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Harvard to Make It More Difficult for Undergraduates to Earn A's: Interview with Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI): DNC Releases Long- Awaited Presidential Election Report: Cuban-American Historian on Indictment of Raul Castro; Gas Above $4 in All 30 States for 1st Time in Nearly 4 Years. Aired 3:30-4p ET

Aired May 21, 2026 - 15:30   ET

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

[15:30:00]

ALISON FRANK JOHNSON, HISTORY PROFESSOR, HARVARD UNIVERSITY: ... in classrooms with the best teaching, that number will be higher than in classrooms with less effective teaching.

BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: That's an interesting point I did not think about. So how are you potentially changing your course preparation, your lessons plan -- your lesson plans, I should say, given this cap?

JOHNSON: Well, we don't really know enough about it yet, I think, to fully change the way that we teach. So as you said, it will be implemented in the fall of 2027 and over the course of the next year a committee of people will work on implementation and what it actually means and if there will be any exceptions. It may be that we'll have to limit the number of students that can take certain kinds of classes to try to prevent more advanced students from taking easier classes and making it impossible for students for whom those classes are designed to excel.

It certainly is going to make it harder to emphasize collaboration and teamwork in our classes. So that's something I've really emphasized over the past few years is encouraging my students to ask one another for help when they need it, discouraging them from using AI, encouraging them to believe in peer review and the importance of teamwork and those things become a lot more difficult in a inherently -- what is going to be forced to be an inherently competitive situation.

SANCHEZ: Yes, I also wonder if you think this might make Harvard graduates less competitive when it comes to things like grad school or the workplace in situations where grade point average really matters.

JOHNSON: I mean that remains to be seen, right? And I think this is one of the reasons why other universities are probably quite happy to see Harvard running this experiment to see what happens so that they can then decide whether they want to join in or not after they see whether we crash and burn or whether it works. I guess the idea is to make employers think that a GPA at Harvard means more than it does elsewhere. That a Harvard A is somehow more valuable than a Yale A or an A from another university. I'm not -- that's not really one of my goals as an instructor and it remains to be seen if people will if they will believe that, right?

I was listening to your earlier segment about AI and I think that we are choosing the wrong problem to try to solve, right? We need to think about what AI means for our students, how to train them to be the kinds of thoughtful users that can tell when AI is lying. AI produces tremendous amounts of false information and those of us who were educated before it was introduced can look at it and see well my training tells me that this can't be true, right?

But if you grow up learning with AI then you don't have those skills. So how are we as educators making sure that our students are learning all the skills that they need to survive, independent of, you know, employers laying them off anyway. So for me that would have been a more important problem to address first, rather than trying to emphasize the extraordinary distinction part of the A grade over the mastery the specialness and the excellence of it.

SANCHEZ: It's a fascinating experiment. We'll see how it plays out. Professor Allison Frank Johnson thanks so much for sharing your afternoon with us.

JOHNSON: Thank you.

SANCHEZ: So the DNC has finally released its long-awaited autopsy on the 2024 presidential election. Why the party thinks it lost and the controversy surrounding this autopsy when we come back?

[15:35:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Congressional Democrats and party leaders are reacting to the just-released 2024 election autopsy from the DNC. The long-awaited report closely examines the pitfalls within the party that ultimately led to former Vice President Kamala Harris losing to President Donald Trump, and it also paints a pretty dismal picture for Democrats and suggests a much-needed change in their approach and messaging.

Joined now by Michigan Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell. Congresswoman, what do you think of this report?

REP. DEBBIE DINGELL (D-MI): So first of all, I haven't read it, you know. I had no advance notice that it was being released until actually Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer told me at 10 o'clock they had just gotten a call. I've been hearing reports, and quite frankly, it sounds like a lot of things I've been telling the Democratic Party for a long time. If you read the op-ed that I wrote in Washington Post right after Hillary lost in 2016.

We got to get out there. We got to be listening to people. We got to be hearing what they're saying, and we got to be addressing their problem. I don't agree that Democrats are in trouble. Do I think that we got to work together?

Do I think we have to do things differently? Yes. But I'll put our odds on winning this November.

I don't even know who was interviewed for this report. I don't know where it's coming from. But I think Democrats have been doing a lot of retrospective of looking, at least I know in the House and the Senate we are, and we are fighting like blank.

I know I'm on national television, and I do believe we will win this November. But a lot of advice I've been giving for a long time is what we need to be listening to.

KEILAR: Yes, and so it sounds like you were not interviewed for this, which is kind of strange, because you're known as someone who's not afraid to speak your mind about the direction of the party. And even before Bernie Sanders won the Democratic primary in 2016, which kind of ultimately in retrospect spelled trouble, because Donald Trump then won Michigan in 2016 in the general election, you were sounding alarms.

DINGELL: And I predicted both.

