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Biden Campaign Running Damage Control After Debate; Growing Number Of Editorial Boards Say Biden Should Leave Race; Supreme Court To Rule Monday On Trump Immunity Case; Biden Campaign Running Damage Control After Debate; Trump Made 30-plus False Claims In Debate, Far More than Biden; Impact Your World. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired June 29, 2024 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:01:14]

ALISYN CAMEROTA, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Alisyn Camerota in New York.

President Biden is fundraising in Red Bank, New Jersey, tonight. He's trying to reassure some major donors who are reportedly rattled by his very shaky debate performance. The president hit some wealthy zip codes today. First, the Hamptons and then this New Jersey event hosted by Governor Phil Murphy. Many Democrats are wrestling with the question of whether President Biden should continue to stay in the race, and if he can win in November.

CNN White House correspondent Arlette Saenz joins us now.

So, Arlette, what is the president saying to these donors and how are they responding?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Alisyn, President Biden is once again trying to assure members of the Democratic Party that he is up for a second term as president. The president is about to speak any minute now at that fundraiser in Red Bank, New Jersey, that's hosted by the state's governor, Phil Murphy. But a bit earlier in the day, he made two fundraising stops in the wealthy area of the Hamptons.

The president there really kind of repeated some of the themes from his campaign rally speech on Friday saying that -- acknowledging that he knew he had a bad debate night. But still saying that he believes that he presents the best alternative to former president Donald Trump. In that Hamptons fundraiser, one of the things that president said was he turned to a familiar phrase saying don't compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.

He said that in relation to the former president, but it does come at a time the Biden campaign is trying to tell that they had some fundraising success in the 24 hours after the debate. They said that they brought in $27 million on Thursday and Friday alone. But at the same time, Biden's advisers have been fielding calls from Democratic anxious donors. There are some in the donor class who are concerned about what it would mean to continue to have Biden at the top of the ticket. Now, there is also we've learned that Democrats are planning to

conduct polling over the weekend and into early next week to try to gauge the impact that Biden's debate performance would have, not just on his own candidacy, but also what it could mean for other people running for office, including those in the House and Senate as Democrats are hoping to hold onto the Senate, and they also want to try to win back the House.

There are some House Democratic members and their campaigns who are worried about those close contest. What kind of impacts Biden might have on those races. And that is all something that Democrats are trying to gauge in the days to come.

Now a short while ago Biden campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon released a memo kind of outlining their efforts since their debate and pointing to their battleground operations. She said that she believes that this will once again be a very close election. She believes that that was the case before this debate and will be the case after. She really tried to push back on some of those who were, quote, "counting Joe Biden out."

She said that the campaign team will continue to put their heads down and do the work in the coming weeks and months to try to defeat Donald Trump. But there will be big questions for President Biden and the campaign going forward as there has been a pressure on the president from some privately to a bow out of this race to try to set up the race to beat Donald Trump in November.

So we will see what changes the campaign might make in the coming days and weeks. They've simply said that the president plans on remaining in the race. He plans on debating Trump in September, and that their focus now is on the work ahead and how to make their argument to voters.

CAMEROTA: OK. Arlette Saenz, thank you very much.

My next guest warns that replacing President Biden for the Democratic ticket this November could tear the party apart, and help Donald Trump win the election.

[19:05:00]

With us is Ron Brownstein, CNN senior political analyst and senior editor for "The Atlantic."

Ron, that's interesting because that's different than what we are hearing anecdotally from many Democrats, as well as what we are hearing in many headlines and op-eds today. So in other words, you're saying that it would help that replacing him could hurt. So why do you believe that?

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: No, no. Actually I think it's also a little different than what I wrote. I think Democrats are in a conundrum. I mean, no one can deny what they saw, which is that Joe Biden did not look capable of being president for four more years. And it was probably the weakest debate performance of any major party nominee in the history of the modern debates going back to 1960.

And so there is I think enormous anxiety in the Democratic Party about simply sailing forward as if nothing had happened. Don't forget, Alisyn, going into this debate Biden is trailing. I mean, Biden is the one who needed to improve the trajectory of the race. The problem I think, the conundrum the Democrats face is part of the explanation for why Biden is running again to begin with, which is that there is a feeling -- you know, the Democratic strategists, donors, elected, who doubt that Biden can win are also pretty dubious that Kamala Harris can win.

