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CNN Headlines: CNN Projects Bass & Raman Will Defeat Pratt In L.A. Mayor's Race; Voters Weigh Graham Platner's Controversies In Maine Primary; President Trump Booed By Crowd At Madison Square Garden; People Caught In Homes, Cars As Floodwaters Rise In Missouri. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired June 09, 2026 - 05:00   ET

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

[05:00:26]

BRAD SMITH, CNN ANCHOR: Nithya Raman will face incumbent mayor Karen Bass in the race for L.A. mayor in November. This now knocks Trump- backed Spencer Pratt out of the race. Got the details there.

Plus -- President Trump booed at game three of the NBA Finals between the Knicks and the Spurs, but Trump says he heard something different.

And, flash flooding leaves homes and cars submerged. We take a look at the damage left behind.

And the SAVE student repayment plan is ending soon. What you need to know now and the other options that you may have.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Brad Smith. This is CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS. Glad that you're with us this morning. Let's get things started.

One week later, a big development in a key California election. CNN can now project that Los Angeles Councilwoman Nithya Raman has locked in the spot to take on incumbent Karen Bass in the November election for L.A. mayor.

Spencer Pratt, the Trump-backed former reality TV star, was in second place on election night, June 2nd. But he lost ground to Raman as mail-in votes rolled in. California races often take a while to sort out. That's because properly postmarked ballots can still count up to a week afterwards.

Now, this has the president falsely calling the process rigged. Trump sharing yesterday on Truth Social that it's, quote, not possible for Spencer Pratt to have lost the L.A. runoffs after the big lead that he had.

House Speaker Mike Johnson joined the fray on Monday.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You're saying it's rigged like the president? REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I'm not saying it's rigged. I'm saying it stinks to high heaven and everybody knows that. I think California is playing around with this.

RAJU: But what evidence is there to prove that it was rigged?

JOHNSON: I don't -- some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream it is impossible to prove. But I think everybody knows instinctively something is wrong here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: Voters in four states are heading to the polls today for primary elections, including in Maine, upper-right USA.

Democrats in the Pine Tree State are rallying behind Senate candidate Graham Platner, despite a string of controversies that have raised concerns within the party. Several women told "New York Times" that they experienced what they described as toxic relationships with Platner, alleging heavy drinking, infidelity, and demeaning behavior. One also accused him of physical intimidation, which Platner denies.

CNN's Arlette Saenz spoke to some female voters in Maine who have mixed feelings about casting their ballot for Platner.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Honestly, I would vote for a doorknob over Susan Collins.

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: If it's Platner versus Collins.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Collins.

SAENZ: Really?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.

SAENZ: Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner is favored to win the Democratic primary on Tuesday, despite a spate of controversies surrounding his campaign. But the real test is set to come in November with whether voters will be willing to look past those scandals to elect him over Senator Susan Collins. Women voters could very well be the deciding factor in this campaign.

Back in 2020, when Susan Collins was running for reelection, female voters made-up 59 percent of the electorate, suggesting that they could have significant political sway in this year's election as well.

We spent the day speaking to Maine voters about these issues surrounding Platner and there really were mixed sentiments about this matter.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I wish I had brought a sign saying church ladies for Graham.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah.

SAENZ: There were some Democratic voters who felt that yes, they were uneasy. They did not like these controversies around his campaign, but they still were going to vote for him because their main focus was in trying to defeat Collins in November.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The most important thing in this election is unseating Susan Collins.

SAENZ: But there were other voters who said that these controversies that Platner has faced are simply too problematic.

If these Platner controversies hadn't come to light, do you think that you would have been able to support him?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think so. I think so.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SMITH: Well, President Trump appears confident that a deal with Iran could be very close. This follows escalating tensions and back and forth strikes between Iran and Israel, which both sides have agreed to pause.

Trump now says that a powerful peace agreement could come in just a matter of days, and he told reporters that the Strait of Hormuz will open back up as soon as it's signed.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They were going back and forth, and now they've both agreed through me to stop.

[05:05:00]

And we're in the final throes of what will be a very, very good deal that will not allow in any way, shape, or form nuclear weapons, et cetera, and the Strait will open up right away. It'll open up immediately upon signing, which could be in two or three days.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: But there are still differences to work out before a deal is settled. Israel's ambassador to Washington says that the U.S. and Israel are not fully aligned on how to end the war. We've learned that Trump spoke with Benjamin Netanyahu and warned the prime minister that continued strikes on Iran could leave him isolated.

