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Ruling On Trump's Presidential Immunity Claims Due Monday; Biden Looks To Reassure Donors At New York, New Jersey Fundraisers; US Proposes New Language In Gaza Hostage-Ceasefire Deal; Voters Speak To CNN About State Of Race Post-Debate; Biden Campaign Running Damage Control After Debate; Oklahoma State Superintendent Says All Schools Must Include The Bible And Ten Commandments In Curriculums; Beryl Strengthens Into A Hurricane, Expected To Intensify. Aired 6-7p ET

Aired June 29, 2024 - 18:00   ET

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

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I found true love. That's a perfect symphony of nature all coming together at the same time. Pretty cool.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: To learn more about visiting Knoxville or our other best American towns, you can visit our website or scan the QR code on screen right now.

A new hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

[18:00:26]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone.

You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Alisyn Camerota in New York.

Tonight, as president Biden and Democrats are scrambling to contain the fallout from this week's presidential debate, there is another blockbuster event on the horizon. The Supreme Court is set to end its term Monday with what will be one of the most consequential decisions in American history: Can former President Trump assert presidential immunity in the federal election subversion case concerning January 6th? The implications are hard to overstate, both legally and politically.

And that's not the only major decision coming down from the court this week. CNN Supreme Court analyst, Joan Biskupic joins us now.

Joan, great to see you. I know it is a huge week. So let's start. Help us put this immunity ruling in context. What are the implications?

JOAN BISKUPIC, CNN SENIOR SUPREME COURT ANALYST: Sure, and it is so good to be with you, Alisyn.

You know, we are on the very last day. In 48 hours, the Supreme Court will answer a question that it has never addressed before, whether a former president can be shielded from criminal prosecution, and in this case, it involves charges brought back on August 1st of last year against former President Donald Trump for election subversion -- fraud, deceit, obstruction of an official proceeding -- all sorts of charges that were leveled against him, and that Donald Trump said he should be immune from.

Now a trial judge rejected that claim. The DC Circuit Appellate Court rejected that claim, and the Supreme Court earlier, Alisyn said it didn't want to weigh in, but it then did weigh in and hold oral arguments on April 25th.

And now, they are going to say, and Alisyn, this is important for two big reasons. One is, first of all, it will affect all presidents in the future, just whether they can be shielded from prosecution for actions they took while in office once they leave office, and it will also dictate not just this very weighty question of presidential powers, but whether Donald Trump is subjected to any kind of federal trial on federal charges, having to do with the 2020 election before he actually is tested with the American public for the 2024 election.

So the stakes could not be higher and at this moment, the nine justices themselves know how they have ruled, but we won't know until around 10:00 AM Monday morning Eastern.

CAMEROTA: Joan, you are a professional tea leaf reader, as far as I can tell. So I mean, what do you think? Are there hints? Are there clues of how the justices are going to vote?

BISKUPIC: Yes. And here is something that people should know, and I will tell you what I will be looking for. When the lower court judges examined this question, they basically just said -- took on the question of whether Donald Trump should be absolutely immune, because that is what his lawyer was asserting, but when the case was argued, Alisyn on April 25th, the justices really got down into the weeds between how to assess whether a president should be shielded from any kind of criminal prosecution for actions taken in an official capacity or in a private capacity.

And then they started to parse various allegations. For example, that he tried to engage a fraudulent slate of electors, that he tried to get his personal attorney to disrupt various state election results.

So the justices seem to be quite concerned whether former President Donald Trump or any president might be subjected to prosecution for things that would legitimately be official acts and Donald Trump is essentially saying that just about anything in the wake of the 2020 election, any actions he took were a part of his official duties, that they weren't -- that they were overwhelmingly official and not private.