And so defaulting to her doesn't really assuage those -- you know, those anxieties. The problem is bypassing her as the first woman of color on a national ticket could tear the party apart. So the party faces some very difficult choices. But it is I think kind of kind of a willful ignoring of the evidence of the campaign to simply argue that going forward is the only thing that Democrats can do because there are lots of reasons to be very, very nervous about what this debate has meant to a race that was already slightly uphill for the president.

CAMEROTA: I see what you're saying. Thank you for all of that clarification.

BROWNSTEIN: Yes.

CAMEROTA: So, as you know, there's numerous editorial boards, major newspapers across the country from "The New York Times" to, I mean, even more regional papers, the "Atlanta Journal Constitution," the "Philadelphia Inquirer," I hear that the New Yorker, David Remnick just came out and they're basically saying that --

BROWNSTEIN: "New York Times."

CAMEROTA: Yes. I mean, just saying that it's time for Biden to pass the torch. This is the "Atlanta Journal Constitution," to defeat Trump and for the good of the nation, the president must bow out. "The Chicago Tribune." So, you know, what are Biden -- I mean, as I said, oh, here's the "New Yorker." This is just very recently. The president -- for the president to insist on remaining the Democratic candidate would be an act not only of self-delusion, but of national endangerment. So, you know, what's his inner circle saying to him tonight?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, you saw some of that in Jen O'Malley Dillon, you know, which was kind of preemptively arguing that even if the polls are bad, it doesn't matter. It's all going to be fine in the end. I think the important thing to understand is the baseline in which he went into this debate. He went into the debate with the swing states in the southeast of North Carolina and Georgia looking almost completely out of reach.

The swing states in the southwest, not that much more within reach, although still potentially plausible for him. The one reasonable pathway, the one plausible pathway for him right now, looks to be sweeping Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the former blue wall states. But today he's probably no better than even in Wisconsin and Michigan and behind in Pennsylvania and maybe behind in Michigan as well.

He's the one who needs to improve, and the head-to-head, you know, the horse race number is almost always the best number in the poll for Biden. I mean, when you get below that and you ask about his approval, is he too old for the job, who is strong, who can handle the economy? Trump's leads are formidable. And so I think the Democrat -- there's a certain paralysis in the Democratic Party right now because when you talk to many strategists, many elected, many donors, they will share the views expressed in those kinds of editorials that this was difficult to begin with, and it becomes almost, you know, herculean after that debate.

But no one at this point is willing to act on it. There's a gulf between anxiety and action in the Democratic Party now out of this belief that the only way that he, you know, that there's somebody could change was that he has an epiphany. I think history suggests that isn't right, that it isn't like everybody who thinks this is a bad idea is powerless in the Democratic Party, but that seems to be the view, the dominant view at this point.

CAMEROTA: And let me also clarify that the "Philadelphia Inquirer's" editorial board had this kind of contrarian take.

BROWNSTEIN: Trump (INAUDIBLE).

CAMEROTA: Yes. They said that they are calling on Trump to leave the race after his performance and to serve the country, he should get out. But basically, you know, we had on so many people earlier, Ron, Howard Dean was one of them, who basically are saying it was one night. It was one night. He had a bad debate performance. He'll recover.

[19:10:05]

BROWNSTEIN: Well, look. I mean, again, the most dangerous thing in politics as we both know is for a candidate to validate a pre-existing supposition or doubt in the electorate. And Biden went into this debate with two-thirds to three-quarters of Americans, polls saying, who think he's too old for the job now and much less for four more years. And, you know, it is very hard. You never get a second chance to make a first impression as your mother told you, and I think it is going to be difficult to erase the image of him struggling to complete a sentence.

The kind of vacant look, the disoriented look, you know, the inability to really make a sustained argument in any way against Donald Trump. Biden now benefits from the reverse of what Donald Trump said when he said he could shoot somebody in Fifth Avenue, and, you know, and not lose any of his support. We are a deeply dug in and polarized nation. It would be surprising if he does in fact collapse in the polls because there is still substantial resistance to living in the America that Donald Trump is laying out.

