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The Situation Room

Race to Rescue Survivors After Deadly Earthquakes Rock Venezuela; Now, Supreme Court Releasing Opinions; Supreme Court Strikes Hawaii's Default Ban on Guns on Private Property That's Open to the Public. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired June 25, 2026 - 10:00   ET

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

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[10:00:00]

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer. Pamela Brown is off. You're in The Situation Room.

Happening now, breaking news, we're following several major stories this hour. Two, yes, two powerful earthquakes rock Venezuela, killing more than 160 people. Now, it's a race against the clock to find survivors in the rubble.

Also, we're watching the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices weigh several major cases, including the future of birthright citizenship. We'll bring that to you live when we start getting decisions.

Plus, the housing bill now on pause as President Trump pushes to get a major elections bill passed despite some Republican objections. We're expecting to hear directly from lawmakers this hour.

And any moment now, the Department of Homeland Security secretary, Markwayne Mullin, will be in the hot seat as he prepares to take questions up on Capitol Hill.

But let's begin with the breaking news out of Venezuela, shocking new video of back-to-back earthquakes that rocked the nation last night. What we're about to show you is disturbing.

The epicenters are located along Venezuela's northern coastal region. Here is the moment the shaking began. You see a family rushing to get out of their home.

Inside the airport, just outside the capital of Caracas, parts of the building collapsed as terrified passengers ran for cover. The death toll has climbed to at least 164 people, and nearly 1,000 people are hurt, according to the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez.

CNN Contributor Stefano Pozzebon has the latest

STEFANO POZZEBON, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, Bogota also felt this earthquake which occurred around 5:00 P.M. local time, and Bogota sits at more than 1,000 kilometers from the epicenter. You can only imagine how badly it was felt in Caracas, which to confirm like the morphology of the area surrounding Caracas, both Caracas and La Guaira, this region just north of the capital that seems to have registered the most impact at this moment, both of these are hilly, mountainous area where the population have built houses, and especially high-rise buildings up on the slopes of the mountains.

This could have caused, of course, further damage if, for example, one building would collapse on top of each other. We were able to speak with survivors who told us the feeling of standing in their flat, maybe of the fourth, fifth, or sixth floor of their building, and feeling like literally the earth opening up, the ground opening up beneath their feet, and the floor turning into water.

One person described it to me as feeling as she was drowning into the collapsing building. Luckily, she survived, as many others have survived. But, correctly, yes, at least 164 Venezuelans have been found dead, and that number is probably going to grow and rise in the coming hours.

[10:05:00]

BLITZER: Stefano Pozzebon reporting for us. Stefano, thank you very much.

The earthquakes will be a key test for President Trump's view of foreign aid.

Let's go live right now to our White House Correspondent Alayna Treene. How is the administration, Alayna, responding to this disaster?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, we've heard from a number now of top administration officials, Wolf. I do want to read for you just a little bit of what the president said, noting that these earthquakes had a devastating number of deaths. And he went on to say that the U.S. stands ready, willing, and able to help.

We also heard from the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who's currently in the Middle East, Wolf. He said that he has been in touch with the acting Venezuelan president, Delcy Rodriguez, and that the U.S. has deployed search and rescue teams following this 7.5 magnitude earthquake. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARCO RUBIO, SECRETARY OF STATE: We're already, already deploying search and rescue teams from Fairfax County, Virginia, and Los Angeles. There'll be some others we'll add. That's their most immediate need right now is search and rescue efforts. They have much of collapsed buildings, and so they'll need a lot of help in terms of digging through that. The airport there is badly damaged, so we'll have to rely on the Department of War to deploy assets there.

And then we're also helping them with some overhead imagery, especially in coastal areas where they don't have full visibility over what the damage has been and what the impact has been. Those are the acute, like short-term needs over the next 48 to 72 hours because in search and rescue, you're trying to get to people while you can still save their lives. They're buried under rubble.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: Now, Wolf, so as you can hear from the president, from Rubio, they are arguing that the U.S. is going to be assisting Venezuela in all ways possible. But I do think your point about how this is a key test for the U.S. is a good one.