So Alisyn, what I am wondering is, will the justices sort of say, first of all, there is no absolute immunity, but then get down into the weeds of what lower court judges should have examined in terms of the kinds of actions and if they do that, and if they say we want to have some action separated out for whatever Jack Smith's -- Special Counsel Jack Smith can charge him with and prosecute him for, that will go back to a trial court judge to iron out a lot of particulars that would prevent a trial from happening anytime soon, Alisyn. In fact, I think at this point, the window for a trial before the November election is just about shut. I mean, there is still a chance that they could be, but Monday will be July 1st, and I think we're getting pretty close to the end of the line for any kind of trial before the election.

[18:05:16]

CAMEROTA: All right, so everyone will wait with bated breath for Monday for that decision.

Tell us about the court's other ruling this week related to January 6th.

BISKUPIC: Sure, in fact, this one is definitive because they came out and ruled six to three that a federal statute that prosecutors had tried to use for many of the January 6th defendants and frankly, that's part of two of the court charges against Donald Trump just had been read to broadly by the Biden administration, the law criminalizes anyone who corruptly interferes with an official proceeding, but it was enacted after the Enron accounting scandal and it was aimed at the justices said, any kind of interference with evidence such as documents, records.

And there was a clause that the Biden administration had on many of the prosecutions on where it says it is a -- it would be a federal crime to obstruct or impede an official proceeding involving documents or otherwise, interfere with the proceeding, and the administration had said that otherwise phrase broadened the possibilities of who could be charged with this.

Now, just so you know, Alisyn, the January 6th defendants have been charged under a multitude of federal statutes, but the reason the administration had wanted to use this one is it has some pretty hefty penalties.

Anyone who had been convicted under this statute could be subject to up to 20 years in prison. So it is a pretty muscular statute compared to some of the other ones that the defendants had been tried with, for example, there is assault, vandals, and damage those kinds of things.

So what Attorney General Merrick Garland said was that, they had started to seen the handwriting on the wall that the Supreme Court had been suspicious of this. In the end, they may have to recharge a handful of people, but Attorney General Garland said that it should not affect the bulk of the cases coming from January 6th.

CAMEROTA: Okay, Joan Biskupic, thank you very much for setting the table for us for this coming week.

BISKUPIC: Thanks, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: All right, as Donald Trump faces more criminal charges and court decisions, President Biden has to reassure voters that he is up to winning the election after his debate performance.

President Biden spent the day fundraising in the Hamptons and in a part of New Jersey that we know well, Red Bank.

Joining me is the former chairman for the DNC, Howard Dean.

Mr. Dean, thank you very much. Great to see you. Thanks for taking the time.

Where are you today more than 24 hours after Thursday night's debate with President Biden's ability to beat Donald Trump?

HOWARD DEAN, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I am in -- you mean, where am I geographically?

CAMEROTA: No.

DEAN: I am in Burlington, Vermont.

CAMEROTA: Where are you emotionally?

DEAN: What I always -- look, I've been in this business a long time. First of all, let's wait 10 days. American people's attention span is short. The attention of the media is even shorter. They are all going to go where the next scandalous, outrageous thing they can do to get hits and clicks and I am not as worried as everybody else seems to be.

As Maggie Thatcher once said to Ronald Reagan, don't go wobbly on me.

I am getting tons of phone calls and my attitude is look, wait, settle down, stop panicking. We have a race to win. And only Joe Biden can decide whether he is going to run or not, and we can't.

And so let's get on with it.

CAMEROTA: What are those phone calls saying to you?

DEAN: Oh, they're all panicked. Oh my God. What are we going to do? What are we going to do is we are going to sit tight and we are going to beat the hell out of Donald Trump, who is basically a crook.

CAMEROTA: But wait for what, Mr. Dean? Like polls? I mean --

DEAN: Wait for it to go away. I've seen one poll since that that showed Biden was up an extra point from where he was before the debate. Now, one poll, as we know, is terribly meaningful, but it was a respectable poll.

CAMEROTA: What about big donors' concerns? We've read that big donors were spooked after Thursday night. What if some -- what if he can't -- if President Biden can't keep up in the fundraising department?