And Donald Trump did nothing in that debate to convince Democrats that he's unbeatable in November. So Biden may not, you know, collapse in the polls. But the question really becomes whether after that debate he can gain the improvement that he needs. I mean, that is the critical point. It's not like he came into this debate in a position of strength. They wouldn't have been asking for a debate in June if they were in a position of strength.

He's the one who needed to shake up impressions and in fact -- and to the contrary, he kind of reaffirmed and deepened the biggest personal obstacle that he faced. I mean, look at the dial groups and focus groups that Stanley Greenberg, the Democratic pollster released today about the impact at this debate on voters that Biden needs to recover, particularly younger black and Hispanic voters, and their reactions were devastating.

So again, not likely to collapse. You know, I don't think either side can collapse as Donald Trump has proved multiple times, but is Biden in a position to do what he needs to do after this? Obviously it's vastly harder and maybe impossible.

CAMEROTA: So, Ron, obviously an open convention, obviously, all of this, if Biden were somehow to bow out, it would be extremely messy. No Democrat wants that kind of, I don't know, rigamarole. However, if somehow Biden were to make that decision and anoint someone, choose someone, maybe not even Kamala Harris, then could that person win at this late date?

BROWNSTEIN: Well, look. I mean, first of all, you know, the way the Democratic Party changed the rules after 1980 -- Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy in their primary fight in 1980, there was the so-called robot rule, which said that you had to vote at least on the first ballot for the candidate that you were pledged to as a convention delegate. That's gone.

The delegates really can do whatever they want even now. Now, you know, they were all selected as Joe Biden delegates. So they're not going to abandon him if he doesn't want them, you know, to do so, if he doesn't step aside. But he has no control over them. You know, if he did step aside, presumably the vice president would get in. And we could see whether anyone else would. But even before that, you know, I just go back and the example I have in my head is 1968.

It's obviously different because it was much earlier, but, you know, the anti-war activists started organizing to try to persuade someone to challenge Lyndon Johnson before there was a candidate willing to do so. And that's what really happened in the fall of '67, early '68. Gene McCarthy did and did well in New Hampshire. Bobby Kennedy got in the race and two weeks after that Lyndon Johnson decided not to run for reelection.

The situation is not exactly analogous, but the idea that the Democrats who fear that Biden is now too damage to win have no options that they cannot if they chose to organize in a way that demonstrated support for replacing him on the top of the ticket. I think it's just a kind of fatalism. And that is -- that's kind of the dominant emotion I've heard in Democratic circles over the last 48 hours, this fear that this cannot be recovered from in part because he went into it trailing.

But uncertainty about whether or fatalism about whether there's anything they can do about it. The choices are not just waiting for Biden. I mean, people can try to influence Biden's choice either in a friendly way, you know, quiet conversation or in a more confrontational way by demonstrating that there's a constituency in the party which I think is pretty clearly evident in polls that is now uneasy about going forward in the course that they're on.

You know, we'll see. Not like -- doesn't look like that's happening, but some bad polls in the next few weeks might change that calculation. One last point.

CAMEROTA: Yes.

BROWNSTEIN: In the last two presidential elections, Alisyn, in 2016 to 2020, exactly one senator in either party has won a state that their presidential candidate didn't carry. One out of 66 so the seven Democrats who are running in states that Biden is in danger of losing really are the ones on the frontlines of this choice.

CAMEROTA: Ron Brownstein, fascinating stuff. Thank you very much.

BROWNSTEIN: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: Still ahead, we're bracing for a major ruling on Monday from the Supreme Court on absolute presidential immunity. What that could mean for Jack Smith's election interference case against former president Trump.

You are in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:20:10]

CAMEROTA: Final opinions from the Supreme Court expected to land Monday. Among them, Donald Trump's claim of absolute presidential immunity. That case stems from charges over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. Legal experts say it's unlikely that Trump's efforts to get blanket immunity from all prosecutions would be successful.

Joining me now is Kim Wehle. She's a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and a former assistant U.S. attorney. She's also the author of "Pardon Power: How the Pardon System Works and Why."

Kim, great to see you. So let's just start with what you think the Supreme Court is going to decide on Monday about presidential immunity.