KEILAR: Yes, and you were -- I remember you were like wringing your hands ahead of time. You would be a logical person to talk to.

[15:40:00]

No one reached out to you, is what you're saying.

DINGELL: So I mean, other people have talked to me about, but I don't think I was part -- I certainly never met with a woman that wrote the report. You know, I've talked to people, but you know, today I've been sitting in committee all day and thinking about, OK, these issues have been around for a long time. We won Michigan in 2000, we lost the whole election, but Michigan was in trouble then. But Al Gore listened to what we had to say.

He went in union halls, he talked to people, he heard they were worried about their guns being taken away, and he addressed the issues. He addressed the issues that were, that moment, union leaders that were afraid their jobs were being shipped overseas. Too often -- I mean, President Obama did that as well.

Too often we're not out there with everyday working people, talking to them, understanding what they want and delivering. Do we have to improve things like getting our ecosystem better, or need to get stronger on social media? But that's why Donald Trump won in 2016, because he understood, he'd been in there and he knew people were worried about their jobs.

He didn't deliver, but he knew what they were worried about.

KEILAR: He was certainly speaking to their concerns. So this report, it doesn't really talk about how the party position on the war in Gaza affected Democrats in your state, which was very important. So if you are looking at that, and issuing your own little post-mortem here, what would you say that Democrats need to take away on this issue going forward? DINGELL: Well, first of all, I'm going to be, someone just told me in the hall that if you Google either Gaza or the Mideast, that it's not in this report. I'm going to tell you that next week the Rules Committee is meeting of the DNC. I will be doing DNC business Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

And I am determined that we are going to have a primary nominating system, where the issues that are going to determine the outcome of the election in November are going to be part of the early primary system. These are difficult issues. Anti-Semitism is real in this country and growing in this country, but so is hatred towards the Muslim community.

Both communities are hurting. We have to figure out how we understand and talk to both communities, because if we don't get that figured out, Republicans aren't trying to talk to both the communities that are hurting. They're both important communities in this country.

So I really want to see whoever wants to be president talking about those issues early as we go into the nominating system.

KEILAR: The very messy execution of this autopsy was done with Ken Martin helming the DNC. Is he the right person to lead the DNC through the midterms in 2028?

DINGELL: You know, I'm not going to start calling for people to resign or people to go where. I think we have to do some very soul -- real soul searching. We have to look at this report. We've got to see what the reaction is.

I mean, honestly, why didn't we do it today when we were winning on messaging this week and nobody had a heads up?

KEILAR: But what does it say? What does it say about Democrats? What does it say about the party?

If Ken Martin, you know, survives this politically, what does it say about what Democrats will tolerate as a party?

DINGELL: Well, I mean, people have to have loud voices and the leadership of and, you know, leadership is, yes, the DNC leadership is both Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer. And leadership is governors, Democratic governors, leaders of the parties. We all got to get together and we got to be united.

We got to get our act together because I will make this prediction to you. People are unhappy. I was in Union Halls last weekend. I was in VFWs. I was at farmer's markets. I was in schools.

And everywhere I went, people couldn't even go to the grocery store. People are coming up to me, showing me how much their food costs, how bad the cost of gasoline is, and that they want something to be done about it. I do believe that people are disgusted.

They want something done. And as Democrats, we got to hear them and show them how we're going to deliver. I do believe we're going to win in November, but we're going to do it by all working together and being on the same page.

KEILAR: Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, thank you so much for being with us. Really appreciate it.

DINGELL: Thank you.

KEILAR: Ahead, President Trump says the arrival of a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Caribbean is not meant to intimidate Cuba's government, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expressing pessimism about a possible diplomatic solution. We'll have the latest after a quick break.

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SANCHEZ: President Trump is dismissing suggestions that a U.S. carrier strike group deployed to the Caribbean Sea is intended to intimidate the Cuban government. Arriving in the region the same day as the Justice Department indicted former President Raul Castro, Trump was asked if the vessel was intended as a warning, and he said, quote, not at all.

Earlier this week, I spoke with a Cuban-born historian and Princeton professor who wrote this Pulitzer Prize-winning book on the history of relations between Cuba and the United States. It's called "Cuba, An American History," to get her perspective. Now Ada Ferrer has a new book out, "Keeper of My Kin," detailing her own personal history and how her family was split up by Cuba's struggles. Here is part of our conversation.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: As a historian, I know you appreciate Trump's recent comments about taking Cuba as being almost identical to what American presidents were saying about the island 175 years ago when it was still a colony under Spanish control. How much of that pattern in your eyes of Washington treating Cuba as something to be possessed helped create the government that's in place now that the U.S. has spent so much time trying to dismantle?