I'd note, of course, that this president, particularly during his second term, has been wary of foreign aid. He's obviously disbanded USAID. But this is also a very critical moment for Venezuela, especially after the U.S. went in, captured their former president, Maduro. Really, we saw them try and move away from its former sponsors and allies, Iran and Russia. And so now they really are going to be relying on U.S. help, both of these leaders arguing that it will be there and the U.S. will come to their aid. Wolf?

BLITZER: Well, that's important. All right, Alayna Treene reporting, thank you very, very much.

Also other important news, at any moment now we could get major decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court. The court is due to go on summer recess within the next few weeks, so rulings on some major cases could come down at any time, and they include challenges to birthright citizenship, mail-in ballots, and President Trump's authority to fire federal officials.

Let's discuss what's going on with our CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig and our Legal Analyst, former Federal Prosecutor Elliot Williams.

Elliot, first to you. There's no way of knowing what decisions are coming down this morning, but birthright citizenship is clearly the biggest ruling that we're waiting for. How far-reaching potentially could that decision be?

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It could be vast, Wolf, because it, it ties to specific language in the Constitution, and really a specific concept about what it means to be American. Does being -- does the language in the Constitution that one who was born in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are they actually a citizen? And the Trump administration has argued that that is not the case for people who are unlawfully present in the country.

Now, to be clear, oral argument did not go particularly well for the Trump administration there. There were a few points even from Chief Justice John Roberts, who was quite critical of the arguments that the administration was weighing, saying, look, it's a new America, but the same Constitution. Even if circumstances have changed in the country today, the language of the Constitution is quite clear as to who is to be a citizen.

So, I think we can expect, based on what we saw at oral argument, that the administration loses. But again, I'm not a betting man. BLITZER: There are also other major immigration cases that we're watching right now. The administration is facing a challenge to its blocking of potential asylum seekers, for example. Tell us about the issues here.

WILLIAMS: Right. It's an interesting issue in that the language in immigration law is that one can apply for asylum when they're in the United States, arrives in the United States. Well, there's a procedure or process that Customs and Border Protection had started about a decade ago of simply blocking people from entering the country. And you can't say that someone is in the United States and able to apply for asylum if they haven't actually entered the country. So, it's a debate over what does that language arrives in the United States actually mean.

And the language is quite clear. It does use that word, arrives. However, looking at international law and diplomatic relationships with other countries where we -- that anticipate that we'll take asylum seekers into the country, there's an open question here as to does it fly in the face of international law and immigration law to simply block asylum seekers who are entitled to some form of legal process in the country, block them from coming in.

So, we'll see what happens there as well.

BLITZER: Big decisions coming up. Yes, we'll get back to you, for sure.

Elliot, thank you very, very much.

[10:10:01]

I want to go live to our senior legal analyst Elie Honig right now.

Elie we're awaiting other major decisions from the court. Let's tick through a few of these. We're waiting potentially on a pair of decisions on the president's authority to fire officials from independent agencies. I'm now being told, by the way, no major decisions are coming down today. No new opinions are coming down today, but break down this specific case for us.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Well, Wolf, we are waiting on opinions, could be today, could be in the next few days. We think it will be in the next few weeks. It could redefine the scope of presidential powers within the executive branch. Specifically, these cases relate to the president's effort to remove the heads of quasi- independent federal agencies, including in this case, the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission.

Now, the law has long been understood to say that the president can only remove those people for cause, meaning if they've done something bad or performed poorly. President Trump disagrees. President Trump's legal position is, I'm the head of the executive branch. I can fire them for any reason or no reason whatsoever.

Now, that case has been argued to the courts, and it seems like the Supreme Court is in favor of Donald Trump's view that, as head of the executive branch, he can fire those agency heads for whatever reason he wants.