KIM WEHLE, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF BALTIMORE SCHOOL OF LAW: I think, Alisyn, they're going to do what they did many years ago with civil immunity for president. You can't sue them for damages, money, and injunctions. And they're going to split official and unofficial acts. And they're going to say certain acts if they're official acts are immune from prosecution, and just to be clear, this is a conservative court that claims to read the plain language of the Constitution.

There's nothing about immunity in the Constitution. So this is really a reward for January 6th for Donald Trump. It's sort of a big deal, but they'll send it back to the lower court to parse through the Jack Smith indictment and decide which parts of what Donald Trump did would be immune from prosecution and which parts would be private or personal acts that the case could go forward on assuming he doesn't win the presidency and call the whole thing off.

CAMEROTA: I mean, obviously this has huge implications for all presidents, but particularly Donald Trump's future. What part of January 6th and the riot was official business?

WEHLE: Well, he did communicate with his Justice Department. He communicated with the former vice president. He allegedly considered interfering with some of the election machinery. I mean, to the extent to which he can say, listen, this falls within the scope of Article Two power as president. Maybe he could make a colorable argument. The court could set forth a standard that he could say, listen, this is protected.

I mean, the irony of it is, presidents have more power than anyone else on the planet, right? They can control the military. They have access to CIA counterintelligence information. They -- that's the very kind of thing you would say you want to make sure there's accountability for, but I think there is an appetite on this with this conservative majority to insulate presidents from even as private citizens having any accountability for abusing office and crossing the boundaries of criminal activity.

It's really a dangerous moment frankly. But the lower courts will I think have to sort it out one way or the other.

CAMEROTA: All right, let's talk about the classified documents case against Donald Trump. You'd think at least a lay person would think would be easy to prove since we've all seen with our own eyes how recklessly and carelessly the nation's secrets were handled. What is Judge Aileen Cannon doing now in that case?

WEHLE: Well, there's now the most recent ruling. She did give Jack Smith a mini win, and essentially was not interested in hearing that somehow the affidavit supporting the warrant for the search on Mar-a- Lago was -- had lies in it. She said there's no showing of that, but she is -- said she's going to hold an evidentiary hearing on whether his communications with his lawyers around the alleged obstruction are protected by the attorney-client privilege, and why this is -- her ruling is good for Donald Trump is she is saying she's going to allow witnesses and evidence, whereas the Supreme Court has held, you can decide whether the crime-fraud exception to (INAUDIBLE).

You can't talk to your lawyer and say, where should I bury the body, right? If you're going to talk to lawyers about committing crimes, that's not protected. The Supreme Court has said judges can just look at the communications with the lawyer and make that decision. But it looks like Judge Cannon is willing to go beyond the communications themselves and actually have witnesses and Jack Smith's team is worried that some of these witnesses are the same witnesses they would have at trial and having them testify twice could jeopardize the -- you know, the integrity of their case because, you know, people say different things at different times. And so the, you know, special counsel is concerned about this.

CAMEROTA: OK. And then tell us about the Supreme Court ruling this past week on Friday that was about some January 6th rioters.

WEHLE: Yes. So two of the four counts against Donald Trump is for obstruction or conspiracy to obstruct an official investigation. That law was passed as part of the post-Enron, Sarbanes, Oxley statute.

[19:25:05]

And it was, according to the majority, really about documents and shredding documents, and they basically took two parts of the statute and said the part that's just very generic about obstruction of official investigation, you've got to read that in tandem with the thing about documents.

Justice Jackson joined the majority. Justice Barrett was in the dissent with the more progressive -- the other progressive justices essentially saying it's our job to just apply the plain language of the statute the way Congress read it. We're not supposed to mind read and go behind the plain language, which really is a more conservative approach, I would argue, but this could have an impact on two of the four counts against Donald Trump.

And there's over 330 January 6th rioters who either have been charged or convicted, who's prosecutions are now in jeopardy primarily if it's the only count. But many of them, there were other counts. So it wouldn't necessarily mean, you know, lots of people are somehow out of the criminal justice system. But it's going to make a lot of work for the lower federal court judges again, and most of them on this issue were with Justice Barrett and said, listen, this on its face is something that the prosecution and the Justice Department can charge around January 6th.

CAMEROTA: OK. Kim Wehle, thank you for all of the information. Really helpful.

WEHLE: Thanks for having me.

