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Supreme Court Lets States Receive Mail Ballots After Election Day; Colorado Primary is Next Test of Democratic Socialist Movement; Study Shows Most Social Media Safety Features Aren't Working as Advertised. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired June 29, 2026 - 14:30   ET

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

[14:30:00]

ERICA HILL, CNN HOST: A number of key opinions handed down by the Supreme Court today, including a key loss for President Trump in his fight against mail-in ballots. So the justices in that narrow five to four decision, ruling that states can count mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, as long as they are postmarked by Election Day. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett siding with the three liberals in that opinion.

Joining us now is Anthony Michael Kreis, he's an associate professor of constitutional law at Georgia State University. It's good to have you with us. So when we look at this decision, what does this mean in terms of the 2026 midterm elections?

Is it status quo?

[14:35:00]

ANTHONY MICHAEL KREIS, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY: Yes, it's absolutely status quo. So I think most viewers will understand and look back to 2020, and in particular, in the wake of the pandemic, that there were a number of changes to voting laws. And one of them was that many, many millions of people voted by mail.

But of course, when you vote by mail, and you submit your ballot, the day that you have to submit it by and postmark it by is Election Day. But of course, the mail being what it is, those votes trickle in overtime and don't necessarily reach the right the kind of election accounting center by Election Day. And so essentially, what the court had to decide today was what does it mean by cast a vote by or on Election Day.

And the Supreme Court in that five to four decision said that so long as that vote is cast postmarked on Election Day as permitted and required by federal law, those votes are valid.

HILL: So the conservative argument here was that the mail ballot grace period postpones Mississippi's election. How do you weigh that? And how do you think it could potentially come into play, perhaps down the line? KREIS: Well, we've certainly seen in the past few years, particularly with individuals challenging legitimacy of the outcome of the 2020 election, that there are all these concerns about, you know, counting votes after the fact or whether or not an election is called quick enough. We see this even recently in California, California, people vote by mail predominantly. And so those results take a long time.

The conservative argument here was that delay in the process and to count actually undermines election integrity and people's faith in the system. Although, as a matter of law, that's not in the federal statute that's at that was at play here. So, you know, those issues are going to be debated. But as a matter of law, at least for now, this issue settled.

HILL: At least for now, although speaking of laws, which is something that Congress is supposed to take care of in the wake of the decision, of course, President Trump is renewing once again, his call for Congress to pass the Save America Act, if that were to pass, how could that change things? How could it impact the midterms?

KREIS: Well, it would certainly depend on what the final form look like or, you know, any number of things. But I think two things are certainly true. The first thing is the impact on the documentation needed in order to register to vote and to vote would be extraordinary and would certainly burden a lot of people, particularly individuals who are not necessarily well off or, you know, married women, for example, whose documentation may not necessarily match with what federal law requires.

So it could cause quite a mess and create a lot of havoc. But it seems as for now, it's really unlikely that that measure will pass Congress.

HILL: Real quickly, before I let you go, the Supreme Court also announced that it does plan to review legality of mass purges of voter rolls in the final weeks before an election. What specifically are they looking at?

KREIS: Well, this is going to be a really interesting case in the upcoming term. It's certainly been the case in a number of states, particularly conservative states, where there is this massive effort to purge people, the rolls. But oftentimes this means that people who are legitimately registered might get removed and be unaware that they've been removed until they go to vote, and it can cause real problems.

And so there is this tension between protecting the individual's right to vote and ensuring that people know what's happening in the process. And this kind of attempt to, you know, at the last minute, clean -- quote, unquote, clean up the rolls, even though there are there's a likely error. So that's really the issue that we're going to see pitched before the Supreme Court in the coming months.

HILL: Anthony, Michael Kreis, appreciate it. Thank you -- Jim.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN HOST: Thanks, Erica. Well, now to some of the other headlines we are watching this hour. Three firefighters are dead as dozens of wildfires rage across the West.

U.S. Wildland Fire Service says the firefighters died battling the fast-moving Snyder fire, which has now burned some 28,000 acres along the Utah, Colorado border. Colorado's governor has declared a disaster emergency in response to the blaze and prompted the state's National Guard to support response efforts. The governor of Utah announced firework restrictions for the Fourth of July, saying a drought and wildfires have stretched the state's firefighting resources to the brink.

And Catherine, Princess of Wales, has completed Britain's Three Peaks Challenge, climbing the highest mountains in Scotland, England and Wales in just 24 hours to raise awareness and money for the hospital where she herself was treated for cancer. Princess Kate says she hopes the challenge will help support people living with and beyond cancer.