[15:50:00]

ADA FERRER, AUTHOR KEEPER OF MY KIN, MEMOIR OF AN IMMIGRANT DAUGHTER: Yes, I mean, clearly, Trump's rhetoric is very reminiscent of an older time when Cuba was -- when Americans wanted to make Cuba a state, a slave state, and so on. They had the idea they could just take it and make it theirs.

And that's definitely the way Trump is speaking. And I think it's unfortunate, because that history is part of what allowed the break in relations between the two governments in 1960. It allowed Fidel Castro, who, when he was fighting against Batista, had not used particularly U.S. -- anti-U.S. rhetoric. But once he came into power and the U.S. began talking about Cuba in those kinds of terms, it was easy for him to rile up anti-U.S., anti-imperialist sentiment. And he used that as an excuse, basically, to -- in a sense, to not take responsibilities for some of the failures of his own government. SANCHEZ: So, I should congratulate you because your new memoir, "Keeper of My Kin," publishes today. It details your family's journey to the U.S., you leaving Cuba as a baby, and your mom having to leave your 9-year-old brother behind. What did writing this teach you about what that kind of separation does to a family?

FERRER: Well, I mean, the separation is brutal. It isn't just the separation in the moment. It has long-term effects, you know, decades and years and even generations down the line.

And so, what I kept thinking as I was writing it, even as -- and especially as you listen to all the news out of Cuba, and it applies for other places as well, right, that people talk about, you know, possible invasion, or the oil embargo, or, you know, any number of things. But those policies, which can read abstractly in news coverage, are lived day-to-day on the ground by individual people and individual families. And sometimes it's families that bear the brunt of those policies dictated by others, right?

So, families end up getting separated, having to make really impossible decisions. And it just cements my -- it confirms my insistence on putting the Cuban people first.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ (on camera): Our thanks to Ada Ferrer for that conversation.

Still to come, gas prices reaching a new wartime high, just as millions of Americans prepare to hit the roads for Memorial Day weekend.

Stay with CNN NEWS CENTRAL. We'll be right back.

[15:55:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

SANCHEZ: Today, the head of the International Energy Agency is warning that the global oil market is barreling toward a dangerous place. He says, with oil reserves quickly shrinking at the same time that many people get ready for summer travel, quote, we may be entering the red zone in July or August.

And U.S. gas prices are already at their highest since the U.S. war with Iran began, closing the Strait of Hormuz. AAA says that every state in America is now averaging more than $4 a gallon. CNN senior reporter Matt Egan has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Yes, Boris and Brianna, unfortunately, gas prices are going back up just as millions of Americans hit the road for Memorial Day weekend. So, the new national average is $4.56 a gallon, only up by about a penny from yesterday. But that is still enough to make this a new wartime high and the highest level in nearly four years. And remember, before the war, gas was cheap. The national average was just $2.98 a gallon. Now there is basically nowhere to hide from $4 gas, not even in the states that typically have the lowest gas prices.

For example, Mississippi, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, and Texas, all of them are now above $4 a gallon. Keep in mind, before the war, in some of these states, you could get gas for just $2.50 a gallon, not anymore. In fact, now all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., are averaging $4 a gallon or more. It's the first time that that has happened in almost four years, according to AAA. And there's now seven states where gas is averaging $5 or more. That's Illinois, Nevada, California, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and Hawaii, all of them at $5 a gallon or more.

Now, of course, this is happening because the war in the Middle East, the closure of Hormuz has destabilized the global energy system. It's the biggest oil supply shock on record. Now, some have wondered, if it's such a big shock, why aren't prices even higher?

And that's because, thankfully, the world entered this crisis with a sizable rainy day fund. Energy stockpiles were very high entering this crisis, but not anymore. Now they're shrinking rapidly.

The Trump administration has drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve at the fastest pace on record. It now has 10 percent less oil than when the war started. And when you combine those emergency drawdowns with commercial oil inventory declines, you're looking at what was last week an 18 million barrel decline in U.S. total oil inventories, the most since records began back in the 1980s.

Now, this is what the reserves are designed to do, right? They're kind of like money in your savings account, right? It can help you ride out a storm, pay for a financial emergency.

But just like money in a savings account, if you keep drawing from it without adding any more, eventually you're going to run out. So the clock is still very much ticking to get the Strait of Hormuz reopened as fast as possible. Back to you guys.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SANCHEZ: Matt Egan, thank you so much.

Before we go, a spiral staircase that was an original part of the iconic Eiffel Tower sold today in Paris for about half a million bucks, fetching triple what the auction house expected.

[16:00:00]

The staircase was part of Gustave Eiffel's original design, completed in Paris in 1889, when people could climb all the way to the very top. There are now fortunately elevators to ferry people up and down. No stairs needed.

Thank you so much for joining us this afternoon. Brianna took off a few minutes early. I wish I could have joined her. But nevertheless, I'm glad I stayed here with you.

"THE ARENA" with Kasie Hunt starts right now.

END