CAMEROTA: Still ahead, the Biden campaign tonight pushing back on calls for him to bow out of the race. But it would not be the first time the sitting president decided to walk away. What history can teach us about this moment.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:31:07]

CAMEROTA: We are 48 hours after the CNN debate, roughly, and it was widely viewed as disastrous for President Biden. Now several major newspapers are calling for him to bow out of the race. It would not be the first time something like that happened.

Two previous US presidents decided to abandon their races for re- election. In 1968, Lyndon Johnson decided not to seek his party's nomination; and in 1952, Harry Truman made that same decision.

Important footnote though, in both those cases, their parties went on to lose the White House.

CNN presidential historian and former director of the Nixon Presidential Library, Tim Naftali joins us now.

Tim, great to have you here.

Can you put this moment in historical context for us?

TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, one of the, if you will, lessons of history, the history of presidents not beginning a re-election bid and then not completing it. It is a very hard decision for a president to make both Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson thought about not running again for months before they announced it.

And in both cases, they had a hard time, if you will, pulling the trigger in the end, but they made this decision, and the decision was a lonely one. They made it themselves.

In the case of Lyndon Johnson, when his family discovered that he was considering this, didn't want him to do it. In the case of Harry Truman, he talked -- he sent a signal to his daughter, his beloved daughter, that he was thinking of this and there is no evidence there was any pushback.

So it is a very lonely decision in both Truman and Johnson's case. They were mired in an unpopular war.

For Truman, it was the Korean War; for Johnson, it was Vietnam. Both were tired and both were ready to leave the Oval Office. Nevertheless, it was a tough decision to make.

Now, we are in a different situation. The situation we are in now is that the incumbent president may or may not have been thinking about retirement, but he made very clear that he was running again in April of 2023, and was the one who challenged Donald Trump to the debate that ultimately turned out to be disastrous.

So the situation here is, the president is not controlling the situation at all. In both Truman and LBJ's case, they decided not to run on their own timetable. They did it by themselves. They were not forced out, although they both had opponents who were trying to seek nomination, but neither was actually seriously challenged by any other Democrat.

So President Biden's situation now is quite unprecedented and he is being pushed to reconsider his re-election bid largely because of a bad performance, but also because of some concerns that he may not physically be up to the job. That was not the case for either Truman or LBJ.

CAMEROTA: So as we had reported, Biden and his advisers were at Camp David for eight days, okay, preparing for that debate. They were doing mock debates. They were doing simulations of it.

It is hard to understand what went wrong. Put that in historical -- I mean, we hear that presidents debate, Donald Trump famously -- I mean, prepared to debate Donald Trump famously does not, so what do you make of that?

NAFTALI: I think the optics of that are terrible. I also don't understand the messaging from President Biden's team. I don't know why they had to send a message that he needed six days to prepare. That only first of all deepened concerns about his needs for such preparation, but also raise the stakes. It made it seem like he was going to come out absolutely fired up and full of new ideas.

[19:35:08]

So I am not sure I understand why it took six days, after all, Donald Trump is very predictable. You don't need six days of preparation. You don't need briefing books to know what Donald Trump's arguments are going to be.

Indeed, the counters to Donald Trump's arguments, I am sure President Biden knows and can tick off in 15 minutes. So I never understood frankly why the Biden team, first of all, insisted on six days of preparation and then told the world about those six days of preparation.

Clearly, President Biden was over-prepared. You could tell that he was having a hard time sorting through memorized phrases when in fact, he should just have been talking from his heart and should have been sharing the empathy, which is what made him such a powerful candidate in 2020.

Keep in mind, in 2020, we are in the midst of the pandemic and more often than not, President Biden, then vice president candidate Biden just connected with the American people emotionally.

I do not understand why he didn't attempt to do that on Thursday, instead of coming up with these, shall we put it, legal cards in his brain that his advisers had stuffed there.

CAMEROTA: Tim Naftali, always great to talk to you. Thank you.

NAFTALI: Thank you, Alisyn.

CAMEROTA: Still ahead, we factcheck the claims from Donald Trump and President Biden in the CNN debate. That's next.

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[19:41:18]

CAMEROTA: Thursday night's debate was very frustrating for viewers who tuned in to hear coherent plans, or just plain old truth.

