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Heat Wave Shifts From East Coast To Central And Southern U.S.; Two Years Since Supreme Court Overturned Federal Right To Abortion; Spacewalk Called Off Last Minute Due To Spacesuit Leak. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired June 24, 2024 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: While much of the country's grapples with stifling heat, a lot of folks have been inundated with too much water. That's especially true in Minnesota, where flooding has left a critical dam in Mankato in quote imminent failure condition, according to local officials.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And take a look at these new images from South Dakota. That is the top of a truck. Am I looking at the right video here?

SANCHEZ: Doesn't look like the top of a truck.

KEILAR: That's not the top of a truck.

SANCHEZ: It looks like a pelican.

KEILAR: There's no top of a truck. OK. Well, there may be at some point. So just keep your eyes peeled for it. But oh, there it is. There it is.

SANCHEZ: That is the top of a truck.

KEILAR: That's the top of the truck. Good lord. I mean, look at these floodwaters here.

This is just inundating Turner County. EMS says rescuers were able to save the people who were inside of that truck. Thank goodness.

Let's go now to CNN meteorologist Chad Myers. I mean, too much water in some parts, extreme heat hitting other parts of the country, Chad.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: And we know that warmer air can hold more humidity than colder air. So it snows more at 32 than it does at minus 20. So when you get temperatures in the 90s and then you run that weather into some fronts up to the north, it just rained for days.

There were places in South Dakota and Minnesota that picked up more than a foot of rain. Many places picked up more than a foot and some spots almost a foot and a half. No matter where you are in this area here from Okoboji all the way back even toward winter. All of the areas here are now in flood stage. In fact, 24 in major flood stage. Some of the rivers are going down, but many of the rivers are still going up because that water has to run downhill.

So yes, there'll be more weather today. Not as much as we had over the weekend, but it just wouldn't stop raining. Look at our temperatures all the way from 96 in Rapid City to 96 in Charleston.

So a wide swath of the U.S. is under this big area of heat. And when we just got a little bit of cold air aloft there over Minnesota, South Dakota and Iowa, that's when it just rained all weekend long.

245 million people will be 90 degrees today or higher. That's a little bit better than we were though over the weekend.

[15:35:00]

New York, look at you, temperatures in the 70s. New England, you're feeling pretty good because the heat has now pushed down to the south, down to the Gulf Coast, Panama City, New Orleans, all the way back even toward Oklahoma City and into Arkansas and it will be hot. But it will also be warm at night.

Dallas, you don't cool down below 80. So if you have your thermostat set on 76 for your air conditioner, it's not going to shut off just because the cool air doesn't get there at night. It's just muggy and hot all night long.

I had some friends that were in Las Vegas and they said they went to the pool at 10 o'clock at night and it was a hundred and four. So I guess, I guess that's a good time to go when the sun is already set and you won't get a sunburn. You're not sitting in the sun, but that hot that late at night, that's what we're seeing all the way from Dallas all the way up toward the northeast.

KEILAR: Yes, and the pool is probably warm, which doesn't really help cool you down. That's sort of the problem. All right.

MYERS: Kind of gives you the creeps a little, you know.

KEILAR: Yes, it does. Don't even get me started on Wednesday. It's going to get rough again here, Chad Myers. So we'll be seeing a lot of you this week. Thank you so much.

Still ahead, it has been two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade ending the constitutional right to an abortion. We're talking with Planned Parenthood about their fight for reproductive care.

[15:40:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: It's been two years since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. And since then, several states have either banned or severely restricted women's access to abortion care, making reproductive rights a key issue in the November presidential election. And soon, the high court will decide a case about emergency exceptions to abortion bans. Vice President Kamala Harris marking today's anniversary on the campaign trail, blaming former President Trump for the restrictions enacted after the Supreme Court's decision.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAMALA HARRIS, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today, our daughters know fewer rights than their grandmothers. This is a health care crisis, and we all know who was to blame.

In the case of the stealing of reproductive freedom from the women of America, Donald Trump is guilty.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Also today, Planned Parenthood announced it is investing $40 million ahead of the election to energize voters angry with Republican-led efforts to further restrict abortion access. Jacqueline Ayers is the senior vice president for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. She's with us now.