However, the court has also made clear that the Fed is separate, the Federal Reserve Board. There's a separate case about Trump's effort to remove a Fed governor named Lisa Cook. Trump acknowledges that it has to be for cause if he's going to remove her. He claims that Lisa Cook was involved in mortgage fraud, but the Supreme Court seemed very skeptical of that argument.

They seem to believe that if the president's going to fire somebody from the Fed, first of all, there has to be some process given to that person, and, second of all, there has to be a showing that they did something wrong. So, two separate cases, both of those are going to impact presidential powers moving forward.

BLITZER: There's another decision, another opinion coming out on the ability to carry guns. It's called the State Power over Gun Carry, the Second Amendment, the Wolford versus Lopez. Tell us about that.

HONIG: So, this opinion just came out moments ago. So, this relates to a state law in Hawaii, and there are about 12 or 13 states that have similar laws that say if a person is going to carry a firearm in a privately owned place that's open to the public, so, for example, a mall or a restaurant or a store, that person has to get explicit permission from the owner of that property, from the owner of that restaurant or mall or movie theater or what have you.

And the Supreme Court has now struck down those laws. The Supreme Court has ruled that those laws violate the Second Amendment right to carry arms. This was a 6-3 opinion. Not surprisingly, that often happens in these firearms cases, the six conservatives in the majority, the three liberal justices dissenting.

So, those laws in Hawaii and elsewhere that restrict when a person can concealed carry in public, those have now been ruled unconstitutional.

BLITZER: That's a big decision. That's a big decision.

Elliot, let me get your thoughts. What do you think?

WILLIAMS: I think it's -- you know, one, it certainly wasn't a surprise based on how the oral argument went. I mean, we were talking about the firearms here. You know, this question came up at the oral argument as to whether how you would also apply this to public -- private property, but that is not open to the public, and I think there's an open question here.

As the Supreme Court has done often, and certainly in firearms cases, it's the questions that will come in the future that are big ones as well.

The other question, and this is what some of the dissenters have pointed out in this opinion, is that this all stems from a firearms opinion a few years ago called Bruen around only allowing the regulation of firearms that were in the tradition of the country's history of firearms regulation. And I think that language is somewhat vague, and I think it's going to continue leading to more challenges in the future.

But, again, as Elie was saying, there really isn't a huge surprise here, both in terms of the breakdown of which justices voted in the majority and the minority.

BLITZER: So, you weren't surprised, I take it, Elie, either?

HONIG: No, you could see this one coming. And, you know, the question that kept getting asked at the oral argument from the conservative justices, well, aren't you treating the Second Amendment as a sort of inferior amendment? For example, you wouldn't treat the First Amendment this way. The hypothetical that was given at oral argument is, well, if a person wants to wear a pin endorsing a certain political candidate, an exercise of a First Amendment right in, let's say, a shopping mall, that person certainly would not need to go get permission from the owner of that shopping mall.

So, why are you, the conservative justices asked, why are you asking us to treat the Second Amendment as a lesser right? And I think that is essentially the theory that underlies this case. The conservative justices say the Second Amendment is entitled to the same protections as the First Amendment or any of the other amendments that establish rights for individuals.

So, no, not at all surprising to see this 6-3 split knocking down this Hawaii law.

BLITZER: This -- you know, Elliot, let's talk a little bit about this decision, this opinion that just came down on carrying guns. The issue as described was whether states can presumptively prohibit the carrying of handguns on private property open to the public, such as retail stores.

[10:15:08]

WILLIAMS: Right.

BLITZER: So, if a store says, no guns allowed, that doesn't mean anything.

WILLIAMS: Right, exactly. And again, sort of, one of the things that came up was, well, how do you test that policy in the future for different types of public property?

Now, it's interesting, and I mentioned the Bruen case a little bit earlier about this idea of firearms regulations that are in the tradition or that are in America's firearms regulation tradition. Hawaii was quite specific in how they crafted this law because they, oddly enough, framed it or at least crafted it to follow firearms regulations that followed reconstruction, that barred firearms on plantations, and they said that ultimately this is a similar type of firearm restriction.