DEAN: You know, I am not worried about that either.

Look, this is -- it is not surprising, but it is a little -- these so- called big donors, these are incredibly successful business people who did not get to where they got by panicking when something went south in their business, so something is going south for us. Can Biden recover? I thought he did a pretty good job in North Carolina recovering the next day.

So do I wish he had done better in the debate? Sure.

[18:10:10]

Do I think the media covered it fairly? I actually do because every time they mentioned Trump's not so great finishes on his sentences, they mentioned the fact that Trump did nothing but lie all the time.

So this stuff like this happens. These are bumps in the road. I think you can't really assess how serious this is for another eight days or so, and I actually think that unless it happens again, this president is going to do just fine.

CAMEROTA: I think that what many viewers and voters that I have been listening to are saying is that they didn't think it was just a poor debate performance. They thought that it telegraphed something more serious, an infirmity, basically of this eight-something year-old president that they hadn't seen before in quite this stark relief. So what about that?

DEAN: You don't think that an infirmity is not being able to tell the truth from fiction and making stuff up every five seconds and lying to your face off and being a convicted felon as an infirmity/ I think that's a pretty big infirmity.

Look, voters are going to have a chance to judge. We've got five more months or so before the election and they are going to see a lot of Joe Biden. They'll make that judgment, but I doubt they'll make it on one bad debate performance.

CAMEROTA: Well, I mean, the way you're setting it up is as though it is a binary choice and at the moment it is. But as you know, there are some Democrats who are saying, look, we have a deep bench. We have impressive governors. We have impressive younger Democrats.

May be President Biden for the sake of democracy should bow out.

DEAN: There is only one person they can make that decision, and it is Joe Biden. I know how the convention works. I've run one of these conventions.

He now has the power to make this decision and nobody else does, so he does realistically. So this is in Joe's hands. It is in his staff's hands. It's in his close advisers' hands.

And this guy has come through a lot of very tough stuff in four years as the president. He has handled it very, very well. Trump was a disaster and I have full confidence in him making whatever decision he wants to make.

And am I worried? Actually, I am not very worried. I just think that the American people need a little time, usually 10 days is the attention span of something like this, unless it repeats itself and I am just not that worried, I really am not. CAMEROTA: "The New York Times" Editorial Board sees it differently. They're calling on President Biden to step down. They say: "Biden struggled to respond to Mr. Trump's provocations. He struggled to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his lies, his failures, and his chilling plans. More than once he struggled to make it to the end of a sentence."

So do you think that President Biden hears the concerns of "The New York Times" and others?

DEAN: Sure. Of course, he does. And so do I.

I saw the debate. I thought it was a bad debate. I thought he made those kinds of mistakes. But there are so many people and it always makes me laugh, especially political commentators, which the Editorial Board can't resist doing, that everybody wants to get it on this one. Everybody who wants to make themselves more important can't wait to jump into the fray.

I've been in this business a long time. Patience and toughness is what you need to get through and Biden has both of those.

Now, if he does this again, it is a major problem. But I don't think he will do it again. I don't know what went wrong with the preparation, but something did. But this is one mistake five months before the election, and you've got a serial liar who I think is, sometimes, occasionally psychotic on the other side.

So again, this is not the time to panic. We've got to buckle down, figure out what is going on, give the president time to make the right decision and I think he will make the right decision. I suspect the right decision is to stay in.

CAMEROTA: "The New York Times" also has another editorial that says Kamala Harris could win this. Let her. What do you think about that?

DEAN: I think nobody knows the answer to that question. I mean, I chuckle at "The New York Times" sometimes. It is the paper of record. It is a very good paper. The reporters are very, very good.

This is just silliness. I mean, this is just -- they don't know any more about whether Kamala Harris could win or not because they've never done a poll that shows whether she could win. This is hocus pocus nonsense.

I am a little disappointed with "The Times" which is supposed to be a serious paper. This is what I expect from the Murdoch paper, like "The Wall Street Journal" or "The New York Post." I don't expect it from "The New York Times."

