elected officials work together. Work across the line for the benefit of the people. We put them into office and they should do what we want.
HARLOW: You pay their salaries, too.
MURRAY: Absolutely.
AIKENS: By all means, they've had plenty of years to have this health care bill ready to go on day one and they should have done that and they didn't and it's -- I mean, it's just what you would always say, your typical politicians not doing what you want them to do.
A repeal -- I don't think they're actually repealing Obamacare. I think this is a reform of Obamacare. They're just going to call it a repeal but it's really not a repeal if you actually go ahead and look through it.
HARLOW: As a Republican, does the House or Republican -- or Senate Republican health care proposals right now help enough Americans? Are you pleased with either of them?
AIKENS: No.
HARLOW: No?
AIKENS: No, I would like a full repeal and I'd like free market. I would like free market.
DEBRA REINHARD: Health care is not a Republican or Democratic issue. It's a human issue. It's a -- we all need health care. We need it to sustain ourselves, our family, our children and it's an issue that shouldn't be a partisan issue.
HARLOW: So, was the president then, Richard, right or wrong to make that a center point of his campaign, a full repeal and replace of Obamacare?
RICHARD ST. PAUL: Well, whether it's right or wrong, I think, it was a necessary thing to do.
We all know that Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act was heading -- is a disaster at this point in time. Premiums have increased and in some states you all have but one, maybe, sometimes two health insurance companies participating.
HARLOW: But that --
ST. PAUL: It is on the road to disaster. HARLOW: My question is --
ST. PAUL: It's imploding.
HARLOW: -- was he wrong to promise a full repeal and replace? Should he have said, we are going fix this?
ST. PAUL: I think, the way the Affordable Care Act was set up, it was doomed to fail, so, it needed to be replaced.
So, no, I would not say he was wrong in saying that it needs to be replaced because it does need to be replaced.
HARLOW: Are Republicans going to get this thing done?
ST. PAUL: If they don't get it done, the president has said that he's going to move on and what I think is going to happen is that perhaps we can actually have Democrats and Republicans working together because even Democrats --
HARLOW: You mean on --
ST. PAUL: On health care. Even Democrats --
HARLOW: So, tell me, you actually want the Republican versions in the House and the Senate to fail?
ST. PAUL: I don't agree with the versions as they are right now.
HARLOW: OK.
ST. PAUL: I don't think it does enough.
REINHARD: I think, they need to be negotiated. I think, they -- you know, they put something together quickly just to get it on the table and they need to sit down now with Democrats and Republicans.
To me, it doesn't matter whether they repeal and replace or fix because it doesn't matter what you replace the Affordable Health Care Act with, you're going to have to have some of the provisions of Obamacare to make it work but get it done.
I retired at age 62. I try to get health insurance after I retired because I had to wait until 65 to get Medicare. To get the same benefits that I was getting while I was working and paying $40 a month for is going to cost me $802 a month.
I couldn't afford that. I went for a year and a half as a diabetic with no health care. I just didn't go to the doctor.
HARLOW: As Republicans, raise your hand if you want to see Democrats and Republicans work together on this thing and come up with something different than the Senate and the House have put forth.
CORTESE, JR.: I think that's an easy one there.
REINHARD: It's a no brainer.
CORTESE, JR.: Look, this is the president that wrote "The Art of the Deal." So, get in and make a deal.
REINHARD: Make a deal. That's right.
CORTESE, JR.: Then get in and pull people together just like you did when you built buildings all over the world, get in, bring people to the table and make it -- and do something.
HARLOW: You think President Trump should be injecting himself more into?
CORTESE, JR.: Well, he owns this issue, right? I mean, he's made this a focal point -- made this a focal point in his campaign.
He's using the bully pulpit to push for it. I think, it's a wakeup call for him as well.
HARLOW: And, if he can't get it done? If the Senate and the House can't get it done on health care, what does that say?
CORTESE, JR.: I mean, I just think it's a big defeat.
REINHARD: I think a big compromise --
MURRAY: I think -- I don't think that's a defeat for the president. I think that's a defeat for Congress.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL: All righty. You know, it's been four years since 19 firefighters were killed in an Arizona wild fire.
Well, now, we're visiting the powerful memorial that's dedicated to them and their families are talking to us as well. Stay close.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
PAUL: It has been four years since 19 Arizona firefighters died in one of the deadliest wildfires in history. Their crew was overwhelmed by flames.