CNN factchecker, Daniel Dale had to work overtime to parse through the convoluted statements of President Biden and the blizzard of lies from Donald Trump.

Here are his findings from the post-debate with Erin Burnett.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: What stood out was the staggering number of false claims from former President Trump. On first count, Erin, I counted at least 30, 30 false claims. Now, President Biden also made false claims, at least nine false or misleading statements on first count. I'll give you some of them.

He said he's the only president in a while who didn't have any troops dying anywhere in the world. Troops have, of course, died on his watch.

He said he has put in a $15.00 per shot cap on insulin in Medicare. It is a $35.00 a month cap. He said it's a $200.00 cap on overall drug spending in Medicare. It's $2,000.00 a year.

He said the border now has fewer crossings than when Trump was in office. That's generally not true.

He said or at least strongly suggested unemployment was at 15 percent when he took office. It was actually 6.4. He said Trump wants to get rid of Social Security. Trump doesn't. He said billionaires pay 8.2 percent in taxes. It's much higher.

He said Trump told Americans to inject bleach amid COVID. We know Trump made foolish comments about scientists studying disinfectant injection, but didn't frame it as advice to people.

And Biden said the Border Patrol endorsed him. No, it is unions who supported the border bill he'd supported never endorsed him, himself. In fairness, the president did appear to clarify that one.

Now, the Trump list. It is way, way longer. So, deep breath. He said some Democratic states allow people to execute babies after birth, an egregious lie that is illegal in every state. He said everybody, even Democrats, wanted Roe v. Wade overturned. Roe was supported by two- thirds of Americans, even more Democrats.

He said every legal scholar wanted Roe overturned, abortion returned to the states. Legal scholars have told me directly this is not true.

He said the US currently has the biggest budget deficit ever. No, that happened under Trump in 2020. He said the US currently has a record trade deficit with China. That also happened under Trump in 2018.

He said Biden personally gets a lot of money from China. Zero evidence of this. He said there were no terror attacks during his presidency. In fact, there were multiple attacks. He said Iran didn't fund Hamas, Hezbollah, other terror groups under his presidency. Iran, in fact, did.

He said Biden wants to quadruple people's taxes. That is pure fiction. He said the US has provided way more aid to Ukraine than Europe had. It's actually the opposite. He said the US has provided about $200 billion in Ukraine aid. It's closer to $110 billion.

He said 18 or 19 million people have crossed the border under Biden. That is millions too high. He said many of these migrants are from prisons or mental institutions. His own campaign cannot corroborate this.

He said Biden has only created jobs for illegal immigrants. Total nonsense. He said Nancy Pelosi turned down his offer of 10,000 National Guard troops on January 6. There's no evidence she even got such an offer. It was the president, not Pelosi, who had the power to deploy the DC Guard.

He said Pelosi now acknowledges she turned down the troops. No, her office tells me this claim is still a lie. He said he deployed the National Guard to Minneapolis in 2020. Actually, that was the Democratic governor.

He spoke of "ridiculous fraud" in the 2020 election. Zero evidence of any widespread fraud. He said NATO was going out of business before he took office. Completely, clearly absurd.

He said the U.S. was paying a hundred percent of NATO before he came along. The US made up about 71 percent of NATO defense spending, not a hundred.

He said he, not Biden, is the one who lowered insulin prices in Medicare. He did it for some seniors, but Biden did it for far more.

He said Biden indicted him. Again, no evidence Biden has had a personal role in any of these four prosecutions. He said Europe takes no US cars. Just not true.

He spoke of food prices quadrupling under Biden. That's a wild exaggeration, though they are up.

He said Biden made up the idea he called dead service members suckers and losers. No, "The Atlantic" Magazine reported that, and then former Trump chief-of-staff John Kelly corroborated it.

[19:45:04]

He said Biden called Black people "super predators" for 10 years. Biden never once deployed that phrase, let alone for 10 years, though he did at least once speak of "predators" without specifying it was about Black people.

He said his Trump tax cut was the largest in US history. Not true, though, in fairness, Biden also said this.

Trump said China and others stopped buying from Iran under him. China never stopped. He revived his pet lie. I don't know how many times he had done it, that he signed the Veterans Choice Program into law. Barack Obama did that in 2014. Trump signed an expanded version in 2018.