The majority, certainly at oral argument in this case, said that, you know, those firearms regulations from -- after the Reconstruction Era simply don't apply here. And as Elie had said, we just don't want to treat the Second Amendment as an inferior amendment. It is core to the Constitution, and then that's how they ended up here.

BLITZER: Elie, does this go even further? That means that individuals who carry a weapon, for example, could not only go into a store, even if a store bars guns from inside the store, but could go into a movie theater or a sports arena that bars guns, could they still go into those kinds of places with a gun?

HONIG: Well, I want to be very careful here, because each state has very different laws about who can carry firearms and when, and who needs what permission, and who needs what licensing. So, there is not one blanket rule for the entire country. Everybody should be familiar with their own law -- their own state's laws and regulations. What this case does is strike down those laws in Hawaii and about a dozen other states that say if you're going to be in a mall, let's say, for example, and carry a gun, you can do so, but you need specific permission from owners.

And as to that question, how would one get specific permission from owners? The court says, well, there could be a sign up that says, concealed carry permitted here, or you could go find and ask the owner, both of which are very difficult to do. And the dissent here, there's a couple dissents here actually, Wolf, from the liberal justices, essentially say, we're taking the Second Amendment too far here, and we're upholding -- we're allowing people -- we're striking down any law that may restrict firearms carry in any way.

And the dissenters say, we are essentially replacing the judgment of these state legislatures. And to some extent, we need to leave it up to individual states like Hawaii to pass these laws. But the conservatives disagree. They say it falls within the heartland of the Second Amendment, and, hence, those specific laws are now unconstitutional.

BLITZER: I want to get some more analysis right now. Joining us is Cully Stimson, acting director for the Institute for Constitutional Government at the Heritage Foundation. He's also the former assistant U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C. Thanks very much for joining us.

What's your reaction to this opinion just released by the U.S. Supreme Court?

CULLY STIMSON, ACTING DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT, HERITAGE FOUNDATION: I'm actually not surprised by the holding of the opinion, because this is, I would say, the further extension of the Court's jurisprudence in the Second Amendment, starting with Heller, then McDonald, then Bruen, then Rahimi. And you see that the Court has said very loud and clearly that, look, you do have a Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms. You do have -- it applies through the states. That's McDonald. There are good -- there are restrictions out there that you can place on your Second Amendment rights. But I think, you know, to the point that the other person said just recently, how do you get permission from somebody if you don't even know who that person is? And so I'm not surprised, and I think the dissent's concern is misplaced because there are numerous restrictions on possession of firearms that are still applicable in the states. You can't have a machine gun. If you're a felon, you can't be in possession. There's other restrictions out there that the states have and the federal government has. So, I'm not overly concerned about the dissent's concerns.

BLITZER: So, you don't think that's going to create a whole bunch of other developments right now that you can't carry a gun, for example, into a sports arena or a movie theater or a church, for example, even if it says no guns allowed?

STIMSON: I think that those restrictions actually will be upheld. And this is not the case in the Hawaii law that was just struck down. And so I think, you know, in, in sports arenas, other places where there's a lot of people, special sporting events, Super Bowl, World Cup games, I mean, I think those restrictions on not bringing firearms into those will be upheld for obvious reasons.

BLITZER: But if you go into a Walmart, even if the store says, no guns allowed, you're still allowed to bring in a gun, is that right?

STIMSON: I think that's an open question. You know, I think that there are reasonable restrictions that states can place on people not to bring weapons into various places.

[10:20:00]

But I think that this opinion says that this is a bridge too far asking for -- I mean, they start -- what's interesting, Wolf, is they start with Hawaii's long, tortured history of stepping on people's Second Amendment rights. And they walk you through chronologically, ultimately, what they tried to do after Heller and McDonald and Bruen.