Still to come, after big wins in New York, progressive candidates hope that their movement has legs. Their next test in Colorado.

[14:40:00]

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SCIUTTO: Tomorrow will bring the next big test for the Democratic Party and how much the socialist movement within it is on the rise. This time, voters in Colorado's first congressional district will have a say, choosing between Democratic Socialist Melat Kiros and 15-term incumbent Diana DeGette.

A political strategist says this is probably the strongest challenge DeGette has ever faced. And no doubt the left flank of the party is feeling emboldened after several Democratic Socialists for Congress swept the New York primary last week, all endorsed by New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

[14:45:00]

Joining me now is Gustavo Gordillo. He's the co-chair of the New York City Democratic Socialists of America. Gustavo, good to have you.

GUSTAVO GORDILLO, CO-CHAIR, NEW YORK CITY DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF AMERICA: Thanks for inviting me.

SCIUTTO: So first, let me ask you, for viewers unfamiliar with what Democratic Socialists stand for, can you walk us through in brief your policy positions?

GORDILLO: Sure. So we recognize that there's a conflict between trying to represent both the billionaire class and the working class, which is what most politicians in D.C. are trying to do. We believe that you have to choose.

And in this country for too long, establishment politicians have chosen the billionaire class. That's why we're seeing people like Elon Musk become the first trillionaire in history. We're running on an agenda to fight for affordability for ordinary people. That's the number one issue at the doors. We want to implement Medicare for all. We want unions for all.

We're fighting for affordable housing. And we've seen that be very successful, not just in New York City, but across the country where Democratic Socialists are winning more and more.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this about the effects across the country, because as you know, the Democratic Party's move to the left in previous cycles have hurt it, particularly in purple states and in purple districts. I mean, you have President Trump already calling the Democratic Party as being taken over by godless communists. And I know you're not a communist, but do you worry about the effect on the Democratic Party's broader chances, for instance, to win back the House?

GORDILLO: You know what we saw last year here in New York is that Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani was able to win the vote of one in ten Trump voters here in New York. Parts of the city that had been moving toward the right had started voting for Donald Trump, ended up reversing and voting for a Democratic Socialist. And I think that's because we prioritize a working class economic agenda.

We're a class first organization, I would say. We believe that working people generate a majority of the wealth in the country, and they deserve to benefit from that hard work. And I think that's a universal agenda that's not going to hurt the Democratic Party in the midterms.

SCIUTTO: OK, and I get, listen, the affordability message. It's one that, frankly, all candidates of both parties are trying to get voters on their side. But CNN's K-File analyzed tweets, deleted tweets, from Darializa Avila Chevalier, Democratic Congressional Candidate in New York.

And some posts, they went far further than an affordability agenda. Favorable references to communist leaders, to Marxism, retweeted a post lamenting a lack of Marxist literature in public libraries, even going so far as posting a tweet that described wiping her dirty hands on the American flag. That's far beyond what you're describing, a focus on affordability.

Do you oppose those kinds of messages, those kinds of comments?

GORDILLO: You know, ultimately, what we saw in this election is that millions of dollars were spent trying to make the race about Twitter, about, you know, years-long posts. And New Yorkers rejected that at the ballot box. Voters decided that what mattered in the election was what Darializa was putting forward in her platform.

I think that the Democratic Party establishment is doing everything it can to distract from the fact that voters are trying to hold them accountable. And Darializa said that, you know, she's grown from past posts that she's made. Things get heated online.

I think that what we're seeing is that voters are furious at the political establishment and things that may have been considered deal- breakers in the past just aren't considered important anymore.

SCIUTTO: Let me ask you this, though, because when you look at, for instance, Mamdani, who he had enormous success in New York, no question, even beating establishment Democratic candidates like in Andrew Cuomo, when he assumed office, he moderated several of his own positions, as you know, several of the things that he ran on. And I wonder if you see wisdom in that for other Democratic Socialist candidates as they and you try to expand your own base.

GORDILLO: I think ultimately there's a lot that we can learn from this mayoral administration, particularly putting forward the delivery of services, fighting for affordability. You know, the core agenda that we came up together with the mayoral campaign focused on three things on affordable housing, affordable transit and universal childcare. And, you know, the mayor has never watered down those demands.

He's never moderated when it came to the priorities that we all agreed on.