CAMEROTA: Howard Dean, great to get your perspective on all of this. Thank you very much for taking the time.

DEAN: My pleasure. Thank you.

[18:15:03] CAMEROTA: The US has another proposal as America tries to help put together a truce between Israel and Hamas. That's next.

Plus, Oklahoma's top education official is ordering teachers to use the Bible in the classroom. We are going to speak to the group that is already challenging it in court.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:20:03]

CAMEROTA: Israelis were out in force today, heckling Netanyahu in front of his residence and demanding the government accept the hostage release deal on the table.

A senior Biden administration official says the US just proposed new language to bridge gaps in the latest proposal between Israel and Hamas.

The three-phase proposal outlined by President Biden last month sets out conditions for the release of all remaining hostages in return for a permanent ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Journalist, Elliott Gotkine joins me now.

Elliott, how are Israel and Hamas responding to this new proposal?

ELLIOTT GOTKINE, JOURNALIST: Alisyn, we spoke with an Israeli government official this evening who said that Israel remains committed to the language outlined in the proposal that President Biden announced too much fanfare and which he and Israel says, Israel has signed up to.

We won't know, I would imagine for a few days, perhaps what Hamas' reaction might be to any changes or tweaks to the wording that you outlined just in your introduction.

But we did hear from a Hamas spokesman earlier today in Beirut saying that the proposal on the table remains short of its demands, which are for a complete cessation of hostilities and a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip.

Israel for its point, for its part says that the ceasefire proposal doesn't preclude -- doesn't prevent it from carrying out two of its main war objectives, which are to destroy Hamas' military and governance capabilities.

But of course with Israel insisting that it needs to do that and Hamas obviously not wanting to have its military and governance capabilities destroyed. It suggested there are still very large gaps between those two sides, and as you know, we have been here so many times over the past few months, and it just seems that these two sides, Israel and Hamas are unable to come to an agreement on a deal, even though the US, pressuring the Egyptians and Qatari mediators as well to put pressure on Hamas is doing its best to do so.

But for now, the gap seem large and a deal still seem some way off -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Earlier today, Elliott, we heard a security guard was attacked and shot with a bow and arrow at the Israeli Embassy in Serbia. What do we know?

GOTKINE: Yes, from what we understand from CNN affiliate, N1 an attacker approached the Israeli embassy in the Serbian capital, Belgrade, took a crossbow out of a bag and then fired the bolt at the security officer, who was guarding the Israeli Embassy.

Now despite having that bolt in his neck, he managed to reach for his gun, fired several shots and kill the perpetrator that the Serbian authorities say was a 25-year-old convert to Islam.

Now, the security officer is in hospital. Apparently, he has already received a visit from the president. Israel's foreign minister, posting on X, expressing his gratitude to the Serbian authorities and the Serbian government for the response for protecting the Israeli Embassy and wishing that security officer a speedy recovery -- Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Okay. Elliott Gotkine, thank you for all the reporting.

So President Biden facing calls to bow out of the presidential race after Thursday night's CNN debate, but what do voters think.

We will hear from them next?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:27:45]

CAMEROTA: More than 50 million viewers across the country tuned into the CNN debate between President Biden and Donald Trump on Thursday and the reaction was often shock.

CNN's Dianne Gallagher spoke with swing-state voters who watched the debate in North Carolina to gauge their thoughts.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Among the millions of people tuning into CNN's debate Thursday night, voters here in North Carolina, a critical battleground state considered key by both campaigns.

The morning after, we're back at Sip City Market and Bottle Shop in Charlotte with nine North Carolina voters who have plenty to say about what happened in Atlanta.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Painful.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Heartbroken.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A wreck.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Painful.

JOHN SHARKEY, IT PROFESSIONAL, DEMOCRAT: I saw a tired president and I think he needed a Snicker and a Mountain Dew.