Trump also spoke about reports that a U.S. Army helicopter went down near the Strait of Hormuz yesterday, and he said the pilots are fine and added that more details are expected soon. We will have much more on that story and the negotiations between the U.S. and Iran coming up in the next half hour. Well, the Senate will decide whether acting Attorney General Todd

Blanche will get the job on a more permanent basis. President Trump formally nominated him Monday to serve as the country's chief law enforcement officer, but He could face a complicated confirmation process. Critics from both parties have taken issue with Blanche's handling of the Epstein files and creating the controversial anti- weaponization fund. Blanche also once served as Trump's personal attorney, and legal analysts say that shouldn't disqualify him from being confirmed.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFFREY TOOBIN, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR: Robert Kennedy was John Kennedy's brother who was the attorney general. So the idea that the attorney general has to be some independent figure is really kind of a myth. But when you look at how Blanche, as a former personal attorney, seems to be acting the same way, whether it comes from his efforts in the Epstein case, the prosecution of Trump's enemies, all of this looks like someone who is still acting as the president's attorney, but this is what the president wants and the Senate is likely to give it to him.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: And Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley indicated that he will support Blanche and move quickly on the nomination. Blanche would succeed Pam Bondi, who was fired in April.

Well, happening today, Jeffrey Epstein's longtime executive assistant is scheduled to testify on Capitol Hill. This is as part of the House Oversight Committee's investigation into the late convicted sex offender. Lesley Groff's interview with the committee will be behind closed doors. She worked for Epstein for nearly two decades and appears in the Epstein files over 100,000 times. She has not been charged with any crimes related to Epstein. In a statement earlier this year, her legal team said Groff has cooperated with the investigation and was never notified of being a co-conspirator.

The Coast Guard has ended its search for a missing American woman in the Bahamas without answers about her disappearance. Lynette Hooker went missing in early April while sailing with her husband, Brian. He says that she fell off their small boat and vanished into rough waters. He was arrested days later for questioning but was released without charges. He has repeatedly denied wrongdoing and said that he will continue to look for his wife.

Despite ending the search, police say that the investigation is still ongoing and anyone with information should call police.

Well, the Spurs fans, they live to fight another day after their team defeated the Knicks, advancing to game four tomorrow night. Excitement across San Antonio as fans gathered to watch parties throughout the city there.

And in New York, fans were asked to arrive at Madison Square Garden at least two hours early to clear security. That's because President Trump was there, and this is what happened during the national anthem.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(NATIONAL ANTHEM)

(BOOS)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: You could hear the crowd audibly erupt when President Trump appeared on the Jumbotron as he joined the Knicks owner and his granddaughter, Kai Trump, in a box seat. He is the first sitting president to attend an NBA Finals game, and the president had this to say about what happened.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I thought it was amazing, actually. You mean when they had the camera on me? I thought it was very good, yeah. It was certainly amazing. It was, I think, mostly cheers. It was loud and it was very enthusiastic.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: As for this special group, a group who fans have dubbed the Spurs nuns, they're hoping to keep spirits high during the NBA Finals. Their commitment got them courtside access to show up for the team that they've been rooting on for nearly two decades.

Lots more to come on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS. A private plane came in for a landing, but what happened next shocked everyone there.

[05:10:03]

And the high-profile murder trial of a high school track athlete accused of killing another student. What happens if the jury can't reach a verdict by the end of the day? We've got the details there.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It just flooded, fast.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: Dangerous flooding leaves people trapped on top of cars. That is coming up on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SMITH: There's a new legal setback for President Trump as a federal judge struck down the $100,000 fee requirement for H-1B visas.

[05:15:02] He says that the president lacked authority to impose the policy for a program used by companies to hire highly skilled foreign workers in specialized fields. The ruling says it's something Congress must approve. The case was brought by a group of Democratic state attorneys general months after Trump announced the fee requirement.

In a rare move, the Justice Department announced that it's seeking to strip U.S. citizenship from 17 people. DOJ officials say some of the foreign-born American citizens targeted are accused of fraud and the sexual abuse of a minor.