BLACKWELL: Now, on Friday, a bell rang for each one of the 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots during a memorial service throughout Arizona.
CNN's Martin Savidge spoke to some of their families at a site dedicated to them for going beyond the call of duty.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MARTIN SAVIDGE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: These are the last images of the Granite Mountain Hotshots preparing to fight the fire that would kill them.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Granite Mountain Hotshots, we're in front of the flaming front.
SAVIDGE: A wind shift later sends flames racing toward the team, trapping them in the Box Canyon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Our escape route has been cut off.
SAVIDGE: All 19 men died. In the aftermath, friends, family and officials worked to preserve the now-hallowed ground and the memories of those lost.
SUE BLACK, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ARIZONA STATE PARKS & TRAILS: We had to get it right. We had to get it right.
SAVIDGE: The result is a memorial like no other that will test your heart as well as break it.
BLACK: This is a good example of the hallway.
SAVIDGE: A rugged seven-mile trail climbing more than 1,000 feet up the side of a mountain.
Is it hard to come here?
DEBORAH PFINGSTON: Yes and no. No, because I know Andrew is in heaven.
SAVIDGE: Twenty-nine-year-old Andrew Ashcraft was one of the Hotshots killed. His mom remembers him returning from other fires covered in soot, a smile on his face, smelling of smoke as he hugged her.
PFINGSTON: After we lost him, there were times I would say to my husband, could you just put a fire in the fire pit. I just need to smell Andrew for a minute.
SAVIDGE: On the trail, there are carefully-placed plaques every 600 feet.
SAVIDGE: Which means, every so often, you meet a new member of the crew. This is Andrew, Deborah's son.
The last part of the trail is the hardest of all, a 600-foot descent following the same path that the Granite Mountain crew did that day.
It's tough physically but it's very tough emotionally because you end up here.
SAVIDGE: The place where the men made their last stand.
Iron crosses marking where each firefighter was found tightly clustered. The men were as close to each other in death as they were in life.
Among them, Karen and Jim Norris' 28-year-old son.
KAREN NORRIS: Scott was fun-loving and adventurous and he really enjoyed making people laugh. This is a very emotional and very sacred place to me.
SAVIDGE: It's sacred to another family as well. Firefighters can often be found here, like this Montana crew hiking up during our interview.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got to hug you. A mom's got to hug. OK.
SAVIDGE: Four years after the deaths of 19 Granite Mountain Hotshots, their memorial is a trail for remembering and a path toward healing.
Martin Savidge, CNN, Yarnell, Arizona.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
PAUL: Certainly, thinking about all of them.
And, let's talk about the weather here. It's a holiday weekend. So, we don't know what's going to happen but Allison Chinchar does.
BLACKWELL: Yes, she does.
PAUL: Thankfully.
BLACKWELL: Hey, Allison.
ALLISON CHINCHAR, AMS METEOROLOGIST: And, hello to you.
Yes. You know, it's been very rainy the last month, especially, in Florida but this was actually great news, guys.
So, take a look. If you remember, this is what May looked like. Look at -- pretty much two-thirds of the state had some form of drought and, actually, the central region had exceptional drought at some point but that all changed in the month of June.
Take a look at this, nothing. We, literally, have zero percent of the state in a drought, that is how wet June was but, just to, kind of, emphasize to you how much rain the region got, take a look at this map, OK?
You notice the widespread area of red which indicates six to 10 inches. This was for the month of June. Look at the purple, 10 to 20 inches and you even have some pockets of white that picked up, in excess of, 20 inches of rain.
Look at some of these numbers. Apalachicola, Florida picked up over 17 inches of rain in the month of June. That official puts them at a foot over average.
Again, other places, Gainesville, Miami, Naples, also excessive rain for the month of June and, unfortunately, for the holiday weekend, guys, we are still expecting some showers and thunderstorms into the forecast.
So, Victor, Christi, this means if you have some barbecue plans, you may have to check the radar a few times just to make sure you won't have to encounter some lightning along with it.
BLACKWELL: All right. I would eat barbecue in the rain. Lightning, not so much but in the rain, I will.
Allison Chinchar, thanks so much.
CHINCHAR: Thanks.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TRUMP: (INAUDIBLE) strategic patience with the North Korean regime has failed and, frankly, that patience is over.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The U.S. military remains on alert.