JENN PARK, FORMER REPUBLICAN, CURRENT DEMOCRAT: I feel like I would have lost less brain cells watching "Love Island".

DAVID MERRILL, TECHNOLOGY SALES, REPUBLICAN: I think it's a sad day when we're at that level on politics.

GALLAGHER (voice over): President Joe Biden's performance, a top concern for Democrats.

JERELL CUEVAS, FINANCIAL ADVISER, DEMOCRAT: He looked fragile. He froze up at moments, was having trouble with his words.

DJOVAN HENRIQUES, UNAFFILIATED VOTER: With Trump, he was coherently lying. And with Biden, he was incoherently telling the truth.

GALLAGHER (voice over): An orally meandering moment from Biden --

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: With the COVID -- excuse me, with -- dealing with everything we have to do with -- look, if -- we finally beat Medicare.

GALLAGHER (voice over): Making even his biggest fans cringe.

SHARKEY: I heard it and I said, oh, but then I said, I know what he was trying to say.

GALLAGHER (voice over): Another line from former President Donald Trump on a question about immigration, drawing criticism from some of our voters.

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: They're taking Black jobs and they're taking Hispanic jobs. And you haven't seen it yet, but you're going to see something that's going to be the worst in our history.

S.Y. MASON-WATSON, CONSULTANT, DEMOCRAT: First of all, he doesn't know squat about how Black people are employed and work in this country.

CUEVAS: What are Black jobs? I'm a financial advisor. Is that a Black job?

GALLAGHER (voice over): And this exchange between the candidates over the war in Gaza upset others.

TRUMP: He's become like a Palestinian but they don't like him because he's a very bad Palestinian.

LAILA EL-ALI, HEALTHCARE WORKER, UNAFFILIATED VOTER: And the only thing that I heard was a US president just turned Palestinian into a slur. (END VIDEO CLIP)

[18:30:08]

GALLAGHER (voice over): This Republicans says that Trump didn't do enough to address his felony convictions to earn his vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEREK PARTEE, FORMER COUNTY COMMISSIONER, REPUBLICAN: I don't know who I'm going to vote for when it comes November.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER (voice over): And while other Republicans didn't exactly give their candidate glowing review. They did feel he outperformed his opponent.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID MERRILL, TECHNOLOGY SALES, REPUBLICAN: He should have done a better job in disavowing what happened on January 6, but I think he did a great job talking about the abortion issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER (voice over): A topic that other voters wish the candidates had spent more time discussing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JENN PARK, FORMER REPUBLICAN, CURRENT DEMOCRAT: I thought abortion was a top three at least, and it would have gotten more than one or two questions worth of attention.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER (voice over): And while Democrats were split ...

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN SHARKEY, IT PROFESSIONAL, DEMOCRAT: Don't panic. It was just one performance. It was late at night.

BRYAN LI, RESTAURANT OWNER, DEMOCRAT: I would like to think if you replace him with just someone younger with all the same talking points and people would feel very differently.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GALLAGHER: The debate did not change or make up the minds of these voters.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

S.Y. MASON-WATSON, CONSULTANT, DEMOCRAT: It does not affect what I plan to do, but I know that it has affected others.

PARK: I'd rather vote for the corpse of Biden than Trump's lying face.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: All right. Well, according to a flash poll after the CNN debate, 67 percent of people who watched said Trump did a better job than Biden. Some media outlets today saying Biden's performance was so poor he should reconsider his run.

Let's bring in pollster and communications strategist, Frank Luntz.

Frank, great to have you. Great to see you. So it's been almost 48 hours, but it doesn't feel like the dust has settled. Where are you at this hour?

FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGIST: It is not settled. I'm getting calls and e-mails and texts and WhatsApp, what's going to happen? Is Biden going to stay? And I think the answer to them is pretty clearly yes. Did this make a difference? And the answer to that is pretty clearly yes.