Jacqueline, first, I want to talk about what we are awaiting from the Supreme Court, which is this Idaho emergency room abortion case. What could be the impact of that ruling?

JACQUELINE AYERS, SENIOR VP, PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA: Well, yes, to be clear, this is a case that the Supreme Court is reviewing, and we do anticipate a decision could come as soon as this week. And it never should have been brought to the Supreme Court. It's long been established law that everyone should have the ability to go to an emergency room in any instance and get the care that they need.

Unfortunately, this question before the Supreme Court would challenge the ability to provide that emergency care in the case of an abortion, which would also include common miscarriage management care that many people can find life-threatening. Again, we should not be in this place where we have to decide if a politician, not doctors, are the ones who are going to make the decision about if you could get emergency care.

KEILAR: There are many abortion issues. Now, they're in the hands of the Supreme Court. If Biden wins reelection, what can he feasibly do besides veto legislative attempts to limit abortion nationally?

AYERS: Well, look, I think what you said here at the top is right. We're two years after a constitutional right was taken away by a Supreme Court.

And we know that what is possible with this November election is that voters are motivated. Voters are absolutely ready to turn out on the issue of if a leader in the Congress and the White House can make sure that their bodily autonomy will be protected.

We've seen today in Vice President Harris, a true leader in reproductive freedom. We know that the ability to regain a federal right to abortion could absolutely be signed by President Joe Biden with the support of Congress and moving that through the House and the Senate.

Planned Parenthood, Federation of American Planned Parenthood Action Fund joins many of our national organizations and partners in naming that. What is on the line and what is on the ballot this year is abortion access. And we absolutely could start to see the ability to gain that right back if we are successful in November.

KEILAR: How are you preparing for the possibility of what another Trump presidency could mean for abortion access?

AYERS: Well, I think first thing is we want to make sure that voters understand and are educated about the fact that Donald Trump has made really clear who he is and Donald Trump would support a national abortion ban. Donald Trump has celebrated the fact that he is the president who put anti-abortion justices on the Supreme Court, leading to the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

And we know that with a hostile Congress who would not support reproductive health care and rights, and with a hostile administration, he would continue to try and take those access back, particularly around medication abortion, which makes up over 60 percent of abortions in the country today.

[15:45:04]

We think that people, again, one in eight voters tell us that this is an issue that are motivated by. We think particularly knowing that today, 28 million people are living in states that they do not have access to health care, 28 million too many. And they're not going to stand for that.

And so the first action is to make sure that people know what is at stake, so that we can really start to turn the clock back in November. And we also know that people are absolutely not going to stay home. They are motivated. We have seen poll after poll telling us --

KEILAR: Jacqueline, let me ask you about that, because we just have a limited amount of time, and this is actually a question I really want to get your insight on. There's a new CBS YouGov poll showing abortion ranks seventh among major issues for likely voters, and that's behind other issues like the border, like the economy. Do you think that that is correct, or do you think that it's a more motivating issue than that for voters?

AYERS: I think with all polls, you have to talk about who we're talking to. Let me tell you, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund is going to be talking to women, to young people, to BIPOC folks. We know that young people of color are very motivated by this, and LGBTQ folks are going to be very motivated by not having their rights taken away.

And so the ability to turn out those voters will make a difference in November.

KEILAR: All right. Jacqueline Ayers, thanks so much for being with us. AYERS: Thank you.

KEILAR: Tonight on "ANDERSON COOPER 360," Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi is going to join Anderson for an exclusive interview. So hear her take on the ongoing fight for abortion rights two years after the Supreme Court's landmark Dobbs decision overturned Roe v. Wade, that interview airing live tonight at 8:00 Eastern.

And still ahead, two astronauts on board the International Space Station, and they've been there a lot longer than expected. They're going to be there even longer than expected. What Boeing is now telling them about how long that will be.

[15:50:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KEILAR: All right, once again, astronauts have been sidelined in space. That's not what you want to hear, right? A scheduled spacewalk at the International Space Station is not happening today.

There was a spacesuit, sprang a leak, best to find out ahead of time. So that's a win. And this is really just the latest issue troubling NASA. A spacewalk earlier this month was also postponed due to a suit issue.

