Return to Transcripts main page

CNN News Central

Efforts to Oust Johnson; Engineer Claims Boeing Took Shortcuts; Flood Emergency in Texas; Jill Habig is Interviewed about the Abortion Ban in Arizona; Former Mississippi Officers to be Sentenced. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired April 10, 2024 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:31:04]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: This morning, the winningest coach in college basketball history calling it a career. Stanford women's basketball coach Tara VanDerveer lead Stanford to three national titles in her 38 seasons. She is already in the Hall of Fame, and she was named national coach of the year five times.

So, word this morning that stamp prices are about to increase. The U.S. Postal Service filed a notice that it plans to raise the cost of the first-class Forever stamps from $0.68, to $0.73. Stamp prices are up 36 percent since 2019. The Postal Service said the increase is needed to, quote, "achieved financial stability." An interesting arbitrage if you happened to buy the Forever stamps a few years ago. They're worth a lot more now.

This morning, President Biden and the first lady will officially welcome the Japanese prime minister and his wife to the White House in a formal arrivals ceremony. The president, Fumio Kishida, will then meet one-on-one to talk about several topics, including military alliance and space collaboration. Tonight, there will be a formal state dinner. The Bidens are expected to highlight both American and Japanese cultures during the visit, including a presentation of cherry trees and the music of Paul Simon, because what says state dinner more than the music of Paul Simon.

Kate.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene suggesting now to CNN that Donald Trump is not waving her off her effort to oust the Republican house speaker, Mike Johnson. She also says she's gaining support among her Republican colleagues on The Hill, just as CNN also hears from some of those Republican colleagues fuming about what she's doing.

CNN's Lauren Fox tracking this one for us.

Lauren, where is this headed today?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I mean, we just don't know is the reality. Marjorie Taylor Greene holding this threat of ousting Speaker Mike Johnson over his head as he tries to actually govern in the weeks ahead.

This week the House of Representatives is considering a measure to reform, but also keep in tact pieces of Section 702 of the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act. That is becoming a major headache for him as Republicans and conservatives, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, rail against his steps that he is taking to try to move that legislation.

He also is eyeing this question of what he is going to do on Ukraine. He has not ruled out a plan. He has not said specifically what he's going to do. House Republicans are going to meet behind closed doors this morning at 9:00 a.m. where you can expect that all of these issues are going to come to a head.

Meanwhile, Republicans frustrated with their colleague Marjorie Taylor Greene, saying that she is not helping their party in this moment.

Here they are.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. TROY NEHIS (R-TX): It's an impossible job. The Lord Jesus himself could not manage this conference or this - you just can't do it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I think Mike Johnson has a great human. He doesn't lie like the last guy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think people don't like disfunction. So that's not good for our side. And with the one seat majority, does it only take a couple people to create dysfunction.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think Speaker Johnson is working his guts out, doing the best he can with a lot of feral cats.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: And you hear there the frustration that a lot of Republicans have and the reality that Mike Johnson has just a two-seat majority, which means anything that he brings to the floor is contentious, any potential rule or procedural vote he brings to the floor is contentious. And he's doing all of this while managing that threat from Marjorie Taylor Greene that remains unclear exactly what she's going to do next.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Lauren, also, the House is now delaying delivering the articles of impeachment against the DHS secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas, to the Senate. Why?

FOX: Yes, a lot of House Republicans saying that this came at the urging of Senate Republicans who wanted more time to try to make the case to Senate Democrats that they should have a full trial against Mayorkas.

[08:35:06] Now, likely this is not going to change anything. You're just delaying what a lot of people view as inevitable. The fact that Democrats are likely to table this, meaning they're going to dismiss it very quickly. But right now Republicans, conservative senators specifically, had been urging behind the scenes Mike Johnson to delay this. He made that decision that they are going to wait to send these articles of impeachment to the Senate until next week.

BOLDUAN: Okey-dokey, let's see what happens today.

It's good to see you, Lauren. Thank you so much.

John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, CNN political commentator Errol Louis.

Sir, I'm so glad you're here.

Listen, "Punchbowl" sums it up very succinctly on the fate of House Speaker Mike Johnson. "Punchbowl" says, "it's clear now the Louisiana Republican has a very stark choice in front of him, pass a Ukraine aid bill or remain speaker." I mean, this is what John F. Kennedy called profiles in courage.

ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right. And it - it remains to be seen, even if he does what will be necessary to keep himself in office, what will - what will it be worth at this point if there's going to be another showdown next week and the week after and the week after. It turns out that Congress doesn't function very well with a one vote majority, a functional one or two vote majority. It leads to dysfunction. It leads to the kinds of stunts that you see Marjorie Taylor Greene pulling. And it leads to, in this case, disastrously bad policy in the form of a choice that could really harm the western alliance, the security interests of the United States, as well as the ability to govern the House of Representative.

BERMAN: No, I mean the fate of Europe hangs in the balance of this one man, it seems, in many ways.

I want to ask you about what Arizona did. Monday, Donald Trump comes up with a statement that says he thinks abortion should be left up to the states. Tuesday, the state of Arizona, the supreme court there, says, OK, 1800s. We're going to allow this bill from the 1800s, this law, that bans almost all abortions to go through. The timing there is, I imagine, not what Donald Trump expected.

LOUIS: Not simply - not only left to the states, left to the territories in this case, right?

BERMAN: Right.

LOUIS: Because we're talking about law that predates Arizona's admission to the union in 1912.

Look, you've got - right, you've got him saying, let's leave it to the states. Politically it sounds reasonable, but that's always been the whole question. The whole question has been, from day one, from 1973, from Roe versus Wade, is there a constitutional right that goes beyond the sometimes very narrow constrictions that would be put one women by - by individual states. And so -

BERMAN: In the 1800s no less.

LOUIS: In the 1800s, and territories, right. So, here we are. And it is going to work terribly badly for Donald Trump and the Republicans because in Florida, and now in Arizona, two very important swing states, battleground states, with tons of, you know, upwards of 40 electoral votes at stake there out of 270 total. You've got questions on the ballot that we know. We've seen, over the last two years, bring out independence, bring out Republicans, bring out Democrats in big, big numbers. He's got a tiger by the tail that he can't control.

BERMAN: Abortion will literally be on the ballot likely in those two states.

I want to read you a quote that "Politico" has this morning for Ron Klain. They apparently obtained some audio of Ron Klain, the former chief of staff of President Biden. And he's talking about what he thinks President Biden should be doing in his re-elect campaign. The quote says, "I think the president is out there too much talking about bridges. He does two or three events a week where he's cutting a ribbon on a bridge. And here's a bridge. Like I tell you, if you go into the grocery store, you go to the grocery store and, you know, eggs and milk are expensive. The fact that there is a (EXPLETIVE DELETED) bridge is not," dot, dot, dot, dot. The implication there is something David Axelrod has said as well, is he's talking too much about these bridges and infrastructure and not as much about what people are actually feeling when they go to the grocery store.

LOUIS: Well, I would not want to challenge the political acumen of somebody like Ron Klain. On the other hand, look, I think if you talk to people in Wisconsin, you talked to steel workers in Ohio, you talked to people in the auto industry, I think people are very much interested in their jobs. The future of their industry and whether or not infrastructure is going to get built. The collapse of that bridge in Baltimore, I don't think people were talking about eggs the next day, you know? I mean, we've got some serious issues. The president has decided not only to commit a big part of his re-election campaign to that issue. He's actually committed, you know, a trillion dollars' worth of U.S. treasure toward making it happen.

When it comes to inflation, the question is not just are things more expensive at the store, it's whether or not your income is keeping up with it. In a very strict mathematical sense, on average, yes, income is keeping pace with and even exceeding the rate of inflation. That's a message that somebody might want to get out there once in a while.

BERMAN: Errol Louis, great to see you. I do actually think we might have some breaking news on inflation. So, let's go to Kate for that.

BOLDUAN: And that is exactly right.

[08:40:00] This just in, inflation is headed in the wrong direction right now. The latest consumer price report just out shows prices up 3.5 percent. This over same time last year.

CNN's Rahel Solomon, who was just looking through it all, just running into the studio to help us out.

What are you seeing in this?

RAHEL SOLOMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hey, Kate. So, yes, you put it pretty well there, that this is moving in the wrong direction. So, 3.5 percent on an annual basis. To put that in context, that is hotter than what we were expecting and certainly hotter than we saw the month prior.

If you look at CPI on a - on a monthly basis, sort of a similar trend there, right? So, coming in at 0.4 percent on a monthly basis. That is also hotter than we were expecting.