But the difference is going to be small and here's why, only 4 percent of Americans are truly undecided. People will make the claim I haven't made up my mind, but they will have decided against Joe Biden or against Donald Trump. They just don't know if they're going to vote for the opponent. That's not an undecided voter. It's just 4 percent.

But where this does matter is those key swing states and in particular Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. They matter most. At this point, Donald Trump is beating Joe Biden among the other close states, Georgia, North Carolina, as you showed right there, Arizona, Nevada. But that doesn't take him to 270. He has to win one of those three.

And I believe that when the polling is done next week, Trump will be ahead in Pennsylvania, will be ahead in Wisconsin, and will be ahead in Michigan. Not by enough to put the race away, but this debate will have an impact.

And one last thing, 50 million people saw the two candidates face-to- face, side-to-side, and that has an indelible impact on how people view it. They were not happy with Donald Trump. They were even less happy with Joe Biden. And frankly, what our group said was, at the end, Joe Biden should step aside, put somebody else in there. The gentleman in your focus group said exactly what I heard. Someone younger with Biden's policies and Biden's record will give Donald Trump a run for his money. Joe Biden will not.

CAMEROTA: So you, as you say, did this focus group of undecided voters in six states, and you got lots of reaction from them. So let's just take a little listen to your focus group.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I had seen what Trump had done. And now that I've seen him in action or inaction, I just think if the Democrats want to have a chance at putting someone in the White House, they need to put someone else up.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think in 2020, Biden was a safe option that was relatively non-harmful to replace Trump. And frankly, I did not - I didn't think reflected these same cognitive issues that we see tonight on the campaign. Yeah, it was a little dry, but it was definitely not to the same extent, I think.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: So Frank, was that the consensus?

LUNTZ: Yes, it was the - and I was not expecting that. You watch within the first five, 10 minutes, the debate started so slow for Joe Biden that people were shocked. They had not seen him look like this. Remember, when he goes out and does a speech, as he did yesterday, and it was brilliant, it was very effective. The emotion, the passion, he's reading from a teleprompter. He's got everything prepared in front of him. He was not in a debate setting.

I would argue that these speeches are going to help him survive as a Democratic nominee. But if and when they have that next debate in September, if he has the same performance as this one, it's going to hurt him.

[18:34:59]

In the end, swing voters don't like Trump's persona, but they appreciate that he's prepared to be president. They do like Joe Biden personally, but they think that he's not up to the job, up to the next four years.

So did you hear from your focus group that they were taken aback by the level of lying that Trump was doing on the stage or did Biden's performance eclipsed all of that?

LUNTZ: Biden's performance eclipsed all of this. And I do have to emphasize to viewers on CNN that the comments about Donald Trump were not positive. They did not like his sniping. They did not like his negativity. They don't like his persona. But Joe Biden performed so badly, and you show one of the clips there where he had trouble completing the sentence, that he had trouble making the point of view, they were so concerned about that, that that simply eclipses their disappointment with - or even disdain for Donald Trump.

And this is something that Democrats are talking about right now. The New York Times wrote about it. The reporter from The Atlantic wrote about it. That if you want to challenge Donald Trump - and I'm not taking sides, but if you really want to ensure that you defeat Donald Trump, is this the candidate, is it really Joe Biden? According to my focus group, the answer is no.

CAMEROTA: And I'm just hearing from my producer that just now The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has chimed in, also saying that it's time for Biden to pass the torch. What do you - why do you think this isn't resonating with the Biden team, the various editorials and the focus groups?

LUNTZ: I think that - you put pressure on someone, it kind of gets their back up. If you're the establishment, as these newspapers are, it makes them more determined to prove them wrong. But we're now into late June. This conversation has been going on for four months, and no one's been listening to it because the assumption was when the chips were down, and he was looking straight at the camera at the American people, he would step up.