SANCHEZ: This is on top of the delay for these astronauts to return home. Once again, it's because of problems with the Starliner aircraft. Boeing teams are still racing to figure out how to fix those issues.

Let's turn now to CNN's Tom Foreman for the latest on what happened today. So to the spacesuit, Tom, where was the leak and how potentially dangerous could that be?

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It was at the joint of this line that runs to the spacesuit. It could be a big deal. Because, look, in the cold parts around the space station when you're outside, minus 250 degrees Fahrenheit. In the hot parts, plus 250 degrees Fahrenheit.

They said they had a little snowstorm when this thing burst loose, even though there were only a little bit of water that escaped at the time. But this line that they're connected to, very, very important. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The service and cooling umbilical is an umbilical that attaches the EMU or extravehicular mobility unit to transfer electrical power, hard line communications, oxygen, cooling water and feed water between the International Space Station and the EMU.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOREMAN: So basically, everything you need to stay alive is coming to you through this line. It was icing over. They had problems. Interestingly enough, back in 2013, water was released inside of a suit and they were trying to get somebody in from a spacewalk. We came really quite close to having the first astronaut ever to drown in space because there's no gravity. The water didn't just pool. It floated all up into their face and they couldn't get it away. Horrifying. Horrifying.

KEILAR: That is a total nightmare. Yes, that that is horrific. OK, so the other problem for NASA right now is that the crew of the Starliner needs to get home. They need to come back to Earth. The return has been delayed now for a third time. NASA's saying July now.

FOREMAN: Yes, a bigger problem in some ways for Boeing. Boeing took forever to get this spacecraft off the ground. They had continuous problems. They finally got it off in this beautiful launch and everything's looking good and Boeing's breathing a sigh of relief. Then they developed these helium leaks. They had one when they took off and that affected the thrusters on the craft. That seems to be how it played here.

Think about this. In a zero gravity environment, when you have fuel in a tank or microgravity environment, it may not be carried by gravity to where it needs to burn. So helium is used to pressurize it and force it to where it needs to burn. Without that control, you can't fire the thrusters to undock or to come out of orbit. So they can stay up there for 45 days if they need to, but this is interfering with a lot of things right now.

And of course, it is interfering with a lot of the plans for Boeing to become a regular supplier of this. They need to solve this problem and get that spacecraft out of there. They say it could go now if it had to go now, but they just want to be extra safe.

And the pilots, the astronauts who went up on this, said the Boeing craft handled wonderfully, but this is not what anybody wants to see. Space is about predictability where you can get it, and they're not getting it right here.

SANCHEZ: They're still short of that 45-day limit we should know.

FOREMAN: That's why they're not stuck.

SANCHEZ: Right.

FOREMAN: They've got options, but they're not options they want to use.

SANCHEZ: Tom Foreman, thank you so much.

Still ahead, every dog has its day. This year, it was wild things turn. We'll be right back.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SANCHEZ: Forget the Stanley Cup Finals. The real championship that everyone's been waiting on happened over the weekend. We're talking, of course, about the world's ugliest dog competition. And, well, here's who came out on top or bottom. I don't know.

KEILAR: Yes.

SANCHEZ: In third place, Daisy Mae, dubbed the queen of unconventional beauty by her owner. She says she's lost her teeth and her hair over the years and her vision. But what she's lost, she's gained in friends and confidence. She's cute.

KEILAR: In her way. And then, finishing second, a 14 -- OK, he's a 14- year-old pug named Rome. And he was a member of the 2021 Wheeling Pug Relay Team. Go Rome. Which raises money to buy wheelchairs for other dogs in need.

And the grand prize winner with a face and coat fit for a champion. Eight-year-old Pekingese Wild Thing. A severe bout with distemper as a puppy left him without teeth.

[16:00:00]

Which makes his tongue protrude just right out there. Right out from his mouth. And Wild Thing's owner hopes that this victory is going to shine a light on the importance of getting your pets vaccinated.

SANCHEZ: Aw, so important. Are we sure that that's a dog? Look at that face.

KEILAR: Aw, they're so like cute ugly. What is that word?

SANCHEZ: I don't know. I hope no one uses it to describe me.

Thank you so much for joining us today. "THE LEAD" with Jake Tapper starts in three seconds.