BOLDUAN: Right.

SOLOMON: And it sort of matches what we saw the month prior.

Now, I want to strip away some of the more noisy categories. Categories like energy, categories like food. And you see sort of a similar pattern. So, core inflation, which is a better indicator of sort of what's happening with underlying inflation, that also picked up.

So, taking a look at some of the categories we saw in the month of March that continued to increase. So gas prices, that was a pretty big contributor here, right?

BOLDUAN: Yes.

SOLOMON: It was really gas and shelter, I should say, that contributed to more than half of the increase.

BOLDUAN: Shelter can - I mean has shelter gone down at all? I mean I can't even remember a month where it's gone - gone - we've seen a decrease, right?

SOLOMON: It's a really important point. It hasn't. And so we had been hoping actually, because if you think about shelter, you think about rents, for example, 12 month leases, we were hoping that this was a lagging indicator, that we would actually start to get some progress with shelter -

BOLDUAN: Yes.

SOLOMON: But that didn't - that didn't happen.

Control room, if we can go back to that graphic, I just want to point out one sort of bright spot, if you can call it that. Even though food prices did increase, this is actually a slowdown from -

BOLDUAN: OK.

SOLOMON: Well, that's a pickup, actually, I should say, from the month prior. But, in general, that's a - that's a pretty modest uptick, right? So, food prices tend to be moving in the right direction, it seems.

I do want to now talk about where we saw some declines. Who doesn't want to see some declines. If you were in the market for a new car, we have some good news for you. So, we saw prices for used cars and trucks, that came down. We saw prices for new cars also come down.

One little caveat here with this report. This was a hugely important report. And as a business correspondent, I think they're all hugely important, but this one especially was because there has been some doubt in the market. There has been some real questions about whether the June rate cut, which we are expecting to happen from the Fed, if that's still in place because we keep getting these inflation reports that are hotter than expected. We got that jobs report that was hotter-than-expected.

BOLDUAN: Right.

SOLOMON: I want to read for you one sort of commentary we just got. This coming from JP Morgan, David Kelley. "The door on June rate cuts just slammed shut." Just one perspective. But that is sort of why, if you look at the markets, you've seen futures go down. Thats why. Because it's yet another report that shows inflation is moving in the wrong direction.

BOLDUAN: And to remind everyone, CPI, this is one of the inflation gauges that the Federal Reserve watches really closely.

SOLOMON: Yes.

BOLDUAN: This adds into kind of their overall calculation of where - what does - when they're going to start making moves, what - why they would start making moves. This is not helping the movement towards a rate cut.

SOLOMON: Yes, exactly.

BOLDUAN: It's great to see your, Rahel. Thank you so much.

SOLOMON: (INAUDIBLE). Yes.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: Look, I think they wanted to see if what they saw in January and February was real, and March said, yes, uh-huh. Like -

SOLOMON: Yes, it looks like its (INAUDIBLE).

BOLDUAN: It's like a - yes.

BERMAN: All right, thank you very much for that. This morning, federal authorities are now investigating Boeing after a

whistleblower made new claims that the company skipped crucial safety steps when manufacturing the 777 and 787 Dreamliner models. The whistleblower says the shortcuts could lead to catastrophic failures in the aircrafts.

CNN's Gabe Cohen has the latest.

Gabe, what are you learning.

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, well, look, John, this is a scathing complaint to the FAA filed by this Boeing engineer. His name is Sam Salehpour. And he alleges that Boeing has really been cutting corners in its assembly of two of their planes, the 787 Dreamliner and the 777. And the claim is that they have been doing this for years. He says that crews have been forcing together misaligned parts of the fuselage, the main body of the plane, basically jamming the pieces together. And he claims that the process to fill all of those tiny gaps in-between pieces of the plane really hasn't been done properly, which could put a lot of added stress on those various parts. And it could dramatically reduce what should be a decades long lifespan for each of these aircraft.

I want to read really a die warning in the complaint. It says, "these defects could ultimately cause a premature fatigue failure without any warning, thus creating unsafe conditions for the aircraft with potentially catastrophic accidents and passenger fatalities."

Now, Boeing, for their part, is vehemently denying these claims, saying that they're inaccurate and they do not represent the work that Boeing has done to ensure safety and that, as they put it, the issues raised have been subject to rigorous engineering examination under FAA oversight.