Back in May, the Trump administration also moved to denaturalize a dozen individuals. Denaturalization is a rare process of revoking citizenship from a naturalized U.S. citizen, and it can only occur in federal court.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We pretty much just woke up to our whole house completely full of water. It just flooded fast. So quick that it went up to my headlights and I put my two kids in my car. Thank God the neighbors were there.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: First responders were on the job helping people stuck in rising floodwaters across parts of Missouri. Yesterday's stormy start to the week is a precursor for more to come, just as the first heat wave of the summer is set to roll across the east.

CNN meteorologist Derek Van Dam explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: We've got an increasingly hot and humid summer like weather forecast building across the country first today throughout the nation's midsection, eventually spreading to the East Coast. And when we get this kind of humid setup, it doesn't take much to create showers and thunderstorms, some of which could be prolific rainmakers on the range of one to three inches as we round out the rest of the work week, especially over the eastern third of the country.

So we'll look out for some of those slow moving thunderstorms creating excessive rain. could lead to localized flash flooding, especially across the Tennessee River Valley, even northward into the northern plains. Some of the storms, though, could be strong to severe as we head through the middle of the work week. Again, the Northern Plains throughout the parts of the Great Lakes and into the Midwest. Minneapolis, Chicago are really into the middle of the work week where we could see some of these stronger storms.

But look at the heat. Look at the humidity, 88 degrees today in Minneapolis, 86 for Chicago. I factor in high humidity levels, it will feel downright uncomfortable outside. But notice, along the East Coast, as we head into the weekend, temperatures skyrocket into the nation's capital. We're just a few degrees shy of a triple digit mark. The humidity levels will be very, very warm, so it'll feel rather uncomfortable along the entire Eastern seaboard by the weekend.

Back to you.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SMITH: All right. Thank you, Derek.

Still to come on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS, the next time you say, "Hey Siri," the answers may be a little different. The latest from Apple, I hope I didn't set off too many people's devices there. Mine's already going off.

And the newest Super Mario movie has done something that no other film has done this year. That is coming up on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS.

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[05:22:35]

SMITH: We're on the end of our ergonomic chairs for what could be the most highly anticipated market debut in recent history. OpenAI has filed for an initial public offering. It is a confidential filing and the company behind ChatGPT said it has not decided on the timing just yet. Now the announcement does follow the company's chief rival, Anthropic, announcing that it's also going public. OpenAI's move is expected to bring a massive payday for early investors. The company was last valued at $852 billion.

Staying in technology, Apple is releasing a new Siri with the hopes of catching up with ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. The new features are expected later this year as Tim Cook enters his final few months as CEO.

CNN's Lisa Eadicicco has the latest for us.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA EADICICCO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Apple held its annual worldwide developers conference on Monday and here are the biggest things it announced. There's a major upgrade for Siri coming called Siri A.I. The new version of Siri will be able to do things like take context from your Apple devices to help answer questions.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where is this exactly?

EADICICCO: Analyze content being shown on screen to help with requests. And there will also be a dedicated app for Siri so that you can see your history and kind of interact with it more like a chatbot like you might with something like ChatGPT.

Another major area of focus at this conference was parental controls and online safety. The company is announcing a new feature called "Ask to Browse" that will make it so that children need to ask parental permission before accessing web pages they haven't visited in Safari. And then across the board, Apple announced a bunch of A.I. updates to its popular services and apps. The camera app on the iPhone, for example, will get a new feature that makes it possible to adjust the composition of a photo after you've taken it.

There's also a feature in Safari that can analyze your tabs in your browser and organize them by topic. So this is really kind of the biggest look yet we've gotten at how Apple thinks A.I. can shape its products moving forward coming after the company has been criticized for being behind in the A.I. race. It's also the last major Apple event with Tim Cook at the head of the company as CEO.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SMITH: In Health Express, we are only halfway through the year and measles cases are already on track to be the worst since the disease was eliminated in the U.S. nearly 30 years ago.

[05:25:01]

And according to the CDC, there were more than 2,000 measles cases in 38 states and Washington, D.C. as of last week. They stemmed from 30 separate outbreaks, and 92 percent of those cases were in people who were unvaccinated.

So, to put it into context, last year, the total number of cases reached a 30-year high, with more than 2,200 confirmed infections.

Well, straight ahead, on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS, former reality TV star Spencer Pratt lost the primary for the Los Angeles mayor, a look at the vote and what President Trump is claiming about this election.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A sudden, the ship started shaking and things falling off the shelves and people --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SMITH: Now, he's describing what happened on his cruise ship when an earthquake hit.

More on his story coming up on CNN HEADLINE EXPRESS.

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