And I got to tell you something, I watched just as you were coming to me, you had a clip of him walking down those stairs. I know what that's like. I suffered a stroke, two of them. I don't walk so well. I was shocked as Jill took his hand and he started to walk down the - no one's seen that clip. That one has to wonder, I don't know how to put this, but our democracy is at stake. It's not just for an election, it's for a generation. And that was not the worst performance ever.

The worst performance was Donald Trump when he interrupted Joe Biden again, and again and again in 2020. But it was the second worst performance, and it really did shock people. And even I was shocked as I watched Biden leave the stage.

CAMEROTA: Mm-hmm. Frank Luntz, thank you for sharing all of your research and your focus groups with us, really great to get your perspective, as always.

LUNTZ: Well, it's an honor, and it's a privilege.

CAMEROTA: We'll talk soon. And we'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[18:42:57]

CAMEROTA: Effective immediately, all Oklahoma public schools must keep a copy of the Bible in the classroom and teachers must use it in their curriculum for grades 5th through 12th. And the state superintendent says he expects, quote, "strict compliance."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RYAN WALTERS, OKLAHOMA STATE SUPERINTENDENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION: The Bible is a necessary historical document to teach our kids about the history of this country, to have a complete understanding of Western civilization, to have an understanding of the basis of our legal system, and is frankly, when we're talking about the Bible, one of the most foundational documents used for the Constitution and the birth of our country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Joining us now is Rachel Laser. She's the President and CEO of Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

Rachel, thank you very much for being here. What does this mean? How are teachers mandated to use the Bible now?

RACHEL LASER, CEO, AMERICANS UNITED FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH & STATE: Well, he was pretty clear about it when he issued the mandate. He said that teachers have to teach from the Bible. And that's Christian nationalism. That's - Superintendent Ryan Walters using the power of his government office to impose his personal religious views and frankly, political agenda on families and students in public schools across the entire state. That's not education. It's indoctrination. It's not teaching. It's preaching.

CAMEROTA: Well, as I understand it, state law there does let schools, and I suppose the superintendent decide on instruction, curriculum and reading lists. So does that fall under his authority?

LASER: You know, he was clear in his memo that he sent to all the superintendents that what he's trying to get them to do is teach core values, right? And that is preaching. That isn't teaching when you're using the Bible that way for educational support and instructional support, as he says. He has shown his true motive. He has supported a Ten Commandments display in every classroom in the state. That bill didn't pass into law, but he must be very green with envy that it did recently in Louisiana where we filed a lawsuit with some of our allies.

[18:45:06]

He has supported the nation's first public religious school in St. Isidore, which was set to open this fall until our lawsuit, combined with the Republican Attorney General's lawsuit, just stopped it in its tracks on Tuesday. He has prayed over students in public school classrooms. This is a guy who is on a Christian Nationalist Crusade, and he's violating not just our country, but his state promise of church-state separation and religious freedom for all.

CAMEROTA: As you say, there is a distinction between education and indoctrination. So what's the line? What will teachers be able to do and not do?

LASER: You can teach about the Bible when you teach comparatively about religion or teach about the role that it's played over time. It would be false facts to teach that it's at the core of our nation's values. America is not a Christian nation. We are a secular nation, and you know what? That protects Christianity as much as it protects every other religion from government intrusion, and it also protects the religious freedom of every family, not just in Oklahoma, but all across this country, because we as an American people come from a variety of different religious and non-religious backgrounds, and that's a great thing. That's what our founding fathers were aiming for when they issued the First Amendment.

And in the First Amendment, when they didn't reference God, but instead referenced religious freedom, the free exercise of religion and the non-establishment of religion.

CAMEROTA: That's the plan now. We are monitoring this very closely. We are prepared to step in and protect the religious freedom of parents and students throughout the state. You know, even the Supreme Court has been, over time, on high alert for where the religious freedom of students is being violated. I'm a mom, so I get pretty mama bear in this space, but if you think about it, our students, our kids, they're captive audiences, they're impressionable, and the Supreme Court, over time, has acknowledged that, has bent over backwards to make sure that there's not indoctrination or any government favor or preference for one set of religious views over any other or over non-religion, and we need to keep it that way.