[08:45:03]

It is important to remember, John, that these allegations, they're not entirely new. The FAA halted deliveries of the Dreamliner back in 2021 because of similar issues with those gaps were talking about between the various parts of the plane. But back then Boeing said it made changes to fix the problem. The FAA signed off. The allegation here is that they never really fixed it.

As you mentioned, this whistleblower is going to be testifying next week on Capitol Hill, but a lot of questions here as the criticism and the focus is still on that other model, the Max 9, after that door plug incident back in January. So now two more models being called into question.

BERMAN: Some new challenges for Boeing.

Gabe Cohen, thank you very much for that.

A judge called their actions egregious and despicable. Now, six former law enforcement officers will learn the sentences for torturing and beating two black men. A Civil War-era abortion law now revived. What it means for women in the state where it's taking place. And, importantly, what's next in the legal fight.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:50:37]

BERMAN: This morning, severe storms or battering parts of the south with torrential rain and damaging winds and a life-threatening flash flood emergency is underway in some parts.

Meteorologists Allison Chinchar with the very latest.

Allison, what's happening out there?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, so take a look at the video film behind me. This is from Kirbyville, Texas. This is actually shot inside of a fire truck. And you can see the water out on the roadway. They are trying to get through and some of that water even coming into the fire truck. And we all know how tall and high-profile vehicles fire trucks are, so that just goes to show you how high that water is.

Kirbyville is one of the areas that is part of this flash flood emergency in portions of eastern Texas until 11:30 a.m. Central Time today. And the reason for that is just the sheer volume of water that they got in a short period of time.

This is the Pine O Creek (ph) in Kirbyville. Notice the water levels here on this creek rose ten feet and just six hours, pushing that creek into major flood stage. And this is just one of a few areas that have started to see some of that rain.

Look at all of these areas, widespread. You're talking four to six inches of rain has already fallen, and we're expecting even more. Many of these places still possibly getting two to four inches on top of what they've already had.

We also have numerous tornado warnings active right now, severe thunderstorms warnings also possible, continuing throughout the day because this is going to spread. That's why you have this tornado watch. That red box you can see there for portions of western Louisiana till 9:00 a.m. central. But it also includes portions of eastern Louisiana and Mississippi until 1:00 p.m. Central Time today.

And that's because this entire system as a whole is actually shifting east. So, you're starting to see that threat continued to spread. So, the potential for flooding, but also tornadoes, large hail and even damaging winds will continue throughout the day today.

BERMAN: All right, we're watching it very closely. Allison Chinchar, thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: So, this morning, millions of women and families in Arizona are facing a new reality. A 160-year-old abortion law, a law written before Arizona was a state, a law that was essentially put to bed when Roe versus Wade was in place. It is now a law within your total ban on abortions that just got the green light from the state's supreme court, throwing Arizona now directly into the spotlight of the fight over reproductive rights. A debate and a fight and a battle that's happening all over the country.

Joining us right now is Jill Habig. She's the president and founder of Public Rights Project, part of the legal team that represented one of the plaintiffs fighting that Arizona abortion law.

Jill, thank you so much for joining me this morning.

This is a loss for your side. How big of a blow is it to your effort to protect abortion rights in the state?

JILL HABIG, FOUNDER AND PRESIDENT, PUBLIC RIGHTS PROJECT: Well, it's devastating, The end result of this ruling is that more women will be forced to wait in the parking lot until they are sicker, until they are closer to death before they can receive care. We've seen in other states with similar draconian bans exceptions for the life of the mother are no exception at all in practice. It puts doctors in an impossible position of trying to decide whether to provide care and risk their livelihood and potentially risk incarceration for providing that care. And so the end result is that the care is not there.

BOLDUAN: At the same time the supreme - the state supreme court said that this 1864 ban is going - can go in effect. The court also put its ruling on hold, sent the matter back to a lower court for additional arguments about the law's constitutionality. Does that mean that this legal fight is not over? What are your legal options now?

HABIG: Well, so we at Public Rights Project are assessing all of our options right now. I think the lesson from all of these fights across the country that we've seen is that it's never fully over. Certainly, voters will have a chance to weigh in on abortion rights later this fall. We're looking at other legal options available to us to extend a stay on enforcement of this ruling. But in the meantime, what women and doctors are facing in the state is uncertainty, is threats to livelihoods and liberty and is just the threat of a lack of care. This court has reinstated a ruling from before Arizona was a state. They - this law was passed at the same time as laws banning interracial marriage and laws banning people of color from - against white people in court.