And finally, Trump said Biden got rid of that Veterans program. Biden has not done that.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAMEROTA: Thanks as always to Daniel Dale for that.

All right, still ahead: How much longer will Boeing's Starliner crew be waiting in space? What NASA is now saying?

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:50:32]

CAMEROTA: We have some breaking weather news. Hurricane Beryl intensifying from a tropical storm to a Category One Hurricane with sustained wind speeds of 75 miles per hour. The storm is now closing in on Barbados.

It is expected to intensify potentially to a Category Three Major Hurricane as it moves through the Caribbean.

Well, NASA insists two American astronauts at the International Space Station are not stranded, but they will have to stay there for at least a couple more weeks.

Issues with Boeing's Starliner spacecraft have delayed their return to earth multiple times.

CNN's Kristin Fisher has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KRISTIN FISHER, CNN SPACE AND DEFENSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, during a press conference Friday afternoon, NASA officials say they want to make it very clear that NASA astronauts, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams are not stranded in space. Those are the two NASA astronauts that are part of the crew of Boeing's maiden test flight of its Starliner spacecraft and they have been docked to the International Space Station since the beginning of June.

But even though NASA says they are not stranded in space, those two astronauts are still going to be up there at the space station far longer than expected.

There have been several delays of this return to Earth, and now, just Friday afternoon, NASA says there is now no target date for when those astronauts and that spacecraft will return home.

The holdup has been some issues with the spacecraft's thrusters and also a few helium leaks. And so now, NASA and Boeing are going to shift the testing and the troubleshooting of those thrusters from the actual spacecraft in space to some ground testing on some replica thrusters in White Sands, New Mexico, that is expected to start next week, and those tests are expected to take a couple of weeks to complete.

So we are looking likely at mid to late July at the absolute earliest before Butch and Suni can return to Earth. NASA really stressing though that those astronauts are safe. The spacecraft is safe. They have seen no new issues to report, but they really want to figure out what is going on with those thrusters.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMEROTA: Okay, Kristin Fisher, thank you for that update.

We have a programming note. Join CNN to celebrate the Fourth of July. We are going to be broadcasting live firework shows across the country and must see musical performances by Bebe Rexha, T-Pain, The Killers, Ashanti, and more.

CNN's The Fourth in America happens July 4th at 7:00 Eastern only on CNN.

And we will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:58:11]

CAMEROTA: A third of shark species are now threatened with extinction, but a rapid DNA test is helping catch shark fin smugglers, that's in todays "Impact Your World."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DIEGO CARDENOSA, COLOMBIAN NATIVE: Sharks are going through a global conservation crisis.

The demand for their products, the demand for their fins and meat is their ultimate threat.

Shark feeding is a practice of cutting the fins off, which are used for this shark fins soup and then putting the carcass back in the water.

If the shark is alive, it will suffocate to death because without its fins, it cannot swim.

One of the biggest challenges for law enforcement around the world is that how can they tell whether a shark fin that is coming into their country is legal or illegal? It is from a species that is regulated or not regulated?

You need to do DNA tools or molecular tools in order to identify it.

What we have developed is that we take a little piece of this fin. We run it through a machine for two hours and we are able to tell what species is it without sequencing very cheaply, very quickly.

Before we deployed the tool back in 2018, Hong Kong authorities were seizing around five tons of shark fins annually. Now, those numbers have increased to a hundred tons a year.

The idea is that in the long run, those efforts being translated in shark fishing nations to do more sustainable and well-managed fisheries.

If we don't do something quick to reverse these declines, then were going to see several sharks going extinct in our lifetimes.

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CAMEROTA: And tomorrow, you can go inside the shark battles in American waters. Boris Sanchez dives into the debate between conservationists, fishermen, and shark hunters on a new episode of "The Whole Story" with Anderson Cooper that air at 8:00 PM only on CNN.

And don't miss Discovery's "Sharp Week" hosted by John Cena. Summer's biggest holiday starts Sunday, July 7th on Discovery and its streams on Max.

Thank you so much for joining me this evening. I am Alisyn Camerota. I will see you again tomorrow night here starting at 5:00 Eastern.

And up next, an encore presentation of HBO's "Real-Time" with Bill Maher.

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