And so I don't think that people are going to see, you know, O.K. Corral out here where people are just walking around with guns all the time. That's the concern that I think some people have but that's not going to be the case.

BLITZER: All right. Cully Stimson of The Heritage Foundation, stick around.

There's another opinion we're, we're now told that just came out. Elie Honig, you've got the details. What are you learning?

HONIG: So, Wolf, this is an opinion that has to do with asylum and when and how people can apply for asylum here in the United States. Now, the law says that a person can apply for asylum if they're either present in the United States or when they arrive in the United States. And that word, arrive, is the subject of the question here. Because under the Trump administration, and previously at times, they have adopted a policy where we're going to place our Border Patrol agents just on the border or just on the other side of a border to intercept people really just moments or feet before they actually, quote/unquote, arrive in the United States. Therefore, they've not arrived, therefore, they cannot apply for asylum.

Now, the court has ruled today, in again a 6-3 ruling, six conservatives in the majority, three liberals in the dissent, that a person does not arrive in the United States when they're almost there, when they're just about to get there, when they're attempting to enter the United States. So, in other words, the Supreme Court has said in that situation where a Border Patrol agent intercepts a person just inches or feet before they get to the line, to the borderline, that person cannot apply for asylum.

So, this is going to seriously restrict the ability of people to apply for asylum. If they do in fact get intercepted before that international boundary line, then they cannot presumptively apply for asylum. That's going to have an impact on untold numbers of people who might otherwise seek asylum in the United States.

BLITZER: What do you think, Elliot?

WILLIAMS: Yes, I think it's accurate. Now, it's interesting. One of the lines from Justice Alito's opinion, and this is what I was talking about sort of when we talked about this at the top of the hour, one of the lines is, in ordinary speech, no one would say that a person arrives in a place before a person enters that place. And so, ultimately, the justices are hinging on this idea of landing in the United States, stepping foot in the United States is a prerequisite to applying for asylum.

Now, the interesting thing, and this came up at oral argument, a problem that Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had pointed out, and I believe we'll talk about in her dissent a little bit at the end of this, is this idea that it incentivizes people sneaking into the United States, right? That someone who either jumps the fence or overstays a visa and then applies for asylum has more of an entitlement to apply for asylum than someone who lawfully tried to come to a point of entry, or pardon me, lawfully claim asylum at a point of entry or at the border who would immediately be turned away by someone who's stationed at the border.

It creates an odd sort of incongruence in the law in terms of how different people will have an ability to apply for asylum. And I'm certain, and, Elie, touched on this a little bit at, at the end of his answer, I'm certain that this is going to cause certainly more lawsuits from different classes of individuals, either folks who try to come to the border who can apply versus folks who were already here who still do try to apply for asylum.

BLITZER: Priscilla Alvarez is with us as well. You're our immigration expert. Tell us a little bit about this. If somebody comes to a port of entry of the U.S., not necessarily physically in U.S. territory, is that individual allowed to apply for asylum?

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, allow me to rewind a little bit here. So, under the first Trump administration, what officials had done was essentially start a practice or policy known as metering. What that meant is that it created a wait list of sorts for people to try to present at a port of entry on the U.S.-Mexico border to claim asylum.

Now, when we talk about ports of entry, those are stationed across the U.S.-Mexico border, and that is where people will come and present themselves to border authorities to try to seek protection, to try to request a protection. That also happens, and we've talked about this at length, in between ports of entry. When that occurs, that is an unlawful entry.

So, as Elie was explaining here, by siding with the Trump administration, this has major implications for the right now, but also moving forward because it essentially gives the federal government this permission to limit or avoid processing asylum claims depending on what that administration decides in the moment, say that they can take a certain number here, a certain number there, or none at all.

But what it also encourages by limiting asylum claims at legal entry is unlawful crossings. And I think that is, as Elie eloquently put it, the odd part of this.

[10:25:00]

Because does this mean that people will be more encouraged to just cross unlawfully and ask a border authority there, a Border Patrol agent there for asylum versus going to the port of entry, which is the far more organized way, the legal way or, you know, a legal point of entry to do that?