[08:55:08]

So this is the era that the Arizona Supreme Court has brought back to the state.

BOLDUAN: What could the legal options be? I mean I know that you're assessing all of the options. What would change it other than putting it on the ballot? Because the way that I was part of what the ruling said is because the federal constitutional right to abortion that overrode the civil right era ban no longer exists, the statute is now enforceable. It seems at least, I read that as a layman, that this - the Arizona Supreme Court is essentially saying that what happened with Dobbs, at the U.S. Supreme Court, forced their hand. Did they have another - do they have another way?

HABIG: They did. You know, our position in the litigation is that basic legal principles of interpreting statutes should have dictated that this court leave in place the 15 week policy in Arizona. The basic rules that you learn in law school are that later statutes override earlier statutes. Arizona had a number of regulations about a 15 week ban in place that should have overrode this 1864 law. But the Arizona Supreme Court decided otherwise.

And so absent further intervention, in 14 days abortion will become criminal in Arizona. There is a potential for a constitutional challenge or other efforts, but nothing is certain right now. As it stands, it will become criminal in 14 days.

BOLDUAN: Jill, the state attorney general called the ruling an afront to freedom and said that she would not prosecute doctors for providing abortions. So she's not going to enforce this ban. Is that a fix?

HABIG: IT's definitely meaningful. So, the leadership of Attorney General Mayes, our client at Public Rights Project, the Pima County attorney, Laura Conover, have said they will not prosecute abortions. That is definitely meaningful. The problem is, there are other DAs in the state who have not ruled out that possibility. If Attorney General Mayes is defeated in a future election, that could bring back the threat of prosecution. And even if there is no enforcement, what we've seen in other states is that hospitals and doctors are not willing to take the risk of potential future prosecution to provide care that has been determined to be illegal under state law. And so the end result is still that doctors feel like they cannot provide care, even when women need it to preserve their health.

Let me ask - you mentioned the effort to get it on the ballot. There is this big effort now to get a constitutional amendment on abortion on the November ballot. We know that they're continuing to gather signatures to try to make it happen.

You went about this on the legal front. That's what you do. But do you think voters are now the best and only way to reverse the direction that you see the state going?

HABIG: I think it's certainly critical for voters to weigh in here. We've seen, in every single elections since Dobbs, when voters have an opportunity to weigh in on abortion, they vote in favor of abortion rights. And so there's certainly a huge opportunity for voters in November. We are going to be monitoring efforts to undermine that ballot. We've seen efforts in other states to prevent abortion ballot measures from actually reaching voters. So, we're certainly going to pursue all legal options to make sure voters have that opportunity to weigh in.

And then, in the meantime, there are tens of thousands of women who are pregnant or will become pregnant in Arizona who will not have access to care.

BOLDUAN: Yes, this isn't - this isn't just a November issue. This is a today issue for women in Arizona.

Jill Habig, thank you so much for coming on.

HABIG: Thank you.

BOLDUAN: We'll see what you - what moves you guys make next.

John.

BERMAN: All right, today, a new round of sentencing for six former officers convicted of torturing two black men and then trying to cover it up. Some of the officers were part of a group that called itself the "Goon Squad." There'll be sentenced on state charges today after getting years long federal prison sentences last month.

CNN's Ryan Young is in Jackson, Mississippi, a rainy Jackson, Mississippi, Ryan, watching this very closely.

What's going to happen today, Ryan?

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, John, look, we're in the middle of a storm right now, but I can tell you for residents who live around here, they think this storm's been going on for a year because they have so many questions about how the sheriff's department moves forward after all these allegations have been proven in court. You talked about the federal court. Now we're moving to the state charges. Look, the victims here, Michael Jenkins in Eddie Parker have been saying over and over again they did nothing wrong. And now the men who have been charged all agreed with the two of them.

This was a home invasion that was done by police officers and sheriff deputies. They showed up to the house. They kicked open a door. They waterboarded, they tortured them. They sexually assaulted them. This went on for almost two hours.

[09:00:01]

And now these men get to face these other men in court today.

Now, this - what's different about this case is for the first time we get to see this play out.