[14:50:00]

And I think that's what's really built the trust of the voters here in New York. And I think that's one of the main lessons for Democratic Socialists everywhere in the country.

SCIUTTO: Gustavo Gordillo, we appreciate you joining.

GORDILLO: Thank you for having me.

SCIUTTO: Still to come, are social media platforms actually protecting young users as promised? New research says that many of those youth safety tools may not work. What parents need to know next.

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[14:55:00]

HILL: An important note for parents here, it turns out the social media safety features that tech giants tout for your kids may not really be working. New research finds more than half of those protections did not function as advertised. It's coming from a team at the Cyber Safety Research Center, which tested 86 different youth safety features across TikTok, Instagram, Snap and YouTube to determine not only if they worked, but also whether kids could find them.

And the researchers found 60 percent of those features failed to meet the criteria. CNN's Clare Duffy is following this story for us. So this both feels somewhat surprising and yet not at all, Clare.

CLARE DUFFY, CNN TECH REPORTER: Erica, yes, that is what researchers really wanted to understand here. We have heard these platforms talk so much about how they have invested in these safety features, and researchers wanted to understand if they were working. They created test kid and teen accounts to test out these features, things like content restrictions, time limits, efforts to prevent bullying. They also created adult test accounts to see whether adults could bypass restrictions against messaging kids that they don't know. And as you said, they found that 60 percent of these features were either broken, they were not working as advertised, or they were buried and would be hard for kids to find on the app. Now, the number of features available on these different apps varied by platform.

But ultimately, what these researchers found is that on Snapchat, 73 percent of the advertised features failed. On Instagram, 66 percent failed. YouTube, 55 percent failed.

And TikTok, 50 percent failed. And just to give you a sense of the kinds of features that we're talking about here, across all of these platforms, they say that they prevent kids from searching for potentially harmful content and redirect them to support resources. But what researchers found on TikTok is that when a child account started, tried to search for things related to eating disorders, the platform search feature then suggested search terms such as how to pretend to eat your food.

On Instagram, researchers said that when they tried to search for eating disorder, the search function automatically suggested misspellings, ways that kids could get around their search restrictions. And they also said that misspellings worked to circumvent those restrictions on Snapchat. Now, the platforms disputed many of these results, saying either that the features are working as they intended or that these tests didn't represent how a typical teen user would use these platforms.

It's also important to note that these researchers didn't look at parental controls. They looked only at features that were on by default for kids or that kids could turn on. So many of these platforms also say that parental controls can be an added layer of safety.

But I think very important for parents to be aware of as they think about what their platform, what platforms their kids should be using, and also how to monitor those accounts, Erica.

HILL: Yes, absolutely. Clare, really appreciate it. Thank you -- Jim.

SCIUTTO: President Trump is teeing off on a new renovation project in Washington, D.C. Sunday announced a public golf course near the National Mall will shut down and undergo renovations. It is the latest in his quest to leave his physical mark on the city.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is at the White House. And Kristen, this is a public golf course. I played there a million times. My kids, you see school groups going there all the time.

Can you tell us about this project and how is he overcoming local opposition to this renovation?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, he's overcoming it by essentially repeating, doubling down, saying that the course was dilapidated, worn out and very dangerous. He's using the terms dangerous and outdated. He seems to kind of be going around this also by saying things like the Department of Interior is going to be working on it.

They're the ones who are going to make sure that it's up to snuff, that everyone's going to love this property. Of course, as we know, the White House, the administration, had canceled a contract with an outside group that was managing all of the golf courses in Washington, D.C., these public golf courses. They have since taken it over.

And as you noted, this is really just the latest in President Trump's kind of effort to, quote, unquote, beautify Washington, D.C. You see him there. This was him at the golf course on Sunday. He just decided to get in his car, go check out the golf course.

He also did a walk with several other officials through Lafayette Park, which is something that they have been completely redoing. And I will note, you know, the White House itself is not a public space in the sense that regular visitors can't always get up to the White House. But it's been even more heavily restricted because of this work in Lafayette Park, meaning that most of the time, unless you have a tour at the White House, if you're a visitor, you can't even get to the street in front of the White House.

You have to go beyond the park, which is really a city block from the White House to even get a view of it. You can't see it from the side. So restricting access that way.

The other things we know, of course, is the shutting down of the Kennedy Center. As he says, he is working to redo that. On top of that, he's done so much work at the White House, including demolishing the East Wing and rebuilding that ballroom.

SCIUTTO: And sometimes he offers to pay for things he doesn't actually pay for ...

END