So, a really interesting ruling, we're still dissecting all of it. But, certainly, implications really moving forward for how federal governments decide to process asylum claims at the border, which, as we have seen over recent years, there have been an enormous amount of people who have decided to go that route.

BLITZER: A good point. I want to go to Paula Reid. She's outside the Supreme Court right now. You were inside when we heard all of about these opinions. Give us your sense, Paula.

PAULA REID, CNN CHIEF LEGAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: All right, Wolf. We just got another opinion related to President Trump's efforts to curb illegal and legal immigration. It's this opinion right here.

Now, in addition to the asylum opinion that Priscilla was just talking about, this is about temporary protected status, and the question is whether President Trump can end this temporary protected status for Haitian and Syrian migrants.

Now, temporary protected status is a humanitarian program that allows people who arrive from certain countries that are experiencing upheaval to temporarily live and work in the U.S.

Now, as part of broader immigration reforms, the Trump administration has tried to curb this for specific groups.

Now, in this case, the Supreme Court is ruling that this decision cannot be reviewed. They cannot review the process for temporary protected status. So, to translate that, that is effectively a win for the Trump administration.

This decision could impact as many as 350,000 Haitians, around 6,000 Syrians. They could lose their work authorization and this status. We know that the Trump administration has steadily removed this protection for more than a dozen countries.

Now, this decision, which is the last of the day that we're going to get, coupled with the news on asylum that I know you guys have been talking about, these are both wins for the Trump administration. They are going to be allowed to proceed with the kinds of policies that they would like to implement.

So, notable that the conservative supermajority here at the Supreme Court handing Trump two wins, but we still have eight outstanding questions, and those include some other big questions about the extent of President Trump's authority, on questions, like his efforts to end birthright citizenship and which of federals he, federal officials he can and cannot fire. It looks like we'll have to wait a few more days to get answers on those.

BLITZER: And before I let you go Paula, tell us a little bit about the asylum policy decision, a major decision. Somebody shows up near the U.S. border, appeals for asylum. I'm being persecuted in this country over here, I need help from the United States. The U.S. does not necessarily need to offer that individual asylum if he or she is not physically inside the United States?

REID: That's right. And this is the policy of physically sort of blocking potential asylum seekers from entering a port where they would be able to claim asylum.

Now, this policy has had sort of a long and winding road. This is something that began under the Obama administration. It was formalized under the Trump 1, but then rescinded under the Biden administration. While the Trump administration no longer relies on this policy, here the Supreme Court effectively saying that they could if they wanted to restart this policy, and that, quote, aliens arrive in the U.S. only when they come across the border.

Another example of the conservative supermajority making it easier for the Trump administration to implement their policies as they seek to, again, not just limit illegal immigration, but also legal forms of immigration, like asylum or temporary protected status.

BLITZER: And I just want to be precise, Paula, before I let you go back inside. The Supreme Court allows the Trump administration to end what are called temporary immigration protections for Haitians and Syrians. Are other countries involved in as well?

REID: So when it came to this specific case, this focused on Haitians and Syrians, though we know the Trump administration has, of course, rescinded these protections for more than a dozen countries, and this specific decision today could impact around 360,000 people, roughly 350,000 Haitians, 6,000 Syrians at least could have their work authorizations revoked. But it is also likely that this decision will embolden the administration to potentially pursue this related to other countries. Because here, they're saying that the courts cannot review the process that was undertaken here, even though the folks who challenged this decision by the Trump administration said that it was not properly reviewed and that it was motivated by racial animus. The court saying, this is not for the courts to analyze or decide.

It would be expected that the Trump administration will look very closely at this and see if they can perhaps be more aggressive in rescinding this kind of protection.

BLITZER: Our Chief Legal Affairs Correspondent Paula Reid, thank you very much for emerging from inside the Supreme Court with that analysis.

[10:30:05]

Always good to get your sense of what's going on.