We need a national recommitment to church-state separation. I'll say one more thing if I can. This is happening all across the country. It's not just in Oklahoma. It's happening from Texas to West Virginia, from Florida to Idaho. There's Ten Commandments for display in every classroom. There are laws that allow public schools to replace certified school counselors with chaplains. There are laws that permit the teaching of creationism, laws that allow teachers and coaches to pray alongside of students, and book bans all across the country.

What's at stake here, our public schools, the religious freedom of families, and frankly, our democracy, because church-state separation is a pillar of our American democracy. America wouldn't even be recognizable without it.

CAMEROTA: Rachel Laser, thank you for explaining your perspective on all of this. And we'll be right back.

LASER: Thanks for that.

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[18:53:12]

CAMEROTA: We have some breaking weather news. Hurricane Beryl has intensified from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane with sustained wind speeds of 75 miles per hour. This storm is closing in on Barbados. It's expected to intensify potentially to a Category 3 major hurricane as it moves through the Caribbean. We'll keep an eye on it.

So in the field of meteorology, there is no season more anticipated and feared than hurricane season. Every year from June to November, millions of people find themselves in the crosshairs of these huge and often deadly storms. This week's episode of VIOLENT EARTH focuses on some of the most impactful hurricanes in history. And CNN's Chad Myers tells us more about what we can expect from this season.

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HUNTER LOMBARD, FLOOD VICTIM: We knew it was going to be rough, but I wasn't expecting all this. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All of a sudden ...

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Within a couple hours it'll be flooded.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: ... the house flooded. It just started going deeper and deeper and by the time we were walking out, we were mid- thigh.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST (voice over): Those who have lived through a hurricane that has undergone rapid intensification are often shocked by its speed and strength. Rapid intensification is when a storm's maximum sustained wind speed increases by 35 miles per hour in 24 hours or less. And it could be a significant part of the 2024 hurricane season, with both record warm ocean temperatures and a developing La Nina.

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ROBBIE BERG, METEOROLOGIST, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: It means essentially that one day you could look at a storm, it could be a tropical storm, maybe a Category 1 hurricane, when you wake up the next morning and it's up to Category 4 or 5.

MICHAEL BRENNAN, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER: The strongest hurricanes that have ever hit the United States, the high-end Category 4s or Category 5s, were all tropical storms or less, three days before landfall.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MYERS (voice over): One example of dramatic rapid intensification, Hurricane Ian in 2022, which took more than 100 lives across Florida and the Southeast.

[18:55:03]

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Here comes the (INAUDIBLE) ...

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've been here since 1965, and this is the worst hurricane that I've ever been through.

BERG: I was working a midnight shift when I got on shift, it was a Category 1, 2 hurricane. By the end of the shift we had the aircraft in there and it had exploded up to Category 4.

MYERS (on camera): There's going to be some huge waves with this.

I was working the morning shift that day and clearly saw the storm intensify overnight. I also warned of a slightly shifting track to the right of the center of that cone. The time to evacuate was quickly closing, and I knew this was going to be bad. BERG: We tell people, don't just check the forecast on one day and wait a whole other 24 hours to check it again. You really do have to stay up to date when you live in a hurricane-prone area.

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MYERS (voice over): 2024 has the potential to be a devastating hurricane season, NOAA has issued an above-normal Atlantic hurricane forecast with up to 25 named storms, eight to 13 potential hurricanes, and four to seven of those becoming major hurricanes.

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MYERS (on camera): Now is the time to prepare for all the tropical hazards from storm surge to wind damage to inland freshwater flooding. All hazards will be in play this year with flooding possible hundreds of miles from the coast, far away from any landfall.

Chad Myers, CNN, Atlanta.

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CAMEROTA: And a new episode of Violent Earth with Liev Schreiber airs tomorrow night at 9 Eastern and Pacific only on CNN.

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